The Watchman

Governor, you're no Barack Obama

2009-02-25T17:57:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was supposed to have been the coming out party of the GOP's response to Barack Obama: Bobby Jindal. It wasn't always planned this way, however. The Louisiana Governor was tapped back in September to deliver the keynote address at the Republican National Convention in an effort to mirror Obama's 2004 keynote address for the Democrats. That speech catapulted Obama to superstardom and eventually to Pennsylvania Avenue, so it was the hope of many on the Republican side that Jindal would do the same. However, a hurricane named Gustav got in the way and prevented Jindal from attending the event. You see, hurricanes can be a bit of a problem in Louisiana (although Gustav aided the Republicans up north by preventing Bush from showing up personally), so the Jindal unveiling was left for another time.

In the meantime many, including myself, decided to look into this new character. To any liberal there is nothing more frightening than the thought of a Republican that can draw comparisons to Barack Obama, so Jindal was downright petrifying - as an idea, at least. Reviewing his record, however, I quickly discovered that there was nothing really to fear. Jindal is a Republican's Republican. In every way that Obama breaks the mold of the typical politician, Jindal fits it. He's got a perfect voting record against reproductive rights, a perfect voting record for the National Rifle Association (even being honored by the trigger-happy outift), and he's alarmingly obsessed with tax cuts.

Like any highly thought of Republican, Jindal believes tax cuts are the answer to everything. No problem is too small or unrelated to not be solved by simply allowing rich people to keep more of their money. How do we raise the quality of education in the country? Tax cut! How do we solve the deficit problem? Tax cut! What do we do about ballplayers taking steroids? Tax cut! People that wait until they board the bus to search for their MetroCard, who crack their knuckles in public, who don't clean up after their dogs? Tax cut, tax cut, tax cut! I could imagine Jindal standing on the levees during Hurricane Gustav and shouting at the maelstrom about how he would give it a tax cut if it just went away.

Jindal's also quite adept at convincing poor people that they will somehow benefit from these tax cuts (as if anyone like Tom DeLay would ever fight tooth and nail for a tax cut for a poor southern family of five instead of the monied interests that put him where he is). This last point makes Jindal a great Republican. And that's why they were so excited about him. Not only is he just like the other GOPers (which Republicans need to see to like you, I mean really like you), but he's brown. This is the pink elephant in the Bobby Jindal room. If he were just another white Republican with his views he would blend in like a cowboy hat at a rodeo. That his standard right-wing agenda is delivered from a man of Indian ancestry, however, makes him a standout.

It seems that no one wants to admit this. The Republicans will, of course, use him as an example that they are as meritocratic as the Democrats, just as they did with Sarah Palin, Alan Keyes, and Michael Steele. All of these characters were supposed to convince us that the GOP was not a good ol' boys club, even though pledging allegiance to everything the good ol' boys stand for is a prerequisite for membership in this club of right-wing tokens. Jindal is not an example of Republican egalitarianism, but rather an example of the miscalculations for which the party has become notorious. Obama is thin, ethnic, and a hell of a speaker, and according to anyone who reads Ann Coulter without wanting to punch her in the face, so is Jindal. This, of course, exposes the fact that the Republicans are seeing Obama at the most aesthetic, basic level, and missing the nuances that make him so unique and appealing.

As I have written before, Jindal will not find it easy to draw crowds like Obama with the same tired conservative message of trickle-down economics, defense of guns, and an erosion of reproductive rights. He is a living wedge, whereas Obama is a living bridge. Extending the analogy, it doesn't quite matter that the wedge and the bridge are made of the same material, their purposes are completely different. After discovering all of this for myself, I awaited Jindal's first national appearance to see if everyone else would see what I had discovered. And because I shamelessly engage in schadenfreude, I was hoping he'd bomb out. I just didn't know it would go this well for me.

