ok i suck

ok i havent done the nevada post yet, so sue me

here is something to tide me over

Boom De Yada

I promise ill do the Nevada thing next... but heres one more little present (I cant get this out of my head and i hope i curse you all with it as well)

An Apology for Our Insensitivity

So I am back from Nevada and the trip was amazing. I will give a massive update on the weekend as i procrastinate thesis work. Until then, let me tide you over with a Quest (Reed college newspaper) written by your truly (and an anonymous contributor) back in '06. This piece originates from a small scandle that was centered around me and the others at the Cool Ass Shirt Kollective after my vision of creating 'Gay Zombies Love Man Meat' shirts was realized. While there was a direct response to the criticisms made by Oren Elrad the president of CASK, I thought that the attacks on the shirt had a valid point, and below is my apology.

We at the Cool Ass Shirt Kollective [CASK] would like to extend a formal apology for any offense that our most recent shirt might have caused you. Upon further consideration, the slogan written upon said shirt, "Gay Zombies Love Man-Meat," was indeed insensitive and did not adequately consider the complex issues that surround depictions of this group in our modern world. Future shirts will be suitably altered to reflect our error, but for now we would like to use the rest of the space provided to convey to you all that the CASK understands the unique challenges that you, the Zombies, face today.

While most people can go through their lives confident that they will be treated fairly and as equals in academia and in the workplace, Zombies cannot. And though none of the members of CASK can count themselves amongst the ranks of the walking dead, we understand how difficult it must be to be a Zombie in day to day life. Though none of us have ever had to face down the indignity of being repeatedly shot by a 12-gauge double-barreled Remington shotgun with a walnut stock, cobalt blue steel, and a hair trigger, (Available exclusively from S-Mart for 109.95: Shop Smart, Shop S-Mart) while trying to enter the grocery store, you can rest assured that whenever someone unloads buckshot into you, your bullet holes will wound our spirits just as they do your decaying flesh. Sure, we can all take for granted that we can nod our heads in agreement without worry of one of our eyes falling out, but nonetheless we understand your dilemma and will always be there to lend an eyepatch or pair of sunglasses, whichever better matches the mangled rags you're wearing. And we'd be fools to think that the dietary restrictions some of Jewish or Vegan members abide by could even hold a candle to the difficulties of finding a steady supply of tender human flesh. And perhaps more trivially, we can understand how frustrating it must be to shop for a deodorant that adequately masks the overpowering stench of death. We suggest "Ocean Surf," or for the ladies amongst you, "Lilac Breeze," although we remind you that your unique aroma is as God, your thesis advisor, or whatever Voodoo curse or genetically engineered plague made you and that you should bear it with pride.

It is all too easy to focus on the struggles Zombies face while ignoring the lessons that we can learn from them. When we first penned "Gay Zombies Love Man-Meat," we intended it as an Unlife-affirming reminder of one of the passions of the Zombie community. It is clear from the furor that has resulted that this slogan, though certainly true, failed to convey the flexibility and open-mindedness of the shambling dead. Most people will go through life shackled with the ability to love only one type of meat, cruelly prevented by their instincts and cultural traditions from exploring the pleasures that the other type might provide. Zombies, on the other hand, have broken free of the bonds of gender and have embraced a pan-cannibalistic world view that treats ALL humans as equally savory. And so while it is true that "Gay Zombies Love Man-Meat," to ignore their love of Woman-Meat does a great disservice to their enlightened culture of equality. Perhaps a better shirt would have borne the slogan "All Zombies Love All Meat," but alas, hindsight is always 20-20.

When asked about the shirt, recently made thesis zombie, Michael Salk responded, tersely, “Braaaaaaains [sic]” showing obvious offence at the lack of intellectual credit attributed to those of the `differently living', and the living-centric, over-rationalized discourse of hegemonic phallogo-materialism.

We at CASK dream of future where such misunderstandings never happen and humans and Zombies can live in peaceful coexistence. And though our present society has yet to cast away its prejudices like the medieval relics that they are, you can always count on us to think of you not as unholy, disgusting monsters but rather as unholy, disgusting friends. So the next time you're swarming out of a small town graveyard or being shipped to Iraq so we can get out before the midterm elections, think of us at CASK and know that we're on your side. True, as you lamented, "PC" may be dead at Reed. We can only hope that our words will pave the way to a Reed College where death is seen as just another way of living.

