Author Archives: VivaEscritora

A Sunday Sundry Assortment of Tidbits

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And I’ll attempt to keep it short but politics & religion – it is Sunday, after all, billionaire breakdown, and literature & poetry. Let’s go!

Politics & Religion

Israel envy. The Evangelicals are so behind the Trumpster building his wall because in spite of Jesus, they like the Old Testament Bible, they like Old Testament law, and they are Chosen People and the United States of America is their Promised Land by gumminey.

Meanwhile, the rest of us Philistines just want a solid wall between church and state.

Quick: Who’d Have Trouble Living on $450,000 a Month? June 26, 1990 by Kurt Eichenwald. This article details the economic hardships imposed on the current resident of the White House by his bankers in 1990!

Twenty-nine years later, the estimated daily cost of the government shutdown is about $857,000,000/day and suddenly, $450,000/month seems like a real bargain.

Please, get us out of this art of the deal.

Farming & Rural Rehabilitation. The 2020 Democratic field running to be President will be big and interesting and exciting! Julian Castro, former Secretary of HUD threw his hat in the ring this past week in San Antonio. And we are all of “Bravo!” and he will add nuance and complexity to the conversation.

But what really piqued our interest was the mention of HUD — Housing & Urban Development. With the plunge in the number of small farm operations and the horrific rise in the number of farmers who take their own lives, maybe isn’t it time to devote a department to Farming & Rural Rehabilitation?

Asking for some states.

Billionaire Breakdown

Billionaire I relate to on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Whilst researching the Bezos on the list of Forbes’ billionaires, I was surprised to see names that I instantly recognize because of the product they produce! Giovanni Ferrero of Nutella and chocolate fame, that’s a lot of happiness spread around — was #36 on the list.

Although I can’t relate to the wealth of anyone on any of Forbes lists and poor Mr. Ferrero is only 1/6 of a Jeff Bezos pre-divorce, I can relate to Nutella and chocolate.

Nutella spreads itself across Maslow’s entire hierarchy of needs, and chocolate? It improves my mood.

Mini-billionaire breakdown. I’m recording this for posterity and because I like statistics and numbers and information baby! Some people study astronomy and the movement of planets, stars, galaxies, otherworldly objects. Well, the this-worldly humans on Forbes‘ list also work with astronomical numbers.

Subject to visual inspection and any errors are all my own, out of the top 100 billionaires in the world on Sunday, January 20, 2019:

  • Jeff Bezos’ worth is down $37B (from $149B) to $112B.
  • If MacKenzie Bezos gets half in the divorce, and I hope she does, she will be the wealthiest woman in the world. Half of today’s Jeff Bezos worth: $56B.
  • Being worth a half-Bezos or $56B will put Jeff and MacKenzie between #10 – Larry Ellison ($58.5B) and #11 – Michael Bloomberg ($50B). Still respectable.
  • 10% of the top 100 are currently women. No photos but first names of Dieter and Michael were counted as men. I counted the no-photo Iris as a woman.
  • Combined worth of the current 10 wealthiest women: $242.9B or ($242.9B/$112B/Jeff Bezos) = 2.16 Bezos. Or 4.33 half-Bezos.
  • 4% of the top 100 are Walton’s of Walmart money — Jim, S. Robson, Alice, and Lukas.
  • Combined worth of the Waltons: $154B or ($152B/$112B/Bezos) = 1.37 Bezos. Or 2.75 half-Bezos.
  • 31% have US citizenship, 7% are Russian.

That is all on this line of numbering. Make of it what you will. As mentioned previously, I’m an information junkie and I like to mash it up all ways from Sunday for no good reason other than, why not?

Literature & Poetry

What was Margaret Atwood thinking? Politics trigger warning. I’m reading The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, published 1986 by Anchor Books. This week I read these horrific sentences which are as clean as a bone:

“It was after the catastrophe, when they shot the president and machine-gunned the Congress and the army declared a state of emergency. They blamed it on the Islamic fanatics, at the time.

Keep calm, they said on television. Everything is under control.”


