Election 2008 Manifesto

I’m increasingly having visions of voter disenfranchisement as I wait in vain for my absentee ballot to arrive. According to my local board of elections, a ballot was sent to my Ukrainian address on September 30th. I confirmed this both on the Internet and over the phone.  It usually takes about a week for mail from Ohio to arrive.  Exactly one month later?  No ballot.

Regardless, I’ve been meaning to write a post of this sort for a while.  I aim to unequivocally lay out why I will, assuming my absentee ballot arrives in time, vote for Barack Obama based on the issues most important to me.  To be sure, this is more an exercise in intellectual posterity than anything else.  Writing arguments/beliefs down, in my experience, is the best way to examine and improve them.  So here goes:

Undecided voters

Via Andrew Sullivan.  I know it’s over the top and horribly partisan, but I laugh every time I read this:

To put them in perspective, I think of being on an airplane. The flight attendant comes down the aisle with her food cart and, eventually, parks it beside my seat. “Can I interest you in the chicken?” she asks. “Or would you prefer the platter of shit with bits of broken glass in it?”

To be undecided in this election is to pause for a moment and then ask how the chicken is cooked.

Four legs are better than two

Let me start by saying stray dogs are a ubiquitous part of the Ukraine experience.  They live in every city, town, and village.  As far as I can tell, this is due to 1.) neutering/spading being exceptionally rare, 2.) a kind of general respect for life that results in people feeding animals out of pity and extending their lives.  Elderly babushki are the most common offenders with regard to point #2.  It’s not uncommon to see them sneak a little piece of food out of their plastic Hugo Boss bag for a cuddly (or often not-so-cuddly) dog.

As an animal aficionado, I do find the situation sad.  Although I give the Ukrainians enormous credit for taking pity on the dogs and generally give them a minimum level of support, in reality this probably only exacerbates the problem.  The dogs are often skinny, dirty, and forced to live in some difficult situations.  But the problem is going to require a huge effort on the part of Ukraine and its citizens, so I’ve never really felt there’s anything I can do.  Essentially, I’ve been able to avoid dwelling on the suffering of the animals.

Until a couple weeks ago.  Walking home in the late afternoon I saw the puppy in the above picture playing in the street near one of my universities.  It lives in the area with a couple of other dogs, including its mother.  The street is extremely out of the way and a dead-end, so there is generally little traffic.  However, on this day, a car coasted slowly by me in the direction of the dog and, obviously lost and not seeing her, ran over her back legs (going literally 1 mile an hour—it was absurd).  I was too far away to do anything, but close enough to see everything happen.  The puppy yelped a few times before just laying in the street.  Its mom ran over and took her out of the street as some trucks passed, but I had little hope.  I probably sat there 10 minutes thinking about what I should do.  Honestly, I gave the dog little chance of living.  Having witnessed the accident, I just didn’t see how it would live.  I thought about taking it to a vet, but they are rare in Ukraine and there is likely little they would have been able to do besides put it to sleep.

The rest of the day I was horribly depressed and couldn’t think of anything except the puppy getting hit.  I felt bad for not doing more, but I knew there wasn’t really anything I would be able to do except maybe end its suffering and get it put to sleep.  I resolved to wait and see the situation the next day, fairly confident the dog wouldn’t be alive.

The next morning, I rounded the corner to my university and was amazed to see the puppy, still alive and breathing, lying next to her mother.  However, she hadn’t really moved from the day before and was clearly in a lot of pain.  On my way home, I stopped and gave her some water from a bowl I fashioned out of a plastic bottle.  The pain was clearly a lot for her, and I still didn’t think she’d have long to live.

However, the next day she was still alive.  I found her sitting up about 20 feet from the previous day.  I gave her some water and sausage that I had brought, and resolved to keep feeding her in the extremely odd chance that she would be able to get up and mobile for winter.  So almost everyday the past couple weeks, I’ve been feeding her.  One day she wasn’t there, and I assumed the worst.  However, eventually she returned with the rest of the pack, and has continued to heal at an amazing rate.  At this point, she’s totally mobile.  One of her back legs has apparently healed enough that she can walk around pretty much without problem (although I’m sure it’s still painful).  Her other leg is still badly hurt and she favors it, but it looks like it may be healing.  And she’s a lot perkier now than the first few days after being hit.  Guess we’ll see…

I’m amazed at how quickly a dog can adapt to such a traumatic injuring.  I suppose I should have suspected this given the resilience of her compatriots in every part of Ukraine.  But ultimately I’m just glad a story that started out very depressing is much less so to date.