These first five come from sources worldwide. The next five are more personal:

1.

Amidst the riots and “occupations” around the world this year came this surreal Hollywood moment. A young guy kissing and comforting his girlfriend while the tension roils around them. Sadly the reason for this riot was a sporting event, but the emotional weight is the same. Mob mentality may be overwhelming, but the moment the person you love is injured… rage is replaced by the desire to comfort, cradle, and love.

2.

The President and his National Security Team watching Osama Bin Laden get killed via live Satellite link. The closest most of us will ever get to this is the film “Patriot Games”. From a nice, well-lit, and unremarkable office in DC, our country is overseeing a man getting tracked down and ended. Looking around the room… For some this is a moment of somber power. For others a realization of the importance of human life. And for a few, just another day at the office.

3.

Steve Jobs definitely lived up to his quote “put a dent in the Universe”. I write this blog on one of his computers. I use one of his phones. I work on one of his programs. But I’m most intrigued by his moments of humanity: He hired a biographer partially so his children would have a record and understanding of why he was so rarely home. And at his last Apple Keynote address, an obviously very frail man retreated backstage and laid his forehead against his wife. He was a visionary, yes… but I like that he was also human, flawed, loved, and loving.

4.

This is the funeral for Navy SEAL Jon Tumilson, who was one of 30 killed when their helicopter was shot down over Afghanistan. His dog, “Hawkeye” is laying close to his master for the last time. I realize I’m a softy dog owner, but this makes me cry. Hawkeye gets it, and yet, will never understand. Like all of us.

5.

The Egypt protests which gridlocked the country and eventually brought down President Mubarak had this surprising subplot. About 10% of the country are reportedly Christians. A suicide bombing attack at a Coptic Christian church had killed 23 Christians at the beginning of the year. And yet, during the protests, Christians encircled the praying and vulnerable Muslims to allow them to pray in peace and protection. How much would we change the world if these were the kind of actions Christians were known for? And how likely would it be for a potential bomber to blow up the same people who protected him while he prayed?

Two men with deeply held religious beliefs illegally traveled into other countries to spread their messages. Neither succeeded, but both made news. And though the news coverage has been very different, I can’t shake the feeling that their stories are almost exactly the same.

First off we have the guy on the Northwest flight, Umar, who tried to blow up 300 fellow passengers as they landed in Detroit. A part of me thinks that some people would actually rather light their underwear on fire than land in Detroit, but I digress. His bomb failed, passengers tackled him for the chance to be on Larry King, and now he’s in a tiny cell while his picture is on every TV in the land.

This is an all too familiar story in the US news media. A Muslim extremist, an Al Qaeda plot, Presidential exclamations, and near constant news blathering about “What went wrong”. In short, be afraid, run for your life, cower under the stairs, but whatever you do… don’t turn off your 24hr news station!

Next we have the story of Robert Park, a Korean-American man who snuck into North Korea on Christmas Eve with “A letter” for Kim Jong Il. Frankly he’d be more likely to get a letter to Santa, but this reality did not deter him. He was promptly captured and imprisoned in a country where the US can’t talk you out.

On the surface, Park’s story is completely different because he’s a Christian missionary. His goal was to enter North Korea illegally and deliver a letter asking one of the craziest dictators in the world to open his borders in the name of Jesus Christ.

I read both stories the same day. And I found them equally sad.

Whatever you believe… forcing it on someone else doesn’t change hearts. No one ever got forced into changing their belief system. People have lied over and over to save their skins, but what you believe is a personal thing beyond the control of governments, laws, tortures, and killings.

Yet, somewhere along the way both these guys got convinced of the exact same thing: “If I sneak into this country and deliver this message then things will change. A difference will be made. I will get a reward in the next life and others will find the right path on earth.”

For one, the message was a bomb. For the other, a letter. But it doesn’t change the fact both are just pointless extreme actions which won’t do anything but entrench people further.

If the bomb had gone off would the US have pulled its military from Muslim nations?

