Pardon Me, Do You Know A Good Farrier?

“Is it a real college? Do you know anyone with a degree from there? I’m just saying, they must not have a football team because I’ve never heard of ’em.”

— the Electoral College, as described by the internet

—–

Upfront: I know who won the election based on the rules in place and agreed upon prior to voting. I am not advancing protest, vote contesting, “he’s not my president” talk, etc. No do-overs.

Having said that: Fuck the Electoral College.

The majority of voters wanted a Democrat in four of the past five presidential elections, but the Electoral College has given us only two.

The Electoral College made sense back when it was created, when some poor asshole had to poll his neighbors then hop on a horse for several days to get to the capitol and report how the folks back in Boomtown, Nebraskahoma voted.

Two and a half centuries later, we’ve put a man on the goddamned moon, but we’re still counting votes like we have to wait on them to be delivered with next week’s Pony Express packet.

Despite my tech-based metaphors, a better system doesn’t even require a highly advanced voting process — online voting, brain scans, whatever.

Just count the votes. All the goddamned votes, not only the ones that sort neatly into an 18th Century accounting system.

This isn’t even a burden, considering, by law, we count all the votes anyway.

No, really. The presidential election was two days ago, and some areas are still tallying. Hell, many of them won’t have a certified official count for another week or better as they await the arrival of overseas military votes.

We already count all the votes even though the Electoral College victory margin is known and there aren’t enough votes to change it.

We want to know, we need to know, just how many people actually preferred the Electoral College loser to the candidate who will get inaugurated in January.

We count and count, regardless of the fact the final totals are ultimately just footnotes to a foregone conclusion.

New proposal: Screw the antiquated filtering system; winner of most votes wins.

We can do better. If we care about democracy, we have to.

My Dog Died

Buffalo Bill ’s
defunct
               who used to
               ride a watersmooth-silver
                                                                  stallion
and break onetwothreefourfive pigeonsjustlikethat
                                                                                                     Jesus

he was a handsome man 
                                                  and what i want to know is
how do you like your blue-eyed boy
Mister Death

e.e. cummings

—–

My dog died.

I was eight? Nine? Somewhere in there.

Actually, it was my mom’s dog. The family pet, though. A poodle mix. Old, nearly completely blind. Lovable. Sandy.

Sandy was hit by a car, and while I don’t really want to dwell on the details, I was arriving home with my mom and my younger sister when we saw her still body in the driveway.

I can clearly remember the grief and the anguish of the discovery, the hard hours that followed, and, again, I don’t want to dwell on those details.

What’s on my mind is how I slept that night.

I’m sure, earlier in my childhood — and later, for that matter — I had rough nights, but this is the first one I remember, and it is the one I clearly remember.

I never really slept, though I drifted, in and out, not quite waking, not quite dreaming, in that weird nether-place that Neil Gaiman probably has a name and a mythology for.

And in that nether-place, with its weird time dilation, I dwelled for long hours that might have felt like days but also those days followed one after another bangbangbang justlikethat and maybe, just maybe I dreamed I talked to God or Mister Death, or maybe I wasn’t dreaming at all but in that nether-place, the Gaiman Place, and it didn’t really matter because everything was real and nothing, too, and oh, so, all I had to do was time waking up for just after the dream when Sandy’s death was just dream.

Last night, post-election, I slept about two hours, all of them back there, and Jesus (who was not a handsome man) I could do without every visiting again.

Tomorrow

Here’s a story I’ve not told before.

Eight years ago, the day after Election Day, I walked alone down the stairs to the train platform at my local MARTA station. As I reached the bottom and walked toward the far end, I passed an older African-American man, maybe mid-60s.

Just the night before, our country had, by a respectable margin, elected Barack Obama president. As I passed this man, I could see aspects of wonder, disbelief, and joy mixed upon his face. I passed right by him, but I don’t think he noticed me.

He was in another world, a dream world that had just become his reality, and while I was certainly happy with the election outcome, I knew in that moment I could never appreciate it even remotely the same way this man could. As a young, white man I could certainly be happy for the outcome, for having done my small part to elect President Obama. I could rejoice that we shared policy priorities and visions for our nation’s future, yet I knew the election outcome could not come close to having the same significance for me that it had for this man, or millions like him, and tens of millions before, who fought, bled, and died, for just the right to vote, let alone see one of their own elected into our nation’s highest political office.

As I said, I haven’t told this story before.

I’ve thought about it a lot, though. At every election, certainly. And often at random, at that MARTA station, or elsewhere when my mind turned to thoughts of — paraphrasing Dr. King — the long arc of the moral universe and its journey toward justice.

It was a private moment, something I was not party of, but rather witness to.

As a middle class, hetero white male I can only begin to empathize. I can only try to understand. I can only be an ally, strive for change, hope for better, ply the few words left to me in service to progress for all.

I tell this story now so you will understand when I say I do not look forward to the expressions I expect to see upon any non-hetero, non-white, non-male faces I encounter at that same train station a few hours from now.

But I will look.

And if any of them can see through their pain, anguish, uncertainty, and fear to register my pale countenance, I hope they find there only a reflection of those same emotions.

The next four years do not bode well, and I don’t for a moment pretend they will be as hard on hetero white male me as they are on my allies.

They stand to lose so much, and I can only offer empathy, understanding, hope.

I can only promise to never look away, nor run.

Autumnal Equinox 2016

As autumn arrives, I sigh at surviving another summer.

I get that seasonal affective disorder is a thing, and this is the time of year when it starts to kick in for some people.

I get it, yet I am utterly, completely wired the other way.

Reaching the end of summer for me is like coming up for air — cool, damp air with just a hint of decaying plant matter.

And while the mere change of a season is unlikely to make much difference in the greater scheme of life — especially as I seem to be living in a version of the United States that is damned and determined to replay the worst hits of the 1960s, day by day diving ever deeper into divisiveness — I cannot help feeling a little better now the longest days are behind us.

The Eastwood Political Sequel

The angry old white man who four years ago gave us an exemplary piece of theater showcasing Republicans’ true views of Obama (an empty vessel into which they pour their rage) has done it again:

“Everybody’s walking on eggshells. We see people accusing people of being racist and all kinds of stuff. When I grew up, those things weren’t called racist.” — Clint Eastwood 

Sure they weren’t. When you grew up. Which was … the 1930s.

Gee. I wonder what’s changed since then. It’s almost like there has been an entire arc of history, social progress, advancement of civil rights …

But I digress.

Eastwood has once again put his finger on the fading pulse of the Republican spirit.

“… those things weren’t called racist.”

Make America Great Again, indeed.