....we can finally start talking about stuff that matters, like how Scarlett Johansson is an illegal clone. (Sent this weekend to my Stranger email.)

Hello dear Ladies and Gentlemen!

I would like inform you that Scarlett Johansson (actress) actually is a clone from original person Scarlett Galabekian last name, who has nothing with acting career. That clone was created illegally by using stolen biological material. Original person is very nice (not d**n sexy),most important - CHRISTIAN young lady! I'll tell you more, those clones (it's not only one) made in GERMANY - world leader manufacturer of humans clones, it is in Ludwigshafen am Rhein, Rhineland-Palatinate, Mr. Helmut Kohl home town. You can not even imaging the scale of the cloning activity. But warning! Helmut Kohl clone staff strictly controlling all their clones (at least they trying) spreading around the world, they are very accurate with that, some of them are still NAZI type disciplined and mind controlled clones, so be careful get close with clones you will be controlled as well. Original person is not happy with those movies, images, video, rumors and etc. spreading on media in that way it would be really nice if we all will try slow down that ''actress'' career development, original Scarlett will really appreciated that. Please remember that original Scarlett's family did not authorize any activity with stolen biological materials, no matter what form it was created in it was stolen and it is stolen. It all need to be delivered to authorized personals control in Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. Original Scarlett never was engaged, by the way!

Her close friend Serge G.

P.S. CONTROLLING ACTIVITY OF ANY CLONES IS US MILITARY OPERATION.

I know at least 16 people who would shoot their mothers out of cannons for 90 minutes alone with a Scarlett Johansson clone. They should mass-market these, pronto.

Take up the White Man's burden--
Ye dare not stoop to less--
Nor call too loud on Freedom
To cloak your weariness;
By all ye cry or whisper,
By all ye leave or do,
The silent, sullen peoples
Shall weigh your Gods and you.

Ha ha ha, it was bad enough learning that "super-nigger" was elected prezzy, but you guys found out what kind of allies you had thanks to Prop 8, huh? All your little marxist jiggerboos come out to the pols to vote for Osama bin Nigger, and they ALSO voted down faggot weddings! Ha ha ha at least ONE thing went right election night, and you fucking queers are stuck with a whack-o coalition and some of the niggs want to KILL you.

Conservatism will be back. You'll see. And when it does and Sarah runs STRONG in 2012, we wil deal with both of you. Islam, faggots, terrorists, niggers- get a job, get a life, or GET IN THE OVENS!!!!!!

You want to fuck with Christians and GOD, motherfuckers??? Payback is a BITCH and it starts with your little pals the monkeys. Ha ha ha!!!!!

Sucky downside to election triumph: now the crazy bigots get to feel like underdogs.

Still: totally worth it.

But here's the thing: I have the firsthand testimony of a California Mormon—my sister-in-law Ana—who told Jake and me that she donated $100 to Yes on 8 specifcally to "obey the prophet." From her letter:

You already know we believe in the Church—and, by corollary, the importance of thoughtful and considered obedience to divinely called leaders, and have made our decision to stand in that place. We both know our leaders can sometimes make mistakes, and we make our choices in that knowledge. Sometimes it feels like being a politician who votes for a bill with one horrendous clause added by an opponent, because the bill has other, more important content that must be implemented. It's not clean or easy. It's very hard to decide what is right when there are so many components both good and bad.

But when we look back at polygamy or the "Negro question" for example, we feel like as awful as those things are, we wouldn't have wanted to give up on our most important feelings and beliefs because of them. I guess I feel like we were not so much supporting Prop 8 as making this small signal that we believe in a prophet. If it were just me, I'd probably be firmly on the other side. But I feel like "just me" is not the supreme authority and I have to acknowledge that I might be wrong. I know this probably will not sit well with you, but if we are wrong we are wrong with the best organization we can find, and if (I hope when) it someday changes for the better we will rejoice with the body of the Saints in that change - not look at them as outsiders wondering why it took so long.