If the letter got read by Kim Jong Il would he have wiped away a tear and repented from his ego-manacle ways?

Um. No.

So we’re left with extremist poster children for two different religions.

Another Muslim with so little self-worth and so much belief in a one man Jihad changing the world, that he’s willing to kill himself and others. And people can point and say “See, they all just want to kill us, women, children, everyone. Muslims are all waiting on their moment to be evil …”

Another Christian convinced that his belief is not only right, but so undeniable that if he could only be heard then change would come. And people can point and say “See, another Christian shoving their belief in our face like we’re all unthinking jungle folks rooting around in our filth until he came along. Christians aren’t loving, they’re naïve and offensive.”

And no one changes. Or grows. Or opens their minds. Or makes a new friend that isn’t just like them. With examples like this, why would they?

Which ultimately brings me to another thought.

We’re all just playground children pointing fingers to figure out who’s at fault. The security system. Al Qaeda. Kim Jong Il. The system. The West. The East. There’s no shortage of groups to blame these days. It’s us verses them, and “THEM” has become easy to find.

How different would things be if we were worrying about ourselves instead of everyone else. No keeping up with the Joneses , or staring at the neighbors through our binoculars. You do your thing. I’ll do mine.

And maybe… just maybe… we’ll have dinner together some time. Our kids will all play as a group so we can realize they are all just – kids. If things get really crazy we might become friends. Which is really better for everyone cause you’re less likely to force your beliefs or your bombing runs on your friends.

You see, at any given moment I am only one nudge away from complete and utter geekdom for all things NASA and space. I know random facts about the Mercury, Venus, and Apollo programs. I can name the men that died in the Apollo 1 fire. I knew about Apollo 13 before the movie. Space fascinates me in a unique way because it is both the great unknown and the great equalizer. Get us off our little blue ball and we are all exactly the same.

That’s my favorite thing about old Sci-Fi movies, or even Star Trek; the moment earthlings have to deal with other races, the whole concept of disagreeing over skin color or national origin just becomes silly. Space Conquest is a global victory.

But I digress. Just as we have.

President Obama posed with the Apollo 11 Astronauts and no one seemed to notice the irony. President Kennedy challenged the nation to explore space at the same time Martin Luther King Jr. challenged blacks and whites to live as equals. Now, 40 years later, President Obama represents the new high point of MLKs dream, yet the high point of our space exploration remains stalled and remembering the good old days.

Wasn’t the world supposed to look like “the Jetsons” by now? Shouldn’t the moon landing have been the beginning of something? And yet, the farthest man has ever explored was accomplished, got boring, and was scrapped before I was even born.

Yes, I know we were “racing” the Soviets. But Armstrong wasn’t standing on the moon saying “I claim this moon for America”, or “That’s it, we won, beat that you commie bastard!”. Instead the entire world watched. And marveled. Not because it was America, but because that was a man up there. A human, breathing air and looking back at all of us.

But now we’re going around the world apologizing. Or policing everybody else. Instead of a superpower racing to the moon, we’re a supernanny passing out discipline and crackers.

No one loves a hall monitor. We’re inspired by the rebel kid showing off with danger and conquest.

America may be the last remaining “SuperPower”, but we don’t act like it. We look back at the great things we used to do like an old man pondering a misbegotten youth. We say how great we were to do something generations ago, but don’t take it as inspiration.

New excitement has sprung up about going back to the moon. And when the Apollo 11 guys were asked how they felt about NASA returning they spoke as true adventurers “We’ve already been to the moon. Why aren’t we going to Mars instead?”

But these adventurers are now grandfathers. Old and frail. And as if to accentuate the point, Walter Cronkite died just before this celebration. The man who talked the nation through the death of President Kennedy. The newscaster who took off his glasses to wipe tears from his eyes as Armstrong walked on the moon. The world watched, and Walter Cronkite marveled along with us. It was a new world, one where men really did visit other planets!

