Democratic Astrology

The New York Times today has a column giving the astrological profiles of the seven remaining Democratic candidates for President. An example: “John Edwards, born on June 10, 1953, is a Gemini with the Moon in Gemini. There is much in his horoscope that makes him the puer aeternus, the eternal boy. His mind is playful and rich with ideas. However, his chart shows him to be a true son of the messenger and trickster god, and so capable of exceptional dualism.” It’s probably as good a guide to political character as anything else one can find.

(From Calpundit).

Catfight In Iowa

The Democratic presidential primaries opened yesterday with a stunning defeat of the frontrunner Howard Dean, the caucus being won by Massachusetts senator John Kerry. I haven’t been following the campaigning lately but it seems that Dean and Richard Gephardt fought each other bitterly leaving Kerry and John Edwards of North Carolina to pick up votes. Gephardt has now dropped out of the race. I have been interested in Dean for the past year because of his committed anti-war stance, and am definitely a bit disappointed by these results. It may be though that his rhetoric or tone simply, as they say, won’t play well in Peoria anymore, and I will fall back on ABB (anybody but Bush) logic. Let’s hope the candidate that emerges as the survivor over the next few months is truly the best one to take on Bush in November.

More California Election Fun

It’s 2004, and presidential primary season is upon us. This is the process by which the political parties choose which candidates to run for the U.S. presidency in a series of state-by-state elections.

I am registered as an independent voter, but according to current California law, I can vote for the candidates of a particular party in a primary election if I so declare (and if the party authorizes non-partisan voters to cast ballots for their slate). The California primary is on March 2nd (known as “Super Tuesday”, since many states are having their primaries that day), and I’ll be choosing to vote for one of the Democratic candidates, though I don’t know who yet.

Today I got a memo from our county registrar of voters today, enclosing a form to fill out to choose which political party to vote for March 2 California primary election. (Since we live out in the boonies, we must vote absentee by mail.) But the form is due back on January 16th, so I had better remember to send it in, lest I miss the fun on Super Tuesday!

Empire in Deep Decay

Perhaps it’s because I’ve been spending more time than normal pondering things Roman, as I’ve been working on my Roman caps, but this astonishing rendition by John Ashcroft beats anything those whacky Romans could come up with. (Warning: this is a bandwidth hog and takes a while to load, but is certainly worth the wait.)

It’s just a matter of time before the vandals and visigoths stride triumphantly over the hills. Meanwhile, expect more displays of a society gone mad such as the one above. In case you needed proof.

State Visit

Why Tony Blair isn’t fearing for his life, I have no idea. Why Queen Elizabeth is according more pomp and circumstance to this American “President” than any during her reign, I have no idea. Why these people combined don’t understand that the scene in “Love, Actually” where the newly-installed Prime Minister delivers a witty, biting dig at the fatuous, vain, self-involved American President isn’t, actually, the projected fantasy of Great Britain, I’m none the wiser.

Coup de Vent will be demonstrating against this nonsense. Good for her. If I were there, I’d join her in the streets.

This is so much like a bad novel I want to go and get back to my good one, The DaVinci Code. But the plot is no less sinister.

Atomic Cafe Revisited

Numenius and I had an abortive trip to the gym tonight-Saturday hours have changed-so we picked up a DVD of the Atomic Cafe to watch on a rainy, rainy night (no lunar eclipse for us!).

What struck me so forcefully, seeing it today, was how close the rhetoric of the 1950s was to today’s administration. Formulation of the evil other. Projection of a pro-American god. Systematic perpetuation of ignorance in the population.

George Lakoff, a member of the Rockridge Foundation, explains how conservatives have been working on language to dominate politics over the course of many years (and with the help of millions of dollars). Lakoff thinks this has the Democrats on the run, and his foundation aims to counteract the conservative think tanks. Good luck. My fear is that the electorate doesn’t want to think. They don’t, for sure, want to know that they aren’t thinking. This will be a tough sell.

