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Buh-bye!

Dear Sarah,

Just wanted to wish you best of luck up there in the frozen tundra.  I imagine it will be quite a challenge to dismantle the Communist Machine Alaska Permanent Fund you used to buy your approval ratings.  I mean, bully for you, not having income or sales tax, but I'm sure after Professor McCarthy's campaign crash courses, you're probably seeing Red behind all that money Alaska takes from private companies and pays out to each citizen as "dividends."  It's all so Robin Hood of you, er, I mean, them!  And I imagine you have some pro-American common sense plans in mind to combat the Liberal Elite Media's conspiracy that has brought about falling oil prices and, not coincidentally, state revenues.

Also, good luck with that oil pipeline!  You know, the one you dished out $500 million for?   The one that hasn't been built yet?  The one that TransCanada says it might not build at all?   You know, the one you based your energy expertise on?   Yeah.  Too bad ya can't wiggle your nose and wink that one away, I-Dream-of-Jeannie-style.  Say, I've got a Bridge to Nowhere I'd like to sell ya...

Anyway, hugs and kisses to the convicted felon who propped up your political career Senator Stevens. 

Fondly,
d.

PS -- Carharts are way warmer than Valentino.  Just sayin'.

A few things.

For starters, I'm not sure how I feel about Hillary Clinton as potentially our next Secretary of State.  I mean, I do agree that she'd likely be damn good at the job, and despite her husband's past foibles, she has instant international credibility.  There's really not much to debate about that.

But --

I suppose I hoped more for a Richardson appointment.  He might have more work to do in the beginning, building his reputation with world leaders, but it would be so, so refreshing to have our new administration keep an arm's length from any remnants of the Bush/Clinton schism that has strained our country for so long.  You'll note that I'm just as happy to have the Clintonites behind us as I am the Bushies.

Oh well, as long as it's not John Kerry, I think everybody wins either way.

As for Lieberman, I'm actually relieved the Democratic Caucus left him more or less intact.  Not for his sake, mind you.  I don't like him.  Specifically, I think he's skeezey and opportunistic.  But, love him or hate him, he had a right to support whichever candidate he chose, in whatever way he wished.  Stripping him of his big chairmanship and/or tossing him out of the party would have sent the wrong message, and frankly, President-Elect Obama had it right when he called for leniency.  Really, it's for voters, not legislators, to decide whether he should remain in place.

Speaking of voters' decisions, a giant heart-felt THANK YOU to our Alaskan kin who, by the slimmest of margins, showed a bit of good sense by opting not to re-elect a convicted felon.  Congrats, Senator Begich!  That brings the Democratic majority in the Senate to an impressive 58.  I would be entirely pleased if it didn't press beyond that.  While filibusters aren't something I particularly appreciate -- on either side of the aisle -- I do prefer a Congress with at least some internal checks and balances.  Let's keep our Democrats honest(ish) and require them to make inroads with their Republican counterparts.  It's good for the country, k?

And finally, CRAP it's getting cold.  Jamaica, anyone?

Four years ago.

1-800-F-MY-TREE:

Don’t give me that look. The "F" could stand for "fix," you know.

For the last couple of years, the sister and I have been responsible for putting up the Christmas Tree. We’d drive to the house from Cornell, have dinner with the family, and then roll our bloated selves to the basement, where we’d piece together Mom's ginormous Yuletide puzzle. Usually this involved me separating each layer of branch (color-coded on the connectors in order to keep track of the sized groups) and unsmooshing them while Crooks, who is allegedly .014432 inches taller, would attach them to the trunk.

Next came the lights. These we would invariably string and unstring no fewer than seventeen times after painstaking inspections for the one finicky-goddamn-bulb that worked just fine on the floor. And all because somebody’s too stubborn to replace the lights she bought in 1983.

The whole process generally took upwards of three hours.

Mom just called — she can’t figure out the Christmas Tree. Worse, she apparently thinks I can help her assemble it over the phone. But even if I could walk her through it, she’d be foiled for want of a stepladder.

Still, though, maybe there’s a market for Tree Technical Support?

This year, the Queen of Christmas isn't putting up a tree in the downstairs living room -- which means our house will have to somehow make do with only four Pillars of Christmas.  This is because for the first time this side of the 21st Century, we'll all be gathering in Dallas at my aunt and uncle's house for the holidays, anxiously awaiting the arrival of my cousin's new stinky wrinkly shrieky poop factory baby. 

Some traditions are transitory -- and that's okay.  It's never the tradition that's the important part, anyway. 

The Nose Knows.

When there's time to do it right, we don't just make rice: we make Armenian pilaf.  Washed five times, soaked in salt water for hours, and cooked to a perfect, pillowy, fluffy indulgence.  (In case you're wondering, the key difference is the washing off and spooning out of starch, which keeps it from degenerating into those sticky piles you're used to at home.)  We also make it with tadik -- a crust of lavash or tortilla on the bottom of the pot.

The Girl has become a master at this -- the Nose Knows.  Which is to say, when I try to make it, I can never tell if it's burning.  (Curses, olfactory!  Curses!)

Tuesday night, we were long on time but short on supplies -- and the Girl managed to whip together a crust of rice, Greek yogurt and olive oil, which, despite my resistant skepticism, was just as good if not better:

Yeah, I think I'll keep her.

