RIP Senator Kennedy

Someone posted the following excerpt from Bobby Kennedy's speech after MLK Jr. died. It seemed appropriate today.

In this difficult day, in this difficult time for the United States, it is perhaps well to ask what kind of a nation we are and what direction we want to move in. For those of you who are black - considering the evidence there evidently is that there were white people who were responsible - you can be filled with bitterness, with hatred, and desire for revenge. We can move in that direction as a country, in great polarization - black people amongst black, white people amongst white, filled with hatred toward one another.

Or we can make an effort, as Martin Luther King did, to understand and to comprehend, and to replace that violence, that stain of bloodshed that has spread across our land, with an effort to understand that compassion and love.

For those of you who are black and are tempted to be filled with hatred and distrust at the injustice of such an act, against all white people, I can only say that I feel in my own heart the same kind of feeling. I had a member of my family killed, but he was killed by a white man. But we have to make an effort in the United States, we have to make an effort to understand, to go beyond these rather difficult times.

My favorite poet was Aeschylus. He wrote: "In our sleep pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God."

What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence or lawlessness, but love and wisdom and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of injustice towards those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or they be black...

We've had difficult times in the past. We will have difficult times in the future. It is not the end of violence; it is not the end of lawlessness; it is not the end of disorder.

But the vast majority of white people and the vast majority of black people in this country want to live together, want to improve the quality of our life, and want justice for all human beings who abide in our land. Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and to make gentle the life of this world.
Let us dedicate ourselves to that, and say a prayer for our country and for our people.

In honor of John Hughes and Ferris Bueller's Day Off

I found this wonderful retelling of the whole movie tonight, written by an Aussie. What a refreshing perspective on life! Loved that movie. In our Brave Writer film discussion class, a whole slew of teens led by our intrepid Susanne Barrett, discussed this film in depth (of course, it happens to be her favorite film of all time—natch). Strange timing with Hughes' passing (RIP).

Ferris Bueller's Day Off Redux

Giving credit to Bill: It's the Diplomacy Stupid

In Release of Journalists, Both Clintons Had Roles

If there's one thing I love , it's good, culturally sensitive diplomacy. We've had too little of it for too long. Too many Americans still believe that talking big and never apologizing is the key to a successful relationship with Asia and the Middle East. As if! Have you not read James Clavell? Leon Uris? The Bible, for heaven's sake?

These cultures are governed by shame and saving face, not by unnuanced self-aggrandizement... and bigger-than-you guns.

And so when Bill Clinton, a man I didn't vote for or like or respect (you know, back when I looked just like a Dittohead), manages to get two of our reporters released from North "Send Nukes into the Sky" Korea, ya gotta give the man props... but even more, wonder how on earth he did it? (And let's just say right here - has there ever been a man more interested in having a legacy than Bill Clinton? I enjoyed his success this week for his ego's benefit, after the thrashing he's been through in his personal life during his presidency—all by his own complexity of failings, to be sure, but still. I'm all about humans fumbling their way toward better choices, growth and contributions that matter. I'd hope we'd all be!)

So anyway, back to what I was feeling, writing. Here's what the NYTimes had to say about how Bill may have pulled this off:

As president, Mr. Clinton had sent Mr. Kim a letter of condolence on the death of his father, Kim Il-sung, according to a former official. For Mr. Kim, the former official said, freeing the women was a “reciprocal humanitarian gesture.”

Did you read that? Try it one more time. A gesture of human caring for someone's father (family being everything in Asia), sending the appropriate human gesture, led to a reciprocal humanitarian release. Americans rarely get how powerful it is to show respect, to honor someone's set of values, to get outside our own western, gun-slinging point of view long enough to be genuinely diplomatic! Bill Clinton! Amazing. The guy has got some of it goin' on.

Now granted, we don't know what that release will cost us. Asians have much longer memories than Americans, and they don't do anything for nothing. We can be sure this "gesture" will go on a tally sheet somewhere. Still, for now, today, a decision Clinton made in office to show respect and care came back to serve America this week. That's a lesson we all ought to internalize.

Checking in... testing 1, 2, 3

Yep still works. Apparently they didn't pull the plug on this dormant thing so here I be, back in the saddle.

Life is crazy busy for me (Brave Writer high season) and kids are ever busy with friends, King's Island, church, and preparation for the fall school season. Caitrin woke up today and before even opening facebook, opened her math book. We started the review. Time to dust off the long division skills and get back to work.

Liam will go to the freshman school for two classes so we'll enroll him this week. He says adamantly, "No one can make me go." But I think I may win this one. :) Oh, I'm non-coercive on the whole. Anyone who knows me knows that. I mean: stay up until 5:00 a.m. playing Warcraft - dooode be my guest! But this time, his main reason for staying home and not schooling it?? Sleeping in! Ha! (Maybe that Warcraft all nighter-ing is starting to take its toll.) So I'm more like, "Uh, not this time, pal." If he wants to ski in January every Wednesday, he's got to rise with the dawn and garbage trucks for the whole year. That's the only way it will work. And that, my friends, is what we call holding your child over a ski barrel.

