this woman’s work

Did you cry during his acceptance speech? 

I think about how our international standing has just improved and I feel so hopeful.

The popular vote was still pretty close; we have a lot of work to do to bring this country together. (So Brett said no gloating around McCain supporters; he said we have to be good winners.)

Madison loves to see Obama with his little girls. She likes to see when he holds their hands and picks them up. I told her that because the president of the United States is a little bit like our king as elected by us, this means his little girls are now like the princesses of the United States. “And they are beautiful brown-skinned girls just like you.” 

She may not get the historical import yet but she gets the princess comparison. She’s pretty happy about it.

Pennie tried to call when he took Ohio but didn’t think to call our cell (I was at Abby’s with Kristen and Lynne) then we called her when CNN officially announced it. 

Pennie and I bonded about politics four years ago. It’s hard to remember but at the beginning we were excessively careful with each other and we didn’t talk politics. But then when Kerry was running she called me up and asked if I was voting “for Frankenstein or the chimp” and I said, “Frankenstein all the way.” And happily it turns out that we share our liberal politics. She was happy that the kids have been such a part of this election process and liked hearing that Madison helped hang flyers on doors the other day. 

I’m glad and grateful that Madison got to talk to her first mom on that historic night. I’m glad that we both thought to call each other. 

Abby had a great evening planned. The kids had an electoral map to fill out and Kristen and Lynne brought apple pie (raw and cooked respectively). I brought sparkling juice so the kids could toast the winner, which meant that Madison came up every ten minutes to see if we could do some toasting yet. 

I haven’t looked at any of the ballot measures yet so I’m going to make the kids pancakes (we slept way in) and then spend some time trolling the internet. Then it’s off to skating, home to work and later tonight I get to hook up with Andrew to talk politics (probably) and writing (definitely).

They played India.Arie’s song at the Dublin rally and I’ve been listening to it an awful lot since then: There’s Hope

The kid and I are joining friends to post door hangers reminding folks to vote. I don’t know that this kind of thing helps but it’s better than sitting around refreshing political sites, right?

It’s a beautiful day for a meandering walk in a neighborhood — sunny and warm but not too warm.

I still haven’t voted. I missed getting out before the lines got long and honestly tomorrow’s the only day I can spend standing in line for hours so tomorrow it will be. At least it’s close enough to home that Noah can run home for a sandwich if need be.

Wednesday is going to be the first day in a long time when I can catch up on housework. HighBall is over. I quit the timesuck job. I closed out a client project and turned in an article today. I have another big project to do but that’s the only thing looming. It’s a nice rest period (thank goodness) and that means I have time to mop floors! Of course when Obama is in office I’m sure none of us will never need to mop floors again because life wil be perfect! (I think I’m headed for a post-election crash. Seriously.)

But I need to catch up! Because this big project may be all there is for now but I’ve got two other big jobs on the horizon and the holidays are going to show up before I know it!

LIE: “They live half a mile from William Ayers, the unrepentant terrorist” and “Just a half a mile from those homes is Louis Farrakhan.”(Hannity’s America, October 5, 2008, “Obama and His Friends: History of Radicalism”)
TRUTH: It’s true, of course, that Obama lives in this same neighborhood, as do tens of thousands of other people who presumably are also guilty by geographical association. The logic of this argument would be, if you live half a mile from a sex offender, then you agree with child molesters.

LIE: Obama and Ayers “appeared together at various public engagements…it would seem that they are more than just a little bit friendly.”(Sean Hannity, Hannity’s America, October 5, 2008, “Obama and His Friends: History of Radicalism”)
TRUTH: Appearing on a speaking panel is not a sign of friendship. There is no evidence that Obama had any role in ever inviting Ayers to speak.

from Thirty Lies Refuted About Ayers and Obama

Can you imagine? That’s like saying because you read my blog you agree with me about EVERYTHING. “So-and-So running for office has this woman’s work bookmarked. Cleary So-and-So is a pro-choice homeschool zealot who wants to open all adoption records and force kids to listen to showtunes!”

(Ok, the open all adoption records and showtune-listening, it’s true we should do more of that but I’ll leave the rest to your own opinions.)