Ive got a crush on Sarah Silverman

The Great Schlep from The Great Schlep on Vimeo.

Regent Rigmarole

For those of you who dont know, UBC has several theological schools attached to it. These include Corpus Christy, Vancouver School of Theology, and Regent College. Regent has an extremely large American student population, so was the site of our most recent voter registration drive. Now a school of theology might not seem to be the best Obama recruiting ground, and if this were in the United States, that might even be true. However the theologians here for the most part have a very progressive outlook, and as I was surprised to find out, don't vote on their faith. This came as a slight disappointment, as I spent a few hours last night reading up on Obama's view on faith, as well as the details of Palin's anachronistic interpretation of Paul, and McCain's overly simplistic view of Christianity. We got our foot in the door from one of our members, James (as shown with his beautiful and patriotic daughter), who was working the election booth for the Regent first year representatives next to us. This was my seventh day tabling for the Obama campaign, and I can say without a doubt that this was by far the busiest I have seen it. In a period of about one hour, we had over 25 people register. In total we registered 32 people, almost all of them either leaning towards Obama, or (far more often) extremely excited to vote for him. For most of the time, it was so busy that we actually had to expand to nearby tables, which I claimed in the typical way recognized by international law; by placing an American flag on them. There was one unfortunate moment, when someone came who was quite irate that we had an Obama banner across our table. Apparently he was under the impression that voter registration had to be completely non partisan. However, by that point the table was so crowded that people couldn't actually see it anyhow, so I saw no harm in taking it down.

Ending on the typical happy note that I like to, I now get to introduce to you all the first two UBC Obamanauts, two wonderful women that will be accompanying me to Las Vegas next week to help campaign for Obama, Bridget (left), and Julia (right). I figure I should let them do it in their own words, so without further delay here they are;

Hi, my name is Julia Hoffman, I am 19 years old, and a second year at UBC. I plan to be a geography major, in the new environmental sustainability BA program (a mixture of environmental and humanistic/political geography). I'm from Santa Fe, NM. One of my main concerns is global warming and the environment. Considering the United States emits about 25 percent of the world greenhouse gases, despite being only 5 percent of the world population, things really need to change, and fast. Aside from agreeing with just about everything that Barack Obama stands for, I'm particularly passionate about his policies to reduce our dependency on foreign oil and other Co2(+)-emitting energy sources that cause air pollution and global warming. Studying and living in Canada, I feel isolated from the hustle and bustle going on this election season. I believe that this is a crucial election which could define the way in which the United States is viewed by the rest of the world as well as the course of action in the environment, and I want to help in any way that I can. I recently heard (and don't quote me on this) that those who are only now registering to vote plan to vote for Obama. If that's the case then I plan to register as many people as I possibly can in the short time that I'll be campaigning.

Hi, my name is Bridget Ehrman-Solberg and I am a 19 year old second year student at UBC interested in studying International Relations. I was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota and continued to live there until the end of high school. Having grown up throughout the Clinton years, I felt and saw the transition into the Bush administration. I am thoroughly fed up with how our country has negatively changed internationally and in our own economy. Barack Obama sends a message of positive change that I believe will allow our country to meet its full potential both at home and on an international level. I am excited to say that this will be the first election that I will cast a vote, not only because I know have a voice that can be heard but because of who I get to vote for.

Clubs Day #1

Today was the beginning of Club Days at UBC, and I have to admit, I have been having a nice big mental countdown for it. The Yanks Anonymous (and unofficially UBC for Change) table was placed in the ballroom. We have been put in the 'political room' with a bunch of really cool neighbors. Right next to us is the Radical Beer Faction, which remind me of a wonderful hybrid of Reed College's quasi communist organization the Reed Kommunal Shit Kollective, and the nationalistic Beer Nation. Across from us (kind of) was the Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights group. I will be the first to admit that i do not agree with this group on many (any) things. I find that a large part of their message ignores many of the facts of the Israel/Palestine conflict. These disagreements aside, I would like to commend one of their members, my friend Omar Badi-us Zaman who is one of those rare people who is able to honestly listen to what another person is saying, even if he disagrees, a skill that I often wish I was stronger in. Next to them was the Spartacus student group, to UBC socialist/communist group aka a bunch of raging loonies. These are a group of people who among other things, support Iran's 'right' to nuclear weapons, criticize the Dhali Lama as an imperialist tool, and believe amnesty international is part of some international capitalist conspiracy. I realized while having a conversation with one of them how hard it is to have a discussion when you have absolutely no common ground to begin with. Also nearby were my friends at the Israel Awareness table. It takes a lot of guts for them to do what they do on a Canadian campus, I should know, I have spent the past two years of clubs days sitting there having to deal with the people who have issues with the state of Israel. It was nice to see Paul Curran, Freeman Poritz, and Corey Lerman kickin some tail in debates in many a forum.


