hello mr president

imagine there's no heaven

michael chabon's take on obama's speech:

Having struggled all the way through to make my own sense of sorrow and confusion congruent with what I saw happening in Tucson, having found that point of tangency at the rueful and admonitory heart, the father's heart, of the speech, I fell all the way out again, right at the end. "If there are rain puddles in heaven," the president said, evoking the words of an unnamed contributor to an album of photos of babies born on 9/11, "Christina is jumping in them today."

I tried to imagine how I would feel if, having, God forbid, lost my precious daughter, born three months and ten days before Christina Taylor-Green, somebody offered this charming, tidy, corny vignette to me by way of consolation. I mean, come on! There is no heaven, man. The brunt, the ache and the truth of a child's death is that he or she will never jump in rain puddles again. That joy was taken from her, and along with it ours in the pleasure of all that splashing. Heaven is pure wishfulness, an imaginary solution to the insoluble problem of the contingency and injustice of life.

But I've been chewing these words over since last night, and I've decided that, in fact, they were appropriate to a memorial for a child, far more appropriate, certainly, than all that rude hallooing. A literal belief in heaven is not required to grasp the power of that corny wish, to feel the way the idea of heaven inverts in order to express all the more plainly everything—wishes, hopes and happiness—that the grieving parents must now put away, along with one slicker and a pair of rain boots.

oh chabon, if you only knew.

kids say the darndest things

I spent all day with my 7-year old niece Natalie.

(while tutoring)
J: So Election is when we vote for someone or something.
N: Oh... we had a pretend election in our class once and we had to vote for Obama or the other guy.
J: Oh who'd you vote for?
N: the other guy.
J: Why?
N: Because he's white.
J: Oh dear. Did you tell your teacher that?
N: No. because my friend already did and he got a time-out.


N: When are you going to get married?
J: Umm...I don't know... why?
N: I want you to marry G-Dragon.
J: Why?
N: So I can see him everyday... at like church and stuff.
J: Then why don't YOU marry him?
N: Because when I'm a mom, he'll be a grandpa.
J: Why not TOP?
N: Because he's scary and killed that Chinese girl.

happy happy friday!

maybe my dream was derived from the "Miserable American" syndrome.


Poll: Happy, Healthy Obamas Out Of Touch With Miserable Americans

kawaii, neh?! ^_^


i find myself swaying with the pup.

obama mama

I had the strangest dream that i was having an affair with Barack Obama.
We kept meeting at this backdoor cafe in k-town so we wouldn't get caught.
I remember feeling very guilty towards Michelle and little Malia & Sasha.
I told him we couldn't go on this way.
I bought him a pink tie as parting gift.

I saw him on a televised press conference, and he was wearing my tie.

I definitely felt like the Rick Blaine (Casablanca) of this equation. It was for the greater good.

no piggies!

It was once said that a black man would be president "when pigs flew". Indeed, 100 days into Obama's presidency..."swine flu."

________

Is it just my family or is everyone really paranoid about this pig influenza?

They keep telling me to wash my hands every five minutes and to not touch anything with pork in it (does spam count?).

Maybe my attitude is too "que sera que sera," but I was planning to get a Pink's Hot Dog today... wait is that pork? Mystery meat?

But then again, this is the family that stocked up their garage with canned food for Y2K... so I don't know.

seriously

why is google so damn cute?