The Obama Project@WindonWater.net

http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2009/01/06/sanjay-gupta-surgeon-general/

Seriously!?  You mean – the President Elect really meant it when he said change is going to be partly OUR responsibility too???

The Surgeon General hasn’t been well represented since the glory days of C. Everett Koop, who I absolutely adored, and who fulfilled a critical function at a dire time in American health history.  I will never forget the line “…the best protection against infection right now, barring abstinence, is the use of a condom.” Both profoundly moral, and profoundly practical – Koop set the bar high for both visibility and principled independence in the capacity of spokesman for public health issues.  Since then, perhaps the role has suffered from lack of a major health crisis requiring such a landmark pronouncement, but it has also suffered from lack of flair or even much interest in capturing the attention of the American people.  Bringing star power to the role of Surgeon General, and at that, TRUSTED star power, at a time when the nation’s health care system is going to be overhauled, and wellness and PREVENTION emphasized, makes all the sense in the world.

I hope that this does happen, and I hope we see great things from Dr. Gupta in the role.

QT

Today a bit of memorabilia came in the mail – the Jackson 5 Anthology on CD.    I used to have a 4 album set, bought at a used LP store – but between going years without owning a recordplayer, and years without proper LP storage – they eventually warped… so I bought the CD set.

The set has pictures of the boys on the front – and on the first page of the liner notes, a picture of all six boys – including Randy.  So that’s, Jacky, Tito, Jermaine, Marlon, Michael and Randy.  Every one of them handsome boys.  No exceptions.

But that’s not how I remember them.  I remember Michael being the cute one, and Jermaine being just alright.  I remember Tito being funny looking, and Jackie being devastatingly gorgeous (but too old for me).  Even in the 80s when I was in high school and college, and when Michael started “changing” – I remember Randy being cute, Jermaine being kinda ugly after all, and wondering why Marlon ever thought he was supposed to be out there at all – he was that funny looking to me.

I reflect on this to note how many scales had to fall from my eyes to appreciate naturally black features as not only ok, but appealing.  Looking at the boys now, I can see what went wrong.  Marlon and Jermaine both have wider noses than the other boys, and fuller lips.  This consigned them to “ugliness” in my young mind.  Looking at them now, I see them all as handsome – I have to try hard to see what was distasteful to my young girl’s eyes.

Lots of people laugh at Michael Jackson for his persistent and aggressive war on his own face – but when I look at this snapshot of the way they were – I can see why Michael attacked himself as he did.  He’s older than me – probably more inclined to see black features as unattractive – and in the world of fame that he inhabits – looks mean so much more.

Today I am very grateful for President-Elect Barack Obama – who was a chubby little boy who didn’t look all that different from a younger Michael Jackson (more accurately, he looked as a baby, like Randy looks in this picture), who grew up to be a handsome black man, ears and all, and President of the United States.  I pray that young black boys and girls grow ever more likely to think that their natural features are beautiful – and to be glad of them.
QT

One month after Obama takes office, his administration owes a briefing to the Supreme Court on the subject of torture.

WASHINGTON — Just a month after President-elect Barack Obama takes office, he must tell the Supreme Court where he stands on one of the most aggressive legal claims made by the Bush administration — that the president may order the military to seize legal residents of the United States and hold them indefinitely without charging them with a crime.

The new administration’s brief, which is due Feb. 20, has the potential to hearten or infuriate Mr. Obama’s supporters, many of whom are looking to him for stark disavowals of the Bush administration’s legal positions on the detention and interrogation of so-called enemy combatants held at Navy facilities on the American mainland or at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

I honestly feel quite torn on this issue.  We never should have had this situation – but now that we do – how are we supposed to undo it without creating new, awful precedent, and without creating security vulnerabilities?

Perhaps the only way out of this is to apply Bob Cesca’s fear solution and just try them as best as possible in civilian courts.  Our rule of law has to be more important than any one criminal – terrorist though he may be.

QT