If there is one thing that Obama could do that would actually make me a little less angry… it’s merge my love of statistics and gay rights! The White House is “seeking ways” to include same sex couples in the census. It might not seem like a lot but the census could be the first time that our families and relationships count (zing!). Also, the census is a wonderful way to capture demographic information to study society and develop policy, so anything that makes LGBT people more visible is great. Now if only we could get a tally on trans folk…
Of course, I don’t particularly envy the administration official tasked with figuring out how to count us. Because of the cluster-fuck that is gay rights across this country, the are almost as many different types of same-sex relationships as there are states. For instance, in Massachusetts it’s easy to define a same-sex couple if they have been married. But in Oklahoma there are 0 rights for same-sex couples. Or in New York City you have domestic partnership benefits where you get a smattering of rights. So which level do you accept as a relationship? Do they say “You must have a full marriage” which you can only do in four states (I guess technically you also have the left over California marriages and then the two states that recognize out of state same-sex marriages)? Do they say marriage and civil unions which you can only do in 7 states (well, technically a few more again)? Or do you include people in domestic partnerships (which is in many states, including some with gay marriage, plus a smattering of cities, counties and municipalities across the country)?
It might seem to make sense to include anyone who categorizes themselves as in a “long term same-sex partnership.” I used that qualification in my senior thesis when I interviewed gay couples. But this is not a very scientific qualification. Some people together for 1 year may think of themselves as long term while a couple together for 4 years may not. As Census workers fan out across the country, they have to be extremely standardized. This will inevitably lead to questions of what qualifies as “long term.”  I quantified long term as seven years. Why? I’m not really sure. It was arbitrary and whatever the Census picks will be just as arbitrary. (In case you were wondering, this is why ‘leaving it up to the states’ doesn’t work and this is why the framers gave us a Full Faith and Credit Clause.)
I don’t know if there is a pretty answer to this. I don’t think the Census can count just legally recognized marriages and civil unions because it will give you only a tiny proportion of couples. This would leave my poor brothers and sisters in places like Oklahoma and Tennessee without any representation. It’s hard enough to be sexual minority in those places without adding more indignity by having their relationships not count. I would find it a bit unsettling if maps come out of how many same-sex couples there are in the US and there are huge zeros over 43 states. It’s like when Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was asked at Columbia U about gays and he said “In Iran, we don’t have homosexuals, like in your country. We don’t have that in our country.” Because trust me, after the Census if gay couples in these states are ignored, some backward, knuckle-dragging Senator from Oklahoma will say this: “In Oklahoma, we don’t have homosexuals, like in your state. We don’t have that in our state. In Oklahoma, we do not have this phenomenon. I don’t know who’s told you that we have it.”
Obama signed a memorandum yesterday granting limited benefits to federal employees in same-sex partnerships. This is great for federal employees as well as the simple fact that any small step towards equality is good thing. But I think this memorandum shows a little bit of a darker truth.
First, this is a memorandum and not a executive order which only makes this temporary. As soon as Obama exits office, this could no longer apply. It also doesn’t grant same-sex partners health benefits. His administration claims that because of DOMA, they can’t give out the really good benefits. I’m not a lawyer, so I’m a little confused why sick days aren’t covered by DOMA but health insurance is covered.
The memo also serves to remind us that DOMA is still the law of the land and that it discriminates. Of course, the DOJ claims it does not. Obama doesn’t say anything concrete about action that would actually change the laws that prevent granting full equality. He alludes to it taking “years.”
All of these things add up to this being the smallest action he could have possibly taken. Obviously, he just wanted to try and make up for the horrible brief his DOJ filed last week. But this simply doesn’t accomplish that.
But that’s not really the thing that bothers me about this action. As the least possible thing he could have taken to grant even a tiny sliver of equality to LGBT people, he waited nearly five months to do so. In the first line of his remarks he says:
Today I’m proud to issue a presidential memorandum that paves the way for long-overdue progress in our nation’s pursuit of equality.
I don’t like that Obama wants to have this both ways (like the B’s in the LGBT). You can’t claim that gay equality is important if you aren’t actually going to make substantial moves for our equality. I know some people aren’t comfortable comparing miscegenation and same-sex marriage… but does Obama think if Loving v. Virginia had not happened, his parents would be thrilled to know that—even though they could not get married—if one of them happened to be hired by the federal government, they would be able to take time off to care for their loved onewho does not have health insurance?
