Friday, January 2, 2009

Signs of Optimism - Imagine That!


The Statue of Liberty is closer to being fully opened to tourists (since its closure after 9/11), due to Barack Obama's pick for Secretary of Interior, Ken (Mr. Nice Guy) Salazar.

From the Washington Post today:

"In the Senate, Barack Obama, now president-elect, was one of the co-sponsors of the bill to reopen the statue. The Senate sponsor of the bill was Sen. Ken Salazar (D-Colo.), now Obama's nominee to be interior secretary, whose department has control over the Park Service and Lady Liberty.

When Salazar was nominated by Obama in mid-December, (New York Democratic Congressman Anthony) Weiner said in a statement, "Finally, we have a Secretary who understands that the only obstacle to opening the crown is a lack of courage and imagination." He added: "Today we are a step closer to providing safe access to the heights of Lady Liberty." read the whole story here

Other promising news came on the economic front, with the Dow Jones industrial average closing above 9,000 for the first time since November 5, the day after Obama's election. The New York Times has the scoop.

Good news cannot shield the bad. We pray for good sense to prevail in the current conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. Maybe Secretary of State Clinton will be able to make a difference, and move all parties towards peace in that land of miracles.

by John Lennon

Imagine there's no Heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace

You may say that I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world

You may say that I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one

Thursday, January 1, 2009

Happy New Year!


I'm back in the Good News business after the Big Thaw in the Pacific Northwest and several days of weather enforced, but welcome, contemplation. I came to the conclusion that despite mounting domestic and international concerns, there is Only Optimism for Obama in the Offing. We can only look up and look ahead, our desire for better times buoyed by hope and anchored with possibility.

So, I begin 2009 with this: The Obama family is on their way to their new home in Washington, DC because school starts on Monday and serious business awaits the President elect. In the meantime, thousands are volunteering to help at the inauguration, because, as reported in the Washington Post today, "There's a hunger out there. People want to get involved. People want to be a part of this thing . . . a part of history."

Today would have been Poet/Philosopher John O'Donohue's 53rd birthday. Here is a New Year's Day Blessing from his book, Benedictus. This is also for my father, Kelsey, who is celebrating his 75th birthday today. Happy Birthday, Dad!

A New Year Blessing
BEANNACHT
by John O'Donohue for his mother, Josie

On the day when
The weight deadens
On your shoulders
And you stumble,
May the clay dance
To balance you.

And when your eyes
Freeze behind
The grey window
And the ghost of loss
Gets into you,
May a flock of colours,
Indigo, red, green
And azure blue,
Come to awaken in you
A meadow of delight.

When the canvas frays
In the currach of thought
And a stain of ocean
Blackens beneath you,
May there come across the waters
A path of yellow moonlight
To bring you safely home.

May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
May the clarity of light be yours,
May the fluency of the ocean be yours,
May the protection of the ancestors be yours.

And so may a slow
Wind work these words
Of love around you,
An invisible cloak
To mind your life.

I miss you, John . . . rest peacefully. Your spirit is alive.

Thursday, December 25, 2008

Peace on Earth, Goodwill to Everyone!


Merry Christmas Day! Icy weather in Seattle unexpectedly finds me in Denver with my immediate family, but my thoughts are also with friends and family at home around the various nooks and crannies of Puget Sound, and with the Obama family on holiday in Hawaii. I hope he is getting the rest that he needs and time with his family that he deserves!

"I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day" is my absolute favorite Christmas song. Written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow as a poem during the American Civil War and set to music later, its message is profoundly hopeful in the face of horrific war. It inspired me several years ago to make this music video with images of 9/11 intermingled with bells of many religions, angels, and symbols of a peaceful world.

Written 144 years ago during another period of great national trauma, Longfellow's beautiful words capture the hope and promise the Obama victory gives to so many people in the United States and around the globe.

I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day
a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
(stanzas 2, 4 & 5 are usually omitted in the song version)

I heard the bells on Christmas day
Their old familiar carols play
And mild and sweet the words repeat,
Of peace on earth, good will to men.

I thought how as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had roll'd along th' unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good will to men.

And in despair I bow'd my head:
"There is no peace on earth," I said,
"For hate is strong, and mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good will to men."

Then from each black, accursed mouth
The cannon thundered in the South,
And with the sound the carols drowned
Of peace on earth, good will to men.

It was as if an earthquake rent
The hearth-stones of a continent,
And made forlorn, the households born
Of peace on earth, good will to men.

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
"God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail,
With peace on earth, good will to men.

"'Til ringing, singing on its way,
The world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime, a chant sublime,
Of peace on earth, good will to men.

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Christmas Eve


It Came Upon a Midnight Clear

It came upon the midnight clear,
That glorious song of old,
From angels bending near the earth,
To touch their harps of gold:
"Peace on the earth, goodwill to men
From heavens all gracious King!"
The world in solemn stillness lay
To hear the angels sing.