I head out to be with the crazy liberals who want to impose healthcare on recalcitrant birthers and Republicans next week: Netroots Nation in Pittsburgh. Seriously excited about this. I'm such a complete political novice. But I came to love that "little" (cough sputter) community of 200,000 last year during Campaign "No One Can Stop the Man Born in Kenya." We hung out and bled our veins for Obama and ahhhh. Now he's in office and all the ones who hated him then, hate him more now and they ask me things like, "What do you think now that Obama is ruining the country and everything is worse than ever and no one has jobs and he wants to make us have healthcare against our wills and he's not even American and he has to read all his jokes off a teleprompter?"

I'm kind of at a loss. I mean, for crying out loud in the night! I gave freaking George W. Bush EIGHT years! EIGHT that we'll never get back. I let Bush invade a sovereign nation, allow for the deregulation of energy (which led to the Enron crime of the century - the one crime that made me think the death penalty is not punishment enough for white collar criminals - and the subsequent bankrupting of California), violate our citizens' rights to privacy, support and condone torture, and send our country spiraling into out of control debt as well as bailing out banks! And I'm supposed to convert to being a "hater" of Obama, who's been in office, what, 7ish months because it's taking awhile to get the economy righted after the disaster Bush left behind?

Come on! I gotta give the man a little more time and love than that! You know I do!

Anyway.

Life is actually pretty okay these days despite the obvious sources of angst. Had a great time in CA. Feels good to be home in Cincy. Really good. Like, I'm Beyonce "crazy in love" with this city. I knew it when I got off the plane this time that Cincy really is home now. I heart Cincinnati.

Okay, let's hope this little freewheeling freewrite gets me back in the groove for blogging. I've missed you all.

Boston Globe's Photos in Memory of Tiananmen Square

I found this page utterly riveting (remember so vividly watching the television in horror...).

Remembering Tiananmen 20 Years Later

Tiller, "Operation Rescue" and Bonhoeffer

The Tiller murder has caused the pro-choice movement to legitimately question what the label "pro-life" means. Meanwhile vocal pro-lifers are screaming: "That's not who we are!" But I wonder... because in a cold, calculating logic, killing abortionists makes a kind of sick sense if you believe that abortions kill innocent babies.

I've spent years next door to that kind of conviction and so did Jon... We explored the edges of what it meant to really believe that abortion was murder (similar to how I really believed people were going to hell and couldn't sit home comfortably in America while millions of Muslims were flashing Fastrak passes to hell). I mean, if babies are being killed in the womb through no choice of their own, isn't that... murder? Wouldn't killing an abortionist be "defense of an innocent life"?

Jon and I were active in Operation Rescue back in the late 80s and early 90s. Jon spent Easter weekend (1990) in jail along with 300 Christians for blockading an abortion clinic in downtown Los Angeles. I stood with picketers on the sidelines with a baby in a backpack and a toddler in a stroller. An angry pro-choice woman walked by me, pointed at Johannah in the pack, and said to a friend of hers (so I could hear her), "There's one that should have been aborted."

The protest that weekend was peaceful. Think of "sit-in" and you'll have the right idea. Hundreds of men and women sat down on the steps and across the front of the clinic, singing worship songs, mostly, and praying. We'd been instructed to not shout epithets or to engage in verbal battering or debate. The idea was to follow the lead of Ghandi or MLK Jr. Civil (meaning "with civility" in addition to "civic") disobedience meant we would not create violent conditions of any kind and would receive without retaliation any violence dished out against us.

The protesters were rounded up and arrested, of course. The police used num-chuks to wrench the arms of the OR participants behind their backs, for the cuffing. Jon had a strained wrist for years following.

I still remember going to court for the arraignment. Jon had been front and center on the cover of the Orange County Register with his arms raised in worship in front of a clinic. The court found him guilty of trespassing and let him off for time served (LA County jail for a weekend with 300 others who worshiped God over stale burritos).

The heyday of Operation Rescue resulted in little rescue. I mean, we heard about women who turned back from particular clinics. But that wouldn't have prevented them from seeking out other ones. Over time, the arrests led to longer record sheets and fathers in particular, who had families to feed (usually large ones created without birth control), found it harder and harder to risk their jobs (jail time especially created a tension between convictions and practicalities) in order to stop abortion.

Yet the zealously committed (the ones who really did to their very bones see abortion as the murder of an innocent child) couldn't bear that all this effort resulted in... well, nothing. No changes in legislation, no awakening in the culture, no real shift in values among those who professed to be pro-life (you'd be astonished how many pro-lifers have either had abortions or have paid for them secretly).