Wait, there’s more:

“That was when they suspended the Constitution. They said it would be temporary. There wasn’t even any rioting in the streets. People stayed home at night, watching television, looking for some direction. There wasn’t even an enemy you could put your finger on.

So much for fiction being a respite from reality. I was relieved when Nancy Pelosi cancelled the SOTU (Shout Out To the Union) this week due to the government shutdown.

RIP: Mary Oliver, September 10, 1935 – January 17, 2019.

Mary Oliver was an American poet who died this past week. I end with a short piece of her poetry which captures the chiaroscuro, the light and the dark of life. From a Twitter share (@kaysarahsera):

Peace. Bless. Be kind.

Carry on.

(At wealth’s end …)/II

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Math:

(At wealth’s end … ) / II = 2 Rich Bezos

Well, although I blogged about Jeff Bezos wealth in May, (At wealth’s end ...) and posited ideas for ways to put his wealth to use, I did not see Occam’s razor edge coming for half of it with a divorce, but there you have it. Occam’s razor. The simplest explanation is probably the most correct.

On January 9, 2019, Jeff & MacKenzie Bezos issued a joint statement on Twitter that they will divorce.

And silly me. Occam’s razor again. I assumed the simple reason for the split would be money. Not how much, but how the money is used.

  • The company Jeff Bezos founded, Amazon, has grown to be a trillion dollar company. While we watched in 2018 as cities manufactured elaborate tax structures and infrastructure plans with the hope of being crowned the next location for Amazon headquarters, it was reported that Amazon employees augment their low pay with Food Stamps, taxpayer-funded programs.
  • Amazon builds and tests literal rockets.
  • And there is the 500′ clock keeping time in a geologic basement in Texas.

The optics are bad. Communities prostrate themselves for the blessing of a wealthy man who spends lavish amounts of money wasting 500′ on time while his employees live in scarcity.

Yeah MacKenzie, I’d divorce myself from all that too.

As a couple out at wealth’s end, I was heartened to read that pre-divorce announcement the Bezos’ seem truly devoted to each other. MacKenzie was a partner in the formative days and the eventual success of Amazon. She is a published author (HarperCollins) and Jeff was her first reader. Aw, shucks! And there’s more … if you’re interested, “Strange things about Jeff Bezos’ marriage”, by Stassi Reid at Nikki Swift is well-documented reading. Other sources: Business Insider & The New York Times.

And in this day of conscious uncoupling and as stated in their announcement, I hope they remain friends after the divorce.

But this time I was wrong about Occam’s razor and it’s not about the money! It’s Occam’s dick.

Jeff has a new companion, Lauren Sanchez. And throughout history, men have thrown in for other loves, fortune be damned. Or halved. This is not new and Ms. Sanchez appears to be all that — gorgeous, glamorous, TV personality, helicopter pilot. Set aside all the salacious details – not interested – and the participants in this break-up are all grown-ups — Bezos & Bezos, Sanchez & Whitesell (her husband).

Often when lots of zeroes are involved, stereotypical men in mid-life crisis couple up with women half their age. But not this time. Ms. Sanchez is a year older than Ms. Bezos.

If the Bezos’ do not have a prenuptial agreement, MacKenzie gets half or $69B (USD) more or less to which we say, “Go get it girl!”

This will double the number of Bezos on the list of billionaires. Two separate economic whales that can move markets.

And so I’m looking forward to following what MacKenzie Bezos does free and away from the economic wake left by Jeff. Calendar time and wristwatch time will tell.

Jump. Make a difference. Make a splash. We’re watching.

Coda

Projects one could fund with a big lottery win:

  • scoop up one of the big 5 publishers
  • start a new publishing imprint
  • start a Life-type hardcopy magazine focused on photographs that contain a thousand words and writing that captures this era beyond the 24-hour news cycle, (see also Laurene Jobs)
  • fix up Puerto Rico and flip it as the 51st state!

2019 Meditation: Clean as a bone.

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Happy New Year! I’m kicking off with a meditation on writing.

Let’s go!

Whilst reading about writing recently, I tripped across a summary of some James Baldwin reflections on writing and the writing life in a post by Maria Popova (brainpickings.org).

