President-Elect First Weekly Address

Prez-elect Obama, how can we come down off our election high if you keep being so consistently awesome??

Lolcat Tuesday!

is it just me or does this totally look like peabody's cat, hand, and hair? has she been secretly lolcatting??!

Felicity Dahl talks about her husband in the Guardian

In one of her rare interviews, Roald Dahl's widow talks candidly about "the love of her life" and what they went through to be together. I would be an entirely different person if my childhood hadn't been shaped by the wonders of Roald Dahl's imagination. Entirely.

"Felicity, known to her friends and family as Liccy (pronounced Lissy), rarely gives interviews. The requests come in a steady stream, but remembering is an emotive business and she is extremely busy running the Roald Dahl Foundation, a grant-giving charity that aims to help children in the areas of literacy, neurology and haematology. The foundation is about to launch a series of free concerts at Kings Place in London, featuring orchestral versions of Dahl's stories.

Today, however, she has agreed to speak in order to publicise the inaugural Roald Dahl Funny Prize, to be awarded on Thursday to this year's most humorous children's book. The prize, organised by the charity Booktrust, is being judged by a panel that includes Michael Rosen, the Children's Laureate, and Dahl's granddaughter, model Sophie Dahl.

'People often ask me, "Did he tell lots of jokes?"' says Felicity. 'No. It is in his writing, in his descriptions of things. It was a hidden, subversive humour, not a comedian telling jokes.

'Children were his friends, that's what kept him going. The fact that they loved his stories and would then go on to read Biggles and everything else - that, to him, was a miracle. He said, "I feel a bit like a pop star."'

She says he would have been horrified by the erosion of children's imaginations by computer games. 'I think [computer] games are absolutely appalling. A child is never left on their own with nothing, so that they have to create their world. The Game Boys and that ghastly stuff have come in and they are absolutely like this...' She does an impression of a goggle-eyed teen staring at a hand-held screen. 'Roald would have had a fit at that."

You can read the full article in the guardian.

Melissa Etheridge Says "You Can Forget My Taxes"

Academy Award-Winning and Grammy Award-Winning singer-songwriter Melissa Etheridge declared that she will not be paying CA state taxes thanks to Prop. 8 declaring her and all other Gay and Lesbians, less than full citizens with equal rights.

"Okay. So Prop 8 passed. Alright, I get it. 51% of you think that I am a second class citizen. Alright then. So my wife, uh I mean, roommate? Girlfriend? Special lady friend? You are gonna have to help me here because I am not sure what to call her now. Anyways, she and I are not allowed the same right under the state constitution as any other citizen. Okay, so I am taking that to mean I do not have to pay my state taxes because I am not a full citizen. I mean that would just be wrong, to make someone pay taxes and not give them the same rights, sounds sort of like that taxation without representation thing from the history books.
Okay, cool I don't mean to get too personal here but there is a lot I can do with the extra half a million dollars that I will be keeping instead of handing it over to the state of California. Oh, and I am sure Ellen will be a little excited to keep her bazillion bucks that she pays in taxes too. Wow, come to think of it, there are quite a few of us fortunate gay folks that will be having some extra cash this year. What recession? We're gay! I am sure there will be a little box on the tax forms now single, married, divorced, gay, check here if you are gay, yeah, that's not so bad. Of course all of the waiters and hairdressers and UPS workers and gym teachers and such, they won't have to pay their taxes either."

Full article in the daily beast.

Tralalalalala.

Gail Collins, in her succinctly hilarious way sums it up this morning in the NYTimes today.

