52% of those polled are crazy...

I realize that the "Obama's not really a citizen" meme is one that's just not going to die. There are those crazies -- and this article gives them the benign-sounding name "The Birthers" -- that will insist to their graves that the man was not really born in Hawaii or that he renounced his citizenship when he was five (or whatever the story is), etc.

There will always be those crazies.

What I didn't realize was how large their numbers are. Following the referenced story was this poll question: Do you have any doubt about Obama's eligibility to be president because of his birth status?

Despite the fact (as stated in the article) that

officials in Hawaii declared last October that there was no doubt Obama was born in the state. Officials verified that the health department holds the commander in chief's original birth certificate

52% of those who took the poll said...

yes.

Surprise! John McCain Says That Obama's Had a Bad Beginning

Interviewed by CNN's John King, John McCain says:

“It was a bad beginning,” McCain said Sunday of the legislative process that resulted in the $787 billion stimulus bill recently passed by Congress. “It was a bad beginning because it wasn’t what we promised the American people, what President Obama promised the American people – that we would sit down together.”

While McCain said he appreciated the fact that Obama came to Capitol Hill to speak with House Republicans about the stimulus bill. But, “that’s not how you negotiate a result.” Instead, “you sit down in a room with competing proposals” and “almost all of our proposals went down on a party-line vote”

“I hope the next time we will sit down together and conduct truly bipartisan negotiations. This was not a bipartisan bill.”

This is not a sarcastic post. The surprise is not that John McCain said this; that's no surprise at all. The surprise is that the comments that follow this article are overwhelmingly critical of McCain's comments.

At almost all "news" sources (and this includes CNN), on almost any topic, the comments are truly cringe-worthy. I sometimes read the first few, but any more than that are detrimental to my mental health. And they're frequently not even on topic. For instance, even the most innocuous article that mentions the name "Obama" tends to inspire a lot of non-sequitur comments, often along the lines of liberal media bias, stolen election--ACORN!, not a citizen, fat Michelle (fat Michelle?).

This time around, while there are a few of those kind of comments, the rest are overwhelmingly on point, and many are well-argued. And almost all boil down to "get-over-it-McCain."

Jamie from Philly's comment is my favorite:

In the past few decades, history has shown us that Republicans will do whatever they can to disrupt a Democratic president, often at the expense of the American people. This is not generally true of Democrats when a Republican is in charge. Other than the few moderates who actually care about their constituents, Republicans are all about forcing a win for their team, rather than safeguarding the rights of the American people.

It's nice to see a comments thread that doesn't devolve into ugliness and silliness but instead offers reasoned argument. More of this, please.

Eight Days

That's how long Obama has been president. Just eight days.

Yet it seems like it's been months, and I mean that in a good way.

He accomplished more before breakfast today than I ... well, I really don't even want to admit to that.

Does it not seem that he's everywhere at once, fixing things and negotiating with people almost in his peripheral vision, kind of like a presidential version of that Kelly Ripa Electrolux ad?



With time to spare for family! Amazing!

Astonishingly Disrespectful

I was out and about, on the way to lunch with Marine Son, who is in town briefly, and First Grandson. As we drove by a particular business, I noticed something and wondered about it, out loud.

Almost the moment I asked the question I knew the answer.

The question? Did someone die? Why is the flag at half-mast?

Marine Son said, quietly, I'll tell you in a few minutes (meaning away from the ears of First Grandson).

But I already knew. Because of yesterday, I said.

In the days just prior to the election, this same business posted what was the singularly most hateful sign I saw during those times, part of which was a reference to the President as "Hussein O'Sama."

And this, the flag in the position of distress, is apparently the mature response of more than just this one business owner, although it's the only one I've seen so far.

However much well-earned contempt I may have felt for the 43rd President of the United States, I never, never, never would have done anything so disrespectful -- to the flag and to my country.

For this woman, however, it's apparently not yet time to set aside childish things.

Dropping in on My Own Blog to Say Hello ...

Hello, whoever might show up to read this, and Happy New Year!

