Jones Point Park Clean Up
On a perfect early fall morning, more than 20 energetic volunteers, inspired by Sen. Obama's call to service, pitched in to clean up Jones Point Park Alexandria, VA on Sept. 20. Jones Point Park, the largest open space in the Old Town Historic area, encompasses 60 acres in the southeast corner of Alexandria, Virginia, at the site of the new Woodrow Wilson Bridge. The Park is owned by the National Park Service and managed by the Alexandria Department of Recreation, Parks and Cultural Activities. Because of the somewhat remote location along the Potomac River, it doesn't receive some of the attention given to other open spaces in the city. Volunteers showed up with work gloves and enthusiasm for the event. The park is used primarily as a dog walking area and several regulars let us know what a great job we had done in beautifying the shoreline. What a great morning it was and what a terrific group of people answered the call to service.
Circumstances prevent me from being able to put my idea into action.
And I'm going to my idea out there with hope that someone will read it and know how to make it real.
(Actually, I already sent the idea to Oprah...I know, I know, lol).
The name is "Pick Up America" and here's the concept:
---Provide child care for workers (free or subsidized for those attending parenting classes) ---Provide adult learning classes (personal finance, job interview skills, etc) ---Provide uniforms
Steal this idea!!
My 87 year old mother, who lives Arizona, and I talk regularly about politics. She has a policy of not revealing who she will vote for because she believes in the right of the secret ballot and because she is uncomfortable with the potential for conflict. She couldn't vote in the Arizona primary because she is a registered Independent and she refuses to give up that registration.
Recently she expressed concern about the number of people she believes will not vote for Obama because of his race. I talked to her about the need to select the right candidate and then fight to win the election rather than selecting a candidate who can win and then hoping you can make them the right candidate. For weeks I've talked to her about Obama's policies and his integrity. For weeks she's told me about how many of the people living in her retirement community believe the negative rumors about Obama. I told her the main thing is to know the truth, to hold tight to it and refuse to let others take it away from you.
Today she told me that after Obama's win this week, an acquaintance asked her, in an assuming way, if she would be voting for McCain. She said she told the person "No, I will not." That is the first time I've known her to say anything other than "I believe in the right of a secret ballot. I never tell anyone." I know how much courage it took for my mom to do that. I told her I was so proud of her. I told every time someone does something like that, it is like dropping a pebble into to the water and you can watch the ripple move out in an ever-widening circle.
You go, girl.
A comment from the blog MyDD had a concise and accurate assessment of FL/MI:
Look, when a result is invalid, it's invalid. If you run a scientific experiment and your sample is accidentally contaminated, you have to throw the result out, even if you really like that result. No one's blaming the voters, but the conditions in MI and FL simply aren't a realistic barometer of how the vote would have turned out under normal circumstances.
I'm making my WV donation to Obama right now
What is this election about? Change, certainly. But not just the political change Obama speaks of so emphatically. Underlying that is something more elemental.
I remember when we put a man on the moon. I remember both Kennedy and the King assassinations. I remember the DC riots and some of the fear in the white suburbs.
But I was young and I did not participate in the civil rights movement of the 60's.
Now I am no longer young. And I am participating this time. This election now appears to be a national referendum on race--as in "Can we elect a black man?".
I say we can and I am proud to be a part of it. So proud that I believe I will remember this moment for the rest of my life and I will see it as one of the most important things I have done.
Race is not the only reason I support Obama. It's not even close to being the primary reason. It's not the reason I was drawn to Obama in the first place (that would be Iraq). But it is the reason I'm most proud of.
Why? Because in the last four months I've watched the transformation of spirit in an entire race. I see the renewed hope in their eyes. I hear in their voices. And I see the incredible pride. It is pure joy to me to see what the generation behind me is accomplishing and to know that I had the teeniest role in supporting them.
Just one more reason to thank Sen. Obama.
Why is Rev. Wright being interviewed, questioned, covered by the MSM as if he's running for office?
The MSM seem to have difficulty distinguishing between Wright and Obama. Now, THAT's frightening. I think we are witnessing just how racist the MSM are.
Wright is an interesting man. He's an intelligent man. He's obviously a critical thinker. So let the MSM hire him as a pundit, but don't vet him for political office.
