Monday, October 27, 2008

what's up the pike: everything comes together

It's the week before the election, I think. There's a light at the end of the tunnel, as they say, and suddenly, everything you didn't understand before has been illuminated. Here's a look at what's happening this week in East County:

- The Gandhi Brigade, a group based out of Silver Spring that uses different media to discuss issues affecting young people, has a permanent home in City Place Mall. Dubbed the "Media Center," the space will screen locally-produced films and also be used to train the organization's aspiring filmmakers, photographers and graphic designers. On Saturday, they had an open house with a presentation of El Play, a documentary about a Dominican baseball player.

- It just occurred to me that the blogger-led Silver Spring Zombie Walk is on November 1st, not on Halloween as I previously thought, meaning that I can still take my zombie-brother trick-or-treating without conflict. His costume looks disgusting.

- The Republicans mustn't let Thomas Hardman join in any of their reindeer games, because the former County Council candidate has left the party. Hardman came to the decision after a long night of drinking and debate with friends last weekend, according to his blog. Jumping ship to the Democrats wasn't gonna happen either, he says, because the "Party would destroy me . . . simply for having ideas of which the Central Committee didn't approve."

- Speaking of the G.O.P.: Maryland Politics Watch's Adam Pagnucco will apparently be responsible for John McCain winning the presidential election. Now, we don't do endorsements here at JUTP but, then again, I didn't get up at the ass-crack of 9 a.m. twice! to see McCain speak. I'm just saying.

2 comments:

Thomas Hardman said...

Dan, all,

Regarding my decision to bail on the MoCo Republicans, that came a month or two ago, and I re-registered then. The thing is, I still have ideals that I consider "republican" but there's as strange a struggle for hearts and minds within the GOP as there is within the Democrat party's factions of Conservative and Progressive. My positions on partisan extremism are fairly well known, I think it's a very divisive force which may eventually bring the country to political paralysis, if not actual civil war.

To run as an Independent -- if I were to do so -- is far more difficult in Maryland than it would be to run in any established party. Yet, due to the partisanism and polarization of extremes, it may be that only unaffiliated candidates could faithfully serve the whole electorate and pursue goals which are essential, but which polarize according to party lines.

What I decided over the weekend was that I couldn't commit to running for anything, and didn't want to exercise my friends professional talents -- however donated pro-bono -- towards a goal I didn't hold dear.

And then I got home and found my "Notice of Allowance" from the Patent office...

Don't think for a minute that I'm ignoring political process in either Maryland or MoCo, or in the USA, though I will praise $DEITY once the elections are done.

It's just that if I have been handed a license to sue on the one hand, and potentially print money on the other hand, it's easy to see where my most urgent concerns might lie.

I will definitely be getting a more familiar understanding of the regulatory environment's impacts on business, that's for sure, and I might eventually wind up as either a liberal Republican or a conservative Democrat, but I'll probably still be registered unaffiliated.

Please please please let the current campaign be over soon. /me whimpers

retgroclk said...

Well Thomas Hardman- I am a registered Democrat and I have been accused of being a Republican.

I like to think of myself as the "old" style Democrat- remember Hubert Humphrey, Henry Scoop Jackson and the Union Leader George Meany- these are the Democrats that made Democrats proud.

When I see the likes of Pelosi, Reid, Obama and the rest of these far left loons, I shake mt head and hope that one day.......