Still through the cloven skies they come,
With peaceful wings unfurled;
And still their heavenly music floats
O'er all the weary world:
Above its sad and lowly plains
They bend on hovering wing,
And ever o'er its Babel sounds
The blessed angels sing.

O ye beneath life's crushing load,
Whose forms are bending low,
Who toil along the climbing way
With painful steps and slow;
Look now, for glad and golden hours
Come swiftly on the wing;
Oh rest beside the weary road
And hear the angels sing.

For lo! the days are hastening on,
By prophets seen of old,
When with the ever-circling years
Shall come the time foretold,
When the new heaven and earth shall own
The Prince of Peace, their King,
And the whole world send back the song
Which now the angels sing.

"It Came Upon a Midnight Clear" was written by Edmund Hamilton Sears in 1849. The carol started life as a poem written by its author who was a minister living in Massachusetts at the time. The music was composed by the American musician Richard Storrs Willis in 1859, who was inspired by the words of the poem. Although it is a religious song, it always fills my mind with images of Santa and his reindeer on their midnight mission.

Tuesday, December 23: Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas


Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas

Have yourself a merry little Christmas,
Let your heart be light
From now on,
Our troubles will be out of sight

Have yourself a merry little Christmas,
Make the Yule-tide gay,
From now on,
Our troubles will be miles away.

Here we are as in olden days,
Happy golden days of yore.
Faithful friends who are dear to us
Gather near to us once more.

Through the years we all will be together
If the Fates allow
Hang a shining star upon the highest bough.
And have yourself a merry little Christmas now.

"Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" was written by Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane, and made famous by Judy Garland in the 1944 film "Meet Me in St. Louis." I love its message about friendship lasting through the years despite separations of time and distance, and the image of the star-as-beacon on the tree.

Monday, December 22: Christmas Favorites


We are stuck in Denver due to bad weather in Seattle. Am dreaming of the white Christmas we could be having at home, thinking of my favorite Christmas songs, and sharing them here for the next few days. This one is for my Elizabeth, no longer three years old and laughing in my lap while we sing this song - but still just as delightful (in her own, seriously serious, 20 year old way)!

Jingle Bell Rock
Lyric by Bobby Helms

Jingle bell, jingle bell, jingle bell rock
Jingle bells swing and jingle bells ring
Snowing and blowing up bushels of fun
Now the jingle hop has begun

Jingle bell, jingle bell, jingle bell rock
Jingle bells chime in jingle bell time
Dancing and prancing in Jingle Bell Square
In the frosty air.

What a bright time, it's the right time
To rock the night away
Jingle bell time is a swell time
To go gliding in a one-horse sleigh

Giddy-up jingle horse, pick up your feet
Jingle around the clock
Mix and a-mingle in the jingling feet
That's the jingle bell
That's the jingle bell
That's the jingle bell rock!

Sunday, December 21, 2008

Happy Winter Solstice!


The 2008 Winter Solstice occurred at 5:04 a.m. Mountain Standard Time. This picture was taken from my parents' deck in the Denver area this morning just after sunrise.

A new ABC/Washington Post poll shows that people are optimistic about the coming Obama administration.

Cheers for the return of the Sun and good things to come!

The Shortest Day
And so the Shortest Day came and the year died
And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world
Came people singing, dancing,
To drive the dark away.
They lighted candles in the winter trees;
They hung their homes with evergreen;
They burned beseeching fires all night long
To keep the year alive.
And when the new year's sunshine blazed awake
They shouted, revelling.
Through all the frosty ages you can hear them
Echoing behind us - listen!
All the long echoes, sing the same delight,
This Shortest Day,
As promise wakens in the sleeping land:
They carol, feast, give thanks,
And dearly love their friends,
And hope for peace.
And now so do we, here, now,
This year and every year.

Saturday, December 20, 2008

12th Day: Twelve Drummers Drumming


On the twelfth day of Christmas
my true love sent to me:
Twelve Drummers Drumming
Eleven Pipers Piping
Ten Lords a Leaping
Nine Ladies Dancing
Eight Maids a Milking
Seven Swans a Swimming
Six Geese a Laying
Five Golden Rings
Four Calling Birds
Three French Hens
Two Turtle Doves
and a Partridge in a Pear Tree

(I have been visiting family in Colorado these past 12 Days of Christmas, for those who have inquired; hopefully home tomorrow night if the weather doesn't interfere!)

Friday, December 19: 11th Day: Eleven Pipers Piping


On the eleventh day of Christmas
my true love sent to me:
Eleven Pipers Piping
Ten Lords a Leaping
Nine Ladies Dancing
Eight Maids a Milking
Seven Swans a Swimming
Six Geese a Laying
Five Golden Rings
Four Calling Birds
Three French Hens
Two Turtle Doves
and a Partridge in a Pear Tree

Thursday, December 18: 10th Day: Ten Lords a Leaping


On the tenth day of Christmas
my true love sent to me:
Ten Lords a Leaping
Nine Ladies Dancing
Eight Maids a Milking
Seven Swans a Swimming
Six Geese a Laying
Five Golden Rings
Four Calling Birds
Three French Hens
Two Turtle Doves
and a Partridge in a Pear Tree

(Happy Birthday, Kim!)

