Fado, Fado Yesterday I received my big fat Sonoma County voter package complete with Absentee Ballot, Vote by Fax Affidavit, Practice Ballot, Official Voter Information Guide, and Supplemental Official Voter Information Guide. It would be my first major election away from home. I wasted no time in ripping open the packet and getting down to the business of reading and analyzing all the material. You see, I take my right to franchise very seriously, and obviously so does the County of Sonoma.
Let’s see, President… easy one. Definitely not Cynthia McKinney even though she has an Irish surname, and not the other guy with the Irish surname either. U.S. Representative… who else? State Senator…party-time on the party line. Member of the State Assembly…party-time on the party line, although I do have a problem voting for someone named Jared. The name Jared should belong to the likes of someone my daughters hang out with, not my State Assembly person, but time moves on and I’m not getting any younger. In fact, this will be the first time I’ve ever voted for a President who is younger than me. Whoops, gave that one away, didn’t I?
Federal and state candidates sorted. That was easy, now on to the initiatives. The initiatives, oy vey. This is where it all breaks down for me. Why, oh why is California an initiative state? I realized after reading just a few of the initiatives that I had become hopelessly out of touch with what was happening in California. For example, have we started to be unkind to our farm animals? What about all those television commercials about California’s happy cows, basking in the golden California sun under sprawling hundred year old oak trees, telling stories to their grandchildren about the hard old life in Minnesota? Is Clo being mistreated? Unthinkable! I’d do anything to stop any reckless bastards who are mistreating Clo. What’s going on back there? I know there’s been a total economic meltdown, a fitting end to the tenure of G.W. Bush, but have things gotten so bad that we have rounded up all the cattle and penned them up?
I decided to write my dear friend Sally for a level-check and some advice. You see Sally’s a lawyer. I know what you’re gonna say, but Sally is a good lawyer, not a bad lawyer, and good lawyers are usually very pragmatic people. Who better to give me a balanced picture of what was happening back home? Sally admitted that she hadn’t had the time to go through all the initiatives, but counseled that I have a look at the Sonoma County League of Women Voters website, as they are a bunch of down-to-earth types.
I checked the site, and Sally was right. Good information, well balanced, but…. noticeably missing was any analysis of Proposition 2 Standards for Confining Farm Animals, Initiative Statute. Bollocks. This was the one issue holding up completing my big fat absentee ballot, and the SCLWV offered nothing, not a mention.
Deterred, but determined I decided to press on in my search for a position on Prop. 2. I folded up my Official Sonoma County Sample Ballot, put it into the pocket of my winter coat and headed off to Dublin City Centre (I knew there was a reason for the sample ballot). I wandered aimlessly around centre city pondering which pub would offer me answers to how we Californians should treat our livestock. I wandered up Exchequer Street, strolling ever more aimlessly on to William Street South. Then I spotted Grogan’s Castle Lounge. I remembered that my friend Olivia had once mentioned, “Grogan’s is a pub you would like”, with an accusing emphasis on you. Accusations aside, Olivia is usually spot-on about these matters, and is my leading authority on where to drink in Dublin.
Grogan’s Castle Lounge is a fairly shabby pub. Worn, but worn in a good way, like a comfortable old leather coat. Every inch of the pub’s walls are covered with gaudy amateur artwork, and with its perforated acoustic tile ceiling and its “I stopped trying” look, the pub is well suited to the eclectic mix of patrons inside. I’m told that they had an art auction on the Sunday after I visited the pub, and based on the fact that all the artwork was still intact on a subsequent visit, I can only reckon that they sold fuck-all artwork.
I ordered a pint of Guinness and sized up the crowd. Who looked like a culchee? A culchee would definitely have some opinion on how to treat farm animals. I sidled up to a lad in a Mayo football jersey. Sure to be a culchee, I thought. I pulled my crumpled sample ballot out of my coat pocket and conspicuously unfolded it so yer man could see it.
“Are you an American?”, said the lad. “Yes I am”, I said. “How are ye gonna vote in the election?” Bait taken!, I thought. “You mean on Prop. 2?”, I said slyly. “No”, said the lad “We passed that law in 1999, the EU law phases out battery cages by 2011. Expect you yanks’l do the same thing. It drives me crazy how the analysis of California initiatives always measures the fiscal impact of an initiative. They never measure the psychic impact, as if that has no value. Anyway, In Ireland no one does battery cages for chickens anymore, and the eggs are better for it. What I want to know is how you’re voting for president.” “By mail”, I said. The lad laughed disingenuously and said, “OK, you win, cheers”. He sidled away as quickly as I sidled up.
Another man came up to me and said, “I overheard you talking to that lad from Mayo. I have to tell you he’s dead wrong. The EU is the biggest god dammed nanny state imaginable. Brussels was dead wrong to enact that law. It’s going to wipe out chicken farming in Ireland. The factory farmers will just set up shop right outside the EU zone and ship eggs over the border, and the price of the eggs we raise here in Ireland will skyrocket.” Wow, I thought, these Irish people really know their farm animal issues. “So who are you voting for for president?”, asked the man with a knowing you-can-tell-me smile. “The next President of the United States….”, I said. “And that is….?”, said the man. I just shrugged my shoulders and rolled my eyes back as if to say go fish. The man angrily retorted, “Well, I hope you’re not voting for that Socialist bastard Obama. He’ll bury you all in taxes, and shut down all the American businesses in Ireland.”
I started to feel a little uncomfortable when up came a college-age young woman. “You know if consumers knew the conditions that factory chickens are raised in, and that the eggs they lay don’t taste nearly as good as free-range eggs, they’d pay a little more for the free-range eggs. Soon all farmers would switch to the more humane methods because of the demand and because it was profitable, and battery cages would be a thing of the past.” “That’s a very down-to-earth approach”, I said. “So, who are you voting for as president?”, asked the young woman. “Cynthia McKinney”, I said snottily. “Fuck you,” said the young woman.
I’d had enough of politics for one night. I laughed to myself as I staggered home thinking everyone has had enough politics. Elections don’t last two years in Ireland.
I woke up the next morning with a head appropriate for the amount of drink taken the night before. “Where’s that fecking ballot?” I mumbled. Check, check, check, check I rattled off my vote directly on the “for-real” ballot. I put the ballot in the certified ballot envelope and staggered down to An Phoist. I waited in an endless queue. I finally got to the window and handed my envelope to the doddering little old man behind the glass. “89 cent” he said politely. I dismissingly threw a one Euro coin into the metal tray at the bottom of his window. It landed with a belligerent clank.
“US Ballot, is it?” “Yeah”, I mumbled under my breath. “Had a lad in the other day mailing one, but it was much bigger. Had to charge him the package rate” said the old man in sing-song Irish accent. “You’re lucky, that one’s just the letter rate.”
“Yeah” I said in an annoyed tone, “The ballots are different county by county in the US”. “That so?” said the old man. “Can I ask you a question? You don’t have to answer if you’re not comfortable, but how will you vote…..” With that I waved my hand as if to say enough is enough. “Barack Obama, I’m voting for Barack Obama, jeez.” I shouted in a surly tone.
“That’s fine” said the old man not phased by my annoyed tone. “I’m sure he will make a very fine President, he’s a good man, but can I ask you how you voted on the Standards for Confining Farm Animals, Initiative Statute?”
Copyright (C) 2004 – 2019 Abram Richman All Rights Reserved
The Only Other Jew In Dublin 