V-day

Mikaela says:
My compatriots doing their civic and patriotic duties in the field, it's left to me, corporate slave, to keep the lights on here at m-pyre.

1. Take your neighbor and/or your office-mate and Go Vote. Find out where here (note English or Spanish toggle choice to the right) or here (includes GoogleMap) or here (includes a check to see if you're registered). NM sample ballot and polling places here.
   
2. Be sure to file a report of voting irregularites AT YOUR POLLING LOCATION. Get names of witnesses (poll workers) if possible. Follow up with a call to your Secretary of State. In NM, that's Mary Herrera: 505.827.3600 or 800.477.3632 or email MaryE.Herrera@state.nm.us
   
3. Call 1-866-Our-Vote (1-866-687-8683), a nation-wide voter protection service, staffed by lawyers who can give state-specific support to those experiencing voter suppression or any other problem. Then call in/text voting irregularities here or here (data collection ONLY - not official).
   
4. Find a party to watch the election returns tonight. As Marjorie told me, no one should be alone to witness this historic event. You know you've been invited somewhere... just go! If not, join a local organization watching at your favorite watering hole, or your family, or your political party of choice.
5. Keep your thoughts and comments flowing on m-pyre. You know we love to get snarky and starry-eyed!
   
6. No matter who you voted for, remember to say goodbye to Bush. Maybe now is the time to jot down a few memories. Then burn them outside in a special ceremony.

Here are some thoughts from a few American writers to get your creative juices flowing via Dan Froomkin:

Tobias Wolf writes about get-togethers with friends: "When we meet for dinner we do our best to take up other subjects - books, gossip, movies, our children - but then, like the addicts we've become, we sneak back to the drug of outrage, shooting up the latest barefaced lie and squalid revelation, not forgetting to list yet again the national and global catastrophes brought about by the incompetence, hypocrisy, muddleheadedness, venality, truculence, mendacity, callousness, zealotry, machismo, lawlessness, cynicism, wishful thinking, and occasional downright evil of the administration of George W Bush. Our economy is in freefall, our public school system a disgrace, our military exhausted, the wounded and traumatised dying of neglect, yea, the very earth groaning for relief - and he's optimistic! Yessiree! Looking forward to it! Leaning toward us over the podium with that exasperated little squint and that impatient, dentist-drill voice, utterly at a loss as to how he got saddled with a nation of such gloomy Guses and crybabies.

"Eddying around our own indignation again and again, as if caught in some Bermuda Triangle of complaint, we are unable not to remind each other of the fatal character of George Bush's incomprehension, the thousands upon thousands who have died by his blithe actions and inactions, and his inability to understand at any level - political, moral, emotional - the terrible damage he has done...

"There - I've stepped in the trap again. I can't help it. And for many of us that has been a defining condition of life in George W Bush's reign, this unanswerable need to register anew and aloud our shock and dismay, indeed our disbelief, at finding him at the wheel as we wake each morning."

Or this little gem:

Joseph L. Galloway writes in his McClatchy Newspapers opinion column: "They played on our fears like a mighty Wurlitzer Organ, frightening us with lies into an unnecessary war in Iraq. Frightening us into re-electing George Bush, even after we knew that he was anything but presidential, anything but intelligent, anything but a worthy, effective leader.

"They frightened us so badly that we voluntarily surrendered the precious rights that a million American soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, Coast Guardsmen and others bought for us with their lives during two centuries of freedom and democracy.

"They used fear to violate international law, to torture and imprison thousands of suspected enemies without charges or trials. They used fear and invoked national security to suspend the right of habeas corpus, the foundation of our freedoms.

"For these and far too many other sins and transgressions to list in so short a space as this, we the people have every right, and perhaps a duty, to cast them aside, and with them their only hope of avoiding justice and judgment -- John McCain, who voted with them 90 percent of the time."

So long Bush! May you be perpetually embalmed in the legacy you deserve. May you be haunted with the success of all you tried to do.