an early email collage about last night
Obama did it. Kind of amazing, isn’t it?
It really is. His speech last night was terrific. I was in Grant Park 40 years ago for the
police riot against the hippies at the DNC and it is really sweet to see this change.
Rham Emanuel will be chief of staff. His father, the Jerusalem-born Benjamin M. Emanuel, is a pediatrician and was a member of the Irgun, a Zionist Militant organization in the 1940s.
David Axelrod, David Ploufe—two main staffers in the campaign.
Obama’s speech last night was terrific & I felt especially moved by the Grant Park location. I was there 40 years ago to see the police riot against the hippies at the DNC. etc
we got a UC alumni magazine about a month ago — cover story was “Is Obama UC enough?” And the UC connection reminds me of one of the
old jokes about UChicago that I heard when I went there—Unv of Chicago is where New York Jews go to teach midwestern white kids about Roman Catholicism. Dates from the old days of Mortimer Adler and the whole Great Books thing.
But I wonder if Chicago is now the place where Blacks and Jews have figured out how to wrest politics away from Texas.
Bye bye Texas is my motto. From the assassination in Dallas to Bush. That’s enough.
Were you in Grant Park last night?? Wonderful speech. I was in Grant Park at the DNC 40 years ago.
Well done — on getting Obama in. Guess you’ll have a few months, maybe a year, of change before everything gets back to normal? [me, cynical?]
whats the general mood?
The mood? Ecstatic. For the moment of course. We are recalling how excited one of our british friends
was for Tony Blair back at the beginning when he was first elected.
Still. I was in Grant Park 40 years ago for the DNC police riot against the hippies.
Really moving speech last night.
Isei—were you still in Chicago in 68? why can’t I remember that??
I was in Grant Park in August 68 for the police riot against the hippies. (well I left
at nightfall and went back to watch Gore Vidal and Wm Buckley on tv—I could
tell violence was coming and was coward enough to not want my head bashed in.)
Obama’s speech there last night was pretty moving.
I was reminded too (watch who his chief of staff and aides are) of an old joke about
Univ of Chicago (did you ever hear it?) because of the old Great Books program
that was started there: “Univ of Chicago is where NY Jews go to teach midwestern
white protestant kids about Roman Catholic theology.”
now some power has shifted away from NY again and away from Texas forever! hooray
someone has already voiced the same as a comment on HuffPo — SD_leaker:
Answer: Chief of Staff: AlPAC. What a heII of a change. VVar forever.
And on Facebook we learn that
David Garlitz has invented a new dance, and it’s called the Obamarama – do the Obamarama!
2 hours ago – 1 Comment
Bob Garlitz at 9:06am November 5
let’s see the video
——
Later this morning this passage is on the next page of one of the books I’m currently reading—-and this is from the year 1857—-don’t the French have a saying about “Le Plus . . . something or other?
If a drunkard in a sober fit is the dullest of mortals, an enthusiast in a reason-fit is not the most lively. And this, without prejudice to his greatly improved understanding: for, if his elation was the height of his madness, his despondency is but the extreme of his sanity. Something thus now, to all appearance, with the man in gray. Society his stimulus, loneliness was his lethargy. Loneliness, like the sea-breeze, blowing off from a thousand leagues of blankness, he did not find, as veteran solitaires do, if anything, too bracing. In short, left to himself, with none to charm forth his latent lymphatic, he insensibly resumes his original air, a quiescent one blended of sad humility and demureness.
The previous chapter had been all about infusing world charities with “the Wall street spirit” and thereby solving all social problems in one fell swoop. The man in white had explained his project to the man in gray. They are traveling on the Mississippi river boat, the Fidèle.
The book—Herman Melville’s The Confidence Man. As the back cover blurb explains, Melville “finds form for the idea that, if our beiefs are shifting and uncertain, we at least have fiction.”
Even so, the excitement today is as palpable as possible—Andrew Young said it beautifully last night—the triumph of Vision over Violence, Grace over Greed and Faith over Fear—Andrew Young on NBC last night—-
It’s a victory of faith over fear, grace over greed
and vision over violence and I thank
Barack Obama and his entire team for leading our country in that direction.
We also got this wonderful email from Pedro Castañeda of Madrid—born in Chicago, in Hyde Park, 36 years ago.
Hola Va y Bob ¿como estais?
Nosotros estamos bien. Mónica y los niños (Julia (4) y Carlos (7m)) están muy bien.
Hoy además estamos muy contentos con la eleccion a presidente que ha hecho America, de verdad. Solo espramos que no nos falle, que no falle al mundo.
Anoche estuve pegado a la television hasta que me quede dormido en el sofa a as 3am y me he despertado a las 6am cuando Obama empezaba su discurso en Chicago, en mi pueblo.
Solo he dormido 3 horas pero el momento era historico y merecia le pena el esfuerzo, y el sueño que estoy pasando ahora en mi trabajo.
Para mi esto ha sido muy importante desde el punto de vista personal. Aunque naci en USA, siempre he vivido en España como sabeis, con mis dos pasaportes y orgulloso de ello.
Tengo 36 años y desde que soy niño he defendido ante muchas personas españolas a America y a los americanos de los prejuicios que tenian. He explicado que no todos los americanos son iguales, como los de las peliculas de hollywood, que hay otra America, que es un pais maravilloso con una naturaleza aun salvaje y expectacular, con magnificas ciudades y universidades, con museos y teatros increibles.
Casi 30 años llevo defendiendo a America de prejuicios ignorantes y ayer, por fin, ayer, mis queridos americanos, habitantes de la democracia mas antigua del mundo, han votado al candidato que parecia imposible. Al candidato preocupado por el resto del mundo, por el cambio climatico, las minorias, los desfavorecidos, los derechos humanos, contrario a la guerra injusta de Irak, con una postura comprometida con Gays y con el aborto. Ha sido una demostracion que los ciudadanos de ese maravilloso pais ha hecho al mundo.
Hoy, ser americano debe llenar de orgullo mucho mas que hace 24 horas.
Yo siento en mi interior que ha merecido la pena defender a America durante tanto tiempo. Yo tenia razon al hacerlo y ahora toda esa gente lo sabe.
Eso me llena de satisfaccion y me hace feliz, en el alma.
Bueno Garlitz, desde que me he levantado esta madrugada he pensado que tenia que escribirosy deciros estas cosas. Espero no haber sido pesado.
Por cierto, estamos deseando hacer el viaje de este verano. Creedme si os digo que no pasa una semana que no hablemos de ello con ilusion.
un beso muy fuerte.
