This just in from Alaska ..... Sarah and Saxby
On another note, and I admit it is petty and small but has anyone seen the Thanksgiving ad from his family? Interesting. and what does "Happy Thanksgivin' " mean when it is said so morosely?
Sunday, November 30, 2008
and this in the Alaska Daily News .....
It is so strange to me that all of the things that conservatives have publically bashed liberals for over the last 40 years, are things that many conservatives have hidden in their closets. We protested strenuously, openly, and honestly against the Viet Nam war, while conservatives got deferments while proclaiming that terrible war to be right, just like now, and then, when they could no longer do that, they had their doctors fake their medical files. This is Saxby Chambliss....now known as Saxby "Shameless" in Georgia. This is a man who was finally found, after 4 deferments, to have bad knees. Of course, now he shoots in the 90's. What a horrible person.
election time is about to end.....
I will miss the election on Tuesday...the run-off between Saxby Chambliss, who is continually telling lies about Jim Martin and who was a major draft dodger while many of us were in the service during Viet Nam(including Jim martin). It just amazes me what people will do who say they are christian. In any event ...I already voted, and Al Franken, it seems, lost unless a judge decides he wins...so the 60 seats are very iffy right now. We will get them in two years.
I am leaving for my 2nd annual trip to Disney World with a light heart about the administration and a very heavy heart because of India. Josie has many Indian friends, very close ones and they tend to live such centered lives ...very careful about recycling and how they treat people...they truly believe in karma so they are, i'm sure, as upset as we were during 9/11. Sad. Marty has stayed at The Taj when he flew for Delta...such a shock to see this happen.
Disney will be a lovely break from the rainy cold here and when I get back.....it is work, work, work.....I LOVE watching Jos at Disney!
Thanksgiving was very thankful this year...big family and all at peace.
Thursday, November 20, 2008
michelle obama
from the BBC .... so interesting and very telling about her as a mother. She has only been away from her daughters for 3 nights in a row.....once.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Garrison Keillor .......
Two wonderful articles by Garrison Keillor ....always a wonder and always so worth every word....
SITTING ON TOP OF THE WORLD
By Garrison Keillor, Tribune Media Services,
Keillor, Garrison
Posted 11/11/2008 at 3:00 pm EST
Be happy, dear hearts, and allow yourselves a few more weeks of quiet exultation. It isn't gloating, it's satisfaction at a job well done. He was a superb candidate, serious, professorial but with a flashing grin and a buoyancy that comes from working out in the gym every morning. He spoke in a genuine voice, not senatorial at all. He relished campaigning. He accepted adulation gracefully. He brandished his sword against his opponents without mocking or belittling them. He was elegant, unaffected, utterly American, and now (Wow) suddenly America is cool. Chicago is cool. Chicago!!!
We threw the dice and we won the jackpot and elected a black guy with a Harvard degree, the middle name Hussein and a sense of humor -- he said, "I've got relatives who look like Bernie Mac, and I've got relatives who look like Margaret Thatcher." The French junior minister for human rights said, "On this morning, we all want to be American so we can take a bite of this dream unfolding before our eyes." When was the last time you heard someone from France say they wanted to be American and take a bite of something of ours? Ponder that for a moment.
The world expects us to elect pompous yahoos and instead we have us a 47-year-old prince from the prairie who cheerfully ran the race, and when his opponents threw sand at him, he just smiled back. He'll be the first president in history to look really good making a jump shot. He loves his classy wife and his sweet little daughters. He looks good in the kitchen. He can cook Indian or Chinese but for his girls he will do mac and cheese. At the same time, he knows pop music, American lit and constitutional law. I just can't imagine anybody cooler. Look at a photo of the latest pooh-bah conference -- the hausfrau Merkel, the big glum Scotsman, that goofball Berlusconi, Putin with his B-movie bad-boy scowl, and Sarkozy, who looks like a district manager for Avis -- you put Barack in that bunch and he will shine.
