what a night!

photos from the NYT

on the eve of the election

In Kogelo, Kenya, John Dimo (who says he is 105 years old) interprets the result after throwing shells, bones and other supposedly magic items to predict the outcome of the US presidential election. His take? President Obama!

Photo from the LA Times

lisa jack

Lisa Jack, a fledgling college photographer asked a particular friend to model for her in 1980. They were both students at Occidental College in LA. Jack never did make it as a photographer; she is now a psychologist. She went to her basement and dug through old negatives on a dare from a skeptical friend and was delighted to find them. She was also surprised she had shot an entire roll. She put the film in a safe deposit box and waited until after the election to reveal them, as she is not political and did not want to get involved on that level. Today, Jack says, she hopes the photos reveal a "spirit of fun and thoughtfulness."

melissa in washington dc!

One of the CTT Uganda Team members has made her most recent trip one to Washington and ended up on the New York Times website! Click here, watch the short video, then click on the woman in the lower left. She, Aileen, works at Operation Breakthrough and is a friend and colleague of Melissa's. You'll hear a quick bit about their trip and see photos of Melissa!

carol/ unimaginable

I received this email from Carol this morning:

"After the inauguration, Mark Shields said on the PBS news hour that what struck him forcibly as he looked around the room where President Obama was signing his first nominations was that 'it was really a pageant of America’s change. If you looked at that room, there was the first Senate majority leader who is a Mormon. There was the first woman speaker of the House, who is Italian-American. There was the first vice president of the United States who is a Catholic. There was the first woman chair of an inaugural event who is the first woman senator from California and the first woman mayor of San Francisco, who is Jewish. And you say, WOW!'

And so do I. What an amazing day. If anyone had told me on 9/11 that the next U.S. president would have Hussein for a middle name, I’d have advised them to get psychiatric help. And now, to the great events of my lifetime - man on the moon, Sadat in Jerusalem, Iron Curtain gone, Nelson Mandela free - I can add Barack Obama as president.

Truly a world full of miracles."

YES WE DID!

monday morning

I’m heading to Portland for a week to get away with Eddie, continue work on my Streetcar Series, to begin work on a new book (more on that later) to deliver a show to Vancouver, Washington (more on that later, too) finally get to the Japanese Gardens, do some hiking and maybe even to dance in the very liberal Stumptown streets on Inauguration Day.

Parting shot: Emma Vincent, one of the older orphans at St. Mary Kevin’s who is being sponsored by Change the Truth, showing off the Obama shirt sent to him by his Kansas City pen pal. When we were in Uganda last month, cries of “OBAMA!” accompanied by triumphantly raised hands and occasional fist bumping were not unusual.

My little friend, Nicholas, who lives at the orphanage, asked me one day if I had supported Obama. When I told him yes, his whole adorable face morphed into one proud grin as he nodded and said, “So did I.”

i am feeling inspired

Rep. John Lewis of Georgia: "We have witnessed a nonviolent revolution, a revolution of ideas.” (Election eve)

In all the magic and excitement of yesterday, there were three things that really stood out for me.


The energy, enthusiasm, happiness and optimism that shone on the faces of young people was awe-inspiring. There were little kids running around Operation Breakthrough chanting Obama’s name. There were teenagers making last minute phone calls at Obama headquarters. There were legions of twenty and thirty somethings organizing get-out-the-vote centers and working at the polls. Amid the throngs of cheering supporters at Grant’s Park were young people of all ages, shouting and jumping up and down, and when Obama spoke, their faces were turned up toward him, bathed in a light of honest to goodness hope.


The fact that people came together was awe-inspiring. Following Obama’s lead, his supporters worked side by side, relishing their differences of skin color, religion, age, gender, sexual orientation and economic status.

The sense of power, confidence and pride that I saw in the eyes of the mothers and grandmothers who live in poverty and who were escorted to the polls by volunteers at Operation Breakthrough was awe-inspiring. Some 342,000 people in Missouri cast their ballots for the very first time ever yesterday. I know of people who registered and escorted adults who can’t read, who feared they would not understand the wording of the ballot, who were afraid to show their identification to the election officials, who weren’t sure where to go to vote or who were fearful they might be fired if they took time off from work to vote. We all know these people deserve a voice; in this election, they were offered the opportunity to speak.

(I drove one of these 342,000 new voters to the polls. At forty-four, Kim was bursting at the seams to cast her vote for Obama. When I asked her why she had never voted before, she simply said she had been waiting all these years for the right candidate to come along. She held her head high and threw her shoulders back as she marched into the polling place. When she emerged, she flashed a huge grin and pointed to the “I Voted” sticker she had just planted on her chest. When we got back to the car, she reached in and pulled out the t-shirt she had been waiting to put on. I snapped a picture of her showing it off. In the golden light of a glorious Kansas City autumn afternoon, I saw a human being coming into her own – maybe even a slight glimpse of a country beginning to come into its own.)




I woke up this morning feeling like I was greeting not just a new day, but also the start of better things to come. I look forward to receiving my emails from Obama telling me what else I can do to contribute to this revolution of ideas.

how sweet it is!

fired up!

Three weeks ago, my twenty-seven year old daughter and her hubby came to the great, swing state of Missouri to work for the Obama campaign. Buzz-phrases at our house have been: GoBama! Fired up –Ready to Go! Party at the polls! (Said with spirit, various hand movements and a lot of youthful enthusiasm.)

It’s been great watching Sam and Abbie at work – trotting off to campaign headquarters early each morning with their laptops, backpacks, sandwiches, water and snacks, decked out in their Obama t-shirts. Sometimes they work out of our kitchen, making calls, organizing training sessions, assembling spreadsheets, finding housing and jobs for out of state volunteers, breaking every now and then to check the latest polls and political blogs.

They are dead serious about this.

This potentially historic election marks a real turning point in their lives, their very young lives. The remarkable “change” that is poised to take place on their watch is invigorating, inspiring, hopeful, important and, doggone-it… absolutely necessary.

Abbie and Sam are both old souls – smart, personable, quirky, funny, creative and unassuming. They fill up the empty nest Eddie and I have inhabited for the past year with laughter, engaging conversation, music, delicious vegetarian meals and a sense of optimism that, well, just makes a person feel good. We are really lucky that they chose to do their Obama-ing in Missouri rather than Ohio, Florida or Pennsylvania, other states that were calling out to them.

Tuesday will be a long day for them. They will be poll captains. They’ll arrive at their respective polling places at 5:30 AM and stay until the last ballot is cast. They’ll come home exhausted, but are planning to pop the cork of a bottle of champagne they’ve been saving for a very special occasion.

This just might be it. I hope so.

signs of the times

Our Obama sign was stolen.

Also our really nice poster with the word "Hope." (To steal that, the thief had to come right up to our house, open the storm door and quietly do his/her stealing thing.)

Now, signs in our neighborhood are being left where they are; they are simply being defaced.

obama rally

Yesterday Barack Obama came to Missouri. First, he was cheered by a crowd of 100,000 in St. Louis. Later in the afternoon, 75,000 gathered at the Liberty Memorial in Kansas City to hear him speak. Eddie and I arrived around 3:30, in preparation for the gates opening at 4:00.

The Fred Phelps element greeted us as we were ushered to the back of a line that stretched for a good mile and a half.






We found friendlier and more like minded folks as we made our way.
















The crowd during the speech.




Abbie and Sam worked as volunteers at the rally.


Abbie was close enough to get this shot of Obama speaking.