“Imbalan yang diterima pejabat daerah sebagai hadiah bunga atas dana APBD yang disimpan di setiap pemerintah daerah saya nilai tidak tepat. Apalagi jika uang tersebut dinilai sebagai ucapan terimakasih yang dikirim secara langsung ke rekening pribadi mereka ini terlihat adanya gratifikasi dan suap,” kata peneliti ICW Tama S Langkun di kantor ICW Jl Kalibata Jakarta Selatan, Selasa (2/2/2010).

Pemberian honor ini tampaknya sudah menjadi tren. Pantauan ICW di media ada 6 Bank Pembangunan Daerah (BPD) yang terbukti mengeluarkan pemberian honor ke kepala daerah dengan total Rp 360.311 M. ICW menemukan kejanggalan yang mengarah pada konflik kepentingan.

“Kepala daerah sebagai kuasa pemgeng saham di BPD memiliki kewenangan untuk menetukan arah kebijakan di BPD. Ini artinya kepala daerah berperan besar dalam mementukan kebijakan pemberian honor tidak hanya pada dirinya tapi juga pada koleganya,” tutur Tama.

Atas dasar temuan ini, ICW ingin kasus ilegal ini disusut agar tidak berkelanjutan dan menjadi pola kebiasaan di pejabat daerah. ( Indonesia )

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With so many museums spread out over the state, I can easily see why it would be so hard to figure out which ones to go to and which ones are worth the time. As we know some museums, if not put together well, can turn out to be pretty boring and uneventful. Here are some of the Montana museums that are not a waste of time.

The CM Russell Museum: Established in 1953, the C.M. Russell Museum in Great Falls, Montana owns the most complete collection of Charles Russell art and personal objects in the world. C.M Russell was an artist of the American West who created paintings of cowboys, Indians and landscapes set in the Western United States. He also created bronze sculptures. The permanent collection at The C.M. Russell Museum is comprised of over 12,000 paintings and objects.

The Moss Mansion: Located in Billings, this historic house museum captures early turn-of-the-century life of the Preston Boyd Moss family. The mansion is a red sandstone structure built in 1903 and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Visitors will see original draperies, fixtures, furniture, Persian carpets and artifacts during their guided tour. The Moss Mansion was designed by Henry Jane Hardenbergh who also designed the original Waldorf-Astoria.

The Yellowstone Art Museum: Also located in Billings, the Yellowstone Art Museum is an important visual arts center for the surrounding region. Founded in 1964, it is now a fully accredited Museum. There are over 3,000 painting and objects which have exceeded all expectations of growth and popularity of the museum.

The Western Heritage Center: This historic building is also listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Located in Billings as well, it was originally the Parmly Billings Library, built in 1901 by Billings founder as a memorial to his son, Parmly. Within the beautiful main floor old oak galleries are changing exhibits where the stories of peoples of the Yellowstone River Valley unfold.

Museum of the Rockies: One of the most popular museums can be found in Bozeman, Montana. The Museum of the Rockies focuses mainly on dinosaurs and Paleontology, but also houses an amazing Planetarium for a new perspective on Montana’s Big Sky. There is also a great exhibit on Lewis & Clark, often thought of as America’s greatest adventure story. Another great feature is the living farm which allows kids to see and also experience what life was like over a century ago on a Montana homestead.

Of course there are many amazing Montana museums that I could cover, but it would be hard to cover the many aspects of each museum in just one article. The few that I have listed are some of the more exciting and equally entertaining museums for both adults and children, which as we all know, is a very important quality!

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No word can beat the satisfaction of exploring a museum as opposed to reading about it and this works for The Science Museum in more ways than one so it is highly recommended that you should spend at least one day in the museum and enjoy the items presented there.

For travelers in order to save time and money it is probably a good idea to find a hotel near the Science Museum. One hotel that deserves mentioning here is Abba Queen’s Gate Hotel which is literary minutes away from the museum and by far one of the closest hotels to it. Another hotel that has rated five-star by the authorities and by guests as well is Egerton House. The hotel prides itself on not having two rooms with the same decoration which seems really amazing and unique.

