I spent yesterday with my head in my hands, crying. Crying like I have never cried over an election, not even when I was a hormonal teenager and thought that Richard Nixon was the Anti-Christ.

Of course, in later years, I married the real Anti-Christ, and he didn't look anything like Nixon. And, in retrospect, compared to Darth Cheney and Karl Rove, Nixon was a rank amateur when it came to evil and deceit. But I digress.
Yesterday, I cried. And then I trolled the web for inspiring words. I found them, and I'm going to share some of them with you. Most of these folks are in my blog links, and once you read these passages, you'll know why.

From Bryan Adams' Blog

"Mr. President:

Over the last 24 hours, I've been hearing an endless news loop about how I, a liberal, need to make more of an effort to understand "the heartland." Well, since two of the three branches of government and 51% of Americans are Republican, I think that, actually, you need to make an effort to understand us. The heartland needs to try to understand the brainland.

Unlike you guys, I'm not going to make any effort to wrap our core tenets in false piety or tired cliche. I will tell you who we are, plain and simple. My understanding is that you like oversimplified, one-page memos, so let me give it a try."

Keep reading Bryan's letter.

From Margaret Cho's Blog:

"The Bush administration will be sorry they won this battle, for they now look forward to losing the war. Ultimately, a government cannot defeat its people, no matter how much power they assume or how corrupt they are. Even though today feels like a defeat, there is no loss. There is only opportunity. Now we have the chance to challenge everything, fight everything. The possibilities are tremendous. All the polls, all the posturing, all the opinions that we endured during months leading up to the election provide us with a valuable education on how we think and act as a country."

Read her whole essay.

From the Rude Pundit:

"We are a nation of savages. That is what we decided last night. We belong to the "most advanced" society in the history of the world, and we decided that we would rather be barbarians, hunched over fire pits, ripping meat off the bones of our enemies, raping our women, howling out at the gods for peace in the afterlife."

Read what he has to say about "American Values"

The Second Coming

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all convictions, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

---W. B. Yeats
Ohio is the Florida of 2004... where the chads hang and the future of the free world will be determined. But... it doesn't seem to matter. Bush pulled 52% of the popular vote, winning on fear, greed and lies.

I am dressed all in black today, in mourning for my country.

The Coolest Person In the World (TM) called last night as the networks painted Florida red to ask, and I quote: "What the fuck is wrong with your state?"

Uh, people bought the ice-water thing? They're stupid? The process was corrupt?

I'm sick to my stomach. This country will be bankrupt in another four years. Our streets will be filled with blood. And the hungry and the homeless.

We will be a third world nation, isolated as the Soviet Union once was.

What happened? How could this happen? A Bush Supreme Court?

How does a man come across as badly and as ignorantly as he did in three debates and still win?

He lost three debates. He's an ex-coke head. He's lost millions of jobs. He's run the deficit into trillions in four years (from a surplus, no less). He's lost our place in the world. We are guilty of war crimes, and empire building. He lied about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. He left Osama Bin Laden alive and organizing the jihad. He's a fucking moron and an Air Force deserter. And yet. Somehow. He's also the leader of the free world.

I'm sickened. I'm saddened. I'm going to start drinking and not get sober until 2008.

With worry. Obsessively clicking on the elector vote predictor. Flipping back and forth from yesterday's report to today's. I'm all over Salon's War Room, constantly refreshing the page to see the newest bulletins.
So tonight I'll go light up the endorphins with Nic Cage and settle in with a bottle and the RLA to watch the returns.

This is killing me.

I just pulled this off of Salon:

Cell phone landslide for Kerry

Will the cell phone voting bloc wind up becoming the November surprise? Zogby has just released a path-breaking presidential poll conducted exclusively on mobile phones. And the winner is John Kerry by a landslide margin of 55 to 40 percent. Jimmy Breslin and others have been complaining that traditional telephone polls just aren’t capturing the new voter realities, because so many young people are only reachable by their Nokias. If the Zogby poll, which was conducted in partnership with Rock the Vote, is a reliable indicator, Tuesday night might not be such a drawn-out, nail-biter after all.

-- David Talbot
There is an amazing and bitterly true assessment of the Bush presidency deeper in Salon's pages.

Read it. Weep. Vote.

The Fabulous RJ threw another fantastic party last night. An Alice in Wonderland-themed halloween do.
In attendence, the Queen of Hearts (RJ her own self, and looking absolutely divine), a Queen of Hearts with an accompanying executioner, 1 Knave of Hearts, 1 Old Father William (who would not balance an eel on his nose, nor allow us to stand him on his head, damn it), 2 Hookah Smoking Caterpillars (neither with a smoking hookah, damn it), 2 White Rabbits (one with fan and kid gloves), 2 Gardeners (complete with red paint... for the white roses), assorted playing cards, 1 Alice, and 2 Flamingos (with a squeeky hedgehog ball).

There was a croquet game set up in the back yard, with internally lit balls (trippy) and neon hoops. There was a spread.

Have I ever mentioned that the RJ is someone who cooks quite well, and understands that cooking is a competitive sport? Well, last night we had deviled eggs, a rose-shaped red velvet cake with little assistant rose-shaped cakelets, mushroom tarts (one side makes you taller), card suite-shaped canapes, and zombies. Many were drunk. Make of that sentence what you will.



Thanks, RJ. It was a swell evening.

No Mas Bush! and Four More Days!

It was a rainbow of colors, ages, genders. There were Veterans for Kerry, GLT for Kerry, Labor for Kerry, Jews for Kerry, Christians for Kerry, Latinas for Kerry, Women for Kerry, Unions for Kerry. I had a Florida is Kerry Country sign, my sister-girl was holding one that said something about Women's Votes. There were little kids and old folks and everything in between.

The energy was palpable when Kerry took the stage. Of course, having The Boss for your warm-up act makes it pretty hard to come onto a cold stage. Nevertheless, when Kerry made his appearance, the chant went up (and as far as I could tell, it really was spontaneous) "No Mas BUSH!!!"

I needed to see him, and as jaded an old politico as I am, I cannot, for the life of me, tell you why this year I needed to go out and participate in the young man's game. But I did. And I ran into a bunch of the old gang there, too.

Is there some subliminal Kennedy allure? Is Kerry our last, best hope? He was a good speaker. He showed fire, and humor, and passion. Maybe that's it. Maybe it's the feeling that this man does hold our country dear. Holds its ideals dear. And is passionate about the theory of America, about its promise, not just the rewards for those who hold the vested interest.

Despite my jaundiced heart, I believed John Kerry last night. Even though he had my vote, and my yard sign, and my permanently attached campaign button, and my endless prostletizing, I needed, at some deep level, to see him and have my faith confirmed.

It worked.

On the sidewalk, as Star and I walked in to Bayfront Park, I saw a playing card lying face down. There was just the single card, and never one to let a sleeping omen lie, I picked it up and turned it over.

It was the King of Hearts.