In other words, you better stop reading me now unless you agree with every little last thing I say so that no one gets the wrong idea about you!

Now I’m off to scour my own bookmarks and eliminate every single person who ever made one comment, blog entry, messageboard post or email that in some way goes against any opinion I have ever held to secure my potential future career in politics. I want to head off trouble before it starts!

Yes we had awesome “seats.” My camera is lousy and it didn’t occur to me to video what he was saying here — his intro to “The Rising” — until he was 1/4 of the way through. The next video is what Noah and his friends were doing during the whole show. (You can hear me say, “Hush Madison” and all the shaking was because she was bouncing into me. Who can blame her? For a 4-year old, it was not so much fun. Although we had snacks so that helped.)

Best part? Might have been when Luke Perry came by and shook Abby’s hand. We made middle-aged fools of ourselves but Luke Perry! Of all the 90210 folks, he’s my favorite because he seemed to have a sense of humor about the whole thing. Luke Perry! Abby has video and I’m sure it’ll be up soon! (Madison gave him five but we have no pictures! Ack!)

Oh and the Obama campaign came and took video of the kids twice — the big kids first outside and the little kids in the rally. They said those videos might go up on their blog so I’ll let you know if they end up there!

I think it’s a post-Palin headache. It’s kinda (not really) hilarious to go read the Fox news site where they’re going, “Yeah! She WON!” And then they link to all these pundits — including a bunch of their own — who say, “Biden totally won but at least Palin was nearly able to form complete sentences.”

That woman needs some pronouns though. I just can’t stand to hear her talk even without the folksy sayings — all those passive sentences!

Mostly though I loved Joe Biden. I loved him. I thought he did a great job even after checking out FactCheck.org.

Dare I say it? I think we just might win this one! <–for Becca

You know the whole pro-life even in cases of rape and incest thing? I get that. I do. Because if you truly believe every embryo at conception is a person like I am a person sitting here typing, you can’t quibble. You can’t say it’s ok here but not there. (And I have to add here that I’m bothered by this assumption that every pro-choice woman would handle an unexpected pregnancy the same way; that one has to be politically pro-life to carry a child to term who was conceived by rape. That’s simply not true. Pro-choicers believe that it’s a personal CHOICE, which doesn’t mean that we would all make the same choice whatever the circumstances. I know politically pro-choice women who have given birth to children conceived by rape. It’s about CHOICE; not mandates.)

So that — while I philosophically disagree with it — I get.

But I don’t get her willingness to trudge forward even though she is so obviously unprepared to be president. And I don’t get why people are still voting because they “like” her. Listen, I like my mom a whole lot. I love her politics and she’s a helluva lot more informed than Ms. Palin but I sure wouldn’t vote for her to be vice president. It’s not a learn as you go job.

I’m intrigued that she calls herself a feminist. In my mind, CHOICE is central to feminist belief. Not just (and not necessarily) reproductive choice. Although I find that absolutely unequivocally at the heart of my feminism, I understand that if you truly think an embryo ought to have the same human rights as a child that you just can’t go there. (It bothers me that you want to stop anyone else from going there either but I get it.) But other choices matter, too. I don’t know how she feels about supporting programs that give women choices because she wouldn’t talk to Moms Rising about it. That her office wouldn’t even let them drop off a stack of paper doesn’t reassure me.

Note — she says she wants to make adoption easier. Easier how? And for whom? Adoptive parents who adopt newborns from private agencies (you know, adoptions that are held up as the great alternative to abortion) already get huge tax breaks. So now are you going to eliminate homestudies so we don’t have to clean our houses and answer all those pesky questions? Maybe she means easier by creating a plethora of infants available for our hungry little homes.

Or does she mean she’ll make it easier for women to place? How’s she going to do that? It’s already pretty easy to find someone who’s willing to get your baby adopted away from you — especially if you’re white and healthy. Boy howdy is it easy! Just set up a myspace mentioning that you’re young and pregnant and out come the wolves! (That link goes to Jenna’s blog — if you haven’t read that post yet, you should. It will make you insane.)

Yeah, I’m not getting that whole “easier to adopt” thing. (She said this during the interview where they talked about evolution, charging for rape kits, and whether or not she’s a feminist.)