It feels good to be cool and all of us can share in that, even sour old right-wingers and embittered blottoheads. Next time you fly to Heathrow and hand your passport to the man with the badge, he's going to see "United States of America" and look up and grin. Even if you worship in the church of Fox, everyone you meet overseas is going to ask you about Obama and you may as well say you voted for him because, my friends, he is your line of credit over there. No need anymore to try to look Canadian.
And the coolest thing about him is the fact that back in the early Nineties, given a book contract after the hoo-ha about his becoming the First Black Editor of The Harvard Law Review (FBEHLR), instead of writing the basic exploitation book he could've written, he put his head down and worked hard for a few years and wrote a good book, an honest one, which, since his rise in politics, has earned the Obamas enough to buy a very nice house and put money in the bank. A successful American entrepreneur.
The last American president to write a book all by his lonesome self, I believe, was Theodore Roosevelt, who, on graduation from Harvard, wrote "The Naval War of 1812," and in my humble opinion, Obama's is the better book for the general reader, but you be the judge.
Our hero who galloped to victory has inherited a gigantic mess. The country is sunk in debt. The Treasury announced it must borrow $550 billion to get the government through the fourth quarter, more than the entire deficit for 2008, so he will have to raise taxes and not only on bankers and lumber barons. His promise never to raise the retirement age is not a good idea. Whatever he promised the Iowa farmers about subsidizing ethanol is best forgotten at this point. We may not be getting our National Health Service cards anytime soon. And so on and so on.
So enjoy the afterglow of the election awhile longer. We all walk taller this fall. People in Copenhagen and Stockholm are sending congratulatory e-mails -- imagine! We are being admired by Danes and Swedes! And Chicago becomes The First City. Step aside, San Francisco. Shut up, New York. The Midwest is cool now. The mind reels. Have a good day.
(Garrison Keillor is the author of a new Lake Wobegon novel, "Liberty" (Viking).)
(c) 2008 by Garrison Keillor. All rights reserved. Distributed by Tribune Media Services, INC.
A FEW WORDS FOR THE HAPPY COUPLE
By Garrison Keillor, Tribune Media Services,
Keillor, Garrison
Posted 11/04/2008 at 5:00 pm EST
A golden November day under a blue sky and an air of sweet amiability at the polls and at the end of the day, we elected the right guy, no doubt about it. Yes, we can and we did. A nation spread its wings and achieved altitude.
Bravo, Barack, Mr. Steady, who cheerfully did the rope lines, made the phone calls, answered the same questions fifteen thousand times, bounded up the stairs, delivered his lines with warmth and wit, ran a tight disciplined army, and that, plus $700 million and an 80 mph wind at your back, is all you need to win the prize.
One is electrified by the historic moment, of course, but I will let Great Minds chew on that, and simply wish him and his marvelous lady all the best as they bear up under the tsunami of adoration from Democrats whom he has led out of Egypt. His picture goes up in the kitchen shrine alongside FDR and JFK -- BHO elevated to sainthood and now expected to walk on water and turn it into wine. Meanwhile, everything he said about the national mess is utterly true and a lot more. And now it is Barack's mess. Yikes.
A good shingle for the new administration to hang out, rather than The New Covenant or A Fair Exchange or English Spoken Here, would be Keep Seat Belt Buckled. Happy days are not here and the sky above is not clear.
One bright light in the marquee is Michelle Obama, that witty, jumpy woman with the quicksilver smile who said, "How does Barack prepare for a debate? He just talks to me and he's ready." The good mother who said, "People ask me how I am, and I say, I'm only as good as my most sad child." Come January, we will have a president whose wife calls him Baby. Good for you, Mama. And now she becomes America's No. 2 celebrity, the object of giddy curiosity.
Enjoy the people's house, Michelle, and cruise along gently and do not read anything written about you, and don't watch the news. Enjoy the pageantry (you look good, Baby), bring up the family, and don't take the show too seriously. Don't do too many interviews. Think Laura Bush, a cool First Lady. People like Laura Bush a lot, a Texas Democrat who married a Republican and stuck with him through thin and thinner. She's smart and we know that because she never tried to show how smart she is. Do not let the mister put you in charge of health care legislation. Your great challenge is to make a genuine life in the midst of the heavy surf of publicity. God willing, be happy and live your life. When life gets too unreal, sit down with a good book.