The first tentative conversations I heard about murdering abortionists happened over dinner at one of the Operation Rescue leader's homes. Jon and I sat among the large family of kids with our own growing one (there were at least 9 kids among us) and Jeff (staffer) said that clearly the movement needed to escalate. Passive resistance was not effective. There needed to be graphic symbols and social/shaming pressure on abortionists to make them give up their abortion practices. This is when picketing abortionist homes became popular (using those graphic signs of aborted fetuses). But Jeff went further. He said if that didn't work, he could understand the need to take this cause all the way to murder (though quickly added that he didn't yet feel led that way himself).

It was a breath-taking statement followed by breathtaking reality when we heard of the first abortionist murder not many months later. Jon and I were rocked back on our heels. The leadership in OR was quick to distance themselves saying they didn't approve of those tactics.... but really? One of our best friends, an avid pro-lifer and missionary, shared on the QT with us that he felt this act was justified, and used Bonhoeffer to defend the position.

From there, I began to hear the drip drip drip of private, quiet support for these heroes, regardless of how the publicity from the pro-life camp was framed for news media and pro-choicers. Behind the public statements of 'we condemn this activity' was a deeper sense of 'this is what it comes to when you follow Christ' and Bonhoeffer served the purpose of theological support very well.

During my thesis writing, I ran across numerous articles about Bonhoeffer and how he did or didn't relate to the pro-life movement and their choices to oppose what they see as immoral (as evil). Most scholars decried the Bonhoeffer connection (saying that those relying on his example hadn't really bothered to study his theology or to examine his historical context or even his role in the resistance!).

Since Bonhoeffer is my main theological squeeze, I thought I'd share a bit about what I learned and read as a way to off-set this erroneous connection between being "pro-life" in an act of civil disobedience, versus being pro-life in an act of "conspiring to overturn evil in a nation."

First of all, Bonhoeffer's mission to overthrow the Fuhrer was philosophically supported by the similar objectives of a concert of nations in the war effort. Bonhoeffer didn't act as a lone agent of justice, but rather cooperated with a consensus of justice-seeking governments, individuals and organizations bent on ending the evil plot of the Third Reich (a mission created by one individual leading a nation and abusing his power to coerce the extermination of entire races, as well as taking over sovereign nations through acts of war).

Though erroneously called "the culture wars," the debate about abortion is not a war! It isn't even war-like. The right to an abortion is rooted in respect for the individual's ability to exercise choice at the deepest level of personal conviction. The choice to have an abortion is not coerced by a tyrant, but is made within the privacy of an individual woman's heart, in concert with her beliefs, her physician's recommendations and her spiritual/ethical values. To prevent this "choice" is to coerce. Certainly the baby (or fetus - you choose) has no choice and is coerced into birth or death based on that choice (the crux of the debate is really - does the fetus/baby have rights? Not, is it a baby or is it alive?). Still, the question isn't about the abortionist. It's about what individuals believe about conception and pregnancy (which is nothing like the death camps of Nazi Germany!).

Whether or not you agree with abortion, and even if you see the fetus as a baby from conception, abortions are not required of any woman and therefore, it is within the context of freedom that she makes that decision (even if it disagrees with your point of view).

Hitler's Germany coerced Jews to be exterminated, required ordinary citizens to participate in their executions and eliminated the possibility of difference of opinion on the topic of the "Jewish question." There is nothing even remotely similar about the conditions in Germany versus the conditions related to the abortion debate in America today.

Secondly, the enemy in World War 2 was a specific target with tyrannical power. Bonhoeffer didn't get a gun and stalk concentration camp guards. His participation in the assassination plot had to do with cutting off the source of power, not merely targeting local neighbors caught in the program of destruction. Killing prison guards would not have resulted in the end of the war or the death camps.

Killing abortionists is like killing a prison camp guard. It doesn't actually eliminate what a pro-life person sees as evil. It may stop abortions that day, but it doesn't change the nature of the laws, or address the reasons that abortion exists. To identify with Bonhoeffer's theological convictions means to wrestle through the complexity of what the topic is, rather than glossing over differences and justifying the murder of individuals acting in freedom.

For the record, I am pro-life. That does mean all life: including the lives of doctors who provide abortions as well as the young women who are overcome with the deepest of agony in making such a difficult decision as well as the babies (that's what I call them) in utero. Bonhoeffer's admonition to future generations was to wrestle through the ethical dilemmas of our time and to take full responsibility for our actions in shaping history. Killing a few abortionists over a thirty year period has more in common with vigilante justice than deeply explored ethical dilemmas and risk taking action for the common good.

Is it ironic....

that during the Bush years, the Republicans oversaw the multiple fronts of the so-called "War on Terror" (the one thing I would never want to trust a Republican to oversee given their myopia, inability to see "the other" and their "bomb first, ask later" style of international diplomacy), while we are now in the Obama years, and suddenly the Democrats are in charge of the largest money crisis since the Great Depression (honestly, my conservative roots still make me a bit queasy turning over that power to the gov't, despite wanting to trust the president on this one)?

