Yeah, yeah, long-time-no-write. Still trying to figure out what I’m really doing here, and getting everything else done in the meantime. So instead of wondering about me, go read about “The Ghosts of Unitarian Christmas,” a stellar piece from Doug Muder.

But then his reading lamp’s bulb had burned out, and he couldn’t find a spare anywhere. So there he was: parked on the grass at the extreme edge of the lot, then sonically assaulted by “Jingle Bell Rock” as he entered the too-bright store, then jostled by panicked shoppers looking for whatever can’t-miss toy the store had sold out of two weeks ago. Bulbs—good, sensible, energy-efficient bulbs, not colored or flashing or suitable for the nose socket of a plastic reindeer—were hard to find. Then he waited in an endless checkout line behind a woman whose two children wouldn’t stop nagging for more and better presents. And then, just when he thought the whole ordeal was almost over, the clerk (an obviously exhausted young woman with a fake smile on her face) had the gall to wish him “Merry Christmas.”

That was the last straw.

That’s about where I am right now, so thank you, Doug, for helping me see through it a little bit.

Ann E. Dunwoody is the nation’s first female four-star general:

At an emotional promotion ceremony, Dunwoody looked back on her years in uniform, said it was a credit to the Army — and a great surprise to her — that she would make history in a male-dominated military.

“Thirty-three years after I took the oath as a second lieutenant, I have to tell you this is not exactly how I envisioned my life unfolding,” she told a standing-room-only auditorium. “Even as a young kid, all I ever wanted to do was teach physical education and raise a family.

“It was clear to me that my Army experience was just going to be a two-year detour en route to my fitness profession,” she added. “So when asked, `Ann, did you ever think you were going to be a general officer, to say nothing about a four-star?’ I say, `Not in my wildest dreams.’

“There is no one more surprised than I — except, of course, my husband. You know what they say, `Behind every successful woman there is an astonished man.’ “

The Winter issue of the UUWorld has yet another article about “ethical” eating, in response to the General Assembly’s choice of this as a Study Action Issue for our congregations. And, once again, the issue is boiled down simply to the areas of animal welfare, buying local, and organics.

Can I just say that I am very tired of the inference that anyone who doesn’t eat only organic, local, free-range, etc, food is somehow unethical?

Let’s look at this word, “ethical,” and its connotations. Ethical means “pertaining to or dealing with morals or the principles of morality; pertaining to right and wrong in conduct.”

So when we talk about food choices, particularly the differences between organic and conventionally-raised foods and not even getting into the meat issue, and we use the word “ethical” as a descriptor for choosing organic, we are saying that to not choose organic is to be immoral, or wrong in conduct.

But that doesn’t take into account the very real barriers for many people, including my family, to eat only “ethically” raised food — the biggest of which is economic.

I feed a family of four on a budget. Organic, free-range turkey in my area is at least $8 a pound, not the $6.05 quoted in the UUWorld article, meaning a turkey large enough to feed us and our Thanksgiving guests, with the obligatory leftovers, is about $100. That’s about how much I spend on groceries in an entire week. So, since the organic, free-range turkey is simply beyond my means, does that mean I am ethically obligated to cancel Thanksgiving?

Sorry, but I call bullshit.

The framing of this issue, particularly in the UUWorld, is yet another example of the assumption that to be a Unitarian Universalist one has to be a rich, Prius-driving, vegan who shops only at farmers’ markets and Whole Foods. And I am so tired of it.

The actual resource guide for the Study Action Issue is full of interesting material and emphasizes human rights, hunger and malnutrition issues, but still does not get at the divisions within our own individual religious communities around this issue, which are mostly economic. I’d like to see congregations and individuals tackle this on a very local, personal level, rather than beating the organic-only drum even louder than we already do. Yes, attention should be paid to the environmental impact of food production as a global issue, and to the vast differences in the availability of food in various parts of the world, but there’s also a lot to be said about what is happening in our own backyards.

Wouldn’t it be a more meaningful statement of our values to examine the food, nutrition and hunger issues in our own communities, rather than making what end up being rather meaningless diatribes about global dynamics? Wouldn’t starting locally end up making more of an actual difference, in the real world of family budgets and strapped food pantries?

