Readers and writers blog

Since I last posted a week ago, I haven’t done a goddamned thing. This election is driving me crazy.

Well, I have done one thing — new poetry from Joel Phipps, our songwriting, guitar-playing, kilt-wearing bard in southwestern Ohio.

But other than getting that new poetry formatted and posted for today, I’ve spent the past week glued to TV and Internet polls, watching the latest predictions from Pennsylvania, Florida, Virginia, Ohio, even North Carolina and Indiana, from early morning until late at night.

Because I can’t spend another four years like I’ve spent the last eight.

After long days of poll-tending and short nights of fitful sleep, I’m up early to check on the stock market futures. Because they make a difference, too. That’s right. The worse the economy, the better for Democrats. And so I shamefully admit that I hope the stock market stays in the tank — but just for two more days.

I worried about the World Series because Wednesday night’s broadcast of Game 6 would have to be delayed eight minutes by Barack Obama’s half-hour political ad on that network. Would that cost him the votes of some baseball fans? To avoid that, I wanted the series to end at Game 5, long before Wednesday night, no matter who won, Philadelphia or Tampa Bay. And so I was rooting for the Phillies, who were ahead 3-1 in games, when Game 5 began. Turns out, it was delayed two nights by rain and ended up on Wednesday night, anyway.

I mean, these are the things that have possessed me this week. Really, I was supposed to be calling area nursing homes and senior residences to set up the first of three weekday singalongs I’d like to lead as a volunteer each week. I got the phone numbers written down in a notebook. That’s it. And I’m supposed to be practicing the guitar that’s sitting beside this computer. Still sitting there.

Because the polls, the polls are calling.

The George W. Bush years have been worse than even the Richard Nixon years. At least Nixon managed some foreign policy successes with China and the Soviet Union before his creepy domestic activities caught up with him. I liked the elder Bush, George H.W., who I thought was a capable, honorable man. But Junior — lazy, incurious and, frankly, just plain snotty — has made me and a lot of other Americans ashamed of our country.

I’m not much more impressed with the latest Republican ticket, not so much because of John McCain, whom I consider an American hero but, unfortunately, way out of date. I was in the Army during the Vietnam War — I served in the Middle East, which had its own dangers even then, but certainly not like Vietnam — and I think it’s time we get over that war. Hell, I think it’s time we get over the Civil War.

But Sarah Palin. Jesus. Some people thought TV anchorman Charles Gibson was unfair to ask her about the Bush Doctrine. Granted, I may be the only one on my block who understood what he was talking about, but someone who seeks to be our backup president should know he was talking about the U.S. waging preemptive war. And anyone seeking to be vice president should know the constitutional duties of the office, which do not include “running the Senate.”

By the way, when she promised special needs families she’d be their “advocate in the White House,” I wonder what she was thinking. I know, the vice president has an office in the White House, but I wonder if she was under the impression she’d be living there, too. I wonder if she knows the vice president lives at the Naval Observatory.

Choosing her as his running mate was not the act of a steady statesman but that of a risky pilot. And I don’t want to be in his plane.

So let’s vote, already. Let’s get it over. I can’t take this much longer.

This week’s new offerings in Poetry:

• Four poems by Joel Phipps — ‘The Convenience Store,’ ‘Public Service Announcement,’ ‘Writersville, U.S.A.’ and ‘December Rains.’

– Sid Leavitt

p.s. You know, for a guy who’s supposed to be taking a break from blogging, I still seem to be blogging. Go figure.