Morality is not determined by the church you attend nor the faith you embrace. It is determined by the quality of your character and the positive impact you have on those you meet along your journey
It tells me that these are people who know what it is to struggle. Who know what it is to find your true love. Who know what it means to go after the American dream even when the odds are against you. A couple in love.
Because of the cars in the background, this picture seems to be have been taken before 1992. All of those cars look to have been manufactured in the 70's. I don't know how that may make a difference in the article, but I'm just saying as a car lover it seems to be of a earlier period.
At a guess, Kenya? Look at the plate on the car on the left. It isn't US style. I'm trying to remember if I read he and Michele went there after they were together/married.
Ah, her ewe go - form the Los Angeles TImes: Barack Obama visited Kenya twice, in 1987 and 1992, first while he was in school and then while he was working as a community organizer in Chicago.
And this: Leaving her big salary behind, Robinson worked on human-services initiatives in Mayor Richard Daley's office. Her boss David Mosena told West: "She has her feet solidly on the ground, both of them. There's not a bone of superficiality in her. She is the real deal..." Robinson married Obama in 1992, after traveling to Kenya to meet his family. That same year, Michelle Obama moved to the city's office of planning and development as an assistant commissioner. From Cengage Learning, Women's history/
I remembered something about it from reading Dreams from my Father. A very, very moving book, and very well written.
It was particularly interesting to me as I grew up and had a parent still living about a mile from where President Obama did most of his community organizing work. Even that close, I knew little to nothing about what was going on there at the time - it is one of the most segregated areas of the country. My parents of those of my friends fought tooth and nail to redistrict us out of the brand new high school because we would have had to go to school with blacks from Altgeld. We were being killed (both my parents and all my grand- parents died of cancers likely caused by environmental pollutants) by the same thing, but we never joined voices because of racism. What an effective force we could have been against corporate polluters. No wonder corporations and the Kochs fan the flames of racism 'til today.
(And no, that wasn't in the book, its my inference from personal experience/knowledge - the book doesn't cast blame.)
I'll be re-reading it with my children this summer, and hopefully Audacity of Hope, too. I'd like to know how many of you have read it?
Anonymous @5:41 AM. I've read both books. They're both well worth the read. We've passed both books around our family of 50-60-70-something siblings and our offspring, and I believe the books are now donated at our public library.
"What Exactly Has Obama Done That Has Made Conservatives So Angry?"
“How can you guys be so unhappy with Obama when I’m so unhappy with Obama? You think you got coal in your stocking? I wanted single-payer health care, a carbon emissions bill, gun control, and legalized pot. If you get to carry around all this outrage over me getting that shit, shouldn’t I have gotten it?” (ROFL and yelled out Hell Yea!!)
Well, whiny Bill Maher, we would have come much closer to all of those goals if President Obama had not been opposed so totally from Day One by the intransigent, traitorous Republican opposition in Congress. You know it, Bill Maher, so let's put blame where it belongs. On the Republicans. OBAMA/BIDEN 2012! Beaglemom
Other than some 'salt' splattered throughout his hair -- they really haven't changed!!
As my friend reminds me 'Black don't crack'!! as I feel like we've gone from me being te smaller and a few years younger so I could be the daughter -- to me catching up and we're sisters -- then with some aging on my part -- I'm the mother -- and give a very few more years and I could be Granny! It's depressing!!!
He is very unhappy with what he is seeing. She is comforting him, and at the same time looking at the person taking the photograph, telegraphing her angst for his discomfort and still standing strong with her man, wherever he takes her, even though she didn't then always understand him, she trusted him and loved him. That hug shows protectiveness, ownership, empathy, support, belief in and love.
While they witness something, together, that has gotten Barack's attention and he is SERIOUS about it. He has his arm around Michelle in a very comfortable and familiar way, but almost absentmindedly, aware of her, but his laser focus is someplace else, he's troubled and she is letting him know that she is there with him, supporting him, without saying a word.