Tralalalalala.
We are only thinking cheerful thoughts today, people. America did good. Enjoy.
Even if you voted for John McCain, be happy. You’ve got the best of all worlds. Today, you can bask in the realization that there are billions of people around the planet who loathed our country last week but are now in awe of its capacity to rise above historic fears and prejudices, that once again, the United States will have a president the world wants to follow.
Then later, when things get screwed up, you can point out that it’s not your fault.
About the inevitable disasters: I am sorry to tell you, excited youth of America, that Barack Obama is going to make mistakes. And the country’s broke. Perhaps we should have mentioned this before. But let’s leave all that to 2009. When somebody runs one of the best presidential campaigns ever, he deserves a little time to enjoy the sweet spot between achievement of a goal and the arrival of the consequences.
Let’s hear it for the voters. Good turnout, guys — especially you Virginians who stood in line for seven hours. A professor at George Mason University who studies this sort of thing claims that there hasn’t been such a high participation level since 1908. You could turn out to be the ever-elusive answer to the question: “Name one thing that Barack Obama has in common with William Howard Taft?”
Let’s hear it for Hillary Clinton, who lost but made the country comfortable with the idea of a woman as chief executive. And Joe Biden, who actually ran a disciplined campaign, given his truly exceptional capacity to say weird things.
And let’s give a shout-out to John McCain. As desperate as he was, he still passed up opportunities to poke hard at the nation’s fault lines of race, religion and region — although he has probably created a permanent gap between the rest of us and segments of the country who feel under imminent threat from Bill Ayers.
McCain ran a dreadful campaign, but it’s over. Give the guy a break. He was stuck with George Bush. And the Republican Party. And the fact that he was constitutionally incapable of giving a decent speech. The road was hard, but he soldiered on and did a lovely concession Tuesday night. Kudos.
Sarah Palin did go over the top with her small towns vs. the world mantra. However, she does get credit for giving us a real understanding of the difference between a moose and a caribou.
O.K., there is nothing positive to say about Sarah Palin. And Alaska, are you re-electing Ted Stevens? What’s going on there? Did you actually believe him when he said that the court verdict was still up in the air? On the day after he was found guilty? By the way, if Stevens does win, it will be with about 106,000 votes. In total. There are more people than that in my immediate neighborhood! What kind of state is this, anyway?
But we’re in a good mood, so let’s forget Alaska. Instead, we’ll contemplate the fact that North Carolina tossed Elizabeth Dole out of office despite her ad campaign aimed at convincing the state that her opponent, Kay Hagan, was an atheist. This was accomplished, you may remember, through the creative strategy of showing Hagan’s picture along with another woman’s voice saying: “There is no God!” If Dole had won, by the next election we would have been bombarded with ads that appeared to show candidates saying “I support adultery!” or “Let’s kill the puppies!” Now that won’t happen. Thank you, North Carolina.
By the way, I believe that during the campaign McCain’s great friend Senator Lindsey Graham said something along the line of promising to drown himself if North Carolina went for Obama. I believe I speak for us all, Senator Graham, when I say that we are feeling extremely mellow today and you do not have to follow through.
Congratulations to Senator Susan Collins on her re-election. The entire moderate Republican caucus in the Senate may now wind up consisting of women from Maine. As Maine goes, so go the Supreme Court nominations.
Finally, on behalf of the baby-boom generation, I would like to hear a little round of applause before we cede the stage to the people who were too young to go to Woodstock and would appreciate not having to listen to the stories about it anymore. It looks as though we will be represented in history by only two presidents, one of whom is George W. Bush. Bummer.
The boomers didn’t win any wars and that business about being self-involved was not entirely unfounded. On the other hand, they made the nation get serious about the idea of everybody being created equal. And now American children are going to grow up unaware that there’s anything novel in an African-American president or a woman running for the White House.
We’ll settle for that.

The Blame Game Begins

As wacko as Sarah Palin is, McCain's defeat does not lay at her feet. His defeat was caused by his dramatic transformation from funny, outspoken, bipartisan hater of corruption, to GOP extrem-o base-panderer. Srsly. Obama was inclusive, and McCain followed that Republican strategy of the last 20 years: divide and conquer. FUCK THAT. Divided we fail. Which thankfully, many, many Americans realized.
So anyway, this shit is not Palin's fault. Sure she is totally backwards. But picking her did not sink that campaign.
Watch the clip to see some post-election McCain camp finger-pointing.

Maya Angelou Sums it Up

I DARE YOU not to cry during this video.

Watch CBS Videos Online

Still I Rise

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

Maya Angelou

Lolcat Tuesday!

(on a wednesday)

OBAMA WINS WITH 349 ELECTORAL VOTES

Well, the impossible, the inconceivable, the unbelievable has happened. Barack Obama has been elected the 44th President of the United States of America. I watched his speech in a bar, surrounded by ecstatic, unbelieving people, most of us brimming with tears. Between his Lincoln quotes and his thanking of the generation that "rejected the myth of it's own apathy", I have not had many happier moments than that. Never have I been more proud to be an American.

Take a moment and think about what we have done, and where we are going. Just incredible.

OBAMA VOTE ART PROJECT

So, I have this idea.

This Election Cycle has been exhausting. After two years of ups and downs and speculation and ugly politicking, we're all just about over it. But this election is also the most historic and poignant moment of our young lives. This election, and the popular uprising by our generation to elect Barack Obama, will be taught in the text books that our children will read. How powerful a moment this is, that our generation, OUR generation has been the face of change on so many fronts, with this election the culmination of our empowerment. It may sound silly now, but our generation has changed the function of communication itself, with the rise of Facebook and Youtube--we enabled those inventions to succeed--we identified them as a tool for young people, and then utilized them in a way that no one could have imagined 4 years ago, when we were graduating from high school. And now, with this election, we have finally turned on the light of our intellect and our mobility, to drown out the deafening darkness of apathy. If Barack Obama is elected President of the United States on Tuesday, we will have done it.

I'm hoping to construct a major art project that will capture this sentiment. It will be centered on us.

I'm writing this note to ask a favor of everyone who reads it. I would like to get my hands on as many pictures of people in their voting booths as possible--in the act of voting. That means, digicam, picture phone, polaroid--any way that you can capture the act of voting for Barack Obama. Twisting to get your face in a self taken with a voting machine isn't necessary--just hands and screens, fingers and provisional ballots--- whatever you want to get in the picture to document your vote. Some polling places won't have curtains or booths, especially in states with electronic voting, but don't let that discourage you from taking a subtle camera phone picture. Especially since, in this day and age of computer voting, having a picture record of your vote isn't a terrible idea anyway.

I understand that some people may want to just privately experience their vote, and not have any kind of subtle camera work to worry about. But considering how powerful a compilation of this kind could be, and how fluidly we can all pull out our iphones and snap a quick picture, I beg you to try. I would love to create a lasting expression of how much we have all put into this.

Please please! Consider contributing your vote to this project. Email me pictures at tracyerincox@mac.com
You can also join the OBAMA VOTE ART PROJECT group on Facebook for discussions on the topic.

Thank you, and happy voting!