With or Without You (Congress)?

One of my professors (who just so happens is Iranian-born) said: "Americans live with the illusion of democracy. The pretense of choice. We choose between two (or three) people. That's choice?"

I was doing some dishes yesterday and thinking about the sad state of things given that we sent our leaders a pretty strong mandate last November.

I am not sure what the rest of you voted for, but I voted for these things ( short list to be sure):

1. To close Guantanamo Bay.

2. To give those inmates fair trials under US law.

3. Health care reform.

4. Education reform.

5. Ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

6. Getting American manufacturing back on track.

7. Working toward peace in the Middle East and ending bigotry against all peoples.

8. Gay Marriage and gay rights in every sense of that term.

9. Lower taxes for the working and lower classes.

10. Better environmental policies that at least *attempt* to minimize the damage that global climate change is having and will continue to have for centuries (any f*ckwad who wants an argument about that, I'm the lass that'll oblige you. My husband [a physicist] works on ice core samples from Antarctica with a group at Berkeley. Climate change is not a hoax or some political ploy to get you scared into recycling and using less carbon fuel).

So, as I pondered how slowly things change, if at all, a thought occurred to me: Why should the "powers that be" give the people *anything* they want?

Why?

What would happen if they did?

It would put them out of business and make their roles as wedge-drivers obsolete.

They would actually have to get real jobs and get in the trenches with the rest of us.

And the media?

What would they have left to do?

DING, DING, DING, DING.

Nothing.

Once they are in their ivory towers up on the hill, within the beltway, they live in a bubble that mutes all the cries of suffering and anguish and anger of their countrymen and fellow citizens of the world.

I suppose I am going through a phase of disillusionment. I don't expect our President to fix everything instantly. I did expect him to be different. To hold himself to higher standards and maintain his integrity.

Our country is having an identity crisis. Are we the moral compass of the world? (See any number of family-men-politicians who have gotten caught diddling someone other than their wife. The answer: Ummm, no.) Are we peace-makers or bullies? Do we care about our fellow countrypeople and want everyone to have a shot at a decent life beyond the worries of health care and shelter and food and a decent education? Do we give two shits about what is happening to our climate and the burden our actions are placing on generations across the world?

Why should things change?

Because its about the f*ck time things changed.

If our politicians won't wake up, Americans must recommit to making things change, with or without them. Even if we have to drag them kicking and screaming like children.

The time for the tug-o-war is over.

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When you're hanging by a rope...

...either tie a knot and hang on or ...

Guess what?

Another Republican has said "no" to Obama.

Can they not see they are getting played like fiddles?

Completely guarantees a Democratic Census in 2010.

I think Obama threw the GOP enough rope to either climb aboard OR to hang themselves.

I think definitely they have chosen the latter.

We have one smart man in our White House (and a strong, smart group of foxes and wolves as his pals).

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I lurve our new President

Statement of President Obama on the 36th Anniversary of Roe v. Wade

On the 36th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, we are reminded that this decision not only protects women’s health and reproductive freedom, but stands for a broader principle: that government should not intrude on our most private family matters. I remain committed to protecting a woman’s right to choose.

While this is a sensitive and often divisive issue, no matter what our views, we are united in our determination to prevent unintended pregnancies, reduce the need for abortion, and support women and families in the choices they make. To accomplish these goals, we must work to find common ground to expand access to affordable contraception, accurate health information, and preventative services.

On this anniversary, we must also recommit ourselves more broadly to ensuring that our daughters have the same rights and opportunities as our sons: the chance to attain a world-class education; to have fulfilling careers in any industry; to be treated fairly and paid equally for their work; and to have no limits on their dreams. That is what I want for women everywhere.

He. just. rocks.

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I was saving this for tomorrow...

But I had to share one of the smartest things I have heard in a long time.

In order for our country to heal, there is no "Right" there is no "Left" there is only FORWARD!

Thank you America for making the best choice, the right choice this time around.

If you haven't come across this Huff Post piece, it really sums up what I've been observing, thinking and witnessing all over the blogosphere and out here in the "real" world.

Happy Inauguration All!

PS: Please check out the post from earlier today of you have a moment. We must stay vigilant and no gets to sleep this time around!

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We are One America

The upcoming inauguration has me thinking a lot about the dreams of happiness we have for our own lives and the efforts we make along the way to realizing those dreams.

