Arkansas Blog

Man! I wish I could've escaped for a bit tonight! Have a cold one for me hugh and d! I hope yer thar!!!

Man!!!!!!!!!! YES!!!!!!!!!

Congratulations and good luck to President-elect Obama.

I'm just waiting to see the final electoral vote totals to see how big a landslide it will be. I wonder who will win the AT blog contest? I had a pretty optimistic guess but I think it's going to surpass the 351 that I projected for Obama!

HIP HIP HOORAY!!!!!

Virginia was just projected at an Obama win!

Also Colorado in the Obama column on NBC. 306 for Obama now.

WE NOW KNOW THAT THE WHITES WHO VOTED FOR OBAMA TONIGHT SLIPPED THE SURLEY BONDS OF EARTH. THE WHITE COMMUNITY IS NO LONGER A RACIST COMMUNITY, AS WE HAVE BEEN PORTRAYED.

IT IS NOW UP TO THE BLACK COMMUNITY TO PROVE THE SAME, THEY HAVE THE SAME HILL TO CLIMB. AND HAVE NOT DONE A VERY GOOD JOB SO FAR.

WE WILL SEE. IF INDEED THE POT IS STILL CALLING THE KETTLE BLACK.. THE TIME HAS COME FOR ALL TO BE AMERICANS,... NOT AFRICAN-AMERICANS, NOR GERMAN, AUSTRIAN, SWISS, ENGLISH IRISH AMERICANS. BUT AMERICANS. CAN THEY DO IT.

McCain is conceding...

What a moment!
McCain is done.

Large Ass,
You Will not ruin the moment. Black people and thinking white people have known that our bond as humans and Americans has transcended skin color for some time! I'm glad you are catching up! YES WE CAN!

Buddy and Patrick Henry win on the 4th anniversary of the opening of River Rail. Good Karma!

Why have I been hearing gunshots nonstop for the last 25 minutes?

It's been decided, and the cronies that corrupted the Republican Party are being swept out of office. That is a good thing. And an historical moment has arrived.

In 1960, JFK was elected President of the United States... the first Catholic President. Tonight is a moment of great history as Barack Obama has been elected President. Although I did not vote for him, I will certainly pray for him and support him as our leader.

Like Kennedy, Obama electrified the youth and voters dissatisfied with "the system." Many of my Catholic family were overjoyed when Kennedy was elected... in a country with such a strong Protestant culture, a Catholic as President was a wonderful thing to celebrate.

And now Obama breaks new ground as well. He reached across the lines of race and culture to unify and bring together.

In the future months, he may be approached by the special interests for special rights... special benefits for some... special appeasements to voter blocs. I hope he remembers what Kennedy did... although a Catholic, Kennedy did not make Catholics a special class above and apart.

Obama will be my President. I pray he will show wisdom and protect and serve all Americans, not just a special group.

borrowing Max's headline and the tune of the original...

Oh What A Night (Obama version)

Oh, what a night.
Election night in 2008
What a very special candidate,
'Cause we remember what a night.

Oh, what a night.
You know, he had a funny name,
But things are never gonna be the same.
Obama!. What a night!

What's happenin' in NLR Alderman contests?

With 95% of the NLR precincts in...

NORTH LITTLE ROCK ALDERMAN WARD 1
VOTE FOR 1
ALDERMAN NEIL BRYANT (IND). . . . . 2,278 42.31
BETH WHITE (IND) . . . . . . . . 3,106 57.69

NORTH LITTLE ROCK ALDERMAN WARD 2
VOTE FOR 1
SCOTT A. MILLER (IND) . . . . . . 685 15.53
MAURICE TAYLOR (IND). . . . . . . 2,306 52.28
TOM JONES (IND) . . . . . . . . 631 14.31
LAMONT DOTSON (IND) . . . . . . . 789 17.89

NORTH LITTLE ROCK ALDERMAN WARD 3
VOTE FOR 1
JAMES ARD (IND) . . . . . . . . 195 3.98
STEVE BAXTER (IND) . . . . . . . 1,286 26.27
BRUCE FOUTCH (IND) . . . . . . . 280 5.72
ALDERMAN JOHN PARKER (IND). . . . . 1,545 31.56
SAM BAGGETT (IND). . . . . . . . 1,589 32.46

Kesandra...put down my beer cooler and the gunshots will stop

No way Neil Bryant is gonna lose! Seriously?!