And can you please stop telling me I’m doing something wrong by not being able to afford only organic food?

Preach it, Keith.

Finally tonight as promised, a Special Comment on the passage, last week, of Proposition Eight in California, which rescinded the right of same-sex couples to marry, and tilted the balance on this issue, from coast to coast.

Some parameters, as preface. This isn’t about yelling, and this isn’t about politics, and this isn’t really just about Prop-8. And I don’t have a personal investment in this: I’m not gay, I had to strain to think of one member of even my very extended family who is, I have no personal stories of close friends or colleagues fighting the prejudice that still pervades their lives.

And yet to me this vote is horrible. Horrible. Because this isn’t about yelling, and this isn’t about politics. This is about the human heart, and if that sounds corny, so be it.

If you voted for this Proposition or support those who did or the sentiment they expressed, I have some questions, because, truly, I do not understand. Why does this matter to you? What is it to you? In a time of impermanence and fly-by-night relationships, these people over here want the same chance at permanence and happiness that is your option. They don’t want to deny you yours. They don’t want to take anything away from you. They want what you want—a chance to be a little less alone in the world.

Only now you are saying to them—no. You can’t have it on these terms. Maybe something similar. If they behave. If they don’t cause too much trouble. You’ll even give them all the same legal rights—even as you’re taking away the legal right, which they already had. A world around them, still anchored in love and marriage, and you are saying, no, you can’t marry. What if somebody passed a law that said you couldn’t marry?

I keep hearing this term “re-defining” marriage. If this country hadn’t re-defined marriage, black people still couldn’t marry white people. Sixteen states had laws on the books which made that illegal in 1967. 1967.

The parents of the President-Elect of the United States couldn’t have married in nearly one third of the states of the country their son grew up to lead. But it’s worse than that. If this country had not “re-defined” marriage, some black people still couldn’t marry black people. It is one of the most overlooked and cruelest parts of our sad story of slavery. Marriages were not legally recognized, if the people were slaves. Since slaves were property, they could not legally be husband and wife, or mother and child. Their marriage vows were different: not “Until Death, Do You Part,” but “Until Death or Distance, Do You Part.” Marriages among slaves were not legally recognized.

You know, just like marriages today in California are not legally recognized, if the people are gay.

And uncountable in our history are the number of men and women, forced by society into marrying the opposite sex, in sham marriages, or marriages of convenience, or just marriages of not knowing, centuries of men and women who have lived their lives in shame and unhappiness, and who have, through a lie to themselves or others, broken countless other lives, of spouses and children, all because we said a man couldn’t marry another man, or a woman couldn’t marry another woman. The sanctity of marriage.

How many marriages like that have there been and how on earth do they increase the “sanctity” of marriage rather than render the term, meaningless?

What is this, to you? Nobody is asking you to embrace their expression of love. But don’t you, as human beings, have to embrace… that love? The world is barren enough.

It is stacked against love, and against hope, and against those very few and precious emotions that enable us to go forward. Your marriage only stands a 50-50 chance of lasting, no matter how much you feel and how hard you work.

And here are people overjoyed at the prospect of just that chance, and that work, just for the hope of having that feeling. With so much hate in the world, with so much meaningless division, and people pitted against people for no good reason, this is what your religion tells you to do? With your experience of life and this world and all its sadnesses, this is what your conscience tells you to do?

With your knowledge that life, with endless vigor, seems to tilt the playing field on which we all live, in favor of unhappiness and hate… this is what your heart tells you to do? You want to sanctify marriage? You want to honor your God and the universal love you believe he represents? Then Spread happiness—this tiny, symbolic, semantical grain of happiness—share it with all those who seek it. Quote me anything from your religious leader or book of choice telling you to stand against this. And then tell me how you can believe both that statement and another statement, another one which reads only “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

You are asked now, by your country, and perhaps by your creator, to stand on one side or another. You are asked now to stand, not on a question of politics, not on a question of religion, not on a question of gay or straight. You are asked now to stand, on a question of love. All you need do is stand, and let the tiny ember of love meet its own fate.

