How John McCain Broke My Heart (1st draft)

In 2002ish, he sang Barbara Steisand songs before a national TV audience.

http://politicalhumor.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?zi=1/XJ&sdn=politicalhumor&cdn=entertainment&tm=12&gps=22_13_600_498&f=00&tt=9&bt=1&bts=1&zu=http%3A//vodpod.com/watch/835874-mccain-sings-streisand

Even after reviewing the video now, I am sort of inclined to vote for him. Look at him with his microphone, and shameless love of making an ass out of himself. In that same episode, he played a creepy husband, and overzealous hippie school teacher. He fielded questions from Psuedo-Tim Russert.

Think of all the damn cliches. He had that spring in his step, that glint in his eye. You must respect a person who can stand up and make an ass of themself, then turn around and basically says, with a straight face, "I want to represent you in government. I want to use the tax money that the government takes from you, and use it for initiatives that will benefit our land."

I knew very little about his policies of that time. I did not know how long he had served as senator, or that he had served in The House. I did not know what division of the US armed forces he was in. I did not know who his wife was, or that she was his second spouse, and far younger than he. I did not know what legislation he introduced and helped pass. I only knew that he once ran for the Republican nomination for General Election of 2000, and that, if he ran again, he would be my first choice for president. Once I came of voting age. And bothered the vote.

I missed the 2004 election due to my age (I was 17) and missed the midterm election due to a friggin address issue that is my fault because I didn't stick a neddle in the gov't's eye long enough to make sure my application really get enterned into the system, and I ended up getting turned away on election day. I am definitely registered this time, as a Democrat in Queens. And I have learned that four years is a long time. A long time.

This has nothing to do with presidential terms. This has nothing to do with a senator's 6 year term, or Congressman's 2 year term. Nothing about Bush or Dick. Nothing about going from Colin to Rice. Just growing up is the thing. A person at 17 is several personalities away from who (s)he will be at 21. That just seems to be the law of life.

So, it's the very last day of high school. The very very last day. The seniors were forced to sit in the auditorium to watch a slideshow of photos of prom. And all of the pictures features just about the same circle of friends. Pay attention to the loud whispers in the audience, and you would notice more than one complaint about the students who set up the slide show.

People stay in their circles, no matter how physically small that circle. This was true in my high school. The teenage cliche of different cliques sitting in different lunch tables were pronounced in several different ways. We were a performance art high school, so creative writing majors might sit with their CW classmates. Actors with actors, artists with artists, sports players with sports players. Of course, people Simply came together due to similar interests.

And then there is the race thing. About over 50 percent of the people there, at Howard W. Blake High School in downtown Tampa, FL.


Malcolm X got it right, I feel, when he disparaged legal attempts at integration, and said the only real integration would happen in marriage. Now, he was defining real cultural integration too thin, but people can't just be allowed to hang out with each other. They can't be given gov't incentives to hang out together, do business. They have to willingly, with a limit on agenda, go up to the other person and say, "Hi, how are you. How was your day? What are your interests?" That quotes, and any embodiment of it performed sincerely, represents my image of integration. Something happens on a micro level between any two people. Fuck race. That's just a red herring for humanity's problems (but more on that some other time).

Let me just mention that some of the magnet school students in the school had a name for the rowdy kids: "Ghettys." As in Ghetto, not the gas station, chief.

Now, this apparently wasn't racist. Apparently. It was a reference to the perception of the school being pretty uncomfortable. Because a number of the student body enjoyed writing gang signs on the wall, and occasionally starting fights, and being rude to the women, and the most vocal of these rowdy people were black dudes. most of these black dudes were neighborhood students, from surrounding areas, including the housing project right across the street. The white kids getting bused in from other areas didn't aways appreciate the atmosphere, and the users of the ghetty word were more mostly white. And their defense of the word had to do with the perception of the rowdy kids being from an immature culture. A 'ghettoish' culture of cursing, disrespect for authority, homophobia, misogyny, reverse racism, at least from my view point.

Now I'm not going to spend too much time on the word ghetty, and it is an interesting subject to spend a good little time on, to try to get a 3D coverage of it, because that is really interest. So I will only state the opinion I had when I originally had and kept personal at the time: Let's face it. That shit is tap dancing on the border to racist. It is walking on the edge of racist. Simply because of the association, man. I mean, that word is suspicious.

And this essay is now officially wack and represents why 2nd drafts are a good idea. Never write an essay while often leaving the apt. to do laundry, or you will lose coherent train of thought, but this all has to do with indirectly shaping my perception of John McCain, our silver hair champion of liberty, free market, unborn fetuses, and Sarah Palin, the most promising and disappointing Vice-Pres candidate ever.

So, to some up high school, everyone was a ghetty, in some way. Self-righteous, sometimes petty, sometimes bereft of complete acceptance of others, very un-Carl-Rodgers-like And while I pretty much kept out of the ghettyness (overtly), it was soon to infect me, and blow up like HIV.