Just for fun, I checked Faux news...they have the electoral # at 297 (Obama) to 155 (McCaint)...every other site shows up-to-date info. They're not partisan are they?

From todaysthv.com -

State Senate District 30

82% Precincts Reporting

Baker (R) *
15,874 55%

White (D)
13,214 45%

Updated Nov 04, 2008 at 10:37 pm

* = Incumbent

Check out this banner...

Yes. We. Did.

And Spirit looked out upon the firmament and declared that this is good.

And Spirit wept.

Praise befits the upright American people this night.

Anybody could beat a Republican this year.
Only Barack Obama could beat a Clinton.
She ran up against a true once-in-a-lifetime phenomenon.

God, can you believe this?

I'm so proud. I'm so happy.

May Palin now sink back into the black hole she emerged from, and STAY THERE!

Yes We Did! Obama '08 -- merchandiise with "Yes we did" logos CLICK

Yes We Did
Party like it's 2009, 'cuz baby, now the real work begins
Mark Morford

"Above all, it is a time to exhale, to relax a little, to get the hell on with it. I know I speak for roughly five thousand fellow media lackeys when I say, sweet Lord, I am just so glad this damnable beast of an election is finally over. It's like a combination of the day after Christmas and post-coital orgasm and giving birth. You can only sit in the wobbly afterglow, warm and buzzing and dizzy, insanely grateful you didn't get a stocking full of Satan and Alaskan moosemeat and dirt, or a baby with three tiny heads and a nail gun where his arm should be.

This, I think, is perhaps the most important sentiment of all. Not merely relief, not liberation, not even unadulterated joy.

It's gratitude. Deep and satisfying and good. A sense of profound thanks that, well, we made it through. The hopefulness prevailed. What's more, our massive, ungainly democratic system, hugely flawed and beaten and gutted by eight solid years of the worst kind of abuse, still seems to work. Well, mostly."

Full column at blue name ("blue" means so much more tonight!)

Unlike you, Spirit, Governor Sarah Palin has CLASS. She was a credit to the Republican ticket, and even greater things are still ahead of her. Why do you slink back into your hole--go celebrate the victory of Obama--the supporter of terrorists. Take comfort in the fact that your fellow-travelers, Chavez, Castro, et al., are celebrating with you.

Me, I'm going to bed to dream of the end of the coming four-year nightmare. I would go out and riot, burn and loot, but I'm a McCain supporter--so I guess Erica Jong will sleep soundly tonight.

After 8 years of darkness comes the light.

Maybe america will once again be AMERICA.

Spirit! Is that you? Still got a blog?

Oh...and don't let the Sandman hit you in the ass, Pines...

The moment is historic. Three hundred years of wrong have on one level been righted. A slate has been wiped clean. Our challenge now is to define what's written anew. He is not *your* President, or *their* President, but *our* President. I suspect I'll disagree with more of his policies than any President since FDR. But we prove once again that you can hold a bloodless revolution every four years and govern with peace and law and not with rioting and mayhem. And we prove that anyone really can grow up to be President in America.

Iran, Venezuela, North Korea, Cuba - these really are the enemies - not Barack Obama. I'm sorry my team lost. But I'm proud Obama won. (Oh, and our revenge is that now he has to *govern*!)

God Bless America

The torch is passed. Not just to Obama, but to a new generation. The age of the baby boomer is ending.

AR Student--Technically Obama is a baby boomer. He was born in 1961--towards the end of the baby boomer era (1946-1964).

Soak it up. Can any of you listen to that humble, hope-filled, acceptance speech, and not feel the shift of America into a new, enlightened, hopeful, era? Strange, Largeass, chasev? What say you? President Obama is talking to you, too. Here we go.

Please forgive me if this sounds over the top. I started celebrating early. I've waited many years to celebrate. I've waited many years to feel hopeful that America was capable of moving forward, fearlessly. The 1950s were barely the start. Clinton carried us a little further. Now, with President Obama, we're even closer, maybe almost there. We're responsible, yet we care about our fellow man. Intelligence and compassion CAN be placed above proud ignorance and selfishness.

Here we go. A new era. Give it a chance. Join us, or wither in your self rightousness. As far as I'm concerned, you're welcome to join us, or welcome to wither. Nevertheless, THE PEOPLE HAVE SPOKEN.

Yeah, Rosso, it's me.

No, no blog. Retired a loser on that one.