Wednesday, December 17: 9th Day: Nine Ladies Dancing


On the ninth day of Christmas
my true love sent to me:
Nine Ladies Dancing
Eight Maids a Milking
Seven Swans a Swimming
Six Geese a Laying
Five Golden Rings
Four Calling Birds
Three French Hens
Two Turtle Doves
and a Partridge in a Pear Tree

(December 17: Happy Birthday Greg W & Michele M!)

Tuesday, December 16: 8th Day: Eight Maids a Milking


On the eighth day of Christmas
my true love sent to me:
Eight Maids a Milking
Seven Swans a Swimming
Six Geese a Laying
Five Golden Rings
Four Calling Birds
Three French Hens
Two Turtle Doves
and a Partridge in a Pear Tree

Monday, December 15: 7th Day: Seven Swans a Swimming


On the seventh day of Christmas
my true love sent to me:
Seven Swans a Swimming
Six Geese a Laying
Five Golden Rings
Four Calling Birds
Three French Hens
Two Turtle Doves
and a Partridge in a Pear Tree

Sunday, December 14, 2008

6th Day: Six Geese a Laying


On the sixth day of Christmas
my true love sent to me:
Six Geese a Laying
Five Golden Rings
Four Calling Birds
Three French Hens
Two Turtle Doves
and a Partridge in a Pear Tree

Saturday, December 13, 2008

5th Day: Five Golden Rings


On the fifth day of Christmas
my true love sent to me:
Five Golden Rings
Four Calling Birds
Three French Hens
Two Turtle Doves
and a Partridge in a Pear Tree

Friday, December 12, 2008

4th Day: Four Calling Birds


On the fourth day of Christmas
my true love sent to me:
Four Calling Birds
Three French Hens
Two Turtle Doves
and a Partridge in a Pear Tree

Thursday, December 11, 2008

3rd Day: Three French Hens


On the third day of Christmas
my true love sent to me:
Three French Hens
Two Turtle Doves
and a Partridge in a Pear Tree

(Happy Birthday, Peter!)

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

2nd Day: Two Turtle Doves


On the second day of Christmas
my true love sent to me:
Two Turtle Doves
and a Partridge in a Pear Tree

Tuesday, December 9, 2008

1st Day: Partridge in a Pear Tree


On the first day of Christmas
my true love sent to me:
A Partridge in a Pear Tree

Monday, December 8, 2008

A Great Republican Triumph - No Kidding!


History & Amazement

Vietnam refugee Anh Cao defeated William Jefferson in Louisiana for a seat in the 111th Congress. Jefferson, a Democrat, had served for nine terms and been found with $90,000 in his freezer (9 must be Jefferson's unlucky number); the FBI is still investigating.

In the meantime, Cao, only recently declaring himself a Republican after years as a registered Independent, came to the U.S. as an 8-year-old refugee, and is a community activist attorney with a love for philosophy.


Rising tides raise all boats! In this case, I mean, let's hear it for worthy, ethical, and inspirational candidates on both sides of the aisle!

Sunday, December 7, 2008

Pearl Harbor Anniversary


President Elect Barack Obama nominates retired 4-star general, Eric Shinseki, to head the Department of Veterans' Affairs.

From Bloomberg.com:

"Shinseki’s appointment won bipartisan praise from lawmakers, with Republican Senator Richard Shelby of Alabama pledging his support and saying the former general was correct in his 2003 assessment.

“He’s a great soldier, he’s a great leader,” Shelby said today on the “Fox News Sunday” program. “We should have listened to him,” Shelby said. “We didn’t and look where we are today.”

Democratic Senator Carl Levin of Michigan said on the Fox program that “it was wrong for the Bush administration to mistreat him the way they did.” Levin added that Obama’s choice of Shinseki shows that the president-elect “will welcome people who disagree with him to express those views to him.”

Obama announced Shinseki’s appointment on the 67th anniversary on the attack on Pearl Harbor. On Dec. 7, 1941, Japanese planes attacked the U.S. Naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, leaving more than 2,400 servicemen dead. The surprise strike drew the U.S. into World War II."


From my point of view, our vets deserve everything we can give them - the best support in the field, and, especially, the best care upon return. Traumatic head injuries are particularly troubling.

Saturday, December 6, 2008

Working Our Way to Economic Recovery


According to this blog's countdown clock, there are still 45 days until the Inauguration. So while we wait to pop the cork (see yesterday's entry), President Elect Obama is doing what he can to calm national economic jitters while not taking over for an increasingly disengaged President Bush.

