Hate Is....

...so passe. So boring.

I read that since Obama was elected, hate threats have gone way up. Those people do not speak for me or mine. Just so ya know.

Transition and Flubs

So now the election is over and our President Elect is working with his transition team so that come January 20th he can hit the ground running. The "talking heads" on Obama's side aren't done preening (and I'm not sure I'm done either), and the loyal opposition (hopefully loyal), are dissecting what went wrong with McCain and the GOP.

Hmm..

Negative campaigning.
Not staying on message due to negative campaigning.
Breaking promise about not participating in negative campaigning.

A wife wearing a $300,000 outfit when one at $3000 would have been just fine. Put in perspective, the cost of said outfit would buy a couple modest $150,000 homes in parts of Albuquerque, Los Lunas, Belen, Bernalillo, or Rio Rancho. It would buy 25 fuel efficient Smartfortwo cars at the base price of $11,990. I'm sure other voters could come up with their own local equivalancies. It reminded us of the widening gulf between the haves and have-nots while the economy wallowed like a corracle on the Irish coast in winter.

Insulting the American public by picking a VP candidate with a severely limited worldview. I may be an idiot about some things, but at least I'm not particularly insular and have wide ranging areas of interest.

Not having a plan that was really innovative and challenging. That lack doesn't speak well for a "maverick". Sorry Mac. You want my attention, you need to get down here with us working class folks and really see what our world is like and understand we're the base. If the base is shaky and unsupported, the rest of the structure falls apart and McCain offered nothing old or new to to stabilize & secure that base.

Just another .02 in the hat.

Congratulations, President-Elect Obama!

I am moved to tears, beyond tears, with a heart bursting with joy for this momentous day of your election to the Presidency.

May the good gods keep you safe and in the good counsel of the wise and practical, but always keep your own hands on the helm. Blessed be.

It's Really THAT Important: #2:

From The Associated Press:

Nov 4, 4:22 PM (ET)

"SAN ANTONIO (AP) - Betty Owen is 92 and after a stroke four years ago, needs a feeding tube and can't walk. But she was determined not to miss Tuesday's election. She arrived at her polling place on a gurney in an ambulance, where an election judge and support worker climbed aboard with an electronic voting machine and let her cast her ballot.

"And you have voted," precinct judge Sam Green said after Owen pushed the red button finalizing her choices. "You know, you look so pretty in that red dress."

Owen grinned, the San Antonio Express-News reported in Tuesday's online edition.

Her daughter arranged for the ambulance ride at the last minute after Owen failed to get an absentee ballot.

Owen, a Marine Corps veteran who served in World War II, cast her first ballot for Wendell Willkie, a Republican running against Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1940.

She became a Democrat after voting for John Kennedy in 1960. She cast a straight Democratic ballot Tuesday."

Betty, ya got some moxie there babe! We love ya!

It's Really THAT Important:

I've been thinking about how important voting is to our citizens and ran across this story about the efforts some people will make while other folks just skip voting altogether. Clearly if these people will make that kind of effort, then I say voting really is THAT important.

From the Associated Press:

"NYC couple travels 9,300 miles from India to vote

Nov 1, 3:05 PM (ET)

NEW YORK (AP) - A New York City couple has traveled halfway around the world in the name of civic duty.

Susan Scott-Ker and her husband arrived in New York on Wednesday after flying 9,300 miles to vote in Tuesday's presidential election. They have been working India but decided to return to New York when their absentee ballots failed to arrive. Their trip began in Bangalore with stopovers in New Delhi and Chicago.

It will be their first time voting in a presidential election. The New Zealand-born Scott-Ker and her Morroco-born husband became American citizens a year ago.

They estimate the trip will cost $5,000.""

Human Trafficking Is Wrong.

What the heck is is it with people?

I read yet another story about the trafficking children for sex. Apparently the FBI busted a large ring today. It's part of a broader range of human trafficking, but the deviance astounds me. I don't understand the thinking of people who'd buy and sell other people's flesh, especially children. It chills me to contemplate that they even exist.

It sometimes makes me think of how Darwinian evolution has been thwarted by legalisms. There's no place in the world to which we could exile those people and it's not a a capital crime either.

Early Voting News From The Associated Press

The AP ran a story today on early voting. Click the title to read it!

Also see: http://www.electoral-vote.com/index.html

Gen. Powell Endorsing Obama

Marching To Vote For Obama

I seldom march. I marched in one of many Vietnam Moratorium marches held across the country. I marched for the Air Force not long after. (The two are not mutually exclusive, no matter what you've been told.) I marched for social justice when Dr. King was slain. Barack Obama is the first candidate I've marched for. I'm also agoraphobic and not keen on being in a crowd of strangers. But the turf of the march route and terminus was old, well-known, frequently explored territory while in my adolescence and not that far from home. With the help of a mild tranquilizer and a frozen caramel coffee confection from Satellite, I braved the public again. I marched.

We rallied at Obama's campaign headquarters at the corner of Central and Carlisle. It was held in a old building, once a Chevron station, that I remember as having had signs designating 'colored' and 'white' restrooms when I was but 4 or 5 years old. It's been a lot of things over the years. I remember looking at the familiar outlines of the building, seeing Obama pictures, signs in the windows saying "Early Voting Starting" and thinking how absolutely perfect it was housing Obama's campaign. Real fitting.

