Yes, Virginia, there is an Obama

The G-20 is a-coming to town.

While this means massive road delays, horrible traffic, office closings, school closings, and potential DANGER WILL ROBINSON DANGER, it also makes people bust out the creativity.

Such the email that my mom's friend Steve sent:


Is it me or have they totally commercialized the G-20? I wish we could just go back to the old traditions of the G-20. It was about families, not all of this consumerism. I want the old traditions. My mother on the eve of G-20 would make 12 different types of fish and we would have to try them all, even if they not have been a favorite of ours. Then we would sit around and my dad would read, "It was the Night Before the G-20." Oh how we used hang on every word about who was being gassed and who was flinging excrement at who. They we would settle into our beds for a long September's nap with visions of the National Guardsmen dancing on our heads.

We never had all of the expensive presents that kids have today. We would hang out our G-2o protest masks and we would get an orange, yes, an orange. We were happy for it, those were simpler times to be sure. Remember when the malls actually started selling G-20 items in September and not right after Easter in April! Have we lost the meaning of the G-20? And oh those holiday specials! We would wait all year to see "It's the G-20 Charlie Brown" on CBS, we didn't have DVD players and 200 channels constantly showing Frosty the Guardsman or "How the Grinch Stole Items to Use at the Protestor's Confinement Pen at the G-20."


Remember the baking? We didn't go the store and get dozens of pre-made G-20 cookies, no, we helped my mom to make them using our little world leader's and unidentified poor people cookie cutters.

Can't we just for one, have a simple G-20?

This year as you carve the roast beast for your own G-20 feast, take a moment and think back to when hearing I'LL Be Home for the G-20" was only played in September not starting in March!

This email is made of awesome.

I couldn't help but craft my own response to this, which is also as followed:

I'm sorry that you old folks had to make do with an orange and had to wait to see "The Island of Misfit World Leaders" on a black and white television. But guess what? WE CALL THIS PROGRESS! Stop your whining about G-20's past and start living in the NOW. We have a black president, for God's sake. Change has come to America! Yes, the commercialism of the G-20 has gotten out of hand. Yes, we need to sit back and remember what the G-20 is all about. We need to remember those wise men stumbling through the desert with incense bought at Pier One and promises of stable economies. They followed that bright star into the night only to find it was a 727, did it stop them?! DID THEY WHINE ABOUT STORE BOUGHT COOKIES!? IS IT THE YOUNG PEOPLE'S FAULT THAT WE ARE BETTER AT TIME MANAGEMENT?!

Listen, folks, we need to remember that on that cold, early autumn night all those moons ago, men and women met to discuss the economies and had poop thrown at them. We celebrate them. It doesn't matter if the cookies are home-made, or if the television specials are watched on DVD or network TV. It doesn't matter if we begin to celebrate a week in advance or seven months. What matters is we celebrate at all.

Yes, Virginia, there is an Obama.

But Steve, oh Steve, he saw my response and raised it a notch:

You know. After re-reading this, maybe she is right. The G-20 doesn't come from a store, it doesn't come wrapped in boxes or bows, no the G-20 maybe, maybe is about a little bit more. Thanks Lisa, Thanks......

No, Steve. Thank you.