What erin said.

CNN and NPR have called the election for Obama.

I have tears running down my face. I never thought I’d see this day so soon.

This is amazing.

OMG! CNN is using HOLOGRAMS to talk to corespondents!

AWESOME!

7:31
Election is called for Jay Rockefeller (YAY!) and Manchin (whatever)
7:51
They just called all the uncontested races. Big deal. That means Mollahan has it. Grr…
8:08
Workman and Ketchum are ahead for the state supreme court of appeals. I hope it stays that way.
8:12
Barth is leading by 1000 votes!
8:38
Obama is currently 6k votes up in WV! Not that I expect that to last.
8:49
Charlene Marshall is leading our Delegate race, and Cindy Frich is current LOSING! HA!
But Obama’s lead is down on 2700
9:02
DRAT. All the red counties just reported in. Capito and McCain are now ahead.
9:59
Sorry. Distracted. At least Mon county went for Obama. (sigh) But Frich is still losing. So that’s something. Capito is leading Barth. Boo.
10:49
McCain took WV solidly although Obama seems to have won Mon county. Capito is still winning, which is a shame. But it looks like all 4 of my reps won! Yay!
10:59
They’ve called it for Capito. Boo.

We don’t get “I voted” stickers here, so instead you get me in my Alex Ross t-shirt.

It is your duty and your responsibility. It doesn’t matter who you’re voting for (though of course I’d like you to vote for Obama). What matters is that you exercise your civic responsibility and your constitutional right.

In 2000 less than 600 votes determined the presidential election. Local elections are decided upon far less than that.

Vote.

ADDENDUM the First:
American Astronauts on the Space Station are voting.

You have no excuse not to vote.

I hope everyone is enjoying their Day of the Dead, and not feeling like the undead like I am.

I’m actually not that worried, for several reasons.

First, although Wall Street is in a tizzy, I’m not sure that a longer look at the financial recovery bill is such a bad idea. After all the Bush administration rushed the PATRIOT Act through and look what that got us. So I believe thinking things through before taking actions is a good idea. Especially by individuals who were telling us up until a couple weeks ago that the economy was in fine shape.

But primarily I’m not stressed because my grandmother is taking things in stride.

My grandmother’s family lost almost everything in the Great Depression. The whole family even had to move in with her oldest brother, when they thought they would lose their house (they did keep their house, but that’s about all the kept.) (How’d you like to have your parents and most of your seven siblings move in with you?)

In the 80s, my grandmother inadvertently put her money into a savings and loan. (The S&L lead its customers to think they were FDIC insured.) The S&L tanked, and it was only after years and the intercession of the state of Maryland that she got her money back. (The governor said that because people were tricked into believing that their accounts were backed by Maryland, it was the state’s responsibility to help recover the money.)

So twice in her life my grandmother has lost much due to the vagaries of the market. And twice she has gotten through it fine, even if things were difficult for a period.

Her attitude towards current events, despite the fact that some of her investments from when she sold her house are doing as well as you’d expect, lead me to be able to take a deep breath, consider our financial position, and say, y’know? We’re gonna be okay. We’ve got family and we all look out for each other and that’s what gets you through.

A question to everyone who says they will not be participating in the upcoming election because “their vote doesn’t count.”

Are you really that stupid?

Seriously?

First, may I remind you of the contested counties that held up the declaration of the 2000 presidential election. However, I’ll accept your points about the electoral college, because they don’t matter.

One third of the Senate is up for the election in November. I very much like Jay Rockefeller, so I want to show my support for him in November.

Even more important, the entire House of Representatives is up for election.

For those of you who weren’t paying attention in your history and civics classes, in the United States, power is divided between three branches, and these branches have to work together.

A president cannot run roughshod over the country without the assistance of the House and Senate. Remember the Patriot Act and how it slipped through Congress without much of a glance or a fuss? Are you paying attention now? The president is again trying to shove legislation down the throats of Congress, but this time they’re saying, “Not so fast! Let me take a look at that first!”

That’s difference is one of the things you’re voting for in November. Do you want a Congress that will blindly accede to the wishes of the President, or do you want a Congress that will think for itself and vote the conscience of the people (that would be you by the way)?

That decision lies in your hands.

Then there is the third branch of the the US government, the Judicial branch. Yes, Supreme court and appellate court judges are appointed by the president, but that is only with the “advice and consent” of the Senate. It is the duty of Congress to keep the president from appointing judges that are too far from the main stream.

Then we have state and local elections. Here we are electing the governor (not much of a race, unfortunately), the Secretary of State, and even a State Supreme Court of Appeals Justice. In many ways, these races affect our lives even more than federal races.

WV has a Senate and a House of Delegates, and those Delegates are once again up for election. These are the people who determine state law: Blue laws, speed limits, drinking age.

And then there may be county and city elections as well. These officials control property taxes and school funding and the drivability of your roads (and let me tell you I am still bitter about the failure of Mon county to fund the infrastructure changes we so desperately need–and that failure lies directly in the hands of city and county officials who failed to convince the public of the importance of those projects.)

