Not being able to vote since my arrival in Great Britain 10 years ago has always been a bit of a burr in my metaphorical gusset. Raised in the “Rock the Vote” generation in the US, not being able to have a say in who my elected officials are has made me uncomfortable despite my extreme apathy toward British politics where every party seems to have the same policies while at the same time accusing the ruling party of hypocrisy/ criminal activity/ sexual deviance/ etc. In any system where you are paying a very large amount of seemingly never-ending taxes, it’s annoying not to be able to pick who’s taxing you. (Up until the last year or so, citizenship was not even an option as the US frowns upon it’s citizens hitching their wagons to the fortunes of Johnny Foreigner even if we DO have a “special relationship”.)

A few years ago, I mentioned our day out at Westminster Palace care of our MP, Mr. John Bercow, who has since recently been elected as Speaker of the House of Commons. In other words, he’s the guy in the black robe in the middle of the room who a) recognizes MP’s during sessions of Parliament when they want to speak and b) tells them to knock it off when the proceedings reach a “your momma” state of debate.

As it happens, we’ve met The Right Honourable Speaker on three separate occasions. I was not present for the first instance when he was first campaigning, showed up at the Rock Star’s family home and immediately needed to use the toilet. For like, half an hour. After his marathon comfort break, he spent a fair amount of time connecting with the Rock Star’s family, asking about their business, governmental concerns, etc. So in depth did his interest appear to be that it lead my mother in law to wonder aloud, “He’s a slick bugger. I wonder what he’s up to?”

The second meeting was during a sponsored tour of Westminster Palace several years later, when, to our surprise, he remembered exactly who The Rock Star’s family was, where they lived and what they did. (Possibly due to latent gratitude from being allowed to spend half an hour in their crapper.) His star had risen a bit in Parliament by then and you’d occasionally see his name crop up in newspapers having to do with various votes and committees. Again, my mother in law mused that he was a politician who probably had lofty aspirations and was curious to know what he was working towards.

Before visiting a session of the Commons a few years after THAT, I decided to have a quick look at what John Bercow, MP was really all about and after a bit of internet searching, found the Parliamentary voting records. Although a member of the Tory Party, Bercow almost consistently voted with the Labour government throughout his stint as Buckinghamshire’s Member of Parliament. (This is why you need to check up on your elected officials, folks! Just because you vote in a member of one party or another, it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to get the policies that you’d expect. While, as a liberal, /I/ certainly have no trouble with his voting record, I can imagine that a staunch Tory supporter might get their conservative hackles up a bit) We enjoyed a rather nice afternoon tea with him in the beautiful Pugin Tearoom at Westminister Palace afterwards and were both stuck at his personability as well as his uncanny ability to answer a question in a way that 5 minutes later, you suddenly went, “Holy hell. He didn’t answer my question at all. How did I MISS that?” In other words, the perfect politician. So, when he was finally elected speaker, it didn’t come as a huge surprise. My mother in law proved to be right. He WAS working towards something.

Just the other day, the Rock Star (as the only voter in the house) received a letter that informed us that due to some strange Parlimentary jiggery pokery, because our MP is in fact the Speaker and at General Elections, the Speaker’s seat remains unchallenged, voters of Buckinghamshire would not be given a vote. In an American analogy, this would be like residents of the State of California being denied the opportunity to vote in a Presidential election due to the fact that Nancy Pelosi is the Speaker of Senate. (Of course, Buckinghamshire is far less populated, less prone to earthquakes and has a FAR lower paparazzi to resident ratio.)

Although the politics of Great Britain don’t really warrant much attention on the other side of the pond, I think perhaps a little bit of the MP Expense scandal might have made the papers. (i.e. Members of Parliament using an astonishing amount of taxpayer cash for important and critical things like REALLY NICE NEW WALLPAPER for their offices.) Unfortunately, Mr. Bercow was not immune to this and in a “gosh, isn’t my face red!” kind of moment, was revealed to have spent £45,000 pounds of other people’s money on refurbishing his London grace-and-favor flat. Not to mention £13,000 for 3 months “entertainment” expenses. (Apparently, politicians have a different definition of “fun” than the res of us. Me, I would be happy with a bargain bucket from KFC, but I suppose if you’re inviting London nobs to tea, something a little more upmarket is required.) Needless to say this brand of political fuckery didn’t sit particularly well with his constituency here in Buckinghamshire and they would rather relish the chance to oust him, but due to a fun procedural loophole, not only do voters not get to do THAT, but they are also robbed of the chance to have a say in selection of this country’s next government.

Lucky for me that I’m taxed without representation anyway.

…for yet another dose of pant wetting hysteria. Clearly, since the economy has been showing small, green tendrils of recovery, it was time to get us good and scared again.

