cluck cluck cluck. 4 more days!

Yes, that is a chicken. Or a hen. I'm not sure which. Either way, we were both late for work today.

climate: sunny, high 40's
shoes: snakeskin print flats
ipod: elton john
vote Obama and not the GOP because: small businesses. I work at a small business. I support my local small businesses. Maybe someday I'll own a small business. Shop at the Gap? A small business built that store. Drop some bills in the mail? A small business keeps the post office clean, and the mailboxes painted blue. It takes small businesses to make big businesses. We all interact with small businesses everyday, even if we don't realize it- and that's what keeps our economy going! But small businesses are really suffering in this economy. Rotating credit and loans are hard to get. Health care costs are rising for the employers that want to do the right thing and provide it. Construction has alway been an indicator of the economic and business health, and I can tell you that right now, construction has come to a screeching halt. Obama proposes to provide small businesses with tax breaks and access to low or no interest loans. This will help keep businesses in business until all the King's horses and all the King's men can figure out how to put Humpty Dumpty back together again. Oh, McCain has a plan, too. I read it, and its only seems to apply to big corporations. Maybe McCain's definition of "small business" is like his definition of middle class; anyone that makes less than $5 mil.

the countdown: 5

I love love love this print by Shepard Fairey. And guess what?! He was in town this week! So if you're bumming around town this weekend, keep your eye out for his work.

climate: sunny, low 40's
shoes: burgundy sneaks
ipod: I just remembered to plug it in before I left this morning.
vote Obama and not the GOP because: its time to move on. You might think that I hate McCain, but I actually don't. His tax policy is not going to help the few of us out there that make less than $500,000, and his health care plan is going to make prescriptions cost even more, and health care hard to get for anyone that has something worse than the sniffles, but I don't hate the guy. Its hard not to feel a tug at the heartstrings when he talks about being a POW. He's the underdog, and he really is trying hard to separate himself from the current disastrous republican regime. After losing to Bush for the nomination in the last elections he even came this close to switching parties! But its time to move on. Its time to put the Vietnam War behind us. Important things happened in our country then, I know. Civil rights happened. Legendary protests happened. Hippies happened! But that was my parent's fight, not my fight. And while I have respect for that fight, its time for our country to look to the future, not dwell in the past. John McCain has experience, and I'm not denying that. I mean, how can he not, he's old! But Obama has more relevant experience. Obama has experience with inner city Chicago, Iraq, Wall Street, our mortgage crisis, lack of health care, lack of jobs, rising energy costs, our failing environment, our failing economy. He understands the problems our country is facing right now. And not because he's seen them before, or because he's watching them happen. Its because he's young. He's going through them with us. He's experiencing them right now, too. And I just don't think John McCain is. McCain is not trying to raise a family in this mess. McCain is not concerned about his retirement, he's already retired! And McCain is not worried about how his investments will do in 20 years. Because in 20 years McCain will be 91. But Obama will only be 66. So vote for Obama because he is not just fighting for my 25-55 check box, he's also fighting for himself- and I think that will make him fight harder.

dunce!

A car wearing a dunce cap. Perhaps its being punished for not being fuel efficient? Or perhaps just a friendly Halloween prank. I guess not everything has to be analyzed into a social issue.

climate: sunny, mid 40's
shoes: brown flats
ipod: forgot to charge that battery again
vote Obama and not the GOP because: socialism. Lets just get a few things straight. First, click here for the definition of socialism. Second, click here for a more in depth explanation of the same concept. Okay, did you read any of those? Yeah, me neither. But I know what socialism is, basically. And so does Obama. So when Obama made a comment about "spreading the wealth around", that was just an aside about his tax plan, and why he feels its better to give people with smaller incomes larger tax cuts. That's all it was- just that one comment! Never has he claimed to be, or want to become, a socialist. If that was the case, I think he would run on the socialist ticket like Gloria La Riva is doing, but he's not- he's on the democratic ticket. So now that that's cleared up, lets look at who does have a little socialist experience. Hmm, lets see here, how about...oh, WOW!! Its Sarah Palin!! And there's a fantastic article in the New Yorker about it. Here's a recap, because I know clicking all these links is a pain: Alaska doesn't have income tax or sales tax. They pay for their government services by charging oil companies, using the money they need, and giving the rest to the residents of Alaska.

