Editor’s Note: The following article was written by Rahmana Finney in San Francisco, one of our new and vibrant additions to the Planet Waves staff. Below, she weighs in on Obama, race and Prop. 8. –RA

Dear Friend and Reader,

BETTY DAVIS IS ONE of my all-time favorite singers. She is a beautiful, statuesque, caramel Leo fireball who recorded a number of albums in the 1970s, and then just disappeared into relative obscurity. She dated Jimi Hendrix, was married to Miles Davis (who said she was just too young and wild) and had a kick-ass band backing her up which included members of Sly Stalone’s band and Sylvester doing back-ground vocals.

Betty Davis from the 1970s album cover "This is it." Photographer unknown.

Sylvester was an openly gay man who could sing his ass off and did so for everyone from Chaka Khan to Luther Vandross, and unfortunately eventually died of AIDS. Betty’s music is just pure FUNK music at its nastiest and sweatiest. One of her most famous tunes is “If I’m in Luck I Might Get Picked Up”—a funk classic in the underground community of soul and funk music heads.

She wore lingerie on stage, cursed at the audience, and her album covers are some of the most erotic, sexy things ever made. She was unabashedly wild and free—long before Madonna or Britney, but little is known about her. She wore a big kinky afro and most definitely did not fit the establishment’s acceptance of beauty. But I think looking at her picture, you will agree she is the bomb.

I love Leos; especially Leo women. They are such rebels. They live by a creed that is very popular in the Black community. It is called “I don’t give a fuck.” It can be very handy in life. Very effective when dealing with cut-off utilities, racist bosses and the visual stimulation we are often assaulted by daily in our neighborhoods of crack addicts and gutted buildings. I am thinking of Miss Betty Davis as I celebrate this Leo man we just elected to be the first Black man for President of the United States of America, and simultaneously repealed the right to marriage for the gay community. Ah, bittersweet—one of my favorite words.

It applies to the first and last breath you take and every one in between. Because I toasted last night, as a matter of fact, shed tears, with black people who voted for Obama and Proposition 8, banning marriage for anyone who isn’t straight. Damn it why did it have to be bittersweet? I am amazed that these same black people who are overjoyed at a milestone in the history of this country being set, could be comfortable with such blatant prejudice. I don’t understand it. I don’t understand why people care who other people are fucking. I just don’t get it! And the thought occurs to me: HOMOPHOBIA IS ANOTHER FORM OF SEXISM.

Does anyone feel me on this one? This Leo man we just voted for is tall, dark and handsome, straight and married, and a father. He is not the typical angry stereotype of Black men. He is measured, calm, sophisticated and very political. And he fits into our comfortable categories. He’s not threatening. Why is gay marriage threatening? Why are people so uncomfortable even just imagining two people of the same gender having sex?

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Dear Friend and Reader,

YESTERDAY, AS THE election results rolled in, Eric wrote that we have a long struggle ahead, a massive clean-up job after close to a decade of President Bush. He’s right, and as hundreds of electoral votes built up momentum in a sweeping and early victory for Senator Barack Obama, votes were counted with slightly less fanfare in Florida, Arizona, Arkansas and California.

At a "No on 8" party at the Music Box Henry Fonda in Hollywood, Jeff Miller, left, and Todd Thurman, who are married, listen to Barack Obama's speech with their son, Justin. Photo by Barbara Davidson / Los Angeles Times.

Florida, Arizona and California voted to define marriage as between a man and a woman in their constitutions, making same-sex marriage virtually impossible to gain. In Arkansas, they banned fostering or adopting children “outside of a valid marriage.” This was imposed to prevent same-sex couples from adopting or fostering children, though it now affects cohabiting heterosexual couples, single people and anyone else who isn’t married.

In California, the decision was joined with a win for animal rights activists, whose proposition to eliminate battery cages (confining farm animals to a space smaller than two-feet squared) reigned victorious. This means that thousands of California citizens checked “yes” for animal rights and “yes” for revoking human rights.

This topic is a difficult one for me, both because I’m gay and because I devoted a year of my life towards a thesis against the institution of marriage: to condense 100 pages into a couple of sentences, I’ve researched marriage as a culture that extols one group, privileging its behaviors and mores over less traditional, but no less loving, partnerships and families. And within the institution itself comes a set of rules, based on a history of patriarchal order, that divides us into masculine and feminine expectations for work outside the home, household labor, child rearing and, yes, sex.

I think it’s time to move past marriage, to develop a form of partnership that’s inclusive of all the formations that relationships take. We should accept not just same-sex and opposite-sex monogamous partnerships, but those of caregivers and the disabled, of cohabiting friends and siblings, of people who are committed to more than one partner. These relationships exist, they don’t fit and are denigrated by the exclusive definition of marriage and they deserve equal recognition under the law.

