House of Estrogen

Vote

In 1988, three businessmen from Arizona traveled to Costa Rica on a fishing trip. During their visit, they learned that the country’s voter turnout is typically around 90 percent. This high turnout was attributed to a tradition of children accompanying their parents to the polls. The men were intrigued by the idea, but also recognized a missing link to education. They launched a school-based pilot project in a Phoenix suburb that has since grown into the national Kids Voting USA organization.

In the past three presidential elections in the U.S., the percent of US citizens over 18 who voted was: 58.4% (1996), 59.5% (2000), 63.8% (2004). Those numbers are moving in the right direction, but are still nowhere near 90%. Take your kids to vote.

Here are my little voters.

Obama Mama

After one unsuccessful attempt to go see the next president of the United States, a coworker convinced me to give it a second try today. I'm so glad he did. After waiting in a 5 city block line for two hours, we actually made it through security to see him. 28,000 other people had the same idea, and I believe we were behind 10,000 of them. The view wasn't great, but how cool is it that 28,000 people showed up midday on a work day in a red state to see this man? Wow!  The energy in the crowd was palpable. I think we all felt we were watching history in the making. Even though we were far away, we could hear every word, and as always, Obama energized the crowd.

The line in front of us...

 

The line behind us...

 

rooftop snipers...

   

and the man himself. I added an arrow, so you can find him. Wasn't my view fabulous?

 

OK, so not so fabulous, but it was still really exciting to be there. How often do you get a chance to see a President (or soon to be one) live and in person?

Lucky

It sounds crazy to say that my cousin was "lucky" that he only ended up with two gunshot wounds by the end of his deployment a couple months ago, but then you watch this clip about his battle group in the Korengal Valley. Truly, lucky he was.

Without getting too political, I just hope that our next president is able to find the resources to give our troops in Afghanistan the support that they need. They really, really need some support.