Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Blog Riotus Top Music This Week

Cath... - Death Cab for Cutie
Paper Planes - M.I.A.
Piano Concerto No. 2, Rhapsody On A Theme Of Paganini - Rachmaninoff
Being Here - The Stills
Ixtapa - Rodrigo y Gabriela
The Drunken Piper - Cookie Rankin (with Natalie MacMaster)
No Rest for the Weary - Blue Scholars
Forever - John Michael Montgomery
Mama Tried - Merle Haggard and the Strangers

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

My Presidential Vote for Barack Obama by S.M. Taylor

November 4, 2008

Dear all,

I deemed it necessary to share with you all a short entry I drafted yesterday after returning from the voting booth. It was a monumental day for me and it meant a lot to me as an American and as a human being. I am sure some of my statements will find themselves to be the butt of many jokes but I thought it was more important for all of you to see my personal feelings towards yesterday and beyond. For one’s ability to tell the truth can only be as strong as his ability to communicate his beliefs and ideals to a willing and listening audience.

I completely understand if people do not agree with my positions and I firmly believe that any such disagreement is the very essence of what makes our country so special.

My end goal in life is to compromise as much as possible and with each day that I grow older, this desire grows even stronger.

My Presidential Vote for Barack Obama

During this 2008 election campaign something very strange happened to me. I became encouraged and incredibly inspired by a larger than life politician. This politician’s name was Mr. Barack Obama. Not only is he is the first candidate that I have truly connected with, but he is also the first political figure that I consider to be a role model. I guess that Mr. Obama is my Bobby Kennedy. It is pretty easy to make parallels between Mr. Obama and Bobby’s late brother, the President, John F. Kennedy, but the most important of these parallels, is with the poignant, and at this current time, very relevant assertion made by the late great President: “that if a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.” Unfortunately for the last eight years, this unconditional truth was lost on us all. To me, Mr. Obama offers us a second chance, the true and real possibility, that change can and will occur, and in doing so, he reintroduces the fabulous notion that hope is not an evil and imaginary word, but is instead a tangible concept that we all must embrace as guidance as we embark on our journey to help improve and better this country for all the future generations to follow. For whatever negative attributes and historical mistakes our country may cling to, and/or be responsible for, our country is still capable of so much good, especially in light of the extremism and craziness that encompasses the rest of the world. Whether or not it is politically correct to say so, America is a place where hopes and dreams can still be realized, and where we as citizens can freely disagree with one another in our personal attempts to define our individual belief systems. It has become far too popular (and far too dangerous) to look at America through the lens of a hateful Palin/McCain rally, where racial epithets and fear mongering were not only allowed to fester, but they were allowed to bloom. However, in borrowing an expression from Ms. Palin herself, that is not the “real America”. That is not my America and that should not be your America. I refuse to let anybody claim differently. Mr. Obama must help all of us Americans reclaim and embrace the symbolic meaning of our flag so it may once again represent peace, freedom, equality, independendence and democratic values for all. No longer will the flag represent hateful catch phrases, hawkish military views and culture war talking points. We should all salute the flag on our own terms. We should not be pressured into saluting some ideal or some slogan that is deemed by some talking head to be more American than another. Saluting the flag is an act that should feel sacred, it should make us feel special and most importantly it should make us reflect on our past mistakes, for it is within our storied flag where some of us might be able to find meaningful remnants of hope and powerful morsels of ideas which represent the very same ideals and beliefs that helped mold this great nation.

I have always been a proponent of taking the flag back (or at least sharing it) with the so-called super-patriots who are desperately fighting their divisive culture wars on their own terms and in their crowds. The flag should be for all of us Americans to share. It should represent what is good in our country. Regardless of what Ms. Palin would like us to believe, we are all real Americans. There is no real America, nor is there a place that is any less American. We are all equal Americas. And as a result, we should refuse to allow the strong conservative/Christian right to claim both an undivided ownership and a divine right to define the flag’s meaning. This unfortunate conflict concerning the flag and the right to have ownership of pro-America and USA chants underscores the sad and despicable effect of Rovean’s culture war politics which were popularized over the last eight years. This us versus them approach may be the exact reason why so many moderate Republicans endorsed Mr. Obama. This type of fleeing from the home base has never happened before with the Republican Party. Never. If such behavior does not represent a rebuke of the last eight years, then I do not know what does.

In closing, there is still so much work left to be done in this world and in this country, but there is no place in this world where I would rather take on these challenges than in the great US of A (USA). And there is not a person in this world, or more importantly, in this country, that I would rather have leading us from this day forward, than Mr. Barack Obama. And those are the reasons, why I, as a white man from Massachusetts, earlier this morning, proudly cast my vote for Mr. Barack Obama.

On this very momentous day, I cannot help but remember and take some solace in what the late President Kennedy so eloquently declared in his famous peace address at American University: “Our problems are manmade; therefore, they can be solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings. Man's reason and spirit have often solved the seemingly unsolvable, and we believe they can do it again.”

Good night and good luck,
S.M.T.

America enters new light. Obama elected president