” You want to write a sentence as clean as a bone. That is the goal.”

– James Baldwin, (Hat Tip: Maria Popova, James Baldwin’s Advice on Writing)

Simple, clean sentences. Owing to what I call ‘style,’ some of my sentences stampede across the mighty plains of white paper, run over the river and through the woods in search of  rainbow’s end and the small pot of gold known as a punctuation mark called a ‘period.’ Finé. Done. Viva, stop beating that poor horse and give it a rest. But already fat and heavy with verbiage, I am riding into the next stampede in search of another boney sentence.

Or paragraph. Sentences clean as a bone. Paragraphs loaded with clean bones. And I choke a little. The bone caught in my throat is fish.

Another year has passed. Another year of witness to now. I am my own little Piglet — “… he tries to be brave and on occasion conquers his fears … “, a small voice on this noisy stage and I am afraid but I stand on my orange crate, pick up my bullhorn and whisper into the digital void. My voice is here. You might not hear it, but it is not about you. It is about me.

The sentence never ends. Chained to an ink pen, chained to a keyboard and screen, it is all about me. Stories hold us together. In this storyline, we are on my path of a writer doing writerly things, scribbling with writerly pens and we are lost in a sea of ideas. JRR Tolkien wrote that not all who wander are lost, and I don’t know if I’m swimming or if I am sunk but perhaps not all who flounder are drowning. The hard tools of writing are my lifeline for thoughts seeking expression and voice and I grab hold of that ring. It feels like a brave act of salvation.

Ideas captured and chained down in pen and ink. The messy first copy is not as clean as a bone. Given life on the page, it is up to me to carve til it hurts. Carve until we hit bone. And we are grateful that to participate in this activity means we are operating on a high level of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.

Self-actualization sustains and if writing isn’t all that, it sure feels good.

It occurs to me whilst floundering and wandering in the ether of mixed metaphor that maybe the bones James Baldwin talks of are not those of the butcher but those of the archaeologist. I am not chasing thoughts like wild animals only to harvest their bones. No. I’m a writerly archaeologist sporting a virtual pith helmet as I dig in the dirt, examine rocks, blast layers, toss scat, breathe dust and celebrate mightily when I uncover that oddball sentence as clean as a bone.

That is the theory anyway.

Bone recognition skills required.

Being read is a gift. Thank you dear reader!

And here is to another year excavating for sentences as clean as a bone! May it happen with more frequency.

Or not.

–Viva, January 01, 2019

Life, III. A Sundry Assortment of Advertising in Motion

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tl;dr? Oh well! Carry on.

This is the third in a series of posts taking a peek into the March 31, 1972 issue of Life magazine. The advertising is a throwback reminder to the technology available and the social norms of the time.

Let’s go!

Parking lot photo booths

In 1972, advertising relied on photography which was analog. A photograph required a camera which required film which required exposure which required a specific shutter speed to capture an image. And while you fiddle with the camera settings, don’t forget to focus.

And then develop the film. A literal dark art, photography required a dark room and tubs of chemicals and time and magic. Instead of an iPhone or Android second, photos on film required a minimum of hours to develop. And I can speak to the disappointment of waiting a whole week for the postal service to deliver packets of blurry overexposed, underexposed, or unfocused photos. It could be a sad end to a long wait.

Analog photography required transportation, dark rooms, chemicals, paper.
Bottom of full-page Fotomat advertisement, Life magazine, March 31, 1971.

Polaroid photo exception

Page 2 of Polaroid Square Shooter 2 advertisement, Life magazine, March 31, 1972.

Polaroid cut the time to see a photo from hours and days to minutes. When photographic paper layered with chemicals was pulled out of the Polaroid camera, the chemicals were activated and film development would start. After a wait of a few minutes, the photo was extracted by peeling off the mini-darkroom chemical layer. And for posterity, another chemical was swiped across the surface — a darkroom feature kept within reach of mere snap-happy mortals.

