Congratulations Philadelphia!

The Phillies won the World Series, and seeing as I used to live in the Philadelphia area, I have a great affection for this perpetual underdog team. A small part of me wishes I was still there. Fall in Pennsylvania is lovely, plus if I was registered there, my vote would make more of a difference than it does here in McCain-dominated Texas.

No worries, though. I believe the Phillies winning is an omen of better things to come: Obamanos!

Living and Voting in Austin? Watch This!

Vote for Proposition 2 to ban subsidies for the Domain.

You can find more information at the following links:
http://www.stopdomainsubsidies.com/
http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Issue/column?oid=oid:663320
http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Issue/Story?oid=oid:671862

Post Offices and Poverty?

Today is Blog Action Day 08.

I'm supposed to write about poverty. I only found out about Blog Action Day yesterday, and I haven't been inspired to write anything. Just write about poverty. Why not try writing about peace or consumerism or greed or love or anything other category so entirely vague that it leaves the door wide open for all kinds of interesting discourse.

But it unfortunately leaves my mind blank.

Instead, I'll write about post offices in Austin. I just went to the post office on East Sixth Street. It's one of maybe two post offices on the East Side (this town is lacking in post offices and there are almost always lines). The one on East Sixth looks like it was built in the 60s and hasn't been renovated since. The floors are dingy, the flourescent lights are oppessively bright (although some bulbs are out). There's a poor selection of mailing supplies on sale, and the stamps in the display case are still priced at 39 cents.

Compared to the very new post office on trendy South Congress, the East Sixth branch is quite sad. I won't go as far as to accuse the postal service of neglecting the East Side, and the staff at the East Sixth branch are quite helpful and seem to take their jobs seriously (no pity parties there).

But I still wonder - is it any coincidence that the post offices are nicer in the parts of town where the new condos are being built and houses are selling at $400,000 upwards?

That said, I've been to some beautiful new libraries on the East Side. The Terrazas branch and the Ruiz branch, both east of I-35 and both beautiful facilities, are much better than the sad Twin Oaks branch just off the same trendy South Congress. So I can't say that the city is entirely neglecting East Austin. But the disparities are noticeable, and I wonder in what ways we can make up for them.

Here's to Austin's Idiots

Here's an interesting NPR story answering listeners' questions about voting rules. The final question comes from a beer-loving Austinite. You should listen to the story (because it's quite informative).

But if you can't or won't, I'll give you a synopsis of his question. He asked if could take his local brew Independence Pale Ale to the polls while he votes, especially since it's named Independence Pale Ale. Makes the hometown proud, I guess...

Sometimes Christians Scare Me

I nearly collapsed this morning when I read this NPR story about Falwell, Jr. canceling classes at Liberty on election day to encourage his 80% Republican student body to vote.

Then I read a terrible review of the "Christian" movie Fireproof in The Onion, and I was near to renouncing my faith.

But thankfully, I read Heather's latest blog post: When Heather P Sparks...: Hokey Christian Emails...Evangelicals are Strange

And then I found this bumper sticker mentioned in one of the user-comments on the NPR story:

Visit Nana

Heather posted this on her blog, and it was so funny, I had to do the same:



The Great Schlep from The Great Schlep on Vimeo.