Now that world is literally dying. Remembering days gone by instead of reveling in days and conquests to come. Individuals have done amazing things since. But nations stopped trying to expand man’s horizons and now just try to keep the peace.

I can’t help but think it’s awfully peaceful in Space.

A giant leap indeed. I hope someday we leap even further.

I’m excited to see what the future brings, and curious to see President Obama in action instead of as an icon on a poster.

He’s hit the ground running. And like I said before, Presidents always seem to start well.

Yet I find myself sickened by the same thing over and over. I keep trying to get past it… to hope I’ve seen the last news story, or mention, or visual. It’s like an infesting fog I can’t get away from…

The TV, the web, magazines, photos, Talk-shows – I keep getting told that Barak Obama is black. His wife is black. His two little girls are black. Have you noticed, he’s black! Black people love him. Oprah’s there… she’s black! Aretha Franklin’s here too…. She’s black.

Let’s cut to the audience. Show someone Black. Let’s go to an interview… Be sure it’s someone black. Black.

Folks….
I don’t give a shit.

I’ve never thought of him in terms of skin color. When I first saw a picture of him, I was able to acknowledge the significance of “the first African-American man to run for President / win the nomination / win the office….” . But Obama himself didn’t run on a platform of “Hey, notice my skin?” “Hey, look at all the black folks in the audience”.

I know what you’re saying. 45 years ago, Dr. King stood on the national mall and preached about injustice. He dreamed. And if you’d told anyone at that time there’d be a black president in under 50 years they wouldn’t believe it….

Yes. I get it. I’m paying attention. I’m aware of the historical significance.

And I’m thrilled that America can still surprise the world. I love that our founding fathers were thinking in terms that couldn’t even be realized for centuries to come.  Things they couldn’t even realize.

But to be fair:
1 – We aren’t the first or the fastest. South Africa hung on to segregation with an iron fist until the 1990! Then apartheid gets overturned in 1994, and Nelson Mandela becomes President.
Based on that, what took us so long?

2 – Martin Luther King Jr. wasn’t preaching about special notice. He was calling… dreaming… of equal rights.
“I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.”

Barak Obama is the President. No matter your gender, background, color, education, religion, opinion on abortion, or interest in American Idol.

All of us. Together.

When FDR was President, did the nation obsess over how others in a wheelchairs felt about having “one of their own” in the white house?

When Reagan was President, did all the cutaways at his speeches have to show some octogenarian trying to stay awake in the audience?

When Kennedy was President, where there constant interviews with Catholics?

Stop already. The color it takes to paint Obama’s portrait is so unimportant to his job as President that it shouldn’t even get mentioned.

I fear we’ve missed the dream:

“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

That’s fantastic. I’d like to live in a whole world that way. I’d like to apply that across the board to everything beyond skin color….

Yet I read THIS article on CNN the day after the inauguration…

It marvels that the Obamas seem like a “normal” couple, not a “Black” couple. Shocked that they are loving. That Barak isn’t treating Michelle like his “woman” and Michelle isn’t going into some overly-loud sitcom like fit about “Lemme tell you what my man did….”

I have to stop for a minute….

(Very foul language removed.)

How is this getting printed?  Even in jest.

A loving marriage, or a healthy family is not limited to a certain race. Do we really think that? I don’t care what statistics say – I’m asking the question – Do we think… as a nation… as a world… that only certain skin colors are destined to live “normal” lives?

And if so… Dr. Kings dream has gone up in smoke.

“I have a dream that one day,… little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.”

I know a couple who has three kids, 6, 3, and 1. They are a well off WASP billboard if ever there was one. And they have made no mention or acknowledgment of President Obama’s skin color in front of their children.   -  Because they don’t want their kids to have any realization that he and his family are different from their own.

It’s historic. And those kids will learn all that of course….

But one minute our culture seems to insist “Race shouldn’t be an issue”… and the next minute, I can’t get away from having the “Difference” shoved down my throat.

