With a very heavy heart and a world or responsibility on my shoulders, I walked over to out local polling place and voted. The enormity of the ramifications filled me in a way I had not anticipated. There are serious real world consequences that will result with our votes. Some are very tangible, like what the city of Burlington will look like in the next few years. Some are very intangible since none of us really understand the results of every decision that a President will make. Who could possibly quantify the implications to young girls to see a woman become President? We can guess and provide anecdotes, but there is a deeper fundamental mindset shift that can occur, and it’s well past time for that to happen. The only way those changes will ever start to take hold is if we, the people, exercise our right to vote. Our country provides so much for us and asks so little. I view voting as an obligation, one that I am happy to engage in.

I stared at the ballot and let the sense of responsibility guide me. I’ve informed myself and let that be reflected in the way I voted. I’ll never truly know if my decisions were the best ones, but I made them, and they are now a part of history. I walked out of the school feeling unburdened with a light and easy step for the walk home. No matter how things turn out, I have played my part. I sincerely hope that you do too.

Now, it’s time to get ready for work and hope it goes smoothly and as quickly as possible. There is a huge party tonight with lots of bands and no matter what happens, I will joyfully rock out.

Bill Maher speaking about the Republican reaction to President Obama’s executive order on immigration “They’re so paranoid, Michele Bachmann (R-MN) said these illegal immigrants, they’re gonna to be voting.  OK, there’s no evidence of illegal immigrants ever voting, although they should.  There’s another job Americans won’t do.”

Bill Maher “John Boehner said today he wants to take away North Korea’s missiles, but he won’t because that’s a slippery slope from there to gun control.  Well, there was a small victory on gun control this week.  You saw Republicans, they wanted to have a filibuster.  They did not have the votes for a filibuster, so they, there will be a debate about the gun bill.  And, given the recent rash of gun violence in America, the Republicans said it was the least they could do.  Literally, they had a meeting and said, what is the least we can do?  The absolute least.  So, where we are now is 68 Senators want to move forward on background checks, and 31, almost all of them Republicans, say no, that’s the death of freedom.  They are sticking with the principle that asking for any kind of ID would be a horrible violation of the Constitution, unless it keeps black people from voting.”

Fareed Zakaria on the Bill Maher show  speaking of Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi ” Look, I think this guy is a pretty hard line Muslim Brotherhood guy.  The only correction to your statement I would make is, it’s not Muslim leaders.  This guy is a political Islamist leader.  There are lots of Muslim leaders, the leader of Indonesia, the leader of, you know, Turkey, these guys are secular democratic, right?  But these people who come from parties like the brotherhood, this guy is, from what we can tell, a nasty piece of work.  But, remember though, he has never got more than 25% of the vote.  In the first round he got 25% of the vote.  The secular candidates in Egypt, which were two main ones, got 39% collectively.  In the second round the guy gets 50%, but there was 50% turnout, so still only 25% of the Egyptian electorate has ever voted for this guy.  The army is still there, and I never thought I’d be saying it, but you know, they will be a check on some of his ambitions.  There will be a certain amount of struggle.  If this guy had absolute power in Egypt, I think it would be very bad news.”

Zakaria later in the show “One Muslim country where, ironically, the population is very pro American, you know, you go to Egypt and they don’t like us, you go to Pakistan and they don’t like us.  We’re pouring money into them.  You go to Iran, I was Iran about six months ago, they love Americans.  It’s a great tragedy that’s the one country we want to bomb.”