Well, it's been a busy week around here. My parents were out here to visit, which is always nice. The girls especially like having them around, since they've missed Grandma and Grandpa a ton since we moved out here. It will be even better when they get moved out here and can see the girls every couple of days instead of every few months!
I'm really happy about that. Family was something that I felt like I kind of missed out on growing up. It's tough to be close to people that you only see once a year around the holidays when everything is chaotic anyway! So I was really happy that we were in Laramie, just a mile or so away from my parents, and the girls would have a chance to grow up around them and get to be close to them. It was hard for me to decide to make the move to Missouri and that was a big part of why. But it was much easier when my parents said they would plan on moving somewhere in the Missouri-Tennessee area to be closer to all their grandkids. Heck, even if they had gone to Nashville, that would be close enough to make the trip in a day rather than the two days of driving it takes to get out here now. But, if they end up with the house they're going after now, it'll put them 10-15 minutes away, which is maybe as far as I have to drive to get to work - and that will be nice - for the kids, for them, and for us.
Having them around always gets me thinking about stuff like this, and Thanksgiving has made me think about it even more. I'm glad to have them around and to get a chance to know them more. I didn't get to know them as much as I could have growing up, especially my dad, since I was spending so much energy just trying to get to know myself and figure out who I was, but it's been nice the last several years getting to be an adult and deal with them as roughly equals rather than inside the parent/kid dynamic. It took me a few years of being out on my own and not being around them to really appreciate them simply as people rather than always thinking of them as "parents".
And none of us are perfect or even close to it, but when I hear about other families and what other people went through growing up, it always makes me remember just how good I had it and lucky I was to have the parents I did. We didn't always get along great, though we got along just fine far more than we didn't; we didn't always see eye-to-eye; I know my name is on a fair amount of the gray hairs up on their wizened heads. But even when I was being punished or didn't agree with them, I always had an understanding that they were doing what they thought was good for me. When so many parents don't keep that in mind as the primary motivation for being a parent, it makes me smile to know that mine always did.
I'm never all that good at vocalizing this kind of stuff and talking about it. I just have these thoughts and I've never had a good outlet for them, so I'm trying to take advantage this blog for stuff like this, since I've always been able to write better than I can speak.
So that's my Thanksgiving thought for this year - Thank you for being good parents and looking out for me without stifling me. It wasn't an easy job to do, but you pulled through admirably.
While I'm at it, I have more to say. I need to say Thanks! to Kim too. It's one of those things - I tend not to write about her or my thoughts about her on here. Mostly because I see her at home all the time and I feel like I say most of the stuff I think about to her. But when I really think about it, I don't. At least, not nearly enough. But, she puts up with my crap and manages to do it (mostly) with a smile on her face. I'm not an easy person to live with, but she always finds a way to get through it and make the best of it. So thank you for being my wife and for putting in the work it takes to keep our household and our life functioning in their own little way. And thanks for putting up with me and not smothering me in my sleep when I snore! :)
Friday, November 28, 2008
Saturday, November 22, 2008
Daft Punk fan video - "Daft Hands"
Had I been blogging when this first came out, I'd have been all over it. But, alas, I was not. Anyway, I stumbled across this video again today and thought I'd share because it's so freakin' awesome!!
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Things can always be worse
The title pretty well sums up my thoughts lately. No matter what bump in the road my life might hit, things are never as bad as they might be. Work has really been driving that home lately, and it's seriously depressing.
I've spent the past few days working on a couple of projects that have shown me just how much things can suck. One is looking at foreclosures in the area and some of the scummy ways that businesses (one specifically) targeted people with poor credit and set them up so that at the slightest hiccup in their payments, they were pounced upon, their investment taken away, their house ripped out from under them, and then taken to court to extract even more money from their straining pocketbook. All of this happening after the business assured the homebuyer that they should trust the business, that they would take care of them, that they shouldn't read the contract too closely because the company was taking care of it all for them - and the language that let this all happen to the homebuyer was right there in the contract if they had taken the time to read it.
