Closing time

Another step toward sanity and happiness was taken today as we closed on the sale of the condo. I am now free of debt, free of a crazy neighbor, free of thinking about repairs and termites and crabgrass. Right now I feel totally miserable about the whole thing. I think about all the money that was made off of my unhappy circumstance by the real estate brokers and the lawyers, the town, as they charged me to have my smoke detectors inspected, and the state, who made sales tax on the transaction. The idea of home ownership is, in my opinion, far shinier and more attractive than the reality. From big things, like having a neighbor move in who is totally insane and incapable of conducting her own affairs, to little things, like hearing a drip of water and wondering what you need to fix. Economic downturn and five-figure losses, and having to recaulk the bathtub. It all kind of sucks, really.

I don't even have to stay in the sphere of the personal or emotional when it comes to this topic. In a March 2009 Atlantic article, Richard Florida touched on the mythical nature of home ownership as a desirable goal. Here’s a lengthy, but relevant, quote:

The housing bubble was the ultimate expression, and perhaps the last gasp, of an economic system some 80 years in the making, and now well past its “sell-by” date. The bubble encouraged massive, unsustainable growth in places where land was cheap and the real-estate economy dominant. It encouraged low-density sprawl, which is ill-fitted to a creative, postindustrial economy. And not least, it created a workforce too often stuck in place, anchored by houses that cannot be profitably sold, at a time when flexibility and mobility are of great importance.

So how do we move past the bubble, the crash, and an aging, obsolescent model of economic life? What’s the right spatial fix for the economy today, and how do we achieve it?

The solution begins with the removal of homeownership from its long-privileged place at the center of the U.S. economy. Substantial incentives for homeownership (from tax breaks to artificially low mortgage-interest rates) distort demand, encouraging people to buy bigger houses than they otherwise would. That means less spending on medical technology, or software, or alternative energy—the sectors and products that could drive U.S. growth and exports in the coming years. Artificial demand for bigger houses also skews residential patterns, leading to excessive low-density suburban growth. The measures that prop up this demand should be eliminated.

If anything, our government policies should encourage renting, not buying. Homeownership occupies a central place in the American Dream primarily because decades of policy have put it there. A recent study by Grace Wong, an economist at the Wharton School of Business, shows that, controlling for income and demographics, homeowners are no happier than renters, nor do they report lower levels of stress or higher levels of self-esteem.

And while homeownership has some social benefits—a higher level of civic engagement is one—it is costly to the economy. The economist Andrew Oswald has demonstrated that in both the United States and Europe, those places with higher homeownership rates also suffer from higher unemployment. Homeownership, Oswald found, is a more important predictor of unemployment than rates of unionization or the generosity of welfare benefits. Too often, it ties people to declining or blighted locations, and forces them into work—if they can find it—that is a poor match for their interests and abilities.

In other words, owning a home, despite the encouragement of REALTORS(tm), your parents, the federal government, and just about anybody who is not actually on the hook for your housing problems, is not a one-way ticket to happiness and prosperity. If I had been renting this place, it would have been a hell of a lot easier and cheaper for me to leave when the situation got so unpleasant so fast. And I have a feeling that part of the neighbor’s stubborn refusal to compromise with us, or even understand her own situation, stems from the fact that she’s just as tied to her place by a mortgage as we are. Once it became clear that cooperative living was impossible, one of us had to take a huge hit to extricate ourselves from the situation. And that, my friends, sucks. That minor tax deduction for mortgage interest does not soften the blow, believe me.

Anyway, once we move this weekend, this whole debacle will start receding into the rear-view mirror. Then I can get back to posting Halo 3 screenshots and talking about tennis and cycling. I do want to thank you loyal peeps who have given me much sympathy through this whole thing. It is much appreciated.

In memoriam

Today’s the memorial service for the mother of my close friend Erin. You can view the obituary here. She was an amazing woman; I’m very grateful that I had the chance to meet her.

