The first tears came at 7:31am. Something about watching Obama cast his vote and showing his daughter his ballot... it was overwhelming.

Is this really happening?

Well, my wife and I are packing bags, selling items and generally preparing to change locations. Nervous and excited. Eager to see the beach, eat Mexican food and have access to a car (even if the gas prices have dfoubled since I left). I love Zambia, but the change is welcome. See you soon.

Today, the world lost a great comedian... the incomparable George Carlin. He was irreverent and sometimes "off-color", but he was also a brilliant social critic.

Two of my favorites are:

An attack on US (lack of diplomacy) which he surmised had something to do with a "dick complex". We had to make a bunch of penis-shaped weapons to go bomb other people rumored to have bigger dicks that us. "What, they have bigger dicks than us? BOMB THEM!"

An attack on golf courses and cemetaries. He thought both were a horrific use of space in a world with homelessness (which he rightly called "house-less-ness"... they need physical tangible structures, not a warm feeling of "home"). "Storing all your dead people in one space?! What kind of neo-religious bullshit is that?!" Golf courses, he saw as a place for elitist, rich white men to meet to carve up the world a little finer amongst themselves.

Here's some more great ones.

"In America, anyone can become president. That’s the problem."

"Bipartisan usually means that a larger-than-usual deception is being carried out."

"Fighting for peace is like screwing for virginity."

"Conservatives say if you don't give the rich more money, they will lose their incentive to invest. As for the poor, they tell us they've lost all incentive because we've given them too much money."

"Once you leave the womb, conservatives don't care about you until you reach military age. Then you’re just what they’re looking for. Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers."

"I'm completely in favor of the separation of Church and State. My idea is that these two institutions screw us up enough on their own, so both of them together is certain death."

"I don't think we should be governing ourselves. What need is a king, and every now and then if the king’s not doing a good job, we kill him."

"This country was founded by a group of slave owners who wanted to be. Am I right? A group of slave owners who wanted to be free! So they killed a lot of white English people in order to continue owning their black African people, so they could wipe out the rest of the red Indian people, in order to move west and steal the rest of the land from the brown Mexican people, giving them a place to take off and drop their nuclear weapons on the yellow Japanese people. You know what the motto for this country ought to be? 'You give us a color, we'll wipe it out.'"

"Now, there's one thing you might have noticed I don't complain about: politicians. Everybody complains about politicians. Everybody says they suck. Well, where do people think these politicians come from? They don't fall out of the sky. They don't pass through a membrane from another reality. They come from American parents and American families, American homes, American schools, American churches, American businesses and American universities, and they are elected by American citizens. This is the best we can do folks. This is what we have to offer. It's what our system produces: Garbage in, garbage out. If you have selfish, ignorant citizens, you're going to get selfish, ignorant leaders. Term limits ain't going to do any good; you're just going to end up with a brand new bunch of selfish, ignorant Americans. So, maybe, maybe, maybe, it's not the politicians who suck. Maybe something else sucks around here... like, the public. Yeah, the public sucks. There's a nice campaign slogan for somebody: 'The Public Sucks. F*ck Hope.'"

Chin up, George. A life well lived. I, for one, will miss you.

For those of you who know me well, I am a political animal. Curiously to many, I often don’t vote. Why the discrepancy?

Well, a true student of our political system would realize that the corporate contributions and entrenched lobbyists, not to mention a skewed electoral system make fundamental change in American politics a virtual impossibility.

It would take a person of extraordinary integrity, intelligence, passion, commitment and grassroots movement of ordinary Americans to make fundamental change in this country even possible.

That person has come and his name is Barrack Obama. I hope you have the time to read my top ten reasons to vote for Barrack Obama. I hope you vote, circulate this widely and encourage your friends to do the same.

