Introducing…
I flew back from New Orleans yesterday feeling a little under the weather. Ordinarily, it’s the sort of thing I would power through. But the prospect of also having to push my way through the teeming masses of Super Bowl celebrants (good game, that) just to get in the front door of my office left me with a very definite case of Blue Flu.
On my day off, I helped a very talented local artist set up her personal website. May I introduce to you my wife, Kate Ostler.
Oh, yeah. By the way, this happened while I was neglecting my own website.
NYAAF’s 10th Anniversary Celebration
Since it seems my main venue of non-labor activism is charitable giving, I have signed on as a Co-Chair of the New York Abortion Access Fund‘s 10th Anniversary Celebration.
This is a wonderful organization that directly addresses what may be the greatest threat to reproductive freedom today: the high cost of, and limited access to, abortion procedures. This is an entirely-volunteer grassroots organization that puts money directly in the service of women in need. They do intake and connect women to the best health-provider for their situation, negotiate lower rates and leverage what matching funds they can raise from donors like you and help women get the medical help they need.
This may be the first time that the NYAAF has held any kind of event like this; y’know, a seemingly bourgey cocktail party. I’m glad they are doing it. Firstly, nothing is too good for the working class. Secondly, the organizational space that is hosting the event is, itself, a worthy charity. Thirdly, the women who have kept NYAAF as a going concern (on top of all the other demands of their lives) for over a decade deserve a little party. And, finally, because it’s an opportunity for people like me to invite you to check them out and either donate your money, or better, still, your time to one of New York’s best causes.
“Honest to Goodness! The Bars Weren’t Open This Morning.”
I voted for myself for U.S. Congress today. I walked into the polling place intending to vote for Michael McMahon, our first term Democratic Congressman. Bay Ridge, y’see, is lumped in with Staten Island for representation. This is the first election that I’ve ever been in a swing district. Boy, the number of phone calls and mailers a voter receives sure can get annoying if the election matters. I now sympathize with the citizens of New Hampshire, slightly.
Now, obviously, there’s a lot at stake if the Republicans retake the House. So, every time I received a campaign call or a survey I’d commit to voting for McMahon – but I’d be sure to tell that campaign worker that I’m pissed that he voted against the Employee Free Choice Act. I figured I would have my cake and eat it too: register my protest but hold my nose and vote for the disappointing Democrat.
But here’s the rub: voting against EFCA cost Rep. McMahon the Working Families ballot line. Y’see, in New York, we have fusion balloting. A candidate can appear on more than one ballot line, but all votes count cumulatively so that a candidate can cobble together coalition support. Most third party ballot lines in New York exist to put pressure on either the Democrats or the Republicans by adding to – or subtracting from – a candidate’s total vote. The Conservative party, for instance, usually endorses the Republican candidate unless that candidate is too namby pamby for this proto-Tea Party group. If the Republican candidate doesn’t headstomp single mothers with enough gusto, the Conservative party may choose to run its own candidate and cost the GOP nominee enough votes to throw the race to the Democrats and teach the Republicans to run a more conservative candidate next time.
Working Families employs a similar tactic, except they almost never run their own candidate. Instead, if the Democratic nominee offends, the WFP merely removes its endorsement. The candidate runs on the Democratic line only, receives fewer votes and is thusly admonished for next time. Ah, but for whom should Working Families voters cast their ballots if there is no nominee? I am genuinely unsure of the answer to that question. I’m sure that most WFP leaders and staffers would prefer that the Democrats not lose a seat that cost cost the national party control of the staff. And yet they’ve essentially told their supports, “Don’t vote for this bum.” Further, I am sure that I’m not the only WFP voter who has never pulled the lever for a Democrat in his entire life (*yes, I know we don’t have levers anymore – more below on that). It is only the thin cover of WFP endorsement that has enabled me to vote for erstwhile Dems on the WFP line. But no name appeared on the WFP line today. Just Democrat McMahon and his Republican challenger. So, I did the only logical thing and wrote in my own name. I hope this isn’t a close race, because it seems like these new voting machines in NY actually count write-ins, and I’d hate to be the margin of difference. Again.
(In case you’re wondering, I voted for WFP in all the other races except for Governor, where I voted for Hawkins and Mattera on the Green line. Cuomo does not need my vote to claim a mandate when he starts beating up on the teachers union tomorrow. I also gave good old Norman Thomas a write-in vote for the fourth judge seat that WFP did not make an endorsement for.)