Long time no see, but can you think of a better night?
I've been nearly a year working for the $4,600 I gave to this successful campaign.

Who's this Pines? It's no Dr. Strangelove, that's for sure.

Where's DBI? Where's Hugh Mann? Catch me up.

May Palin now sink back into the black, oily hole from which she emerged, and STAY THERE!

NVR, the "new generation" that AR Student referred to was not Obama's age group, but to his supporters ages. The "new generation" got him here tonight, not his cohort, the baby boomers.

"go celebrate the victory of Obama--the supporter of terrorists.
Posted by: FromThePines"

I don't know you Pines, but I'm sure you meant to say "supporter of freedom-fighters".

Have another champagne on me, Pines. You've earned it. Great victory for you. This means Palin gets to remain governor of Alaska. When are you moving? Imagine a whole state of people who think just like you! Heaven!

Look at Axelrod and he is clearly a boomer. (Axelrod seems to be Obama's Rove.) Age 47 didn't get elected on himself and a bunch of 20-somethings. If an era has passed it is the era of WWII. "The Greatest Generation" has been the defining electoral force as they voted in such large percentages. McCain is not a boomer. At 72 he was born in what - 1936? That's several years before the boom. He was a 30-something officer in Vietnam, not a 19-year-old draftee.

Barack has if anything solidified the boom as Clinton, Bush II, and Obama are all in it. But he is likely not the last boomer. Even if he serves two terms, there will be lots of boomers still 55-70 who might have a run in them. It is remotely possible that he is the last boomer and that a Gen Xer could follow.

Any news about some sort of "riot" breaking out in Jonesboro?

Spirit, all is well with the good guys of whom you asked. Especially since they are all at the blog-together where I am not. Dammit! Anyway...

It brings my heart even more gladness than I already have tonight to see you here...

Is it me or is it time to roll up our sleeves and make sure President Obama has some back?!

kait8.com -

Breaking News

Riots Reported in Parts of Jonesboro, At Least One Officer Injured

JONESBORO, AR (KAIT) - Region 8 News has received reports of some riot-like activity behind Subway on Caraway. From what we've been told, at least one police officer has been injured. Region 8 News has

Region 8's Stan Morris: We're not done yet folks. There is breaking news now.
11:14
Region 8's Stan Morris: Riots are reported in Jonesboro. Our LIVE truck is en route.
11:15
[Comment From Alan]
where?
11:15
Region 8's Stan Morris: We're being told near ASU at the Grove
11:38
Region 8's Stan Morris: We're waiting for an update
11:38
Region 8's Stan Morris: A live truck is on the scene, I'm trying to get more.

Region 8's Stan Morris: Adding raw video now to the website, it will be up in a minute

If you didn't see Steve Osunsami's emotional report during ABC's election coverage you owe it to yourself to find it on YouTube...especially if you hear the car horns honking in downtown Little Rock tonight and don't quite understand it. Televised moments seldom get as real as Osunsami's, and reporters rarely have the opportunity to speak from the heart. Generations of discrimination and oppression are not erased in one night. But it's a helluva move in the right direction, and Americans of ALL races made it happen.

As far as the passage of Initiated Act One...you can choose to believe that 400,000+ of your fellow Arkansans are backwards or bigots or misguided or wrong. The truth is those who voted for the act believe they know what is in the best interest of children and are just as confident they are right as those who opposed the measure.

A successful lawsuit? Nonsense. Regulus Populus.

"Is it me or is it time to roll up our sleeves and make sure President Obama has some back?!
Posted by: rosso"

David Gergen just said on CNN what I was thinking. Obama didn't go out in his victory speech and make everybody cheer. He made everybody stand quietly and think. Hillary would have made them cheer. Perhaps better to stand quietly and think? I think SO!

Obama is a serious man. Compare him to the light-hearted dancing fool we've had for eight years.

Right. You can't. No comparison. We finally have a grownup as President. The first thinker as President since Clinton.

On another subject, since I've been away a long time...isn't Mike Beebe a great governor, and wasn't Mike Huckabee just awful. Ah, this ole Red State of mine. Gotta love it. Sometimes.

While I'm hitting all subjects...is it legal to exile Lieberman to Alaska? Surely there's some way.

BTW, I lost my vote in the US Senate race.

Finally, the Presidental vote in the District of Columbia was pretty amazing, even for DC.