I DON'T have HIV.

But I do have the disease of ghettyness, the pervasive disease in the humanity. and when you act ghetto, you are ignorant of the fact.

Slipknot is an underrated band, by the way, though the lyrics of their latest single is pretty sloppy. Just so you know.

So in the fall of 2006, I went to college, and John McCain was two years into his fourth senate term. And I kept to myself, and took my spanish class, and other classes to finish the college's core requirement, and John McCain, who has been in the senator longer than I have been alive(!) prepped for his run for the presidency. And over this time, I noticed that his pupils had gotten bigger. His jowls hung lower than before.

His mom is in her 90s, and doing great. Okay.

And then his paternal grandfather died at 61. Okay.

And then his pop died at 70. Well, medicine has made advances since then, 1981. Okay.

And John S. McCain, III, senator from Arizona, is 72. The oldest man ever to run for office.

(quick McCain tidbit, "[McCain] recalls in his writings how, as a toddler, he sometimes held his breath and fainted during moments of fury." - Washington Post's Michael Leahy, regarding his infamous temper)

Is he crisp? Is it the best decision to run for

Will I get to 70, and think of 21 year old me as a presumptuous dweeb?

Hell, never mind his age. I just don't like his campaign. I dislike his he dismisses Obama's tax plan as merely raising taxes. I dislike how he blames his opponent for having no real plan, yet speaking in "Hooray terms" without substain. How are you going to reform the system, dude?

I agree with the Obama's policy toward companies that happen to pollute; simply set caps for how much they can pollute, and make them pay to go over that amount.

I am fond of his tax plan.

i am skeptical of his health plan, especially in this environment.

i am pleased with his policy on Iraq and Afghanistan, considering the past 7 years.

It's 11pm, and sleep must come, and the second draft of this will wait.

BUt if Ron Paul were still running, I'd vote for him. Seriously.

And Sarah Palin, what? She's a hardass lady. *Fill in blanks; I'm setting about watching her interview with Charlie Gibson, but so far it seems for some reason is NOT answering questions from the press. Wow.

Personal bitchyiness, personal ghettyness, internship, yada, yada.

Something something about Lincoln and Doris Goodwin Kearns, Team of Rivals is a great book.

Meditations on power, pride, Fidel Castro, people, why they go after all that responsibility. Do they really do this for other people? messiah complex. Obama, wanting him to lose to Clinton just so maybe he would get humbled. Because it was painful to figure things out. Blah blah

Okay, step by step, how are you going to reform things. I don't mind you holding back on precise details, but I'd like actual specific policies before I invest the next 4 years on you. you're making me have to dig up your plan, John.


research research

solution?
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Hosanna to the highest! Our LOUD


*

Our LORD has cast down his cross, and immitation of sacrifice, he has painted red on his hands and feet. He dabs a part of his ribs with water from Aquafina, and says that he has been stabbed. And he cries what a voice, supported by loud speakers, "you are my children, and i am your father, who loves you, and cares for you, and

Our LORD ordered 'plumbers' to break into Watergate.

Our LORD bathed in White Water.

Our LORD flirts with pages.

Our LORD shot himself through the mouth.

Our LORD cheated on his wife.

Our LORD might actually not care that her husband cheats on her, but that's just a brief assumption.

Our LORD gets caught banging hookers after publicly condemning prostitution. The media pretty much ignores his state's severe deficit.

Our LORD onced fathered a part-black kid, and later made damn sure black people would have nothing to do with white people (what, dude, the mom break your heart or something?)

Our LORD is going to cut health insurance for underpriviledged children.

Our LORD is 9 trillion dollars in debt, and even cannot pay for at least (at least) over 400 billion in programs he wants to accomplish. He asked me for a loan, about 20 twenty dollars, just for laundry. I said, "Uh."

The LORD took our faith in Him, and very probably used it to hide child pornography in his computer (seriously! An assemblyman from New Jersey is accused of doing that!)

"My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?"

Casting The Muppets/Sesame Street 2008 Presidential Campaign Movie

* Barack Obama -- Kermit the Frog

* John McCain -- Kermit the Frog, with a white wig

* Sarah Palin / Hillary Clinton / Cindy McCain -- Miss Piggy (Who else can do all three?)

* Joseph Biden -- Gonzo

* Ted Kennedy -- Fozzie Bear

* Bob Barr -- The Swedish Chef

* Fred Thompson -- Mr. Snuffleupaguses

* Pat Buchanan -- Statler

* Robert Byrd, Senator and former member of the KKK -- Waldorf

* Sean Hannity -- Bert

* Alan Colmes -- Ernie

* Bill O'Reilly -- Oscar the Grouch

* Al Franken -- Scooter

* Oprah -- Nanny

* various protesters -- Animal