Jindal's speech last night was terrible, to say the least. Aside from following Obama, who once more riveted a national audience with a terrific and uplifting speech, Jindal delivered his unsurprising speech with the sort of delivery you see on post-late night TV; three in the morning when you can't sleep and wake up to watch what's on during those mysterious sleep hours. To really understand how he sounded, imagine yourself on that couch at three in the morning when you turn on some infomercial plugging a blender that can make atoms of bricks (but all I need is a banana shake...) or a juicer that makes it more complicated than it needs to be to eat an apple. The type of dialogue that goes on between the hosts of these drool-inducing torture sessions and the mark made to look like an interested buyer might properly describe what Jindal sounded like.

That, or think of your high school principal delivering a message to an assembly of students. Either way, it was a laughable attempt to mirror anything Obama has done in his rise to the top. Obama wouldn't deliver a speech that poorly even if he had to give one singing the praises of Rupert Murdoch. The simple fact is that Jindal doesn't have nearly the charisma that the President possesses. But God bless the Republicans for thinking he did, it offered great laughs. The worst part, perhaps, is that nothing in Jindal's speech was a riveting departure from what the Republicans have been spewing ever since Obama got in office. The GOP is trying hard to recast themselves as the fiscally responsible paragons that they were not during the free-spending Bush years, and Jindal tried hard, too. The problem is that the message is falling on deaf ears. The country will not support a do-nothing approach from a party that many see as being mainly responsible for this financial mess. Changing the spokesman doesn't matter, just like changing global warming's name to climate change didn't matter. Either way, people don't like it and want to be rid of it.

The speech was bad enough, its message derivative enough, but then Jindal had to bring up the K word. To somehow suggest that government is not needed, that it's in fact detrimental to Americans by conjuring the response to Hurricane Katrina is a major problem for any Republican. You see, the response to Hurricane Katrina doesn't prove that government is inept, it just proved that the Bush administration was inept. Perhaps that is the greatest secret of the GOP; that they could argue so effectively against government because they prove time and again just how bad they are at governing. Their failures are merely proofs of their message: We (the government) are bad, stupid, and corrupt. The Republicans are out to prove it, apparently, and doing a heckuva job (Brownie).

Really Bobby, this was not nearly the coming out party everyone in your party wanted it to be; not even close. In fact, it probably knocked you down a few notches since even Republicans have been voicing their displeasure with your speech. You told us Americans can do anything last night. But all we've been hearing lately is how Republicans want us to do nothing. Cognitive dissonance is not a good party mantra, no matter how you dice it.

On the positive side, I woke up at about three in the morning last night and ended up purchasing a super blender from an infomercial on TV. I guess I actually believed the host and what he told the crowd member he brought up for a supposed impromptu demonstration. I mean, this thing was crushing bricks! I simply had to get it. Perhaps somehow after Jindal's speech, the usually cheesy dialogue didn't seem so ridiculous, anymore. Can't wait for my shakes!

Let's heed President Obama's call for education reform - starting at home!

2009-02-25T13:44:00.001-08:00

President Obama gave another insightful and inspiring speech last night. His de facto State of the Union helped ease fears at a time when fear's spreading like the sniffles in a kindergarten class. Reassuring as he was steady, he even had Republicans standing for him at various times applauding along with the now overwhelmingly Democratic chambers of Congress. No doubt about it, Obama is a once-in-a-lifetime speaker and a special breed of politician. He's not ambitious in the way other politicians are: Seeking only to gain the highest office possible. Rather, he's ambitious in that he wants the highest office to affect the most change. His vision is that of a newly prosperous America that emerges - ever-Phoenix like - better than before. That means an America with healthcare for all its citizens, an America without rewards for the wanna-be Gordon Geckos who got us into this financial mess, and an America that actually values education as a means for advancement.

This last issue resonates especially for me as an educator. Too often I've heard people (even parents within poor minority communities) say things like "you know college isn't for everyone." Well, now it kind of is. Unlike the 1980s where a high school diploma could allow you to get by, today's competitive world demands something higher than the twelfth grade to carve out a decent living for yourself. As countries like China and India continue advancing forward with armies of educated and ambitious young men and women, the issue of under-qualified and poorly educated Americans is now an issue of national concern. As President Obama detailed last night, you are not just doing a disservice to yourself, but to your country by not entering the realm of higher education. But this is a problem that has its root in American homes long before children come to be of college age.