Additional facts about Ana: She and her husband are the parents of four children, all adopted, all brown (two African-American, one Latina, one biracial). Here's what she blogged on election night:

Tuesday, November 04, 2008

How a couple of black kids feel tonight

A lot of my friends might not have immediate access to the responses of the elementary-school-age African American demographic without me, so I thought I'd help you out tonight.

A, biracial, age 7, praying: "Thank you for giving us a good blessing and letting Barack Obama be the president. Bless John McCain that he won't feel too bad, because he's a good man and he tried really hard."

S, full African-American, age 9, listening to the victory speech: "Martin Luther King is alive again."

I've kept quiet throughout the hubbub surrounding the discovery of Ana's donation to Yes on 8 (a discovery made extra galling by her family's financial dependence on her parents/my father- and mother-in-law, whose feelings about Prop 8 couldn't be clearer). But I can't help wondering how the kids of the 20,000 same-sex couples that Proposition 8 turned into bastards feel.

One woman came to the US from Russia. After talking about how great it is that Obama won the election, the other woman asked the Russian woman: "Do you like it here? Do you like America?" The Russian woman laughed: "I do now!"

It feels really nice to be liked again.

Not mentioned in Suggests: Hodgman will be joined onstage by his coonskin-cap-wearing sidekick Jonathan Coulton. There will be further music and funny stuff by John Roderick and Sean Nelson (best known as the frontman for the Long Winters and the frontman for Harvey Danger, respectively), who haven't played music together for years. Pressed for specifics about what they're going to play, Nelson said, mysteriously, ""It's pretty up in the air. I wouldn't be surprised if we did 'Only Living Boy in New York,' especially if people request it." You know what that means.

Meanwhile, look at it out there. Look at it pour. Need it be mentioned that Town Hall is but a few short (if steep) blocks from the Sorrento, and inside the Sorrento are the chairs and tasseled ottomans of the Fireside Room, where drinks aren't cheap but the fireplace roars and roars? (Lo those many years ago, roughly at this time of year, Bar Exam paid a visit) If you can't get in to see Hodgman tonight at Town Hall, you should riot, and if that doesn't work you should just stay in one of those Fireside Room chairs forever, reading and rereading the audience review Hodgman wrote for The Stranger the last time he was in town.

Sent in by Meagan: "I was worried about Joan Baez, weren't you?"

In other top headlines: Joni Mitchell Wants a Sandwich; Harry Belafonte: Slightly Put Out; and Kris Kristofferson Feels Nothing But the Suffocating Truth of His Own Mortality.

Same situation, different city, great writing and reporting.

I wonder if one of these puppies is the future First Puppy? They grew up in front of the camera, I'm sure they could handle the fame.

Here's a list of stuff I've been neglecting for the past two years. You are welcome to start thinking about these things again too. And other stuff. (Like what?)

1. Tyra Banks
I used to spend a LOT of time talking and thinking about this asshole. Tyra is magnificently heinous. An actual quote from earlier in this interview (with rapper T.I.): “I used to have a crush on you! But on a serious note, you’re about to go to jail.”

2. Foetus humain

3. The opening credits to The Wayans Bros.

4. Chiang's Gourmet

5. "I'm tired."

Just off the top of my head. Bye!

She was born in Australia in 1938. Despite living here longer than she lived there, she never really became an American, by citizenship or culture. She brews tea three times a day, steeps it in a knitted tea cozy, and sips it boiling hot with a bickee. She doesn’t know what R & B stands for. American politics freak her out. But after Bush’s re-election, my mom switched her citizenship—so she could vote for a different kind of president. Here she is, caucusing for Obama in February:

“Hello?” she answered the phone last night.

“He-ey, mum. Have you been watching the election results?”

“No,” she said. She hadn't answered a call a few minutes before, either. “I was afraid John McCain,” her voice froze, “had won.”

“Obama’s winning, mum. He’s going to win.”

“Oh, praise God. Praise God. Praise God. Praise God,” she said. “Now we praise God that someone doesn’t shoot him.”

She’s always been a worrier. But then again, she's not the only one worrying about that sort of thing.

