The newspaper at BYU is called the Daily Universe, ofttimes referred to as the Daily Uni-farce. There's a reason. It is one of the most biased and backwards papers I have ever read, mostly due to the majority Republican population that goes to BYU and lives in Utah county. One of my recent favorite things to do is write editorials to this newspaper, especially in response to ignorant people and the nigh-fundamentalist right opinions they express. My latest diatribe involves the political cartoons that the Daily Universe selects; the overwhelming majority of them are anti-Obama, and some are so ridiculous you wonder who actually prints them. The following is my response such a cartoon:

I am writing to express my extreme displeasure in the Daily Universe's selection of political cartoons. First of all, most of them aren't even very funny. But more importantly, the overwhelming majority of them are anti-Obama, and I'm getting rather tired of it. The cartoon on Monday showed President Obama simultaneously "reaching out" to and pushing away Republicans with his policies; a more accurate cartoon would have shown Obama throwing a lifeline from a helicopter down to a sinking, obstinate Republican ship. Regarding the stimulus package, Obama did work tirelessly to "reach out" to Republicans to come to a concensus on its contents. Despite his best efforts, however, not one single Republican voted for the original bill. Reaching out to others is only effective when the recipient party is willing to grasp the offered hand. Now, I understand that newspapers have to cater to the majority of their readership; in BYU/Provo's case, this equals Republicans. I'm only asking for a little diversity here. Some of us are Democrats; some of us think Obama's doing a great job, and that unless Republicans jump on board, they're going to quickly become an endangered species. And if you can't make the cartoons more politically diverse, at least make them funnier.

I can't wait to graduate from BYU, not only because it means I'll be done with school for a while and can just work, but more because it means that I can get out of stifling Utah county and breathe the fresh air of Salt Lake (the word "fresh" having nothing to do with the actual air quality, mind you). Right now it feels like I'm breathing through a coffee straw with my nose plugged; I'm going to need a respirator any day now.

For this, my first blog entry, I think I'd like to just ponder on the immense historical event that took place today. Above all, I think it stands as an example of the triumph of the human spirit. Obama's election to the highest possible office in the United States obviously represents the culmination of achievement for black Americans, whose collective past is littered with the garbage of racism, bigotry, and violence. However, it also represents significant growth in white Americans as well, who chose to put aside their sometimes divisive past and refused to engage in the policies and practices of some of their forebears. I believe that President Obama's election shows that the the rift that has existed in the United States since the time of Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War has been mended; a black man defeated a white man and was elected by a majority vote. The American people have today fulfilled Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s dream that one day his children would "not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character." The dream lives and breathes in America's 44th president, Barack Obama.