i was a bit worried i’d regret not having attempted to cross the rubicon potomac for obama’s inauguration. those worries have largely been put to rest, between the piles of garbage left by attendees¹ and the security snafu that kept many ticket holders outside the gates.

i bumped into a former coworker this morning, an ill-fated blue ticket holder, who related his nightmare trying to get in to the inauguration – it was pretty much what the post reported. it’s an understatement to say that he was unhappy that he, too, wound up watching the inauguration on tv after securing the coveted tickets and then spending more than two and a half hours in line in the chill.

another acquaintance of mine, also in possession of tickets, spent more than two hours in line in front of a locked gate, before seeking out another entrance with his wife. he managed to get in, but just barely – there was no signage, he said, and very few uniformed people who knew what was going on.

am i sorry to have missed the historic inauguration of the first black POTUS in person (and even if he weren’t, for a democrat, after the long, cold winter of cheney)? sure. regretful that i didn’t try? no longer.
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¹ according to the wapo, 130 tons of it, in fact.

many other, more erudite sources around the web have pointed out the problems with the media’s scapegoating of the black voter population (which i perpetuated in my post below), so i’ll just link to them rather than replaying all the arguments here.

the moderate voice links to and reprints a portion of the message from kathryn kolbert, president of people for the american way;

a post on dailykos goes after CNN’s sampling methodology among other things (i don’t agree with all of the assertions, but it’s worth the read);

and raymond leon roker at huffpo has even more.

now, that said, if CNN’s sample was correct as to distribution of the black vote (if not the overall percentage of the vote that was cast by black residents of california), it does beg the question as to why 70% of california’s black voters cast a ballot in favor of prop 8. andrew sullivan links to more.

and what of the mormon support? apparently the LDS church pulled out all the stops in supporting prop 8. an LA times op-ed piece looks at the mormons’ own history of non-traditional marriages, opining that “there is no religious group in our country that should be more tolerant of “nontraditional” forms of marriage than those of us whose ancestors were polygamist Mormons, who were persecuted because of their “nontraditional” marriages.”

oh well.

wednesday morning, i bought the last newspaper in the box at my bus stop. i almost never buy hard copies anymore – too much waste. but wednesday’s paper was special, and i figured it would make a nice $.50 keepsake.

by 4:00pm wednesday, there were lines around the city for the “special election edition” of the post. at 6:00, en route to the sisters of mercy¹ gig at the 9:30, a guy tried to sell me a copy of the special edition for five bucks. i told him i’d snagged one that morning from a newspaper box. “no! this is the SPECIAL EDITION!” he insisted.

turns out the one i got is, indeed, the special edition. go figure. now i have to decide what to do with it – frame it? newsprint is awful to keep – too much acid in the paper. or i could sell it on ebay, i suppose.

at the 9:30, both the opening band (a surprisingly good hypernova²) and andrew eldritch mentioned the election results. “congratulations on getting your country back.” AE intoned. and while the concert was good, the only thing that distinguished it from their gig on halloween at the trocadero³ was eldritch’s annoyance with a guy up by the stage.⁴ there’s a certain humor in the contrast between AE’s deep singing voice during lucretia my reflection and his higher-register, leeds-accented threats of bodily harm.

i hear the sons of the city and dispossessed
get down, get undressed
get pretty but you and me
HEY! back the fuck up! do you want me to kick you in the fucking head?
we don’t doubt, we don’t take direction,
lucretia, my reflection, dance the ghost with me

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in other election news, what’s up with the rampant homophobia evidenced by black voters in california? everyone needs somebody to oppress, i guess.

and so it goes.
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¹ goth band from leeds. website generally unchanged for nearly a decade.
² rock band from tehran. yup, tehran. amusingly earnest lyrics, good music, annoying flash-based website. click at your own risk.
³ that’s right, i saw them in philly on halloween, and in DC on wednesday. i could drive down to richmond to see them tonight, but that would just be silly.
⁴ and if at all possible, even greater quantities of fake smoke in the air. i have it on good authority that by the middle of the sisters set, the smoke had invaded even the bathrooms, where it was impossible to see one’s reflection in the mirror through the haze.

for awhile there, i was seriously concerned that mccain was going to take virginia by a spread equal to the number of votes nader received. but the commonwealth pulled through it.

mccain’s concession speech was eloquent and gracious. too bad his campaign wasn’t. but it reminded me why i supported him in 2000, and why i was so impressed when i worked briefly with his office in 1997.

and now I want a krispy kreme.

i really, really like this photograph. ap or getty photo, via huffington post.

update: alejna linked to these photos in the comments, and i think they’re well worth main post status. the shoes photo she mentions is here.

sarah palin: no mackenzie allen.

jacob levy, always well-written, asks the following:

At some point I’d like someone to ask some voter who invokes the “people who remind me of me” standard about the arrogance and narcissism of it – what makes you so great that similitude to you is a relevant criterion for the presidency?

amen to that. (although i don’t think those people will necessarily recognize the word “similitude.”)

much has been made in the media about the likely lefty-ness of an obama presidency. but after watching the PBS frontline report on the two candidates last week (while unable to sleep on the overwhelming squishiness of an embassy suites bed in new mexico), i’m inclined to think that should he win, he will probably approach his job more like he did at the harvard law review than as the most liberal senator of 2007. it’s one thing to be a single voice among 100, and quite another to be the commander in chief.

according to crooks and liars, he’s a member of the keating family. you know, the keating five?

and according to the wapo, the tax-averse, unlicensed small-business-owner-wannabe owes almost $1200 to the state of ohio in back taxes, appears to be doing plumbing work illegally, and might even be a bit of a racist.

hmmmm.

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obama: apparently it means “that one” in swahili. (at about 5:20 in the video)

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and for today’s news typo, i give you the following from the wapo front page. took me a moment to figure out what “shaply” was supposed to mean.