I saw this earlier but didn't know what the speaking was. This version has English subtitles.

At Wilderness Office Park, we have a monster television next to the coffee on every floor. I just spent the last hour standing there with nearly everyone else from the 4th floor staring and smiling and trying not to openly weep. The guy next to me periodically doing the fake-out "oh, my head hurts" whole-hand eye wipe did not help.

I love that our president (with assistance from the Chief Justice) goofed the oath of office. Someone said "He's been president for 5 minutes already! He has other things on his mind!" and wouldn't that be nice? To watch your president think like you might watch a dancer's bare feet. I love the wabi sabi, imperfection, demonstration of the work and consciousness that goes into producing leadership (or anything, really - I love the front row). I hope it means we'll care about craft and effort. I hope we'll see a line blur between the civic and the political, because really? It's not that much of a line. I hope there's something to this - grassroots action, politics 2.0, user-created citizenship, whatever it is. I hope the country is self-organizing. I hope this is a sign of a real change in the ways people think.

Mostly? I just hope.

Also, props to the man for the shout-out to non-believers, though I like to think of myself as just ethnically Unitarian. My people thank you, Mr. President.

Best political feeling ever: in my 90 year old house in my 150 year old neighborhood watching my city, this state and this country elect Obama.

80% of eligible people in Richmond voted, people. EIGHTY.

I don't care who you voted for (but I'll lay odds if you're on my friends list and in the city): that thrills me with hope.

The rest of y'all, non locals, whatever your political persuasion: you're pretty awesome too. I've loved reading your words through this.




Now. Californians? What happened with Prop 8? Please tell me no.

[ETA: John McCain, you, too, are awesome and beautiful. Thank you.]

US gets served by Rwanda. We should seriously consider bringing it.

Smartypants friends list, is that the first country to have a majority female parliamentary body?

New Orleans AGAIN?! Well, that certainly puts things in perspective.

Also, we heard about McCain's VP choice while moving on Friday. Damn. That was an evil genius move right there - like, deliberately targeting yet simultaneously insulting Clinton's voters.

Last week I voted for Clinton. Which I did, honestly, because both she and Obama are decent candidates on many issues I care about, enough that they were essentially even in my mind. And she's female.

And someone turned her likeness into a nutcracker figurine. You know, her thighs crack nuts.
And people who don't like her often do so for the bumbling, inarticulate reason that "she's a cunt".
And every damned person in the country likes to call her by her first name and all the dudes by their last ones.
And because I live in the state of Virginia, and have never even voted in a county where a woman's name was on the ballot.
And because, when talking about her leadership ability, someone invariably brings up that she either does or does not "stand by her man" as they believe she should or shouldn't.
And because Shakesville can list 62 citations of sexist talk about Clinton in the last six months.

I understand not wanting a specific woman to be president because she has political views with which you disagree. But "BECAUSE SHE'S A CUNT"? Seriously? That's just stupid. I worry, given the overt and depressing sexism that people and the media are directing and targeting at Clinton that Obama, when he wins the Democrats' nomination, will face just the same thing - but less overt, cause I just don't see even conservative pundits getting by calling him a "porch monkey" the way they do with calling her a "she devil". Is this country backwards enough that we still can't really handle the concept of a woman (or a black man) in charge?

Some dude called my decision "sexist". Emotional, it may be. But sexism isn't just making choices based on gender, idiot: it's systematic. There are 86 women in the US Congress (out of the 425 total, in case that number isn't at the front of your mind). And 62 ways Clinton is a fulcrum for this country's sexism. Damn straight in an even-to-me contest, I'll pick the candidate who gets excoriated for looking like me.

And she has a fucking last name, okay?

Benazir Bhutto was assassinated.

San Diego Mayor. Thanks, trinityva. And other people.

I know that legislative change is important, but it's the individual people processing change that really gets me.

In case you didn't catch it on NPR this morning, on CNN, or on any other major national news source, here's the Post article on how racist and mean Prince William County is.

My intrepid reporter friend told me last week that they were considering the Great Stupidity, and now it's official. Thanks, NOVA, for making Virginia appear to be populated with greedy racist asshats. Nice job.

This started as a comment on fatshionista, but I want to expand upon it.

PETA's talking trash at Michael Moore, and of course they're calling him a Fatty McFatterson. It's just PETA. That's what they do. And I mean, really? Michael Moore, of all people, ought to be able to take a little of what he dishes out (not the fat, just the fundamental disregard for the perspectives of others - I generally agree with him but still sometimes want to smack him).

The current state of PETA depresses the hell out of me, because some of their points are valid, we should be ashamed of the meat & dairy industry (whatever we might feel about using animals for food), we often don't treat pets with care and respect - our relationship to animals in general is out of whack. They used to have such a powerful message. PETA & ALF were the groups that really drew attention to the sheer cruelty of animal experiments (only 20 years ago, sheesh). When it was still considered (in my lifetime) totally swell to flat-out fuck with animals in order to get things like a model of chemical depression, PETA - using what would become their usual just-this-side-of-legal and overexaggerated tactics - managed to get most people angry about that.

I think, after being so successful at making fur (well, to an extent) & animal testing widely accepted as wrong, that they're grasping at straws for something else to make an issue of. They tried freaking people out about pets - they'll call you if you post an ad in the paper offering kittens or puppies, and there was a period where they picked up strays and killed them [FOR REAL; PETA is based in my hometown] - and lo, that didn't work. Though I will say, it's the same ideas as PETA holds about domesticating animals that have me currently squished on like 1/4 of my bed because one of the cats curled up in the middle while I was up - and hey, who am I to push her around just cause she's smaller & doesn't have a job?

Taking on the meat and dairy industries legislatively hasn't worked either, so they're trying to find a way to make vegetarianism popular - and they figure capitalizing on the Obesity Crisis is as good a way as any. PETA would prefer to offend people, because that garners attention - fat vegetarians aren't going to start eating meat, and maybe some people will be shamed into vegetarianism. I suspect it'll mostly turn out like my mom's meatless diet, though; once she didn't lose weight, she went right on back to the meat. Vegetarianism! The new Adkins Diet!

But more importantly, I'm sad for the people of PETA that they're turning into, or possibly have always been, asshats. If you "save" animals or reform the meat/dairy industry with such disdain for your fellow humans, what does that do to your psyche? Is it a requirement of radical, world-shifting activism that you lose touch with the world-as-it-is?