Tuesday, November 09, 2004
Mark Shea finds a lot of very happy people
Even as the Neighborhood Nightwatch Divisions of the Ned Flanders Jihadist Brigades begin rounding up undesirables for the firing squads and the black helicopters from the John Ashcroft Death's Head Squadrons begin their surveillance of San Franciso, Chicago and Manhattan, the courageous people of Baja Californada talk about their strategies for endurance of the living hell that is Red State America:
Frances Verrinder saw Wednesday, seven were upset and frightened to the point of tears.
In another part of town, Joyce Renaker began "eating chocolate and speaking in obscenities."
Vicki Cormack found her neighbor on her knees, weeping.
Joan Lester, a Berkeley author who worked the Democratic phone banks, said that as she lay sleepless at 3 a.m. on election night, she wondered how she would get through the next four years. She began planning a book: "How to Survive the Bush Years and Even Laugh."
Beverly Held is moving to France. Louis Bryan of San Francisco is studying Dutch. Liz Williams of Alameda dug up her application for an Italian passport and is, she said, looking for business connections internationally.
Some who chose flight are already changing their minds, and not just because Canada is cold and New Zealand is lacking in street life.
San Ramon's Brenda Watkins and her partner attempted suicide by dessert - - "Pumpkin cheesecake with bourbon caramel sauce, and pecan pie with homemade vanilla ice cream."
Concord law student Alex Simmons is rereading "The Sun Also Rises" by Ernest Hemingway "because it's about a guy who has his genitals cut off and that's how I feel."
Writer and performer Merle Kessler of San Francisco, who describes himself as "lapsing into diffidence punctuated by rage," is watching old Roy Rogers' shows. "Nelly belle, Bullet, Trigger!
"President Bush seems intent on thrusting the nation back into the '50s," he said. "If you can't fight 'em join 'em."
Penny Greenberg, who feels as if she does not belong in her own country anymore, offered, "My only consolation is that someday this planet will be a dead cinder in the universe and all the stupidity, greed, and intolerance and their sad, sad consequences will be lost to all memory." [Shea notes: So much for the atheist's arguement that "Things matter because they end."]
Frances Verrinder saw Wednesday, seven were upset and frightened to the point of tears.
In another part of town, Joyce Renaker began "eating chocolate and speaking in obscenities."
Vicki Cormack found her neighbor on her knees, weeping.
Joan Lester, a Berkeley author who worked the Democratic phone banks, said that as she lay sleepless at 3 a.m. on election night, she wondered how she would get through the next four years. She began planning a book: "How to Survive the Bush Years and Even Laugh."
Beverly Held is moving to France. Louis Bryan of San Francisco is studying Dutch. Liz Williams of Alameda dug up her application for an Italian passport and is, she said, looking for business connections internationally.
Some who chose flight are already changing their minds, and not just because Canada is cold and New Zealand is lacking in street life.
San Ramon's Brenda Watkins and her partner attempted suicide by dessert - - "Pumpkin cheesecake with bourbon caramel sauce, and pecan pie with homemade vanilla ice cream."
Concord law student Alex Simmons is rereading "The Sun Also Rises" by Ernest Hemingway "because it's about a guy who has his genitals cut off and that's how I feel."
Writer and performer Merle Kessler of San Francisco, who describes himself as "lapsing into diffidence punctuated by rage," is watching old Roy Rogers' shows. "Nelly belle, Bullet, Trigger!
"President Bush seems intent on thrusting the nation back into the '50s," he said. "If you can't fight 'em join 'em."
Penny Greenberg, who feels as if she does not belong in her own country anymore, offered, "My only consolation is that someday this planet will be a dead cinder in the universe and all the stupidity, greed, and intolerance and their sad, sad consequences will be lost to all memory." [Shea notes: So much for the atheist's arguement that "Things matter because they end."]
