Last night, as I sat at a gathering of disabled people in Second Life, friends were providing me quotes from Sen. Obama’s speech at the Wisconsin Founders Dinner via Twitter. The juxtaposition was striking.

Those who read my blog know that I write about whatever strikes my fancy, from technology, to Second Life, to group dynamics, to politics, to the personal. I seek to draw themes from all of them to mix them together and the combination of Obama’s speech and the talk in Second Life provides a wonderful opportunity.

In politics, I supported Sen. Edwards this time around. Sen. Clinton and Sen. Obama both seem a little too conservative for me, a little too closely connected to the corporate interests and existing power structure. Yet the current criticisms of Obama actually lead me to be more supportive of him. His critics talk about all that he has to offer is just words. Well, as a writer, I find that criticism offensive. Legislation is, after all, just words. The landmark civil rights bill of the 1960s is just words. More importantly, it is the ‘just words’ of Martin Luther King, Jr. that helped bring about such legislation. The Letter from a Birmingham Jail was just words. The “I have a dream” speech was just words. No, if you want to alienate people, disparaging other for having just words seems like a good starting point. Maybe that is part of why Oprah has endorsed Obama. She realizes that words are important, that they can move people to action.

Yet more importantly is the question of Barack Obama needing a ‘reality check’. Personally, I think we’ve had a few too many reality checks of late. We do need a little more hope. Dr. King’s letter from Birmingham jail was a response to those asking for reality checks back then. Critics were calling the actions of Dr. King that landed him in Birmingham jail, “unwise and untimely” and the calls for a reality check on Sen. Obama sound very similar.

So, let’s take a reality check from an unlikely and unreal venue, Second Life. Second Life is a place where people can create avatars, representations of themselves, that interact with one another. These avatars can be different from how people are in real life. The unattractive can become more attractive, people can become animals, they can change genders and they can experience disabilities or freedom from disabilities that they can’t in real life. The woman with a fused backbone can jump on a trampoline, a wheelchair bound person fighting MS can go down a waterslide.