Pointing something out makes it an issue !!

This has to stop.  And I hope that the Obamas help it stop.

Now I have a dream… that all this really won’t matter in the near future. That the President can be the President.  Cause that’s a damn busy job. And Freedom is difficult enough to maintain without unnecessary complications:

“And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”

McCain gave a wonderfully gracious concession speech.  Obama an equally gracious victory speech.  And that’s what made me proud.  After all the absurdity of this election – the commentary and back-biting rising to deafening levels – To see both sides acting like adults and talking about the country as great…

It was like opening the doors of an old barn.  Wow.  The sun is out, the breeze is blowing.  I feel proud to be American.  And for the first time in a long time I think the rest of the world wished they were American.

And already I’ve heard people saying Obama is a great President!  That he’ll be in for eight years!  That the nation and the world will never be the same!  Folks, he hasn’t done anything yet… relax… we’ve got a long time to see how this will go, and lots of history to show these moments are like a first crush.

Remember Jimmy Carter?  He won the Presidency by a similar margin of the popular vote.  And he’s a guy who’s Presidency is never listed among the greats… but it started well.  On the day of his inauguration he decided to not take the limo back to the Whitehouse.  (a distance of a couple miles)  Instead, he and his family took an impromptu walk down Pennsylvania Avenue.  They strolled among the American’s who put him in power.  Those he would represent.  And it was heralded as the beginning of something different and great.

And it wasn’t.

Which brings me to my real observation here.  Just in my short lifetime it’s really clear that Presidents can not be judged on their first day, or their last.  Their impact, and the American people’s feelings on them, take time to settle.

And I’ve come to believe that 2 four year terms is a bad idea.  I think 1 six year term would be far better, especially considering the first term of every President is only three years long. – The fourth year is always spent trying to keep their job.

I think about FDR.  Our only President to have more than 2 Terms.  Not only was he in office for more than 12 years, he was in his fourth term when he died.   After guiding the nation from Great Depression through WWII, who knows how long we  would have had him!  Thus, we now have a 2 term limit.

But since then, especially in our age of over information, I don’t think anyone survives eight years well.  Compare any picture of a president when he enters office to one when he leaves.  That’s not eight years of aging there, it’s close to twenty.  George W entered office looking like a vital man 15 years younger than his age and he’s leaving looking like a Potato.

Same for Carter, Reagan, Bush Sr., and Clinton.   The job beats up on people.

I’ve noticed that Obama is already grayer than when the campaigning started.  I suspect he’ll be all gray, or maybe white-haired by the time he’s done.

But that brings me back to my “8 years is too long” comment.  Presidents who don’t die in office leave the job under a cloud of public anger.  And since none have died in office during my lifetime it’s all I’ve known.

Yet we have awfully short memories.

Ronald Reagan got re-elected in one of the biggest landslide victories in American History.  Think Obama got a Mandate from the people?  Reagan’s numbers make him look like we couldn’t decide.

But by the time he left office I remember all the commentary on Reagan.  A crook.  A puppet.  An old man being used.  Senile (which considering his later years is especially harsh).  This was not a universally loved President on his last day in office.

And Clinton?  Seems the whole country is longing for the Clinton years in recent days.  But at the end of his eight years, I remember even democrats who had championed him before were now speaking out with loathing.

“The Simpsons” – great cultural touchstone of the last two decades – put a perfect button on the sentiment.  In one episode near the end of Clinton’s second term Lisa gets advice from President Clinton.  She balked at his advice and said “that’s pretty lousy advice”, to which he responded “I’m a pretty lousy President.”

Yet for the last few years he’s the one who got away.  And you could say it was because “W” has been so bad, except for the venom I remember about Reagan’s last days…

But Reagan’s funeral told the tale.  Universal and worldwide outpouring of his greatness.  Republican’s and Democrats alike praising his great leadership and a Presidency unlike any we’ve had since…  Hang on?  At the end of 8 years he couldn’t go fast enough and now you miss him so much you want to reanimate the guy and run him again!?