Everything you said ! I also think that looking at the cars, houses and license plates, they are not in the US. They might be in Kenya. That would explain a lot of Barack's seriousness.
When life gets overwhelming, they know they have one another to lean on to take some of the weight. These two incredible people balance each other perfectly.
It wasn't all a bed of roses: Thrust into Politics
Being a political wife had never been part of Obama's plan. When Barack first ran for the Illinois State Senate in 1996 she told him, as quoted in Ebony in March of 2006, "I married you because you're cute and you're smart, but this is the dumbest thing you could have ever asked me to do." In his book The Audacity of Hope, Barack wrote openly of the strain that his political career placed on their marriage. (also from the cengage bio) I think it would be weird if it hadn't strained an equal relationship.
You can tell by the license plate on a car that it isn't in the states. Obama looks concerned about something and Michelle is trying to comfort him. To me it shows how much love there is between them. They have a strong marriage...they are lucky to have each other.
"Come on Pumski, you don't have to be so damn serious! We both know we're in this for the long haul together, and I'm always going to be here with you no matter what. So smile, and let's both just enjoy the ride."
"I know, Michelle. But please don't ever stop reminding me, okay?"
I see exactly what I see today. A man madly in love with a woman he sees as his equal. Time may change, but truth, love and respect grows stronger with time. Considering his childhood and the choices he made along the way, it's no wonder they were destined to meet and destined for greater things.
The President's mother was truly a trail blazer and role model. She chose love for a man of color at a time it was taboo, I'm sure she'd be proud of what life her son carved for himself and his choice for a soulmate.
Yeah, when Romney went out of country, he ended up in pastoral France.
According to Romney, his French quarters had no working bathroom — “we had instead the little pads on the ground,” and “there was a chain behind you with a bucket,” Romney says — and to shower, Romney claims that “if we were lucky, we actually bought a hose and we stuck it on the sink…and wash ourselves that way.”
Romney’s gritty recollections contradict those of his fellow American missionaries, who told The Daily Telegraph that Romney lived in a “palace.”
Richard Anderson, the son of the mission president during Romney’s stay, described it as “a house built by and for rich people,” complete with stained glass windows (which scandalized the Mormon missionaries due to their depiction of a bare-breasted woman), chandeliers, massive bedrooms, a full-time chef, a houseboy, and yes — a working bathroom.
That’s not to say that Romney was lying when he said that he was “not living high on the hog at that kind of level;” for a man who’s worth over $200 million and who doesn’t hesitate to offer $10,000 bets, the French palace may indeed have seemed like a “lower middle income” existence.
Romney's account of his stay in France is a very obvious fabrication, by someone who doesn't even think about housework.
Maybe did Mitt Romney indeed put a hose on a sink and then took a shower out of it... and then he called the maid. Hoses on sinks mean water on the floor, Mr Romney, and that, in turn, means painstaking cleaning up.
Maybe he forgot to tell he was standing in a tub ? But he remembered to tell all about a chain, a bucket and a hose, all quaint details indeed, and he forgot to tell about the tub in front of the sink ? Not likely.
Even worse : he entirely forgot to tell that it all happened with cold water. How can one forget that, ever ?
Indeed, in the not-overly-warm cities of Le Havre, Brest and Bordeaux where he stayed in the 60s, the flats without modern toilets also were without running hot water.
How did poor people really wash in those places ? You'd stand in front of the sink, you'd undress (only by halfs in winter), you'd wash with a glove with soap and cold water, and you'd repeatedly rinse with the glove and as little cold water as you could manage. Perhaps you would do it standing in a tub, although with cold water, the less the better. Perhaps if you had a heater, you would boil the kettle and carefully mix boiling water with the cold water inside the sink.
You could also do the mixing in the tub and then you'd take a bath in front of the sink, with the kettle nearby. An alternatively fast cooling down/scalding hot bath.
