Voting like a Californian

It's official! I'm a Californian now. Not only do I have a Californian Drivers' License, I get to vote here too. I was pretty excited when this pack arrived, outlining my options at the elections in a couple of weeks.

I opened it eagerly, ready to scour the pages for a Green Party candidate. I soon realized there really are only two parties in this great nation.

Ah well, that makes the voting somewhat simpler I suppose (although I promise to do due diligence and read all the candidate statements before voting along party lines).

Speaking of due diligence, and making thoughtful voting decisions, how about these State Measures?

These propositions appear on election ballot papers as part of a long and not-very-glorious history of direct democracy in the golden state. Previous propositions put to the vote have included provision  of school funding, the legalization of gay marriage, and of course, the establishment of non-partisan blanket primaries in place of closed primaries.

Wait, what? That sounds complicated. And this year we get to vote on whether to extend parks funding, build a new school in Hermosa, and require doctors to undergo drugs testing. I'm just not sure I'm qualified. Is anyone?

After all, don't we vote for politicians so they can do the deep thinking and careful analysis on these issues, and have all the sleepless nights along with it? I was sold on the benefits of the California lifestyle, but now I know the responsibility that comes along with it, I'm not quite so keen.

The reawakening of my political conscience

I used to be reasonably politically aware, and somewhat active. A solid diet of Radio 4, BBC News and the Observer kept me fairly up to date. I voted, and I knew why I was placing my tick in that particular box. I went on the odd Stop the War march and put fake parking tickets on urban 4x4s. Okay, I wasn't exactly Michael Foot, but I was, I'd say, engaged in politics. Less so as I hit my 30s and took up gardening, but I did stay interested and informed.

Then I moved to America. A country where I had the luxury of forming an opinion with absolutely no consequence: I couldn't vote and I wasn't going to be there for long anyway.

Sadly I didn't make the most of the opportunity. My opinions were a little vague. I wasn't terribly well informed you see. But I had good reasons for my ignorance. First of all, American news coverage is pretty indigestible. I got all my current affairs from The Daily Show and E! News. Secondly, well, it just wasn't any of my business, was it?

Now I am back and my opinion counts. I feel inside me the stirrings of the champagne socialist who has laid dormant these past few years. I can vote! I can put up window stickers! The Ecover-buying tumble-drier despising Green voter inside me is reviving.

I popped around to see my cat and the Activitist the other day, and returned home with a Sack Boris oyster card holder. The London Mayoral campaign is coming up, and I for one would like to see Boris Johnson removed from office.

I offered a Sack Boris wallet to TLOML but he refused, asking me why I wanted to sack Boris.
'Well', I said, 'Apart from the fact he's bone idle, and incomprehensively posh, there's that stupid vanity bus project.'
I explained my position.

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My position, explained: Boris was elected on a ricidulous platform of 'bringing back the Routemaster', those open backed buses people get all nostalgic about. Our former Mayor 'Red' Ken Livingston had replaced them with bendy buses, which are equally exasperating to cyclists - try overtaking a bus that's 60 foot long, it's almost as bad as passing a Routemaster with idiots jumping off into the bike lane with gay abandon. However they take 50% more passengers, are much quicker at bus stops, and cost less to run as they don't need a conductor.

Having been elected as Mayor on this platform of bringing back the antiquated, expensive to run, Routemaster, 4 years and £11m later the Boris bus was launched. It has aircon (in a city where the temperature breaks 30 degrees centigrade for about a week each year). It has a back door that can be opened between stops so passengers can throw themselves in front of passing cyclists, but for health and safety reasons a bus conductor needs to be present to open the door. It is a silly bus.

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'So,' I concluded, 'this bus is just a ridiculous vanity project. And it costs £1 million more than a normal bus.'

At which TLOML asked 'Is that per bus? Does it include development? What will it cost per bus once they've produced, say, fifty buses? How about the running costs?'
I had no answer*, so I mumbled something about how annoyingly posh Boris is, and changed the subject.

This is what happens when my passion and gut feel encounter TLOML's lawyerly precision.

I fear I may lose many arguments. Half an ear on Radio 4 and half an ear on the Activist will not be enough to withstand his questioning. Will we have to become one of those couples who don't discuss politics? It strikes me as funny that we discover this after 3 years of blissful compatibility. Blissful ignorance, more like.

Look out TLOML, the tumble drier wars are about to begin.

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*I checked with the Activist and yes, that is per bus, which is the £11.4 development cost for the 8 buses built so far. It will go down if more are built. But they aren't terribly practical so there's no guarantee more will be built.

The dawn of political advertising

Even though by my reckoning the next Presidential election is over a year away, the lunatics are working themselves up already, spluffing their gazillions of dollars making sure everyone's heard their crazy ideas. I generalize, but if you just skim the news like I do, this doesn't seem like an unreasonable point of view on the whole shebang. (I continue to skim the serious news because, frankly, I don't want to know any more about these weirdos than I already do.)

The whole American election machine seems to operate in soundbites and cheesy overblown adverts. When serious politicians in Britain appear with straight, white teeth and good TV presentation skills, we fret that the whole country is going to the dogs, and personality politics is holding us all in thrall. But as long as voters back people like Boris Johnson or Margaret Beckett, I think we are safe.

Bo-Jo

La Beckett

These British uglymuglies wouldn't even get on the radio in the States. Image is everything over here. And funnily enough, it has been for a long long while.

When we were in Atlanta we visited the Cyclorama, which is a big painting of the Battle of Atlanta. That's the one in the Civil War when Scarlet helped Mellie deliver her baby and then they fled to Tara against the backdrop of a burning city.

The Cyclorama is painted on a huge cylindrical canvas, about 40 feet tall - to view it, you sit in the middle in a platform which slowly rotates while Darth Vader tells the story of the Battle of Atlanta. It's pretty cool. The painting is incredibly detailed, and apparently pretty accurate too. Soldiers are advancing or fleeing over every field, bodies lie sprawled in the near ground and puffs of gun smoke show the reach of the battle across the brows of hills and far distant forests.

The creation of the cyclorama was quite an undertaking, and cost a fortune. It was originally commissioned as part of a presidential campaign. One General A Logan, commander of the Union Army of the Tennessee has himself featured very prominently, and looking ever so handsome, riding bravely into battle, with his running mate James Blaine behind him. Unfortunately Logan died in 1886. He probably never saw the finished painting, much less got to use it in his Presidential campaign.

That's right, 1886... This painting was commissioned for use as a presidential image booster over 120 years ago.

So I guess this post is a long and circuitous way of saying that the obsession with image, and the manipulation of the media that we see today has very very deep roots.

Ooh, so political! I'll be back on cocktails and food soon, don't worry.