The game has changed

I am in a constant state of downward-spiral disappointment at Hillary Clinton's recent behavior -- the latest of which is, to me, the most disturbing thus far.

I have been a Barack Obama supporter from day one. I believe he is the best person for the job. However, I always conceded that I would vote for Clinton in November should she win the Democratic nomination. Until today.

According to this post in NYT's The Opinionator blog, Hillary is calling for the delegates from Michigan and Florida to be reinstated in the name of having their "voices heard." Naturally, these are states she has either won or is projected to win handily, given that they were ousted from the national convention. It is a thinly-veiled power grab and essentially, it would steal the nomination. As quoted in The Opinionator, writer Ezra Klein sums it up:

This is the sort of decision that has the potential to tear the party apart. If this pushes her over the edge, the Obama camp, and their supporters, really will feel that she stole her victory. They didn’t contest those states because they weren’t going to count, not because they were so committed to the DNC’s procedural arguments that they were willing to sacrifice dozens of delegates to support it. It’s as hard as hardball gets, and the end could be unimaginably acrimonious. Imagine if African-American voters feel the rules were changed to prevent Obama’s victory, if young voters feel the delegate counts were shifted to block their candidate.

Bingo.

If Hillary Clinton gets those delegates seated and runs off with the nomination in this backhanded bullshit way, I'm happy to say this right now: in November, I will hand my vote to the Green Party if anyone at all.

A Charlie Brown New Year

Many of these photos were taken by Miss Julayne Farmer.

Gender issues

I enjoyed this bit from Slate's XX Factor blog, regarding (though not limited to) last night's Democratic debate in Nevada:

The gender nadir is the debate setup, in which Williams and Russet ask real questions while poor Natalie Morales parachutes in from some faraway land of lip gloss to pose intermittent e-mail questions from viewers. This would be horrifying enough, were it not for the fact that the very last e-mail question—ostensibly the only “truly thoughtful” one of the evening—is too important to beam up to Morales and thus must be posed by Williams. As of midnight on Jan. 16, then, the candidates have officially gotten past identity politics. The networks have not.

Zing.

The trip home

There and back again

I'm back in New Zealand, shaking off the last of the jetlag.

Upon arriving home, I suddenly felt strangely disoriented. The green smell of the yard, the disarmingly bright sunshine, the summer breeze, the small town, the deafening quiet, it was all so charmingly simple, and so drastically different.

After two weeks of wintertime big cities and the hustle/hassle of international travel, the sudden and immediate change was jarring. After three weeks of feeling blissfully, finally, so in context, after surrounding myself with my closest friends and family, after finding myself merging effortlessly back into the urban flow, here it had all changed again and I felt completely upside down.

What I need most now is a reason to be living in Nelson beyond the fact that it's a wonderful place to be. I won't argue against any of its best qualities, and I'm incredibly endeared to this little beach town. But I feel so much like a tree without roots. I need a reason not to feel like I'm floating. I am so clearly not done with the parts of my life -- and the parts of myself -- that I found again in the past few weeks. But I am also not done with Nelson, or New Zealand.

So far, I'm not sure where that leaves me.