I also have been thinking about the manner in which we treat others to get where we want to go.

Are our actions guided by love and hope or are they guided by a sense of fear and resented obligation?

I think it has to do with the nagging sense that we, as humans, are about to witness some major changes in our world as we know it. We are living in a moment of history and have means to record our place in that history as a country in ways never possible before.

I can only write about the wonder and awe I feel when I see our new President--a man who inspires people he doesn't even know to want to be better people. Inspires them to be part of their neighborhoods and communities because that's how we are supposed to be.

This is not hero worship as some in the burgeoning wingnutteries would like to believe. Those who cannot see the goodness in Obama are choosing to be blind. Are shirking any responsibility to join together with the rest of America in fixing our limping country. There's a lot of haters out there. And their speeches or rants usually start with blame or an excuse. It's never about taking personal responsibility.

As a (sometimes) reluctant optimist, I often am disappointed by what I see when I take a look out into the world. I see people hating and hurting each other over fear. Fear that comes from ignorance. Fear that comes from self-loathing. Fear that comes from not wanting to change or to be kind because that might somehow take something away from them. Fear that their "deciders" are no longer there to make their decisions for them. Fear that comes from a sense of powerlessness.

I see people trying to put others into neat boxes to keep their sense of order:

• Democrat/Republican
• Liberal/Conservative
• Us/Them
  
• American/Un-American
• Smart/Stupid
• Pro-intellectual/Anti-Intellectual
• Capitalist/Socialist
• Friend/Foe
• Pro-Choice/Pro-Life
• Pro Gun/Pro Gun-Regulation
• Religious/Athiest
• Christian/Non-Christian
• Blue State/Red State
  

Those dichotomies never get us very far. One needs look only to history to see the danger of such binaries and the atrocities committed in the desire to make one side the "right" side.

The more I think on it, the more I realize: there's only one way we will get our collective asses through the reconstruction of America.

Together.

Perhaps instead of focusing on the things that divide us, the things that make us individuals, we should focus instead on the things we ALL share.

We need to reconceive the collective American Dream.

Here's some of my thoughts (and I welcome any responses regardless of agreement or disagreement).

The American Dream is about living life:

• With a sense of purpose
• Free from the fear of oppression
• With the sense of responsibility to your fellow human beings.
• As an example to others of tolerance, kindness, and charity.

The American Dream is about everyone--not just a select few.

I start this inauguration week with a confession and a pledge.

I admit, I was not as vocal or as participatory in my government as I should have been between 2001-2007. In some real sense, the attacks on our country fueled my fear that life was way beyond my control. That I was just one person in a sea of billions who had no power to change anything. So my sense of responsibility atrophied. I focused solely on my own personal dreams.

I lost hope in the bigger picture. I thought that every person was out only for him/herself.

I could never quite fit into that mold, no matter how hard I tried.

I noticed that kindness and compassion were things that were ridiculed. In the class I teach, students have confessed they see kindness as a sign of weakness. To be polite is to be beneath.

Huh?

I hear this type of idea thrown out by the voices of dissent. "Bleeding heart" is spat an insult.

I care about you; each and every one. And that doesn't make me weak, or stupid, or liberal.

It makes me human. Just like you.

And I pledge starting this moment, to live up to the potential that Obama sees in me, in all of us.

It's not about just him. He's one person. But so am I. So are you. And together, we are one America.

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Recession, foreign relations, and a rube

According to the AP, Rhode Island now leads the country in what is being called a "Deep Recession" by some analysts. Unemployment stands at 9.3% as of last November.

What is really hitting home for lots of families is that the decline of our economy is sharpening despite all of the dollars being printed and thrown at the problem. I am starting to think the folks with the padlock combination for the bank vaults at the US Treasury really have no clue what they are doing.

It's not that surprising either, given that even big-wigs in the banking industry didn't understand the higher math (derivative calculus) that was the model for capitalism for the past eight years.

Yes, mathematicians were controlling the markets, not economists or those with an education in finance.

Sound familiar?

Think Michael Brown and the disastrous response to Hurricane Katrina not that long ago.

In 2004 Bush replaced almost half of his cabinet positions, despite the promise in his acceptance speech that he would reach across the proverbial aisle. Nothing like changing horses in midstream (to horses who've never been in the water before).

