"...and begin again the work of remaking America."

"Our challenges may be new. The instruments with which we meet them may be new. But those values upon which our success depends - hard work and honesty, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism - these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history. What is demanded then is a return to these truths. What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility - a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task.

This is the price and promise of citizenship."

Both the government and the people are finally paying attention. They noticed the trouble our country is in and are willing to take action. With Obama's inauguration comes a wave of relief, and a surge of hope that we have a president who will commit himself to the betterment of our country. I trust him. I never trusted Bush. Hearing Obama's speech today and looking at the national mall filled with millions of excited Americans is the most heartening thing I've seen in a long time. Progress will be hard and slow, but today, let's just be grateful it has begun. 

(Full inaugural transcript here.)

Wistful Election Roundup

I'll leave it to the pundits and analysts to delve into the numbers and statistics relative to Election 08. None of that is going to stick with me; I can tell you that now. What will are the memories of how it felt. All day yesterday, people were excited. They were smiling at the thought of going to the polls and casting a ballot, finally being allowed to say something, after years of watching the country slowly twist into something none of us wanted. The relief and excitement that swept over everyone when the results came in declaring Obama the winner was overwhelming. I sat on the couch next to my mother who cried from the second it was announced until Obama wrapped up his speech an hour and a half later. People screamed on streets, hugging and yelling, even diving into the occasional urban water feature . For me, this election was about getting back something we never should have lost in the first place: pride in where we're from and confidence that we have a government that is working for the greater good of the country and the world. And this is just the beginning. Obama makes people want to be better citizens. He already ran a pretty flawless campaign and mobilized voters to a point we didn't believe possible, and I can't wait to see what happens next.

In the meantime, I am going to revel in my memories of yesterday.  The electricity in the air when voters breathed a collective sigh of relief, the shared sense that we all have something to hope for, and a real chance at getting it, made me so glad that the first presidential election I could vote in, was one that has meant so much. 

I apologize for what you might be subjected to

After my colleague posted a record six blog posts in one day, undoubtedly a result of her pre-election frenzy, I am feeling inspired. You may remember I set a goal to reach 20 blog posts in 30 days. I am three days from my deadline and have fallen sorely behind. But my competitive spirit almost always gets the best of me, and I'm determined to hit the big 2-0. As a result, I apologize for the quality of what might come out of my mouth (fingers) in the next six posts. But let's be honest, it's not as if you came here for insight or good writing. TISH TOSH. 

Anyway, the esteemed Connie has a sidebar in her blog about the ways she knows election day is approaching. This list essentially serves as a way to  enumerate her various psychotic behaviors that nearly always center on politics, government, and the media's coverage of both. While compared to her, I am positively casual observer of politics, I still consider myself more involved than the average American. When Bush was re-elected in 2004, I was so destroyed and disappointed, I stayed home from school the next day in a vegetative state. An emotional coma, we'll call it. So, I suffer too at the hands of our electorate. So Connie (hat tip), I blatantly plagiarize your idea below, thus reducing my editorial standards to zero. 

Here's my list of Top 10 Election Season Impulsions

10. Hours have past and I am still on Pollster.com. Sometimes, if I'm really in the zone, I'll even make my own Excel graphs. 

9. I find myself longing to live in swing state so my monologues don't fall entirely on deaf ears in America's bluest state. 

8. I refer to newspaper columnists by first name in conversation as if they are my friends, much to the confusion of everyone who wonders whether there are any 20-somethings named Maureen anymore. 

7. I plan my wardrobe around having something blue to wear every day leading up to Election Day, and wear my gap "Vote" t-shirt long after it's developed that unique ripe smell. 

6. I base my faith in the future of journalism and youth political activism solely on the sky-high spirits of the team over at Politico.com

5. I actually raised my voice and pointed a finger at a stranger in a supermarket who said she was voting for Palin because she couldn't have Hillary. 

4. I fantasize about being a part of conversations between Michelle Obama and Jill Biden. 

3. In the break room, people know the channel has to be CNN or MSNBC when I'm around. Similarly, an idle moment spent at my internship is dedicated to reading wistful election-season roundups. 

2. I have stopped reading Gawker, Dooce, and other sites with the fierce regularity I used to in order to sharpen my election acumen. If you know me, you understand the depths of this personal sacrifice. 

1. Despite spending three days a week as an editorial intern at a magazine, my life plan (full disclosure: it changes every 3-4 days) no longer includes publishing of any kind, but rather a life of public service. 

Assigned reading

A round-up from where I've been on the Internet and what you might have missed.

