Obamalamadingdong At Mile-High

[howeird]

It was 81degrees both indoors and outdoors when I plopped in front of the fan and TV to watch the end of the football game which I'd been testing the video of at work. Instead of John  Madden's color commentary, I get that news guy, telling me we're waiting for Obama to show up at another stadium in Denver. Anyone remember Heidi? Yeah, it's a historic moment, but some of us would rather see the ball game live and catch history on Tivo, where we can rewind it and point and laugh over and over again.

I liked a lot of what Obama said. I especially liked that he harped on the point that we're all patriotic Americans, no matter what our politics. He set the stage for a clean campaign, I hope he can stick to it. I hope McCain takes the hint though we know he won't. The GOP won't let him.

I'm going to get tired of listening to his voice over then next couple of months, it is not a grating voice, but I'm spoiled by hanging around talented actors. He ain't James Earl Jones or Richard Burton. McCain has the same handicap, so it's gong to be an unpleasant audio campaign for me.

I liked what he had to say, I liked the way he said it. His speechwriters are not as good as the Clintons', there were only two lines in his 40-minute talk which got a "good one!" out of me. But aside from not having a lot of zingers, it was well-written and his delivery was better than average. He could have sipped some water, it would have helped. I hope he can avoid going into southern accent mode when he quotes scripture, he slipped up on his closing lines. Few things bug me more than an educated northerner going southern preacher on me.

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After the speech, as I was channel surfing for intelligent commentary (there wasn't any) I came this close to throwing my shoe at the TV when one on air bozoid said "100 years ago, he might have been property. 50 years ago he might have sat in the back of the bus" and went on and on about African-American history.  Makes me sick. Obama is African-American because his father was a well-educated, well-connected African from a prosperous family. His African ancestors were the ones who were smart enough and lucky enough to not have been hauled onto slave ships.

Also, the bozoid was showing his age - 100 years ago slavery had already been abolished for a generation. He must have gone to grade school in the 50's or 60's to get the 100 year stat.

Obama has overcome some serious obstacles, but being the great grandson of slaves is not one of them.

Comments

[vasilatos]

Interesting. The whole question of what is an African-American person: I was (long ago) married to a guy who has brown skin and his parents immigrated from the Cape Verde Islands. He identifies as Portuguese, his family speaks Portuguese, but from a social American standpoint, he's black and thus African American.

[howeird]

I taught at an inner city adult vocational school for a year and a half, and came away with a profound respect for those people who had dug themselves out of the slave culture to become what is condescendingly called "productive citizens".

[farmount.livejournal.com]

Re: Obama's voice. I'd much rather listen to him than Hillary's strident tone (which she featured almost every time I heard her during the campaign) or McCain's tenor.

[howeird]

Hilary was indeed annoying when she went from confident shoe-in to the victim of a mindless stampede of lemmings trampling on her dreams. But if she used the tone she started with, and which she used in her DNC speech, I'd much rather listen to her voice than Obama's. I'm with you on McCain. Palin speaks beautifully (former sportscaster) but what she says makes me run screaming.