As bummed as I am, THIS is the silver lining. My students were all BUH? Prop 8 is CRAZY. Which is kind of cool. Because it means there is hope for future change.

This. I had to break the news to one of my classes this morning (they asked me point blank if I'd heard the final results), and there was a moment of stunned silence followed by expressions of confusion and disgust. Granted, I teach on the Westside of LA--not exactly politically diverse.

OK, I think Obama is smart and he thinks things through before he acts - so if he has advisers telling him something, he'll probably listen to them and base his actions on facts, rather than wishful thinking. He's also good at keeping his temper, as far as I can tell, which is a Good Thing.

And, referring back, the atmosphere downtown does remind me a bit of when the Berlin Wall fell. I have an old-ish videotape of the concert to celebrate the wall falling - Beethoven's 9th, Leonard Bernstein conducting, musicians from Germany (both sides), Russia, the U.S., France, Britain I think. In the introduction there are shots of people dancing and hugging. There's a line from the choral section, "alle menschen werden bruder wo dein sanftel flugel weilt" which came into my head as I was walking around at lunch. Translation (roughly) - all men become brothers where thy [joy's] wings dwell.

Dude, look at Condi [link]

All the AfAm newscasters last night were just glowing - Pierre Wossname, Steve Osunsame, the local Atlanta NBC woman...

What I heard on NPR this morning, I think it was NPR (might be a podcast of WWDTM), was that some of the stores listed in the Palin shopping spree info have stated taht no one bought clothes in the amounts listed on those dates. The supposition being that the released $150K amount was under-reporting and that the expenses may not even be just for clothes.

Huffpost on Michelle's dress: [link]

I am utterly failing to get any work done.

Oh, Toddson-- I had to go find my recording of that concert.

I still remember watching it, the remains of the gate floodlit with the orchestra made up of musicians from around the world playing their guts out.

And man, but no one could conduct Beethoven like Lenny.

No.

One.

Of course, I may be biased.

This animation is cracking me up: [link]

From that Newsweek article, I found this revealing.

Obama was never inclined to choose Sen. Hillary Clinton as his running mate, not so much because she had been his sometime bitter rival on the campaign trail, but because of her husband. Still, as Hillary's name came up in veep discussions, and Obama's advisers gave all the reasons why she should be kept off the ticket, Obama would stop and ask, "Are we sure?" He needed to be convinced one more time that the Clintons would do more harm than good.

Meanwhile, in the department of "be careful what you wish for":

McCain, on the other hand, was relieved to face Sen. Joe Biden as the veep choice, and not Hillary Clinton, whom the McCain camp had truly feared.