Everybody hug their loved ones today, extra tight.

New kidlets

I am totally remiss is not publicly congratulating Frantix and kaskasero on their new(ish) arrivals, Mihir and Olivia! Thank goodness there will be a new generation around to show us how to use our electronic devices as we get old and dotty. By then everything will all be controlled by our thoughts, and as one whose thoughts are particularly undisciplined, I will need all the help I can get.

Truman show

A lighthearted moment in the middle of all the angsty darkness: an octopus at the Aquarium jammed itself into a small box to try and liberate its lunch. The picture alone is worth visiting the link, I promise.

I am torn between wanting some sushi and feeling bad about having eaten octopus in the past. Although at least I didn’t have to unlock a box to get to it.

Rant of the month

I’ve been holding back from blogging this month due to being overwhelmed with house-selling trials and tribulations. To get the facts out of the way early, there was an offer, there was counteroffering, there was an agreement accepted, there was a home inspection, there was negotiation over the Purchase and Sale Agreement, there was signing of P&S. So that’s where we are now. “Pretty awesome!” you’re thinking. Well, in the sense that there is calm after the category 5 hurricane. Okay, I’m being overly dramatic. But dammit, this is my blog. In fact, one of the things holding me back from writing about recent events was that I’ve been feeling like a major league whiner throughout this whole process, and I was hesitant to inflict that on anyone else. But then I realized, hey, that’s the whole point of posting random shit on the Internet, right? So here’s the ranty stuff.

Jesus holy fuckos this has been such a nightmare. The buyers have been high maintenance lowballing foot-dragging dipshits throughout the process. Yeah, I too was a first-time buyer once, and was all of those things. But it is still not pleasant to be on the selling end of such a transaction. They’re getting a gorgeous condo in excellent condition* and they should get the fuck over their petty issues. In other words, it’s retarded to try to write into P&S that I need to put up all the window screens in the back porch. Uh, yeah? They’re in the basement, which you saw. I highly recommend you learn how to install a window screen. It takes about thirty seconds. One of the onerous responsibilities of home ownership.

(*note: Yes, they are actually entering into a world of misery when they discover the neighbor they have acquired. I recognize this evens things out a little in the long run.)

Meanwhile, the apartment search has commenced. Swami and I hoofed through six units this last weekend, some of which were pretty nice, and some of which were atrocious. Nothing as spectacular as cheetah wallpaper, but definitely some head-scratching moments. Like, why does this attic bedroom have a sink in it? Just parked against a wall, minding its own business? Very weird.

But never mind the informative details, I’m in rant mode here. As I look over potential places to live, and fight with these buyers over astonishingly small amounts of money, I am struck over and over again how this whole damn situation was shoved up my ass without warning. Two years ago, as you read on this very blog, I spent quite a bit of time and thought choosing the place we bought to live. Checked out the neighbors, sucked up to a seller who was a total douchebag, made a full-price offer. And I got a place that was great. And then I lived as if I cared about the people around me, because dammit I actually do. And also because I do expect that kindness in return. Meanwhile, Fate took a huge crap on my head and I get the following: metric assloads of batshit craziness from my new neighbor, leading to me getting a sinking feeling in my stomach every time I turn onto the street on my way home from somewhere; a huge financial hit from selling a house that’s lost about 15% of its value since we bought; prospective apartments that are farther from work, farther from various conveniences, in poorer condition, lacking some of the amenities I have now, or some combination of all of that. It sucks. Sucks. Sucks.

For a while I tried not to let it bother me, tried to be fatalistic. But I’m just overwhelmed with a bitter combination of outrage and self-pity. And my neighbor has the gall to whine to me in voice mails about how miserable she is because of what this has all been like for her. Oh, fuck that. I feel no pity for someone who isn’t even aware of the misery she causes others, even those who have tried to do right by her. And maybe in some other life she will come to learn of her responsibility for her own unhappiness. I sincerely hope so. And once I manage to pry the black claws of her fucked-up-ness from around my life, I might even be able to forgive her for what’s happened, since she’s obviously a person too damaged or stupid or senile to grasp the reality she’s made. But fuck, I am not feeling particularly charitable right now.