For more than one hundred and fifty years the city of London, capital of the United Kingdom of Great Britain has been boasting one the most admirable museums of the world with the subject of science and technology. The history of the museum isn’t as straight as it is in the case of other museums and it wasn’t called The Science Museum in its early days. The original idea was actually for Prince Albert resulting from success of an exhibition in 1851. The exhibition was held in Hyde Park inside a building named Crystal Palace hence the design of the building which used large sheet of glass to cover the building. The Great Exhibition proved to be very interesting to the public and managed to attract great attention from both the ordinary and scholar. The popularity of the exhibition and its financial profits encouraged Prince Albert to put a suggestion on the table to the effect that the income should be spent on building of museums and art galleries with educational purposes around the very place of the original exhibition was held.

No word can beat the satisfaction of exploring a museum as opposed to reading about it and this works for The Science Museum in more ways than one so it is highly recommended that you should spend at least one day in the museum and enjoy the items presented there.

For travelers in order to save time and money it is probably a good idea to find a hotel near the Science Museum. One hotel that deserves mentioning here is Abba Queen’s Gate Hotel which is literary minutes away from the museum and by far one of the closest hotels to it. Another hotel that has rated five-star by the authorities and by guests as well is Egerton House. The hotel prides itself on not having two rooms with the same decoration which seems really amazing and unique.

When you are in London you are not short in options for choosing a luxury hotel as well for example Radisson Edwardian Hampshire hotel with 124 super-style rooms which will amaze every visitor. The hotel is just a few steps from metro stops and lots of theaters are around to enjoy. Also we can mention The Royal Horseguards hotel with 280 rooms which in London standard would be considered a really large hotel. The hotel have been rated 4.1 of 5 by its guests which shows the high level of service and facilities provided to the guests. If you choose this hotel you wouldn’t need to worry about transport for visiting Big Bang and House of Parliament. And the best it is also within a walking distance of Buckingham palace.

And last but certainly not the least the Aldwych hotel with an amazing 4.4 of 5 rating by guests that confirm the super high level of satisfaction that the guests feel about it. The hotel has 105 rooms and located very near to Covent Garden underground station and is facilitated with a top of the line gym which distinguishes it from most of the other luxury hotels. (by Steve Kevin)

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Hanya kisah, bila ada kesamaan nama, alamat dan tempat segeralah periksa ke dokter Ketika seorang cantik di tengah kerumunan para pujangga kaya, yang saling berebut untuk mendapat perhatian sang Cantik. Mengapa? Karena Sang cantik sedang mencari seorang pendamping hidup, seperti wasiat ayahnya yang masih sehat dan belum ingin meninggal dunia

Sudah banyak yang melamar Sang Cantik, dari mulai sang kaya sampai yang sangat kaya. tobe continue ………..

]]> http://tangerangkota.info/pengemis-dan-istri-cantik/feed 0 http://tangerangkota.info/astaga-mas-iwan http://tangerangkota.info/astaga-mas-iwan#comments Mon, 14 Dec 2009 10:54:37 +0000 dobloger http://tangerangkota.info/?p=3253 Gaya hidup wong kota kah? Astaga.com lifestyle on the net, wuokee… apalagi ini Mas Iwan? What’s men? Eh Mas Iwan ikutan kontes SEO astaga.com lifestyle on the net rupanya. Lho kok di artikel nya dibilang nggak ikut-ikutan? Kenapa men? Wkwkwk… o merendah neee… atau banyak yang ngejekinyaaa..?

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Now, laptops are the need of the hour. Laptops offr you unlimited features. The benefits of using a laptop are numerous. First of all, they are portable devices. Thus they eliminate the problem of eating space. Secondly, they are easy to use; there are no cob-webs of cables and wires. Last but not the least, they look good and are easy to carry. There are many brands which manufacture laptops. Sony is one of them.

