Saturday, January 20, 2007

Dichotomy


I always told myself I'd never blog about politics, but here I go. Upon hearing that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have both announced their intent to run for the Democratic nomination, my first reaction was to wonder if the Democrats would suffer for it. As much as I hope it's not true, I really worry that there are people--potentially lots of people--who are fed up enough with the status quo to vote Democrat, until they're confronted with the choice of aiming to put either a black man with a foreign-sounding name or a woman in the White House. I don't think it's too far out there to assume that some people in this country will vote Republican just so that they don't have to vote for someone biracial or female. I've personally witnessed a sort of casual racism even among people in my somewhat distant family, such as someone saying he was disappointed that his cardiac nurse had the same birthday as his niece, because even though the nurse was really sweet, he didn't want his niece to have the same birthday as a black woman. In a way, this sort of seemingly-innocuous, easy-as-breathing bigotry is more disconcerting than outright nutter-style polemics, because it makes me wonder how many otherwise nice, normal people harbor that kind of back-asswards thinking. It's all sort of depressing, even though I'm really excited about a woman vying for the Presidential nomination and the prospect of Obama in the running.



And now for something completely shallow!

Several somethings, actually.

1. true love

I got this shirt at Old Navy last night, and wore it to work today. It's true love, for reals, yo.



When I tried to find a picture of the shirt, I found out that it comes in green as well, but--tragically--my size is no longer available online. I am weeping for the green shirt awesomeness that will never come to pass.




2. the most amusing $4 I ever spent?

While at the mall with the bibliophile last night, I also spent $4 on this Page-a-Day calendar:


I figure it'll be immensely useful when I'm desperate for blog content. And since I'm 20 days behind, I get to be greedy and go through a lot of pages before I have to start being patient and taking one page at a time.

Some highlights so far:
  • January 5--Virtual Lite Brite

  • January 9--Mail Art ("To test the limits of the post office, the mischief makers at this site threw all sorts of unboxed objects (with mailing labels and stamps directly attached) into the mail to see if they would reach their destinations.")

  • January 11--The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest ("Since 1982 the English Department at San Jose State University has sponsored the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, a whimsical literary competition that challenges entrants to compose the opening sentence to the worst of all possible novels.")

As a bonus, the calendar included a code for a free page-a-day email calendar, so I signed up for the Book Lovers one. Then, with possible blog fodder in mind, I dug out the code from MB's Wine Lover's Calendar and signed up for the Fact or Crap daily calendar. Stay tuned for random trivia!




4 comments:

  1. Since you were the one who first introduced me to non-virtual lite-brite, it's so very fitting that you have now introduced me to virtual lite-brite!

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  2. Anonymous10:21 AM

    This is divine. The entire entry makes me love you more. And the virtual lite brite? Cod help me. Like I dont have enough crap to do w/o you helping!

    That shirt is fab! I'm sorry it's not available! It's DARLING!

    And, um, I'm not talking politics but from what I've heard prelim polls are actually showing Obama and Clinton getting possibly good reception. Far better than previously thought. (Josh thinks they should run together.) I'm not sure if the world is ready for either of them yet...but just running is a HUGE step. I've also heard that, especially with Obama, a lot of certain demographics previously republican are leaning towards him just BECAUSE he's a non-white candidate. (Which really is no better to me than avoiding him because he's non white but I can't make the rest of the world see color free!)

    I think it'll be an interesting election to say the least.

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  3. i think it's sad, but i really don't think this country is ready to elect a woman or a black man for president. we just managed the first female speaker of the house, after all. and statistics show that pre-election polls and exit polls tend to show minorities doing better that election results turn out. possibly because it's easier to be a bigot when you're all alone in the booth?

    and with what 7 billion people in the world and only 366 (including leap year) possible birthdays. a nice black lady is the least of your relative's concerns.

    then again, it could be worse. i won't mention how my grandmother used to refer to my cousin's biracial son, but i think you can imagine.

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  4. Anonymous10:56 AM

    Not just a black man, a black man with a Muslim father, apparently. Or so the article trying to smear him on netscape news says. . .

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