Today, one of the best and brightest women in the US starts her confirmation hearing with the foreign relations committee for the Secretary of State position in Obama's cabinet. I was a bit leery of this choice (for my own personal reasons) but I am glad that she is getting a shot at the job. I think we need her steel and confidence heading into the mess created by the shoot first, ask questions later diplomacy that has become the hallmark of US foreign relations.

It is important, now more than ever, that we, as Americans put aside our beefs with each other and support our government AND criticize things we don't agree with by keeping in touch with our local and state representatives.

My lower back willing, I'm going to a peace rally for Gaza on Thursday afternoon on campus. It is being sponsored by a coalition of peace-proponents from across the spectrum:

The Lebanese International Organization,
Purdue Arab Society,
The Lafayette Area Peace Coalition (LAPC),
The Iranian Cultural Club,
The Turkish Student Association,
Amnesty International,
The Muslim Student Association.

I can't shake the disappointment that the local Hillel foundation is conspicuously absent from that list.

Our world needs more people involved who can put peace before ideology. Put hope and humanity before theology. It is only by this route, I believe, that our world will begin to heal.

If nothing else, it will give me something to think about instead of the speech Bush is planning to give on Thursday night. More and more I am starting to think about how he and Palin are cut from the same cloth.

Despite whatever tripe trips from his tongue on Thursday, this is what he's really thinking, swagger and delusional confidence aside:



Go 'way now, Georgie.

PS: Is it just me, or do any of you feel the momentum building again as we head into the final few days before the inauguration?

Thought for the day: Support our troops. We need them home. Out of harms way.

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Senate confirms: Obama is 44th president

I had to post a link here to the Chicago Tribune:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/sns-ap-electoral-votes,0,5577886.story

For those who don't want to read the link; the Senate confirmed the Electorial College Vote.

All you yahoo cooks and nut jobs can go away now. It's locked down, baby!

Oh, and in case you're one of those "Obama's not a citizen" whackos:
"Also on Thursday, Supreme Court Justice David Souter rejected an emergency plea to prevent Congress from certifying the electoral vote. It was the latest of at least 8 appeals to the court in recent months — all quickly dismissed — asserting that Obama is ineligible to be president because he is not a "natural-born citizen" as the Constitution requires.

Obama was born in Hawaii in 1961 to an American mother and a Kenyan father. Internet-fueled theories (emphasis mine; there's never been anything BUT these ridiculous theories) contend either that Obama's birth certificate is a fake or he is ineligible because he had dual nationality when he was born. Hawaii officials have said the birth certificate is authentic." (Chicago Tribune)

I hated to interrupt the most recent installment of my current series, but this is news, too!

Can't wait for the inauguration.

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Words I am scared to write

I have been doing some work on the current series. I am reading material on the relationships between countries in the area of the conflict. It's tough to me to feel as though I am entitled to have an opinion. On The Guardian, I've gotten put down by people who are enraged on all sides of opinion. When did being a Progressive Humanist start being a bad thing?

I have also been searching for news sources from the Near East. It's weird because I am scared even to type the following words on my blog for fear that I am going to be tagged as a some kind of non-American. I've been watching English Al Jazeera. I'm even more scared that I linked to it on my blog--somehow I will be banned from commercial airlines or fail to qualify for a mortgage. Given what happened to that family on AirTran last week, I wouldn't be surprised. My husband had an excellent point: if they were going to destroy the plane, why did they want the "safest" seats? Frankly, I want to know how America looks from an outsider's perspective. You know, the whole forest for the trees thingy.

Our cable company had a chance to carry English Al Jazeera and it was shouted down by people who thought it would convert Americans to the terrorist cause. Huh?

What's wrong with getting another news market's take on World events? Especially from those places in the World where Wars and Combat and Killing is going down? Should I be labeled with a question mark because I watched the BBC when there was still strife with Northern Ireland? Or read Irish newspapers when I traveled there in 1993?

This is what the so-called Patriot Act has done to my sense of freedom of speech. Just because there are extremists in the Muslim world doesn't mean every Muslim is an extremist.

As Gen. Colin Powell said on Meet the Press when he endorsed Obama:




Exactly. My point exactly.

We will never be free from fear until the unknown becomes the known.

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What does it mean when we say "America"?

In addition to the blogs I have followed for a while now, I have been reading more good ones lately.

