The fact that President Obama directly addresses believers, disbelievers, and nonbelievers together makes me happy. More than that, it does not make me angry, which probably means more in the long run. Believers and nonbelievers have to stop excluding each other.

Everyday life makes it clear that people can act morally without religion. Richard Dawkins, arguably the most annoying, axe-to-grind atheist on the planet, has not killed anyone yet and I doubt he ever will.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me:
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.

Lincoln, like Mr. Obama, was a lifelong lover of books, indelibly shaped by his reading — most notably, in his case, the Bible and Shakespeare — which honed his poetic sense of language and his philosophical view of the world. Both men employ a densely allusive prose, richly embedded with the fruit of their reading, and both use language as a tool by which to explore and define themselves.

Yes! Obama may be Harvard-educated, but he has followed a Lincolnish self-educating Great Booksy curriculum in his own life. His questioning attitude toward life and his professional pursuits indicates that Obama would wring more meaning from a reading of Dr. Seuss’s The Lorax than Bush did from the 95 books he purportedly read last year.

Oh, Chicago, no longer even the Second City but the third. My friend John described it best as a big city on a budget: Chicago is well-organized, inexpensive, accessible, and humble. The whole city was offended when Sarah “Irascible Moron” Palin cut down the work of community organizers, especially in the city’s flux, transitioning South Side neighborhoods. She really drove a stake between working-class Republicans and working-class Democrats, who often believe in the same values but live in different environs.

I think many people forget that charity is as often about advocating for poor people as it is helping them financially — it is by no means a “HANDOUT” to educate a single mother on her tenant’s rights, to offer her guidance on cheap, healthy meals for her family, to help her choose the right schools for her children. Is this the stuff of controversy, over which city-dwellers and small-town citizens disagree? I’m guessing it isn’t.

Last week I picked someone up at O’Hare, and while circling the airport several times waiting for his arrival, I noticed the parade of Obama banners attached to every lightpole. Oh, hometown pride. As usual, the particulars of Obama and his connection to Chicago are only symbolic of a much bigger feeling.

Title taken out of context from “Chicago,” written and recorded by Graham Nash but most famously performed by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young on the live album Four Way Street:

Somehow people must be free
I hope the day comes soon
Won’t you please come to Chicago
To show your face
From the bottom of the ocean
To the mountains of the moon
Won’t you please come to Chicago
No one else can take your place

Obama inherits two lengthy and costly wars, the near bankruptcy of our own domestic policies, an American economy in free fall and a world economy that appears to be teetering on the edge of the unknown. But as dark as this may seem, the alternative was even darker. John McCain’s last efforts at character assassination and fear mongering left him in the isolated position of having nothing to win but a completely fractured constituency.

Greetings from Fake America, where even conservative David Frum knows the GOP is going to have to fight like hell (quoted by Andrew Sullivan here) to win the respect of college-educated Americans.

I am almost equally excited and hopeful over the inevitable reform of the Republican party (Washington Post), which has experienced a humiliating faceplant culminating in the selection of the celebratory ignoramus Sarah Palin as the Great White Lady Hope.

McCain said in his concession speech that this was “an historic” moment or whatever, and it irritated my shit right up like always because there’s no need to say AN in this context. We aren’t British. What’s more awkward than N and H back to back? Anyway, Barbara Wallraff, language columnist for the Atlantic, agrees and goes a step further, describing the difference between historic (correct to describe an event the day of) and historical (correct to describe it forty years later).

Finally, Andrew Sullivan posts this simple, moving cartoon by the Washington Post‘s Tom Toles, known for the marginalia self-portrait he includes in the lower corner of each of his pieces.

Obama’s theme should be a song from one of Chicago’s own: “City of New Orleans” by Steve Goodman.

Good morning America how are you
Don’t you know me, I’m your native son

He is our native son, contrary to the xenophobia-mongering of various people in the opposition. Barack Obama represents the American dream, perhaps better than anyone. An Indian-American man called in to Chicago’s newsmagazine Eight Forty-Eight this morning and made a point I honestly didn’t think about before. We have now elected the son of an immigrant of another race to the most powerful leadership position on earth. My stars!