Thank You America

Dear America,

Finally.

Finally we have overcome so many hurdles, so many years of pain, so many years of suffering, of ignorance.  Finally we have opened our eyes and see not in color, but in competence.  We see abilities, we see potential, and we can finally see past race.  We have finally chosen someone who deals not in fear, but in hope.  We have finally chosen change.

Thank you for helping Barack Obama to win this election.  Thank you for restoring not only my faith, but the faith of most of the country, if not the world in the America’s humanity.  After eight years of George W. Bush, thank you for turning the tables and calling for us to seize our place on the world stage again not as a war monger, but as a bringer of stability, and of peace.

My dad was watching the results pour in and commented “I didn’t think I’d actually live to see this.”  I don’t think I thought I would see it either, and if I did, I thought I would have been much older.  This is a testament to the power of the youth, in part, but also a testament to the changing views of the country.  We are fast becoming a country that cares less about the superficial, and that’s a very encouraging sign.  No amount of smear tactics, no amount of false rumors could derail us from our goal: change for the better.

This is not to deny that John McCain was a good candidate, but unfortunately he just wasn’t right for this time and wasn’t right for our country’s needs as they stand now.

Change is here, change is finally here. 

Love,

Saroj

“Aww First Timer”

No, no dear I’m not a first timer.  I voted once for president by absentee ballot, this is my first presidential election voting in a voting booth.  I’m just having trouble with the stupid curtain, thank you very much.

It’s some surprise that we haven’t all upgraded to newer, sleeker voting machines.  Instead, we here in my hometown are stuck with voting machines Noah must have used to punch his ballot.  Seriously…it’s kind of silly.  But otherwise, I had a mercifully short voting experience.  The line was oh…five minutes.  Thank goodness for multiple polling locations in one town, and even funnier that we’re a pretty small town.  I think I may have killed myself otherwise.

The other source of amusement: how a lot of people were looking at me like “holy crap, it’s one of them young, non-white ones!”  The rest of the people voting (at least when I went) probably were an average age of 50…plus or minus ten years.  All were white, except one guy signing in voters and one woman who I think was a voting official.  Welcome to my world.

I’m surprised at how Republican my little corner of New York is.  New York, though, always goes blue and the same will be the case today.  So I’m not too worried.  It’s just the rest of the country I’m worried about.  While I feel bad pushing my views on other people, I think here it’s ok to be a little pushy.  All you people who live in Ohio, Virginia, Colorado, Florida, and Pennsylvania…PLEASE VOTE FOR OBAMA.  Ultimately the choice is yours, I’m just helping you make that choice. 

Let’s hope for change today, change for the better, a change for a brighter future.

For now, I want to go to one of those election parties!  To quote from my brother “today feels like Christmas!”  I swear he meant it jokingly.

Why the Youth (Especially) Needs to Vote

It looks like most of us are pretty riled up now, but just in case the point(s) isn’t perfectly clear, here’s why we need to get the vote out.

This election REALLY matters.

Ok…they said it last time.  Remember?  When John Kerry ran against Dubya.  That race really mattered too…needless to say, the nation collectively dropped the ball.  So we embarked on another four years of neo-conservative, country-destroying policies that have borne their poisonous fruit.  The economy is tanking, education is tanking, healthcare is tanking, everything…is…tanking.

How does that affect me, you may ask.  Let me put it in terms to which we can probably better relate.

The dollar is losing value, so your plans to backpack across Europe after college?  Not as cheap as you may think.  That trip to the Caribbean will probably cost you a bit more than you’d like.  Don’t even get me started on air travel.  Oh and that pretty Prada bag?  That’s an Italian import, expect a higher pricetag on that. Same for Armani, Gucci, etc.

Are you on par with students from other countries in the areas of math and science.  Probably not.  Why?  Blame Dubya’s “No Child Left Behind.”  While the intentions are good (increase passing rates) it also dumbs down the curriculum so far that everything is just watered down to its basics.  So you say you want to go to college to further your understanding of some topic of interest?  That’s fantastic.  Expect the price of a decent education to take off like a rocket, and those loans you were going to take out?  Yeah expect it to get harder to get a loan, and expect it to get harder to pay it off once you have your framed, shiny degree (or degrees).

