Obamalection:* Effects

Here are my bets on some of the effects of the Obama election:

a) that Obama will be used as a first name in the developing world (not confined to Africa; definitely it'll be widespread in Latin America)

b) that Barack as a first name will skyrocket in the US, especially in the Black community

c) that Barack as a first name (and permutations thereof: Baraka, Mabrouk) will skyrocket in the Middle East/Arab world

d) that visa applications to the US will skyrocket

e) that inner-city crime rates will plummet. I'm convinced we would be heading to another low-point-of-the-American-city, as in Lower-East-Side-1982, if McCain were to have won (not so much as a direct factor of McCain but as an antibama corollary)

f) that crime rates in Brazil will plummet

g) that Venezuela and Colombia might be seeing some political changes



and now back to my lagging dissertation ...


* alternately: Obamelection. I can't figure out how to type a schwa.