Things They Don’t Want You To Notice

A visit to The Memory Hole is a good place to find some of these. This site preserves documents such as government files and corporate memos concerning things we’re not supposed to know or should forget. For example, the Justice Department recently released a report on a study of racial and gender diversity in its attorney workforce, but the PDF document was extremely heavily censored. But blacking out the text in a PDF doesn’t delete it, and with a little bit of trickery the owner of this site was able to turn the blacked-out sections into yellow highlighted ones!

Nonviolence And Electronic Voting

We just came back from hearing Arun Gandhi speak as part of the Campus Community Book Project on nonviolence as he learned it from his grandfather, Mohandas K. Gandhi. He spoke of the culture of violence and how much of we do perpetuates it, even passively. Anger is like electricity, his grandfather would say, it must be channelled in the right direction to do good. Nor can peace just stay within—it must go from thoughts to words to deeds to values.

Out in cyberspace, a civil disobedience campaign is going on which I think M.K. Gandhi would be pleased with. A writer named Bev Harris has been researching the perils of electronic voting systems, well-known to computer security experts as posing high risks for corruption and fraud. In particular, she was investigating the biggest manufacturer of these systems in the U.S., Diebold Election Systems, and was appalled by the woeful lack of security in their systems, not to mention the lack of any auditable duplicate paper printout trail from the votes. She posted on her website internal memos from an email list archive of Diebold’s which document a pattern of mismanagement and technical failure.

Naturally, Diebold was incensed by this, and sent Harris a cease-and-desist order to take the memos off her website, on grounds of copyright violations. But the genie was out of the bottle, and many people started mirroring the memos, beginning with students at Swarthmore College. Diebold followed up with more cease-and-desist orders, but they aren’t catching up with the mirrorers. And today, the students turned the tables. They filed suit, with help of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, against Diebold to block their cease-and-desist orders on grounds that publishing the memos constitutes fair use because of the importance of the memos to the public debate over electronic voting.

Poetry, Peacemakers Theatre, Pink

Today was the Peace Picnic, an event that is part of the Campus Community Book Project but which took place within the community rather than on campus. We spent last night in a production line in the kitchen making 600 pooris; this morning I must have chopped about 300 potatoes. It was wonderful to be around people with so much laughter!

We read poetry; we watched a jujitsu demonstration; we participated in a conflict-theatre-demonstration; we had a great Indian lunch; and we stood in a circle at the end and exchanged thoughts, ideas, prayers, and songs for peace.

It got hot today, into the 90s, hot for late October. It was perfect for a picnic.

And then, to round off a splendid day, the Florida Marlins beat the Yankees 2-0 to win the World Series. We went out for ice cream to celebrate. Josh Beckett pitched a 9-inning shutout and was named Most Valuable Player of the Series. Watch out for this fearless 23-year-old!

Day One With Arnold

As everybody this side of the moon knows by now, we in California woke up to a new governor this morning. I don’t think it’s the Apocalypse, but I’m definitely not happy. California was voting with the id. There’s something archetypal about the fact that Arnold is a body-builder: it’s all image. After all, body-builders are a very different species from athletes. Never mind the lack of relevant background or political experience—the aura of celebrity is what matters, and is what will get California off on a new tack.

Jeanne d’Arc has a great post up about how it looks like we’ve just elected a misogynistic bully. Like her, I am appalled that so many voters don’t seem to care.

Silver linings? This wasn’t a right-wing revolt, this was a throw-the-bum-out-of-office upswelling. Who knows—maybe that same sort of energy will lead to Bush’s defeat in 2004. And since Arnold’s governing ability is a complete mystery to all, he might just end up doing a better job than Gray Davis. Davis certainly set a low standard to hop above.

Or not. Schwarzeneggerian cluelessness could easily lead California into much worse fiscal shape than it already is. That’s what can happen when you elect a cypher. From this side of the Causeway, I’m morbidly curious about what’s in store for the Resources Agency, and will learn soon enough.