DeeKnow’s Grotto

The conference finished on Friday night so we're now free-agents. I rang some Canadian friends Barry and Paula on Thursday to see what they were up to and they kindly offered to drive down to Portland to pick us up and free us from the perils of the USA.

Thank Allah they did coz I was going crazy listening to coverage of the Democratic National Convention which has been goin on all week in Boston and dominating TV coverage in the evenings. Man, politics are screwy in the US. People are much more polarised than at home and very sensitive to criticism of their personal party-leanings.

The Democrat's convention was a truely diabolical multi-day abboration. I'm sure the Republicans one will be the same. Endless days of stadiums packed full of flag-waving victims of some religious like political evangalism. Very scary.

Both Jamie and I were probing folks when we had the chance to get a handle on things. It was very easy to pretend to be independent (we're foreigners after-all) but it turned out most folks were either passionate Democrats or despised GWB so much that they were voting Democratic just to be rid of him. It could be a local-state thing but many of the people we talked to were from out of state. Very few admitted to being Republican supporters.

The funniest moment in our kiwi-research-poll (plus or minus 20% accuracy) was when we were playin pool late one night in a bar when this cheer-filled (ie pissed) couple comes in and asks if we wanna play some pool with them. Pretty soon politics comes up and the two of them spent the next 2-hours or so apologising for George-W and US foreign policy in general. Their embarrasment was echoe'd by most who opened up to our subtle enquiries.

8:38:32 AM