Even More Election Thoughts

I still haven't taken down my Obama yard signs. I should. It's been really cold, and I say that's the reason. But, if I still want to bask a little longer, why shouldn't I? Soon enough will be Thanksgiving, then it's full speed ahead to Christmas.

The November 17 edition of the New Yorker is full of election round up. Four articles packed full of interesting summaries and analysis of this year's presidential election. One about how Obama won the election. One about McCain and his personal transformation to this year's candidate. So interesting. I loved this quote:

During the spring of the 2004 race, McCain campaigned tirelessly--"worked his tail off," in the words of Bush's press secretary--for the President. The following year, he assured conservatives that he would support Bush's tax cuts. More shocking, in the spring of 2006, he announced that he planned to give the commencement speech at Liberty University, which was run by Jerry Falwell--one of the so-called "agents of intolerance" and "forces of evil." Several week before the address, McCain appeared on "The Daily Show." Jon Stewart, who has said that he would have voted for McCain in 2000 had he won the Republican nomination, expressed consternation that McCain was paying tribute to the religious right. "It strikes me as something you wouldn't normally do," Stewart said. When McCain insisted that he would speak at any university, Stewart asked, "Are you going into crazy base world?" McCain hesistated, then said, "I'm afraid so."

There was an article--The Joshua Generation--about Obama and race and the way he navigated racial issues throughout his campaign. (I love that phrase Joshua Generation. Maybe it's been around for a while, but it's only been recently that I've noticed it.) The final big article is about how the intersection of the economic crisis and the future of the Democratic party. Good stuff.

Here's a quote from Hendrik Hertzberg in The Talk of the Town that I liked.

Barack Hussein Obama: last week, sixty-five million Americans turned a liability--a moniker so politically inflammatory that the full recitation of it was considered foul play--into a global diplomatic asset, a symbol of the resurgence of America's ability to astonish and inspire.

There's a great analysis of Obama's victory speech. Which reminds me. I forgot to mention earlier how moving it was to hear the call and response of "Yes we can" between Obama and the crowd in Grant Park during his victory speech.

And finally, a great cartoon: "He's suffering from excessive-poll-monitoring withdrawal."

Religion and Politics

Speaking of Faith recently broadcast a two part series on the intersection between political party and religion. I started listening to the first episode last night, the view from the left. It was fabulous. Here is the blurb from the SofF website describing the episode:

The Religious Right has gotten a fair amount of coverage in recent years, while the political Left has rarely been represented with a religious sensibility. Our guest, a national correspondent for Time magazine is a political liberal and an Evangelical Christian who has been observing the Democratic Party's complex relationship with faith and the little-told story of its response to the rise of the Religious Right.

I am looking forward to listening to part 2, the view from the right.

More Election Thoughts

Before the momentous feeling of this election has completely escaped from me, I had a few more things I wanted to capture.

1. The night of the election, CNN kept showing the electoral map. I was really amazed at the sea of blue from New England to Minnesota, all the way across the eastern half of the United States. I liked this quote from Nancy Gibbs in Time.

He let loose a deep blue wave that washed well past the coasts and the college towns, into the South through Virginia and Florida, the Mountain West with Colorado and New Mexico, into the Ohio Valley and the Midwestern battleground: you could almost walk from Maine to Minnesota without getting your feet wet in a red state.

2. I've been moved by the international reaction to the election of a black man to the presidency of the USA. I think that in many other countries, and I'm thinking specifically about Europe here, that minorities are much more isolated from public life and the idea of one being elected to such heights is staggering, but also inspiring. Just my thoughts, here. I just read about how a woman in Kenya named her twins, born on November 5, Michelle and Barack.

3. I liked this quote from Joe Klein:

Obama's victory creates the prospect of a new "real" America. We can't possibly know its contours yet, although I suspect that the headline is that it is no longer homogeneous. It is no longer a "white" country, even though whites remain the majority. It is a place where the primacy of racial identity...has been replaced by the celebration of pluralism, of cross-racial synergy...IT is a country that retains its ability to startle the world--and in a good way, with our freedom.

4. A good friend recently moved to Chicago and happened to get a ticket to Grant Park the night of the election. I love that the Obama campaign held their election night rally in such a public place with the ability to accomodate so many people. Anyway, here is her account of the night, with some pictures. What an amazing experience to be there, but like my sister in Denver said, I think there was something in the air everywhere.

5. I loved reading about how Obama has had the same barber for the last 15 years. And the challenges of providing security to him and his family in Hyde Park.

Reading Of Late

In the lead up to the election, I was reading a lot online: scanning the news, looking at polling data, etc. I was also stuck in the middle of a dense book that took a lot to get through. But, now that the election is over, I have been able to clear off a few things that have been sitting around.