A human question.

I suppose what bothers me most about the passage of Proposition 8 is not simply that the religious views of a block of Californians have been inserted into the state's constitution, but that a question of love was answered with hate, revulsion, and fear.

As recently as fifty years ago, it was illegal in certain states for a black man to marry a white woman. 

Today, it's illegal in most states for a person to marry if he or she is gay.

The rationales are identical: to protect the institution.

In this country where all are presumed equal, it is astounding –- in a tragic, muted way –- that we could permit the revocation of a right to family in the way Proposition 8 accomplished.

Marriage, I think, is one of the greatest imperatives of our race.  I do not mean the biological imperative -- the will we have in us to perpetuate -- but the need to seek out that which completes us is awesome and powerful.  Whether you are straight or gay does not make that essential characteristic of the human condition any greater or less. 

All of us -- or at least, I think, most of us -- want to love and be loved.  Perhaps we are not creatures meant to be alone in this world.

But when Californians were asked last week whether every citizen held the same human entitlement to a loving union, they answered, resoundingly, "No."

What is that, if not human tragedy?

I know supporters of Proposition 8 argue that we are all entitled to our opinions, that we have a right disagree, that falling on one side of a policy question does not make you hateful. 

I do not dispute this.  But, at bottom, I do not think this is a "states question," or even, for that matter, a "federal question."  It is a human question, to which there are right and wrong answers.

I wonder if we, individually or as a people, whether God-fearing or atheist, black or white, rich or poor, conservative or liberal or somewhere in between -– I wonder if we truly have a right, as human beings, as participants in the accident or experiment of humanity, to demand our government to withhold marriage from two adults who love each other.

I do not think that we do.

Proposition 8 "defended" marriage at the expense of marriage's purpose: to ostensibly protect the marriages of others, it foreclosed the coming together of those who love each other.

There is so much wrong with the world, it is hard to understand the threat posed by two people in love to an institution riddled with divorce, and violence, and so much unhappiness.  It is hard to understand how the marriage of two men or two women would undermine my own.  It is hard to understand a conservative call for small government that simultaneously seeks to deeply invade the private lives of others.  It is hard to understand a Christian message of a Loving God when it endorses the persecution of love between others, between people Not Like Us.

Mostly, I'm just sad that this is still where we are as a nation. 

But I believe, if history has taught us anything, it's that movements to cordon off those paths to happiness -- to restrict the flow of basic human dignities to our fellows -- are remembered with disgrace and disappointment, as a stain on our legacy, as uncharitable and divisive and impossibly short-sighted.

As profoundly and astonishingly hateful.

Make no mistake: we will remember what happened here today, and we will remember the people who made such shame possible.  And we will share in that shame -- for not fighting hard enough, for allowing it to happen.

"Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection."

As I look out my window at the channel, the waters peculiarly still while the tide wavers between rolling in and rolling out, I cannot help but think of the moment in history we occupy, as the anticipation and anxiety and hope of millions mingle silently in that brief transformational instant between the potential and the kinetic.

It is amazing to think that what began as an unexpected possibility in an Iowa caucus has become manifest -- that we are now taking the first steps into our nation's new future.

Roll up your sleeves, America: we have a lot of work to do.

And we cannot wait until the chapter closes on the Bush Administration.  Now that the campaigns are over and the electorate has spoken, we have absolutely no time to waste, and no excuses to walk away from our obligations to this country and each other.

To do that, we must act in concert.  Not without heated disagreement or clashing points of view, but at the very least with shared conviction to reclaim the city on the hill.  I hope McCain's supporters will do as he urged them:

Senator Obama and I have had and argued our differences, and he has prevailed. No doubt many of those differences remain.

These are difficult times for our country. And I pledge to him tonight to do all in my power to help him lead us through the many challenges we face.

I urge all Americans ... I urge all Americans who supported me to join me in not just congratulating him, but offering our next president our good will and earnest effort to find ways to come together to find the necessary compromises to bridge our differences and help restore our prosperity, defend our security in a dangerous world, and leave our children and grandchildren a stronger, better country than we inherited.

Whatever our differences, we are fellow Americans. And please believe me when I say no association has ever meant more to me than that.

This was not a call for blind faith or conversion.  This was McCain reaching back to the man we knew him as in 2000, calling for Republicans and Democrats to move forward -- together -- for the good of the country.  

A veteran and a senator with a strong record of service, but he was not the man for this job in this moment.  And it seems the majority agrees with me.  But he can and will be part of how we decide to forge ahead, and where we decide to go -- and so can you.

This requires an open mind, and a willingness to give our President-Elect the opportunity to prove himself to those who doubted him.  I believe he will be far more conciliatory than conservative skeptics or extreme liberals think -- that he truly intends to be the President of the United States of America, and not just its voting majority. 

Nearly 63 million Americans cast their ballot for Barack Obama, and despite the landslide in the popular vote and the overwhelming mandate of the Electoral College, the 55 million votes for McCain cannot simply be ignored.  Those are voices that must be heard, and I know -- as surely as I know my own name -- that we have elected a president who is capable of listening.

But it's up to you to speak to him.