Yes, I realize we're darn near 1/12 into the new year, but I've been busy. I wish I could say I've been having fun, but no, it's not that.

Just busy.

For now, I'll just post what's on my mind this morning, and maybe I'll be back again in a week or so:

For most of my life, one of those questions that people have liked to discuss is Where were you when Kennedy was assassinated? Added to that unhappy question a few years ago was Where were you when the Twin Towers were hit? I think that now, at least among liberals but maybe even non-believers, we'll be adding: Where were you when Obama was inaugurated? It's a much happier question...in so many, many ways.

I was in my classroom; one class ends at 12:05 and another begins at 12:15 and fortunately for me I don't change rooms between these two. I tried to bring up the ceremony on the computer, but every site I tried to access was frozen (it might well have had to do with the outdated computer, too). Finally, I turned to NPR and listened to the swearing-in and the speech. Then it was back to business.

But not business as usual. May it never again be that kind of business as usual.

(A personal aside to John Roberts: I've had that oath memorized since grade school, but as any English teacher would tell you, even if you have your speech well-practiced, bring some index cards as prompts. You never know what the stresses of the moment might do to your well-rehearsed plan.)

I know this is not news and all, but

OMG! Barack Obama is going to be president!

I still have those moments when it hits me hard, as it did a few minutes ago.

It's just like almost being in a car accident -- the bad thing didn't happen; you managed to get out of the way just in time. All is well. Everything looks stunningly beautiful -- not just the blue sky and the sweetly-singing birds, but also the color of the concrete curb and the trash on the floorboards of the car.

May the thrill never be gone.

Obamamania!

According to Google maps, my mother's home is 56 miles from the White House.

On a good day it's a challenging ride getting to DC from there, partly because of Baltimore traffic (although that really depends on the time of day), but mostly because of DC traffic.

My mother and sister each work in motels near their home.

Those motels are booked solid for the Obama inauguration.

Wow.

Remember this next time you hear someone say that the man didn't get a mandate.

Do Racists Know They're Racists?

I don't know if I can word this quite the way I intend. What I've been mulling over a lot lately is the relationship that hard-core racists, those who aggressively and vocally express their hatred for non-white people using words that would make many of the rest of us blush, have with the word "racist."

Do they feel misunderstood if someone uses that word in relationship to them? (As in, I'm not a racist. I'm just right.)

Do they embrace the word as a badge of honor?

If they don't own the word, what, exactly, do they think a racist is?

I have a reason for thinking about this. My daughter is currently dealing with a racist in her life, a family member, who, during election season, tried to fill her ears with scare tactics regarding putting a you-know-what in the White House. She told him to cut it out; she didn't want to hear it. This person almost lost his job because he would not shut up around his coworkers during the election (although I don't think the n-word was actually used in the workplace -- just a lot of badgering). Now that the you-know-what is heading to the White House and my daughter put a stop to all the n----r talk, this person continues to pester my daughter by redirecting his passion toward all of the President-elect's non-pigment-related flaws, whatever they might be.

My daughter does not have the option of dropping this person from her life, and I'll leave it at that.

Again, I wonder what this person's relationship to the word "racist" is -- badge of honor? Or insult?

I don't want to get close enough to ask, frankly.

Art Imitating Life Imitating Art Imitating Life

If you are a West Wing fan and found that the recent election reminded you of that show, there's a somewhat eerie reason:

Sensory Overload

It may be more than I can bear.

January 20, 2009 at noon, EST: the inauguration of Barack Obama, 44th President of the United States of America, and the return of grownups to the White House.

January 21, 2009 at 9:00 pm, EST: the return of Lost.

Election Night: The Beginning of a Presidency

I was messing around on BarackObama.com and found this Flickr slideshow of election night photos. Enjoy!



(I'm sure NBC is thrilled to know that Obama watched election returns on its network! CNN may have had the highest ratings, but NBC had the Obama contingent.)

That was fast...