The large turnout of young voters did help propel Obama over the top, but plenty of us boomers supported Obama also. I'm thrilled that a new generation is getting engaged in the political process. If they hadn't, we probably wouldn't be celebrating an Obama win tonight!

The age of the baby boomer is ending? No it's not! We are right there with you, baby. You need our vote as much as we want yours. We're all in this together, as President Obama just reminded us. Stop that divisive talk, kiddo!!!

I wonder which Clinton is kicking the other one tonight?

Our 8-year-long nightmare is nearly over. We can all look forward to the new beginning January will bring. YES WE DID!

Some of us boomers still have a lot of years left in us. The oldest boomers are just getting to retirement age so there are a lot of us who could be around for 30 or 40 years or more. I agree with Silver Bells--we're all in this together for the long haul.

The future looks a lot brighter tonight!

http://www.ireport.com/docs/DOC-138410?ref=feeds%2Ftopics%2Foncnn%2F98630

iReport...NWA resident and Democrat talks about her joy upon Obama's election.

Yeah...you old heads need to keep booming. My kids are young...

Don't ever think otherwise...ever...

And a big ol' sloppy kiss...for good measure...

God Bless the USA.

Truly, this is so incredible. For the US, and the world.

-The perfect candidate. (brilliant, half black/half white, multinational background, perfect family, excellent credentials, although christian multiple religions in his background [father was muslim, wide support in jewish community, etc.])
-The perfect campaign. (Winning all-white IA in Jan and setting the tone, competing for 6 months with Hillary and honing his craft, building a ground game through all the offices he set up)
-The perfect circumstances. (8 yrs of a failed presidency helped him get elected, the stock market crashing a month or two before the election)

It's as if God himself hand tailored this election...

As far as the passage of Initiated Act One...you can choose to believe that 400,000+ of your fellow Arkansans are backwards or bigots or misguided or wrong. The truth is those who voted for the act believe they know what is in the best interest of children and are just as confident they are right as those who opposed the measure.

-KnockKnock

This shows that they are truly idiots because everyone qualified to know truly whats best for the children came out against Act 1. But what do Judges, Pediatricians, Social Workers, Religious Leaders & Psychologists know about whats best for children, right?

Ignorance and confidence are a deadly combination.

I can't get rid of the smile.

It's after one and I just don't want it to end. Junior crapped out in the middle of the party at the Rumba -- musta been around 9:00 (he's such a lightweight...sheesh--5 year olds...ya can't leave 'em at home and they can't drive you home). Mylovelybride scooped him up and vacated the ultra-primo parking spot facing the right way on Clinton Ave to leave me to my own devices in order to get him into the bed before they call SCAN on us for keeping him out so late in a public bar. We both gotta work in the morning--and I'm quite happy to have this particular job to punch into--but DAMN...did you hear that man speak? Sentences? Complete ones, with overwhelmingly meaningful and heart-wrenching messages? Flawlessly? He's either a Socialist Robot or the next Lincoln/FDRoosevelt/Kennedy all rolled up into one.

The Leased Searchlights lead the way to THE place to be on this Election Night! What a pleasure it was to meet fellow AT bloggers. Jake da Snake and his lovely wife (or daughter...help me out, Jake!); Jazzy was quite snazzy and Frenchie is the real deal--complete with the entourage we all feel like we know; Charles Eddie Smith is my new best friend--as authentic a guy as I've ever met. I look forward to the next time we can chat.

Other luminaries I enjoyed making contact with include publisher Alan Leveritt (although I didn't finish talking to you about blackberries and stuff before you got shuttled off for a photo op), Jim Lendall, Leslie Newell Peacock. Kathy Webb (I told her I love her! ... and I do).

Oh yeah, of course, DBI and his peeps showed up late slumming for a primo place to sit, which we accomodated--lucky y'all. (Sweet kids, though)

And since we were toward the back and he had a place up front, Drew brought us some updates. The guy keeps up, I must say.

Norma...Ive got my suspicions, but I'm pretty sure I didn't see you tonight.

Conspicuously absent and asked about: rosso and widj. You got some splainin' to do!

It was a great night. Lots of us owe a debt of gratitude to Max and the Arkansas Times for a great forum.

Spirit, it's so nice to hear from you again.

I'm beside myself, and both of us are happy about our new President.

