These are the BHL archives - a collection of pictures, images, words, and assorted bon mots that have been passed through the chat line, and were thought to good to delete.
| I'm a middle-class white guy living in Jacksonville, Florida. I've got a wife and two kids. Because the kids had no school today, I took a vacation day from work, and took the kids downtown to vote early. Fifty-nine minutes later, two smiling children and I proudly sported 'I Voted' stickers. But I didn't vote for Obama. I voted for my ancestors, who believed in the promise of this country and came with nothing as immigrants. I voted for my parents, who taught in the public schools for decades. I voted for Steve, an acquaintance of mine from Kentucky. (Killed by an IED two years ago in Iraq). I voted for Shawn, another who's been to Iraq twice, and Afghanistan once, and who'll be going back to Afghanistan again soon - and whose family earned eleven bucks a month too much to qualify for food stamps when the war started. I voted for April, the only African-American girl in my high school - it was years before it occurred to me how different her experience of our school must have been. I voted for my college friends who are Christian, Jewish, Mormon, and yes - Muslim. I voted for my grandfathers, who worked hard in factories and died too young. I voted for the plumber who worked on my house, because I want him to get a REAL tax break. I voted for four little angels from Birmingham. I voted for a bunch of dead white men who, although personally flawed, were willing to pledge their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor, and used a time of great crisis to expand freedom rather than suspend it. I voted for all those people and more, and I voted for all of you, too. But mostly, I voted selfishly. I voted for two little kids, one who has ballet in an hour, and one who has baseball practice at the same time. I voted for a world where they can be confident that their government will represent the best that is in this country, and that will in turn demand the best of them. I voted for a government that will be respected in the world. I voted for an economy that will reward work above guile. I voted for everything I believe in. Sure, I filled in the circle next to the name Obama, but it wasn't him I was voting for - it was every single one of us, and those I love most of all. Who else is there to vote for? |
Obama/Biden vs McCain/Palin - what if things were switched around? ...think about it.Would the country's collective point of view be different? Ponder the following.
You could easily add to this list.
If these questions reflected reality, do you really believe the election numbers would be as close as they are? This is what racism does. It covers up, rationalises, and minimises positive qualities in one candidate and emphasises negative qualities in another.
Educational backgrounds
Barack Obama
Education isn't everything, but this is about the two highest offices in the land as well as our standing in the world. You make the call.
| WASHINGTON - It popped out casually, a throwaway line as he talked to reporters about finding the right puppy for his young daughters... But with just three offhanded words in his first news conference as president-elect, Barack Obama reminded everyone how thoroughly different his administration - and inevitably, this country - will be. 'Mutts like me.' By now, almost everyone knows that Obama's mother was white and father was black, putting him on track to become the nation's first African-American president. But there was something startling, and telling, about hearing his self-description - particularly in how offhandedly he used it. The message seemed clear - here is a president who will be quite at ease discussing race, a complex issue as unresolved as it is uncomfortable for many to talk about openly. And at a time when whites in the country are not many years from becoming the minority. Obama made the remark as he revealed his thinking in what is becoming one of the highest-profile issues of this transition period: What kind of puppy will he and his wife, Michelle, get for their daughters as they move into the White House. Because Malia, 10, has allergies, the family wants a low-allergy dog. But Obama said they also want to adopt a puppy from an animal shelter, which could make it harder to find a breed that wouldn't aggravate his daughter's problem. 'Obviously, a lot of shelter dogs are mutts like me,' Obama said with a smile. 'So whether we're going to be able to balance those two things, I think, is a pressing issue on the Obama household.' In his first post-election news conference, the man who will be president in just over two months described himself as a mutt as casually as he may have poked fun at his jump shot. |
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| Dear Red States... We've decided we're leaving. We intend to form our own country, and we're taking the other Blue States with us. In case you aren't aware, that includes Hawaii , Oregon , Washington , Minnesota , Wisconsin , Michigan , Illinois , and all the Northeast. We believe this split will be beneficial to the nation, and especially to the people of the new country of New California. To sum up briefly: You get Texas , Oklahoma and all the slave states. We get stem cell research and the best beaches. You get Ken Lay. We get the Statue of Liberty. You get Dollywood. We get Intel, Apple, and Microsoft. You get WorldCom. We get Harvard. You get Ole' Miss. We get 85 per cent of America's venture capital and entrepreneurs. You get Alabama . We get two-thirds of the tax revenue; you get to make the Red States pay their fair share. Since our aggregate divorce rate is 22 per cent lower than the Christian Coalition's, we get a bunch of happy families. You get a bunch of single moms. Please be aware that Nuevo California will be pro-choice and anti-war, and we're going to want all our citizens back from Iraq at once. If you need people