Unfit For Publication: Obama Responds

Attached here is the link to the PDF file the campaign has titled "Unfit for Publication: the investigative report on the lies in Jerome Corsi's Obama Nation".

Read it, and instead of closing your web browser, copy the link and send it on to someone else. This election is much too important to succumb to the filthy lies and to the complacency that Corsi - and the right wing - is expecting from this country's voters.

Let's show them truth and integrity matter.

And here's a link to the Media Matters website which explores in depth the media's responses to this book.

Update: And here is an op-ed from the NY Times questioning just how well we know John McCain.

Beautiful Day

Yes, this was the view from my afternoon on Lake Michigan yesterday with the wee one and husband. Perfect day to have a picnic and say Shalom to our summer experience. Real life arrives again tomorrow.

Let's Hope the Dems Don't Blow It

I hope all Dems, especially Obama's advisors, are paying attention to this article by Michael Moore: How the Democrats Can Blow It...in Six Easy Steps.

Summer's Over

Image by ArunaR via Flickr In six days, my summer will officially be over. The lazy afternoons at the beach, the unhurried puttering in the kitchen, and my hours of reading for pleasure will all cease when I return to work. I'm not complaining. At all. In fact, I dropped by my office yesterday and was pleasantly surprised to find myself anticipating going back to work. I've missed the kids - if one can call teenagers kids. And I am stronger than I was when I left for summer break. Sometime in the past few months, I started recognizing myself again. And it feels good.

Engaging in political discussion has invigorated me, and I've felt my beliefs solidify. I seem to be less and less concerned with identifying with the label and trappings of a particular politician or party and more interested in the inherent rights of humanity - and what it takes to make them accessible for everyone. It's felt a bit like shedding too-tight pantyhose and putting on an old, comfy pair of jeans. I can breathe again.


And my writing, while I haven't made any money or written anything publishable, I've come home to that, too. My first instinct is to capture everything in writing. I used to think like that, only to find myself too busy once I got a "real job" and became a wife and mom. But now, I want to write. I need to write. My blog, initially what I thought may be a possible money-maker, has become more of a personal quest to process what is in my head and in my heart. In my soul. I haven't been worried about how often I post, how many readers I have, and I've only been a little concerned with the lack of comments (I mean, does everyone agree w/me or do they just not care enough to comment?). But mostly, it is for me. Because I know no other way to live an authentic life. This is my exploration. My therapy. My growth.

So next week I'll return to the chaos of 250 young women. They'll look to me for guidance on their futures, and for the first time in a long time, I think I'll be able to give it. Not fabricated or forced. For real.

What Is Up With This Human In Politics?

I've been reading about John Edwards and his affair all day. I've gone from incredulous to pissed to sad to resigned. In the height of my pissed-offness, I called my mom to rant. She works for a breast cancer foundation and has what I call a pretty solid moral code, so I thought for sure she would rant right along with me. I mean, Elizabeth was wronged - while undergoing breast cancer treatment. Edwards is a scumbag, right? But no, when I said "I think it makes John Edwards a pretty weak man to cheat on his wife while she has breast cancer", she shocked me by saying "well, it makes him a pretty human man".

Huh. Really? Human? I was unconvinced. So I hung up the phone, contemplated doing some yoga, realized that would take moving so I watched a baseball game on TV instead (STL Cards were ahead and then LOST to the Cubs in overtime...disasters everywhere I'm telling you). And then I started to think about what my mom had said. Are his actions human? And as a potential VP and one time Presidential contender, is he allowed to be human? What does that even mean?

I do know this: we are all flawed. We make mistakes. We hurt people. We fall in and out of love with each other at different times in our lives, and sometimes the bonds we have are strong enough to withstand the ensuing hurricane - and sometimes they aren't. Partnerships are hard, hard, hard work. And we don't always have the perseverance to reach the light in the tunnel unscathed. Sometimes we don't reach the light at all. No one - not the children, the friends, the parents, and certainly not the reporters know what is truth in a partnership. We can only speculate, and 9 times out of 10, we will be wrong. So, I will not speculate on John and Elizabeth Edwards' partnership. I would rather my weaknesses not be explored in public, so I'm not going to explore John Edwards'.

Instead, I'm going to keep asking what is human. And why in today's political sphere, we expect our politicians to be God-like. And I'm going to keep asking myself - and others - what is really important right now. Will John Edwards advocate less for rights of poor people because he had an affair (that we really know nothing about)? I don't think so. Will Elizabeth be less of a role-model if she forgives him? No, definitely not. Was Hillary? I think we've all seen the answer to that in the past 8 years. What matters right now is moving beyond the personal mistakes of our politicians and back into policy and justice for all.

I have to admit, despite my pledge not to scrutinize or speculate, my sadness about this news is lodged somewhere in the region of my heart. You see, I wanted the fairy tale of John and Elizabeth we all read about in the papers and magazines. I really, really wanted them to stay golden. But in real life, the fairy tales don't often exist. We are human after all.

Could McCain Be Worse than Bush?

Oy...here is a link to a video available on the Huffington Post that compiles gaffes and more "oops" by McCain. It's hard to get through, but if you do, you may just agree that McCain in'08 could be worse than what we have now...and that is mighty hard to beat, my friends.

***Note: this is a compilation video, which means there will be clips and quotes out of context. This would be a point I'd make if it were of Obama, so to be fair I'm making it w/the McCain video, too (but I daresay there are an awful lot more clips available of McCain making "oops" than of Obama...but I'm just hazarding a guess here).

Someone Please Explain This To Me

NBC Surpasses $1 Billion In Olympic Ads

Does anyone else find this grossly obscene when considering how many people are struggling in this world right now?

That's all I've got to say tonight.