The family that sings together, clings together (and, by the way, maybe reads together and provides the kind of safety and security required). I have written a family screenplay titled "BallTown" which is briefly described below:
When URTH and MOONICA whirl your way, T. D. FOOT, TIPPY the VOLLEY GIRL, DUNCAN BASKET and all balls discover to their terror that the villain SLIME has resolved to destroy their bounce, their roll and even their soul.
URTH narrates this audience interactive musical invention. Designed for ages 2 to 12 with parents and grandparents, well-known classics such as "Itsy Bitsy Spider", "You Are My Sunshine", "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star", etc. invite all to sing along.
There are two heroes in this story and they are honored to be recognized by (since this is "BallTown") President O-Ballma.
When families have fun, they enjoy sharing.
Original Title: Change This! My Wish List for Accomplishing the Changes We Need By Gramma Willi
Note: I am re-posting this because someone deleted the old one.
It is wonderful to have a chance to reach you. I am known in some circles as a legendary activist. This means that many of you will not have heard of me; to those who have, I pray that you find good ways to share truths, good analysis and facts with the next generation of legendary activists.
Here's my wish list for accomplishing the changes we need:
1. Find a way to value the contributions of legendary activists. It is not enough to solicit our ideas and opinions and simply run away with them, to apply without the benefit of proper context and analysis. Activists are not enemies - they tend to be wise, giving and in need of a thank you every so often... a nice contract now and again would be even better.
2. Place the long term health of the people and the natural environment that we depend on at the top of all priority lists. Long term means the next 7 generations.
3. Always plan for peace - including economic plans. We have to get away from war economies.
4. Move away from reliance on fulltime staff as decision makers for social institutions. They poison social programs because their main priority becomes their personal financial health and not the success of the programs. The best staff will include putting themselves out of a job as their main priority, because this will mean that the goals have been accomplished. The best staff will never undermine volunteer Boards of Directors or Citizen Task Forces.
5. Fire the architects of the failed economic system and their cronies. Replace them with the people who have been predicting the collapse and offer well-thought out constructs for designing our emerging social economy.
6. Find ways to value legendary activists - you will find the best friends of humanity among their number.
All My Relations, Gramma Willi
I got some members of my band and other friends to record an Obama song, called "He's-a Barack Obama," which is a take-off of the early '80s R&B tune, "She's A Bad Mamma Jamma."
It's also an iTunes-ready song, which includes graphics and lyrics!
To download the song for free, visit here:
http://www.elsongs.com/obama
The Pickens Plan: For those who would like to become an active participant in a solution for our nations energy needs I urge you to join with T.Boone Pickens in his quest for a cleaner planet through alternative energy.
Also see Green Wave Energy: Green Wave was founded by Mark Holmes and was formulated for viable alternative energy solutions. Green Wave Energy is promoting state-of-the-art energy-saving products and services throughout the country.
Green Wave Energy understands alternative energy technology will become “main stream” when
Call 949.645.1701 for information on how Green Wave Energy can help you save the planet.
Alternative EnergySource: David Apperson
url: http://veterans.barackobama.com/page/community/tag/alternative-energy
At her father's urging, Amanda Jones said she has voted for decades despite discriminatory poll practices. The 109 year old Democrat recently mailed in a vote for Sen. Barack Obama.Daughter of slave votes for Obama
109 year old Austin, TX woman casts her vote by mail. By Joshunda Sanders AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF Monday, October 27, 2008Amanda Jones, 109, the daughter of a man born into slavery, has lived a life long enough to touch three centuries. And after voting consistently as a Democrat for 70 years, she has voted early for the country's first black presidential nominee.The middle child of 13, Jones is part of a family that has lived in Republican-leaning Bastrop County for five generations. The family has remained a fixture in Cedar Creek and other parts of the county, even when its members had to eat at segregated barbecue dives and walk through the back door while white customers walked through the front, said Amanda Jones' 68-year-old daughter, Joyce Jones.For at least a decade, Amanda Jones worked as a maid for $20 a month, Joyce Jones said. She was a housewife for 72 years and helped her now-deceased husband, C.L. Jones, manage a store.Amanda Jones, a delicate, thin woman wearing golden-rimmed glasses, giggled as the family discussed this year's presidential election. She is too weak to go the polls, so two of her 10children, Eloise Baker, 75, and Joyce Jones, helped her fill out a mail-in ballot for Barack Obama, Baker said. "I feel good about voting for him," Amanda Jones said.Jones' father herded sheep as a slave until he was 12, according to the family, and once he was
