the onda

My very first non-primary election as a US citizen. And you couldn't have asked for a more significant one to start with.

A lot has been written about the significance of electing Obama so I'm not going to get into that here (but if you should still need help deciding, see here and here).

What I am enamored with today is the whole process of voting here in the US: walking down the street to a rickety old school building, waiting in line with your normally cranky neighbors, ticking your name off by street, then spending a little time in an even shoddier red white and blue makeshift vestibule doing what people have been doing around here uninterrupted for 232 years, pretty much in the same way, and then walking out to still more neighbors smiling at you as though you've just done something big together.

I can not believe that there are people who would argue that this act is not worth the time. More than a duty, more than a privilege, voting in my first election seems to me to be one of the few great shared civic acts left around.