Sparks Shoot from my Ears

I went to college in New London, CT, a good ol' Democratic machine town in those good ol' days. When the voting age changed from 21 to 18, I, along with hundreds of other of my school-mates, registered and voted. And the Democratic machine challenged our registration on the grounds of residency (and on the unspoken grounds that the damned kids would start voting for just anyone and upset the apple cart). This had the unexpected result of turning a bunch of kids who were pleased to be able to vote on the national level but really didn't much care about local politics into a bunch of kids who were damned angry about the attempt to negate our vote, and began organizing, going door to door, attempting to get the machine pols voted out or otherwise defanged.

The law, you could say, of unintended consequences in full, cheery bloom.

So when I see something like this (swiped from jaylake) it makes me want to bite something. A New Hampshire Republican thinks that putting up bars to college age voters is a good thing because college kids are "foolish."

"Voting as a liberal. That's what kids do," he added, his comments taped by a state Democratic Party staffer and posted on YouTube. Students lack "life experience," and "they just vote their feelings."

Because no one over thirty "votes liberal." And no one on the conservative side "votes their feelings." All this begs the question: at what age does William O'Brien think that voters have sufficient life experience? And if the aged voter still insists on voting in a way O'Brien considers wrong, will he come up with another reason to disenfranchise them? "Voting: Ur Doin It Rong" is not a viable slogan, not in New Hampshire or anywhere else.

Miss Austen, with Stiletto

"Mr. Knightly seemed to be trying not to smile, and succeeded without difficulty upon Mrs. Elton's beginning to talk to him."

Just another of Miss Austen's epic takedowns of Mrs. Elton in Emma.

I've been reading Ta-Nehisi Coates's posts about his discovery of Jane Austen (whom he calls "Jane Awesome"). His delight in Austen's observation and word craft are contagious--not that I didn't know that Jane was Awesome, but because I forget to look sometimes.