Sony laptops are good looking laptops loaded with advanced features. Sony video laptops are the next best thing technology can offer you. Sony video laptops are extremely user-friendly and also effete. Sony video laptops are durable as well. Sony video laptops offer you thr freedom to have fun with the latest technology. Sony video laptops are another interesting segment of products from the house of Sony. There are so many interesting features for the tech-savvy in Sony video laptops, which is really difficult to ignore. Sony video laptops are equipped with high-end features, which you will definitely appreciate. Sony video laptops are affordable too. Sony video laptops are sturdy as well. These hi-tech laptops are designed keeping in mindhe latest technology and applications. Sony video laptops allow you to capture videos as well, as these gadgets are equipped with an integrated high-end camera, that does all the work for you. It is like having the power of a laptop as well as a camcorder in one.

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Know the “Specs” of Each One: Perhaps the most important thing to know about each of the laptops that you look at in the computer store is the specifications of each one, or the “specs” as they are usually called. These usually include the type of processor that the laptop has, the speed of the processor, how much RAM it holds, as well as the size of the hard drive. For those who are not too sure what all of that entails, here is how to decipher it:

Type of Processor – This is the brand and type of computer processor that the laptop was built with. For example, AMD Athlon is a very good brand when it comes to computer processors, especially laptops and notebook computers. Another major processor is Intel, who makes the Pentium processors. If buying an older laptop computer it may come with Pentium-2 or 3, but one should be aware that Penitum-4 is actually one of the better processors they have on the market.

The Processing Speed – This “spec” of the laptop is measured in gigahertz (GHz) and means how fast or slow the processor will run on your computer. For those who don’t know, the higher the number for the processing speed the better. An average laptop or notebook computer’s processor has between 1 and 2 gigahertz. Anything that’s below that is considered slow, but anything above that is considered decent and very good!

Random Access Memory – Also known as RAM, this spec of the laptop or notebook basically refers to how many programs are able to run all at once on your computer without causing too much slowdown. The average laptop or notebook computer has about 512 megabytes of RAM. Newer laptop computers, however, sometimes contain much more than that, which is excellent for consumers!

Hard Drive Size – This is perhaps one of the most important things you should learn about your potential laptop. The hard drive size refers to how many programs, applications, and files you are about to store on your computer in totality. For a newer laptop computer, it’s not uncommon for a person to see one filled with around eighty to one hundred gigabytes of hard drive space. For many people, that is probably more than enough space to carry around on their notebook computer. Anything above and beyond that number for hard drive space is excellent; anything below about fifty gigabytes is probably not worth buying.

Perhaps the most important thing to remember when going in search of a new computer is to not let the salesman talk you into buying any product. It is definitely alright for one to listen to a laptop salesman about the “specs” of a certain laptop or notebook, but making the final decision should ultimately be made with your needs and wants in a laptop computer.

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Do a small google search about the laptop bag types and styles available. But make sure you pick the right one since it will have an impact to what you do and where you go. Just figure out if you want the professional look or the casual look.
Learn what laptop bag styles available and what features each different style of laptop bag has to offer mobile professionals.

The different types of Laptop Bags available are brief bag laptop bags, top loading laptop bags, backpack laptop bags, messenger Style laptop bags, rolling laptop bags, ladies laptop bags and the men’s laptop bags.

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When it comes to the weight of the laptop bag, make sure your laptop bag do not weigh more than your laptop. Laptop bags offer interior power modules; convenient space for accessories and quick access pockets for mobile phones, space for documents like tickets, maps. At last knowing the manufacturers warranty and if the warranty will give you a peace of mind.

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Bernard
email: bernard.countertenor@gmail.com

“Why you working out?” Eddie asks Jesse.

