President Barack Obama's Sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng, Kauai from Jeff Fishman on Vimeo.
Everyone should see this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnHyy8gkNEE&fmt=18
The constitution of the United States clearly separates politics from religion. Therefore, all religions need to stay out of Hawaii—and national—politics. I would never think to enforce the lifestyle I lead engendered by my beliefs on you or your family. Therefore, I find it offensive when any church—and these days, although many of my friends are Mormons, I’m specifically talking about the Mormons—tries to tell me how I have to live.
More after the jump…
This morning in church we did some songs to celebrate. I told the congregation that regardless of our individual politics, we could hopefully all agree to celebrate the election of our first African-American president. I told them of how I woke up the next morning feeling renewed in spirit. I told them of how I thought about African-Americans who can still remember segregation, discrimination and abuse; how I thought of Japanese-Americans, Hawaiians, Native Americans and other minorities; how I thought of caucasians who spoke out and struggled to aid the cause of civil rights at risk to their own safety; how I thought of the churches that participated in the struggle as well. While many problems continue, it is still a great milestone in the history of our great nation. I am Japanese-American, born and raised in Hawaii. (Just a few days older than President-Elect Obama!) My wife is haole, from the mainland, and we have two beautiful hapa-haole kids. My wife and I wept when we saw the news on TV. Here are the songs we played at church:
Woke Up This Morning With My Mind on Freedom
We Shall Overcome
I'm Gonna Sit At The Welcome Table
America The Beautiful
My Country 'Tis of Thee
and a song I wrote called "Think I'll Get Some Sleep Tonight"
Something changed for me this morning The sun was brighter than bright Oh, I know We've got a long way to go But I think I'll get some sleep tonight Something's changed in me forever Since I saw the light Oh, I know We've got a long way to go But I think I'll get some sleep tonight Think I woke up to a miracle Someone dreamed a dream for me Now I know all things are possible My heart has never felt so free Something's changed the way my heart sees Now my eyes are open wide Oh, I know We've got a long way to go But I think I'll get some sleep tonight But I think I'll get some sleep tonight And I think I'll get some sleep tonight
Words and Music by Keith T. Amano
Copyright 2008 Keith T. Amano
Two women are organizing a huge Obama rally on the Ringling bridge in Sarasota, Florida this Sunday, Oct. 19th. Assemble at 11.45am. Contact Janet Guttridge for full details at heartwithwings1@comcast.com or sign up on their Obama webpage: Link It’s a 2.5 mile walk and Sarasota’s first political event to span the Ringling Bridge. One woman who lives in a condo near the bridge has invited friends to a brunch before they walk downstairs to wave signs. The Vets for Obama and a group of Hillary Women for Obama also plan to participate. A photo will be taken from a Helicopter and the event is being filmed by a German TV crew reporting on the American election. Please come and spread the word! A bus from Orlando may be chartered to take participants from Central Florida. Ask for details. Wear red, white & blue and bring posters & banners.
This is part of the Bridges for Obama in Swing States (BOSS), part of a worldwide grassroots initiative of Americans around the world showing their enthusiasm for Obama as a uniter.
A video of the bridge project was presented to Barack Obama in Boston at his 47th birthday by Democrats Abroad.
The video is now posted on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbBzEkXyu4o.
The Obama Bridge Project is spreading to America--with a special target of the SWING STATES.
We need your help!For about 6 months we have been organizing a worldwide project to get Americans to rally for Obama on BRIDGES--the bridge being a good symbol of his candidacy. (see the links below to our photos & media)We are urgently looking for a Democratic activist/organizers to do a bridge shoot in the USA--particularly in the Swing States (Virginia, Florida, Ohio, Nevada, New Hampshire etc.).We have a NEW committee in the USA doing "Bridges for Obama in Swing States" (BOSS) headed by a Democratic organizer in Ohio and an activist in Florida.
Democrats in Sarasota, Florida are trying to organized the biggest bridge shoot to date on Sunday, Oct. 19th in Sarasota (expecting 500+ people!!).Ohio is doing a bridge shoot too in Columbus.
