The polling place where i just voted was split in twain, two lines. One for a large area of low income people, one for a very small area of high income people. my line (low income area) was a 2 hour wait. there was no wait in the other line at all.
On Tue, Nov 4, 2008 at 8:33 AM, Jed Rothwell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I suppose people are blase about real-time communications and so on, but I > am old enough to be amazed at how connected the world is. > > My daughter Naomi lives in New York city and my wife is in Japan at present. > Naomi was interviewed by a Japanese reporter last night at the Obama > headquarters in New York. It was convenient for them -- they did not need an > interpreter. They asked "puffball questions" in Japanese and had her to > respond in English to give it verisimilitude. The Obama people coached her > for 30 seconds before the interview as follows: "Don't say ANYTHING bad > about McCain -- don't even mention him! Smile, smile, smile -- keep > everything upbeat -- and don't give any hard numbers about how many people > are working here today . . ." (It was a mob scene. There were ~800 > volunteers at that office, and hundreds coming in and out of the DeKalb Co. > Obama HQ yesterday, picking up thousands of door-hanger leaflets.) > > The broadcast was made in Japan at 5:00 their time (3:00 a.m. EST). > Naturally, we rushed to tell everyone in Japan to watch it. So, here we have > phone calls and e-mail flying back and forth from the U.S. to Japan, in real > time, costing practically nothing. > > My daughter's office gave her a blackberry, from which she just sent me this > message: > > ". . . I'm in line to vote, it's snaking around the block -- a 40 minute > wait." > > I told her there are long lines in DeKalb County, GA where I went, and I > will try again later > > Later: > > "Starbucks is giving out free coffee and ben and jerries free icecream if > you vote. My roommates and I got free coffee just now. Bring a magazine for > the line, and water." > > The whole world is watching, as they said in Chicago in 1968. > > On the other hand, with all this high tech fol-de-rol you would think that > the U.S. could engineer a method of voting that does not cause people to > wait for hours. In Georgia there have been waits up to 12 hours in voting > before the election. Gross incompetence. The black community (and I) suspect > it is voter suppression. > > - Jed > >
