on a diet.

i need to keep the tv turned off.

you know you've been watching too much cnn when you've seen all the news clips at least 5 times already, and when their language is irritating you more with each replay.

in all honesty, i don't want any more news: dubyas acceptance speech is just too irritating.
it's so weird that this election was decided when the candidates decided it was decided, not when all ballots were counted.
what if kerry's staff got the calculations wrong? i wonder.

at his speech, dubya looked like his batteries had just been recharged, his body language as hacked as usual, his arms stretched in that strange way at his side. again, he smiled a little too much to himself after every sentence he managed to say without wracking havoc on the words.
and dick cheney. why would you vote for someone who ran with someone like dick cheney? how could you vote for someone just the way karl rove had planned you to? cnn showed someone in the dubyas audience holding up a rosary, praying. it's an irritating cult, theirs. how scary that so many people want to be part of that.
a "mandate" from the voters? i think you're avoiding reality again already, dubya.
it's weirding me out, this president and his election (not "re"-election. he wasn't elected in 2000, remember?).
it's all just a little too upsetting.

john kerry's concession speech made me cry a little.
every time i've seen it, actually. it's replay is not irritating me at all: it's just making me more and more sad.

why do us presidential candidates often don't manage to bring their personalities across until it is too late? i remember gore's speech in 2000. back then, it was the first time in which he actually seemed to be himself, someone who could reach out to people.
i don't think that john kerry hadn't reached people before: the speeches i had seen, especially those of the last few days, were excellent. but i am sure many people hadn't seen the presidential in kerry until yesterday afternoon, when his love for the country, his desire to serve americans came through.
his concession speech was full of direct emotion, every word straight from the heart, the sentiment true, his voice hoarse. i wish he had succeeded: the only better speech i could have imagine would have been his acceptance speech.

but john kerry has not won.
so the election that wasn't even mine is over, and i should stop obsessing, at least for a while. fact is though, that my interest in us politics will not fade now, because all the reasosn this election mattered to me now matter even more, even though so many issues will be decided in the next four years in a way that i will absolutely hate.
i don't want to imagine what kind of supreme court judges bush can now get through. scary shit. they and their judgements will leave a lasting legacy that will shape the us for decades.

so it will be 4 more years.
it will take some time to get used to 4 more years of his helpless face on tv.
4 more years of wrestling with the english language.
4 more years of cowboy imagery with a biblical context.
4 more years of us estrangement from the rest of the world.
4 more years of short-sighted politics.
let us hope it won't be 4 more years of invasions and "spreading democracy", or 4 more years of prisoner abuse.

but i am not without hope.
it will be 4 more years of re-organisation of the democrats, aiming to take back the country, showing the poorest of society that the republican party is not theirs, that it is not helping them.
4 more years of even more grass-root activism, of activism, blogging and fundraising for change.
4 more years of learning in opposition how to govern for great emerging democrats, like barack obama.
4 more years of easy jokes for late night tv and the daily show.
it will be 4 years of more michael moore films.
it's a great opportunity, too: 4 more years to show one half of the us just how off they have been, how off they still are in their perception of reality.

it will be interesting to see what will happen. but for a little while, i'll have to reduce my intake of news.

the tv news diet starts now.