Watching Democracy in Action

This is a "The Whirling Dervish" piece originally published November 8, 2006.  Of particular note is Blackwell's comments.  Eerie.  It's amazing the Republican message has not changed one iota.

There’s nothing quite like the excitement of a big election. I like to cuddle up with the Constitution on the first Tuesday of November and watch the results unfold and speculate who will file lawsuit where the next morning.  Here’s a running diary of Election Night:

7:00: Polls should be closing soon, but apparently Ohio Democrats have successfully sued to keep polls open in Cuyahoga County until 9 p.m. Leave it to Cleveland to mess things up. Word is that results won’t be released until the polls in Cuyahoga County close later. Well, I guess I won’t be seeing “House” tonight.

7:02: Just for fun, I’ll predict the following: Strickland over Blackwell, DeWine over Brown, Stewart over Phillips, Wilson over Blasdel, Montgomery over Dann, Issues 2, 3, 4 and 5 failing and Northern Illinois over Toledo.

7:22: Ohio News Network is practically giddy because they have vote tracking on their Web site. I’m wondering if they’re more or less reliable than the secretary of state’s site, considering Blackwell runs it.

7:31: The Associated Press are already declaring Strickland and Brown to win. Wow guys, way to wait a full 60 seconds until deciding who won. It’s great to see the lessons from the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections have been learned.

On a completely different note, did anyone else feel like voting in Athens felt like taking the SAT?  Was the punch card really that hard? I sure didn’t feel like voting was easier, but I sure felt like laughing when they handed me a “secrecy sleeve,” which was just a manila folder. It all just seems like an unnecessary use of money. That money can be used for much better things, like verifying Bob Taft is still alive.

Speaking of money, I really am hoping Issue 2 passes, but it won’t. $5.15 to $6.85 is just too much. I can see something around $6, but they got too ambitious. I know a few have, but why students would vote against this is beyond me. It’s putting more money in your pocket. Who is against that? The argument that it would hurt businesses is bogus. They’ve made that claim every time a minimum wage increase comes up, yet the economy survives. And if anyone thinks one can live on $5.15 an hour, well… there’s some lovely property in Nelsonville I can sell you. At $6.85, one would at least have a chance.

7:40: If the Democrats take control of the Senate, George Voinovich would most likely lose his chair on the Senate Ethics Committee. That’s a shame. If anyone deserves a spot like that, it’s a former Bobcat. In fact, let’s bring him into the engineering school after he retires.

7:48: Apparently Lake County didn’t get the memo from Blackwell because they released their results. Strickland now officially leads Blackwell, Browns leads DeWine, Issue 2 is passing, Issues 3 and 4, are not, and Issue 5 is.

8:02: The man speaking at the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections is doing a great job of passing on responsibility by blaming the Democrats who sued to keep polls open, saying it’s their fault for the problems the country has been having today. Yeah, it was the guys in Columbus not opening the polls on time and not being able to work the machines. They’re devious like that.

8:12: How in the world is Athens in the same Congressional district as half of Mahoning County? What sense does that make? Perhaps an amendment against gerrymandering is worth considering. It would be nice if the interests of an area could all be represented together. The sixth district looks like someone stuck a banana on the east part of the state.

8:54: Holy crap! ONN is reporting Blackwell has already conceded the election to Strickland. Wow. He didn’t even wait until all the polls closed. That’s incredible. I guess he knew he just didn’t have a chance. This is what the Republicans get for nominating Blackwell instead of Montgomery or Jim Petro. Somehow the weaker candidates get through in primaries. People need to consider changing this format, unless they want another candidate like John Kerry running for president in two years.

8:58: ONN is interviewing GOP spokesman Aaron McClure, who has a “I’m going to kill somebody” look on his face. He calls the AP’s early projections of winners “irresponsible,” undoubtedly because they’re projecting his guys to lose. He’s right, though. These projections don’t do anything for anybody.

