Category: Politics

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For several years now (before the 2000 Presidential election, but even more strongly after that), I’ve been of the opinion that allowing people to mark a 1st, 2nd and 3rd choice on each ballot would effectively resolve the “lesser of two evils” problem that limits us to the Republicans and Democrats as the only viable political parties.

(For the record, since I was first eligible to vote, I’ve registered with a “decline to state” affiliation because I prefer to be associated with neither right-wing wackos nor left-wing wackos. I usually consider myself a moderate, but in today’s political climate what I consider moderate looks extremely liberal by comparison.)

The last two big elections, Bush vs. Gore for President and Davis vs. Simon for California governor, were both cases where I didn’t particularly like one candidate but really disliked the other. Continue reading →

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The closer the Hawaii week looms in my schedule, the gladder I am that it’s almost here. The next two days in my war-hawk-populated workplace are going to be bad enough. If there weren’t going to be auditors in the place forcing us to behave, I would feel like handcuffing myself to my chair to keep from throwing down with the large woman across the aisle. I’m making myself take half-hour lunches so that I’m not in the vicinity of the TV when people are bitching about the fact that some people have opinions that don’t match theirs and are allowed to express them. I’ll have to post instead of talking as this thing drags on, I guess. It’s just unnerving when going to choir seems like it’ll be less stressful than surviving a day at work.

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Well, deadline day is today, the U.N. is in all likelihood not going to budge, and we’re due to leave for Hawaii on Saturday. Makes for a very freako situation. Welcome to my life.

Kelson and I were discussing this last night and decided that if anything happened between now and then, we weren’t getting on the plane. Now that it’s about 95% likely we’ll have to fish or cut bait on that decision, I’m thinking we’re probably no more in danger on the plane than either here or in Hawaii. First off, Hawaii is U.S. soil. There’s not a lot of other soil around, really. Plus, it’s already been bombed once, and as Lilo says, “It’s nice to live on an island with no major cities.” Second, there aren’t many tall buildings in SoCal. Sure, somebody could crash the plane into Disneyland, but what a way to go. Third, and probably most important, security is going to be on red alert from today forward, no matter what happens. It’ll probably mean I have to wear a non-underwire bra at LAX and mail my Swiss Army knife to the hotel, but I’d like to see a terrorist try to get through. (Try. Not actually do.)

And if they shut down air travel when we’re due to come home, well…..see above.

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I heard an NPR report that 83% of Americans 18-24 cannot find Afghanistan on a map. Following it up on their website, I found a link to the National Geographic survey they used.

Of course, what the report neglected to mention is that nobody had a good rate at finding Afghanistan. The only country where a majority of respondents could identify it was Germany, and they only made 55%. In fact, many people think Sweden’s pretty obscure (although Swedes scored 97%). Across the board, more people could locate Argentina than Sweden or Afghanistan.

It’s all in what you’re looking for. National Geographic was looking to see how well American youth stacked up against those in other countries, and most of us aren’t doing that well. But the fact is, they aren’t doing much better. (NG’s summary page notes that Mexico, Canada, and Great Britain scored almost as poorly.) What the results really show is that people everywhere have an astounding lack of geographical knowledge.

(Still wondering about the 3% of Swedes who couldn’t find Sweden.)