to fight, ask your evangelicals. They have kids they're apparently willing to send to their deaths for no purpose, and they don't care if you don't show pictures of their children's caskets coming home. We do wish you success in Iraq, and hope that the WMDs turn up, but we're not willing to spend our resources in Bush's quagmire. With the Blue States in hand, we will have firm control of 80 per cent of the country's fresh water, more than 90 per cent of the pineapple and lettuce, 92 per cent of the nation's fresh fruit, 95 per cent of America's quality wines (you can serve French wines at state dinners), 90 per cent of all cheese, 90 per cent of the high tech industry, most of the U.S.'s low-suphur coal, all living redwoods, sequoias and condors, all the Ivy and Seven Sister schools, plus Harvard, Yale, Stanford , Cal Tech and MIT. With the Red States, on the other hand, you will have to cope with 92 per cent of all U.S.'s mosquitoes, nearly 100 per cent of the tornadoes, 90 per cent of the hurricanes, 99 per cent of all Southern Baptists, virtually 100 per cent of all televangelists, Rush Limbaugh, Bob Jones University, Clemson and the University of Georgia . We get Hollywood and Yosemite, thank you. Additionally, 38 per cent of those in the Red States believe Jonah was actually swallowed by a whale, 62 per cent believe life is sacred unless we're discussing the death penalty or gun laws, 44 per cent say that evolution is only a theory, 53 per cent that Saddam was involved in 9/11 and 61 per cent of you crazy bastards believe you are people with higher morals then we lefties. By the way, we're taking the good pot, too. You can have that dirt weed they grow in Mexico. Peace out, Blue States. |
| Wow! America is cool! By Garrison Keillor 12 November 2008 We are being admired by Swedes! We don't have to pretend we're Canadians. We elected Barack Obama! Be happy, dear hearts, and allow yourselves a few more weeks of quiet exultation. It isn't gloating, it's satisfaction at a job well done. He was a superb candidate, serious, professorial but with a flashing grin and a buoyancy that comes from working out in the gym every morning. He spoke in a genuine voice, not senatorial at all. He relished campaigning. He accepted adulation gracefully. He brandished his sword against his opponents without mocking or belittling them. He was elegant, unaffected, utterly American, and now (Wow) suddenly America is cool. Chicago is cool. Chicago!!! We threw the dice and we won the jackpot and elected a black guy with a Harvard degree, the middle name Hussein and a sense of humor -- he said, "I've got relatives who look like Bernie Mac, and I've got relatives who look like Margaret Thatcher." The French junior minister for human rights said, "On this morning, we all want to be American so we can take a bite of this dream unfolding before our eyes." When was the last time you heard someone from France say they wanted to be American and take a bite of something of ours? Ponder that for a moment. The world expects us to elect pompous yahoos and instead we have us a 47-year-old prince from the prairie who cheerfully ran the race, and when his opponents threw sand at him, he just smiled back. He'll be the first president in history to look really good making a jump shot. He loves his classy wife and his sweet little daughters. He looks good in the kitchen. He can cook Indian or Chinese but for his girls he will do mac and cheese. At the same time, he knows pop music, American lit and constitutional law. I just can't imagine anybody cooler. Look at a photo of the latest pooh-bah conference -- the hausfrau Merkel, the big glum Scotsman, that goofball Berlusconi, Putin with his B-movie bad-boy scowl, and Sarkozy, who looks like a district manager for Avis -- you put Barack in that bunch and he will shine. It feels good to be cool and all of us can share in that, even sour old right-wingers and embittered blottoheads. Next time you fly to Heathrow and hand your passport to the man with the badge, he's going to see "United States of America" and look up and grin. Even if you worship in the church of Fox, everyone you meet overseas is going to ask you about Obama and you may as well say you voted for him because, my friends, he is your line of credit over there. No need anymore to try to look Canadian. And the coolest thing about him is the fact that back in the early '90s, given a book contract after the hoo-ha about his becoming the First Black Editor of the Harvard Law Review (FBEHLR), instead of writing the basic exploitation book he could've written, he put his head down and worked hard for a few years and wrote a good book, an honest one, which, since his rise in politics, has earned the Obamas enough to buy a very nice house and put money in the bank. A successful American entrepreneur. The last American president to write a book all by his lonesome self, I believe, was Theodore Roosevelt, who, on graduation from Harvard, wrote "The Naval War of 1812," and in my humble opinion, Obama's is the better book for the general reader, but you be the judge. Our hero who galloped to victory has inherited a gigantic mess. The country is sunk in debt. The Treasury announced it must borrow $550 billion to get the government through the fourth quarter, more than the entire deficit for 2008, so he will have to raise taxes and not only on bankers and lumber barons. His promise never to raise the retirement age is not a good idea. Whatever he promised the Iowa farmers about subsidizing ethanol is best forgotten at this point. We may not be getting our National Health Service cards anytime soon. And so on and so on. So enjoy the afterglow of the election a while longer. We all walk taller this fall. People in Copenhagen and Stockholm are sending congratulatory e-mails -- imagine! We are being admired by Danes and Swedes! And Chicago becomes the First City. Step aside, San Francisco. Shut up, New York. The Midwest is cool now. The mind reels. Have a good day. |