Watching the presidential election is about as much fun as watching two crippled rabid raccoons bite each other to death, isn't it? Does it always have to be this way? Probably. The record isn't encouraging -- when people struggle over power with words in front of a jury it's always been a nasty furball of equal parts absurdity and nastiness, going all the way back to the first democracy, Athens in 500 BC. Still we hope that each time it'll be different. Or at least I do.

This year was particularly hopeful. For the first time in my life both major parties nominated the candidates I wanted to see run against each other. I've watched John McCain from afar for a long time, and I believe him to be one of the top few relatively honest politicians we have. He's human and has his flaws, but too many times I've seen him treat opponents with respect and courtesy and say things that weren't flattering to himself or his party when they were the simple truth. Normal politicians of both parties -- always looking out for Number One and always looking to ingratiate themselves with their ideological suckers allies -- don't do these things. They stay on message, lying casually as often as necessary or convenient.

I've read both of Barack Obama's books, and they are both extraordinarily honest -- not your typical candidate bios at all and both clearly written by the man himself and not a ghostwriter. I wondered if that honesty that would hold up when the going got tough. After Hillary had come back and roughed him up a bit in the primaries he said something like "it does me good -- it helps to control that excessive sense of narcissism that all politicians share, me included." What, a politician acknowledging his own ego? How can you not like a guy with that degree of self-knowledge and the self-confidence to confess it? That says more to me about true character that all the slickly produced "I'm a great guy" ads all politicians run on TV.

Both of these men whom I admire have now been sucked into the vicious vortex of the Main Event and are being hurled down the river at dizzying speed. They are doing what they have to do to win. They are lying, exaggerating, punching and counter-punching. Not to the degree that lesser men might, and there are more moments of honestly that is usually seen, but it's all still ugly, nasty, and profoundly saddening.

It's easy to blame the politicians, but this mess is not their fault. It's ours, the voters. We, collectively, don't want the truth. We demand to be told sweet lies about how candidate X will solve all our problems with his or her sweeping "proposals" (all worthless as the ink they used to be printed on) and how the opposing candidate (the one we really don't like as much) will muck up everything he or she touches. We, collectively, don't vote with our heads but with our hearts based on vague feelings we have about who we like the most, or based on how strongly we feel about a single issue that we're concerned with and whether the candidate agrees with us on it or not.

The whole art of politics is the cynical, professional manipulation of these vague feelings in enough undecided people to get you over the top, in the case of the presidential election the magical 270.

I don't have any solutions to this eternal mess and I'm not advocating any changes. I'm sad about all this, but resigned to it. I agree with Mr. Churchill that democracy is the worst form of government in the world, except for all the others. (I feel the same way about capitalism; an ugly, cruel economic system that works better than the alternatives.)

Last election I wasn't happy about voting for either man but I chose what I felt was the least worst. This year I could vote for either without feeling pangs of conscience but I believe that Obama is the better choice and I'll be casting my vote for him. Who will win? I have no idea. It's truly a tossup and will depend on the outcome of small things yet to happen in the next two months.

In the meantime, I won't be watching very much. It's too painful. It's not politics that has changed, it's me. My tolerance for dishonestly and manipulation has just waned away, somehow.

I found this totally fascinating:

An Attack That Came Out of the Ether

It's on the Washington Post, which may require free registration.

It's such a perverse thrill to stumble across that rare treat when someone of a philosophical bent I often disagree with comes out and offers a reasoned defense of something that you know all along that the members of his tribe believe deep down but which is usually too embarrassing or unpopular to say out loud.

These delights are rare, of course. The last two I can recall were when William F. Buckley wrote in the late 1960s that repression was necessary and proper (and the more the better!) to defend the dominant culture, and when my old friend Bill Bennett penned his carefully reasoned argument that hypocrisy was a good thing for society.

This very morning though, one of our most reliable conservative opinion writers, in my very own newspaper, gave me such a golden plum I feel the need to share it with you:

"Intolerance, Exclusion Preserve Common Culture"

Wasn't that sweet of him? Just when I was getting so bored with the local paper I couldn't see much use in continuing to subscribe. This alone makes nearly a whole year of dues worth it!

You don't have to read the whole piece if you don't want to. I'll summarize it very briefly for you: to be successful, every society needs a common culture. When groups or individuals publicly step too far outside that common set of cultural rules they must be punished. This is illustrated by the recent raid on the Texas polygamy sect, the arrest of a local man who permitted animal sacrifice on his property, and a local native American high school graduate who was properly denied permission to wear his tribal feathers at his graduation ceremony. "The preservation of a common culture" Mr. Davenport concludes, "requires that we practice tolerance and inclusion when possible, intolerance and exclusion when necessary."

Is it worth taking a deeper look at Mr. Davenport's "reasoning"? If you think so, then by all means...

( Read On )

I have perceived that to be with those I like is enough,
To stop in company with the rest at evening is enough,
To be surrounded by beautiful curious breathing laughing flesh is enough,
To pass among them . . to touch any one . . . . to rest my arm ever so lightly round
his or her neck for a moment . . . . what is this then?
I do not ask any more delight . . . . I swim in it as in a sea.

