barack obama – Kelley Eskridge

100 days of photos

photo by Callie Shell

Last October, I talked about a photo essay by Callie Shell that I really enjoyed, chronicling the Obama campaign. Well, she’s done it again. TIME magazine has just published Shell’s series of photos of President Obama’s first 100 days in office.

Here’s the thing: these are good photos, but they are not telling a hugely emotional story. They show the President and his people mostly at work, occasionally at rest. And yet, looking through them made me cry. Good cry or bad cry? Nicola asked when I told her. This was good cry, definitely.

I spent eight years believing to my core that there was not a single human being in the White House who was interested in understanding who I am and what I might need (not even as a citizen, never mind as one human being to another). I felt completely invisible to my government, except in all the let-me-monitor-your-email ways. And that was fine: I didn’t want to come to the attention of those folks, because no good ever came of that for most of us.

But I look at these photos, and I don’t feel that way now. I feel like smart people are working long hours to do their best for me. For me. I feel like it would be a pleasure and a privilege to sit with these people at dinner and talk about life, love, art, science, history, the beauty of the world and the people in it. I just like them, you know?

And I think this makes me cry because I had given up hope of ever feeling this way about government of any kind, ever again. The City of Seattle and the State of Washington take pretty good care of me; but suddenly, unexpectedly, I feel closer to these strangers in D.C. than I do to people running things in my own back yard. And it feels good.

(If you’re interested in an overview of the key events of the first 100 days, TIME also offers this very cool interactive guide.)

Thank you, President Obama

Saying, “It is time that we end the politicization of this issue,” Barack Obama has rescinded the “Mexico City Policy” that put brutal strings on family planning assistance in developing countries receiving US financial aid.

This is a great thing. So many women (and by extension, their families) have been hurt by this inhumane policy. There’s no way to undo that, but today, at least, there’s a little less damage in the world.

The previous administration’s need to impose its morals on the world reminded me of a little kid sticking its chin out and saying It’s my ball and you have to play by my rules. But human beings are not baseballs; their futures and their health are not to be bartered. As Obama said in his inauguration address, “The time has come to put away childish things.” It looks like that includes the notion that we have any right or responsibility to be the world’s moral police. Good. Let’s keep growing up.

If you’re not aware of the new White House website and blog, go check it out. And here’s what I had to say about it over at Humans At Work.

In the room

I love the stories of the journeys people take to make things happen. I’m fascinated when artists talk about how they wrestle with their work, when business executives describe the aha! moments that lead to the big turnaround. I would love to be in the room with U2 as they work out a new album, on a stool in the corner when April Gornik paints, at the table while the jury selection consultant advises the lawyers. I’m into process porn… and so I am enjoying immensely this series of Newsweek articles on the presidential campaign.

A team of Newsweek reporters were given special access to the various campaigns for a year, on the condition that they reported none of their findings until after the election. The result is seven in-depth articles that show the individual campaigns at work, as well as tracing the overall arc that brought Barack Obama to the Democratic nomination and then to the presidency.

It’s fascinating stuff — the campaign seen through the lens of human choices, relationships, how the candidates and their staffs responded to the pressures of the moment. It’s given me the best sense of context I’ve had for the campaign as a whole, and it’s full of observations of the candidates in both personal and political moments.

It’s easy for me to disengage from politics, to feel overwhelmed by the anger and the hyperbole and the sheer competitive win win gotta WIN! frenzy, the self-righteousness and other-hatred that sweeps people up and away. The process feels so dehumanizing to me. But the last weeks of Obama’s campaign made me begin to see him as a real person (as well as a politician)… and now the Newsweek writers have given me a doorway through which I may step back in and remember that everyone in the campaign was human. That it was after all a human process. I’m grateful for that.

Every picture tells a story

Good photography of all kinds really rocks my world. Good photojournalism is just amazing to me. I connect more with news when I can see it than simply when I read it. And when the person capturing the images is herself connected through long-term exposure to the subject, with all the opportunities — and perspective — it brings, the results can be pretty astonishing.

So I recommend this photo essay by Callie Shell, who has been following the Obama campaign. There’s a companion photo essay by Stephen Crowley on the McCain campaign. Whomever you support, go take a look at the human side of the politicians.