Incoherent Scribblings

I am sure this is one of about 10 million election-related posts in the blogophere tonight, but this isn’t about my choice of candidate or my trying to convince you why my candidate is better than yours. I am not overly political, in fact, more often than not I consider myself pretty apathetic about American politics.

Nevertheless, it is my right, and therefore my duty, to vote and so tomorrow* I will do just that.

! Begin Civic Duty Message !

And that is really what this evening’s blog post is about.

I don’t care what your politics are or who you vote for, if you are an American citizen who has registered to vote, by all means get down to your polling place tomorrow and exercise your freedom by casting your ballot… too many Americans have fought and/or died (and not just in foreign wars either, think about the Women’s Suffrage Movement) so you can vote: Honor them by doing so!

! End Civic Duty Message !

(*) Because Texas is a state that has early voting, I could have voted at any time during the last two weeks, but since I have never lived in a state with early voting casting my ballot early seemed rather odd to me. I know that my vote would have counted just as much last week or the week before as it will tomorrow, but I suppose I will feel more like I am part of the process by voting tomorrow.

I just got back from voting in today’s Texas Primary. If my calculations are correct, today marks the eighth time I have voted in some sort of election since I voted for the first time in the 1992 presidential election. I have voted in every presidential election since then, one mid-term election, two special elections, and now a primary.

Given that I am originally from Iowa and that is where I voted the first two times I voted in presidential elections, you might wonder if I have ever participated in that state’s caucus. Unfortunately, in 1992 I didn’t turn 18 until about five months after the caucuses were over, so I didn’t have a chance then. I am not sure why I didn’t attend the caucus in 1996, but I would guess that in addition to not being overly interested in the political process, since I was registered as a Democrat and Bill Clinton ran unopposed in the Democratic caucus that year I didn’t feel that it was necessary to attend.

2006 was the first time that I had ever voted in a mid-term election and it just so happened that I was living in Iowa again. In the run up to that election I thought about the mid-term elections that have happened since I was old enough to vote and wondered why I never voted in any of them. My excuse was, and I actually think that it does have some merit, that I have moved around a lot since 1992 and never felt qualified to vote in elections for representatives or congresspeople in states in which I didn’t really feel like a true resident. Sure I could have gone to the polls and voted for people I didn’t know that stood for issues that I didn’t think meant much to me, but I felt that it was better to abstain from voting rather than to cast a ballot as an uninformed citizen.

Nevertheless, although I had just returned from a four-year stint living overseas in the fall of 2006, I felt more qualified to vote in a mid-term election than I ever had up to that time. Living overseas had actually sparked an interest in the American political landscape that I had never had before and I had discovered that while mid-term elections may have certain foundations in state politics, they contribute to the big picture just as much as presidential elections do… if not more so. I was still a long way from being “political,” but I saw myself as an informed American who wanted to voice an opinion, so I did.

These days I try to keep up with the issues that affect me not only as an American citizen, but as a global citizen as well so that I can live my life as an informed individual, but overall, I must admit that American politicians have the power to make me tremendously apathetic.

Nevertheless, it is my hope that each time I exercise my right to vote it will serve to help shift things just a little bit and make this country a better place in which to live in the long run.

I know that once you move to Texas technically you have 30 days to transfer your vehicle registration and driver’s license from the state in which you last resided to Texas.

However, since this is not only a university town, but a snowbird destination as well, I figured that I could probably get away with an Iowa license and plates for as long as they were valid. Nevertheless, when I planned my budget for this month, the whole car/driver’s license thing received top priority.

On Tuesday I made an appointment to get an oil change but also took the opportunity to get my car inspected so that I could complete the first step in getting it legal. That afternoon I continued my task by downloading the appropriate forms and filling them out. Because I had the paperwork all filled out when I went to the county tax office the next day, I received my new license plates and registration sticker within a possible record time of 20 minutes.