Today in his radio and YouTube address, Obama announced that his administration plans to invest in really, really big infrastructure projects to repair ailing national buildings and roads and in the process, create jobs. Kind of like the WPA in the Great Depression, only BIGGER (liberal and conservative economists seem to agree that huge spending by the Government is the only thing that will put us back on the road to economic recovery). Read about it in the New York Times today.

Not wasting anytime to think about other ways to spend our way out of trouble, a national conversation about Health Care Reform is already underway on the website www.change.gov. Take a minute or two to give the powers that be your own two cents worth of advice; it is reported that they are paying attention!

Should we have expected anything less?

Friday, December 5, 2008

Worth Celebrating - Cheers!


Today is the 75th Anniversary of the Repeal of Prohibition. Good thing, because what is a real celebration without champagne?

If you will be in Washington, DC for the Inauguration on January 20, the good news is that local bars will be open 24/7 for the extended weekend, serving alcohol until 5:00 a.m. Let the good times roll!

Thursday, December 4, 2008

The Robinson Family's Incredible Journey


Michelle Obama's family: From slavery to White House

By Dahleen Glanton and Stacy St. Clair
Chicago Tribune

GEORGETOWN, S.C. —

Tiny wooden cabins line the dirt road once known as Slave Street as it winds through Friendfield Plantation.

More than 200 slaves lived in the whitewashed shacks in the early 1800s, and some of their descendants remained for more than 100 years after the Civil War. The last tenants abandoned the hovels about 30 years ago, and even they would have struggled to imagine a distant daughter of the plantation one day calling the White House home.

But a historical line can be drawn from these Low Country cabins to Michelle Obama, charting an American family's improbable journey through slavery, segregation, the civil-rights movement and a historic presidential election.

Their documented passage begins with Jim Robinson, Michelle Obama's great-great-grandfather, who was born about 1850 and lived as a slave, at least until the Civil War, on the sprawling rice plantation. Records show he remained on the estate after the war, working as a sharecropper and living in the old slave quarters with his wife, Louiser, and their children. He could neither read nor write, according to the 1880 census.

Robinson would be the last illiterate branch of Michelle Obama's family tree.

Census records show each generation of Robinsons became more educated than the last, with Michelle Obama eventually earning degrees from Princeton University and Harvard Law School. Her older brother, Craig, also earned an Ivy League education. read the entire article here

Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Thought for the Day: Empathy


"You know, there's a lot of talk in this country about the federal deficit. But I think we should talk more about our empathy deficit - the ability to put ourselves in someone else's shoes; to see the world through the eyes of those who are different from us – the child who's hungry, the steelworker who's been laid-off, the family who lost the entire life they built together when the storm came to town. When you think like this – when you choose to broaden your ambit of concern and empathize with the plight of others, whether they are close friends or distant strangers – it becomes harder not to act; harder not to help."

~ Barack Obama, New Orleans, LA, Xavier University Commencement, August 11, 2006

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Unprecedented Outreach


President Elect Obama met with the nation's governors today in Philadelphia.

"The meeting with the governors was "unprecedented," said Gov. Edward Rendell (D) of Pennsylvania, in that it was the first time a transition team for an incoming administration reached out to state governors to ask their help in crafting a national agenda." read the entire story in the Christian Science Monitor.

"Confidence . . . thrives only on honesty, on honor, on the sacredness of obligations, on faithful protection and on unselfish performance. Without them it cannot live." ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt

Monday, December 1, 2008

December 1 - Let the Adventure Begin!


"President Kennedy once said that engaging the world to meet the threats we face was the greatest adventure of our century. Well, Mr. President-elect, I am proud to join you on what will be a difficult and exciting adventure in this new century. And may God bless you and all who serve with you and our great country."

~ Hillary Clinton accepting Barack Obama's nomination as his Secretary of State, December 1, 2008

I love that Hillary spoke of her appointment, with a smile at Obama, as an "adventure." A serious job requiring a keen mind, a good sense of humor, and a desire to make a difference and pioneer a new course. How can these two (along with the rest of the team) not succeed?

President Elect Obama also named Bob Gates to remain at Defense (Gates is an out-of-the-closet Obamacon; he's been giving speeches for the last year on the need to beef up the State Department; apparently there are more military band musicians than foreign service officers, an imbalance he would like to rectify); Eric Holder for Attorney General ("It is incumbent upon those of us who lead the department to ensure not only that the nation is safe but also that our laws and traditions are respected." - can you believe that has become a foreign concept at the Bush/Cheney Department of Justice???); Janet Napolitano to be Homeland Security Chief; Susan Rice as UN Ambassador (re-elevated to a cabinet-level position); and the imposing Jim Jones as National Security Advisor.

I feel safe.

