When I was living in South Africa I visited friends in Soweto a number of times.  On the wall of almost every living room were two pictures:  John Kennedy and Martin Luther King.  Today a third picture will be going up there: Barack Obama.

The Dot talked with her daughter in France this morning.  People were stopping and talking with any American they could find to tell them of their joy and happiness in Obama's election.

I talked with my friend Rona in London...  everyone's abuzz in the tubes about the election.

It's going to be interesting to see who Barack pulls ...<< MORE >>

In about 15 minutes I'll be off to the polls with my godson and his friend.  Both teenagers.  Both voting for the first time.  Both voting for Obama.  I'm hoping every adult in the US is taking at least two new voters to the polls.

And remember....

If you don't vote, you can't complain.  No exceptions.
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Barack's Grandmother has died.

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I had to force myself to watch and, more importantly, listen to this:



You can read a discussion at CNEWS here.

She gushes, she burbles, she makes a garsh-darn (with a wink) fool of herself.  First off... it looks like they don't even try to vet the call.  Cripes...  I should try calling!  Secondly, even as the caller drops bomb ("my wife, she is hot in bed!") after bomb (a Hustler video called Nailin Paylin) after bomb (well, really, really, REALLY, bad fake French accents) she doesn't catch on.  She just blathers and blathers and blathers.

Good Ghu ... can you ...<< MORE >>

I collect Mark Twain First Editions.  Or at least I did, until they became a bit more pricey than a Simple Programmer could afford.  Along the way I started to collect the first magazine appearance of Twain's works.  For example, Huckleberry Finn first appeared in Century Magazine in 1884.  So, what has this got to do with The Election?

Back in The Day, there wasn't TV.  There weren't radios.  Just newspapers and magazines.  What I try to do when I'm reading Twain in those 1880 magazine is not to think that I'm reading an old, antique, book, but rather that I'm reading those stories for the very first time.  And not just the Twain...  there was "news of the day", reminiscences on the civil war...  it was just like watching 60-Minutes but in print.

So... cast your mind to the future.  To folks watching TV footage of this election.  To folks calling up long-archived web pages of the candidates.  What will they think?

Will they see this point in time as a juncture where a country that was careening off the road into dark future suddenly right itself and get back on track?  Will they see a nation that failed to embrace hope descend into bitterness and poverty?

And what of the players?  Will Barack be seen as a brave, but ultimately failing, candidate?  Will a President Palin be viewed as the last president before the country split into chaos?

I think not.

I think that come Wednesday morning we'll see a nation whose youth and traditionally disenfranchised populace finally stepped off the sidelines and into the voting line.  Stepped into a line where they had to wait hours to vote...but stayed there because they new the time to just wait for some else to fix was over. 

A few months ago I talked about tipping points.  We're at another one.

I'm going to do what I can... I'm going to do some phoning.  You can too... go to the Obama Event Site now.

According to a local school official, and reported in the Huffington Post, 2/3 of the 6,000 folks at the rally were bussed in by the school district.  If this sounds familiar, it's just like the bad old days in Russia (nee. Soviet Union) when workers were bussed in to make impressive backdrops to political rallies.  Dozens of buses, thousands of students and staff out of their classrooms.

A local school district official confirmed after the event that of the 6,000 people estimated by the fire marshal to be in attendance this morning, more than 4,000 were bused in from schools in the area. The entire 2,500-student Defiance School District was in attendance, the official said, in addition to at least three other schools from neighboring districts, one of which sent 14 buses.

What I want to know, was this on the taxpayer's dime?

One person that McCain thought was there was a no-show.  Poor John:



We expect this man to co-ordinate the running of the United States and he can't even co-ordinate a rally?

Here's Barack last night on the Daily Show:


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First, the nasty one. CNN Reports that a fake flier is going out telling Democrats to vote on the 5th of November.  Read the flier here (PDF File).  It seems that something like this crops up each year.  I never have seen Democrats try to pull one like this.  Something about honor, ethics, etc etc.

And then, the silly one.  McCain is trying to get an LA TV station to release a tape about a meeting Obama had in 2003 with a Palestinian group in the US led by a chap named Khalidi.  Here's the MSNBC story: MSNBC Story.

Here's a quote from the story:

McCain also has ties to Khalidi through a group that Khalidi helped found 15 years ago. The Center for Palestine Research and Studies has received more than $800,000 from an organization that McCain chairs.

So... are we supposed to be mad at Obama because he had a meeting with this guy, or mad at McCain for giving the same guy $800,000?  I bet they've had this one sitting in the wings waiting for the final days.  Trying to pull a Willy Horton, I'd wager.

I like her...  compared to so many first ladies she just feels so "normal".

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Thanks, Ron:



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