And my polling place was virtually deserted. This has got to be the most apathetic local election I've seen in a while. Of course, things may pick up after work, but I suspect there will be low voter turnout all day. New Yorkers on the whole, I think, are just feeling blah about our mayoral choices and that's trickling down to all the local races.

It's a given that Mike Bloomberg will stay in office for a third term, but even though I don't think Bloomberg has been a terrible mayor (his illegal holding of protestors without access to lawyers or family during the 2004 Republican National Convention in NYC notwithstanding) I couldn't vote for him. You have to play by the rules, Mr. Bloomberg, and twice now New Yorkers voted for term limits. You can't just stack the city council with people who want you to be king so they'll overturn the term limits we voted for, dig?

So I decided to vote for someone else as a protest vote. I couldn't vote for Democratic candidate Bill Thompson because he's corrupt and I didn't want him to accidentally win. Green Party candidate Rev. Billy would be a disaster as mayor. The Rent Is Too Damn High guy is anti-Semitic. The conservative and libertarian candidates can go screw themselves, as far as I'm concerned. Daniel Fein of the Socialist Workers party thinks the Cuban revolution was a smashing success, so he's right out. In the end, I decided to vote for Francisca Villar, the candidate from the Party for Socialism and Liberation, whatever that is. But I liked her because she's a Biology student at Lehman College and figured I'd throw my protest vote her way because she's got a lot of moxy for running for mayor while she's in college.

For Public Advocate, I held my nose and voted for Democrat Bill de Blasio, though I was tempted to vote for Maura DeLuca of the Socialist Workers party because she has cute hair and lists her occupation as "Sewing Machine Operator."

For Comptroller, I couldn't bring myself to vote for anyone. Democrat John C. Liu is a dirty liar, and the Republican, Conservative and Rent Is Too Damn High candidates can go screw themselves too. So I left this one blank. When are we going to get some better choices?

For Brooklyn Borough President, I voted for Democrat Marty Markowitz. Marty is like the crazy, drunk uncle who embarrasses everyone at family events but you kind of love anyway. Plus, the only other option was Republican Marc L. D'Ottavio, and his whole platform seems to be that Brooklynites should stop whining and just accept all the big chain stores that are driving out the mom-and-pops that have been here for 30 years because it'll be good for the economy. Yeah, that's gonna win us over.

For City Council, there was literally only one guy running, Democrat Stephen T. Levin. This happens in New York City a lot for some reason. Anyway, my cousin's boyfriend works for Levin, so I voted for him. Now maybe I'll land a lucrative construction deal!

The selections for Kings County District Attorney were even funnier than for City Council. Charles J. Hynes ran on every party ticket--Democrat, Republican, Working Families, Conservative, the Socialist Workers Party, Libertarian, you name it, their candidate was Hynes. Jesus, no wonder we're feeling apathetic.

Seriously, this is the best we could do for New York City's future? Don't we deserve candidates we can actually get behind, people who can vote for instead of against?

President Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize in a surprise announcement this morning. The reason, the committee said, was to honor his "extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples."

To which I say, "Uh...what?"

Look, for the most part I like Obama. I certainly like him a whole hell of a lot more than our previous president. Against my better judgment, even after being burned so many times before, I still have high expectations for his administration--but that's all they are, expectations. And that, it seems, is all this Nobel Peace Prize is about too, and to me, that's a little nutty. After all, shouldn't the Nobel Peace Prize be given to someone after their plan comes to fruition, not merely for claims of intent? Obama's plans have not born any fruit yet--in fact, I'm not even sure they've been fully put in place yet. Only the barest seeds have been planted. So why the rush to give him the award? Why not wait and see what happens? Shouldn't the award go to someone who has done something really good, instead of to someone whom the committee is hoping will do something really good? I mean, the man has only been in office for nine months now and he hasn't done all that much yet.

This reminds me of shortly after the 2008 election, when the economy started sinking even faster, and everyone turned to Obama and said, "Do something!" And Obama had to be like, "We only have one president at a time, folks, and I ain't him yet." It was as if people couldn't freaking wait for Obama to be president. Part of that was the desire to be rid of his predecessor already, to be sure, but a lot of it was an unfair piling on of expectations. Obama's a smart guy, they seemed to think to themselves in December of 2008, before he was even in office. Why hasn't he fixed the world yet? That's a lot to handle, and I don't envy Obama his position as someone who is expected to basically be Superman.