Obama mentioned last night that parents ought think about turning off the television and video game to actually read to their children. Statistics prove that children that are read to succeed at a far greater pace than those who are not read to. This is something that can appeal to all Americans. As a teacher, I see on a daily basis the ravages of not placing a value on the written word. I get kids every year that haven't a clue how to read or write beyond a five year old's normal level in any language because their parents are simply not placing a priority on reading. Literacy is the cornerstone for any future career and without it, there is no hope for advancement in future generations. The dream of an American century will hinge on how literate our people are, and that starts at home with bedtime stories and books instead of TV.

Obama's emphasis on personal responsibility is key, but it will mean nothing unless people take the message to heart. I sincerely hope that poor neighborhoods of color take heed this message and begin treating education as a means to overcoming oppression. Children in communities such the one in which I teach will know entire rap songs or details from brain-draining television shows before they ever discover a children's book they can summarize. My students can tell you everything about high school musical but can't name a high school they'd like to attend. They know how to do every new dance and still misspell the word dance when writing about it. They have more relatives in prison than in college and proudly state so. Some of them have seen Night at the Museum more times than they've been to an actual museum. (I'm reminded of a time I took my mother to the American Museum of Natural History and she commented on how we were the only latinos there not cleaning or providing security services.) Simply put, we latinos as a people have not placed a high enough emphasis on getting educated. Our brothers in the struggle to escape modern urban poverty, African Americans, have not done much better in this regard. How can we ever hope to advance equity in this nation when we are the very engines of our collective entropy, constantly creating disorder in our own histories?

Ignorance must be stamped out and it starts with simple acts such as talking to our children and reading with them. Instead of letting them vegetate over weekends, how about planning a trip to a museum or zoo? Maybe you could read a book from your local library about the things you hope to see at these educational institutions and then have a discussion during your visit. These small acts amount to much when added together and help turn around the notion that college isn't for everyone. After all, how many people in positions of authority and power are feeding this garbage to their children? None, of course! They understand that college is not an option but a prerequisite of a successful life. It is only in our poor communities where this defeatism exists with such pervasiveness. Children are implored to leave school and help the family financially, but a long-term investment in their education would be more beneficial in a myriad ways. This trading of a long-term solution for a short-term fix has brought many a family from poverty to slightly less imposing poverty in tragic examples of lateral movement and a lack of foresight. Without education as a priority these decisions seem logical and even dutiful, but with the rising cost of living and heavy competition sure to mark this century, it is basically a formula for failure.

The rising costs of a higher education are truly a legitimate concern, and I can see this point as the only valid obstacle to a family struggling to make basic payments and a decent living. However, President Obama even spoke of programs where community volunteer work could be parlayed into an affordable college education. These programs would help renovate our communities while advancing our young people in life. They would build a sense of community, responsibility, and involvement that could potentially strike down any sense of helplessness often felt in these communities. There is no longer any room in our debate for not placing education at the top of the priorities list. Enough with the same old practices that have resulted in nothing more than a permanent place in the poorest urban communities in this country. Let us allow our children the room to grow beyond their current restraints and blossom into tomorrow's leaders. America needs them.

Same old story with NY Post

2009-02-22T15:19:00.000-08:00

The recent uproar over the New York Post's publishing of this crude cartoon

(click for full view)

has brought to light one of New York's little dirty secrets. For right in the heart of this enlightened, cosmopolitan, liberal capital of culture there is a newspaper that is as ideologically disconnected with Gotham as is Sarah Palin. The New York Post didn't become the most embarrassing thing to do to paper since the invention of toilet tissue overnight. It has long been a bastion of conservative punditry, Republican apologetics, and right-wing fear mongering.

