Welcome to Fantasy Island

Awasiwi odenak: Far from the things of men

In a matter of days, we will be touching down on paradise. Can you feel the magic tinkling in the breeze? Can you the feel the enchantment? Do you even know where we’re going? It’s a wonderful place known only as Fantasy Island. You’re familiar with the name, no? Let me tell you about it. Fantasy Island is where you go to see your greatest wishes and deepest desires come to life, untouched by the rigors of reality and reason. The Island is positively sublime, and if you go there with an open heart, you shall know nothing but joy and fulfillment, perhaps eternally. However, if you go there in blindness or with ill-intent…Well, the possibilities are endless. Thankfully, you are not the reason we’re here today. However, the question of how we came to be on this journey remains. Let us begin with the story:

What feels like a lifetime ago, but was in fact, not so long, many people had a wish. They scraped together their pennies, their dimes, and their stock options to make that wish come true. The wish that these people shared was that they should make themselves a President. The time had come to choose again and, this time, they would be wise in their decision. Things were much harder now and so were the choices. Where these people parted ways was in the determination of what sort of person that President should be.

Please vote the Confluence for Liberal Blog of the Year

It’s that time of year again. Time to vote for the Most Liberal Weblog of 2008. You can vote once every 24 hours.

Hopefully you’ll vote for the Confluence! I’ve had the pleasure of being a front-page contributor there this past year and I’ll be the first to tell you that it’s a bastion of diverse thinking. Some people are avowed Democrats who disagree with the actions of the Party this year. Some are moderate Republicans. Some are even evangelical Christians. What we all agree on is that the prejudices that were resurrected and used as battering rams this year are unacceptable and cannot be used in the future to win elections or to power any movement worth following. Please read and judge for yourself.

Vote the Confluence for Best Liberal Weblog in 2008!

Right now we’re leading at 30.8%
ETA: We are not leading now due to an influx of votes for Wonkette, apparently invoked by some front page hate encouragement at WK. *shrug* Still, I say vote for us and be heard!

Then, pass it on.

2008: January to November 4th

I know it’s way to early to be thinking about New Year’s so I’m not going to look to 2009 yet.  I will, however, take a very brief look back on the emotions of the year.  That’s what I have to do in order to move past it. Forgiveness is not a personal tenet of my faith.  Forgetfulness only applies to innocuous things like class assignments. I never forget a slight and when the time comes, I will always return it.  So, backwards for a minute.

January 2008: Hillary…Bill’s wife! When did she run for things? She doesn’t look like a monster. Kind of pretty actually. And smart. Where has she been hiding that brain? I must have been looking at Bill or something because I would not have missed that brain if I’d been paying attention.

February: Hillary…way more qualified than the rest of them.  Barack Obama…that’s an interesting name.  What hole did he crawl out of and can he go back?  Shut up, John Edwards with your stupid haircut. What is wrong with CNN? You has been my one source of new coverage. What are you doing, man? Hillary didn’t say that! Or that. Leave Bill alone. What the hell?! (Stood in the rain for 2 hours to see the Big Dawg. Then had to wait standing for 2 hours more. Never regretted it.)

March:  Go, Texas, Rhode Island, and Ohio. So goes Ohio, so goes the nation! …Right?

For everyone here in Ohio and across America who’s ever been counted out but refused to be knocked out, and for everyone who has stumbled but stood right back up, and for everyone who works hard and never gives up, this one is for you.

Through the Night (The Torch-Bearer Keeps Going)

They will say Barack Obama is the JFK of our generation.  But we’ll know better because we have already seen what a man like JFK can do.  And this man that they gift with his name is no JFK.

He doesn’t have the courage of his convictions-even late, when the damage is done and the jail cells are locked.   He doesn’t have the uneasy silences as he attempts to beat out the best course of action; as he tries to decide what’s right at the height of a crisis, when the missiles are armed and it’s do or die.  He doesn’t have the foresight to know he’s out of his depth, nor the hindsight to know when he’s gone too far.  He will say he is a symbol of America’s possibility.  They will say that he’s an American hero-even if nobody “sunk [his] battleship.”

I Guess I Just Wasn’t Looking: A Voting Strategy In Hindsight

Like many of the directives handed down this campaign age (because it’s been too damned long to be just a year), I missed that memo that we should take the time to write about our voting strategies. Yes, I thought it was interesting to see such a consistent thread of thoughts from several different people, but, then again, Barack Obama happened so maybe I’ve adapted and learned not to question-much of any aspect of human behavior, actually.

 

            That’s the last in a long line of me just not questioning anything anymore and accepting questionable things as truth.  Why? Not because it’s easy but because it’s easiest.  If I had to ask myself why any number of intelligent, noteworthy people have thrown themselves on the altar of His Holiness, I’d be very tempted to throw myself off the top of some altar since there is clearly no method to that madness.  I’m smarter than ACORN’s average voting nine-year old but this election wouldn’t be the first pseudo-intellectual “joke” that I just didn’t get. I thought it must have been me.

