History

I don't know that I even have words to talk about what I just watched. I've spent the morning watching the live coverage of Barack Obama's inauguration. While I will admit that the last couple of days have seemed a little excessive in terms of 24 hour news coverage, I can't believe that in a matter of minutes we went from time filling factoids (Obama hates coffee, but collect comic books, etc) to a truly monumental time in history.

It seems surreal that less than an hour ago, a man that would at one time not have been allowed to vote was just sworn in as President. This election has been momumental in many ways and it struck me today that when our baby is born in May, he/she will never have a concept of a time when the office was an office that had only been held by white men. The fact that our country embraced diversity in terms of ethnicity and gender in this election season is one of the most valuable parts of this election for me. I agree with Obama on many of his policies and visions, but I am even more proud to live in a country that fought so bitterly of policies during the primary and election, yet came together to support a historic transition.

Part of me is sad that I spent this historic moment at home alone watching what seemed like a very global moment. At the same time, even when my internet kicked me off Twitter and Facebook, I still felt an odd sense of the country standing still. Even moments before the ceremony was set to take place, I was contemplating running up to campus so I could experience this moment with other people. I was too afraid of missing it to actually go anywhere, but I was shocked at how connected I felt even alone in my living room. I hope this sense of unity is something that doesn't wane in the coming hours and days.

I know that there are still those who will fail to recognize the true value of this moment or will fault President Obama regardless of what he does, but I was moved by the humbleness and greatness of what I just watched.

News Overload

I'll admit that I enjoy being able to follow every step of the election and inauguration as it happens, but this might be a sign that the news outlets are running out of things to talk about.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

I'm not sure which is more disturbing that MSNBC reported this as actual news or that there is a college professor out there who specializes in port-o-potties.

Bingo!

I saw references to Palin Bingo in several people's status messages today and decided that researching that was a better use of my time than grading. Currently this site has 4 different bingo cards to choose from and a blank card if you want to make your own. If you are interested in a more bi-partisian bingo game, you can find a set of cards for both Biden and Palin here.

Conventions

While I still think that JibJab should be the only people allowed to produce campaign ads, I'm also a fan of limiting other political news to Jon Stewart and the Daily Show. I really want to know the name of the guy in the RNC video who says that the convention was canceled because liberals were upset about "some people getting rained on."



And to be fair, a clip of the DNC as well...

Willy Wonka and/in the Lincoln Bedroom

Oompa loompas are a little creepy and do seem like the spies of Willy Wonka's chocolate factory in Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, but apparently their spying ways in the film are not all that different than Roald Dahl's own past. The news that Dahl was a war-time spy was not nearly as entertaining as last month's revelation that Julia Child was a spy, but his methods were a little more scandalous. According to recent reports, the celebrated children's author was employed by the government to charm and then sleep with well-connected Americans in order to win confidences from them. Does 007 really come from 00-mpa loompa? According to one source in The Telegraph:

"I think he slept with everybody on the east and west coasts that [was worth] more than $50,000 a year."

While this this may sound like a great gig, accordng to Newsweek:

Dahl was assigned to gather pillow talk from Mrs. Luce, who was regarded as anti-British. It was hard duty. "I am all f–––ed out," Dahl complained to the ambassador, Lord Halifax, after a three-night stand. "You know it's a great assignment but I just can't go on."

Supposedly FDR knew he was a spy and allowed Dahl to report his pillow confessions to the UK, as the US would enter WWII shortly. More interesting to me, however, is what the children's lit backlash will be.

In my 170 class this morning we talked briefly about this and related issues and my students seemed unsure how to process sex spy turned children's author. Luckily they seem to have fallen in love with his books first and are unwilling to degrade their value simply because of scandal. Let's just hope Sarah Palin doesn't get wind of this story. According to Time, while mayor of Wasilla, AK she, among other things,

continued to inject religious beliefs into her policy at times. "She asked the library how she could go about banning books," he says, because some voters thought they had inappropriate language in them.

Clearly Harry Potter is to blame for teen pregnancies!*

*I've found conflicting reports about the titles of the books she sought to ban. John Green first alerted me to this connection. I'll be interested to see what's on that list though.

The American President

The American President is one of my all time favorite movies. My VHS copy of it is actually broken because it's been watched too many times. Last night after Barack Obama's speech, M called and said "he's channeling Andrew Shepard." Within minutes Chris Matthews started talking about the speech as an Aaron Sorkin moment. In case you haven't seen the movie, here's the speech that Andrew Shepherd makes.



Ironically, both men are talking about old, white guys.

Time For Some Campaignin'

Think how much better tv would be if we got rid of all campaign ads that weren't produced by JibJab :)

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