ONE MORE DAY

vote.

ONE MORE DAY (OF ELECTION ANXIETY)

In case you're just tuning in, this is the final day of the 2008 presidential campaign. Here's a wonderful one minute recap:

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Tomorrow is election day. Everyone I know is filled with election anxiety. What can you do? Drink too much, eat unwisely, scream at the television, lose sleep. These coping skills have always worked for me, but I'm sure there are better ways to deal with stress. Yoga, for example, or taking a walk, or talking to your plants. (My plants seem to be responding well to sarcasm and hurled invectives) Tomorrow night I'll be watching the election returns with some close friends, and I don't just mean Johnny Walker and Jack Daniels. Real friends. That will be a good way to weather the storm. A roller-coaster is always more fun with a group of people.

Larry David, neurotic creator of Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm, is also having trouble coping:

"I can't take much more of this...I'm at the end of my rope. I can't work. I can eat, but mostly standing up...Five times a day I'll still say to someone, 'I don't know what I'm going to do if McCain wins.'" --For more of David's election anxiety, click here.

What could possibly go wrong?

Well, poll workers could say you're not on the rolls. Your eligibility could be challenged. The voting equipment itself could malfunction. The lines could be long.

According to the Huffington Post, already over 80,000 people have complained about voting problems. "Barbara Anwine of the Election Protection Coalition (1-866-OUR-VOTE), a nonpartisan group, told MSNBC about voter suppression tactics they have witnessed around the country."



If you experience any election day mishaps, click here. Or call the US Department of Justice (800-253-3931).

Make sure your vote counts--read this article in the Daily Journal here.

TWO DAYS MORE!

If you're like me, you love musicals. The footlights and the greasepaint, the synchronized high-kicking, people breaking into song for no apparent reason! My girlfriend Wendy and I often entertain dinner guests while dressed as characters from "Cats!" and we bring down the house singing "Memory" while tossing Almond Roca from a fake litter box. We also do a killer "Les Miserables," and when I leap over the couch waving the red banner for "Liberté, égalité, fraternité" there's not a dry eye in the house.

Okay, that's not true. Not a word. But we do like musicals. Some, however, are better than others.

The musical above is from John McCain. It's definitely not "Les Mis," which I'm sure Sarah Palin would call communistic with its peasants and revolution and subversive talk of spreading the wealth. You betcha. And french, besides! Thanks but no thanks.

Palling around with terrorists

Only two more days, and I'm a nervous wreck. The poll numbers look good for Obama, and the McCain/Palin propaganda doesn't seem to be working...and yet I'm anxious about last minute dirty tricks and possible election fraud or "mistakes" with ballots.

It's been quite a battle--not just the past twenty-one months, but years, decades. With a good voter turnout and no outright election chicanery (see posting on election theft here), Tuesday could bring us closer to economic justice, affordable housing, universal health care, genuine environmental protection, and ending the war. I'm not naive, just hopeful. I realize the enemy is entrenched, the institutions are self-perpetuating, and the powerful have a vested interest in resisting meaningful change.

But I'm hopeful. Keep your fingers crossed. And vote.


A scene from "Les Miserables," a musical Sarah Palin would call socialistic for its message of class war and spreading the wealth. Viva la revolution!

THREE MORE DAYS!

These celebrities say DON'T VOTE!

What good would it do? What makes you think you can change things?

GET YOUR WAR ON!

Get the latest news satire and funny videos at 236.com.

We've always been big fans of David Rees and Get Your War On. Political cartoons have a long and glorious tradition dating back to Thomas Nast, to Daumier, to Goya, hell, probably to cave paintings, and Rees takes his place with the masters lampooning his age and its politics.

In the Rees strip, office workers chat on the phone or kill time around the water cooler, but don't expect Dilbert. Rees has an ear for dialog, and the language is natural and harsh as he directs his poison pen at hypocrites, war profiteers, and neo-cons, especially Bush and Company, McCain and Palin, and other cheerleaders for the "war on terror."

Compared to Nast and the masters, the strip is crude--the artwork is basically repetitive clip-art--but for capturing the political timbre of these soul-killing Bush years nobody comes close to Rees. He's lassoed the zeitgeist.

The office chatter is pitch perfect--picture Dilbert crossed with, um, Elmore Leonard. Anyway, after years of enjoying the strip, now we have an animated version. Not for everyone, I'll admit, bit I'm delighted to see the clip-art move. The strips are also available in book form, and the royalties of the first book are donated to landmine clearing efforts.

In 2007, his work was included with Jenny Holzer and Goya in the DISSENT! exhibition of protest art at Harvard University's Fogg Art Museum.

Get the latest news satire and funny videos at 236.com.

Check out the Rees website for more strips here. Buy the new Rees collection here.

HALLOWEEN WITH THE JERSEY DEVIL

Here's a Halloween treat from Bruce Springsteen--some murderous swampy blues about a New Jersey legend to scare your socks off.

OBAMA ON DAILY SHOW