The Fat Lady Sings
I'm not going to write about election irregularities. I just don't have it in me. For the past week, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann has been the only mainstream reporter to have anything to say about it. Now candidates are starting to descend on Ohio and New Hampshire, asking for recounts in precincts using the "scantron" type optical ballot scanners. All I will say about this is what I've ever said: the only people who believe that electronic voting would be more reliable than any other sort are those who have never used a computer. If you're looking for details, truthout.org and commondreams.org are good places to start.
*****
By now, I assume you've seen the slew of red and blue maps of the United States, from the standard "red state / blue state" map to the vote by county map in USA Today and other sources. By November 3, at least one blog had gone in a new direction, posting a map on which states were colored in shades of purple, to indicate the percentage of Democratic or Republican vote. Only Utah remains completely red.
If these are insufficient for your needs, a handful of wonks from the University of Michigan have posted a slew of maps and cartograms stretching the nation this way and that in order to make sense of the vote. In a cartogram, the areas of specific locations, such as states, are resized according to their population. In these maps, the Northeast bulges grossly, while such states as Montana and the Dakotas all but disappear. As you might expect, the area covered by red and blue are roughly equivalent. There's another purple map, this one demonstrating voting patterns county by county, originally posted by a Princeton mathematician. His site also has a photograph of the US as seen from space at night, with cities clearly visible, marked by their lights. The correspondence between population centers and blue votes is striking.
Then there's this map.
*****
By the way, if you're not sure if you live in a red state or blue state, Mrs. Betty Bowers can help.
*****
I am not the writer of fuckthesouth.com, but I cannot disagree with anything he or she has to say. I was asked earlier this week if I thought the South had gone off the deep end. I replied that I thought much of the South had always been off the deep end. This writer takes it one (giant) step further. As you can tell by the title, the language is pretty harsh. But the anger is righteous. One (highly edited) point: "The next @#%& who says, 'It's your money, not the government's money" is gonna get their @#%& kicked. Nine of the ten states that get the most federal dollars and pay the least? That's right, they're red states. And eight of the ten states that receive the least and pay the most? They're blue states. It's not your money, @#%&, it's our money. What was that Real American Value you were spouting a minute ago? Self reliance? Try this for self reliance: buy your own @#%& stop signs, @#%&." Go there. You'll feel better. Or (depending on your point of view) perhaps chastened.
*****
Woody Allen once said that 90 percent of success is just showing up. (Or 80%. Or maybe 95. Source?) Steve Rocco is unwilling to go that far.
Rocco was just elected to the school board of the Orange County Unified School District. His opponent, Phil Martinez, is a park ranger who has three children in the district, is president of the PTA at his kids' school and is active with the Boy Scouts. Rocco, 53, lives with his parents. Martinez. raised contributions, attended forums, sent mailings to voters in the district and was endorsed by the teachers' union. Rocco ignored mail from district officials and the teachers' union during the campaign. He didn't respond to media requests for interviews and didn't bother with a ballot statement outlining his platform. When the PTA sent him an invitation to a candidate forum, the letter came back unopened.
Rocco won the election with 54 percent of the vote. One scenario suggests that voters chose the non-Hispanic name over Martinez. Another says Rocco won because he identified himself on the ballot as an "educator/writer" (he has no quantifiable experience in either) and uninformed voters chose the educator over the park ranger. One local politician said, "This is just one of the rough edges in our electoral system, where the voters can elect someone they know nothing about."
Yeah. We've seen that.
*****
If you live in a red state, there's a good chance you won't see Saving Private Ryan tonight. ABC is showing the World War II epic as part of its Veterans Day observance, but a number of affiliates, concerned about the FCC's stance on language and violence, are unwilling to risk possible fines. Citadel Communications, which owns stations in Iowa and Nebraska, sought assurances from the Federal Communications Commission that the film was acceptable. The agency was unable to provide such assurance in advance. In addition, they've made it clear that virtually any use of foul language - which is used repeatedly, but appropriately, in Ryan - is unacceptable for broadcast radio and television.
Stations in Atlanta, Dallas, New Orleans, Cincinnati, Charlotte and Louisville, amongst others, will not air the movie. Sinclair Broadcast Group, which chose not to air the Nightline episode honoring the soldiers who have died in Iraq and chose to air the anti-Kerry film Stolen Honor, passed on saving Ryan.
*****
If you're looking for a ray of light in our troubled times, here's an excerpt from a letter Thomas Jefferson write in 1798, after enactment of the Sedition Act.