I think this whole mess with the DOJ filing is a warning from President Obama.  Why? Because (like I said before) Obama wants LGBT people have equality, but only when we’ve been good little children who make sure we keep giving him money and electing his ineffective Democratic partners in the House and Senate.
That to me is essentially what John Berry, the highest LGBT person in the Obama administration, is saying in this Advocate interview:
We have four broad legislative goals that we want to accomplish and legislation is one of these things where you’ve got to move when the opportunity strikes, so I’m going to list them in an order but it’s not necessarily going to go one, two, three, four. Obviously, I think the first opportunity is hate crimes and we’re hopeful that we can get that passed this week. We’re going to try, but if not, we’re going to keep at it until we get it passed. The second one ENDA, we want to secure that passage of ENDA, and third is we want to repeal legislatively “don’t ask don’t tell,†and fourth, we want to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act.
Now, I’m not going to pledge — and nor is the president — that this is going to be done by some certain date. The pledge and the promise is that, this will be done before the sun sets on this administration – our goal is to have this entire agenda accomplished and enacted into law so that it is secure.
The Advocate: Does that include a second term? A lot of people have talked about DOMA being pushed back until a second term.
Berry: I say this in a broad sense — our goal is to get this done on this administration’s watch.
Finally, I want to talk to you about the DOMA brief. Our strongest argument against “don’t ask, don’t tell†is that we stand with the truth. And that we, more than anyone, know the cost of lying and the terrible pain it invokes.
This president took a solemn oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States and he does not get to decide and choose which laws he enforces. He has to enforce the laws that have been enacted appropriately and that he has inherited. It would be wrong for me or any of our community to advise him to lie or to shirk his responsibility. He’s doing his job. He has made clear that he stands for the repeal of DOMA. It will be part of this administration’s agenda to accomplish that act. We ought not waste energy and angst attacking him when we should be focusing the energy and effort on getting 218 votes in the house and 60 votes in the Senate, and that’s where we ought to target the energy and the strength of this community and this president is with us, this is our agenda and it’s his agenda.
Obama and his administration are lying when they say they had to defend DOMA. There is flexibility. But what’s worse is the extent and vociferousness of their defense of DOMA. They could have made a nuanced filing that articulated their concerns with the law but instead they pulled out every anti-gay argument imaginable. Check out this post Richard Socarides, former aide to Bill Clinton:
Thus, the general rule that the DOJ must defend laws against attack is relative – like everything in Washington. And even when the DOJ does defend a law against constitutional attack, it does not have to advance every conceivable argument in doing so (such as the brief’s invocation, in a footnote, of incest and the marriage of children). In fact, many legal experts believe that in this particular case none of the issues going to the merits of whether or not DOMA is constitutional needed to be addressed to get the case thrown out. The administration’s lawyers could have simply argued, for example, that the plaintiff’s had no standing. There was no need to invoke legal theories that were not only offensive on their face, but which could put at risk future legal efforts on behalf of our civil rights.
A friend of mine said that you have to be a pretty fucked up individual to want to be the leader of something as fucked up as our government.  I never assumed Obama was infallible or perfect. But my mistake was assuming Obama was a man of integrity and courage. I get that LGBT equality is not massively popular politically or statistically. But it is pretty obvious that it is morally wrong to deny LGBT people equal rights and protections. Obama talks about making these tough decisions, that America had to stand up for what is morally right (i.e. torture).  It seems now, though, the only tough decisions he’s making is how long he can keep LGBT people disenfranchised and quiet. I was going to say that Obama wants us to just be thankful that we have a president who doesn’t attack us. But this DOJ filing is an attack on my community, my family, my friends and my life. It’s one thing to ask for patience and it’s another thing to use the same bigoted language as our most devout enemies.
Obama wants to set the time line for gay rights. Maybe we get one or two legislative victories this term (the Hate Crimes law and ENDA), but the heavy lifting comes after his re-election. Obama knows best, right? This DOJ filing strikes me as an admonishment to the LGBT community who want to speed things along. It’s a like a little warning shot across our bow saying, “Don’t come any closer.”
It’s unbelievably sad this is what Obama has decided to do. I don’t know why I keep falling back on this, but you’d assume someone who is black would get why discrimination is wrong. It reminds me of a MLK Jr. quote:
“He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.”
