== Permagrins For Obama = By Mark Morford

[madokie]

The country's still a disaster. Why is everyone smiling?

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2008/11/12/notes111208.DTL&nl=fix

It happened in a taxicab. It happened in a bank. It's happened multiple times in yoga class (of course) and I've heard it happen in cafes and supermarkets and restaurants and even out in the rough 'n' ragged city streets where you normally expect only a sidelong glance and a suspicious frown or maybe a slight nod of hello-now-please-get-out-of-my-way.

The best part: Each and every time, it's been almost wholly spontaneous, an outbreak, a burst, the unexpected thing that you haven't felt in years and which, in many ways, can't really believe you're experiencing at all.

It's smiling, laughing, actual cheering among the normally jaded and the wary whenever Obama's voice is heard, or when his name comes up on the radio, in print, in a song, on the sidewalk -- anywhere at all. It's a relatively surreal sense of Can This Really Be True? Is that young, calm, rock-solid, intellectual black guy really our new president? Are they really expecting more than a million people to attend his inauguration, the most in American history? What do you make of that?

You simply gotta acknowledge. Because it's no longer just fluffy hope. It's not really just joy. It's not even giddy anticipation. That was before the election. Now it's all those and a few dozen more, wrapped in a great big ball of shimmering disbelief. ...

[crispini]

1. Great article.

Exactly the way I feel. :kick:

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

2. Smiles of relief

that someone intelligent is going to be in charge.

[Ilsa]

4. It's like a neck ache is over and the air has the scent of roses. nt

[OneGrassRoot]

3. When I walked out of the voting booth, I was surprised that I ...

couldn't stop smiling. I desperately wanted to hug someone! I don't recall EVER having a smile plastered on my face like that, out of my control. LOL.

Then, the tears came, and lasted through the 5th. :)

All so very cool.