At Women Making Music camp last weekend, we were forbidden from talking about the “three Es,” the Environment, the Economy, and the Election. It was actually a welcome respite, but of course there was rebellion as well, in the form of a skit Saturday night featuring parodies with most of the words starting with E, etc. This morning I handed out Democratic slate flyers from 7:00 to 9:00 in front of the Berkeley subway station, along with a guy with Sierra club recommendations (essentially the same) and a bunch of women with “No on 4” t-shirts handing out flyers and stickers. No on 4 was included on our slates as well--this is a truly awful proposition on the California ballot requiring parental permission for women and girls younger than 18 to get an abortion, and unfortunately the polls have it a close race. The song running through my head while I stood there was one we sang at the WoMaMu weekend, “Swimming to the Other Side” by Pat Humphries. A whole lot of people had already voted. I always get an absentee ballot in case I’m not here, but when I am, I like to walk it in, both to take part in the ritual and because our local polling place is staffed with people I know. On my way to the BART station this morning I saw a line of about twenty waiting for the polls to open, but by 9:30 there was no line. Claudia took the day off to hand out “No on 8” stuff (Proposition 8 would make same-sex marriage illegal again here). She also took the No on 8 training to help out in case of problems at polling places (they want lawyers for this job and she used to be one) so she is on call all day for that. We went to Albuquerque in 2004 where she did the same, and I was the gofer. And we did find problems. Tonight 7:30 to 10:00 we’ll be at writing workshop, but we’ll all be watching the TV during our twenty-minute break. We’re all for Obama, but even if that’s decided by then we’ll be watching the state and local races, props 4 and 8 and also 2, which would give farm animals a modicum of protection against the worst abuses.  The above silliness is from my favorite site, icanhascheezburger.com, which cheers me up on my gloomiest days. ©2008 by Nancy Schimmel http://www.womamu.org/http://www.npr.org/programs/atc/features/2002/may/humphries/http://emmasrevolution.com/http://icanhascheezburger.com/shapeimage_2_link_0shapeimage_2_link_1shapeimage_2_link_2shapeimage_2_link_3
My friend Kris raised a lot of money for Obama taking people’s pictures “with” him at various events, including Masse’s bakery in North Berkeley which is now featuring US- shaped cookies frosted in blue.
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
HAVE YOU VOTED YET?