The first week or so of the Obama administration has shown us what a huge difference a President can make—but the tough battles are still to come. On global warming, job creation, universal healthcare and other issues, our new president is going to need our help.
To support the social change we need, I’ve been taking actions online recently with a company called CREDO Mobile. CREDO is a mobile phone company just like AT&T or Verizon—except, unlike AT&T or Verizon, CREDO actually fights with us for progressive change. (Also unlike AT&T, CREDO didn’t give money to McCain/Palin and Bush/Cheney, but that’s another story.)
CREDO’s a pretty great company – they give 1% of their revenues away to amazing non-profits like Doctors Without Borders, and they’ve given away over $60 million over the last twenty years. They also do progressive activism on issues like protecting the environment and working to end the war in Iraq.
So why am I telling you about some phone company? Because they offered us a pretty sweet deal. Here’s how it works:
If you sign up to be a CREDO customer, they’ll cover the cancellation fee on your existing mobile contract and give you a free phone, plus they’ll give me $100 for referring you. Pretty good, right? You can get all the details here.
If you’re ready to sign up, just do the following:
First, call 1-877-76CREDO.
Second, give them this special offer code: 800222
Finally, let them know I sent you by giving them my personalized coupon code WWTBP
I guess I’ll file this one in the “I did not know that!” Department (or should I make it a category? Hmmm…), but I just found out from reading a blog entry on Bedazzled that the term “wingnut” is (according to Wikipedia) derived from the phrase “right-wing nut,” and is used in United States politics as a political epithet referring to people who hold extreme conservative, far-right views. Wow! I’ll have to remember that the next time some right-wing nutjob calls ME a wingnut. The correct term for me, my Repug friends, would be “moonbat.”
It’s taken me a while to fully digest what just happened on November 4. I can’t remember the last time I felt so GOOD about voting, about having helped make a difference for a political campaign that I truly believe will help change the face of America… and change it for the better. It was surreal watching the returns come in and then finally witnessing Keith Olbermann call it for Obama shortly after 10 p.m. It’s really difficult to put those feelings and, indeed, the feelings I still have, into words. I’m just… happy. And hopeful. I can’t say I’ve ever felt this good after a presidential election EVER. Granted, it’s only the third time in my life that the candidate I voted for actually *won*, but that’s beside the point. The other two times—Reagan in ‘84 (I know, I know… but I was 18 and still heavily under the conservative political influence of my parents) and Clinton in ‘92—left me just feeling like I had done the right thing but minus that feeling of true satisfaction in having voted for someone I truly believed in. (In case you’re wondering, I voted for Ralph Nader in ‘96, a choice that I do not regret as I came to not particularly like Bill Clinton [although not quite enough to vote Republican, that's for damned sure], but I will never vote for him again.) I’m also truly happy for my son, who got to witness his first presidential election (OK, technically it was his second, but he was only a year old during his first), and even though he’s still way too young to understand any of the political implications, at least he was able to witness history in the making… I just hope it’s a memory that he will be able to retain his entire life. I am also proud that he will grow up knowing this man as President Obama, instead of just a footnote in history as the first serious African American political contender for president. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like Missouri was able to flip to blue as several of the other states did this time around (this won’t become official until all of the provisional ballots are counted), but it feels good knowing that we live in a city where eighty-four percent of the vote went to Obama while McCain only garnered sixteen percent. Not to mention it also feels DAMNED good to live in a country where Obama beat McCain by a whopping six points, the largest margin of victory for a presidential candidate since Reagan won in 1980. So yeah, it feels damned good knowing now that, yes, we did it.
Well, we’re getting down to the wire now and I’ve officially run out of my screenprinted South Side for Obama tees. I’ve been so busy selling these the past week or so at The Royale that I haven’t even had a chance to post an update lately on how well they’ve been selling (sorry ’bout that). Anyway, there is a silver lining to this cloud, and that is you can now purchase a shirt with the above design through a new online store that I just set up at Spreadshirt.com, and there are even more shirt styles to choose from (including girlie tees)!
