Inchoate

I would like to think my expensive secondary school and university education would lead to a large vocabulary -- or to put it another way, knowing lots of words.  Unfortunately, with me it's an uphill battle.

I used to think the word was pronounced "in-chote" and meant deeply ingrained.  I guess that's just what I thought it ought to sound like and guessed it meant.  Then I was listening to "Left Right and Center" a favorite political program on KCRW, and the conservative guy (a British-y douchebag) pronounced it "in-ko-ayte."  I thought to myself, what kind of elitist, ridiculous, pompous pronunciation is that?

Then, sitting at my computer later, I remembered my feeling of superiority and looked it up on dictionary.com.  There I experienced a moment of private humiliation, similar to crying at home while watching "Pretty Woman."  The conservative douche's pronunciation is of course correct (although "in-ko-et" is also acceptable).  And it doesn't even mean what I thought it meant!  It means beginning, or incipient.  Don't know what incipient means?  Too bad.

Reminds me of the time I asked my Dad what ubiquitous meant.  He smiled at me and answered, "ineluctable."

Election Day

Even though I am a cynical, godless bastard, I do love this country.  At least, I love the idea of this country.

As an interesting side note, the "Yes on 8" sign-holders on our corner have now been rained on twice.  Maybe the Lord is on our side.

Appropriate Responses

Over the weekend, I had to take Hunter to his guitar lesson, where he learns the answers to such timeless musical questions as, which metal riffs played over and over endlessly at maximum volume in the basement, are most pleasing to my parents' ears?

At the bottom of our hill, at a big intersection, were about 30-40 people, spread out on all four corners, holding "Yes on 8" signs.  Proposition 8, here in California, would if passed outlaw gay marriage.  You know, to protect "real" marriage, between a man and a woman, with a 50% divorce rate, with the ability to dump a plain first wife if she is sick and get a new rich glamorous wife, the way the Lord intended.

These people looked normal enough, although I consider them bigots who ought to know better.  Just because gay sex is dirty, it's no dirtier than straight sex.  As Woody Allen once was asked, is sex dirty?  His reply: if you do it right it is.  Anyway as I've said recently, I think most of these people just are afraid of gay people, just like they were afraid of black people years ago (or still are).  Does this give them the right to say who can marry?  Even if their "good book" supposedly tells them homosexuality is an abomination?  No. No.  No.  Nein, danke.  We have a little thing in this country called separation of church and state, and that means, to me, in a very basic way, that if the defense of a law is because the Lord says so, then that law is to be struck down.  Which, even if the proposition passes, the California Supreme Court will do, again, if there's any justice.

Well.  As Hunter and I drove by, I complained aloud to him that there was no good way to express one's disapproval with the views the sign-holders were advocating.  Honking, of course, is interpreted as support.  "I could spit on them," Hunter offered helpfully, although there was no denying the tone in his voice -- spitting on people with the approval of one's stepdad would be cool.  No, no, I intoned schoolmarmishly, I do not approve of spitting on people, even if on some karmic level they deserve it.  With any luck, Jesus will spit on them in heaven.

But what could we have done?  Yelled at them? I didn't have a sense of what would be appropriate.  If we opened our windows and booed, it wouldn't have been very loud, and might well have been interpreted as cheering for Kevin Youkilis or Bruce Springsteen.  Maybe we could have stuck out our tongues (see Fig 1) but they might not have noticed.  Perhaps the old Bronx cheer?

None of the above occurred to me until it was too late.  So, I just stewed impotently as I drove away, like usual.  Quite the example for young master Hunter.

Fans of Democracy

Of course, I'm voting for Obama.

I like to think that it's because I am an educated, enlightened voter, up on the issues, in touch with what candidate best reflects my views.  That, frankly, is why I voted for Kucinich in the primaries.  He may be a bit of a nut job, but he best represents my political views.  He was one of the few brave ones to come out in favor of gay marriage, which to me is a simple case of equal human rights.   No more, no less.  The notion that Obama feels he mustn't endorse gay marriage in order to be elected, even though he privately favors it is, to me, sad.  And if he really opposes gay marriage, then I might have to vote for Nader.

