Friday, November 10, 2000

Halloween and Green Parties

This week was an eventful one for the residents of South Pole City. On Saturday, many of them gathered at the Summer Camp lounge for the annual South Pole Halloween party. Most people showed up in costumes of varying degrees of creativity. I skuaed a dreadlock wig hat and went as Bob Marley. (To "skua" means to take something from the "Skua Bin," where people leave still-usable things-- mostly clothes-- that they don’t want anymore. It usually overflows after the winter with items dropped in by the outgoing winter-overs.).

Volunteers decked out the Jamesway with Halloween decorations and a amateur D.J. provided the music. It felt good to relax and get out of the Dome for a while for the first of many planned parties this year. Unfortunately, my stay was cut short, as I had to go to work a little more than an hour after I got there.

Festivities for the week were not over yet however. On Tuesday the station held a mock election for President. Alex, the assistant Mayor of South Pole City (assistant station manager), put together ballots and a polling station in the Pole Station galley, and when the poll closed on Wednesday and the ballots were counted, everyone was eager to hear the outcome (well, maybe not that eager.)

How the citizens of South Pole City voted:

	Ralph Nader:	32 votes
	Al Gore:	30 votes
	George W. Bush:	7 votes
	John Gomez:	6 votes

(no recounts demanded; no lawsuits pending)

It seems that the Green party can thrive in a land where there is nothing but White.

That same day I figured out a way to receive a live audio broadcast of CNN through my laptop computer. Fortunately (or maybe unfortunately), I was just in time to tune in to the real election results as they came in. When the satellite went down at 2 PM our time, the media had just predicted Gore to win Florida and it seemed certain he would win the election as well. With no satellite access until midnight, I decided to call it a day and went to bed (I’m working nights, remember.) When I woke up, I wandered down to the weather office and asked if the election results were known. I was informed that while I was sleeping, the news had come across the radio from McMurdo and the reported winner was announced on the station’s "all call." So most people on station went to bed thinking the same thing Americans back home did: George Bush was to be our next president.

We never trust what McMurdo tells us anyway. The next morning the concise emailed edition of the daily New York Times was a more popular read at breakfast than usual. And as the week went on we have followed the developments of this crazy election through the morning paper and on the Internet.

No, we are not completely disconnected from the world, although many here would like to be. Live television at the Pole will even be possible in the near future, but the idea is not popular. Personally, I am torn between keeping that constant contact with the outside world from which I came -- now so easily accessible by technology -- and the ability to let go of it all to be a true frontiersman, the persona that many Poleys here would like to inhabit. That is really not possible though. There is no escape from the ever-pervasive reach of the media, of civilization, and of election news; even here, at the very bottom of the world.