I'm Out

Tiny dog absentee-voted somewhere during mid-October, when snowdrifts of remainder Halloween candy littering office hallways was just a bad workplace premonition. She has from that point forward assiduously tuned out such non-news declaratives as "candidates trade punches in the swing states," and "Will Osama decide the election?" in addition to attempts by my local Washington state politicians to portray themselves as cuddly family values kinds of people, with coincidentally terrorist-kissing sociopaths for opponents.

I have since made occasion to honor a moment of silence for the strangely unacknowledged passing of our status as a first world nation when hearing such headlines as "Most Americans anticipate fraud at the polls" and "US citizens flooding the Canadian border for flu shots," but other than that, I wash my hands of American headline happenings until November 3rd (and possibly, not even then, depending on what the Supreme Court has planned). So in summary, I am not, from this moment on, reading the web or the paper, or watching the news.

I'm out.

This means: no red-and-blue state maps wielded by neocons posing as news broadcasters. No premature talking head declarations of who took Florida before the ballots are (not) counted. No breathless disenfranchised voters talking about Republican volunteers in black vans chasing them down alleys with Red Sox commemorative World Series souvenir bats. No screaming maniacs holding cheap card-stock campaign signs festooned with stars and stripes. No Decision 2004 graphics and electoral vote tallies scrolling at the bottom of TV screens, under desks manned by jabbering hysterics in face paint, trying to call the election fifteen minutes after the polls open in Ohio.

As you the reader well know, tiny dog endorses John Kerry for president. Please re-read America stands tall for offshoring and tax cuts for billionaires in case you thought I was on the fence. If you're voting for GWB, you might be a nice person, but I am concerned about exactly why you want another heaping plate of preemptive war and unchecked economic freefall while Osama is running around sending us video tapes of his retirement in the hills of Afghanistan. What would it take for you to admit that things aren't going great guns? Is "flip flopping" and speaking French really a worse fate than the one we're living? I so don't get it.

At any rate, I'm not going to know which way you're leaning until it's too late, because I'm headed offline. Say hi to Dan Rather for me.

Concession

Well, my tiny dogglings, I tried to stay away, but was coerced into watching the Kerry campaign go down in red state flames during the election night Daily Show special.

I can't say that I'm surprised by the win. Willful ignorance and false piety are certainly in no short supply in today's America, and we'll all reap the sweet rewards of outsourced jobs, plundered social security funds, skyrocketing debt, and groundless war for years to come, thanks to the masterful manipulation of daft, voting pseudochristians by the faux-populist, corporate-loving Bush administration.

Well done, Karl Rove.

Now, let us move on to more meaningless and mirthful subjects, since certainly on the subject of America, for now, the final words are in.

Not half as sorry as I am

If you are part of the 49% of American citizens who voted for John Kerry in 2004, you might want to check out this site, in which your fellow Americans share their message of regret at the election results with the rest of the world. It is, as the husband remarked, "strangely moving." After all the spurious and frankly laughable talk of "values" in America this week, this might be your first chance to actually witness some on display.

Hey, peeps. Send mail to mail@tiny-dog.com.