A Rolling Stone profile of David Foster Wallace, famed author who killed himself in September after decades of battling debilitating depression. This is the most thorough, well-researched, and beautifully written profile I've read in a while. The piece is long, but more than worth it. I read it in two sittings and cried at the end. It makes for an absolutely aching look at a life that ended in a way that seemed inevitable to everyone who knew him, which is the most heartbreaking aspect of the whole story. I get the sense that the writer absolutely nailed this story in a way that happens hardly ever.

Someone put together a Sarah Palin's greatest hits video on YouTube, which I posted originally, but then I listened to this, and found out it was real. I actually feel bad for our Alaskan mental midget:




New York Magazine compiled a photo slideshow of the best doggy Halloween costumes. You can be the judge about which dogs you feel most sorry for.

And this week's "What the fuck" science moment, scientists want to put robot ants on Mars to build houses for us.

Top Ten Unanswered Questions of Election 2008

Let's thank the good Lord in Heaven, this never-ending election cycle is finally wrapping up. It's been a long and trying two years to say the least. I'm excited to watch the end of the race unfold and am hoping desperately that things will go the way I know they have to. In some aspects this country has grown unrecognizable, and this election serves as a chance to bring it back to where it's supposed to be, and to propel it forward in ways we've been always capable of , but never realized. And even though I've followed this presidential race with a keen interest, and tried to digest as much news and analysis as possible, I still have some unanswered questions, and I present them to you below in a list format.

Editor's Note: For the sake of my mental health, this list assumes that Sen. Obama will be elected. Please, Fate, I am not tempting you, and I am definitely not counting my chickens before they hatch. I am merely estimating as to the general number of chickens without making any assumptions, just looking closely enough and admiring the poultry, so that my head doesn't explode. Do you get what I'm saying? No? Okay, then let's get started.

10) Why does RFK Jr. always sounds like he's dying? It's one thing when you seem him in a video clip, so you can know that at least the man on the other end of that horrifying haunted-house caliber whine is indeed somewhat able-bodied and can breathe without assistance. But today I heard him on NPR and kept waiting for the interviewer to ask if Bobby needed an ambulance. NPR hasn't posted the interview anywhere yet, but if they do, I'll post it because his voice is 100x more strained and alarming than it is in the YouTube clip.

9) Do people ever measure the girth of John McCain's cheeks? Particularly, do they ever graph the rates of the growth on his left cheek? What's in there? Can someone please one day ask him to see how many nuts he can store in his cheeks over winter? I bet a lot. And you probably wouldn't notice. It's not like his jowls could become any more protuberant. Unless maybe you were this kid.

8) What planet does Elisabeth Hasselbeck live on? And not only her, but every other one-note talking-point spewer who insists Obama is bad for the country and Palin is "experienced"? If I ever met Elisabeth, I hope to maintain my composure long enough to ask her: What would it take? What would a Republican have to do to lose your trust? What would it take to get you to think an independent thought?

7) When Obama takes office, will we still get to see him shirtless?

6) Rather than fade into obscurity (and/or grandmotherhood), could Sarah Palin please host some type of benign cable advice show? I would love to hear that whacked-out folksy accent dispense advice such as, "You gotta kick that clown to the curb, honey, God bless ya!" I could tolerate her (like she tolerates the "homosexuals") in a format like that, as long as I don't have to stomach her in the political arena.

5) Can we send a linguist to Alaska to map the dialects? There must be a buttload. I, as well as everyone else, had no idea Alaskans talked like Sarah Palin, and I am still not entirely convinced more than a handful of them do. And please, don't think I am saying this because I am a "liberal elite" Massachusetts resident. After all, we gave you guys Barney Frank and Tom "Mumbles" Menino. I know a messed up voice when I hear one. I am just curious.

4) Will Michelle Obama be hosting any Jackie O.-caliber White House dinners? And if so, will the lovely Jill Biden be co-hosting? And if so, CAN I COME PLEASE?! What I am about to say is revolutionary: I want to have tea with those women WAY MORE than I ever wanted to go on a date with Kate Walsh and Diane Lane... COMBINED.

3) After this election is over, can we stop talking about race for a good, long while? I realize it is a factor, and I know there will probably be some books published on the topic, and that's all well and good. But can the day-to-day "race factor" conversations stop? To be fair, they've died down a lot since the primaries. And please people, don't get me wrong, I like to harp about racial inequalities as much as the next liberal-arts-educated white Northerner, but even I've had my fill. After taking at least half a dozen classes about the subject, and sitting patiently through all of the election coverage, I am again extending a plea for a moratorium on race-talk unless it is something revolutionary that we've never heard before.