“I gotta be in shape,” Jesse replies. “Because when I give my first speech, it will be like this.” And then Eddie darts across stage, a blur of red leather ducking and dodging, weaving and bobbing so that the sniper rifle can’t get a read on him.

Speed up a bit to 2000. Dave Chappelle is at the Lincoln Theatre in D.C., and I am in the balcony with a friend who smuggled in beers in her purse. Dave says he doesn’t want to be the first black president. Maybe the second or the third, but definitely not the first. Well, on second thought, he could be the first, but he would have a Mexican vice president for insurance.

Black president: both joke and punch line. Black president: an oxymoron like jumbo shrimp. For a long time, comedians have riffed on what having a black president would actually mean … as if that would ever happen. That if it did, there would be cookouts on the White House lawn, which would have no grass, a broken-down car sitting on bricks and an old weight set in the driveway.

It was always a fantasy, about as realistic as the Loch Ness Monster, mythical in proportion and scope. The futility of the idea was a reflection of the weight of the past and pessimism about the future. Imagine a black president and fill in the rest with stereotypes and tragedy, because there is a grain of truth in both.

The jokes didn’t land on any one person, so there was no harm. That they never would was the ultimate punch line.

We have become accustomed to using humor to push through the burdens of blackness, says Darryl Littleton, author of Black Comedians on Black Comedy: How African-Americans Taught Us to Laugh. Even in bondage, humor helped lighten the load of slavery. “Slaves that didn’t have the commonality of language would use pantomime to make fun of the slave owners,” Littleton said.

Humor has always been a painfully real thing for black America. It’s been a balm both to the hurtful reality of our place in America and the insufferable parts of our past. Jokes about being followed in a department store or being pulled over by the police, or not being able to hail a cab are funny because they connect the past and present struggle.

So what kind of reception should President-elect Barack Obama expect from the comedy world? Should we be on watch for tasteless racial innuendo? Or do we need to guard against being hypersensitive?

Comedian Katt Williams says black comedians won’t hold back.

Littleton agreed. “We comics unleash,” he says. “There won’t be too many things left unsaid. If he messes up, we won’t leave any meat on the bone. Truthfully, for comics, it would have been better if [John] McCain won. The worst choice is always better for us.”

The New Yorker Thelma and Lousie’d its magazine cover off the edge of comedic satire when it depicted Obama and his wife, Michelle, as Osama-loving-terrorist-fist-bumping Muslims. And Carlos Mencia, in a bit about as funny as a wet sock, dresses himself as the president in black face and afro and talks in that grating black dialect made famous by whites. Mencia’s stereotypical notion of blackness was framed by perceptions about how whites see blacks. But even the idea of a collectively clueless white mass seems quaint now that tens of millions of them voted for a man named Barack Hussein Obama.

Carlos Mencia’s routine crosses over the funny line in the same way as The New Yorker magazine cover because it isn’t edgy political humor or even a well thought-out skit. It is simply taking trash bags full of ignorance and generalizations and dumping them onto Obama because of his race.

For the comics themselves, Obama poses a conundrum. “He’s not stupid, he’s not angry, he’s not fat. Who would want a jerk like that in office?” Bill Maher joked on “Larry King Live” after the election. “We need to get over our nervousness about making a joke about a black person. Obama isn’t black, he is the president. And when we make fun of him, we aren’t making fun of all black people in the same way when we make fun of George W. Bush, it isn’t like we are talking about all mentally challenged people. But he has got to give us something to joke about.”

One place that comedians can look back on for guidance into the future of comedy is the late, great Richard Pryor. In 1977, on the short-lived “Richard Pryor Show,” he does a skit in which he walks out as the first black president and fields questions from the press.

President Pryor explains that the 5 percent unemployment rate only reflects that of whites and that the minority unemployment rate has always been around 45 percent. He thinks that the increase in the space program funding will help send blacks to space, “…white people have been going to space and spacing out on us. …”

He declares that Huey Newton will be in contention for director of the FBI since he knows the ins and outs. That there will always be black players in the National Football League and that if he can help it, there will be black coaches and owners, too. The skit ends with a white reporter asking President Pryor about his mother being a maid. “After your tenure, will yo mama do my house?” The bit ends with Pryor rushing from the podium and charging for the man.