Known best outside of New York for its outlandish headlines (such as the recent one with Alex Rodriguez's face under the not-as-clever-as-they-thought headline of A-Hole) and the notorious Page Six gossip column, which the paper often proudly advertises on the upper right hand corner of the cover page, the Post has actually long been a source misinformation and faulty reporting more loyal to its right-wing owner than to journalistic integrity.

Some quick examples that come to mind are wrongly announcing Dick Gephardt as John Kerry's choice for running mate in 2000, giving space in their newspaper to hate-mongers like Michelle Malkin (a woman who despite her Asian ancestry still wrote a book with the shameless title In Defense of Internment!) and conservative blowhards like Bill O'Reilly, who regularly gets called out for his shoddy reporting by Keith Olbermann so I'll leave it up to the Keith to fill everyone in as he does often on his eponymous MSNBC show, and referring to members of the United Nations as weasels (complete with doctored photos of UN officials with weasel heads) because they were stupid enough to not support Bush's brilliant Iraq war.

There's nothing new about the stupidity that the Post showed in running such an offensive cartoon, nothing new in the fact that they did not understand (or did not care to understand) the history of racist comparisons of blacks to apes, and nothing new in their insensitive treatment of minority groups. The Post has long showed itself to be quite unlike the city it calls home.

As a lifelong New Yorker, I am embarrassed to share a city with anything Rupert Murdoch-related. That I have to do so with his stupid newspaper and his repugnant television station drives me up a wall. I applaud those that are protesting and boycotting the Post for displaying their rightful anger at such a blemish on this city's intellectual landscape. While I believe in free speech (those in charge of the Post have a right to make jackasses of themselves), I also support the right of those protesters to make life a little more difficult for that arrogant snob Murdoch, who recently offered the most insincere of apologies for this scandalous cartoon. I urged the principal of my school recently to join the boycott and cease accepting the Post in our school to which she agreed. I am now asking others to spread the word and voice the intellectual consensus of our great city: That this is a city of tolerance, except to the intolerant. Boycott the Post!

Alan Keyes needs a padded room

2009-02-20T17:04:00.000-08:00

Really, Alan Keyes? Really? I mean we all knew you were an absolute laughing stock even within Republican circles, but now that you have claimed in a press gathering that President Obama is a radical communist and that he must be stopped or this country will cease to exist, you have exposed yourself as insane. Yes, insane. I say this without a slight bit of hyperbole. How else to explain calling Obama a radical communist? I mean Lenin, Che Guevara, Mao Tse-Tung, yes. But Barack Obama? Was your buddy George W. Bush a communist when the TARP bill was passed or banks were being bailed out at a record pace? And where was your anger when the party you so proudly represent sank this country into the hole in which it now finds itself? Really, give it a rest! Radical communists don't get voted in overwhelmingly to be President of the United States. But then again what would a perennial presidential electoral loser like you know about winning an election?

Alan Keyes ended his most recent lunatic tirade by deciding to delve into the now ridiculous argument that Obama was born outside of this country and therefore not truly the President of the United States. Somehow we've all been fooled! If Keyes doesn't consider Obama to even be qualified to be President, how about taking up the cause to the Supreme Court. He should be a pioneer and lead a challenge to Obama's legitimacy. Or maybe he knows that once his name is attached to any contest it's tantamount to a kiss of death. Could it be that Keyes himself doesn't really believe his own crock of lies and paranoia?

Alan Keyes, of course, has a reason to be upset with Barack Obama. In 2004 when Obama ran for senator, he was opposed by Alan Keyes who was trounced by over forty percentage points. Now, the jealous one himself is back to make the most outrageous far-right claims and do so with a straight face. The most troubling thing about his words is how he stated that Obama should be stopped, that he should be opposed or the country will fall. With the amount of crazies that share in Keyes's assessment, it is a legitimate concern that someone may be incited to violence over this idiot's comments. Alan Keyes has potentially placed in harm's way the life of the President of the United States, and has done so under the cloak of patriotism and indignation over Obama's claims of citizenship (a claim that has long since been verified).

