Beowabbit

Yeah, yeah, according to the political spectrum quiz all the cool kids are doing these days, I’m a left-libertarian¹ non-interventionist cultural liberal. We all knew that.

I agree with the criticism somebody on my Friends-list (not identified because s/he posted it in a locked post) made: A lot of the questions were in two parts, like “22. Laws regulating private behavior are put forth by the weak, who prefer security to freedom.” Well, what if you think that laws regulating private behaviour are put forth by the strong, who prefer security to freedom? Or that they’re put forth by the weak, who prefer Cocoa Puffs to freedom? Or that they’re put forward by the strong, despite preferring freedom to security, but that they are still an Abomination in the sight of the majes? There were a lot of two-part questions like that where the answer I had to give probably obscured rather than clarified my actual political beliefs. (And of course there were a lot of “No, really, it’s an awful lot more complicated than that” questions, but that’s sort of unavoidable.)

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¹ I originally mistyped that as “libertartian”; I think that’s actually a better description of me.

Michael Palin for President (video). A hockey mom, and a whole lot more. Thanks to samuraizergling, who posted the link as a comment on this post in mizarchivist’s journal (which you should also go read).

So on Saturday plumtreeblossom and I went to Worcester for a Barack Obama rally [warning: bacground audio]. The campaign was encouraging local groups to have simultaneous rallies nationwide on that day, and plumtreeblossom found this one. (Boston didn’t have any when she first looked, although there were signs that one might get organized last-minute.) And of course she asked me if I wanted to go, and of course I said yes.

Because I was driving, we got there very late (and had to resort to old, 20th-century technology by stopping and buying a map), but we got there. It was fairly small but lots of fun and totally worthwhile. And there was a bagpiper! That was quite a surprise. We had a great time meeting people and talking and listening to the speakers and the programming, and we came back with Obama swag.

I ended up taking a bunch of pictures (and plumtreeblossom took a couple of me), and they’re up on my Flickr set of the event.

As a Republican senator during the decision to go to war in Iraq who has since left the party, Lincoln Chafee has a nearly unique perspective. DailyKos diarist smintheus has a fascinating post quoting Chafee on why so many Democrats (including Clinton) voted to authorize the use of force in Iraq. Chafee’s claim — that many personally anti-invasion Democrats voted to allow Bush to invade because they were afraid of political fallout — is exactly what I had assumed, but it’s useful to hear it from somebody who was in a position to know and who is no longer beholden to either major party.

I think I may want to read Chafee’s book.

As always, docorion is wise in this post on our government’s ongoing efforts to protect us from terrorism by keeping us terrified itself. If you haven’t already, you should read it.

Yesterday, nex0s posted An Incomplete List of Incidents of racism that have affected her and her family. Just big, serious, scary ones, not the everyday ones. It’s a long list. It’s depressing and infuriating, but I encourage you to go read it.

I’m really sleepy, so I don’t have time to do justice to my lovely NYC trip to visit K. and hang out with cathijosephine and her mom, but I can’t go without posting something about it, so very briefly:

Had a lovely time catching up with K., telling her about my life since she saw me last and hearing about her travels (notably Vienna) and her music and multimedia projects. It was great! She’s doing some amazing stuff (which I’m not sure I should talk about since they’re in progress) that I look forward to hearing more about. And I got to see her delightful apartment, which looks like it works really well for her. Yay for a good work- and living-space! And she took me to a scenic lookout over the Bronx and a scenic (no, really!) lookout over New Jersey, and took me to her favourite local Indian takeout place.

Sunday I met cathijosephine and her mother (who is in New York for a conference this week) for brunch, and then we had a nice long walk from 32d Street to Chinatown — stopping in at a makeup store, a goth/fetish clothing store, and THE MOST HUGEST COSTUME STORE EVAR which was like Hallowe’en in April on our way. In Chinatown, we met K. and A., and wandered around Chinatown for a bit, stopping into a bakery for yummy baked goods and bubble tea. (Or in my case, bubble coffee.)

Then K., A., and cathijosephine’s mom bade us farewell at the bus pick-up, and cathijosephine and I rode back to Boston, getting here around 9. It was great weather, and light out for most of the trip back. The bus was run by some other bus company, filling in for Fung Wah to deal with overflow, and it took a different (and more scenic) route out of the city than I’ve ridden before. On the bus I finished Barack Obama’s Dreams from My Father, and cathijosephine finished her nap, and both of those things made me happy.

(By the way, I highly recommend Dreams from My Father. It makes me wish Barack Obama would hurry up and get elected President already and get his eight years over with so he can get back to his true calling as a writer.)

So, I was interested to notice recently that flags are again flying at full-staff. (Evidently, this happened at the end of January 25, but I didn’t notice until today.) I had been starting to wonder whether Ford’s period of mourning would last longer than his presidency.

Amusing headline of the morning, from the Boston Metro: Dems hold breath, nation turns blue.