Polaroid may have cut photo development time to minutes, but that could still be too long to wait. I remember family reunions where between snaps, grandpas or uncles or cousins or siblings wandered off and there was hollering to get everyone back together for the next family portrait. And then we had to smile. The struggle was real.

And Polaroid photographs are like monoprints – singular, unique. There is no negative to make reprints from.

It’s complicated.

Ford Mustang print advertisement, Life magazine, March 31, 1972.

My visceral reaction to the visual mash-up of a surfer and a Ford Mustang is that it is simple and makes no sense. Why is the surfer hunched over the cars in a King Kong menace? Why are those beautiful cars parked on a beach? They will be wrecked or swept out to sea.

Then on further inspection, this advertisement is, actually, a marvel. Created in an age before digital photography and PhotoShop, it was complicated to match the surfboard stripes to the Mustang stripes, to leave the proper amount of space for the advertising copy, to center the surfboarder, match the auto window glass to the dark water of the wave, and evoke a feeling although I’m not sure what I’m supposed to think or feel. The copy states “A panoramic instrument panel and a floor-mounted stick shift sitting between bucket seats. Now this is the real way to control a car.”

Really? Maybe not park on the beach …

Copywriting

Advertising copy used to provide lots of product information. Consumers presumably would compare products and conclude that the advertised product was more desirable than the competition for any number of reasons, but information was key.

And then the wheel turned and advertisers wised up. Who wants or needs or reads, information? Information is boring. Let’s cut to the chase. How does the product make you feel?

The Hiram Walker Ten High bourbon advertisement is an example that is copy heavy with information overload! I have to read to the end to find I’ll make a friend and I’m cheap. Hmmm, I’m wondering just like the fellow in the photo if it’s even worth it.

Copy heavy.

And here’s an example using less copy. Product placement. Smoke in the fresh mountain air on a remote lake or come up where ever you are by lighting up. And note, this Life magazine was published nine years before the Surgeon General’s warning was required on cigarette advertisements.

Levitation with cigarettes — “come all the way up …”

Breakdown of cigarette adverts.

Cigarettes were still advertised in print with relative impunity. Some contained the Surgeon General Warning. Others not. All cigarette advertisements were full page. Men smoking were manly. Women were accompaniments. The exception was Maxine, the masseuse, who rolled-her-own but you’d rather smoke Camel Filters than Maxine’s brand.

  • Camel Filters. They’re not for everybody. They suggest that your only alternative would be Maxine’s brand which is local to Maxine and conveniently not available to you.
  • KOOL. Come all the way up to KOOL. Just a box of cigarettes levitating on a mountain lake (see photo above).
  • Raleigh. Spend a milder moment with Raleigh. Manly man smoking in a meadow with a woman examining a weed? She’s a blond with a headband. The advertisement contained a Surgeon General’s warning.
  • Lucky Ten. The first low ‘tar’ cigarette that delivers full flavor. This was the simplest ad. A simple box — do we even know if there are cigarettes in the box? — in red, white, and black. The phrase “Only 10 mg. ‘Tar'” appeared twice.
  • LARK. Put some more flavor in your life. Man and woman smoking leisurely over a picnic with a red and white LARK hot-air balloon in the background meadow. The picnic blanket is blue and white like Judy Garland’s dress in The Wizard of Oz and you know it is intentional. Leave Kansas. Visit Oz. Smoke. Smoke LARK.
  • Marlboro. No tagline. All feel. Cowboy riding a horse chasing a steer. You are on the move and we know because the background is blurry. Presumably, enjoy a smoke after chasing steers.
  • Pall Mall Gold 100’s. Yes, longer yet milder. Close up of a man’s hand with a lit cigarette and gold signet ring … embossed with … the same emblem on the Pall Mall Gold 100’s box also featured in close-up. If you smoke PMGold 100’s, you.are.successfull. And manly.
Marlboro cigarette advertisement, Life magazine, March 31, 1972.

The number of cigarette ads in the magazine was a reminder that social norms change. I can’t remember the last restaurant I was in that had a dedicated smoking section. If you smoke, we want you to know you shouldn’t, and you can go smoke in isolation. This wasn’t always true.