The other project I can't say much about, since it's still under embargo for another month, but it deals explicitly with the health of kids and implicitly with the health of everyone. It focuses on the failure of government to accurately report information on conditions that could lead to health problems, and it's been going on for many years now. If the people that work for us - the government - aren't doing their job to take care of the people, then who will? It makes me wonder if government has forgotten that it actually does work for the people, not for the businesses and corporations of the country that can make the most noise and shovel the most money into Washington and state capitols across the country.
What these stories have reminded me off is that, much like tech support, journalism is not the place to be if you want to maintain a high opinion of humanity. Sure, we see feel good stories and play them up, but for the most part news is about tragedy, corruption, betrayal, pain, suffering and the people that inflict all of that on others. We get to see up close just what it is that people are capable of in more gory depth and detail than we can adequately convey in stories. Something like the housing deal just doesn't have the same impact in a story that you get from talking to the victims, in looking at more than a hundred court cases of people being evicted and seeing the swift, brutal way in which they were kicked out of their homes for missing even a single payment at times.
Which brings me to another point - why the heck does the court system here make their Web site so horrifically difficult to access? Since they already have the information in a database, it shouldn't be a challenge to get a copy of what I'm looking for in electronic format. And yet to do so required me talking to 6 different people over 4 hours before finally being told that any such "bulk" request for records would require a formal Sunshine Law request being sent to the State Judicial Records Committee to be reviewed and, if approved, acted upon.
Seriously? They're already available on the Web and stored in a database. It's going to take them weeks to put together an SQL statement that says "SELECT * FROM cases_table WHERE plaintiff = Company Name"? OMG - that just took me a whole 5 seconds to write! And it might take another 4 minutes to process that request and have the results written to a CSV file... maybe... if the computer is really, REALLY slow. But no, they can't do that. They have to muck it all up in bureaucratic red tape that ends up in me transcribing it all by hand (Yay for copy/paste!) simply to get the data we need in a reasonable amount of time rather than waiting until sometime next month, if we're lucky, to get results back.
And so, to get through just under 150 records, it's taken me a day and a half - yes, A DAY AND A HALF! - to go through and copy/paste the data. They managed to make their Web interface so damnably difficult to get through that getting a single record transcribed has been taken between 2 and 10 minutes, since you have to click through, resubmit the form, click through again, copy, resubmit the form, copy, repeat ad naseum... BARF! I swear, they must have hired the BOFH to design that system with the goal of making it so difficult to get through that users would never come back. Their motto should be "Case.Net: Using obfuscation and hindrance to keep public records difficult to access since we started!"
I've spent the past few days working on a couple of projects that have shown me just how much things can suck. One is looking at foreclosures in the area and some of the scummy ways that businesses (one specifically) targeted people with poor credit and set them up so that at the slightest hiccup in their payments, they were pounced upon, their investment taken away, their house ripped out from under them, and then taken to court to extract even more money from their straining pocketbook. All of this happening after the business assured the homebuyer that they should trust the business, that they would take care of them, that they shouldn't read the contract too closely because the company was taking care of it all for them - and the language that let this all happen to the homebuyer was right there in the contract if they had taken the time to read it.
The other project I can't say much about, since it's still under embargo for another month, but it deals explicitly with the health of kids and implicitly with the health of everyone. It focuses on the failure of government to accurately report information on conditions that could lead to health problems, and it's been going on for many years now. If the people that work for us - the government - aren't doing their job to take care of the people, then who will? It makes me wonder if government has forgotten that it actually does work for the people, not for the businesses and corporations of the country that can make the most noise and shovel the most money into Washington and state capitols across the country.
What these stories have reminded me off is that, much like tech support, journalism is not the place to be if you want to maintain a high opinion of humanity. Sure, we see feel good stories and play them up, but for the most part news is about tragedy, corruption, betrayal, pain, suffering and the people that inflict all of that on others. We get to see up close just what it is that people are capable of in more gory depth and detail than we can adequately convey in stories. Something like the housing deal just doesn't have the same impact in a story that you get from talking to the victims, in looking at more than a hundred court cases of people being evicted and seeing the swift, brutal way in which they were kicked out of their homes for missing even a single payment at times.