Back safe to the Fort, listened to Obama's speech with the stars wildly on display above us. Everyone saw shooting stars! We pointed out to the kids that we were in LITTLE ROCK when they saw a black man elected president. It was a wonderful evening, got to meet so many of you characters. Thanks, Arkansas Times, for an unforgettable night. Thanks, Hugh, for the great seats and warm welcome. It was all stellar. To bed, and on to a better tomorrow in so many ways.

>>Earl Hunton, the Democrat, is trailing Republican Rep. Mark Martin for his Washington County House seat.<<

Max, David or who may read this..last I looked, assuming Rick Baber's tv was ok and I was ok but very joyful,

Earl Hunton was ahead in the Washington County State Rep race about 1:00 AM

Glad you ATers had such a good time! We did. America had good time too!

.

Well, that's that. I'm hoping he ends up being far more liberal/progressive than he appears to be. I'm hoping for universal health care, with the passage of HR 676.

I voted for him, which was really a waste here in Arkansas, but oh well.

So, I'm wondering if the timeline will be how it was when it came to getting the vote. Will it be another 50 years before a woman gets the presidency, or is time compressed now and it will be sooner?

I sure am happy it wasn't McCain, no thanks to so many Arkansans that voted for him. We know THAT would have been worse.

It's ironic that many of those that voted against the Dems will benefit from them.

Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! What a night to remember always! We're back in Fort Baptist safe and well entertained and celebrated! It was great to be in Little Rock on this historic night with people who have become true friends over the last 111 years or so that we've been fighting the good fight. And we won!

We didn't realize until tonight that neither of our kids had ever been to Little Rock. And now they have and they had a delightful evening they'll no doubt be telling their grandkids about in 2058 when we're all dead and gone. I can't tell you all how much I enjoyed putting faces with the screen names that seem as normal to me now as Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice. And all this time I thought Jim Lendall was a made up name!

jazzy & Frenchie and Jake and granddaughter, and Nanc, and Max and Alan Leveritt, and Teabeer & hubby, Charles Eddie, who I shared a table with for a while but failed to lean over and give a proper howdy...and .....and....other people my mushy brain can't recall at 2:16 am. I never got that last mud & snow tire off the Ford so we had to take my daughter's car and I'm happy to report that it only takes 25 bucks to make a round trip between FS and LR today....damn it's nice the price of gas has gone back down.

OK......the fight is over. Next comes the hard work. I'm sorry I didn't run into strangelove or LargeAss or chasv or Pines or the other members of the Anonymous Desk. I would have looked over my rum & Coke and offered my hand in a gesture of friendship. Ain't nothing going to be perfect, but we've tried at least 10 or 15 years of pulling apart and throwing rocks at each other. Alluding to part of Obama's acceptance speech tonight....

"Let us resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisanship and pettiness and immaturity that has poisoned our politics for so long."

That one beautiful sentence sums up what I've been screaming poorly for at least the last 2 years. The war and the Katrina disaster are sins against mankind and in an entirely different category...but all the rest of what we've witnessed since Cheney-Bush took office is rampant partisanship, incredible pettiness and the most immature campaigns in American history and IT HAS TO STOP NOW! Or we'll never achieve a damn thing for all the hard work we're going to have to do in the next 4 years.

I hope to never again find myself talking about someone who shoots animals from airplanes or candidates imagining being under fire in foreign countries or fist bumps or anyone who has so many houses they can't keep count of them all. I don't want to catch anyone ever again parsing words because their guilt or goodness is too small to see with the naked eye.

It is music to my ears to listen to our President-elect say, "But I will always be honest with you about the challenges we face. I will listen to you, especially when we disagree." IMAGINE.....a politician starting out by saying I WILL ALWAYS BE HONEST WITH YOU. I don't expect Obama to be right all the time, but I do expect him to be honest. If we had had honesty in the United States the last 20 years we'd have been spared years of misery and suffering and sheer buffoonery.

The torch HAS been passed. We can start over this morning and vow to never again accept partisanship and pettiness and immaturity and to be quick to punish those who won't or can't avoid springing those traps on us again. We can be better and we will be rewarded with happier lives when we're a better nation and remember how to get along once again. Hurray for America!

Up. Writin' a paper. Had a great night, no drinking for me. Class in the morning + this paper.

Looks like my electoral-vote tally will hold, but not for the states I thought. Missouri and Indiana will swap places--Obama losing MO by 6k, and winning IN by 20k. Much rather would have preferred MO, since I knocked on doors every weekend + Tuesday.....McCain won by a razor thin margin.

