There are only two works of fiction that I spend any time at all working on these days. The first is the video series “The Post-Postmodern Comedy Hour.” And it is a very sad. Because nothing I’ve ever written works as well. Nothing I’ve ever written so encapsulates who I am as a person. It is sort of like The Kumars at No 42 combined with F for Fake and a healthy dose of scientific nerdology. Thus far, I’ve written two of the six episodes I have planned. And once I’m finished with it, it will sit in a drawer, because videos require production and that requires people and that ruins everything. These scripts are the most perfect thing I’ve ever done and production would only reduce them. Art is like that.

Speaking of which, over the weekend, I sat down and read over what I had written of my second novel, “Treading Asphalt.” It was always meant to be my Moby-Dick. By that I mean that I was not going to limit the book to narrative. I would just write about whatever I wanted. And the way I’ve gone about writing it is very unusual for me. I’m a linear kind of guy. I wrote the first novel in the order that things occurred. Of course, in that novel, I had no idea where I was going. I had read The Shipping News shortly before it, and had decided that it really wasn’t necessary to have a plot. But half way through, a plot started to emerge and then all hell broke loose.

“Treading Asphalt” is simply a collection of scenes from all over the place in the novel. So it isn’t even something another person can read. But I do have a map, because I’ve had the plot laid down for at least a decade. But because of the kind of book that it was always intended to be—a book for me—it shouldn’t be surprising that the 50,000 words of disjointed prose pleases me very much. But I couldn’t help but think that no one else would ever want to read this. Or at least, no one would want to publish it.

It is, in a very real way, my Moby-Dick. But Moby-Dick was a flop when it was published. And it is only the towering figure in American literature now because of a fluke. And really, in many ways, it isn’t that great. I’ve really cooled off on Melville who I think usually renders scenes with less clarity than any major writer I know. And that’s in “Treading Asphalt”! Since it is written in the first person, it goes off on tangents that would mystify most readers.

And here’s the thing: it is a mystery. I know it would annoy readers. They would want to know what’s going on in the mystery and the narrator is off arguing that Houdini was gay. It’s filled with that kind of stuff. Again: I love it. But it is the very worst kind of narcissism. On the other hand, what is the point of trying to write a novel for someone else? Who would that someone else be? How could you possibly know what they wanted to read? And if you write just for yourself, at least you know that you’ll please one person: yourself.

Except: no. Because the problem with writing a long piece of fiction is that it never satisfies. I think that’s why I always feel happier with plays: because they are never actually finished. Or at least, they are never finished for me, because no one is going to produce them. But it is hard not to grimace at every sentence in your own novel. And that’s why “Treading Asphalt” remains unfinished. But coming back to it, it actually seemed fairly good. But I know if I start writing it again, I will quickly determine it is total crap. Of course, if I do that two or three more times, it’ll be finished. And then I can know for sure that it is unpublishable.

The great biologist E O Wilson is 85 years old today. He is controversial because of his work in sociobiology. This is the idea that social behavior is evolutionarily determined—at least in part. This comes out of his study of ants and their social behavior. It seems to me that rejecting this idea is a very typical kind of human error of thought. It is the idea that somehow humans are special and thus in some sense a quantum step removed. I realize that when people like Stephen Jay Gould argue against it, they are making a more sophisticated case. But I still just don’t see the big deal here.

I’m more interested in Wilson’s ideas about religion. He claims that the three forms of religious believe are, “Marxism, traditional religion, and scientific materialism.” This is the kind of thing that drives atheists crazy. But that’s just because they don’t really understand what he’s saying. What we are talking about are belief systems. Although I count myself an atheist, it does bug me that most atheists don’t seem to understand that scientific materialism is a belief system. The problem is that after hundreds of years of rationalist thought, it is now like the air: we don’t even know the assumptions we are making.

Even more frustrating is that most theists are also scientific materialists—at least in the sense that they see God as something outside of this reality. And this brings us to Gould and his idea of non-overlapping magisteria—that there is no crossover between religion and science. The New Atheists seem to hate this idea, and I really can’t understand why. What I think is going on is that atheists have a strong tendency to argue against the most primitive forms of theism. (Theists do exactly the same thing to atheists.) Wilson does a lot of talking to religious groups about the partnership of science and religion.