My point is that–not that you could tell it from the TV coverage–far more is happening in November than the decision between McCain and Obama. These state races have just as much–if not more–influence upon the US government, and these are the races that we the voters control.

So don’t tell me your vote doesn’t matter, because I don’t buy it. (Not even for $10 or a bottle of whiskey.)

Happy Talk Like A Pirate Day!

My pirate name is:

Black Ethel Bonney

Like anyone confronted with the harshness of robbery on the high seas, you can be pessimistic at times. You can be a little bit unpredictable, but a pirate’s life is far from full of certainties, so that fits in pretty well. Arr!

Get your own pirate name from fidius.org.

Here be a very nice English t’ Pirate translator page

If you are confused, see here and here.

Labor Day in the United States exists to celebrate the rights that workers in the United States have achieved in the past century, and to give us time to allow those who keep the power on and the trains running and all those other jobs that require you to get your hands dirty, a day to be recognized for their work.

We should remember the past, and some of the incidents that made labor unions so critical:

The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire

Child Labor in the United States

And we should also consider the state of Unions in the US and the status of laborers. By this I don’t mean lawyers and CEOs, but the people who do the work in the service and manufacturing industries: slaughterhouses, commercial farms, coal mines.

We must remember that for those at the bottom, wages have remained stagnant or decreased with inflation, rates of health insurance coverage are falling (while health costs rise), and workplace safety is again becoming an issue, as owners place profits over the safety of their employees.

Bureau of Labor Statistics
National Agricultural Workers Survey
US Department of Labor

So while many of us (especially those of us who have computers and time to read weblogs) are enjoying our day of leisure, we should also consider those whose jobs are much harder, and much more dangerous.

Today is a good day to remember those who have lost their lives and their health doing nothing more than trying to make living.

I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.

But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. And so we’ve come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.

In a sense we’ve come to our nation’s capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the “unalienable Rights” of “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked “insufficient funds.”

But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so, we’ve come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.

We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s children.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro’s legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. And those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. And there will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

But there is something that I must say to my people, who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice: In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.

The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom.

We cannot walk alone.

And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead.

We cannot turn back.

There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, “When will you be satisfied?” We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the negro’s basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their self-hood and robbed of their dignity by a sign stating: “For Whites Only.” We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until “justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. And some of you have come from areas where your quest — quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive. Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed.

Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends.

And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of “interposition” and “nullification” — one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; “and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.”

This is our hope, and this is the faith that I go back to the South with.

With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

And this will be the day — this will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with new meaning:

My country ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing.
Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrim’s pride,
From every mountainside, let freedom ring!

And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.

And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.

Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.

Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.

Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado.

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California.

But not only that:

Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia.

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi.

From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:

Free at last! Free at last!

Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!

cucking-stool noun
Historical. A chair to which disorderly women were tied and then ducked into water or subjected to public ridicule as a punishment.
? origin Middle English: from obsolete cuck ?defecate?, of Scandinavian origin; so named because a stool containing a chamber pot was often used for the purpose.

That is definitely an obsolete word.

Memorial Day, 26 May 2008

As you enjoy your three day weekend, and the start of summer, please take a moment to reflect upon why we celebrate Memorial Day.

World War I 116,516 killed, 204,002 wounded.¹
World War II 407,316 killed, 670,846 wounded.¹
Korea 33,651 killed 103,284 wounded.¹
Vietnam 58,168 killed, 153,303 wounded.¹
Gulf War 382 killed, 486 wounded.¹
Iraq War 4,079 killed so far, at least 30,112 wounded.

Mankind must put an end to war, or war will put an end to mankind.
~John F. Kennedy

What a cruel thing is war: to separate and destroy families and friends, and mar the purest joys and happiness God has granted us in this world; to fill our hearts with hatred instead of love for our neighbors, and to devastate the fair face of this beautiful world.
~Robert E. Lee

The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.
~Thomas Jefferson

Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves.
~Abraham Lincoln

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
~Benjamin Franklin

Most people want security in this world, not liberty.
~H.L. Mencken

We must be free not because we claim freedom, but because we practice it.
~William Faulkner

If we let people see that kind of thing, there would never again be any war.
~Pentagon official explaining why the U.S. military censored graphic footage from the Gulf War

War is a series of catastrophes that results in a victory.
~Georges Clemenceau

What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?
~Mahatma Gandhi

Politics is war without bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed.
~Mao Tse-Tung

It is well that war is so terrible – otherwise we would grow too fond of it.
~Robert E. Lee

We make war that we may live in peace.
~Aristotle

For everything there is a season,
And a time for every matter under heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die;
A time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal;
A time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh;
A time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
A time to embrace, And a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to seek, and a time to lose;
A time to keep, and a time to throw away;
A time to tear, and a time to sew;
A time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate,
A time for war, and a time for peace.
~Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

Vietnam War Memorial
Korean War Memorial
WWII Memorial
The Great War

¹ from here.

Written by Michelle at 8:00 am