I entered the kos contest as well, and my numbers are looking decent there too, but probably not good enough considering 10,000 entered that one.

Final electoral vote tally as of 2:54AM CST (I think): Obama 364, McCain 174. Obama in a landslide. :-)

Wonderful, wonderful day. You should check what those foreigners are saying about us. It's like they look up to Americans again: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/nov/06/barackobama-uselections2008

Max this one is for you . On my bluename.

DBI and family. So glad you made it and met up with your friends. We enjoyed a loud cheerful evening split between the rollicking Demos at Fayetteville Town Square and the beautiful crowd at Rick Baber's with an abundant table of food and drink.

Yeppers, bloggers! You're right!

This election wasn't about skin color or "values."

It was about AGE. GENERATIONS. PROGRESS. EVOLUTION.

Lady Liberty's torch just passed, with Obama's election, from the Dying to the Living. From the "Best Generation" to the Boomers and beyond.

It must be sobering to realize (at whatever age) that racism, sexism, religious bigotry, theocracy, ignorance, ruralism, vicious conformity, homophobia -- all the mythical "virtues" of small-town small-minded America -- have gone with the wind and you are Left Behind.

McCain is old and dying. So is everybody, of whatever age, who voted for him. Figuratively if not literally.

McCain voters spew parroted cliches and catch-phrases instead of facts. "Faith-Based" instead of "Fact-Based."

Like mouth-breathing Republican hotheads at McCain / Palin rallies shouting, "Kill him!"

Old. Sick. Dying.

Just like McCain's (and the Republicans') frantic hateful "values", desperately ugly (and losing) misinformation and last-minute campaign tactics.

Everybody under 50 with whom I spoke tonight spontaneously said the same thing. And many who are over 50.

America tonight, thankfully, finally, has moved on from this shiz.

Like Europe, before us.

Tragic global hotspots?

The Middle East, Africa, Indonesia, North Korea, etc.

Backward regions where ancient religionist Christian / Muslim / Jewish superstitions and tribal blood-lusts still flourish.

ALL dying, thank God.

Violently if too slowly.

Look in the eyes of the terrified, helpless children in Africa (and elsewhere) staring tribal genocide in the face in the name of Islam.

The world's younger generations get it, as witness this historic American election.

Bill Gates, Steve Jobs . . . to paraphrase Kathy Griffin . . . "You are my gods now."

The most dangerous force on earth today?

Not atomic weapons of mass destruction. Not terrorism. Not fascism. Not religion.

The internet.

Information.

Facts.

Sources.

Truths.

Worldwide instant -- viral -- communcation.

From wi-fi in tents in Tanzania to townhouses in Tehran, Tel Aviv and Toledo.

Information and communication untethered from men-in-dresses-Authority-figures.

Huh? Pre-outed pre-rehabbed closet-queens like Ted Haggard telling us what God says?

Puh-LESE.

When the REAL truth, all that information about the origins of religion, is available for next to nothing, essentially, on Google?

Free.

THAT'S what this American election represents, metaphysically [listening, eLwood?].

The inevitable triumph of Youth over Age.

Life over Death.

Throughout human history there has been an inexorable march from primitive tribalism and wars, nationalism and racism -- justified, historically, by religion.

Religion no longer holds sway over the globe, though it still claws, bashes and bombs populations into submission over its ever-waning influence and power wherever it can.

Like the American South.

Or Africa, etc.

The LEAST educated, LEAST interconnected, LEAST informed, most malleable populations are the last to cling to religious dogma and authority, long after the rest of the civilized word has politely said, "You're nuts."

Religion is backward and primitive, in other words.

From Sarah Palin's YouTube African witch-doctor driving out her "demons" in her Wasilla Assembly of God church to the religiously-driven "wars" against California's Prop. 8 or Arkansas' Initiated Act 1, religions represent the most fearful, hateful, authoritative, fascist and vengeful impulses of the human race.

Conform or else.

Time marches slowly.

Politics and societies don't change overnight.

"The young become the old and mysteries do unfold. 'Cause that's the way of Time."

Ask Abraham Lincoln. John F. Kennedy. Robert Kennedy. Martin Luther King.

When you're so threatened by change and growth and evergrowing knowledge (Life), your only recourse is to try to destroy Change and Growth by imposing Death.

You're stuck in the Past.

Nobody seeks a 2,000 year old medical treatment for cancer with knowledge of current state-of-the-art procedures.

