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.

I ran into a friend of mine in the cafeteria at work. She was wearing a Bush'04 button. I said (only half joking) that I didn't know if we could still be friends, what with that Bush thing...

And this woman, this sweet, Sunday school-teaching woman, looked at me and sneered, "What, you'd want Kerry in charge of anything?"

Uh, yeah. I would. Absolutely. And she, that sweet, dear thing, replied "What? His four months in Viet Nam, and his three Purple Ouchies make him qualified?"
Really. That's a quote. His three Purple Ouchies... I know I snapped something back at her, allowing as how Kerry, at least, could talk without Dick Cheney's hand up his ass, moving his mouth. And I tried to give the quick list of things he'd done, like going after Reagan and Bush the First in the Iran-Contra scandal. And she just laughed at me and told me Kerry had no clue about anything. (Like that brain-dead frat boy she's supporting has a clue...)

And that's when I slapped the crap out of her, and left her lime green dress sitting in an empty heap on the chair.

No. In reality (the world that she, the rest of the Bushies and the Man himself do NOT occupy) I smiled sadly, and said, "Really. I'm sorry, but I don't think we can be friends anymore."

I am so afraid for my country.

Do I go see Kerry and the Boss and the Divine Miss M tonight after work? Or do I finish up my flamingo costume. After all, I've voted. I've seen Miss M and the Boss in full performances. But I want to see Kerry live on the stump. I want to feel the electricty of the mob, and be persuaded that we really can win it all on Tuesday.