Well now that you can vote, you can also probably buy your own health insurance right?  Most health insurance companies make some sort of allowance for full-time students over the age of 18 to continue to stay on their parents’ plan until some age (usually 25).  That’s assuming, of course, you can afford to be a full-time student.  If you can’t, well then you’ll need to find a job that provides healthcare benefits.  That is, of course, if you can find a job.  Finding a job in this economy is about as easy as finding a needle in a haystack.  Now imagine finding that needle with about a thousand other people clamoring to find it as well.  Best of luck.

Don’t expect to be able to buy a home anytime soon.  We are probably going to end up a society of renters…until the housing market is somehow, treated…if not cured.

Half our products are being produced abroad, where the regulations are much more lax.  Hooray for melamine!  Unless you like your food and merchandise with a side of profound neurotoxicity and painful kidney stones, we need to find a way to bring production back to the U.S.  Otherwise, expect really high medical bills…since getting affordable health insurance will be pretty hard.

Ok, but cars are better right?  Sure, I have a soft corner for imports.  Yet the question is…why can’t we get the same quality in the U.S.?  Ford, GMC, Chevrolet (for the most part) are still clunky and noisy even though they are cheaper.  They are lacking the smooth appeal in function and appearance that their foreign cousins seem to have as a default.  Let’s try to change that.

Gay rights need to come now.  Let’s stop living in a world that frowns on (at the very least) basic civil liberties for gay couples, while gladly contributing to the juggernaut that is the porn industry.  Seriously…does anyone else not see the irony here?

I could probably go on…and on…and on.  But we, as youth, generally have the attention span of small rodents.  So I’ll stop.

Please vote tomorrow.  I’m not telling you to vote for any specific candidate.  I’m telling you to vote for the candidate that can save our future.  I’m telling you to think long and hard about each candidate’s stance, and decide which candidate brings the most promising plan to the table.  We will be the ones inheriting most of the mistakes of the last administration, not our parents (though they will also be affected).  We are the ones that need to assure that, at the very least, our children will not have to deal with the same dilemma.

Please…go out tomorrow (November 4th, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise) and vote.  Polling centers, to my understanding, are open from 6AM-9PM.  Bring your iPod, bring a book, bring something to kill the time because lines will be long but they will be worth it.

Let’s hope this election yields a better future for us, and our country.

Another Cartoon…

This one deals with those fruit fly comments Sarah Palin made not too long ago…

Drosophila Revisited…A Fantastic Article in Slate…

Christopher Hitchens basically took what I wanted to say and put it in a wonderfully biting and eloquent article that really hits the nail on the head.  Bravo!

http://slate.com/id/2203120

Granted This is Only an Estimate…

According to Yahoo! News, here are the projected electoral vote counts for each candidate:

Projected Electoral Votes

Obama seems to be doing all right for himself.  The red boxes are courtesy of me, and MS Paint…just to make the numbers a bit clearer. 

Nonetheless this isn’t indicative of his going to win or not, but it’s a reassuring sign, nontheless.

Guess What? Alaskans Ain’t Too Fond of Palin Either

Thank you Preeta for bringing this to my attention:

http://www.adn.com/opinion/story/567867.html

While there is, not surprisingly, a lot of state pride with Sarah Palin’s ascension to the national political stage, most do see that she is not yet qualified to hold national office.  They also see that McCain is not quite the maverick he used to be, and has sold out to the neo-con constituency of his party.  While they are proud of their home-grown governor, they see that the McCain-Palin ticket may not be what this country needs.  Obama brings with him not only the clear foresight and logic to lead this country, but a “steady hand,” not a trigger finger.

Boredom is Such an Awful Disease…

Walt Handelsman, I am not, but I like doodling…especially in this election season.

Comments would be welcome.