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Fast check-in…

I live and work in Kingston, a city of 23,000 in the hills north of the big city. Kingston is the county seat, so all the campaigns have their offices here. The Republicans are right downstairs from my studio; there is nothing much going on. I just spent an hour over at Democratic headquarters around the corner by the cigar shop, and they’re still working the phones and driving people to the polls, which close in more than two hours.

The mood is definitely not elated, but it’s calm and upbeat. There is not that feeling of “we’re about to lose.” I think that most Democrats and those supporting Obama are cautious and not feeling too confident. In the often mythical war between Dems and Pubs, Dems have taken a beating the past decade; most of this involves not Republicanism but rather church-based, allegedly Christian, not terribly charitable, neoconservatism.

Apparently voter turnout was extremely strong across the country — I keep reading record numbers — and that’s for a reason: beneath the hope and optimism lurks a sense of fear and anger. And there is some concern. Despite the attack ads, Obama is not exactly a leftist or a liberal or a radical. He is a straight-on moderate; he is a product of a political process, though I feel he’s kept some of his values intact. I think it’s crucial that we not confuse him with a progressive, though he is closer to it than anything we’ve seen in a long time.

I’m going to keep repeating this: whoever takes office, the work begins now. I suggest you commit to it now. There is a very, very big mess to clean up; nearly a decade of Bush, more than half a century of post-World War II growth (with its economic ‘other side of the tracks’ and an environmental situation) that seems to have reached a maximum limit.

We are, as I’ve written many times, entering a phase of prolonged restructuring…rethinking…enforced changes…the kinds of changes we don’t like to make. We invest a lot of shadow material in Saturn, Pluto and Capricorn: all of our authority issues; many of our security issues; many of our family issues. And for the foreseeable future, it is Saturn, Pluto and Capricorn (with a big dose of Uranus) that are in the picture.

Uranus brings in the element of fun: of liberation, of throwing off the mental shackles and expressing ourselves. Remember that old line from Emma Goldman, about how if she can’t dance, it’s not her revolution. This is not quite a revolution yet, but you can have fun even when you’re cleaning up after a party

Rockin’ on,

–efc

Obama won in Ohio — it’s all over folks. Here’s a farewell tribute to Sarah Palin:

Hello from Dominick’s Cafe in Kingston,

…where I am going to try to write a couple of weekly horoscopes. Or maybe I better just try one. Anyway, it’s not working…all these people in the cafe want their charts done. They are calling in their favors…they have fed me every day for six months. And Rachel and Genevieve are doing all the work today while I sit here with my laptop and teenagers and their parents crowded around. I got back from voting in New Paltz at 6:45 am, came back, did a little of this and that…and passed the fuck out.

But here is what I’ve been thinking.

I’ve never, ever seen such interest in an election. And this is the direct result of Mssrs Bush, Rove and Cheney and their shenanigans the past eight years.

It is true, we’ve paid a high cost for this level of participation…and the soldiers and families in Iraq who continue to be the last people to die for a lie — in the immortal words of John Kerry — have really paid that price. We have sacrificed civil liberties, $6 trillion in debt, and a government structure that is basically gutted, pillaged and ravaged; a banking structure that remains on the brink of collapse; we have a lot of ideologue judges injected throughout the federal courts, and John Alito and John Roberts on the Supreme Court for the next decade or so…whose decisions will affect countless millions of lives.

But suddenly we care. Suddenly it matters. When the votes are counted, we will see that there was unprecedented turnout today, and there are many thousands of people going to the polls with cameras, video cameras and with the ability to report their experiences on the Internet when they get home. The denial factor is starting to finally give way to awareness. It has taken a lot.

We have a moment when a presidential candidate will walk up to the poll in his home city, surrounded by reporters as he slides his ballot into the machine, and say, “I hope this works. I’ll be really embarrassed if it doesn’t,” something that everyone has felt today.

We are using the power that’s in our hands…and we cannot stop.

No matter who is elected or installed into office today, we need this measure of vigilance. The First Amendment had and has a purpose, and it has new life with the Internet being so widely used. This is keeping people aware and personally involved, and it’s keeping the media honest because there cannot be too big of a gap between what we hear on CNN and what we read on so many different blogs and alternative news sites.

This is actual progress.

Voting Machines Elect One Of Their Own As President

Editor’s note: the following piece was written by Shanna Philipson. –RA

Brother, beware! Obama wants your closet, too.

Before you cast your vote for Obama, you may want to consider his views on your pants.