The Yanks Anonymous table was pretty fun, as always there was a lot of enthusiasm for Barak Obama. Billy made some awesome new shirts that are going for 20 bucks (they are American apparel and really cool) and you should buy one NOW. I did get to have a wonderful conversation with two women from Washington about why they should vote for Obama. I found that they really didnt respond well to talking about how crazy Palin was, but instead liked they liked how I talked about the inspiration that the Obama campaign has given me, and that his administration will fail without us willing to make contributions to society.

Barack Obama released an amazing video today, and I encourage you all to watch it

Saturday after the fact

I continued my work with newly inspired vigor on Saturday at English Bay to where I was registering voters. I worked with Paul who I had met on Thursday and Amy who is not American, but a big fan of Barack Obama. The day was nowhere near as busy as Thursday, we only registered 15 people, but I got to demo my new fundraising gimmick: Change for Change. We raised about 100 dollars for the trip to Nevada which considering how slow it was, was quite a bit.

The day was quite different from Thursday at UBC. Thursday at UBC was a constantly busy, with a lot of traffic and tons of and tons of Americans needing to register. Saturday on the other hand had relatively low traffic, but spending a sunny day on the beach was anything but a waste. We had a lot of people register, many were first time voters, a lot of whom did not even know they could vote. A shout out to my buddy Tito, whose father turns out (i did not know this) to be from Georgia. The downside was I got to see for the first time a real ugly side to Canadians. I was completely taken back by how some people reacted. When asked "Excuse me, are you by chance an American citizen?" I received more "I hate Americans" than "Why yes, I am". I am not sure why there is so much hatred towards the American people in Vancouver, but I found it quite saddening.

Finaly, on a happy note, Tina is back on SNL with what will probably go down as one of the greatest skits of all time

Nevada begins

Its always nice when you can announce something amazing that you are going to do on your blog, however it appears that I have been scooped on my own story. Last thursday I met Paul Z., a really cool fellow Obama supporter. We were tabling together most of the day for the Democrats Abroad at UBC and we registered almost 100 people to vote for November, it was an amazing experience. He told me how he was going to spend the next two months in Colorado campaigning for Barack Obama and I was inspired. While I wish I could go on a two month adventure like Paul, I decided that day to do my part to help change America. During the day, it came to me to try and organize a trip for American students in British Columbia, many who I am sure feel as guilty as I do for not being able to help much with the campaign, to travel to the swing state of Nevada to volunteer with the Obama campaign.

The state of Nevada has a voter registration deadline of October 6th, meaning the days leading up to that deadline will be extremly frantic. The Obama campaign is in desperate need of volunteers for that time to get out and help rock the vote. My goal is to bring atleast 10 students from UBC, Simon Fraser, and UVic to Las Vegas from October 2nd to October 7th to help with the final push. The logistics are daunting. In the next 17 days, I have to find as many students as I can who can commit to coming, as well as raise as much money as I can to help subsidize the trip. The cost looks like it will be around $350 per person, but I would like to make it under $100, and free to those who need it. I will be posting periodic updates to how this quest is going, and I will need all the luck I can get

Barbara Walters Throws Down

Today on what is typically an 'easy' interview with the ladies of the view, John McCain got blindsided by Barbara Walters, one of the best interviewers in the game. She pressed him on Sarah Palin asking him how exactly she would change washington, being that it wouldnt be the economy or housing. When he responded by saying the democrats, the republicans, and even the independents, Barbara asked "How? What will she do? What is she going to reform specifically, senator?". He answered by talking about how she cut earmarks to her state, and sold off the airplane on EBay during which, Walters interrupted saying "She sold the airplane at a loss".

