WHAT A FANTASTIC WEEK THIS HAS BEEN.
first, we heard a few songs by a guy named shugo tokumaru and melted into a rather happy puddle of glittery goo upon listening. especially “slow chair”, we got really glittery when we heard “slow chair”.
AND THEN BARACK OBAMA WON THE ELECTION and come january there is a very legitimate chance that our country will be a place to be excited about again. why weren’t we excited about it before? in case you’ve forgotten some of the irresponsible decisions george w. bush has made in the past eight years, he made two more this past week to remind you why we are no longer a nation the world admires: 3 million acres of federal land in utah is gonna be opened up for drilling (except for that utah has less than 2.5% of our natural gas resources, so why even bother?) which is bad enough by itself and then we find out that this land is around and adjacent to national parks (not that we really think it’s appropriate for any drilling, anywhere in the country, at this point it’s tons more important to look into alternative technologies because we have the resources (like wind, water, and the sun) and need only follow the examples of norway and sweden to see how sweet a fossil-fuel-free existence could be) and is most likely gonna cause harm to these ecosystems our government previously promised to protect; UGH; also, our dear president has decided to scale back on medicaid outpatient services, which really sucks because when the economy is getting bad for everyone that means it’s getting especially bad for the people who depend on medicaid for their medical care, people who are now leaning on services like these even more than they were a few months or years ago, and now they are being robbed of some of that care (the executive vice president of the american hospital association said that the new regulation would “jeopardize important community-based services, including screening, diagnostic and dental services for children, as well as lab and ambulance services” SHIT), and also, the cuts in funding and spending are gonna do nothing but depress the economy further, until it gets worse and worse, and that is a scary scary thought. BUT NEVERMIND ALL THAT because here are some reasons to be pumped about our nation’s (and our own) future: we (duh) think obama is fantastic and feel a lot safer knowing that an intelligent, thoughtful, levelheaded leader is going to be the one making enormous decisions that affect us and our families for the next four years; not only that, the rest of the world thinks the same thing, and this means that we get to be a part of the international community again, which is really very exciting. overnight, we have gone from laughingstock (harsh words, but it’s true) to role model (hmm strong words, but maybe they’re true too) and the effects this role reversal will have on all of our relationships, friendly or unfriendly, are enormous. we are also excited because this means that a majority of the country has the same priorities as obama (sustainable energy and the environment, helping the economy by working with the bottom two levels instead of the top, the idea that everyone should have insurance and healthcare, blah blah blah) and with that many people working for so many important issues it is doubtful that things won’t get better. hooray.
and then we finished reading the omnivore’s dilemma, a super fantastic book by michael pollan that is worth reading if you eat food.
and then we went on a field trip to washington d.c. and visited some super fantastic art museums.
and in just a few hours, we will go and listen to the super fantastic jens lekman strum and sing some tunes. and we will be happy. we hope you are happy, too.
[ stefanie ]
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