the united states of obama

when he said, "it's the answer spoken by young and old, rich and poor, democratic and republican, black, white, hispanic, asian, native american, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled - americans who sent a message to the world that we have never been just a collection of individuals or a collection of red and blue states; we are and always will be the united states of america" i could have cried like a baby. the man seamlessly acknowledged that we are all first and foremost family and, at least to me, repudiated anyone who was simple enough to think otherwise. finally.

we celebrated the return of potential, opportunity, hope, and equality at a blase bar in providencia whose one saving grace was that they happened to have a projection screen and ample space for a gaggle of gringos. when cnn threw up that graphic stating "brack obama elected president of the united states of america," we could have been in a cave in micronesia with the same dumbfounded, elated reaction. what a night to be alive.

two questions. i know i've been gone for a while, but when did cnn start using holograms? did i go to chile for a year and miss a decade of technological innovation? was the impetus of hologram technology the ravenous desire to see will.i.am and wolf blitzer converse before one of the most momentous occasions in american history? i guess it's like the paradox of the chicken and the egg.
question number 2. when did d.l. hughley begin breaking the news?

back when there was a heap of democratic candidates to choose from and barack obama was still trying to convince black america that he was... umm... black, i volunteered at an obama rally in crenshaw. i brought home an obama sign to the santa clarita valley and popped it on the windowsill of the second floor of our house. some three weeks later when my father noticed, he rolled to the second floor of our two-story stucco spot and attempted to rip the sign in two (not out of a distaste for obama, but out of a general aversion of openly stating political preferences in such a form). despite the man's best efforts, the sign wouldn't break. it was made out of some super-hopeforged magma that the obama team created for the long, arduous campaign. i took it's resilience as a sign that a new day would soon dawn in our much-maligned, though still adored, united states. hallelujah.