Get Domestic

"If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal."
--Emma Goldman

Off the French political beat for a hot minute -- not that I tend to stay on it for too long, of course. We're two days out from the first Tuesday in November. In (dis)honor of that occasion, here are some words&sounds to get you through it.

• DJ C drops the perfect Election Day 2006 soundtrack on the Riddim Method, continuing his venerable 'B' Series DJ Mixes. I shot him a DVD full of funk mp3s -- maybe 'Brasil' is somewhere in the works.
• No beef if you don't want to vote, of course, given the way representative democracy works in a country of 300 million people. Here's some ammo to bolster your defiance: Brian Doherty of Reason Magazine pre-2004 on being a principled non-voter; more libertarian intransigence from LewRockwell.com.

It's bizarre to be sitting in Paris, contemplating absentee ballot choices for a suburban county in Maryland. I've lost pretty much all attachment to such mediocre local politics. I credit a few candidates for spending the postage to actually cull my name from the absentee rolls and send pamphlets transatlantic. Not that it helped -- it's far from thrilling to watch county executive candidates duke it out over who can best maintain Howard County's suburban landscape. Or who's got a more compelling vision for "downtown Columbia" (marked most prominently by a shopping mall). Bleak prospects in a town that's gone from '60s social experiment to management by a company that specializes in shopping malls. . . . I need to get registered somewhere else. Here's hoping I'll have a more exciting U.S. address come November 2008.

For now, I'm absolutely torn on this race. For all those Howard County orphans' rights experts, any suggestions?