November 03, 2004
hearty oatmeal for all
11/3/04
Love to all of the hundreds of you awesome folk who came to my blog for the first time yesterday or today; your comments turned a Historically Dreary Day into an awesome peek into your various lives. You guys rock. Except for that racist dude.
Some emails requested where to start with this blog, and I can recommend my top 25 as a good place to waste your company's bandwidth. Let me warn you now, I'm a total asshole and I occasionally look excruciatingly goofy, and yes, I know my wife is way too hot for someone with my love handles.
I'm proud that American Coastopia is going swimmingly, but a few people seem to want a better dialogue between us and the Old America, you know, learn to speak their language and try to meet halfway. I say fuck that. None of us in A.C. are going to baby-talk our way through the homo-hatin' hearts of some bowling club in Memphis. They can take our gays straight, with no chaser.
Likewise, I am not having some quilting bee from Orem, Utah have any say in our dedication to stem cell research - and I'm not having the Virginia Beach Women's Luncheon group choose the president that will endanger my wife on the New York subways in the name of "moral values." Fuck the lot of them. It is up to THEM to start thinking clearly, and when they behave like adults, then the members of American Coastopia will start giving them the time of day. We are through coddling these people.
A few of you mentioned that you'd like to join American Coastopia, but Northern Virginia, I'm sorry. The area around the Potomac Mills is just to depressing to annex right now, and you guys waste too much gas on I-95. We suggest moving to Maryland, or perhaps to the city itself, where our public transport rocks!
Several college towns - like Austin, TX and Madison, WI would like to join as well. Our theory is that as long as the airlifts are working, like they did in Berlin in 1960, we'd be delighted to have you.
The social theorist Richard Florida says that "three T's" make up the future of America: talent, technology and tolerance. In other words: universities, computing, and the casual acceptance of those unlike you. That defines Austin and Madison, and we'd also like to accept Boulder while we're at it.
And that leaves one more place for consideration. After a brief interview, we think you'll agree that she makes a brilliant addition to our new territory. Full of great people with a hardy get-it-done attitude, she is the land of 10,000 lakes and counting. Three thousand miles from any coast, please welcome her to American Coastopia:
the American Coastopia shirts are here!
Love your writing. Please add my state of Michigan to coastopia. Here's the more recent updated map of which states went to Kerry. Please add us, don't leave us behind in the trenches :)
This man is still my HERO
Here is the 2004 voting map by county. It can't a comforting sight for blue voters. Sorry, but Coastopia would still be mostly red.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/vote2004/countymap.htm
Please don't forget us here on the other side of the Potomac from DC. I think the inclusion of Arlington, VA in Coastopia would help rid our otherwise solidly Democratic community of the grime we acquired by being the unwitting hosts of the Bush-Cheyney '04 campaign.
Never got around to this yesterday -- Thanks! American Coastopia was one of the few things, beside my 2-year old, that put a smile on my face yesterday. I sent my friends to your blog, they sent their friends, and we all agree -- we're in!!! But we have to plead one more time for Northern VA. Most of us live to the west of DC (NOT along 95 -- we agree with you about Potomac Mills!), and Kerry did win Arlington AND Fairfax counties. And how about one more college town--Charlottesville? Kerry won it with 72 percent. Also, I have to say it, my friends and I wholeheartedly agree with the sentiments in today's blog. For anyone thinking Bush is really planning on reaching out to Democrats -- just keep an eye out for the dagger in his hand.
Finally, thanks for writing, I work in DC and live in Northern VA and am surrounded by like-minded friends, who are all appalled and depressed by Tuesday's outcome, but it is still nice to know that we're not alone.
Apparel baby. Wanna stick it rite back down their capitalist throats, then git that Coastopia flag/electoral map designed and mass produced. Jon Stewart would eat that shit up. Hell done froze over on that geographical ice skating rink in Demagoguery Plaza and I can't believe all the countyXcounty red and fucking pink out there, but then again, it's NASCAR NATION ain't it. I don't know 'bout the rest of ya'll and I hate to use this language 'round the ladies, but that's not my BUSH. I went and tried to help trim the nation's HIbiscus, and it's done growed again and spreadin' like kudzu. God save my yard.
Though Georgia is Red to the core a la rebel flags and has also voted to write hate and discrimination into law (apologies to the tarheel from Decatur)...if Atlanta can't go with you, can't you have an embassy here? My husband, who is still in a state of depression and calls Karl Rove the "evil genius" for having the marriage amendment issue ensure their turnout, and I will be ambassadors.
