From Jeff to Australian Mark and SF Mark

This is just an example of what frightens/disgusts me about our country.
As part of my duties as SDMA PR guy, I occasionally get random emails such as below.
Knocking on doors in Idaho might make me feel better (see Danny Elfman http://www.huffingtonpost.com/danny-elfman/battling-our-greatest-fea_b_139246.html), but I don't believe it would change people. In fact it might have the opposite effect. After going to the Biden rally in Tacoma a few weeks back I was struck by the thought that if most of the people there were to canvass a "McCain" neighborhood it would only further lock people like Nadine here in their fear of some scary black man having power.

If you haven't heard any of Michele Norris's and Steve Inkeep's pieces http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=95934562 - The York Project on NPR, I suggest you do or check out their essays. I have been driven to tears, really, driving and crying.

I don't know if this is more poignant for me because I have mixed-race children (let's not forget Obama is mixed, yet somehow any trace of black blood makes a man black, it gets back to the days of "passing" or classifying by percentages, the 3/5 rule or "octoroons" granted civil right based on how much European blood they had in their veins) or if it's because I'm an emotional basket-case, it just bums me out.

And it's not just Audubon, Iowa and York, Pennsylvania, my aunt and uncle in Orange County are voting for McCain and I know why, it's not because of fiscal policy or healthcare or social issues, it's because they don't like black people, they'd never say it, but it's true. 15-20 years ago they could tell off-color jokes at Christmas and it was embarrassingly funny, now with two philippino in-laws, one korean in-law and a mess of mixed kids running around the Compound waiting for Santa it just ain't done, but that doesn't mean they've changed the way they feel. And that's kind of my point, there's very little chance of changing the way these people feel.

Forgive me this screed, and thank you for being patient with a guy who clearly has too much time on his hands. Part of me is lazy, part of me is misanthropic, and I do feel guilty about not doing more to help elect Obama, I just don't want to talk to people, not the type of people I'd have to convince. So I write shit like this and Gone Postal, which has a partnership between a white guy, black guy, mexican woman, a chinese, and a vietnamese - yes, they're criminals cheating the USPS and trying to secede from the union, but they're doing it together.

Baah, I'm just blue because the rains have come and it's 111 days until pitchers and catchers report.