My other question is, "What is it exactly that whites are so afraid of?" because it sure looks like fear-driven behavior to me. I'm white and I can't even figure these people out.
Sorry, I'm just frustrated.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/19c88b7c-0f00-11dd-9646-0000779fd2ac.html?nclick_check=1
Published: April 20 2008 18:59 | Last updated: April 20 2008 18:59
Barack Obama goes into Tuesday’s Pennsylvania primary as strong favourite, whatever happens, to secure the Democratic presidential nomination. Yet the vote could still go either way.
This is a sign of how close this race has been and how deeply it has divided the party.
Mr Obama and Hillary Clinton are both strong candidates and each appeals powerfully to distinct segments of Democratic support. This has heightened the risk of bitter division.
After Tuesday’s vote, the Democrats should move quickly to affirm Mr Obama’s nomination. That is not just because his lead in elected delegates is already unassailable and the contest should be brought to a swift conclusion. It is also because he is, in fact, the better candidate.
The contenders’ differences on policy look small and in reality are even smaller. Their disagreement on healthcare mandates, for instance, frequently emphasised by Mrs Clinton, is of little practical significance. A mandate to obtain insurance, as proposed by Mrs Clinton, does not achieve universal coverage unless enforced with punitive sanctions, which she does not advocate.
Both candidates, in effect, are proposing near-universal coverage. The virtues of their schemes (much improved access, no denial of insurance to those with pre-existing conditions) as well as the defects (weak control of costs) are much the same.
In almost every area of policy, whether their thinking is good (as with improved support for displaced workers), bad (their opposition to liberal trade) or too vague to say (Iraq), there is little to choose between them.
As voters understood all along, this has therefore been a contest of character, temperament and (sadly but inevitably) identity. Mr Obama’s most loyal supporters, once they were persuaded that he might actually succeed, have been black. Mrs Clinton’s, certain at the start she would win, are women.
Mr Obama has fought a brilliant campaign, out-organising his opponent, raising more money, and convincing undecided Democrats as well as the country at large that he was more likeable, more straightforward and more worthy of trust.
On form, he is a spell-binding orator and holds arena-sized audiences in thrall. He is given to airy exhortations, it is true, but genuinely seeks consensus and has cross-party appeal.
Mrs Clinton’s campaign, in contrast, has been a shambles. She and her team expected to have it all sewn up long ago; they made no plans for a long struggle, ran short of money and had to reorganise on the run.
Her speaking style is pedestrian, when it is not actually grating. Those who dislike her tend to do so with a passion: her disapproval ratings started high and after months of campaigning are climbing still. It is a tribute to her tenacity and to the loyalty she commands in the party that her fate was not sealed weeks ago.
How much the way that a campaign is run tells you about a candidate’s fitness to be president is debatable – but it does tell you something, especially if the candidate with the misfiring strategy is running on a claim of management expertise.
In fact, the campaigns have underlined the contenders’ respective strengths and weaknesses.
Mr Obama’s consistent and relaxed demeanour attested to his coolness (in both senses, his swooning young admirers would add); it seemed to affirm his authenticity. In contrast, Mrs Clinton’s hyperactive advisers dressed her in a new personality each day, sometimes several in the course of an interview. They wheeled out Bill Clinton, to remind people of the 1990s, then reeled him back, to help them forget.
Too many course corrections, not enough course.
Mr Obama has had some travails – over his association with Jeremiah Wright, the ranting demagogue pastor, and most recently over condescending remarks about small-town Democratic politics.
In the first case, he responded with a masterly speech about race that may even have improved his standing. In the second, he was evasive and unconvincing – yet the public seems to have given him the benefit of the doubt.
The US has the urge to be inspired a little. Electing the country’s first woman president ought to be very inspiring. But not this woman – with her dynastic baggage and knack for antagonising the undecided – running against this man.
The Democratic party has waited an awfully long time for a politician like Barack Obama. Enough already.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008
Over the last seven years there has been so much that the current administration has done that has frightened me--trashing the Constitution, ignoring the Geneva Convention...I could go on and on. And "we" have either supported it, allowed it or have been unable to stop it.
With Obama's candidacy I have begun to believe we can come out of the dark ages. BUT, I am observing something quite disturbing among some politicians and media and it reeks of McCarthyism.