As for President-elect Obama, he can now stop dancing, which he's been doing for twenty months -- in a democracy we want candidates to really, really, really want to be president -- and get down to the business of patient, focused, rational deliberation and calculation, starting with the formulation of a Cabinet and a White House staff. Have them write up a presidential order for January 20 saying that America will not employ torture, and maybe issue a blanket presidential pardon for your predecessor and his vice, and then set about the business of disappointing your followers and astonishing your enemies and doing what is right for our country.
Be good to yourself. Hire smart, stable people who can tell you things you need to know and not copy Bob Woodward. Keep some Republicans around. You're the man. You make us proud. You let us get to know you. You have the gift of speaking clearly and forcefully, whole sentences and paragraphs, while thinking at the same time, a good gift. You don't need a staff of writers to create a persona for you. You need engineers. Problem solvers. You're inheriting a raft of them.
Get on that treadmill every morning. Keep a daily journal. Let us see those darling girls once in awhile. Please don't play golf. Don't get a dog. Enjoy Camp David. Be happy. Don't hire people to tell you how to dress or who to be; you're a grown-up. Don't do crap that someday you'd have to go on TV and make cheesy apologies for. This job is one you were cut out to do and a big part of the job is to keep up the national morale and you are already doing that big-time. And thank you, sir. All those cheap motels, all those flights, all of that chip dip. We are deeply grateful.
(Garrison Keillor is the author of a new Lake Wobegon novel, "Liberty" (Viking).)
(c) 2008 by Garrison Keillor. All rights reserved. Distributed by Tribune Media Services, INC.
SITTING ON TOP OF THE WORLD
By Garrison Keillor, Tribune Media Services,
Keillor, Garrison
Posted 11/11/2008 at 3:00 pm EST
Be happy, dear hearts, and allow yourselves a few more weeks of quiet exultation. It isn't gloating, it's satisfaction at a job well done. He was a superb candidate, serious, professorial but with a flashing grin and a buoyancy that comes from working out in the gym every morning. He spoke in a genuine voice, not senatorial at all. He relished campaigning. He accepted adulation gracefully. He brandished his sword against his opponents without mocking or belittling them. He was elegant, unaffected, utterly American, and now (Wow) suddenly America is cool. Chicago is cool. Chicago!!!
We threw the dice and we won the jackpot and elected a black guy with a Harvard degree, the middle name Hussein and a sense of humor -- he said, "I've got relatives who look like Bernie Mac, and I've got relatives who look like Margaret Thatcher." The French junior minister for human rights said, "On this morning, we all want to be American so we can take a bite of this dream unfolding before our eyes." When was the last time you heard someone from France say they wanted to be American and take a bite of something of ours? Ponder that for a moment.
The world expects us to elect pompous yahoos and instead we have us a 47-year-old prince from the prairie who cheerfully ran the race, and when his opponents threw sand at him, he just smiled back. He'll be the first president in history to look really good making a jump shot. He loves his classy wife and his sweet little daughters. He looks good in the kitchen. He can cook Indian or Chinese but for his girls he will do mac and cheese. At the same time, he knows pop music, American lit and constitutional law. I just can't imagine anybody cooler. Look at a photo of the latest pooh-bah conference -- the hausfrau Merkel, the big glum Scotsman, that goofball Berlusconi, Putin with his B-movie bad-boy scowl, and Sarkozy, who looks like a district manager for Avis -- you put Barack in that bunch and he will shine.
It feels good to be cool and all of us can share in that, even sour old right-wingers and embittered blottoheads. Next time you fly to Heathrow and hand your passport to the man with the badge, he's going to see "United States of America" and look up and grin. Even if you worship in the church of Fox, everyone you meet overseas is going to ask you about Obama and you may as well say you voted for him because, my friends, he is your line of credit over there. No need anymore to try to look Canadian.
