Obama Maina

With the election of Barack Obama as the 44th president of the Untied States, I have been trying to sort out my feelings for my former senator. He was, as I have mentioned many times previously, a terrible senator. He did a bad job representing my state, rarely voting, and introdicing hardly any new pro-Illinois legislation during his term. Almost as soon as he was elected to the Senate (in what I remember as a terribly exciting and uphill battle in Illinois) it was clear that he had wanted to be a senator only in order to have a platform from which to run for president. This upset me because I don't think that a job in Congress should be treated as anything other than that. He didn't do his job in representing my state, and I felt, to be honest, jipped.

So my thoughts on Senator Obama are pretty clear. Presidnet-Elect Obama, though, I have no opinion about. One would think that someone as attuned to American politics as I am would have strong thoughts about such a divicive (though he claims to be otherwise) candidate. I'm pretty liberal, too, so really it shouldn't have been a problem.

Obama himself, however, has been so thouroughly eclipsed by the Obama Cult throughout his campaign, that however I might have felt about him were I to know him or his politics at all is washed out by my loathing of his supporters.
There seems to be a large group of Americans (and a surprising number of Canadians) out there who are having a difficult time distinguishing between Barack Obama and God. Frankly, this scares the shit out of me.

Don't get me wrong. I think it's wonderful that President-Elect Obama was able to get people excited about his campaign. It's been a long time since so many people have been excited about American politics, and the ability of his campaign to get "unlikely" voters, and especially young people to go to the polls yesterday is incredible.

The problem is the attitude with which they went to them. "Change" is a fine attitude. It doesn't mean anything, so I don't really have any problem with it as a voting criteria. I don't really like it as a platform, but whatever. The people I have issue with are the ones who, once Obama was declared the winner last night, said things like "I can be proud of my country again." or "I'm glad to be an American again."
Would these people not have been proud of their country if Senator McCain had been elected president? I still would have. Have they not been greatful to be Americans during President Bush's time in the White House? Would they rather have been citizens of some other country? I've been living outside the U.S. for over a year now, and to be perfectly honest, I'm thrilled to be an American. I wouldn't give it up for anything.

I'm proud of America because we had an election yesterday. No matter the outcome, the fact that our country has free elections and that in January, President Bush will willingly surrender his power to a member of the opposing party, just because the People have said he should is incredible. That's why I'm proud of America. And the resons I'm glad to be an American extend way beyond the executive branch of our government. They have to do with the ease and relative safety with which I can travel because of my American passport, and my representatives in Congress, Mark Kirk and Senator Dick Durbin, both of whom spend their time in Congress fighting for the rights and benefit of citizens of Illinois. I'm glad to be an American because I got to vote in the election yesterday (though I had to vote absentee, because of America's inability to provide affordable post-secondary education). I'm proud to be an American because all my life, I've thought that Americans are reach for higher standards, and that this was a good thing.
Barack Obama's election as president does not make me more proud to be an American than I was a week or a year or five years ago. Perhaps once he takes office, I will be able to say that I am more proud of my government than I have been. Perhaps I'll be able to say that I'm glad that my country is able to present a face to the world that doesn't make people in streets in Paris and Rome and South Africa and Iraq to look at it's citizens with disgust and hatred. But none of this has to do with my country. It has to do with my government.
I have always been proud to be an American.

People keep asking me if I'm happy about the results of the election last night.
I suppose I am. Or, rather, I suppose I will be, if President Obama is a better public servant than Senator Obama was, and if he makes good on any few of the hundreds of promises he made during his campagn. But for now, I don't know how to respond when someone asks, because truth be told, the Obama Cult has overshadowed the man, and I, an American Semi-ExPat living ten minutes from the Canadian/American border, don't know President-Elect Obama from Chicago, my hometown, at all.

