Petty Theft

It was at the Video Station, in the strip mall a few blocks away from her parents’ house– evenings and weekends, junior and senior year of high school. When she applied, she accidentally checked the box that said she was over eighteen, but it wasn’t a problem.
Over a dozen years later, she would fall in love and find that her boyfriend also worked at a Video Station, though the one across town and about five years earlier. They laughed as they recalled how many movies they stole. VHS. She didn’t tell him that she also stole money directly out of the register. One night she took $60, tucking it up the sleeve of her sweater.

Grocery Shopping

When they were younger, he said she might look great with grey hair, that thick beautiful silver stuff. “Don’t dye it,” he said. “Not right away. Wait and see.” But when she started to see it, she panicked. It was earlier than she’d imagined, right after the baby. That girl, that baby made her hair go crazy for a few years. It went from a light brown to a dark brown to a very very red brown. Then she started to see them, especially at her scalp.
They had a plan, but that was decades down the road. She wished it sooner, but they had a plan for their sixties, a plan to enjoy getting old together, falling apart. She would wear nothing but black cocktail dresses and dye her hair navy blue, or deep purple, or burgundy, and cut it in a dramatic pageboy. He said that, to complement her, he would wear bib overalls every day. They would, in their sixties, go everywhere together, like that– the movies, grocery shopping. When they were younger they decided they would enjoy getting older.

An historic evening

A message paid for in part by my 13-year old cousin (but mostly paid for by her parents):
7:11pm Tue, Nov 4
Fwd: A vote 4 obama is a vote 4 osama. Fwrd this message 2 everyone if u want McCain 2 be the next pres. Of the u.s.

7:12pm
I don't. And that is not true/ridiculous.

7:12pm
Obama sucks

7:14pm
Do you know anything about him or his policies?

7:15pm
Ya thats all we talk about in skool

7:16pm
well then try harder to distinguish between a terrorist and a US senator

A message paid for in part by a Catholic school education (but mostly by my cousin's parents):
7:26pm
Kay whatever

7:55pm
Still love me?

7:55pm
No

7:57pm
Yes you do. I love you

A message paid for in part by all the (very conservative) branches of my family tree that led my cousin and me to this point:
7:58pm
Ya i do luv u.

Disenfranchised on Election Day

Most readers of this space are familiar with voting irregularities in the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections, and many Americans pledged to keep a close eye out for any such irregularities in 2008. To this end, I registered last week to be a poll observer on the web page for the City Clerk on the City of Madison's web page.

After waiting a week and receiving no response, I registered to volunteer again as an observer yesterday (Monday, November 3) for the polling station nearest my home. I received an email confirmation:

Date/Time: 11/04/2008 (2:00 PM - 4:00 PM)
Location: xxx High School
To cancel this registration, click the following link:
http://www.cityofmadison.com/isevents/registration_cancel.cfm

That is the email in its entirety.

I was concerned about this lack of information but figured that things would shake things out in the end. Now I realize that I should have phoned election officials immediately since things did not seem entirely on the level.

I arrived at the polling location at 1:00 to do my civic duty and cast a vote of my own. I also inquired about where I should go to attend the orientation session for observer training. Cue shifty eyes, suspicious looks. The women at the voter check-in station I spoke with appeared uneasy as they said they didn't know what I was talking about. They didn't know who I should talk to, or where I should go. They turned to a woman sitting near them wearing a large yellow button that read OBSERVER.

"You're an observer, right?" the registration woman asked.

A somber nod. "I am an observer," she replied but declined further comment.

I gave a curt nod of my own. I could see I was being railroaded. Ramrodded. Blackballed, blacklisted. Call it what you want. I was being disenfranchised.

That's when I began some informal polling of my own. The results are staggering. Consider Table 1.1 below:

Table 1.1 - Voter to Volunteer Ratio

Clearly the odds were stacked overwhelmingly in favor of the pollsters. As a voter, I was in the clear minority.

But it doesn't end there. Consider Table 1.2:

Table 1.2 - Pollster Activities

The operation was working like a well-oiled machine. As I kept two people busy checking me in, that left over two dozen others at the ready, some watching me very closely. Too closely perhaps. Big Brother is watching?