I picked up a little campaign swag - a Women for Obama button and some earrings with pics of Obama and the words "progress" and "hope" printed below. Any profits support the campaign. I even saw a few familiar faces in the building crowd - a couple of my kid sister's friends. It was good. The crowd swelled, people in cars passing by honked their horns and lots of 'thumbs up" popped out of rolled down windows. Sen. Ken Salazar, (D) Colorado was down to tout for Obama and help spread the good word. Salazar's constituent base is up near the northern NM border, so as a good neighbor knows about our issues as well. He said the West was key for Obama. I agree.

The march commenced. We moved westward along Central waving our placards accompanied by a fife player and drummer in our midst playing Revolutionary war ditties. It was a brisk walk and the terminus was the Student Union building on UNM's campus. The sky was a clear blazing blue with a few streaks of white clouds. The autumn air was warm and kissed with a slight breeze. More people honked and waved and I only heard two shout outs for the opposition along our route. I thought that was pretty damn sweet and awfully telling. I mean, New Mexico was pretty solid red in the last election.

We shed our campaign placards and all the rest well before the "no campaigning within 100 ft. limit of a polling place' limit. The buttons affixed to my tote were taken off as well as my Obama earrings and popped into a pocket. I followed the line into the Student Union where I'd once hung out playing hookey from mid school in order to learn about politics and public policy when I was barely 14 and that was 40 years ago friends! It's been a long time coming to this election. It's probably the most important election of my life time as I believe a better future for my countrymen & women's descendants depends on it.

There was a wait in line for some 45 minutes before getting our ballots and there was still a queue behind me that went all the way to the far north end of the hallway. Lots of folks had shown up ahead of us and after our crowd of some 2-300 people. An election official zipped up and down the hallway cheerfully admonishing us not to campaign, promote our candidates nor discuss politics, but feel free to sing Yankee Doodle if ya want or just get to meet a new friend today. I met a former lecturer of religious studies. We chit chatted some and the time passed fairly quickly. Voting line friends. And no, I didn't ask her who she was voting for. I reckon that is something as sacred as a confessional.

I voted for Barack Obama today and it was a sweet, sweet moment. I was a proud American choosing him.

Roots!

Ooh my aching bod.

My friend Alley called me Wednesday about being her helper over at Willow again for Thursday and Friday. I show up. I'm on time and I work hard. At least for 3-4 hrs at a time I work hard. I don't have it in me for longer than that when it comes to manual labor, but appreciate the opportunity because it still gives my body a work out which is good at my age.

It was the war of the elm roots. Ya see, Willow decided sometime back she wanted her walkway redone with flagstone. The walkway has been dirt and crusher fine from before she bought her house. A few years ago, her brother-in-law did the inside of the front gate with flagstone but didn't continue it. But things simmered along with Willow planning on it "eventually". So eventual happens.

Now there's been a nice big hump in the walkway that we knew was a root from the elm in front of the house that goes all the way across and deep into the front yard. (Also where Alley and me worked a few weeks ago redoing the lawn - tilling in compost and then leveling, seeding, rolling and so on). Of course if we just laid the flagstone over it, it wouldn't seat flat and would be a hump with an edge. It would be of those edges thats perfect for catching a heel and tripping over or stubbing toes on. We needed to take out the roots so there would be a moderately level surface to work on.

A well established tree's roots can go every which way which is exactly what the elm's did. There were areas I dug in where I felt like I was excavating at an archaeological site with a whisk broom, a dental pick and can of compressed air. Actually my instruments included two types of shovels, large bypass loppers, small bypass shears, a hand cultivating rake, an axe and a saw. Alley got to use the chain saw which was fine with me. You can chop your way through small roots easily enough with a shovel, but roots larger than your shinbone need stouter tools. One one section of root about 16 inches long, we had to make a series of cuts through it, like a row of teeth, then knock each one out with an axe. (I was really glad we didn't have to use the splitting maul on it... it weighs almost 8 lbs!)

Being roots that went everywhere however, we discovered they were in most places as much as 25 inches around, some grown together, others tangled around each other. Digging out roots is not easy. You'd think it would be simple - just ratchet up the chain saw and set to. But you don't want to run the chain in the dirt because it will get dull in a heart beat, so you have to move as much dirt as you possibly can before cutting into the wood. After a while we were able to get ropes around the roots and use her truck to pull out the largest, most stubborn of them.

I remember reading stories of America's early settlers and how they'd clear the land -- taking the trees they logged and building houses of them, and then having to pull the stumps and roots with teams of horses. They'd spend 8, 10, 12 hours a day, month after month at it until they cleared up as much as a hundred acres or more. Men, women and children working at it. I put in about 8 hours on it over 2 days and am really glad it's not my regular work.

The pic is of the roots I'm whinging about. The two big ones weighed close to 200 lbs just by themselves. We set them out in the backyard to dry out and season .. should take about 3 years of so cos' there's so much sap and water in 'em.