Personally, I think that’s a hard one. I agree with it in theory. The problem is that religion has become so much a commodity and Americans have accepted such pathetic and childish answers to theological questions. I don’t see how you have an adult conversation with people trained to think so childishly. The other side of this is that the atheist community has no interest in having such a partnership. Most of them hold the equally childish view that traditional religion will be wiped out and replaced by scientific materialism. That will never happen.

Wilson thinks this is because of the way that the species evolved. There is much to that. Humans need to create narratives and they are going to create them whether there is a narrative or not. But I think the problem is even more fundamental than this. There is a paradox of existence. It is mathematical in nature. We will never unraveled it because of our parochial nature. It is perfectly fine for the materialists to just ignore that paradox. But there will always be people who find that paradox upsetting and who want answers. Not only are these people not going away; they will always be a large majority.

So I’m with Wilson: let people have their myths and their tribes and their “answers” to the great riddle of the universe. And let us all work together for a greater society. Scientific materialism can be a cold way of looking at our fellow humans—it can easily lead to rearing children in boxes. And regardless, look at the libertarian-atheist connection. Religion can be humanizing, precisely because it presents the fiction of the specialness of humans. It doesn’t matter to me that people are wrong. If we can create a more perfect society, I’m for it. And I’m afraid those atheists who think religion will go away are not being very scientific about that idea. It is a matter of faith. I don’t share that faith. Wilson has done a lot of scientific study on the issue and he doesn’t see religion going away. I think we should take him seriously. And we should get on with the business of making life better for all humans.

Happy birthday E O Wilson!

Afterword

You may be thinking, “This guy hates theists and atheists! Doesn’t he like anyone?!” Yes I do: I like smart and thoughtful theists and atheists. There just aren’t a whole lot of them around. It’s not too surprising that I feel this way, because I am kind of in the middle in the sense that I am like the theists in that I find the paradox upsetting but I’m like the atheists in that I expect no answer.

Paul Waldman asked a great question over at The Plum Line today, How Much Does Right-Wing Rhetoric Contribute to Right-Wing Terrorism? He’s very careful not to ruffle any feathers by claiming that people like Michele Bachmann are actually culpable, “But what I am saying is this: there are some particular features of conservative political rhetoric today that help create an atmosphere in which violence and terrorism can germinate.” He goes on to talk about the “fetishization of firearms” and the idea that Obama is turning the United States into a totalitarian dystopia.

I don’t think the firearms are the problem—I think they are a symptom. He’s closer to what’s going on in the second of his reasons. There is a very big problem on the right that when the Democrats are in control, those on the right act like a revolution has taken place. When Bush the Younger was elected, liberals were very unhappy. But the reaction of liberals was not, “This is the end of America as we know it!” It was more along the lines of, “Well, this is going to make things worse.”

I want to be clear on this distinction. I like political extremists because I like people who care about politics, even if they are total idiots. Libertarians and socialists alike have a whole bunch of stuff that they don’t like about the current state of governance in this country. Neither of them are particularly well served by either party. But people on the left don’t flip out and say that just because a Republican is in the White House it is the end of the 40-hour work week. But people on the right do flip out and say that just because a Democrat is in the White House the black helicopters are coming to kill your children.

Waldman provided an excellent example of this. Senator Ron Johnson, about as mainstream a guy as the Republicans have, said of Obamacare, “So we’re going to the Supreme Court, begging them please, please allow us this one last shred of freedom.” Of course, I think Waldman was being way too charitable when he said that Johnson was speaking metaphorically. I don’t think Johnson or any of the people who talk this way really know what they think. They just have this automatic reaction that any liberal policy is the end of freedom. Their precursors said the same things about Social Security and Medicare and unemployment insurance and the minimum wage and the 40-hour work week and just about any other policy you can think of that is now uncontroversial.

Years ago, I was confused when conservatives would talk about the “liberal media.” This was long before Fox News. Eventually I realized that to them, “liberal” simply meant “not conservative.” So it is very basic to the way conservatives see the world that when a Democrat is in the White House it must mean that there has been a Soviet style takeover of the country. Now, they would claim that when a Republican is in the White House, the country is at best just treading water. But that’s just apologia. The truth is that the far right calm down completely when the Republicans are in charge. Waldman explained:

In the Clinton years, it looked like there might well be active revolt by the militia movement. But then Bush was elected and: poof!