Other December 1 anniversaries of note:

Today is the 53rd anniversary of Rosa Parks' brave decision to not give up her seat on that Montgomery, Alabama bus, an event that further sparked the Civil Rights Movement and helped give rise to Martin Luther King, Jr.

Today is also the 20th anniversary of World AIDS Day, an event commemorated in Seattle with a glowing red Space Needle (see above) in support of the RED campaign.

And last, but certainly not least, today is my birthday. Happy day!

Sunday, November 30, 2008

Thank Goodness for Obama


"Few things help an individual more than to place responsibility upon him, and to let him know that you trust him." ~ Booker T. Washington

This has been a seriously crazy Thanksgiving weekend; a fearsome reminder of the violent world we inhabit. My thoughts and prayers have been for those innocents in Mumbai. Barack Obama announces his foreign policy & national security team tomorrow; January 20 can't come soon enough!

Saturday, November 29, 2008

Gratitude for Family & Contentment


Blessings for the Obama family on their final Thanksgiving weekend in Chicago before the White House and Washington, DC overwhelm, but hopefully do not overcome, the contentment they find together.

"There are nine requisites for contented living: health enough to make work a pleasure; wealth enough to support your needs; strength to battle with difficulties and overcome them; grace enough to confess your sins and forsake them; patience enough to toil until some good is accomplished; charity enough to see some good in your neighbor; love enough to move you to be useful and helpful to others; faith enough to make real the things of God; hope enough to remove all anxious fears concerning the future."

Friday, November 28, 2008

Thankful for a Bounty of Intelligence!


David Broder in the Washington Post on Thanksgiving Day, 2008:

Good Time for a Brainy President

". . . I am struck by how lucky this country is, at the moment, that the president-elect is a super-smart person like Barack Obama. With each passing day, it becomes more evident that even the smartest and most experienced managers of the American economy are struggling to understand -- and fix -- what has gone wrong in our markets. . .

I have talked to two people on the fringe of the transition team -- both members of Congress with major responsibilities in the economic area. Both have been asked for input by Obama, and both say that the quality of his questions -- and his follow-ups -- were a measure of the depth of his knowledge of the situation.

He has not been tested that rigorously in the news conferences he has held so far, but his ability to respond to the questions he has been asked, to make his points in a coherent, balanced way and to avoid any misstatement has certainly been a treat to watch.

The appointments he has made to his economic team have been impressive, and the response to them has been almost uniformly positive from Capitol Hill to Wall Street. But it is not just the incoming White House and Cabinet people who have been reassuring; it has been Obama himself.

As well as he handled himself during the long campaign, he has been equally sure-footed in the transition. And behind the smooth public performance is a mind that seems able to stretch to encompass even the most complex of policy choices.

I am sure that in coming weeks and months, there will be judgments that will jar this confidence and decisions that Obama himself may come to regret.

But for a nation in crisis, it is worth giving thanks for the performance the next president has turned in so far -- and for the mind that is working on the nation's behalf." read the whole thing here.

And Roger Cohen in the New York Times:

A Command of the Law

"It’s Thanksgiving. I’m thankful for many things right now, despite the stock market, and first among them is the fact that the next U.S. commander in chief is a constitutional law expert and former law professor.

Before I get to why, allow me to add two other reasons for thankfulness. The first is that Barack Obama is a man of sufficient self-confidence to entrust the critical job of secretary of state to his former rival, Hillary Rodham Clinton. She has the strength and focus to produce results.

The second is that he’s a man of sufficient good sense to retain the remarkable Robert Gates as defense secretary." read the whole thing here.

Thursday, November 27, 2008

Giving Thanks for the Prospect of Peace


A Blessing for Peace
from the book, Benedictus

As the fever of day calms towards twilight
May all that is strained in us come to ease.

We pray for all who suffered violence today,
May an unexpected serenity surprise them.

For those who risk their lives each day for peace,
May their hearts glimpse providence at the heart of history.

That those who make riches from violence and war
Might hear in their dreams the cries of the lost.

That we might see throught the fear of each other
A new vision to heal our fatal attraction to aggression.

That those who enjoy the privilege of peace
Might not forget their tormented brothers and sisters.

That the wolf might lie down with the lamb,
That our swords be beaten into ploughshares

And no hurt or harm be done
Anywhere along the holy mountain.

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Being Thankful for the Truth


My generation, the Baby Boomers, grew up with one version of Thanksgiving Truth: the Pilgrims joined with the Indians after a year of extreme hardship to share a meal in celebration of, and in gratitude for, their mutual survival. The Indians got religion; the Pilgrims got food. Good times!

Overlooked was the part that came next. Within 50 years, the Native American population of the Plymouth area was almost completely exterminated by war, sold into slavery, or driven from their land. So began the long, bloody, and sad history of America’s brutal dominance of those who came before us, a dominance justified with the words, Manifest Destiny. As a great-granddaughter of 19th century European pioneers to Colorado, my personal pride in a trail-breaking heritage mingles with great national shame. It’s a complex internal conflict not easily resolved.

