[I feel compelled to remind us all that the ongoing election season content caveat applies here: nothing directly relating to lesbians or children or lesbians' children appears below, except that we all ostensibly live in a democracy, whether vital or compromised or, as I often tend to think so many things are, a little bit of both.

I know, I know: no one comes here first for election news.  You come here probably hoping I'm fixated on something other than the upcoming elections, for once.  But through the dense underbrush of my deadline-driven work, my feeble LD hope these weeks is a two-parter: (1) that regular LD readers will return after Nov 4, if the one or two piano keys being banged here begin to grate on the nerves, and (2) of those that do keep coming back,  maybe somebody will find something they might pass on to someone else they know, (or that they do to someone they know).  My fond hope is that one tidbit of information can be the thing that tips the tipping point.  Or maybe it's not info at all; it's that one morsel of lesbian family love, and it puts a human face -- yeah, my children's faces -- on the abstract issue of gay marriage for them (ever so relevant in AZ, AK, CA, and FL in about a month from now).]

Our dilligent Electoral-vote.com Votemaster, Andrew Tannenbaum (who?), has posted this today, and I feel all citizeney (that would be as opposed to “maverickey”) about clipping it and posting it here:

…even if you think you are registered, you may not be. Unbeknownst to them, thousands of people have been purged from the voter rolls. Project Vote lists the names and addresses of purged voters in Colorado, Florida, Indiana, Missouri, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Texas (so far). If you live in one of these states, check the list TODAY to see if you have been purged and also check for friends, relatives, and neighbors.

For weeks, I (along with many of you, I’m sure) have been reading dreary articles about attempts (by anyone but Republicans?) to foil voter registration.  Intrepid, democracy-loving journalist Laura Flanders asks the question:

From reading tests to ID challenges, felon disenfranchisement laws and the endless purging of voter rolls the U.S. is almost alone among industrial world democracies in having no uniform federal voting law. WHY IS THAT?

Then she gathered a bunch of really smart people to attempt to answer it.  

If that ain’t enough, here, Robert Kennedy, Jr. shows a little of the stuff many of us wished we saw more of on the national stage, getting fired up about stolen votes:

His project, with Greg Palast: STEAL BACK YOUR VOTE.  Check out their downloadable comic book-style voter guide, whose subtitle is: “Six Ways They’re Stealing the Election — and the Seven Ways You Can Steal It Back.”  Especially fabulous for the first national election voting set.

Yep.  Because the only thing worse than waking up to a November 5th with Proposition 8 passed and McCain/Palin elected would be to wake up with the deja-vu all over again feeling that, gosh, the polls right before the election sure did lead me to believe that we were going to win!  Huh!  WTF just happened?

Anyone in the mood for a smelly blast from the past can review RFK, Jr.’s “Was the 2004 Election Stolen,” which ran in Rolling Stone, June 1 2006.  Like your citations thick n’ heavy?  (Or perhaps, got a skeptical friend?)  Well he’s got 208 of them.  (Citations, that is; not skeptical friends.)  You know.  To help erase the doubt that it can’t happen here.

Of course all this drama is dramatic only if one has actually hauled their arse to the polling place (or to one’s absentee or by-mail ballot) to actually vote.  And I think we all know, don’t we, that we residents of the US of A do this at a rate lower than nearly every voting citizen in every free voting country except Poland.  Tied for second-to-last (only 54% of us bother) out of 37 noted here at Wikipedia’s Voter Turnout page. Highest turnout, where voting isn’t compulsory?  Malta!  At 94%!  Go, Malta!

 I’m sure you’re registered, and going to vote.  But how ’bout pass the info on to someone you know who you think might not be registered.

Below are state-by-state deadlines, with links to state registration info, thanks to the USA Today article that Professor Tannenbaum hepped me to, “Both parties target voter registration, turnout.” Please don’t just take my word for it, though, or USA Today’s: check out the info for your state.  And US citizens abroad: here you go.