The best news about all of this is that I was able to raise over $1,600 for the Obama campaign from this little experiment! Thanks to everyone that bought one!!
UPDATE: Spreadshirt is offering free shipping on orders of $30 or more now through Nov. 24. Just use this coupon code when you place the order:
Saturday, October 18 at the Gateway Arch in downtown St. Louis:
Barack’s right. It was a spectacular sight. We were standing about 50 feet in front of the large American flag hanging off in the distance on the left, way up the hill there. Yes, we were very far from the stage, but thanks to the video screen and the great sound system they had set up, we could see and hear everything just fine.
People are saying the photos of the event were faked, and there weren’t actually 100,000 people there (actually, there were 90,000 on the Arch grounds and 10,000 outside along the peripheral). Well, the St. Louis Metropolitan Police issued reports on the size of the crowd as it gathered (just as they do for any large event that happens downtown); it wasn’t an Obama campaign press release or that “liberal media” trying to blow things out of proportion. The Secret Service estimated the crowd at 80,000. So no matter how you slice it, there were a helluva lot of people there. By the way, the city police are pretty adept at estimating crowd figures as they do this all the time at the annual Fair St. Louis, so I’d give them the benefit of the doubt on this one. By the way, McCain drew 3,000 at a similar rally in St. Charles on Monday… just sayin’!
And regarding the photos being “faked”… well, photos aside, you should also take into account the video that was shot, which also clearly shows that very same expanse of people… so I guess that was all faked, too? And every photo from every photographer/videographer at the event (and there were a LOT)? Please. Also, the Interstate highway (I-70) that some right-wing nutjobs are stomping and screaming about that was supposedly “photoshopped out” of those pictures? You know the one… I-70, that runs directly in between the Arch grounds and the Old Courthouse? C’mon. It wasn’t “photoshopped out,” people. Maybe if you actually were FROM St. Louis, you’d know where it is. Trust me, the highway is indeed there, alright, but it runs below ground level, and it’s actually on the other side of the peak of the hill that leads down to the Arch. No, I-70 does not go through a TUNNEL (which is why you can still see the highway with satellite photos), but via depressed lanes that just so happen to be open to the sky. So you can’t see the highway in the photos because it’s just hidden, that’s all.
I read on another site that “there just wasn’t anything else going on in St. Louis that day” to explain why so many people would come out for this, as opposed to, you know, going to Wal-Mart or a Cards baseball game or something. This person has obviously never been to the Saint Louis Zoo, Six Flags, Grant’s Farm, the Science Center, the Art Museum, Missouri Botanical Garden, or any number of other very popular (and ALWAYS very busy) public attractions on a weekend. They’re always packed, especially on Saturdays. And I’m sure they were just as packed this past Saturday. Plus, I think people also tend to forget that 2.8 million people live in the area, so an event drawing one hundred thousand people isn’t that unlikely. That’s only about 3.5% of the population.
Let’s face it, this was HUGE. Not only for the campaign, but for St. Louis. I take great pride in knowing that my hometown was host to the largest gathering for Obama in this campaign to date. I think it speaks volumes for St. Louis and the fact that we are a “blue island” in a “sea of red” (consider that, in 2004, John Kerry won St. Louis City by 62 points (that’s 81% of the vote) and St. Louis County by ten points. And don’t hold your breath, but Missouri, that old “red state,” may just go BLUE this time after all. We can HOPE, can’t we?
So far I’ve printed up 220 shirts and have sold 179 of them. The last remaining ones are either up at The Royale as I type this, or will be up there within the next few days. Once they’re gone, they’re gone. Unless I get a big last-minute request for a bunch of one size or something, I doubt seriously that I’ll be getting any more printed up. Right now the fundraising total for my South Side for Obama personal fundraising page is sitting at $987… not bad! I hope to have another $400 or so added to that total very soon, and more if people want to be especially generous and chip in more to the cause of helping to get Obama elected. So thanks to all of you who have purchased a shirt so far, and to those who haven’t, if you’d like one, you’d better get down to The Royale on S. Kingshighway in the next day or two or risk missing out completely.