You should get bumper stickers printed up so that anyone who sees one across the country and knows its meaning will get the inside joke.
and by the way, I'm kickstarting the prairie-roots CAMPaign for Garrison Keillor : Future Governor of Minnesota. If Jesse Ventura was the pillar (& despite his late-ass, lame-as endorsement of Kerry) , then my guy Keillor's the post; this would seal the state's membership into Coastopia, sans 'the body' of/or the World "W" Federation. I want to hear from more Canadians, eh?
and by the way, I'm kickstarting the prairie-roots CAMPaign for Garrison Keillor : Future Governor of Minnesota. If Jesse Ventura was the pillar (& despite his late-ass, lame-as endorsement of Kerry) , then my guy Keillor's the post; this would seal the state's membership into Coastopia, sans 'the body' of/or the World "W" Federation. I want to hear from more Canadians, eh?
Arlington & Falls Church are prepared to secede from Virginia if it'll help us make our way into Coastopia! We're well north of the I-95 crap and Potomac Mills and we're part of same great mass-transit systems you adore in DC. The county-by-county breakdown shows that Arlington, Falls Church & Alexandria all went strongly for Kerry.
Hi Ian. I really enjoy your writing! Hope that you are having a better day. You should at least find solace in knowing that you turned this registered-Democratic-turned-Security-Mom back into a Democrat. One other thing: I would vote for your Mom anyday! For any office!
Minnesota will definitely help your national curling team. You gotta be thinking Winter Olympics is you are creating a northern nation.
I totally agree with the whole "Fuck Them" attitude, those people in the red states are moral reprobates, the deepest and most sincere expression of our own 'American Taliban'. Suck up to them? Try to get along with them? Try to reason with them. Fuck That. They really and truly do deserve to get wholy and fully screwed for the backward and stupid decisions that they've made that impact not only their fellow (and now former) americans, but so many millions of innocent people across this planet. Fuck them, fuck them up their stupid asses.
coastopia is beginning to sound a little frightening and elitist. why am i thinking about george orwell? i appreciated laurie from manly dorm's entry yesterday; we don't want everyone thinking and acting the same. it sounds a little bit like what's already happening in america-at-large. i'm a little afraid of coastopia now; just like i'm afraid of a gentrified new york city. i don't want to be surrounded by intellectuals and liberals and artists all the time; it just sounds like an incredibly boring and narrow-minded place. coastopia might want to rethink its ideals and immigration policies.
Steve and Cialin---you're in Eugene? Amazing! Ian's blog is great and all, but I was sorta getting used to most of the regulars being tarheels and New Yorkers. Join me for a brew at steelhead?
I'm not saying all the expressions here have been the most healthy or productive ways to vent, but there are issues here worth getting angry about, and anger is political expression. Without "Act Up" there might be as many people in the U.S. who dying from AIDS as in Africa. It's like reaching a compromise with your lover: They have to know how hurtful you find something before they'll budge on something they see as important to them. Reasoned discourse has its limits, as I think this election illustrates nicely. You think we should proceed directly from offering argument to raising rifles? Then I guess that is sort of the Bush administration's foreign policy.
Mary, we can't consider Michigan because of the gay marriage ban. No "hate legislation" in A.C...
Hilary, there will be LOTS of farmers and blue collar workers and those who have never sipped a latté - Iowa, upstate NY, the wilds of International Falls, MN!
You might also consider Tucson and Flagstaff, as university Blue islands in a Red state.
I might try to make a case for Dallas County, since it only went 50% Bush/49% Kerry/1% Badnarick out of 684,500 votes cast. The City of Dallas is actually probably really Democratic (though the surrounding suburbs skew the county and regional data). We also now have the only lesbian Hispanic (and Democrat) county sheriff I know of in Texas - Lupe Valdez!
I grew up in CA (like, the Valley, dude!).
Hey y'all,
So many emotions swept through me yesterday: absolute red-faced anger (I was one of those people mumbling angrily to myself walking down the street), pure distraught grief (my eyes teared up as I walked by the polling site that I had voted for Kerry at the day before), and a yearning to understand WHY. I do know that (ONLY) a bit more than half of the country doesn't feel the way I do about a lot of issues (gay rights, choice, social services), so that last yearning-to-understand phase was one of desperation. Ian's phrase in today's blog: "The social theorist Richard Florida says that "three T's" make up the future of America: talent, technology and tolerance. In other words: universities, computing, and the casual acceptance of those unlike you," is kinda funny when you think about how we're all talking about Coastopia as a place to reject, not tolerate, those unlike us (the Republicans). It's a major understatement to say that we're all mightily pissed. I felt like a two-year-old in a tantrum yesterday. But shit, we've got to get the heads together and do something about this. We need to grow up and get active, because this SUCKS.
Another post-election note, the London Daily Mirror headline this morning was: How Could 59,054,087 People Be So Dumb? and the London Guardian's front page was a full page of black, with the stark words, OH GOD in the middle. It's strange to think that Kerry, himself, accumulated more votes than any president in history, and still this is the outcome. Of course W had even more votes.
I'm afraid I can't bear to leave my beloved Asheville for Coastopia, but am curious about the possibility of dual citizenship? Or how about I stay behind as an undercover operative?
