And now, for some word fun!

No matter who you voted for in this election, I think everybody who appreciates words can get a chuckle out of this one …

The ones with an asterisk were taken from “OBAMAMANIA!: The English Language, Barackified” by the editors of Slate Magazine. The others were collected by me in my reading.

BARACKLAMATION: Executive order issued by President Obama.*

BARACKSPLOITATION: The practice among editors of putting only Barack Obama on the cover of their magazines.*

BARACKUMENTARY: Any Obama video.*

BARACTOGENARIAN: Any elderly Obama supporter.*

BIG BROBAMA: Kindly big brother Obama who wants to look out for the people behind us to give them a chance, too.

DALAI ‘BAMA: A spiritually evolved President-Elect who will lead us all to the dawn of a new spiritual age.

NOBAMA: What those who do not support Obama think of his platform.

OBAMA CLAUS: What Obama has become now that he has promised us all these goodies under the Christmas tree.

OBAMAFUSCATE: When Obama engages in a smokescreen of verbal dodgery at tough, probing questions about his associations and background.

OBAMAGANDA: Any pro-Obama news coverage.

OBAMAGASM: What Obama supporters experience when they swoon under his spell.

OBAMALOT: The utopian Obama White House, where peace, hope and change converge and there is happiness ever after.

OBAMANIAC: Any zealous Obama supporter. A/K/A OBAMANITE.

OBAMANOMICS: Obama’s proposals to turn around the U.S. economy.

OBAMA-RAMA: A flood of Obama coverage in the media, or any large show of enthusiasm by pro-Obama supporters.

OBAMATON: Any mechanical Obama supporter who, though expressing unwavering support for him, cannot name a single one of his policies. A/K/A
OBOMBIE.*

OBAMAZON: Any zealous female Obama supporter.*

OBAMERANG: The tendency for any criticism of Barack Obama to bounce back and result in the downfall of his opposers.* (I would suggest the verb BARACKFIRE. Hehe.)

OBAMESSIAH: “The One.”

OBAMIFICATION: The process whereby a significant number of red states and counties suddenly turned blue on Election Night.

OBAMINATION: What McCain supporters see Barack Obama as.

OBAMINATOR: The man who was seemingly unstoppable in his campaign and rolled to victory in the election.

OBOMENON: The Barack Obama phenomenon.*

O-ZONE: The vital ether that Obama devotees must breathe in order to survive.

Random Thoughts on the 2008 Election Results

Obama's supporters can now change their slogan from "Yes, we can!" to "Yes, we DID!": Winning by the biggest Democratic margin since the mid-60s, and taking many states and counties that had been staunchly red for years if not decades, Barack Hussein Obama is now the President-Elect of the United States of America.

I wish to extend my sincere congratulations to the African-American community on this occasion for this monumental achievement which, as NPR political commentator Juan Williams put it, was inconceivable for many African-Americans, including himself, even as recently as a year ago.

With Obama holding distinct margins in many significant voter segments - young, women, whites, blacks, Hispanics, new/first-time voters, undecideds - and with the post-racial, let's-bring-the-country-together approach he has used toward the general voting public, it is clear that this country as a whole has indeed begun to move beyond race and is starting to become a post-racial society. Thus rendering race warlords like Jesse Jackson completely obsolete. (As Booker T. Washington wrote: "There is a class of colored people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs, and the hardships of the Negro race before the public. Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they do not want to lose their jobs. There is a certain class of race-problem solvers who don't want the patient to get well.") Jackson has known for some time that the end was near - hence his muttered comment this summer that he wanted to "cut [Obama's] nuts off," unaware that the lapel microphone he was wearing was still very much on.