Which brings me to another point - why the heck does the court system here make their Web site so horrifically difficult to access? Since they already have the information in a database, it shouldn't be a challenge to get a copy of what I'm looking for in electronic format. And yet to do so required me talking to 6 different people over 4 hours before finally being told that any such "bulk" request for records would require a formal Sunshine Law request being sent to the State Judicial Records Committee to be reviewed and, if approved, acted upon.
Seriously? They're already available on the Web and stored in a database. It's going to take them weeks to put together an SQL statement that says "SELECT * FROM cases_table WHERE plaintiff = Company Name"? OMG - that just took me a whole 5 seconds to write! And it might take another 4 minutes to process that request and have the results written to a CSV file... maybe... if the computer is really, REALLY slow. But no, they can't do that. They have to muck it all up in bureaucratic red tape that ends up in me transcribing it all by hand (Yay for copy/paste!) simply to get the data we need in a reasonable amount of time rather than waiting until sometime next month, if we're lucky, to get results back.
And so, to get through just under 150 records, it's taken me a day and a half - yes, A DAY AND A HALF! - to go through and copy/paste the data. They managed to make their Web interface so damnably difficult to get through that getting a single record transcribed has been taken between 2 and 10 minutes, since you have to click through, resubmit the form, click through again, copy, resubmit the form, copy, repeat ad naseum... BARF! I swear, they must have hired the BOFH to design that system with the goal of making it so difficult to get through that users would never come back. Their motto should be "Case.Net: Using obfuscation and hindrance to keep public records difficult to access since we started!"
Monday, November 10, 2008
Hotel Cafe Tour: St. Louis, Nov. 8, 2008
Saturday's show was simply fabulous. The two hours were extremely satisfying, and the format of the show was a pleasant deviation from the standard concert fare.
The venue was interesting. The bar and restaurant are upstairs, and we all lined up, snaking through the dining area, as we waited for the doors to open. The concert itself was in the Duck Room, a dark, cozy basement that had me thinking that it could easily have been a speakeasy back in the day, hiding under the cover of the legitimate business upstairs. It was such a casual atmosphere, too - the "dressing room" for the artists was right next to the stage and we saw them coming in and out, walking through the crowd, several times as we waited. A couple of people were lucky enough to talk to Rachael before the show, and Kim and I tried as well, but she headed backstage just after we went over to where she was talking. By the time the show started, the crowd had swelled to maybe 400 people. It was nice, though - a lot of enthusiasm, but not with the crush of people that can happen with open-area crowds like this.
With so many names listed to play during the night, I wasn't sure how that was going to work or if I was going to enjoy it or not. I feared that we'd get just a couple songs from each of them instead of longer sets, and that's exactly what happened. But, it turned out my fears were unfounded; the short sets and quick rotation kept things fresh and kept a wide variety of sounds pumping through the Duck Room. Each musician played 2 songs the first time through, and then we were treated to a second rotation with each artist playing another couple of songs.
• Alice Russell - She rocked my socks off!! She was by far the Queen of Funk for the night, with the bass grooves and her gorgeous voice getting the night off to a great start. She apparently needs a bit more caution around her bandmates, as the guitarist (Jason, I think his name was?) had given her a black eye the day before. It definitely added a rather unique twist to her "look" on stage, though not as much as the bandaged and bloody pinkie that Jason sported. That led to the grossest moment of the night as he removed the bandage to allow him to play slide on his guitar during Alice's phenomenal rendition of The White Stripes' "Seven Nation Army", one of the highlights of the night.
• Jaymay - Kim had mentioned her to me before, but I was wholly unfamiliar with her work. I came away impressed with her voice and music, though I'm not sure if it's really my thing or not. I had heard she had kind of a poppy sound, but there was much more of a country/folk feel to it live. She definitely piqued my interest as someone to check out some more.
• Meiko - Completely and utterly unfamiliar with her before the show, she's definitely on my list of artists to check out in the future. She had one of the funniest moments of the night when she came on stage and said it was nice to be playing in St. Louis for the first time - only to be corrected by an audience member that she had been here a while before. I couldn't make out the name of who it was, but her response was, "I don't remember much of that tour. He likes to drink a lot of whiskey!" Another great voice that made the night enjoyable.
