it’s a beautiful day. not sure the arc completely bends toward justice with an obama win. but it is a slight bend.

and a slight bend toward justice is an improvement from the sick bend towards hell that took place over the last years. a simple end to a nightmare.

so, i’m grateful. for those who hope. and for those who worked their asses off. to make good dreams come true.

tonight, lina and i will relax and enjoy david.

on the night before, i could not make or read a better argument.

For me, if Obama is elected, it will feel more like a simple end to a nightmare. The earth has been scorched these past seven years. No Heaven awaits. Just an end to some sort of Hell. -Andrew Sullivan

i vividly remember meeting this american hero of mine at an east st. paul mexican restaurant.

fr. francisco and i were having breakfast when he walked in. we both stood up to greet, thank and shake the hand of senator paul wellstone. here was the man who taught me to be proud of wearing the label of liberal american. the label that stands for the ideal of freedom and justice for all.

thank you paul! we do miss you. i wish you were here today. cheering on and helping all of those folks working hard to get out the vote for barack.

in honor of you senator wellstone, we hope history will be made in a few weeks. we wish you were here to see it take place.

It’s easier to be a liberal today, to be a progressive, to be proud. But there was a time when it wasn’t. When liberalism in defense of peace was mocked, and moderation in service of imperialism was praised. In those days, it was hard to be a liberal. It must have been hard to be Paul Wellstone. He never showed it, though. He liked to quote Marcia Timmel. “I’m so small and the darkness is so great,” she said. “We must light a candle,” Wellstone would reply. He was ours. Would that he was here to enjoy the dawn.-ezra klein

pues si…

…and to celebrate, some politics with a brain. after a week of one too many tongue talking pit bulls with go-go boots.

first, well, first things first (not sure if this show is part of the “elite” media according to the repubs…)

and then, beware—the eastern media elite…

and now, beware—the eastern media elite is coming to get you…

as a former coordinator (basically, i just opened up the place at 4am) of a day labor site, i got a special laugh out of this one. especially the “gotta speak java” part…

is so funny how blu blu isn’t about technology.

like me is not about technology. yet i am not blu blu.

and so rightly so.

but blu blu is so damn cool. and me, well, im just me. not damn. not cool. just me.

and this is blu blu.

and now, me voy a austin. with my newly christened “austin terrier” — “el bukzy”

y claro tambien con mi novia lina…and her cat frida…

but on other not so unrelated notes…

i think about many of the kids we “teach” and wonder how many will turn out to be some kind of a blu blu, if they’re lucky. and how many won’t. due to, of course, the system they were succumbed to for so many years.

tonight mayra is graduating from high school.

mayra was my student in fifth grade. a sign i’m getting somewhat old.

i hope mayra gets through the system and does good. does real good.

but i also hope that she ends up having a little bit of blu blu left in her after the process.

i guess that’s what make a good student. going through the system and doing real good, if you can, and then having some blu blu in you left after going through the process.

that’s not easy to do. and i guess, that’s the point.

austin was good except for a difficult moment where bukz and i both came close to being mauled by a pitbull.

lina and i listened to obama’s speech and it made me think of the following beautiful and poignant poem by langston hughes.

Let America Be America Again

By Langston Hughes

Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed–
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me.)

O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There’s never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this “homeland of the free.”)

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery’s scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek–
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one’s own greed!

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean–
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today–O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.

Yet I’m the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That’s made America the land it has become.
O, I’m the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home–
For I’m the one who left dark Ireland’s shore,
And Poland’s plain, and England’s grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa’s strand I came
To build a “homeland of the free.”

The free?

Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we’ve dreamed
And all the songs we’ve sung
And all the hopes we’ve held
And all the flags we’ve hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay–
Except the dream that’s almost dead today.

O, let America be America again–
The land that never has been yet–
And yet must be–the land where every man is free.
The land that’s mine–the poor man’s, Indian’s, Negro’s, ME–
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose–
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people’s lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!

O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath–
America will be!

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain–
All, all the stretch of these great green states–
And make America again!