freed, he was a farmer who raised cows, hogs and turkeys on land he owned. Her mother was bornright after the Emancipation Proclamation was signed, Joyce Jones said. The family owned more than 100 acres of land in Cedar Creek at one point, she said.Amanda Jones' father urged her to exercise her right to vote, despite discriminatory practices at the polls and poll taxes meant to keep black and poor people from voting. Those practices were outlawed for federal elections with the 24th Amendment in 1964, but not for state and local races in Texas until 1966.Amanda Jones says she cast her first presidential vote or Franklin Roosevelt, but she doesn't recall which of his four terms that was. When she did vote, she paid a poll tax, her daughters said. That she is able, for the first time, to vote for a black presidential nominee for free fills her with joy, Jones said.One of Amanda Jones' 33 grandchildren, Brenda Baker, 44, said the family is moved by the election's significance to the matriarch. "It's awesome to me that we have such a pillar of our familystill with us," Baker said. "It's awesome to see what she's done, and all her hard work, and to see that she may be able to see the results of all that hard work" if Obama is elected, she said.Jones lives in a small gray house with white trim just off Texas 21. These days, a curious white kitten and a sleepy old black dog guard the house. Inside are photographs and relics of a long, fulllife, including a letter from then-Gov. George Bush in 1998 commemorating her 100th birthday. A black-and-white picture of her in a long flapper-style dress was taken between 1912 and 1918, no one can remember the exact year, Baker said with a chuckle.Jones is part of a small percentage of active voters above the age of 100 in the state and the country. Sister Cecilia Gaudette, a 106-year-old nun born in New Hampshire but living in Rome,made recent national headlines as the nation's oldest voter. But if Texas records are any indication, that's hard to validate.Secretary of State spokeswoman Ashley Burton said Texas can't confirm whether Jones is the state's oldest active voter because there is too much voter information to sort through. At the county level, there are other challenges. An election official in Hays County said its records are not searchable by age, and Bastrop County elections administrator Nora Cano said that some counties automatically list voters who were born before the turn of the 20th century with birth dates of January 1900.The oldest active voter in Travis County is 105, officials said, and in Williamson County the oldest is 106, making Jones the oldest-known active voter in Central Texas.Making it to see the election results on Nov. 5 is important, but Jones is resting up for another milestone: her 110th birthday in December. "God has been good to me," she said.
This is my first post on this blog site. I hope some of my ideas will inspire you to think hard, to speak out and to put your words to work for our Greater Cause of saving America. It will take all of us going beyond complaints about Republicans to focus on the hope we felt during the convention. Americans need our populist leadership; the world needs visionaries too. We can do this thing: the stakes are too high not to!
Here's my first Speak Out suggestion:
Today on CNN, Biden was hammered (and held up like a champion) about whether the Democratic plan is a <I>redistribution of wealth</I>. Of course, "redistribution of wealth" is an economics term that always gets the attention of conservatives who have acquired "wealth" and also those who vote Republican (even when it is clearly not in their own self interest) because they hope they will get "wealth." Both groups hear the phrase translated as <i>taking money away from the people it belongs to</i>. For us, it refers to a way of insuring investment in the whole society.
Joe did a superb job with the interview this morning (what a great guy -- such passion for Americans!), but on that question, he faltered a moment and then said, "I don't care what you call it. The middle class is hurting." He was right, but he missed a great moment for a sound bite (which we need in this campaign of news briefs). Here's an alternative suggestion for Joe and Barak as well as those of us who face similar questions from conservative friends:
Our tax plan is not a redistribution of wealth--it's a redistribution of <b>TAX</b>!! It is a plan that finally shifts a fair amount of responsibility for taking care of America to those who have used (and abused) America's tax code for personal profit. If the "wealth" of America gets redistributed, it's only because once things are fair, it turns out there were some people taking more than their share!
Joe and Barak are giving great speeches and great interviews. Our job is to take their message to our friends and family and communities by listening to their messages, borrowing their great lines, and adding our own experiences. To win, we cannot shrink from speaking our minds.
Today, let your message echo Joe's:
<b><i>Working Americans are hurting; we need a redistribution of TAX because some people have been taking more of their share of America's wealth!!</b></i>
There are those who have fallen in a pit in life, and they need some of us to reach out, reach down, grab and give them a helping hand to lift them up and out of their pit. Do you know someone who has fallen in a pit--a pit of depression, various types of abuse, isolation, destitution...
Under a leadership of change, a better job can be done to help others "rise up out of a pit."
What do you think? Look at this place where someone would hide out, but with prayer and real help he is rising up out of a pit! http://www.victoryintheword.us/pasthideout.html
This is a totally free political market that CNN has setup to use on their website. You get to make your own predictions as to who is going to win for a particular primary or question they've posted. This is a lot of fun if you are a political junkie and you want to see what other people are thinking is going to happen in the political arena.
