Earlier this year, Barb attended an event for President Obama in St. Louis. I’m pretty sure you only got a hug if you wrote a check but it’s still a nice picture.
I’m not thrilled with everything our president has done (or not done) but if I were, someone else would be pissed, so…
I wish him well.
From The Huffington Post: “In his first week as president, Obama asked his staff to select 10 letters a day for him to read from among the tens of thousands that were flooding into the White House. … Fourteen months later, Obama still takes 10 letters (including e-mails and faxes) with him when he heads upstairs at the end of each weekday. He personally writes back to three or four.”
My suggestion posted here in March of 2008:
“President Obama reads, answers and acts on one email –from an American citizen– every week. Let’s say, on Friday. Here’s how it might work:
Anybody can email the president once a week. Yes, people will try to find ways to scam this but you can deal with that. On Friday morning, 10 emails are selected at random and forwarded to President Obama’s in-box. He looks through them, picks one and responds –personally– to the sender. If action is required, the email is forwarded to the appropriate subordinate who has to DO something because the president –and the country– will be watching.
My suggestion goes a bit further but the two are eerily close. And, yes, I did email my suggestion to the Obama campaign.
Arianna Huffington makes some predictions of what comes next for the Internet and I sure hope she’s right. A few excerpts:
I think this will happen because it can happen. I hope this scares the shit out of the politicians and power-brokers.
“Barack Obama ran for president as a man of the people, standing up to Wall Street as the global economy melted down in that fateful fall of 2008. He pushed a tax plan to soak the rich, ripped NAFTA for hurting the middle class and tore into John McCain for supporting a bankruptcy bill that sided with wealthy bankers “at the expense of hardworking Americans.” Obama may not have run to the left of Samuel Gompers or Cesar Chavez, but it’s not like you saw him on the campaign trail flanked by bankers from Citigroup and Goldman Sachs. What inspired supporters who pushed him to his historic win was the sense that a genuine outsider was finally breaking into an exclusive club, that walls were being torn down, that things were, for lack of a better or more specific term, changing. Then he got elected.”
Oh dear. Who’s my favorite political reporter? Who’s the guy I always turn to for the hard, profane truth? That’s right, Matt Taibbi. The graf above is the lead to his latest piece in Rolling Stone. And this, sums it all up:
“What we do know is that Barack Obama pulled a bait-and-switch on us. If it were any other politician, we wouldn’t be surprised. Maybe it’s our fault, for thinking he was different.”
From my friend (and recovering Bush apologist) David Brazeal:
10. IOC delegates disappointed to discover Oprah hadn’t hidden portable DVD players under their seats.
9. Voters perturbed by President Obama’s effort to lead them in a chant of “USA! USA!”
8. US credibility damaged when Michelle Obama expressed her hope to meet “international soccer star David Beckett.”
7. Many of Chicago’s most supportive IOC delegates still partying in Pittsburgh after last week’s G-20 protests.
6. Chicago officials bribed delegates with US dollars instead of euros.
5. Delegates unswayed by promises that Chicago Olympics will “save or create 8-million jobs.”
4. Withdrawal of US missile defense from Eastern Europe swayed large bloc of Polish and Czech soccer moms to support Rio de Janeiro.
3. Voters creeped out by Joe Biden’s pro-Chicago video presentation, praising “northern girls with the way they kiss.”
2. Delegates turned off when American Kanye West interrupted Tokyo’s presentation to say Beyonce really deserves to win.
1. It’s all George W. Bush’s fault.
The boys remains one of the funniest people I kn0w. [Files under: Too Funny for His Job]
From a post here at smays.com in March, 2008:
“On Friday morning, 10 emails are selected at random and forwarded to President Obama’s in-box. He looks through them, picks one and responds –personally– to the sender.”
And the following from the New York Times in April, 2009:
“Tens of thousands of letters, e-mail messages and faxes arrive at the White House every day. A few hundred are culled and end up each weekday afternoon on a round wooden table in the office of Mike Kelleher, the director of the White House Office of Correspondence. He chooses 10 letters, which are slipped into a purple folder and put in the daily briefing book that is delivered to President Obama at the White House residence. Designed to offer a sampling of what Americans are thinking, the letters are read by the president, and he sometimes answers them by hand, in black ink on azure paper.”