2) While we are on the subject of moratoriums... Lately reporters have been throwing in the phrase "talking point" at every available opportunity. It's as if, all of a sudden, the press realized it was okay to acknowledge the fact that presidential campaigns send out memos with the exact lines pundits bring up and repeat verbatim on cable networks. I would like to request that people stop sticking to talking points all together, but then no one would have anything to say, so I am just going to ask reporters, politicians, and other media personalities to stop saying "talking points" in public because hearing that phrase just annoys me. We know the Obama and McCain camps tell people what to say. We know your interviews follow a very rigid formula. So stop acting like you should let us know that you know that we know and just get on with it. Can you do that for me?

1) When this is all over, can I take a vacation? I have spent endless hours fretting over polling data, scrutinzing every last word in a New York Times op-ed piece, and trying to school dozens of people on the intricacies of health policy. And I don't come anywhere close to any of those obsessive poltical junkies. I am just a girl with a social conscience and a mind of her own. So for everyone who has gone gray, shed tears, yelled at a stranger, or had to go on blood pressure medication because of the stressors of this election cycle, come November 5, MEET ME IN FIJI.

Ruining your day with an election resource round up

One of my favorites, Joan Didion, with a blistering essay about this election cycle's failures and the deleterious effects of what she calls a national coma. (I'm not entirely won over by some of it, but it's certainly worth a read.)

Stomach-wrenching ignornace in Pennsylvania, that will make you embarrassed to live on the same planet as these people:


Five articles from the New York Times centering on racist Americans, best summarized in quotes on Gawker.

I'll spare you the rest, because if you find these items as depressing as I did, you'll need a few minutes to pour yourself a drink.

Fourth Estate, not so great

Barack Obama does not hate America, and Hillary Clinton is not a blood-sucking vampire, but who could tell? If a Republican wins the election in November, I will be first in line to read an exhaustive account of the media's shaping of this Democratic contest. In recent weeks, I've been astounded by the media's lack of substantive coverage and abundance of damaging or foundation-less stories. After writers got tired of reporting on actual issues, they decided to bite the bullet and write something a little juicier. And who can blame them, when our two candidates are among the best in recent memory, and have similar views on so many issues. There must be mud to be raked! Of course, I'm not asking for papers to throw a propaganda party. I know that it is not the job of the press to prop up candidates, and they should always publish a worthy story, no matter how damaging. But what I've seen here is an increasingly downward spiral in the quality of stories we've been getting since the early primaries in February. Since then, the information that is so desperately needed has been unavailable to the average voter. Two respectable candidates are facing undue criticism, while people still have no clue about John McCain's stance on abortion, or, well, much of anything really.

I, like every other human being with an independently functioning brain, am exhausted by the ridiculous claims made against Sen. Obama during the Jeremiah Wright controversy. And on more than one occasion, have been offended and shocked by articles written about Sen. Clinton (If someone could explain to me the newsworthiness of this article, I'll buy you dinner and give you sex coupons.) Also, it would also be nice if more writers could stop basing stories on relatively meaningless public opinion polls and explain the somewhat Biblical miracle it would take for Clinton to win the nomination. Or maybe more people could tell the whole story about Obama's stance on Iraq.


The fact is, that in the past couple of months, the media have lost their collective mind and if you ask me, they might as well check into Promises. I hear roller-blading with vapid de-toxing celebs can do a lot to clear one's head.

Also, if I read another article about how race has factored into this contest, I am going to start circulating rumors that Hills got a sex change, just to give one-note political pundits something new to run off at the mouth about. Obama's campaign was supposed to be about transcending race, but instead it has become defined by it. Clinton's campaign was initially defined by her years in the Senate and political activism, but that all has been used, often unfairly, against her at every single turn. If I had been around for as short a time as Obama, I too would be trying to turn "Washington as we know it" on its head (sorry, Barack. You're hot.).

As we gallop toward November, and Clinton hopefully makes a quick (and long overdue) exit, I extend a plea to the news media. Unless you have some wonderfully enlightening commentary on race, you are absolutely forbidden to write about it. Also, please resist the urge to create unnecessary political scandals, but if you must, do not continue to shove them down our throats long after they've gone stale. You know what would make for an interesting story? Carbon date John McCain. But that can go on A14. If you are incapable of writing decent stories on real issues, I'm even OK with putting the Dem. race on the back burner until something significant happens, if it means better stories. Maybe it will make room for more coverage of the food crisis, or I don't know, the off-the-cuff bombing of Somalia,.