American Pie

I am fascinated by politics. I think its becasue I come from a family that has always been involved in the political process and I grew up hearing,"If you don't vote, you don't have the right to complain," one of my father's favorite sayings. I especially love American politics. I love watching American elections, mainly for 2 reasons. One, American politics are so much more flamboyant than Canadian and two, because being Canadian, I am safely removed, so that if the wrong one wins, he is not going to be the leader of my country.

I am feverently hoping that John Kerry wins this election. I think that he will be the better president and I think that George Bush is a woman-hating war monger who couldn't find his ass with both hands and a flashlight. I think that the whole Bush family needs to go back to Texas and stay there where they cannot do any more damage. Especially those twins, they get on my nerves.

But one thing about this election is really making me angry. There is so much focus on the war in Iraq and the war on terror, that so many important issues are being ignored. How can these politicans justify spending billions of dollars looking for non-exsistant weapons when there are millions of americans without basic health care? When millions of children live in poverty and go to bed hungry at night? When public schools don't have the money for the most basic arts and music programs because the government has cut their budgets to the bone? When laws that would protect our environment are not passed so that giant, billion dollar industries don't have to implement measures that might cost them a little bit of the huge profits they make every year? Why aren't these issues the most important ones in this election?

Two things about these elections that I do like - Jon Stewart and his commentaries, which I think are right on, and the Rock the Vote campaign. In this day and age, when more people watch Entertainment Tonight than the evening news, I like that celebrities are taking the time to record these PSA's encouraging people to get off their asses and vote. I am sure that I am not the only woman who would do pretty much anything that Benicio del Toro told me to do. Although having Paris Hilton encourage people to vote is a little disturbing since you know she doesn't have the first clue about the issues, or pretty much anything else.

So I will be watching the elections results next week, along with most of the world, hoping that the Democrats win and that Teresa Heinz is the next first lady - she's a hoot.

Official Birthday Countdown: 9 days until my birthday!