After I replaced the Iowa plates with the Texas ones late this morning I headed down to the Department of Public Safety so that I could fill out yet more paperwork and get my Texas driver’s license. Unlike last year when I had a bit of trouble getting my driver’s license, this time there was no test (written or driving) involved.

I smiled pretty for my picture and noticed that I was wearing the same shirt today as I was wearing a little over a year ago when I smiled for my Iowa driver’s license photo.

Though it was a lot of red tape and took most of the week to fit these things in around my work schedule, I am pleased to say that the whole process went smoothly. And as I put my new driver’s license into my wallet, the nice lady at the driver’s license office actually smiled and said to me, “Congratulations. You’re a Texan now.”

According to Title 4, Section 7 of the U.S. Code, flags in the United States are only supposed to fly at half-mast under certain circumstances. For that reason, when I pulled into the parking lot this morning at work and noticed that the flags were flying at half-mast I naturally wondered what the occasion was.

As I browsed through my most trusted news sources, I didn’t find any mention of fallen presidents or other principal figures of the United States Government (I guess Cheney is still hanging on), but I did come across a couple of references that reminded me that today, December 7, is Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day. Further research informed me that the President had issued a proclamation stating that flags should be flown at half-staff in commemoration of that day today.

As I read the President’s proclamation, my feelings were mixed. My opinion about our head of state is less than generous and as a result, most of the time I regard any word that comes from his mouth with hostility. Nevertheless, though my grandfather was not at Pearl Harbor on that fateful day, he did fight in the Second World War and so naturally on this day my thoughts drifted to him.

During the War Grandpa was a medic stationed in France and even though he lost one of his brothers to the fighting, he never spoke (to me at least) of the War with regret. He believed the things he fought for were just and that after the War was over the world was a safer place in which to live.

But even as I remember my grandfather, the men and women who died in the attack on Pearl Harbor, and all the other men and women who served our country following it, I can’t help but wonder how one determines the morality of a war.

If one believes that involvement in a certain war is “right,” how did he or she reach that conclusion and does that mean he or she is required to believe that involvement in other wars is right as well? Is it right to support (or not) a war based upon personal politics? Is it hypocritical to change one’s opinion about a war based on the fact that things do not develop as planned? Is it acceptable to enter a war based on retaliation or self-defense only to use it as an excuse to attack others? Do the ends justify the means?

I do not have answers to these rhetorical questions today and I may never have them, but one thing I know for sure is that if it weren’t for the actions that came as a result of the attack on Pearl Harbor I might not have the luxury today to even consider them.

Fireworks – Flame
Originally uploaded by blondelibrarian.

I know my first Fourth of July back in America since 2001 was almost two weeks ago now, but I just got around to downloading the pictures and videos off my camera tonight.

Though I saw fireworks a couple of different times while I was in Germany, it had been quite a few years since I had celebrated The Fourth of July in proper Small Town America Style and I was really looking forward to spending my first Fourth back in the States with my niece and nephew.

It was a fairly typical Small Town Iowa Fourth of July Day: The weather was hot and humid by 10:00 am, but we toughed it out and went to see the parade anyway. The parade consisted of much candy-throwing by the participants of the parade and much candy-gathering by me my niece. The high school marching band played and the veterans from the American Legion did a Twenty One Gun Salute. There were also plenty of horses and Uncle Sam walked down the brick streets on stilts. There was a second parade a couple of hours later, but the heat drove our little party indoors until evening.

I was quite excited about attending one of the largest fireworks displays in this area of Iowa, but I had to work the night before the Fourth and the night of and as a result, I almost missed the fireworks display entirely. My sister called me around 7:30 that evening to remind me to bring a chair and woke me from a dead sleep. I didn’t want to wake up very badly and almost told my sister to go without me, but when I heard my niece in the background excitedly chattering about the fireworks I dragged myself out of bed.

The fireworks display was quite beautiful and I used the opportunity to practice my nighttime photography skills. I think my attempts at photographing the fireworks were pretty successful, don’t you? (P.S. There are more fireworks pics at Flickr and a little video on YouTube. Enjoy! )