My tweets

• 04:01 CNN calls it: Obama is elected President of the United States. #
• 04:02 So why am I crying? #
• 09:14 @MrPandaBehr : the hologram reminds me of Isaac Asimov's writings on Solaria and how they lived without physical presence thru holograms #
• 09:15 i am now up again, fuelled by coffee, still very exhiliarated. sad about prop 8 tho... #
• 22:34 nighty-night tweeters. Prop 8 is the law of California, but the Yes on 8 people do not know what they have sown. Yet. #

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Police Log, St. Matthew's Court

I am still horribly jet-lagged, and yesterday lay down at 6:30pm and slept until 9:30pm. Then was wide awake until 11:30pm, and went to bed again, joining a very sleepy HWMBO.

At 1:30am, the inner doorbell rang. We have two: one at the front door of the block of flats to let people in, and one next to the door of our flat, to tell us that someone is ready to be let in. That inner doorbell is very raucous. I started up from a deep sleep, and then not only was the doorbell going, but someone was pounding on the door.

I got my shirt on and my glasses on, and went downstairs, peered through the peephole, and asked, "Who is it?"

"Police!" came the reply.

I opened the door and the officer said, "Sorry to bother you, but we've had a call that someone in this flat has slit their wrists."

By this time, HWMBO was downstairs too and we showed him our wrists. "It's not us." I pointed out that there were people with mental health issues in this block and suggested that they might want to pound on a few more doors, but they declined and left, with a cheery, "Sorry to have woken you up; goodnight."

I hope this is not someone's idea of a prank, akin to ordering a pizza (or pizzas!) to go to another address.

I had trouble sleeping after that. Up now at 5:30am, somewhat woozy but unable to sleep or stay in bed any longer. I do hope that no one else in the block slit their wrists and the police got the flat number wrong.

Another Obama factoid

I think I had seen this somewhere, but had forgotten it. Senator Obama is a fellow alumnus of Columbia College, class of 1983. He is the first Columbia alumnus (of any school) to be elected President of the United States. The Roosevelts (Theodore and Franklin Delano) attended Columbia Law School but never graduated. And, of course, before he was President of the United States, Dwight D. Eisenhower was President of Columbia University.

As President Bollinger says in the press release, Columbiua alumni signed the Declaration of Independence, and have served as Mayors of New York and Governors of New York (as well as many other cities and states). But, this one is special.

The Proposition 8 situation

As someone who votes in California but who is not able to vote on state offices or questions, I wasn't able to vote against Proposition 8. However, I feel its passage keenly. My friends in California have had a right granted by their Constitution removed from them, and have become, yet again, separate but equal. I cannot tell you how this makes me feel. As you might imagine, this move is profoundly un-American, mean spirited, bigoted, and just plain wrong.

While this battle has been lost, I hope to live to see the day where every person, everywhere, has the right to marry whomever they love deeply. Our own Civil Partnership should be a marriage, is called a marriage by most people, and IS a marriage, as far as I am concerned. HWMBO and I are very lucky indeed. Every person, no matter their sexuality, should be so lucky.

I truly believe that this vote will come to be seen as shameful and wrong by a majority of Californians, and I look forward to the day when Prop 8 is repealed.

I do hope that some effect on the tax-exempt status of churches that agitated for Prop. 8 might occur.