"...it's not the training to be mean but the training to be kind that is used to keep us leashed best." ~ Black Dog Red

"In case you haven't recognized the trend: it proceeds action, dissent, speech." ~ davidly, on how wars get done

"...What sort of meager, unerotic existence must a man live to find himself moved to such ecstatic heights by the mundane sniping of a congressional budget fight. The fate of human existence does not hang in the balance. The gods are not arrayed on either side. Poseiden, earth-shaker, has regrettably set his sights on the poor fishermen of northern Japan and not on Washington, D.C. where his ire might do some good--I can think of no better spot for a little wetland reclamation project, if you know what I mean. The fight is neither revolution nor apocalypse; it is hardly even a fight. A lot of apparatchiks are moving a lot of phony numbers with more zeros than a century of soccer scores around, weaving a brittle chrysalis around a gross worm that, some time hence, will emerge, untransformed, still a worm." ~ IOZ

Sep 20, 2010

Empowerment

My home state may very well fill all four of its congressional positions with women, come this November. One (Shaheen) seat doesn't come up for competition until 2014. The other three showcase a Democratic incumbent with a large support base (Shea-Porter) and two newcomers. Democrat Annie Kuster goes up and against former congresscritter, Charlie Bass. And the current holder of Bass' former seat, Paul Hodes, will face Palin backed Kelly Ayotte. Ayotte, mostly known for prosecuting cop-killer Michael Addison in a capital case (which sent a black man to the death house, as the first likely execution in the state in nearly a hundred years*) also has the backing of the GOP establishment.

Each woman currently runs either even, or better than her male contender. In a state which propelled Clinton over Obama.

Somehow, I imagine, my wife will gain "empowerment," should this occur. By magic, I guess...


* - I knew the man Addison murdered. In a strange twist of fate, the man he murdered had once saved his life, several years prior to their fatal encounter. Briggs was a good man. Not something I'd usually let myself write about a cop. Ayotte's fame was made, on this case. She got an easy sell:  poor, hard-case black man, with a history of violence versus white "hero" cop, in an alley in the only minority neighborhood of the state's largest city. In a state with a very few non-white people, with a not-insignificant skinhead and race group presence, and a population far more amenable to "dirty Hispanic immigration" arguments than one might expect several thousand miles away from the Mexican border, but snuggled up against an uncontrolled, poorly managed and porous Canadian one...

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ahhh. Gnu Hamster politics are, shall we say... screwy, aren't they?

Jack Crow said...

To be fair - most of the electoralists are.

We're faced with the prospect of Jesus Fascists or Bureau Fascists.

Yeah!

Respect,

Jack

fish said...

Regardless of value, it is amazing the changes in the state once known for Mel Thompson and John Sununu.