Oil Thigh Na Banrighinn

So, for reasons mostly long-forgotten (if there were reasons at all), I decided to come to a university whose school song is in, yes, Gaelic. Our team is the Gaels, the mascot also being a Gael, the band preforms in full kilts, and the cheerleaders wear traditional-style cheerleading uniforms as you would see in most US high schools...but they're trimmed in red tartan. Upon coming to the school, students receive Tams, Scottish hats with pom-poms on them (the color of the pom-pom correlates to the program you are in: ArtSci is red, Engineering is gold, etc.) Our school song is the Oil Thigh, the refrain to which is Cha Gheill!, pernounced Kay-Ya, and meaning "No surrender."

All this to say that homecoming is tomorrow, and I am very excited. The engineers dye themselves purple and storm the field. The band (including Jake, who lives next-door and plays the bagpipe in the school marching band) will preform. And everyone, yes, everyone, will sing the Oil Thigh in the traditional Gaelic.

Also, we're playing Western in the football game tomorrow, so we'll see how it goes.

Left Behind

So people keep leaving me behind. We'll make plans and decide to do something together, and then they'll go do it without me. And then inevitably when they come back and I ask them what happened, they say I told them I didn't want to go, or similar.
I'm concerned about a possible split personality disorder.

Damn Yankees

The New York Times actually made me weep today. Weep. Not a lone tear but rather soaked tissues, runny nose weeping. Why, you may ask. No, not because the world is going to shit and they've finally exposed it in a front page article, because the front page of the times today (or at least, the top story on their website (www.nytimes.com) this evening) wasn't about the world or the state of international affairs at all.
It was about the Yankees.
Yes, I have wept, I have sobbed, because of the closing of Yankee Stadium.
I feel like a legit grown-up now...

Canada, Part Due

I am a v. bad blogger, you have my apologies.
Actually, nobody reads this, so it doesn't much matter that I haven't blogged in several weeks.
I don't think I've commented on the very famous Ms. Palin as yet, nor have I properly conveyed the emerging truth that is the Frozen Wasteland to you.
So, I will spare a few words on Ms. Palin: I think that people, and especially the liberal media, are making too big a deal out of her. If she is a joke, which I don't think she is, it will be made clear to everyone that she isn't worthy of the position. If she is legit, the best way to disqualify her from people's minds isn't to make it out as if she's a punchline, its to teach people about why she doesn't deserve their votes. Which brings me to point number two, which is that she isn't actually running for President. I've seen her compared in several places to Barack Obama (ie, Obama is so experienced compared to Palin, he's so old compared to her, etc.) when in fact, Obama should be compared to McCain, and Ms. Palin should be comared to Joe Biden, who I have heard almost nothing about since the end of the DNC several weeks ago. I find this distressing, because I feel I might like Biden, were I to be told anything about him.
Granted, I am in Canada, where we don't get real news.

The second item I wanted to discuss is totally unrelated, and as such I feel deserves its own post, though I don't know when I'll be back on.
So be patient and you may get some news again, you know, in the future.
If I don't forget.
Or have too much work.

Canada, Part Une

I have officially moved to the Frozen Wasteland (as I affectionately call Kingston, Ontario, and indeed all of Canada.) I live in a tiny, tiny room, barely enough for my bed and WonderWoman poster, in a house with four other girls, all of whom have rooms significantly larger than mine. At least I'm not in a dorm with a room-mate. The thing they never tell you about going to a large (or "mid-size" as it would be called in the States) university, is that once school gets up and running there are, in fact, a lot of people in town. There are students EVERYWHERE. Its a little scary.
I must run now, one of my house-mates and I are going out to buy cell phones.
Stay tuned for rants about French.

God or something like it...

So I've been watching the DNC. I know, its always a bad idea to watch when large groups of Democrats get together, but whatever. Joe Biden has won the Veepstakes, and spoke tonight. Quite eloquently, as a matter of fact. I quite like him. My crush on President Clinton has been renewed tonight also. He's so great, I really just wanted him to play the saxophone. Oh, well. Anyway, then Obama himself came out (as a surprise) and was introduced as if God himself was decending on the Earth. It was rather stunning. I am so pumped for the rest of the campaign...

In other news, am moving to Canada in two days.
Still no bed.