With Child: Mormon Women on Mothering. Edited by Marni Asplund-Campbell. I ordered this in the wee hours of one morning that baby Z wasn't sleeping. I had heard about it before and was interested. It's a collection of essays--mostly personal, but some poetry and fiction, one more scholarly piece. The quality is uneven and I thought it needed more editing to give it a cohesive feeling. One of the pieces was fascinating--about a woman discovering a story about her grandmother. It wasn't until I finished it and read the follow-up essay that I realized it was a short story rather than a personal account. Anyway, my favorite was a piece by Martha Sonntag Bradley, author of the amazing book 4 Zinas. In it, she talks about her experience as a mother of daughters and seeing them go through birthing their own children. I love this part:

I had the most remarkable experience during those ten minutes...I felt the tangible, palpable presence of a woman I study, Zina Diantha Young, herself a midwife present at the moment of her granddaughter, another Zina. Important to me was the warmth of the feeling, that I am sure came from her, that this was the most important miracle I would ever witness and that everything would be okay. That my daughter would be able to handle what this baby would bring to her and that their lives, and my own, would be better for the experience. I needed that comfort. And I believe Zina brought it to me.

This reminded me of my earlier imagination about the city of ladies. I would love to associate with both Zina Diantha Huntington Jacobs Smith Young and Martha Sonntag Bradley someday.

Lies my Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong. By James Loewen. I started this one a few weeks before the election since it focused on American history. It is a combination of critiquing high school history textbooks and retelling the history they got wrong. It took me a long time to get through it and I skimmed portions of it. He really wanted to show example after example of the European, white, middle class bias that text books have. I thought it could have been winnowed down a lot, and that it lacked any really helpful information for how to teach history. But, it was interesting and it has made me think about how I talk about history with my kids, especially MJ. With Thanksgiving coming up, there is some interesting things to talk about. And I had a good (although short) conversation with her after Obama's victory about the history of African Americans in our country.

Song of the Lark. By Willa Cather. I really love Willa Cather. It's been a while since I have read anything by her, and I was glad that we did this one for bookgroup. Thea, the protagonist, is such a complicated and interesting character. The story revolves around her quest to become a singer. I don't know that I liked who she was, but I admired her and her fierce dedication to her art. Added to that were a lot of other quirky and interesting characters. Plus, Cather's writing is so beautiful. This is one of my favorite passages from the book, occurring right after Thea, as a 13 year old, takes over the attic for her room.

The acquisition of this room was the beginning of a new era in Thea's life. It was one of the most important things that ever happened to her. Hitherto, except in summer,when she could be out of doors, she had lived in constant turmoil; the family, the day school, the Sunday-School. The clamor about her drowned the voice within herself. In the end of the wing, separated from the other upstairs sleeping-rooms by a long, cold, unfinished lumber room, her mind worked better. She thought things out more clearly. Pleasant plans and ideas occurred to her which had never come before. She had certain thoughts which were like companions, ideas which were like older and wiser friends. She left them there in the morning, when she finished dressing in the cold, and at night, when she came up with her lantern and shut the door after a busy day, she found them awaiting her. There was no possible way of heating the room, but that was fortunate, for otherwise it would have been occupied by one of her older brothers.

A room of one's own, indeed. I long for an attic spot of my own in our house. Everyone I turn are scattered the vestiges of my children's presence. I need to find a corner and make it mine. And then, if we ever move, seriously think about finding something with the potential for a real space of my own.

There is so much in Song of the Lark to think about. I am not doing it a bit of justice with this...


Wednesday Wars. By Gary Schmidt. This is a younger young adult book or an older children's book. I'm not sure what the cut-off there is. Anyway, the protaganist is an anti-hero in the form of a seventh grade boy, interestingly named Holling Hoodhood. Here's my goodreads review.

Cross the normal travails of a seventh grade boy with the turmoil of 1967-1968, throw in an English teacher with a penchant for diagramming sentences and Shakespeare, a peace loving, flower child sister, and two distant and neglectful parents, not to mention two rogue rats, and a delightful coming of age story emerges.

Here's the NYTimes review of it.

This came in my mailbox today

I love this week's New Yorker cover!

The Mystery of the Invisible Censor

My mom's extended family has a MyFamily website that we use to share recipes, good news, and the normal cute pictures of kids. It's a good way to keep better in touch with family that I rarely see.

On Tuesday night, after the election, one of my aunts put up a tidbit in the news section entitled "The Big Move" and then said, "K (her husband) is singing O Canada tonight." (To which I thought, are you going to escape the socialism that is supposedly coming to America by going to Canada???) One of my cousins replied to that, saying "We are going to stay here, just moving everything else offshore... What a mess."

I thought of some snide remarks that I could have made. But, I didn't say anything until later on Wednesday. I posted what I thought was non-confrontational, and understanding of the fact that this family is deeply conservative and Republican.

I know most of you probably disagree with Obama's politics, but does
anyone find any inspiration in his personal story, in the historic nature of a
black man becoming president, and in his message of unity and hope?

Not many people responded (which I guess I take to mean that no, they didn't find any inspiration in the campaign, that their disagreement and fear (and it is fear, I think, for at least some of them) of his politics overrode the other issues. So, whatever.

