Stuff & Things

First, a political cheer: era of Bush is over! Didn't vote for him the first or second time. Have defended him to students. Truly believe that he's not as dumb as he looks. But thank goodness that the two terms are over. Now an entirely different set of people can be frustrated with the chief executive and in four years, we'll go to the polls and do it all over again. But on this day, and for the next few, I'm just going to be happy and hopeful and calm and assume that many things are right with the world. At the end of it all, I like America. Your guy doesn't always win, but the system works well most of the time.

In that same vein, here's a post of astonishment for the celebration of the birthday of Dr. Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. He did the unpopular, fought the system, continued to believe in the essential goodness of people even though, quite frankly, there was little reason to. An amazing person, an example to us all, without whom tomorrow would not have been possible.

From the NYT, here's a story on teachers using the inauguration in classroooms. Also, one on bad meetings and lots of them.

From NPR, a story concerning bells, Trinity Church, and the inauguration. In addition, a story concerning letters written to Obama from young Navajo students. (Made me bawl, but worth it.)

Still Relishing the Election

From Salon and Garrison Keillor:

"Be happy, dear hearts, and allow yourselves a few more weeks of quiet exultation. It isn't gloating, it's satisfaction at a job well done. ... He was elegant, unaffected, utterly American, and now (Wow) suddenly America is cool. Chicago is cool. Chicago!!! ... The French junior minister for human rights said, "On this morning, we all want to be American so we can take a bite of this dream unfolding before our eyes." When was the last time you heard someone from France say they wanted to be American and take a bite of something of ours? Ponder that for a moment. ... It feels good to be cool and all of us can share in that, even sour old right-wingers and embittered blottoheads. Next time you fly to Heathrow and hand your passport to the man with the badge, he's going to see "United States of America" and look up and grin. Even if you worship in the church of Fox, everyone you meet overseas is going to ask you about Obama and you may as well say you voted for him because, my friends, he is your line of credit over there. No need anymore to try to look Canadian. ... Our hero who galloped to victory has inherited a gigantic mess. ... So enjoy the afterglow of the election a while longer. We all walk taller this fall. People in Copenhagen and Stockholm are sending congratulatory e-mails -- imagine! We are being admired by Danes and Swedes! And Chicago becomes the First City. Step aside, San Francisco. Shut up, New York. The Midwest is cool now. The mind reels."

Read it all.
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Looking for a Rest Area

I've been driving for hours,
it seems like all my life.
The wheel has become familiar,
I turn it

every so often to avoid the end
of my life, but I'm never sure
it doesn't turn me
by its roundness, as women have

by the space inside them.
What I'm looking for
is a rest area, some place where
the old valentine inside my shirt

can stop contriving romances,
where I can climb out of the thing
that has taken me this far
and stretch myself.

It is dusk, Nebraska,
the only bright lights in this entire state
put their fists in my eyes
as they pass me.

Oh, how easily I can be dazzled--
where is the sign
that will free me, if only for moments,
I keep asking.
------
Stephen Dunn, from Looking for Holes in the Ceiling. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1974.

Work, work, & more work

First off, and unrelatedly, an observation: when you're waiting for the phone to ring, it never does.

And now, onto other stuff! Like the busy. Seriously, I don't think that I've worked this hard for such an extended period of time since MHC. So much work! It's the AP/regular US history combined with redoing the 9th grade. I'm enjoying the work, I just wish there were a few more hours to spend doing things for myself.

Outside of my insulated little school life, the rest of the world keeps on keeping on:
- a piece from Slate on how different religions define death
- another piece from Slate on parental expectations for kids and why they are too high
- from the NYT, a story on how Howard Dean will step down as DNC chair -- I adore Howard Dean

Day After

So, here we are, back to "normal." I'm disappointed in California's decision to amend their constitution to ban gay marriage, but that's the way it works sometimes. If you leave those things to the people, it doesn't always work out the way you want it to. But I think that eventually, we will see gay marriage not only legal in all 50 states, but also socially accepted by most places and groups. Look at what just happened in this country! I feel like anything can happen now.

Often quoted Dr. King: "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice."

