Colin Powell on Meet the Press re: Obama

I saw Amy's post when I got home from morning church and didn't know what it was about until I actually clicked on the comments.

Kita posted:

"Well, the correct answer is, he is not a Muslim, he's a Christian. He's always been a Christian," he said. "But the really right answer is, what if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer's no, that's not America. Is there something wrong with some seven-year-old Muslim-American kid believing that he or she could be president? Yet, I have heard senior members of my own party drop the suggestion, 'He's a Muslim and he might be associated terrorists.' This is not the way we should be doing it in America."
-Colin Powell

ann1962 posted:

If you aren't reading Jack & Jill Politics, you really should. They are doing some of the best analysis of the election.

A reader of theirs found the photo of the Muslim mother at her son's grave that Colin Powell referenced on Meet the Press this morning when he endorsed Obama.

He teared up when he was speaking of this family's loss. I now see why.

The first GoogleNews search result I got was this -- has embedded MSNBC video excerpt, transcript, etc.

The bit Ann mentioned comes immediately following the bit Kita quoted; Powell says:

I feel strongly about this particular point because of a picture I saw in a magazine. It was a photo essay about troops who are serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. And one picture at the tail end of this photo essay was of a mother in Arlington Cemetery, and she had her head on the headstone of her son's grave. And as the picture focused in, you could see the writing on the headstone. And it gave his awards--Purple Heart, Bronze Star--showed that he died in Iraq, gave his date of birth, date of death. He was 20 years old. And then, at the very top of the headstone, it didn't have a Christian cross, it didn't have the Star of David, it had crescent and a star of the Islamic faith. And his name was Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan, and he was an American. He was born in New Jersey. He was 14 years old at the time of 9/11, and he waited until he can go serve his country, and he gave his life. Now, we have got to stop polarizing ourself in this way.

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I'm not entirely sold on "Yes We Can" as a campaign slogan, but I'd been wanting to post this poem since I saw it on the flist recently, and this seems as good an excuse as any.

God Says Yes to Me
by Kaylin Haught

I asked God if it was okay to be melodramatic
and she said yes
I asked her if it was okay to be short
and she said it sure is
I asked her if I could wear nail polish
or not wear nail polish
and she said honey
she calls me that sometimes
she said you can do just exactly
what you want to
Thanks God I said
And is it even okay if I don't paragraph
my letters
Sweetcakes God said
who knows where she picked that up
what I'm telling you is
Yes Yes Yes

I emailed this to Laura Ruth after Maria reposted it, and in our conversation about it I said, "I am anal-retentive enough that the lack of punctuation bothers me -- though I know that the line breaks are often functioning for the punctuation and that anyway it's a poem not an essay."

She replied, "Oh, you make me laugh!"

*glows*

meh

I went out to buy some milk Saturday morning, and it was like, "Hello cold snap." Overnight lows in the 30s and daytime highs in the 50s looks to be the trend for a while. I definitely need to actually go through all my old winter clothes and decide what I'm keeping and how much new stuff I need to buy. Too bad I don't have curtain rods, 'cause my hands have been cold when I'm at my computer. (I also want to buy new doorknobs 'cause the threading is worn on both the front door and the bathroom door and the latter in particular makes me nervous. The catch on my bedroom door is missing, which I'm less clear on how to fix -- I guess replace the whole mechanism -- and which wouldn't really bother me at all, since the door doesn't swing open on its own, except that my housemate's cat will come in, which makes me nervous when I'm not around and which is annoying when I want to be in bed and there's this heavy lump on part of my bed.)

I went down to the CHPC flea market to help out and was quickly reminded of how much I don't like church fairs -- people ask how much something is and nobody has any effing idea, and when you quote someone a price they want to pay less anyway because clearly at stuff like this everything should be free even if you would pay real money for the exact same item in an actual store. I had planned to be there for the whole 10am-2pm, but I didn't get there until about 11 'cause I got a late/slow start on the day, and around 1:15 I headed out to JP.

I'd never really been to JP except for a little passing through, but Laura Ruth and Meck live right near the Stony Brook stop. It's a lovely area.

I got there around quarter to three (I made a couple phone calls in between getting off the Orange Line and actually going inside) and was the first person there (it was advertised as a 2-6pm event), though the next person arrived just a few minutes after me.

At one point Laura Ruth said something about communion the next day and I said, "But it's not the first Sunday in the month." She literally slapped her knee and almost doubled over laughing.

***

The Closing Hymn at CWM tonight was "I Love to Tell the Story" (revised). I looked it up on cyberhymnal.org after I got home, and Tallessyn had actually left it mostly as the original.

( text )

cyberhymnal.org says, "Music: Will­iam G. Fisch­er, Joy­ful Songs, Nos. 1 to 3 (Phil­a­del­phia, Penn­syl­van­ia: Meth­od­ist Epis­co­pal Book Room, 1869)" so I clicked on the bio for the woman who wrote them poem the song is based on to see if she was Methodist Episcopal, too, "As of 1881, Hank­ey was liv­ing with her un­mar­ried brother Reginald." I immediately had one thought and then another, both of which can be blamed on fandom ruining me.