At the core of his being, Alan Keyes is a failed politician, a man who has won nothing whatsoever in his life, a man who quickly losing relevance and doing anything within his power to maintain it. He is pathetic with a capital "P" and a sorry excuse for an American. How he can even think his opinion on one of the most successful men in our country's history matters is beyond me. In short, Keyes is a loser with a vendetta. Nothing more. With his conspiracy theory-filled rant, he also proved another thing, however: He's a lunatic. If he really has a problem with the President of this country and how that country is being run, let me borrow one of the far-right's favorite suggestions and ask Alan Keyes to get the hell out. In fact, for a moron like this I'll excuse the following crass remark about this nation often directed at under-served Americans with legitimate gripes: America, love it or leave it. Please, Alan Keyes, please, leave it! We are a much better nation without the likes of you around.

Motive?

2009-02-17T19:15:00.001-08:00

It's unbelievable to hear the coverage of the chimp attack in Stamford, Connecticut. Apparently, the American news media has failed to notice the last two million years of evolution that has separated us from our ape cousins. Words such as motive and rationale have been used in discussing the possible reasons for the attack when the actual reason has been staring at us all along: humans. Like most animal attacks, this one was solely the responsibility of a human being. Animals are peculiar beings, living only in the moment and not dealing with the more complex realms of thought such as reason and foresight. They act and never really think (at least in the most philosophical sense of the word).

This disturbing story has two victims, the woman that was mauled and the chimpanzee that was stripped of its natural life and forced to live in New England as a pet. Fox, certainly no paragon of journalistic integrity, reported the chimp as a household pet. I guess they think of it as no different than a hamster. Fact is that wild animals taken out of their natural element and expected to assimilate into human society are victims of abuse no matter how much love their owners give them. I have been sounding the alarm to friends and loved ones about the plight of animals for a while now, and the exotic pet trade is one facet of animal abuse that is rarely reported. Unlike the fur trade or circuses, it is much more difficult to consider exotic pet ownership abuse rather than a strange hobby.

We must understand that animals are not out to hurt us humans, instead, we are constantly hurting them whether we know it or not. It's an uncomfortable topic for many to read about because, simply stated, people love to consume the flesh of animals. No matter which animal or how it's cooked, people love meat. Despite the fact that it is jacked up on hormones, causes more global warming than cars, and has been linked to heart disease, meat will continue to be eaten in basically every meal by the majority of Americans. If we're not directly ruining the quality of animals' lives by raising them to slaughter and eat them, then we're encroaching on their territory, developing more habitats suitable for human occupation and disregarding the animal life that has resided in these areas for eons.

Animals are terribly mistreated when you look at the overall picture. For every dog or cat that is given a loving home there are countless pigs, cows, and other dogs and cats that are victims of human abuse. This chimpanzee is just the most visible victim of that abuse although he is not being portrayed that way. Anyone who knows anything about chimps understands how incredibly territorial and violent they can be. This attack should not come as a surprise, but to a nation raised on images of bike-riding and tuxedo-wearing chimps acting silly for our amusement, it feels like a betrayal. Well, the only betrayal is how this poor animal was forced to live an unnatural life that led to his eventual (and inevitable) outburst.

Let me sum it up this way: If a chimp attacks a person in the jungles of Africa, it's probably the human's fault. But if a chimp you own attacks your friend in the suburbs of Connecticut, it's definitely your fault.

Remember the Homeless

2009-02-15T08:58:00.000-08:00

I went to Penn Station a few weeks back to meet with a good friend of mine. We were traveling down to Washington, D.C. via bus and decided to meet inside the station before emerging to find our archaic mode of travel. Secretly, I was dreading the bus ride. Despite being genuinely excited to see D.C., I had terrible memories of long bus trips from my childhood. Once, for example, I took an eighteen hour bus ride to and from Knoxville, Tennessee as part of a chess tournament. Knoxville was enough of a punishment, but I also happened to catch the chicken pox just in time for the three-quarters-of-a-day ride back to civilization. Chess was simply not worth that much aggravation. But, I tried to put the thought of a sweaty, itchy ride behind me and just enjoy this relative zip of a ride (five hours) to a city I hadn't visited since my pawn-pushing elementary school days.