Well, that does it for now. It did take a little weight off me, so perhaps there is some catharsis to be had in shouting out to the faceless void. And some day this will all be a bizarre chapter in my past that I can joke about. When will that be, exactly?

Recipe: Linguine with broccoli and sausage

In the midst of my very dire winter doldrums comes this dish that Swami and I make all the time. It’s relatively fast and relatively healthy, and might briefly make you forget your troubles. Especially if you drink some of the wine while you’re cooking!

- 6 oz. uncooked pasta (linguine works best)
- 2 tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil
- 2 or 3 dashes crushed red pepper flakes
- 1 tbsp. minced fresh garlic (4-5 cloves)
- 2 c. broccolini or broccoli, cut into bite-sized pieces
- 2 plum tomatoes, cored, seeded and diced (optional)
- approx. 8 oz., or half a package, of fully-cooked chicken sausage or chorizo, halved lengthwise and cut into 1/2-inch slices (I’ve been using these)
- salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
- dry white wine, such as Pinot Grigio, Albariño, or Orvieto
- good-quality Parmesan cheese (for pity’s sake, don’t use the crap in the green can!)

Timing: Start boiling the water for the pasta before you begin prep. If you use linguine, the pasta takes about the same amount of time to cook as the sauce, so once you throw the pasta into the boiling water, you should start cooking.

Heat olive oil and red pepper flakes in a large, deep-sided pan over medium heat 1 minute. Reduce heat slightly and add garlic; stir 1 minute. Add broccoli(ni) and saute 4 min. (I usually add the salt and black pepper at this point.) Add tomatoes and saute 1 min. Add sausage and saute everything 3 more min. Deglaze pan with 1/2 cup to 1 cup of the white wine. You don’t want much sauce for this; add just enough wine to cover the bottom of the pan. Increase heat and simmer everything 2 min. Check seasoning and add more salt and pepper as needed. Sometime during this phase the pasta should be done; drain well and dump pasta into sauce. Toss to coat, then serve with lots of Parmesan.

Serves 2.

By the way, there’s no need to stint on the quality of your Parmesan. Just buy a big wedge, cut off what you need for the night, and throw the rest into a freezer bag and keep frozen. When you know you’re going to use it, put it in the fridge in the morning. It lasts forever this way.

Enjoy!

Inauguration Day

What a pleasure it was to watch Dubya’s helicopter flying away from Washington. It’s time to scrub off the grime of the last eight years and get to work finding what has been lost, rebuilding what has been destroyed, righting what has been upset, and healing what has been harmed.

Ah, damn

Last night we were stymied in our attempt to see Slumdog Millionaire—the lines for tickets were waaay too long, I guess because of Notorious or somesuch, so we decided to hit dinner instead at the most delectable Rod Dee 2. Well, imagine the shock when we came upon its location on Peterborough St. The whole row of buildings that had once been a bunch of cool restaurants had burned down! Here’s the Globe story; here’s the Herald; here’s a blog post where in the comments many people mourn the loss of all those joints.

It’s really a drag, not even so much for us, since we went there maybe a few times a year, but for the neighborhood, which was made special by all that life packed into the narrow streets of the Fenway. But I really, really hope that I find Pad Ka Na somewhere that was as good as Rod Dee’s. Salty, spicy, with lots of Chinese broccoli…mmm. I did just learn that a third Rod Dee location appeared recently near Washington Square in Brookline, so now it’s imperative to check it out.

Once again life reminds us that things never freaking stay the same.

