Si se puede
Yes, we can.
So Halloween was fun, classes are still going great guns, I went to a faculty-student reception on Oct. 30 and caught up with my advisor and met the (really nice!) organic chemistry professor, my paper-writing skills appear to still be functioning, canvassing in Nashua for Obama was a bit scary at first but really good. I'm an official Biology "field of study" person now, which is sort of like having a major. I stayed up way too late watching election results, then scrambled while sleep-deprived and strung out to get my stem cells assignment written and turned in Wed., prepped for the two brain classes Thursday, oldest had a kitchen accident Thursday night while I was still in lecture & I took her to the emergency room (which fortunately is right at the end of the street where the apartment is, we were there in minutes and she was seen quickly and got her finger stitched up and she's fine), and I went to see a play last night.
The play involved fake chemistry and a bear, but mostly the toppling of Ceaucescu. It was okay.
The election... is still sinking in. I'm tearful, and hopeful, and feeling like the country is waking from a long nightmare into rationality. This administration has brayed for 8 years now that my opinions are un-American and that staggering incompetence is what I should expect from government, and that the voices of millions and millions of my neighbors deserve contempt when we are acknowledged at all. A resounding majority said, well that's enough of that.
The ballot questions that passed, restricting basic rights for my friends, exasperate me. There is a LOT of work to do--on some things, clearly we haven't made much progress. I remember vividly the snarling hostility of black activists toward gay activists at a student summit I was at, over 20 years ago, in preparation for a massive "teach-in." It got pretty ugly in that room, and those divisions haven't moved in all that time, apparently. I hope the poison and hatred and pain can start, now, to dissipate, and that the country can start finding reasons to work across divisions instead of reinforcing them with concrete.
Peace, all.
posted by Liz @ 12:09 PM
1 Comments:
Amen, sister.
While you were in Nashua we were in Canterbury. Where is Canterbury, you may ask, as we did at the time. The MA Obama people were encouraging volunteers from the northern half of the state to go to Concord rather than Nashua, which we did -- only to be met in the parking lot by a guy with a clipboard who told us they already had too many people (!!) in Concord, and could we please go a bit farther north. Which we did. Pretty much everyone we actually spoke with had already voted, but we're glad we went anyway.
Amen on Prop 8. I didn't realize that that hostility existed, but clearly we still have a ways to go. We are moving in the right direction, though: it's been pointed out that a similar ballot question in CA 8 years ago passed 62-38. I hope that as more states allow SSM (NY and NJ are reported to be teetering) and the sky still fails to fall or rain fire and brimstone upon us, that movement will accelerate.
Will I ever see you again?
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