Alabama, Oct. 24 

Alaska, Oct. 5 [may also register on Election Day]  

Arizona, Oct. 6 (TODAY) 

Arkansas, Oct. 6 (TODAY) 

California, Oct. 20 

Colorado, Oct. 6 (TODAY)

Connecticut, Oct. 28

Delaware, Oct. 11

District of Columbia, Oct. 6 (TODAY)

Florida, Oct. 6 (TODAY)

Georgia, Oct. 6 (TODAY)

Hawaii, Oct. 6 (TODAY)

Idaho, Oct. 10 (this Friday) [may also register on Election Day] 

Illinois, Oct. 7 (TOMORROW) 

Indiana, Oct. 6 (TODAY) 

Iowa, Oct. 25 [may also register on Election Day] 

Kansas, Oct. 20 

Kentucky, Oct. 6 (TODAY)

Louisiana, Oct. 6 (TODAY)

Maine, Oct. 14 [may also register on Election Day] 

Maryland, Oct. 14 

Massachusetts, Oct. 15 

Michigan, Oct. 6 (TODAY) 

Minnesota, Oct. 14 [may also register on Election Day]

Mississippi, Oct. 6 (TODAY)

Missouri, Oct. 8 (this Wednesday)

Montana, Oct. 6 (TODAY)  [may also register on Election Day] 

Nebraska, Oct. 24

Nevada, Oct. 1

New Hampshire, Oct. 25  [may also register on Election Day]  

New Jersey, Oct. 14

New Mexico, Oct. 7 (TOMORROW) 

New York, Oct. 10 (this Friday) 

North Carolina, Oct. 10 (this Friday) 

North Dakota, Oct. 28 

Ohio, Oct. 6 (TODAY)

Oklahoma, Oct. 10 (this Friday) 

Oregon, Oct. 14 

Pennsylvania, Oct. 6 (TODAY) 

Rhode Island, Oct. 4  [may also register on Election Day] 

South Carolina, Oct. 4 

South Dakota, Oct. 20 

Tennessee, Oct. 6 (TODAY) 

Texas, Oct. 6 (TODAY) 

Utah, Oct. 6 (TODAY)

Vermont, Oct. 29 

Virginia, Oct. 6 (TODAY) 

Washington, Oct. 4 

West Virginia, Oct. 14

Wisconsin, Oct. 15  [may also register on Election Day] 

Wyoming, Oct. 6 (TODAY)  [may also register on Election Day] 

Imaginary bird, Berkeley, CA.

A tiny nuthatch hopped around our front porch and clung to the wisteria vines for a few minutes this afternoon.  She wished it would hop in our house through the open door, and become our pet.  I convinced her it was just as good for the wee thing to fly free outside and maybe just become our friend instead.  She commenced a detailed imaginative scenario in which she was asleep in my lap, and awoke to my telling her a tiny bird had joined our family.  

From Aden Nak, courtesy Tagen Goddard. Though it’s also on DailyKos.

The chart is prefaced by a cathartic rant/critique which, while it suffers from an unfortunate dip in rhetorical grace in the opening ¶, courtesy a ripple of unchecked misogyny, is peppered with some interesting insights and a nice Supreme Court case run-down.

For those of us scratching our heads and wondering what the hell just happened, and/or those of us who spent the vice presidential debate last night yelling at the TV time & again that “That wasn’t an answer! That was yet another meaningless cliché!” this does a tidy job of summing it up.

* [Addenda in the comments.]

Talkin’ about the economy, talkin’ about national presidential politics, talkin’ about Baba’s state of mind. Not like you needed to have this spelled out, but menopause + the current economic and political drama = wild toggling between Baba’s paired impulses to either FREAK OUT! or CALM DOWN!

Since I’m still in Work Deadline Lockdown for at least another week, I’ll flesh out the meager content here with a YouTube video whose title matches part of the post title.  (”It was weeks and weeks of Prop 8 harangues and infernal YouTube videos! I couldn’t wait ’til election day and she started to post proper essays on a range of topics again, like a normal person!”).

The infernal YouTube video below is the 1984 glam metal song “Round and Round,” by Ratt. It has no more thematic connection to today’s post than Tuesday’s Sarah Silverman - “Great Schlepp” video had to Tuesday’s. Except you could focus on this one line in the song that’s kind of cheery, when construed to be prophetic about Obama’s election: “I knew right from the begining/ that you’d end up wining.”  

Polls do look to be leaning in that direction.  A national economy in the crapper sure seems to help.  But the jury’s still out on Prop 8; all’s we know is that the Mormon Church is pouring ark-loads of money into the battle, over a third of the Yes on 8 funding, if you believe them and the Wall Street Journal.  And Yes on 8 is still out-fundraising No on 8 at a rate of about 3:2.*  Which means, if the proposition wins, we may as well all just cut the middle man and have the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints re-vamp all the state’s laws to their liking.  Save a lot of money that way. No muss, no fuss.  Fundamentalism & church-state merging is all the rage anyhow, world-wide.  What’s the point in fighting it?

Either that, or my fellow citizens will vote their hearts, which have been steadily opening over the years, in spite of all the scare tactics malarkey.  (See?  You can take this whole post as Exhibit A in the case for Baba’s FREAK OUT/CALM DOWN vacillations.  I think we should all be glad I don’t have time to write for the blog as much this month.)