• Thao Nguyen - Wow, this chick can rock!! If her album had the same sound and energy that her live show did, I'd have been grooving on it a lot more. With the guitar and the way she worked the stage, I kept thinking to myself, "Hmm, she's definitely getting her Chuck Berry on up there!" I think she worked the crowd amazingly well, with her sing-alongs and her beatboxing on the mic. Any time she comes around the area, I'll be up to watch her perform again.
• Kate Havnevik - I knew the name and had heard a couple of songs, but was not overly familiar with her before the show. I would have enjoyed her performance a lot more if it weren't for the noisy crowd. A lot of what she did was quiet, gorgeous vocals that were simply drowned out by the obnoxiously loud bastards in the room that refused to STFU. Ugh. There were certainly flashes of awesome there that made me want more - pieces of Bjork, pieces of Imogen, pieces of Kate Bush, but in a way that was all her own.
• Rachael Yamagata - Man, what is there to say? She was why I wanted to go to this show and everyone else was just a super yummy added bonus. And wow, did she deliver! Rarely at concerts do I ever get to hear the songs I want them to play the most, but Rachael came out and blew me away with "Be Be Your Love" right off the bat, followed by "Faster" in her first go-round. When she came back on, "Elephants" and "Sunday Afternoon" were next up on my list of most-wanted and she rocked the house with them. The guitarist's solo on "Sunday" was all-the-more impressive knowing that his pinkie was useless and hurting him so much - now THAT is dedication to the job! She closed the show with "Reason Why" and then it was time to go home, happy, tired and satisfied from a night of great music.
Now, going back to the whole noise issue during the show: What is wrong with people? I just have huge issues with this on so many levels.
1. If you paid money for a ticket to go to the show, why would you spend your time talking when the musicians are playing? If all you want to do is drink and talk, go to a bar or stay home and have a party - it's a lot cheaper and more convenient that dropping cash on a concert ticket!
2. Do you not realize that other people are there to actually HEAR the music? If I wanted to hear Jackass A talking to Jackass B, I would buy tickets to a show with their name on it. But you know what? Your names weren't on my ticket! I saw "Hotel Cafe Tour" on my ticket, so unless you're with the tour, I don't want to hear you! This is even more frustrating for artists like this, where a lot of the music can be subtle and quiet and the background noise of Le Jackasses simply overpowered it.
3. If the artists ask you to be quiet, and several people in the crowd are shouting at you to be quiet, why is it so hard to realize that people want you to be quiet?? One lady even shouted back something like, "God, why should I be quiet? It's a concert!!", and that was just the perfect description of what is wrong with these people. That attitude of, "It's a concert so I should be able to talk loud and do whatever I want", shows such a fundamental selfishness and lack of appreciation for music that it makes me all sad and whiny.
Seriously, if you want to be loud and listen to music, just go to a bar. Or buy the CDs and crank them up at home. But out of respect for the artists and the people at the show that actually WANT to hear the music, don't go to concerts. If you can't muster the basic decency to be quiet during a show, then just don't go, or maybe just go to really loud metal concerts where no one can hear you anyway. I know that if you're one of the loud people at shows, all you really care about is yourself and what YOU want to do, but in the future, could you please just be selfish enough to want to go somewhere else so that the decent people of the world can actually enjoy the music?
The venue was interesting. The bar and restaurant are upstairs, and we all lined up, snaking through the dining area, as we waited for the doors to open. The concert itself was in the Duck Room, a dark, cozy basement that had me thinking that it could easily have been a speakeasy back in the day, hiding under the cover of the legitimate business upstairs. It was such a casual atmosphere, too - the "dressing room" for the artists was right next to the stage and we saw them coming in and out, walking through the crowd, several times as we waited. A couple of people were lucky enough to talk to Rachael before the show, and Kim and I tried as well, but she headed backstage just after we went over to where she was talking. By the time the show started, the crowd had swelled to maybe 400 people. It was nice, though - a lot of enthusiasm, but not with the crush of people that can happen with open-area crowds like this.
With so many names listed to play during the night, I wasn't sure how that was going to work or if I was going to enjoy it or not. I feared that we'd get just a couple songs from each of them instead of longer sets, and that's exactly what happened. But, it turned out my fears were unfounded; the short sets and quick rotation kept things fresh and kept a wide variety of sounds pumping through the Duck Room. Each musician played 2 songs the first time through, and then we were treated to a second rotation with each artist playing another couple of songs.
• Alice Russell - She rocked my socks off!! She was by far the Queen of Funk for the night, with the bass grooves and her gorgeous voice getting the night off to a great start. She apparently needs a bit more caution around her bandmates, as the guitarist (Jason, I think his name was?) had given her a black eye the day before. It definitely added a rather unique twist to her "look" on stage, though not as much as the bandaged and bloody pinkie that Jason sported. That led to the grossest moment of the night as he removed the bandage to allow him to play slide on his guitar during Alice's phenomenal rendition of The White Stripes' "Seven Nation Army", one of the highlights of the night.
• Jaymay - Kim had mentioned her to me before, but I was wholly unfamiliar with her work. I came away impressed with her voice and music, though I'm not sure if it's really my thing or not. I had heard she had kind of a poppy sound, but there was much more of a country/folk feel to it live. She definitely piqued my interest as someone to check out some more.
• Meiko - Completely and utterly unfamiliar with her before the show, she's definitely on my list of artists to check out in the future. She had one of the funniest moments of the night when she came on stage and said it was nice to be playing in St. Louis for the first time - only to be corrected by an audience member that she had been here a while before. I couldn't make out the name of who it was, but her response was, "I don't remember much of that tour. He likes to drink a lot of whiskey!" Another great voice that made the night enjoyable.
• Thao Nguyen - Wow, this chick can rock!! If her album had the same sound and energy that her live show did, I'd have been grooving on it a lot more. With the guitar and the way she worked the stage, I kept thinking to myself, "Hmm, she's definitely getting her Chuck Berry on up there!" I think she worked the crowd amazingly well, with her sing-alongs and her beatboxing on the mic. Any time she comes around the area, I'll be up to watch her perform again.
• Kate Havnevik - I knew the name and had heard a couple of songs, but was not overly familiar with her before the show. I would have enjoyed her performance a lot more if it weren't for the noisy crowd. A lot of what she did was quiet, gorgeous vocals that were simply drowned out by the obnoxiously loud bastards in the room that refused to STFU. Ugh. There were certainly flashes of awesome there that made me want more - pieces of Bjork, pieces of Imogen, pieces of Kate Bush, but in a way that was all her own.
• Rachael Yamagata - Man, what is there to say? She was why I wanted to go to this show and everyone else was just a super yummy added bonus. And wow, did she deliver! Rarely at concerts do I ever get to hear the songs I want them to play the most, but Rachael came out and blew me away with "Be Be Your Love" right off the bat, followed by "Faster" in her first go-round. When she came back on, "Elephants" and "Sunday Afternoon" were next up on my list of most-wanted and she rocked the house with them. The guitarist's solo on "Sunday" was all-the-more impressive knowing that his pinkie was useless and hurting him so much - now THAT is dedication to the job! She closed the show with "Reason Why" and then it was time to go home, happy, tired and satisfied from a night of great music.
Now, going back to the whole noise issue during the show: What is wrong with people? I just have huge issues with this on so many levels.
1. If you paid money for a ticket to go to the show, why would you spend your time talking when the musicians are playing? If all you want to do is drink and talk, go to a bar or stay home and have a party - it's a lot cheaper and more convenient that dropping cash on a concert ticket!
2. Do you not realize that other people are there to actually HEAR the music? If I wanted to hear Jackass A talking to Jackass B, I would buy tickets to a show with their name on it. But you know what? Your names weren't on my ticket! I saw "Hotel Cafe Tour" on my ticket, so unless you're with the tour, I don't want to hear you! This is even more frustrating for artists like this, where a lot of the music can be subtle and quiet and the background noise of Le Jackasses simply overpowered it.
3. If the artists ask you to be quiet, and several people in the crowd are shouting at you to be quiet, why is it so hard to realize that people want you to be quiet?? One lady even shouted back something like, "God, why should I be quiet? It's a concert!!", and that was just the perfect description of what is wrong with these people. That attitude of, "It's a concert so I should be able to talk loud and do whatever I want", shows such a fundamental selfishness and lack of appreciation for music that it makes me all sad and whiny.
Seriously, if you want to be loud and listen to music, just go to a bar. Or buy the CDs and crank them up at home. But out of respect for the artists and the people at the show that actually WANT to hear the music, don't go to concerts. If you can't muster the basic decency to be quiet during a show, then just don't go, or maybe just go to really loud metal concerts where no one can hear you anyway. I know that if you're one of the loud people at shows, all you really care about is yourself and what YOU want to do, but in the future, could you please just be selfish enough to want to go somewhere else so that the decent people of the world can actually enjoy the music?
Friday, November 7, 2008
"An Eternal Revolution" - Orlando Patterson
Just finished reading a great article on NYTimes.com.
A snippet:
It's a very thoughtful piece, looking at the full spectrum of historical trends that led to the election of Obama as president.
A snippet:
BARACK OBAMA’S victory marks the end of another magnificent chapter in America’s experience of democracy. But rather than being seen as a radical transition, it is best viewed as part of an ever-evolving process that began with the election of George Washington in 1789. To interpret it as a foundational change, ushering something new and unknown, is to diminish the past, to unduly singularize Mr. Obama’s achievement and to raise unrealistic expectations about his presidency.
It's a very thoughtful piece, looking at the full spectrum of historical trends that led to the election of Obama as president.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
The "Finally Proud"
A response to http://www.chris-brewer.com/2008/11/05/fair-weather-americans. A snippet:
Isn't it possible to love your country, and yet not be proud of your country and what it has done? Isn't it possible to "finally be proud" of your country after seeing an incredible reversal of the rampant racism that was at the heart of this country for 300+ years and simmering down slowly for the last 50?
When people are subject to slavery and government-sponsored racism and sexism, claiming to be a country with the most freedoms in the entire world doesn't ring true - and seeing a black man elected president is a symbolic culmination of the rise of the country out of that dark period of "Everyone is created equal - except you. And you. Oh, and you over there. Ummm, yeah, all y'all that aren't white, male and rich just aren't as equal as the rest of us."
So sure, we should all be proud and remember those that have fought, struggled and even died to protect our right to vote. But should we simply forget and gloss over all of those that fought so strenuously to deny their fellow citizens' rights? Should we be proud of the ugly side of American history - of racism? of slavery? of the Japanese internment camps? of the Trail of Tears and the rest of our bloody history with Native Americans? of My Lai and Abu Ghraib? And that's just off the top of my head.
There is much in our history as Americans to be ashamed of which could lead us to not be proud of our country. And if you or your family or ancestors were the direct victims? It would be that much harder to be proud of a country that has made your family suffer for centuries while claiming to offer you freedom and equality.
Obama being elected president doesn't have any direct, concrete impact on racism per se, but it sure as heck is a huge indication that we all are indeed roughly equal in opportunity, FINALLY!, to the point that even a black man (or a woman, as Hillary was close in this election cycle as well) can rise to the highest office in the land.
When you say that they're only proud because "their candidate" is in the White House, I think you're missing the point. You seem to think it's a political thing, but it's not. If this were about politics, they wouldn't "finally" be proud - because all of them were alive during the Clinton presidency when "their" candidate was also in the White House. It's about much more than that, and you would see much the same response if Obama had been a Republican instead and still won.
It's about America finally, concretely demonstrating what it has always claimed - that all of us, no matter our background, have a chance in this land to be what we want to be. It may not be easy, and we very well may fail. But seeing Obama elected showed them that even a man from a relatively poor background, from a mixed-race family who was raised by his grandparents, can focus his talents and abilities to reach for the very pinnacle of American power - and make it there. This would not have been possible 30 years ago; it very likely would have been illegal in many states 100 years ago and would have ended in a lynching.
It's this progress that people are finally proud of - that America has stepped up to the promises it made 232 years ago in a way that is wholly undeniable. Are we finished and at the point where all Americans can truly say they are free and equal? Not quite. Lee Greenwood sings, "I'm proud to be an American 'cuz at least I know I'm free", but what if he were gay and wanted to marry the man he loved more than anything? He would no longer know that he was free, because he would find a governmental wall between him and his basic humanity.
Does this mean I'm "finally proud" of America? No, it doesn't. But my ancestors and I also haven't suffered under the burdens of the dark side of America. I've always been proud to be called an American, and what has always made me most proud of America are those that stood up in the face of injustice and said, "This cannot be right" and then struggled to make correct it.
So I have absolutely no problem with people who say they are finally proud to be Americans. I'm not one of them, but I can absolutely empathize and understand why they feel that way. To call them pathetic is to deny the history and circumstances that led them to feel that way.
To those who are saying “I am finally proud to be an American” after Obama’s victory last night, you are pathetic and I am calling you all out.
So you weren’t proud to be an American before? What about everyone who has, over the course of our nation’s history, defended our right to vote? Did you not forget the fact that regardless of who is in the Oval Office, you live in the nation with the most freedoms afforded to us in the entire world?
REGARDLESS of who is in the White House, you should be proud of your nation. If you cannot be proud of America during the times in which your candidate does not hold the highest office in the land, you have no reason to be called a true American in the first place.
Isn't it possible to love your country, and yet not be proud of your country and what it has done? Isn't it possible to "finally be proud" of your country after seeing an incredible reversal of the rampant racism that was at the heart of this country for 300+ years and simmering down slowly for the last 50?
When people are subject to slavery and government-sponsored racism and sexism, claiming to be a country with the most freedoms in the entire world doesn't ring true - and seeing a black man elected president is a symbolic culmination of the rise of the country out of that dark period of "Everyone is created equal - except you. And you. Oh, and you over there. Ummm, yeah, all y'all that aren't white, male and rich just aren't as equal as the rest of us."
So sure, we should all be proud and remember those that have fought, struggled and even died to protect our right to vote. But should we simply forget and gloss over all of those that fought so strenuously to deny their fellow citizens' rights? Should we be proud of the ugly side of American history - of racism? of slavery? of the Japanese internment camps? of the Trail of Tears and the rest of our bloody history with Native Americans? of My Lai and Abu Ghraib? And that's just off the top of my head.
There is much in our history as Americans to be ashamed of which could lead us to not be proud of our country. And if you or your family or ancestors were the direct victims? It would be that much harder to be proud of a country that has made your family suffer for centuries while claiming to offer you freedom and equality.
Obama being elected president doesn't have any direct, concrete impact on racism per se, but it sure as heck is a huge indication that we all are indeed roughly equal in opportunity, FINALLY!, to the point that even a black man (or a woman, as Hillary was close in this election cycle as well) can rise to the highest office in the land.
When you say that they're only proud because "their candidate" is in the White House, I think you're missing the point. You seem to think it's a political thing, but it's not. If this were about politics, they wouldn't "finally" be proud - because all of them were alive during the Clinton presidency when "their" candidate was also in the White House. It's about much more than that, and you would see much the same response if Obama had been a Republican instead and still won.
It's about America finally, concretely demonstrating what it has always claimed - that all of us, no matter our background, have a chance in this land to be what we want to be. It may not be easy, and we very well may fail. But seeing Obama elected showed them that even a man from a relatively poor background, from a mixed-race family who was raised by his grandparents, can focus his talents and abilities to reach for the very pinnacle of American power - and make it there. This would not have been possible 30 years ago; it very likely would have been illegal in many states 100 years ago and would have ended in a lynching.
It's this progress that people are finally proud of - that America has stepped up to the promises it made 232 years ago in a way that is wholly undeniable. Are we finished and at the point where all Americans can truly say they are free and equal? Not quite. Lee Greenwood sings, "I'm proud to be an American 'cuz at least I know I'm free", but what if he were gay and wanted to marry the man he loved more than anything? He would no longer know that he was free, because he would find a governmental wall between him and his basic humanity.
Does this mean I'm "finally proud" of America? No, it doesn't. But my ancestors and I also haven't suffered under the burdens of the dark side of America. I've always been proud to be called an American, and what has always made me most proud of America are those that stood up in the face of injustice and said, "This cannot be right" and then struggled to make correct it.
