Poly Ticks.

[Originally a comment in someone else's journal, that i thought i'd make here.]

For me, the most important thing is [about Obama] that he has some credentials and that he's a lecturer in constitutional law at one of the best law schools in the country. He can find people to help him with all the rest, but I think that someone who's aware of the constitution and seems to actually care about it deeply is a better choice for us than the others, who are mostly game playing the scripts of their parties.

Whoever becomes president is going to have to deal with a failed economy and a country largely in hock to its deficit. That's going to become largely incontrovertible, and it's going to be easy to see in retrospect how the choices of the last several years made it happen. That's a macro scale thing a large part of the remedy for is time and sane financial policy.

But what can be fixed are things like the corrosion of rights in the country, the politicization of the justice department, and all the other things that have gone wrong in this country in the last 8 years. For that, I think a candidate with two qualities is best -- 1, they have to be in politics for something other than the sake of the game and 2, they actually have to care about constitutional rights.

As much as I like hilary clinton, and would have voted for her (or McCain, honestly, as he's been my favorite of the current crop of republicans for some time), under other circumstances, I think that this is not their time. It's time when we actually do need a law professor as president.

caitlin r. kiernan: author in need.

One of my favorite living authors, Caitlín R. Kiernan (greygirlbeast), is having some serious health problems. Seizures, teeth broken during seizures, and medication that's making it hard to work at the fever pitch she has been at for some time now. Like many writers and artists, she has no health insurance. If you want more details, here's the entry where she describes the problem: http://greygirlbeast.livejournal.com/428785.html

What can you do to help her?

Bid on one of her books that she sells on eBay.

Subscribe to the monthly short fiction digest she publishes every month. Ten dollars a month for high quality fiction.

Donate directly to her medical expense fund using the "Donate" button on her LJ entry today.

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That was by jtglover, who's a budding SF author (and a friend of mine.) CRK's also a preferred author of mine (when I'm in the mood for horror, I think she's an amazing writer.)

I don't know, also if you enjoy people doing things like writing books and etc... consider supporting some form of universal health coverage, the number of people in the 'creative professions' I've seen get nailed by high medical bills is pretty shocking. We all claim to support the arts, but this is a large systemic change that can be made to make the arts more possible.

I feel like I'm sort of harping on my talking points here and I feel bad about that[1], but continuing to see this over time just makes me sadder and sadder with each incidence.

[1] although i should note not as badly I as I feel about some of the grotesque rapings I've received from the medical system's billing appendage.