Now let’s whiplash back to the meaningless video, shall we?  If you really are about to watch this random glam metal early 80’s hit, do look out for Milton Berle’s double cameo as both disgruntled rich guy and disgruntled rich guy’s wife. I always thought he was the uncle of one of Ratt’s performers, but it turns out he was just the uncle of the band’s manager at the time. Thanks again, Wikipedia: the lazy researcher’s friend.

* [That's in spite of the BANK which the LD Love Train is sending into the fray.  Enough to buy one oar for the LDS ark.  We might not have reached the initial $5,000 goal yet, but we're still the BIGGEST CONTRIBUTOR among the grassroots No on 8 fundraising webpage folks.  Proud? You should be!] 

Everything, that is, but the assurance of legal recognition?

How ’bout a nice juicy donation to the No on Proposition 8 campaign?  It’s all the rage at California weddings this season.

And for good reason.  A donation goes with anything you’re wearing. It fits fine in your already crowded kitchen cabinets because it’s actually never going to go there anyway.  And both giver and receiver know it’s the right thing.  Hmm: material possession?  Or advancement in civil rights for friends, family, and neighbors?  Material posessions?  Or advancement in civil rights for friends, family, and neighbors?  Should be an easy decision.  I’ll go with None Are Free ‘Til All Are Free for $50, Bob.

Above: the donation table at the (3rd, hopefully final) wedding of the nice lesbian gals across the street. Wedding (1) was their own hitchin’, pre-2004; (2) their 2004 San Francisco wedding; and (3) Sunday’s beautiful event, at which their daughter tossed flower petals and clots of kids tucked into a fruit tart decorated to look like a rainbow-flag.  

Donations to the No on 8 campaign are especially useful now that the Yes on 8 ads have hit the airwaves, with predictable scare tactics and misinformation.  Like, your children will be forced to marry their same-sex chums in kindergarten if this thing passes.  Joy of Gay S*x on the required reading list of first graders. Stuff like that.  

I’m only kind of kidding.  Fear mongering and Your Children Are At Risk crapola will feature prominently.  The interests of children like OUR CHILDREN will be nonexistent.  They DO NOT FIT INTO THE NARRATIVE.

I would like to rebut that stuff with something more deft than a few exasperated ALL CAPS fits, but will have to table it for a future post. Today’s dittie will need to be short n’ sweet n’ lighter than air, since today is one of two major work deadlines for me lately, and congressional aides working on the financial markets meltdown got better sleep than me last night.  

But I do want to say HAPPY NEW YEAR for folks who are celebrating today (May you be inscribed in the Book of Life! Along with the words, President-elect Obama)!  Here’s a Tuesday, five weeks to the election YouTube link. Today, for novelty’s sake, not related to the same sex marriage issue.

If you’re looking for Rosh Hashana relevance, it is skimpy-to-nonexistent.  Sarah is asking for no forgiveness, acknowledging no sins, correcting no faults.  Just asking Jewish people with grandparents to get their arses to Florida and get out the (octogenarian) vote.  Consider her a new fruit you have not yet eaten.

Sarah Silverman’s The Great Schlep. 

 
The Great Schlep from The Great Schlep on Vimeo.

Late afternoon at the zoo, Oakland, CA.

Jiminey Crickets there’s a lot of drama in the news these days. Too much for me, who is a diagnosed Drama-Averse Personality. Given a choice between a cool-headed candidate and a drama queen, I will go for the cool head ten times out of ten. I have enough fun with drama queens at home, thank you very much.

And what do the kids do when the nation’s economy is going to pot? What they’ve been doing all along. Streaking around the house buck naked and giggling madly as they bury themselves in pink taffeta.

Which I think Rep. Barney Frank, Chair of the House Financial Services Committee, will have earned the right to do, after this whole financial market bailout package dealie is over.*

LD No on 8 Fundraising Updateage: Good news! Looks like we may all be yet again spared the public airing of my Senior High School graduation portrait after all! We got upwards of $600 to go by midnight tonight (regular readers will remember that I threatened to post said incriminating photograph if we met the $5,000 fundraising goal by the end of today, two weeks after we started).

Phsew! And thank you wonderful people for the four G’s so far! Yow!

* Double Entendre of the Week Award goes to Rep. Frank, who quipped to reporters, regarding McCain’s “suspension of campaign” and threat to no-show the Friday presidential debate:

It’s the longest Hail Mary pass in the history of either football or Marys.

Wink wink nudge nudge say no more say no more.