Yet so many cling (viciously) to a 2,000 year old "spirituality."

As if one's relationship to God or the All That Is were set in stone by ancient sheepherders spouting second-hand dreams and visions.

Religions . . . all of them . . . are fundamentally Death Cults.

They worship fixity, conformity, child-like obedience to authority, sacrifice of self to the group.

Fascism, in other words.

So, no surprise they are dying in influence around the world.

They worship death.

Obama, McCain, et al., espouse "religious" conformity to more or less greater degree to win voters.

Particularly regarding women's sexual and reproductive choices, equality of same-sex Americans, etc.

ALL based on conforming to 2,000 year old religious tracts' fearful terrorist idiocies like stoning disobedient children to death and killing adulterers.

At best, this cherry-picking of Leviticus makes hypocrites of "Christians."

And, like it or not, it's deservedly cost the Republicans this election.

The one they (so far) haven't been able to steal.

Maybe we'll hear a "Christian" speak up and speak out.

I'm not holding my breath.

Interesting that the only dogmatic, divisive message I found on this blog as I awoke this morning and picked up the thread from bed-time last night was posted by one of those liberal atheists.

Just as fervent, dedicated, and close-minded as the most rabid fundamentalist Christian.

Just absolutely certain she's right and anyone who criticizes her is wrong.

There she is: a secular fundamentalist. A fanatic atheist. Full of certainty about origins and evolution. From her tower of insight and enlightenment, pronouncing anyone who doesn't agree with her as ignorant.

Fond of mocking and despising people who don't believe what she believes. Offering charicatures and insults.

Good heavens, Norma, you possess and display all the characteristics you denigrate and belittle in the believers. You're as committed to your theology (ideology, anti-theology) as anyone else and as blantant in spouting it as chasv and strangelove.

This really was an enjoyable and healing thread last night and this morning until you unleashed your tirade.

Obama brings us together and gives us an opening to bind up our wounds and heal our land, and here comes good old Norma with "us" and "them," and the world won't be the kind of world "we" want until we get rid of "them."

The cease fire didn't last very long, did it?!

This was my son's first presidential election. He's 21 and a student at ASU. He went out and bought a bottle of champaign. Went I came home from work at 3:30 a.m., we popped the cork and drank a toast to Barack Obama.
It doesn't get much better than that.

Morning folks! What a lovely day should be dawning soon.

I loved last night more than most I've spent in many years (at least since I've been single), and mostly it was watching as two of my sons, my daughter-in-law and some of their friends, plus my two youngest grandbabies, watched America take the right turn in the road. My heart was aching for my oldest who still thought Obama was evil and sent here to destroy America, but if he was watching Pastor Jakes (a man my son admires) last night, he should suspect he is very wrong. Jakes said he didn't allow partisan politics in his church (rare) but strongly encouraged his members to vote. He also stated that he was very proud that America had reached a point where a black person could become POTUS. Didn't sound to me like he was afraid of Obama at all.

There is a huge task ahead for President Obama and for Democrats in general, and the number one task is to heal this nation. I remember a little of the atmosphere during the time Kennedy was assassinated along with his bother and MLK, and we are dangerously close to falling back into that awful place. As a Democrat with loved ones who are evangelical, I recognize that it isn't the Christian who has muddied the waters for this nation - it is the POLITICIAN who used the Christian. Haters aren't all Christian or all Liberals - in fact, during the this election I found a lot of hate among my fellow Democrats and that made me very uncomfortable. Made me realize that I had been blind to the hate when I approved, but well aware of the hate when I disapproved. There is no place for the politics of hate in my opinion - no matter who is responsible.

We have to remember that politicians USE the emotions they recognize in the public at large to gain power and whatever our cause - be it prayer in schools, pro-life, or pro choice, pro-separation of church and state - many, if not most, of the politicians who speak to us on those issues do so regardless their personal beliefs because their goal is power - to get elected.

In short, I don't hate my evanglical family and friends - I love them - but I do hate that they are used by the Tom Delays and the Karl Roves of the world.

Thinks Sky, for the reminder....

I'm not sure if this is the right thread to post this, hopefully it doesn't get lost in the shuffle. Now that the lottery amendment has passed, what happens next? How long does the implementation process take? I would be interested in reading an article from the ArkTimes about the lottery amendment and the process of putting it into practice and what happens next. Is there some means of submitting feedback for story ideas like this on here? :)