http://www.babalou.com/JLWedding/index.htm

www.christinaandjohn.com

#mea=221773

 pretty darn funny… watch it all the way through

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHEO_fG3mm4

It really doesn’t matter who you prefer for the office of president - ya gotta admit this is inspirational.

In the unlikely story of America.  What a beautiful sentiment.

The past few weeks I have been stating to audiences national and international that I have worked in politics for 20 years and no longer believe politicians will change the world.  I have switched my focus to individuals who employ people- convinced they can switch from monetary success to significance and legacy.

Maybe Obama is the guy.  I have hope.  Despite all the ways the torchbearers often end up letting us down - I still hold hope.  I received a call today from a Congresswoman… not a client.. not someone I have helped get in office.. just a woman.. connecting.    Her message was of hope - hope in another way.  Not hope in winning an election- hope of making a human connection - of making a difference in our world.  Of gaining perspective across this nation rather than only in Washington DC.

It isn’t change we want.  I get that all the campaigns are circling on change like it is a dying carcass in a desert known as American politics.  The American people want on thing.  It isn’t change.

We want to believe.  We want to believe that no one knew the blankets carried small pox, we want to believe that Iraqis are better off with democracy, we want to believe the USSR fell because of the individual desire to be free, we want to believe that one young man staring down a tank in a Square on the other side of the world can live on, have a family and be happy.

Americans want the goosebumps.  We want to believe in ourselves and be proud of who we are again.  I suppose I can end this blog saying, yes we can.  It is what happens after the standing ovation that makes all the difference.

Remember how women got the vote…  Author Unknown

The women were innocent and defenseless. And by the end of the night, they were barely alive.

Forty-prison guards wielding clubs and their warden’s blessing went on a rampage against the 33 helpless women wrongly convicted of “obstructing sidewalk traffic.” They beat Lucy Burn, chained her hands to the cell bars above her head and left her hanging for the night, bleeding and gasping for air. They hurled Dora Lewis into a dark cell, smashed her head against an iron bed and knocked her out cold. Her cellmate, Alice Cosu, thought Lewis was dead and suffered a heart attack.

Additional affidavits describe the guards grabbing, dragging, beating, choking, slamming, pinching, twisting and kicking the women. Thus unfolded the “Night of Terror” on Nov. 15, 1917, when the warden at the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia ordered his guards to teach a lesson to the suffragists imprisoned there because they dared to picket Woodrow Wilson’s White House for the right to vote. For weeks, the women’s only water came from an open pail. Their food–all of it colorless slops—was infested with worms. When one of the leaders, Alice Paul, embarked on a hunger strike, they tied her to a chair, forced a tube down her throat and poured liquid into her until she vomited. She was tortured like this for weeks until word was smuggled out to the press.

So, refresh my memory. Some women won’t vote this year because–why, exactly? We have carpool duties? We have to get to work? Our vote doesn’t matter? It’s raining? Last week, I went to a sparsely attended screening of HBO’s new movie “Iron Jawed Angels.” It is a graphic depiction of the battle these women waged so that I could pull the curtain at the polling booth and have my say.

I am ashamed to say I needed the reminder. There was a time when I knew these women well. I met them in college–not in my required American history courses, which barely mentioned them, but in women’s history class. That’s where I found the irrepressibly brave Alice Paul. Her large, brooding eyes seemed fixed on my own as she stared out from the page.  “Remember!” she silently beckoned.

Remember. I thought I always would. I registered voters throughout college and law school, worked on congressional and presidential campaigns until I started writing for newspapers. When Geraldine Ferraro ran for vice president, I took my 9-year-old son to meet her. “My knees are shaking,” he whispered after shaking her hand. “I’m never going to wash this hand again.”

All these years later, voter registration is still my passion. But the actual act of voting had become less personal for me, more rote. Frankly, voting often felt more like an obligation than a privilege. Sometimes, it was even inconvenient.

My friend Wendy, who is my age and studied women’s history, saw the HBO movie, too. When she stopped by my desk to talk about it, she looked angry. She was. With herself. “One thought kept coming back to me as I watched that movie,” she said. “What would those women think of the way I use–or don’t use–my right to vote? All of us take it for granted now, not just younger women, but those of us who did seek to learn.” The right to vote, she said, had become valuable to her “all over again.”

HBO will run the movie periodically before releasing it on video and DVD.  I wish all history; social studies and government teachers would include the movie in their curriculum. I want it shown on Bunko night, too, and anywhere else women gather. I realize this isn’t our usual idea of socializing, but we are not voting in the numbers that we should be, and I think a little shock therapy is in order.

It is jarring to watch Woodrow Wilson and his cronies try to persuade a psychiatrist to declare Alice Paul insane so that she could be permanently institutionalized. And it is inspiring to watch the doctor refuse. Alice Paul was strong, he said, and brave. That didn’t make her crazy.

The doctor admonished the men: “Courage in women is often mistaken for insanity.”

Please pass this on to all the women you know. We need to get out and vote and use this right that was fought so hard for by these very courageous women.

Author Unknown

 We need to get out and vote and use this right that was fought so hard for by these very courageous women.  Whether you vote for the democratic, republican or independent party, remember to vote.

Author Unknown

Kudos

McKain for the affection and emotion with his wife during his speech
Huckabee for his commentary on being the underdog
Clinton for his comments about her mother.
Obama he made voters tear up - very inspirational

Brilliant political strategy on a part of the Obama campaign to have Obama start his speech during McKain’s speech. I am in India and the crowd applauded as McKain got cut off for Obama.

The split screen made it look like they were running against each other.

Applause to the candidates who spoke without notes.

Really surprised by California - clearly I know nothing about the way voters will vote. Both camps have run a great campaign - clearly.

Race not over. Maybe for Mitt.

I have received tons of e-mails from folks asking for a prediction.  Wow.  Tough one.  I really have NO IDEA how it is going to play out.

I’m thinking Obama (D) and McCain (R)

It will be CLOSE between democrats.. not thinking super close in the republican race.

Namaste from India.