Blessed are the cheesemakers?

45,000 people came to hear Barack Obama speak in Albuquerque Saturday night. The line to get in was two miles long.

Earlier that afternoon John McCain held a rally. 1500 people showed up.

'Nuff said, I think.

It was exciting to be there, not so much to hear Obama speak (couldn't really see him, we were way in the back and it was very 'Blessed are the cheesemakers,') but it was great to see everyone together, united for one cause.

8 days, people. I think I'm going to die of suspense.

Waaaasuuuup?!?!?

Does it say something about America that my favorite campaign ad so far stars characters from an old beer commercial?

added **Here's the original ad for contrast. Ah, the 90s. Remember the 90s? Everything was stupid and fun?

I'm just glad *someone*said it.

Colin Powell endorses Obama.



This is the part I thought was important:

"I'm also troubled by, not what Sen. McCain says, but what members of the party say, and it is permitted to be said such things as: "Well, you know that Mr. Obama is a Muslim." Well, the correct answer is: he is not a Muslim. He's a Christian. He's always been a Christian. "But the really right answer is: What if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer is: No, that's not America. Is there something wrong with some 7-year-old Muslim-American kid believing he or she can be president?"

Someone had to say it.

I pretty much consider Colin Powell to be a war criminal. But this is the most moving and effective take-down I've seen of the McCain campaign's ugliness in recent times.

Do be do be doooo....

So, here I am, one at, oh, one fourth page into a ten-page paper, and I'm procrastinating.

I have writer's block. Biiiig time. So, I'm trying to use blogging to snake out my brain.

How is everyone, lately?

I'm feeling kind of, well, weird lately. I think the election is distracting me from my studies, to be honest. I've been trying to get a crack into this paper for a week now, and every time I do I just find I've been refreshing this website for an hour and then Abbie wakes up from her nap or it's time to go to bed or to work or something else happens, and I haven't been able to get anything done.

You see, I'm so confused. It seems like my country, my America that I've had a love/hate relationship with my entire adult life, is about to do something that I'd honestly never thought I'd see in my lifetime.

I think you know what I'm talking about. It makes me kind of...warm and fuzzy inside. It doesn't help that Abbie recently can't fall asleep without making me play this song on YouTube.



The Gen X cynic in me tries really hard, but it's difficult to feel jaded while rocking your two-year old to sleep while hearing "We can chaaaange the wooorld" sung over and over again.

And yet, and yet. Things like this scare me.





Oddly enough I've said this several times in the past eight years, but when Pat Buchanan sounds measured and reasonable compared to you, then you're fucking scary. And this woman, this fascist, was elected to office. (Incidentally, check this out.) Fucking scary. And then there's these people.



I really wish these people would wear t-shirts or signs or armbands or something so that if I saw them coming I could cross to the other side of the street. People these unashamedly racist make me paranoid. I wind up peering at every white, older person I see with a quizzical eye thinking, "Are you the person here who thinks brown people are inferior? Are you? Is it you?" Please, just tell me straight out. That way I know and can run away, screaming and pointing.

I'm stuck between fearing for the future of my daughter, having to grow up in a nation infested with this close-minded culture, and proud and amazed at the step that nation is apparently about to take.

We'll see, I guess. Now back to the paper!

Is this a good or bad thing?

The gas station next to my house, the same one that this summer listed gas at 3.99 and 9/10 of a penny, listed gas at 2.89 a gallon this morning.

I nearly plotzed. Sure, prices dropping are great, but surely prices changing that quickly is some sort of sign of an unstable, volatile market or something?

Economics scares me.

To be fair, it was a pretty predictable plot twist.

Barack Obama saw the nasty new attacks from the McCain-Palin camp coming a mile away.



The clear analogy, I think, is that John McCain thinks as little of the American public as, say, a TV company executive or Hollywood movie producer. The same thought process that leads to Knight Rider 2.0 leads to "Obama-Osama, friend of terrorists!" Oh, sure, they know it's dumb, but they think Middle America will eat it up whole!

Personally, I think (most) of America is smarter and more sophisticated than that.

Via Afarensis.

Dear Sarah Palin,

The word is nuclear. New-clee-yar.

Go ahead, try it. It practically rolls off the tongue. It's really not that fucking hard. My two-year old can pronounce it correctly.

Pronouncing it "nook-you-lar" while winking and wrinkling your nose doesn't make you sound folksy and cute. It makes you sound like a fucking moron.

But I guess that plays well with the "morans" who think Obama is a "muslin."

Sigh.

Really, Sarah Palin, even you can't really want these people as your base.

Love,

Vanessa