Wednesday, October 04, 2006
  Never move in August...
At least not in an election year. I had about a three day window in which I could get my drivers license and register to vote. Had to be a resident so many weeks, had to register so many weeks before the election. If we'd moved even a few days later, I wouldn't have been able to vote in Ohio at all, and somehow, as much as I believe in voting, a four hour drive (two hours each way) to cast a vote in a race I know the Republicans will win anyway didn't seem like a very good use of time.

One of the great things about moving to Ohio is I feel much more like I can make a difference here. My part of Indiana was so solidly Republican that there was no chance for a Democrat to win. In fact, it was so anti-Democrat that one fellow who thought the Republican party had gotten too liberal ran as a Democrat in local elections, so as to bring things further to the right! YIKES! So much for progressive candidates!

I'm already looking forward to voting for my new Senators, and I imagine it will be a close race. One thing's for sure. Trying to get information on candidates, it's clear that television is the dominant media. You can scrounge up info on the Internet, and papers run occassional columns, but all the focus these days is on tv ads, even more so than in the past it seems. There certainly is almost nothing on radio, at least, not the radio stations I listen to. (mostly npr, classical music stations, oldies or hip hop, every once in a while I'll turn into an am all news station.)

One huge difference between the Republicans and the Democrats in my district is the tenor of the ads... the Republicans attacked the other guy, rather than saying what they stood for, while the Democrat said what he stood for or offered testimonials from constituents about how he had helped them. That alone is reason enough to vote Democrat.

Unfortunately, it seems like there is not enough difference between Democrats and Republicans... I sure wish the party had a lot more spine when confronting some of Bush's abuses of power.

And speaking of abuses of power... hope to see y'all at the demonstrations tomorrow! Say no to torture! No to ever increasing militarism! Silence in the face of what is happening today in America is collusion.
 
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Progressive Muslim, feminist, mom, writer, mystic, lover of the universe and Doug Schmidt, cellist, theologian and imam.


What I'm reading now



Cane River
An interesting exploration of the gradual whiting of a family through slavery to modern days.

To see an archive of all the books I've read (well the ones I've read and review since I started the blog) with comments, please click here

Causes Worth Supporting

This is just a short list -- a few of my favorites.

English Language Islamic Fiction. We need more of it. Lots more.
Pay a Teacher's Salary in Afghanistan. The Hunger site actually has a lot of worthwhile programs. You can find them all here .
Muslims for Progressive Values. My organization. We can always use donations, of time or money!
Human Rights Campaign for the glbt community
National Religious Campaign Against Torture
The ACLU I'm a card carrying member. Hope you'll become one too.
MoveOn.org. The organization that has done the most, as far as I can tell, to pull the countries progressive side together.
Network of Spiritual Progressives. Working to reclaim religion and morality for the religious left.

Blogs Worth Reading

Wanda Campbell also known as Nochipa A very gifted poet and a gentle, compassionate soul. Nochipa and I are on the same page on sooooo many things
Writeous Sister Aminah Hernandez, she's got some excellent latino pieces and always has good writing info on her blog.
Sister Scorpion aka Leila Montour - Leila is a fount of energy, quirky humor, and bad attitude. She's also a talented poet.
Muhajabah Very interesting commentary here. I don't always agree with her, but her pieces are always thought-provoking.
Georgie Dowdell Georgie is a great writer and a good friend.
Louise Marley Another great writer. I think Louise is one of the best sf writers exploring faith themes.
Ink in My Coffee Devon Ellington (who has numerous aliases) who is also the editor of Circadian Poems. A truly inspiring woman with a seemingly endless supply of energy.
Ethnically Incorrect With a name like that, isn't a given I'm going to enjoy this writer?
Freedom from the Mundane Colin Galbraith, another excellent writer, from Scotland.
The Scruffy Dog Review This is a new e-zine with an ecclectic mix of fiction, poetry, and non-fic, some really enjoyable pieces here.
Ramblings of a Suburban Soccer Mom Lara, another gentle soul, very thoughtful.
Circadian Poems A journal of poetry, new stuff up all the time.
Ye Olde Inkwell Michelle writes romance and is one of my writing buddies.
Muhammad Michael Knight The original punk Muslim writer. Like him or love him, Mike is always coming up with the unexpected.

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