Kevin and Markus Deamus of Dallas, TX. In 2007, Deputy Mayor Pro Tem Dwaine Caraway sought to ban the low-hanging pants trend. Obama also opposes. Photo by Mei-Chun Jau/DMN.

That’s right: Obama wants you to pull up yo’ pants. In an obvious appeal to the grandmother vote, Obama revealed his true conservative feelings in an interview posted today on MTV.com. Responding to a write-in question from a young man, Obama stated:

…brothers should pull up their pants. You’re walking by your mother, your grandmother, and your underwear is showing. … What’s wrong with that? Come on. There are some issues that we face that you don’t have to pass a law [against], but that doesn’t mean folks can’t have some sense and some respect for other people. And, you know, some people might not want to see your underwear — I’m one of them.

Never has a candidate reached deeper into the collective American closet than now. Pull up my pants? For real? Where will this lead, and more importantly — where could this end? For example, under an Obama administration would we have to tuck in our shirts? Tie our shoes? Slick down our cowlicks and groom our eybrows? Would we have to say “excuse me” after we burp? Or “pardon me” when we step on another’s toes? Will we suddenly need to know which fork to use — or the difference between “who” and “whom”?

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Bush: 'Can I Stop Being President Now?'

WASHINGTON—In a press conference held this morning on the White House lawn, President Bush formally asked the assembled press corps and members of his own administration if, in light of today’s election, he could stop being the president now. “So it’s over, right? Can I stop being president now?” Bush said after striding to the podium in a Texas Rangers cap and flannel shirt, carrying a fully packed suitcase. “Let’s just say I’m done as of now. Presidency over.” When informed by Washington Post reporter David Broder that his presidency would continue through early January, Bush stared at him quizzically, sighed, and shuffled silently back into the White House.

The Onion

Editor’s note: For the last few years, when most of us have been keying into outrage over distraction after distraction, Dan Froomkin of the Washington Post has been keeping vigilant, detailing what goes down at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. His column, “White House Watch,” is a great political barometer. I’ve met Dan and watched him work. He’s someone we can trust.

By the way, just because we’re in the middle of an election doesn’t mean our Congressperson isn’t working. Give ‘em a call. Tell them you voted for them. Then get them to do their job.– Fe Bongolan

Dan Froomkin is a political blogger for the Washington Post. Photo by J.D. Lasica.

Did we really expect President Bush and Vice President Cheney to go quietly?

R. Jeffrey Smith writes: “The White House is working to enact a wide array of federal regulations, many of which would weaken government rules aimed at protecting consumers and the environment, before President Bush leaves office in January.

The new rules would be among the most controversial deregulatory steps of the Bush era and could be difficult for his successor to undo. Some would ease or lift constraints on private industry, including power plants, mines and farms.

Those and other regulations would help clear obstacles to some commercial ocean-fishing activities, ease controls on emissions of pollutants that contribute to global warming, relax drinking-water standards and lift a key restriction on mountaintop coal mining.

Once such rules take effect, they typically can be undone only through a laborious new regulatory proceeding, including lengthy periods of public comment, drafting and mandated re-analysis…

The burst of activity has made this a busy period for lobbyists who fear that industry views will hold less sway after the elections. The doors at the New Executive Office Building have been whirling with corporate officials and advisers pleading for relief or, in many cases, for hastened decision making.”

You can find the rest of the article here.

Dear Friend and Reader,

There is growing concern over the vote in Ohio (see Genevieve’s article from this morning).

Toledo Police Chief Mike Navarre. Police will be donning riot gear in Ohio today.

I found a short report from Aaron Brilbeck of WNWO, a local news source in Ohio, stating that police in Toledo are prepping for crowd control with riot gear. 

There’s no question that anxiety is running high today, even with Obama holding a steady lead over McCain in recent weeks.

This, combined with intense campaigning in Ohio (a swing state) and questions of vote tampering lingering in the state after the 2004 election have led to the police decision to carry gas masks.

The article can be read, in full, below, and we’ll update you with new information as it comes in throughout the day. If you’re in Ohio, I’d like to hear from you: send me an email at:

editorial (at) planetwaves.net.

Happy voting,
Rachel Asher

Toledo police are gearing up for possible “Civil unrest” during and after [today's] elections.

In an internal memo obtained exclusively by NBC 24 News, officers are ordered to “Have their riot equipment with them Tuesday and Wednesday.” Police chief Mike Navarre confirms, officers will have gear similar to the equipment they used during the 2005 race riots. “They have been asked to have their helmets and their gas masks available tomorrow and Wednesday,” Navarre says, “That’s the equipment they would not normally carry with them on a normal day”.

Navarre also says, officers will not be stationed at individual polling stations. But the memo says otherwise. It reads, “On Tuesday, units shall be directed to patrol the polling locations.”