The two women organizing those shoots are holding a press conference this Sunday, Oct. 12th in Sarasota and we'd love to announce that other states are on board too.You grassroots organizers know who you are! Will you step up and volunteer?I have a detailed TIPS sheet on how to do it plus a template for a press release. The project requires a good photographer with a digital camera, a scenic bridge (you don't have to be ON it--you could be under it or use it as the backdrop) and a group of Obama supporters with banners.We already have over 80 bridge photos around the world on 5 continents. You can view them on our Flikr site or in a YouTube video (Paul Simon's company gave permission for free to use his song, Bridge Over Troubled Waters.): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbBzEkXyu4oPHOTOS in this series:http://www.flickr.com/groups/bridgesforobama/pool/So come on, Obama activists!Step up and help us make this a reality.It generates a great buzz and gets good media coverage.
Email me directly for further details.
Meredith Wheelermeredith.wheeler@free.frNew York Times Political Blog on this project:http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/05/01/democrats-abroad-say-yes-we-span/The Washington Post Political Blog on this project:http://blog.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/05/14/obams_international_following.htmlObama Campaign Official Blog, by Amy Hamblin:http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/amyhamblin/gGxymS/commentary#
1%, or 1 vote out of 100There have been 12 Presidential elections that were decided by less than a 1% margin; meaning if less than 1% of the voters in certain states had changed their mind to the other candidate the outcome of the entire election would have been different. More than half were decided by less than a 2% margin.
In 2004, 57,787 votes would have given us President Kerry.In 2000, 269 votes would have given us President GoreIn 1996, 575,515 votes would have given us President Dole.
From ABC News:
http://blogs.abcnews.com/scienceandsociety/2008/09/squeakers.html
=========="Squeakers"Ned PotterABC NewsSeptember 29, 2008How close have Presidential elections been? Closer, perhaps, than we ever guessed. Mike Sheppard, a grad student in statistics at Michigan State, has done a mathematical exercise that shows it.He ran a computer program to answer this question: "What is the smallest number of total votes that need to be switched from one candidate to another, and from which states, to affect the outcome of the election?"The answer: in some years, very, very few. Take a look at his analysis HERE. It shows the powerful interaction between the popular vote and the electoral college.[...]==========
Full article here:http://blogs.abcnews.com/scienceandsociety/2008/09/squeakers.html
Detailed analysis here, including colored maps:https://www.msu.edu/~sheppa28/elections.html-Mike Sheppard
If you happen to have friends in Ottawa, Canada, pleaseforward this to them:Americans in Ottawa to Span Corktown Pedestrian Bridge for ObamaAmericans from Ottawa and Gatineau will be lining the CorktownPedestrian Bridge over the Rideau Canal in Ottawa at 12:30 p.m. TuesdaySept. 23 to show their support for Barack Obama. The event - titled "YesWe Span" - is being organized by Democrats Abroad Ottawa-Gatineau."Barack Obama as U.S. President would pursue a foreign policy ofnegotiation that is good news for Canada and the world," said CarolynFarquhar, co-chair of the group.Democrats Abroad Ottawa-Gatineau has set a goal of contacting allAmericans and dual citizens here because most U.S. election authoritiessend ballots by mail and want them returned by mail, which can sometimestake as long as 10 days each way. Ballots usually need to be received inthe U.S. by election day, Nov. 4."We need to reach every American in the National Capital Region to urgethem to register and vote from abroad now," said Farquhar. American citizens or dual citizens living abroad and their children areable to vote. To register, Americans can click on www.votefromabroad.orgto contact their local election authorities.The activities of Democrats Abroad Ottawa-Gatineau are posted onwww.democratsabroad.org/group/Canada.
Carolyn Farquhar 613.562.5800 ext. 3245 or Carl Stieren 613.563.7209
Today we have met with the Kauai Democratic Party executive committee and were happy that there is full support by the committee. They will be paying for all of the Obama/Biden yard signs. They also will be co-sponsoring the September 28th, 2008 Obama Ohana Rally that will be happening at the Kauai War Memorial Convention Hall in Lihue, Kauai Hawaii. We will be inviting all of the democratic candidates that are running for office and will allow them table space to promote themselves. We will also be encouraging all of them to bring out their people. There will be complementary entry tickets that will promote the attendance as well.