I felt really familiar with Penn Station, which is necessary to my sense of comfort as any new, strange place will instantly draw my paradoxical sense of paranoia and curiosity. My familiarity was due to having been to Penn Station quite a bit recently. I found myself going down for holidays to New Jersey and Pennsylvania to spend time with my mother-in-law or father-in-law so waiting for trains at Penn Station became a part of my week-off-from-work routine. This time, however, I was looking forward to sight-seeing around Washington and hopefully getting inspired to write a good story about the City of Marble.

So here's the scene thus far: Me waiting for my buddy inside the busiest transfer point on the planet eagerly anticipating my arrival in the world's most important capital city. It was just then, when I was looking for my friend in the crowd of faces (these strange faces seem to always look sort of like the person you're waiting for, don't they?) when I noticed that the station was populated by a large number of homeless people. I guess I had never really noticed them on my previous Ronin-style mad dashes through Penn Station with my wife (can't we ever arrive in time to just patiently stroll this station's corridors?), but the waiting game brought them to my attention. Instantly, I felt a deep sense of pity and guilt. Pity because there is a great deal of irony about living in such squalor while in the richest metropolis on Earth. Guilt because I couldn't understand how I could share a space with such desperate people and not even care enough to notice them. If I, a card-carrying member of the bleeding heart liberals, could be so apathetic to these people, then no wonder everyone else could step right over them as if they were litter. In so many ways, that is all they are to the general public: Litter with arms and legs (and hearts and minds and lives). It struck me as the most tragic thing I had seen in a long time. Why had I been so callous to the plight of these people when I seemingly would be one of the few to take up their cause? What could I expect in the way of true, quality care for the homeless from slimy, cold-blooded politicians if I couldn't care at all to even notice their existence? Where did this apathy come from?

I was in the midst of remembering how much money I had in my pockets hoping to spare some for at least one of them (this could hardly constitute charity, I know) when out from the crowd of pinchbeck friends emerged my actual friend, waltzing up to me unaware of the moral battle I had just waged inside of my own mind. We greeted each other, exchanged pleasantries and went along our way. Already, I'd forgotten about these poor human beings - again. Not until now, weeks later, did I even bother to think of them once more; their memory rehashed only because I was reflecting on my trip. This must've been programmed into me by years of sensory-numbing television and political propaganda, I thought. Surely, it couldn't be my fault. I was one of the good guys; one of the caring souls that knows all the little nuances about Darfur, global warming, and the health care crisis. Knows about them because I fight to bring awareness to these causes, and end the apathy that has allowed each of them to reach the point of critical mass.

But, the reality is that I didn't care because I chose not to care. The issue is so colossal and so overwhelming that I chose to pretend it does not exist, or that someone else is taking care of it, or that maybe the few times I threw a spare quarter at a train performer I was actually doing my part. We are all guilty (who can't remember feeling like a saint among sinners by merely being the lone quarter-donor to a singing vagabond on a train). I'm not sure if by giving clothes to a donation center I am doing much more than I was doing before I had my awakening in Penn Station, but I know for sure that it is the first step in doing more for the homeless of New York City. If nothing else, at least I'm not ignoring or forgetting them. And, I'll be doing one more thing: Bringing awareness to their cause as best I can. This space is a good start, but I can always do more. If I mention the homeless of our very own city as often as I've mentioned the plight of those halfway around the world, I will be doing something more than what I am doing now. So please give to those that are neediest among us - and speak about them to those you know.

I write this not to regain that saint-among-sinners feeling, but to hopefully bring to light the fact that all of us are guilty of being in the midst of abject poverty and simply not giving a damn. Spare a thought, and then spare one more. Keep sparing them until you remember these human beings everyday. Hopefully by remembering, you can find it in your heart to not treat them as a pile of litter. Let's do it together.

