My new ecoSNEAKS

• Hemp uppers
• Organic cotton linings
• Water-based cements
• Recycled car tires outsoles

"Save the planet and look great doing it." --Simple

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In other, less self-absorbed news,

we have a new president-elect and my students are ecstatic. Many of them stayed up well past their bedtime on Tuesday night watching the results. One student voluntarily wrote and typed up his reactions and handed it in to me: "Obama is president! I am so excited! I hope that he will make changes to our country. He has a lot of work to do!!!!!!"

That's right, Obama's got his work cut out for him and then some. A news headline read, "Black Man Given Nation's Worst Job." I don't know if I agree with that, but it did make me think about what's ahead for Obama and for the nation. (Oh dang.) But for now, let's celebrate! This election was a big victory and West Harlem knows it. ObaMania and every possible Obama paraphernalia under the sun being sold along 125th street. I love walking among the elated masses every morning and afternoon on my way to and from work. Makes me think of Walter Dean Myers in his poem, Harlem:

They brought a call, a song
First heard in the villages of
Ghana/Mali/Senegal
Calls and songs and shouts
Heavy hearted tambourine rhythms
Loosed in the hard city
Like a scream torn from the throat
Of an ancient clarinet

A new sound, raucous and sassy
Cascading over the asphalt vilalge
Breaking against the black sky over
1-2-5 Street.
Announcing hallelujah
Riffing past resolution