We are hoping to get 1500 people in attendance. Our guest speaker will be Barack's sister Maya Soetoro-Ng along with Senator Gary Hooser, Democratic Party Chairperson Brian Schatz, Chairman for Hawaii for Obama campaign Andy Winer, and special appearance from Willie K.
More info check out www.kauaidemocrats.org
Wonderful new bridge photos have been posted from Phnom Penh, Cambodia; Manilla in the Philippines;and Calgary, Canada!http://www.flickr.com/groups/bridgesforobama/We're doing a bridge shoot in Toulouse on Sept. 14th--so the beat goes on. If you happen to have friends in Toulouse, France, be sure to tell them about it!
We're encouraging Obama supporters in the States to take part too. Hawaii, California and Minnesota have already done Obama Bridge photos. Why not your home town??
You can download a high quality version of the Obama Bridge slideshow (it takes some time) here:https://www.yousendit.com/download/bVlBdFdRNDQ3N0IzZUE9PQ(This link will only be good for one week or 100 downloads.)Once downloaded you can burn a DVD and show it to your fellow Obama supporters.There are two versions of the video available on YouTube (though the picture compression doesn't do the photos justice). It will show you what it's all about.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbBzEkXyu4ohttp://fr.youtube.com/watch?v=EReWYQrtnkcYou can also look through ALL the bridge photos on our Flikr site: http://www.flickr.com/groups/bridgesforobama/pool/ .(Some arrived too late for inclusion in the videos, though we're trying toupdate the video.)Over 40 nations are represented and some, like France, Austria, Germany and Canada have done multiple bridges--so over 75 bridges are pictured on 5 continents.Know anyone in Antarctica near a bridge? (That would take care of that last continent....)Yes, we SPAN ;-)Meredith WheelerObama Bridge ProjectFrance
Two more Obama Bridge shoots are coming up: One on Sunday, Sept. 7th in Phnom Penh, organized by Democrats Abroad in Cambodia; the other is in Toulouse on Sunday Sept. 14th organized by the Toulouse chapter of Democrats Abroad France.
If you have friends in those cities, alert them so they can join in!
To see the fabulous video of Obama bridge shoots so far (there are over 75 on 5 continents) visit:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbBzEkXyu4o.
This video was presented to Barack Obama in Boston at his 47th birthday by Democrats Abroad. According to Obama's sister, Maya, who met with the Democrats Abroad delegation at the convention in Denver, Barack loved it.
So far over 77 bridges have been photographed in 40 countries, on five continents!!
They include, the Pont Neuf in Paris, the Millennium Bridge in London, the Charles Bridge in Prague, the Ponte Vecchio in Florence, the Nelson Mandela bridge in Johannesburg and many other bridges, from Istanbul to Tokyo, Buenos Aires to Vancouver. (To see them all: http://www.flickr.com/groups/bridgesforobama/pool/)
Bridges seem the ideal symbol of Barack Obama's candidacy: They unite two banks, span chasms, gaps and troubled water--bring together opposing sides--as we hope Obama will do!
If you have a bridge in your community, do a bridge photo!
For tips on getting a good shot, visit our yahoo site:http://groups.yahoo.com/group/obamasbridges/.
The project was originally envisioned as a grassroots initiative for Democrats Abroad--but now it's catching on in the States, with Hawaii, California and Minnesota all doing bridge shoots. Why not every state in the union? Given McCain's choice of VP, how about ALASKA?!
For more info on doing a shoot, contact me!
Meredith Wheeler
Obama Bridge Shoot Coordinator
Meredith.wheeler@free.fr
Dear Caroline,
We've never met, so I hope you don't find this letter too presumptuous or inappropriate. As its contents involve the public's business, I am sending this to you via the public on the Internet. I knew your brother John. He was a great guy, and I know he would've had a ball during this thrilling and historic election year. We all miss him dearly.