Think guilt by association (Wright, Ayres). Anti-patriotism (flag pin). Anything vaguely outside mainstream, conventional thinking. (just about any thoughtful response Obama provides).
Thankfully, Sen. Obama doesn't want the Presidency so much that he would allow it to crush his honesty and integrity. I believe he would rather lose honorably than win dishonorably.
All the way to the White House, Senator Obama! I can hardly wait.
Do you think the Clinton campaign has something negative ready to throw at Obama this weekend?
Do you think it will involve attacking Obama for something someone else said or did or plans to do, similar to Wright and Carter?
Do you think it will involve publicizing a wording bobble, similar to "bitter" or "really proud"?
Do you think it will be something false or disingenuous, similar to NAFTA?
Do you think it will actually be something meaningful this time?
Do you think Sen. Obama will continue to frustrate the Clinton campaign by handling whatever it is with a reasoned response?
There are enough people (I think) catching onto the concept of framing that it has become more difficult than in previous elections for politicians and their surrogates to change perceptions. Not impossible, just harder.
All this talk from the surrogates & candidates that Obama is a elitist and that the "bitter" speech would derail him are hoping that if they say it enough, that it will happen.
Wrong.
We're smart enough to know what he meant. And, guess what, nothing he said is untrue. So, can we all move on? (and, yeah, sure we can expect some nasty video mash up of all the word bobbles-- where phrasing is not the best --to hit the internet for the general election, but that will happen regardless of who the candidate is)
I'm sure it's frustrating to the Clinton campaign because their gaffes seem to do more damage. But it's not true. Clinton's EQUIVALENT gaffes don't stick around long either. The problem for Clinton, in addition to normal word bobbling, is that the Clintons lie. And most troubling is that they seem to do it without consciously registering that they are doing it. That sticks. (or stinks, depending on what point I want to make...)
But I digress. Also on the subject of framing...Who started the notion that the intense competition will destroy the Democratic Party? I think it's making it stronger. Someone said it to someone who said it to someone, etc, etc and the next thing you know, it's taken as fact.
That's partly how we ended up in Iraq...enough people said it was true that people forgot to insist on evidence. Let's just hope we don't make the same mistake with Iran---although it sure looks similar---people taking it as truth that Iran is an imminent threat. I say, whoa there, what are the specifics?
I think we've all seen behind the curtain over the past few months and need to make sure we insist that all those who broadcast and/or publish opinion back it up with facts.
Looking for facts and evidence is how I ended up supporting Sen. Obama.
Roget's New Millennium™ Thesaurus
Main Entry: lie
Part of Speech: noun
Definition: untruth
Synonyms:
aspersion, backbiting, calumniation, calumny, complete distortion of the facts, corker, deceit, deception, defamation, detraction, dishonesty, disinformation, distortion, evasion, fable, fabrication, falsehood, falseness, falsification, falsity, fib, fiction, fish story, forgery, fraudulence, guile, hyperbole, inaccuracy, invention, libel, mendacity, misrepresentation, misstatement, myth, obloquy, perjury, prevarication, revilement, reviling, slander, subterfuge, tale, tall story*, terminological inexactitude, vilification, white lie*, whopper
“Now let me tell you what I can remember, OK -- because what I was told was that we had to land a certain way and move quickly because of the threat of sniper fire. So I misspoke -- I didn't say that in my book or other times but if I said something that made it seem as though there was actual fire -- that's not what I was told. I was told we had to land a certain way, we had to have our bulletproof stuff on because of the threat of sniper fire. I was also told that the greeting ceremony had been moved away from the tarmac but that there was this 8-year-old girl and, I can't, I can't rush by her, I've got to at least greet her -- so I made a -- I took her stuff and then I left, Now that's my memory of it...No, I went to 80 countries, you know. I gave contemporaneous accounts, I wrote about a lot of this in my book. You know, I think that, a minor blip, you know, if I said something that, you know, I say a lot of things -- millions of words a day -- so if I misspoke, that was just a misstatement.” Hillary Clinton
After the past 7 years, I'd think the American public would have had enough of lies, gross exaggerations, misrepresentations, and distortions of facts used to justify critical decisions. We have been surrounded too long by politicians imperfectly acquainted with the truth to continue with more of the same. The facts are being tortured until they are no longer recognizable.