Exhibit A: SARS. IT WILL FREAKING KILL US ALL.

Not so much.

Exhibit B: Bird Flu. OH MY GOD, SERIOUSLY, YOU GUYS, THIS IS THE BIG ONE.

Bird Flu what?

Exhibit C: Swine Flu. I KNOW WE WERE WRONG ABOUT THE LAST TWO, BUT HONEST TO GOD, FOLKS, WE’RE JUMPING OUT THE WINDOW RIGHT NOW INSTEAD OF PERISH IN THE APOCALYPSE TO COME! *crash* AIEEEEEE!

Let’s take a look at the facts. The main outbreak has taken place in Mexico, a country in which 40% of the population lives below the MEXICAN poverty line, which, let’s face it, is probably a fair amount lower than the poverty line in Great Britain or the United States and in a city with sewage problems and a staggering street population. How many of these people do you think have access to health care? Clean water? Basic sanitation? Of course, what I am missing is the data as to the cross section of the population that is being affected by the Flu. Are they, as one might suspect, the poor? I find it odd that this information has not been made available. Not only that, but of the 100 or so fatalities, only 40 or so of those have been confirmed to have been due to the virus.

The information which IS being broadcast is that the cases of Swine Flu are rapidly mounting up in countries all over the world. As of yet, none of these cases have been fatal or even particularly virulent, tragically, apart from a young Mexican child in the US who was most likely brought across the border to keep her away from the illness.

The media is seriously in danger of becoming the boy who cried pandemic.

However, saying all that, I sit here with loathing in my heart, because I have the flu and I let them scare me. I haven’t been this ill in a long time. To borrow a turn of phrase from Dave Barry, this is the kind of sick where I can feel each individual air molecule smashing against me at speed. The duvet protects me some of the time, but they find their way in, the bastards, and cannon back and forth between the inside of the covers and any exposed surface of skin, which is unbelievably tender to the touch.

I can hear things happening in the flat. The Rock Star is a supreme nurse and babysitter, but I know that after two solid days, his veneer is beginning to peel a little and demands for “MORE SESAME STREET!” are often met with beleaguered acceptance, because he’s still got work to do and I can’t sit up for periods of more than 20 minutes at a time.

So, I lie in my bed, listen to the train of thought conversations of my daughter in the lounge and think fluey thoughts.

Have I got it? That guy who sneezed near me in Tesco yesterday; had he been to Cancun recently? Maybe one of the kids from Wren’s nursery?

God damn you, media. We will just have to see.

As of 5pm GMT, I can stop pretending that I’m a Canadian.

Today, I’m happy to be an American.

THANK YOU.

I am breaking my silence just briefly in honor of the momentous political implications of November 4, 2008.

I’d like to just remind my US readers that they need to get off their duffs and get down to the local fire station, school or town hall to cast their ballots and insure that America gets a chance to redeem itself in the eyes of the rest of the world. Show them that we’re wiser than we were 8 years ago. That we’re wiser than we were 4 years ago. That we’re ready for the hard work to come.

In the words of The Prawn, “OBAMA!”

Before becoming a mother, I never would have expected to utter the phrase, “STOP RUBBING TOAST ALL OVER THE DRYER!” to anyone.

It’s been a while since updating this blog. Life has kind of taken over. Well, the Prawn has kind of taken over. The Prawn is now 17 months old, has a vocabulary of over 100 words and finds new ways every day to delight and frustrate us. I imagine that she is currently stomping around the living room like a T-Rex shouting “OBAMA!” and spreading crumbs everywhere. We’re not those parents who try to turn their kid into a walking billboard or anything, but The Rock Star bought his book last week and since then, she’s spent a lot of time pointing at the cover and saying,

“Daddy!”

“No, darling, that’s Obama.”

“Daddy!”

“OBAMA.”

“OHHHHH-BAMMA!”

So he is now her favorite person on earth. The Democratic convention, what little coverage of it we’re getting over here, is a dream come true for her and a balm to soothe the gaping hole that the Olympics left in her life. “LYMPICS!” she’d yell the moment she came into the living room in the morning. But now that there is Obama, everything is all good.

I feel grateful not to be in the US during an election year, because I’m fairly certain I would have thrown something through the television by now. Getting older and being able to see things in shades of grey rather than black and white has it’s advantages, but genuine stupidity and bad grace is pretty obvious to anyone. It’s easy to see why voter apathy is at an all time high- anyone not wanting to be frightened into voting for the right guy would be hard pressed to find out why they should be voting at all. Years ago, when Saturday Night Live was still funny, Dennis Miller introduced the concept of a “vollyballocracy” in which “one guy serves until he screws up and then the next guy gets a turn.” It’s starting to sound better to me.

