{"id":69330,"date":"2011-10-31T03:26:56","date_gmt":"2011-10-31T07:26:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/69330\/yes\/"},"modified":"2011-10-31T03:26:56","modified_gmt":"2011-10-31T07:26:56","slug":"yes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/69330\/yes\/","title":{"rendered":"YES! versus NO"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"We\u2019re about a week away from Election Day here in the USA, the first Tuesday following the first Monday of November. It\u2019s an off year, with not as much at stake nationally.\u00a0 There\u2019s an referendum to repeal Ohio\u2019s anti-collective bargaining law, and an anti-choice measure in Mississippi that will define a fertilized egg as a \u201cperson\u201d.\u00a0 Those are important to those states individually and as precedents for the rest of the country.<\/p>\n

\"\"Here in Washington state, we have no such big choices to make on our state ballots.\u00a0 For the third election in a row, there\u2019s a measure on the ballot to end the state-run liquor stores, but that\u2019s about it of any significance.<\/p>\n

Locally, on the other hand, there are hundreds of city council, port commissioner, district water board, dog catcher and school district jobs being contested, along with lots of local measures.<\/p>\n

One thing I\u2019ve noticed every Autumn since I moved here four years ago is the Washingtonian love of election signs.\u00a0 Of course, everywhere I\u2019ve lived there\u2019s been plenty of \u201cVOTE FOR JOE!\u201d signs, but Washington takes it to another level.\u00a0 Maybe it\u2019s because in California, where I lived most of my life before recently, they had stricter laws about where one could put election signs.\u00a0 Maybe it\u2019s easy access to wood pulp from which to make cardboard signs.\u00a0 Whatever it is, around here, at seemingly every intersection, on any otherwise occupied roadside stretch of grass, on any piece of visible property that isn\u2019t being used for something else, we see a vast array of campaign signs\u00a0 prompting\u00a0\u00a0 the driver to vote for this person or that.<\/p>\n

Late in September, hundreds of signs appeared in Lynnwood, the Seattle suburb where I work, with just seemingly one word: \u201cYES<\/strong>!\u201d<\/p>\n

At every intersection, YES<\/strong>!\u00a0 At freeway off ramps, YES<\/strong>!\u00a0 Alongside the sidewalks, whole stretches of road were having sign orgasms:\u00a0 YES! YES! YES! YES!<\/strong><\/p>\n

If\u00a0 you looked closely, you might\u00a0 notice what we were being urged to vote YES<\/strong>! To: Proposal #1.<\/p>\n

\"\"It actually improved my mood as I traveled through Lynnwood.\u00a0 The word \u201cYES<\/strong>\u201d is the epitome of positivity!\u00a0 Is it a good day today?\u00a0 YES<\/strong>!\u00a0 Can I accomplish whatever I want?\u00a0 YES<\/strong>!<\/p>\n

Then, about 3 weeks ago, the negative NO campaign got their act\u00a0 signs together.\u00a0 The NO crowd didn\u2019t go and stalk out virgin sign territory to post their message.\u00a0 No, instead, they simply piggybacked the YES <\/strong>group and now, wherever you see a YES<\/strong>! sign, you see a NO sign attached to it.<\/p>\n

Unlike the wonderfully positive YES<\/strong>! Campaign, the NO campaign has decided to forgo the use of the persuasive exclamation\u00a0 point. They think they don \u2019t need this punctuation?\u00a0 How cocky.\u00a0 The YES! campaign chose brightly colored backgrounds for their signs,\u00a0 The NO people have a very negative bloack background.<\/p>\n

\"\"Essentially, the town of Lynnwood now looks like it\u2019s capital of indecisiveness, with YES! & NO on every corner.<\/p>\n

Who will win? I have no idea. There are no polls to say which side is winning.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m putting my money on YES<\/strong>!
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Oh, I supposed you\u2019re wondering what the whole referendum is about.\u00a0 It\u2019s about a struggle as old as democratic city councils and mayors, namely the struggle between the two.\u00a0 Last year, the mayor of <\/font><\/font>Lynnwood got into a major sex &corruption scandal , and so the city council found it an opportune time to eliminate the postion altogether.\u00a0 Lots of towns don\u2019t have elected mayors; instead, that executive role is performed by a city manager kind of person who is appointed by the city council.\u00a0 That\u2019s what the referendum is about: do we have a professional, non-political city executive versus a democratically elected mayor. <\/font><\/p>\n

VOTE ON FRIENDBURST!!!<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

YES!<\/p>\n

Or<\/p>\n

NO<\/p>\n

<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We\u2019re about a week away from Election Day here in the USA, the first Tuesday following the first Monday of November. It\u2019s an off year, with not as much at stake nationally.\u00a0 There\u2019s an referendum to repeal Ohio\u2019s anti-collective bargaining law, and an anti-choice measure in Mississippi that will define a fertilized egg as a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[81,234,1538],"class_list":["post-69330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-other","tag-joko","tag-politics","tag-seattle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69330","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69330"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69330\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}