"We wouldn't want people coming in with overt political clothing," says Mr Tonkin. However it is all about context. "There's a candidate standing in Westminster as a pirate. And if he comes in to vote in a pirate costume as is likely, we won't turn him away. The same goes for any supporters coming to vote as pirates."Via Sullivan. It's a great article, from the BBC; I recommend, as they say, the whole thing. To get you even more in the mood, here's the Python Election Night Special. That's:
Malcolm Peter Brian Telescope Adrian Umbrella Stand Jasper Wednesday (pops mouth twice) Stoatgobbler John Raw Vegetable (sound effect of horse whinnying) Arthur Norman Michael (blows squeker) Featherstone Smith (blows whistle) Northgot Edwards Harris (fires pistol, which goes 'whoop') Mason (chuff-chuff-chuff) Frampton Jones Fruitbat Gilbert (sings) 'We'll keep a welcome in the' (three shots, stops singing) Williams If I Could Walk That Way Jenkin (squeker) Tiger-draws Pratt Thompson (sings) 'Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head' Darcy Carter (horn) Pussycat 'Don't Sleep In The Subway' Barton Mannering (hoot, 'whoop') Smith.And last but not least, via the Monkey Cage, this BBC initiative is awesome but maybe just a little scary; I'm not looking forward to the White House lit as red or blue in 2012.
Good luck to all the candidates and the voters, and just a little reminder that y'all are pikers when it comes to democracy what with your one little "X" scrawled on the ballot, compared to the dozens of voting opportunities we have over here -- you'll never know the patriotic pleasure of trying to guess which candidate you've never heard of to support for some office that you have no idea what it does.
They may be pikers, but some of us fans of parties think that's a better idea.
ReplyDeleteJonathan, can you really say good luck to *all* the candidates? To the losers, I suppose that could mean, "may your time in the wilderness be fruitful and render you more fit to govern."
ReplyDeleteASP --
ReplyDeletePicky, picky.
Matt --
As you know, I'm against nonpartisan elections, and I do think we vote on too many things -- but even if we only had presidency, House, Senate, bicameral state legislatures outside of Nebraska, governors, mayors, and at least some county government elected officials, and probably a city council...that's still a lot of voting, and I'd definitely support at least that much. And if we have primaries for all those things, we're still going to have elections between unknown candidates with no useful cues.