So, yes, we finally have new voting machines in New York. The pull lever machines that sent JFK to the White House have finally been retired. Our new ballot is kind of a Scantron fill-in-the-bubble sheet that one hand-feeds into a scanner that is no more sophisticated than that all-in-one scanner/printer/fax machine you set up for your parents. It sucks the ballot up, the screen chirps “Thanks for voting!” and you hope your vote is counted. A friend of mine was not reassured by the on-screen confirmation, and longs for the old lever machines.
But the old lever machines used to eat huge numbers of ballots. There were races where as many as ten per cent of the ballots cast were “spoiled” and not counted. Pulling that giant switch when you were done would sometimes cause the machine to crumple and rip the ballot(s) inside. I remember that in 2000, the Socialist Party’s presidential ticket received only two write-in votes in the entire city of New York. Both the candidate and his campaign manager lived in New York, so you gotta imagine that a few votes got lost along the way. My election district did report a vote for McReynolds, so I think my vote was counted. But my poor intern on the campaign, Maddie VanHaaften-Schick, was assigned a defective voting machine at her precinct. The write-in button wouldn’t click and reveal the tiny slip of white paper on which to write in a name. She waited. She fought with the machine. She caused a long line-up behind her of voters waiting to do their civic duty. Finally, the manager of the polling location came over to see what the problem was. Maddie explained that she had ben working on this campaign for five months and wanted to cast her write-in vote for David McReynolds. This useless bureaucrat told her, “Oh, honey, we don’t count those votes!” Not content with merely saying this outrageous thing, he commenced to prove it by spinning the machine around and opening it up to show the weird jumble of paper rolls that were in the guts of the machine. “We don’t even look at these,” he said of the write-in roll – a continuous spool of blank paper with occasional scribbles that corresponded to no set ballot position. Thus defeated, Maddie voted for Nader, who was on the ballot.
In the first couple of days after the election, you could understand how I was left cold by complaints that some ballots might have gone uncounted in Palm Beach because voters couldn’t punch the right hole. Votes go uncounted all the time. The only way you can be sure your vote counted, it would appear is to write in your own name.
Not Enough To Count
I’m coming up on a year in Bay Ridge, which perhaps makes me a “regular.” It’s enough time, apparently, to make friends with the Chinese merchants on 4th Avenue, who seem to really want me to be Jewish. I suppose having Jews around is good business for dry cleaners and Chinese take-out.
I made it to Win Hing last night, just before closing time, to order some sesame chicken. The woman behind the counter, who always wears a pink Yankees cap and speaks very broken English, noted the lateness of my arrival and asked “Working late?” As the food was being prepared, and she started the closing-time clean-up ritual, she asked me for pointers on her English, which must indicate some form of familiarity.
“Is that how you say? ‘Can you sit there?'” “I would say,” I said to her, “‘Would you sit there?’ It would seem more polite. Besides, ‘can you sit?’ could mean, ‘Are you able to?'” She clarified, “Ah, like are you cripple?”
“Exactly.” Finally, she asked, simply, “Are you Jewish?” It’s probably the hat that I always wear, I guess to myself. “Ah, kinda.” “People always say this thing,” she said, “Kinda. What does this mean? Kinda.”
“Uh, it means, ‘not enough to count.'”
At the dry cleaners today, the female proprietor is surprised to see me midday. “Are you on vacation?,” she asks. Yeah, I took a day off to take care of my dry cleaning and other errands. Because I’m cool like that. This cleaner has a very computerized, talking cash register that greets customers with a bubbly “Welcome back!” It’s probably marketed to self-conscious immigrants. The woman behind the counter, however, notes my name on the computer-printed receipt. “Rich,” she says with a pause, “man. Are you…Jewish people?” “Uh,” I hesitate, “not enough to count.”
“I used to live on Kings Highway,” she explains. “All Jewish people there. Names all end with ‘man.’ Fried Man. Gold Man. I see Rich Man, so I ask.” I explain my heritage, for some reason, “Well, my father was Jewish. But he converted.” She smiles and nods at this answer. “Bye,” she says, as I walk out, “Have a nice day!” while the bubbly computer chirps, “Have a nice day!”