Is there hope for more national healing and better understanding under an Obama Administration? There are some promising signs.

Obama’s October 24, 2008 statement on a Full Partnership with Indian Country:

"For 20 months now, I’ve traveled this country, often talking about how the needs of the American people are going unmet by Washington. And the truth is, few have been ignored by Washington for as long as American Indians. Too often, Washington pays lip service to working with tribes while taking a one-size-fits-all approach with tribal communities across the nation.

That will change if I am honored to serve as president of the United States.

My American Indian policy begins with creating a bond between an Obama administration and the tribal nations all across this country. We need more than just a government-to-government relationship; we need a nation-to-nation relationship, and I will make sure that tribal nations have a voice in the White House.

I’ll appoint an American Indian policy adviser to my senior White House staff to work with tribes, and host an annual summit at the White House with tribal leaders to come up with an agenda that works for tribal communities. That’s how we’ll make sure you have a seat at the table when important decisions are being made about your lives, about your nations and about your people. That’ll be a priority when I am president.

Here’s what else we’re going to do. We’re going to end nearly a century of mismanagement of the Indian trusts. We’re going to work together to settle unresolved cases, figure out how the trusts ought to operate and make sure that they’re being managed responsibly – today, tomorrow and always.

Now, I understand the tragic history between the United States and tribal nations. Our government hasn’t always been honest and truthful in our dealings. And we’ve got to acknowledge that if we’re going to move forward in a fair and honest way.

Indian nations have never asked much of the United States – only for what was promised by the treaty obligations made to their forebears. So let me be absolutely clear – I believe treaty commitments are paramount law, and I will fulfill those commitments as president of the United States. . .

. . . And so I want you to know that I will never forget you. The American Indians I have met across this country will be on my mind each day that I am in the White House. You deserve a president who is committed to being a full partner with you; to respecting you, honoring you and working with you every day. That is the commitment I will make to you as president of the United States.” Read the entire statement here.

------------------------------------

Another example of Obama's outreach to Native Americans was reported by The New York Times in May, 2008 in a story that tells of his adoption by the Crow Indian Tribe in Montana. Obama was given the name “One Who Helps People Throughout the Land.” Read the whole article by Jeff Zeleny here.

-----------------------------------

The Thanksgiving holiday is linked to America’s history. But as a modern, secular, national festival, it also stands on its own as a day to simply be grateful for what is good in our lives, and should be celebrated guilt-free – including second or third helpings of everything! As a nation, we should look to the past without blinders, and move forward vigilantly seeking the truth.

“To state the facts frankly is not to despair for the future nor indict the past.” ~ John F Kennedy

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Thanks be for Sweet Potato & Pumpkin Pie!


Remember near the end of the campaign when the news was filled one day with sound bites of Barack singing the praises of Sweet Potato Pie? I do, so this morning I searched for that bite, thinking it would be a great addition to today's Thanksgiving post on the pleasures of holiday pie.

My search turned up this incredible morsel, penned by Mark Danner for the New York Review of Books. I'm exerpting the sweet potato slice here, but read the whole pie for yourself - it is one of the best pieces of campaign reporting I have ever savored, starkly exposing and compassionately revealing the difference between Obama and McCain and their supporters. This excerpt is followed by a traditional American poem by John Greenleaf Whittier on that Thanksgiving favorite, pumpkin pie. Enjoy!

From "Obama & Sweet Potato Pie," (you must read the whole thing!) by Mark Danner:

(In front of a crowd of thousands in Germantown, Pennsylvania) ". . . Obama's riff on sweet potato pie. It came as he told a story about his campaigning "the other day in a little town in Ohio, with the governor there," about how he and the governor suddenly felt hungry and "decided we'd stop right there and get some pie." Now here began a little gem of a story, which had at its center the diner employees who wanted to take a picture with Obama, not least because, as they told him, their boss was a die-hard Republican and "they wanted to tweak him a little with that picture." All this was heading toward a carefully choreographed finale, where the owner appeared personally with the pie for candidate and governor and Obama looked at the pie and looked at the pie-carrying die-hard Republican owner and "then I said to him"—perfectly elongated pause—"How's business?"

This brought on great gales of laughter from the crowd. For the joke turned on a point already precisely made: How can even the most die-hard of die-hard Republicans, if he is thinking of his self-interest, how can he vote Republican this year? "If you beat your head against the wall," Obama demanded of that faraway Republican with his pie, to a blizzard of "oh yeahs!" and "you got that right!" from the crowd, "and it hurts and hurts, how can you keep doing it?" But it was those two words, "How's business?"—that casual greeting thrown at the Republican diner owner that showed that there simply could be no other choice this year—that showed the case proved, wrapped up, unassailable.