Oh, and by the way, I updated the design slightly to include the Obama “O” logo and went with a navy blue screen on nice white/navy ringer tees. The first 128 were the Carolina blue Hanes shirts, and the other 92 were the white/navy Anvil ringers that look something like this:
Obama:
Columbia University – B.A. in Political Science with a Specialization in International Relations.
Harvard – Juris Doctor (J.D.) Magna Cum Laude
Biden:
University of Delaware – B.A. in History and B.A. in Political Science.
Syracuse University College of Law – Juris Doctor (J.D.)
vs.
McCain:
United States Naval Academy – Class rank: 894 of 899
Palin:
Hawaii Pacific University – 1 semester
North Idaho College – 2 semesters – general study
University of Idaho – 2 semesters – journalism
Matanuska-Susitna College – 1 semester
University of Idaho – 3 semesters – B.A. in Journalism
A couple of weeks ago our friend Michelle dropped in on us from Seattle. It was at Michelle & David’s place that we stayed during our brief trip there this past May. Anyway, Michelle and David live in Ballard, and she brought with her a gift for us: “Ballard for Obama” T-shirts! “Wow, what a great idea!” I thought. Then I told my wife, “We should do something like this for south St. Louis.” So I did. I whipped up a design featuring Barack Obama’s official Senate profile photo and put the Bevo Mill and a fleur-de-lis on it. At first, I had “South St. Louis” for Obama, but then changed it to “South Side” on the recommendation of a friend, neighbor and Obama supporter, Ed Martin, because, as he put it, it’s more colloquial. OK, can’t argue with that! “South Side for Obama” it is. House of Eight Legs screenprinting is printing them up and have done two rounds of shirts for me thus far. If you’d like to order one, please use the PayPal button on the official SS4O Myspace page or shoot me an e-mail if you just want to drop by my house with a wad of cash (they’re $12 each). They are also be available at The Royale on S. Kingshighway.
Here’s the design:
And here’s a Photoshopped mockup of what it looks like on a shirt:
Note: If you pay via PayPal, you’ll need to get the shirt directly from me. If you want to pick one up at The Royale, just pay your server there.
Let’s face it, John McCain is 72 years old. The life expectancy for white men in the U.S. is 75, and even less than that for veterans and even less than that for POWs (Dept. of Veterans Affairs tells us that the POW experience shortens veterans’ lives by seven years). Add to that the fact that McCain has had the most lethal form of skin cancer (malignant melanoma) four times. He also smoked two packs of cigarettes a day for most of his adult life but has now quit. McCain’s father died at 71 and his grandfather died at 61.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand that there is a VERY good chance that he will die while in office if elected president. If that happens, can you honestly tell me you would feel comfortable having Sarah Palin be the leader of our country? A person who doesn’t believe the science of global warming? A person who wants to ban abortion even in cases of incest and rape and who opposes stem-cell research? A person who is in favor of banning “questionable” books from the public library and whose only political experience prior to being elected governor just two years ago was as mayor of a small town in the smallest state (population under 700,000) in the country? I don’t know about anyone else, but she actually scares me more than Dick Cheney, and THAT is saying something.
One more thing: Sarah Palin has opposed funding what she calls explicit sex-education programs in Alaska and supports abstinence-only programs, which urge teens to refrain from having sex until marriage. If she can’t even get her own daughter to follow this type of program, then how do you think it will fly with kids all across the country? More unwanted pregnancies, more unwed mothers, and lots more babies! Oh yeah, and once she reverses Roe vs. Wade with her one or two Supreme Court Judge nominations, more back-alley abortions. Wonderful.
All I’m asking you is to THINK about what you’re going to do on November 4 and register to vote if you haven’t yet. Keep in mind that only one in five people voted for George W. Bush in 2004… that’s because almost half of eligible voters (two out of five) STAYED HOME.