And the coolest thing about him is the fact that back in the early Nineties, given a book contract after the hoo-ha about his becoming the First Black Editor of The Harvard Law Review (FBEHLR), instead of writing the basic exploitation book he could've written, he put his head down and worked hard for a few years and wrote a good book, an honest one, which, since his rise in politics, has earned the Obamas enough to buy a very nice house and put money in the bank. A successful American entrepreneur.
The last American president to write a book all by his lonesome self, I believe, was Theodore Roosevelt, who, on graduation from Harvard, wrote "The Naval War of 1812," and in my humble opinion, Obama's is the better book for the general reader, but you be the judge.
Our hero who galloped to victory has inherited a gigantic mess. The country is sunk in debt. The Treasury announced it must borrow $550 billion to get the government through the fourth quarter, more than the entire deficit for 2008, so he will have to raise taxes and not only on bankers and lumber barons. His promise never to raise the retirement age is not a good idea. Whatever he promised the Iowa farmers about subsidizing ethanol is best forgotten at this point. We may not be getting our National Health Service cards anytime soon. And so on and so on.
So enjoy the afterglow of the election awhile longer. We all walk taller this fall. People in Copenhagen and Stockholm are sending congratulatory e-mails -- imagine! We are being admired by Danes and Swedes! And Chicago becomes The First City. Step aside, San Francisco. Shut up, New York. The Midwest is cool now. The mind reels. Have a good day.
(Garrison Keillor is the author of a new Lake Wobegon novel, "Liberty" (Viking).)
(c) 2008 by Garrison Keillor. All rights reserved. Distributed by Tribune Media Services, INC.
A FEW WORDS FOR THE HAPPY COUPLE
By Garrison Keillor, Tribune Media Services,
Keillor, Garrison
Posted 11/04/2008 at 5:00 pm EST
A golden November day under a blue sky and an air of sweet amiability at the polls and at the end of the day, we elected the right guy, no doubt about it. Yes, we can and we did. A nation spread its wings and achieved altitude.
Bravo, Barack, Mr. Steady, who cheerfully did the rope lines, made the phone calls, answered the same questions fifteen thousand times, bounded up the stairs, delivered his lines with warmth and wit, ran a tight disciplined army, and that, plus $700 million and an 80 mph wind at your back, is all you need to win the prize.
One is electrified by the historic moment, of course, but I will let Great Minds chew on that, and simply wish him and his marvelous lady all the best as they bear up under the tsunami of adoration from Democrats whom he has led out of Egypt. His picture goes up in the kitchen shrine alongside FDR and JFK -- BHO elevated to sainthood and now expected to walk on water and turn it into wine. Meanwhile, everything he said about the national mess is utterly true and a lot more. And now it is Barack's mess. Yikes.
A good shingle for the new administration to hang out, rather than The New Covenant or A Fair Exchange or English Spoken Here, would be Keep Seat Belt Buckled. Happy days are not here and the sky above is not clear.
One bright light in the marquee is Michelle Obama, that witty, jumpy woman with the quicksilver smile who said, "How does Barack prepare for a debate? He just talks to me and he's ready." The good mother who said, "People ask me how I am, and I say, I'm only as good as my most sad child." Come January, we will have a president whose wife calls him Baby. Good for you, Mama. And now she becomes America's No. 2 celebrity, the object of giddy curiosity.
Enjoy the people's house, Michelle, and cruise along gently and do not read anything written about you, and don't watch the news. Enjoy the pageantry (you look good, Baby), bring up the family, and don't take the show too seriously. Don't do too many interviews. Think Laura Bush, a cool First Lady. People like Laura Bush a lot, a Texas Democrat who married a Republican and stuck with him through thin and thinner. She's smart and we know that because she never tried to show how smart she is. Do not let the mister put you in charge of health care legislation. Your great challenge is to make a genuine life in the midst of the heavy surf of publicity. God willing, be happy and live your life. When life gets too unreal, sit down with a good book.
