We thought McCain would fall on his face. He does fall on his face, often, so it wasn't an unreasonable thought. But he didn't. Our candidate didn't connect with the audience as well as he might have if he, too, had told stories. That's preaching 101 these days--stories work better than exposition.  McCain had some great stories.  So it's not a surprise that the traditional media say he won. Who knows, maybe they were expecting him to fall on his face as much as we were.

As I’ve listened to the uproar over Jeremiah Wright’s sermons found on the internet, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the role of race in my personal life.  Because I think we need to be talking about the ways in which Blacks and Whites view America differently, I want to offer some vignettes that have illumined these differences for me.

I was reading this excellent diary on what the neocons have done to America's values and I found myself thinking about why Jimmy Carter continues to stand for the truth. And I realized that there are two reasons: 1. his belief in what this country has been and can still be, and 2. his Christian faith. We talk a lot here about the ways in which the current set of neocons have done to this country. They have, without question, attempted to do the same to the Christian faith. And they have left us with a generation of young people who believe that "the scariest words in the English language are 'I'm from the government, and I'm here to help,'" (Ronald Reagan) and that Christianity, perhaps all deistic religion, is all about hate. If this interests you at all, please follow me below the fold.

On our local news tonight, a reporter did a story on recovery on the Gulf Coast. She made mention of her blog on the topic, and my husband made sure I found it. As I've said in many comments, my daughter and her family live in New Orleans, though they suffered negligible damage. I can't do the physical labor involved in clean-up, so I make it my task to thank everyone I know who goes to the Gulf.  Below is what I sent the reporter.