Democracy is about a lot more than voting. It would not be a democracy if every time a different party got control the the government everything changed. There is no government for four years and then the government owns everything for the next four years. Democracy depends upon a certain level of consistency. And the conservative elites understand this, because they have been hugely successful at slowly moving this country to the right such that when the liberal party proposes healthcare reform, it does it in the most conservative, market-based way possible. But the conservative base does not understand this.

Again, we must come back to the pernicious effects of the DLC and the Democrats’ move to the right on economic policy. This has given those on the right the idea that socialism is capitalism with a tiny amount of government regulation. This is the great threat that our democracy faces, because both sides need to see the full extent of possible political debate. But on economic issues the Democrats now occupy the position that just four decades ago was considered center right. So the conservative base thinks that “far left” is defined as whatever the Democrats think. Thus something like Obamacare that is a tiny step to the left is socialism.

So the right is very confused. But they have good reasons for being confused. And the only way out of this mess is for the Democratic Party to play its proper part in our two party system and move to the left. Sadly, this can’t be done too quickly. It took as 30 years to get into this mess, it will take another 30 to get us out of it. As it is, I wouldn’t rule out armed rebellion by right wing groups who think that the end is nigh. But the critical issue that that Democrats have to learn what Republicans have long know: it isn’t about winning elections; it’s about controlling the debate. We need to greatly expand the debate. The world is out of control when Bill O’Reilly receives no ridicule for saying Dana Milbank is from the “far left.” That’s a world in which you’ve got Charles Krauthammer on the left, Milbank on the far left and Paul Krugman in hell as the Prince of Darkness. And that’s just crazy, especially when you consider that Paul Krugman isn’t all that liberal.

Normally, I just pass by articles by David Brooks, because really, what is the point? But this one was pure click bait with the title, President Obama Was Right. It was, of course, about Sgt Bowe Bergdahl. And the middle of it is really quite good. It is an excellent example of why most liberals give Brooks way too much credit for being reasonable. He points out what almost no other Republican will: we are in a war with the Taliban—they are not terrorists; swapping troops is what we do, even when the troops are dead; it is not true that the deal makes Americans less safe. But he errors at the beginning and then especially the end of his column.

At the beginning, he talks about how all of the ostentatious acts of patriotism are necessary in this country because we are so diverse. Well, I guess the case can be made. But this is not what I think is going on. I think these acts of patriotism are part of divisiveness. I think it is mostly conservatives trying to make the case that they are the real Americans and we liberals are just America-hating interlopers. There are a few reasons I think this. One is how conservatives generally go apoplectic at the thought of taking out “under God” from the Pledge of Allegiance. Another is all the confederate flags I saw when I went to a NASCAR race. Another is how the people who think themselves most patriotic—the Cliven Bundy militia types—clearly hate the actual America and are only patriotic to some mythical America that seems mostly to involve keeping blacks in their place.

But most of all, I hate these ostentatious acts of patriotism because they remind me of Gertrude in Hamlet saying, “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.” I don’t think that the British find such displays embarrassing and avoid them in their own country because they are one people. I think they are just a lot more secure that they all stand together. Maybe it’s because of World War II. We haven’t really had a war here in the United States against another country for about 200 years. Regardless, all the chanting of “We’re number one!” just makes me think these people secretly fear that we aren’t. Personally, I think my kind of patriotism where I think we are and are not number one is the best. This is home, and I do love it—for good and bad. I don’t think all the flag waving proves people love the country and it certainly isn’t what binds us together. (Note: some of the biggest flag wavers want to secede from the union.)

Brooks started his column talking about this, so he could then complain that President Obama should have used the Bergdahl deal to bring the country together:

Really Brooks?! Because I think that’s exactly what he did. He said, “We still get an American soldier back if he’s held in captivity—period—full stop.” I don’t see much television, and yet I’ve seen this a dozen times:

What is Brooks getting at? That the president should have held a press conference and laid it out, “To start with, we are one country. And the army is part of that country. So all together, the civilians and the army are one country. We are one. We have to stick together. Because, as I said, we are one. United we stand. Am I right?! So we had to get this prisoner of war—who is one of us—back from the enemy. Now you may have heard some things about this guy that you don’t like. Well, we have a couple of traditions in this country. One is that you are allowed to think what you want. Another is that you are innocent until proven guilty. So just to summarize: we are one; Bergdahl is one of us; we got it back; God bless America!”

