Election Day Morning

Good morning! I'm up early, and want to post a few things as a morning almanac, marking this huge day. We'll be going from the ridiculous to the sublime here, with some good stuff to help you pass the hours before hitting the streets with whoops and hollers tonight.

Here's a fun arts and crafts project: fold your own finger puppets of the candidates. The projected winner is here.

My brother John sent over this relevant old Onion piece: think about how far we've come.

Hey, WTF? Sarah Palin as herself on Saturday Night Live last night, talking about how she'll need to shut down the comedians after January 20th, as part of the "Palin Doctrine". Hmmm...not so funny? I think they got her there! Here are a few more places where Sarah takes the fall: this video of Palin as copywriter of her own media demise, and the wonderful Palin-as-President (God Forbid) Oval Office Interactive Playspace. (Thank you, Jean!) And here's a link to the Neiman Marxist Sarah site: what would YOU buy with all that wardrobe money?

What about that global electoral college? Jean also sent me to this nifty website, If the World Could Vote, now making the rounds of countless personal blogs. Gallup also explores this topic.

Here's a recommendation from Michel, in Berlin: "an essay by the political scientist James Fowler about why people vote (in the context of a longer discussion about why they vote Republican). It thinks of the vote not as something discrete that works additively but as a dynamic social act. Really interesting and relevant today more than on any other day."

I really liked the message I got from Barack directing me to the video at his site today. It made me teary-eyed. I traveled from that to the Huffington Post, where you can see other tears marking the path to this day, and also watch a beautiful video of an elderly volunteer who was able to meet Barack Obama. There's a lot of other good stuff at the Huff Post today, including this insightful piece about the quality of the campaigns by Mitchell Bard.

I have to put out a shout of thanks to David Blackwell, who played Billy Bigalow in the first cast of Carousel at Bloomington South. As a sailor in the second cast last Saturday, he tore off his shirt in the song "June..", to bust out an Obama Change logo as tattoo on his back. It was a great moment on stage in the tipping point state of Indiana! Let's hope we tip it today.

Best of all, here are photos from my niece Jade, she of the hearty YAY! This is her bedroom door, with homemade Obama signs. I'm including a sweet picture of Jade, as well as one on the rocks at the North Shore in Minnesota, with her sister Jasmine and cousin Savannah. Jade and Jazzie are the same ages as Malia and Sasha, daughters of Michelle and Barack Obama.

Okay, off to the polls! Please write a comment today about your own trip to the voting booth; I'd love be able to host a little archive.

P.S. I'm back from the polls – it only took 54 minutes: YAY!

Their Job is to Read, Our Job is to Feed Them

I am looking for good digital photos of children reading, to use in a literacy campaign that benefits a food pantry here in Bloomington. I've put out the call to a few friends, and Sheff, of Seven Sidekicks, immediately answered. YAY! Sheff is the Dadiator, a young green builder who became the father of 7 kids within 7 years, through adoption and the production of bio-babies. There they are in a school line-up, checking their backpacks. Got books?

If you haven't clicked over to Seven Sidekicks, do it today – it's a great day brightener. You'll find mom Deirdre's 'Boredom Buster' tips, including the brilliant idea to give any youngster who complains of boredom the mini-vac and permission to vacuum the stairs. (This doesn't work with teenagers, alas.)

On the left is a YAY gift that entered our home thanks to my niece Jade. It is one of my favorite handcrafted objects, and certainly one of the best gifts a person could ask for. Jade is an artist, and like her big sister Jasmine, she is a great reader. They are both writers, too – stories and poems and art projects just pour out of them. How do they do it? Partly because from the beginning, before they could talk, their mom (especially) has been reading to them every day. (Now, of course, they often read to her.)

Our campaign is called HEALTHY MINDS HEALTHY BODIES. It's Read-a-Thon with the Cardinal Stage Company, in support of Mother Hubbard's Cupboard, a food pantry that also gives workshops on nutrition and organizes urban community gardens. Those nutrition classes, by the way, aren't the boring kind loaded with dubious advice from the same nutrition specialists who recommend highly processed foods. They are the 'garden variety' kind – the kind where you might learn how to bake a potato or ferment a beet, where you learn how to eat and enjoy real food.

Real food and lots of books – and the joys of parenting, even in hard times. That's what we are getting at here. If you feel like sending me photos, I will respond with a YAY!