Political Morsels and Other Droppings , A Time for Change, Musings of a Wandering Elf, True Blue Texan, and Willpen's World are great. These fine Americans are talking about the important issues in our culture. Issues where consensus is no easy thing.

It has started me thinking about what it means when we say "America". It's a term loaded with idealism and history and not all of it great.

There are a lot of folks who flung the Un-American-Monkey-Poo at each other this election cycle. Some are still trying it with the ridiculous tripe about Obama's birth certificate.

I recently called the Hawaii Department of Health I got so fed up with all the internet broo-haha; they don't just hand out birth certificates like Halloween candy. The poor fellow I talked to sounded exhausted and although he was very kind, I could tell I wasn't the first person calling with such inquiries (or even the 151,441st, given the tenacity of these kooks).

So, what does "America" mean?

We are THE social experiment that is the culmination of almost 3,000 years of Western history. People seem to think ancient Greece was the cradle of Democracy. To a certain extent, it was. But it had slaves, had a barbaric legal system in some cases (think Plato and hemlock; ideas could get you killed), and there were no rights for the ladies (except for a precious few and even they were sequestered like Vestal Virgins).

If I really stop to think about it, is the America of today so very far removed? We have a class of working poor in this country that have been falling through the cracks for several decades now. If you want a sad quick read about this, Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickle and Dimed is an excellent first-hand report about this huge group of Americans. They may not officially be known as slaves, but they indeed live, work, and die like they are.

As far as the legal system, I still can't figure out who it works for in America. I know there are many good attorneys and judges out there. However, I cannot help but feel sorry for them in a system where they are over-burdened with frivolous law-suits, ethics aren't always black and white, prisons are bursting at the seams, and innocent (and in many cases mentally ill or handicapped) people get put to death.

And women. Well, women in AMERICA are still fighting to keep the basic right to control whether or not they become pregnant or stay pregnant. I wish it were called pregnancy control-- birth control is jumping the gun 9 months way too early.

Perhaps the best thing about America is that it is hard to define-- it means something personal to each of us. Kind of like the religion thing. Or the gender thing. Or the sexual orientation thing. Or the thing we think of as freedom. 'Person'-al being the operative notion here.

I named this blog November Fifth for two reasons. First, November 5th, 2008 was the first day of a post-Bush 43 America. Second, I named it for Guy Fawkes. V for Vendetta is an excellent movie; if you haven't seen it, you should. You can't kill ideas like freedom or justice or hope. They live in the people who fight for them and for every one who falls defending these ideals, three more rise to take their place.

America is wounded; it's broken and yes, I still love it and believe in it.

Like Hemingway said, "The world breaks everyone, and afterwards many are strong at the broken places". As Americans we have entered a time when we begin the work to heal our country. The voices of irrationality will not drown out the voices of reason and civility. America will heal at the broken places, and afterward we will ALL be stronger for it.

Happy New Year; may it be the best one yet for each and every one of us here at home and everywhere on Mother Earth.

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Good GRIEF: QUIT BEING SORE LOSERS!

Well, they can try to get rid of the sore part; the loser part might be there to stay.

To all repugs out there (you know, those especially nasty conservatives--not all) who voted for Bush twice (or even once), here's some great pics of your lamest duck ever:*

This guy was leader of the free world for the past 8 years. No wonder our country is in the shape it is.

There's a fella afraid of a tennis ball (yet he's playing cricket, did they give him a "special" ball?).

"Yup, over and out." I don't know what's worse: the A-ok sign or the "hrmmph" face. Either way we won't have to see his goofy mug much longer.

PS:

Barack Obama had nothing to do with that IL GOV 'tard. Here's an excerpt from the transcripts released yesterday:

"On Nov. 10, Blagojevich griped the President-elect - "this motherf----r" - wasn't giving him a cabinet post, yet still expected the governor to appoint Obama's choice for senator. "F--k him. For nothing? F--k him." Obama's advisers were "not willing to give me anything except appreciation," Blagojevich complained the next day to an aide. "F--k them." (BBC News).

Does that sound like Obama was in cahoots with this ass hat? Any literate, critically thinking person should say: Hell no.

God, I cannot wait until January 21 when all the nay-sayers will finally have to shut their pie-holes and eat it!

People are trying to sell the vacant IL senate seat on eBay. I love this country.