Seriously.

It's like a big cosmic joke.

TED Talk: Unveiling the Sixth Sense

Coolest, crazy thing ever. Clearly this is the future (as radical as the Internet for the next generation... or sooner!).

Why Rush is Wrong (by David Frum, Newsweek)

Why Rush is Wrong

I confess: I listened to Rush for ten years. I saw the light and haven't listened for the last ten (except when it seems to be a moment to remember). This is an astute argument for how Rush Limbaugh represents his own interests more than those of conservatives (and the true ones still garner my respect).

On the one side, the president of the United States: soft-spoken and conciliatory, never angry, always invoking the recession and its victims. This president invokes the language of "responsibility," and in his own life seems to epitomize that ideal: He is physically honed and disciplined, his worst vice an occasional cigarette. He is at the same time an apparently devoted husband and father. Unsurprisingly, women voters trust and admire him.

And for the leader of the Republicans? A man who is aggressive and bombastic, cutting and sarcastic, who dismisses the concerned citizens in network news focus groups as "losers." With his private plane and his cigars, his history of drug dependency and his personal bulk, not to mention his tangled marital history, Rush is a walking stereotype of self-indulgence—exactly the image that Barack Obama most wants to affix to our philosophy and our party. And we're cooperating! Those images of crowds of CPACers cheering Rush's every rancorous word—we'll be seeing them rebroadcast for a long time.

Rush knows what he is doing. The worse conservatives do, the more important Rush becomes as leader of the ardent remnant. The better conservatives succeed, the more we become a broad national governing coalition, the more Rush will be sidelined.

But do the rest of us understand what we are doing to ourselves by accepting this leadership? Rush is to the Republicanism of the 2000s what Jesse Jackson was to the Democratic party in the 1980s. He plays an important role in our coalition, and of course he and his supporters have to be treated with respect. But he cannot be allowed to be the public face of the enterprise—and we have to find ways of assuring the public that he is just one Republican voice among many, and very far from the most important.

Palin, for fun

So I figure Focus on the Family will gush Monday morning. Any Dobson lovers will want to tune in. Hannity and Rush have already given her the two thumbs up, and like to comment on her moose and caribou hunting, her enthusiasm for guns, her unapologetic pro-life stance and her support of teaching creationism in the public schools. She's a new governor, two years younger than Obama and was a part-time mayor of a small town prior. I read an interesting diary over at dKos yesterday by a resident of that town. If you want pictures of Wasilla, check out this diary.

She has five kids (like me!) and is expected to draw in the soccermom vote and to reassure the Christian mom that there is someone with her values who can be at the top of the ticket too. Hillary fans will no more vote for Palin, though, than send Christmas cards to Bush. Please. These two women couldn't be more different, nor do they stand for the same things. So the line of reasoning that says Hill-fans will now flock to McCain is absurd.

Additionally, had Palin been a man, I don't think anyone would justify this choice of VP. Her credentials are so slim, her connections so few, her foreign policy understanding so shallow, and McCain's health so genuinely in question, it seems irresponsible to nominate Palin just because she is female and an arch-conservative. There's no way a man with her same background would have been chosen. Huckabee would have been a better choice in terms of all those credentials. He's evangelical, he got a lot of votes in the primary season and he's been a governor for longer, of a bigger state.

Palin is about the estrogen, make no mistake.

My take on Palins, though, is not strictly ideological, nor is it based on her lack of experience (which does still concern me). No, I don't support teaching creationism in public schools as though it is a science. I am pro-life, though not in the Republican sense of the word. I'm more in line with the "whole life" concept that Rick Warren talked about or that fits the pro-life Democrats. I love women in prominent positions. There is only one exception to that and that's what I want to state here.

Palin has a 5 month old baby... with Down's syndrome. She is the mother of five kids. She clearly is a high energy person with a passion to see the world reflect her values. That she took on being a part-time mayor while mothering is not surprising in a small town. I have another homeschooling friend who is a mayor in a small town in South Dakota. Works out fine.

To be governor in a state the size of AK (read small: the 47th largest in the country in population) is not the same thing as to be vice president of the entire country. I'm not even sure what I think about her being a mother of a special needs child and governor at the same time, but I know without hesitation that I can't bear the thought of her being the vice president and raising that baby, caring for it, nursing it while she is on the campaign trail, while that special needs child especially needs her.

Unless Palin has a husband who is taking up the slack for her political career (and if he is, no one has mentioned it yet), she's undermining one of the strongest values of the arch-conservative: that one parent will raise the children and be there to do it. A five month old special needs child deserves a mother (or father!) who puts him first.