Barack Obama selected you to head up his search for a vice presidential candidate. It appears we may be just days (hours?) away from learning who that choice will be.
The media is reporting that Senator Obama has narrowed his alternatives to three men: Joe Biden, Evan Bayh and Tim Kaine. They're all decent fellows, but they are far from the core of what the Obama campaign has been about: Change. Real change. Out with the old. And don't invade countries that pose no threat to us.
The Obama Bridge Project arrived in Hawaii, just as Barack returned to his home-state for a holiday.
While he was resting on Oahu, on Kauai over 100 Americans--residents and tourists--gathered at one of the island's most historic bridges, Hanalei, for a giant photo op.
To see the final pix, visit our Flikr site: http://www.flickr.com/photos/23556339@N05/
[Somebody tell me how to embed photos on this blog !!] :-/
The Hawaii group has posted over 50 pix of their event on Bridges for Obama Yahoo site in the Kauai Photo Album:http://groups.yahoo.com/group/obamasbridges/
Local radio & TV covered the story--plus an article with color photo made the front page of the newspaper, which reportedly was handed to Barack Obama with his breakfast the next day.
http://www.khnl.com/Global/story.asp?s=8829758
Aloha, Barack--happy birthday from Hawaii!
Hawaii isn't the first state to do their own Obama Bridge Shoot--Minnesota and California also have done photos but none approaching the scale of Kauai.
Bravo Kauai for Obama OBAMA committee!
http://my.barackobama.com/page/group/KauaiforObamaOne of the organizers wrote:
We're very pleased with many things about our event. We attracted many media persons, got a radio interview and a TV photo. We had over 100 attendees which is great considering our tiny population here on Kauai....We hung out for about an hour, got lots of attention from honking cars, and walkers and river kayakers. It was really, really fun.
Please join the grassroots initiative--wherever you live!
Lets see Obama Bridge shoots from the Golden Gate to the Brooklyn Bridge!
It's a great way to energize Obama groups, attract new members, create media buzz.
Yes, we span!
BTW, Hamilton, Canada has a bridge shoot set for tomorrow! This will be Canada's 4th bridge shoot.If you have friends in Hamilton, tell them to contact Ken Sherman: k_e_sherman@yahoo.ca.
Still no news from the convention team about whether they will use the photos in Denver or not.
Obama Bridge ProjectYes, we SPAN!
Fellow Campaigners,
As you probably know, Barack and the Democratic Party have opened up the process for creating planks for this year’s Democratic Platform. We are being encouraged to meet with others to formulate what we would like to see included. Before holding my own neighborhood meeting, I would like your input. You many send it to me personally at logicconex@roadrunner.com or reply through the listserv if you think it better to share your thoughts with the general group.
Many groups on <my.barackobama.com> are dedicated to drug law reform with a primary emphasis on decriminalizing marijuana. This may be a freedom of choice issue, either in the context of recreational or medical use, or it may be an issue of discrimination, disenfranchising, or alienating, certain groups and dividing Americans against each other with yet another social issue. But, seen on a global scale, our framing drug use as a criminal issue has even more devastating consequences in terms of our War on Drugs. Here, it has provided an excuse for training the police in different countries to attack peasant farmers, keeping them poor and disenfranchised. Just as criminalizing drug use and drug production has allowed our government, under different administrations, to exercise control over our population, it has allowed these administrations to exercise similar control internationally, supporting oppressive governments in the name of protecting our citizens against the scourge of drug use.
The irony is that by criminalizing the production of drugs, our country has enriched pharmaceutical companies (ridding them of unwanted competition) and has forced peasant farmers to ally themselves with criminal groups in order to eke out a decent living and receive the protection they need to maintain their farms. A further irony is that the profits from the sale of their crops has helped finance both the CIA and, now, the Taliban and, possibly, Al-Qaeda.
Fortunately, as medical research has provided justification for applying a medical model for the use of marijuana, it allows us to question our policy of propping up dictatorships and friendly governments who seek funds to help us conduct our supposed War on Drugs.
