{"id":10711,"date":"2007-11-06T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2007-11-06T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kith.org\/journals\/vardibidian\/2007\/11\/06\/10711.html"},"modified":"2018-03-12T16:57:41","modified_gmt":"2018-03-12T21:57:41","slug":"election-day-2007","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/2007\/11\/06\/election-day-2007\/","title":{"rendered":"Election Day, 2007"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<I>Your Humble Blogger continues the tradition of posting this, perhaps my favorite poem, on Election Day. My election is municipal, as is yours, likely enough, if you even have one. It\u2019s not the powerfulest scene and show, the quadriennial choosing. On the other hand, there is a ballot-shower, countless snowflakes. In some ways, these off-year, odd-numbered, town council elections ought to be our powerfulest scene and show, and if they aren\u2019t, you can do your part to make them so today. Assuming, Gentle Reader, that you are a fellow Citizen; if you are in Pakistan, for instance, I present Mr. Whitman\u2019s ode as inspiration of a different kind.<\/I>\n<p>Election Day, November, 1884, by Walt Whitman, from Leaves of Grass, Book XXXIV: Sands at Seventy.\n<blockquote>If I should need to name, O Western World, your powerfulest scene and show,<br>\n'Twould not be you, Niagara--nor you, ye limitless prairies--nor your huge rifts of canyons, Colorado,<br>\nNor you, Yosemite--nor Yellowstone, with all its spasmic geyser-loops ascending to the skies, appearing and disappearing,<br>\nNor Oregon's white cones--nor Huron's belt of mighty lakes--nor Mississippi's stream:<br>\n--This seething hemisphere's humanity, as now, I'd name--the still small voice vibrating--America's choosing day,<br>\n(The heart of it not in the chosen--the act itself the main, the quadriennial choosing,)<br>\nThe stretch of North and South arous'd--sea-board and inland--<br>\nTexas to Maine--the Prairie States--Vermont, Virginia, California,<br>\nThe final ballot-shower from East to West--the paradox and conflict,<br>\nThe countless snow-flakes falling--(a swordless conflict,<br>\nYet more than all Rome's wars of old, or modern Napoleon's:) the peaceful choice of all,<br>\nOr good or ill humanity--welcoming the darker odds, the dross:<br>\n--Foams and ferments the wine? it serves to purify--while the heart pants, life glows:<br>\nThese stormy gusts and winds waft precious ships,<br>\nSwell'd Washington's, Jefferson's, Lincoln's sails.<\/blockquote>\n\n<p><I>Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus<\/I>,<br>-Vardibidian.\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In Which, again, it is not the chosen but the choosing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[204],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10711","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10711"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10711\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18156,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10711\/revisions\/18156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}