I know how hard it is to run a business (from home!) and still be a good mother. How in the world can it be done when you are the candidate and then the vice president, and then, God forbid, the president?! Joe Biden's example is pretty impressive in this regard. When his wife and daughter died in 1972, he chose not to live in DC. He commuted two hours each way by train to be with his sons every night. He was a senator, and almost quit to make sure his sons had a normal life until he came up with this arrangement.

I find it hard to believe, after all the focus on the importance of child-rearing, that mothers who put their kids first will identify with Palins who is choosing not to for the sake of political advancement. She's only 44. Still has four kids at home. She's proposing that they radically alter everything about their lives... for her.

And I consider myself a feminist. I just think kids are that important.

Update: Lisa says that Palin's husband is a stay-at-home dad. That helps to know that. Still a big transition for the family, still a lot to take on with a special needs child. But at least there is one consistent parent available.

Update Two: Here's an AP article on Todd Palin, Sarah's husband. He's a commercial fisherman, a snowmobile racer and a hands on dad. They sound like they spend more time in their home town than Juneau.

Barack Obama: Lays out the agenda

If you missed his speech, you'll want to see the full video and pictures. Barack threw down the gauntlet: 29 policy statements, 19 critiques of McCain. He acknowledged McCain's service as a POW, McCain's love for America and then challenged his ideals, the direction he'd take America and his experience (as not relevant today). He did it without attacking his person. No smears. He took on the issues; he did not use innuendo, negative associations to spurious individuals or malign his relationship to the U.S.A.

That's class. That's how politics are supposed to be done.

Barack's speech laid out a vision of what life in America could be. He described what he calls the "American Promise." I listened with two sets of ears. I remember my Ronald Reagan era thinking. I remember economic conservatism with its theories of opportunity: the rising tide floats all boats, economic trickle down, fewer restrictions on businesses creates more jobs and more freedom in the markets, smaller government means lower taxes, fewer social programs means people are less dependent on government and more able to take advantage of opportunities to create wealth and dignity for themselves, that the market will ultimately determine where jobs should be and that to falsely set wages or protect jobs means to raise prices and slow down economic growth.

I believed all that. There are things about that agenda I still believe. I do agree that the middle class should not carry the biggest tax burden, that government should not be the massive, crippling, dysfunctional miasma that it has become (particularly under Republicans!).

But I do not believe that social programs are merely cover-ups for people who don't care about working. If you live in the burbs and hang out with white middle class people, that rhetoric is easy to accept. It's another story when you spend time (not with the mentally ill homeless, not with the drug addicts, not with criminals) with the poor: people who can't seem to get a break even when they are doing the right things; people who don't have the safety nets that we all take for granted.

I was talking to a friend recently who is Libertarian and her chief concern this time voting is that she "keep all her money." She went on to say that she doesn't see why anyone else should get any of it since she wants to spend it how she wants, not on some government program that is giving welfare to others who won't work.

This is the lie told again and again and again by the right. They pit us against each other. Who (in recent memory) on the right has helped Americans think about how to build a nation that benefits all of us as well as self? Oh Bush talked about compassionate conservatism - I just never saw it in action. One of his ideas was that churches could do what government used to do and then the government could just fund them instead. And so you get irregular help, with strings attached for those looking for help. Non-religious programs doing effective work suddenly lost half their funding (as I learned last week at an Obama event and an AVOC - AIDS Volunteers of Cincinnati - worker shared their story).

My point is this. The primary goals of the right at this point in time are to continue the so-called fraudulent war on terror and to prevent raising taxes (after the Republicans have put us into the deepest debt in history through an illegal war).

Obama, on the other hand, offered us a vision of what America is, what her reputation has been and should continue to be. He then outlined a plan to get there. You might not like the plan. But listen to McCain and see what he offers. If it's more of the same, why would you think his is the better future when the evidence of our recent past shows otherwise?

Off to spend the day canoeing. Chat amongst yourselves. Just be civil.

Obama is our Democratic nominee... the first African American

and it hasn't even happened in any other country. It is stunning!

If he goes on to win (and I think he will), America will set itself apart from every other country in the world.

A minority will have triumphed over the majority population to lead everyone. That is unheard of. It's why the whole world is watching us. It's why more people abroad hope we vote Obama over McCain. We have the ability to take forward the unique story of America - that whoever you are, you can become what you want to be if you work hard, enroll people in your vision and fulfill your commitments.

I've got a gurl-crush on Rachel Maddow

Rachel says what she thinks, which is not all that unusual for political journalists on TV, on the radio. But what makes her special is that she is smart! She's got the vocab (post-rational - lol), and the insistent rapidity of a canny debater to steam roll a guy like Pat Buchanan without breaking a sweat or blushing. She's not blonde, not a beauty pageant queen turned info-babe (as Rush degradingly calls them). She's tough, talented, and a self-proclaimed liberal.