As for President-elect Obama, he can now stop dancing, which he's been doing for twenty months -- in a democracy we want candidates to really, really, really want to be president -- and get down to the business of patient, focused, rational deliberation and calculation, starting with the formulation of a Cabinet and a White House staff. Have them write up a presidential order for January 20 saying that America will not employ torture, and maybe issue a blanket presidential pardon for your predecessor and his vice, and then set about the business of disappointing your followers and astonishing your enemies and doing what is right for our country.
Be good to yourself. Hire smart, stable people who can tell you things you need to know and not copy Bob Woodward. Keep some Republicans around. You're the man. You make us proud. You let us get to know you. You have the gift of speaking clearly and forcefully, whole sentences and paragraphs, while thinking at the same time, a good gift. You don't need a staff of writers to create a persona for you. You need engineers. Problem solvers. You're inheriting a raft of them.
Get on that treadmill every morning. Keep a daily journal. Let us see those darling girls once in awhile. Please don't play golf. Don't get a dog. Enjoy Camp David. Be happy. Don't hire people to tell you how to dress or who to be; you're a grown-up. Don't do crap that someday you'd have to go on TV and make cheesy apologies for. This job is one you were cut out to do and a big part of the job is to keep up the national morale and you are already doing that big-time. And thank you, sir. All those cheap motels, all those flights, all of that chip dip. We are deeply grateful.
(Garrison Keillor is the author of a new Lake Wobegon novel, "Liberty" (Viking).)
(c) 2008 by Garrison Keillor. All rights reserved. Distributed by Tribune Media Services, INC.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
in a few short weeks
"This presidency is finally over. We can say goodbye to an administration whose misdeeds have piled so high that the size of the mountain no longer shocks us. In our lifetimes, we will see administrations of varying degrees of competence and integrity, some we'll agree with and some we won't. But we will probably never see another quite like the one finally reaching its end, so mind-boggling a parade of incompetence and malice, dishonesty, and immorality. So at last - at long, long last - we can say goodbye.
And good riddance."
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Monday, November 10, 2008
swiff out the old and add some diversity......
When the political thrust comes again that befits the ideology that has been forced on all of us for the last 8 years I think the movement will have no where to go. It will be a lonely lonely stance and this election has proved it. You cannot force beliefs on anyone. It isn't right, it won't work and now we know that the majority of Americans will not let it go on forever.
It's time to wake up. For generations the church has kept people in line with fear, and lately, the Republican party is doing the same. Live your own life!
Even my small vacation town of Ridgway Colorado and Colorado, itself, went for Barack Obama. I might have to move there since Georgia failed, although my county did the right thing.
Sunday, November 9, 2008
race in America.......
While reading the various articles about "the Bradley effect" I was looking over Joan Walsh's column for salon.com. In it she revisits a quote by one Joe Sitiski who told the New York Times that the fact that Barack Obama is an African American made his choice more difficult. He stated that he was "brought up that way, and I don't like his name". Now, I believe that it is either unbearably sad that someone would know that and not realize it was not only wrong but an abomination of God's basic rule, if you believe in God....or I find it a giant leap that he admitted it. Which it is will be long debated in my mind as I search for some sort of reason. Also, I have never met a racist who does not believe in God (Isn't that interesting?) How does anyone who is educated in any way, not see the error in looking down at anyone because of race? What is it that brings someone to the conclusion that they think anyone is less worthy than they? How does that happen? How do parents convey it to their children? I cannot even imagine living in a family like that although I have seen it, I have heard it and I have stood up and denounced it but I've always been able to walk away from that kind of an individual. As so many of these things are discussed more openly, I think it is making for greater change and understanding on both sides of this issue, some of it good, some of it not.
Friday, November 7, 2008
smart and quick...............
Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod. Two choices I applaud and, even better, they are close friends. Axelrod signed Rahm Emanuel's ketubah when he married ....that is a close abiding friendship and one I think will be great for the White House. I am so hoping for Kennedy at EPA and of course, Howard Dean deserves whatever he would like. He is responsible for much of this victory. my street today
***and, a republican explains socialism here in America very very well......
still so relieved and happy...........
