Vintage Galleh. You have come through again. Perchance, this is my singular  
affinity with Obama's potential. A value that stores enormous perspective to 
all  but cancel centuries of despondency, Eden's vicissitudes. I had wished 
this  value of Obama to become more apparent in his supporters. Like John Edwards 
 before him, it portends adoration and focus. Nay the intricacies of 
untethered  hope and erstwhile considerations threaten to retire it ever so 
discretely. It  is not too late however and I join in your sense of more tethered hope.
 
Thank you for you. Such potential. Such moorings.
 
Masoud. MQJGDT. Darbo. Al Khairawan.
 
In a message dated 2/4/2008 10:44:02 P.M. Mountain Standard Time,  
[log in to unmask] writes:

A Prayer for  the Hopeful

By Baba Galleh Jallow

He sat there, watching,  listening, thinking, and the tears rose like a hot 
fountain of grief from the  depths of his heart and ran down the sides of his 
cheeks as those three words,  those words of hope and power, those words of 
sense and sensibility, those  words sang by men and women, adults and children 
who have much to look for,  who dare to hope, sank into the depths of his soul. 
Yes we can, they sang, yes  we can.

The tears welled up in his eyes and ran down the hills of his  face as he 
thought how so different, how so very different this land, these  people who can 
sing so confidently of hope, of ability, of spirit, of freedom,  and choice. 
How so different from the land of political bullies and security  thugs, so 
different from the land where the people cannot sing of hope, where  if they must 
sing of hope, they must sing of hope under the weight of anger  and a hot 
determination to buck that bully, those bullies, with clenched teeth  and burning 
hearts, and the words can only come out of their mouths in a fit  of rage, 
and the passions can only flow from their hearts like poisoned  arrows, like 
molten lava, sizzling hot from rage at the monster that will not  let them sing 
of hope in peace and freedom.

The tears welled up in his  eyes. He wanted to stop them, but let them flow 
like rivers down his cheeks as  a sacrifice for his country, that beautiful 
country now turned into a punching  bag by monstrous political bullies who have 
killed the people’s rights to  hope, to humanity; he let the tears flow for 
those millions of people who have  been turned into milch cows and milch goats, 
who have been turned to little  more than donkeys to be ridden upon at every 
moment of day, slaves to the  wanton and unbridled greed of callous men and 
women. Tears for that beautiful  hope that, like a new born baby, is being 
strangled by the corny hands of  callous despots, that hope that has been microwaved 
to death, baked in the  blazing fires of men who are men but in shape and 
form, who are the very devil  himself in human skin, whose little minds can only 
think of themselves and the  satiation of their gross appetites, a gross lust 
for power and glory they will  never get, will never win. Soul-blind men that 
can’t see that power and glory  cannot be obtained through the shedding of 
blood and tears, but through the  free labors of the mind, through the generous 
flowering of the senses, of hope  and creativity, through the soaring of the 
human imagination to the limitless  heights of the distant skies, to the million 
corners of the world. He shed  tears for that beautiful land that is being 
raped by the phallic hearts of  mindless despots.

How so terribly sad that in those lands of potential  plenty, there is merely 
want; that in those lands of innocent peaceful, there  is only strife, that 
in those lands of plentiful hope, hope so plenty that it  could drench the 
world, there only lurks a hopelessness that can only make you  cry at the sight of 
hope. How so tragic that in those lands of beautiful  hearts and beautiful 
minds, only the heartless ugly and the mindless tyrant  can smile and eat their 
fill and sleep in comfortable beds. How so very tragic  that in those lands of 
generosity, only the mean and the miserly are in  positions to give or to 
take liberty and freedom; how so sad that in those  lands of neighborly love, 
neighbor slays neighbor, brother hacks brother to  bloody pieces, and sister 
kills sister because a few greedy men will not let  the people live out their 
hope, sing out their hopes and wishes at the top of  their voices without fear and 
without a care in the world. They will not let  the people say yes we can.

Watching those hopeful souls sing, he cried  for those souls that could not 
sing of hope. He cried for those millions of  hapless men, women, and children 
who even at that very moment were shivering  with fear and hunger in the 
dusty, thirsty, thorny, and viper-infested sands  of Sudan, in the cracked plains 
of Chad, cradling the cold ridges of Mount  Kenya; those poor souls who have 
been driven from their homes, cruelly  snatched from their loved ones and thrust 
into the jaws of snake infested  jungles of Congo, to become food for the 
hungry hyena and gluttonous vulture,  their flesh and blood and bones to be 
strewn like so many evil trophies in the  forests of Central Africa. He cried for 
those poor souls waiting to be raped,  waiting to die, waiting to be torn to 
pieces by wild beasts of prey only  because a few greedy and mindless tyrants 
want to spend the rest of their  empty lives wallowing in the lap of luxury. He 
cried for those souls for whom  the very sound of hope has become alien, yet 
for whom hope is the only reason  to hang on to live.

As the beautiful song of those hopeful souls faded  away into endless space 
and the last notes of their musical voices trailed off  into the wilderness of 
his soul, flowing like a disappearing river into the  heart of his spirit, 
Mojo stood up, his face awash with the sacred tears of  sacrifice, and raised his 
hands to heaven, and said a prayer for those beloved  lands so full of hope, 
yet so lack of hope. And he prayed to the heavens  saying, please Lord, please 
make us too sing, YES WE CAN. And he felt the  smile of the Lord upon his 
tear-washed face, and he said: Yes We  Can!
_________________________________________________________________
Express  yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today it's  FREE!
http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/
¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤
To  unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L 
Web  interface
at: http://listserv.icors.org/archives/gambia-l.html

To  Search in the Gambia-L archives, go to:  
http://listserv.icors.org/SCRIPTS/WA-ICORS.EXE?S1=gambia-l
To contact the  List Management, please send an e-mail  to:
[log in to unmask]
¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤







**************Biggest Grammy Award surprises of all time on AOL Music.     
(http://music.aol.com/grammys/pictures/never-won-a-grammy?NCID=aolcmp003000000025
48)

¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤
To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface
at: http://listserv.icors.org/archives/gambia-l.html

To Search in the Gambia-L archives, go to: http://listserv.icors.org/SCRIPTS/WA-ICORS.EXE?S1=gambia-l
To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to:
[log in to unmask]
¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