Oh one more thing. I HATE how often she uses passive sentences. Yikes. She’s never doing stuff — stuff is getting done. “Adoptions to be made easier” not “make adoptions easier” or “make it easier to adopt.” MS Word’s grammar check would have a field day with her!

From The Debates Won’t Matter in the Jewish Journal (reprinted on HuffPo):

My fear is that the Electoral College results will hang on the swing state voting systems’ vulnerability to sabotage.

It’s already happening.

In El Paso County, Colo., the county clerk — a delegate to the Republican National Convention — told out-of-state undergraduates at Colorado College, falsely, that they couldn’t vote in Colorado if their parents claim them as dependents on their taxes.

In the towns of Mount Pleasant and Middleton, Wisc., Democratic voters received a mailing containing tear-out requests for absentee ballots pre-addressed to the wrong addresses. Both mailers were sent by the McCain campaign.

Florida, Michigan and Ohio have some of the country’s highest foreclosure rates. “Because many homeowners in foreclosure are black or poor,” The New York Times says, “and are considered probable Democratic voters in many areas, the issue has begun to have political ramifications.”

If you’re one of the million Americans who lost a home through foreclosure, and if you didn’t file a change of address with your election board, you’re a sitting duck for an Election Day challenge by a partisan poll watcher holding a public list of foreclosed homes. In states like New Mexico and Iowa, the number of foreclosures is greater than the number of votes by which George W. Bush carried the state in 2004.

In the 2006 election, according to the nonpartisan Fair Elections Legal Network, black voters in Virginia got computer-generated phone calls from a bogus “Virginia Election Commission” telling them that they could be arrested if they went to the wrong polling place; in Maryland, out-of-state leafleters gave phony Democratic sample ballots to black voters with the names of Republican candidates checked in red; in New Mexico, Democratic voters got personal phone calls from out of state that directed them to the wrong polling place.

Does anyone think this won’t be tried again in 2008?

Between you and me, I probably wouldn’t have gone to Obama headquarters if Kristen hadn’t signed us all up. I mean, I’m busy. My husband just started a new job. I have these deadlines and yesterday was a lousy day of errands and missed messages and phone interviews and general exhaustion. Who could blame me, right? But Kristen, darn her, is a joiner and I knew she’d be understanding in that Kristen way of hers but I also knew she’d be disappointed in me if I didn’t join them so hell, I went.

It was me and Kristen and Abby, of course, because apparently we can’t exist without proximity to each other several times a week (I am not kidding when I tell you we are all now cyling more or less together. I know. We’re ridiculous). And we made our big kids go because now that they’ve seen Obama in person (in a crowd, sure, but still in person) they are big fans.

I am phone-phobic and did my share of phoning random strangers this week anyway what with these damn interviews so I happily did data entry. I type fast, my friends, speedy speedy so I cranked out the voter and volunteer registration forms. Abby and Kristen, harboring no fear of phones, went ahead and called total strangers to ask them political questions. I know! They’re brave! And the kids made signs. Lots of signs. And chattered. And were happy.

(Noah’s favorite sign he made said, “Obama is another word for hope.” Couldn’t you just smooch him?)

Then today Madison and I hung up flyers in our windows from the literature table. We like seeing Michelle smiling at us when we drive up to our house.

We’re doing it again next Thursday. Want to join us? Have elementary-aged kids who want to color? Hit one of us up and we’ll tell you where and when to meet up with us!

Instead of electing McCain and then praying for his death so their gal Friday can get into office, shouldn’t they just elect Obama (seeing as how they think he’s the anti-christ*) and rush the rapture? Kinda like some extreme evangelicals are pro-Israel because they want to hurry along the end times?

I mean if God decreed it, why not just go with the flow? If they’re so sure he’s the anti-christ, why fight it? Don’t they want it all to come to its inevitable climax?

Like I said, I don’t get it.

These are weird times to be alive though. No doubt about it. (Then again, is there ever un-weird times? I’ve read my history; I think likely it’s all pretty wacky for the folks there for it.)

*A note here about this link. I chose to link to a TIME magazine article about a McCain ad instead of any of the numerous crazy web sites that spout this ideas ‘cuz I’d rather not up their google page rank.