Go to the CNN.com website to enter into the Political Market. The direct address is below:
http://politicalmarket.cnn.com/
It's fascinating to see how close the market is calling Ohio; while Texas appears to be a blowout!
OBAMA '08 YES WE CAN OBAMA '08 YES WE CAN OBAMA '08 YES WE CAN OBAMA '08 YES WE CAN
""Obama on Ethics and Lobbying Reform""
http://obama.senate.gov/issues/ethics_and_lobbying_reform/
Throughout his political career, Barack Obama has fought for open and honest government. As an Illinois State Senator, he helped pass the state’s first major ethics reform bill in 25 years. And as a U.S. Senator, he has spearheaded the effort to clean up Washington in the wake of numerous scandals. In the first two weeks of the 110th Congress, Senator Obama helped lead the Senate to pass the Legislative Transparency and Accountability Act, a comprehensive ethics and lobbying reform bill, by a 96-2 vote. This landmark bill was signed into law by the President in September 2007.
PART OF ARTICLE INCLUDED
""Alone among the U.S. Presidential candidates"", Barack Obama is confronting the question of how to produce more accountable and effective politics in our democracy.
His just-released Tech Plan (Download Obama Tech Plan) uniquely understands that the time, expertise and enthusiasm that ordinary people invest in making Wikipedia better, for example, can be transformed into practices to make government work better and more accountably. So he doesn't just call for making information more transparent to citizens; he wants to hear what we have to say and enable us to participate. The Plan calls for citizen engagement in the work of federal agencies and demonstrates respect for the intelligence and expertise of the American people. He calls for opening up the closed practices of government and using new technology to enable genuine citizen participation and engagement in our democracy. This is a major and unprecedented step. No other candidate “gets it.” They pay lip service to transparency. He proposes making government data available online as well as ensuring that agencies do their work in public. They talk about citizen congresses that would deliberate in quaint town hall meetings having nothing to do with real world politics or power. He proposes engaging citizens in the actual and ongoing work and decision-making of government -- not Americans talking to elected officials but Americans genuinely participating. They talk about technology and innovation. He offers a comprehensive broadband strategy, commitment to media diversity, and a proposal to improve patent quality, including the practice of rigorous, public peer review like Peer-to-Patent. They talk about strong IP. He balances his support of strong IP with recognition of the need to promote collaboration and innovation. I am excited about Obama’s Tech Plan. In fact, it should be called the “Democracy Plan.”
He alone does what a President should do, namely articulate a vision for democracy in the digital age.
CLICK LINK TO SEE WHAT He wants to DO: http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/danielleclarke/Cx84
Yesterday I found myself engaged in conversation with a Senior Citizen regarding Obama. She does not have cable T.V. and has not had many opportunities to see Obama speak. So, being a resourceful Senior she went to the library and checked out a book with speeches by Obama in it. She came to me yesterday to say she was not impressed.
We sat down and I looked up on the Internet some of Obama's speeches. She was much more impressed by seeing and listening to Obama than by reading straight text. I explained that this was the difference between Obama and other candidates, present and past, Obama has a passion and heart that shows when he speaks. Anyone watching him speak can tell he is a true leader, that his passion for the United States is real.
I encourage all of you to use the tools at your fingertips, forward his video speeches to your friends, family, acquaintances, anyone you know from the Internet. The Internet is a fabulous tool for us to use to educate, contact and share with people our knowledge and passion for Obama!
A day full of beautiful pure perfect love.
What else is there?
How does someone empower another person?
If this website can answer that question, i really believe the world can be changed and there is hope. To have a leader ask such a question is the first step of a long adventurous journey towards the ultimate freedom of oneself. The first step in the right direction is here and now. An exciting moment for everyone who believes in the ideals of a healthy nation.
For me personally, this blog connects my last and final art show, "infinite and eternal blessings world tour" with a political fun forum. My vision and dream is that we all take the challenge of becoming empowered at heart. It is ALL about the heart, from the heart of reality everything in syncronicity with that beautiful pure perfect love will be here and now.
Thanks Barack Obama and all your supporters for creating and designing this miraculous opportuniy to share our individual and unique genius with your political network.
Blessings
I could not have said it better, so I'll share his message.
Hi Everyone,
Went to the Obama rally at Georgia Tech yesterday. There was a huge crowd on hand. The paper said over 20,000. That figure is more impressive given the stormy skies and expected rain. Fortunately, that didn't happen until later in the evening.
Barack delivered. Good speech, great speaker. He's connecting with the issues that matter to us.
The large crowd was-as the paper put it-multi racial, multi generational.
