I went on a field trip with my daughter, who's in second grade, and got the opportunity to listen in to some of their conversations. I did not campaign at all, of course, but I did answer one child when asking for whom I would vote. This second grade perspective is indicative, I think, of parental influences more than any media coverage.

The one person who asked me to disclose my vote was surprised when I told her Barack Obama. Her response: "But he's not a Christian!" I responded, "of course he is. He's attended the same Christian church for 20 years. But, of course, it wouldn't matter to me if he was a Christian or not."

Another friend of my daughter told me that she had been told twice at school that Obama made mothers kill their children.

A boy we ate lunch with told us that Obama's dad is a terrorist. One of McCain's adult supporters helped me to correct this misperception.

My daughter passed on the comment from her friend on the bus that "Obama hates white people." and that he's going to take away all of our guns so we can't fight the war.

For the record, none of the second graders were talking about John McCain.

There are a few things I'm getting really sick of seeing. I won't change the world, here, but I will feel better for having tried.

I am appalled.
Our media has, again, failed us. I'm not sure if it's because we're American, or because we're human, but we have such a tendency to handicap contests like they're golf outings, that we have not taken the time to analyze the content of last night's vice-presidential debate. If it were just the pundits on the standard fluff outlets, I wouldn't be appalled. I wouldn't even be slightly surprised. But even on substantive outlets like The NewsHour on PBS, the post-debate discussion is about how Palin didn't totally blow it. What?!?!

Last night, at the Republican National Convention, I heard Fred Thompson say, "It's pretty clear there are two questions we will never have to ask ourselves: 'Who is this man?' and 'Can we trust this man with the presidency?'" about John McCain. But, somehow, I find myself asking those very questions.

I know I shouldn't watch Fox News. It reminds me of how shallow so many people are to be taken in by attractive people delivering the news and flashy red white and blue graphics. It reminds me how ignorant people are, but all of our votes count the same. I just get mad and frustrated. But, I clicked a link to view a news story in Yahoo and ended up watching a clip from Fox news where they interviewed Joe Klein and talked about how Barack Obama is going to have to handle the "tough" questions before he gets to the easy stuff. To his credit, Klein dismissed the "tough" questions as completely irrelevant and total nonsense. But he still spent the time making his point that Obama has to address those questions about flag lapel pins, having a non-traditional name, referring to bitter voters as bitter, refusing to throw his pastor under the bus for saying things he disagreed with, etc.

I'm one of the people you hear about that has been enamored of Barack Obama's speeches for the last few years. I was hoping he'd run for president before he made it official. But, I have tried to temper that excitement for his charisma with a realistic idea of what he'd be able to achieve as president and what he wouldn't. Throughout that same time period, I had also been a fan of Hilary Clinton. They have similar policy positions on the important issues of health care, economic policy, foreign policy, and education. They haven't played up the less important wedge issues of abortion, gay marriage and immigration, but they mostly agree on those, too. Until about a month ago, I would have been happy to vote for either candidate in November. But, now, I am a full Obama supporter.

America seems intent to lose out at the bottom of our economy and at the top. What I mean by this is that our immigration attitudes are not only keeping poor foreigners out of our low-end labor jobs, but also our great universities. We want to keep our labor jobs for ourselves; and we want to keep our university educations for ourselves, too. This would be fine if we wanted to actually compete our way into the jobs and educations, but we seem less willing to do that as time goes on. My attitudes to immigration are pretty liberal. I'm frustrated that conservatives like to paint immigration as trafficking in criminals. I concede that by entering the United States, illegal aliens are committing a crime. But using that as a main argument is avoiding the real debate and the real questions.

I told my dad that I would let him know about my opinions and positions on what our federal government ought to do, and ought not do, about health care in the United States. This topic is, obviously, huge. There are facets related to providers, insurers, the role of government, conflicts of interest, pharmaceutical companies, the FDA, etc. Health care is gigantic. Arguments for full privatization and for a full government takeover are both valid, but can't both happen. So what should we demand of our government? A hands-off approach? A regulatory approach? A take-over of the system?

They should have their name on their spine. Or, in the case of boxes of cereal, on the side of the box. Every pantry I've come across in my life has had the breakfast cereal lined up on a shelf like books. You can't see the front or back of the box, just the side facing out. When I'm reaching in to get a box of cereal to feed the kids, I am not interested in deciphering which Nutrition Facts belong to which cereal. I just want to see the name. However, I have learned that Fruit Loops list sugar as ingredient number one. Wow! They're like fueling up on a bag of candy. Of course, to be fair, all other sweetened cereal is probably pretty close to the same thing.