Sound Off!

My sister has Atrial Fibrillation (A-fib), for about ten years.  It's gotten worse over the years, so on Monday she had a procedure called ablation at NYU, which kills those parts of the heart that are misfiring and causing the arrhythmia.  That was Monday.  She stayed overnight in the hospital, and on Tuesday I went to pick her up. She stayed with me that night and experienced some severe breathing problems, so we returned to NYU yesterday and she was readmitted. 

I left her at about 6:30 p.m. yesterday and stopped on my way home at my favorite restaurant, my go-to place for lunch or dinner.  I was alone so sat at the bar and ordered a glass of wine and a plate of muscles.  Sitting next to me were two men, one of whom looked to be close to 80 and very skeletal, as though he'd just gotten out of an ICU ward. He was telling the other man that he was to be offered “the vice presidency” (I thought, unkindly I admit, “no doubt by an association of morticians”).  The remainder of his conversation suggested that the offer may have come from Mitt Romney. He was carrying on about Obama and his voters--all ignorant low life’s according to him. I cancelled the Prince Edward muscles as I didn’t want my meal ruined listening to these two horse’s asses but before I could finish my wine, it got worse. The bartender, who could hear them (as could everyone around them), is Latino and so are most of the wait staff at the restaurant, including the manager who is Mexican.  ICU then started on illegal aliens taking jobs from decent Americans, and what finally had me snap, that the new voter laws, designed to disenfranchise minorities, the poor, and the elderly, are necessary because so many illegals are voting.  

Anyone who reads beyond headlines knows that the incident of voter fraud is so low in our country that it’s almost non-existent, particularly among illegals who are so afraid of getting caught they wouldn't venture near a voting booth.  Pennsylvania, which is proposing the most Draconian voter ID laws in the nation, admitted in a filing to the courts that it has no evidence whatsoever of voter fraud.  And recent research by election officials has shown this to be true for all states: 

A number of election law experts, based on their own research, have concluded that the accusations regarding widespread fraud are unjustified. And in this case, one of the two experts hired to do the report was Job Serebrov, a Republican elections lawyer from Arkansas, who defended his research in an e-mail message obtained by The Times that was sent last October to Margaret Sims, a commission staff member. 

“Tova and I worked hard to produce a correct, accurate and truthful report,” Mr. Serebrov wrote, referring to Tova Wang, a voting expert with liberal leanings from the Century Foundation and co-author of the report. “I could care less that the results are not what the more conservative members of my party wanted.”He added: “Neither one of us was willing to conform results for political expediency.”

Back to ICU.  I couldn't listen to another word.  I turned and called him an “asshole,” adding that neither of them knew what they talking about or had read anything on the subject beyond quoting Fox News headlines. Their response:  ICU said I was drunk (I had finished less than 1/4 of my wine, my first, and they both had two empty glasses in front of them and had just ordered a third).  He added, and this is where I was tempted to throw the remainder of my drink in his face, that his taxes were paying for my drink--still can't figure that one out, or what it was supposed to mean.  For the record, I did dress in a hurry that morning as I was worried about my sister.  Was it the baggy jeans? 

I’ve lived in New York since my junior year in college, close to 40 years. It’s unnerving that I’m overhearing conversations such as the one last night more frequently. In the past, at least in New York City, you wouldn’t expect to hear two obviously privileged white men talking loudly in public about getting rid of illegals or the ignorance of the lower classes, when everyone in the immediate vicinity is Latino and can hear them. Republicans of late are like New York cockroaches: ubiquitous and impossible to get rid of.  

I did come to a decision last night, aside from walking away from half a glass of Kendall Jackson:  if Romney gets elected I’m back to Italy, or perhaps Spain, and this time not to return.  Ignorance is not bliss--it's extraordinarily painful to those of us who prefer facts to fiction, and particularly when the fiction is used to support bigotry.  Some may ask, so what did you accomplish last night mouthing off?  Why not quietly walk away?  Because every time someone walks away the cockroaches win another round.  Sound off is my mantra, and I hope that those who read here will do the same.