this might be the place

Back at the rally, after the march had left MLK Gardens, I'd gone back for the car while Brett took photos, and I spotted a very old black man in a sharp Sunday suit walking slowly at the very back of the huge march. He hadn't yet arrived at the voting center, and I decided to find him when I got back.

I wanted to go talk to him, to ask him what this moment meant to him. He was a guy who you take one glance at, and know, that guy's seen it all. I wanted a quote. I had my journalist hat on. I thought, this will be great.

So when I got back to the voting location with the car, I went to find him in the line. Eventually I spotted him, and was ready to walk up the few feet between us and introduce myself when I stopped in my tracks.

A young black boy, no more than eight years old, walked up to this man, who was at least eighty. The boy offered the man a sticker, probably an "I Voted" sticker, but I couldn't see. The man took the sticker and paused. Silently, he looked down at the boy, who was looking back up at the man. The man put his hand gently on the boy's head, and I saw his eyes glisten.

I didn't ask the man for a quote. I didn't need to. I walked over by myself, behind the community center, and I sat down on a bench next to the track, and wept.

- Sean Quinn, fivethirtyeight.com

Hi, all! Remember that super awesome McShep Happyfest a bunch of you signed up for? Yep, that one. This is your friendly October reminder post, letting you know you have a little over three weeks until the November 1st posting date. Don't freak out, you can totally do this! We have confidence! And to encourage you, we're opening this post up for recs, cheerleading, idea-bouncing, and all that fun fest stuff. More about that at the end, though; first, chopchica and I have each come up with our top five fest-compliant fics to give you some inspiration and/or a reason to procrastinate. Fridays are made for procrastinating, after all!

( In which we ramble lovingly. )

Now. About that fun fest stuff. We're hoping to turn this post into a kind of fest in its own right. Writers are encouraged post snippets or "OH GOD I DON'T KNOW WHAT I WAS THINKING"s so that everyone else can bring out their pom poms and cheer them on. Happy fic recs, whether they be fest-compliant or not, are welcomed with open armed delight. And if you're having trouble finding a beta or you need someone to hold your hand, there are probably plenty of volunteers floating around!

And lastly: pimp this if you can! We don't know how all the participants got to us the first time around, but we'd like everyone to see the reminder. Here are two smaller buttons if you want them, feel free to hotlink. :D

• Is there someone around willing to help me with my last art_bingo piece? I'm having a little bit of trouble meshing all the bits together and could definitely use a beta.
  
  
• I'm trying to make cupcake pops. "But, Mel," you might say, "you're really going to try to bake after The Brownie Fiasco of 2007?" I know, I know, but so far, I've had no trouble with the cake or the chocolate. However, I wanted to use melted peanut butter chips for the top half - probably my first mistake - and the peanut butter is being...less than cooperative. I followed the directions on the back, but it's still thick and gritty and none of the chocolate tricks I know (add drops of veggie oil, etc) are helping. Also it's gotten so hot on the bottom that it's starting to have a mousse-like consistency. Ajaw;oigjf, I've been working with it for over forty minutes now and nothing's going right. Is it worth it, or should I just dip the whole damn things in chocolate?
  
  
• For your pains, here is John Sheppard being ridiculous.
  
  

melloniel

Untitled Chair Ficlet
McKay/Sheppard, R ~620 words

( The department store was vast and baffling, and the two of them had spent the better part of that morning and afternoon blindly stumbling from one section to another, tossing whisks and shower curtains into their overflowing cart and arguing over the shade of blue the area rug for the front room should be. )

( Mmmm, faces )

Welcome to the signups for happyfest! We're your mods, unamaga and chopchica!

What is happyfest, you may ask? Why, it's a fest for long and happy fic, set in the canon SGA universe! We've noticed that a lot of the long and plotty fics written in the last three years have either been chock full of angst, or AUs, and we started wondering how to get ourselves some long and happy fic - fic where there are romps and adventures, and hopefully some really, really hot sex. 

Then it occurred to us; make other people write it for us! eleveninches put a poll in the field asking if anybody would even sign up, and the answer was yes! Now here we are!

So, want to write a long happyfic? ( This is what we're looking for. )

The times are too serious, the stakes are too high for this same partisan playbook. So let us agree that patriotism has no party. I love this country, and so do you, and so does John McCain. The men and women who serve in our battlefields may be Democrats and Republicans and independents, but they have fought together and bled together and some died together under the same proud flag. They have not served a Red America or a Blue America -- they have served the United States of America.

So I've got news for you, John McCain. We all put our country first.

America, our work will not be easy. The challenges we face require tough choices, and Democrats as well as Republicans will need to cast off the worn-out ideas and politics of the past. For part of what has been lost these past eight years can't just be measured by lost wages or bigger trade deficits. What has also been lost is our sense of common purpose. That's what we have to restore.

We may not agree on abortion, but surely we can agree on reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies in this country. The reality of gun ownership may be different for hunters in rural Ohio than they are for those plagued by gang-violence in Cleveland, but don't tell me we can't uphold the Second Amendment while keeping AK-47s out of the hands of criminals. I know there are differences on same-sex marriage, but surely we can agree that our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters deserve to visit the person they love in the hospital and to live lives free of discrimination. You know, passions may fly on immigration, but I don't know anyone who benefits when a mother is separated from her infant child or an employer undercuts American wages by hiring illegal workers. But this, too, is part of America's promise -- the promise of a democracy where we can find the strength and grace to bridge divides and unite in common effort.

I know there are those who dismiss such beliefs as happy talk. They claim that our insistence on something larger, something firmer and more honest in our public life is just a Trojan Horse for higher taxes and the abandonment of traditional values. And that's to be expected. Because if you don't have any fresh ideas, then you use stale tactics to scare voters. If you don't have a record to run on, then you paint your opponent as someone people should run from.

You make a big election about small things.