I'm Proud of Us Slackers

The slackers did rise, and Obama won. Hey, young people, I'm proud of us.

A black man was elected president. Even a few days later, I'm still a little in shock.

I cried along with so many others during his speech, and I believe this is a new era.

Enough of the feel-good comments: Let the Christian backlash begin. Check out the Christian School Journal (I can send you the link) for a good snapshot of evangelical reactions across the board. I left an anonymous comment, although it hasn't been approved yet. Once it's up, I'm sure you'll have no trouble figuring out which one it is.

Really, I'm proud of us. I've wasted a lot of time on the NY Times interactive electoral map, and I was fascinated by the county numbers. Every major city in Texas went to Obama, and almost every border county went to Obama. Georgia was even more interesting, as several Atlanta-area counties went Obama and my home county did, too.

So yes, it's a new era. I hope we can be unified, even those who believe that Obama is a baby-killer...

Congratulations Philadelphia!

The Phillies won the World Series, and seeing as I used to live in the Philadelphia area, I have a great affection for this perpetual underdog team. A small part of me wishes I was still there. Fall in Pennsylvania is lovely, plus if I was registered there, my vote would make more of a difference than it does here in McCain-dominated Texas.

No worries, though. I believe the Phillies winning is an omen of better things to come: Obamanos!

Sometimes Christians Scare Me

I nearly collapsed this morning when I read this NPR story about Falwell, Jr. canceling classes at Liberty on election day to encourage his 80% Republican student body to vote.

Then I read a terrible review of the "Christian" movie Fireproof in The Onion, and I was near to renouncing my faith.

But thankfully, I read Heather's latest blog post: When Heather P Sparks...: Hokey Christian Emails...Evangelicals are Strange

And then I found this bumper sticker mentioned in one of the user-comments on the NPR story:

Visit Nana

Heather posted this on her blog, and it was so funny, I had to do the same:



The Great Schlep from The Great Schlep on Vimeo.

Faith-Based... Politics?

Barack Obama and his campaign know he needs some percentage of the evangelical vote to win the general election. They also know that young people make up a huge portion of his constituency.

So it's no surprise that he was happy to have a conversation with Cameron Strang, founder of Relevant magazine, a hip, progressive media group aimed at hip, progressive, young Christians. He managed to land this interview weeks before John McCain, and I'd actually be surprised if McCain did talk to those kids. He's more after their parents, seeing as Relevant readers are only a small percentage of those oh-so-crucial evangelical voters.

Here's the link to the interview.

What was most interesting was Obama's ideas for Bush's Faith-based Initiatives Office. He's planning on renaming it the President's Council for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.

I'm guessing Obama, or at least someone on his campaign, read David Kuo's book about being an insider in Bush's Faith-Based Initiatives Office. After reading it myself, I think his ideas sound like good improvements, but we'll see what happens if he's elected and how things look four years from now.

I don't doubt Obama's commitment to faith-based service, but politics are politics. I believed the lie of compassionate conservatism. Granted I was 17 and gullible and going along with my parents' views for the most part. Now, I've gotten pretty jaded about politics, but I'm not so cynical that I won't vote. I just hope money gets to the organizations and services that need it.