The skit has everything in it that comedy can be: brash-abrasive-cultivated nuance that illuminates the struggles of being both black and president.

For the next four years, America will learn to adjust to a new punch line.

So why are so many political satirists crying about how unamusing the Obama presidency will be? The standard reasoning is that, unlike Bush, McCain, Palin, the Clintons or even Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama is “too perfect” and does not provide material for good jokes. But the inability of “Saturday Night Live” to produce one hilarious sketch on the Obamas has little to do with the quality of comedic material Michelle or Barack offer. It has more to do with the fact that mainstream American comedy has been, for far too long, racially segregated and has relied on two formulas in dealing with black people: one is racial stereotyping and the second is black invisibility.

Both the right and the left used stereotypes in their attempts to satirize African Americans during this past election season. Most egregious was a mailing by the Chaffey Community of Republican Women’s Group, which included faux “food stamps” with the image of Obama surrounded by images of watermelons and fried chicken. This sort of imagery dates back to D.W. Griffith’s racist 1915 film Birth of a Nation in which newly elected black senators run the federal government into the ground and litter the floors of the Capitol with chicken bones. The members of the Chaffey Community group defended their actions by saying it was simply satire.

The satire defense was also deployed by the liberal New Yorker magazine when it donned Barry Blitt’s cover of the Afro-sporting, gun-toting Michelle Obama and the turban-wearing Barack Obama back in July. In both cases, the racial stereotyping was so obvious that it produced loud public outcries.

For obvious reasons, the invisibility problem generates less outrage, but it is equally dangerous.

Each week, as I watched actor Fred Armisen imitate Barack Obama on SNL, I tried to figure out why I did not laugh. Armisen has Obama’s cadence and facial expressions down pat, but as Kelefa Sanneh noted in the New Yorker, there is no “back story” to this character. Likewise, when Maya Rudolph temporarily returned to play Michelle Obama, the skit between Michelle and Barack Obama was successful, not because it has anything to do with the personalities or personas of Michelle and Barack, but because anyone singing “Solid as Barack” to the Ashford and Simpson tune, “Solid as a Rock” is funny.

It’s not just that SNL does not give a back story to the Obamas or that a non-African-American actor plays Barack Obama; it is that these skits miss the complexities, contradictions and the interior features of African-Americans lives. On SNL and other mainstream political comedy shows like “Real Time” and to a lesser extent “The Daily Show” and “The Colbert Report,” the cast and writing staffs lack diversity, and it shows in the racial parochialism of the humor itself.

Perhaps Bill Maher was right when he said that Barack Obama leads to bad comedy because he is “too perfect” as a presidential candidate and that “liberals” and “comedians” (both of whom in Maher’s calculations all appear to be white) are “afraid of laughing at anything with a black person in it.” But, I think it goes deeper than that.

For such comics to consider Barack or Michelle funny, one of two things now has to happen: Either the Obamas must begin to feed into prevailing racial stereotypes (and therefore be seen as unfit for the presidency), or mainstream satirists will have to learn the cultural nuances of black America.

This would include not simply making fun of how white CNN pundits developed a media crush on Obama, but lampooning, as one YouTube skit shows, how Obama preps his swagger before each debate. SNL focuses on Obama’s intellect and verbal pauses but does not satirize his performance of the “cool” black man. Understanding both his swagger and cool requires an understanding of black bourgeois respectability, not just in opposition to caricatures of working-class blacks but as a source of potential contradictions and comedy.

There is a great debate about whether CNN’s “D.L. Hughley Breaks the News” and David Allen Grier’s variety show “Chocolate News” on Comedy Central are funny or offensive. The verdict is still out. I can’t help but wonder what kind of cathartic laughter Dave Chappelle would have been able to provide for us this year.

