Obama’s speech today was among the most amazing speeches I’ve read.

Especially this part:

For we have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle – as we did in the OJ trial – or in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina - or as fodder for the nightly news. We can play Reverend Wright’s sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words. We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she’s playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies.

We can do that.

But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we’ll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change.

That is one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, “Not this time.” This time we want to talk about the crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and white children and Asian children and Hispanic children and Native American children. This time we want to reject the cynicism that tells us that these kids can’t learn; that those kids who don’t look like us are somebody else’s problem. The children of America are not those kids, they are our kids, and we will not let them fall behind in a 21st century economy. Not this time.

This time we want to talk about how the lines in the Emergency Room are filled with whites and blacks and Hispanics who do not have health care; who don’t have the power on their own to overcome the special interests in Washington, but who can take them on if we do it together.

This time we want to talk about the shuttered mills that once provided a decent life for men and women of every race, and the homes for sale that once belonged to Americans from every religion, every region, every walk of life. This time we want to talk about the fact that the real problem is not that someone who doesn’t look like you might take your job; it’s that the corporation you work for will ship it overseas for nothing more than a profit.

This time we want to talk about the men and women of every color and creed who serve together, and fight together, and bleed together under the same proud flag. We want to talk about how to bring them home from a war that never should’ve been authorized and never should’ve been waged, and we want to talk about how we’ll show our patriotism by caring for them, and their families, and giving them the benefits they have earned.

I would not be running for President if I didn’t believe with all my heart that this is what the vast majority of Americans want for this country. This union may never be perfect, but generation after generation has shown that it can always be perfected. And today, whenever I find myself feeling doubtful or cynical about this possibility, what gives me the most hope is the next generation – the young people whose attitudes and beliefs and openness to change have already made history in this election.

Perhaps the reaction to this speech will identify that other divide that plagues the electorate - the divide between people like me, who don’t get their news (if they get it at all) from the filter of the American News Conglomerate Corporate Media, and seek it elsewhere as unfiltered as possible… and people who won’t see this speech because maybe the ANCCM will filter out the major parts and, as Hubby said, focus on some isolated throwaway line out of context.

Either way, I am so impressed and chilled to goosebumps at the power of that speech. Whomever wrote it: well done.

You know what kind of burns my toast?

There are a good number of people who took advantage of, or who were pressured to take advantage of low interest rates on ARM mortgages who can no longer afford the payments, because at the heart of the transaction was a root truth: it was too good to be true. Properties that buyers were told would sell if they needed to sell them are on the market not going anywhere. People are walking out of their homes and leaving the keys in the door because they’d rather take a big huge hit on their credit - which was probably bad to begin with - than struggle to pay a monthly mortgage payment that went up 200% in a month.

And there are the beginnings of programs and assistance funds being moved into place (slowly by the current shitass administration) to help these people because everyone should have a home, and if they got “swindled” into a mortgage they can’t afford they need help.

Agreed. They need help. Kids getting tossed out of their own homes because their parents are now paying a mortgage they cannot afford to pay is shit ass all around.

But what about the employees of Bear Stearns whose retirement plans were heavily invested in the stock of the company itself? It would make me uncomfortable, surely, to tie up my retirement in my own company - sort of a variation on the shitting/eating sausage/bacon rule, only with less sex and more money - but there are a lot of places that hand out stock options and packages as part of end-of-year bonuses.

Now, Bear Stearns went belly up because they invested in deals based on the sub-prime mortgages (sub-prime meaning shitful credit mortgages - can’t we call them what they are?) so now the people who worked there, who are nearing retirement, whose portfolio is tied to a stock value that went from $100 a month ago to $2 today, those people are shit out of luck.

I know, it’s a lot easier to feel bad for people who lose their homes than it is to feel bad for an investment banker who lost his retirement, but the casting of victimhood and villainy in the press is pissing me off.

It’s ok, even pitiable - and I’m not disputing that it sucks - to find yourself with a mortgage you can’t pay. But there’s no mention of culpability in the mortgage holder making the bad decision in the first place. But it’s a ha-ha omg-isn’t that appalling funny funny to joke about allegedly “high paid” investment bankers losing their retirement funds when they’re in their late 50s. That’s not pitiable as much, at least, not from the jokes and discussions I’ve heard around me, on the radio and on the bus ride home and to work. That’s somehow ok because those people had money (past tense) whereas the people who were just trying to live the American Dream and own homes, those people are so sad, so downtrodden.