Fascinating elsewhere:
- from Salon, quotes from thinkers and reporters and academics and bloggers on what the election of Obama means -- it's lovely and inspiring
- from the NYT, an article on studies that show that contagious liberalism of professors is a bit of an urban myth, though it seems to indicate that MY liberalism as a high school teacher is far more influential than I like to think
- from the blog Feministing, a "thank you" for female voters on how they affected the outcome of the election
- a really funny blog from two old ladies who have been friends for 60+ years, with absolute opinions on everything and remind me of my friends from college, older and young
- from one last blog, Indexed, on the outcome of the election

Election Results

Here's the rub, which I hope that you all have picked up on: Obama won!

Am I pleased with these results? Yes. Do I think they are amazing given our country's history of slavery and discrimination against people of color? Yes.

Are others disappointed, including some of my students? Yes. And seriously, that's ok to be disappointed. We're all disappointed when our guy doesn't win. I thought Obama's victory speech last night was very eloquent and understated-- the following was particularly historically resonant:

As Lincoln said to a nation far more divided than ours, we are not enemies but friends. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection.

And to those Americans whose support I have yet to earn, I may not have won your vote tonight, but I hear your voices. I need your help. And I will be your president, too.

It reminds me of Jefferson's first inaugural address, where power transferred for the first time between political parties, from Washington and Adams's Federalist Party to Jefferson's Democratic-Republican Party. At that time, Jefferson said "We are all Federalists, we are all Republicans."

I have many students today who are bummed out by the election results. I have been emphasizing the fact that Obama has said he wants to listen to those who disagree with him, that Senator McCain said in his concession speech that he was committed to helping President-elect Obama help out country through touch times. In addition, the history teacher in me needs to tell them that we are lucky to live in a place that has a long-established tradition of peaceful transitions of power from one political party to another. That our Constitution is a pretty conservative document and that the office of the presidency is designed to be well-balanced by the other branches. That it's wonderful that we live in a place where freedom of speech and the press are enshrined in our Constitution and that it's ok to not agree with and voice your opposition to the government and the president.

Election Day

Here I am, sitting on pins and needles waiting for Election Day to be over. I voted early this morning when polls opened and on the way to school. There were probably about 100 people in front of me and I waited in line for about 1/2 an hour.

Since there are no real election results to see, here's some mock election results instead:

With our very own electoral college:
Obama: 79% electoral votes/McCain: 21% electoral votes

I Don't Wanna

So, here's an analysis from the NYT on the presidential candidates' tax plans. Turns out, normal folks are better off under Obama's plan. And by normal, I mean 97% of us who don't make more than $250,000 a year. At any rate, one of the parts of the article that I find most interesting is the comment that McCain's tax plan would have us paying taxes on our employer-funded health care. Um, seriously? The health care part of my job compensation is the part that makes my otherwise lackluster salary worth it. My health care is excellent, even if my salary isn't. Please, don't tax my health care benefits.

Really Long Week

But, it's almost over, I guess. Not that there's not a lot to do. 4 day week of classes next week, since we'll be at a conference on Monday in Baltimore.

Anyway, enough about my listlessness... here's fun: from the NYT, an article on Seasons 6 & 7 of "The West Wing" -- Santos being elected and the parallels between Santos & Obama.

Tuesday, I'll be voting. Will you?

Drove past a house the other morning that has a HUGE McCain/Palin sign in the yard, one that's supported by 4x4's. At any rate, I was driving by and thought it looked like there were marks on the sign... had someone been taking potshots at the sign? With a closer look, it was obvious that, no, no potshots. Instead, someone had been sticking Obama/Biden stickers on the sign. Ha!

Presidential Debate

I haven't watched the previous ones. They raise my blood pressure too high to be safe. But I watched this one. First, an observation from a history teacher nerd: McCain described himself as a federalist. He's not a federalist. The original Federalists were the ones who supported the strong central government of the Constitution and when they later became a political party, continued to support a loose interpretation of the document. They believed that the power of the central government came directly from the people, not from the states.