People in the Obama campaign who are savvy about such matters can help others in the Democratic Party understand the importance of reframing this issue in their national platform. All we have to do is put together planks calling for a reform of our drug laws. I am interested in what you have to say on this issue and what information you might have to share as a group gathers together in Santa Monica tomorrow to form a plank calling for such reform. If you are close enough to attend, please let me know of your interest. In the meantime, you may want to read the article below that appeared over a year ago about how this issue has affected the war in Afghanistan.
We have little time to act. I look forward to hearing from you soon.
Sincerely,
Gregg Heacock
Legalize It
Why destroy poppies—and afghan farmers—when the world needs legal opiates?
By Johann Hari
Jamilla Niazi is a 40-year-old woman with a freckly face and high cheek-bones. When she arrives in a refugee camp in Helmand Province, Southern Afghanistan, to speak to me via webcam, her features are hidden behind the blue burqua she is forced to wear in the scorching summer swelter. She peels back the gauze and smiles. She doesn’t do this much any more – not since the death threats began to come every night, pledging to burn her in acid. Jamilla has, the authors rage, committed an offence against the immutable moral laws of Afghanistan: she is the head-teacher of a school for girls.
“The Taliban have come back. They control this area now,” the aid worker from the Senlis Council who is with her tells me.
The night before we speak, they burned down a school in nearby Nabili, and they have announced they are coming for Jamilla next. Jamilla grew up in a country where 40 percent of women had jobs – better than some Western countries at that time – but when the Taliban took over in 1996, she was ordered to go home and live the rest of her life in Purdah. The sound of women laughing was declared an offence, punishable by whipping. Females accused of adultery, lesbianism or reading a book other than the Koran were shot in Kabul sports stadium before a howling male mob.
But Jamilla could not accept being reduced to the status of a piece of soft furnishing: she set up a secret school for girls in her home, where she continued to teach them to read and write. Even so, “when I was shut at home and not allowed to go out, it was like being in jail,” she says now. “For six years I was sick in my head. Now my head is hurting again. I am frightened because we are going back to that time.”
She did not think it would be like this. “I was so happy to see the foreigners [in 2001], we all cried with joy to see the Taliban leave,” she explains. “All the women were happy and most of the men too. But now we are not happy.” When the Taliban reformed and began to psychologically dominate her hometown of Lashkagar once more, Jamilla began to worry her school would be attacked. The Afghan President Hamid Karzai admitted this May that over 200 girls’ schools have been destroyed by the Taliban, almost certainly an underestimate. Teachers have been gunned down in front of their pupils, and there was even a landmine placed in a playground.
When the death-threats began, she approached the nearby British military base for protection. Since the Western rhetoric at the time of the invasion was all about how we were committed to women like Jamilla, she assumed her school would be offered immediate protection. The individual British soldiers were very sympathetic – but explained, “We’re not in that business.” Their orders do not include directly protecting female civilians and girls’ schools from Talibanist slaughter. Sorry.
The day I spoke to her, Jamilla had finally decided to go into hiding. I ask her if I should change her name in this article to protect her from further threats. “No,” she says. “Use my name.” She does not want the Taliban to take even that away from her.
Just five years after all the lush promises, how did Afghanistan end up like this? The Senlis Council, an invaluable independent think tank, has over fifty researchers living among ordinary Afghans, and in their exhaustive new report ‘The Return of the Taliban’ they give us the answer. The determination of the Bush administration to fight a ‘war on drugs’ in Afghanistan has guaranteed we will lose the war against the Taliban.
Over the past five years, with British and American military support, a sinister corporation called DynCorps has been going to the fields of the poorest farmers in Afghanistan and systematically destroying them. This is because they are growing opium poppies, used to make heroin that is freely bought on the streets of the West. Emmanuel Reinert, the Executive Director of the Senlis Council, explains, “The Taliban revival is directly, intimately related to the crop eradication program. It could not have happened if the US was not aggressively destroying crops. It is the single biggest reason Afghans turned against the foreigners.”
