Friday Five
Not so much fun this time. Oh well. Something to do when avoiding work, right?
1. Did you vote in your last elections?
Of course I did. And my vote counted, because NOVA isn’t getting a sales tax increase. At least, not yet. 🙂
2. Do you know who your elected representatives are?
Hell no. I used to follow that stuff when I lived in Pittsburgh, and I still followed those elections. But not down here — ironic because of my location. 🙂
3. Have you ever contacted an elected representative? If so, what was it about?
Hmm. I remember writing to a newspaper because I was pissed off about the Hatch Act (early 1990s — I was 16) — it was published. Oh, wait, when I worked at my last job, I contacted our state and local representatives and senators to attend press conferences and to write letters of support for the agency for grants for which we applied. I DID write to Ronald Reagan when I was 10 years old, ranting about the effects of the steel mills closing down in Pittsburgh in 1984. I described the struggles of our families who now had a laid-off head of household. I somehow thought Reagan was responsible for it. I got a letter and a cool book about the Oval Office for my efforts. 🙂
4. Have you ever participated in a demonstration?
Yep. Mostly rallies though, for mental health and the Democratic party (I don’t have any political affiliation anymore). IKEA Boy and I attended a Ku Klux Klan meeting in Pittsburgh — actually, they were having a rally and we were with the protesters. Not that we were protesting it, actually. We were on the student newspaper at college and we simply went out to get the story. It was fucking scary inside the cage. We stayed outside and just observed, as we expected pandemonium to erupt at any moment. Pittsburgh is very much a black-vs.-white city, so everyone felt passionate about either the rights of the Klan to meet or the audacity of the Klan to exist. My opinions at the time fell somewhere in the middle of the extremes, so I was just an impartial observer.
My participation in demonstrations has, of late, been limited to voting and to signing petitions. (That reminds me, I need to renew my NOW membership and make a donation to NARAL and the ACLU when I get a raise, hopefully in January.)
5. Have you ever volunteered in an election? What was the result?
No. I did have friends who campaigned for local leaders when I was in high school, but I didn’t participate. I wish I had, though.