...and optimism will rule the day

Like a lot of people bitterly disappointed with the results of the US election, I've been thinking quietly rather than blogging out loud. Considering how close Kerry came to winning the brass ring (he just missed by about 150,000 Ohio votes) it bugs me how much commentators have been talking as if Kerry was a loser from the outset, and how badly he ran his campaign. Sure he made mistakes, but it sounds like a sour-grapes rehash of the criticism so many made of Gore's campaign 4 years ago.

The real problem here is a fundamental truth that just wasn't as clear as it has now become: As someone writing at Salon put it, contrary to what so many of us once believed, the heartland of America (most of what lies between New York and California) is neither secular nor rational, and the Democrats will never win on an intelligent, secular, rational platform. Clearly, the voting majority of Americans are under-educated and governed by the same forces as those primitive peoples studied by anthropologists: fear of the elements out of their apparent control. Bush and Cheney are masters of that domain.

Even so, Kerry was powerful enough in the dignity and integrity he radiated to nearly overcome the irrational terror and come awfully close to beating the dark force. And that was some achievement, even if he didn't win it for us.

In Why Bush Won, Farhad Manjoo mentions "the Armageddon theory of politics," something that many are employing to hang in there these days. He says, "Bush and the GOP majorities in the House and Senate will make things so bad in the next four years that the country will never elect a Republican ever again. So here's hoping things get much, much worse!"

On a more optimistic note, Salon's David Talbot offers an editorial entitled, We Won't Give In. If, as he says, "you're insulted by the rise of a news media that seems dedicated to lobotomizing the American public," you owe it to yourself to check in with Salon regularly. They will never be cowed by the machiavellians.

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the grail finds me

And so we move on to other matters. It seems I've found myself some employment, temporary for the moment, but possibly permanent. At least for now it pays a decent hourly wage, and also scores me the product being sold at a sweet discount. The business involves Royal Jelly, the food created by worker bees to feed the queen bee, that which in fact turns her into a queen bee and keeps her alive years longer than the worker bees. I'm just learning about this stuff, though it's been used in China for centuries, I gather. If it works on my migraines and on my kid's attention-hyperactivity challenges I will be one happy worker bee myself! We've just started taking the vials of Royal Jelly once a day, plus oxygen drops in our water, and I will report on what happens. I don't expect immediate results, but kids are always supposed to respond to these alternative therapies faster than adults. As always, I'm hopeful for relief from that which ails us.

As I will be working full time, there will be much less time for blogging and everything else I want/need to do, but I'll be here when I can be.

And, oh yeah, that novel-writing experiment? So over. I'm a sprinter sort of gal, not a marathoner; I'll never be a novelist. I'll never be like Dan Brown, whose The Da Vinci Code I devoured over the past three days, barely stopping to eat or blog, in case you didn't notice. Wow, I loved every minute of it. Pure heaven getting fascinating history with heart-pumping entertainment. Nothing I like better than doing two things at once!