Batting practice

Well, during this long week off (not long enough, actually!), there’s been just a little bit of time spent playing Halo 3 online. Just a little bit. I figured out how to take screenshots, so here are a couple. You can either shake your head and wonder what the heck this silliness is all about, or if you’re kaskasero you can feel incredibly jealous!

In the first one, I am actually missing the target of my gravity hammer strike, but the ensuing effect was cool so I took a pic of it.


In the second one, well, this is what happens when you actually make contact. Whammmm!

Recap 2008

It’s getting down to the wire here in 2008, isn’t it? Somehow a final taking of stock seems appropriate.

Miles bicycled: 915.98

Minutes of tennis played: 6,949

Appallingly short list of movies seen in the theater:
There Will Be Blood
Iron Man
W.
Valkyrie

2009 movies that hopefully won’t suck:
X-Men Origins: Wolverine
Watchmen
Star Trek

Presidential elections pwned: 1

Purchases reflecting my deeply conflicted nature:
New MacBook laptop
Xbox 360

Other things I want to see in 2009:
My house sell
Gilbert Arenas playing basketball
Another Crowded House album
Continued improvement in my Halo 3 multiplayer kill/death ratio

And of course:
World peace.

Hello

Whoops, I promised myself I would keep up the blog, yet here I’ve been lax for all of December. Here’s a photograph of a chandelier made of shattered plates that I saw at MOMA in New York over Thanksgiving, as a gesture of apology.


Tomorrow we head to the family holiday festivities. Wish me luck. Otherwise, no news to report: no offers on the house, no more crazy neighbor encounters, no decent weather for cycling, nothing going on but the daily slog. I promise the next post will be more interesting. :)

Review: Robyn Hitchcock at the Somerville Theatre

In a break from my personal housing crisis, the Swami and I saw Robyn Hitchcock last Friday in Somerville. We first saw him with the Egyptians in Columbus back in 1993, and I remember that show being awesome. Next, after moving here in 2000 we saw him with Grant Lee Phillips at the Middle East, where they screwed around with a lot of cover songs, including an infamous rendition of “Kung Fu Fighting.” Also thoroughly enjoyable, of course. So when I saw he was coming by again, I immediately bought some tix.

What I didn’t realize until the day of was that Robyn was traveling to a few cities across the US performing the entirety of I Often Dream of Trains, his second solo album from 1984. Now, this is where I reveal that I must not actually be much of a fan, because despite this album being legendary among the knowing, I’d never heard it at all. But what it meant was that I got a very cool opportunity to listen to an album for the first time, played live.

Well, it was fantastic. I mean, you have to take Robyn with a grain of salt sometimes, because he has a love for surrealism that often pushes his lyrics right past reasonable into the downright silly. But the music, the music always makes up for it by being absolutely beautiful, or catchy, or some diabolical combination of both. And with two sidemen that play just about everything except drums, you get a very fluid and multilayered sound that can fill a room without puncturing your eardrums. It’s like a chamber orchestra for the slightly insane.

For visual aid, I can direct the curious to a random guy’s Flickr page, where he took some pics of the event. You can even see Robyn in the polka-dot shirt holding the polka-dot guitar, which is somewhere between totally cool and extremely dorky.

Finally, a word of hurrah to the Somerville Theatre. They’ve more than taken up the slack since Avalon disappeared. Granted, I think GA venues like Avalon tend to stir up more energy in both bands and audiences, but there was always a huge downside of drunk assholes screaming inane nonsense to each other at the bars, an annoying person constantly elbowing you in the back, and an annoying girl in front of you constantly flipping her hair in your face. There’s something to be said for the better behaved types who come to Somerville. Also, how weird is it that you can get popcorn and Twizzlers at a rock show? Hey, not weird if they’re playing movies in the room next door.

Way beyond belief

One of the reasons I’ve been quiet on the blog is that some things have been happening that are a little too painful to describe. Also, even in the relative anonymity of this forum, I’m still a little squirrely about giving details about what’s been happening.