You don’t have to help it, you don’t have it applaud it, you don’t have to fight for it. Just don’t put it out. Just don’t extinguish it. Because while it may at first look like that love is between two people you don’t know and you don’t understand and maybe you don’t even want to know. It is, in fact, the ember of your love, for your fellow person just because this is the only world we have. And the other guy counts, too.

This is the second time in ten days I find myself concluding by turning to, of all things, the closing plea for mercy by Clarence Darrow in a murder trial.

But what he said, fits what is really at the heart of this:

“I was reading last night of the aspiration of the old Persian poet, Omar-Khayyam,” he told the judge. It appealed to me as the highest that I can vision. I wish it was in my heart, and I wish it was in the hearts of all: So I be written in the Book of Love; I do not care about that Book above. Erase my name, or write it as you will, So I be written in the Book of Love.”

By the time I got home from working Precinct 17 on Election Day, I was exhausted, sore, and dismayed. Precinct 17 encompasses one of the wealthiest, and thereby conservative, neighborhoods in Los Alamos, and by the end of the night had gone 2-1 for Senator McCain, while also voting down funding for improvements to senior centers across the state. Precinct 13, in the same room, was a 50-50-ish split, also for McCain.

I wept when the networks called the election for Obama. I wept through parts of McCain’s speech, even the patronizing parts where he seemed to belittle the victory as a solely African-American experience and not one for the entire country. I wept watching the jubilation in Grant Park, Chicago, sweeping the crowd for people I might know. And I wept through Obama’s remarkable speech calling this nation to greater service, greater sacrifice, and better days ahead only through our own hard work and dedication.

The line that stays with me most is, “And to those Americans whose support I have yet to earn - I may not have won your vote, but I hear your voices, I need your help, and I will be your President too.”

Those are healing words after eight long years of secretive and divisive government.

But what I’m thinking about most this morning is the children in Hyde Park, Woodlawn, and Kenwood, on the South Side of Chicago, who know this man who has been elected President, and not just from the television. These are kids of all different backgrounds, with all different kinds of families and experiences, and Barack Obama is THEIR president. They’ve met him in the grocery store, in the restaurants, in their schools, at church, and they KNOW him. They know that he is extraordinary, but also that he’s a human being, with a ready smile and a big heart.

Knowing that a figure like the President of the United States is also a regular guy with a family who walks down the streets of YOUR neighborhood is a powerful thing. Those kids, especially, can see larger things today than yesterday.

He’s certainly not a savior. He’s not the answer to all of the problems our country, our very society, faces. But he’s the beginning of the change. He’s the leader to get us all moving in the right direction. And I, for one, am ready to answer his call.

Tell me what we need to do, Mr. President. What’s next?

Rachel hits this one on the head:

I can’t find the transcript on her new site, but the gist is, some people can’t afford to stand in line for hours and hours even for something as important as a Presidential election, but your country needs you to do so anyway, and to help others do so as well.

Senator Obama’s grandmother died early this morning. Here’s the statement from the Senator and his sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng:

It is with great sadness that we announce that our grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, has died peacefully after a battle with cancer. She was the cornerstone of our family, and a woman of extraordinary accomplishment, strength, and humility. She was the person who encouraged and allowed us to take chances. She was proud of her grandchildren and great-grandchildren and left this world with the knowledge that her impact on all of us was meaningful and enduring. Our debt to her is beyond measure.

Our family wants to thank all of those who sent flowers, cards, well-wishes, and prayers during this difficult time. It brought our grandmother and us great comfort. Our grandmother was a private woman, and we will respect her wish for a small private ceremony to be held at a later date. In lieu of flowers, we ask that you make a donation to any worthy organization in search of a cure for cancer.

I am so glad he was able to go see her in the last weeks of his campaign, and so sad that she did not get to see the outcome tomorrow night. She was, by all accounts, an amazing woman.

Donate if you’re willing:

Cancer Research Institution

CureSearch, for childhood cancer

Breast Cancer Network of Strength

And this year’s costumes are….