Celebrities and world leaders crowded his funeral.  It was Worldwide mourning matched only by the death of Lady Diana… and she never ruined public opinion of herself by actually running a country.

George Jr. is on his way out.  Hated. Villainized.  Can’t go fast enough for most people.  But what will history say?  Right now he’s that relationship we’ve all been in for too long.  And Obama is the hot new person who just smiled at us.

Where are we eight years from now?  Who’s the villain then?

I don’t want Obama to bring “Hope”.  I hope he brings Pride.  I want to feel what I did last night as McCain spoke and then he spoke.  I want to see the world looking up at him like all those people did in Grant Park.

But at some point… History suggests this love affair is going south.

And only time away will allow us to decide what we really feel.

Looking back on relationships tends to make you see the good stuff.  Let’s hope the here and now gets some good stuff too.

Their opposing opinions.

Well, that is after one of them had already driven off 1/2 of one table with his rantings… then he happened to make a comment in earshot of the other political hair-trigger, and…  Hooray!  Political Nuclear War.

There’s a reason politics is labeled impolite dinner conversation.

And generally – I’m not political.

Yet we’re about to elect a president and I’m seeing a magnifying glass put over the same issue which surfaces every four years.

Abortion.  Or specifically, who is and isn’t pro-life.

Nearly every discussion of McCain covers his pro-choice beliefs.  And press discussion before he chose a VP centered on how he’d alienate the conservatives if he chose someone who was also pro-choice.

And now – no matter what you think of Palin as his choice – she is the poster child for pro-life.  5 Kids.  The latest a down syndrome child they chose to keep…  and a daughter, pregnant @ 17 and choosing to keep her baby as well.  I’m expecting pro-life activisits to carry pictures of her in their wallets…

Which brings me to my real questions…

Really?

With all the things our next President has to do?  With all the stuff going on in our country?

Abortion beliefs remain the lynch-pin for many people.  A candidate’s feelings on this one issue can gain or lose a vote.  “Yeah, they’re Hitler 2.0, but they’re pro-life!”  or… “I don’t think I can support a candidate who’s practically Jesus Christ… because he believes in Pro-Choice.”

Which brings up a side-note:   I was raised to believe there are 2 sides to this issue.  Anti-Abortion (or Pro-life), and Pro-Abortion. As if anyone who isn’t Pro-life is actively encouraging people to get abortions.  It’s Pro-Choice, people – meaning here are the options and the government isn’t going to tell you which one you can or can’t do.

Which brings me back to my point – Government exists to keep the infastructure working.  To handle the big problems.  The universal and collective stuff.

And Abortion strikes me as about the most personal issue I can think of.

And the most personal issues are always the ones where it’s easy to say “Oh, that’s black and white” when you aren’t having to deal with it.  But then… when it’s you in the situation, facing the issue head on and face to face – suddenly, it gets very personal and feels very gray.

Yet the grand-standing continues among conservatives.  Republicans holding this up as the most important issue a President is facing.

Which is even odder now that I think about it – The Republican Party has traditionally been the party of LESS Government.   Keeping government out of the business of the everyman. So in that thinking… You’d think it would be the Republicans saying “The government can’t decide this for you… it’s personal, extremely personal”.  But that’s not the case…

I’m not coming down on either side of Abortion here… That’s my point – it’s incredibly personal and I think can’t really be discussed unless you are personally there – facing it – having to decide…  I can’t imagine.

Aren’t there better things to decide an election?  Aren’t there other things for government to do?

People are going to decide personal issues for themselves.  Whether the law prevents it or not.  Prohibition didn’t stop drinking.  Abortion existed long before laws allowed it and would continue if it was made illegal.

So… out of all the reasons to chose a candidate…

OH – and before I forget – When all these people have talked about not voting for McCain because he’s Pro-Choice…   UM?     Who are they gonna vote for?