Check this off

I'm a list-maker. Every morning I look at my to-do, and every night I scribble the undone on a notepad at my bedside. Some items are pre-loaded everyday. Run. Laundry. Clean bathrooms. As soon as I check them off for Sunday I make a mental note to add them on Monday's list.

My daughter isn't a lister, but I wish she would be. All the "to-do"s scramble around in her head along with other pressing matters like deciding on the boyfriend-of-the-week, or overcoming the girlfriend-drama-of-the-day, or whether to flat-iron the hair or pull it into a ponytail. She doesn't prioritize like I do, and she doesn't demonstrate my discipline to tackle the big, bad and ugly items before kicking back for the leisure activities.

This is a constant tug-of-war. I want to manage things for her, but at age 14 she should be learning to manage for herself. So I sit in front of this screen at 7:30 AM on a Sunday, ironing for the week complete, cat litter changed, and dishwasher emptied, anxious for her to wake up and start checking things off. Heaven help me.

Musings after a night of witnessing history...

I have always loved my country.

For the last eight years it seemed like the kind of love I offered wasn't welcome. My love came with suggestions. My love came with a stern critique. "Love is blind" is a lie perpetrated by those who refuse to see. In the best relationships we see the flaws in one another and work together to grow. Too often I heard that my love for country wasn't authentic because I questioned, or because I showed disappointment.

Those opposed to my brand of love stole from me. Not only did they hold onto the White House and most state houses, but they took the symbols that belong to all of us.

But the flag is, and always was, mine too.

Please, God. Let it count.

The Scary Burger King Guy Would Be A Welcome Change

In my hotel room the television keeps me company. The innocenct sounds of Wheel of Fortune are intended to break the silence and provide a backdrop for my workshop-prepping and net-surfing. But the innocence is broken by loud, condescending campaign ads. The Republicans use the movie voice over guy, images of Washington D.C. melting away, and Obama's face in a pained grimace. They claim "leadership" on the financial crisis (didn't the House vote fail, in spite of McCain's suspension?) and then randomly insert graphics about the tax and spend policies of Obama, in some kind of attempt to hold him responsible for the current mess.

How can they get away with saying Obama has no experience yet simultaneously blame him for the financial crisis brought to fruition by a couple of generations 'de-regulators?" I'm guessing the majority of "Wheel Watchers" don't bother to do any fact-checking on their own. Campaign advertisements on TV encourage lazy citizenship. We'd be better without them.

Got 4 Minutes for a Kick? Thanks, "Anonymous!"

The Great Schlep from The Great Schlep on Vimeo.

Maybe we don't deserve it

My comments to EJG's post, In Defense of George W. Bush, were becoming too long winded for the little comment box.

Come on, now. The best thing since JFK or Lincoln? You can't honestly believe that Mr. and Mrs. United States would ever buy that one. Not the folks who voted for the W because he's a guy with whom we'd like to have a few beers, a fantastic criterion for selecting the leader of the free world, by the way.

Just for fun, I looked up the word "elitist," one of Obama's supposed flaws. Did you know that the its opposite of elitist is "populist?" According to the American Heritage Dictionary, populist is defined as a supporter of the rights and power of the people.

How can the Republicans succeed with the same tactics every time? Kerry, the war hero, questioned on his war record. Gore, a participant in the birth of the digital age, ridiculed for his mention of that fact. And now Obama, the "elitist" child of a food-stamp recipient single mother has been successfully tagged as elitist. A community organizer (that's a populist position - look it up) who worked for $10,000 a year after graduating Harvard, is "elitist," when the average Harvard grad pulled down a salary well into the six figures.

If the American people can be fooled again with the same tricks and are sentenced to another four years of the same disastrous policies, then I guess we deserve the world's ill will, ailing environment, and economic apocalypse of 2008. Besides, both JFK and Lincoln were taken out of office too soon, and both were taken down by Americans.

We can all go to bed early on November 4th. It isn't even going to be close.