As long as you live...

"Remember this as long as you live: whenever you meet up with anyone who is trying to cause trouble between people...anyone who tries to tell you that a man can't be a good American because he's a Catholic or a Jew, a Protestant or whatever: you can be pretty sure he's a rotten American himself. Not only a rotten American, but a rotten human being! Don't ever forget that!"

So spoke Superman, warning youngsters about the so-called "Guardians of America" in a story entitled "The Hate Mongers Organization", from the Superman radio show in 1946, as quoted in the excellent new book "Flights of Fantasy -- The Unauthorized but True Story of Radio & TV's Adventures of Superman" by Michael J. Hayde.

The Best -We- Can

Photographer David Katz created a flickr stream of his behind-the-scenes shots of Obama and family going through election night this past Tuesday. More on all this later, but in the meantime check out the President-elect's new government site change.gov ...

Just Plain Crosseyed

Still waiting three hours after arrival, but I know I'm next through the door... and after that I will not be able to take anymore pictures. Poll worker seen above tells of the seniors living here in the center who were up in the lobby at 3:30 a.m. in hopes for being first in line. They ended up waiting just as long as I have so far before casting their vote. Hope they're sleeping, now. I know I'm off to work after this is over.

Crosseyed & A Little Pained

Still waiting ...

Bi-State WUSTL Red bus has come through several times now -- the driver giving us the thumbs-up with her horn. Somebody was discovered to have a birthday today and the "Happy Birthday" song was taken up loudly by most of the couple hundred people in line. One little girl goes down the line with her Batman trick-or-treat bag, offering her own treats to thank people for their patience. Somebody waits in their parked car, blasting Sam Cooke's "A Change Is Gonna Come" and many of the better singers in line take up the song as well. The poll workers had come out earlier to remove some campaign signs placed past the 25-feet-from-the-poll rule. No one says anything about the song possibly breaking the same etiquette.

Crosseyed & Painless

After an hour ... still waiting ...

Polling place opened 30 minutes late, but still troubled. Group-mind pretty together, with good-humored grousing about as ugly as it gets. Only one person gave up, promising to come back later. Talking Heads' "Crosseyed & Painless" remains the morning theme song moving through my mind -- probably because of the chorus "Still waiting, still waiting, still waiting..."

More conventional thinking

NOTES FROM LAST NIGHT: Does Obama’s attempt at a united-we-stand campaign represent the ideal American Dream, the shining mansion on the hill with its doors wide-open to anyone who is willing to work hard to maintain its splendor, the country that leads by example not by fear? If so, it is not hard to see McCain and company’s cynical campaign of fear as a representation of America as a shadowy underworld without options or opportunities, those who feel they are your ‘betters’ determine what you do.

ROUGH THOUGHTS AFTER NOT MUCH SLEEP: Re-read Plato's "The Allegory of the Cave" today because it seems to me the voters who previously went against their own self-interest and voted Republican could easily represent those prisoners of the cave -- hindered by the blinders of their preconceptions so that they see only the shadows of life, not life itself as it really is (or at the greatest 'least', life as lived to its greatest potential) -- the cave itself formed by underground fear of the unknown brought to their eyes by those who would profit from their fright.

What rushes through our veins

I read this a little too quickly last year, but some of its scenes keep cropping up in my head...

In Warren Ellis' Crooked Little Vein, the search is on for the Secret Constitution of the United States, dragging private detective Michael McGill through all the dark secret places crawling beneath America's red white and blue crust. But despite the prevalence of perversions and addictions there's a bump in the road that sticks with me in this election season:

McGill and his guide Trix travel through the sexual and pharmaceutical byways of the nation and eventually the clues take them to Las Vegas, to the newly-opened Freedom Hotel. The Freedom is shaped like Rio De Janeiro's giant Jesus, but in the Vegas version Jesus is dressed in an Uncle Sam suit. And all the flag-waving grows tackier from there. It's the kind of a place where they'd have red, white, and blue toilet paper.

Trix gets upset with the receptionist and McGill drags her to the elevator:

"These people just work here. They didn't build it." explains McGill... "you want to kill people for being dumb?"