Likewise, Section 3 of DOMA merely clarifies that federal policy is to make certain benefits available only to those persons united in heterosexual marriage, as opposed to any other possible relationship defined by law, family, or affection. As a result, gay and lesbian individuals who unite in matrimony are denied no federal benefits to which they were entitled prior to their marriage; they remain eligible for every benefit they enjoyed beforehand. DOMA simply provides, in effect, that as a result of their same-sex marriage they will not become eligible for the set of benefits that Congress has reserved exclusively to those who are related by the bonds of heterosexual marriage. In short, then, the failure in this manner to recognize a certain subset of marriages that are recognized by a certain subset of States cannot be taken as an infringement on plaintiffs’ rights, even if same-sex marriage were accepted as a fundamental right under the Constitution.
Senator Patrick Leahy is holding hearings on the Uniting American Families Act today and the NYTimes has even covered it. I wish the article went in to a little more detail about the cruelty of our country’s immigration policies towards gay and lesbian couples but I suppose the politics of the bill are more interesting. From what I understand the plan is to attach the UAFA to Obama’s immigration reform plans which is the only way the bill has a prayer of passing.
President Obama has stated he supports equal federal rights for gays and lesbians and immigration is a federal thing. I’m hoping he either advocates for the bill being included in his immigration reform or at least doesn’t nix it out of hand.
After the not surprising but still INFURIATING decision by the California Supreme Court to uphold Prop 8, I’m getting less okay about Obama and his silence regarding the rights of the taxing-paying voters who fucking put him in office.
I am at one point angry beyond words about Prop 8 and Obama’s cowardice to stand up for equality, and really happy about the appointment of a progressive nominee to the Supreme Court. Santomayor will probably make more of a difference in regards to equality in the long run…
However, this part of a New York Times article struck me in regards to Obama’s possible thinking on the courts and it’s ties to the idea of judicial, liberal “minimalism”:
It’s true that Obama has cited Chief Justice Earl Warren as a judicial ideal, emphasizing that Warren, a former governor of California, had a sensitive understanding of the real-world effects of Supreme Court decisions. But at the same time, Obama has suggested that liberals in the Warren Court mold may have placed too much trust in the courts and not enough in political activism. “I wondered,†he writes in his book “The Audacity of Hope,†alluding to Senate battles over George W. Bush’s court appointments, “if in our reliance on the courts to vindicate not only our rights but also our values, progressives had lost too much faith in democracy.â€
Well, unfortunately, I don’t have much faith in democracy since laws like Prop 8 pass and the dozens of other state level anti-gay laws pass all the time. Things are changing, but most only through court action. But I guess now we can’t even really rely on the courts to protect the rights of the minority from the tyranny of the majority.
The conservative blogger, big pink elephant, linked to a blog post of mine from a few months ago where I stated:
By the way, some people squibble about Obama’s support of civil unions over gay marriage. I agree that it’s awful that he supports separate but equal and won’t take a stand for our full rights with marriage. But I think Obama actually supports gay marriage. He is making the politicallty safe maneuver of supporting full rights with civil unions and banking on the fact that 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 years from now the Supreme Court will declare that you can’t have to separate but equal institutions.
Tabitha points out the problem of deluding oneself in assuming Obama is going to support marriage equality. She’s right, and I don’t really believe anymore that Obama secretly supports full marriage equality. As I explained on her post:
Tabitha, you’re right that no one is ever a 100% match with every issue. Obama, though, does support most of my #1 issue which is LGBT rights (equal federal rights and protections, passing EDNA, repealing DADT, adoption rights). But gay marriage is not totally black and white because of the “civil unions†option. Obama is in the gray area on that since he argues that gays and lesbians should have all the rights and protection of marriage, he just wants to call it “civil unions†and not “marriage.†And for me, I want the rights, protections and responsibilities and not necessarily the word. I’d be happy for the federal government to classify my marriage as a “civil union†as long as it meant I had the same federal rights as any other married couple…
This is pretty much my stance on the whole Obama and Gays thing right now. I want equality for all the legal stuff and I’m flexible on the language and semantics. I would obviously prefer just to call it marriage but whatever. If the feds don’t want to call my marriage a marriage in the law books, I don’t care. If that makes religious people more comfortable with it, that is a totally acceptable compromise to me. And, really, once gays are “civilly unionized” we can call them marriages. Eventually you’ll have so many union’d gays referring to it as “marriage” it won’t fucking matter anymore. Everyone will call it marriage and, eventually, the population at large will see them as exactly that. And most likely after a decade of this we’ll just change the law books and call it marriage.