But you would never splash water on yourself nor around with a hose branched on the sink. Because in homes without working toilets, taps gave only cold water.
Romney probably saw destitute places, but he'd have more realistic remembrances than lucky hoses and implicit warm water if he had indeed lived in them.
The Parisian palace in which Romney ended his French stay : http://parisisinvisible.blogspot.fr/2012/03/rue-de-lota-house-where-mitt-lived.html
Funny, without reading the comments I read her face as a "Though I'm away, don't worry I'm safe, Mum, see how I'm with Barack and he's strong and protecting me", and I didn't know what to make of it.
Why the need of protection and the worry ? If she had just lost her father as you mentionned, the picture is much more understandable.
Love and happiness . . . . .
ReplyDelete"Let's Stay Together"...
DeleteTwo great songs by Al Green!
love. protection. tenderness. strength. focus. serenity. comfort.
ReplyDeleteIt tells me that these are people who know what it is to struggle. Who know what it is to find your true love. Who know what it means to go after the American dream even when the odds are against you. A couple in love.
ReplyDeleteLove, compasion, caring....in a hard luck neighborhood...
ReplyDeleteLove and togetherness.
ReplyDeleteBecause of the cars in the background, this picture seems to be have been taken before 1992. All of those cars look to have been manufactured in the 70's. I don't know how that may make a difference in the article, but I'm just saying as a car lover it seems to be of a earlier period.
ReplyDeleteI doubt it is in the US. In a developing country, you see a lot more older vehicles.
DeleteI wonder what country they're visiting in that pic? It's a beautiful picture nonetheless... quite moving... would love to know the story behind it.
ReplyDeleteAt a guess, Kenya? Look at the plate on the car on the left. It isn't US style. I'm trying to remember if I read he and Michele went there after they were together/married.
DeleteAh, her ewe go - form the Los Angeles TImes:
DeleteBarack Obama visited Kenya twice, in 1987 and 1992, first while he was in school and then while he was working as a community organizer in Chicago.
And this: Leaving her big salary behind, Robinson worked on human-services initiatives in Mayor Richard Daley's office. Her boss David Mosena told West: "She has her feet solidly on the ground, both of them. There's not a bone of superficiality in her. She is the real deal..." Robinson married Obama in 1992, after traveling to Kenya to meet his family. That same year, Michelle Obama moved to the city's office of planning and development as an assistant commissioner.
From Cengage Learning, Women's history/
Thanks for the backstory 9:13 and 9:17. Mr & Mrs Obama are an amazing couple.
DeleteI remembered something about it from reading Dreams from my Father. A very, very moving book, and very well written.
DeleteIt was particularly interesting to me as I grew up and had a parent still living about a mile from where President Obama did most of his community organizing work. Even that close, I knew little to nothing about what was going on there at the time - it is one of the most segregated areas of the country. My parents of those of my friends fought tooth and nail to redistrict us out of the brand new high school because we would have had to go to school with blacks from Altgeld. We were being killed (both my parents and all my grand- parents died of cancers likely caused by environmental pollutants) by the same thing, but we never joined voices because of racism. What an effective force we could have been against corporate polluters. No wonder corporations and the Kochs fan the flames of racism 'til today.
(And no, that wasn't in the book, its my inference from personal experience/knowledge - the book doesn't cast blame.)
I'll be re-reading it with my children this summer, and hopefully Audacity of Hope, too. I'd like to know how many of you have read it?
Yes, it is Kenya. The President wanted to visit the homeland of his father.
DeleteAnonymous @5:41 AM. I've read both books. They're both well worth the read. We've passed both books around our family of 50-60-70-something siblings and our offspring, and I believe the books are now donated at our public library.
DeleteO/T
ReplyDeleteGood clip from Bill Maher tonight.
"What Exactly Has Obama Done That Has Made Conservatives So Angry?"