Her portfolio of activities prior to journalism shows a consistent idealism backed with self-sacrificing action. Even if you don't like her politics, it's hard to dismiss her on the grounds of "not caring, just wanting the lime light." This is a woman who commits and acts.

The WaPo took the time to feature her background as she prepares for her own MSNBC show that launches in two weeks. I heart her. Love her dark hair, her un-lipsticked mouth, her sassy rejoinders and her opinions. What's not to love?

This is a great article if you haven't read it.

"I know I don't look like everybody else on television," MSNBC's newest host says at a Mexican restaurant here. "I'm not that pretty. Women on television are over-the-top, beauty-pageant gorgeous. That's not the grounds on which I am competing. There's a basic threshold you have to cross: not looking like you're insulting. You ought to wear makeup, comb your hair." And if she tried for a makeover, she says, "I would fail, and I would look dumb doing it."

File this in: Are you kidding me?

HT: Rick via Twitter

This story really turns my stomach. Even more, I'm stunned at the places that are immediately urging for forgiveness and healing... how about starting with getting all the truth out?

Preacher/Songwriter Faked Terminal Illness

Obama and McCain and the evangelical vote

I missed the Open Forum hosted by Rick Warren which puts me in the unique position of commenting on it from utter ignorance. Instead, I've spent more time reading reactions (rather than transcripts), and interpreting them. The question of "Who won?" has prompted the following generalizations:

Obama won: Because he gave thoughtful, nuanced answers to a mostly Republican audience without apologizing for his party's platform. He took his time, was not the impassioned orator of his rallies, but instead offered detailed remarks and looked Rick Warren in the eye as he spoke. He validated the "already Obama fan" evangelical, though it's unclear he won over any of the fence-sitters looking for an unapologetic pro-life stance. Some say he supported Rick Warren's "Whole Life" idea (that we are not to be concerned merely with conception through birth, but the after birth as well).

McCain won: He spoke with deliberateness, spoke concisely, made remarks consistent with the conservative wing of the R party. While detractors said he pandered (didn't actually look at Rick as he spoke etc.), fans felt he nailed the questions with black and white answers suited to his audience. His stories engaged viewers and audience alike, his style showed more confidence and panache than anyone expected. His overall tone didn't just reassure evangelicals who were unenthusiastic about his candidacy; he gave them reasons to vote for him with some level of conviction.

Warren won: Lots of people have said that Warren won - he drew the long stick, getting the two candidates together for the first time in front of the nation. He made his church, his constituency, his worldview a player in the election in a way unprecedented, even when Bush was running away with the evangelical vote.

My take on all this, though, diverges. I'd say the Democratic party won.

Here's why. Evangelicals are no longer a monolithic block. Let's look at how fractured these evangelicals have become. For the last four years, a growing number of malcontents within the evangelical Republican community have voiced their shift in focus from heaven-hell theology to social justice. This shift has enabled formerly hardcore Republicans to consider the party platform of the Democrats. The lack of progress in the laws related to abortion under Republican presidents and a Republican congress has unmasked the "wedge issue" nature of that platform item. Pro-life is a Republican slogan, not a conviction among the powers that be. That means, for the first time since Reagan, committed pro-lifers have had to ask what actually reduces (in real numbers) the abortion rate (not just how can the laws be changed).

Turns out social programs help: inner city education and job training, birth control and health care options do give unwed mothers alternatives to abortion. The party who cares more about that is the Democratic party.

Additionally, the war has become a moral issue for Christians. Can we justify supporting a president and party that lied to the American people to start a war in a sovereign state? Can we keep sending our young people into a civil war that we can't contain or control?

McCain represents more of the same: a commitment to the platform that got George Bush elected. He has even back pedaled on his more moderate positions (he has a record of supporting stem cell research, for instance) in order to provide reassurance to doubting hardcore, xtn Republicans. What he is not calculating is that there is a growing number of evangelicals who don't want to hear the same old answers.

Those evangelicals are interested in Obama. Abortion is the number one stumbling block for those Republicans. They want to believe that a changed view (a Democratic view) of economics, the government's role in social welfare programs, diplomacy over war, and increased taxes would be a more moral vision than the one that's failed them for the last eight+ years. They want to believe that abortions (the real ones, not the theory or laws about them) will go down under a changed model of leadership.

McCain did nothing to reassure those evangelicals. He merely corralled the already hardcore right that he is the next Bush, but with more conviction and better war stories.

For the remaining disaffected, new theology evangelicals (the McClaren followers, the emergents, the college kids who can't relate to Dobson or Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity), Obama represents a risk they are more and more willing to take.

What that means, then, is that the evangelical "base" is fractured. It only takes a small percentage to undermine the "block vote" they once represented. And that is why I say that Warren's open forum was actually a win for Democrats. The truth is, even just hosting it proves the evangelical world has gone through a shift. There is no way in hell (I mean it) that Clinton would ever have been invited to an evangelical church for a conversation with the Republican candidate.