I guess what this means is we wont be seeing Palin on the view any time soon

Palin joke

Q: Whats the difference between Sarah Palin and a pitbull?
A: A pitbull only needs to be euthinized if they bite someone

I love this man

All Kinds of Awesome

Sexism in 08

In the 2008 election, sexism will play a major issue, just not in the way thought. The attempt by John McCain to attract the female vote from dissinfranchised Clinton supporters is a shallow ploy. Governor Pilan is the ideological opposite of Senator Clinton, whose beliefs include a hardcore pro-life agenda, gun support that would make Charlton Heston smile from the great beyond (she supports legalizing assault weapons and armour piercing bullets), is extremly cozy with big oil, and is a 'global warming skeptic' meaning that she does not believe that humankind is not responsible in anyway for climate change, and this is all I know of her so far. But that is not the real shame of this. Within the Republican ranks there are qualified women with experience, including Secretary of State Condi Rice and the extremly qualified, and one time presidential candidate, Elizabeth Dole (a further list can be found here). But all of that is not what is really sexist... the sexist part is that it might work.

McStorm

All over the news today, there has been talk about John McCain heading down south the help with storm preparations. How much help will a 72 year old senator be in a disaster zone? Its not like he could really help with sandbagging. If he wanted to really help, he would be on phone doing everything he could as a senator from a distance far enough away where he (and the large entourage that follows a presidential candidate) will not will not be using up state resources and hotel space that are most likely desperatly needed elsewhere. The last thing that is needed is another cowboy president

McCain abandons the jewish vote

McCain has picked a relatively unknown for his veep, Sarah Palin. Due to her relative newness on the national scene, there is very little known about her, other than her strong beliefs in guns and Jesus, and frightening lack of belief in global warming. These should be enough to unite most people from center-right to far left against McCain, but i believe that it will have the effect of pushing an unexpected swing voter against McCain. Before I discuss Palin however, lets go criticize Barak Obama
Barak Obama has had a lot of trouble shoring up the traditionally liberal Jewish geriatric vote. This has been due to a mix of his links to Reverend Wright's neo-activist anti-Israel stance, the false links to the Muslim community, and questions about the origins of his Israel policy (one of his top advisers on the subject of the middle east supported the authors responsible for the book "The Israel Lobby", a controvertial book against the American Israel lobby). Furthermore, McCain's apparent pro-Israel stance, combined with his close friendship to senator Lieberman, the darling of Jews over 50, has put this key group of voters on the light red category. While most states with a significant Jewish population, such as New York and California, are dark blue, Florida, a state with over 750 000, mostly elderly, Jews has been a key battleground state since 2000.
So now we get to Sarah Palin, who it was recently revealed was a supporter of Pat Buchanan. A recently found 1999 AP article linking her to Buchanan's ill fated far right independent presidential campaigns reported

"Pat Buchanan brought his conservative message of a smaller government and an America First foreign policy to Fairbanks and Wasilla on Friday as he continued a campaign swing through Alaska. Buchanan's strong message championing states rights resonated with the roughly 85 people gathered for an Interior Republican luncheon in Fairbanks. … Among those sporting Buchanan buttons were Wasilla Mayor Sarah Palin and state Sen. Jerry Ward, R-Anchorage."

Now, Pat Buchanan is not what one would call an open minded enlightened individual. A better description of him would be a closed minded fear mongering bigot. He has publicly dismissed the deaths of thousands of Jews at Treblinka due to monoxide poisoning saying "Diesel engines do not emit enough carbon monoxide to kill anybody" (New Republic, 10/22/90). Furthermore Mr. Buchanan was crafted with crafting President Reagans infamous soundbite that the SS soldiers buried at Bitburg were "victims just as surely as the victims in the concentration camps." (New York Times, 5/16/85; New Republic, 1/22/96). Ironically, Buchanan's view of the Israel lobby is the same as the fringe left as The Israel Lobby's authors John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt when he referred to Washington DC as "Israel occupied territory" (St. Louis Post Dispatch, 10/20/90). His record of anti-semitism has earned him his own quotes page on the Anti-Definition League's website.
Her endorsement of Buchanan has worried many due to his links to anti-semitism raising suspicion of her own beliefs. I dont believe she subscribes to any belifes that extreme despite evidence to the contrary. Even still, this shows that the issue of anti-semitism is not one that she finds important and the selection of her that this brings into question about the real priorities of John McCain. By selecting a Buchananite he is blatantly saying that the Jewish vote does not matter, and that despite his rhetoric, the security of the state of Israel is not one of his priorities. If the Obama campaign brings light to Palin's anti-semitic links, and McCain's apparent indifference towards them, this could easily swing the elderly Jewish vote of Florida, swinging the state back to blue.
Earlier on I mentioned Obama's policy link to the authors of The Israel Lobby, a book which he took an aggressive stance against himself. This view is now linked to the McCain campaign through Governor Palin's support of Buchanan. I believe we must see a serious apology from the Governor for her endorsement of Pat Buchanan, as well as receive an outline of her support for democracy in the middle east, recognition of the horrors of the Holocaust, and refutation of all of Buchanan's other bigoted and extreme beliefs.