A print piece on Mayor Sanders’ press conference is here, from the San Diego Metro News. And Pam’s House Blend included the entire text of his statement in its coverage last year.  [Point of fact 1: He's a Republican.  Point of fact 2: He was re-elected after he took this stand.]

In recent more news: No on Prop 8 Ad Hits California Airwaves, reports Karen Ocamb at Bilerico (hat tip to Dana at Mombian).  Pam’s House Blend’s got coverage of it here: First No on Prop 8 Ad Hits Airwaves. Interesting conversation in the comment stream about what’s present & what’s absent in marriage equality ads, and why.

Also, yesterday, in  Black Voters Not to Blame if Proposition 8 Passes, at Bilerico,  Michael Crawford critiqued some of the underlying assumptions of a Saturday NY Times piece by Jesse McKinley, Same-Sex Marriage Ban is Tied to Obama Factor.

Finally, an LD No on 8 fundraising update:  WE’RE IN RANGE!  ONE MORE G-NOTE TO GO!!  If we get to $5,000 by the end of Thursday — two weeks from when we started — I promise I’ll, um, I’ll try to think up something special.  Before, for something or another (oh yeah!  the Lesbian Lifestyle Lesbo Blog of the Year thing!) I threatened to post my high school graduation photo, depicting yrs truly in full femme regalia if I won.  (Okay, partial regalia.  But long hair and make up, for sure.)  I’m trying to think of something that would be something special, you know, something you could only find here.  Not so sure the HS graduation photo would do more than rattle and alarm.  It has to be something modest, though, because things are still under Major Deadline in the Work Department these days.

At any rate, whenever we get to $5,000 — and we will!  yes we can! —  you can comfort yourself by knowing that the LD Love Train will have bankrolled that ad (or their next one, or whatever) four times on the Daily Show!  Er, okay, only twice in the  L.A. market.  Looks like we’re a cheap date up here in NorCal.

Here are the costs to run the No on 8 ads:

• $50: In a small TV market in Spanish
• $125:  During “Heroes,” in Palm Springs
• $500: During “Dr. Phil,” in San Diego
• $1,000 During the presidential debate, in Sacramento
• $2,500: Twice during  ”The Daily Show,” in San Francisco
• $5,000: Twice during “The Daily Show,” in Los Angeles

I know, I know. The economy is heading straight into the crapper faster than a college freshman’s umpteenth drink too many.  We’re all comrades now (who knew!  the Republican party and the titans of capitalism deliver us an estrogen-packin’ VP candidate and a socialist state, all in the same jam-packed one month period!  I so wasn’t expecting it!). And we got way bigger fish to fry than lipstick-wearing pigs.  

More important, that tempest-in-a-teapot is soooooo a week-and-a-half ago.  Soooooo pre-Wall Street implosion.  

Plus, the only lipstick I care about is what rubs off on me from my sweetie’s smooches.  Not that anyone asked.  

But!  It’s been such a nonstop No on 8 campaign over here at LD* that I thought I’d pass along a little levity to counterweight the gravity.  And who can resist George Saunders? From “My Gal,” in this week’s New Yorker:

…So, when Barack Obama says he will put some lipstick on my pig, I am, like, Are you calling me a pig? If so, thanks! Pigs are the most non-Élite of all barnyard animals. And also, if you put lipstick on my pig, do you know what the difference will be between that pig and a pit bull? I’ll tell you: a pit bull can easily kill a pig. And, as the pig dies, guess what the Hockey Mom is doing? Going to her car, putting on more lipstick, so that, upon returning, finding that pig dead, she once again looks identical to that pit bull, which, staying on mission, the two of them step over the dead pig, looking exactly like twins, except the pit bull is scratching his lower ass with one frantic leg, whereas the Hockey Mom is carrying an extra hockey stick in case Todd breaks his again. But both are going, like, Ha ha, where’s that dumb pig now? Dead, that’s who, and also: not a smidge of lipstick.
A lose-lose for the pig.
There’s a lesson in that, I think.

Now g’wan and read the whole thing. (And hasty readers alert: it goes to a second page!  So don’t go complaining that he just left the whole thing dangling, click the dang link to page 2!)

* …about which No on 8 fundraising, yow!  We just might make the goal, people! At $5 — a latte & a muffin, fer crikey’s sake! — we only need 239 more folks to chip in!  Okay, or how ’bout 30 to 50 high rollers? Are you sure you’ve talked this up to everyone you know?  And have they?  Do you feel like you can afford to wake up to a victorious Proposition 8 on November 5th, knowing you didn’t bust your ass on this?  Didn’t think so!

Tubular fun, Oakland, CA.