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Obama brings out the best in us I don't make any secret about it. I'm completely in the tank for Obama. I've heard the modularized stump speech many times. Sometimes he uses bits of it as setpieces in answer to questions in town hall settings. That's OK, the message has to be somewhat consistent. Listening to him again this afternoon at an event in Redding, PA, broadcast by C-SPAN, my chin started quivvering and I felt on the verge of tears again when I heard him talk about college tuition grants in exchange for national service. It makes me feel encouraged about what he could do for the national spirit when I see the reaction to his words. There's crowd approbation when he says he wants to give students the money, but even more cheers and smiles when he issues the caveat that the recipients will have to join the Peace Corps or work in veterans hospitals or do other community work in exchange for the boost. That's when I start to choke up, at the thought that he can lead us to be better people.
And how is that a compliment for me, she asks -- sharply (because she's bitter and poor and underemployed and has a sick kid). Then he melts her, saying it's because she makes him want to be a better man. That's the promise of an Obama administration. If I thought he'd stop inspiring me and everybody else in November, I don't think all the time and emotion spent in following the campaign would be worth the investment, entertaining though it is. He makes me want to contribute to making things better. I don't think Hillary Clinton has anything like that kind of power. Trying the new Encyclopedia Britannica widgets I guess they're nice. Not too many of them, but they say they're just getting started. Under the new Webshare program, bloggers and other site publishers can also link to any page. Visitors just can't go looking around elsewhere on the site without a subscription. What I'd like to be able to embed: widgets from the encyclopedia's World Data Analyst section, sharing parameters of my choosing. (Can you get to that link? It's an index page; wonder if they can be linked to.) I am grateful for the free subscription, and will try to remember to use the links. Spread the word, share the tools The National Priorities Project has some interesting tools for visualizing the cost of the war, better researched and sourced than my meager solo effort at a widget. See this calculator that brings it down to the local level, citing specific costs and programs. The site should encourage other sites to embed their stuff. Like this counter: Here, I'll show you how. Adjust the width to fit in the space you have for it. For example if you wanted to place it in your sidebar at a width of 160px with a grey border, try this code. Season to taste. |
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It's something like that scene in one of my favorite movies, "
