- Associated Press: Reports of voter intimidation in three states. The aforementioned Maryland ballots, FBI complaints in Virginia of phone calls urging people to stay home, and Hispanic voters are being bulled in Arizona.
- More on Maryland: Daily Kos has a sample ballot and reports indicating that Steele’s campaign bused in the homeless to distribute the flyers.
- Virginia: An AP report on the FBI investigation.
- Arizona: Justin Rood’s report.
- So let’s dig into the first two states. As I write this, no counting has begun.
- Indiana: The Fort Wayne News Sentinel is reporting that this is a very large turnout. (And, as a side note, you apparently can’t purchase alcohol until after the polls close in Indiana. Wow, I had no idea.)
- As for Kentucky, the polls have just closed and the Courier-Journal‘s election blog is a good place to start.
2006 Election Roundup #1
– November 7, 2006Posted in: 2006 Election
The Call by Yannick Murphy: The always interesting author of Here They Come and Signed, Mata Hari returns with a novel that whips up a worldview from a rather quirky set of limitations: namely, the call logs that a veterinarian maintains as his son is unexpectedly put into a coma and an unforgiving economy denies him work. What emerges is a surprisingly optimistic, often funny, and very moving account on how one family uses acceptance and forgiveness as a way to atone for hard knocks. (
Birds of Paradise by Diana Abu-Jaber: Forget Franzen and Eugenides. If you're looking for a social novel that counts, Diana Abu-Jaber is the author you're looking for. Building from the free-form exploration of consciousness and identity in Crescent and the gripping procedural structure of Origin, Abu-Jaber's latest novel is her finest, equally fluent with gutterpunk culture and smarmy real estate men. It has been suggested by The Washington Post's Ron Charles that you will likely gain some pounds while reading this novel. This is certainly true. Abu-Jaber's description of food is so precise that it often made me want to do more cooking. But I very much admired the way in which Abu-Jaber presents all her characters as unwitting victims of rough capitalism, which permits them some dignity even as they perform terrible acts.
The Last of the Live Nude Girls by Sheila McClear: This memoir isn't so much about the decline of the Times Square peepshow, as it is about one young woman's efforts to pull herself up by by her bootstraps when presented with few economic options. Filled with self-introspective candor and a quiet dignity, McClear's story is one that might befall any of us in these volatile times. While McClear does get back on her feet, her book leads one contemplating the terrible fates of other young women now moving to New York and falling into deadlier vocations. (