“How can you guys be so unhappy with Obama when I’m so unhappy with Obama? You think you got coal in your stocking? I wanted single-payer health care, a carbon emissions bill, gun control, and legalized pot. If you get to carry around all this outrage over me getting that shit, shouldn’t I have gotten it?”
(ROFL and yelled out Hell Yea!!)
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/bill-maher-what-exactly-has-obama-done-that-has-made-conservatives-so-angry/
Well, whiny Bill Maher, we would have come much closer to all of those goals if President Obama had not been opposed so totally from Day One by the intransigent, traitorous Republican opposition in Congress. You know it, Bill Maher, so let's put blame where it belongs. On the Republicans.
DeleteOBAMA/BIDEN 2012!
Beaglemom
I am so grateful that we have them, and they have each other in these challenging times.
ReplyDeleteOther than some 'salt' splattered throughout his hair -- they really haven't changed!!
ReplyDeleteAs my friend reminds me 'Black don't crack'!! as I feel like we've gone from me being te smaller and a few years younger so I could be the daughter -- to me catching up and we're sisters -- then with some aging on my part -- I'm the mother -- and give a very few more years and I could be Granny! It's depressing!!!
He is very unhappy with what he is seeing. She is comforting him, and at the same time looking at the person taking the photograph, telegraphing her angst for his discomfort and still standing strong with her man, wherever he takes her, even though she didn't then always understand him, she trusted him and loved him. That hug shows protectiveness, ownership, empathy, support, belief in and love.
ReplyDeleteWhile they witness something, together, that has gotten Barack's attention and he is SERIOUS about it. He has his arm around Michelle in a very comfortable and familiar way, but almost absentmindedly, aware of her, but his laser focus is someplace else, he's troubled and she is letting him know that she is there with him, supporting him, without saying a word.
Everything you said ! I also think that looking at the cars, houses and license plates, they are not in the US. They might be in Kenya. That would explain a lot of Barack's seriousness.
DeletePrecisely, 8:29pm.
DeleteWhen life gets overwhelming, they know they have one another to lean on to take some of the weight. These two incredible people balance each other perfectly.
First Family for Four more!
Yes we can, again.
Wow, that was a great post.
DeleteAnon @ 8:29 and 9:07
DeleteI totally agree with your observations.
The emotions captured in this picture have a raw, haunting beauty.
fromthediagonal
Amy in Juneau:
DeleteNot only "Yes, we can, again" but
Yes we Must, for all of Us!
fromthediagonal
And with a majority Dem Congress. Get working! Get out form behind your computer and GOTV!
DeleteIt wasn't all a bed of roses: Thrust into Politics
DeleteBeing a political wife had never been part of Obama's plan. When Barack first ran for the Illinois State Senate in 1996 she told him, as quoted in Ebony in March of 2006, "I married you because you're cute and you're smart, but this is the dumbest thing you could have ever asked me to do." In his book The Audacity of Hope, Barack wrote openly of the strain that his political career placed on their marriage. (also from the cengage bio) I think it would be weird if it hadn't strained an equal relationship.
can't wait to read this book, too.
You can tell by the license plate on a car that it isn't in the states. Obama looks concerned about something and Michelle is trying to comfort him. To me it shows how much love there is between them. They have a strong marriage...they are lucky to have each other.
ReplyDelete"Come on Pumski, you don't have to be so damn serious! We both know we're in this for the long haul together, and I'm always going to be here with you no matter what. So smile, and let's both just enjoy the ride."
ReplyDelete"I know, Michelle. But please don't ever stop reminding me, okay?"
I see exactly what I see today. A man madly in love with a woman he sees as his equal. Time may change, but truth, love and respect grows stronger with time.
ReplyDeleteConsidering his childhood and the choices he made along the way, it's no wonder they were destined to meet and destined for greater things.
The President's mother was truly a trail blazer and role model. She chose love for a man of color at a time it was taboo, I'm sure she'd be proud of what life her son carved for himself and his choice for a soulmate.