9:36: Results are finally starting to spill in. With 9 percent of precincts reporting, Strickland is cruising, up 59 percent to 38; Issue 2 is still on the “yes” side, 54 percent to 45 percent; Issue 3 is failing, 60 percent to 39 percent; Issue 4 is getting destroyed with 63 percent voting it down; Issue 5 hanging on with 55 percent voting in favor. Brown has only a 51 percent to 48 percent lead. Charlie Wilson is killing Chuck Blasdel (score one for write-in candidates), Zach Space has a sizeable lead on Joy Padgett and Stewart is easily beating Phillips.

9:43: In the third quarter, Toledo leads Northern Illinois 17-10 in DeKalb, Ill. Wow. What happened to Garrett Wolfe, Heisman candidate?

9:45: Is anyone else as surprised as I was that Padgett was so quiet during this election? After her attempted sabotage of Terry Anderson’s character in 2004, I was expecting anything and everything in name calling and assassinations. Things have been rather quiet, though, which is nice. I guess both parties saved the dirt kicking for the Mary Jo Kilroy/Deborah Price race.

9:53: I know now why I didn’t see anyone Uptown in a Jimmy Stewart T-shirt harassing people to vote for him. They knew Phillips presented no threat. With 15 percent of precincts reporting, he has 61 percent of the vote in hand. However, they must’ve been worried about Jill Thompson.  I saw about a dozen people stumping for her. Unfortunately, nobody considers Athens County auditor that important of a race; I don’t see any real-time results.

9:56: I’m starting to think Issue 2 could pass. 54 percent has voted in the affirmative so far. But election results are tricky; early returns can be misleading. I remember when Quebec was voting to secede from Canada, early returns showed an overwhelming “yes.” But as the night dragged down, the “no” votes piled up, eventually winning. As it turned out, the precincts that were strongly secessionist got their votes in first. So we still have a long way to go.

10:00: Blackwell is speaking now, saying his campaign “ran out of time.” Apparently his loss means the Republicans need to stick to their principles. That’s one way of looking at it. Another is that the voters of the state reject your principles, Ken. He’s a smooth talker, if nothing else. He all but promised the GOP would rise again.

10:03: Issue 2 is up to 56 percent for. I can feel my wallet growing. I wonder if more people will be willing to work in the dining halls now. Issue 3, though, is looking doomed to fail. I’m glad to see this. Don’t get me wrong, I’m very much in favor of legalized gambling. But the money never goes to where the people claim it’s going to. When the money actually goes into the government’s coffer and not into the businesses’, then we’ll pass it. But don’t tell us the schools will get more money and expect us to believe you. We’re not stupid.

10:12: ONN gleefully telling us how awesome their vote tracker is and how many hits their site is getting. Why buy advertising time when you can do it for free on your own network? They’re also outright calling Brown “Senator Brown,” which seems like an invitation for embarrassment. Meanwhile, Padgett concedes to Space.

10:23: Strickland addresses his faithful, putting an effective end to the night’s action. I won’t bore you with the details; he likes paper chains, apparently. It will be interesting to see how quick change comes to the state after he takes off. He’s an energetic guy, so he’ll try to start getting things done as soon as he is sworn in. His first act is a largely symbolic one, moving the governor’s office back to the Statehouse. Taft had moved from the Statehouse when he was elected.

Interestingly, more people voted for Issue 5 than voted for governor. Apparently, people are more interested in secondhand smoke than the economy.

Oh, and the final score from DeKalb: Toledo 17, Northern Illinois 13. Not a banner day for my prognostications.

The Body

This is a short piece I composed in December for Good Works. The prompt: "What does it mean to be the Body of Christ IN the world, FOR the world?" Your thoughts are welcome.

Being the body of Christ in the world and for the world demands much of us. At the most basic level, being the body means being the physical manifestation of Jesus on Earth. As a body, we must also harbor the spirit of Christ. Just as we are incomplete as only physical beings, the body of Christ is incomplete without the spirit. Through the body, we do works. With the spirit, we have faith.

“Now you are Christ's body, and individually members of it.”¹ There is only one body of Christ, and we comprise its parts. Each part of a body is simultaneously autonomous and dependent. For instance, only the lungs breathe, but they need blood provided from the heart and nervous signals from the brain. As members of the body of Christ, we all have our specific role that only we can do, yet our job cannot happen or does not succeed without the rest of the body functioning. Bodies have room to grow, and we seek to grow the body of Christ by bringing in new members.

