If I had to pick, for pure simplicity, mine would probably be: 


Ships at a distance have every man's wish on board.
- Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God



There's just something really pure and true and American about it to me.

What are yours? I'm studying for the Lit GRE and this kind of crap randomly appears -- help me out! 

PS - Here's a link to the American Book Review's top 100. The one I picked is #44.

Six Feet Under is the best American television show I've ever seen.

Just finished the last season (Season 5) tonight and I'm COMPLETELY in awe... I've never been so heartbroken to let go of characters, even though the finale was really great.

When I heard about this movie, I sort of gasped. One of my top 5 favorite humans ever playing another one of them. WE ARE SO THERE. :) (Even though I heard the book was lame.) I don't even care.

If you have $25, go loan it to someone whose life makes our "economic crisis" seem like Scrooge McDuck's golden swimming pool.

Kiva.org

And if you regret it, you can withdraw your same $25 once your loan person pays it back. And they do! I've reloaned the same $25 three times now to three different people! :) :) :) 

CNN has a map page with all the iReport videos of people along Obama's train route -- watching them is *wonderful*.

One of my students gave these out after her presentation and I thought it was good to pass on:

Free Printable CPR Reminder Wallet Card

Because I took the classes, etc, a few years ago for my job, but I worry that in an actual crisis I might forget what order to do things in. Also survival after cardiac arrest goes down by 12% for every minute the person goes without help, so this could, theoretically, be important even if 9-1-1 has already been called. Hope I never need it, but still.

New York Times: 2008 Year in Pictures

The election section is especially great, but the whole thing is worth a look.

It's also a free lesson in photography composition. Gorgeous stuff.

KNOW YOUR VOTING RIGHTS
- if you are in line at the official closing of the polls, you are legally entitled to vote and the polling location must allow you to vote.
- bring your driver’s license/photo id with your local address or your driver’s license and college id with you to your polling location. you have the right to vote in the community where you live and go to school - whether you are an in-state or out-of-state student. don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
- if your registration is in question or you’ve forgotten to bring a picture id, you have the right to request and complete a provisional ballot. a provisional ballot will be verified and counted in the case of a close election. do not leave without voting!
- if you make a mistake or spoil your ballot before it is submitted, you have the right to receive a replacement ballot.
- you have the right to file a written complaint at your polling place if you are dissatisfied with the way an election is being run. and you have the right to vote without anyone in the polling place trying to influence your vote.
- if you experience any intimidation or problems voting at your polling location call the election protection project at their toll-free number, 1.866.OUR.VOTE. the hotline provides free, immediate and multi-lingual assistance to voters who encounter barriers to the ballot box.

and as a note, USE A PROVISIONAL BALLOT AS A LAST RESORT. usually provisional ballots are THROWN AWAY WITHOUT BEING COUNTED. do everything you can to prove your voter registration is valid and get an official ballot - bring photo id, bring utility bills, bring a copy of your lease if you have to. DO NOT LEAVE without voting. if the lines are long, HOLD OUT. your vote counts, and it definitely won’t count if you don’t cast it. lines may be long, so bring something to read, bring a sandwich, bring something to drink. DO NOT WEAR OBAMA OR MCCAIN APPAREL as you will NOT BE ALLOWED TO VOTE. it is considered campaigning on a voting site which is not allowed.

if you do not know where you are supposed to vote, search your state’s voter registration information database which lists your location and its times of operation.

PASS IT ON!!

From Yes We Can Hold Babies, a cute WordPress collection of Obama/Biden/baby pictures. Some are very silly.

I am sure this will be spun by someone as "Obama wants to eat your baby! Obama pals around with cannibals!" but I just can't help it.

As Obama has pulled ahead in the last few weeks, McCain/Palin strategy is now ALL NEGATIVE ALL THE TIME. I live in a swing state and I can vouch for this. All of Obama's commercials here are about Obama, or if they're about McCain they are clips of videos of him saying things. All McCain's ads here are voice overs with scary music and all-caps headlines saying Obama is evil. No mention of McCain at all until the message approval at the end.

www.fightthesmears.com

Today Palin said that Obama "is someone who sees America, it seems, as being so imperfect that he's palling around with terrorists who would target their own country."

Palin cited an article in Saturday's New York Times about Obama's relationship with Ayers, now 63. But that article concluded that "the two men do not appear to have been close. Nor has Mr. Obama ever expressed sympathy for the radical views and actions of Mr. Ayers, whom he has called 'somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago, when I was 8.' "

It makes me sick they have a month left to make their case for why they'd make good leaders and THIS IS WHAT THEY COME UP WITH to prove it. Lies, smears, and slander. I hope this backfires so, so hard. I challeng you: next time you see a negative ad from EITHER party, mute the TV. Pull out your laptop. Check Politifact. Check FactCheck. Please pass the word along to anyone who tries to feed you this crap. We have a month left and this election is important.