For all the talk about coming together as a country I could still sense a deep divide in the faces of these people, allegedly from my own community. Table 1.3 shows my perception of how my attempts to help were received:

Table 1.3 - Pollster Attitudes

Perhaps the following two tables are the most damning to the system. Not only were the pollsters primarily female, but analyze these numbers:

Table 1.4 - Poll Worker Age

Table 1.5 - Poll Worker Race/Ethnicity

This election was supposed to be about change, about new beginnings, but now I see the rhetoric was just hot air. As long as the elections are rigged so only retirement-age white women get to volunteer at the polls in overwhelming numbers, nothing is going to change. How many young white men are going to be denied their right to volunteer on election day? How many will be turned away from polling places?

This experience has shaken me to the core and has shredded my last bit of hope in democracy. I'm moving to Canada where everything is perfect.

Polling Places

I sit outside the polls having exercised my voice in the only meaningful way possible.

Nobody offered me free coffee for my convictions. Nobody asked because my answer might have conflicted with their hopes, their compliance funds, their private punditry and their public progressivism. They read the polls and placed me in the category that filled their needs – to demonize or sympathize were the same in some way. I remember when people made their choices in the booth and their opinions in the bar, not in herds seeking hope in human vessels. I recall when partisans carried clubs and torches, not stolen signs. What do we carry now? How do we want to be carried? Whose card should be punched? Who is represented in a representative democracy? When did a campaign of issues and plan become antiquated? When debates cease to be conversations? When did we forget that it’s a bad idea to judge a candidate by the color of his prose or the content of his sound bites? When did the right to choose become the rule?

My shirt says “I didn’t vote…” on the front. Nobody reads the back. It says “…for who you think I should have.”

Response to “the stupid idiot in white BMW” on www.JustRage.com

Original post by Anonymous:

“To the stupid fucker in the white BMW.. how the hell are people do stupid!!!.. I was watching you in my review mirrow when the Fire engine came up behind you.. and instead if you stopping and yielding.. you instead race and are soon behind me... trying to get me to make me move faster ..and then you think you can blow your fucking horn at me to move faster!!!!... so I slow down to fucking piss you off..and you almost rear end me!!! and then you try to overtake me by crossing the double yellow line!!!.. You stupid fuck!!!.. But I got you didn;t I? :) swerving my car to the center of the lane and almost sending you out of control!.. you stupid shit.. next time there's an ambulance of fire truck behind you.. follow the rules!!!!.. PULL OVER AND LET THEM PASS!!!!”

Response by Firefighter:

TO THE STUPID FUCKERS IN THE WHITE BMW AND BLACK JETTA!

You stupid fucks! I’m trying to get to a FUCKING FIRE!!! and you stupid cunt-punt fucktards won’t fucking PULL THE FUCK OVER!!! instead the fuck in the BMW fucking speeds up and honks his horn at the guy in the black Jetta trying to pull over, but then THIS asshole makes things worse by trying to cut off the other shit fucker by crossing into the center lane, nearly causing a goddamn pile-up and THEN HOW THE SHIT AM I GOING TO GET TO THE FUCKING FIRE, YOU SHITS! I made sure to flip both of you shit faces off when I drove by!!!

Response to “You Deserve It, Bitch!” on www.JustRage.com

Original Post by Anonymous:

“You are a fucking cunt and i fucking HATE YOU! You fucked up my marriage permanently, and now my curse on you is coming true. It's better that your baby died, because you would be a SHITHOLE CUNT SLUT horrible mother. you are a lying bitch who lies to her husband and fucks up other women's marriages. YOU SUCK FUCKING CUNT BITCH! I HATE YOU!! FUCK YOU WHORE SLAG BITCHHOLE!!!!!”

Emotionally Attuned Translation:

When my husband had an affair with you and impregnated you, it made me feel abandoned and ashamed. Even though it is socially unacceptable for me to wish harm to your unborn child, part of me felt that justice was served when you had a miscarriage. Part of me realizes that I should be directing my hatred toward my husband, but society has conditioned me to apportion a majority of the blame onto you.