1972 Pantone Greenery Dodge Dart

My first car ever was a 1973 2-door Dodge Dart, so this image struck near and dear to my heart. My used Dart was $300 with about 50,000 miles. I proceeded to drive it for another 50,000 miles. Mine was not painted 2017 Pantone ‘Greenery’ but it was by far the most economical ride I ever owned.

Automatic transmission was an option! and that color is so forward-looking 2017 Pantone Greenery.

This has been a moment blog post to consider Life, the magazine. Issue dated March 31, 1972.

Carry on.

Life, II. Twin Towers in my lifetime: before & after.

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In a lifetime. Rise, fall, rise again.

Before.

The Twin Towers rose in my youth. Sometime during 5th or 6th grade, they were completed, dedicated, populated. They took up residence at that spot in my heart previously occupied by the Empire State Building where I childishly believed that America dreams big, plans big, and builds big. 

Life magazine, issue dated March 31, 1972, took me back to that space in my youth when the World Trade Center (WTC) was still incomplete, still someone’s dream, still a plan in motion.

Life magazine, Two tall towers for world trade, March 31, 1972.

Remembering is too interesting. Here is the text in full:

New York City’s World Trade Center is another year or more from completion, and the grounds around it are now still ugly with the paraphernalia of construction. But these photographs, made using the architect’s scale models, show what the massive center will look like in time and suggest some of its superlatives: it is the tallest (110 stories), costliest ($700 million) and most spacious (nine million square feet for rent) office complex on earth. It is also a fright to many critics who worry about straining the Wall Street area’s already overloaded electrical, communication, and transportation facilities with another 50,000 employees and 80,000 visitors daily. In his handling of the project’s sheer mass, however, architect Minoru Yamasaki conceived some notably graceful solutions — particularly at ground level. The complex will emphasize open spaces and maximum exposure to sunlight. At its center is a huge plaza (seen at center above and as the background photograph on these pages) that is bigger than St. Mark’s Square in Venice. It will include five acres of flowers, fountains, sculptures and trees. To see what the Trade Center has done to the New York skyline, turn the page.

Two tall towers for world trade. (1972, March 31). Life. 
New York skyline as Twin Towers are built.

Large buildings are inorganic structures that require infrastructure and complicated systems to support a populace not distributed across a land mass but concentrated vertically. Skyscrapers are efficient. Essentially, the infrastructure — heating and cooling, water supply, electricity, communications, waste management — needs to support the population of a mid-size city. 

And for 28 years, the Twin Towers came alive and lived and breathed and supported. And they were infused into my understanding of America. Big plans, big buildings, we get ‘er done.

After 

I recently made my first trip to New York City with Mr. Viva and in our itinerary was the 9/11 Memorial at the site of the Twin Towers.

WTC Memorial, November 2018

I did not make it to New York when the towers were there. Those two cities reaching to the sky were demolished by terrorists. The towers fell. People died. The memorials are appropriately two big holes left by the towers’ footprints. 

And there is a hole left at that spot in my heart, too. We are not unique because we build big dreams from big plans. Someone else’s big dreams and big plans killed ours.

The winged structure in the background looks like the Calatrava addition to the Milwaukee Art Museum. Just sayin’.

Rise again.

I can’t leave on a low note. 

As part of the rebuild of the World Trade Center complex, the One World Trade Center building surpassed the height of the Empire State Building on April 20, 2012. 

Picture of the sky over New York in November 2018. That may or may not be One World Trade Center. Photo taken using selfie-setting on phone.

On a windy day, tall buildings sway. Or they sway more. We passed on taking a trip up to the observation deck. 

This time. 

But we’ll be back, too. 

Life, I. The magazine.

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tl;dr? Imma blogging on Life — the  magazine between now and the new year. Specifically the March 31, 1972 issue. Enjoy! Or not.

A note. I republished this post about 3 minutes after first hitting publish. Laurene Powell Jobs was quoted in a recent NYTimes article. Not the 1972 Life magazine. Ms. Powell Jobs was 9 years old in 1973. Her fame and fortune were not yet a thing. 

