File under - Unbiased Media? More like "a sign of things to come"...

Chris Matthews appeared on "Morning Joe" Thursday morning, and in the context of discussing the Obama transition — and Rahm Emanuel's motives for waffling on the chief of staff position — told Joe Scarborough it is not his job to question Emanuel's motives.

"You know what?" Matthews said. "I want to do everything I can to make this thing work, this new Presidency work."

Scarborough and co-host Mika Brzezinski pressed Matthews on his claim, asking if it his his job as a journalist to make the Presidency work.

"Yeah, that's my job. My job is to help this country...to make this work succsesfully, because this country needs a successful Presidency, more than anything right now," Matthews said.

"As Americans, Chris Matthews, we are all rooting for the success of Barack Obama," Scarborough said. "America is at a perilous time. But you just talked about being a journalist, and your job as a journalist is not to question motives. Then, two seconds later, you said your job was to make this Presidency a success. That's curious."

so much for fair and balanced, one word....wow

congrats to Obama on his victory.

I am excited to see what happens,..

this woman is pretty excited too!

http://www.sodahead.com/question/183564/obama-is-going-to-pay-for-my-gas-and-mortgage-will-you-get-any-gas-from-the-big-o/?tko=home_featuredOther

voting day thoughts

"How a politician stands on the Second Amendment tells you how he or she views you as an individual... as a trustworthy and productive citizen, or as part of an unruly crowd that needs to be lorded over, controlled, supervised, and taken care of."

~ Suzanna Gratia-Hupp

Where are you from?

"If you don't know where you're from, you'll have a hard time saying where you're going." Wendell Berry, among others, has voiced this idea that we need to understand our roots to know our place in the world. A poem by George Ella Lyons is called "Where I'm From." I first heard it read by Appalachian poet Rita Quillen. Six months later, we used it as a writing assignment in a class taught by my friend Elizabeth Hunter at the Campbell Folk School in North Carolina. The poem lends itself to imitation and makes a wonderful exercise of exploration in belonging.

See the template here - http://www.swva.net/fred1st/wif.htm

Where I am from

I am from street hockey sticks, from wiffle balls and hynes field, I am from McCarthy hand-me-downs. I am from the neighborhood, houses close together and penny candy at Charlie's. I am from the backyard crabapple trees, from crabapple wars and tree forts, from swimming at Happy's to pickle between sewer caps. I am from relievio, and guns, and go carts, from kids actually playing in the streets. From endless summer games with Lynchs, McCarthys, Delaneys, McLains, from Keneallys, Cogavins, Corcorans, Silipignos, Weirs and Lepores.

I am from seeing Christmas lights on the Boston Common and from pride, from Sullivans and Wests and Butlers and Gatelys. I am from the keeping things inside, stubbornesss and always lending a hand.

From always stand up when you greet a woman and take you hat off when you enter a room. From stop crying and stand up straight, from stick up for yourself and your family, from elbows off the table. I am from Irish catholic to finding spirituality in nature and relationships.... I'm from Boston, from West Roxbury, From Mission Hill, From Roslindale, From Roscommon, From Dysart, from the famous chicken dish and crabmeat hors d'oeuvres.

I am from a line of proud federal agents, the assistant to the chief of the Boston Fire Dept, the marine corps volunteer, from amazing women and from always doing what is right or at least trying like hell to do so. I am my mother's talkativeness and my father quietness. I am from love your friends and family, and never forget to tell them so. I am from always stick up for yourself

I am from photos on my fathers dresser displayed proudly, from my mothers refrigerator photos.

Way to go knights

from parkwayboston.com

CM raises $25 K for Brest Cancer Research

With over three hundred students and faculty members participating in this year’s Making Strides Against Breast Cancer Walk on Sunday morning, Catholic Memorial School again became one of the largest delegations represented in the Walk, rivaling only Bentley College in numbers of students and funds raised.

Some students walked with a mother or grandmother in mind, others to support a faculty member or alumni family. Some turned out just because it was a nice day, their friends were going, and they’d chipped in a dollar or two during homeroom. Either way, the result was a sea of red shirts printed for the occasion by the CM volunteers, headed by parent Mrs. Beth Leney, who organized much of the event.

“It was impressive,” said Leney, parent of Catholic Memorial sophomore Nick Leney, who became a student organizer. “We hoped to match and surpass last year’s goals, both in the number of walkers we sent and the amount raised, and we did just that.”

10.07.08 Debate number two

Should be a good one....

a 9.11 reflection

An undated picture of Ann Nelson, who died on Sept. 11, 2001.

I first read this post by Dan Barry of the NY Times two years ago and found it very moving. Two years later it still has the same affect on me - perspective, sadness, emotion, inspiration..

For a long time, Ann Nelson's laptop computer remained dark. It had been returned to her family in North Dakota, along with the other belongings she left behind in that great city 1,750 miles to the east. She was 30, lively, working near the very top of the World Trade Center, and — you already know.