At Bee's place, I was mulling over the probability that the popularity of the name Barack for baby boys is about to increase enormously. I was trying to get a sense of how popular it currently is (hasn't yet broken into the Social Security Hot 1000), when I arrived at the Baby Name Wizard, which, under famous people by this name, says this:

Famous real-life people named Barack:
Barack Obama, President-elect of the United States of America

Someone was really on top of this one.

Edit: And so it begins.

More Tears. Oh My.

Among my heroes is one Bob Moses, a black Northerner who all by himself walked into Mississippi in the 1960s to register black voters. Out of context, this sounds unremarkable. In context, it was something akin to a suicide wish.

So reading this started the post-election waterworks all over again for me:

Some, like Kennedy [Peggy Wallace Kennedy, daughter of George Wallace] and an entire generation of white Southerners, risked social rejection for renouncing the bigotry of their parents. Others risked their lives while leading civil rights campaigns in the Deep South. Some almost lost their belief in the inherent goodness of America because they saw so many innocent people die.

They are people like Bob Moses, who led African-American voter registration drives in Mississippi during the early 1960s. He was a leader in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in Mississippi when three civil rights workers were murdered by a group of men that included a Mississippi deputy sheriff. He also helped lead an ill-fated attempt to sit African-American delegates from Mississippi at the 1964 Democratic National Convention, which was segregated.

Moses grew so disenchanted by his experiences that he moved to Tanzania. He returned to the United States in 1976 and founded the Algebra Project, a national program that encourages African-American students to attend college by first teaching them mathematical literacy.

"We seem to be evolving..., " Moses says. "The country is trying to reach for the best part of itself."

Moses is evolving as well. Obama is the first president he's voted for in three decades, he says.

"I don't do politics, but I made sure to vote this time," says Moses, now 73 years old. "Obama is the first person I really felt moved to vote for."

Moses says he is amazed that Obama has helped lead the country through a racially transformative moment without anyone getting killed.

Pivotal events in America's racial history -- the debate over slavery, the assault on segregation -- sparked widespread violence, Moses says.

"I don't think people appreciate how delicate it is to move the society around these questions without descent into chaos or into pockets of chaos," he says.

Obama's victory also offered a rare public acknowledgement for Moses. He recently attended an Obama rally when Obama -- a keen student of the civil rights movement -- discovered he was in the audience.

"When he got on the platform, he gave me a shout out," says Moses, whose reluctance to be in the spotlight was notorious among his civil rights colleagues. "He said, 'there's someone in the audience, and he's a hero of mine.' "

Moses paused when asked how it felt.

"It was good."

I Fell Asleep

Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama waves to the crowd beore his presidential victory speech at a massive outdoor rally in Grant Park in Chicago on November 4, 2008. Obama spoke shortly after Republican candidate Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) gave his concession speech. (UPI Photo/Mark Cowan)

And when I awoke, the world was new.

I tried to stay awake last night, but I'd only had four hours of sleep the night before.

I hung in there until about 10 pm EST, maybe a little later. CNN's projections had Obama's electoral vote count at almost 200. So many, many states had not even been called, so I was comfortable that it was probably over, and in Obama's -- and the rest of the nation's, believe it or not, conservatives -- favor.

Yet I still tried to stay awake. I had the DVR on to record until 3 am to catch anything I might miss, so I climbed into bed and set the TV's sleep timer to run another 2 hours, intending to watch as long as I could stay awake. That's pretty much the last thing I remember...

Until I partially awoke at sometime shortly after 11 to find John McCain giving a concession speech. I was surprised it was happening so soon.

I rolled over and closed my eyes again. I knew it was safe, safe to sleep.

We're going to be all right, finally.

Election Day, Or My Last Day to Obsessively Follow the Rasmussen Presidential Tracking Poll

It feels like Christmas, for -- as my 6-year-old grandson says -- serious.

In fact, it seems odd that Obama and McCain are still doing a little campaigning. Don't they know the "shopping" is over? It's time to celebrate the holiday.

