Wednesday, November 5, 2008

wednesday youtube was up too late ...

Before we get started today, a few thoughts about last night's festivities:
  • The city of Moody may have taken the award for "Worst Crowd at an Election That Made You Question How Much You Actually Care About This" for the day. I went at 9:30, voted and was headed to work by noon. The line reportedly got progressively longer, and according to at least one person I talked to was estimating a 3-hour wait at 7 p.m. when the polls were supposed to be closing. Because of this, we couldn't go to press until after 10, and even then 5 precincts were still out. They may need to address this in the future.
  • While I didn't vote for Obama and likely won't agree with much of his policy, I do respect him and what he means to people of color in the country. Maybe that sounds trite, but it's the best I can do. I'm not black, didn't grow up during segregation and don't remotely understand the great civil rights struggle. But I do understand history when I see it. And, for better or worse, this election was and is historic.
  • At the same time, a good many people on both sides of the aisle need to throw some water on themselves. Barack Obama isn't the Anti-Christ, and Lord knows he's not a Savior, either. He's just a regular Illinois politician with a black dad. That's really about it. Calm down, everybody.
  • As in 2004, I became one of those dangerous "third-party voters" by casting a vote for the Libertarian candidate. That's right -- I wasted two hours just so I could waste my presidential vote. Abuse can be heaped in the commentary section. I do wish to say, in my defense, that the bailout bill was one of the last straws for me in either major party -- neither of these parties reflects my interest any longer, and neither of them earned my vote during this interminable campaign. If that sounds like a wasted vote, well ... I can't help you.
With that, we move on to more important things -- like Saturday in Death Valley.

Because LSU -- through a combination of Nick Saban and bad fortune in Tuscaloosa -- has dominated the recent proceedings with Alabama, it's easy to forget that the Tide once owned Baton Rouge and the Bengal Tigers in general.
Some of my personal favorites from the 1990s ...







Back with more later.

wlh

2 comments:

Smedlin said...

Definitely not a wasted vote. I voted independent in the hopes that future independent candidates will see the numbers who did vote that way and run a stronger campaign the next cycle. Maybe by the time my children reach the age of majority, we can have legitimate non-party candidates willing to represent the people rather than a set of predetermined ideals.

Rob said...

Voted for Barr too in the great college football wasteland of NJ. Work in NYC with a LOT of Obama supporters, so needless to say this morning has not been fun.

Last night all I could think of was we might just reestablish our ownership of Tiger Stadium.