Tag Archives: barack obama

Dammit, Facebook! You’re not helping.

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Aw, c’mon.

Lil Wayne has nearly eleven million Facebook fans. Barack is beating him by two million. Neil DeGrasse Tyson, who’s more of an astrophysicist than a rapper or a politician, has slightly more than twenty-six thousand Facebook “likers”. There’s a math problem in here somewhere, folks. Maybe the solution falls between logging off and rediscovering what matters in the tangible world.

On a similar note, if anybody’s got a “Many who like George Bush, Jr., like ‘the Superbowl Shuffle’ ” screencap, I need to have that printed on a t-shirt immediately.

Early Voting Try-outs for 2016

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It wasn’t her first election by any stretch of the imagination, but it was the first one in which I made Isy<3 pose in front of the polling sign. 

Grinding her teeth 'til 2016.

Grinding her teeth until 2016

Once inside, Isy handed me the black felt-tipped marker and poked her head around my shoulder.

“Mom, you forgot to mark the spot for the President.”

“I’m saving it for last, so don’t let me forget.”

“Okay.”

She waited as I carefully blackened the oval next to the name of each candidate who brought us there yesterday afternoon. Silently, we read the bond proposals. I filled in more ovals. Then I flipped the ballot back to the place we began.

“Okay, ready?”

“Yes.”

“I want you to really, really, really remember this for the rest of your life.”

“Okay, Mom.”

I didn’t want to forget it either, so I slowly darkened that oval like I was eating the last piece of coconut cream pie left after the Apocalypse. 

“Good job, Mom,” she whispered.

I let her feed my ballot into the machine, and we left. Isy<3 even allowed me to walk out with my arm around her shoulders. In public. Broad daylight, at that.

For the past two years, my daughter has listened to everybody’s riff-raff about this candidate and that one. She’s heard me quote Frank Black when I’ve dubbed them “Criminal Men of Virtue” (and women, too). She has seen me argue with close friends far and wide over my support (or lack thereof) for various characters in this race. She saw two women — a smart one and one who looked smarter than she was — fighting tooth and nail for political offices unavailable to women during the early life of Isy’s own Granny. She witnessed an indisputable war hero run for the highest office in a land where a man who is in his seventies can still do that. 

And finally, after all of this time in her short life, Isy<3 got to see something even crazier than the 2008 Presidential race: She saw me change my mind. Or adapt. (Or whatever you call it when you spend a lot of time likening a candidate’s oratory skills to Hitler’s, calling him a political vampire, questioning flaws far less significant than those of your own and then voting for the guy in the end.) Truth be told, I suppose that was a great lesson in the hypocrisy of politics for my youngster. My stomach’s full of crow, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.

We voted for this day, and it’s ours.

 

Wannabe voter and her ride.

Wannabe voter and her ride.