Our local paper, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, provided modest coverage, but the tv media seemed sparse to me. Maybe I missed some of the coverage.
That's why I like this website. You can get the word out and not have to rely on MSM to find out what's happening.
I'm busy with a couple of work related projects at the moment, but plan to get more involved as a volunteer in the next few months. Go here for pictures of the event. I understand it is the largest rally so far for Obama.
Link title="Atlanta Rally with Obama!">Link
John
Thanks John!
Welcome goes out to our newest MOMS! Browneyemidege in OH, Verona in St. Paul MN and Donna Schindler from Roswell GA, and then from central IL- Michelle and Jo.
Last night I cried while watching a PBS documentary called Canteen Spirit.
I did not make it to the Stone Mountain event at 8200 Mall Parkway in Lithonia on Saturday with the Muslim Americans for Obama '08. Instead, I went to Starbucks on Upper Roswell road and met a big group of good folk committed to learning what can they do to help Obama’s campaign. Apparently, I’m not the only one learning how to participate with a “dashboard.” I see us learning together and forming a bond that will grow. Praise the Lord.
This is one way to Help…Add your voices to correct the discontent bend on creating chaos.
I sent Obama a note on his YouTube website:
My efforts are energized for this Campaign. I am from a small town in NW Georgia and we just had our Kick off meeting on 2/25/2007. We know we have a long road ahead but we are a committed group with enough vision to know you are our candidate. We are going to build a base for Obama here in NW Georgia that can spread the word that the best chance for America is to change. Change for the Better with Obama! Most of us have never been within the political frameworks of a campaign but we are willing to learn and extend ourselves as never before for what we believe is America best chance at saving itself. We are on the move for Obama!
I tried to write in response to Obama position to withdraw since some folks don’t understand: (it was over 500 characters) (I posted this on 02/26/2007)
We did not promise to support a Civil War! We said we would help get rid of Saddam...That's done. We said we would help rebuild and we spend all the money while the Iraqi treasury stays put with all their money still in the bank not rebuilding anything but interest.
So why should we stay while they kill each other for no other reason than a different point of view. Is that what their children desire? In the meantime, they also teach their children to hate us and blame us for their failure to resolve their differences now that Saddam is gone. I do not know any country that would support more bloodshed when we can teach them to talk their differences out to a better resolution. If we do not leave now, we will never leave while they fill their treasury with money and ours empty in the process. Bloodshed should not equal more bloodshed in all cases. We should not Nation build at the price of our generations not yet born. They need to learn to Love and respect each other better as well. We can not teach that or bomb it into existence.
In answer, to the questions from a young man in Denmark over the excitement in Europe, Asia, and Africa over Obama: (I posted this on 02/27/2007)
Obama creates a lot of excitement and energy because He represents all that could be right with the world on this planet I think. If given a chance as Human beings to be fair, we have to admit we all want to rid ourselves of the old way of doing business. We all crave something New, fresh and creative with visionary ideas that we can all share in then build/create. My belief is if we are brave enough, this idea can be realized/real. This more about a movement for change than just a U.S.political campaign. Little boys need to set their guns/hate/self-destruction down and begin to act like people who know how to care/love/share.
Will they ever understand the sweet sweet spirit of possibilities? Maybe. Do you hear the drumbeat? Be apart of the sound we all hear? Join in and respond, provide the answers others seek from your view point. Give the straight unbend truth. I believe, A clear vision must be shared. This way more people can understand why Barack Obama should be our next President. We can not fault a person’s lack of vision if we have not shared the wisdom and knowledge first. The question is being asked every single day: Why Obama? Find these questions then answer them with rational thought and with care since the truth can be shocking when you have been fed a bunch of lies for years. Be brief, plain and clear! I believe that is part of the solution to fight the fear we will face as the days move on.
If you get a chance visit the site I created for Obama: Link
A site under construction, I have more to add but not enough hours in the day to do so. Visit it later for more.
This book puts a very comprehensive picture together.
If you support Barack Obama or you want to learn about him and his ideas then getting your hands, eyes, and brain on the book The Audacity of Hope is the strongest most complete way you can do it.
Some don't know, but you can borrow the book from your local Library. If they don't have it in the moment they can order it from another branch or put you on a waiting list for the next available copy. You'll get ahold of the book you want faster than you would expect.
Start a book swap with friends. Ask around and you'll find someone who has read the book/ bought the book. If you have bought or read the book and it now sits on your shelf. Take it down and share the words with someone who wants to read and learn. A book does no good if it is never read.
Download the Audiobook from iTunes. it's ~$19, just over 6 hours long, and in his OWN WORDS. aka he is the narrator.
Hope you Enjoy the book as much as I did.
