Pro-Anti-Anty-Pro-Ante

We have a mild ant problem in our apartment...yuck-o. So, my roommate got a bottle of Raid. I don't love insecticide but I was intrigued by Raid's design choices--the spraycan sports a bold image of a capsized ant in silhouette struck down by a golden thunderbolt-- it's a portrait of a "black ant down". See! They are utilizing a type of "sympathetic magic" on the RAID can--slightly grisly and un-sympathetic sympathetic magic, perhaps. But here's the drill, my cavewomen and cavemen: draw a picture on your wall of thirst and drought slaked with rivers of snow melt, and famine broken by a harvest of lovely asparagus and beets (or your fave veggies, those are mine), and then we will have a harvest o'plenty and cold clear water... That's sympathetic magic. Like begets like. And who doesn't like drink and food for all. I am pro that.

So, is the point, ante up with your pro image of anti-ant antlessness? Or something deeper... but hey, poor sacrificial ant. Cuz, maybe sympathetic magic is more about that which can be brought into being, not what you wanna erase. Ants are a species that, after all, are here to stay (just hopefully not infesting your kitchen permanently). But sympathetic magic is more about what you're pro, not anti, right?

Like this week's election. I am pro checks and balances --it keeps a government from zooming off with nothing to stop bad decisions based on lies, bad intelligence, misinformation from special interests.That isn't functioning so very well when the executive branch has no one in congress to put up speedbumps. Yikes. But now, perhaps we got some sympathetic magic working at the polls--not to gloat, but HELL, YEAH! Demos got Congress. And we got our first female Speaker of the House!! I am SO pro that.

And I am also SO pro tolerance ( or anti intolerance which is a double negative making it positive and thus pro). Don't you know, global climate change and the lack of universal healthcare (for examples) are way bigger threats to the American family than gay marriage (which is being used for its inflammatoriness as distraction and isn't really any kind of threat to anyone ever, is it now, let's get real).

And hey, I am pro the way the statue of liberty requests the privilege of all our company. Here's the updated Emma Lazarus poem.

Give me your tired, your poor, your gays
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming ways
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me:
I lift my lamp beside the golden bays

We've all of us anted up with our presence here in this motley collection of cities & states. Let's play some sympathetic magic--but! we gotta use this power for pro, not anti. Let the ants fall where they may.

ps... In San Francisco we had a ballot measure recommending the impeachment of Bush and Cheney. I thoroughly savored voting for it. I am pro accountability, for reals.