(no subject)

Massive number of links on my friends list this morning on voter fraud, and the fact that pretty much 3% of votes in every presidential election are uncountable for any given reason.

This is bad. Really really bad. And if the story gains momentum and makes it to the mainstream press, I can't even imagine.... I mean this shell shocked misery is one thing, but what if the exit polls weren't wrong?

You know, if our national ATM network works, why the hell can't we figure out how to have every vote counted, accurately and fairly?

I'll put the list of links together tonight, but here's this for now: http://www.livejournal.com/users/womzilla/102943.html?#cutid1

security mom, I hate you (and other american insecurities)

Okay, I'm actually not going to make a list of all the voting fraud links, because the stories seem to be breaking and people seem to know what is going on. As was said in comments to the previous post -- the issue isn't so much whether Kerry really won (he probably didn't), but that this problems undermine our system, regardless of whether they are the result of fraud, negligence or just plain stupidity.

Instead, I want to talk about America, the Insecure. Originally, this was going to be one of those things addressed to you red state people, but this issue I think runs broader and deeper and is endangering our society well outside of the realm of politics.

I think the number one thing nearly everyone in this country probably needs to do right now is ask themselves what they're afraid of, and then ask themselves what they should really be afraid of instead. And I wish a whole hell of a lot more people had engaged in this particular manner of introspection before the election.

To begin with, I want to rant about "security moms" the phenomena I tried to ignore during the election because it was too ridiculous, too offensive and too media manufactured for me to address with any sort of calm. Well, the more I talk to people, the more I absorb media, the more the security mom cannot be avoided.

Security moms make me angry. I think they are selfish and ignorant. As the media presents them to me (and I've seen several so-called "typical" ones interviewed on the news), these women live in a constant paranoid ecstasy of making plans and backup plans to make sure their children are safe from terrorists on the way to and from school. They cancel family vacations so that they never need take a plane, and have backpacks of emergency rations in their houses. They vote for Bush, and they live nowhere near anything that any rational person could consider a likely terrorist target. Now granted, you can argue that terrorism isn't rational, and therefor we should all be paranoid and vigilant -- certainly I'm not saying people shouldn't keep their eyes open and take reasonable precautions. But if I can get through a day without living in fear, and if I can vote without choosing in fear, so can you. All I can say is security moms seem to be doing nothing more than using terrorism as an excuse to salve their insecurities about their ability to parent and control their kids claim dubious personal power through being ignorant control freaks.

Okay, the next national insecurity I want to address is on the subject of gay marriage. If your moral beliefs mean you need to vote for a candidate that wants to legislate this issue in a theoretically secular society, I don't agree with you, but I also don't feel like debating with you right now. However, if your reason (or one of your reasons) for opposing gay marriage is that it will harm the dignity (or some other ineffable quality) of traditionally heterosexual marriage, I want to know, what are you afraid of? Why is your marriage weak and vulnerable to this threat? Do you really base the personal value you place in your marriage on the actions of others? You need better self-esteem or a marriage counsellor, maybe both.

And finally, finances. If I code one more article about people taking out home equity loans because they don't understand the difference between "need" and "want", because they feel a need to keep up with neightbors when it comes to "lifestyle" instead of cutting back even in non-dramatic ways (you don't need to match their SUV), I am going to scream. I understand the impulse to say "this bad spell will be brief, let's just ride it out without hardship", but should our current economic problems as a nation be long term, if the price of oil isn't a blip that's going to correct in January (and it's not, btw), not only are you putting your long term quality of life at risk for "lifestyle" issues, but you're also contributing to long-term serious macroeconomic problems, that are looming over a few different horizons, and are going to be horrendous when the housing bubble bursts.

More self-restraint, less fear makes us all safer and more honest.

Economic theory may explain current political insanity

"Have religious issues become more important in politics because too few Americans go to church?"

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/04/business/04scene.html

halloween pics

Okay. This was the first run of the costume, where I didn't have time to curl my hair, you can't see the fabulous pony tail and my sinuses were going nuts. Also, you can't see that I am wearing knee breeches and stockings and little ugly shoes. But but but, there will be more pictures later from actual Halloween, where it all worked much better, and despite my griping about the pants (so unflattering) I was sort of appallingly comfortable in the whole thing.

This is from my roommate's party two nights before when I was feeling surly and awkward.

Once I restore the jacket it's going to be brilliant.

http://pics.livejournal.com/rm/gallery/00002c8r

(And yes, the pictures are small. I thought that sort of minimized how like crap I look in them not 'cause of the costume, but because I was clearly having a bad face day, which is like a bad hair day only different.)

Thank you to coyotegoth for this particular evidence of my insanity.