I’ve been back in Seattle for six weeks, yesterday (don’t ever use Uhaul, ever — please contact your congressperson to revoke their corporate charter), after a year in Berkeley attempting to go to graduate school in Santa Rosa. The strange (and beautiful) thing about Seattle is that I’ve gotten back into the groove here so quickly, perhaps because there’s something about the Emerald City that’s more in line with the natural flow of things. Well, it’s still a work in progress, anyway.
At least in my perspective and circle of friends, the emphasis here seems to be on friends, family and community, rather than busy work schedules and limited time. I’m relishing every moment of new life here, fresh with the perspective of my year in California. I arrived in Berkeley right before the recall election (my former governor was on cable last night, in Eraser) and was immediately struck by the fast pace of the Bay Area. I used to be able to handle all the noise in Chicago in the early 90s, but discovered most of the energy in both cities seemed to be busy work — people were so busy there didn’t seem time to develop solid friendships outside of scheduled activities. On the other hand, my time in graduate school allowed me to make several friends and enjoy some festive nights in Sonoma County, and enjoy the Bay Area’s amazing array of food and drink, as long as global warming keeps at bay.
And then there was the Mint. Good times, good times.
So much has happened in the space of six weeks, starting with the best speech of any convention by Illinois Congressional candidate Barack Obama. And plenty of political commentary about Bush and Cheney, including insights from Paul Krugman (The Arabian Candidate), Ron Reagan (The Case Against George W. Bush), Graydon Carter (Bush by Numbers: Four Years of Double Standards) and Iraqi footballers. Will Ferrell’s White House West video is among the best I’ve seen, and Bush’s Brain, a movie about Karl Rove, met limited nationwide release. Lynne Cheney’s out of print Sisters was among the strangest items to emerge from obscurity, but 1.3 million more people in poverty remains prominent. John Kerry was traced back to royalty.
While there was much talk about the Swift Boat veterans, not much was said about the Rowboat Veterans for Truth, but then not much was said about Andrew Card saying that Bush believes America to be a 10-year-old child that needs protection.
But not all the news seemed hopeless. Al Franken got a new TV-show this week, a one-hour edit of his weekday shows on Air America Radio. Others asked, Is Zell Miller the evil emperor from Star Wars? Michael Moore is attempting to get Fahrenheit 9/11 on DVD before the election, as new movies attempt to subtly comment on the current administration. New economic models and new sources of power are becoming more acceptable.
The roller coaster of events around gay marriage continued, as California annulled its gay marriages, as New Jersey’s governor outed himself in a formal press conference as did a representative from Virginia.
While the assault weapons ban is likely to be lifted on Monday, the gun firms connected to the sale to the Washington Sniper agreed to pay $2 million to settle.
And from the strange-but-true category comes people passing around $200 bills in Kentucky, a 480-pound woman died after rescuers attempted to free her from the couch she had grown into, Costco discount caskets, retro mobile phones, a programmer outsources his own job to India, sleep pods for busy executives in New York, and how Microsoft lost millions over eight pixels.
I decided to get more involved in the community, and have become a pollworker for the primary and general elections in King County. I’ve never done this before, but will see what happens on the 14th. If this website and this one are an indication, I’m a little concerned, but the saving grace of the King County Primary voters guide is that they run candidate statements unedited. Note to contenders: hire a proofreader and do a spell check.
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Humanity is not dead in “Wall-E,” but it is in peril. The world’s population cruises the heavens ceaselessly on a mammoth luxury spaceship that it boarded in the early 22nd century after the planet became uninhabitable. For government, there is a global corporation called Buy N Large, which keeps the public wired to umpteenth-generation iPods and addicted to a diet of supersized liquefied fast food and instantly obsolete products. The people are too bloated to walk — they float around on motorized Barcaloungers — but they are happy shoppers. A billboard on the moon heralds a Buy N Large outlet mall “coming soon,” not far from that spot where back in the day of “Hello, Dolly!” idealistic Americans once placed a flag.
