h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Whence the number?

B

I was wondering about this too. Today I am posting on a new page cos I had some mishap with trying to sign up on Noggin's computer yesterday (so my normal page is now blocked). But what is it that makes someone's name disappear?


az

What makes someone's name disappear is some GOP-voting knuckle-dragger objecting to my commenting on their election result.

My name, immediately prior to its disappearance, was "Hoo, the sharden frood. Congratulations USA, you have the president you deserve. Hope you die soon."

Names can be moderated away just like postings. Of course, you can go straight in and change it back to omit the offensive bit, if you like. Which I have done. Aren't I the good, cooperative little Hoo?

H.

I was enjoying your names. I liked "The shaden frood" in particular.

Hey ho.

B

Thanks.

It always made me laugh when Bill and Ted referred to "Sigmund Frood" in the first movie. And schadenfreude is such a delicious feeling, isn't it?

H.

So long as it IS happening to other people. I wonder....

B

*manifesting without invitation, as usual*
I was just googling to find out *what* a shaden frood might be, came up with some really insigtful potentials, and then I came here to Hoo (as opposed to a what, where, why or when) to ask, and I lurked y'all. Hope it doesn't feel like a sneaky grope on a crowded train.

I never *got* the schaden frood/Schadenfreud connection(call me a chump, ok), so here's what *I* was wondering about.

>Shaden

Forty days have passed since my soul left the land of Canaan on a Phoenician ship.
Forty days have passed since the start of this mystical trip.
When will you return?
Without you I will not know the road to the Land of Love.
When will you return?
Without you I cannot see my face in the mirror of pride and grace.
You left and left your leaving in me!
You left and left no one but you in me!
You left and asked me to stay,
"Goodbye my dear" you didn't say,
For the day we will meet everyday I pray.
Oh Allah creator of all, only you can return my soul.
Make me my Lord worthy of her return,
In the furnace of thy love my sins please burn.
Shaden, the youngest deer.
Shaden, the reason I am here.
Shaden, the music I hear.
Shaden, the death of fear.
Shaden, not far but near.
Shaden, my dearest dear.
Shaden, My Beloved Mom.
Shaden my den,
Mother of Lana & three young men.
Shaden the wife of Jamal,
Daughter of Um Nidal,
Grandmother of Zina, Nadia, and Yasmin,
Mother of the oppressed and the poor,
Your soul will remain free and pure.
With the blessing of Almighty the ship will reach,
To the desired safety of heaven’s beach<

and this

>Shaden at the Beginning, Shaden at the End

Today Nablus is covered with snow,
A marked change from the colour red,
Yesterday was Valentine's Day,
Up all night and I could not go to bed,
Thinking of love lost,
And words I shouldn't have said.
But if it is cold Outside,
I must stay warm Inside,
And remind my soul of the goal ahead:
A face I must meet at my journey's end,
A paradise with nothing in disguise,
Where true love is no more veiled.
Shaden in the beginning and Shaden at the end,
A wife, mother, grandmother, and a friend.
The bullets of hate did not stop the birth
Of love on this planet,
And the candle I will light
Will glow despite
The darkness of "their" souls,
Illuminating the path of emancipation
For the wretched of the earth.<

and this:

> http://www.remembershaden.org/<

and this:

>Shaden
Female, elderly, (Alien voice filter); breathy and sibilant, as old as the stars themselves and terribly lonely. Shaden is the last of her race, a being that longs to leave this world and to finally be at peace.<

I read those words and I wondered which, if any, were the references. Silly me. But still I wonder.