---Walt Whitman, "Leaves of Grass", 1855 edition. Page 79.

(And I feel perfectly fine.)

Yes, nationally, we're all back in the Apocalypse Zone. Of what do I speak? Our house-of-cards economy tanking and prices skyrocketing while we waste billions on an unnecessary and destructive war? Oh, no. That's not such a big deal. Global warming? Environmental destruction? Ah, who cares about that. Terrorism? Nah, old hat. So what's the problem?

Let Mr. Gary Bauer tell you all about it: The world as we know it is headed straight to hell if we don't stop those horrible homosexuals and their liberal-judge allies from turning America into a giant dark pit of Sodomy.

Okay, I admit once again to being fascinated by this whole march. Not so much by the inevitable approach of a long-delayed victory for justice and reason, but by the hysteria of the opposition and the sheer irrationality, fear, and ignorance it reveals.

Why do they care who other people love and how they express that love, so long and all consent and no one is harmed? If Mr. Bauer and his friends don't want to have sex with other men no one is going to force them to, not even the ACLU. What's really behind all this ferocious, last-ditch, extreme opposition?

Since we're talking about embattled people here, war metaphors are appropriate. This, my friends, is such an important fight because I suspect they see it as their Gettysburg. The ultimate turning-point battle for America's soul. I can hear the flutter of fear in their hearts clearly: if we can't stop gays from getting what they want, we can't stop anything.

Hence the constant invoking of the apocalyptic domino scenario: eventually, they all say, we'll be forced to accept group marriages and marriages to minors and even (I love this one, read the comments to Bauer's piece) marriages to animals! Then marriage and commitment won't mean anything and the social fabric will collapse! Anarchy and chaos!

Revealing, isn't it? The deep dark heart of all social conservative philosophy: human nature is so wild and untamed that if it isn't kept within strict control everyone will run amok and all order will collapse. They believe this without question. Everyone must be controlled by the firm hand of benevolent but consistent authority. Too many exceptions have been granted already. It's time to draw the line, fight the good fight, and close Pandora's box once and for all.

But I believe that for Mr. Bauer and his fellow travelers, there's an even deeper and darker fear. (No, not that one. He may worry passionately about my sexual orientation, but I don't really care at all about his.)

The true terror is that gay marriage will happen and all these nightmares won't come true. The sky won't fall. There won't be any coed nuptials involving great danes. Everything stay pretty much be as before.

And that'll mean that they not only will have lost Gettysburg, but look like fools for even fighting it.

I have some words of comfort for you, fearful gentlemen and ladies.

Rest easy.

No one is going to remember your passionate but futile railings. Just don't get caught on tape standing in any courthouse doors and you'll be fine.

I came up to work this week determined to try my best to escape the closing-up process that seems to happen every time I sit in front of a computer screen and do whatever it is that I do. Or failing that (as was likely) to at least start to understand it.

The answer, so far, doesn't appear to be reassuring.

What does appear, quite clearly, is that some "closing up" is absolutely necessary for me to do this job. I can't remain open and engaged with the sensual world around me while I dig deep into the wierd arcane mathematical world of computer language and the complex structures I and others have created using it. Something has to give. If I'm to remain employed at the rates I charge, I have to devote my mind full-time to this process while I'm at work. And it doesn't end there. Right now, two hours after I left the office, I'm quite tired. I don't have the energy for much social interaction, even if I wanted it, which right now I certainly don't.

I guess the real problem is I can't multi-task, and I don't change course rapidly. I have enormous powers of concentration when I focus them but I'm like a ocean liner, it takes me a long time to change directions. I can't do this job without that focus.

That's just me, isn't it? I should be thankful that I can get out of geek mode at all. The first trouble is, I like life so much more when I'm not playing uber-geek. The second and worse trouble is that the only mode is the world is willing to pay me for is playing the uber-geek.

Well, at least I'm understanding the problem more clearly.

And progress is being made...I'm listening to music (Tom Waits for you fans out there) and it's touching me. We'll continue using the music test as the week progresses. It's a good measure of how open my heart is to being carressed. Right now, I'm okay.

And I hope that I don't fall in love with you...

I sit here in the semidarkness of the 20th of April typing on battery power while a slow-moving thunderstorm cracks and booms around me, every pop and roar a not-so-gentle reminder that life is fleeting and could wink out at any moment. I know this, and it's all right. I'm feeling mellow and content and happy, slowly finishing off the last third of the bottle of Pinot Noir from last night, basking in the warm glow; only partly from the Pinot but more in the afterglow of memories just made and the knowledge and I have the most awesome loving wife, family and friends and if I'm not the absolute luckiest guy in the world it doesn't matter because I wouldn't trade places with anyone right now.