 

            Probably was.

Somethings Tells Me I’d Better Get Used to Exile

I had the funny experience tonight of being locked out of a post. It wasn’t intentional and I have no reason to believe anything other than crappy Vista is at fault but for the 45 minutes it took for me to get the attention of the usual suspects and bring the Party to the only room I could get to, I felt a little bit panicked and very alone.  Here’s  why:

These last 11 months I’ve dedicated myself pretty solely to one goal and that goal was to see Hillary Rodham Clinton become President of the United States. I don’t need to give you the long narrative. You’ve read it from me once or four times; you could probably ghost-write my story under power of hypnosis. I won’t bore you with that.  I will say what it’s done to me though.

Because of the sheer anxiety of this election, I lost 15 lbs.  Don’t misunderstand me, I was glad to see them go. I’ve been trying to lose weight since I was 5 and this was the first step in a positive direction I’ve ever taken but I don’t think the doctor wanted me to lose them like this.  Any day of the week, these many months you could find me screaming at my television; pacing the length of my hallway; or tapping away at my keyboard for one partisan, single-minded cause.  It was sunrise to sunset to sunrise again. I’ve never had much use for sleep and I learned how to function on even less during the Democratic Primary.

I also learned how to function on high-blood pressure and a racing heart.  Not a day went buy that I wouldn’t sit in my class in abject terror that the election was going to come up. It was all over the radio waves and the television broadcasts. It was all over the internet. There was no escaping it; and who was I to want to escape it? I lived for this election. And yet, at the same time, I dreaded having to face my friends and call them wrong, to face my teachers–some of whom have choice words for me now that they know where I stand–and call them ill-informed, though they were.  I used to shake in my seat like a leaf, or maybe that was just my heart. I knew I was in the minority of my senior class to prefer Hillary and I wasn’t so bothered by that. It was the stories that bothered me, the stories I’d read nationwide over how people had been treated for voicing their decision to support the competent woman over the lackluster man. Maybe I feared that one of those events would befall me. Sometimes, like now, I still do.

Off-Topic: Scholarship Pimp

One last pathetic scholarship plug. I’m trying to do the “blogging for progress” scholarship in which I have to blog at progressiveu.com about issues affecting young people.  So far I’m reposting the posts I’ve made over the last few months. In order for me to qualify to win I need points. I accrue points when people read my post (ie, just click in) or leave comments (but you have to register to do that, so no need). I know I’m a pain in the ass, Clinton-obsessed nutbar, but this nutbar needs scholarship money. Can you guys please click onto my progressiveU blog. You don’t have to read it; you’ve already read it, just click in, click out and go on about your day. It’s $1000 that I could really do with.

Regency’s Progressive U blog

Thank you to those who can.

/end pimping.

Choose

There’s a love story I want to tell you about. It was told to me by someone old and wise.  This person loved two people, two people so very different that their differences tore her life apart. The names have been changed to protect the innocent and the hapless.

            The first one was named “Hope.”  Hope was a great man, mighty with a resounding voice.  When he spoke, her heart hammered in her chest and she just knew she could fly.

            The second was a woman named “Action.” Action was a clever one; had made plans on top of plans for the life they would have.  She was sharp as a tack, but perhaps a little dull to some. My friend didn’t want dull; she wanted excitement and spontaneity. Thus, she did what the young normally do…She left Action behind to follow Hope.

The Big “D” Democrat

I have been a Democrat all my life.  I admit that life is only 18 years old, but you have to admit these last two decades have been a couple for the record books.  I’ve lived to see an illegitimate president run the country right into the ground as he cleared brush from his Texas ranch 154 days out of the year.  I watched a decade of prosperity and peace crash down in unholy flames in the middle of New York when I was just 10 years old.  I watched the fraudulent Commander-in-Chief trick the country into a war it didn’t need against a people that didn’t deserve it when I was 11.  I watched that same huckster be told by the historic first female Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, that “impeachment [was] off the table” when I was 16.  A man who had facilitated unprecedented war crimes had gotten off scot-free.  And it had been my party that let it happen.

Always the Better Woman

All primary season long, I’ve heard a particular saying—or at least, a particular inference—repeated doggedly and it’s begun to irk me a bit.

“You must be the better woman.”

“Hillary has to be the bigger ma—woman and think of the party.”

“Don’t step out of line lest she be judged with you.”

No, those aren’t exact quotes but they are exact connotations.  I’ve stifled the urge for some time to say anything about it, but I’ve about reached the zenith of my good manners.  Now that the primary season is essentially “over”—which is up for debate as far as I’m concerned, but that’s another conversation—I still hear the call for me to act the good woman and be a shining example of civility for all.  This begs the questions: What does it take for me to be the “good woman” and why the hell should I want to be?