"I love this man. He is going to be President one day, mark my words, and the American people will be as lucky as I feel right now."
ReplyDeleteDon't worry...about a thing...'cause every little thing...is gonna be alright...
ReplyDeleteThanks for the Bob Marley reference, Tessie!
DeleteSure doesn't look like posh Bloomfield Hills where Mittens was cloistered during these same years.
ReplyDeleteYeah, when Romney went out of country, he ended up in pastoral France.
DeleteAccording to Romney, his French quarters had no working bathroom — “we had instead the little pads on the ground,” and “there was a chain behind you with a bucket,” Romney says — and to shower, Romney claims that “if we were lucky, we actually bought a hose and we stuck it on the sink…and wash ourselves that way.”
Romney’s gritty recollections contradict those of his fellow American missionaries, who told The Daily Telegraph that Romney lived in a “palace.”
Richard Anderson, the son of the mission president during Romney’s stay, described it as “a house built by and for rich people,” complete with stained glass windows (which scandalized the Mormon missionaries due to their depiction of a bare-breasted woman), chandeliers, massive bedrooms, a full-time chef, a houseboy, and yes — a working bathroom.
That’s not to say that Romney was lying when he said that he was “not living high on the hog at that kind of level;” for a man who’s worth over $200 million and who doesn’t hesitate to offer $10,000 bets, the French palace may indeed have seemed like a “lower middle income” existence.
Romney's account of his stay in France is a very obvious fabrication, by someone who doesn't even think about housework.
DeleteMaybe did Mitt Romney indeed put a hose on a sink and then took a shower out of it... and then he called the maid. Hoses on sinks mean water on the floor, Mr Romney, and that, in turn, means painstaking cleaning up.
Maybe he forgot to tell he was standing in a tub ? But he remembered to tell all about a chain, a bucket and a hose, all quaint details indeed, and he forgot to tell about the tub in front of the sink ? Not likely.
Even worse : he entirely forgot to tell that it all happened with cold water. How can one forget that, ever ?
Indeed, in the not-overly-warm cities of Le Havre, Brest and Bordeaux where he stayed in the 60s, the flats without modern toilets also were without running hot water.
How did poor people really wash in those places ? You'd stand in front of the sink, you'd undress (only by halfs in winter), you'd wash with a glove with soap and cold water, and you'd repeatedly rinse with the glove and as little cold water as you could manage. Perhaps you would do it standing in a tub, although with cold water, the less the better. Perhaps if you had a heater, you would boil the kettle and carefully mix boiling water with the cold water inside the sink.
You could also do the mixing in the tub and then you'd take a bath in front of the sink, with the kettle nearby. An alternatively fast cooling down/scalding hot bath.
But you would never splash water on yourself nor around with a hose branched on the sink. Because in homes without working toilets, taps gave only cold water.
Romney probably saw destitute places, but he'd have more realistic remembrances than lucky hoses and implicit warm water if he had indeed lived in them.
The Parisian palace in which Romney ended his French stay :
http://parisisinvisible.blogspot.fr/2012/03/rue-de-lota-house-where-mitt-lived.html
More details :
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/us-politics/8959440/US-election-2012-Mitt-Romneys-life-as-a-poor-Mormon-missionary-in-France-questioned.html
I've got your back, no matter how terrible things get, because I know how much you love me and our family!
ReplyDeleteOur President is a good man. I am so proud of him. And he hit the jackpot in choosing his wife.
ReplyDelete@ 2:54 - at the time, no family - soon to be wed. She had just lost her dad. Malia wasn't born until 1997 or 1998. This photo was 1992.
ReplyDeleteFunny, without reading the comments I read her face as a "Though I'm away, don't worry I'm safe, Mum, see how I'm with Barack and he's strong and protecting me", and I didn't know what to make of it.
DeleteWhy the need of protection and the worry ? If she had just lost her father as you mentionned, the picture is much more understandable.