I am in possession of the March 31, 1972 issue of Life magazine. 

As a child, George Wallace was a candidate in the first Presidential election of which I was aware and his name popped up in a discussion of the current racist resident of the White House with FAL*. When she tripped across a Life with an article on Wallace, she sent me the whole enchilada. 

And what a time capsule!       

*Not her real name. FAL is an acronym. Favorite Aunt L.                       

Former FLOTUS on magazine covers

Is the plural of FLOTUS, FLOTII?

Look was a contemporary magazine of Life.  Look folded in the early 1970’s, Life died later. Thumbing through this issue of Life, magazines with curated news heavy on photos are a treasure.

In a recent NYTimes, I read with great interest,  an interview with Laurene Powell Jobs who is investing heavily in media:

Both magazines have managed to create unique journalistic platforms that help foster empathy and a better understanding of the world. – Laurene Powell Jobs

” … narrative moves people more than anything else.”

 Kara Swisher, “Can Laurene Powell Jobs Save Storytelling? NYTimes, November 27, 2018. 

Looking through the Life relic, I believe Ms. Powell Jobs is on to something. The photos were lush and contained another 1000 words each, they made me curious. The writing was smart and sharp, edited, considered, worthy of ink and paper, not of-the-moment and gone.

The unfiltered, uncurated internet increases connection without adding to understanding. Although the purchase of Pop-Up — a company that specializes in performance type art — can’t be held in your hands, I’m ready for a Look or Life reboot. Please?

And the Life March 31, 1972 issue is chock-full of reminders that some things never change.

In April 1971, Richard Nixon ran interference between a pending antitrust suit and a hearing at the Supreme Court for I.T.T.! And I love that the NYTimes has an online archive and that in 1973, they were the paper of record! Now? Eh, not so much, but I digress.

Ranan Lurie cartoon, Life, p. 12. March 31, 1972

In The Presidency op-ed, Hugh Sidey quoted Lyndon B. Johnson: 

“Business,” snorted Lyndon Johnson once when he was battling the big interests, “is what makes the mare go.”

Hugh Sidey, The Presidency: What makes the mare go, Life, March 1972, p.12.

My bold. And this is comforting maybe things do never change! Remember John Mulaney’s observation that “Trump is a horse loose in the hospital.” This makes perfect sense since business is what makes Trump go.

Forty-six years on, the mare goes horse is unhinged and loose. 

Change a few names, tweek a situation or two, and Hugh Sidey’s op-ed would bring you up to speed on the Trump Administration’s political acrobatics. In the Nixon era:

“Even more fascinating was the story of Herbert Kalmbach, an obscure California attorney who happens to be Nixon’s private lawyer. According to one Washington authority, he now “has the goddamnedest bunch of clients lined up outside his door that you’ve ever seen.”

Hugh Sidey, “The Presidency:What makes the mare go,” Life, March 31, 1972, p.12.

Michael Cohen is Herbert Kalmbach to Trump’s Nixon. I cannot make this stuff up.

Last paragraph of the Life op-ed:  

Up on the Hill at the ITT hearing room a few days ago a young man with fire in his eyes waited for a seat. What for? “Because I want to hear them lie,” he spat.  … this new bitterness … began in the secluded chambers of power which this administration still seems to think are its private preserves, where matters too lofty and complex for common comprehension are dealt with. It is, once again, a policy of non-communication, and it is an added insult to the American intelligence.

Hugh Sidey, “The Presidency: What makes the mare go,” Life, March 31, 1972, p.12.

My bold. Jim Acosta could play the part of the young man with fire in his eyes. Ignore the mention of ITT, replace “them lie” with Sarah Huckabee Sanders lie” and that paragraph could have been written yesterday.

Today that paragraph would be updated to pile on more insult to the American intelligence with reference to Trump’s “gut tells him more than anybody’s brain.” 

Just wondering, what with his gut and Fox & Friends talking to him, maybe we should track his daily horoscope, too? He is a Gemini.