Now, it will be very interesting to see exactly what kind of President Obama will be - what stuff he is truly made of. While I would agree that he is definitely untested, he is not unknowable, an unknown quantity as pundits on both the left and right have argued. His background and history have been there for all to see, from the reminiscences he shares in his books about the Marxist, Communist, Socialist and Radical mentors he had and friendships he cultivated during his teenage, college and law school years, to his voting record, which has been the most liberal in U.S. Senate history - even left of Bernie Sanders (S-VT), a Socialist. We all know exactly what we're getting there, or at least we should. But if, as the chief executive of a country that is largely moderate/centrist to center right, he insists on imposing his hard-left ideologies upon it, he's just going to alienate a whole lotta people: that large minority of people who voted for McCain and who could easily vote Repubs back into Congress in droves in two years if he screws up. And he knows it. He'll have to refrain from over-reaching, no matter how loudly the firebrands who support him on the far left in Congress and elsewhere scream at him to do this or that. Because even though the Repubs got their clocks cleaned, there are still enough of 'em in the Senate to block any legislation that is over-the-top. If they ever absorb the lessons learned, find their brains and balls again and decide to return to the basic principles they abandoned when they started acting like the Democrats in abandonment of all fiscal and governmental restraints, that is.

But whether Obama actually WILL move to the center, like Clinton wisely did during his 8-year administration, or, at the left's behest, ram through onerous and ill-conceived policies that nobody would agree with continuing once their ruinous effects are felt, remains to be seen.

As concerned as I am about what the Obama Administration will do domestically, there are at least some saving graces there, like the ones I listed above, that will hopefully soften the blows. I am even more concerned about what the Obama Administration will do (or fail to do) abroad, because there's no safety net there. His artless, naïve comments about invading Pakistan and meeting dictators "without preconditions," the fact that he has OVER THREE HUNDRED foreign policy advisers, etc. the fact that our enemies - our enemies! - are endorsing him, should have been enough to give anyone pause. But with the economic meltdown, it's all about the economy now. The American people are no longer thinking about how the Chief Executive-Elect will be handling (or not) the War on Terror, Islamic radicalism, or any of the other issues raging around the world right now. Their fear over what will become of their wallets has drowned out all other concerns, so that they no longer care about what's going on in the world beyond their borders, except, perhaps, what foreign countries "think" of us. But these issues are still there, and must be addressed; and whether our new President will be coming at them from the left, right, or center, they must be addressed in a consistent, coherent, decisive fashion to promote national and world security, prevent further chaos, and strengthen our partnerships among our trusted allies. How will someone with OVER THREE HUNDRED foreign policy advisers come up with the strong, consistent, coherent, decisive foreign policy that the United States needs??

Don't know? Me neither. I certainly hope Obama will be able to enlighten us and show us how it can be done.

Anyway ... we will see.

Talented Singer Yma Sumac Dies at 86

The amazingly talented Peruvian singer Yma Sumac has passed away at the age of 86.

Born in Cajamarca, Peru in 1922, as Zoila Augusta Emperatriz Chavarri del Castillo, she claimed to be a descendant of the Incan emperor Atahualpa, and around this legend she constructed an exotic, mysterious image as an Incan princess, which she cultivated for decades. Her stage name was first Ymma Sumack (Quechua for "pretty flower"), which was later changed to Yma Sumac when she came to the United States and signed her first recording contract with Capitol Records in 1950. Her voice covered 4 1/2 octaves.

Some sources credit her with singing the highest note ever recorded in the female voice, in the track "Chuncho" on one of the many LPs she produced in her heyday during the 1950s.

She is responsible for introducing Peruvian folk music to an American audience and the world music scene in general, and intepreting it for a modern audience in her own entrancing style.



















I am pleased to say my mom introduced me to her when I was a kid. One night when I was sitting in front of the TV, we came to a channel that was airing Secret of the Incas with Yma and Charlton Heston, and I still remember how excited my mom got when Yma Sumac made her appearance. "Ooo! ooo! There's Yma Sumac. Listen to her sing! Isn't she somethin'?"

I giggled at her campy kookiness but, like my mother, I was entranced by her voice, which she could fashion into a warbling nightingale with one note and into a growling jungle cat the next. I'd never heard anyone do anything like that with their voice before, and have never heard anything like it since.

Que descanse en paz.