Unfortunately, now even I’m starting to wonder if Obama supports much of anything when it comes to teh gehs. There have been two recent editorials calling Obama out on his stance on gay issues. A recent Washington Post editorial argues against the “civil unions” argument:
Before his inauguration, President Obama called himself a “fierce advocate of equality for gay and lesbian Americans.” Now, with the same-sex marriage issue percolating in state after state and with the Pentagon’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy ripe for repeal, it’s time for Obama to put some of his political capital where his rhetoric is…
Favoring “civil unions” that accord all the rights and benefits of marriage — but that withhold the word marriage, and with it, I guess, society’s approval — amounts to another dodge. I’m concerned here with the way the law sees the relationship, not the way any particular church or religious leader sees it; that’s for worshipers, clergy and the Almighty to work out. Marriage is not just a sacrament but also a contract, and the contractual aspect is a matter of statute, not scripture.
Obama took the “civil unions” route during last year’s campaign and has stuck with it. While I see the political calculation — that was basically the position of all the major Democratic candidates — I never understood the logic. If semantics are the only difference between a civil union and a marriage, why go to the trouble of drawing a distinction? If there are genuine differences that the law should recognize, what are they?
It seems to me that equality means equality, and either you’re for it or you’re not. I believe gay marriage should be legal, and it’s hard for me to imagine how any “fierce advocate of equality” could think otherwise.
This is pretty damn true. Unfortunately, Obama obviously doesn’t see equality as meaning marriage or, as I had optimistically assumed, he really did see it as an equality issue but knew he’d have to play politics and just err on the side of civil unions. I’m not saying this is the right thing to do but I also can’t completely say it’s the wrong thing to do.
And what happened with repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell? Well, his website was changed last week to “changing” it and not “repealing” it. Luckily the outrage over the change got it switched back to repeal. But the whole incident doesn’t bode well for his administrations plans. Doesn’t promoting equality mean you go out of your way to repeal discrimination you have control over?
CNN did a report on his hesitation to address these issues:
Ten foot pole? Might sound erotically appealing at first but Obama needs to get a little closer to us. Now all along I’ve expected that Obama would probably take his sweet time to hit the gay issues especially once the economy sank. Let’s remember that Clinton got screwed early on with gays in the military. Obama wants to push through more important issues at the moment like his banking reforms and the bailouts. Fine.
But the Obama administration took the unusual step of editing their civil rights issue page and removing any references to repealing the insidious Defense of Marriage Act. This is above and beyond one of the worst laws on the books. It has to be repealed and taken down. The law causes a lot of problems such as preventing immigration equality, preventing gay couples form being counted in the Census, not forcing all states to recognize other state’s gay marriages under the constitution’s Full Faith and Credit Clause, blocks social security benefits to partners, and so on.
It’s a very bad sign that he removed this language. He explicitly campaigned on the repeal of DOMA. His support of a full repeal of DOMA was the MAIN REASON I supported him over Hillary Clinton in the primaries. I can only assume now that five states and counting have achieved marriage equality, his administration realized that repealing DOMA would essentially mean making gay marriage legal across the country. And now instead of it being a promise that could be easily delayed, it’s one that might need pay out sooner rather than later.
I guess Obama can dodge and duck the gay rights issues for a little while. And I’m okay with waiting. But I am not okay with idea that he will completely renege on this promise. I would like to stay hopelessly optimistic and naive a little bit longer.
So this is an old blog entry I wrote and never posted a while ago… I think maybe for good reason. Anyway, my insightful analysis below…. (military frotting)
I wanted to do a blog entry that would be a really insightful analysis of Obama’s Economic Stimulus package. But I just can’t. Why? Because, for the most part, I don’t know that much about it. I know it’s worth about $789 Billion (hey! that seems like a big number!) but I don’t really know what it’s going to do. The issues I’m really concerned with–Education, Technology and the Environment–seem to be in the bill still.