So now, after diversions which (for me, at least) opened thought processes, I'll wanderto my point of origin which led me here. The first bit was "looking forward to the next September 11th" http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/alabaster/F19585?thread=518063 I never had a chance to read the first post before it was moderated, but I remember your tag-line as being something of the nature of "honing my Schadenfreude for the next 9/11". And then tonight I read this from you: >"Care to explain why *all* USians deserve to have Bush? All those that voted against him?" Do I have to spell it out? It seems so... Because, as has already been pointed out, turnout, while a record, was only 60%. Where was everyone else? The people who voted against him deserve him for standing by over the last four years and not rioting in the streets in protest at his appalling record on human rights, civil rights, tax, jobs, defence, education, yadda yadda yadda. They deserve him for not educating their fellow Americans every chance they get. They deserve him for failing to get rid of him, frankly, just as this country deserved Margaret Thatcher for 11 years. Eventually, when we couldn't take her any more, we rioted in the streets. And calmly, and quietly, she was removed, because her colleagues recognised that she had lost the plot and become a liability. And because they did that, they clung onto power for another seven years, despite the most incredible incompetence and corruption. So yes, every single American, from Michael Moore on down to the few poor buggers who voted Democrat in Ohio, bears the responsibility for what's going to happen in the next four years. That's what the right to vote is all about. I didn't get to vote, so I'm not responsible - although unfortunately I'll most likely be affected by some of the consequences. Globalisation's a bitch, huh?< I can't argue your logic. I agree with it, every bit I've seen on the matter on h2g2. However, I will make a suggestion, a plea of sorts: please exercise your intelligence as well as your cleverness in discussing this matter. From what I've observed the majority of the USA citizens using this h2g2 are as pained as I am by the outcome of this election. A number of us (along with other Americans) did everything within our power to influence people here to *think*. It wasn't enough, obviously [unless you wonder, as I do, exactly how *much* it would take to set up the electronic voting machines to maybe dis-regard perhaps 1% of the Kerry votes since there are no verifiable records of votes cast. Naturally, since I was one of 15,000 *reported* disenfranchised south Florida voters (no record of my registration as of Oct 27, 28+31) due to 'lost' registration, I'd be one to consider a conspiracy theory.] Anyway, I digress. Simply, I think that most of us here on h2g2 who involve ourselves in political issues, to whatever extent, are probably pretty much in agreement with you. Obviously we need to maintain our inner fortitude if we're to continue to push against what appears to be mainscream America. So what I'm asking is that you consider tempering your frustration against Americans in general when you post and instead use that energy and considerable mental capacity towards proposing solutions rather than venting justifiable venom. You might just be surprised at the results.

MoG, you are an amazing woman, and I love you.

B

I don't know what it takes to register to vote in your country/state, and when you need to do it, or how long it takes, so forgive me if I'm asking the impossible - but didn't you check whether you were registered to vote a little earlier than less than a week before election day? And given that there was "no record" of your registration, can't you just register again? I mean, what is the big deal here? If I'd lived in Florida (or Ohio, or anywhere at all come to that) I'd personally have been going to wherever I needed to go to and making damn sure my name was on that list starting in June.

Of course, that's easy for me to say. I've never been disenfranchised, never known anyone who has (in the UK) and never, I have to say, cared as much about the result of an election here as I did about the one there.

But it frustrates me that a lot of Americans are saying "my registration was lost", and I'm shouting back at the TV "well damn well get out and find it" or similar. Perhaps I should calm down...

H.

>> Perhaps I should calm down...

Yep, hon, you should. At least don't bully the nice democrat-voting Americans here on hootoo. Pick your enemies.

I remember you hissing and spitting at me when I said that being one of 400,000 odd on the 2002 Countryside March and then one of 1,000,000 who marched against Bush's War last year had left me feeling impotent and chillingly disenfranchised. Ok, maybe you didn't hiss or spit, but you scoffed.

Well. Now you know what it feels like, and it don't feel good, do it?

Hoo, I sympathise with you. I am dealing with it by hiding my head under the covers and only coming out to clean up my flat.

Hell, I even agree with you. But don't bully those Americans who did what they could.

Ben

I think it is always easy to criticize from a distance and even feel that you *know* for sure what you would have done in certain circumstances, but I agree with Ben that the USians who did get out there and vote democrat were doing as much as they could.

Well, as I've said elsewhere, I think it might be 'for the best' in the sense of 'better the devil you know . . .' At least people know what to expect from Bush. At any rate, that is the only silver lining I can find.

Are there any others?


az

Thank you, Ben.

Hoo, you're right again. I waited til too late, in retrospect, to register. I'd decided to do it on my birthday as a present to me, made a happy little ritual of going to the main library and taking care of it before I even had my coffee so I could start this year off in a personally meaningful manner. It was towards the end of the registration window, but I thought that as long as I was inside the time it would be just fine. Stupid, stupid me.

Hmmmm... I've explained this many times before, will just copy/paste from one of the emails I sent.

>First a heart-felt thanks for all you've done to mobilize voter registration across the country! I hope that they don't go into the same Limbo mine and about 15,000 reported others in Broward and Miami-Dade counties. Though I don't know whether you'll learn of this email in time to do anything about it, yours is the first name
that came to mind as someone who might have the resources to research and expose what seems to be going on down here in Bush territory.

I registered to vote at Fort Lauderdale's main library on October 2, (waited to do it on my birthday as a symbolic present to me) and never got a registration card through the mail. For a number of days I tried to reach the Supervisor of Elections by phone, was never able to get through as the lines were constantly busy. Yesterday, Oct 26, I decided to try early voting just to see if there was a problem. Apparently I'm not on The List. This morning I went to the Election Supervisor's office as soon as they opened, and they verified that I'm not listed and told me that there's
nothing I can do about it but file a provisional ballot which almost certainly won't be counted as The List is closed.

