WBEZ 91.5 Chicago

In the midst of all the headlines about how the cold-hearted GOP won’t pass a middle-class tax cut until the president agrees to a tax cut on the rich, on Tuesday the Senate came up short on the two-thirds vote required to ratify the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, a United Nations treaty aimed at securing rights for disabled people around the world.

The vote was 61-38, and all 38 votes against setting international standards to protect and accommodate the disabled were cast by Republicans.

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You may have noticed that post-election the GOP seems to be going out its the way to recast itself with Latinos, particularly around immigration issues. But the keyword here is seems.

Last Friday, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives passed the STEM Act, a bill designed to facilitate U.S. visas for foreign nationals studying science, technology, engineering and math at American universities. With these visas, such students could stay in the U.S. after graduating, rather than go home and begin the process of coming back alongside everyone else who wants to come here.

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Rodiles released 

Antonio Rodiles is an odd bird. He’s mild-mannered, soft-spoken and nerdy. He wears little John Lennon glasses and looks pained when he speaks. Recently released after 19 days in Cuban detention for “resisting arrest,” Rodiles said he doesn’t know what he was arrested for when he resisted — because he hasn’t bothered to read the complaint.

So what was Rodiles actually doing when he was arested? He and a few others had gone to Section 21, headquarters for Cuba’s fearsome state security, to protest the arrest of a human rights lawyer.

Like many Cubans, Rodiles once emigrated to the U.S. He studied for a master’s degree in mathematics to go with his doctorate in physics, and even taught for a bit at Florida State University.

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“What will he call you?” my mother asked when my wife, infant son and I visited her earlier this year. She wanted to know how our son, Ilan, would address us.

My mom is 82, an exile, a flexible Catholic like most Cubans, but I’m pretty sure that she -- like me -- never imagined asking such a question.

“Well, I suppose he’ll call us whatever he wants,” I said, grateful for her interest, “but for now, we say ‘mama’ for Megan and ‘mami’ for me.”

My mom nodded. Such a simple question, really, but such a milestone. My wife Megan and I had already noticed that, good intentions aside, the elderly women in my family -- and there are many -- were struggling with how to articulate my relationship to my son.

They all, like my mom, understood immediately and without hesitation that Ilan, who was carried by my wife, is family. In my mom’s bedroom, he has a place of honor in the grandkids’ photo gallery. Aunts, by blood and by choice, who might not normally come over to say hi when I visit my mom now dash over with gifts and kisses for Ilan.

But their tongues trip and tangle sometimes.

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There are probably hundreds of thousands of people who have first-hand, shared memories of Harold Washington becoming Chicago's first black mayor and of Barack Obama becoming the country's first African-American president. There are certainly several dozen people (at least) who were actively involved in both efforts.

You’d think, then, that more people would pick out the parallels between Washington and Obama's first terms. Yet, it appears that some important lessons have gone unnoticed. Why bring this up now? Sunday is the 25th anniversary of Washington’s passing. Perhaps it's as good a moment as ever to consider his crusade and what it meant. Washington’s legacy is, more than anything, to fight for what’s right. (For disclosure, I worked on Washington's committee on gay and lesbian issues. I also worked on the media team for his 1987 reelection campaign.)

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Those Democrats, progressives and others who are crowing over what appears to be the death gasp of the Republican party may want to hold off for a bit.

Sure, Barack Obama not only won the presidency, but he did a great job of humiliating the GOP machine, including money bags Sheldon Adelson, strategist Karl Rove and pundits Rush Limbaugh, Dick Morris, Peggy Noonan and so many others. And, yes, the Dems picked up two more votes in the U.S. Senate (though they’re not quite filibuster proof, they’re a hell of a lot closer), and five seats in the House.

But while the federal picture looks good for now, the state-by-state snapshot suggests that Republicans are going to do just fine in the long run. Why? Because while Democrats flipped four state legislatures, taking control of all three branches of government to avenge 2010 losses, Republicans grabbed Arkansas and, in what has to be a truly bitter pill for Democrats, took back control of the Wisconsin senate.

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1. President Barack Obama won 303 electoral votes but there are a few Republicans out there insisting he doesn’t have a mandate. When George W. Bush won in 2004, he had 284 and everyone from Karl Rove on down called it a mandate. This time out, yeah, it’s a mandate, too.

2. If last night was historic because it gave the nation’s first black president a second term and preserved his legacy, it was also historic because, for the first time ever, LGTBQ rights were affirmed by popular vote in not one but four states. Maine, Maryland and Washington all approved same-sex marriage at the ballot box; Minnesota voted to keep its same sex marriage ban off the state constitution. And to cap it, Wisconsin’s Tammy Baldwin will be the first openly gay U.S. senator in history.

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