Currently, his approval rating is hovering around the 50-yard line. Not bad for a U.S. president, really. But that's a drop from earlier this year, and if you ask me, it's those wild expectations that are to blame. Why hasn't he fixed health care yet? Why am I still out of work? That kind of thing. We're a culture of impatience. Not that these issues aren't important--they are important--it's just that sometimes our impatience leads us to expect miracles.

And I feel like that's what the Nobel Committee is doing by giving a president who hasn't even been in office for a year yet a Nobel Peace Prize. It's nice of them, sure. It speaks to the confidence they have in him, and the hope that he will succeed in making the world a better, more peaceful place. But in the end, it's just one more wild expectation piled onto the shoulders of a human being. It makes me wonder how much more he can hold before his legs give out, and it makes me wonder why we, as a world, keep setting ourselves up for disappointment by expecting miracles.

Another birther lawsuit has been rejected in federal court.

You gotta love these "birthers." Despite overwhelming evidence of President Obama's citizenship, including a certificate of live birth from Hawaii and a birth announcement in the local paper when he was born, these wackjobs just can't give up their fantasy that he's so "other" he couldn't possibly be an American. Chris Matthews had a great line about the birthers. He said the issue isn't really about documentation, it's about pigmentation, and I'm inclined to agree with him.

The funny thing--if one can find humor in rampant delusion--is that it wasn't all that long ago that Republicans were buzzing about doing away with the Constitutional requirement that presidents must be born in the U.S. (a change I would support, by the way), presumably in case they wanted to run a Schwartzenneger ticket. Now many of these same Republicans, essentially bending over and spreading their cheeks for this lunatic fringe, are talking about legislative proposals that all presidential candidates from now on have to publicly prove they are native born. As if this has ever been an issue anyway. Have we ever had a president who sneaked into office without being born in the U.S.? Have we ever even had a real, viable candidate who wasn't born here? Please.

The modern Republican party: Never missing an opportunity to act like morons.

Once again, I present my September 11 checklist. You'll note nothing on it has changed from last year, or the year before, or the year before. In fact, nothing on it has changed from September 12, 2001.

Osama Bin Laden captured or killed? No.

World Trade Center rebuilt or replaced? No.

Afghanistan stabilized into a free and thriving democracy where terrorism no longer has a home? No.

We've had eight years, folks. Eight years to achieve any one of these objectives, and we haven't. So when September 11 rolls around every year, it's not just sadness and echoes of that day's fear that I feel.

I also feel anger. Not just at al-Qaeda and its sympathizers and supporters, but at us. At ourselves and how foolishly we botched the ways in which we responded to the attacks. How terribly we've let ourselves down, in the memory of all who perished that day and left holes in the hearts of millions.

Osama Bin Laden's severed head should have been on a pike outside the United Nations for the whole world to see by October 1, 2001. (I know that sounds barbaric, especially coming from someone who is against the death penalty, but I have nothing but a seething hatred for this insane mass murderer.)

The original twin towers of the World Trade Center took five years to erect, and that was back in the late 1960s-early 1970s. Today we could have done it in half that time. Can you imagine how great it would have been to have those towers--or something, anything--back up in 2003? How much it would have done to heal our wounds and let us move on emotionally? How much of a "fuck you" it would have been to the monsters who knocked it down and those who danced in the street when they did? Instead we have nothing but ego battles, ridiculous design ideas, and a big hole in the ground filled with bulldozers and cranes. Now they're saying it's on track to be rebuilt by 2011, in time for the 10th anniversary. I'll believe it when I see it.

So, another September 11, another day of reflection and contemplation that inevitably leads me to anger and frustration at our own seeming inability to accomplish any one of the three items above. I'm not even asking for all of them at the same time. Just one. Any one. Pick one, please, and let's get it done.

1) Conservative columnist and former CNN "Crossfire" co-host Robert Novak has died after a yearlong battle with cancer, his family said Tuesday. He was 78.

I used to have respect for Novak, even if we usually saw things from different ends of the political spectrum. Then he thought it might be a good idea to out Valerie Plame as a CIA agent in his column, either because his political masters told him to or because his journalistic instincts insisted he scoop everyone else and be the first, since his informants clearly would have moved on to other administration-friendly journalists if he refused. Regardless of Novak's reasons, his seemingly thoughtless actions put in danger the life of an undercover CIA operative working to keep weapons of mass destruction out of the hands of terrorists and rogue states, not to mention the lives of every one of her assets, friends, family members and other operatives using the same fake cover business she did. That this did not result in mass executions and assassinations all over the globe was, let's be honest, lucky.

