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Wednesday, November 03, 2004
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THE BLUEST STATE
Yesterday, George Washington University was Pleasantville [see UD post dated 11/2/04]. Today, Dogville. Sweatshirts and backpacks blaspheme the president [BUSH SUCKS. FUCK BUSH., etc.]. Students scowl, and, when they see a friend, exchange looks of incredulity. A guy in my course on France and America says he's moving out of the country. "Canada will drive you nuts too," UD tells him. UD hopes he doesn't leave. In a few years his rage will go away and he'll be the sort of person the country needs: smart, full of heart. UD hopes he heard the stress both candidates today placed on trying to overcome the split in the nation. Because there's an alarming division, and we ought to try to overcome it. But oh what a strange place UD lives in! The bluest of the blue states! The distant border of a divided country! She was sitting outside at her local restaurant (the one where there's a bakery on the premises) with her sister last night -- election night. She was eating arugula and stuff, and suddenly this guy, this stranger, came up to them and placed a Talking George Bush doll on their table. He pulled its strings and waited for UD and her sister to laugh with him when the doll said stupid things; and, being pleasant enough people, UD and her sister did laugh. "He's so STUPID," said the guy, as he got into his car with his doll. "STUPID." On the Metro this evening (we were all eventually offloaded at Dupont Circle -- a little farther up the line, one Metro car had "drifted," as the news reports had it, into another, and this gentle movement had ended in a pretty serious crash), everyone was wearing pastels. It was the Bushies who had come to town to hear the president's victory speech and who were now on their way to Reagan Airport to get back to Topeka. In a day or two, the pastels will fade, and the dark suits of the city -- and the black turtlenecks of UD's own GWU -- will once again dominate the skyline. But one must have a mind of pastel (to paraphrase Wallace Stevens) even after the victory speeches are over. Bluesers are losers. |