Finally, general observations from the bleacher seats decades removed from George Wallace:

  • George Wallace is a reminder that racists persist — he made four runs for the White House.
  • Wallace ran as a Democrat. Historically, racism has not been limited to party. (And we hope that has changed.) 
  • He was a ‘segregationist’ which is just a fancy bow tied around the gift of a racist. (To be clear, racists are a curse, not a gift. See also, sarcasm.) 
  • As a judge and an early adopter of voter suppression, he blocked federal review of voting lists. 
  • His wife’s name was Lurleen. She sat in for him as governor to get around term limits. Ugh. Political dynasties. Kennedys, Clintons, Bushes, who’m I missin’? 
  • An early adopter of shooting people to gain fame made an assassination attempt on Wallace in 1972. Wallace was left paralyzed for the remainder of his life.
  • And hope. Hope that minds and hearts can change. In 1979, Wallace apologized for the physical, literal stance he took at the door of a school to impose segregation demonstrate racism in action. “I was wrong. Those days are over, and they ought to be over.” –Edwards, George C.

A Sundry Assortment of Politickles

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tl;dr? Here’s a pic with 1,000 words:

A most succinct bumper sticker. Poetry in motion!

My Favorite Aunt, let’s call her FAL, tells of a Viva cousin who at the age of 7 or 8 looked at the TV programs scheduled for the week and declared that it was all ‘politickles.’ Ah! These missed pronunciations delivered with additional meaning must be genetic. Pronounciations!

Political? Politickle. Let’s go!

Working the Polls

I’ve wondered what it is like to work the poles polls. And each election, if not now, then, when? When are you going to work the polls, Viva? So this year, I didn’t just cut bait, I fished. I attended the training and registered voters for the general election on Nov. 6, 2018. My report:

  • Pre-gotta-get-me-to-work voters! Voting for two Wards was held in a facility with stacked ballrooms. By 7:15 AM the line was out the upstairs balloting ballroom, down the stairs, and curled around into the lower level ballroom. My compatriot reported this was more gettin’-up-mornin’ turnin’-out than she had seen in previous elections!  
  • Same day registration. Availability to register the same day should be a requirement of any voting system. At the site I worked, I don’t have statistics on the number of people who would have not been eligible to vote because their VOTER REGISTRATION HAD BEEN PURGED BETWEEN THE WISCONSIN PRIMARY ELECTION HELD APRIL 3, 2018 AND THE GENERAL ELECTION, NOVEMBER 6, 2018. But I held up my right hand and swore to work the polls and I will attest that the number was greater than or equal to four. And a couple of those good folks were OUTRAGED.
  • Generations younger than mine SHOWED.UP. Boom! There it is. I am one. A late Baby Boomer. Out of the 50 or so voters I registered, only two were older than me with long-time residency. And so I wondered what brought YOU to the polls? Have you not voted before? But hey! You do you. Better late than never?
  • Gravitas, I. Without exception, voters who needed to register same day SHOWED UP with PROOF of their right to cast their vote. Serious. They had checked the requirements. Residence, valid photo ID, and for many, multiple forms of both. Viva’s heart was warmed. This also made it hard to tell someone their proof, although following the spirit of the law, was insufficient in letter. See Gravitas, II. 
  • Gravitas, II. We are here to GET YOU REGISTERED. Kate worked next to me had worked the polls before. Her experience was golden. If you presented yourself to vote and you needed to register, without exception — we had folks hop on the internet and log on for utility/credit cards/valid account bills and we even sent a few good folks home for additional documentation. BUT YOU COUNT, WE ARE HERE TO GET YOU REGISTERED, AND GET YOUR BALLOT TO THE POLLS! And what a relief! The registration checklist makes you feel like a gatekeeper looking for fraud when you are not, and there isn’t any. More than once, Kate’s direction, encouragement, and flat-out problem-solving made me feel I had superpowers. We got ‘er done!
  • Gravitas, III. The rigorousness in registration — a physical visible human presenting themselves as who they are and where they live — affected me election day. Registration is separate from actual balloting/voting and the checklist is not long, but when you’re the one who checks, it is easy to second and third guess whether or not you skipped a check. And this is where my obsessive-compulsive-repetitive disorder was a blessing and a curse. If you presented, I checked and rechecked and you were good to VOTE! Blessing. But. Hold on. Wait. Did I really check? Did the photo ID of the voter over an hour ago really look like them? Curses. Spam!
  • Gravitas, IV. The whole of election day at the site I worked was rigorously run. The polls opened when the time on our ballot machine said ‘go.’ The polls closed when the ballot machine said ‘stop.’ And for the record, the ballot machine said ‘stop’ when internet-phone-time said there were still two more minutes and we had two people running up the stairs to vote when the proctor called ‘closed.’ Disappointment! And they pointed at their phone time, but to allow them to vote would invalidate the whole. Wowza! Gravitas closed.