* Courtesy of the Daily News

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Swaddling, Streisand, and a tree on the table

It's more than 24 days until the inauguration, when our new President will have flocks of shepherds visiting his humble abode, he'll be swaddled in a manger and three dudes he's never met will give him some gold and a couple of smelly blobs of goo. Oh, wait, wrong guy. Don't mistake me, I am TOTALLY stoked that Barack is heading for the White House. But the X-Mas is coming. The X-Mas is coming. . .

Yes, it is a beast. A monster. A time of year unlike any other when our desire for choking the living crap out of others far outstrips our need for holly, tinsel and sleigh rides. But not egg nog. Oh, no, nothing ever competes with the egg nog.

I had a couple of glasses whilst I trimmed the tree and decked the halls over the last few days (see widget on the lower left about my diss hell--not a word was written other than for this blog). Everything is dripping with memories. Swollen with emotion.

I am not sure why I do it, the decorating and wrestling with the lights and that f*cking ribbon, every year I swear I am not going to put it on the tree (the spiked egg nog helps). Perhaps it is a desire to recapture those feelings as a child of yummy things baking and getting bundled up to go sledding on the hill in our back yard or ice skating on our neighborhood pond. The glass topped table my mom would foist the tree atop so that there was room for gifts for our enormous family (Catholics and their litters). The choice X-Mas vinyl with Johnny Mathis, Steve Lawrence and Edie Gourmet (sp?), Andy Williams, Robert Goulet, Maurice Chevalier, and Barbra Streisand that all remind me (to tears most of the time) of those days as a child. I cry as I decorate, thinking of my parents singing "O Holy Night" together when I was little. Then the years after my parents' divorce when my mom sang it at our new church at midnight mass. I will never be able to listen to the traditional stuff without crying. I put ornaments on tree branches that once hung on the tree on the glass top table. I would lay under it and look up into the center after it was all put together. The picture of our tree above isn't on a table, but I like the reflection of it on the floor; it makes it look like it's up on that table, sort of.

This is my first X-Mas with my husband (as married folk, not living in "sin"). I made him a stocking (picture to come soon). I keep telling him that this or that will be part of OUR X-Mas traditions. My mom would always cry putting up the decorations. She would say she missed her Dad or Mom. In later years it would be my Dad or her brother she missed.

X-Mas is a beast. A monster. But it does help me remember to hug those I love a little harder, to be thankful for the laughter in my life, to maybe cut others a bit of slack. If I can't remember those few things, the egg nog helps. I promise. You should try it.

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Elephants, rats, and the merits of gargling

For almost ten years the conservative voices on the "right" in the US have mostly been in harmony. The last several months have turned their harmonious chorus of "small government," "tax cuts for the wealthiest 1%," and "let's go to war" into a cacophony of "holy sh*t," and "I'm conservative, but not THAT kind of conservative (re: Palin)" and "what the H do we do now?" All one needs to do is look at the number of high-profile Republicans who abandoned the sinking Palin- McCain, um, I mean McCain-Palin ship. Chris Buckley resigned from his own FATHER'S publication the National Review over his endorsement of Barack Obama. Just yesterday, David Frum wrote about our president elect using his middle name (as if we should fear him because his middle name is "Hussein;" get over it). A few weeks ago he got his ass handed to him by my newest hero, Rachel Maddow; (see if you can count the number of times he blinks). He's also resigning from NR. What is wrong with these people?

As the Elephants scramble to pick up the peanuts, the left leaning side of our country is finally clearing its collective throat. It's just in the nick of time. I am convinced that the increase in blogging activity and message boards on the web has expanded the extent to which Americans will go in attempts at establishing a dialogue. There are some particularly stupid people who have access to the web and in flexing their 1st Amendment rights are spewing the most ignorant crap (see this moron; like Palin, go 'way now). However, I have been finding more and more blogs by people who are rallying the troops, educating themselves on the issues, and are finding a way to stay connected to others with like minds in this hectic, economically terrifying time.

I know we won't ever completely be rid of the lowest of the low in terms of uneducated racists and bigots, but we sure can try to raise our own voices, talk to people we know, meet and greet new people ("Hiya; welcome to post-Bush 43 America. Would you like a side of social consciousness and Democracy with that?"), and do our best to keep the morons penned (pun intended) in the circus tents where they belong.

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Waiting for the inauguration is like watching hair grow

I've been trying to work on the chapter three revision of my dissertation (just sent it a few moments ago to my Chair and am rewarding self by blogging).
Ugh. Cannot wait to get my degree next May.