And yet what struck me in this little model of political art was a tiny riff the candidate effortlessly worked into it from his banter with the crowd. When Obama launched into his story with "Because I love pie," a woman out in that sea of cheering, laughing people shouted back, " I'll make you pie, baby!" and to the general hooting laughter the candidate returned, "Oh yeah, you gonna make me pie?" Then, after a beat, amid even more raucous laughter, and several other female voices shouting out invitations, "You gonna make me sweet potato pie? " More shouts and laughter. " All you gonna make me pie?"

"Well you know I love sweet potato pie. And I think what we're going to have to do here"—and the laughter and the shouting rose and as it did his voice rose above it—"what we're going to have to do here is have a sweet potato pie contest.... That's right. And in this contest, I'm gonna be the judge." The laughter rose and you could hear not only the women but the deep laughter of the men taking delight in the double entendre that was not only about the women and their laughing, teasing offers and about their pie that that lanky confident smiling young man knew how to eat and enjoy and judge, but even more now, amazingly, as people came one by one to recognize, about something else. To those people gathered in Vernon Park that bright sun-drenched morning, it was an even more titillating and more pleasurable double entendre, for it was most clearly about something they'd never had but hoped and dreamed of having and now had begun to believe they were within the shortest of short distances of finally tasting. "Because you all know," their candidate told them, "that I know sweet potato pie." read all here

From Sweet Potato Change We Can Believe in to Traditional Americana and John Greenleaf Whittier, our nation and people encompass vast spaces and ways of life and thinking. Our heritage and culture are diverse; we are all Americans.


Oh, greenly and fair in the lands of the sun,
The vines of the gourd and the rich melon run,
And the rock and the tree and the cottage enfold,
With broad leaves all greenness and blossoms all gold,
Like that which o'er Nineveh's prophet once grew,
While he waited to know that his warning was true,
And longed for the storm-cloud, and listened in vain
For the rush of the whirlwind and red fire-rain.

On the banks of the Xenil the dark Spanish maiden
Comes up with the fruit of the tangled vine laden;
And the Creole of Cuba laughs out to behold
Through orange-leaves shining the broad spheres of gold;
Yet with dearer delight from his home in the North,
On the fields of his harvest the Yankee looks forth,
Where crook-necks are coiling and yellow fruit shines,
And the sun of September melts down on his vines.

Ah! on Thanksgiving day, when from East and from West,
From North and from South comes the pilgrim and guest;
When the gray-haired New Englander sees round his board
The old broken links of affection restored;
When the care-wearied man seeks his mother once more,
And the worn matron smiles where the girl smiled before;
What moistens the lip and what brightens the eye,
What calls back the past, like the rich Pumpkin pie?

Oh, fruit loved of boyhood! the old days recalling,
When wood-grapes were purpling and brown nuts were falling!
When wild, ugly faces we carved in its skin,
Glaring out through the dark with a candle within!
When we laughed round the corn-heap, with hearts all in tune,
Our chair a broad pumpkin, - our lantern the moon,
Telling tales of the fairy who travelled like steam
In a pumpkin-shell coach, with two rats for her team!

Then thanks for thy present! none sweeter or better
E'er smoked from an oven or circled a platter!
Fairer hands never wrought at a pastry more fine,
Brighter eyes never watched o'er its baking, than thine!
And the prayer, which my mouth is too full to express,
Swells my heart that thy shadow may never be less,
That the days of thy lot may be lengthened below,
And the fame of thy worth like a pumpkin-vine grow,
And thy life be as sweet, and its last sunset sky
Golden-tinted and fair as thy own Pumpkin pie!

Monday, November 24, 2008

Thanksgiving and Bipartisanship


I love Thanksgiving; it's all about friends, family and food, pure and simple. So, I'll be giving thanks here all week.

Monday's thanksgiving is for bipartisanship. A couple of days ago I featured David Brooks, conservative columnist for the New York Times. Today, it's Bill Kristol, a REALLY conservative columnist for the New York Times (and editor of the Weekly Standard). While not exactly a rousing endorsement, his words are at least a cautiously hopeful, "I'm willing to give the guy a chance because even the Republicans haven't a clue about how to save the economy," reality check.

THANK YOU, Bill Kristol!

From his column in today's New York Times:

"But, basically, it seems to me, we’re all flying blind. The markets are spiraling down, and our leading experts don’t have much of a clue as to what to do.

Given that, one has to welcome the expected appointment to senior positions in the Obama administration of economists like Lawrence Summers, Timothy Geithner, Jason Furman, Peter Orszag, and Goolsbee himself. They’re sober and competent people who know we face a real crisis — and who, importantly, may be more willing than many of their colleagues to adjust their thinking early and often. . . .

So I hope the best and the brightest who will be joining the new president will at least entertain the possibility that a lot of what they think they know is wrong. . .

I’ve worked in government. It’s hard to do much thinking there at all, let alone thinking anew. But Obama and his team will have to think anew, and those on the outside who wish to help will have to think anew too, if we’re to have a chance of rising to this daunting occasion."