It looks like I didn't get chosen as one of the people to fly to Chi-town to join Obama at the Grant Park celebration. Oh well. It's cold up there, anyway. And I'm not that fond of flying.

Today Rasmussen says that the polls show Obama at 52%, McCain at 46%, 1% voting 3rd party, and 1% undecided. More interestingly, it says this:

Thirty-six percent (36%) of voters cast their ballots early this year and those voters favored Obama by a double-digit margin. Among those who will actually cast their ballots on Tuesday, the candidates are essentially even.

I think that just said that today is an exercise, people. Florida is leaning... It could be that I helped decide the election last week -- for Obama!

Over the last week, I've begun to believe that this will really happen -- that our long nightmare is over.

If the will of the people is truly manifested, if pre-programmed machines and other crookery don't get in the way, I expect to be celebrating, finally, on election night, for the first time since 1996.

I'm almost afraid to put that in writing.

Wealth, Redistributed

For fifteen years, from 1982 until 1997, I was a single mother on active duty. (I’m still single and still a mother, but I no longer have financial responsibility for the tykes, the youngest of whom is 29.) Those were really tough years financially. I didn’t make a lot of money, and if I hadn’t had a house with a low mortgage payment and people who looked out for me, I honestly don’t know how I would have made it through that period of my life. Sometimes friends would donate their old furniture to me. One sold me a car; another, later, helped me buy a different used car. A few times, friends came over and did minor home repairs. One once found me a deal on a new central air compressor.

I wasn’t lazy. I wasn’t on welfare. I had three kids, a full time job, and all of those 15 years I was working on several college degrees, ending with a master’s the year after my youngest child turned 18. But I had very little money.

In short, times were tough, financially and otherwise.

One “person” who looked out for me was my Uncle Sam. Because we have a graduated income tax system under which people pay according to their means, I received tax breaks for my “head of household” status and for my three minor dependents. I don’t have easy access to my old tax records, but I probably paid well less than $1500 in federal income taxes in 1997, the last year I qualified as head of household and had a dependent other than myself. For argument’s sake, let’s say it was $1500.

In 1998, I became, for tax purposes, a “single” person. I no longer maintained a household for dependent children and had only myself as an exemption. My taxes might have skyrocketed, but for the next three years, ironically, I made even less money than before, in part because my previous job had ended with my boss’ retirement and I was teaching part time. For a while there, I also had a very crummy low-wage mortgage company job (with one of those companies that recently was bought out just before it collapsed). My income was even lower, but due to my new status, my taxes increased somewhat.

Six years ago, I obtained a full-time teaching job, and my income increased considerably, although I am still hardly a top-wage earner. Last year I made about $46,000, including summer work. Next year it’ll be a lot less because I will have little or no summer employment.

In 2007, I paid $5300 in federal income taxes. This means that over a ten year period, I have had an increase in taxes of more than 300%.

I have never once complained about this, and I’m not writing this post to complain now.* Between 1982 and 1997, I was financially insecure, and sometimes financially paralyzed. Now times are better, and I am comfortable enough not to have to worry about how I am going to pay for the groceries or if I’ll be able to make it to the next paycheck. (Other things are more problematic, but I can cover all the basics.)

For this reason – because I am financially stable and can afford all the basics – I think it’s just that I have received that 300% increase. Sure, I’d like to pay fewer taxes, but I haven’t forgotten that when I needed the “wealth redistributed” to me, it was. When I couldn’t afford to pay $5300 in taxes, I wasn’t asked to. And now that I can afford to pay it, I am asked.

On a small scale, this is Barack Obama’s tax plan. Some people can better afford to share the cost of running our country. And those complaining should consider that Obama isn’t asking anyone, not even those making over $250,000 per year, for a 300% increase.

So to those complaining, get over it.




*I have sometimes complained about how the money was spent, but never that I was required to pay it.

Got lunch: check. Got groceries: check. Helped save the country: check.

