It's not a race. It's a race.

I wish we had a better shorthand term for the election. The linguistics involved with "running" a campaign or "race" make it all too close to sport -- to a game.

This is not a game. This is the future of our nation and the well-being of its people. We need a leader who is focused, determined, honest and willing and able to take a risk when necessary.

Barack Obama exhibits honesty, sincerity, and a willingness to express what he believes to be the truth, whether that is what people are asking for or not. You're not going to agree with every single decision that any of the candidates make. I'd much rather know where those points lie than to expect the candidate to do one thing when he or she does the other depending on what mood he or she thinks the American people are in.

A campaign shouldn't be about strategy -- it should be about honesty. How am I supposed to figure out which candidate I trust to lead my nation if all they are doing is strategizing to get my vote instead of telling and showing me who they are, how they lead, and what they believe in?

As a candidate your job, nay, your mission, is to accurately present yourself in order to help people get to know you as a leader and let them decide which candidate fits best with their own goals and beliefs. As incumbent, you listen to the people who chose you to lead them and help make the goals of those people real.

My goals for this nation include broad themes like equal access to education, freedom from persecution, fair treatment, clean environment, etc. For the most part, the democratic candidates agree on the goals, but where they differ is in implementation.

What's brilliant about Obama's campaign and leadership style is that he has delegated not only to his staff, but to all of us. He puts it on the American people to stand up and make a difference. He is already leading us by encouraging and empowering us to lead ourselves. That's freedom and equality in balance--not easy.

We have a lot of work to do. The current president and his administration have left us a big mess including a national debt that is quickly outgrowing even its larger-than-life Times Square home. We need someone who can delegate. We need someone who is running for office on principles -- on his or her own principles -- not running on what the "other guy" isn't doing right -- not running on what they think people want to hear. We don't have time or energy for simply attacking other candidates.

YES WE CAN! Sí, se puede!

Find 35 Minutes

You must. Because there is a speech out there worth listening to. Listen while you're cooking dinner or getting ready for work or download it to your ipod and listen to it on the train. Or read it.

Never have I heard such a soberly delivered speech incite me to action more strongly.

Yes. I'm talking about Obama's speech today on the topic of race -- but really on the topic of unity of this nation -- a consistent theme along his path to the presidency.

Like my objections to the blog mentioned in a previous post, he encourages us to divorce the idea that race is something that defines our differences:

"For the African-American community, that path means embracing the burdens of our past without becoming victims of our past . . . it also means binding our particular grievances - for better health care, and better schools, and better jobs - to the larger aspirations of all Americans . . ."

He's made the case (or the reminder, if you will) that "legalized discrimination" through generations of exclusion from property ownership, unions, police and fire departments and other means of amassing wealth has caused a divide between black America and the rest of America, and that a lack of other community bonds and services have exacerbated the problem.

He talks about deep-seated resentment in both the white and black communities. How both are destructive unless dealt with in an honest, progressive way.

And like he continues to run his campaign, he encourages all people to make small steps. You don't have to become a large scale community leader to make a difference. You don't have to donate the maximum to the campaign. You don't have to make politics your second job. You don't even have to write a blog post about it. You do what you can, because you can, and because there's only one place to start.

Even if you're not voting for Obama, please vote.

On Fiction

In a previous post, I noted that I need to read more fiction. I think I might need to qualify that statement. I need to read more heartwarming, cheerful, inspirational, funny fiction. I just finished A Thousand Splendid Suns (Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner). It was amazing, but intense and mostly intensely sad. He's such a good writer that you really get wrapped up in it and I think my mood is affected by it. So I'm looking forward to something a little lighter next.

Stuff (relatively) Wealthy People Like

There's a blog out there called "Stuff White People Like" which aims to poke fun at white people by waxing anthropologic about their quirky, illogical, or silly desires. (You can google it. I'm not linking.) However, these include wanting multilingual children, Priuses, modern furniture, and hating corporations. These are not the desires of white people. They are the desires of relatively wealthy people and I'm a little disgusted that it is encouraging people to conflate the ideas of being white and being well-off. Don't get me (entirely) wrong: it's funny and I find myself identifying with the posts. I'm just offended by the title and the "white" theme... am I just not getting it? Am I overcompensating for my own latent racism?

The Great Equalizer

Despite many differences in occupation, age, race, culture, politics, etc. in my neighborhood, the laundromat is different. Everyone is there to get down to business. Everyone is wearing their least attractive clothes (i.e. the things that don't need to be washed until next time). Everyone understands that you don't want them to see your underwear and you don't want to see theirs. Everyone has to deal with the same broken or stupidly programmed machines. Everyone has to watch the same stupid movies on the televisions. It's nice to have some unity and some neighborly bonding -- even if it's while you're avoiding eye contact.

Prospect Heights

I have a great neighborhood. There's a delightful mix of races, cultures, ages, income, classes, occupations, etc. Part of this mix is probably due to the rent control system in NYC which encourages people to stay in apartments indefinitely, because staying with that lease guarantees the initial rate or only modest annual increases. So sometimes, when you move into a neighborhood that's an old stronghold for other ethnic/cultural/socio-economic groups, you feel like an impostor reaping the benefits of lower rent (though not as low as your neighbors' who moved in earlier).

It's admittedly a little odd when old ladies at the grocery store call me "mami," but it 's endearing and I love it. Maybe one day that will roll off my tongue too. I'm thinking about going over to the bodega (corner store) to watch the news in Spanish with the shop keeper, but I'm not sure how well that would go -- especially since I'd need nearly everything translated since they talk so fast.

Standing in line

My dad once told me that instead of looking for the shortest line, he looks for the one with the most interesting people in it (so California, so not New York). I think I'm finally in a ((develop)mental) place in my life where I would agree that this is the best method. However, at the co-op, there's not an option. There's only one line. One terribly long line. But today I got lucky.

I ended up standing in line in front of two very rambunctious and precocious children. And since I didn't have to put them to bed or give them medicine, it was just fun.

Annica and her long-haired, towheaded little brother were shopping with dad this morning. After exclaiming, "Look at all the beautiful vegetables!" (while peering into the freezer case), Annica informed me that "Daddy married mommy, and then we had butterflies."

Seems like the right way to do it.