Ignore the Do-Nothings

2009-02-14T08:50:00.000-08:00

The Republican resistance to the stimulus package is the greatest proof of the party's asinine mindset. The party has completely lost its sense of how to properly govern and has devolved into a political critic of the ruling Democratic Party; a group of Roger Eberts watching every movie and deciding which direction to point the thumb, but themselves unable to create a quality film (and seemingly uninterested in doing so). As the nation continues plummeting into a recession that grows more frightening by the day, the Republicans are furiously battling for a lack of a response. Somehow, the party that got trounced in the last two nation-wide elections and was mostly responsible for this economic calamity due to their laissez-faire business philosophy believes that it still has a voice worth listening to - even if that voice is demanding a severing of everyone else's vocal chords. Simply put, the US electorate stripped the Republicans of any real voice, leaving filibustering as the sole weapon of the Do-Nothing Party (how appropriate).

So rather than actually work to help solve the problem, they are merely standing in the way of a solution to a problem they bent over backward to usher in. The only support they seem to be getting is from the bafflingly influential Fox News and conservative talk radio. Idiot pundits like Glenn Beck (perhaps the stupidest of the lot) are engaging in some retroactive continuity and actually arguing that the New Deal was somehow a failure; that it deepened the Depression and offers a lesson for why we should reject this Obama stimulus package. Of course, Beck offers nothing in the way of an alternative, but solutions have never been his forte. What he does offer is propaganda history that would leave Gœbbels blushing: The New Deal? A failure that did nothing! (Except of course provide social security, medical aid, public works programs, jobs, a foundation from which to be able to win World War II, and infrastructure rehabilitation from which we are still benefitting.)

All of this laughable revisionist history serves nothing but to further announce the descent into lunacy of a party once headed by such respectable men as Lincoln (but now highjacked by right-wing radicals). Why should this country and its ruling party take seriously the claims of a party that not only put us in this mess, but also put us in the mess that was the Great Depression? We really don't need men like Herbert Hoover again - sorry Archie Bunker. The eerily Hoover-like Republicans are years behind at a time when we need leaders that think years ahead. People that cause problems cannot stand on soapboxes and expect to draw much more than hurled tomatoes.

Remember, it's impossible to take fire safety advice from a smoking arsonist with an empty gallon of kerosine in his hands.

Abe and Chuck's Excellent Adventure

2009-02-12T14:25:00.000-08:00

Two hundred years ago, Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin were born.

Conservatives be damned!

In one day the man that would liberate black American slaves and the man that would show us all why we were always acting so ape-like in the first place would enter a world not quite ready for their genius. And two hundred years later, I sometimes think it's not much more ready. So I got to thinking, as is my wont, and I posited the following conundrum to myself: What would they say if they were to somehow see the present-day world? I know what we'd like them to think: Wow, modern-man, you've really used our legacies for greatness, promoting equality and rational scientific thought, respectfully in our honor. But is that really the world we've created? Of course not. So what would a trip to the present from these famous birthday boys be like? Let's just imagine.

Sad to say, "Honest Abe" would probably demand another visit from Booth if he ever saw the sorry state of his political party. So radically different is his party, in fact, that now the Democrat Obama is the one that most invokes his name and history. When's the last time you heard a Republican mention Lincoln, anyway? Reagan sure! But Lincoln? Though I imagine Lincoln would feel the enormity of his presidency when seeing a descendent of the human beings he freed in the office he once held, it's difficult to think that when Lincoln was drawing his final breaths he'd believe that a full century and a half later his would be the party that has a hate-monger (and just overall doofus) like Rush Limbaugh's overwhelming support. Or that his would be the party that let a black town like New Orleans drown, or has let blacks and other minorities drown (just more slowly) through years of social service-cuts and business friendly tax laws. Sure, Lincoln freed the slaves, but his political descendants have done all they can to deny the sons and daughters of those slaves the right to enjoy that freedom.