2) The Consumerist not only embarrasses itself by writing a short piece on New York's nutso fringe Green mayoral candidate Reverend Billy, but embarrasses itself doubly -- nay, trebly -- by using the phrase "theater fag" to describe him. Way to keep it classy, Consumerist! The commenters quite rightly take author Carrie McLaren to task over it, too.

I've actually met Rev. Billy and found him very nice, but unfortunately one of those people who seems to put ideology above facts ("Consumerism is a deadly invention that came over our American culture in the last 30 years, dating back to Ronald Reagan"? Really, Billy?). On the other hand, he is a very good performance artist.

Hey, fellow Americans! Remember when our last President, President Bush, shat all over the Constitution and created the illegal warrantless wiretapping program?

Remember how you were all, "What's the big deal? They're just trying to keep us safe. Screw the Constitution -- I'd rather not die from a suicide bomber at Six Flags. And besides, if you haven't done anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about."

And remember how Dick Cheney, just this past May, defended the illegal surveillance program by saying it "prevented attacks and saved lives"?

Well, guess what? It didn't prevent a single attack or save a single life. In fact, it didn't do jack shit.

Other than set the precedent of allowing the government to eavesdrop on our phone conversations and read our emails whenever they want, of course -- but I'm sure nothing bad could ever come of that.

...I bring you this interesting bit of news.

Everyone's favorite governor is stepping down at the end of this month, a year and a half before the end of her term.

I can only assume the truth has come out about her secret lover in Argentina.

Enjoy the holiday weekend!

Tonight on Hardball -- one of the few talking-head news commentary shows I can sit through...usually -- Chris Matthews tore Alaska Governor and former Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin a new one for using a ghostwriter for her just-announced memoir. With thanks to the Huffington Post, here's some of what Matthews said:

What is Sarah Palin up to? She's got this book deal; she's obviously not going to write it, they've already announced she's going to collaborate on it. What an embarrassment...Why do they do it like this? "She can't write; we got a collaborator for her."...[Palin should stick to giving speeches] instead of pretending to write a book.

Now, I'm no Sarah Palin fan. Her anti-intellectual, ideology-over-facts attitude during the campaign rubbed me the wrong way. But Matthews happens to be way out of line here.

As someone who is currently keeping a roof over my head during the worst economic climate of my lifetime by ghostwriting, I can tell you a lot of authors use ghosts. And not just celebrities and politicians either. All manner of writers do. For example, James Patterson was using ghosts for years before the publisher started putting their names on the covers beneath his. I think R.L. Stine only wrote the first couple of Goosebumps books before handing the reins over to ghostwriters. Hell, some of your favorite authors of both fiction and nonfiction might use ghosts and you'd never even know it. That's why they're called ghosts. They're often invisible.

So, oddly enough, the fact that HarperCollins is announcing up front that Palin will be collaborating with a professional writer on her memoir is actually doing that writer an honor. For writers -- especially us ghostwriters -- the second name on the cover of Sarah Palin's memoir is a good thing, not a bad one. It's an acknowledgement of all the hard work that went into the project. It might also mean the collaborator gets a bigger piece of the pie, and that's not a bad thing either. For this, I tip my hat to HarperCollins, who would have had nothing to lose by keeping the collaborator a secret, and yet chose not to anyway.

And now I await the inevitable revelation that Chris Matthews used ghostwriters for his two books!

April 24, 2005:

Senate Majority Whip Mitch McConnell said yesterday that Republicans have enough votes to invoke the "nuclear option" to limit Democrats' ability to stall by filibuster consideration of President Bush's nominees for federal appeals courts.

"I never announce my whip count. But I'm telling you, there's no doubt in my mind -- and I'm a pretty good counter of votes -- that we have the votes we need," the Kentucky Republican said. "And that step will be taken sometime in the near future at the determination of the majority leader."

April 28, 2009:

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell just talked to reporters on the Hill [saying,] "What [the defection of Arlen Specter to the Democratic Party] means, if we are not successful in Minnesota, as you know, is that the Democrats, at least on paper, will have 60 votes. I think the danger of that for the country is that there won't automatically be an ability to restrain the excess that is typically associated with big majorities and single-party rule....So I think the threat to the country presented by this defection really relates to the issue of whether or not in the United States of America our people want the majority to have whatever it wants without restraint, without a check or a balance."

Ahahahahahahahahahaha! Oh, Mitch McConnell, you're such a card!