8 years is really too long for ANY one party, especially ones as partisan as they are in the United States, to be in power. It’s much the same over in the UK. Complacency sets in after a while. Balls get dropped. Those in it for their own reasons get bolder. Although, in Britain, you’d be hard pressed to find any huge ideological differences between the two major parties any more as they’ve both desperately migrated towards the centre in search of votes. You’ve got no one screaming Roe vs. Wade at anyone, everyone wanting tougher immigration laws and a complete overhaul of the social system, and both parties professing to have the people behind them. It is little wonder that the overarching opinion of politics can be boiled down to “meh.”

Should my ballot from the state of Minnesota arrive in early November, I’ll be casting my vote for Mr. Obama, but wondering if it’ll really bring the “change” that I’m seeking.

I don’t like to shill for enormous corporations, but I have to admit that our Skybox is pretty nifty. While browsing through the Anytime TV feature this morning, the Rock Star found the entirety of President Bush’s interview with a red sock wearing Sky correspondent and decided to have a gander at what our Chimp-in-Chief had to say for himself.The Rock Star is a better man that I in the sense that I have trouble watching interviews with Bush without throwing up in my mouth a little.

“You need to KNOW your enemy, Potamus,” he says sagely. Yeah, all I need to know is that my enemy is like a drunk teenager at the wheel of an enormous pick up truck that he has just crashed into a deep ditch. Scarier still are those Chinese guys at the edge of the gully going, “Hey, you want that we should dig you out?”

What opens up the bottomless pit of fear in my stomach most is watching the man speak. He’s the guy that sits next to you at your favorite bar who you’d happily attend a cookout with, but wouldn’t trust to lend him your lawnmower, let alone your economy. He lacks presidential-ness. He is utterly devoid of gravitas. And yet, he has been given the helm of one of the most powerful nations on earth and allowed to treat it as his playground for the last 8 years.

It truly boggles the mind.

My lovely internet readership, I cannot thank you enough for all of your kind words. Fear not. The Potamus shall Rise Again.

And now, back to the tomfoolery.

Being laid out with an atrocious head cold, I spent some time this morning once I got to work reading the paper while through my mucus-filled brain fug while standing next to a steaming kettle. Despite the haze one headline leaped out at me.

“Straw threatened to “hit Balls” in Cabinet bust-up”

A headline that cannot help but provoke a juvenile chuckle from anyone unless they are dead or perhaps a member of the Cabinet. In the first seconds after reading, my question immediately was, “Whose balls? The cabinet as a whole? His own? WHAT AN ODD THING TO DO.” For this very reason, you can be sure that there have been editorial meetings at every major newspaper in Britain since Ed Balls became a minister to make sure that headlines having to do with him are constructed VERY CAREFULLY. Not carefully enough, as it seems.

While obviously, nothing as trite as a name should hold you back from a chosen profession, one wonders if politics was the best arena for a man by the name of Ed Balls to enter.* No one would dare mess with the lorry driver Ed Balls. Or the bouncer Ed Balls. Ed Balls the porn star would be par for the course.

But Ed Balls, Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families? It’s all just a bit unfortunate.

*And lest we forget the former Transport Secretary under Tony Blair, Mr. Stephen “9 Penalty Points” Ladyman, who’s moniker must have been a complete joy to him at the Birkenhead Institute Boys Grammar School. His name was more likely to invoke images of a dirty weekend in Thailand than of maintaining highway infrastructure.

So, I think I’ve made up my mind.

While I am not naive enough to expect that anyone sitting in the White House will even be able to deliver on the glorious and hopeful rhetoric of their campaign, I think it probably wouldn’t hurt to let this guy have a crack at it.

And while I generally hate when politician assume that the presence of celebrities around them would in ANY WAY influence my vote, (no matter what their political views, which I could care less about, I think it’s insulting to try to make the public believe that they’re doing their thing for anything other than the fact that it makes them look a certain way) this is probably one of the best political spots I’ve ever seen. Refreshingly positive and focusing on the words of the candidate. (Or at least of the candidate’s speech writers.)

Sadly, I have not received my absentee ballot from the State of Minnesota this year, (I’ll be taking it up with them before the general election in November) so I must urge all of you in the US to go out tomorrow and vote in my stead. NOT LITERALLY, CAUSE THAT IS ALL KINDS OF ILLEGAL, but please excercise your right of participation in the running of the country.

So being an American, in case you were unaware, entitles me to open my wordhole in regards to all of the political nonsense currently afoot in the land of my birth. Politics, in my experience, tend to rub people the wrong way, so I’m not going to get into a debate which could possibly end with name calling, but I feel that I deserve the smallest of toots in honor of our strangely malfunctioning little Republic.

