community Q I vote at the community center that serves the neighborhood I live in. The neighborhood is incredibly rich in its diversity economically, racially, agewise, in sexual-orientations, living arrangements and family structures, national origins and citizenships, religions, educational levels and types of professions and jobs. The neighborhood must be a lot like heaven, if there be a heaven and the supreme ruler there not a rich, white, suburban Republican. The community center operates on a shoestring budget and does a great job serving the neighborhood as a whole and especially those among us who are less fortunate economically. Through the center we do the best we can to be sure our homeless are housed, our hungry well nourished, our aged cared for, our children in school and attended to afterwards, and the weekly bingo games, folk music concerts, and political potlucks held without hitches. Republican administrations in Washington and our capital city, together with Republican control of one house of the Congress and one of our state legislature, have been severely limiting what we can do through our community center. Republicans and their Party are myopically and selfishly focused on fostering short-term profits by big business, regardless of whether the profits are earned legally or fraudulently, through peaceful endeavors or military build-ups and actions, with respect for the environment or death-dealing pollution, with respect and decent wages and working conditions for working people or complete disdain for them. They have no interest in fostering people's building communties and making them thrive. I will spare you recitation of Republicans' and their Party's disdain for reproductive freedom, equal rights for all, the Bill of Rights, affordable education for everyone, and quality healthcare readily available to everyone. The center's director happened to be standing outside the center greeting voters from the neighborhood when I went over to vote. As he and I are wont to do whenever our paths cross, we fell into a discussion of the political situations in the country and our state and county. Today in the state we are not electing a US Senator but are electing a governor, other statewide officers, all members of the lower house and half those of the upper house of the state legislature, and all countywide officers other than county executives. There are no city offices on the ballot here today, or the director and I would have discussed the situation in the city too! We both are scared about the national situation. We fear the people will forget the President is illegitimate, not see through the slick propaganda the reality that he is a dangerously stupid war-monger fueled by corrupt greed for oil profits, and hand him control of the Senate and so the entire Congress. Then the rich will even more rapidly become richer, relative to the rest of us, than they have since his daddy became Vice President in 1980; there will be a war to kill our sons and daughters, and civilians of desperately poor countries, but not the sons and daughters of the oil barons, corrupt corporate executives, bank executives, and other rich people; there will be an economic crisis like the world has not seen in nearly 75 years; the social fabric of the country will unravel in fearful ways; and the basic economic and political causes of terrorism will intensify throughout the world. We both are pleased, though, that it seems our state and county governments will be in the hands of better, saner, more community-oriented, more compasssionate, longer-term and more forward-looking people after the polls close in a a couple of hours. These are the worst of times in some ways and much better in others. For the times to be better still, good people everywhere must vote. 021105 ... daxle I work with a 1st grade class. They were asked to draw pictures of a community run by conscientious citizens. You know what came up the most? Candy Stores. 021105 ... birdmad so far the national results show the propagandists winning handily it's Contract On America, the Sequel (yeah, they tried to call it contract "with" america but that's like trying to convince someone you've made the butt of a joke that you are "laughing with them" instead of laughing at them) damn. at least the republican fish (Salmon) does not appear to be headed for the 9th floor 021105 what's it to you? who go blather from