Scenes From Campus

So, being that I'm not only on a college campus, but a college campus that is a few blocks from the Obama residence, there is a lot of Obamaphilia here.  

One of my new friends, Andrew, who hails from Minnesota, was actually at the Republican National Convention.  The caveat: he was standing outside wearing black and avoiding riot police.  And he's not just a demonstrator-- he's actually a huge Obama supporter as well.  I like him a lot.

One of our first nights here, we had an orientation event at the lake.  Our house, Blackstone, went to the lakeshore to have a bonfire, make s'mores, and tell ghost stories.  Our O-Aide, Jono, sat there with the shadows of the fire playing across his face and began.  "Now let m tell you a really scary story," he said.  "Next January, John McCain could be our President!"  

Terror gripped the crowd.

Yesterday, I took the antiquated University of Chicago practice known as the "swim test."  I passed, but that's not what's important-- or funny.  As I was steeling myself to jump in the pool, one of the kids mentioned that he was from Alaska.  Immeditely, the lifeguard turned to him asked, "Can you see Russia from your hoose?"

As I was walking down 57th street after picking my classes (Greek Thought and Literature; Power, Identity and Resistance; Intermediate Latin; Elementary Hittite), I ran across a local woman wearing possibly the coolest Obama shirt I had ever seen.  I asked her where she got it, and she directed me to the local Unitarian Church, where she said a man named Al would take care of me.  I knocked on the door of the church, only to be informed by an elderly black man that it was closed.

"Oh," I replied.  "I was just looking for Al."

"That's me," he said, pausing.  "you here for one of them Obama shirts?"

"Yeah..." I replied, unsure of whether this was some sort of faux pas.

"Well, we got some bad shirts.  Some real bad shirts we can sell you."

I wasn't sure if he meant bad as in bad, or bad as in good.  I decided I'd make that judgment for myself.  Soon, his brother pulled up and showed me a staggering array of Obama shirts, ranging from incredibly bad to incredibly "bad."  I took his card and started to outline an order.

Other than the Obama stuff, there's a lot of great things going on in the neighborhood and at the school in general.  It's truly like Hogwarts here.  Unfortunately, the food kind of sucks (although today I had an excellent lunch of fried chicken, mac 'n' cheese, potato salad, greens, and cornbread) and I'm busy all the time.  Today is really the first day I've had with a lot of free time, and that's only because I did all my other things -- swim test, class registration, etc-- yesterday.

So now I need to go take a nap before we have a lecture on safety (again).

peace

Move-In Day

Well, today I officially became a student of the University of Chicago.  My roommate Josh and I moved into our suite at the Blackstone Residence Hall this morning, and are, if you pardon the expression, fired up and ready to go.

Today was an amazing day; I met wonderful people, learned a lot, and managed to get a decent meal at the cafeteria (which I was assured only happens this first week).  Anyway, there were too many things going on today to list them all, so I'll just hit a couple of the highlights.

After all of the registration bureaucracy was over, we went to Convocation.  Between the bagpipes, the choir, and the parental tears (not, I will say, from any parents of mine!) they managed to actually squeeze in some serious discussion of the liberal eduction and the history of the University.  

Afterwards, I met some new people, took a class photo, and went to the dining hall for a very early dinner.  There, I met my house -- Blackstone House -- and ate a delicious meal of fried chicken, french fries, and raw broccoli.  Actually, it wasn't that delicious, but it was all you can eat, which made me happy.  What made me sad was to learn that it's only all-one-can-eat during orientation week.  

After dinner, we retired to our suite to put up posters.  I borrowed one of Josh's, because I left mine in Santa Monica, and gave him one of my many Obama ones in return.  Yeah, I wasn't going to forget those.  The two in my room say "Change We Can Believe In" and "Renewing America's  Promise;" Josh swooped on the limited edition "One Nation" one.  

That reminds me-- Josh wore his Obama shirt today, and we found out that a lot of people at Chcago really like Barack Obama.  We also found out that a smaller group of people really, really, don't like Barack Obama.  Eh, you win some, you lose some.  On that election related note, I found out that the guy across the hall from me, from Michigan, isn't registered to vote.  From Michigan!  

Finally, we went shopping.  Since we have a little kitchenette, we bought various canned soups, boxes of pastas, packs of tea, and other delicious necessities.  Unfortunately, we didn't buy any pots or pans, so we're stuck eating pepper jack cheese and salami sandwiches when we our satiation from the six o' clock dinner wears off.  Which is right about now-- so I'm going to end for the day.

peace

Name Calling

As my summer draws to a close, I have found myself running on political fumes. No, I’m not tired, it’s just that there really isn’t that much information out there for someone who spends most of his day repeating the same 30-second trope to Nevadan answering machines to absorb. I’ve started looking beyond my once sufficient daily dose of Andrew Sullivan, Ben Smith, Al Giordano and Nate Silver. I read more Daily Kos now, even venturing down into the non- recommended diaries (which usually aren’t recommended for good reason). I even browse redstate.com when I want some humor in my day.