In the small town of Stanley, halfway between Minot and Williston, a fog thick enough to blur time's passing enveloped the Nelson home. Amid the many tributes to Ann, amid the grieving and the absence, it became hard to remember just when and how the laptop wound up in the basement of the one-story bank that the family owned.

There the laptop sat, for years, tucked away from sight in a black case. It was a Dell Inspiron 8000, bought shortly before Ann called home that day in early 2001 to say she had gotten a job as a bond trader at Cantor Fitzgerald — in New York! Soon she was living near the corner of Thompson and Spring, and working in an office 104 stories in the air.

Ann's parents, Jenette and Gary Nelson, say the laptop remained unopened because they are not computer savvy. But it was more than that, Mrs. Nelson admits. "To tell you the truth, it was just too painful."

Three summers ago, during an art class Mrs. Nelson was teaching in that basement, a couple of students showed her how to use the computer. After the class, she says, "I just left it there."

Who knows why never becomes someday, and someday becomes today. One day last fall — "when I got to feeling stronger," she says — Mrs. Nelson finally opened her daughter's computer. She pushed its power button and started by looking at the photographs stored in its memory.

Soon Mrs. Nelson was learning how to play the computer's games, including solitaire and hearts. These distractions both relaxed her and reminded her of the games she used to play with Ann. Somehow, this little black machine made Ann seem present, there beside her.

Getting lost in the computer became part of Mrs. Nelson's after-work ritual, though she never bothered to open a file that said "Top 100"; probably some music, she figured. Then, two months ago and who knows why, click.

What she found was a catalog of goals, humanly incomplete: a list that reflected a young woman's commitment to the serious, to the frivolous, to all of life. That night, Mr. and Mrs. Nelson sat down with the list, and were with their daughter again.

1. Be healthy/ healthful. 2. Be a good friend. 3. Keep secrets. 4. Keep in touch with people I love and that love me. 5. Make a quilt.

Mrs. Nelson used to sew all the time, until it simply became too hard to guide a needle properly with a joyous little girl frolicking in her lap. Then, when Ann grew older, mother and daughter decided to sew a tablecloth.

"I don't think we ever finished," Mrs. Nelson says, laughing. "She had to be doing 100 things at a time, and consequently some of them didn't get finished."

As for this goal of making a quilt, she adds, "I'm sure that I would probably have been deeply involved in this process."

6. Nepal. 7. Buy a home in North Dakota. 8. Get a graduate degree. 9. Learn a foreign language. 10. Kilimanjaro. 11. Never be ashamed of who I am.

"Ann was in many environments where being a girl from North Dakota may not have been the most sophisticated label to wear," Mrs. Nelson says, recalling that her daughter had traveled to China and to Peru, and had worked in the high-powered environments of Chicago and New York.

Even so, Ann always conveyed pride in who she was, who her parents were and where they came from — though never in a boastful way. "It's an important point about her personality," her mother says.

12. Be a person to be proud of. 13. Always keep improving. 14. Read every day. 15. Be informed. 16. Knit a sweater. 17. Scuba-dive in the Barrier Reef. 18. Volunteer for a charity. 19. Learn to cook.

By her late 20's, Ann had actually become a fairly decent cook. Still, her mother laughs in recalling late-night calls, like the one that began: "Mom, what's drawn butter?"

20. Learn about art. 21. Get my C.F.A. 22. Grand Canyon. 23. Helicopter-ski with my dad.

Then Ann Nelson's list repeats a number.

23. Spend more time with my family. 24. Remember birthdays!!!!

Birthdays loomed large in Ann's life. She would celebrate her birthday not for a day, but for a week — in part because her father's birthday came the very next day, in part because she was proud to have been born on Norwegian Independence Day — which is May 17, today.

"Ann would have been 35," says Mr. Nelson, who turns 65 tomorrow.

25. Appreciate money, but don't worship it. 26. Learn how to use a computer. 27. Visit the New York Public Library. 28. Maine. 29. Learn to write. 30. Walk — exercise but also see the world firsthand. 31. Learn about other cultures. 32. Be a good listener. 33. Take time for friends. 34. Kayak. 35. Drink water. 36. Learn about wine.

Ann was supposed to attend a wine class the evening of Sept. 11, in keeping with Nos. 13, 19, 31, 36 — the whole list, really.

After 36, there is a 37, but it is blank.

Mr. Nelson reads the list as an inventory of his daughter's values. "You don't see any Corvettes in the garage or any of those material things you might expect from someone that age," he says. "She recognized that you appreciate a few things and kind of live your life wisely."

Mrs. Nelson interprets the list as another way in which Ann seems to communicate with her when she is most in need. So, just about every day in a small North Dakota town, halfway between Minot and Williston, the screen of a laptop computer goes from darkness to light.

After seven years, strong emotions still exist. I think stories like these help us remember the past and inspire us to look toward the future.....never forget!