Adventures with Dr. Lady Cutie Troublemaker

I started an Early Voting 2008 group on Flickr, and lots of people (144 as of right now) have joined and submitted photos – 375 and counting! It got a write-up today on Utata:

Vote Early! Vote Often!

Neat!

Taken by the idealist

OK, so I’m editing pictures and watching a Tivo’d Graham Norton Show on BBC America, and Martin Sheen is on. The other guest has recently gotten engaged and asks Martin Sheen for advice about marriage. What he says is great (for marriage or any significant relationship):

The ideal way to go into a marriage is that you’ll promise that person that you will help them become themselves at all cost, so you will tell them the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth ALL the time, and most of the time, you’ll be the only person that will. And there’s another level to it as well… People talk about happiness. So, “Oh, I’m happy with Larry,” or, “He makes me happy. She makes me happy. This makes me happy,” but they rarely talk about joy, and that’s the thing that transcends the whole relationship is the element of joy and realizing with gratitude and praise that the other person has allowed you to experience joy. That’s different.

After that, Graham Norton said, “I think I can say safely that’s the most profound thing anyone has ever said on this show.”

I think he’s right!

I recommend you watch from 3:00-9:00. It’s a good 6 minutes. That other guy is really funny, too! I love the bit about what happens when you ask men “What are you thinking?”

As instructed, I watched this video:

And then I took this survey. I voted against the required test. It’s not the answer. Here’s the comment I made after the quiz:

Oh wow. This is getting into SERIOUSLY slippery slope material. Ever heard of Eugenics?

Galton thought some similar things to this. You know who was a big fan of Galton? Hitler. This is a very bad idea. History has shown this to be true. I KNOW it seems to make sense, but the consequences of such an action has proven to be disastrous.

In this very country:

Some states sterilized “imbeciles” for much of the 20th century.

In part, intelligent testing began because people wanted to sterilize/disenfranchise those who were not as intelligent. The thinking was that the smart people should be in charge, but that’s not Democracy. That’s elitism. That’s unbalanced. That’s Eugenics, and at its extreme, that becomes concentration camps. As I said before, that’s a VERY slippery slope. We don’t need another Nazi Germany, or another Bell Curve debacle.

People who aren’t as educated can be very frustrating when their ignorance is so off the mark, but they live here, too. You think your opinion should matter more because you feel you know more, but in a true Democracy, it doesn’t mean more. I feel lucky to live in a country where all people have a right to free speech, a right to dissent with leader’s views. And nowadays, I love that because of the internet, more and more people are being exposed to all those views. There are plenty of people who have learned that what they believe may not be true after all because of something they saw on YouTube. Anyway, I digress…

A reminder:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Look, I know many of us are afraid right now, but please, let’s not go there. Let’s just not.

See? I’m doing it. Ayse’s doing it. A bunch of other people at the mall are doing it. If you early vote, then you can spend election day volunteering to get OTHER people to the polls. That’s what I’m doing. For once, I’d like to show the rest of the world that we give a shit about our government. Is that so wrong?

Here are the Wake County Early Voting Locations. Also, how weird is it that I voted at a mall?!! It was great to see such a fine turnout on Day One of early voting.

Obama ’08 – Vote For Hope from MC Yogi on Vimeo.

A brighter day will come.