Today, you can say you are voting Obama and not feel that your church membership or salvation are suddenly in question. That's what change means. Proof that evangelicals won't be the key demographic this time.

GObama 08!

Obama: First Black Democratic Nominee

Best hangover ever, say the democratic blogs this morning. Without a doubt. Two fuzzy navels and hours later, I'm still shaking my head in mild disbelief. Did that just happen? Did we actually put Obama over the top? Did the honk and waves, the phone calls, the traipsing around Republican neighborhoods and inner city churches, the hundreds of dollars each person contributed, the email lists and digging of articles, the blogging.... did the voting and caucusing and cheering and arguing and crying and laughing and waiting in long lines just to see Obama or his wife speak really result in this history-making moment?

Yes it did!

Obama shattered all expectations. A virtual unknown a year ago on the national stage, today he is the first black candidate of a major political party running for the highest office in America, the most powerful leadership role in the world, the baddest power in cyber-space and outer space... He's da man!

Add Obama to the Fantastic Four and make it the Fantabulous Five.

Our Cincinnati primary party room erupted into utter pandemonium as the digital check box popped onto the MSNBC screen with Barack's smiling face and full name listed as the "Democratic Nominee." It was true last night, is still true this morning: Barack Obama makes a run for the presidency (catch him if you can, McCain, Mr. Cottage Cheese in Lime Jello Mold)!

Obama didn't limp across the finish line either. His stadium appearance last night in St. Paul (the future site of the RNC) drew crowds of 17,000 inside and turned away 15,000 outside (numbers may be off - I took these from memory of last night's pundits commenting away over the rousing laughter, cheers, clinking drinks and general dizzy enthusiasm that filled our primary party downtown).

Just had to comment on Michelle for a moment too. That little kiss on the cheek, followed by the thumb's up and knuckles to her husband will symbolize for me, for a long time, that we are in a new era. They are a team, they are NOW.

In any event, what set Obama's speech apart from McCain's curmudgeon-y, stale, deflated balloon approach to our future in America and from Hillary's bizarrely out of time, tempo and context march through each corner of America where she was hugged and whispered to by downtrodden blue collar, non-elites (gosh, her litany of unhappy Americans gets depressing) as they poured out their health care and jobless woes to her, the "Messiah in a pants suit," was the fact that Obama made his speech about us - Americans who want to take the control over the future back from the paternalism and condescension of politicians who have their political legacies more in mind than anything resembling democratic participatory government.

When Obama said that we voted this time in record numbers because we believed we could make a difference through our actions, through participating, through demonstrating that we are meant to be a part of America's future (not just asking someone else to fix it for us), he was right. He is the only candidate who gets it. His speech was not about how great he is, how well he meets people's needs (like Hillary's). It was about recognizing the hunger Americans have to get back into the ring, to rise above apathy and matter again. Yes Obama embodies that vision, but it was that vision that set him apart from the other candidates. I don't want someone to "fight for me," I want the opportunity to act, to participate, to be a part of the solution.

In any event, if Obama's campaign is anything to go by, that is exactly how he wants to govern. Whether he'll get his chance, well that's up to us.

Yes we can!

Fired up!

Obama will clinch tonight!

I'll be at the primary party with Jon downtown (Sully's on 7th and Race for those who are local and want to join the celebration). It's almost hard to take in - Obama has defeated a Clinton in a primary race when he began as a virtual unknown. He's overcome his youth, his "supposed" inexperience, his ties to a controversial pastor and church, and the unrelenting parsing of his speeches and comments. Through it all, the momentum he built early on combined with the astounding organization of his local teams which created one of the most mobilized ground forces of volunteers and donors in the history of American politics has led to this moment: our first black presidential nominee for a major political party.

Celebrate tonight. Get to work tomorrow. (I'm now one of several "Faith Community Outreach Captains" which basically means I'll sit in the narthex of my church each week registering unregistered voters. Glam job! Be jealous.)

Hill-Dog raises spectre of assassination

It's not talked about above a whisper, but since Obama chose to run for office, those who love him and even those who don't, share one common unvoiced anxiety on his behalf: that the "lone gunman" will find him and take him out.

So today, when Hillary Clinton explained why she will stay in the nomination race through June, jaws dropped across America (fans and foes both):

"My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. I don't understand it," she said, dismissing calls to drop out.

Uh, so we are supposed to believe that the common thread in this comment is June! She's not trying to chase uncommitted superdelegates to her camp through fear?

She back pedaled once she drew immediate criticism:

Clinton criticized an "urgency" to end the campaign prematurely, saying, "Historically, that makes no sense."

She later issued an apology for the remark.

"I regret that if my referencing that moment of trauma for our entire nation and in particular the Kennedy family was in any way offensive. I certainly had no intention of that whatsoever," the former first lady said.

Hmmm. No apology to the Obamas. Or his campaign.

