Photoessay #2081 - The furniture worker's child

I'll open that I was very happy about the election results from last night. The nation is still divided but Obama's base held.  Now, we just have to get Referendum 74 over the hump (gay marriage in Washington State) and I will breathe easy.

Ilana's boyfriend Matt pointed out an amazing phrase from Obama's speech last night:

"To the furniture worker's child in North Carolina who wants to become a doctor or a scientist, an engineer or an entrepreneur, a diplomat or even a president—that's the future we hope for."

To quote his facebook entry this morning "Guys, Obama mentioned me in his speech"

Because Matt IS the child of a furniture worker in North Carolina and he has become an engineer.  He's a design engineer at a major industrial company in the midwest.  He went to a government sponsored boarding school for the brightest math and science students.  And he put himself through the University of Washington with government grants and loans.  And a lot of hard work.  Now he's a taxpayer and is in a position to pay back those loans.  He has a bright future.

Who would want to cut those programs?  Who would want to deprive Matt (and others like him) of an education?  Looked at the cost of college tuition lately?  Trust me, I know as I have helped (that means contributed a bunch of money) to out of state tuitions *3* times.  Check out the current out of state tuition for occupational therapy for University of Alabama, Birmingham (ok, I'll tell you 20K per semester).  These days, with all of the cuts, they have not even offered my daughter half of the tuition in government loans. 

In some ways, we already live in Republican times.

Tomorrow I'll post the red/blue map of the state of Washington, ours is a VERY divided state.  It's blue, yes, but only in the cities in the Puget Sound region.

Picture taken from Matt's facebook.