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November, 2004

  1. DCCC – Louisiana

    November 30, 2004 by elenamary

    This week all entries will be about my trip to Louisiana to work on their two congressional races. For more info about the election and the group I am going with check here.

    I am flying out to Louisiana tomorrow. I thought I was going to fly out tonight, as I was told I would. How did I find out I wasn’t going to Louisiana on Tuesday but Wednesday? I heard the group leaders telling someone on the phone that the Tuesday flights were canceled. No one told me. In fact I am just realizing now that when I left the Democratic National Headquarters, someone that showed up thought they were flying out tonight too. Anyway, in someways they are very disorganized, and with not enough organization to know what to do with the money they have. I also found out they would’ve helped me with my flight out here to DC for which I took an “Alexi-Loan”. I also did research on Louisiana 7th District as that is where I was told I was going but today after asking about it was told I was going to the 3rd district. So, not big deals but it is driving me crazy.
    Shower and sleep gnite all.

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  2. My Christmas Presents

    November 28, 2004 by elenamary

    This year when Alexi buys me my Chirstmas presents he will be able to afford it because of his job with Lockheed Martin.
    Lockheed Martin is a military defense contractor. They sell weapons to Israel, to the CIA, to the US Government to help overthrow foreign governments like in Venezuela. The election of republicans was good for Alexi’s company. It was good for immediate benefits for us as I open my christmas gifts. His mother advises I look at this as his “military service” but that really doesn’t make it better. The New York Times leads with an article about Lockheed Martin.

    Lockheed and the Future of Warfare
    By TIM WEINER (excerpt)

    “LOCKHEED MARTIN doesn’t run the United States. But it does help run a breathtakingly big part of it.

    Over the last decade, Lockheed, the nation’s largest military contractor, has built a formidable information-technology empire that now stretches from the Pentagon to the post office. It sorts your mail and totals your taxes. It cuts Social Security checks and counts the United States census. It runs space flights and monitors air traffic. To make all that happen, Lockheed writes more computer code than Microsoft.

    Of course, Lockheed, based in Bethesda, Md., is best known for its weapons, which are the heart of America’s arsenal. It builds most of the nation’s warplanes. It creates rockets for nuclear missiles, sensors for spy satellites and scores of other military and intelligence systems. The Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency might have difficulty functioning without the contractor’s expertise. “

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  3. P’ra Brasil

    November 27, 2004 by elenamary

    Today, Alexi and I did our post-thanksgiving walk to Sugar Loaf. One day we will go to the real Pão de Açúcar. Algum dia eu espero.

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  4. My Irish

    November 26, 2004 by elenamary

    I haven’t seen my dad in what I think is about a year-and-a-half. I last had talked to him in August for less than a minute. We have a distant relationship; he was abusive, crazy, manipulative, terrible father. He is also one of the most intelligent people I know. I wish I could speak with his same eloquence, with his same passion and his ability to persuade people.
    Alexi, my darling sweetheart (I do have some exciting news on that front too) encouraged me to have lunch with my dad today. He said he would come along too. It was a pleasant lunch. Alexi shared with my dad how well I was doing and what I was up too, what my plans where, and helped with any moments where otherwise there would have been awkward moments of silence. I learned from my father a new sadness for politics. As he told me that his generation coming out from Vietnam thought that by 2000 things would have been so different in race issues, health care, education and that this election was very disappointing for him because this is not what his generation had accepted. He added, what was he supposed to do? Wait another 40 years for change? By then he would be in his nineties too old to dance in celebration. He said I will die before I see the changes; this wasn’t how it was supposed to be. How depressing.
    On the wonderful Alexi front, I am excited of what is to come.

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  5. what they do to the rabbits is wrong

    November 25, 2004 by elenamary

    After the age of eight or so every prayer at my house ended with the line “And let them understand what they do to the rabbits is wrong, in the name of the father, the son and the holy spirit, Amen.” It started after our dad took us to some festival with a trailer showing videos and offering information on animal testing. We saw how they shaved the hair of the rabbits, how they held their little heads so that they couldn’t move. My sister and I became vegetarians.

    Last Thanksgiving, my mother’s home was filled with Zapotec Indians. Zapoteco was their first language, Spanish their second and none of them spoke English. My sister asked everyone, if they knew why we didn’t have to work this day. No one knew. “Because white people came and killed off all our people.” This was followed by each of us going around the room and giving thanks for something in our lives.

    Anyway, no matter how you spend today, whether it be eating a tofurky with friends, surrounded by dysfunctional family, the drunk aunt, the racist uncle, at the kiddie table, remember it could always be worse you could be having thanksgiving with my family.

    Cartoon editorial below in the extended entry.
    (more…)

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  6. Republican vs. Democrat

    November 23, 2004 by elenamary

    It isn’t as simple as party lines. I made fun of my friend Harmon K. (who was president of the College Dems) I for dating a republican. “Our politics are very similar” he informed me “I am a conservative Democrat from Ohio and she is a progressive Republican from California”. I think both of them have messed up politics but what he was saying kind-of made sense.

    I am going to Louisiana next week,

    and have been stuggling with how much I disagree with the candidate I am going to work for, Willie Landry Mount. Yes, there is little difference between Republicans and Democrats and even less of a difference in Louisiana. I am not one to vote party line. And, yes compared to the republican she is better. And, yes I believe more democrats are needed in the Congress and Senate but I am having a hard time with this candidate. I know she is better than the alternative but that is like saying I know losing my left leg is better than losing both legs.

    From her website:
    “Fact: Willie Landry Mount has always voted against use of the morning after pill. Willie Landry Mount’s Pro-Life Record is rock solid.”

    “I am and have always been Pro-Life. As a member of Congress, I will support legislation that allows States more freedom in regulating abortions than the Supreme Court has permitted. I believe that life begins at conception and that it should be protected just as any other human life.”

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