Nancy’s got a brand new HOUSE!

Representative Nancy Pelosi (D- 12th district CA), is poised to become the Speaker of the House of Representatives January 3, 2019! Again! But! This time she will preside over a body that includes more diversity than ever before. And we are warmed.

A semblance of checks and balances is restored to the horse running wild in the White House in concert with the elephants preening in the Senate. 

And in the whole brouhaha of whether Ms. Pelosi is the best suited to be Speaker, the best story I’ve tripped across was her response to a Republicant pushing for Social Security privatization legislation:

“Never. Is never good enough for you?” 

Ah! Hearts, unicorns, and rainbows. Holes in the social safety net keep growing. Privatization would drop the remaining net to the floor and the predators would come out to feed. 

Millennials!

I love my Millennials! They are great people and as a group, they get a bad rap.  Proof? Here we go.

A Google search to find the percent of Millennials that actually.showed.up.and.voted, returns links to pre-election article lamentations on how many and why Millennials may vote. Election day, the media barking dogs couldn’t wait to call elections even as balloting horseplay was in motion and several elections weren’t decided for days. Oh, and there is a run-off in Mississippi tomorrow. Go Espy! But I digress. 

Maybe my Google game is off, but two weeks after the election, a search for the Millennial vote turns up crickets. The media has moved on with the exception* of … TeenVogue! 

TeenVogue: “An estimated 31% of eligible voters age 18 to 29 actually voted.” – Linley Sanders, November 10, 2018, 7:00 AM EST.

And we celebrate teenVOGUE! Writers like Lauren Duca and Linley Sanders are relatable, reliable voices that point to legitimate sources to back up their statements. In the search to see what the Millennial vote was, I tripped across a site called EliteDaily. Although it looked legit, further investigation dropped it in our metaphorical internet click-bait chum bucket. Viva will not be fishing there.

EVERY.VOTE.COUNTS!!!

Click-bait is all the rage. In an effort to be first, many media outlets called races on election night while the number of uncounted ballots turned the winner around.

Example: In Wisconsin, Frood continued to monitor results after her mother went to bed cried herself to sleep. This is how close the race was in the wee hours of the morning:

11:40 CST – Looks like a walker wins! Wait. 98% reporting in …

Whoa! At 11:40 CST, 2,759 ballots separate Walker and Evers. The drama continued. From Frood’s final screenshot:

By 1:40 AM CST, Evers lead Walker by 29,050! In two hours, Walker made a gain of 117, 571 votes;  but Evers collected another 149,380! Enough that in the morning, Viva dried away her tears and celebrated with a steaming hot cup of coffee. Whew! EVERY.VOTE.COUNTS!

2020: Harris–Klobuchar

And so in jumping on the calling it early train, my pick for the 2020 Democratic Presidential nomination is Kamala Harris — Amy Klobuchar! 

Two sharp, strong, capable women at the top. Why not? Isn’t it about time? And sharp, strong and capable seems redundant, but I am not afraid to be wrong. Buckle up!

Indivisible.ORG

“State the obvious. You’re hardly ever wrong” was a maxim my father invoked often. Note: You may sound like a simpleton, but conversation is simplified. So, I state with impunity that life goes on between elections.

And as we struggle a more perfect union, between now and the 2020 elections or the next protest, I’m refreshing my civics education and upping my participation through indivisible.org. Consider this an invitation to join me!

The struggle is real.

Carry on.