So what the heck has been going on? It turns out that our new neighbor downstairs, who moved in less than two months ago, is completely nuts. She’s been nothing but impossible to deal with since before day one. Thanks to a couple of misunderstandings on her part, she now refuses to speak to the Swami at all and is convinced that our primary life goal is to make her miserable. She has demanded that we make a bunch of stuff right with the condo and is threatening us with all kinds of legal action. Some of the stuff is work that she promised to do the legwork for, but is now something she’s angry about us not doing. She’s also claiming that we are refusing to reimburse her for some work that she shouldn’t have done without asking us first. The problem there is that we’d be happy to pay her, but she doesn’t seem to realize that she has to actually give us an amount first! The whole situation is completely crazy. She’ll go for two weeks not speaking to us, and then tape eight-page handwritten notes full of looniness to our door threatening all kinds of stuff.

So we have made the decision to put our house on the market and get an apartment. We just met with our broker last night and got things rolling. I am really torn up about it—I love our place and I can’t believe someone else is pushing me out, especially now when the real estate market has gone very soft. We’re offering it for about 11% less than we paid. Fortunately we’ve been paying the mortgage down fairly aggressively, so even that low price won’t leave us under water. But the whole situation is just awful. I absolutely cannot believe that my housing went from being absolutely perfect, with great neighbors, to this clusterfuck in less than two years.

This weekend is the first open house, and probably our first attempt at looking at apartments for rent. We’re definitely not going to buy a new place right now, partly because we don’t really want a single family house, and partly because we just don’t want the hassle. Also, the truth is, we can rent a place for about the same amount as our mortgage and not have to worry about things like repairs or whether the lawn looks like crap. And there’s no damn way I’m ever buying a condo again. It’s just not a good idea to tie your living situation to somebody else, and too impossible to trust that your neighbors will always be reasonable. Maybe some people are unfazed by dealing with irrational people, but it has been absolute hell for us. I can’t rule out any behavior by this woman, and I can’t live my life tiptoeing around somebody batshit. And definitely not someone who has such a vendetta against Swami. Does it make any goddamn sense for one trustee in a condo to refuse to speak to another? How is that a constructive way to live your life?

So now I have two worries: First, I’m worried that we won’t get a
buyer before the holidays start up. If that happens then we’ll have to try again in January. And second, I won’t be able to relax at all until I start seeing some apartments that I want to live in. Right now I am about to jump, and I still haven’t seen where I might land.

I just hope that someday this woman comes to face the fact that she has brought misery to us, people who did her some kindnesses and didn’t wish anything bad for her. I know the world doesn’t work that way. Actually, what I really want is just to live in peace. Until we unload this place, I don’t think that’s going to happen.

Almost too true to be funny

The Onion nails it.

President Obama

Yes we muthafuckin did.

Uncertain times

Recently it seems as though things are far less settled than usual, from the large-scale to the personal: the economy, politics, and a new (crazy) neighbor downstairs. I haven’t had much to say publicly on any of it the last few weeks, so it’s been a little quiet in blogtown. (For the neighbor story, even the purported anonymity of this blog doesn’t feel like enough cover for me to publish all the details; let me know if you would like the story emailed to you directly.)

In the midst of all this uncertainty I want to focus on the truly important things in life: the Swami, music, cycling, tennis, friends. And I would like to wish for the following things to increase in this world: rationality, humility, compassion. Those are commodities that seem to be in short supply.

Voice of reason

I’ve been trying to think of how to write a blog post about the election without it just being a litany of all the ways I hate John McCain. Although if you would like a semibiased source for many reasons why you might want to vote against him, this article in Rolling Stone might be for you. Anyway, as I was listening to him say a bunch of inflammatory shit in the debate last night, I found myself listening not to what he was saying, but to his voice.