Anyway, here's the other thing, what I wish I had heard from someone in the debate(s): America is a place of freedom. You get the freedom and the privacy to make the decisions that are best for you. I may not always agree with the decisions you make, but hey, they're yours and as long as you are living without hurting others then those are still your private decisions to make. We'll try to help you out so that you don't have to "choose" between two bad options, like eating or taking one of your kids to the doctor. It's disgraceful that we live in one of the richest countries on earth, even after our recent financial troubles, and we have kids and adults who go to bed hungry every day. That we have people who live in our country who are afraid of their neighborhoods or their local law enforcement, people who feel they have no other option than to sell drugs or resort to violence to make a living, to put a roof over their heads or feed their children. It's disgraceful and disgusting that we're seriously arguing about taxes on people who make more than a quarter million dollars per year when there are people who can't afford to eat, who send their kids to the shittiest schools imaginable. No one likes taxes, but they're the price we pay to live in a society. No one likes taxes, but I'd gladly pay more if it meant that all of our kids, regardless of parental involvement or location or color or class could go to good, safe schools, if all people could have a roof over their heads and enough to eat every single day and access to good medical care. The rest of it is all really bullshit.

Economic justice now. Bring it on.

Whoa, Connecticut

See this news item: Go Connecticut!

Love

From Salon, an article by Rebecca Traister on the enormous number of times that election 2008 has shown up on daytime TV this year. The View, Ellen, etc. Love what Traister has to say about the ghetto of women's daytime TV:

"But this isn’t anybody’s usual campaign, and what the (still mostly male) political pundits are coming to grips with is that the election cycle is not just playing out on their news shows and their 24-hour networks but also in the traditionally feminine — and therefore traditionally marginalized — world of daytime television."

Not to mention her recapping of the progressive stories that have been told by daytime TV, from soaps to the marginalized "characters" on talk shows like Jerry Springer.

News Roundup

From the last week or so in the NYT:
- On French Catholic schools which are becoming havens for Muslim students who veil
- On the dearth of reporters who cover the doings at the NY state capital (what I like most about the article is the accompanying photo, of the newsroom -- it's so old school!)
- On the resurgence of Latin as a foreign language
- On the Ad Council's new ad campaign encouraging teenagers to stop the use of phrases like "that's so gay"
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The Nobel Prizes are being announced this week. Love them.
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From the "circle of concern" and regarding things I can't control, here's the latest polling data on the Presidential election (the electoral college anyway), from Slate.

Contemplation

Here is an unfinished thought, stemming from current political issues and combined with the things that my kiddos are studying in American history class, namely the writing of the Constitution.

The First Amendment to the Constitution was ratified with the rest of the Bill of Rights in 1791. The Anti-Federalists, or those who opposed the proposed government under the Constitution, held up the ratification of the Constitution because there was no bill of rights, as had been written into several state constitutions during the Revolutionary War. (Which, incidentally, was not that revolutionary. But that's a story for another time.) The position of the Anti-Federalists was that since there was no list of specifically protected rights, the new government of the United States would be prone to morphing into a authoritarian state. They were concerned, though not in these words, about the concept of power causing corruption. The Federalists countered that with a list of specific rights, perhaps the government would feel free to violate any and all rights NOT enumerated in the Constitution. The Anti-Federalists won that argument and ratified the Constitution with the agreement that the new Congress, when they were seated, would take up the issue and pass a Bill of Rights onto the states for addition to the Constitution. The Congress passed 12 amendments and sent them to the states in 1789; 10 were ratified in 1791.

I'm a big fan of the Bill of Rights -- all of them -- but what I want to address here are the first and fourteenth in relation to my current political wonderings.

The First Amendment, as we all know, contains five freedoms: speech, press, religion, assembly, and petition. The clause I'm specifically thinking about deals with religion and has two parts: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.

And then here's how this is all connected to politics: there are several states which this year, on their ballots in November, will be asking their citizens to pass a ban on gay marriage. California, Florida, etc. What gets me is thus: many of the supporters of these bans are using religious rhetoric to encourage people to vote for such a ban. But I'm thinking that would violate the establishment clause, if such reasoning were explicit in the amendments. Religious beliefs were used as justification for years in the prohibitions against mixed-race marriages and those prohibitions were overturned by Loving v. Virginia in 1964. The Supreme Court also cited the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment:

Marriage is one of the "basic civil rights of man," fundamental to our very existence and survival.... To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State's citizens of liberty without due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious racial discrimination. Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State.