Trix answers in the affirmative, so McGill continues:

"Look," I said. "You don't get to keep the parts of the country you like, ignore the rest, and call what you've got America. You didn't vote for the president, right?"

"Fuck no."

"No, I bet she did. Half the people in America did. More than half the people in America believe in God. You don't get to just ignore that. I know you like telling me about new stuff and showing me that there's a whole other society in America and all that shit. So now I'm showing you: this is what the rest of the people have, okay?"

And this is not the point of the book, it's just one of the points along the way. Read it for yourself.

We're one side of things from others, but if all we see is our own truth, then how are we better than those "narrow-minded idiots" we see skulking around on the "Other Side"?

Flipping through channels: Bill O'Reilly had on some woman who was a born-again Conservative of some kind, shaking her head that she found she was lying to herself all the time she was "Liberal" and she couldn't live with the lies anymore, so she became saved by Conservatism. I don't know who she was and I don't really care: she could have been someone interviewed by Keith Olbermann about how they couldn't live with the lies of being a Conservative. The sincerity was the same.

This isn't mathematics where only one answer is possible, this is people-stuff where answers are neither neat nor permanent.

Concession Stands

"It is going to take a person who is himself an innovator like myself … to be able to go head to head with Barack Obama and win." said Mitt Romney before New Hampshire's primary.

He's made past comparisons of himself and his candidacy to Obama's, and his speech last night after his second-place finish shows he's been working on the style, but has not come close to the substance, of Obama. Romney said:

"They've heard Washington say that they're going to stop illegal immigration, but they haven't.

They've heard Washington say that they're going to get us off of our dependence on foreign oil, but they haven't.

They've heard Washington say they're going to get people insured that don't have health insurance, but they haven't. They've heard Washington say they're going to improve our schools and make them the best in the world, but they haven't.

They've heard Washington say that they're going to protect our jobs and make sure that the jobs that we have are the best in the world, but they haven't done that.

They've heard Washington say they're going to balance the budget, but they haven't done that.

They've heard Washington say that they're going to make life easier on the middle class and reduce the burdens on the middle class, but they haven't. "

Whereas Obama's New Hampshire concession speech went like this:

"But in the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope. For when we have faced down impossible odds; when we've been told that we're not ready, or that we shouldn't try, or that we can't, generations of Americans have responded with a simple creed that sums up the spirit of a people.

Yes we can.

It was a creed written into the founding documents that declared the destiny of a nation.

Yes we can.

It was whispered by slaves and abolitionists as they blazed a trail toward freedom through the darkest of nights.

Yes we can.

It was sung by immigrants as they struck out from distant shores and pioneers who pushed westward against an unforgiving wilderness.

Yes we can.

It was the call of workers who organized; women who reached for the ballot; a President who chose the moon as our new frontier; and a King who took us to the mountaintop and pointed the way to the Promised Land.

Yes we can to justice and equality. Yes we can to opportunity and prosperity. Yes we can heal this nation. Yes we can repair this world. Yes we can.

And so tomorrow, as we take this campaign South and West; as we learn that the struggles of the textile worker in Spartanburg are not so different than the plight of the dishwasher in Las Vegas; that the hopes of the little girl who goes to a crumbling school in Dillon are the same as the dreams of the boy who learns on the streets of LA; we will remember that there is something happening in America; that we are not as divided as our politics suggests; that we are one people; we are one nation; and together, we will begin the next great chapter in America's story with three words that will ring from coast to coast; from sea to shining sea -- Yes. We. Can."

Can we see the difference between the two?

Yes we can...

Political Commentary

My two-year-old niece played pleasantly, happily with her toys in front of the television while waiting for her parents to take her to school.

On the television, the Today show presented a panel discussing the Larry Craig situation. A clip of Craig would run, then the panel would discuss. Another clip of Craig would play, followed by more discussion. And so on.

Every time Craig’s clip ran, my niece would frown up at the screen, pigtails shaking, and shout, “Be quiet!”

She returned to playtime during the moderator's discussion, but when Craig came up again, she repeated her request: “Be quiet!”

"Be quiet!"

"Be quiet!"

And then went back to her toys.