``....don't get to weigh in until afterward, except to say that all the polling places I have ever worked are just like that. Most of the election workers have known each other and the neighborhood for decades and the polls are old home week, Even the last one, with it's Seattle extremes of newly settled yuppies and long-settled African American movers and shakers was exactly that....'' Dorene Cornwell
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That's been pretty much the nieghborhood scene here. Except the difference here is the transient student population. My polling place is around the corner at a Seventh Day Adventist church. There are fair number of churchs who donate space. It's a nice tradition here. There are probably more than half a dozen churches within walking distance, not counting a Buddhist temple, a couple of Synagogues, a Mosque and a couple of places I don't recognize.
I thought about getting out early, but fiddled out the morning, flipping between LBO and news, and then some Keynes. Probably wait awhile until after one to avoid any noon hour crowd.
The California ballot is covered with 12 state propositions and my mailbox was crammed daily with flyers. Vote No on Yes, says some mysterious organization with no address. About three quarters of the state propositions are reactionary mind twisters. The other quarter are for pretty good ideas, but I expect them to uniformly fail. All the city measures are pretty good, mostly financing social services, parks, libraries.
Some of the usual suspects are pounding their Howard Jarvis drums against the library and parks measure. Berkeley is a labrynth of tiny issues and hair splitting nuances with a mind boggling number of associations, organizations, groups, what have you.
Minutiae, minutiae...
So, it was about one-thirty when I started this post, now I have filled out my sample ballot which is about the size of a full spread newpaper page with thirty-four candidates running for ten different offices, twelve state propositions, and seven local county or city propositions.
Getting back around four. The ballot box recorded 343 ballots by three-thirty this afternoon. That seems light. This is a pretty dense few blocks with a lot of apartments and houses cut up into flats. The ten story dorm complexes and higher density places are a few blocks away and have different precincts. So, the bulk of the turn-out will come later, after five.
One interesting event was a youngish foreign couple, looked like they were from India. They were having trouble because the woman's name was not on the address roster---or something like that. The head precinct official (older black guy) had to call somebody to verify something so she could cast a ballot. There were six booths, all full, so I went to a big counter were I had more room to spread out my sample ballot and mark up the official one.
Most of the old ladies that I remembered and recognized were gone. I liked them because they had that Julia Morgan, Jessica Mediford look, i.e. arty politicos from the old school. Some of the old men were still there. But newer faces, annoyed me a little. They were just a bit too brightly authoritarian about proceedure. (Hey, young ladies, relax, this is Berkeley, chill). The place wasn't as quiet, friendly, comfortably worn, as it used to be.
Went to the liquor store to stock up for the evening (going over the onion v. olive debate in martinis land). The soft spoken Jamaican guy (often very funny), said he was going straight home after work and join me in celebration. His shift changes at six...
And honestly, I think we will have to fight the Civil War forever. It is the core theme of this country. The songs of the South, the dramaturgy, the mythopoetics are all wrapped around the same problem of white identity from NASCAR to Baseball to Necons and Leo Strauss, to that cute teenage daughter, bulging out with a six month's belly... The circuit preacher and judge, making the rounds to keep the low, black and white folk down. CC rider, see what you have done... To hear a truly crazy, and definitely Berkeley style rendition:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUsaxEGLjbM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-OxIr1mk3I&NR=1
Straight from Oxford Mississippi and Harlem New York. Mister Satan's Apprentice, deconstructed, keeping slow time... is another version of the lost white boys... Well, obviously you need the feeling.
CG
Eight-twenty, and counting