La cruda presidential

Can I get out from under the covers yet? You know things are getting back to normal when the most popular e-mail spam is a photo of the Vice President's pants. It's so nice we can all get along and giggle over the size of famous people's thingies. The healing has begun!

That's why I wrote about local politics for this week's column. I'm over the prez election. Don't bother me for another three years.

Also, today I was on an Internet radio show called Mario's Verdad on VoiceAmerica.com. Not to be confused with Voice of America. I'm not sure anyone was listening, but it was fun. Looks like there are some archived voice files, so this one might make it on the site before too long.

See! They want us gone

The red staters want to let California out of this nation-state of wedded antipathy. Read why in the expulsion manifesto here at this conservative web site.

Juicy excerpt: That is why the unthinkable must become thinkable. If the so-called "Red States" (those that voted for George W. Bush) cannot be respected or at least tolerated by the "Blue States" (those that voted for Al Gore and John Kerry), then the most disparate of them must live apart--not by secession of the former (a majority), but by expulsion of the latter. Here is how to do it.

Click the link for his primer on a DIY secession.

This is so crazy it just might work.

Even more secession talk...

Patt Morrison writes about it as well on the Times' op-ed page today. (She taked to Erwin too. Perhaps complaints that reporters rely too heavily on a few sources has a bit of validity).

Hope her e-mail isn't as nasty as mine has been. I have counted five flat out race-based insults that don't even engage the ideas. Here's my favorite:
"You affirmative action idiot....your only option is to go back to Mexico."

But, but... I'm not from Mexico!

Also, check out this site where someone is circulating a petition to withdraw from the union.

Caliwashegon

The secession idea in this week's Daily News column engaged and enraged readers across the country. I guess it was picked up in several "red" states. And many of those readers apparently would be glad to see me personally, at the very least, secede from the country. Several helpfully suggested that I could move to Canada or France.

Here's my favorite reader mail excerpt: "Dear Mariel, time to sober up and start taking your medication before the men in white coats show up to take you away."

Heck, if I did that, I'd never be able to write. Sheesh.

But quite a few also liked the idea, though it seems like Oregon and Washington would not be that welcomed by the new republic of California. I'll bet we could get Hawaii, though.