My son at the zoo last week. He had a great time and talked about all the animals he saw for a couple of days. He had a blast!!

Last Night's Presidential Debate

So, I watched the debate in its entirety last night, as well as commentary from the different cable news networks. Just a few things I want to point out. I watched the debate on CNN, and at the bottom of the screen, there were three lines measuring response from three groups: Democrats, Independents, and Republicans. The Republican and Democrat lines were predictable. When their candidate was speaking, the respective response line went up, and when the other guy was talking, their response line went down. The interesting thing was the Independent reaction. Almost throughout the debate, anytime McCain was speaking, the Independent line was below the Republican line. They responded positively to McCain at times, but the Independent response was almost never more positive than the Republican response. But when Obama was talking, the Independent response line was frequently positive, and was sometimes even more positive than the Democrat response. The bottom line is that the Independents were much more favorable to Obama than they were to McCain. If this can translate to Independents going to the polls on November 4 and voting for Obama, he should win some of those swing states easily.

For being the expert on foreign policy, John McCain was not as convincing as I would have imagined. He threw in some names of people he's met and places he's been over the years. But he seemed to me to be stuck in the past. Stuck to the policies of ol' W and not very forward looking. Obama was sure to point that out on many occasions, and it was effective. I was really impressed that Obama more than held his own and stuck it to McCain that he was wrong on a number of issues, most importantly that we are in our present situation in Iraq because of the policies McCain championed along side Pres. Bush. McCain was stuck on the fact that the surge has worked. Sure, it's worked. But if we had never gone into Iraq in the first place, and focused on Osama bin Laden, we wouldn't have needed a surge to correct the mismanagement of that war anyway. Iraq was a diversion and distraction from the actual terrorists and Obama was right on that, McCain was dead wrong. Seven years after 9/11, bin Laden is still hiding out and organizing more terrorist activities.

I thought the demeanor of both candidates was also notable. In fact, there was quite a contrast. McCain, as has been pointed out by many of the pundits, rarely looked at Obama, while Obama made eye contact with McCain frequently. McCain seemed to get his feathers ruffled often and easily, while Obama remained cool, poised, and well, presidential. McCain was - as I have come to realize is typical of him - very rash, emotional, and defensive. He was quick to point out where he felt Obama was wrong on issues. In fact, a fact check on several of his claims will prove he exagerated the truth or just did not have his facts straight. All the pundits discussed Obama agreeing with McCain. Obama said on several occasions something like, "Sen. McCain is right about _____...." The Republicans all ran with that saying that Obama was agreeing with McCain on those things, and that this shows Obama's lack of experience. When in fact, if they were listening to the rest of Obama's sentences, he would follow up with something like, "...but I differ in this way:_____." Obama was certainly not endorsing McCain, but finding common ground and then drawing sharp contrasts in their positions. McCain seemed more petty and like he was trying to lecture Obama on why he was wrong. I just felt like Obama was more respectful to McCain than visa versa.

Anyway, I don't really want to get into the actual contents of the debate. By now, everyone can pretty much tell whose side of the debate I agree with the most. I just wanted to point out a few things. Neither candidate really knocked the other out. This is more beneficial to Obama than McCain. He really needed to upend Obama on foreign policy - his supposed field of expertise, but he absolutely did not. Obama seemed more level headed and thoughtful about the questions asked by Jim Lehrer, and kept McCain kind of scrambling the whole time. The immediate polls show that Obama won the debate among most viewers. Those polls were slightly skewed as there were more Democrats that responded to the polls than Republicans. That being the case, the debate probably resulted in a tie, which is a win for Obama. McCain really needed to make a strong case for himself, but I was not very impressed that he did so. His experience and judgment arguments did not go as well as he would have hoped, as Obama pointed out that his judgment has directly led to the debacle in Iraq, for which McCain had no counter-argument. In a debate that should have been a home run for McCain, he came out of it looking like someone who is emotional, quick to make a rash decision, and stuck to the old failed policies of the Bush administration, while Obama came out looking more like a thoughtful and respectful leader.