My favorite redstate joke? That Sarah Palin has more of a bipartisan record than Barack Obama because she’s married to a non-Republican. Yes, she’s married to a non-Republican; he just happens to also be a non-Democrat. He’s a member of the secessionist Alaskan Independence Party (or at least was until 2002).

Funny, huh?

But anyway, my foray into less scrupulous blogs, or the comment sections of blogs I like, has led me to a realization: I really hate it when people call other people names. Every day, I log on and read a string of insults directed at candidates through not-so-clever variations of their names. Whether people are using Obambi, McInsane, or Sarah Failin’ (yes, Marino, I don’t like it when you do it either) it cheapens the debate. It’s juvenile, but more importantly it dilutes your arguments. I, as a matter of principle, don’t read anything that refers to Barack Obama as Barack Osama. Nor do I enjoy reading anything that refers to McCain as McBush.

What these terms do is reduce the debate into narratives – the broad, sweeping narratives that define elections and, in the case of many elections, decide them. Rick Davis, a McCain campaign advisor, put this into words best in the little repeated corollary to his much-criticized statement that issues would not decide the election. His insight, that this election was about a “composite view” of what people would take away from the candidates, is true, albeit sad. And name-calling serves not only to reinforce these composites but to simplify them even further. While it may or may not win elections (see: Kerry, windsurfing), it takes our debate one step further away from where it should be.

Finally though, I do have a confession. I really like calling McCain McSame. Even if I hate myself for it.

peace

A Grassroots Weekend

This past week,  I've found it very hard to muster up the willpower to write.  It's either the general listlessness caused by being one of only a half dozen or so people who haven't left town for college yet, the soul-crushing-ness  of the RNC (which was unpleasant to watch as well as being generally puzzling-- if you'd have asked me, I was pretty sure it was the Republicans who were in power these past eight years).  But either way, I finally mustered up the courage to log into blogger after a most exciting weekend of grassroots action.

I'd done some phonebanking at home the week I got back from Denver.  However, since my computer wouldn't click the button for "call swing state voters" on the Obama site, even when I tried multiple times, I called voters in California.  I called Obama supporters and asked them to volunteer.  I made about fifty calls, talked to about five people, got three of them to volunteer, and then got bored.  I wanted to call real swing voters in real swing states and make them vote for Obama.  But my computer still wouldn't let me do that, so I wasted some time at DailyKos.

It was there, in that wonderful world of orange writing and liberal rants, that I saw a diary about the opening of the new Obama HQ in LA.  It had been the night before, and over 2,000 people had shown up.  After my initial disappointment that I had missed probably the best party of the time before I leave for school, I googled the office and found out they were near my friend Sam's house.  So I picked him up on my way, despite the fact that he was rater dubious about the entire volunteering-for-a-political-campaign dynamic.  He just really doesn't like John McCain.  

We arrived at the office and were reprimanded for trying to enter without signing up to volunteer.  We were under the impression it was the kind of place you just sort of wandered in and out of, but quickly were informed that the work area (and the refreshment table) was off limits to everyone not making phone calls.  So we made phone calls.  

The office was packed.  People of all ages and races and genders (yes, both!) were there making phone calls to Nevada on their cell phones.  Sam and I made about 75 calls, and he was much more successful than I was.  I talked mainly to answering machines, he talked to voters.

About 45 minutes into our session, a hush fell over the office.  In swept the director with and old woman and familiar looking man.  

"I," the man announced to the silent room, "am Max Kennedy, the son of Bobby Kennedy, and this is my mother Ethel."  Clapping.  He then proceeded to give us a rousing speech about how in this election, we were "fighting against the greatest entrenched interests in the history of the world- the healthcare industry, the oil companies," the military industrial complex and more.  Huge applause.

After we'd settled back down to our calling sheets, Sam turned to me and remarked that "it's odd-- this is the first Democratic event I've ever been to, and some Kennedys show up."

The next morning, after several debacles that included (and actually were mainly comprised of) me losing my car keys, I biked over to an office building in the warehouse section of Santa Monica (yes, we have one of those) to phonebank.  I'd checked on the Obama site, and there were two people who had RSVP'd.  Small phonebank.

However, when I arrived, there were about a dozen people milling around, picking up pieces of paper and learning how to make calls.  We were calling Nevada.  It was great.  As someone who had done this before, I was soon put in charge of helping train the new volunteers.  One of my colleagues from the primary campaign was running the training, and when she left and her assistant got promoted, I took his spot helping.  

