Election

A guillotine, a Sister of Battle, and a scrapbook picture from the 2001 National Poetry Slam.

Rolling Stone on Kucinich

From the "Maybe there's hope" file, there's a great Kucinich profile/interview in the latest Rolling Stone: Your candidacy seems to be built on the idea that the people are looking for another New Deal-type program. But the New Deal didn't happen until the country was mired in a depression. Do you think things have really gotten that bad now? When you consider that most Americans are maxed out on their credit cards, when you consider that most Americans are no longer guaranteed employment security, when you consider how many pension funds are going belly up, when you look at the…

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A guillotine, a Sister of Battle, and a scrapbook picture from the 2001 National Poetry Slam.

From the "No wonder people don't bother" file: Went to vote this morning and realized that it's the first time I'm voting IN New York City. I've voted absentee while in the Army, in New Jersey while living there, and even in Virginia last year, where I was impressed by their hi-tech setup. My polling place for today was a beat-up warehouse of a church manned primarily by what appeared to be beneficiaries of their Meals On Wheels program. Seriously. Other than the three college-age kids helping out, there wasn't a volunteer there under the age of 70. I'm just…

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A guillotine, a Sister of Battle, and a scrapbook picture from the 2001 National Poetry Slam.

Letter to the Editor, NY Daily News: re: No to #3 In opposing Proposal #3, I find it ironic that the major party leaders on the City Council would stand together to proclaim that non-partisan elections "would make party labels meaningless and, more important, make choices much more difficult for voters." I'd argue that it has been the parties themselves that have made their respective labels meaningless, both on the local and national level. If they were truly interested in making our choices less difficult, as opposed to simply preserving their two-party kingmaker gridlock, they'd abandon their partisan ways and…

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A guillotine, a Sister of Battle, and a scrapbook picture from the 2001 National Poetry Slam.

YES to Proposal #3

Tomorrow's Election Day and I've been hard-pressed to find any pro-"YES to Proposal #3" media coverage. There's a solid, well-reasoned piece in last week's Village Voice that includes this interesting counter to the argument that non-partisan voting harms minorities: Unlike most major American cities with nonwhite and female voting age majorities, New York has elected just one black mayor, and no woman, Latino, or Asian mayor. In fact, Latinos, the city's largest minority, have yet to hold any of the three citywide posts, and Asians, the fastest growing minority with 10 percent of the voting age population, are represented by…

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A guillotine, a Sister of Battle, and a scrapbook picture from the 2001 National Poetry Slam.

“Governor” Arnold Schwarzenegger

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Say it out loud a couple of times so you understand that it really happened. Let it sink in. Note the feeling, if any, in the pit of your stomach while you consider the potential ramifications of a political neophyte governing the largest state in the country, in charge of one of the largest economies in the world. Identify the feeling you get from knowing such responsibility has been entrusted to someone whose positions on most issues are vague at best, and whose platform was that he'd go to Sacramento to "knock heads together" and "kick some…

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A guillotine, a Sister of Battle, and a scrapbook picture from the 2001 National Poetry Slam.

Unpatriotic soldiers, Dr. Bushlove, Howard Lieberdean & The Reality of 2004 First, protestors were being unpatriotic and endangering our troops by speaking out against the war. Now, the troops themselves are being told to shut up! Pentagon makes moves to contain complaints from US troops in Iraq Written by Douglas Quenqua Published on August 04 2003 WASHINGTON: After several troops made some highly publicized negative comments to the media about the war effort in Iraq, the Pentagon has taken steps to keep the frustrations of both soldiers and their families out of reports. According to a story in the July…

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A guillotine, a Sister of Battle, and a scrapbook picture from the 2001 National Poetry Slam.

"[Marc] announced a three-year sabbatical in '99; by the fall of 2001 he was back. Without him, he says, things had gotten so bad that this year's 14th annual National Poetry Slam... wouldn't be happening otherwise." "He says that some of the people who tried to step in while he was gone were looking to use the slam for personal gain. 'This thing that I started and have put so much energy into [but] have never exploited for my own purposes. I was pissed off." I wasn't going to address this until I had a chance to read the full…

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