Excuse #1 – Some of you might know that I now call Brooklyn home. The month leading up to my departure from Sag Harbor was so emotionally fraught, this blog fell by the wayside.

Excuse #2 – I’m part of the slacker generation.

The Future – If my wonderful editor continues to allow the Word of John to be brought forth to the visitors of this site, I will focus on two topics over the next two months: what I miss about Sag Harbor and the unbelievably patronizing, deceitful and overall sad GOP ticket for this November’s presidential election as well as the talking heads who try to legitimize its agenda.

I’ve been watching the GOP convention this week for one reason and one reason only – know thy enemy. And last night I was appalled, not by Sarah – what’s her name? – [PAY-lin] (after she was chosen as the ticket veep, an email was sent around to party members letting them know the correct pronunciation of her name). No, I was appalled by Rudy September 11th Giuliani. I have never in my entire life, albeit a short one, of watching political speeches seen someone so uneducated about the issues steep to such low levels of character bashing. When he made fun of Obama’s background as a community organizer, saying “what’s that” and lifting his arms and shrugging his soldiers like he had never seen the one noun precede the other, my jaw dropped to the floor of my girlfriend’s Queens apartment. It was like he was a school-yard bully taunting the kid who chose to read during recess. And everyone knows R-u-d-y is a small man, so the Napoleonic complex thing is not hard to grasp. But the direct assault on Obama’s character not only made him sound ignorant, for a former mayor certainly should know what a community organizer is, it also made him look pathetic. And as he said the election would come down to substance not style, he certainly provided none of either, all the while showing a considerable lack of class.

Which brings me to one thing I miss about Sag Harbor – community organizing. Sag Harbor has more community groups than it knows what to do with and while those groups often butt heads, they serve as a reminder of the democracy we live in. I have never lived in a place where people are so quick to pick up a cause and go full steam ahead with such energy and passion. Even if that cause is as misguided as attempting to create lower property taxes by continually blasting a school district and its board.

Sag Harbor is intense when it comes to community organizing, something that Wasilla, Alaska might be able to relate to, though I sincerely doubt it.

Broken Social Scene, an indie-rock band from Toronto, played the Siren Music Festival at Coney Island on Saturday and at the end of their set, lead singer Kevin Drew told the captive audience to go out and vote for Obama. The fact that an indie-rock band was stumping for the Democratic nominee is not remarkable. After all when he was campaigning in North Carolina a few months ago, Superchunk, an indie-rock stalwart since the early 90’s, played a fundraiser for him. And in Portland, it was a band called the Decemberists that drew thousands of his supporters to a pre-rally concert. Actually Obama, rather smartly, has locked in this demographic from day one of his race. Last July I was in Chicago for a huge, three-day, indie music festival and there was a booth selling Obama bumper stickers and t-shirts. I bought a bumper sticker and just a couple of months ago when my parents were visiting, my mother saw it in my room and asked if she could have it. She said a co-worker of hers back in Alabama was always bashing Obama and had a McCain bumper sticker on her desk. My mom wanted to pick a fight.
But I digress; back to Saturday night. The lead singer of this band full of Canadians told everyone to go out and change the world. He said a vote for Obama is not only a vote for change in “your country” but for change all over the globe. Again he reminded everyone that he was not “one of us” and instead said he was only our “neighbor.”
And that’s just it.
Obama’s election is not only important for America; it’s critical for the rest of the world. Everyone is watching us, and in contrast to the last eight years, they are watching with optimistic eyes. An Obama victory this November will reverberate beyond our borders as the first step to cleaning up the wreckage Bush is leaving in his international wake. A British friend told me today, waiting in line to get coffee, that all of her friends back home were pulling for Obama. She also said her friends constantly ask her why she chose to move to America, to which she responds, “not everyone supports Bush’s policies.”
I feel safe predicting Obama won’t receive the same reception when he visits London in a week that “W” did the last time he was there.

As gas prices soar, sales of SUVs have reportedly declined over the last months, but you wouldn’t know it from driving around here. True, the Prius seems to be the trendiest car on Main Street these days, but the SUV still rules when it comes to weekend warriors. Yesterday driving home from the city I was amazed at, first, the number of cars and second, the number of gas-guzzlers.

The westbound traffic was simply mind-boggling. As I passed the never-ending string of headlights, the only thing I could compare it to was being stuck in post-game traffic in the south on a Saturday. But in that case, the traffic is justified. Gridlock is expected when 90,000 people leave a football game at roughly the same time. It’s event oriented, sort of like when you slice your finger and there’s a rush of blood at first but then you apply a little pressure and it stops bleeding.

What I witnessed though on Sunday evening was more akin to uncontrollable hemorrhaging, like a twelve-year-old just took a grounder to the nose on a nasty hop. It was like a never-ending bloodletting. At one point, as I was driving on 27, I actually thought about calling a friend to see if everything was okay, to make sure it wasn’t evacuation traffic.

What was more startling than the sheer number of vehicles however was the number of SUVs. I probably shouldn’t have been doing this, but I was trying to count them as I was driving. I don’t have a total, but I’ll just say that from exit 60 to exit 70 on the LIE, I counted 147 SUVs and I think I saw at least one Panzer tank. It occurred to me that had a person from say, Holland, been in my passenger seat they would have thought the Hamptons were the sole source of global warming.

Where are these people staying on the weekends? There can’t possibly be enough houses in all of the Hamptons to hold them. How many people can possibly fit in a summer-share house? And are they driving somewhere I’m not, where they need to have four-wheel drive? I’ve yet to find the mountainous terrain in Amagansett. Perhaps they’re driving off the cliffs in Northwest Woods. I could only be so lucky.

Let me preface this post by stating that my television only goes up to channel 23, or else I probably would not wake up each morning to Joe Scarbrough. Having said that, he is a good ‘ol southern boy like myself and I do find myself identifying with him from time to time.
So on “Morning Joe” today NBC’s political director Chuck Todd described The New Yorker cover, which depicts a cartoon of Barack Obama in full Muslim garb giving a pound to a Black Panther-esque Michelle Obama while standing in the oval office, as “going tabloid.” Specifically Todd chalked up the poor editorial decision to the state of the print media industry, implying one of the most respected and recognized magazines in the entire world, who I can only imagine has a relatively strong subscription base, needed to “boost sales.” Lets hope that isn’t the case.
There has to be a line when it comes to print publications trying not to go quietly into that good night and The New Yorker in my opinion crossed it. I can buy their argument that the satirical cartoon portrays how the potential first couple is viewed in certain twisted, misguided, right-minded corners of the country. At least I can buy it up to a point. But somewhere along the way there was an editorial meeting and the decision to go with the cartoon on the cover as opposed to inside was made. The New Yorker, instead of creating constructive dialogue on the issue, only created a new spam email that will be circulated by the same people the cartoon alludes to.
Anyone who reads The New Yorker knows where the magazine stands on the political spectrum and those readers also know what political satire is. But the problem lies with those who don’t read the magazine regularly, or who don’t read regularly at all. Instead of being a tool to enlighten and educate, which the best political cartons do, the cartoon is most likely going to be used only to perpetuate the political ignorance it depicts.