There are a number of interesting stories on Keith Ellison I would like to reprint here. 1st, Shahed Amanullah's piece on Ellison's use of the Jefferson Qur'an for his private oath of office. 2nd, the video of the oath. 3rd, an interview with Ellison. Then finally, 4th, Ellison's recent essay in Newsweek.

Get out and vote, people.

It's that simple. I'm disinclined toward telling grown folk what to do, but I'll make an exception for this. Most of the time, the most significant differences among candidates include tie colors and hair parting preferences, but if you don't vote, you don't count. So vote.

Tonight or early tomorrow, you should be taking a look at the ballot, or otherwise finding out who's running for what, under what party, and if you haven't already, making a brief list of your choices. Call the Elections Department in your city/town to make sure when and where you should be voting, and what you should bring.In most cases, photo ID will be more than sufficient. Save their number to report any tomfoolery at the polls.

I’m reading Emerson’s essay Self-Reliance, and in the very first paragraph is something that reminded me of someone we all know.

The paragraph reads thus:

To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men, that is genius… A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the lustre of the firmament of bards and sages.

From the ForeignPolicy.com blog:

I’ve got an idea for Sen. Allard’s the next Congressional hearing on the virtues and dangers of immigration. Call Gen. John Abizaid, the top U.S. commander in the Middle East, to testify. Ask him if he could fight the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan without the 33,000 non-U.S. citizens currently serving in the military. After all, it is Hispanic soldiers who, according to research by demographers at the University of Pennsylvania, are doing a disproportionately high percentage of the dying in Iraq.

There is, I think, a difference between being an American and being a U.S. Citizen. It may be just a semantic difference to some, but it isn’t to me. A day after 9/11, Le Monde published a headline: "Nous sommes tous Américains."

I'll let the clip speak for itself first.