1 year ago today, the United States got its first colored president.
After McCain was nominated as the Republican candidate, three presidential debates were held between the contenders spanning September and October 2008. In November, Obama won the presidency with 52.9% of the popular vote to McCain's 45.7%, and 365 electoral votes to 173, to become the first African American to be elected president. Obama delivered his victory speech before hundreds of thousands of supporters in Chicago's Grant Park.
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Today I've been trying to figure out why the ever-vigilant lichtkind cannot log into the wiki. I've been debugging the problem, nibbling along the edges.
Everything should work. I don't see why it doesn't. I'm stumped.
But that's how it is sometimes. I'll bet I'll have the answer when I wake up tomorrow.
(Oh, and this is the first time I look at viklund++'s wrapper of the Parrot digest functionality. It's good to know we're encrypting the way one should.)
you mean you're also stomped as to why a black (sorry, colored, sorry, african american, sorry <insert euphemism or racist slur>) president was elected?
Re:i don't get the part about obama
masak on 2009-11-05T12:10:23
Heh. I usually try to tie together the part about this-day-in-history with the part about today's work on November/Rakudo/whatever with a semantic link of some sort, however tenuous. This time I failed, mostly due to lack of time.
No, I'm not stumped as to why Obama was elected. Even going on merits, I prefer him to (say) Hillary or McCain. I'm saying this with an extremely limited view of USAnian politics, by the way.
But besides being 'the right man for the job' (a title which I considered for this post), Obama also represents a great symbolic victory, being the first member of a previously (and in some senses, still) oppressed US minority to become US president. And not only that, he favors conciliation and understanding, domestically and internationally. He represents change, and hope, and peace.
Maybe that's the tenuous link I was after. November (the project) is actually quite a feat. I can say this, coming back to it one year later, because much of the code in there isn't mine, so it's not only bragging. But perhaps more (or at least equally) important are the things November represented: positive expectations about Perl 6, a hope that awesome things can be done, and a persistence to help reach a certain goal. Yes, we can.
Re:i don't get the part about obama
xsawyerx on 2009-11-05T12:46:59
Now I get it.
At first I didn't understand but I'm happy I asked because I enjoyed reading your reply.
:) Good job with November and good luck as well!