Something I’ve noticed since the first debate is the soft, wavering quality to his voice. Now, the human voice is a pretty complicated instrument, with a lot of different physical structures influencing the final product. This is why it is often easy to recognize individual people by voice. And according to various scholarly studies, it is generally also easy for people to guess a speaker’s age and sex based on voice alone. A lot of it has to do with F0, which is the fundamental frequency of a voice. This interesting article talks about the average frequency of male, female, and child voices, for example.

But back to McCain. More than anything he reminds me of two other people: one is a ninety-year-old retired professor who often calls me when he can’t figure out what his computer or printer is doing. And the other is Grandpa Simpson. All three speak with a wavering, higher-pitched tone that I can’t help but associate with the feeble befuddlement of extreme old age. (According to that interesting article I cited in the previous paragraph, what I’m hearing is variation in F0 that exceeds the norm.) McCain’s voice gave me this impression especially strongly in the second debate, when he was trying to play all nice-nice in the town hall setting with the “my friends” stuff. When he went for that softer, less belligerent tone, it projected even more of the confused-old-guy vibe. Never mind his policy proposals; I think that he’s also kind of screwed because of his voice. His aggressive tone, which we heard plenty of last night, comes off as whiny and crotchety, and his softer tone suggests that he needs us to help him find his glasses.

I think the quality of a person’s voice is one of those things that actually has a strong influence on other people’s impressions, on a subconscious level. It’s probably one of the reasons why Palin was such an effective injection of energy for McCain’s campaign, since she could probably outshout a football stadium full of people. Strength of voice is clearly an indicator of age, and with that comes an impression of a person’s vitality. And it’s yet another reason why McCain bugs the crap out of me.

Electioneering

As promised, we did go canvassing for Obama in New Hampshire yesterday, and as promised, I’m here to tell you about it. First, the facts. We went to the local democratic party office about 9 a.m., got driving directions for where to go in NH, and then picked up a couple of people who needed rides. It turned out the directions were really crappy, but we did make it to the destination at about 11. From there we were handed packets that contained a short script with talking points (more on them later) and a list of names and addresses to go to in a neighboring town. More crappy directions later, we ended up finding the target neighborhood at maybe 11:30. We split up into two groups and started looking for addresses.

Let me add a little more about the name and address list. Each entry was for a particular person at a particular address, with information like age and party affiliation listed. Then, to the right of that info was a space to circle how your encounter went: not home or refused to talk; supports Obama or McCain or is undecided, etc. It turned out that a lot of the information was incorrect; I remember one particular time we knocked on a door expecting a 65-year-old woman to answer, but the person that answered to her name was more like 30! Either that or she was in fantastic shape. She should give McCain some tips.

The goal of the whole deal was not to actually persuade anyone of anything, but just to gather information about how people were leaning in the election. So if you met a McCain supporter, you just thanked him for his time and moved on—no arguing or any of that. On the other hand, if you met someone who was truly undecided, you were supposed to engage him on the talking points and kind of talk up how Obama would address whatever issue he was worried about. For people already in Obama’s camp, you tried to get email addresses or drum up interest in volunteering. In this fashion we tramped to about 50 addresses and talked to maybe ten actual people.

Now, I should hijack my own recollections and get to the real point of my post: Canvassing was incredibly nerve-wracking and pretty much left me feeling as though I’d been beaten for several hours. I have just about zero talent for chatting with total strangers and am not too great at thinking on my feet when it comes to talking about politics. Hell, I kind of dislike people in general and would be thoroughly annoyed if someone knocked on my door and tried to chat me up about Obama. In other words, I think I’m just about the worst possible person to go canvassing. I was petrified we would actually encounter someone who was undecided, because I felt like I had no ability to make a good impression. In the end, we ended up encountering only committed voters, so that didn’t come up, but it always took a giant dose of courage to push each doorbell.

