And I’m (Almost) Off

Safe travels and advise Michelle to wear the purple! Also, you’re on notice for posting a graphic with unnecessary quotation marks–it’s not nice to make us grammar obsessives twitch!

@flippin eck: That’s my fault – I sent him the ad.

@HF: See you soon, sugarplum! Liveblogging from the bar post-Hopey swearing.

@flippin eck: You know my writing is all about unnecessary punctuation.

I saw Bishop Gene Robinson on Rachel a few nights ago and I was very impressed. Between almost-President Obama and Bishop Robinson my cynicism is in shreds. It’s a shame HBO couldn’t manage to squeeze his invocation into their time slot. Here is the text:

“Welcome to Washington! The fun is about to begin, but first, please join me in pausing for a moment, to ask God’s blessing upon our nation and our next president.

O God of our many understandings, we pray that you will…

Bless us with tears – for a world in which over a billion people exist on less than a dollar a day, where young women from many lands are beaten and raped for wanting an education, and thousands die daily from malnutrition, malaria, and AIDS.

Bless us with anger – at discrimination, at home and abroad, against refugees and immigrants, women, people of color, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.

Bless us with discomfort – at the easy, simplistic “answers” we’ve preferred to hear from our politicians, instead of the truth, about ourselves and the world, which we need to face if we are going to rise to the challenges of the future.

Bless us with patience – and the knowledge that none of what ails us will be “fixed” anytime soon, and the understanding that our new president is a human being, not a messiah.

Bless us with humility – open to understanding that our own needs must always be balanced with those of the world.

Bless us with freedom from mere tolerance – replacing it with a genuine respect and warm embrace of our differences, and an understanding that in our diversity, we are stronger.

Bless us with compassion and generosity – remembering that every religion’s God judges us by the way we care for the most vulnerable in the human community, whether across town or across the world.

And God, we give you thanks for your child Barack, as he assumes the office of President of the United States.

Give him wisdom beyond his years, and inspire him with Lincoln’s reconciling leadership style, President Kennedy’s ability to enlist our best efforts, and Dr. King’s dream of a nation for ALL the people.

Give him a quiet heart, for our Ship of State needs a steady, calm captain in these times.

Give him stirring words, for we will need to be inspired and motivated to make the personal and common sacrifices necessary to facing the challenges ahead.

Make him color-blind, reminding him of his own words that under his leadership, there will be neither red nor blue states, but the United States.

Help him remember his own oppression as a minority, drawing on that experience of discrimination, that he might seek to change the lives of those who are still its victims.

Give him the strength to find family time and privacy, and help him remember that even though he is president, a father only gets one shot at his daughters’ childhoods.

And please, God, keep him safe. We know we ask too much of our presidents, and we’re asking FAR too much of this one. We know the risk he and his wife are taking for all of us, and we implore you, O good and great God, to keep him safe. Hold him in the palm of your hand – that he might do the work we have called him to do, that he might find joy in this impossible calling, and that in the end, he might lead us as a nation to a place of integrity, prosperity and peace.

AMEN.”

@Dave H: Thank you so much for posting that. I am verklempt. I heard Gene on NPR this week, and he talked about wanting to make his invocation inclusive for people of all faiths, and made a point of saying that he would not mention Jesus. He makes me proud to be a lapsed Episcopalian.

@Dave H: That’s so lovely. I got teary reading the end about keeping Unicorn safe. I’m sure if I actually heard it (which apparently didn’t happen for anyone, considering it was cut from the broadcast and the mic even cut out for those who were there in person), I’d be balling like a baby.

That is so gently in-your-face. I think I love him.

Robinson’s beautiful words, and his amazing way of gentle tweaking (come on, praying especially for Obama’s physical safety, noone else will go there, because going there involves admitting that there are evil racist fucks in this country who would love to kill him, and noone else will admit that) make this threadjack even more evil.

I just followed an aol teaser to a story about conjoined twins, girls, joined everywhere, one body, two heads, and they just turned 18. And the subject of the story was their wish to get married.

Whoooaaaa. Too bizarre, see, they have two heads, there’s two girls, I guess, but only one body, only one torso, two arms, two legs, one vajajay.

Would it be bigamy to marry them? Is it incest when they masturbate? Oh, this is so sick only ragingmonk could do this justice.

Because, you see, they are pretty. Yikes. Stop, mind, just stop, don’t even think it, damn, I thought it. Damn, I am an evil person.

Yes, I still use aol, I know, I know, its just that thats the first email adress I ever had, way back in 1996, and I just never wanted to change the email and tell everyone I changed the email, I know, I know, lame lame lame.

@Promnight: I have a soft spot for AOL. When I joined AOL in 1990 it had a DOS interface, the Internet did not exist, and there were ~200k subscribers. It was like a big BBS. I still maintain the same AOL address, in addition to my 8 other email addresses. The AOL address is my “junk” address. I use it when I have to give an address but don’t really care about the mail I’ll get back.

“Bless us with anger.” My dream for after I’m dead is to be an avenging angel. St. Michael would be my model, standing on the throat of evil.

Got that elk cut up and wrapped. Fucking steaks are a foot long by 4 inches wide. I hand ground two quart bags of the meat. A couple of roasts are the size of footballs. My back hurts. I slammed some Nathan’s dogs and peppers with a Heineken for dinner. Got to show the boy how a ball and socket and hinge joint work.

@homofascist: Did you get to DC yet?

@Promnight: The original ‘Siamese’ twins, Chang and Eng, both married. To different women. Such as. I think Eng had children and died of panic when Chang died of (?) stroke?