Okay okay okay, so it rebuilds our infrastructure which is totally necessary.  It should probably build more train tracks than interstates since cars are destroying the world and our economy (thanks Ford!). And then there is the whole Green Jobs thing which seems like a good idea… but less so when Obama keeps emphasizing weatherizing our houses and not, like, something that is sustainable…
So the important bit is this: everything about this whole Economic plan is quite RANDY! Have you listened to people talk about this thing? First of all, it’s Obama’s Stimulus. Apparently, he’s shoving Michelle into the economy.
And then we have the fact that people keep arguing about “the size of the package.” For the first time since Clinton got a Lewinsky, the national dialogue has descended into something I can really get behind. For instance, Paul Krugman thinks Obama’s package isn’t big enough (SIZE QUEEN) and all the Republican’s think it’s too big (PRUDES!).
I also listened to two political podcasts a few days ago, Slate’s Political Gabfest and the New Yorker’s ‘Political Scene’, both of which referred to Obama’s wrangling with Congress as “sausage making.” What? Is it because Sausage Making is disgusting? OR IS IT BECAUSE SAUSAGES ARE ALSO OBSCENELY MEATY PHALLI?
Where did this come from? Coincidentally, I’m watching the West Wing episodes by episode and the last episode I just saw was from the first seasons where Leo says “There’s two things in the world you never want to let people see how you make ‘em: laws and sausages.”
Is everyone quoting the West Wing when they say this or is this a saying that’s been around longer than that?
P.S. This is why you don’t want to see how sausages are made:
I didn’t get a golden ticket from Obama, so I watched the Inauguration from the comfort of my own home. I think my view, and heating, were pretty good. In case you wish you had a better, 360 degree vantage, here are some websites to make up for it.
The first is from David Bergen. Play around with it, it’s pretty neat to look into the crowd.
My final photo is made up of 220 Canon G10 images and the file is 59,783 X 24,658 pixels or 1,474 megapixels. It took more than six and a half hours for the Gigapan software to put together all of the images on my Macbook Pro and the completed TIF file is almost 2 gigabytes.
The other one is project from my least favorite corporate monoply, Microsoft. As much as dislike them, this is a pretty cool little feature over at CNN. It’s something called Photosynth which “is a Microsoft technology that creates 3D spaces from anyone’s 2D photos.” Cool.
I’m probably going to get a lot shit about this, but I don’t understand the big deal about there being no openly gay, lesbian, bi or trans people in Obama’s cabinet.
I understand that every group likes to represented in the Cabinet. Symbolically, it would have been fucking phenomenal to have a gay person in the cabinet. We all want women, black, Hispanic and gay people in the cabinet.
But Obama didn’t pick any LGBT people and why does it matter? He picked people who I hope are great, knowledgeable and experienced people who can capably fulfill their roles in his administration. Having some sort of quota for representation is ridiculous, especially for a Cabinet. If you truly want representation that reflects society, vote on people for local and Congressional seats that reflect more diversity. For instance, there are now no black people in the US Senate. Zero. There are no gay people in the Senate. And just one homo in the House. Where’s the outrage about that?
So Obama’s cabinet doesn’t include one homosexual. Why does it matter? Do you think that a gay Transportation Secretary is going to drastically do anything different to effect LGBT individuals in transportation? Or would a gay Secretary of Commerce really do much to change commerce matters for gays? I’m not saying a Secretary can’t do some good for gays, like maybe the Health and Human Service Secretary, but it’s no guarantee that a gay person would help gays more than a straight person.
Moreover, there are no Middle Eastern, Jewish, Asian, Native American or disabled people in Obama’s cabinet. Where’s the outrage about that? If everyone gets proportional representations, it needs to be half female, 13% Latino, 12% black and maybe 5% gay.
Focus on the choices’ backgrounds and I think you might feel slightly more heartened by his decisions.
One of the debates I kept having with people I met while I was in Ohio volunteering for the Obama campaign, was whether or not Keith Olbermann was a delightful hero of the left or an obnoxious, self-important and repetitive schmuck. I definitely fall in the latter of those opinions.
Now, Bill O’Reilly is a universally agreed upon asshole. His show is one long rant for the deranged and detached far-right. Recently he has tried to ignite a culture war between gays and black. He talks down to his audience, makes conclusions for them and shuts down debate.