Most conservatives, I believe, oppose gay marriage because they think gay people, and the idea of gay sex, is alien and disgusting.  But they use the bible as a crutch to explain why -- the Bible says it is an abomination!  But if you ever meet one of those people, don't let them get away with it.  That quote is in Leviticus.  Make them turn the other parts of Leviticus, where it says it's OK to sell your daughter into slavery, that working on the Sabbath merits stoning, and even prohibits hair trimming.  In fact, any time anybody quotes the Bible to you, tell them to take their good book and shove it, since it's full of little-referenced ridiculous stuff that makes the common stuff preachers always quote completely invalid.

But enough about that (for now).  Whew.

I find myself wondering how anybody could support McCain.  Of course, I admire and revere his service to our country in Vietnam.  And to a large extent he used to be a fairly centrist Republican senator, although still much too conservative for me.  Better than most, I suppose.  These days, though, I think he is a pretty lousy candidate for President; it's a sign of how conservative the country is that Obama isn't ahead by more.

Two things bug me about McCain, and they aren't news.  First, his "I'm going to drop everything, suspend my campaign, and head to Washington to fix the economic crisis" gambit.  Well he did head to Washington, but he didn't really suspend his campaign, still running commercials and letting surrogates represent him on the stump.  And it turned out he didn't really have much to say when he got to Washington.  So the whole thing was an empty political song-and-dance.  How could anyone in the country not see through that?

Then of course there's Sarah Palin.  McCain's signs say "Country First" but that is completely put to the lie by Sarah Palin.  Is there anyone in the universe who thinks Sarah Palin is the best conservative to put second in line for the White House?  Yes, admittedly, lots of other candidates have chosen running mates primarily to help their ticket.  But they've always chosen from a pool of experienced, qualified people.  (Of course I exclude Dan Quayle, but at least he'd been in the Senate for a while.)  McCain met with Bible Spice (Alex Baldwin's term, not mine) for a few hours and made his incredibly cynical pick.

Now you may argue that Obama isn't much more experienced.  That may or may not be true.  But Obama was chosen as the Democratic nominee by millions of Democratic voters who want him as President.  On election day, you can cast your vote as to whether you think their judgment was right.  But Sarah Palin was chosen by only one man -- McCain.  And that choice is a direct reflection on his judgement, what kind of judgement he'd have as President.  And he failed.

Who could possibly disagree that McCain is a terrible candidate?  I mean, you may be desperate to roll back Roe v. Wade, promote the teaching of creationism, and a whole host of other conservative agenda items.  But this guy?  Does 45% of America really think this guy would make a good President?  I really have been struggling over the past weeks to believe that.

Then I realized how most people view elections.  They view them like sporting events.

Most people have a team they root for no matter what.  I admit I root for the Red Sox no matter who is on the team.  It's because I grew up near Boston, and that's that.  I mean, I like a lot of the players, especially Mike Lowell, who took less money to stay in Boston.  (And now of course he might be traded.  He was an idiot for not asking for a no-trade clause in return for taking less money.)  But I root for them even though I don't like a few players: Manny, I came to believe long before he left for warmer SoCal climes, is a dick.  But even though Manny is a dick, I would never start rooting for the Twins or the Rangers.  And certainly not for the perennial cellar-dwellers the Pirates.

So, like their sports team affiliations, most people form their political views in early adulthood and stick to them forever, no matter what.  So it doesn't matter if Bush Sr. picks Dan Quayle as his running mate, it doesn't matter if Reagan broke laws to arm the contras, it doesn't matter if Bush Jr. is an anti-science zealot.  People who consider themselves Republicans are going to support their team, no matter what.

Ukulele Mood

Ellen's friend (and my friend) Cam Clarke had his annual Halloween party again last Saturday, and this year the theme was "Residents of Emerald City."  I went as that guy who first answers the door at Emerald City -- photo to the left.  As you can see, Ellen did yeo-woman's work sewing fake fur on the lapel and hatband.  Still, unfortunately, I ended up looking more like Bill the Butcher from "Gangs of New York" which was not what I was hoping.

Ellen went as a lovely lady dressed in green.  Some others came as witches, there were several other top-hatted doormen, and at least one guy took the green theme less literally and came as The Hulk.

That's not Ellen next to me, that's Susannah, Cam's cousin.  Every year people read scary stories, and some years there are songs, mostly scary ones.  But since this year had a "Wizard of Oz" vibe, I suggested to Cam that he team me up with a singer and we perform that ukulele Iz version of "Over the Rainbow."

Which we did, and it sounded lovely, by all accounts.