I’d like to respond briefly to comments to my TV Tonight post.

I’m just saying that I suspect the election was rigged, stolen, hacked. Can’t prove it. People are working on that.

I should point out that I took one poli sci course in the early 80s, then law school later. I don’t know much about political science, but I think:

Bush is not a conservative. Conservativism involves fiscal restraint, a respect for traditional institutions, a tendency to avoid abrupt social change. Bush is abruptly yanking half the country yard to the right, causing a great division. He has no respect for individual civil liberties – Patriot Act – and he feels no urge to answer to us for his screwups. He’s a neo-conservative fascist:

Fascism:

1 : a political philosophy, movement, or regime (as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition.

2 : a tendency toward or actual exercise of strong autocratic or dictatorial control.

I can take small comfort in the fact that social change is usually like a pendulum, swinging back and forth, and spending most of its time between its extremes. But sometimes, it’s like a big rubber band. It snaps – and there’s a revolution. Let’s hope we’re not facing anything like that. But I strongly fear that the bushies are going to swing too far, too fast, and when the pendulum swings back, step aside.

The anonymous commenter may also wish to note that I have another, more politcial blog, which he or she might find also interesting. It’s Burning Daylight. And please enter a name when commenting; make one up, I don’t care.

I sit on the deck and watch the leaves of the pitusporum and jacaranda waving in the breeze from the west, gentle, off the ocean. It doesn’t get any fresher than this; not in southern California. I take a sip of coffee, brewed through the strainer basket. I’m out of filters. I can’t tell a difference. The wind dies down, just tickling the top of the jacaranda.

[click permanent link to read the rest.]

It’s Wednesday. I need to go to the bank. I need to buy fish food and AAA batteries for the TV remote. Later.

This is the hardest part. Getting the idea for a story is one thing, almost fun. The best part is watching somebody read it, if you know it’s good. But the hard part is starting to write. I have the idea: What if a guy leaves home to go to the bank, and then …You know. But then I sit down with a notebook and a pen – or at the computer – and think, OK, how do I start this?

I panic. It’s like diving into the deep end, kicking off the bottom, bubbles spewing from your nose, and the surface has turned solid, frozen over. Trapped. Out of air. Maybe the only way out is back down, through the drain.

Sometimes it helps to write down the way it is right now: The wind, the coffee with fake sweetener and French vanilla creamer; the crows flying over, cawing; the late sun turning the clouds over the channel pale pink.

The bank is closing in twenty minutes, then the pet store too. I get up and set my mug and spoon in the sink. I cross the balcony, hearing the sparrows flittering in the spare branches of the magnolia, and go downstairs to the garage. My black BMW waits in the garage like …

Wait. I was on the deck, not upstairs. I’m not even at home; this is a single story house. And I damn sure don’t own a BMW. Even if I did, they don’t wait in the dark like anything but a car sitting there in the dark.

The black BMW crouched in the dark garage, exactly like a hunting tiger doesn’t.

High School English! Idiot.

I go out to the street and got in my old blue pickup, with the oil drip that got it banished from the driveway, and the weak speakers that annoy my brother. When I get to the bank, it’s closed, and I remember that I don’t have any fish.

Wednesday’s my favorite night, because West Wing is on. It’s my favorite show because the writing is great, the actiing is very good, and because I’ve always sort of revered the White House. Seat of enourmous power and elegance. And it belongs to the people.

We get to decide … ideally … who occupies it. And up until four years ago, I believe we did. So I watch and imagine the check and balances of democracy at play in this impressive place. Someday, it will be so again, if we can rid ourselves of those damn voting machines.

Also tonight, the writer Tom Wolfe will be on The Daily Show, hawking his latest book. That should be good; he’s a interesting guy, from what I’ve read.

Check out these election results from Ohio, on Pacific Views. The names have been changed, to protect the non-existent.

(I always say Bacaruda, ’cause I can’t spell Baracuda.)

I know we can all use the important Canadian phrases in English, like Take Off, Hoser, Get me a Beer, eh, and …hmm … there was something involving Back Bacon. But in the event you’re feeling a bit more serious about last week’s debacle, these Useful Phrases should be kept at hand.

See you at the moose roundup, hosehead. Or maybe that was Moosehead.

Sorry, I can’t help you with the pronunciation. Maybe Erik can; I found this on his blog.

More good news.

Yahoo! News – Cisco First-Quarter Profits Up 29 Percent

Not only does this bode well for my humble portfolio, it’s gotta ripple happily through the wastelands of the tech sector. Sweet.

Tuesday’s beating of the bushies:

• Little Duce Coup ‘D’etat : Somebody should call for a recount, if Diebold had left us with something to count.
• Falluja Offensive, Deux : “Between darkness and light,there can be no agreement.”
• Oh, Happy Dance! : Ashcroft’s resignation; we are saved; long may he wave.

Interview with novelist Rani Manicka. Never heard of her. Learn something every day.

Last night, I did some re-writing of Chapter 4 of the novel, in which Marty and Bo, as young adults, go with their Dad to the funeral home, to put a favorite coat on the body of their grandfather. It’s a pretty intense section; not easy, because it was originally written in first person for Marty, and I’m trying to do third person omniscient, while holding together the emotional clarity. I’ll possibly post part of it tomorrow night, after I’ve had a chance to go over it with my writing partner.

Hope you all slept better than I did.

Now I have to get dressed and go kick some neighbor butt, for making unconscionable techno-tribal noises while I’m trying to think.

I added my blog to blog explosion last night. So if you’re surfing by from that site, hi.

Is Arafat still alive? As I was slowly surfacing from sleep, the TV was on (comes on automatically on CNN) and it sounded like he might have slipped beyond the cares of this world. I guess not. Boy, he must be tougher than he looks.

Here’s a very cool blog for people interested in – or, like me, aesthetically drawn to – craftsman and mission design. I have mission style furniture in my living room. And one of these days, I’d love to graduate from condodom to a craftsman house.

[Found at Rebecca’s Pocket]