Sigh.
Ian! I just bought a tee. Thanks for the brilliant idea...
I love the t-shirts!
Caroline, although nothing would replace Asheville, at least you won't have to reach it through phalanxes of rabid lackeys of the evil empire.
And there is always Paris. But not Paris, Texas.
Oh. My. God. The t-shirts are GENIUS.
Hey check this out... another vision of the future:
Like we said on yesterday's entry, looks like Northern Virginia - at least the cool parts - have lobbied their way in. WELCOME!
When you include Michigan and Minnesota on the tshirt, I will definitely buy several! I know that the majority of counties would still be red, but at least the population centers have a chance to keep progressing...
Stefee - Minnesota is in, and on the shirt! Michigan is not, sadly, because of the gay marriage referendum. We're serious about that.
(ALL JOIN IN)
.......I got the anti-tyrannical, not-so-evANGELelical, what's wrong w/intellectual, I damn-true-voted blue as blue blues....."Go Ian, take it one time again my brother!"
(Poindexter on VIOLIN-Type Kickin' Solo)
Anybody play harmonica?
God bless Coastopia!! And thank you SO MUCH for admitting the great state of MINNESOTA - who-hooo!
Scary, you're getting the day-after conservative clean up crowd on Ian's yesterday post, just like that tv movie "the day after' that was supposed to SCARE the shit out of us about post-Nucular-War (SIC, GwB). I need a vacation.
I was so happy to see that my home state of Oregon is included! But if passing the anti-gay marriage referendum is keeping Michigan out, I think that Eastern Oregon will have to be kicked out. Without the conservatives on the east side of the mountains we would have defeated our anti-gay marriage measure.
Brilliant. The name needs work, but people seem to like it, so I guess I can like with it. It's not like we took the cool part of Amerigo Vespucci's name anyway ("The United States of Vespa" would've been better).
Here's a thought. A Common Market with open borders with Canada gives you a more-or-less contigious country. Or just try to join, like the (gulp) Bosian Serbs. Let's refrain from ethnically cleansing the indigious Rednecks, though. I'm at least half Redneck myself.
Why'd you have to go and make things so Coastapated?
OK, OK, bad joke. But as a possible National Anthem, I submit the old song "Not Proud of the USA" by the '80s punk band The Mice (it's gets ya moving): http://www.scatrecords.com/mice.htm, click on song at right.
Man! You don't mess around, do you??? I just noticed the link to the t-shirts. How did you pull this together so fast?? Are you sure you are not a Republican capitalist at heart? ONLY KIDDING. The shirts are great. . . I live in Maryland, and I will be on the lookout for some fellow Coastopians! A Coastopian sighting will be quite exciting!
Proud native Coastopian checking in from west of Seattle in the Cascadia region of Coastopia.
This is a terrific idea. Now, how can we secede in truth?
I'd like to see our political structures based on bioregions rather than the old state or other geopolitical divisions.
Bumper stickers!!!! How about "Proud to be a Coastopian"
1) Bumpersticks would be great. Tshirts in black PLEASE!!!!2) As to the county-by-county breakdown....? Payback is a bitch. Majority rules. Make them suffer as revenge. In CA - all of that Central Valley red? It's white-flight from the ethnically diverse SF bay area. Let them run to Reno next. They can all go broke with the 4 hour drive to work.
thanks for making me feel better about this mess.
Illinois, especially Chicago, is proud to be a member of Coastopia especially since we are actually known as...
The Third Coast (thank YOU, Lake Michigan).
I would also like to point out that Minnesota has part of the lovely coast of Lake Superior to also qualify it. We are so happy to welcome our neighbors to the north. And if you haven't read Garrison Keillor's "Homegrown Democrat", you should. It would make your heart swell with pride. Especially if you are a Democrat from the Heartland. (Bless you for keeping it real, Heartland Homies.)
LC, thanx. Can this just all be over? Garrison Keillor for fucking president of the United STates, or maybe Warren Martin? I don't know. Please stop bickering. Blood Red won. BlueBlood is my hue. Life goes on. Co-miserating is getting old. Coastopia sounds so nice, like a water park without risk of a water-born illness. Everyone has chimed in. Let it go. I, for one, have not been sipping "whine" by the way, so the not-so-Gouda Red-skinned Cheese can stay away. Enough already. I apologize for that.
God Bless Uh-Merica?
Please stop trying to kick out eastern Oregon! We worked our butts off for Kerry over here (and against anti-gay Measure 36), and Deschutes County has moved from red to pink in the last 10 years. A Democrat almost won state representative (an impossibility 10 years ago). We're almost there!
There are a lot of artists and musicians in Bend who've had their hearts ripped out by this election. We need Coastopia, and Coastopia needs artists and musicians!
Michigan is excluded solely because of its gay marriage ban. However, Oregon is included. Isn't that hypocritical, considering the Oregon also passed a ban on gay marriage?