The more I think about this miracle the more amazed I am that this wonderful man has managed to become our president. The world seems like a better and much less cynical place. Yet, I know there is so much work to do and so many people will want so much. It will be an interesting time and i think that being in that White House with his beautiful family will make us realize just a little that he is human and it will take time.
a recap .........
Thursday, November 6, 2008
relief.....
Now that it has sunk in and I believe this is true, I have such a sense of renewal for this world. I also feel sorry for those who are not able to feel this hope that I feel. What must it be like for those who were so firmly for McCain? I've seen both derision and acceptance but I see them as standing apart and watching what we are feeling with stunning awe.
and via cajunboyinthecity.com this video of Union Square in the best city in the world......
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
I don't even know where to begin......
My emotions have been everywhere today, and now, watching John Lewis speak, I am brought to tears once again as I was two weeks ago when I voted. I have no right to cry. It wasn't my fight and I did not have to bear the brunt of all the hate. I stood up when I needed to and I treasure the people I know who also have done so. I think of what it must have been like to be black in this world and I've seen so much of the way it has been here, especially in the south for the last 39 years. I am so relieved for what this world may now become.
what if.....Olbermann
I'm poll watching today....I don't expect georgia to ever make me happy in their voting. So embarrassing, but I can hope Chambliss will end up in a runoff.
Keith Olbermann
This touched me very deeply and I hope you will read it.
Monday, November 3, 2008
closing.......
the republican party.....
Remember John Dean? He has written this insightful piece on the party and it speaks of the moral wasteland the Republicans have created with their politics of hate. They pretty much have destroyed themselves, which is what hate usually does.
John Dean >>> on findlaw.com
new ad ...Paul Simon..beautiful.
Sunday, November 2, 2008
Sunday night....late
Today Barack had Bruce Springsteen in Cincinnati. It was so great to watch and as annoyed as I get at cnn, I thank them so much for showing part of it live.
We are getting close to the end and I am very psyched. we may finally get rid of the criminals who have been running this country. The DOJ is looking into the stolen election in 2008. I hope someone goes to jail for that someday. At least it will be in the history books.
What a beautiful, beautiful family.
Photos from Huffington Post.
early Sunday morning.....
I can't sleep again. I awake with the feeling that I've been kicked in the stomach and the election is over. I cannot wait for it to be over. I am eating everything in sight, which is not good considering yesterday was Halloween and I have candy left . All the candy that I love, milk duds, junior mints, heath bars, mounds, milky way dark; it's been a busy day but I'm a wreck so I just feel better when I'm eating. Tomorrow is time for me to reread my training for poll watching and get it all set up so what I do while I'm there means something. Monday I will spend at headquarters part of the day and pick up my badge. We are allowed to take large t-shirts for people to throw on in case they wear something that advertises their candidate...We were told to offer to anyone "no matter how ill advised their choice". We Democrats are way too nice. I know a woman who is poll watching for the Republicans. Her attitude, even when speaking to me, is to keep people from voting if there is a question...ours is to help make sure everyone can vote... big difference in philosophy there.
I stand back and look at this election, all that has happened, all that may happen and I am so sure I am working for the right cause. I am struck with disbelief that there are people like John McCain and Karl Rove, and Saxby Chamblis who have done the things they've done, and made the statements they have made here in America. They could only have learned to be the way they are from their families growing up. How damning for that part of our culture. A culture of racism that I hope is on the way out. I've always believed that racism against anyone is a rotten core that will fester and grow secretly from inside until it spreads out and destroys us all.
Tuesday cannot come too soon for me.
recap.....
Saturday, November 1, 2008
Huff post says it best.........
"THE STENCH RUN " .... brought to you by John McCain
McCain and Palin will do or say anything to win. This just goes to show you what the Christian right means when they say "christian rights". Disgusting!
and click here>>>>> Dr Alan Lipman for Alan Lipman's take on "redistribution".
and....... I just got a McCain robocall....so I had to write emails to every single email address on the RNC site!!
fivethirtyeight.com & Rasmussen polls..........
fivethirtyeight.com Just glancing occasionally....
Tomorrow I amclearing out....a stress reliever in itself...... no posting until late.
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