A Change Has Come

 Rev. Jesse Jackson, courtesy of the Huffington Post

When I woke my wife this morning, she sleepily asked, “Is Obama still president-elect?” When I assured her he was, according to NPR and all the websites I’d seen so far, she sighed relief. “They didn’t take it away.”

I’m sure there were like-minded individuals that woke up this morning with the same thoughts. “Did this really happen?” “Was it a dream?” And once they wiped the slumber from their eyes and cobwebs from the corners of their head, they realized that it was not a dream anymore.

I know that there are folks on the other side of the coin, too, who woke up with very different feelings. They, like others before them on the day after elections that didn’t go their way, will have to make peace with the fact that their guy lost. Having been one of those others several times in my life, I know it’s not gonna be easy for ‘em for a while. Perhaps that’s why there’s a period of time between election and inauguration, to let people get used to the idea.

Some will be surprised that our president-elect is not really a Muslim. Some may complain that he’s not a socialist like they’d been told. I hope many question their sources of information and become more skeptical, because I have been quite disappointed in the way both sides have been treated during this long, long, LONG election.

I hope that the election of Barack Obama marks an elevation of our national discourse. I hope that it signals a change in how we choose our leaders, not as much of “someone I wanna have a beer with,” but “someone that’s smart enough, tough enough, and strong enough to lead our nation.” I feel that community organizers and community leaders across the country will have just a little more spring in their step as they see one of their own ascend to the highest office in the land. I think that many Americans who have felt disenfranchised or beaten down by the weight of their life will look back on this day as an affirmation of the possibilities of life in the USA.

I am no longer a child, yet I still dream. I still hope. And I’ll continue to hope and dream, and work to make those hopes and dreams come true, because last night I saw a dream become reality for an entire country.

The way I see it : mobile communications

Here's an article that really shows the big difference between the implementation of cellphone technology from Apple and Google.

Apple has a tightly controlled application environment. You have to conform to their standards, and even then, your application may not make it to the iPhone application market. Then, if it does make it, it might still be pulled after it's hit the market and been downloaded.

Not so with Google. Their open-source implementation on it's admittedly clunky first-gen G1 phone will open their Google apps market to all developers. Instead of Google having the control, the holder of the phone does.

As many of you probably know, I'm not much on getting the latest & greatest tech the moment it comes out, mainly 'cause I'm not rich! But rather than being a Luddite, I just wait and watch. I'm terribly interested in these gadgets and I scour the nets to find the things that interest me.

So, right now, I don't have a smart phone. (It's not a terribly dumb phone, it just doesn't scour the net or do a lot besides alarms, tip calculator, text and make calls) Perhaps one of these days, not too far down the line, I'll have a mobile device that will have internet access, communicate in several ways with my family and friends, and keep me on schedule and productive, and all for under a hundred bucks with a monthly bill that's about half that.

Right now I'm leaning towards the clunky Google phone, because of the unlimited potential it has due to it's open-source philosophy. And that's the way I see it.

Where to vote?

Here's a great tool for you - just in case you don't know where you're going to go vote in the next 13 days (as of this writing) - find your polling station with Google.



This is just brilliant and I hope that people can use it this election season. Kudos to the koders that kame up with it!

Picture of the Week

courtesy of dvorak.org/blog

Some Meetings You Want To Attend...

...especially if you get a chance to chat & have a picture made with someone like this guy.

 

Shoulda had him sign my hat.  Oh well...

Brevity

My hat's off to folks who really know how to put things in perspective powerfully and succinctly.

 

 tip o' the hat to Print the Truth's kickass posters

Joke of the Day

What's the difference between training a pit bull and training a hockey mom?

Lipstick.