Is that what Brooks wanted? Does Brooks think that this would have made even the smallest change in the Republican reaction to the prisoner transfer? Of course not! This was just Brooks doing what all Republicans always do: he was complaining about Obama no matter what he does or says. But I will give Brooks credit for understanding that the Bergdahl deal is (1) a prisoner swap and (2) uncontroversial.

Maybe next week, Brooks can write a column about how Obama is right to love his kids, but that he really ought to be using that love to convince the Republican House to pass the Dream Act.

Ed Kilgore is right to noted that here in California we have a really stupid primary process, Top Two Follies. Because of a stupid voter approved change in the California Constitution, there are no more party primaries. Everyone is just on the ballot and the two candidates who get the most votes run in the general election. Not surprisingly, this can lead to some very undemocratic results.

Kilgore points to two, but I think he’s wrong about one. Let’s talk about one where we came less than a percentage point away from a totally ridiculous result: House of Representatives District 31. In that race, 53.3% of the people voted for a Democratic candidate and only 46.7% of the people voted for a Republican candidate. But there were four Democrats running and only three Republicans. The winner was Republican Paul Chabot with 26.8% of the vote. Second place went to Democrat Pete Aguilar with 17.4%—barely beating Republican Lesli Gooch with 16.5% of the vote. If Aguilar had lost just one percentage point of his vote to either of the Democrats Joe Baca or Danny Tillman, the general election would have been between two Republicans, even though the people showing up in the general election would overwhelmingly prefer a Democrat.

In the other case, District 25, I think Kilgore is wrong. The only way a Democrat on the general election ballot had a chance in hell was if the demographics of the general election voters skewed far more to the left. The top two Republican candidates together got 57.7% of the vote. And there were two other Republicans with a total of 7.0% of the vote. Plus a libertarian with 1.8% of the vote and “independent” Michael Mussack, who sounded very conservative to me, who got 1.4% of the vote. All totaled, that is 67.9% of the vote going to conservatives. The two Democrats got a total of 32.2%. If there had only been one Democrat on the ballot, this might have ended in an anti-democratic situation, although at least the final election voters would have a party choice.

We already have a fairly undemocratic system with our First Past the Post voting. That’s what gives us our limited two-party system. But this “top two” primary system turns our elections here in California into First Past the Post on Steroids. Now the spoiler effect is even bigger than normal. And since older and more conservative voters are the ones most likely to show up at these off-year primaries (I saw an estimate than only 30% of registered voters were expected to actually vote), we are much more likely to end up with situations where a large majority of general election voters want to vote for a Democrat but simple can’t. This is nonsense.

It’s interesting that this new primary system was made law by a relatively small margin in the 2010 election primary. So the law itself came into effect because of the anti-democratic nature of our whole system where the vote is skewed toward those for whom voting is easiest: the rich and the retired. We really should get rid of this law. And I say this noting that sometimes it will work to the Democrats’ advantage. Even if it always worked to the Democrats’ advantage, I would be against it. Kilgore mentions what is more or less this kind of case in District 17. In that district there will be only two Democrats on the ballot in November. But this is a district that saw on 24% of the voters going for Republicans; 75.9% went for Democrats. So just as in District 31, the “top two” vote doesn’t skew anything any more than gerrymandering already does.

I think it is unforgivable the way the people of the United States have allowed our democracy to wither due to our lack of attention. Instead of doing things to make voting easier and for the process to be more democratic (for just one example, the alternative vote), we go the other way. This is how democracy dies.

Afterword

Here are some districts which could have been problems: 15, 25, 31, 33, 45, and 48. Luckily none of them where. But there are lots of races that the general election voter has only one party to pick from. Even though that only happens when districts are really Democratic or Republican, I still think people should have a choice in the general election.

After suffering through little bits of The World Wars, I picked up Ken Burns’ documentary, The War. I’d heard great things about it, but I didn’t even get half way through the first episode. Maybe it’s just that I’m in a bad mood. Or it could be that it is so much not what I expected. I mean, the thing is something like 14 hours long. I thought it was a history of World War II. But it isn’t. It isn’t that at all.