Plan for Change

"Fiscal Conservatives"

This is the greatest thing I believe I have ever seen!! Please everyone, think about it!!!!

Special Comment by Keith Olbermann

I don't always agree with Olbermann, but I think in this case he is right on. Republicans have been using scare tactics all year to try and win this election. I for one am sick of it and am ashamed that the Republicans would use fear to win an election again this year, just as they did in 2004. I trust Barack Obama's judgment not to rush reflexively into war with countries who had nothing to do with an attack on our land.

McCain camp caught in ugly lie...

9/11 in Uganda

I don't want today to get by without a few remarks about the tragic events that took place seven years ago today. My day was coming to a close when I learned of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, yet I learned of it only a couple of hours after it happened. I was in Kampala, Uganda, doing missionary work in the district of Kololo. After a long day of work, my companion and I walked into our flat where other missionaries were sitting, listening to the radio. This was odd - due to mission rules, we did not generally listen to the radio. They told us to put our stuff down and come listen. I couldn't believe the words that were coming out of the speaker. Two airplanes had been hijacked and flown into the World Trade Center towers and another in the Pentagon, and we learned of another that had crashed in Pennsylvania. It was like a nightmare. This could not be real. Surely this had to be some kind of joke. Then our mission leaders called and told us we were not to go out the next day, but we were to stay home. It wasn't a joke, it was real.

But how could this happen? How could anyone possibly organize this sort of attack in the United States of America? I was scared. Here I was, an American, half way around the world and helpless. There are a lot of Muslims in Uganda, were we going to become targets? Before I go on, let me say that those who practice Islam in Uganda are good people. They were no extremists, and we were generally treated respectfully by the Ugandan people. I wanted to go home and go to New York to help with the clean up efforts, and help to find survivors in the wreckage. I wanted to find those responsible and take them out myself (I imagine a lot of people felt the same). I didn't want to go anywhere for fear for my life. Anger, fear, confusion, helplessness, and sorrow were only a few of the emotions within me. We stayed up later than usual that night, praying for the victims and their families.

I had a dream in August of 2000, that something happened and I was forced to come home early from my two year mission in September of 2001. When I got in to my flat with my companions, I thought this was the meaning of the dream and that we would have to go home early for safety's sake. Luckily, however, we were all able to stay in the mission field and finish our two years. But something did happen in September 2001 that was life altering.

The next morning, we went down and bought a newspaper, and for the first time saw images of what we had only heard about the previous night. Later, we went over to a neighbor's who had a TV and watched the video over some English speaking channel from Germany. The images were far worse than I could have imagined. We watched the towers fall, one after the other. It was terrifying that something like this could actually happen at home. We thought that tens of thousands had lost their lives. Although the final number was closer to 3000, that was no comfort. 3000 lives had been lost due to terrorists who hate our values and our freedoms. My sorrow deepened for those that died and for their families and friends.

Over the following months as I continued my missionary service, we kept our ears and eyes open, and were careful to be in on time and to be safe. Other than the occasional pranksters yelling, "Mzungu, Osama bin Laden is over here!", the remainder of my time in Uganda was uneventful, as far as threats or further violence. Once a few weeks later when it was raining, two Middle Eastern looking guys stopped and offered us a ride to get out of the rain. It wasn't raining that hard and we were a little hesitant to get into a vehicle with guys that looked Middle Eastern. But at the same time, we didn't want to make them mad and chance a drive-by. So we got in. It turned out good, obviously by the fact that I'm sitting here writing this seven years later. They explained that they were from Pakistan and that they wanted to show us that they were friends to America. They took us all the way to our destination, and we were left feeling that there was much good in humanity, and that those extremist terrorists were the exception.

Seven years later, it still seems like just yesterday. Those images and feelings are still fresh in our minds. Some wounds have not healed, some have - but even those have left a terrible scar and will always be a clear reminder that we must never take life for granted. We must never take our loved ones for granted. We must live life and love everyday.

Barack Obama Sept. 6, 2008 in Terre Haute, Indiana