Tucson's Gay Marriage Ban Protest

Saturday, November 15, Tucson AZ

Several dozen folk came out at marched through Downtown Tucson yesterday to protest the passing of Proposition 8 in California and Proposition 102 here in Arizona. Here are some pictures from the event.

Let's Hear It for Fast Eddie!

So, about a week before the campaign ended, I stopped writing for a little while. I wanted to just absorb all the history swirling around me, and simply experience what we were all caught up in, our creation: the American Experiment.
Psh, I could have saved myself the pretension- the only result of my grand esoteric experiment is that I watched just as much news as ever, read blogs with the same voracity as before, and developed a nice little lazy avoidance habit with my writing. Bad dilettante, bad!
So, since I'm not one to mess with Fast Eddie, I shall recount my doings as may be of interest.

Since the tuxedo nazis, I have worked for Pima County as an Election Official. This was a long day, starting the night before, when I met Janet the Polling Station Inspector. She was in charge of the whole thing. She lives in my neighborhood a few streets away. At 7:30 on Monday night, we're all standing around the door (me and a few other workers for our precinct) waiting to get in and set up the voting place. Long story short, the key wasn't there and the chick who had it was just sitting down to dinner st Mimi's (and you know how slow that place is).
I went to Trader Joe's to pick up some lunchy snacktime fun, plus some coffee for the morning. I was talking to a friend working the register, and had told him about the next day. One of his colleagues totally overheard, and surprised me with a bouquet of little irises when I was paying the tab! "Thank you for working for Democracy," she actually said. I was a bit chuffed, no lie.

So I get there, and for the next 14 hours I participated in the machinery of American electoral government. I would detail what I did, but it was fairly dull; i had people fill out a lot of forms about it though, if their id wasn't on the money. People I knew from the neighborhood came in and voted all day, and those I didn't know Janet was quick to dial me in on. She's lived in the neighborhood a billion years, and was a great person to get to know. So, at the end of the day, when we're all running around like idiots to count this, seal that, and certify the other, I did get to know exactly how my precinct voted. I had to sign the tape to help make it official ( o the heady nectar of power. o be still my heart.) Without going into details and setting the werewolves on myself, I will say that Obama was the favored candidate in my precinct with a ratio of 5:1.
I was so exhausted when I got home at 8:30 PM that it was all I could do to stay awake through the returns and the speeches. McCain's concession speech was simply, I want to say sublime, but that's not the right word really. I will say that whoever cribbed Shakespeare's line from the Scottish play had the right of it: "Nothing became his campaign like the leaving of it." It was a gracious, noble speech, and I read a great blog explaining why (I just spent twenty minutes I'll never get back again trying to find it. Sorry). I even swiped it while I was chatting with my eyebrow waxer: I posited that McCain's speech was so smooth and elegant because he was no longer at war with himself. Assuming he was a truly noble person, this campaign had to taste like mud in his mouth. Once it was over, and he could step away from the swinish tactics of his staff and advisers, he was a much more relaxed human, and his demeanor showed it.
Obama's speech was less memorable, oddly; he was his smooth articulate suave self, and that's as it should be.

There's the most sublime line of the night: that's as it should be.

Article by AP, Picture by Lavender

Obama Assassination Plot Disrupted By ATF

Federal agents have broken up a plot to assassinate Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill. and shoot or decapitate 102 black people in a Tennessee murder spree, the ATF said Monday Oct. 27, 2008. In court records unsealed Monday, federal agents said they disrupted plans to rob a gun store and target a predominantly African-American high school by two neo-Nazi skinheads. The men, Daniel Cowart, 20, of Bells, Tenn., and Paul Schlesselman 18, of West Helena, Ark., are being held without bond.

WASHINGTON — Two white supremacists allegedly plotted to go on a national killing spree, shooting and decapitating black people and ultimately targeting Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, federal authorities said Monday.

In all, the two men whom officials described as neo-Nazi skinheads planned to kill 88 people _ 14 by beheading, according to documents unsealed in U.S. District Court in Jackson, Tenn. The numbers 88 and 14 are symbolic in the white supremacist community.

The spree, which initially targeted an unidentified predominantly African-American school, was to end with the two men driving toward Obama, "shooting at him from the windows," the court documents show.

"Both individuals stated they would dress in all-white tuxedos and wear top hats during the assassination attempt," the court complaint states. "Both individuals further stated they knew they would and were willing to die during this attempt."

click through title for full article...

Might Mccain lose his own home state?

you betcha! We should only be so lucky. Keep it up, clear thinkers! Don't let this old fool drag our country away from the light!

Please note in this handy- dandy map that Arizona is sliding further and further away from "strong Republican" to "barely Republican." Sorry I cut the key off, but you can click through and check the polls yourself on this great site.

I'm just ecstatic that Arizona, at this late date, is all of a sudden a swing state forcing defense on the part of the McCain Campaign.

When Will We Stop Scapegoating the Black Man?

I know several black men. Some are goofy, some are smooth, some are uptight, some are chill. None of them are so illiterate that they would carve a backwards B in some girl's face, and none are so criminal (or political!) that they would do so because they were robbing a girl or because she was a McCain supporter.

Oh wait, this stupid hooker did this to herself.

From the AP story: A McCain campaign volunteer who reported that a tall black man robbed her and then cut a "B" onto her cheek after seeing a McCain bumper sticker on her car has been given a polygraph test because of "inconsistencies" in her story, police said.

Good job, Mayella Ewell.
Good job, Susan Smith.
Good job, Ashley Todd.

Guess what this is! This is Ashley Todd's myspace screenshot. If her tag line doesn't say it all, then there ain't no more to say.

OK, REALLY???

Pointing Fingers Part II- a pictorial

top: a shot of the garbage bags from the Democratic Convention
below: KSDK -- A NewsChannel 5 Photojournalist shot video of a crew taking down the American flag after Sen. McCain's campaign rally in New Town-St. Charles Monday.

In the video, you see the crane lower the flag to the ground and then a crewman cut rope connected to the flag.

Yet another example of right-wing hypocrisy.So the Democrats can't throw out the mini flags from the convention, but the Republicans can drag a house-sized flag on the ground for all to see? God, I can't stand John McCain's lousy campaign.