The text of the Fourteenth Amendment actually makes no note of race:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

I'm no Constitutional scholar, I'm thinking that such bans will eventually be found to be unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of the United States, if there is to be any fairness in this world.

Followup thoughts on what exactly the Founders were thinking in regards to the establishment of religion and the fact that there's no mention of god in the Constitution and most of the founders were Enlightenment-types who were Deists.

On Molly Ivins & Civil Discourse

Or the absence of her thereof, there's an article in Salon today from Anne Lamott. Parts I like best:

"She'd have been pissed at the Democrats for not being as robust as they should have been on civil liberties, even as she reasserted her heartbreaking faith in American democracy, the faith that if we stuck together, we'd figure it out in the end. We'd somehow help the poor.

She would have celebrated the tidal roar of support from younger voters, who have the vision and stamina to fight for someone who would hold the nation's leaders to account, people who would fight to make this a country where it was once again safe to be a small child, or a very old person, which it has not been for approximately 7.6572 years."

I'll be voting soon. And my vote will make me feel good. I haven't voted for a national ticket I felt this good about since Clinton-Gore '96. (I wish Al Gore had been as compelling in '00 as he is now.) I'm starting to feel as good about Obama-Biden as I did about voting for Howard Dean in '04.

I have to constantly say to my students, "Look, the other side honestly thinks that they are doing the right thing for this country. It just happens to be different from what you think might be the best course of action." And I think it's important to say, to retain civility in political discourse. But I'm ashamed to say that although I believe it of the Republicans, I don't think that they would think it of me. I fear that my positivity is all for nothing.

Politics and My Home State

See this article in Slate on the presidential election and who might win NH. Funny to me is the commentary at the beginning on the politics of the state, the fact that the state was taken over by Democrats in 2004, that it has a strange executive group under the governor called the Executive Council, and the fact that it was the only state that the Current Occupant didn't repeat in 2004.

And this too:

New Hampshire's license plates have made its "Live free or die" motto famous, but it's not just a motto. This is a state with no sales tax and no income tax on wages. It's the only state in the union without an adult seat-belt law. It's a state that grants its citizens an explicit "right of revolution"—see Article 10 of the state constitution—should the people's liberty ever become endangered.

Another

Any politician who promises to end partisanship is lying.

How would they be able to raise money if there wasn't conflict between the parties?

The party that knows they're going to lose comments about ending partisanship.

More Lies

Definition of conservative: one who resists change.

Party of conservatives? Republicans.

How have McCain/Palin been framing themselves? People who advocate lots of change!

BS.

Bring on the revolution.

Politicians and Taxes

Any politician who tells you that they are going to cut your taxes is LYING.

Lying.

Lying.

Lying.

Sure, increase the federal deficit now! No problem. Just bill my children for it, would you?

Economy Down!

A story from the NYT about the falling prices of lobster and how that's affecting lobstermen in New England. That's what my stepfather does...

Another, same source, about the difficulties that schools are facing with rising numbers of kids who are homeless or who qualify for free or reduced-price school lunches. And that's on top of slashed budgets due to general belt-tightening or reduced tax income. No good.

Into the Fray

Quite frankly, this is true:

"Asked if Ms. Palin will be able to judge the demands of the vice-presidency with her complicated family life, Mr. Schmidt [chief strategist for the McCain campaign] said, 'She’s been a very effective governor and again I can’t imagine that question being asked of a man.'" --from the NYT, article here

It's not a fair question -- each woman (family) has to decide for herself and her own family how to balance best and it's nobody else's business what she chooses and why. That's feminism's legacy to her.

On the other hand, I do think, since they brought it up, that it's valid to point out that the Palins have described the decision to remain pregnant as Bristol's choice and that Sarah Palin and her ideological counterparts want to take that choice away from all American women. If they had their way, they wouldn't be able to crow triumphantly that she had chosen life -- there wouldn't be a choice to make.

Still, to imagine that in this world of the 24-hour news cycle, where no topic is off-limits that they could have actually have been deluded enough to think that people wouldn't pass judgment on the family...