“There is one body and one Spirit.”² As keepers of the spirit, we get our purpose, revelation, and energy from it. As the body, we represent Jesus in His absence. We partake in communion, per His instructions, in recognition of this. We go forth and do works for Him. We continue His work. We seek to bring the spirit to those that do not have it. We endeavor to follow His instructions in clothing the naked and feeding the hungry. We do this to spread the glory of God and to expand His kingdom, for He deserves no less than for His kingdom to encompass the world.

By being the body of Christ, we sublimate our individual selves, our personal needs and desires, in favor of the good of the body. We sacrifice so that the collective can thrive. This is not easy; Satan tempts us with individual decadence because he knows people who feel like they have everything they need on their own will not submit to the restrictions of a social conscience. We purposely deny ourselves so that the other parts of the body may benefit. Through this, we all come out stronger. The kingdom of God is stronger as well.

“The eye is the lamp of the body; so then if your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light.”³ The body of Christ is the light of the world. As the body, we bring that light to those in the darkness, to those that cannot see. In contemporary times, it is the body of Christ that stands as a resisting force to the hyper-individualistic tendencies of society. We recognize the pitfalls of this movement and move to counter it. In essence, we stand to save people from themselves.

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1 1 Cor. 12:27 (NASB).

2 Eph. 4:4.

3 Mat. 6:22

A Holiday Note

Have a happy Christmas eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve eve!

Yes, Soldiers Are People

This is a "The Whirling Dervish" piece originally published by Speakeasy September 27, 2006.

It was Saturday night when the call came. A friend was enjoying the weekend when that phone call came. Her cousin in Iraq was riding in a Humvee when it ran over a mine and exploded.

No one was sure what had happened to him, exactly; he might not live through it. Almost certainly, he would lose his legs. All anyone could do was wait for news, a special kind of hell for those of us on the home front.
Sunday was met with good news: He was alive and, while his legs sustained several fractures, amputation was not necessary. Even with the broken eye sockets, it was as close to the best case scenario one could ask for. Relief washed over like a gentle wave.

That is, until the next bit of news came in: that he would not be coming home. Not only was he staying in Iraq, he is only staying in the hospital for 10 days before being sent back out. A guy who signed up for the reserves because he wanted money for college, a guy who was blown up just days ago, a guy who should, must, needs to come home, is being dumped back on the field with injuries that will take to months to heal.

And that is saying nothing about the mental damage that he has sustained. He should have access to the best therapy, yet he will get nothing. We can only speculate as to the damage being done there. Of course, he has no desire to stay over there; who would? This is his second injury sustained in Iraq; he had been shot in the leg before.

With Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld extending the tour of duty for 4,000 soldiers recently, it is obvious the Army is under incredible strain. Hard decisions have to be made for the military good.

But at some point, we’re not treating these people like humans anymore. They’re just cogs in the machine, used until they can’t be and thrown out. America does not have the best track record in dealing with veterans, but one has to wonder if someone decided the best solution is to limit the number of people that come back.
That is not a suggestion that the Pentagon is deliberately trying to kill off soldiers. However, it is a suggestion that the price is becoming too high when people can get blown up and they can’t be sent home or even given sufficient time to heal. With each passing week, the Bush Administration has more questions it needs to address about Iraq. Such treatment of the men and women that signed up to defend the country is decidedly un-American and being sent to die in a battle that seems more like a Roman war of expansion than a defensive operation.

It’s easy to point the blame at Rumsfeld and Bush on this, and undoubtedly many people will. However, that might be a part of the problem. Most Americans have buried their heads in the sand, complaining of news stories in the papers and on TV. They don’t want to see it; they don’t want to acknowledge it. They just want to blame the guy sitting in the Oval Office and his cronies and be done with it. They ignore the fact that their doublethink allows the people making the decisions to keep severely injured people in a combat environment. Say what you want about Cindy Sheehan, but she forced people to pay attention; forced the president to acknowledge her. That’s powerful. That’s responsible.