Imagine what he would have done with Jeremiah Wright or Barack’s unannounced visits to the home of white undecided voters in Ohio. It’s not that Barack and Michelle aren’t funny; it’s just that those who have been able to thrive in a predominantly white comedic universe will now have to hire more writers and actors (and hopefully producers and directors) who know how to work with the material that Barack and Michelle will serve up. If they are going to stay on top of their games over the next four years, white comedians and comic writers will have to acknowledge black interior lives and class and ethnic diversity. Then we’ll all have something to laugh about.

Salamishah Tillet is an assistant professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania and co-founder of the non-profit organization, A Long Walk Home, Inc., which uses art therapy and the visual and performing arts to document and to end violence against underserved women and children.

Obama and his brilliant staff are, of course, at the top of the list for mounting what was arguably the best presidential campaign in American political history.

And then there was our army of black voters who turned out in huge numbers and voted almost unanimously for our man.

But amid all our justified hooping and hollering, there’s one group that I fear will not get its fair share of the credit for its essential contribution to this sweeping victory, a group we’re more accustomed to blaming for all our woes than thanking for our progress.
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I am talking, of course, about white folks.

Yes, white folks, the ones we thought would lie to pollsters about supporting Obama then pull the lever for his white opponent.

Not the majority of white folks, who voted for John McCain, but the millions upon millions of other white people, open minded and decent enough to give the brother a chance.

They deserve a big hand.

Of the 64 million votes Obama collected, the largest tally in history, by far the largest share were cast by white voters.

He racked up 43 percent of the white vote, equaling Bill Clinton’s performance and easily surpassing Al Gore and John Kerry.

Without those white folks, Obama would have lost the election.

Obama knew that all along. He knew that there are not enough black and minority voters to win an election unless a substantial number of whites join in. That’s why he downplayed racial issues throughout the campaign, focusing instead on a message of change that appealed to voters of every variety.

But his strategy would not have succeeded unless enough white voters were willing to look beyond his color and hear his message.

They were, and they did.

When I predicted in mid-September that the days when Republicans could win elections by stirring up white resentments were finally gone, some blacks thought I was being hopelessly naïve.

But as I wrote then, this is no longer the America that John McCain, Jesse Jackson and I grew up in. Coded racist appeals have lost much of their potency, especially among the young and the well-educated.

I don’t want to go overboard about this because most white voters still backed the Republicans. Some of them fell for McCain and Sarah Palin’s okey-doke because prejudice and reactionary thinking continue to play powerful roles in our politics, and they are not going away.

But that bad news should not diminish our gratitude for the white folks who had the courage and insight to cross the color line and join Obama’s cause.

They helped him to recreate the sort of multiracial coalition that Martin Luther King Jr. led to the greatest triumphs of the civil rights movement.

Because of them, Obama was swept into the White House in what some regard as the greatest moment in black history since the Emancipation.

Because of them, Obama may have a chance to shape a political realignment as dramatic as the Reagan revolution, though moving in the opposite political direction.

So thank you, white folks!

We couldn’t have done it without you.

Now, could you lend us a hand with these flying pigs?

Yet, in a political campaign that began with most African Americans pooh-poohing the possibility that whites would vote for a black man and with large numbers of whites suddenly ready to do just that, Barack Obama tapped into the perfect historic moment of cross-racial yearning.

It has left me feeling bittersweet at what came before, for I have been forced to admit a truth to myself about racism and its limiting impact. I realized, quite sadly, that I had dutifully voted every four years for a parade of white male presidential candidates while scarcely lamenting the fact that this office remained the hardest, highest, most coveted barrier against the full and unfettered participation of non-whites in our political system.

Because I never believed that white voters would elevate a person of color to the presidency in my lifetime, I had in effect accepted the “whites-only” rule of the presidency. I’m embarrassed to say: What a triumph of racism!
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So I think it is only fitting to “unpack” this idea of limitations, to dissect this thing that will, of course, still plague us but that now will lack its old power.

