Obama-rama, con't:

Two excepts from magazines that comment on Obama and the present day state of mind:

From GQ magazine, February 2009
"Why I'm Hopeful" by Patton Oswalt

"I think a lot of problems we've been experiencing come from the fact that no one embraces the miracle and amazement of the present. So many people - steampunks, fundamentalists, hippies, neocons, anti-immigration advocates - feel like there was a better time to live in. They think the present is degraded, faded and drab. That our world has lost some sort of 'spark' or 'basic value system' that, if you so much as skim history, you'll find was never there. Even during the time of the Greeks, there were masses of people lamenting the passing of some sort of 'golden age.' But I'd never go back and live in any other time than teetering on tomorrow; this is the greatest time to be alive. In the face of even more fear than we faced in 2004 - our banks are collapsing, Al Qaeda has reconstituted itself, the weather's getting scarier and more random by the day - we chose the smart guy. The fall of 2008 was perfect for the 'scare the shit out of 'em' playbook, but we ignored it and strode forward like gunfighters, armed with smarts, engagement, and optimism. It's not that I'm hopeful about any one thing. What makes me hopeful is that soil we walk on has, for the first time in a long time, been beneficial to hope itself."

From Rolling Stone, Editor's Note, December 25 2008 - January 8, 2009, by Will Dana, Managing Editor

" . . . one of the surprises . . . was discovering an interview we'd conducted in late 2004 and had pretty much forgotten about - a short conversation with a newly elected senator from Illinois named Barack Obama, whom we were naming as one of our People of the Year; that summer he had electrified the nation with his speech at the Democratic National Convention.

In the wake of Bush's victory over John Kerry, Obama talked with the candor, confidence and looseness of a man who was ready to lead and wasn't about to trade his soul for power . . . He described himself as a jailed jock who turned to politics when he realized he'd never make it to the NBA, as a reformed smoker who couldn't resist bumming the occasional cigarette and as a one-time wild man who'd gotten serious: 'I did drugs and drank and partied,' he told us. 'But I got my ya-ya's out.' Talking about Bush's re-election, Obama put his party's loss in a perspective that was tough minded, but comforting. 'Losing an election is not a tragedy,' he said. 'Tragedies are my mom getting cancer at 53 and dying in six months.'

Not to discount the historical importance of electing the first African-American to the White House, but what may be more significant in the long run is that we've put our trust in a man who's not afraid to talk like a real person. As 2008 draws to a close, we indeed have much to worry about. But we also feel a genuine hope. Electing Barack Obama was not simply about repudiating the misrule of George W. Bush - the greed, the incompetence, the contempt for the syntax of both the English language and the U.S. Constitution. It was about something deeper and more elemental - a reminder, that when we most need it, that we, as a people, are still capable of making a choice that is risky and heartfelt, that honors both the idealism of our past and the challenges of our future."