So why aren’t most of us doing it? Are we really that afraid to take responsibility for our actions? Sure, you walk around with that trendy “NOT my President” bumper sticker, but the actions of the military represent us, reflect us, whether or not you support it. During Vietnam, people reacted with outrage, but with Iraq, people simply aren’t reacting anymore. Until they do, more soldiers that should be coming home and being sent back out. And while they might not be killed with a bullet, they’re dying on the inside at the very least.

AMPlify Your Apathy

This is a "The Whirling Dervish" piece originally published by Speakeasy May 17, 2006.

For the first time in recent memory, chalkboards and bulletin boards across campus are free from a barrage of advertisements for Student Senate elections.  This is a welcome change from the constant harassment and annoyance of years past, when students could rarely pass a day without being accosted by a group of people in T-shirts representing some party.

There is only one registered party this year, Amp.  It’s appropriate, because Amp consists of the same people that win the elections every year.  This time around, no one is bothering to run against them.  Maybe it is because this group always wins and other people don’t feel like losing.  Then again, maybe it’s because nobody else sees Student Senate worth it.
 
If Amp is running unopposed, why are they still trying to give us newspapers telling us to vote for them?  After all, the only people voting are the people running and their friends.  There aren’t going to be enough people writing Leon Williams in as president to threaten Morgan Allen.  If there is no competition, why the T-shirts?  Is it because they want to feel cool wearing them?

Student Senate has long claimed to represent the student voice.  But why should OU students look to their senator to be their “voice” when Roderick McDavis is an email away and when he makes himself available to the public weekly?  Student senators would like to think they’re doing something important, and some of them are.  Appropriating funds to student organizations is an important task.  Aside from that, it’s all an exercise in hubris. 

After all, it was only in 2003 when Katie Simpson was removed from her position as vice president in the face of student protest, simply because she was in the rival party.  So do these people represent “our” voice or their own?

By the way, the president gets free tuition for the year.  There’s no way to justify that, especially when student trustees get no such benefit.

So let them have their little election and lord over Student Senate the way the kids who were really excited about Model UN in high school did.  In a week, everyone will just go back to ignoring them again.

Redemption for Han Solo
 
From the “long overdue” department, Lucasfilm and Twentieth Century Fox announced the first three “Star Wars” movies are coming to DVD in their original theatrical form.  That means no special edition, no Hayden Christensen at the end or “Return of the Jedi,” the original Ewok celebration song and that Han, not Greedo, shoots first.  Non-geeks probably don’t realize the significance of this, but for those of us that grew up in a galaxy far, far away, this is the best news that we ever could have gotten.  Fans have long complained about George Lucas’ constant tinkering of the movies and the changes made in the special editions of the original trilogy.  It will be not at all surprising to see sales of this DVDs surpass sales of the special edition DVDs, even if Lucas is pulling a Disney and selling the movies for a limited time.

Is it too much to hope for a public apology and retraction of “Revenge of the Sith” to come in the near future as well?

It’s like they don’t have a Father’s Day or something
 
Last year for Mother’s Day, the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (say that five times fast) gave away tote bags to women 18 and older.  Baseball teams have long used promotions like this as a way to lure people into the ballpark to spend $4 on a hot dog, so this is far from unusual.  However, someone feels this is discrimination and is suing the Angels for age and sex discrimination.  Well, it’s about time men started to fight back against the injustices levied against them by society.  We’re not going to take this lying down.  If wives and mothers are going to be dragged to the ballpark on the one holiday devoted to them, they’d better not get treated nicely or anything.  That’s just wrong.  Thankfully, the Angels have come to their senses and offered bags to the first 25,000 adults of both sexes.  Then again, the kids still aren’t getting anything.  Looks like another lawsuit is in order.

Postscript: My feelings about Student Senate's ineptness are still intact.  The best part was when a computer security flaw resulted in Social Security numbers going public.  In 2003, the same year they were busy playing politics, a Senator exposed the very security flaw.  Instead of doing anything about it, he was kicked out of Senate and suspended from the university.