Patriot Day

Four years ago this nation sufferred a rather horrific attack on its own soil. Regardless of the reasons and rationales behind the attacks, most everyone agrees that the loss of innocent life was a bad thing (although some my quibble with how many were innocent). Suffice to say, our Federal government went ahead and cheepend the day, which ought to have been a national day of remembrance, by naming it Patriot Day. I like the term patriot, I think of myself as a patriot... but I don't think that Sept 11th has anything to do with national allegiance. And since the Congress was unwilling to declare it a national holiday, it's significance in the American mental calendar is about as high as Grandparents day (which happens to fall on the same day this year).

For my 2005 Patriot Day I actually engaged in something vaguely patriotic... I voted in the primary election. I wish I had been smart like Brett and refused to vote in the partisan portion of the ballot, but I had already sealed the envelope by the time I decided an undervote would have been a great way of showing my disapproval of our new partisan electoral process. For the record, the races in question were either no-contest or no serious contest... so an undervote wouldn't have made a lick of difference. But it's too late for such political symbolism now.

Partisan ballots aside, the non-partisan section was actually rather difficult. I don't follow Port issues enough to really know what the issues are, or who to vote for. I usually rely heavily on endorsements to make these sorts of decisions... but several candidates running for the same position boasted strong endorsements. I took the environmentalist road when push came to shove and voted with WCV, who haven't steered me wrong before. Monorail votes were fun, if for no other reason than I got to vote with the masses against a guy who had clearly screwed up. But the city council races were easily the hardest of all. One race pits a former King County Councilman, the current City Councilman (who is a minority), and geeky looking guy with good ideas against oneanother. I ended up voting for Pelz, the former King County Councilman, probably because I met him before and liked the guy... but if I had been asked 10 minutes later, I may have gone with someone entirely different.