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Monday, November 1, 2010

Conversations with Patricia: Day before the election (with apologies)


Please don't fret. Silence doesn't mean disapproval. Silence only means I am holding off for the perfect moment to give your story a good, thoughtful read, rather than rush through it when my mind is somewhere else. I can't believe how much the thought of Joe Miller being our US Senator depresses me.
You mind reader you. I’m already planning to get drunk tomorrow night. I don't see good ahead. Who's Hitler? Now that would be Glenn Beck, not O'Bama...xx PM
If you want to see Hitler: There is an ad on TV here by one of Miller's rivals. It is done in black and white and the message is "Do you know who Joe Miller is?" What is shown in black and white is a parade I think in Wasilla. First you see a huge black Hummer with American flags on it and two sullen rough looking people inside it. It has Joe Miller signs stuck to it. It passes and is followed by people carrying Miller signs and marching mostly in white shirts and black pants and carrying assault rifles and shoulder and hip holsters with handguns and a couple with big knives strapped to their legs. It is striking.
OMG When my friend Fiona was visiting from Ireland, she kept wanting to see a Hummer. We would drive around and she'd say, "there's one!" and it would be an SUV (still huge by Irish standards). When she finally saw one she was struck dumb, rare for an Irish person. Then she said, "wow. A pleasure tank.” I have always thought that the perfect description.
Now, hitting those keys...xx PM
PS You working tomorrow night? Or will you be joining me by drinking in front of the tellly? Or...out and about? Something I really miss about Alaska is the parties on election night, although I would think they are more hostile than in the past.
pleasure tank is a good description. I work tomorrow night though I am not enthused. Every poll here has a different result, it is that close.... and these pollsters are the same ones who had Murkowski winning the primary by a landslide
so it goes
Just be careful, remember Edgar Allen Poe being found dead drunk in a gutter on election night in Baltimore.
Somehow I had forgotten it was an election night. I knew I liked that fella.
the theory was someone got him drunk and dragged him around town to vote in several places. I feel like we ought to do that with a few people in Alaska tomorrow. I understand the bars can stay open on election day these days. I never understood that law. If there was ever a day thinking people needed to drink …
The most drunk I have been in recent history was the second stolen Bush election. I held out until Kerry conceded, way too early if you ask me. I wondered if the fix was in.
You talk about fixes. There is a big flap here over allowing election workers to hand out a list of write-in candidates at the polls. Two courts have ruled it is all right to do that. One of those right wing radio mouths here urged people to hurry and sign up as write-in candidates so the list would be confusing to people wanting to write in Lisa Murkowski. He even offered a special prize to anyone whose name looked enough like hers to be even more confusing. That is so outrageous on so many levels. And, I think it may be illegal. I hope he gets charged with attepting to corrupt an election. And, I don't even like Murkowski.
Murk. Murk is the relevant term here.

I feel old. I feel very very cynical. It's hard for me to imagine that people really want to vote for people as STUPID as Michelle Bachner. But then, I am constantly surprised at my students too. One student in my Senior Seminar on ecology of personal life made a contribution (his first in almost ten weeks) to the group report that he's supposed to be working on, studying the environmental impact of food waste. He posted three websites devoted to using food dyes on clothing. ??????? He's also the one who wanted, as his final project for the class, to buy and flip a house. I don't even know where to begin. xx PM
You went straight into the direction my mind was going. I have been thinking about this for a while. As I watched my kids progress through the schools it always bothered me that they were aimed for the lowest common denominator. In other words, the class only went as fast as its slowest member and the really bright kids had to rise above the system in order to thrive. not an easy thing to do in a world of peer pressure, electronics, drugs and so many other temptations and discouragements. Of course you are closer to the results of the school system than I am and probably see the result more clearly. What I have been thinking is this is what we get, a world where intellect is considered a drawback, where education is ridiculed and where being common is revered. Where someone like Sarah Palin calls global warming “snake oil science” and is cheered for it, where Barack Obama is criticized for his Harvard education and on and on. So instead we get gun toting right wing ignoramuses raising ignorance to worshipful levels. Could these be the Huns, Vandals, Goths and Visigoths and we are again entering a Dark Age?
My new approach has been to aim discussions at the better students. This has made the better students incredibly happy, and the ones who diligently refuse to do the classwork extremely angry. They are used to "respect," which means getting away with murder. Funny to find myself sounding like a right-wing advocate of elitism in my old age..xx PM
I remember when you earned respect rather than demanded it. ah, but how the world turns, elitism is the new left wing
The Mudflats

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