Robin Hood, with borrowed boots and bow:

and Chef Nora:

Ready for action!

I’m a nit-picker. I like to be precise, and get rather annoyed when people in charge of important things like elections don’t seem to think that every detail matters. But this week, my annoying attention to detail, I think, paid off.

I’m signed up as a poll-worker here in Los Alamos, and will dutifully report to my precinct at 6 a.m. on Tuesday morning to help make the election “go.” Before getting my hands near the workings of democracy, however, I had to attend Election School the other night, where I was given booklets and pamphlets, detailed pictures of how the Tabulator machines work and of all of the various envelopes we’ll put results into, and I listened to a lecture about how to process voters through the precinct on election day.

This was all well and good, until I started actually reading the handouts, and trying to understand why, at least in one instance, the typed pages from both the County Clerk and the New Mexico Secretary of State did not seem to jive with what was being said out loud as to how we are to verify the identity of our registered voters.

The gist of the law is that you have to show physical identification when you register to vote, but in order to actually vote once you’re registered, you only have to provide your name, address, and year of birth to be verified against the roster of registered voters. However, if you registered by mail and did not provide a copy of your physical identification, your name will be marked on the roster with “ID” and you have to show your physical identification at the polls the first time you vote.

Seems simple, right? Except, the terms “required voter identification” and “physical identification” need to be defined, and they have been in the state statutes.

What our handouts said, both the booklet from the County Clerk and a separate one from the Secretary of State, is this:

The election official should then ask the voter for the required form of voter identification.

A physical form of identification may be:

1) an original or copy of a current and valid photo identification with or without an address. The address is not required to match the voter’s certificate of registration or a voter identification card.

2) an original or copy of a utility bill, bank statement, government check, paycheck, student identification card or other government document, including identification issued by an Indian nation, tribe, or pueblo, that shows the name and address of the person. The address is not required to match the voter’s certificate of registration; or

3) a verbal or written statement by the voter of the voter’s name, address as registered and year of birth; provided, however, that the statement of the voter’s name need not contain the voter’s middle initial or suffix.

At the minimum, a voter shall provide their name, address as registered, and YEAR of birth.

If the voter’s name has a box with ID in it, then a physical form of identification is required, no exceptions.

There was much made out loud about items 1 and 2 above, that those were required for voters with “ID” next to their names, but I read this statement as defining “physical form of identification” as 1, 2, AND 3.

And sure enough, in the state statutes, the words are mostly the same but the formatting is different:

As used in the Election Code, “required voter identification” means any of the following forms of identification as chosen by the voter:

A. a physical form of identification, which may be:

1) an original or copy of a current and valid photo identification with or without an address. The address is not required to match the voter’s certificate of registration or a voter identification card; or

2) an original or copy of a utility bill, bank statement, government check, paycheck, student identification card or other government document, including identification issued by an Indian nation, tribe, or pueblo, that shows the name and address of the person. The address is not required to match the voter’s certificate of registration; or

B. a verbal or written statement by the voter of the voter’s name, address as registered and year of birth; provided, however, that the statement of the voter’s name need not contain the voter’s middle initial or suffix.

It’s a very small thing, but it makes all the difference in how the law can be interpreted, particularly if you have a theoretical voter in your face saying, “Show me where it says I have to show you an ID.”

So, being the troublemaker that I am and having not gotten the clarification I was looking for at Election School, I took my printout of the state statute and my handouts to the County Clerk’s office, and showed them to our election manager. It took awhile to explain the distinction in a way that made sense to her, but once she compared it all to her officially codified version of the statutes, she got it, and later that day sent out a correction to all of this county’s poll workers.

If it will be an issue in the rest of the state, I have no idea. But I feel like I made at least a tiny little difference here. And got myself branded as the “difficult” one, too, I’m sure. But hey, details are important, dammit.

This is Scarlett, watching the Barack-fomercial last night. She needs a caption.

John suggested “If you talkin’ ’bout change for my litter box, you has my vote.” There’s got to be a better idea out there somewhere.