1. He is principled. As opposed to Hillary Clinton, a former College Republican, who moves with the political winds, Obama consistently takes principled, but unpopular stands… the definition of leadership. (In this line, see #2, #4, #5)
2. He is the only candidate that opposed against the Iraq war from its inception. When every person in Congress rushed to war (except one Congresswoman from Oakland), Obama took the unpopular position… which history has shown is the correct position. As Obama has said, this is important not because of looking to the past, but in looking to the future. We need a leader willing to make the RIGHT decision… the FIRST time.
3. As I presently reside outside of the US, the international hunger for a humane American president is palpable. People WANT to like America. George W. Bush has made that impossible in recent years. But only Obama offers a fundamentally new vision for international diplomacy. He wants to dialogue with our “enemies”, to build a new road to understanding. He wants to use a little “carrot” to go with that “big stick” we have been lording over the world since the end of World War II. His international background and upbringing have given him a international perspective that is DESPERATELY needed in a globalizing world.
4. Immigration and “race baiting”. Obama’s immigration plan is not markedly different than Hillary’s. However, in the recent debate, Obama was asked what he would do about black losing jobs to “illegal immigrants”. He exposed the question as race baiting and a classic case of scapegoating. He took the opportunity to educate blacks, whites, latinos and Asians on the factors which have led to job losses across races. He is clearly a candidate for all Americans. (He also defended his, again unpopular, stance on driver’s licenses for undocumented immigrants by discussing the public safety implications of a rash of hit and run accidents.)
5. Intelligence. Bill Clinton was a Rhodes Scholar and has a claim to being one of the most intelligent presidents ever (I’d say you have to put Lincoln, James Madison and Jimmy Carter [a nuclear physisict] in the same conversation). George W. Bush can make no such claim. Should Barrack Obama, a former editor of the Harvard Law Review, become president, he may be the smartest yet.
6. With those credentials, virtually all avenues to material gain would’ve been open to him. Yet, he chose to do community work amongst the poor in Chicago. It’s not what you say it’s what you’ve done. THAT’S experience.
7. He can win. Contrary to popular opinion, Obama has BY FAR the best chance to win against a Republican candidate. The reasons are multiple.
1. Moderates and independents HATE Hillary Clinton. I am not arguing that this is warranted or deserved, but I am merely asserting this as fact. Only a devastated economy and a horribly botched war could even make her viable in a general election.
2. Hillary will mobilize the Republican base. Evangelical Christians, borderline fascists and the like will turn their members out in huge number to prevent her election.
3. “Electoral Math”. Opinion polls have consistently shown that about 60 percent of Americans identify with the Democratic Party as opposed to the Republican Party. The problem is a) that Democrats do not register or vote at the same clip as Republicans (see #10) and b) the electoral college system enables less populous states to have greater weight than they would in a “one man/woman, one vote system”. These less populous states, often in the Southern part of the country have become Republican strongholds that do not even require much campaigning. As the 2000 election taught us, our electoral system is NOT one man/one vote. Enter Barrack Obama, the first viable black presidential candidate in America’s history. At the very least, Obama will mobilize black voters in the US South in numbers never before seen (we already see what happened in South Carolina). This will mean either a) the Republicans lose their stranglehold on the South or b) they spend more money defending it that they ever have… opening up states in the rest of the country.
8. Health Care. This is probably the biggest difference between Obama and Hillary and one that deserves much more scrutiny than it has received. Hillary Clinton, tried, and failed, to reform our health care system. From that failure to confront the medical and pharmaceutical lobby, she has the audacity to take huge campaign contributions from that same lobby…. AND promise UNIVERSAL health care. But does she really? NO! Listen closely and you will hear the “path to…” or “way to…” preceding her unbelievable claim. Obama, on the other hand, has promised a plan which might be realistic. And people…. We NEED healthcare reform.
9. I am a new father of a baby girl. I have a newfound commitment to women’s empowerment and I would be pleased to see a strong independent woman in the White House. That would be an important example. I understand that. But in all the discussion of spouses (Bill Clinton), people need to take a closer look at the extraordinary woman that is Michelle Obama.
10. Most importantly, a president who seeks to alter the status quo will encounter enormously vigorous resistance that ONLY a mobilized electorate can overcome. Obama is drawing record crowds and inspiring record turnouts across the country. This is the energy and inspiration that will be needed to help him overcome an entrenched political establishment.