Black and White

How wonderful what happened yesterday! I listened to Obama's speech from Grant Park, half-drunk on the words and the hope and a single-malt too far. Like Michelle Obama, I'm proud to be an American for the first time in a very long while, decades, and I don't have to back-track as she did. Children of the 60s have a hard enough time with disillusionment, and in my case, it was exacerbated by my experiences as a Peace Corps volunteer and as an employee of European companies for 20 years. No more apologies and embarassment and shame now - we just might be returning to a government of compassion and peace, and leaving one of greed and war. He's just one man, but how resolute, how steady, how principled - God protect him.

And completely wonderful that Maine, the whitest state in the Union, voted so strongly (58-40) for a black man. And voted a Republican woman, Susan Collins, back to the Senate 61-39, and a Democratic woman, Chellie Pingree, to the US House 55-45. Race and sex will always matter in politics, but the chance that they will reduce in importance to, say, religion or education or eloquence or integrity, just another factor in a personality, is greatly enhanced by the stunning events of November 4, 2008.