Long Distance Voting

For all my alien ways and the odd words creeping into my vocabulary--such as muttering "bl**dy hell" about some nincompoopery or the other today, I just registered to vote by absentee ballot in the upcoming US presidential election and I feel as chuffed as I did when at 21 (yup, I had to wait til 21 to vote that's how long ago it was!) I registered for the first time.

I have always intended to vote, but as with so many things in this new world, I did not know where or how to do it. Well, thanks to the internet, I found a form and some guidelines and except for struggling to find my Indiana driver's license and remember my zip code, it was a snap. Now I need to mail it back to Hamilton County, Indiana to get an absentee ballot sent to me. Once again, I'll be watching the mail closely for an official looking envelope.

I just read Barack Obama's speech, which was created ostensibly to reclaim his campaign from the negative reaction of Rev. Wright's sermon denouncing America, but Obama's speech was so much more than that. It is one of the clearest, quietest, strongest calls to America to get on with the best that it can be that I have ever read. I know it will not be easy to do, but I really want to give him the opportunity to try to make that happen.