DKos points out that if this had been the only time Clinton had made this remark, a generous reading of her comment could allow for mis-speaking. However, she made the same remark in March. There's a calculation to her comments that leaves many of us breathless.

One other point. If anything (God forbid) did happen to Obama between now and the convention, whether or not Hillary campaigns through June would not change the likelihood of her taking his place as the nominee.

Somehow, it feels as though she's hopeful that some event (even an unthinkable, horrific crime) might occur as long as it secures the nomination for her. It's just wrong!

The Divorce Generation Grows Up

I found this Newsweek article about adult children of divorce through a backtracking link to my Forgiveness post.

What struck me in the first paragraph: this writer is speaking about the San Fernando Valley in California, where I grew up. Lee Majors and Farrah Fawcett? They lived up the hill from me while they were married. So did Steve Garvey, and Dennis Weaver was a few cul-de-sacs away. Sarah Vaughn and David Gates both had daughters in my class at Calabasas High. We were the class of 1979, though, not '82 like the article writer. And yes, equally raised on "The Brady Bunch."

Meanwhile, some of the most promising candidates for longterm happy family life in my neck-of-the-stucco-home-woods fell prey to the divorce-epidemic which did seem to start in southern California in the mid-1970s.

It's been more than a quarter century since the Grant High class of '82 donned tuxes and taffeta and danced to Styx's "Come Sail Away" at the senior prom, and nearly four decades have passed since no-fault divorce laws began spreading across the country. In our parents' generation, marriage was still the most powerful social force. In ours, it was divorce. My 44-year-old classmates and I have watched divorce morph from something shocking, even shameful, into a routine fact of American life.

But while it may be a common occurrence, divorce remains a profound experience for those who've lived through it. Researchers have churned out all sorts of depressing statistics about the impact of divorce. Each year, about 1 million children watch their parents split, triple the number in the '50s. These children are twice as likely as their peers to get divorced themselves and more likely to have mental-health problems, studies show. While divorce rates have been dropping—off from their 1981 peak to just 3.6 per 1,000 people in 2006—marriage has also declined sharply, falling to 7.3 per 1,000 people in 2006 from 10.6 in 1970. Sociologists decry a growing "marriage gap" in which the well educated and better paid are staying married, while the poor are still getting divorced (people with college degrees are half as likely to be divorced or separated as their less-educated peers). And the younger you marry, the more likely you are to get divorced.

Yet all these statistics fail to show the very personal impact of divorce on the individual, or how those effects can change over a lifetime as children of divorce start families of their own. (my bold) When we were growing up, divorce loomed as the ultimate threat to innocence, but what were my peers' feelings about it now that they were adults? What I wanted to know was how divorce had affected our class president and Miss Congeniality, the stoners and the valedictorian. Did it leave them with emotional scars that never healed, or did they go on to lead "normal" lives? Did they wind up in divorce court, or did they achieve the domestic bliss their parents had sought in suburbia? I decided to open my yearbook, pick up the phone and find out. These are their stories—or at least their side of their stories, since each breakup is perceived so differently by every family member.

As I read the article, it struck me that David's curiosity is also mine: what happened to those of us who come from messed up families? I've begun with myself because that's the easiest source material. If you have a similar experience, I'd love to know how it's turning out for you. Please post your "adult child of divorce" reflections in the comments section, if you are so inclined.

What a powerful discussion topic this is turning out to be.

I do know one thing: My sister and I were both so traumatized by our parents' divorce, we've made every effort to stay married for our kids... we don't want them to suffer what we went through. I wonder if growing up with divorce leads some of us to be better married partners... cautionary tale and all of that.

Another excerpt:

Despite the dire predictions, a surprising number of Grant alums wound up in solid marriages. My buddy Chris made good on his high-school promise to let me be best man at his wedding—I gave him my "Fat Albert" lunchbox as a wedding present—and 15 years later he's still happily married, and living with his wife and two daughters near Houston, where he works for a company that conducts pharmaceutical clinical trials. "My life since my parents' divorce has been shaped to a tremendous degree by the goal of avoiding divorce as an adult at all costs," says Chris, whose parents both died of cancer within months of one another in 2001.

In many ways, the urge to stay married is stronger in my classmates' generation than the urge to get divorced was in my parents'. Perhaps this was a backlash to divorce; maybe it was the result of reaching marrying age just as President Reagan's New Conservatism was shaping the social order. Whatever the cause, my married classmates seem more clear-eyed than their '50s forebears.

I would agree with the statement about the Reagan era's social conservatism. Many of us were reacting to what felt like the chaotic moral fall-out of the 1960's that manifested in full color in the 1970's. That's about the only explanation I have for why so many of us have become such hardened conservatives in our forties.

Keith Olbermann's special comment

Eloquent blistering editorial: Geraldine Ferraro

It's about ten minutes, but riveting. I recommend viewing.