If you can find an earlier reference to “my” idea, leave it in the comments. I’m just looking for my props.
Barb and I bought some souvenirs from street vendors while attending the inauguration. I kept thinking, “What I really want is an Obama fez,” not that I expected to find one.
This weekend I reached out to the Fezmonger himself and asked if he had considered making a commemorative fez. He politely explained that he had, but decided it would be exploitative. Besides, every Fez-o-rama fez is an original design.
Before giving up, I suggested I could make a contribution to his favorite charity. As luck would have it, March is when the Fezmonger participates in the 24 Hour Cancer Dance-a-thon to raise money for the City of Hope.
So for a contribution of $250 to a very worthy cause, I am the proud recipient of the very first Fez of Hope. (see photo). I like that Jason’s (treatment of the) design is bigger than the man. His design is more about what our new president represents.
Thanks to Nancy for sharing this photo of Sheryl Crow (and her momma and daddy) with our new president. I’m guessing this was taken before or after the opening ceremony at the Lincoln Memorial. Is that Jamie Fox in the background.
Inauguration Day ended like it began. Standing in the dark, bitter cold in a crush of people. We arrived at the Metro station at 4 a.m. and there were already 50 or 60 people waiting for the station to open.
It’s difficult to describe how crowded the Metro cars were. Very much like the video of Japanese train “car stuffers” cramming people into the already full cars. I must say, however, most folks were pretty friendly and patient.
We reached our security gate (about half a mile from the Capitol?) around 5 a.m. and there was a crowd of a couple of hundred people waiting for the security check-in which didn’t happen until about 9 a.m. Four very long hours, with the bone-chilling cold creeping into your feed and up your legs.
Once through security we hobbled to a standing area about 100 yards from the Capitol steps where our new president was sworn in. We could see President Obama or the others except on the the Jumbotrons, the closest of which was about 40 or 50 yards away. Another 2.5 hour wait. Temp in the upper teens. And crowded.
Just in front of us was a large area filled with row upon row of folding chairs. The cheap seats but better than no seat at all. This is where we saw some celebrities: Chris Tucker; Bruce Springsteen; Spike Lee; Al Franken. I was impressed that these folks were willing sit in the cold with the rest of us.
Behind us, stretching out along the National Mall, all the way to the Washington Monument, was the sea of people you saw on TV, waving flags.
By the time the oath of office was administered, we had been standing in line and fighting for our live son the Metro, for 8 hours. All but 30 or 45 minutes in the cold.
After the ceremony, The million+ people had to go someplace. The streets and sidewalks near the Capital were packed, so we decided to skip the parade and go back to base camp. To say the Metro was crowded doesn’t begin to describe the scene.
After a nap and some food we got in our party clothes and headed down tot he convention center where several of the inaugural balls were being held. Sheryl Crow did a nice set and a little late the new VP and Mrs. showed, which we mistakenly assumed meant Obama wouldn’t make it. We knew cabs would be scarce but after more than an hour in the freezing cold, we gave up and called our friend Dianne (out of a dead sleep). Trooper that she is, she fought the traffic and closed off streets to come down and rescue us. (There will be a small shrine in our basement)
So was our Inauguration Adventure fun? Not by any objective measure. It was… and experience. Like WWII. An important moment in time of which we can say we participated. Would I do it again, knowing what I know now? Doubtful. But that’s true of much in life.
I’ll be processing photos and video for days and will post anything that I think you might find interesting.
I have no idea what it was like at previous inaugurations, but everywhere I look, in every face, there’s a real sense of joy and excitement. And these look like people who –like smays.com– never felt like their vote made much of a difference, but do now.
My cynical (“Realistic! Realistic!”) friends tell me I am niave (nice word for chump) to believe/hope Obama is anything more than another smooth talking pol. Once in office, it’ll be business as usual. Well, there’s bunch of chumps everywhere I look. These are the true believers. They think (know?) they can knock on doors and organize and vote and, in time, change things.
Before the Net, you could sway these masses with well placed media buys. I’m thinking that might be changing (have changed). MSM has their own problems and the Net can take a politician down as fast as it can lift her up.
But the people on these cold streets aren’t thinking about that. They see a new day and they’re pumped. They BELIEVE they are part of something big and important and it’s gonna be hard to persuade them otherwise. [Inauguration 2009 flickr images]