To begin with, I was shocked that it started in the Fall of 1941. Really?! I mean, Burns didn’t start his documentary The Civil War with the attack on Fort Sumter. And then the narrator said something that made me so angry. I won’t find the exact quote, but it was more or less this: the country was finally climbing out of the decade of the Great Depression. While that’s true, there is no context here. The reason the economy was coming back was because of military Keynesianism. For the few years before that, the federal government was building up its military because of the threat of war in Europe and Asia. So the improving economy was due to the Second World War that was already going on, even if America was not yet fighting in it.

There was also a moment in what I watched that talked about how during the war we were never really attacked, so we basically had no civilian casualties. And even our military casualties were relatively small compared to the other great powers involved in the war. But then it added that we were critically important in the war. I wondered, “Really?” I know we were important in the war. Because we were not under attack, our industry was really important. And almost a half million soldiers were killed. But would Germany and Japan have won the war without us being in it? I really don’t know, and I didn’t like the line thrown out there. It just seemed like pandering to the worst instincts of Americans.

The documentary itself looks at the effect of the war on four towns in the United States. And it is what it is. On its own terms, I suppose it is as good as anything that Ken Burns has ever done. But there is a problem from my perspective: I don’t care. My entire life I’ve had this kind of America-centered vision of World War II fed to me. I hardly need more of it. The parts of the war that are most interesting to me are the parts that I don’t know as much about: Japan and the Soviet Union. Growing up in our Cold War infused public education system, it wasn’t until I was in college that I had much more than the vaguest of ideas that the Soviet Union had been an important part of the war—much less a more important part of the war than we were.

So it just seems weird to spend all the time and money and energy on making a documentary that tells America the same old myth that it has always told itself. By focusing on these four towns and the men who went to war there, the series will necessary avoid, just like grammar school history class, the efforts of the Soviets. And there is absolutely no discussion of why the Japanese bombed us or why Hitler came to power and why he did what he did with that power. Neville Chamberlain, obviously will never be mentioned, since he had been dead a year by the time this documentary started. Really, I don’t see why I should care to see this story told from this prospective yet again.

But I’m not surprised that people were so impressed with the series when it came out in 2007. For one thing, we were fighting two wars at that time with none of the clarity of The War. And of course, Burns does good work. And he’s very good at determining what it is Americans want to hear. But in the same why that the Iron Man franchise is bad for American children, I’m afraid that The War is bad for American adults. Regardless, I don’t have the time to spend wallowing in a 14 hour discussion of a war that we were an important, but small part of. And that is to take nothing away from the people who struggled through it.

Well, it is election day here in California, and I suppose I should tell you how I’m voting, because that’s what I do. None of this should be shocking. And it is kind of a boring election. Partly, this is true simply because I think that things are going reasonably well in the state. But going through everything has really made me realize that I need to pay more attention to what’s going on in education in this state. There is so much money to be made off educating California’s children, I have real questions about a lot of the people who are swarming around trying to “help” failing schools. Of course, I think the whole school reform movement is a joke anyway and I have radical ideas about education—namely that it shouldn’t be about providing the best labor force for the economy. We are educating citizens, not factory workers, or even worse, grill managers.

Anyway, away we go…

Governor

Jerry Brown—not because I agree with him, but because he’s been a very good manager and he has shown that we need a governor who knows what he’s doing. Politics isn’t a job for amateurs—at least not at this level.

Lieutenant Governor

Eric Korevaar—because he’s a Democrat and he’s not Gavin Newsom. I don’t know, but when I look at Newsom, I see Mitt Romney.

Secretary of State

Derek Cressman—but I can’t remember why. I think I just liked his statement.

Controller

Betty Yee—because she seems to be the only serious Democrat.

Treasurer

John Chiang—he seems to be doing a good job and I’m a Democrat

Attorney General

Kamala Harris—Why break up a good team?

Insurance Commissioner

Dave Jones—I’ve given up on third parties, even though I do have a fondness for those kooks in the Peace and Freedom Party.

US Representative: 5th District

Mike Thompson—because he’s the only Democrat. I don’t have a problem with Thompson, but I do think he is too conservative for the district.

State Senate: 2nd District

Mike McGuire—Because I met him a long time ago and he seemed all right.

State Assembly: 2nd District

Jim Wood—because I have a bad feeling about John Lowry, who may be a perfectly good guy.

State Superintendent of Public Instruction

Tom Torlakson—because I don’t think Lydia Gutierrez is yet up for the job, and Marshall Tuck worries me.

