October 26, 2012 – Foster the People singer Mark Foster felt the (indirect) wrath of Prince last night when he got booted from the Purple One's exclusive L.A. show at the Sayers Club. TMZ's cameras captured the musician attempting to talk his way back into the venue after he had been removed for using his cell phone. Prince, a notorious Internet hater who hired the Web Sheriff to scrub cyberspace of his songs and videos, does not permit unauthorized photography or videography at his concerts. Security alleged the "Pumped Up Kicks" singer was snapping a photo; Foster insisted he was checking a text.To his credit, Foster wasn't a jerk about his expulsion. After telling the bouncer he needed to get back in for myriad reasons that included an unpaid bar tab, he was kind to a photographer shooting his snafu. After a few minutes, security agreed to let him back in, sans his phone.

October 22, 2012 – Something that really concerns me is that people get discouraged because the election process is like watching a bad comedy. It's all just slander advertisements. It's really sad that this is what it's come to, and it seems like there's no point. But there is always a point, because if we don't practice the use of our voices to make a difference than we lose that power.This whole election process in our country has gotten really warped and so far away from what it's supposed to be. It's being manipulated all over the place in a way that doesn't serve the people. It's really important for us to stay aware and stay engaged and deal with all the stupid new voting red tape and make sure that we still use our vote to keep the country as close as possible to being run by the politicians that we choose.Voter ID laws can seem completely random from state to state.

October 22, 2012 – I know there are many issues going around in this election, but I've been very active with an organization called Music for Marriage Equality, which is trying to pass Referendum 74, which would approve gay marriage in Washington State. This is an issue that's close to my heart because my sister is gay. She's married to an amazing woman and it's not a union that is recognized by the state of Washington, or many other states for that matter.Here in Washington, the governor, Chris Gregoire, voted [gay marriage] into law earlier this year, and the religious righters began to accrue enough signatures to basically put it to a popular vote. Other states have tried and failed to do this in the past.

October 22, 2012 – My grandmother took me to the polls when I was literally at her knee. I remember standing in line and looking at the pretty ladies with the pretty legs and stockings sticking out from the curtained booths.I was a little pervert. That was part of the bonus for going to vote. You got to see legs.When we would leave the polls, I would ask my grandmother: "What were we doing? Why were we voting? And why was it important who we were voting for?"My grandparents didn't like Ronald Reagan and voted against him. There were very heated conversations about him.The Ayatollah Khomeini's picture was everywhere, and I was supposed to be afraid.A lot of things that I'm seeing now feel like repeats of when I was a child. That's why I don't believe a lot of the propaganda.Thankfully, my grandmother took me voting.

October 22, 2012 – At this point we have seen and felt the failure of "trickle down" economics. The gap between the "haves and have-nots" becomes greater and greater each and every day. I believe the answer is to relieve the strain and burden on the declining middle class in order to revive growth, small business, and entrepreneurship. There needs to be a redistribution of wealth in America before greedy corporations and wealthy individuals extinguish the American Dream. Even Warren Buffet said as much in his New York Times op-ed "Stop coddling the super-rich."My stance on gay marriage and women's health care is drenched in civil liberties. I want religion out of my government and, frankly, out of my uterus! I want to preserve the civil liberties that this country fought so hard to uphold for all Americans.

October 22, 2012 – Without a doubt, gay rights is the defining issue of our generation and of this period in history. Only a couple of decades ago our government and the medical association was telling us that homosexuality was a disorder or a disease or a mental illness. Going back to my parents' generation, you can't fault people for not understanding homosexuality or transgender or anything like that because the authorities were telling them information that was completely false. Then things changed and we got all the correct information — there's obviously a learning curve there. But people of my generation, I'm 28, have no excuse. We have every bit of knowledge that we need to know from a scientific standpoint and a social standpoint.

October 22, 2012 – My mother became a United States citizen in 1987 or '88. She remembers, hazily, taking the test to transfer her Indian citizenship, which involved "English proficiency, the history of America, reading and understanding a newspaper," and "state capitals and all that."She took the 7 train from Jackson Heights, Queens, to take the oath of citizenship in Manhattan at the District Attorney's office. She brought her naturalization certificate, which had been mailed to her home address. Her first time voting in an election was 1988. One of the reasons she decided to vote, she says, was the advantage of "choosing your own people" — and how that was a "privilege."My father, who arrived in 1978, was living in Woodside, Queens at the time, sharing a four-bedroom apartment with his brother and some of their friends.

October 22, 2012 – The most important topic to me in this election is healthcare. Everyone, regardless of race, age, creed, or economic standing in this country should be well taken care of. Period. End of story. It makes me so sad to think of homeless citizens on the street in dire need of good medical care — be it physical or mental — with no access. I cry tears of rage for families ripped apart by debt when a loved one falls ill or suffers an accident while uninsured. To think that something so out of one's control could wreak physical, spiritual, and totally unnecessary financial havoc on one's life and livelihood is just insane.

October 22, 2012 – The most interesting part about this year's election, for me at least, has been watching the Democrats and Republicans and, really, the American political system as a whole, search for a discernible identity and ideological vision. We are facing a new day with respect to how we will balance domestic and international policy, and the manner in which these interests are to be prioritized to serve our overall national interest. Rather than subscribe dogmatically to one or another version of what are essentially the same, watered down political parties, separated (at least in the modern era) by a few "hot button" issues, the savvy voter will choose the candidate that best espouses a focused and organized approach with regard to how we will strategically direct our resources toward the greater good of the country.Throughout the last decade, this has been a largely outward directive.

October 22, 2012 – It's hard to believe that someone on the fence or determined not to vote is going to be swayed by some musician or band while reading SPIN. But something that is important for me to remember, as someone who once shared that ambivalence towards voting and my country, is that I can't simultaneously critique the system and not participate in the democracy we are a part of that supposedly makes up the system.How can I complain about the eroding rights and liberties I have if I don't exercise the [right] that ensures the existence of the others? How can I complain about a one-party system that pairs two evils against each other (so that I hope the less shitty-evil corporate pawn wins) if I don't participate in the process to change that very system?