XLIV.

Posted by Jeff Craven on November 19th, 2008 filed in Journalism, Life, Politics

Wow, it’s been almost two months! I have a little bit until I need to go out on assignment, so let me fill the gap with how I’ve been keeping myself busy.

First off, you’ve probably noticed I’ve been posting stories. I am taking a magazine fiction writing class, and I’m posting my work on here as a gauge for how far I’ve come in writing fiction. Not very far, I’m afraid. This latest story is my favorite (and the best, to me) out of all of them, but it was the last major story we had to write for the class. I learned quite a bit from the class. While journalism has me occupied until at least the middle of next month, I’d like to get some fiction published by the end of the year, either by editing one of my old stories or creating a new one.

Second, my internship ends for the Philadelphia Daily News on December 15th. I need to speak with the folks there about the legality of posting published articles from them (even their online counterparts) in my portfolio section, since they are a bigger company and own a few more things than the people over at Metro. I’ve had a lot more time at the Daily News and the staff is a great help whenever I have a question, so I am getting a lot more out of this internship than I did at Metro. That’s not to say Metro was bad, it’s just the Daily News had a more organized intern program and Metro has less people to go around. Both were good experiences in their own right.

Thirdly, I am very interested Barack Obama. He is not going to be the person to completely change how Washington is run. He is not going to be the next Abraham Lincoln or FDR. He is most certainly not going to be the end of the world, as some Republicans are claiming. But he is relatively grassroots, which means he brings a different perspective to politics. He is fresh, but not revolutionary.

I think his opposition is overreacting just a little bit. Part of the political process is acceptance, which many people forget. People on both sides of the spectrum have claimed through the 2000, 2004 and 2008 presidential elections that they will leave the country if [insert person here] is elected. I have never seen a person own up to it, to be honest. I had made a similar threat in 2007, but admitted it would take a few years in order to get myself prepared to leave. I eventually want to leave the country anyway, so it wasn’t an empty threat, it just fell into my plans at the moment. I disagreed with McCain’s policies not because I didn’t want to keep my money through his economic plan, but because I don’t have much money to begin with. I get to keep my own money? I do that already: it’s a $200 stipend for two weeks of working 25 hours every weekend, and I get to use $180 of it every month to pay for a train pass to get me to school. I have nothing to lose through the “share the wealth” plan. If Obama wants to give some working class family my bus pass while I grab a few grand from some corporate schmoe making way too much for doing way too little, I am all for it.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to open a window in here. My hyperbole is intoxicating and I want to be able to share the oxygen around me with everyone else.