Express Yourself

It was just a few days after the last election that the Montgomery County school board unanimously approved a new sex-ed curriculum. It was going to cover some new ground. Notably, it was going to talk about sexual orientation a little bit, define some terms, list some myths and facts.

Some people took the result of that 2004 election to be a mandate, they took it to mean that the country was finally ready to convert to Puritanism. In our county, the peasants headed toward the castle with pitchforks and torches, chanting, "No deviants, no Sodomites in our schools!"

But that castle was on the top of a pretty high, craggy mountain, and the road was dark. The peasants had originally intended to occupy the castle and throw the lord of the manor over a cliff but they ran into some difficulties. Turned out the residents of the castle were not interested in converting to Puritanism, and a few thousand arrows and several hundred gallons of boiling oil later, the peasants decided, about a quarter of the way up, that maybe it would be good enough, you know, just to hang out on the moutainside and make noise. So they stood out there, on the side of the mountain, waving their torches and pitchforks and yelling at the top of their lungs.

Their voices dissipated without an echo over the wide valley below.

One by one the peasants returned to their huts, until only two or three stood out there on the mountainside, raving at the night sky, their torches burning down.

And here we are on the eve of another election. We see now what our 2004 votes got us. America has had some years now of one-party rule at the national level, and we see what that got us.

Tomorrow we return to the polls to express our wishes, all of us who care to participate. We don't know if the machines will work, or if they'll be hacked, or if there will be cheating at the precincts or in the counting. We hope the Supreme Court doesn't get involved, and we definitely don't want to have to worry about the digital equivalent of hanging chad. But if we don't vote, none of that will matter anyway.

The country has gone through an important learning period. I sense a sort of quiet calm here now, as people know what they have to do. It's your only chance: get up tomorrow, go stand in line until they get it working, then go in there and poke the screen, tell them who you want.

It's your only chance.