operator
I know he looks like Luigi and the video quality is comically 70s, but this song makes me teary:
do you want to see a pretty picture
so do i:
from this isn’t happiness.
I’m approaching finals land and I’m in an art mood. I want scanners, art markers, Gamsol paint thinner, I want to make Christmas comics and uterus comics and stop sucking at Photoshop and learn Flash and redesign websites. I want to momentarily tear myself away from PBS documentaries and Newsweek and read a novel full of poetry.
I WANT ART. I want to find it and be surrounded by it and make it, now!
NOW.
<3<3
Evelyn’s wedding was a blast!
The couple-y mood was in the air. The cake was FANTASTIC, the dancing was crazy, the alcohol was plentiful, the food was delicious. WEDDING FTW.
And this week, it’s THANKSGIVING FTW. I am making cornbread if it kills me.
The new king of Bhutan
Bhutan has a new leader: King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck, age 28 and the youngest monarch in the world right now.
…and he’s really cute!
(from the BBC)
In his first speech, he declared: “Destiny has put me here. I will protect you as a parent, care for you as a brother and serve you as a son. I shall give you everything and keep nothing. This is how I shall serve you as King.”
Apparently King Wangchuck is a big proponent of change – urging steps forward like satellite TV and an elected assembly. He’s vowed to stay committed to Bhutan’s program of Gross National Happiness (so cute!) that offers a holistic measurement of the feelings and satisfaction of the country’s citizens.
<3<3 dreamiest king ever <3<3
we voted for change…
and we got it, sort of, kind of.
I am ecstatic about Barack Obama’s historic election as 44th President of the United States. I don’t need to tell anybody how massive the voting lines were, how people who had never voted in their entire lives were out there at the polling stations, how perfect strangers passed by each other on the street and mused about making history. From crying Jesse Jackson (so cute!) to pundits ever so naively declaring that the barrier of racism had fallen, to McCain’s graceful concession speech, to presenting the new President Elect on stage in Chicago, it was nothing short of an amazing night.
BUT.
I am so sorely disappointed in California. And Arizona. And Florida. And Arkansas. In one night, gay rights were slashed in four states. Yes, I’m happy Prop 4 didn’t pass (that would have required minors to get parental notification before obtaining an abortion). Yes, I’m happy we got our bullet train (!!!!). But Proposition 8 was crucial, and the fact that we let intolerance and paranoia about the future of our children or the fate of “traditional marriage” get in the way of offering this one step towards equal treatment is appalling.
Not long ago, the New York Times posted this picture from a Yes on 8 rally:
This tearful, pleading, indignant support of a ban on a basic right for gay couples is sickening. The Yes on 8 “think of the children” ads were sickening. Arkansas’s prohibition on gay couples adopting or foster parenting children is sickening. It never fails to amaze me how so many people in this country are still rigidly holding onto this stupid notion that loving someone of the same sex is a sin and that their marriages will somehow trample on their precious, untarnished ways of life.
Allegedly, people were voting for change this year: a reprieve from the fear-mongering, privacy-invading, rights-impeding, incompetence-filled leadership that plagued us throughout the last eight years. Some say the Obama vote was a double edged sword that prompted church organizations and ethnic groups to come out and cast extra votes against gay marriage. Or that support for Proposition 8 just came too swiftly and so late in the game that opponents didn’t prepare for it fast enough to mobilize before election day came (my personal theory). Who knows what happened.
With President-Elect Obama on the horizon I am excited for this shift in domestic politics, and for the first time in a while I am really happy to say openly that I am very proud of being American. But if I might be a Debbie Downer for a moment, these state measures have shown that our problems are still far from being over, and despite whatever self-congratulating laudatory platitudes are being shouted by journalists and pundits and whoever else about the “end of racism” and other horribly naive ideas, we still have a ways to go.