Here in the UK, we get just about the right amount of information on the elections. Thankfully, we are not subjected to the coverage that US citizens endure for up to 2 years in advance of Super Tuesday that would blunt the fervor of even the most diehard fan of constitutional democracy. It’s hard to care about people who spend 24 months ramming their worthiness down your throat while simultaneously informing you that hey, that other guy? He likes little boys.

It should come as a surprise to no one that my political leanings tend toward the left. I think people who have more should have to give up some of their income so that people who have nothing can have more, even if that someone is me. I like that I am free to make what choices I need to make regarding my own body. I think that everyone deserves the right to bind themselves legally to whomever they choose. In the past 8 years, the Bush administration has managed to turn “liberal” into a dirty word., but far as I’m concerned, those c-words are full of the s-word.

The Democratic field this year seems to be narrowing down to a 2, perhaps 3 horse race including Obama, Clinton and Edwards. Quite frankly, I don’t think I can speak particularly intelligently on any of the candidates other than pure gut reactions. Political purists will no doubt rend their collective garments at my wilful ignorance, but anyone who casts aspersions on my gut might as well just piss all over mom, apple pie and the American flag because OF THE FIRST AMENDMENT. SUCK IT!

I jest.

So this little holy trinity that represents the Democrats best chance to retake the throne are, at present, courting the masses of New Hampshire. Were Jed Bartlett on the ballot, he’d have my vote in a heartbeat, but since he isn’t, and in fact does not technically exist, I imagine that my tic mark will go to one of these three. (Providing that Martin Sheen does not make a last minute entry into the race.)

I always believed that I’d see a female candidate with an actual shot in my lifetime. I doubt, when I was much younger and more idealistic, that I would have believed any other candidate would have been able to turn my head if a woman with an honest to god chance for the White House was in the race. But, as lame as it sounds…and may the goddess forgive me…I just don’t LIKE the woman. And it’s not for any of the ignorant reasons that a lot of people cite; it’s not because she seemed to value ambition above the integrity of her marriage or any other horse shit excuses that people give for disliking Hilary. It’s that I wish I could get past the seeming sense of entitlement she has due to the fact that a) she’s been there before, albeit in a different capacity and b) she’s got a war chest bigger than the GDP of some small African countries. There’s something to the complaints about dynasties. She’s yet another rich white guy. Except that she’s a woman.

Barak “The Golden Boy” Obama has obviously been making some serious waves in the past week, emerging as the surprise winner in the Iowa caucuses. Apart from being a CPFO (Close Personal Friend of Oprah) his position statements seem to portray him as a friend to minorities, women and the middle class, which is obviously a pretty popular platform on which to run seeing as how all three of these groups spend a lot of time feeling like they’re getting screwed with their pants on. Obviously, there is the whole lack of experience argument, but it seems to me that an inexperienced president who surrounds himself with intelligent and thoughtful advisors is going to be just as effective as an elder statesman. His debating skills are perhaps not as polished as some of his opponents, which might hurt him when it comes down the primary wire; trying to win the undecideds. Jonathan mentioned in his blog the racism factor which he felt might blunt Obama’s chances. I actually believe that America is probably MORE ready for a black president than they are for a woman. (Face it, in the back of every ignorant mind is- “Jesus, what if she gets her period and decides to nuke Iran?”)

John Edwards seems to be a decent up-from-his-bootstraps kind of guy. Clinton-esque, one might even venture. It’s kind of hard for him to get noticed in this campaign with his opponents being two unique figures in the history of politics, (“I’m a woman!” and “I’m black!” vs. “I’m a white guy from North Carolina!”) but he seems to want what they want; more breaks for the middle class, more taxes for the rich, less dependency on foreign oil, greener living and education for everyone. Plus, he’s got good hair. If anything, he seems to be perfect Vice Presidential material. The guy you send to the South to smooth things over with the fundies when feathers get ruffled.

I’ve rarely been one of the valuable undecideds. The fact is, if any one of these three end up in the Big Chair, they’re going to have a hell of a job ahead of them, most likely having to spend most of their first term trying to make a dent in the unbelievable mess of the last 8 years. Trying to get an incredibly polarized country to shake hands and be friends again.

My favorite source of political quotes, is, as always, Aaron Sorkin’s magnificent The West Wing. After a long day of delays and frustrations on the campaign trail, the President’s advisors, Josh Lyman and Toby Zeigler meet a man in a bar who’s been visiting Notre Dame with his college-bound daughter. He tells them how he’s worried about how he’s going to pay for it all.

“It should be hard. I like that it’s hard. Putting your daughter through college, that’s-that’s a man’s job. A man’s accomplishment. But it should be a little easier. Just a little easier. ‘Cause in that difference is… everything.”

No one can expect miracles from a Democracy. Especially one as large and varied as the one in the United States. The fact that it works AT ALL is a minor miracle in itself. But it’s amazing how things just being a little easier can help.

My vote goes to the person who can make that difference to me.