The State of the Union

[Petition Depression]
Just got off quite a rollercoaster of emotion regarding (mostly) political issues. What tipped it off was a visit to the Ferry Building last Thursday. MoveOn.org had sent out a mass action email the night before calling for a local petition drive against the new Supreme Court nominee John Roberts. Since I didn't have the time to administer a petition, I decided to search one out and at least sign it. Which led me to the Ferry Building after work. I had to look quite a bit to find anyone who was there in MoveOn's name, and just as I was about to give up, I found a table with one lone Dean supporter and petitions laying on the table. As anyone would be, she was very happy and surprised that I had actually sought her out, which led to my question of "ok, exactly how has the reception been today, if you are so happy to see me?" She went on to tell me how I wouldn't believe how conservative San Francisco is and how even Democrats were coming and up and yelling at her for her position against John Roberts. "Don't you know this is the best we are going to get from Bush!?" That kind of thing.

[Badlands]
So riding home from that, my thoughts turned to the current City politics that I am currently semi-embroiled in- the Badlands situation. This is the Castro bar whose owner is currently facing discrimination charges in hiring and in people that he would allow into the bar. That may be fine in LA exclusive nightclubs but it happens to be against the San Francisco human rights laws. And he was brash enough to try and buy the only traditionally African American bar in the Castro, right across the street from Badlands. There have been marches, City Resolutions, Human Rights Coalition findings, articles in the Advocate and several international publications, and ongoing pickets, and none of this has been enough, so far, to get his liquor and dancing licenses revoked. We thought we had a win when, just 2 days earlier, he agreed to sell the Pendulum. Now, the owner has a history of closing things down and either not reopening them, or reopening them drastically different than the way they were. So of course, we were afraid of this happening to the Pendulum given the character of this particular individual. When we found out he had sold, it was cause for rejoicing. Then just one day later we found out that the Pendulum had been closed anyway and all the employees had been let go. WTF!?! So this situation was in my mind, and had provided a subtle backdrop to the depression I was already feeling about this "conservative San Francisco" that seemed to be appearing. What was happening to my city?

[Debi and American Despair]
That was Thursday. On Saturday, I had an acupuncture appointment, which always tend to be introspective times. Funny that, laying on a table in a darkened room for an hour ;) In the beginning of my visit, I was telling Debi (my acupuncturist) all about the depression I had been feeling and the events that precipitated them, and she had some interesting things to say. First of all, don't watch too much news. Liberals are losing in this day and age, it's a very dark time, and unless you are in politics and need to know everything about everything, don't watch too much news. Which I do, whether it be in the form of blogs, online papers or TV news. The Daily Show keeps me sane though. Second thing she said was that this darkness, this despair as she called it, is a very American thing right now. Since I haven't traveled in a while, I'm very America-myopic, and it seems as if this darkness is global. But it's not. She said even in Africa, in Uganda, with their own set of political and economic problems, in India, things are not as dark as they are here. She had just gotten back from an international trip and was struck by the despair that is hanging over America right now. Quite profound, and it left me feeling that there was hope. Sometimes the most beautiful sunlight is that one lone ray that comes peeping through the clouds after a week of rain. If the whole rest of the world remains somewhat sane, that means that this despair truly is born of this administration, and is not to do with the state of the world, modern alienation, terrorism or any of the other boogymen that Bush tries to scare us with. It's the man behind the curtain. (I think I am going to put that on a t-shirt).