1. MeCha.

2. MeCha.

No, really. The internet is a hive of scum and villainy, but MeCha is awesome.

Wow, thanks for your campaign support! ;) Fortunately, I think we can all rest easy that I won't be holding the fate of the free world in my fickle hands.

My hopeys:

1. There are a lot of things about our use of the environment that have actually improved drastically over the last 100 years.

2. Although I am made sad and miserable by the lousy, cruel, shortsighted, and evil acts that humans can do, I still think that if you consider all the innumerable good and gentle acts done by regular people all day every day - smiling, feeding babies, making meals, taking care of plants and animals, pausing to let another car in, cleaning, making plans - it seems really clear that the weight of all the good acts far outweighs all the evil acts that have ever been committed. Most actions are neutral to good - evil is really an anomaly.

Accidents.
Incidents.

1. I was talking to a young man who just registered as Republican and who comes from a really religious and traditional family; he started talking about gays and lesbians and I was biting my tongue until he got to the end of his sentence, which was "... and so I don't understand why gays and lesbians can't get married; if they love each other, they should be allowed to be together." *Not* how I was expecting the sentence to end, and it filled me with hope for the future.

2. Hummingbirds. Birds in general. Birds are good. They give you weird looks and I can't tell what they're thinking, but they also seem to enjoy the sunshine and hop around and do their little bird-thing, and they make me happy and hopeful.

1. Change--If you'd told me 10 years ago where I'd be in 10 years, I wouldn't have believed you. It would have been just too wonderful to believe. Things change, sure, sometimes for the worse, but oftentimes for the better. If I don't like something, I can change it.

2. Permanence--I can always go home again. I've been friends with some folks for 10, 20, going-on 40 years. And this kid hasn't changed a whit in 6 years (well, I guess a few whits); this was absolutely not a deliberate re-creation--I didn't notice anything until after the fact: ≡ Click to see image ≡

1. Ditto to Obama. Not perfect by any means, but someone doing things they way *I* think things should be done.

2. Occhiblu. She gives you weird looks and you can't tell what she's thinking, but she also seems to enjoy the sunshine and hops around doing her little Occhi-thing, and she makes me smile and hopeful.

1. People

That's it. People.


Doohickie. You read it wrong. It's Hope. Not Hop.
Metachat gives you Hop.

dno, awwwwwwww.

Accidents.
Incidents.

Hints
Allegations

?

1. The cyclical nature of human life. No matter how shitty XYZ may be at the moment, the wheel will eventually turn. It's amazing how many things this pertains to - art, politics, sports, seasons, etc.

2. The philosophy of Lotto tickets: you can't win if you don't play.

My kid.

Sheer possibility.

1. Now the only thing that gives me hope
Is my love of a certain dope.

2. Rose tints my world,
Keeps me safe from my trouble and pain.

It's beyond me. Help me, Mommy!

ethylene: You can call me Betty.

bmarkey: I'll be good- you'll see. Take this dream from meeee!

s_r: you scare yourself sometimes.

1. Time. Which is something that is also currently depressing the fuck out of me, but... yeah.

2. ...
I'm horrific at these sorts of things.

I got nuthin...

What is this 'hope,' you speak of, Earth Creature?

I have a two in one... the 2008 elections, and Barack Obama. Which isn't much of a surprise, I'm sure.

I have registered tons of new voters. More than in any previous year, by far. Some days more than I did in all of 2004 or 2000.
A lot of kids in college, sure. But also a lot of older people, people who didn't care until now, or didn't bother. People who thought, for one reason or another, that the government wasn't for them or by them, and they didn't matter. And now they'll have the say in our government so many have fought for. Every year I want to cry when I hear the voter turnout numbers. So this gives me hope.

I've canvased for a lot of elections, and this is the first one where it seems like the average person on the street is as enthusiastic as the volunteers. This gives me hope.

I've talked to three generations in a single household, from the grandmother who was most likely born not long after the 19th amendment passed, her daughter, and then her daughter, who had just turned 18 and would be voting for the first time. And something like that is just so humbling, knowing the struggles women went through not even 100 years ago for that right, and thinking how amazed and overjoyed those suffragists would be to see what became of their hard work. I've had an old African-American man start talking to me on the train when he saw my Obama button and tell me how he wished his parents was still alive to see this day, because he never would have imagined a black man could run for president and not be "the black candidate" if he wasn't seeing it with his own eyes. That gives me hope.

In 2004 I watched the convention with the campaign volunteers and local democrats. And this guy we'd heard about, this wonderkid state senator from Illinois who was running for the US senate, gave the keynote address. By the time he got to the part about being your brother's keeper I could hear sounds of agreement from everyone around me. When he got to the part about red states and blue states people were openly shouting "that's right" and "hell yeah!" and clapping. And by the time he was done half the room had tears in their eyes. That speech filled me with more hope for this nation than I had ever felt in my life.

I turned to my husband and said "that man's going to be president." Which is something I repeated to everyone over the following weeks when I talked about this amazing speech from a guy who actually knows what it is to be an American today, and what it is to be a modern liberal. Which most people pretty much openly scorned. Not that they doubted Obama, or that they themselves were against him, they just assumed "America" wasn't ready.

And four years later here we are. And I spend my weekends with people from college kids to great grandmothers, of all races, us born and naturalized, men and women, gay and straight, all working for a common cause, and all believing that we can change this country into the place it should be. When I think about people who said "America wasn't ready" I look at them and think "what are they talking about, we are America!" And that gives me hope.

He's not president yet, but I've knocked on more doors than I can count, called more strangers on the phone than I usually talk to in a year, walked until I could literally go no further, and I'll keep doing that until he is. And when everything is said and done I'll get to make the best "I told you so" phone calls ever.

I can't really think of anything that would give me hope.

But I manage to have hope anyway.

I'm with you on the first one.

The second one would probably be the shear maleability of life. It's so easy to get stuck in one place and think that what you have is all that you're capable of having, when it's completely not. Commitments and dreams can be reconciled, and that above all is what gives me hope.

I fucking love that Obama's central theme is "hope over fear."

Not to be a downer but Obama's "Hope" message seems on target to me because we're just hoping he's all that. I'm afraid he'll be all talk and no walk.

I'm voting for him, but I find the Hope message unnervingly appropriate, as in not in a good way.

Name two things that give you hope.

1. Whenever someone who's non-muslim (and especially someone like you, Gracie), makes such a heart-warming post about how important the issue of Palestine is, that you'd even go to the length of devoting your time and energy in fighting for the cause--I am filled with a sense of overwhelming gratitude. Thank you so much; that really really inspires me to no end, I can't even begin to tell you how much.

2. Whenever I see the people who are the poorest of the poor, and even despite of that, they are the most carefree, loving and generous people you can meet, it reminds me how unimportant money can be, and how important I've made it sometimes, and gives me hope that I can overcome it.