Two areas of concern where I support Obama

Better rail service between cities and reducing the prison sentences for possession of crack. Those are totally unrelated issues, but both needed some high profile attention. We love to travel by train, but unfortunately AMTRAK is exhibit one of the way our the government runs a business. In 2003 we took the train to California and back to my father-in-law's 90th birthday. We stopped to visit the Grand Canyon on the way, and Glacier National Park on the way back. It's a relaxing, friendly way to travel. Another time we parked the car in Toledo and rode the train to downtown Chicago for about $6.00 (it was a special)--cheaper than we could pay to park.


Prisons are schools for crime, and they are universities for young black men sentenced for crack possession when young white men would get much less time for powdered, if they got time at all. It's probably one of the most racist laws still on the books, and if it takes a black president to get it removed (black legislators pushed for it, as I recall, because of related crime in black neighborhoods, not realizing the unintended consequences), so be it.