I love the double edged sword of American attitude. Sometimes, like after Katrina, you see the attitude that if you’re poor, somehow it’s your fault. That having no money and living in poverty is somehow a moral failing.

But if you embrace the trappings of wealth and class, like by buying a home you can’t really afford in five years, then you’re good. And when your house costs too much, you can get help (eventually, if the Bush administration gets off its ass, which it won’t).

But if you earn too much money, if you earn a salary that’s well out of the reach of most Americans, you’re a villain and somehow deserve that your nest egg has been crushed. That’s just equal justice, that we should all earn the same. The rich should be brought down to the middle class level, but God forbid the middle be brought down into poverty.

It’s the end of the world as we know it. And I feel really, really disgusted. And tense. 

I have no kitchen, no sink, no nothing useful on the first floor, with the exception of the microwave and oh-my-God-thank-the-baby-ganesh my coffeepot. So after the boys have gone to sleep, I have to go fill up the coffeepot and Baba’s bottles in the bathroom sink. When I went up a minute ago, I had the following conversation:

“Mommy!”

“Yes, Freebird?”

“Bear hit Puppy!” (Freebird names his stuffed animals by species.)

“Did Bear say he was sorry?”

“Yes.”

“Did Bear give Puppy a hug?”

“Yes.”

“Did you give them a hug so everyone feels better?”

“It’s ok Bear. It’s ok, Puppy.”

“Do you need me to come give everyone a hug?”

“Yes, Mommy.”

“Good night Bear. Good night, Puppy, Good night Freebird.”

“Frog! Frog bites!”

“Oh, he doesn’t. He’s trying to give you a kiss but his zipper teeth get in the way. “

“It’s ok Frog.”

SO CUTE OMG SQUEE.

Six months ago today, I went into the Hotel Percocet, aka the hospital, labored all day, watched Pirates of the Caribbean, experienced my blood pressure dropping to an absolutely delightful low that made me feel utterly craptastic, was wheeled into the OR, and one quick abdominal incision later, I had a big bouncing baby Baba.

Happy Six Month Birthday, Baba O’Riley. You’re awesome. 

Things I bit my tongue before saying to the loudmouth on her cell phone on the bus:

Holy shit, lady. You’re louder than my iPod at full volume.

Can you lower your voice so I don’t hear the details?

Shut the fuck up.

Perhaps you do not realize how loud you are, but we just crossed from New York to New Jersey and people in both states can still hear you.

Omgwtfstfu.

Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

There’s a refurb Dyson on Woot! for $219. I’m seriously, seriously thinking about it, because, well, you’ve never seen dirt and dust like I have in my house right now. Seriously. It’s hellacious. Our cleaning lady is going to run out the front door screaming when she sees it.

Wonder if I can talk Hubby into it. 

Yesterday as much of Manhattan and New York State echoed with the sounds of a million jaws dropping at once, the image of Silda Spitzer standing next to Gov. Eliot Spitzer as he announced he had alleged ties to a high-end prostitution ring made the front page of many, many papers. If you’re not familiar with Spitzer, he built his career on squeaky-clean-ism after serving eight years as the New York Attorney General and campaigned on the idea that he’d reform the state government of New York, which, on a scale of one to New Jersey, is about an 8 in terms of corruption.

Putting aside the question of whether or not he should resign (as of right now he hasn’t yet) for allegedly soliciting a prostitute, and really, around these parts that’s the hot topic of discussion, I want to look at the wife-standing-by. It’s a very familiar image of late, at least, in my brain.

There’s Suzanne Craig standing next to Senator Larry Craig while he denied that he’d propositioned a man in an airport men’s room and declared that he’s not gay back in August of last year. And there’s Gov. Jim McGreevey of New Jersey, who deflected a host of scandals that were about to erupt by flying out of the closet and announcing he was gay while Dina Matos McGreevey stood next to him. They’re now hip-deep in the nastiest divorce trial I’ve seen in awhile, and I’m rather tired of both of them, even as Matos hit the morning shows to talk about her empathy for Silda Spitzer.

While her presumption in saying that we as a public can’t know what it’s like in the Spitzer marriage and then proclaiming what she thinks is going on (“You don’t know what their relationship is like. They’ve been married over 20 years. I’m sure they have a long history together. There’s love there. There’s obviously now betrayal.”) left me feeling very icky, I have to admit, it’s a very small club, the wife standing by the politician admitting publicly he did a dumb, dumb thing.