I went to ComFest this past weekend in a park in the heart
of gayville near downtown Columbus. I’m
told it is the last free festival in the Midwest. It was started by a bunch of
hippies way back when to celebrate something or other. They would play music,
smoke some righteous weed, sell candles and tie died T-shirts to each other and
generally, you know, “fest.”
That’s still pretty
much what it’s about today, only they’re the “Occupy Wall Street” crowd now and
not nearly so festive. It’s all a little sad. Today’s “Occupiers” are no
more coherent or sensible than the drugged out hippies of my youth. But the message
is much less friendly. Instead of “make love not war” it is “we hate capitalism and America.” Though I
noticed they were nicking gullible shoppers $20-25 for a badly tie died t-shirt.
You don’t even want to know what the patchouli scented candles cost.
While walking through the park, we were regaled by a speaker
on the stage. He was mostly on a rant about voting and the vast right wing
conspiracy. He made some really interesting observations about the Electoral
College, to wit:
- It was created to disenfranchise all voters, but more especially those who agreed with him (Democrats, progressives and liberals) than it does to Republicans and Conservatives.
- It was created to have an effect on the outcome of an election only in swing states, and he was here to tell us that Ohio is a swing state.
- One of its main purposes, disenfranchisement and swings states aside, was to allow southern slave owners the ability to vote for their slaves and thus rig the election, which they are still doing today, the South being more conservative than the rest of the country.
Honest, he really said these things. It was not clear how
exactly he came to believe that the Founding Fathers understood that 200+ years
later Ohio would be in a position to affect the election, or indeed that there
would be a state called Ohio. Nor did he explain how those racist southern
conservatives, who just a generation ago were the staunchest of Democrats, were
still stealing elections by voting their slaves. But in fairness, his first
point wasn’t so far off. The Founders motivation
for creating the Electoral College really was because they feared stupid voters in large numbers. This fellow and
his friends are surely lending credence to the Founders’ point.
He went off on electronic voting machines. What he seemed to
be saying, or as best I could parse it, is that they are rigged. Apparently the
machines are programmed to not count the votes of those who agree with the
speaker. Of course, what I just said in two sentences, it took him several
minutes and about a thousand words to relate. On its surface what he had to say was, shall
we say, far fetched, considering that Democrats win elections all the time. On the other hand, he may have been onto a far
reaching and subtle Conservative conspiratorial plot. What if these Democratic
wins, like in 2006 and 2008, are nothing more than part of a plan to lull honest
peace loving Democrats, progressives and liberals into a sort of drugged-like euphoria
before swooping in with rigged voting machines and destroying them forever? Figuratively at the ballot box
I mean. If only.
He did make one statement and exhortation to the crowd, who
for the most part were agreeing with most of what he had to say, that I had to wholeheartedly agree with. In
reference to the electronic voting machines, he told the crowd not to waste
their time voting because it wouldn’t count anyway. Here’s to hoping they all do
as he suggests.
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I was typing some notes the other day and I came across one
of those typos that make you stop and think.
Is “reslut” a noun or verb? I don’t think it can be a
preposition, though I suppose as a conjunction it entertains some possibilities.
Does it mean it is false to say: once a slut always a slut? What is the cause
of sluttish recidivism? Is it possible
for one person to reslut another, or is it entirely a self imposed condition?
Are original sluts more expensive or valuable than resluts, like unblemished cars
cost more than repaired ones? Does it take the same level or amount of behavior
to become a reslut as it does a slut in the first place? Think of it like falling off
the wagon: how many drinks does it take?
I certainly would enjoy hearing your thoughts about this
whole reslut thing.