O mama obama

im a little late with my praises for obama after the fact
but if i may be so pedestrian to say daaaaamn, that boy got game. I know this has been worked to death, but i just wanted to get my praise in for it before i get going on my long angry rant against McCains awful choice of vp, being that i believe that it is important to say a nice thing in the morning before one gets all violent...
serenity now, serenity now...

Bill Kills

Ok, all doubting is over, the clintons are back onside, and boy am i excited.
First though i have to say loved the choice of music for clintons entrance
"dont stop thinking about tomorrow... ...yesterdays gone, yesterdays gone"
now i know it was his 1992 campaign song, but it is kinda funny in current context
not that he really needed it cause got some bad news for the elephant in the room, slick willy is back

He started off quickly, by saying 'first I am here to support Barak Obama' and from there it was as my dad put it, to the stars. Bill was the old bill, charming, gracious, the rockstar that we knew and loved back in the 90's.
On the issues he makes it clear: the US is in trouble both domestically and internationally. He manages to weave these two ideas into a convincing narrative explaining his support for Barak Obama. He spares no attempt to show that Obama's policies are superior to the republican alternative.
I loved the speech, he came out with some new nuanced pro obama arguments, not just forced regurgitation of the party line. Among other things, he talked about how the not as bad bush (clinton knows a lot about good bush) accused him of being inexperienced, and he turned out pretty damn decent. While the press had suggested that he might make this argument, his 'domination argument' was out of the blue.
The thesis of this argument is that the most damage that had been done was due to the fact that from 2000-2006 (it was actually in 2002 when the democrats lost the senate, but he states 2000) the republicans held control of the legislative and executive branch for the first time in more than 40 years. This means that this was the first time that the republicans had been allowed to push through their agenda without compromising on any level. This is the first time I have heard this argument given at such a high level to attack Republican policy, and I hope they continue it.

PUMAMA

Party Unity My Ass My Ass
seriously, these people need to grow up and move on. I understand they feel bad, they lost, obama's campaign won. But its as if they are letting the person go above the issues. I feel that I really need to put up something more substantial because these guys and gals need to grow up.

republicans swing and miss pt 2

I love watching the republican pundits, they dont look like real people. Instead of the stepford wives, its like the stepford party. They are all shiny and smiley and when a fact exists that they dont like, they just ignore it.

republicans swing and miss

so tucker bounds was first up on larry king tonight. He was attempting to refute Montana Governor Brian Schweitzers attacks on McCain on alternative energy by saying that he was talking about one vote against a bush energy plan. However, while McCain may say that he is for alternative energy, there is very little about wind power in his energy plan according to factcheck.org
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/wind_power_puffery.html

Dennis Prager (right wing radio host), is going after clintons speech for him seeing her as saying that government will take care of everything. Obviously he did not hear her speech, where her thesis seemed to be that no matter who you are, or where you come from, if you work hard, your talent will take you as far as you can go

talking head butt

Hillary Rosen, the director for the Huffington Post, democratic strategist, and CNN contributor just had a little slip saying
"no matter what your doing you need to get it together and vote for John McCain if you care about energy and middle class tax cuts and jobs and healthcare and getting out of the war in Iraq"

Knowing the McCain camp, this might be their next campaign add

Welcome

Welcome to the Not Quite So Divine Comedy,
Here we will eventually blog about all things, but it seems that due to the time we start this, it will begin as a political blog. I hope that this blog can be maintained, because I am pretty damn lazy. But who knows, if we get some readers, I might just have the motivation required
DK