Brazil’s President, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is coming under heavy criticism this morning for statements he made yesterday, in Brasília at a joint press conference with Gordon Brown, the UK prime minister, attributing the global economic crisis to white bankers with blue eyes. Affectionately known as “Lula,” Brazil’s leader, a former shoe-shine boy and founder of the Worker’s Party, said: “This crisis was caused by the irrational behavior of white people with blue eyes, who before the crisis appeared to know everything and now demonstrate that they know nothing....I do not know any black or indigenous bankers so I can only say [it is wrong] that this part of mankind which is victimized more than any other should pay for the crisis.”

Boy is Richard Dean Parsons, the chairman of Citigroup, going to be surprised to learn he's white!

In shocking news no one could have ever seen coming, Levi Johnston and Bristol Palin have ended their engagement. In a statement made through her mother Sarah Palin's PAC, Bristol had this to say:

"Unfortunately, my family has seen many people say and do many things to 'cash in' on the Palin name. Sometimes that greed clouds good judgment and the truth."

I'm not entirely sure what she means, but one could interpret the statement to be about Johnston himself. Was he a gold digger eager to "cash in" on the wealth and fame that would no doubt come with being the country's best known teen dad? Or was he, as some suggest, simply a kid who made a mistake and got roped into proposing to his high school girlfriend for the sake of her mother's political aspirations? We may never know, at least not until the inevitable tell-alls and memoirs are written.

I don't mean to sound like an asshole or anything -- breaking up is hard, being a teen parent is hard, and doing both at once is even harder -- but seriously, you could have seen this coming from a mile away. They never looked all that comfortable with each other at the Republican National Convention or during any of the photo ops along the campaign trail. They're just some kids who went too far one night and didn't have protection. Unlike the thousands of other teenagers who've done the exact same thing, these two found themselves thrust into the national spotlight for it. That must have seriously sucked. Godspeed to both of them.

Please keep further public statements to a minimum, though. As long as the nation never finds out you're both actually inarticulate and self-centered kids, like all teenagers, and not the small-town, down-home, fresh-scrubbed, corn-fed, we-tried-to-do-the-right-thing-but-it-just-didn't-work-out angels they want to believe you are, everything will be fine.

Happy New President Day, everyone!

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's teenage daughter Bristol has given birth to a son, People magazine reported Monday.

The 7 pound, 4 ounce baby was born Sunday in Palmer and is named Tripp Easton Mitchell Johnston, reported People, which spoke to Sarah Palin's aunt Colleen Jones.

Tripp. It's nice to see the Palin tradition of giving their children ridiculous names lives on.

“The main point of the marquee is to cause Christians to understand he's not a Christian. They call and tell me he’s not a Muslim he's a Christian. That's not the point. The point is he's not a Christian.”

Um...what?

Despite the fact that Article VI, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution clearly states, "no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States," people are still going crazy over this rumor, as evidenced by the above. Granted, they're a nutbag minority, but still. It's heartening that residents of Wichita, Kansas, including, presumably, some of Pastor Holick's congregation members at the Spirit One Christian Center, have been calling to correct what the sign says. It's less heartening that Pastor Holick refuses to let the facts get in the way of his partisan bigotry and hatred.

You know who we have to thank for all this, by the way? Our next Secretary of State. The rumors about Obama being a secret Muslim didn't come from the Republicans. They were started by the Clinton campaign during the lead-up to the primaries. The one about Obama attending a radical madrasah during his childhood years in Indonesia? That came from the Clinton camp. So did the picture of Obama in traditional African garb, intended to scare people into thinking he had a dynamite belt hidden beneath his dashiki.

Remember those scenes in just about every mad scientist movie where the scientist has a moment of guilt-wracked clarity and asks, "My God, what have I done?" I'm not expecting any such moment from Secretary Clinton.

If the reports are to be believed, there's a lot of finger-pointing going on behind the scenes of the failed McCain campaign, and the Republican Party in general. A lot of McCain's team are pointing specifically at one person: Governor Sarah Palin. They're saying she was an out-of-control rogue more concerned with her own success than the ticket's, that she went on an insane shopping spree with campaign funds, and that she was, basically, an idiot who didn't know Africa was a continent, not a country.

Today, CNN's Campbell Brown responds to this blame-Palin finger-pointing with the best commentary on the subject I've seen so far:

To those top McCain advisers who leaked the little story about seeing Sarah Palin in a towel; to those who called her and her family "Wasilla hillbillies" while using her to stoke class warfare with red meat speeches and an anti-elitist message; to those who claim she didn't know Africa was a continent; to those McCain aides who say she is the reason they lost this election: Can I please remind you of one thing? You picked her.

You are the ones who supposedly vetted her, and then told the American people she was qualified for the job. You are the ones who, after meeting her a couple of times, told us she was ready to be just one heartbeat away from the presidency.