We got through our list of addresses at around 2, and headed back to the NH office where we’d started. I have to let out a little whine here and mention that I had just about no food or water for the whole time, which probably added to the difficulty of the whole thing. The rational part of me recognizes that it makes a difference just to take the time to walk through someone’s neighborhood and to be a friendly face for the campaign, but the less adult part of me had a supremely miserable time and wonders if I could actually gather the strength to do it again. I mean, now that I have some experience it would probably be a less fearful exercise, but did I mention how miserable it was? Agggh.

Anyway, I am glad I did it. Although it truly was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. For the first time, I’ve been contributing to the effort to get my candidate elected, and that is important. On the other hand, have I mentioned how easy it is to go on the website and donate some money?

Back to the surface

As you can see by the date, it’s been a bad month for the blog, with a bunch of crap at work and other things getting in the way. But there is some good news to report, mostly on the sporting front. First, I’ve been taking my singles tennis league by storm. I started out 1-1 but have won my last five matches, and just qualified for the playoffs. All the matches have been a lot of fun and very competitive, which is a nice change from what I was experiencing in the doubles leagues the last two summers. Unfortunately, Swami has been suffering in his singles league, which is super frustrating. For the upcoming indoor season we’re signed up for a doubles clinic with the local pro, and I’m excited about that. I haven’t had formal tennis instruction since a class I took in college back in like 1988. The only difficulty I foresee is if my reflexive dislike of authority comes to the surface, heh.

In other news we did the Hub on Wheels charity ride again this year. This time we did the longest course of about 47 miles, which was only the fourth time I’ve ridden more than 40 miles. And I played tennis matches on the days before and after, which proves that I am now certifiably insane. But the ride was a blast, as usual! It’s getting to be very popular: last year I think there were about 3,000 cyclists, and this year it seemed even bigger. They’ve managed to move nearly the entire route to roads rather than bike paths, too, which is really awesome. My only disappointment is that we were supposed to hook up with some people from a Meetup, but got there too late to find anybody. We’ve been trying to get into the Meetup scene now that most of our friends have moved out of town, but it’s been a slow process. I have to say, Yankee standoffishness is kind of frustrating to me now that I’m short on local friends. Of course, it doesn’t help that I’m a standoffish Yankee myself, does it?

This coming weekend I think we’re going to go to New Hampshire to canvass for Obama/Biden. I’ll let you know how that goes; it’ll be the first time I’ve ever hit the pavement for a politician. Given my dislike of chatting up strangers, I’m not sure it will turn out well! But this election has me feeling like I’d better do something, rather than just sit around worrying.

Speechless

I don’t think I have it in me to get into a really detailed discussion of recent events about the election, but I do have a couple of things to get off my chest.

It all comes down to just one question: are these people kidding me? The Republican Party, the one that’s bursting full of people over the age of 50 who bemoan the crassness of today’s culture, has a VP candidate whose family life looks like the plot of a bad reality show. You’re telling me that the people who shrieked and freaked at the whole Monica Lewinsky debacle are totally cool with Palin’s teenage daughter getting knocked up and forced into marriage with a self-admitted douchebag? Cool with the idea that Palin, whose daughter is going through what is probably one of the more traumatic scenarios an adolescent can imagine, has seized upon it as the perfect opportunity to reaffirm her political stance on abortion? And her speech last night, what little of it I could watch—is she running for host of the Tonight Show or vice president? Cracking jokes and bashing a man who is worthy of respect whether you want him to be president or not? Give me a break. Her speech was all about the usual Republican haterade, delivered in the kind of vapid content-free style that you get out of the Cosmo you’re stuck reading while waiting for a haircut. “Ten Reasons We Think You Should Dump Obama!”

What a fucking joke. And “joke” is the operative word. Who’s responsible for turning discussion of political issues in this country from substantive debate to an idiotic junior-high-school popularity contest? Not the goddamn Democrats. Jesus. After the last eight years and this kind of nonsense, does anybody think the current crop of Republicans has any ability to govern?