Here's more about bipartisanship in the news:

by Jeff Zeleny in the NY Times

by Jonathan Martin in Politico.com

by Robert Kuttner in the Huffington Post

And one purely partisan because I am thankful for the end of the Bush Administration:

by John Hallmann in the Huffington Post

Sunday, November 23, 2008

Another Anthem for America


"Lift Every Voice and Sing," aka, the Negro National Anthem, was written by James Weldon Johnson as a poem in 1900, and set to music by his brother, John Rosamond Johnson, in 1905.

Lift every voice and sing
Till earth and heaven ring,
Ring with the harmonies of Liberty;
Let our rejoicing rise
High as the listening skies,
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us,
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun
Let us march on till victory is won.

Stony the road we trod,
Bitter the chastening rod,
Felt in the days when hope unborn had died;
Yet with a steady beat,
Have not our weary feet
Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?
We have come over a way that with tears have been watered,
We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered,
Out from the gloomy past,
Till now we stand at last
Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.

God of our weary years,
God of our silent tears,
Thou who has brought us thus far on the way;
Thou who has by Thy might
Led us into the light,
Keep us forever in the path, we pray.
Lest our feet stray from the places, Our God, where we met Thee;
Lest, our hearts drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee;
Shadowed beneath Thy hand,
May we forever stand.
True to our GOD,
True to our native land

Saturday, November 22, 2008

Remembering JFK


Today is the 45th anniversary of President John F Kennedy's death in Dallas. I was almost 6 years old, and remember the event, the images, the mood, the tremendous sadness well. I pray we as a nation never have to go through the same again.

As a tribute, I offer Robert Frost's poem, "The Gift Outright." Frost read this poem at JFK's inaugural in 1961 instead of the one he had written especially for the event, called "Dedication." From the JFK Library:

"Frost had planned to read a typed copy of the poem during President Kennedy’s Inauguration, but due to sun glare reflecting off the snow, he was unable to read his own draft. Instead, he recited The Gift Outright from memory. On the backside of the framed poem, First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy wrote in pencil, “For Jack. First thing I had framed to be put in your office. First thing to be hung there.” "

The Gift Outright

The land was ours before we were the land's.
She was our land more than a hundred years
Before we were her people. She was ours
In Massachusetts, in Virginia,
But we were England's, still colonials,
Possessing what we still were unpossessed by,
Possessed by what we now no more possessed.
Something we were withholding made us weak
Until we found out that it was ourselves
We were withholding from our land of living,
And forthwith found salvation in surrender.
Such as we were we gave ourselves outright
(The deed of gift was many deeds of war)
To the land vaguely realizing westward,
But still unstoried, artless, unenhanced,
Such as she was, such as she would become.

~ Robert Frost, 1942

Friday, November 21, 2008

The Transition Continues


I like conservative columnist David Brooks' words about the transition in today's New York Times:

"Obama seems to have dispensed with the romantic and failed notion that you need inexperienced “fresh faces” to change things. After all, it was L.B.J. who passed the Civil Rights Act. Moreover, because he is so young, Obama is not bringing along an insular coterie of lifelong aides who depend upon him for their well-being.

As a result, the team he has announced so far is more impressive than any other in recent memory. One may not agree with them on everything or even most things, but a few things are indisputably true.

First, these are open-minded individuals who are persuadable by evidence. Orszag, who will probably be budget director, is trusted by Republicans and Democrats for his honest presentation of the facts.

Second, they are admired professionals. Conservative legal experts have a high regard for the probable attorney general, Eric Holder, despite the business over the Marc Rich pardon.

Third, they are not excessively partisan. Obama signaled that he means to live up to his postpartisan rhetoric by letting Joe Lieberman keep his committee chairmanship.

Fourth, they are not ideological. The economic advisers, Furman and Goolsbee, are moderate and thoughtful Democrats. Hillary Clinton at State is problematic, mostly because nobody has a role for her husband. But, as she has demonstrated in the Senate, her foreign-policy views are hardheaded and pragmatic. (It would be great to see her set of interests complemented by Samantha Power’s set of interests at the U.N.)

Finally, there are many people on this team with practical creativity. Any think tanker can come up with broad doctrines, but it is rare to find people who can give the president a list of concrete steps he can do day by day to advance American interests. Dennis Ross, who advised Obama during the campaign, is the best I’ve ever seen at this, but Rahm Emanuel also has this capacity, as does Craig and legislative liaison Phil Schiliro.

Believe me, I’m trying not to join in the vast, heaving O-phoria now sweeping the coastal haut-bourgeoisie. But the personnel decisions have been superb. The events of the past two weeks should be reassuring to anybody who feared that Obama would veer to the left or would suffer self-inflicted wounds because of his inexperience. He’s off to a start that nearly justifies the hype."