Lou Dobbs, the racist fuck on CNN, is a variation on the same idea. He claims to be independent (as does O’Reilly) but is also myopically focused on attacking immigration and specifically those from Mexico. Now I’m not saying Dobbs burns crosses and lynches people, but he is only half capable of concealing his hatred for our immigrants from the South. He frequently refers to our “broken borders” as the biggest problem the US faces. Yes, our borders are a much bigger problem than, say, terrorism or health care or the economic meltdown. But the kicker for me is when he refers to Latino groups “socio-ethnic centric groups.” And really, it doesn’t take long for anti-immigration stances to deteriorate into simply an anti-Mexican stance. And really, at the very least, O’Reilly allows people who disagree with him on his show. Dobbs just has Yes-Men and Women in the wings waiting to have quietly nod along.
Keith Olbermann. He essentially does all of the obnoxious things that Dobbs and O’Reilly do: he yells at the camera, makes up offense when none is there, tells you how to think, and interviewers bobbling yes-men and women. But what I really can’t stand is the freakish self-importance and bluster to uses to read off his “Final Thoughts” and “Worst People in the World” bits. Just shut the fuck up. This is the perfect example:
I guess he did, at least, bring Rachel Maddow into the world for us. She doesn’t yell, that’s nice. I haven’t watched her quite as much but my only critique of her is the sort of sarcastic, incredulous tone that never seems to subside…
The conclusion is that cable news commentary shows are all terrible. It doesn’t matter which side of the issues they’re on. So please, stop watching them and maybe one day they’ll all go away… HOPE!
I love Oklahoma in my own frustrated way. Maybe it was because my politics were formed in the fire of the crazy conservatism that runs rampant in that state. If it wasn’t for Oklahoma, you wouldn’t have me: the sarcastic, extremist, gay, leftist, atheist ideologue. I like to think that because of this, Oklahoma gave me my sense of humor as well as my self-deprecation. And I met some really amazing people while I was there.
But Oklahoma when it comes to politics is– for me– really like what it must feel like to have a developmentally challenged child. You can’t really reason with it. You yell and scream. You send the economy into the shitter and nothing works. And at this point, when it just totally fucks something up, you smile and say “You made a poopy, good boy!” Case in point, not one county went for Obama:
Can't Get Any More Red Than That
Come the fuck on! Idaho and Utah had blue counties. The only other state that didn’t have any blue was Alaska and that’s because the whole state is apparently one big county. Norman, couldn’t you turn Cleveland county at all?
And then this little tid bit out of Sapulpa, Oklahoma:
Turn out at the polls appears to be really low in our area but the total turnout including the early votes is double 2004 in Franklin county so far. Things were good today and I think will get better.
My wife and I went to vote at Vets Memorial in Columbus on Saturday. I took some pictures of this historic occasion with my cell phone. I’ve never seen such a huge crowd show up to vote. Great feeling. It took us 5 hours from when we parked to when we dropped the ballot in the box. I thought that the one hour wait in 2004 was extraordinary. No more.
The crowd was made up of mostly college-aged young people, or African-Americans. I mentioned to my wife that the line looked like it was for Obama voters only.
The lines were orderly and well-disciplined. Everybody seemed to be good-natured and united in purpose, so were willing to endure the wait. Nobody around us got upset if someone left the line to grab lunch from the concession area or to use the restrooms. Although seemingly not required for security, there was a very light presence by the Sheriff’s office.
To say that the poll workers looked frazzled would be an incredible understatement, however, the lady who helped me was still chipper and ready to help.
Wherever they could, volunteers were marching up and down the lines with free refreshments. Outside, there were several volunteers from the Obama campaign handing out literature and refreshments but strangely, no presence from the McCain campaign that I could see. I saw one McCain/Palin t-shirt and one yard-sign in a car window, but that was all the visible McCain support that I found.
Yes I can, see the next President of the United States.
I got to work at the Obama rally that Michelle and Barack Obama were at Columbus today.  Great speeches, great view, I’m so excited for the election and for this all to be over and celebrating.
For now it’s getting ready for the door knocking avalanche. And while we do that in Columbus, we’ve been listening to the radio.  I almost forgot it existed!  The best station by far is CD101.1, an independent station here.  And tonight is reggae night and I heard this song, which is awesome:
