2003-03-18 - 3:45 p.m.
"Liberty Shield"?
Sounds like some kind of feminine-hygiene product to me.
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Had another run-in with a Green Party member last night. Is it just me, or are the people who voted for Ralph Nader in 2000 even more defensive and freakishly insecure about it now than during the whole Florida debacle? These bobos who went on about how "Things have to get worse before they get better" sure do get pissy when you ask them how much more worse things have to get now, you know?
Anyway, this particular argument ended as it always does, with the Naderite in question muttering something about "voting my conscience." You know what I've decided? "Voting one's conscience" is a luxury that able-bodied middle-class heterosexual white people get to indulge in because, when you get right down to it, whoever is in power doesn't really affect them one way or the other. I've never met a single poor and/or disabled and/or gay and/or minority voter who's ever fed me any line of bullshit about their "conscience." When you're in their position, you vote for the candidate who promises to make your life a little better and keep the powerful from stepping on you, AND who has an actual chance of winning. "Things have to get worse"? Try living without health insurance for a while, then we'll talk. Oh, and when we meet again in the afterlife, can I pin that quote to your shirt so that the half a million Iraqis we'll be seeing up there know who to punch? Thanks.
Anyway. If you haven't seen it yet, and it's playing in your town, go see Amandla! It's got righteous politics AND good music. After all the depressing news lately, that sort of film is like mainlining Prozac.
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Some recent book purchases:
* Affluenza: The All-Consuming Epidemic. A good, quick-yet-informative read, but it's just too much for me given the current climate and I may have to take it in small, measured doses. Otherwise I may end up going out and firebombing the first SUV I see.
* A city guide for Portland, where I'm going again next month. The guide was probably a waste of money, since I'll undoubtedly wind up spending two-thirds of my visit at Powell's like I always do, but maybe I'll find something interesting. I still haven't done the beer-and-movies combo that's all the rage in Portland, so that's an option.
* Revenge, by Stephen Fry. I'm saving this one for the trip, since I'm taking Amtrak and will have a lot of time on my hands as a result. I'm thinking I might take a bunch of books on the train, read them all on the 28-hour journey up, sell some or all of them at Powell's, then buy a bunch of books for the return trip. it's fun, it's literary AND it's cost-effective.
* The April issue of Stuff magazine. No, I'm not a regular reader of Stuff. I'm a traditionalist--when I want a titty mag I go straight to Playboy or Penthouse--but it has an interview with Rocket from the Crypt that I wanted to read, and I always feel embarrassed sitting there reading magazines I have no intention of paying for. (It comes from having, "This ain't a library!" yelled at me one too many times as a child.) Still, I think I may keep a few issues around to put out on the coffee table the next time any of Las Rancheras come to visit. Or is Maxim their beer-and-boobies publication of choice? Stuff makes Maxim look like The New York Times Literary Supplement.
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"Liberty Shield"--now with wings!
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