November 1st – All Saints Day – Election Day Eve – End of Hurricane Season – Dia de los Muertos…
…in some grand cosmic scheme of things each of these titles for this one day in this particular year seem to be interlocked. I had planned an entry for each, but with timeliness at stake, I decided to post all in one grand entry, all pointing to the ironic cosmic connectedness of all things. Get ready to scroll…
Halloween and a Conflicted Greenville
The last time this happened was 1999. Five years ago, instead of having Tricks or Treats on a Sunday and rile all the conservatives, Greenville announced that Halloween would be celebrated on Saturday. Apparently there were enough traditionalists to make a stink that this year Greenville made no decision at all. Each neighborhood, and even each household made it’s own decision as to which night to celebrate. Being the opportunists we are, we celebrated both. Saturday night we had our god-children and their mother over as we handed out treats in our neighborhood, then Sunday night we went to their house to take them trick-or-treating. Apparently their neighborhood had partied Saturday night, too, so we found very few houses partaking. It was weird wandering the streets all by ourselves going door-to-door begging candy.
I did notice one hopeful sign this year. Many of the churches were advertising Halloween gatherings for either Saturday or Sunday night. Halloween! Not some generic “fall festival” but a good old-fashioned Halloween party complete with spooks, haunts, and other costumes most Fundies and BJU-ers in our area have labeled “demonic.” I guess without something to condemn, they lose their reason for being. It makes me want to tell some people to get a life.
Speaking of Fundies, Saturday NPR did a story on a new documentary movie about Hell Houses, and their only slightly less obnoxious cousins, Judgement Houses. These are typically held at conservative churches as an alternative to Halloween. Usually, the first scene involves the introduction to “occult” activities such as reading Goosebumps or Harry Potter, then progressing to Ouija Boards other more horrific sins. The final rooms show the judgement and eternal torture the poor soul must endure for taking part in these events.
Speaking of fear and intimidation…
Election Day Tomorrow
Usually, a candidate makes promises about things over which they exert only a peripheral influence. Take employment and the presidency, for instance. The president cannot create jobs, but rather, tries to have legislation passed that creates a climate for growth, and indirectly, the creation of new jobs. This year is different, though. George W. Bush has a legacy of direct actions, most of which have had disasterous effect. Bush Baby Number One is the misguided war in Iraq, entered into at the urging of Bush’s handlers, and almost solely at the benefit of Cheney’s Halliburton, certainly not the Iraqi people. Bush Baby Number Two is a squandered opportunity for international support against terrorism in the wake of 9/11. If anything, Bush’s policies have engendered even more hatred for the US and have created a new hotbed of insurgency and terrorism training in Iraq. Bush Baby Number Three is the No Child Left Behind debacle, which unduly burdens local and state education agencies, while providing little or no financial support. Bush Baby Number Four is the administration’s policy to change or prohibit the publication of any scientific research that disputes their policies if that research is funded by the government. Bush Baby Number Five is the devastation of the environment by policies that promote fossil fuels and open wide areas of wilderness for logging and exploitation. I’m sure there are many more examples, but just these are enough to kick Bush and Company out of office.
But let’s take a look at local politics. Our local Republicans are nothing but thugs. If you aren’t with them, then you certainly can’t be a Christian (according to them.) This, despite the fact that they engage in voter intimidation, and even stoop to stealing campaign yard signs from neighborhoods. At this point, I don’t think I could EVER vote for a Republican, simply because of the tactics and self-righteousness employed by this group.
Well, that certainly got my blood pressure up, so I’ll change directions and look for a bright spot, or at least a more amusing one…
Hurricane Season is Over
…as of November 1. I guess that could apply to political campaigns, but this time I mean it in the literal sense. We have had a doozy of a time with storms of all sorts. Amy got hit by both Francis and Jeanne, but her house and boat survived, if not a bit water-logged. The tentative plan is still to head that way for Christmas.
While anxiously waiting for storm damage news back in September, I couldn’t help notice how STUPID these news companies are. The Weather Channel, CNN, and even Fox News all showed the same thing – some poor reporter standing outside in the storm getting drenched and windblown telling us that a storm is coming. Couldn’t they have done that from the inside? Windows are transparent last time I checked. I finally got around to watching “The Day After Tomorrow” and noticed that the producers of this movie must have thought the same thing. Several of the movie weather reports didn’t have sense enough to come in, and paid with their lives in horribly unrealistic ways.