Epiphany in Baltimore

2002-11-05

Epiphany in Baltimore has moved to epiphanyinbaltimore.blogspot.com

Schools were closed today because many are used as polling places, but I still had a pretty productive day. I woke up at 7am, hoping to get a workout in before helping out a friend sand the floors of his new house. It didn't happen in the morning, as I woke up just a smidge too late and didn't want to rush my workout. I cast my vote at 7:44 am, and it was a painless process. I came home, graded some papers, then headed over to Jesse's place at 9.

Jesse's new house is amazing. I'd never seen it before, but it's a HUD purchase between Fell's Point and Canton. He's done a lot of work on it already, but I was expecting a bit of a dump. It wasn't. It's going to be a beautiful house. I spent the entire morning removing staples from the hardwood floors, then sanding the four or so layers of paint and soot and tar from the floors of 140-year old house. The 2nd floor looked like new when I left at 1pm. It felt great.

The entire time, I was wondering if I would ever be able to do anything like that. My fuckups in college regarding credit cards prevent me from owning a house anytime soon, and now would be a great time for it. I could purchase a house in the city fairly cheaply with the Housing and Urban Development grants that are available for teachers, and fix it up and be proud of something. Of course, owning a house would mean commitment and such, which I'm not sure I want right now. Like marriage, owning a house is a goal that is off in the somewhat distant future: 28 or 30 or so. Now that I have a debt plan, though, at least the idea of owning a house does not seem incredibly foreign.

After leaving Jesse's, I spent a few hours volunteering for Kathleen's campaign, knocking on doors and putting fliers on cars, reminding people to vote. While doing it, I got sort of upset. I feel like it's my duty to vote, and I just wonder why others don't feel like it is. I see absolutely no excuse for not voting. Sorry, I don't. I think it's your duty and responsibility as a citizen. Luckily, most of the people here in the city that I spoken with had already voted, leading me to believe that urban turnout would be high and this can only help KKT. Overall, it was a positive experience.

I was glad to volunteer, because things have been pissing me off around here a lot lately. Signs have been posted in urban areas telling people that they cannot vote if they have unpaid parking tickets and unpaid rents, and today there were signs posted saying that election day had been changed to Nov. 6. Of course no group has taken responsibility for the signs, but it's obviously some group that wants Bob Ehrlich to win and not Kathleen Kennedy Townsend. I don't think it's the Republican Party, but probably some special interest group like a drug insurance company or something that would benefit from Republican control of the governor's office.

By the way, I voted straight Democratic ticket. Despite being a fan of Michael Moore, I still believe there are significant differences between the two parties, and my personal beliefs align much more closely with that of the Democratic Party - particularly with social issues (unions, a women's right to choose what happens to her own body, being against the state-sanctioned murder of capital punishment, the right for gay marriage, affirmative action, common sense gun laws, etc) and focus upon education (in general, I find the Republicans' stance is that the most improtant thing in education is testing, testing, testing, which I can tell you first hand does more to harm the kids than help them. I agree there needs to be some reforms to make sure teachers are doing their jobs and kids are learning, but constant standardized tests is not the answer.)

The only one up in the air was Proposal P, which I voted for based on the idea that I think single area representation would work better - and this Proposal was supported by the City Paper, The Baltimore Sun, and a number of Washington newspapers. Skylar711 also was in support of it.

Tonight will be spent glued to the television, seeing results come in. I wish that I was living with more politically involved people, to share in my excitement. Kevin, Jenni, Erin, and I made Election 2000 into a drinking game - we did a shot every time Bush won a state. No one is home right now, so it's doubtful that will happen. I don't think we'll know a lot tonight, and I'm going to have to get to bed sometime before 11. 24 is also on, so I'll surely have to take a bit of a break from the political action to watch that.

I get observed tomorrow by the head of English Instruction for the school system. Nothing too high pressure, but it's enough to make sure everything my classroom is cleaned up and my lessons are typed up. Wish me luck.

And, go, Kathleen! And go read Mobtown's entry on swing voters. It's really good, and something I never really thought of before.

***

My guestbook was attacked last night, then again this afternoon, with a bunch of anti-gay slurs and sch. I deleted the entries. I don't know much about ISP addresses, but I kept both of them. Both of them have appeared in my guestbook before, including one ISP address that's the same as a couple of people who sign often and list me as their favorite. This is bizarre to me, and I'm assuming there must be some other explanation. The other ISP address - the one from today - is the same ISP address from which the guestbook entry about Kathleen Kennedy Townsend that I responded to here.

I don't really get it. I'm guessing that if it continues to happen, I'll have to follow up somehow, and I'm not really sure how. If anyone has any ideas, or knows if this is happening elsewhere, I'd love to have some feedback. Thanks a lot to the folks who came on today and tried to help cover it up. :)