But, when I returned to the site later in the day, someone had changed my last phrase to read "and in his message of unity, hope, and socialism." And there was no attribution or signal as to who had changed it. It was as if these were the original words from my mouth. Now, we can have a conversation about the boogey-man that socialism has become in this election season, or about why a large proportion of the American electorate despise the idea of socialism (even though our country is far from a completely free market system). But, I was bugged that someone would rewrite my words and misrepresent me. So, I immediately wrote to protest. Something to the effect of "who did this? This isn't what I wrote." And I got a couple of responses, but no one admitted anything.

Then, later that night, I checked back, and the whole thread discussing the mysterious changing of my words has been deleted. As if it had never happened. Seriously? Censorship?

I put up another post acting like the whole thing was a joke, ha ha, tell us who's doing this, but now, two days later, no one will admit to a thing.

Was the change in my original post supposed to not be noticed by me? And then when I caught it, no one would take responsibility for it? If it was a joke, I find it hard to believe no one has owned up to it yet. I am bugged that someone who thinks Obama is a socialist wouldn't just come out and own that idea, but rather would just blame it on me.

Unfortunately, the administrator power of the website is dispersed across the 11 children in the family, and spouses and children probably also have some access to editing and deleting power. I looked at the time log of when people saw the post, but haven't been able to figure anything definitive out.

So, should I let it drop? Should I make one more passing comment on the thread? I find this really strange...

Election Night 2008

Today, the UPS man drove up to deliver my Barack Obama bumper stickers that I ordered back in early September. And, while I ordered an interesting oval emblazoned with "Yes We Can", I got a plain old Obama '08. Oh well. They probably waited until after the election to send out everyone's backordered gear hoping that we would be so overjoyed with the election results we wouldn't feel angry about out seriously late and replaced orders.

We wanted to go to friends to watch election returns. But, alas, babysitters for late evenings on school nights are impossible to locate. So, we resorted to staying at home, with our own election night events. We hustled the kids into bed and got out our own dinner. We decided to go with liberal, elite food, although perhaps good old fashioned chili and apple pie would be more in the spirit of Obama's campaign. Instead, though, we opted for steak sandwiches on pesto bread with arugula and goat cheese, goat cheese stuffed mushrooms, and chocolate souffle.

The first thrill of the night was hearing Pennsylvania called for Obama. Ohio followed shortly afterwards, and all of a sudden, I breathed a huge sigh of relief. Obama had it in the bag. It was exciting to watch the electoral and see red states change to blue states. Virginia! Exciting. Florida? Fabulous. And what??? Indiana??? For Obama? Wow! I filled out my election bracket and even I, who wanted to generate a landscape shifting, full sweep for Obama, didn't pick Indiana to go for him. So far, though, it was the only state I mis-predicted.. And if Missouri goes for McCain then I have 50/51. Yippee!

Just after 10 pm our time, when the west coast polls closed and the networks began calling the election for Obama, there was a knock on our door. Our neighbor D came over to bask in an Obama victory. A couple of minutes later, there was another knock, and the whole J family was on the doorstep with champagne and goblets. D brought us some Sierra Mist, and we went out and toasted to 4 years with Obama. It was an unseasonably warm day, so we stood outside talking for quite a while .

Then, back inside to hear the concession and victory speeches. I was moved to tears by McCain. He was gracious and kind, and maybe I'm being naive, but he made me believe that he would work with President Obama on all these huge issues America faces. I wondered if he regretted the nasty turns his campaign took at the end. From his speech:

In a contest as long and difficult as this campaign has been, his success alone commands my respect for his ability and perseverance. But that he managed to do so by inspiring the hopes of so many millions of Americans who had once wrongly believed that they had little at stake or little influence in the election of an American president is something I deeply admire and commend him for achieving.

This is an historic election, and I recognize the special significance it has for African-Americans and for the special pride that must be theirs tonight.

. . .

I urge all Americans — I urge all Americans who supported me to join me in not just congratulating him, but offering our next president our good will and earnest effort to find ways to come together, to find the necessary compromises, to bridge our differences, and help restore our prosperity, defend our security in a dangerous world, and leave our children and grandchildren a stronger, better country than we inherited.

And then, to listen to President-Elect Obama. It was inspiring to see the throngs of people who had gathered in Grant Park and in downtown Chicago to celebrate. I loved looking at all the different faces--old and young, black, brown, and white, and from across the entire economic spectrum. Looking at them, I saw the broad swath of Americans who have supported him and I felt hope that the polarization that has divided our country might lessen. Again, probably naive, but the line from Lincoln that Obama quoted is what I want to hang my hat on:

“We are not enemies, but friends — though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection.”

I loved his invocation of Ann Nixon Cooper, the 106 year old voter, and the way he was able to use her lifetime to talk about the progress we have made as Americans.

As he spoke, my heart was in my throat and I couldn't hold back the tears. This is such a milestone for our country. "If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible,... tonight is your answer." I was moved seeing Jesse Jackson's tear stained face.

Yes We Can

Images from last night