Not until right after the victory speech—then a huge grin. Maybe relief at passing the last hurdle and being free to go be private again?

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“There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King

I found those photos quite remarkable: they're quite intimate, really, and they moved me. What struck me was the quiet, dignified air of the family and their colleagues as they waited tensely for Obama's election to be called.

Really quite remarkable.

I've bookmarked them.

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"Frodo undertook his quest out of love - to save the world he knew from disaster at his own expense, if he could ... "
Letter no. 246, The Collected Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien
Avatar by goldlighticons on Live Journal

I don't think Mr. Obama has much to smile about, really.

I suppose, or rather I think, he ran for the office because he thinks he can do the job. But he must often feel like he's had a piano dropped on his head.

He's come into office with such an enormous load of expectations in his backpack! I can almost believe the GOP "threw" the election (as is bruited about on some forums).

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Dig deeper.

There are already letters to the editor appearing in the local paper predicting that Obama will declare martial law at the first possible pretext and impose a Marxist state. This must be what they're getting from their chosen news sources.

Maybe when it hasn't happened by 2012 they'll be saying that was the plan all along, to get entrenched into the second term and then strike like a snake.

Or maybe by then it will all seem like a wild idea.

(I heard similar predictions posted on some left-leaning blogs, that Bush would impose martial law on a pretext and cancel the 2004 or 2006 or 2008 elections, and I confess sometimes I felt a flicker of real worry; but I was wrong to do so.)

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“There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King

For a laugh:

The U.S. presidential election as bad fanfic

Found via Making Light (always worth reading).

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“There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King

In fact, it was talked about as a possibility with some mild alarm on this very site.

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I wanna love somebody but I don't know how
I wanna throw my body in the river and drown
-The Decemberists

Yes, it was. Here and elsewhere.

But it didn't happen, and I now feel a little ridiculous for having worried about it. That was my point.

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“There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King

I know. Just a little reminder that all of us can have our sillier moments.

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I wanna love somebody but I don't know how
I wanna throw my body in the river and drown
-The Decemberists

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When you can do nothing what can you do?

I noticed the same thing (as I commented upthread). Party hardliners in the U.S. seem prone to hysteria.

The disturbing thing about all this is that it reminds me of the rabid right wing hate of JFK when I was in grade school. That sort of feeding frenzy environment contributes to all kinds of nastiness - the final act being something that changed history.

And the really sad thing is Sarah Palin contributed mightily to this with her comments about Obama and his supporters not being from the 'real America', the shouts of 'terrorist' and threats shouted at her rallies and she did nothing.

This is sad indeed.

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There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.... John Rogers

In defense of those "hardliners" on the left, in 2001–2008 we did see some pretty scary changes being made to the powers of the presidency and the structure and staffing of government that were not being challenged by Congress. It does make people feel vulnerable.

The fact that all those new powers are theoretically available to Obama when he assumes office may mean that these same changes are the source of this kind of excessive fear on both left and right.

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“There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King

As did the expansion of the powers of the Presidency from 1932-1940 under FDR, with a similiar reaction from many Republican supporters, or even under Lincoln for that matter.

I suppose it amuses me a little that the same people who rubbished the hysteria on the left in 2004 are indulging in the same sort of thing now (and visa-versa) and that nobody seems to have noticed that these sorts of scares about growing Presidential power and the slide of the U.S. into totalitarianism go back to just about the 1790s.

Lord_M, people tend to be more emotionally influenced by experiences they live through than by things in history books. Of course this has happened before to varying degrees, but it's like the difference between being mugged and reading a compilation of statistics on muggings.

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“There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King

Hysteria is hysteria. I myself engaged in the same stuff on Manwë back in '04. We all have our moments. Now it is the Reps turn to get hysterical--like people rushing to buy guns because Obama is going to ban all guns forever and he is even going to go as far as shoot them into space.

Most Republicans have more sense than that, as most Democrats did in 2004. But there's always a fraction that overthinks things (or underthinks them ).

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“There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King

Shoot them into space?


Every time I see a picture of the Obama family, their littlest girl reminds me of a doll I had when I was a kid. Her name was Sasha, too, and looked like this:



I had the one with the black hair. Apparently they were really popular when I was a child- there are still sales of new ones today, and some collectors models sell for hundreds of dollars! Maybe I ought to see what my old doll is worth? She's still at my parent's house.....

I will wait until Jan 21 to relax.

Seriously, I said it was paranoia at the time and it almost certainly was, but given the way Bush conducted himself during his eight years, a bit of paranoia is justified.

Yeah, there's been a run on gun sales in CO too. It's a bit silly because first of all, Obama doesn't even take office until Jan. 20, second of all, he knows an across the board gun ban would never fly, and third of all, I think he has other things to worry about. But it's their money and I'm sure gun shops and sporting goods stores don't mind.

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When you can do nothing what can you do?

Following up on Rivers post ..... to pick a national fight over guns would burn a tremendous amount of political capital in a fight with extrememly doubtful results... and that is being optimistic. I suspect that President-elect Obama wants to first target the economy and all that entails. There will be fights that are knock down bloodbaths. I expect the fight over the union check off card to be one of those. Obama has little choice to fight that one since he owes a great debt to the union who provided so much to help him get elected. The fight over guns would be even worse.

The only thing I see that could change this is the occurence of Columbine type events on a far more frequent basis which shock the nation and there is some public outcry for increased gun control. But barring that, I really see no Obama effort in the area of seriously limiting gun rights.

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There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.... John Rogers