A few weeks before she was nominated for Vice-President, she told a visiting journalist—Philip Gourevitch, of this magazine—that “we’re set up, unlike other states in the union, where it’s collectively Alaskans own the resources. So we share in the wealth when the development of these resources occurs.”

Okay, so am I saying this is a bad thing? No, I don't think its a bad thing. Its obviously working out well for the Alaskans! The problem is that SP is getting on her soap box and crooning to the media about how Obama-is-a-socialist-and-its-horrible-and-we're-all-going-to-suffer-now. But really, she's the one with an active socialist type policy. If she really thought it was so evil, she wouldn't be doing it, right? So which is it, SP? Is socialism bad or good? I'm just throwing this out there, but I'm thinking that she doesn't really know. And someone that doesn't know about their own method of creating wealth- is that someone we want in the white house? No. No, its not.
P.S. Hi Norm and Liz!!

just a little off

If I'm interpreting this correctly, and I think I am, someone put the telephone pole in the wrong spot. No problem, except this is in front of a new house, and now its in the middle of the new driveway. Oops.

climate: sunny, high 50's
shoes: burgundy sneaks
ipod: dead battery
vote Obama and not the GOP because: Colin Powell. Even the republicans are doing it! Former Secretary of State, and a republican, Colin Powell has decided to endorse Obama becuase he feels that the republican party is running a negative campaign and it has slid too much to the right. So even though I'll admit that my last post was a little rant-y, Colin and I are on the same page about this negative campaigning crap. And he's way more famous than me, so if you don't want to hear it from me, listen to ole' CP.

tubby

There's two things we can learn from this sign:
1. Don't cheat the system. The system being that you should either donate your clothes to a charity, or hold a yard sale- even if you are giving the items away for free. But if you leave them in 'tubs' on the sidewalk you should clearly not be surprised if the tubs disappear, even if you did leave a sign. I mean, c'mon. Really? What did you think was going to happen? Someone who wanted free clothing was going to walk around with their own tub, looking for random vats of clothing on the sidewalk? Did you think about how they would get their new goods home? No. You didn't. You were so obsessed with how great you are for putting free clothes out and not having to schlep to the Salvation Army, that you really didn't think about the receiver of the clothes at all, even though you're trying to pretend like you did. But lets just be honest. You were being selfish. You wanted that crap out of your basement, and you didn't want to take the trouble to drive to donate them. So they took your tubs? Serves you right.
Oh, and the other thing we can learn from this sign? It really is worth the time to pencil that text out to ensure the spacing looks good. If you had done that, you wouldn't have those little mini words on angles, and you wouldn't have the crappy lowercase afterthought in the lower right corner. I didn't take your tubs, but if I did, that sign certainly wouldn't convince me to return them. I'd just leave them on the street with a sign for free tubs.

climate: sunny, low 40's
shoes: burgundy sneaks
ipod: elton john
vote obama and not the gop because: fear.* Look, I'm sure I'm not telling you anything you didn't already know, but Obama is not a terrorist. But for some reason the republican party has members that don't believe that. So Sarah Pukin' Palin is running around in circles yelling at the top of her lungs "who IS Barak Obama?? WHO IS HE?? We've only had the past 21+ months to get to know him! We should know who he associates with!" Well, let me help you out here, SP. But, let me start by asking: Who the fuck are YOU? No one had ever even heard of you until McCain plucked you out of the snow as a mercy measure to beg for women's votes. (And by the way, it didn't work because anyone that would vote for her just because she's a woman, would not have voted for Obama anyway. And anyone that would vote for her because of her experience and background, well, how about you just sit on the couch that Tuesday? We'll all be better off if you do.) But lets get back to the issue. So Obama sat a school board with a guy that has a shady background. Let me say that again. Obama sat on a school board with a guy who has a shady background. Did you get that? No, not the shady background part. The school board part! Obama was on a school board! Hey SP, have you ever been on a school board? No? What? There's only one school where you come from, and they don't have a board? Oh. I'm going to break this down for ya, SP. You see, Obama has done stuff. And when you do stuff, you meet people. All kinds of people, and that's a good thing. Once I took a tour of the Harvard Medical Research Labs and I met Dr. Hubel, a nobel prize winner. Really nice guy, but the point is that you don't know anyone with shady backgrounds (except your own family) because YOU HAVEN'T DONE ANYTHING! But now that you're running for VP, you've met a lot of people, and I'm willing to bet that a lot of them have super shady backgrounds. I can tell because they go on national television and accuse an honest citizen of these Unites States, who also happens to be running for president, of being a terrorist! And that is just ridiculous. These are the people you represent? These are your supporters? Well, well, well. Now who has the shady associations?
*I got the idea for this blog from my friend's friend's blog, so I should give her the credit.

presidente!

I liked this sign I saw in a window this morning. Something about that extra "e" just makes it sound so much more exuberant. Presidente!

climate: overcast, high 50's
shoes: silver flats
ipod: Beatles
vote Obama and not the GOP because: words. McCain has something against the use of words, which makes me think he should maybe just learn sign language. There's actually an excellent New Yorker article about this. He's said it before, and he said it again last night:

"Well, you know, I admire so much Sen. Obama's eloquence. And you really have to pay attention to words."

And because my sarcasm detector started beeping frantically, I was aware that McCain was actually making fun of Obama's eloquence. Now this is something that came up in all the Bush elections. Bush was advertising himself as a 'regular guy' just like me. And Palin has tried to convince us that she's a 'regular mom', also just like me. (I'm not a guy or a mom, (or a white trash mom) but anyway...) The point is that for some reason this is appealing and reassuring to the everyday people, but it shouldn't be! Our president needs to be someone above ordinary. Our president needs to be a strong thinker, a strong speaker, and someone that won't embarrass our country when meeting with other leaders. Our president needs to be intelligent and eloquent. McCain making fun of Obama's vocabulary, eloquence, or education is like a kid on a playground making fun of another kid- its a defense mechanism help him feel better about his lack of these qualities. And being defensive about a lack of self confidence is definitely not a presidential quality. I mean, what's he going to do at a dinner with members of the United Nations? Make fun of their accents and clothing? Yes, that will get our country well endeared to do business with foreign countries. Actually, no, no it won't. So unless you're cool with the president sitting at the kids table throwing bread instead of assisting in decisions that affect our global welfare, don't vote for the insecure kid. Don't vote for the everyday guy that you can relate to. Vote for the person that has the intellect to do the job.

being mindful

I thought this was witty.

climate: sunny, low 60's
shoes: blue and grey flips
ipod: rolling stones
vote obama and not the GOP because: energy safety. Lets talk about nuclear (pronounced new-clee-her). During that last debate McCrafty said:

Now, how -- what's -- what's the best way of fixing it? Nuclear power. Sen. Obama says that it has to be safe or disposable or something like that. Look, I -- I was on Navy ships that had nuclear power plants. Nuclear power is safe, and it's clean, and it creates hundreds of thousands of jobs. And -- and I know that we can reprocess the spent nuclear fuel. The Japanese, the British, the French do it. And we can do it, too. Sen. Obama has opposed that.

I would like you to focus your attention on the italicized sentence, "safe or disposable, or something like that." What? Wait- is he making light of Obama's desire to ensure that nuclear power should be safe? I think he is! I sense sarcasm! You know, that's nothing to poo-poo about. He's old enough to remember Three Mile Island, where a nuclear reactor melted and released enough radon into the environment that the soil still to this day has excessively high amounts of radon and is considered a brown-field site by the EPA. And I should hope he can also recall a little thing the Soviet Union went through called Chernobyl, where an entire city had to be evacuated due to the nuclear fallout. And I KNOW Palin knows where that is because she's so close to Russia!
Is nuclear power a bad thing? No! It could actually be a good thing, and both candidates recognize that. But McCain's clear distaste for government regulations could lead to lax safety precautions and next thing you know, we all have cancer. And if you follow this blog, you'll recall that with McCain's health care reform proposal, we can't afford cancer. And a nuclear blow out would surely melt our popsicles.
Oh, and one last thing about nuclear power. Its big. Really really big. A nuclear power plant would need a lot of space to house all the cooling ponds and crap. And you know where they have space? (Cue soundtrack to Oklahoma). The midwest. So to all you republicans out there in the red midwest states, think about it because voting for McCancer could be voting for an unsafe nuclear power plant in your backyard.

pennies on the dollar

Look at these artfully arranged pennies on a window sill on Mass Ave. Coincidentally this is also the current value of my 401k! (Get it? COIN-cidentally!? HA!!) Alright, alright. Lets get down to business.

climate: sunny, low 50's
shoes: gray and blue sneaks
ipod: none, my cabbie kept yapping in a different language on a cell phone.

vote obama and not the GOP because: health care. Right now insurance policy costs are market driven, which might seem like a good thing, but what I'm paying for at this competitive price is a basic health coverage plan. But when I get cancer, all of the sudden my costs will skyrocket because my basic plan doesn't cover all the additional cancer crap I have to deal with. So just shop around for a plan with better coverage, right? Wrong! No new plan will accept me because we all know I have cancer. I'm screwed! Obama's plan will force insurance companies to accept me regardless of my pre-existing conditions, so when I find out a different provider has a cheaper plan, my insurance provider will actually care that they're about to lose me as a customer. McCain's plan doesn't really talk about this issue. I read it. All it says is that he'll "Work With Governors To Find The Solutions Necessary To Ensure Those With Pre-Existing Conditions Are Able To Easily Access Care." (Did that really need caps on each word, JM? No. No, it didn't.) So anyway, he doesn't say what kind of care, he doesn't say I get to chose my care, he doesn't say much of anything. And when I have cancer, and my plan has a co-pay of $75 per chemo shot, but a different plan offers $25 for the same delicious chemo cocktail, will I be able to switch? Well, I don't know! It doesn't say! And really, is that the time to find out about this crap? When I've got an IV in my arm and all my friends are trying to make me eat popsicles? No. This is the time to enjoy my friends and my popsicles, not think about my co-pay.
McMaverick does say that he'll give me $2500 in tax credits to pick a provider different than what my boss offers. Great! Except when I quit my last job, COBRA was $300/ mo, and that's the cheapo plan. So if the cheapo plan is $3600 a year, $2500 isn't going to get me much. Maybe it will buy me a wig and some popsicles. But I don't even need a wig, because I can't afford that chemo anyway! I will be left with expensive cancer and $2500 worth of popsicles.

indecision

Looks like someone must have changed their minds. But that's okay because it at least means they're thinking about this election.
I've never 'themed' this blog, but I think October will be Obama month. I will be on the look out for Obama everywhere. I will be all Obama, all the time. I will give you a good reason to vote for Obama and a good reason to NOT vote for McCain with every post. Enjoy!

climate: overcast, high 50's
shoes: brown and pink sneaks
ipod: lauryn hill
vote for Obama and not the GOP because: taxes. Obama is proposing tax cuts that will give you a 2.4% decrease if you make $50k. The other white meat is offering a decrease as well, of 0.7%. Also, if you're freakin' loaded and make a lovely 2.7 mil, Obama is going to charge ya an additional 11.4%. No biggie, its only about $300k. Pocket change! BUT if you make the big bucks, you're going to make even more off The Pork. 4.4% more. lucky you. Can I have some? I can barely afford my generic toothpaste as it is now.

danger!

There's a lot to watch out for now that Harvard Square is continuously under construction. There's the complex traffic patterns that most drivers don't adhere to anyway. There's the bikers that know what they're doing and are not afraid to run you over. There's the myriad of tourists wondering how to get to "Harvard". There's the students that don't realize that Harvard Square is not an exclusive extension of their dorm rooms. And now I have to watch out for hippie crossings? Per order of Capt. Commando? This is just too much!

climate: sunny, low 50's
shoes: brown and pink sneaks
ipod: The Band

bee girl

Cut through Central Square this morning, and the Metro lady was dressed like a bee. There you have it.

climate: overcast, mid 60's
shoes: black kitten heels
ipod: Blind Melon (get it? ha!!)