We trained upwards of twenty new volunteers in the few hours I was there.  We called probably upwards of a thousand voters over the course of the day.  Best of all though was seeing the new volunteers, fired up right after the Republican convention, pouring in to take over the campaign.  The people we trained were young --a 16 year old High School student-- and old -- a woman who could barely walk.  They were diverse, energetic, and thrilled to have the chance to make a difference.  It was beautiful.

peace

A Great Crusade?

Over the past several days, I've had various political conversation that have ranged from the absurd-- see below-- to the thoughtful.  Since the ones, both absurd and rational, that I've had with my fellow liberals have all been about the Hanukkah in September that is Sarah Palin, I won't bore you with those.  They can basically be summarized by the key words Alaskan  Independence Party, Jews for Jesus, Mooseburger, and Troopergate.

The conversations that have been the most intriguing are the ones I have had with various conservatives.  Now, I want to differentiate here between conservatives and Republicans.  One of my closest friends has, as his facebook political identity, "Republican- the real kind."  He's voting for Obama, and I think of him as a conservative, not a Republican.  Party line Republicans, as I found out on Labor Day, aren't the kind of people who I like to talk to; rather than make an intelligent point, they tell you you've been brainwashed by the terrorists.  

However, in two conversations with two friends (well, a friend and an ex-teacher who I consider a friend), we came to the conclusion that the Republican Party of today is not a conservative party, or even a political party per se.  It's not even that true conservatives don't believe in huge budget deficits or torture.  What I, and many others, have come to realize in the wake of the Palin fiasco is that the modern Republican party has ceased to be a party focused on governance and instead has morphed into a front for an evangelical, moralistic, Christianist (to borrow a word) crusade.  And that is a dangerous thing to have.

When you have the head of John McCain's campaign bragging about how this election "is not about  issues," and have a mother's choices for her family touted as credentials to deal with Iran and Russia, we have entered a political world in which all of us-- liberal, conservative, Jewish, Christian, black, white, gay, straight (and all the other categories politicians usually list)-- must realize that this election is the most important of our time.

When we have candidates for high office calling the war in Iraq "God's plan," we must realize that the McCain camp has a point-- the election isn't about the economy, or Iraq, or even healthcare.  It's about whether or not our country stays true to its founders' values, values of freedom and secularism that have allowed us to prosper for over 230 years.

peace

Of Bigots and Palin

Last night, I went to a Labor [corrected] Day BBQ at a friend of a friend's house.  I was invited mainly, I found out, to be a liberal voice in the discussion.  The discussion, I found, was rather unbalanced-- myself, my friend, and his father (who is Israeli) against three staunch Republicans, their families, and one of the most conservative Israeli's I've ever met (and his family).  When I got there that made it ten against three instead of ten against two.  Yay.

The first thing I was asked, after my name, where I was going to college, and why I didn't want more food than I was taking was why Barack Obama spent 20 years in "a racist madman liar's" church.  Boy, was this going to be an interesting evening.  I tried to defend Obama, saying that what Jeremiah Wright said when he got carried away (like the US government created AIDS) is comparable to what Falwell, Robertson et al say on a rather regular basis-- things like, oh, AIDS and 9/11 are punishments from God.  Neither Obama nor McCain should be tarred by what their men of the cloth rant about.  But I was assured that they were completely different.

Why?  I wasn't given an answer, but I have a hunch it has more than a little to do with skin color.

I also started to talk to the Israeli, but I ended that quick.  Some of my favorite things he said run along the lines of "Obama wants to give all blacks a free house."  Evidence: "All black people want to do that."  More fun insights from this guy included the tidbits of information that "all blacks hate Jews," "all Mexicans are stupid," and "liberal Jews are worse than the Palestinians and the Goyim."  The sad thing was that I legitimately tried to argue with him-- he just told me I'd been brainwashed and stalked off in a rage.  

After that was over, I turned back to arguing with the (slightly more) rational non-Israeli conservatives.  I'm going to be honest, they were winning the argument.  Every point I made, they had a counter point.  I said McCain voted for the war, they said the war was a good idea.  They said the surge was working, I said the surge was working to stop violence because of the Anbar awakening, but that it wasn't accomplishing political goals, and they said I didn't support the troops.  And it went on and on and on-- I couldn't win against them, because the facts that I was marshaling were completely ignored.

Here was the amazing thing though: when I brought up Sarah Palin as an answer to the Obama-inexperience question, they admitted that it was a horrible pick and that they were disgusted with McCain.  And here's the kicker:  they said that they thought it was such a bad pick, if Obama hadn't been in Wright's church [translation: if Obama wasn't black] they'd vote for him.

peace

PS-  here are a couple more pictures from Denver.  From the last night at Invesco.