The parking lot of the tag agency was as full as I've ever seen it, and parking spilled over into an adjacent empty lot. I stood outside in line with about 40 other voters (they let about 5 into the building at a time). A woman came out from time to time and spoke to the line about what kind of ID we needed to present, what the ballot would look like and how to complete it, and to otherwise answer questions. Inside, the voting area was crowded, but efficient. Because we were using a corner of the auto tag agency, there was a long countertop, and one of the poll workers offered to let me go to an isolated section of the counter rather than to wait for a plastic "booth" that was not one bit private (as I waited to show my ID and get my ballot, I watched a woman color in her choices). I took her offer.

I was prepared. I had looked over my sample ballot in advance, researched those races and issues I didn't already know about, and had it, filled out, with me.

Although I thought I was going to have to used the dreaded touch-screen machine (as I did in 2004), I instead used a PAPER ballot, which upon completion, I put into a scanning machine, just like in the olden days. Everyone in Florida now votes on the same kind of machine -- and it involves PAPER!

...unlike 2000, there is now a clear paper trail that shows voter intent in case of a recount. Voters now use pencil or pen to mark paper ballots, which are then counted by machine. Punchcards and their chad are no more.

However, before I turned in my ballot, I TRIPLE-CHECKED to make sure that the arrow I completed said Obama-Biden. It did, I assure you.

The cynical part of me wonders if our statewide paper-rich system -- which would presumably allow for a fraud-free recount -- is the reason that John McCain's campaign is focused on Pennsylvania. I'm not the only one worried about McCain's new obsession.

While I was still outside waiting, the helpful poll worker was telling someone that the turnout had been steady. The first couple of days, about a thousand each day. The lowest turnout day was over 500. Our county has about 120,000 registered voters. Some are voting absentee; some on the big day; some won't show up at all. My early-voting site is not that big. I suspect that the larger venues have significantly more traffic. Florida has five more days of early voting: through Saturday.

It took a half hour from the time I left the car until the time I returned. I had reading material and wasn't bored.

When I returned to the car, I could see that there were still about 40 people in line. And while I live in SuperRed County, I know that I wasn't the only one to vote Obama.

I know this because of the Obama bumper stickers on the car that was in front of me as we waited to pull out of the parking lot and off to the next task in our busy lives, having done our part to try to pull this country back into sanity.

Palin Says Election Result Rests in God's Hands

As the AP reports,

Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin describes herself as a "hard-core pro-lifer" and expresses confidence that in spite of disheartening polls, "putting this in God's hands, that the right thing for America will be done at the end of the day on Nov. 4."

So I presume she'll be as thrilled as those of us on the left when Barack Obama is elected President, seeing how it will be God's will and all.

Good to know.

Monkey Business

Somewhat passively watching Anderson Cooper's show tonight, I thought I saw something in the footage from John McCain's visit to Missouri, but it was on screen for just a moment, and the reporter made no note of it.

When the show reran the next hour, I taped it. Sure enough, there it was: another monkey proudly waved over the crowd. Of course, this one didn't have Obama's name stuck to its forehead, so I'm not sure what, exactly, the message is this time.

Monkeys for McCain?

Yeah, right.



Monkey shows up right away, at about 5 seconds into the video.

In Which Obama Listens to Me

My favorite moment in last night's debate went something like this.

McCain was complaining about Obama's plan to "just" give tax cuts to those making under $250,000. He couldn't see why EVERYONE couldn't get a tax cut.

As the floor went to Obama, I said aloud, "Bring up Warren Buffett," who has famously pooh-poohed the idea of giving tax breaks and cuts to the rich. From 2007:

Buffett cited himself, the third-richest person in the world, as an example. Last year, Buffett said, he was taxed at 17.7 percent on his taxable income of more than $46 million. His receptionist was taxed at about 30 percent.

Buffett said that was despite the fact that he was not trying to avoid paying higher taxes. "I don't have a tax shelter," he said. And he challenged Congress and his audience to see what the people who "clean our offices" are taxed, to loud applause.

Anyway, you know what happened next. Obama brought up Buffett.

Before that, I had no idea the debates were interactive.