I just called 1-866-687-8683 (OUR VOTE) to report the problem and double check that there was nothing further I could do. The man I spoke to told me that there has been an "absurdly high" volume of complaints from Broward county and that pretty much everything which could go awry here has done so. He also said that so far they've had about 15,000 reported cases in Miami-Dade and Broward counties
of people not receiving their registration cards and that the Board of Elections has placed the blame for that on the postal service not delivering mail correctly. Somehow I just don't buy that explanation.

I cannot verify that the numbers I was quoted are correct, and apparently the OUR VOTE people have not been consistently gathering contact information from the callers. However, if that number is even close to reality I find it very scary indeed because
they'll have heard from only a portion of the people who have been turned away from early voting and there will be even more on Nov.2.

If there's anything you can do to shine a light on this problem before Florida's incestuous political farce once again upsets a legitimate election process, please help! If you have any suggestions that I can personally follow up on I'll be happy
to do so.

Again, many thanks and best regards!<

That was the one I sent to Michael Moore. He showed up to hold an un-scheduled rally in front of our Election Supervisor's office the following night. Diane Rehm of NPR brought up the topic (along with the 60,000 lost Broward absentee ballots) for discussion on her Friday Roundup.

Once I'd ascertained that there was nothing else I could do towards being registered I went Sunday and enjoyed a sunny afternoon in line with hundreds of other early voters so I could cast a provisional ballot. This time I learned from the polling official that a number of other registrations had been 'lost' from the same library. Hi ho. Now I'm waiting to hear from the lawers whether there'll be legal action regarding the mismanagement of the registration process here in Broward county.

You know, to me it really does feel as if some hanky-panky might have gone on with the machines. The early vote turnout was consistently mind blowing, and overt Kerry supporters massively outnumbered the Reptilians. The exit polls consistently gave different results from the final result. I wonder if *that* many people would lie about the vote they cast, from shame. I guess that's not something I'll ever have an answer to.

MoG, love, you have done more than I ever have to make sure you could vote, and the day before the 2001 election here in the UK, I took three busses and two cabs in order to make sure that my pre-arranged postal vote arrived in time to be counted.

Be proud, lady, even if your vote was stolen from you.



B

I should also concede that, while I've voted every time I could, all I've had to actually do is go to an office and make a pencil mark on a piece of paper. I've never had to make any undue effort, but then I've never felt as though there was a criminal conspiracy of millionaires conniving to steal my right to vote. Perhaps if I did I'd be more assiduous in the pursuit of my right, but then as I say my right is, or has been, pretty much sitting in my lap up until now.

Just out of curiosity, a few questions:

- when was the *first* day you could have registered to vote?
- what is the effect (the *overt* effect) of registering for a particular party?
- is there anything to stop you registering Republican but then voting Democrat, or vice versa for that matter?

I've never been this interested in the conduct of an election, even in my own country. You must understand, our last election was a deeply dull foregone conclusion, with Peter Mandelson's "I am not a quitter" foaming-mouthed, plot-losing victory speech the only highlight of an otherwise tedious night. We're not used to real seat of the pants stuff like Tuesday or 2000.

My apologies for intemperate remarks earlier, btw. I feel your pain.

H.

I'm proud of my reaction and of the results I *did* get. However, for want of a nail... the battle was lost. *sigh*

On the other hand, the war is not yet over, and I'm not talking about the one in Iraq. The true silver lining in this is that there's a groundswell of people who do not feel that this election was the end of a process. It's a beginning. Even many people who voted (or preferred) Bush are energised, thinking *now* about how to affect their communities positively and about how to get candidates on the next ballot who more accurately reflect their values. Those election maps showed red and blue, but the reality is that this country is mostly purple with sparkles of green. I thnk people will get out their arttbox and start painting their true colors.

>> We're not used to real seat of the pants stuff like Tuesday or 2000.

Speak for yourself, Little Boy Blue. Where were you on the morning of April 10th 1992?

B

*gatecrashes*

>Where were you on the morning of April 10th 1992?

Sitting in first year English classes.

Depressed. It wasn't *that* close, and the result went a depressingly expected way, for me at least. By any reasonable expectation, it should have been a Labour landslide. It was almost immediately apparent that it wasn't anything of the sort. And as soon as it was apparent that it wasn't a landslide, it became - it seemed to me - almost inevitable that it wasn't even going to be a victory. And I don't think next year's election is going to be exciting - Labour's majority may dip below three figures. Whoopy doo. We don't have an effective opposition, and indeed bizarrely in the time I've been aware of politics (i.e. roughly since about 1981, so 23 years) I think we've only had an effective opposition for about three years - the three leading up to 1997. At least the US can claim they've got an effective opposition most of the time - can't they?

H.

Which brings us back to electoral processes.

1992 was a surprise to me, and I still think that on balance Major was better than Kinnock. I liked John Major. Still do.

Lack of effective opposition. There's the rub.

I think I am going back under my duvet now.

B