County Supervisor: 4th District

Deb Fudge—because she’s the establishment Democrat, even though it is a non-partisan office.

County Controller

David Sundstrom—because I don’t like Gary Wysocky, who again, may be a perfectly great guy.

District Attorney

Jill Ravitch—because Victoria Shanahan is literally in bed with the Sheriff’s Department (she’s married to a deputy sheriff).

Proposition 41

Yes—I’m always for building homes for the poor.

Proposition 42

Yes—local governments are screwing with citizen rights.

There you go. Not too exciting and some of my reasons are petty. That’s democracy, folks!

If you live in California, you need to vote today. As far as I’m concerned, you owe it to me, just like I owed it to you and every other Californian. Citizenship is a responsibility. Find the time. Vote. However you vote, we as a country and a state are better for it.

Afterword

For the record, I have not yet voted as I write this. It is not even 3 June 2014 yet. But this is how I will vote, and by the time you read it, it will almost certainly be how I did vote.

Update (3 June 2014 8:21 am)

Well, I’ve voted. This was a weird election for me because for some reason, I got a mail-in ballot. I didn’t ask for one and I don’t like them. I like going to the polls—it’s fun. But I found out that you can get a mail-in ballot and still go to the polls. It’s actually a lot easier because there is no transcribing of my choices from the sample ballot. But since I’ve never done it before, it stressed me out. I had dreams about poll workers treating me hostilely. In one of them, she insisted upon weighing me and measuring my height to make sure I was the right person.

Too few people understand that citizenship is not just about rights; it is also about responsibilities. That’s why I think everyone should vote at a minimum, although I do think as a country we make it harder than it ought to be—especially for the working poor. But if a democracy is not constantly tended to, it turns inexorably into an oligarchy which I believe I have been seeing my whole life. When it comes to one thing that everyone cares about—the economy—there really isn’t much choice among the parties. “Liberalism” has come to mean “social liberalism” and “conservatism” has come to mean “social conservatism” because both parties now agree on what I call “economic conservatism.” And the worst kind of economic conservatism. (If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you really should read Dean Baker’s excellent The End of Loser Liberalism: Making Markets Progressive, which is available in electronic form for free from the Center for Economic and Policy Research.)

Well, as I was making my final preparations for tomorrow’s vote, I decided to dive into the propositions. They aren’t terribly exciting. There’s a bond measure for veterans’ housing and a curious little measure—Proposition 42—about who ought to pay for the cost of providing access to meetings and documents as dictated by the 1968 California Public Records Act and later laws. It seems that local governments are circumventing these rights by pleading poverty. Proposition 42 says that local governments have to provide access, eat the cost, and shut up. The issue is clear as far as this is concerned: the rights must be paid for, so we do need to sort this out. I’m fine with requiring the local governments to do so, but I would also be fine with the state government paying (although I can see that providing some bad incentives). Regardless, local funding is on the ballot and so I’m for that.

But while going over it all, I noticed that there was only one person arguing against both these measures: Gary Wesley. I don’t know how I managed to not know about Wesley until this time, but it has only been recently that I’ve been following politics while in California. Still, it is a major oversight because Wesley is a legend. Back in 1986, The Los Angeles Times wrote, Self-Appointed Rebuttal Writer: He Can’t Resist Saying ‘No’ to Ballot Measures. At that time, they described him as a “33-year-old San Jose attorney.” If I had to guess, I’d bet he is now a 61-year-old San Jose attorney. (I’m more sure of the age and occupation than the location.) And he’s been doing this since 1978—36 years!

Don’t get the wrong idea about Wesley, though. He isn’t some crank like, “Old man yells at cloud!” He seems to do this as a public service—as a civic duty. You see, if a proposition gets on the ballot, it must have supporters. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be on the ballot; it isn’t magic. But often, a proposition just isn’t controversial. Take for example, Proposition 41: there aren’t a lot of people who are interesting in blocking funding to help homeless veterans. So Gary Wesley steps in and provides a counter argument. The Times articled quoted him as saying, “I don’t feel that strongly about it. I would submit an opposing argument to almost anything.”

I don’t know anything about Gary Wesley other than that he does this one thing. But he is a hero. I almost want to vote against these propositions just to show how strongly I feel. But I’m certain that would go exactly counter to what he is doing. This is about democracy and citizenship. We need a whole lot more Gary Wesleys in this country.