M&H (see blog above) had a great post today about life and the choices we make. Obviously, our country made a great choice last Tuesday (gosh, has it not even been a WEEK?!?!? The hell? How am I ever going to survive until January 20, 2009? It might as well be 2109).

But now I think it's about the other choices-- staying on the asses of our politicians to make sure they do the jobs we hired them for, getting our armed services out of harms way and leave those countries with whom we are at war with a stable structure of government (that THEY choose). Giving support to our troops once they return-- financial support for their health and their educations. We need to let gay people get married; it's a right, not a privilege allowed only the chosen. We NEED TO STOP GIVING MONEY TO GREEDY, POORLY RUN COMPANIES LIKE AIG! Do you realize they just got another $40,000,000,000!!!???? The f**k? Here's that number again:

$40,000,000,000.00

This to the company that spent over $2,000,000 in ONE WEEKEND to reward it's CEOs and executives with massages, and pedicures and HAIR CUTS!

Larry David had a great line on the huff post a last week; waiting for election day to get here was like waiting for biopsy results. Gads, how true.

Right now reminds of the time just after I finished six months of chemo and my scans were all clear. Waiting for my hair to grow back in and get caught up on some rest.

How fast does hair grow? I think it's about a half an inch per month or something. That means if you let your hair grow, once it reaches your shoulders it's two years old.

The stock market may still be in the toilet, the housing crisis will still be with us, gas and everything else will cost too much. But one thing for sure is: except for chemo folks and men who are balding (I love you!)- we'll all be a bit harrier by the time January 20th rolls around. I know I will be; I can't afford a haircut. *


* and you bald fellas will have little extra money in your pockets.

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Post Bush 43: Day IV

There's an old saying: Don't bite the hand that feeds you. Well, in my humble estimation, I think our country feels bitten by our government to which we have fed millions of dollars while it destroyed our standing in the world and in the eyes of over half its citizenry.

It takes seeing what a mess everything is to understand (with cold certitude) that just about everything in our domestic arena has been ignored over the last eight years. Ours has become a administration focused on one thing: oil and the dollars it moves abroad. Of course, that's way over simplified. Oil has become the root of all our evils: high food prices, joblessness due to outsourcing, increased terrorism in the world, lack of funds for domestic programs, the outrageous deficit that neither I nor my children will likely ever see paid in full, oh, and yeah, the hundreds of thousands of lives our occupation of Iraq has caused Americans, Iraqis, and coalition forces. Not even to mention the flood of veterans who are coming home only half way, physically and emotionally.

Our President (elect-- although most of his policy suggestions over the last 22 months have been adopted by our current administration) and our country have a lot of work to do. What seems great to me (yes, there is a bright side coming) is that there are more folks than not who seem ready for that work.

I've recently been reading about assaults on Obama supporters by McCain supporters. One woman wrote she was assaulted by her neighbor for asking for her Obama yard sign back (which was displayed upside down in her neighbor's yard). She's got the bruises to prove his reaction. Yes, you read that right: neighbor against neighbor.

Instead of asking the same question I've been asking myself for the last eight years (wtf is wrong with people?), I'm turning over a new leaf in this dawning post Bush 43 Era. What's right with people?

People all want the same things.

We want to feel safe knowing that our government is considering its citizens in its global actions.

We want a government that doesn't lie to us (see WMD argument and the cascade of goose-stepping that resulted) or talk to us like we have the reading skills of a 5th grader. (Apologies to anyone with the literacy skills of a 5th grader reading this, or any actual 5th graders, while I'm at it :)

We want to breathe clean air, to know that the water we drink is safe, the food we eat won't make us sick.

We want to live in a country that we can ALL be proud of.

I don't know about you, but I am sick and tired of being sick and tired. I sick of being afraid. I sick of being scared about what might happen. I'm sick of all of the intolerance the last 22 months has brought out in our country.

It's day four. Wonder what kind of pooch the White House is going to have running around in it? Hopefully it won't be a biter like Barney.

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November VII

There are reasons why the Roman empire fell. Lots of folks know why. It really boils down to this: selfishness and greed.

I think on Tuesday Americans turned away from those options. We all (hopefully) know that just because Obama got elected, that doesn't mean we should expect him to do ALL the hard work. It's going to take patience, fortitude and stick-to-itiveness for us to get through the coming months and years. We are going to need to learn to get along and count on each other. No one gets a pass this time.

