OT: Open note to Sarah

That's right, he's up in Winterpeg lol

Awwww, geeese. Make me feel even worse, why doncha. LOL!

I can name all 15 former Soviet republics and their capitals. I can fill in a map of Latin America and name capitals. Do those count for anything?

Elizabeth (head hanging)

What makes you think he's going to lose?

Elizabeth

BC would be one, people in Vancouver panic if they have a dusting of snow lol Many Americans have come here so I imagine it is not that difficult - jobs - that's really up in the air just now with the economy as unreliable here as further south.

Pick that head back up and know that they count with me. I've forgotten so much geography that I'm lucky if I can find Tallahassee on a map.

Lucille

LOL! Don't beat yourself up *too* bad, Elizabeth! I doubt that I could name more than 2 of the Soviet republics! I'd probably do a fair amount better for S America, though.

Joan

In certain parts of the country, I hear they are preparing for race riots either way. If Obama wins, the rednecks will rise up against the blacks; if he doesn't, the blacks will riot. I fear there is no good outcome to this election no matter who wins.

And as to "the rest of the world laughing at us," I notice that this is still the country of choice to immigrate to for your chance to get ahead - Clinton or Bush, Obama or McCain.

Linda

Ah - you are probably a product of forties or fifties public education!! Bet you covered South America around the ...7th grade maybe?

Hint to ppl buying Xmas gifts for kids - get one of those jigsaw puzzles of the States. Little Rhody, tho, will prob. share a puzzle piece with Connecticut - mine did.

One word.

Also, let's NOT get started on New Mexico jokes.

I really hate it when you repeat this bullshit. His mother died well after he was an adult. The man is 47 and she died in 1995. You do the math.

Elizabeth

The US has the lowest tax burden on individuals of the post-industrial countries. So yeah, we do pay less to live here than in any of the advanced socialized socieites. But we also get less in return for our money.

Elizabeth

Any chance you want to restate that?

Elizabeth (easy?)

I hope they include me in the mailing telling me that someone from Cuba came here on foot. That might make a believer out of me and I would rush to the nearest house of worship.

It became bullshit when you added the word "while" as in "died young WHILE his grandparents raised him" which implies that she died before he was an adult.

I'm perturbed because you seem determined to make the man into something he's not.

Elizabeth

It makes me sad to see such rejoicing. It means everyone thinks colour is the most important thing, and will be Obama's first consideration. His first consideration must be the good of the country he is to serve, and the sooner colour is relegated to the least important thing in all our lives, the better.

In history, white people saw colour as making some nations "inferior". In fact, it's culture and customs which make the races so different from each other. It's a huge obstacle looked at from all sides of life, and will take many generations to overcome. Why do so many Americans consider themselves "African-American" even when the "African" part can hardly be detected? Their categorisation comes from themselves, not from "white" people!

Joyce > My mother called me from work last night, crying tears of joy and it

And Delaware will have the wrong shape. Inevitably.

Sara. In Delaware

They certainly seem to be concentrating on it but I find it rather alarming. He is being elevated to a level that it will be extremely difficult to reach. He takes over a disaster that Bush has left him, economically as well as deprived of rights under the red herring of terrorism.

I see him rather like some Olympic athletes who go off to the games with the press touting them for automatic gold medals and no matter what they do if they don't get the ultimate they are regarded as failing. I think he is in a very unenviable place.

Because for a long time there were the 'even one drop' laws. You could have a great-great-grandparent and still under the law be considered 'black'.

MargW

It's the "rejoicing around the world" I was referring to. People in African countries neither know nor care about his credentials, knowledge or intelligence. They care only about his blackness, and feel he will be "on their side".I wish him well, and all the luck necessary for the difficult task ahead, picking up the pieces after the recent disastrous incumbent.

We've just lost one who started off well, but became a black GWB, completely ineffective. He's still being ineffective in the Zimbabwe talks, pandering to his brother-in-law, Mugabi.

Joyce in RSA.