to anybody reading this, or still reading this, or reading it for the first time (let's be honest, was anybody EVER reading this?):
today is the day.
i started getting choked up getting ready for work, this morning. to graduate college, i had to write a thesis about a social movement in the state i grew up in, and i chose to write about a black student movement that happened 13 years before i was born at the school i was attending. the students only wanted more representation in the student body, faculty, staff and administration. they fought for change, and in 37 years, the black student population at this particular university went from less than 1% to 13%, 10% higher than the population in the entire state.
37 years later, i'm going to go to the polls and vote for a black man to be president.
america can be annoying, and america can be embarrassing. i will absolutely be the first to admit it. but 50 years ago, barack obama would have had to walk in a separate door to enter a building. and he would have had to drink at a different water fountain. he would have had to sit at the back of the bus--not because the cool kids were back there (which is why i always wanted to sit at the back of the bus), but because that was where people who looked like him had to sit. and because of his skin color, 50 years ago, in the united states of america, barack obama would have had a helluva time even registering to vote.
and today, we will find out if he is going to be our next president.
what an amazing place.
this is going to be big, i hope i don't have to tell you.
today, we make history. in the land of the free, and the home of the brave.
11.04.2008
11.03.2008
quote of the day
"rosa sat so martin could walk. martin walked so obama could run. obama is running so our children can fly."
-Jay Z
-Jay Z
9.10.2008
NUMB3RS (...sorry.)
Interestingly enough, what with the numbers in this morning, 62% of men have a "favorable opinion" of Sarah Palin, whereas only 53% of women showed similar results. Similarly, 23% of men have an unfavorable view of Sen. John McCain's running mate, while women stood fast at 30% (which is, admittedly, not very high, but still, interesting, no?). 57% of males believe Palin to be qualified; only 43% of women agreed and, in fact, 55% of women felt Palin is not qualified. And, in the end, 50% of people (read: men AND women) agreed that Palin is qualified to take over as president if something happens to good old Johnny McCain, whereas a whopping 70% of those polled say the same for Democratic VP nom Joe Biden.
Some more numbers follow after the jump.
Some more numbers follow after the jump.
this just in...
Apparently--according to CNN.com--McCain has inched ahead of Obama in national polls, but Obama has a steady lead in the most recent Electoral College estimates.
Forgive me, but it's always seemed to me that, if one candidate is deemed the favorite (read: winning in national polls), they ought to be the one the Electoral College goes for. I mean, I'm sure by now it's no secret which candidate I favor, but numbers are numbers.
Oh well. Anyway. Read the story here if you're interested.
P.S. This part cracks me up: "Although polls across the country are open on one day, the election is not a national poll but a series of 51 state-level elections that decide the members of the Electoral College."
Come on, CNN.com. Really?
Forgive me, but it's always seemed to me that, if one candidate is deemed the favorite (read: winning in national polls), they ought to be the one the Electoral College goes for. I mean, I'm sure by now it's no secret which candidate I favor, but numbers are numbers.
Oh well. Anyway. Read the story here if you're interested.
P.S. This part cracks me up: "Although polls across the country are open on one day, the election is not a national poll but a series of 51 state-level elections that decide the members of the Electoral College."
Come on, CNN.com. Really?
definition of the day (?)
mav·er·ick 
Audio Help [mav-er-ik, mav-rik] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation
Audio Help [mav-er-ik, mav-rik] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation –noun
| 1. | Southwestern U.S. an unbranded calf, cow, or steer, esp. an unbranded calf that is separated from its mother. |
| 2. | a lone dissenter, as an intellectual, an artist, or a politician, who takes an independent stand apart from his or her associates. |
| 3. | (initial capital letter) an electro-optically guided U.S. air-to-ground tactical missile for destroying tanks and other hardened targets at ranges up to 15 mi. (24 km). |
[Origin: 1865–70, Americanism; after Samuel A. Maverick (1803–70), Texas pioneer who left his calves unbranded]
] —Synonyms 2. nonconformist, independent, loner.
9.09.2008
LONG post
I know this is a bit long, but my mother just forwarded this to me and I thought it was an important thing to post:
Palin: wrong woman, wrong message ...
By Gloria Steinem
September 4, 2008
Here's the good news: Women have become so politically powerful that even
the anti-feminist right wing -- the folks with a headlock on the Republican
Party -- are trying to appease the gender gap with a first-ever female vice
president. We owe this to women -- and to many men too -- who have
picketed, gone on hunger strikes or confronted violence at the polls so
women can vote. We owe it to Shirley Chisholm, who first took the
"white-male-only" sign off the White House, and to Hillary Rodham Clinton,
who hung in there through ridicule and misogyny to win 18 million votes.
But here is even better news: It won't work. This isn't the first time a
boss has picked an unqualified woman just because she agrees with him and
opposes everything most other women want and need. Feminism has never been
about getting a job for one woman. It's about making life more fair for
women everywhere. It's not about a piece of the existing pie; there are too
many of us for that. It's about baking a new pie.
Selecting Sarah Palin, who was touted all summer by Rush Limbaugh, is no
way to attract most women, including die-hard Clinton supporters. Palin
shares nothing but a chromosome with Clinton. Her down-home, divisive and
deceptive speech did nothing to cosmeticize a Republican convention that
has more than twice as many male delegates as female, a presidential
candidate who is owned and operated by the right wing and a platform that
opposes pretty much everything Clinton's candidacy stood for -- and that
Barack Obama's still does. To vote in protest for McCain/Palin would be
like saying, "Somebody stole my shoes, so I'll amputate my legs."
This is not to beat up on Palin. I defend her right to be wrong, even on
issues that matter most to me. I regret that people say she can't do the
job because she has children in need of care, especially if they wouldn't
say the same about a father. I get no pleasure from imagining her in the
spotlight on national and foreign policy issues about which she has zero
background, with one month to learn to compete with Sen. Joe Biden's 37
years' experience.
Palin has been honest about what she doesn't know. When asked last month
about the vice presidency, she said, "I still can't answer that question
until someone answers for me: What is it exactly that the VP does every
day?" When asked about Iraq, she said, "I haven't really focused much on
the war in Iraq."
She was elected governor largely because the incumbent was unpopular, and
she's won over Alaskans mostly by using unprecedented oil wealth to give a
$1,200 rebate to every resident. Now she is being praised by McCain's
campaign as a tax cutter, despite the fact that Alaska has no state income
or sales tax. Perhaps McCain has opposed affirmative action for so long
that he doesn't know it's about inviting more people to meet standards, not
lowering them. Or perhaps McCain is following the Bush administration
habit, as in the Justice Department, of putting a job candidate's views on
"God, guns and gays" ahead of competence. The difference is that McCain is
filling a job one 72-year-old heartbeat away from the presidency.
So let's be clear: The culprit is John McCain. He may have chosen Palin out
of change-envy, or a belief that women can't tell the difference between
form and content, but the main motive was to please right-wing ideologues;
the same ones who nixed anyone who is now or ever has been a supporter of
reproductive freedom. If that were not the case, McCain could have chosen a
woman who knows what a vice president does and who has thought about Iraq;
someone like Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison or Sen. Olympia Snowe of
Maine. McCain could have taken a baby step away from right-wing patriarchs
who determine his actions, right down to opposing the Violence Against
Women Act.
Palin's value to those patriarchs is clear: She opposes just about every
issue that women support by a majority or plurality. She believes that
creationism should be taught in public schools but disbelieves global
warming; she opposes gun control but supports government control of women's
wombs; she opposes stem cell research but approves "abstinence-only"
programs, which increase unwanted births, sexually transmitted diseases and
abortions; she tried to use taxpayers' millions for a state program to
shoot wolves from the air but didn't spend enough money to fix a state
school system with the lowest high-school graduation rate in the nation;
she runs with a candidate who opposes the Fair Pay Act but supports $500
million in subsidies for a natural gas pipeline across Alaska; she supports
drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve, though even McCain has
opted for the lesser evil of offshore drilling. She is Phyllis Schlafly, only younger.
I don't doubt her sincerity. As a lifetime member of the National Rifle
Assn., she doesn't just support killing animals from helicopters, she does
it herself. She doesn't just talk about increasing the use of fossil fuels
but puts a coal-burning power plant in her own small town. She doesn't just
echo McCain's pledge to criminalize abortion by overturning Roe vs. Wade,
she says that if one of her daughters were impregnated by rape or incest,
she should bear the child. She not only opposes reproductive freedom as a
human right but implies that it dictates abortion, without saying that it
also protects the right to have a child.
So far, the major new McCain supporter that Palin has attracted is James
Dobson of Focus on the Family. Of course, for Dobson, "women are merely
waiting for their husbands to assume leadership," so he may be voting for
Palin's husband.
Being a hope-a-holic, however, I can see two long-term bipartisan gains
from this contest.
Republicans may learn they can't appeal to right-wing patriarchs and most
women at the same time. A loss in November could cause the centrist
majority of Republicans to take back their party, which was the first to
support the Equal Rights Amendment and should be the last to want to invite
government into the wombs of women.
And American women, who suffer more because of having two full-time jobs
than from any other single injustice, finally have support on a national
stage from male leaders who know that women can't be equal outside the home
until men are equal in it. Barack Obama and Joe Biden are campaigning on
their belief that men should be, can be and want to be at home for their
children.
This could be huge.
...and there you have it.
Palin: wrong woman, wrong message ...
By Gloria Steinem
September 4, 2008
Here's the good news: Women have become so politically powerful that even
the anti-feminist right wing -- the folks with a headlock on the Republican
Party -- are trying to appease the gender gap with a first-ever female vice
president. We owe this to women -- and to many men too -- who have
picketed, gone on hunger strikes or confronted violence at the polls so
women can vote. We owe it to Shirley Chisholm, who first took the
"white-male-only" sign off the White House, and to Hillary Rodham Clinton,
who hung in there through ridicule and misogyny to win 18 million votes.
But here is even better news: It won't work. This isn't the first time a
boss has picked an unqualified woman just because she agrees with him and
opposes everything most other women want and need. Feminism has never been
about getting a job for one woman. It's about making life more fair for
women everywhere. It's not about a piece of the existing pie; there are too
many of us for that. It's about baking a new pie.
Selecting Sarah Palin, who was touted all summer by Rush Limbaugh, is no
way to attract most women, including die-hard Clinton supporters. Palin
shares nothing but a chromosome with Clinton. Her down-home, divisive and
deceptive speech did nothing to cosmeticize a Republican convention that
has more than twice as many male delegates as female, a presidential
candidate who is owned and operated by the right wing and a platform that
opposes pretty much everything Clinton's candidacy stood for -- and that
Barack Obama's still does. To vote in protest for McCain/Palin would be
like saying, "Somebody stole my shoes, so I'll amputate my legs."
This is not to beat up on Palin. I defend her right to be wrong, even on
issues that matter most to me. I regret that people say she can't do the
job because she has children in need of care, especially if they wouldn't
say the same about a father. I get no pleasure from imagining her in the
spotlight on national and foreign policy issues about which she has zero
background, with one month to learn to compete with Sen. Joe Biden's 37
years' experience.
Palin has been honest about what she doesn't know. When asked last month
about the vice presidency, she said, "I still can't answer that question
until someone answers for me: What is it exactly that the VP does every
day?" When asked about Iraq, she said, "I haven't really focused much on
the war in Iraq."
She was elected governor largely because the incumbent was unpopular, and
she's won over Alaskans mostly by using unprecedented oil wealth to give a
$1,200 rebate to every resident. Now she is being praised by McCain's
campaign as a tax cutter, despite the fact that Alaska has no state income
or sales tax. Perhaps McCain has opposed affirmative action for so long
that he doesn't know it's about inviting more people to meet standards, not
lowering them. Or perhaps McCain is following the Bush administration
habit, as in the Justice Department, of putting a job candidate's views on
"God, guns and gays" ahead of competence. The difference is that McCain is
filling a job one 72-year-old heartbeat away from the presidency.
So let's be clear: The culprit is John McCain. He may have chosen Palin out
of change-envy, or a belief that women can't tell the difference between
form and content, but the main motive was to please right-wing ideologues;
the same ones who nixed anyone who is now or ever has been a supporter of
reproductive freedom. If that were not the case, McCain could have chosen a
woman who knows what a vice president does and who has thought about Iraq;
someone like Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison or Sen. Olympia Snowe of
Maine. McCain could have taken a baby step away from right-wing patriarchs
who determine his actions, right down to opposing the Violence Against
Women Act.
Palin's value to those patriarchs is clear: She opposes just about every
issue that women support by a majority or plurality. She believes that
creationism should be taught in public schools but disbelieves global
warming; she opposes gun control but supports government control of women's
wombs; she opposes stem cell research but approves "abstinence-only"
programs, which increase unwanted births, sexually transmitted diseases and
abortions; she tried to use taxpayers' millions for a state program to
shoot wolves from the air but didn't spend enough money to fix a state
school system with the lowest high-school graduation rate in the nation;
she runs with a candidate who opposes the Fair Pay Act but supports $500
million in subsidies for a natural gas pipeline across Alaska; she supports
drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve, though even McCain has
opted for the lesser evil of offshore drilling. She is Phyllis Schlafly, only younger.
I don't doubt her sincerity. As a lifetime member of the National Rifle
Assn., she doesn't just support killing animals from helicopters, she does
it herself. She doesn't just talk about increasing the use of fossil fuels
but puts a coal-burning power plant in her own small town. She doesn't just
echo McCain's pledge to criminalize abortion by overturning Roe vs. Wade,
she says that if one of her daughters were impregnated by rape or incest,
she should bear the child. She not only opposes reproductive freedom as a
human right but implies that it dictates abortion, without saying that it
also protects the right to have a child.
So far, the major new McCain supporter that Palin has attracted is James
Dobson of Focus on the Family. Of course, for Dobson, "women are merely
waiting for their husbands to assume leadership," so he may be voting for
Palin's husband.
Being a hope-a-holic, however, I can see two long-term bipartisan gains
from this contest.
Republicans may learn they can't appeal to right-wing patriarchs and most
women at the same time. A loss in November could cause the centrist
majority of Republicans to take back their party, which was the first to
support the Equal Rights Amendment and should be the last to want to invite
government into the wombs of women.
And American women, who suffer more because of having two full-time jobs
than from any other single injustice, finally have support on a national
stage from male leaders who know that women can't be equal outside the home
until men are equal in it. Barack Obama and Joe Biden are campaigning on
their belief that men should be, can be and want to be at home for their
children.
This could be huge.
...and there you have it.
how it all started
I'm not sure how many of you regularly watch The Colbert Report, but just in case you don't, here's some news: the whole "Sarah Palin for VP" idea came from some college kid living in his mom's basement.
No, I'm not kidding.
Blogger Adam Brickley first suggested the idea around the beginning of 2007. You can read his blog--which has been updated often, and is already boasting an entry today--here.
And I know, I know...but here's the clip from Colbert:
Mr. Brickley makes his appearance at around 5:50 in that video.
No, I'm not kidding.
Blogger Adam Brickley first suggested the idea around the beginning of 2007. You can read his blog--which has been updated often, and is already boasting an entry today--here.
And I know, I know...but here's the clip from Colbert:
Mr. Brickley makes his appearance at around 5:50 in that video.
yes, another one.
Not to post two Daily Show clips in a row, but I just found this--Mike Huckabee is quite hilarious in this clip, I think, so I figured I'd post it:
I know it looks like the same video I just posted below, but watch it--I promise it isn't!
I know it looks like the same video I just posted below, but watch it--I promise it isn't!
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