Election rants

[firstfrost]

A lot of people I know have posted election rants.
I can't write one.

All the rants I've posted here so far, no matter how angry I've been, have managed to get to the point where I could make of them an amusing anecdote. Books I don't like, stupid users I have to deal with on the phone... I try to tell a funny story.

No funny story this time.

Comments

[mijven.livejournal.com]

People keep saying "oh, another four years isn't that long." Four years ago I wasn't yet a mother. In four more years both of the boys will be in school.

It feels like forever.

[greyautumnrain.livejournal.com]

I'm curious to know who has posted election rants; I'm interested in reading the entire collection. I'm also wondering if you consider the post I made on Friday an election rant considering that I ranted a bit on election coverage.

[firstfrost.livejournal.com]

(second attempt at this comment, the first had a broken link)

I wasn't counting yours very strongly. :)

Of people in my friends list:
crs and navrins are both pretty political and have had several journal entries about the election, including things I mostly put in the "reasoned rant" category.

jdbakermn has a long email exchange posted, which isn't his but is sort of emotionally in the rant category.

dpolicar talks about ballot counting, but that's not so much a rant. baronet had a mini-rant.

Then there were a bunch of people with more-or-less rants but friends-only, who you don't seem to overlap with.

[greyautumnrain.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I'd read some of those, but not all.

I'm debating whether I'm more conservative than most of my friends or more cynical. I'm leaning towards the latter, especially since I do wholeheartedly support gay marriage.

[countertorque.livejournal.com]

I aprove of journals which follow rules. Of course, I approve of just about everything which follows rules :) But, I wonder if "every journal entry must be a funny story" is too restrictive?

Is it your intent to only show us a certain side of you? Or do you feel that funny stories are simply the best way to detail one's life?

[firstfrost.livejournal.com]

Well, there's two things.

I made a conscious decision when I started livejournal, that I wasn't going to be a Writer of Bitter Complaints. There are people who I know who in one forum or another tend to have a litany of complaints, and regardless of how pleasant they are in other contexts, I find that that particular interaction makes me think of them as a more unhappy person. Now, it's often a *lot* easier to complain about something than to praise it, so I can see how that would be an easy trap to fall into. But I don't want to look like an unhappy person.

Much of my intention for the journal is, in fact, communication rather than entertainment, but I think that communication is easier when leavened with entertainment. (I'm on my third G&S program, and, as always, I threaten to write goofy bios for the people who don't give me bios. So the programs have been filled with people who are home appliances and vegetables and colors - but that also means that the random audience member reads the bios! Including the ones which aren't made up.)

And, I suspect I live in fear of the day I become boring and uninteresting, and the people I know drift away from ennui. So I'm darned well going to make my public face entertaining. :)

Reason two has to do with the social mathematics of the journal being public; it's not a conversation, it's to a bunch of people. So since any effect is multiplied by N for that many people reading it, I feel like I should generally be positive. (I'm not sure that this reason makes any sense, actually).