When you get impatient with the person at the front of the grocery line who's writing a check or needs the price for something without a bar code, take a deep breath. You've been there and know how it feels to be that person.

When you're driving on the road, try not to get angry with nincompoops who don't know how to drive.

If the end of the month comes and funds are low (or empty) look to who you have in your life, instead of thinking about the things you don't.

My husband and I have been married for just over 5 months now. We are poor graduate students who live uber modestly, but we know we are working toward our goals. More importantly, we know we have it better than some folks right now. We have each other.

Now, I know this reads hokey and cheesy, but we all have to start somewhere, sometime -- even if it's the hundredth time we've started. Keep a good thought. After all, Rome didn't fall in one day-- it wasn't built in one day either.

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Do we still have to see her?

I know how that sounds. But one of the things I was looking forward to the most on November fifth was not having to hear what coffee cup knowledge Palin was spewing, what designer clothes she was wearing, which up-do she was sporting. If you need to know why, check out this clip from huffingtonpost.com:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/11/05/palin-didnt-know-africa-i_n_141653.html. For some reason the entire link isn't showing up, but if you go to huffingtonpost.com, click on the navigation bar tab for "Sarah Palin", it should be the first video that comes up. Wow. All I can say is wow. We all know O'Reilly defends her because she gives him a woodie. Or maybe he's just turned on by a gun toting, beauty pageant contestant who likes moose stew? Sounds about right for Bill-O.

Yeah, and dinosaurs and humans were on the earth at the same time just like on the Flintstones.

So, to avoid a litany of complaint (from this point forward), today I want to reflect on the youth vote and the amazing turnout. The first election I voted in was Clinton's first term. I was in undergrad. In the haze of my underage hubris I believed he might win or lose depending on my vote. He won, and I know my ballot didn't matter too much in deeply blue Massachusetts. Yet, I am basking in the fantasy that my vote (in newly blue Indiana) did help make a difference. Obama won my county by only 7,290 votes. Obama won the state by 26,163 cast ballots-- that's fewer people than the university I attend and at which I taught.

I had a student in one of my freshman classes last year who was from just outside Manhattan. One class day, our discussion focused on the memorial at the WTC site, and some students started talking about the war in Iraq. I didn't point out the fact that these two things are mutually exclusive because that would have started a whole new debate. Anyway, this young woman of whom I write was sitting in the front row; she was usually engaged in class discussions, but on that particular day, she looked uncomfortable. In fact, more than a few students looked uncomfortable. In a lull in the discussion, I asked the class, "Is this a bad topic for our discussion? Should we be talking about something else?" Sally (name changed to protect her innocence) reluctantly spoke up: "I don't care about the war. I know that's not a popular position, but I just don't." I was trying to hide my surprise, when she then said, "Yeah, I lived outside Manhattan the day the towers fell. I didn't care then either. I didn't know anyone who was there, and I don't know anyone who is in Iraq."

Out of sight, out of mind is what I wanted to say.

Now, I am a teacher that firmly believes in NOT pushing my views on my younglings. Never had I needed to fight the urge so strongly than at that moment. Luckily, I can think on my feet (most of the time) and was able to divert my focus to the class and not my own reaction. I simply asked, "Does anyone else feel like Sally?" More than a dozen hands slowly raised. I admit, my heart sank. Another young woman said, "I feel so much better knowing I'm not the only one. I mean, it's like bad to not care about the war and stuff." (Again from another engaged and engaging student.) Some others volunteered that they didn't care about politics or world affairs in general. Many nods of assent to those comments.

I didn't teach this fall for the first time in five years-- alas, my funding ran out but I am still completing the worst paper I've ever written (i.e., my dissertation). I understand from the news that the youth vote was critical in deciding this election. I can't help but think that some small part of me sees why those students resisted thinking or feeling anything about our country and the state of world affairs. I might have felt that way on November fifth if Obama hadn't won. I don't need to be reminded of that potential outcome everytime I still see Palin on camera. One way I suppose to avoid my gag reflex is to watch Fox as much as I normally do--rarely, just for a giggle. I guess I should take a clue from my freshman foils and just mute the TV and close my eyes everytime Palin gets airtime.

Out of sight, out of mind. I'll let you know how it goes.

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