It's been an amazing last nine days. But Mr. Petty reminds me from the ipod that coming down is the hardest thing to do. Tomorrow morning I put on work clothes (AKA the Disguise) and drive off to spend a week inhibiting my true self and alternating days working out technical puzzles in a florescent-lit cube and nights trying to relax in a motel room so I can get up the next day and do it over again. This is not a whine -- I'm lucky. I'm where many people hope to get someday, professionally. But my work environment is anti-human (as is most people's who work in the corporate world), and it closes me up slowly and reluctantly, day by day. I don't even realize it when I've been in cubeland for a long while, until I disconnect long enough to let life flow back into me. I am high on life now, and open, and happy. Sustaining this throughout the work week will be a challenge. I'll try, knowing that if I can hang on to even a percentage of it it'll give me a head start. (My schedule is one week working and the next off right now.)

All this is necessary. It's the reality of the world we live in. The florescent weeks pay for the sunlit hours. Like I said, this is not a complaint. The cycle of change is a good thing. I'm a different person typing this now than the one who started this journal several years ago, and that's almost a miraculous thing.

But I want to hang on to this moment, this feeling.

I know you can't really hang on to anything, trying is futile; it will slip away as everything does. I'm beginning to learn how to gracefully let things go.

I think I'm beginning to master this No Expectations thing. I never thought I would; in fact, a couple of years ago I'd never heard of the idea. At that point you could've called me a master of Expectations. Anytime something new was on the horizon I'd spend as much time as I had to wait trying to imagine -- usually in detail -- what it would be like. I think this was a defensive thing; trying to brace for the worst unless I was sure whatever was going to happen wasn't dangerous in which case I'd fill my head with unrealistically positive fantasies.

This is all poison. Expecting the worst tends to cause it to happen (or at the least you miss out on the positive that's sometimes hidden) and expecting too much can turn a wonderful thing into a disappointment. Yeah, most every adult knows this. Conquering it, however, is another matter. But it can be done.

I spent this entire weekend in a small slice of alternative reality, and it was...well...there is no word I can think of that is adequate. I went there without any expectations at all (a first for me considering the potential) and I was rewarded. There's some kind of magic at work here. I'm not sure what it is, and I'm not sure how much time I want to spend analyzing it. I think I'll just work on a new skill now. Letting it just be.

( What am I talking about? )

So today, a candidate for President made a speech. No, seriously. Barack Obama delivered an extraordinary, perhaps historic speech on race in America today in Philadelphia. I think it's fair to use the words courageous, honest, and brillant in association with it (which I note in passing he wrote himself in the last few days without the aid of any speechwriter). It's clear that he's an exceptional man. Whether you believe he'd be an extraordinary President, or one that would try to turn this country in a direction you'd like to see it turned, is up to you. For me, it's obvious. If I hadn't already made up my mind, this would have done it.

The cynic in me wonders, though, if those words I used might just look good on a political tombstone. Are the American people ready for, or even able to understand or accept this level of honesty; or do they (as I suspect in darker moments) just care about what any candidate will do for them and them alone? Can they see past their fears to the possibility of a brighter future? Or will everything stay the same old way it's always been because that's the way it'll always be and nothing will ever change?

This election will go some ways towards answering that question, for this generation at least. What the answer might be, I can't guess.

But I can hope.

The newly appointed Powers at the place where I work have decided to cut back my services from nearly every week to "every other week". In practice, this means that the four day weeks I was working before will become five days every other week, with slightly longer hours each day. It'll be almost the same income, but I'll be able to plan better (I think). And I'll be able to enjoy more extended block time off.

Well, maybe not entirely "off". I have a personal project that may have some commercial viability -- an extension to Microsoft Flight Simulator that I developed for my own pleasure but I realize that others may enjoy it too, and if I spiff it up quite a bit I can probably sell some number of copies for a reasonable fee. So I can do that on my "off" weeks.

My first off-week was this last one. I did make some progress on the project, but I had fun too. The most fun was at the "Raising the Roof" concert with Kathy, Lynda, and Barbara. I can really get used to this having a full week of to do things. Seductive, wot?

(On, and Barbara, dear, do you realize this day, March 17th, is the anniversary of the day we met last year? Heee)

The other grand news is: two tickets to the NC Regional Burn, Transformus, which is held in the mountains near Asheville in July! I'm excited about it. There are only 1,500 tickets available and out of the over 2,300 who applied I really didn't expect to win -- but I got lucky. Wow. The sad news is Jellybean & Will didn't get their request picked (bad luck, it was a random selection). But we hope to find some tickets for sale as the months pass. There always are. We just have to keep on top of the venues where they appear.

This week, it's back at work; but I'm working on a completely new project on a completely new (to me) platform. That's exciting too. I love to plunge into new things. (And I hope I don't have to regret typing that sentence later on down the road!).

Last -- but wonderfully -- the world is thawing after the winter. Daffodils, hyacinths, fruit trees, red maples -- all in bloom! It's my favorite time of the year. And the whole summer to look forward to - Shakori, Transformus, Burning Man.

Gotta start working on those costumes, man.