Let’s face it. Racial limitations have defined our psyches as Americans. For African Americans especially, we have always had to consider the limits of our personal and collective ambitions; to think about just how far we could and could not expect to excel in a nation where racism has been so historically present. Without such calculation, it would have been impossible just to survive.

The slave had to know the physical limits of the plantation and had to know how to circumscribe his behavior to avoid the lash. After slavery, we had to be damned certain to understand the limits of our so-called freedom, especially when Reconstruction turned to ethnic cleansing and Jim Crow was let loose on the land.

Later, in the modern era, we had to know when voting would be deadly—the ultimate limitation. And we had to know how hard to push, to fight, to secure our rights, to test the limits of America’s promise. We risked the blows that took too many lives, until, at last, we won full rights in the 1960s. We were protected by the Constitution. And we could vote—for whomever we chose, black or white.

And yet, we always knew that the ultimate prize of our political system was off-limits. Not by law, not by decree, but by long-held custom. Shirley Chisholm ran. Jesse Jackson ran. But white America (and back then such a monolithic group was far more real than today) wasn’t having it. Racism was its limitation.

Before Barack Obama, everyone I know did not expect to see a president of color in our lifetime. We had grown accustomed to the racial limitations of these United States. We could attend college, get good jobs, send our kids to private schools, purchase large homes, write high literature, become sports superstars, Hollywood icons and CEOs. But president? Get real.

Obama has proved us wrong.

Perhaps he had not been jaded in the way that so many other African Americans have been because of our experience with limitations. Obama grew up differently. Yes, he knew of racist barriers, and, yes, he experienced racism in his life, we learn from his memoir, Dreams of My Father.

But although he embraces African-American identity and culture, he is a biracial person whose black Kenyan father was absent and who was raised by his white American mother and grandparents. He would not have absorbed the parental racial angst like so many of the rest of us, hearing our parents’ message, whether subtle or overt, about what white folks wouldn’t let us do.

And he is not a descendant of slaves—at least not here in America, though one can’t discount the possibility that Obama’s Kenyan ancestors were raided perhaps by Arab or other slave traders who once pillaged that region of Africa. If such a history exists and Obama, who grew up with little contact with the Kenyan side of his family, is aware of it, he has not publicly discussed it.

Because of this different kind of background, he would not know that deep well of unspoken African-American pain passed down since slavery days, from generation to generation. Such cultural knowledge is both a strength, and, at times, a source of self-limitation that only compounds the corrosive effect of the limits imposed on us by white society.

And one of the most heartbreaking effects of self-limitation is its atrophying impact on young African Americans. Why try, if I’m only going to face racism? Why venture beyond my cultural comfort zone if they (the big white they) don’t want me there?

What Obama’s candidacy and victory prove is that they, too, have changed; they, too, have broken through some barriers. Like the elderly white man wearing the huge Obama button who recently approached me in the parking lot of the local grocery store. Tapping his big button, he asked: “You gonna vote for my guy?” I said, “For sure!” And as we chatted a bit about the campaign, he touched my arm and said: “You know, I was raised in Arkansas and everything was segregated. I am so proud to be able to vote for an African American.” I felt proud, too, to be able to experience such a moment. To witness a barrier falling, a limitation being let go.

My Election Day bitter sweetness has passed. I now marvel at all the cross-racial jubilation washing over the nation and the new dialogues about race and country that Obama’s victory has sparked. In an e-mail evoking the spirit of South Africa’s first democratic election, a friend in Johannesburg wrote, “Yesterday we woke up yet again (the last time being April, 1994, for me) to a new world filled with promise.”

Quietly, privately, through years of defensive bluster and agitation about race, I have longed for a time like this—a new American dawning. I am holding on tight to this precious, precious moment.

