I know, I know. It's true. I'm not posting in my journals, I'm not reading your journals, not eating, not sleeping. Living in Zombie mode entirely. The weekend was political rallies and Red Sox games (thank goddess for the Red Sox) evenings are phone banks to Get Out the Vote, and in between I try to appear compos mentis for my students, both adult and juvenile. I am trying to keep up with news, but then I have panic attacks: 380 tons of serious explosives gone missing in Iraq, Rehnquist has throat cancer, oh holy shit, what next? Kerry appeared with Bubba in Philly yesterday, I almost skipped my obligations and went, but in the end I was a Good Girl, sixty years of being a Good Girl are hard to overcome, stayed home and taught everyone as best I could. I watched it on CSPAN last night for quite a while, they were both in great form. Clinton certainly came through bypass surgery well, good for him.
Something I do read religiously, as it were, is War Room 2004 on salon.com, although it does bring on shortness of breath, heart palpitations, all those panic symptoms. In a War Room piece on Jon Stewart's now infamous appearance on "Crossfire" Rebecca Traister offers some very accurate impressions of our current state of mind and some advice to help us maintain sanity:
"...We are all jittery and bloated ourselves, overfed on coverage, statistics, polls, trends, heroes, villains, conspiracies, lies and anger. We have overfeasted on our own cleverness, on our own ability to gather information and process it instantly. We are sick of ourselves and sick with worry about what will happen next week. We can barely stomach the idea of the eight more days -- or God knows how long -- to come before we know who the next president will be. And so, wandering aimlessly, crazily looking for any piece of fresh meat to rip from the bone, the addled, self-loathing media have caught our own tail and are dumbly gnawing on it.
So let's just breathe in and breathe out. Drink a cool glass of water and maybe throw back a stiff drink. Head home early and get a good night's sleep. We are a week away from this thing."
I am relieved that I am not a member of the media, but I feel exactly like the description in her first paragraph., sick of myself, sick with worry, unable to stomach the idea of another week. I'm trying to ignore polls, easier said than done, but still...
4 comments:
Seven more days, and then hopefully, only a few weeks after that. Don't forget to breathe.
Glad to see you're holding on! Seven more days! Can't wait!
Like you I'm a big fan of the War Room and also Tapped [on American Prospect]. First things I read in the morning.
The media has become lazy fat cats who forgot what journalism is all about.
Hang in there, my friend. All your hard work isn't going to waste. Seven more days to eight years of John Kerry!
Girl, I hear ya. As mentioned in another comment, we're not paying attention to the media on 11/2 -- that's celebration day for my best friend, and we don't want to sully the plans with any potential bad news (on the other hand, I'm visualizing Kerry's win...)! Bless ya for taking the time out to volunteer for the good cause...!
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