If even half of what you say now is true, then boy, did you try to sell the American people a bill of goods. If Sarah Palin is the reason some voters chose Barack Obama, that is no one's fault but your own.

Preach it, Campbell! (God, I wish you weren't married! I've been hot for you since your election coverage in 2000!)

The McCain staffers can point fingers all they want, but the truth is, Gov. Palin is the same person today that she was when she was selected for the VP slot in August. It was their moronic choice that didn't work, it was their selection of someone whose extreme right-wing views galvanized the base but simultaneously alienated the moderates, independents and undecideds whose votes they needed to win, it was their pathetic, transparent attempt to lure disgruntled Hillary supporters away from Obama after the primaries that cost them the election. Palin's just Palin (which is why I think she's doomed should she try to run for president in 2012; I doubt she'd make it past the primaries), but it was the campaign itself that made the choice, and now they're suffering the consequences.

You can't purposely let a bull loose in a china shop and then be angry at the bull when you get the bill for everything it broke.

So. Let's talk about gay marriage and chickens.

Not exactly two great tastes that taste great together. Nobody is going to say, "You got your gay marriage in my chickens," or, "You got your chickens in my gay marriage!" Nobody, that is, except California.

This past Tuesday, California had two very interesting ballot initiatives. The first was Proposition 2, "Standards for Confining Farm Animals," which "requires that calves raised for veal, egg-laying hens and pregnant pigs be confined only in ways that allow these animals to lie down, stand up, fully extend their limbs and turn around freely." It's asking for a compassionate standard to be set, a statement that animals may not be people but we don't have to be barbaric, we can at least treat them humanely. Treat them as we ourselves would want to be treated were we in their place. And it passed with flying colors, with over 60% voting yes.

The second was Proposition 8, "Eliminates Right of Same-Sex Couples to Marry," which "changes the California Constitution to eliminate the right of same-sex couples to marry in California" and "provides that only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California." Basically what happened was, earlier this year the California Supreme Court ruled that it was unconstitutional to deny same-sex marriages. The only thing that could make it illegal was a state-wide referendum, and thus was Proposition 8 born. Everyone gets to get married despite sexual orientation, the court said, unless you specifically vote not to let gays and lesbians do so. You would have to specifically vote to take away this civil right.

And they did. Proposition 8 passed, with some 52% voting to strip gay and lesbian Californians of their right to marry (it is currently being appealed by the ACLU). That's right, California voters were able to put themselves in the place of calves, hens and pigs to determine how they would want to be treated, but were unable to do so for their gay and lesbian neighbors, friends, coworkers and family members. What's good for me is not for thee -- unless you're a farm animal.

Consider this: Chickens are being granted rights by the people of California, while at the same time gays and lesbians are having rights taken away.

Same-sex marriage bans were also voted into effect in Arizona and Florida this year. I'll never understand the reasoning behind voting to deny anyone the right to get married. You can explain to me all you want about the Bible or about how a form of marriage exists for gay and lesbian couples, just under a different name, but it will fall on deaf ears. To claim that the institution of marriage would be weakened by making it more inclusive makes no sense. Marriage should not be treated like a country club, where only certain people can acquire membership. It is, ostensibly, an affirmation of love between two committed, consenting adults. More than that, it has important, legally binding aspects too, and that, as much as the gooey love stuff, is just as important a reason why it must be made more inclusive. As I always like to point out, replace the word gay with black, Jewish, Hispanic, Catholic, etc., and then ask people if they would still vote for a marriage ban.

This fear of allowing gay and lesbian couples to get married -- and the decision is based on fear, that somehow all of society will crumble if it's allowed -- stands on the wrong side of history, and I remain confident that one day everyone in this country will be allowed to get married despite sexual orientation. We have to be. Because to do otherwise is to be ruled by fear, to let fear color our decisions and, worse, stifle the rights of others simply because we are afraid.

And that's just chicken.

(By the way, please note my new "all things politics" userpic!)

Dear Internet,

Yes, he's a politician. Yes, the Democrats are as greedy and corrupt as the Republicans.

But you know what?

It's okay to be happy once in a while. It's okay to let yourself smile, clap, jump up and down, and hope for a better future under new leadership. Even if it's only for one day.

Honestly, sometimes I worry that you're seriously depressed, the way you feel the need to temper your excitement with qualifiers about how everything is still going to suck forever.

Sincerely,
Nick

P.S. And don't even get me started on those of you who are now publicly fretting and biting your nails, convinced he's going to be assassinated before your very eyes every time he's on TV. Jesus Christ.