"A little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their spells dissolve, and the people, recovering their true sight, restore their government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are suffering deeply in spirit, and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public debt . . . If the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at stake."
*****
By now, I assume you've seen the slew of red and blue maps of the United States, from the standard "red state / blue state" map to the vote by county map in USA Today and other sources. By November 3, at least one blog had gone in a new direction, posting a map on which states were colored in shades of purple, to indicate the percentage of Democratic or Republican vote. Only Utah remains completely red.
If these are insufficient for your needs, a handful of wonks from the University of Michigan have posted a slew of maps and cartograms stretching the nation this way and that in order to make sense of the vote. In a cartogram, the areas of specific locations, such as states, are resized according to their population. In these maps, the Northeast bulges grossly, while such states as Montana and the Dakotas all but disappear. As you might expect, the area covered by red and blue are roughly equivalent. There's another purple map, this one demonstrating voting patterns county by county, originally posted by a Princeton mathematician. His site also has a photograph of the US as seen from space at night, with cities clearly visible, marked by their lights. The correspondence between population centers and blue votes is striking.
Then there's this map.
*****
By the way, if you're not sure if you live in a red state or blue state, Mrs. Betty Bowers can help.
*****
I am not the writer of fuckthesouth.com, but I cannot disagree with anything he or she has to say. I was asked earlier this week if I thought the South had gone off the deep end. I replied that I thought much of the South had always been off the deep end. This writer takes it one (giant) step further. As you can tell by the title, the language is pretty harsh. But the anger is righteous. One (highly edited) point: "The next @#%& who says, 'It's your money, not the government's money" is gonna get their @#%& kicked. Nine of the ten states that get the most federal dollars and pay the least? That's right, they're red states. And eight of the ten states that receive the least and pay the most? They're blue states. It's not your money, @#%&, it's our money. What was that Real American Value you were spouting a minute ago? Self reliance? Try this for self reliance: buy your own @#%& stop signs, @#%&." Go there. You'll feel better. Or (depending on your point of view) perhaps chastened.
*****
Woody Allen once said that 90 percent of success is just showing up. (Or 80%. Or maybe 95. Source?) Steve Rocco is unwilling to go that far.
Rocco was just elected to the school board of the Orange County Unified School District. His opponent, Phil Martinez, is a park ranger who has three children in the district, is president of the PTA at his kids' school and is active with the Boy Scouts. Rocco, 53, lives with his parents. Martinez. raised contributions, attended forums, sent mailings to voters in the district and was endorsed by the teachers' union. Rocco ignored mail from district officials and the teachers' union during the campaign. He didn't respond to media requests for interviews and didn't bother with a ballot statement outlining his platform. When the PTA sent him an invitation to a candidate forum, the letter came back unopened.
Rocco won the election with 54 percent of the vote. One scenario suggests that voters chose the non-Hispanic name over Martinez. Another says Rocco won because he identified himself on the ballot as an "educator/writer" (he has no quantifiable experience in either) and uninformed voters chose the educator over the park ranger. One local politician said, "This is just one of the rough edges in our electoral system, where the voters can elect someone they know nothing about."
Yeah. We've seen that.
*****
If you live in a red state, there's a good chance you won't see Saving Private Ryan tonight. ABC is showing the World War II epic as part of its Veterans Day observance, but a number of affiliates, concerned about the FCC's stance on language and violence, are unwilling to risk possible fines. Citadel Communications, which owns stations in Iowa and Nebraska, sought assurances from the Federal Communications Commission that the film was acceptable. The agency was unable to provide such assurance in advance. In addition, they've made it clear that virtually any use of foul language - which is used repeatedly, but appropriately, in Ryan - is unacceptable for broadcast radio and television.
Stations in Atlanta, Dallas, New Orleans, Cincinnati, Charlotte and Louisville, amongst others, will not air the movie. Sinclair Broadcast Group, which chose not to air the Nightline episode honoring the soldiers who have died in Iraq and chose to air the anti-Kerry film Stolen Honor, passed on saving Ryan.
*****
If you're looking for a ray of light in our troubled times, here's an excerpt from a letter Thomas Jefferson write in 1798, after enactment of the Sedition Act.
"A little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their spells dissolve, and the people, recovering their true sight, restore their government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are suffering deeply in spirit, and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public debt . . . If the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at stake."
posted by John Bliss at
11:11 AM
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