Those words--we get what we deserve--were reverberating in my mind after midnight last night in the sea of revelers at the intersection of Broadway and Pike when someone I barely know emerged from the crowd, handed me a full bottle of champagne, and then disappeared back into the crowd. There was a magical quality to the crowd--the unbridled joy, the to the lack of irony, the brotherhood/sisterhood, the genuinely-liking-each-other, the gravity-less monkeying on the street utilities, the open drinking in front of cops. It had the electric, unselfconscious feeling of a sports victory but it was amplified by the fact that we were celebrating not a team's victory but the victory of liberal ideas as a framework for the future of the free world.

One got the startling sense last night that we were bigger in number than we realized. It is possible to deeply internalize your family's fucked up Republican arrogance, to believe on some level that you are outnumbered--as another of my relatives, also a diehard Republican, likes to chirp whenever we talk about politics, "Majority ruuu-ules!"--and one great gift of last night was the realization not only that there are lots of liberals out there (duh) but also that there are enough people out there who like liberals to make this happen (easy to forget). Obama has made liberalism likable again.

The dance club Neighbours made its contribution to history by dragging a speaker out onto the roof, blasting a couple songs ("Don't Stop Believing") for people to dance to (or take off their shirts and put each other on their backs and run around to), and then handing the microphone to a drag queen who--even though she was unlit up on that roof and basically out of sight (there's a metaphor in there somewhere)--led the crowd through the most glorious, sincere, elated national anthem I've ever been part of. It was the middle of the night, it was the middle of the street, and everyone--EVERYONE--sang.

...makes me cry.

But Sarah Palin's tears...

...only make me giggle.

I just crawled out of bed and sat down at my kitchen table, giving my brain an attempt at accepting all that has happened tonight.

The results for the Washington State races seem almost unbelievably good--Tim Eyman destine for definitive defeat, transit for a definitive victory along with death with dignity, the reelection of our democratic governor and the potential victory of Darcy Burner.

And then, there is Obama. It doesn't seem possible. We live in a country willing and able to reelect George W Bush a mere four years ago, to probably pass a punitive and vicious discriminatory State Constitutional amendment on this very evening. And yet, Obama. With a landslide.

And it's all over the country. As I write this, there is a distinct chance that the Democrats will achieve a 60 person super majority in the Senate and pick up a larger than expected number of seats in the House.

We asked the country, and received "yes" as an answer this time.

On my kitchen table are the week's New York Times--surrounding me with the pre-election moment.

A few scattered headlines:

"Steep Decline in October Auto Sales Leaves No Seller Immune"

"New Terrain For Arbiters Of a Bailout"

"Afghan Officials Aided an Attack on U.S. Soldiers"

"U.S. Rejects G.M.'s Call For Help In a Merger"

"Debt Links to Huge Buyouts Is Tightening the Economic Vise"

"Next President Will Face Test On Detainees"

"Fed Adds $21 Billion To Loans For A.I.G"

"New Anxiety Grips Russia's Economy"

"Economy Shrinks With Consumers Leading the Way"

"Mortgage Plan May Aid Many And Irk Others"

"Specter of Deflation Lurks As Global Demand Drops"

"A Rescue Hindered By Politics"

After eight--perhaps twelve--years of terrifying, out-of-control skidding it finally feels as though our collective feet have found purchase. We've finally stopped our plummet, or at least started to stop our decline, far closer to the edge of a deep abyss than any of us would like. Or so I hope.

Trudging back up is going to make the next four years (and probably many more) as difficult as anything known to the overwhelming majority of us. And have no more illusions. It won't be the Chinese, the Russians, the EU. We must be in the lead of the difficult rise as much as we were the leaders of the swift and easy fall.

McCain, and particularly Palin, were selling the notion that these problems weren't real, that the real problem is we aren't belligerent and profligate enough, that all we need to do was double down. Obama means we're finally ready to about face, and start grappling with the long-neglected reality of our situation.

So, as I sit anxiously awake at four AM, all these thoughts--and a few others, of the sweet feeling of victory, of the vanquishing of so much hatred and fear, of relief of the end of procrastination--swirl through my mind. Much coalesces to a sharp point. I'd work for the Obama administration, grinding my life against what we collectively face.

And I suspect I am not the only one.