matching tracksuits

At 11:45, we’re in fourth period. A young man, who is often, quite honestly, extremely disruptive, sits silently at the back of a bunch of desks crowded in front of the television. The invocation begins and the young man bows his head. He is soon wiping tears from his eyes. Other students look at him, smiles on their faces, but they say nothing. As the pastor begins reciting the Lord’s Prayer, the young man joins in. He says his “amen,” smiles at those around him, puts his head down on his hands, watches, and waits.

Fourth period watches

As Obama begins to take the oath, the African American boys — and they are a majority in that class — sit rapted in attention. I don’t think I would be exaggerating to say that I see a certain spark of hope and self-confidence in their face as they watch someone who could look like an uncle or older cousin become the most powerful man on the planet.

While the speech, in their view, drags on (in my view: one of the most nuaunced speeches about our nation I’ve ever heard), the old habits return: the silliness, the talking, the 13-year-old-ness. In short, all the behaviors that make several of them “at risk” students, students who are “underachievers.”

Still, for that moment, it seemed they saw in themselves what I see: potential.

Today was a great day to be a teacher.

Listen to David Duke on the Obama election.

stormfront_radio-dr_david_duke-11-04-08-obama_response.mp3 (audio/mpeg Object)

Obama is really going to advance radically the Zionist neocon agenda.

You probably won’t make it through more than the first six, seven minutes — I couldn’t, anyway.

Headlining The Nation:

It was hot as Hades on June 5 in the little mountain town of Bristol, Virginia. But that didn’t stop hundreds of southwest Virginians–in the most staunchly Republican part of a state that hadn’t voted Democratic for president since 1964–from streaming into the local high school gym to whoop it up for a liberal, mixed-race fellow from Chicago with a mighty suspicious moniker. Fresh off his lopsided, nomination-clinching primary victory in North Carolina, Barack Obama had chosen–to the mystification of political experts–to launch his general election campaign not in the “battlegrounds” of Pennsylvania or Ohio but in a remote Southern backwater containing 17,000 souls who’d given George W. Bush 64 percent of their vote in 2004.
A New, Blue Dixie.

I wasn’t in the States for the 2004 presidential election. I watched from afar, in my small apartment above an elementary school in southern Poland. It was, in fact two, rooms (each with a bath) joined by a opening not in the original plans. It took me almost six months to convince the powers that be to join two useless rooms into one small apartment. My internet connection was supplied by the village planning office across the hall.

It was all done Polish style: “We’ve got a router with an open connection if you’re interested,” the gentleman who worked in the office informed me one day. “If you want, we can run a bit of network cable over to your apartment.” So we took a drill with a very long bit, drilled through the walls just above the doors, and stretched a cable through to my apartment.

Returning from school that Tuesday, I bounced around the internet, looking for very early results: it was only nine in the morning on the East Coast, so there wasn’t much information yet. Throughout the night, I checked; throughout the night, it became clearer that Bush had won. When I finally went to bed, it was with the strange realization that it was the second time — in a row — that I’d gone to bed not knowing the outcome of the election.

And today? Will it be any different?

If Dixville Notch, New Hampshire is any indication, we’ll know relatively quickly:

In Dixville Notch, New Hampshire, 100 percent of registered voters — all 21 of them — cast their ballots just after midnight in the first moments of Tuesday morning. For the first time in 40 years, the town voted Democratic in the presidential election, 15-6. (CNN)

Whatever the outcome, one thing seems sure: people around world are paying closer attention to this US election than to almost any other in history.

Update

I’m doing this more for my own use than anything else — got it via Thud.

And for glowing red SC:

I’ve been thinking about writing, for some time, about the coming VP debate. “Palin won’t touch the issues,” I was going to say. “It will be a personality show. She’ll tell some cute stories and avoid saying anything of substance.”

The BBC beat me to it.

“She has an amazing ability to turn a 45 second answer into a folksy story… she’s never been forced to know the issues.”

Mr Halcro said Mrs Palin’s biggest strength is her ability to “fill the room with her presence”. (Palin: The great debater?)

The article goes on to suggest that the economic crisis might make a difference, that people might expect the candidates to know the issues.

And it’s clear Palin doesn’t know the issues:

This race has been odd for the religious right. First, there was the issue of whether or not to support a Mormon — a non-Christian in the eyes of many Evangelicals. Now comes the troubling Hagee endorsement of McCain.

Yet it’s not only those on the left side of the spectrum that are troubled by this — or at least, it shouldn’t be. Those same Evangelical Christians who hesitated to support McCain should also be leery of Hagee and his less-than-orthodox theology, as seen below:

In France’s 2002 election, socialists and other left-wing party members backed Jacques Chirac (who is, despite what many Americans think, on the right side of France’s political spectrum) in order to avoid the far right-wing Jean-Marie Le Pen from winning. That’s like communists voting for Bush.

Many in America seem unwilling to do something similar.

Two things:

First, many conservatives are upset with the McCain nomination:

“I’m really depressed today because this is the first time that I find myself in a position that I will not work for the nominee (McCain),” said a caller to host Rush Limbaugh’s conservative talk-radio show on the verge of tears. (Reuter’s)

Second, Michelle Obama, on the possibility of Hillary winning, said:

GMA: Could you see yourself working to support Hillary Clinton should she win the nomination?

MICHELLE OBAMA: I’d have to think about that. I’d have to think about that, her policies, her approach, her tone.

GMA: That’s not a given?

MICHELLE OBAMA: You know, everyone in this party is going to work hard for whoever the nominee is. I think that we’re all working for the same thing. And, you know, I think our goal is to make sure that the person in the White House is going to take this country in a different direction. I happen to believe that Barack is the only person who can really do that. (Source)

It seems odd to me that people — Democrat or Republican — would risk someone they vehemently oppose (i.e., the opposing party’s candidate) winning because they didn’t like their own party’s candidate.

If Giuliani is a prize fighter and the primary season is a title bout, Giuliani just bonked his head on the way out to the ring, knocking himself unconscious to the cheers of virtually no one.

On his “Issues” page regarding marriage, Huckabee writes,

I support and have always supported passage of a federal constitutional amendment that defines marriage as a union between one man and one woman. As President, I will fight for passage of this amendment. My personal belief is that marriage is between one man and one woman, for life. (Mike Huckabee for President – Issues)

If it’s a personal belief, why literally make a Federal issue out of it?