I am overjoyed that America has chosen its first African-American president. Barack Obama is the man of the hour and for the hour. I'm no fan of Oprah (on the contrary) but she just put in words how I feel today. Upon hearing of Obama's victory, she said that hope has just been born. Most certainly, indeed!
That said, I'm amused to discover that among Obama's foibles is his superstiousness. Apparently he has an election day superstition --playing basketball. I presume that given the co - incidence--of having played and won by a landslide--he will carry on with this ritual in the years and decades to come. And let's not even talk about his fantasies about invisible beings in the sky, a being whom he called to bless America.
And so I still have a dream--that within my lifetime there shall be that commander-in-chief of the most powerful country, male or female, of whatever color, who is uninfected by the mind viruses we call superstitions.
3 comments:
I'm not ready to call Obama's habit of shooting hoops on election day a "superstition" without more evidence. After all, if you are a candidate, after you've cast your vote, what are you supposed to do with the rest of your day? Going out to the gym with the buds to shoot hoops might be a very good method of self-soothing. Better than wearing a hole in the rug.
Point well taken. It was the word "ritual" in the NYTimes article that prompted me to surmise that playing basketball on election day is a superstition of his. I just did some googling and unless the following news article is an Onion piece, the facts are worse than I thought: http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20081103/pl_politico/15194 Looks like a number of those on Obama's team are into rather silly beliefs and behavior as well. As for the President elect, he really is into it deep:
"The Illinois senator admitted in June to carrying a pocket full of charms. He dug his hand into his pants pocket in the middle of an event and revealed what look like a junk drawer of goodies: a 'lucky poker chip' given to him by a voter, an American eagle pin from a Native American woman and a small golden statue of the Monkey King.
"Obama openly embraced superstition in January when he began correlating basketball with victory. He played on the day of the Iowa caucus, which he won, but did not shoot hoops on the day of the New Hampshire primary, which he lost. With rare exception, he has corralled aides, friends and occasionally members of the media to indulge his superstition on every primary election day.
"Obama, naturally, will play basketball Tuesday."
The concept of Providence is embedded in the constitution, and God is in the hearts of too many voters for a non-Christian candidate to rise. While there is a separation of Church and State, you bet your ass if a Muslim, Hindu, Jew, or atheist ran for office, the Christian Right would contribute too much money for propaganda to convince enough people that he/she is not right for the Oval office. Remember 2004? Kerry's Catholic!!! You have to remember that American politics isn't based on the candidate and their ideals, but how much money they have.
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