Monday, August 25, 2008

hope

some folks say this country is too racist to elect a black president
someone told me that the reason I support Obama is because he's black and so am I
someone opined that he doesn't have enough foreign policy experience, not enough governing experience period
the Clintons even had to get nasty about it, but that's no surprise
I realized today looking at the convention coverage
that the reason I support Obama
is the same reason I support Ted Kennedy
and the same reason I support Barney Frank
and the same reason I get up in the morning
it's hope

something brighter, something better
treating people with dignity and respect even if you disagree with them
and believing in the American dream
the real dream
where everybody gets ahead

We are products of this dream
our parents, or grandparents, or great great greats got here
and found a way out of no way
in a place where that is possible
not easy
but possible

Jesse Jackson, Jr. said that we can see Dr. King's mountaintop tonight.
We need vision to make things possible, to make change happen.

Monday, August 4, 2008

a marriage

so there was this dude that I dated for about three minutes back in the late '80's I think...doomed form the start because a.) he lived in a state other than Massachusetts b.) I was an emotional horror show c.) he wore moon boots, danced like Michael Jackson and had the laugh of a hunting hyena d.) I thought sex could solve everything e.) he thought meatloaf was a gourmet meal f.) I thought his meatloaf would serve better as a door stop, etc. So we kept in touch via Christmas cards and other things you do with people you feel vaguely uncomfortable about losing touch with or people who keep sending you fucking christmas cards so you feel compelled to respond. So acres of time go by and he tells me that he is getting married. Wonderful! I am so happy for you, say I, hoping she digs meatloaf. Tell me about your bride. Here, a poignant pause from him over the email. And then he asks if I'm upset that he's getting married. No, I say, what in the world would make him think that? And then silence. No more cards, no more emails. in it goes to my oddity pile--but, given family history, and having a modicum more sense than i used to, why would I be upset about someone I had a brief fling with back when Clinton was president, where we couldn't be more ill-suited? And why would he want me to be upset? And why would I begrudge anyone who still wears moon boots the chance to be happy with a woman who digs that kind of footwear.

Another one for the WTF page...

$14 million for a picture of some white babies. And they aren't past that plucked chicken stage where all babies look exactly the same. What is the fascination? They ain't my babies and they ain't yours. They belong to a crazy, rich couple who think that dragging a pack of kids around the world along with bodyguards and the kind of attention accorded to royalty and sports stars will result in emotionally healthy adults. Lets instead pay $14 million to the couple in the midwest who have raised 14 disabled foster children. Let's put it up against the national debt. Better still it might go in a fund for the therapy of the adult children of this union for when they have to come to terms with their very ordinariness.

This dichotomy--I speak with some of the wealthiest humans on earth in the course of my job and often can't afford fresh produce. Yet I can afford a lot more, like the ability to live alone, which my neighbors can't as they come from places where only the wealthiest people live alone, and they are better off than the folks they left behind because they got to come here. And there are those kids in that neighborhood close to work who could change their lives for the better with just 1/10th of 1 percent of $14 million by being given the hope of higher education.


WTF--screamin' in a vacuum.