Author: F C

Why am I blogging so often in the last day? I want to make it to the polls early this morning, but I just can’t go to sleep. As potents such as baseball and football games, and eclipses and other means of prognostication have made their appearance in this year’s campaign, it is truly fitting that Election Day falls on All Souls’ Day, a.k.a. El Día de los Muertos. The day in Mexico and other Latin cultures is celebrated with parades, special desserts, and prayers and remembrances. The traditional prayer ritual to help spring a soul out of purgatory is six Our Father’s, six Hail Mary’s, and six Glory Be’s.

The11th-hour campaign ads, especially the chain letter ones, are really annoying me.

Quoting from the ad:

Capital Punishment killed 98 Americans
War in Iraq killed 100,000 people
Abortionists murdered 1,750,656 American infants

P-Diddy’s “Vote or Die” slogan actually accurately describes the balancing act among various varieties of life or death issues: 1. War, 2. Abortion and 3. Capital Punishment. You would think that you would have to be all for or all against all three to be intellectually consistent. But the candidates are not. Bush is arguably reluctantly for 1, against 2, and enthuastically for 3; Kerry is arguably reluctantly against 1, backs 2, and against 3.

What is the rationalization? Taking both candidates’ positions, either all three should be justifiable for specific reasons, or all forms of death infliction are always wrong, no matter what the form or reason. Yet, we have this relative picking and choosing, or even worse, the Machiavellian calculus in the ad of pitting a lot of deaths against a lot of lives. No wonder we can’t collectively make up our minds. Not at least until we can put everyone through a college level ethics course.

On a more somber note, a friend’s wife had a miscarriage yesterday. I was in their wedding party a year and a half ago. My mother had a miscarriage before having me; I always wondered how things might have been different. Pray for their souls, and pray for ours. The Latin word for hope, prayer, or wish has carried into English as the act we will do today: vote.

The battle is finally drawn. Literally legions of lawyers have gathered to descend on polling places at sunrise for the final showdown. I know I will be there. Bring a copy of your state’s Voting Bill of Rights with you in case. If there could be only one wish, please make it that someone, anyone, wins big!

Who are we putting up as role models for this generation? Superman? Batman? Masks of Kerry or expressions of Bush? Vote or be killed by P-Diddy running the NYC Marathon last year (the marathon is next Sunday)? Saints played the role of superheros in times past — you recognize them by their back story, distinctive symbols, and their superpowers. In the end it’s not much different than Marvel Comics. Today, I think we need them, more than ever. Miracles happen — look at the Red Sox, who won an unpresidented 8 consecutive playoff wins after 3 consecutive losses, and the Packers D’s who won the Election Bowl barely by a referee call that negated a Redskin R touchdown .

Let’s all be careful out there! Remember to plan to vote on the right day!