How would we react if we were already starving – a quarter of all Afghan children die before their fifth birthday – and a foreign army declared its intention to wipe out 70 percent of our economy? Reinert adds, “If you look at where the Americans have carried out the forced eradication programs, it’s where people cannot feed their families. That’s where the Taliban is opportunistically gaining support.” People whose crops are being trashed will support anyone who rallies to defend them – even this monstrous Islamist Khmer Rouge who have swiftly seized on the heroin eradication programs along with the evidence of US torture camps, not least Guantanamo Bay, to show “the West is waging war on Islam”.
If this aggressive counter-narcotics strategy is not drastically altered, Reinert says, “in the next six months the legitimacy of the Kabul government will totally collapse, all the cities of the South will fall to the Taliban, and they will mount an assault on Kabul.”
In the long-term, there is only one solution: bring the massive global drugs trade into the legal economy, so countries like Afghanistan and Colombia can finally reclaim their territory from hellish groups who build armies with the profits from the drugs trade. But that is clearly a goal that requires vast political change within the country currently driving global prohibition, the United States. So the Senlis Council has come up with a sensible short-term solution that might – just might – claw Afghanistan back from tipping into Talibanism once more.
It is simple: instead of destroying Afghanistan’s opium crop, our governments should allow people to buy it. This doesn’t require legalization. There is currently a massive worldwide shortage of legal opiate-based painkillers: in cancer care in developed countries alone, there is a need for 55 metric tons more every year. Why not license Afghanistan’s farmers to meet this massive legal demand? There is a precedent. When Turkey’s southern opiate farmers stubbornly refused to trash their own livelihoods in the early 1970s, the US eventually gave up and allowed them to participate in the legal trade. Isn’t Afghanistan as important as Turkey?
Jamilla knows what will happen if our government does not radically revise its route through Afghanistan in this way. In a low, sad voice, she says, “My school will be destroyed forever.” She pauses. “All women love their freedom. Who wants to be a prisoner and to be illiterate? Not Afghan women… You promised you would not let this happen to us again. You promised.”
Today the world is a much difference place in terms of where the Power and Wealth is being played and is being homed. Already we are anticipating what the effects will be given the extraordinary levels of investments that are taken place in the countires of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and their improved financial infrastructure. The GCC's investors will probably the most important group in 2008-2011 and their ultra dynamic diversity in Global partners. America must begin to realize that our so call "interest" in the Gulf is very important as we are the so called "out-sourced military" that is being sought out to protect the most Money Rich nations in the world.
Obama must continue to study the dynamics of the competition from other nations to become more financial powerful. Yes, the term Commander in Chief does not only say that America's President is the leader of the most powerful Military complex on the planet but Commands the most powerful Financial Nation and we must continue to lead our dominance in the future. When the Dubai city opens their Billion Dollar
Such fun!!! Music by Fred Schmitt, Emmy Reynolds, Piper Denny & Julie Christensen was beyond awesome! We did gobs of Postcards for Pennyslvania! Julie shared how she shook Barack's hand; He look directly into her eyes and she could see his sincereness and how He wants the very best for our country. She became an immediate convert. Fred relayed how they attended the Obama Ralley at Santa Barbara City College; and how he asked an Obama Dude if Barack could sign Lynn's Constitution. The Dude chased after Barack and came back with Barack's Signature on the Constitution; So super! Julie sang a song about how a wounded Veteran's Mom didn't recognize him upon his return - tears in My eyes.
We're famous! Our Concert was on the Nat'l Blog, Friday, March 28th. Only 4 were listed. On Saturday, All across America, Obama supporters Partied and Postcarded for Barack!!! So amazing to realize that so many Americans were working for Our Obama on Saturday; we're among some pretty terrific folks!
Thank you all!
Eileen, the home grown Pixie Tangerines and your homebaked Pecan Bars were delicious!
Fired up! Ready to Go! Storm Surf! Yes!
Candy
Yes we can! Si se puede! Oui c'est possible!