Sen. Obama, you are a breath of fresh air.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/convictions/default.aspx
Doug Kmiec is the Caruso Family Chair and Professor of Constitutional Law at Pepperdine University's School of Law. He served as head of the Office of Legal Counsel (U.S. Assistant Attorney General) for Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush
Endorsing Obama
Today I endorse Barack Obama for president of the United States. I believe him to be a person of integrity, intelligence and genuine good will. I take him at his word that he wants to move the nation beyond its religious and racial divides and to return United States to that company of nations committed to human rights. I do not know if his earlier life experience is sufficient for the challenges of the presidency that lie ahead. I doubt we know this about any of the men or women we might select. It likely depends upon the serendipity of the events that cannot be foreseen. I do have confidence that the Senator will cast his net widely in search of men and women of diverse, open-minded views and of superior intellectual qualities to assist him in the wide range of responsibilities that he must superintend.
This endorsement may be of little note or consequence, except perhaps that it comes from an unlikely source: namely, a former constitutional legal counsel to two Republican presidents. The endorsement will likely supply no strategic advantage equivalent to that represented by the very helpful accolades the Senator has received from many of high stature and accomplishment, including most recently, from Governor Bill Richardson. Nevertheless, it is important to be said publicly in a public forum in order that it be understood. It is not arrived at without careful thought and some difficulty.
As a Republican, I strongly wish to preserve traditional marriage not as a suspicion or denigration of my homosexual friends, but as recognition of the significance of the procreative family as a building block of society. As a Republican, and as a Catholic, I believe life begins at conception, and it is important for every life to be given sustenance and encouragement. As a Republican, I strongly believe that the Supreme Court of the United States must be fully dedicated to the rule of law, and to the employ of a consistent method of interpretation that keeps the Court within its limited judicial role. As a Republican, I believe problems are best resolved closest to their source and that we should never arrogate to a higher level of government that which can be more effectively and efficiently resolved below. As a Republican, and the constitutional lawyer, I believe religious freedom does not mean religious separation or mindless exclusion from the public square.
In various ways, Senator Barack Obama and I may disagree on aspects of these important fundamentals, but I am convinced based upon his public pronouncements and his personal writing that on each of these questions he is not closed to understanding opposing points of view, and as best as it is humanly possible, he will respect and accommodate them.
No doubt some of my friends will see this as a matter of party or intellectual treachery. I regret that and I respect their disagreement. But they will readily agree that as Republicans, we are first Americans. As Americans, we must voice our concerns for the well-being of our nation without partisanship when decisions that have been made endanger the body politic. Our president has involved our nation in a military engagement without sufficient justification or clear objective. In so doing, he has incurred both tragic loss of life and extraordinary debt jeopardizing the economy and the well-being of the average American citizen. In pursuit of these fatally flawed purposes, the office of the presidency, which it was once my privilege to defend in public office formally, has been distorted beyond its constitutional assignment. Today, I do no more than raise the defense of that important office anew, but as private citizen.
9/11 and the radical Islamic ideology that it represents is a continuing threat to our safety and the next president must have the honesty to recognize that it, as author Paul Berman has written, "draws on totalitarian inspirations from 20th-century Europe and with its double roots, religious and modern, perversely intertwined. . . .wields a lot more power, intellectually speaking, then naïve observers might suppose." Senator Obama needs to address this extremist movement with the same clarity and honesty with which he has addressed the topic of race in America. Effective criticism of the incumbent for diverting us from this task is a good start, but it is incomplete without a forthright outline of a commitment to undertake, with international partners, the formation of a world-wide entity that will track, detain, prosecute, convict, punish, and thereby, stem radical Islam's threat to civil order. I await Senator Obama's more extended thinking upon this vital subject, as he accepts the nomination of his party and engages Senator McCain in the general campaign discussion to come.
Posted Sunday, March 23, 2008 9:18 AM by Doug Kmiec
When I wrote my blog post for March 14, I had no idea.
First--Thank you, Sen. Obama. Hard to believe I can admire you even more, but there you are.
Second--If that speech today wasn't Presidential, I don't know what would qualify.
Third--If someone won't vote for Sen. Obama because of this speech, they weren't going to vote for him anyway.
