More tidbits.

When I recently saw my mom and asked her what she thought of the Obama campaign, she twirled her arms like a cheerleader and was like, "GOOOOOOOOOOO, BAMA!", and on the "BAMA!" she put out her fists above her head like she was a cheerleader holding pompoms.

In Sister Claudette Marie Muhammad's recent book "Memories" -- she's a huge higher-up in the Nation of Islam, and recent wrote her memoirs, which are both wonderful and frustrating, since she's done so many interesting things in her life but she never goes into as much detail as you want, I would read a thousand-page book by her -- she was remembering back in her pre-NOI days in the early-to-mid-70s when she was a secretary on capitol hill and was instrumental in getting an art exhibit "Beauty of the Ghetto" to Washington:

Mrs. Ethel Kennedy also became one of the key sponsors. She hosted a luncheon meeting at her home for [the artist] Ernie [Barnes] and myself. Served at the luncheon meeting was southern fried chicken. I laughed at myself, "White folk will be White folk," Mrs. Kennedy serving fried chicken to her Black guests.

I had seen ads up for this book everywhere and got my university library to order it for me, we're the only library in the world to have it, as far as I can tell from comprehensive online catalogues I've looked at.

This morning I was sitting outside in the coffee shop courtyard near me studying, and some guy started setting up speakers and chairs for some kind of event, and next thing I know I'm surrounded by a few families and black retired women listening to smooth jazz while the guy plays the sax. There was one younger black woman there too who was dancing a lot, and she sat down for one song, and right at the end when all the older black women were clapping since the musician was holding out this really sweet long sax note, the woman who had just sat down noticed she had broke a sweat and so took off her jean jacket, and since she was in front everyone saw it and all the older black women started clapping for her, and the one next to her, this really nice-looking lady in a straw hat and linen shirt and flow-y black pants, was like, "Was that last too much for you sister, let me help you out," and she started fanning her while the other black ladies clapped the harder.

Tomorrow I go to Gary to campaign again for Obama; I'm going door-to-door canvassing with my neighbor from the Law School, we're doing both a morning and an afternoon shift.