So I have absolutely no problem with people who say they are finally proud to be Americans. I'm not one of them, but I can absolutely empathize and understand why they feel that way. To call them pathetic is to deny the history and circumstances that led them to feel that way.
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
OMFGOMFGOMFGOMFG!
Obama wins. 'Nuff said. I am so freakin' ecstatic right now, I don't have the words. Now to sit and watch how big of a landslide it ends up being...
Day of reckoning
Well, I did my duty and went out to vote this morning. The polls opened at 6 a.m., and the whole family was out of the car and in line at 6:05. There were probably 200 or so people ahead of us, with maybe 30-40 of them were standing outside. It moved pretty quickly, only taking 33 minutes to go from joining the line to putting my ballot in the box and leaving.
The girls were so funny while we were waiting. You can tell they've been listening to their parents, because they quite often will ask, "Can we go see Obama? Is that Obama? Where's Obama?" and this morning was no different. We had talked to them about keeping who we're voting for a "secret" so that they wouldn't be inadvertently electioneering at the polling place, but several times in line they asked, "Mom, can we get an Obama sticker? Are we going to see Obama yet?", which drew chuckles from everyone around us in line.
Now it's time to sit back and wait for results while I spend the whole day working my butt off. This is the one part of election days that is so bittersweet for me - I'm always so excited to exercise my right to vote, but it's dampened by the fact that election days are some of the longest, most hectic nights of work for me. And that's just based on being in Wyoming, where elections aren't even that hotly contested or have any where close to the population of Missouri.
I'm amazed at the predictions of turnout. Several places have predicted 70% or higher turnout in Missouri - if that holds, that would be 2,805,021 based on the Secretary of State's numbers from 2006. That's huge! And it doesn't even include however many new voters have joined the ranks in the last year as part of the most interesting election of my lifetime. After bottoming out in 1996 with less than 50% voter turnout, I hope to see us smash the national record of 63.06% set in 1960 - I think it's going to be easily surpassed. And the 122 million that turned out in 2004? Easily going to blown away. I wouldn't be shocked to see it come close to or even pass 200 million!
The girls were so funny while we were waiting. You can tell they've been listening to their parents, because they quite often will ask, "Can we go see Obama? Is that Obama? Where's Obama?" and this morning was no different. We had talked to them about keeping who we're voting for a "secret" so that they wouldn't be inadvertently electioneering at the polling place, but several times in line they asked, "Mom, can we get an Obama sticker? Are we going to see Obama yet?", which drew chuckles from everyone around us in line.
Now it's time to sit back and wait for results while I spend the whole day working my butt off. This is the one part of election days that is so bittersweet for me - I'm always so excited to exercise my right to vote, but it's dampened by the fact that election days are some of the longest, most hectic nights of work for me. And that's just based on being in Wyoming, where elections aren't even that hotly contested or have any where close to the population of Missouri.
I'm amazed at the predictions of turnout. Several places have predicted 70% or higher turnout in Missouri - if that holds, that would be 2,805,021 based on the Secretary of State's numbers from 2006. That's huge! And it doesn't even include however many new voters have joined the ranks in the last year as part of the most interesting election of my lifetime. After bottoming out in 1996 with less than 50% voter turnout, I hope to see us smash the national record of 63.06% set in 1960 - I think it's going to be easily surpassed. And the 122 million that turned out in 2004? Easily going to blown away. I wouldn't be shocked to see it come close to or even pass 200 million!
Saturday, November 1, 2008
OMG, the Cowboys won a game??
Game story on ESPN.com
Amazing - see what happens when they can go a whole game without any turnovers? It also helps that they were playing probably the only team in the Mountain West worse than them instead of the three Top 25 powerhouses currently destroying MWC teams.
Here's hoping basketball season is a lot less disappointing than football has been.
Amazing - see what happens when they can go a whole game without any turnovers? It also helps that they were playing probably the only team in the Mountain West worse than them instead of the three Top 25 powerhouses currently destroying MWC teams.
Here's hoping basketball season is a lot less disappointing than football has been.
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