What is equally extraordinary is the rainbow-colored, mass movement that consolidated itself to catapult him into the White House.

Even as we celebrate the phenomenon that is Obama, let us not lose sight of an even bigger phenomenon—that of the American people, waking up and taking history into their own hands.

I will confess: This perspective can be hard to maintain. Sometimes a surfer is so brilliant, skilled and mesmerizing that one fails to even see the giant current that propels him. And yet as thrilling as the best surfers are, they ride massive, thundering waves that are even more awe-inspiring.

In Obama’s case, the beautiful “wave” that he is riding is—us! The media see the massive crowds he draws and simply calls us “Obama supporters.” We are. But we are also much more than that.

We are a massive “pro-democracy movement” that rose up to terminate the corrupt, authoritarian rule of George W. Bush’s GOP. And Barack Obama himself would be the first to admit that our “people’s movement” to rescue America did not start with his campaign.

And it must not end with his election.

Our movement was born in the dark and difficult days after 9/11, when national leaders twisted our sobs of grief into a cry for war. Some of us opposed the war drive from the beginning, but we were too few and our voices too faint to make a difference.

But we were the seed that blossomed into full flower as a global, anti-war movement, when the United States threatened Iraq with invasion. When we failed to block the invasion, that movement poured itself into the 2004 presidential election opposing Bush. We came within 100,000 votes in Ohio of unseating a wartime president—without a sophisticated Web site and with very little money.

After enduring the horrors and hardships of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, our movement in 2006 finally ended one-party, authoritarian rule—giving the Congress back to the Democrats for the first time in 14 years.

Obama looked out and saw the transformative power of this broad, deep, determined and hopeful people’s movement. He saw us struggling to restore the country’s democratic principles, bring our troops home and revive the nation’s standing in the world. He was insightful enough to see in our dynamism and momentum the basis for an audacious run for the highest office in the land. And he plunged in. The rest is history.

Viewed in this light, our movement’s liberation of the White House is only the final act in a seven-year process of restoring the rule of law to the United States. We shouldn’t only be proud of Obama. We should also be proud of ourselves.

Barack Obama did something more important and profound than make history: He gave an awakening American people the chance to make history—and we rose to the challenge.

Let’s keep rising.

Just as the president-elect must now “transition” from being a first-term senator to the leader of the whole country, our movement must transition. Our challenge now is to move from eight years of opposition to eight years of proposition. We must shift from protest to governance. And it’s is a tough challenge.

But it is one we can meet—if we stay engaged, stay informed, stay involved and keep pushing for change. We can’t stop now—not with wars still waging, the economy still imploding, schools still failing and greenhouse gases still accumulating in the atmosphere. We will continue to need Obama. And Obama will continue to need us—now more than ever.

We can’t go back to pre-crisis mode any more than he can. We would be outraged if he celebrated at the inauguration, thanked everyone and then just went back to his old pre-election life. We would all start screaming and say, “Hold on now! You have a lot of work you need to do before you get to sit back down. The election is the beginning, not the end, of our work of fixing this country!”

Well, we should say the same thing to each other and to ourselves.

The fact that our pro-democracy movement predated and made possible Obama’s victory in no way diminishes the achievements, genius or promise of the once-in-a-lifetime leader. He has not even taken office—but already, he is a living legend, a defining American icon. He is destined to stand in the company of Dr. Martin Luther King and the Kennedy brothers, if not George Washington and Nelson Mandela. He is the only living person whose name is certain to be on the lips of school children 200 years from now.

But if we think back to the civil rights era, the movement could not have succeeded as spectacularly without Dr. King’s particular gifts and contributions. And King could not have succeeded without the millions of unnamed civil rights workers and supporters who collectively broke the back of Jim Crow segregation. Dr. King and the movement needed each other and propelled each other to greatness.

It is my deepest hope and most fervent prayer that Barack Obama and the American people will, too, propel each other to greatness. Let’s make sure that we, the people, uphold our end of the bargain.