TPM has this to say: There are two drawbacks for McCain in going all-negative as he is right now:

"First, while partisan Republicans will love it (as they loved Sarah Palin's convention speech), negative ads don't always work so well with independents, whose votes are now crucial to both sides. Second, there is a very real danger that either Obama, or more likely, Democratic 527s will start throwing mud right back at McCain. A few choice subjects for negative ads are (1) his taking bribes from convicted felon Charles Keating in the 1980s, (2) the fact that he is an old man who has had a very dangerous form of cancer four times, and (3) the way he divorced his crippled first wife to marry a beer heiress worth $100 million. Clearly Schmidt knows all this but apparently he feels he has to shake things up before it is too late. It is going to get real messy."

source: CNN

http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/factchecking_debate_no_1.html

FactCheck.org goes over the major statements from last night's debate, with research to back up what's true and what's not.

Pass it along.

PS - The Washington Post has a really good page up with the debate wrap up -- you can watch it or read it, and they even have a CLOUD of which words each person used most! :)

Candid shot: Barack Obama with a supporter's kiddo at a rally in Farmington Hills, Michigan (near Detroit) this week.

http://my.barackobama.com/economyvideo

It's quick and to-the-point. Give it a listen if you are at all so inclined.

And if you think it's on the right track, please pass the link along. Things right now, in my opinion, are too pivotal for people not to at least THINK about things from both sides. We can't steer our way out of this by going the same direction. I love what he says at the end, that partisan politics and drama are really not going to get us out of the moment we're in right now, but fresh ideas and working together really, really could.

I'm Julie and I approved this message. ;) Now back to your regularly scheduled cat pictures.

So when you hear that Obama will raise taxes on the middle class, please note where that income point actually STARTS.

Source: TaxPolicyCenter.org http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/publications/url.cfm?ID=411693

"Sometimes loving your country demands you must tell the truth to power."

John Kerry gave a FANTASTIC speech last night at the DNC which it seems like nobody, including me, saw, due to network cut-away (or because we weren't watching the DNC!).

13 minutes of your day. Definitely worth reading/watching if you are so inclined.

Video Link: YouTube
Text Link: Boston.com

"Yes, there have been differences between America and Europe. No doubt, there will be differences in the future. But the burdens of global citizenship continue to bind us together. A change of leadership in Washington will not lift this burden. In this new century, Americans and Europeans alike will be required to do more – not less. Partnership and cooperation among nations is not a choice; it is the one way, the only way, to protect our common security and advance our common humanity.

"That is why the greatest danger of all is to allow new walls to divide us from one another. The walls between old allies on either side of the Atlantic cannot stand. The walls between the countries with the most and those with the least cannot stand. The walls between races and tribes; natives and immigrants; Christian and Muslim and Jew cannot stand. These now are the walls we must tear down.

"We know they have fallen before. After centuries of strife, the people of Europe have formed a Union of promise and prosperity. Here, at the base of a column built to mark victory in war, we meet in the center of a Europe at peace. Not only have walls come down in Berlin, but they have come down in Belfast, where Protestant and Catholic found a way to live together; in the Balkans, where our Atlantic alliance ended wars and brought savage war criminals to justice; and in South Africa, where the struggle of a courageous people defeated apartheid.

"So history reminds us that walls can be torn down. But the task is never easy. True partnership and true progress requires constant work and sustained sacrifice. They require sharing the burdens of development and diplomacy; of progress and peace. They require allies who will listen to each other, learn from each other and, most of all, trust each other.

"That is why America cannot turn inward. That is why Europe cannot turn inward. America has no better partner than Europe. Now is the time to build new bridges across the globe as strong as the one that bound us across the Atlantic. Now is the time to join together, through constant cooperation, strong institutions, shared sacrifice, and a global commitment to progress, to meet the challenges of the 21st century. It was this spirit that led airlift planes to appear in the sky above our heads, and people to assemble where we stand today. And this is the moment when our nations – and all nations – must summon that spirit anew."

There's a lot more, and it's really, really good. Pass it on.

1:21 will knock your socks off. And that drummer... I can't get enough.


She performed once for LBJ at the White House and was found crying afterward in her dressing room. "What's the matter?" an aide asked.

"Nothing is the matter," Miss Vaughan said. "It's just that 20 years ago, when I came to Washington, I couldn't even get a hotel room, and tonight I sang for the President of the United States in the White House--and then, he asked me to dance with him. It is more than I can stand."

Just a post to my Harry Potter loving friends to remind them to be VERY careful about reading LJ communities on their friends' pages for the next few days because there are sure to be tons of people putting huge-font spoilers everywhere. If you're waiting for a surprise, you should probably ignore the internet for a while. Not that you don't already know to do this. Just sayin'.