Observance
Tuesday, 11 November 2008
Not just for wars past, but also those ongoing .
Scotland in Alaska
Tuesday, 4 November 2008
Have been uploading more photos of Alaska. This one reminded me of Scotland; to be more precise, the Isle of Skye but with more trees. There’s something about slightly damp (misty, if you want to be romantic about it) weather that brings out the drama of coastlines. Sure, the clear blues and greens of tropical or Mediterranean waters can be stunning, but it takes a good haar to make my heart skip a beat.
Voter apathy?
Monday, 3 November 2008
It’s the evening of the 3rd of November, 2008. And like every other night, I’ve been browsing several news sites and my 1000++ RSS items. And for the past year, all these websites have been peppered with articles about and references to the 2008 US Election. Without intending to, I have decided which candidate I most agree with, which Californian propositions I’d vote for, and even have some passing recognition of the names of candidates for Congress. I even know where my nearest polling stations would be, if I were a US citizen, thanks to Google Maps.
So it was something of a surprise when P informed me this evening that one of his colleagues (let’s call him/her X) is quite unlikely to go to the polls tomorrow because X is feeling uninformed and isn’t sure that s/he cares about the whole thing anyway. And it made me a little sad that as a non-voter, I cared more about X’s country’s elections than X. I’m not even sure it’s voter apathy that X suffers from. I think it might be a case of toomuchballotsitis. Aside from having to decide which pair of presidential candidate and running mate are more suited to office, the usual suspects for Congress, Senate and State Assembly, a Californian voter has to decide on 11 separate propositions, some more obscure than others. I can almost understand a non-wonk/wonkette would throw his/her hands up in despair. It makes you want to toss a coin and be done with it. But it seems in the case of some, it leads to apathy-like symptoms.
X’s diagnosis came a bit too late for us to help, but the least we can do is to ensure that X makes it to the polling station. The rest is up to X.