As for poor Darwin, he would enter a present day with folks fervently arguing for the scientific validity of a thousands years-old document of old Jewish stories. It'd be comical if it wasn't such a threat to the minds of young children in certain sections of this country that stories filled with talking animals and Sun-less Earths (for two whole days in Genesis! Though it's hard to know how a day was counted without the Sun) would be proposed as a viable alternative to the overwhelming consensus of the scientific community. What would dear old Charles Darwin do when faced with mockeries like the Creationist Museum, which proudly displays dinosaurs side by side with cavemen? I'm embarrassed to even ponder the thought. How could you reconcile the argument that we've come such a long way since his great discovery with a monstrosity like the Kansas school board? Even with more than a century of evolutionary science (which has, itself, evolved into a more precise understanding of the biological history of our planet), some people will still choose to believe that there is more science in a Flintstones episode than in a science textbook. What else is the father of modern biological science to think other than, "these intelligent design advocates - here's more proof that we're really just apes"?

So happy two-hundredth birthday to these two historical giants. I'm sorry that some of us still don't get that their lives made humanity better.

Obama's mea culpa IS change we can believe in

2009-02-04T14:03:00.000-08:00

It's difficult for even the most ardent Obama supporters to not feel embarrassed by the recent developments surrounding Tom Daschle and other nominees for various government posts. It's also a scary glimpse into the strange Twilight Zone that is Washington politics. How these people could not think that avoiding tax-payments would somehow come back to bite them as they take government positions (some of them in economic posts!) is ludicrous to the nth degree. Only in Washington can a mentality like this be fostered.

Hearing every one of these folks tell of how they made oversight mistakes that led to their tax payments falling short (amazing how no one ever makes a mistake and pays too much) was reminiscent of the buffoons that Major League Baseball sent to speak about steroids. Remember Mark McGwire refusing to discuss the past (as if he was there to discuss his exciting post-baseball retired life) and Sammy Sosa flat out forgetting the English language?

But perhaps more ludicrous is the indignant reaction of the Republicans who opposed the selection of these individuals. While their resistance to these appointments is certainly justified, it is clear that pure politics is at play with their phony outrage. Again, only in Washington can a political party that just supported and perpetrated eight years of torture, wire taps, Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, two quagmire wars, Scooter Libby, and the exposure of Valerie Plame (among unbelievably more) sound a moral outcry over taxes. One wishes they were so vociferous when this country's image was being torn asunder bit by bit.

Nevertheless, perhaps what is most memorable of the past few days in Washington is the reaction of President Obama to this entire situation. Sure he could've blamed others for an obviously faulty vetting process, he could've even decided to defend his appointees against mounting, damning evidence, or maybe he could've laced into the Republicans for their hypocrisy. But then that would make him a bit too (pardon the absurd expression) Bushian.

No, rather Obama did something that is becoming increasingly unsurprising the more we get to know his character - he manned up. And, he apologized. Yes, apologized. Our President.

Over the course of the last eight years the American people did not get so much as an admission of wrongdoing, let alone an apology. And several apologies were certainly needed to begin making amends for the list of grievances stated above. Obama did exactly what many Americans would've loved to see from George W. Bush at least once, and it wasn't for torture or false pretenses to war or anything else that serious. It was for an understandable mistake from an abundantly busy man that is hard at work trying to rectify the bungled mess he inherited. If Obama can be this forthright with an issue such as this (less of a big deal than these slow news days would have you believe and certainly far less a big deal than Bush's endless controversies) then there is tremendous hope for what this administration will bring in the way of (much-promised) change.

Some have said that this is the first blip on the Obama radar screen; the first blemish of a previously spotless character. I respectfully disagree. Perhaps it is because I never looked at Obama as perfect but rather as a breath of fresh air badly needed in Washington. So, he made a mistake. At least he admitted it, and will learn from it. This reaction to an embarrassing situation has done nothing but show that Obama is a different sort of personality than what we are used to from the strange world of politics. So forget the blip - this is just more proof that the Bush days are over and we are in a new era of rule in Washington. From the perspective of a citizen that lived for eight years under an administration that saw no evil, heard no evil, and spoke no evil, I'll take a straight-forward admission of a lapse in judgment any day.

Language Imperialist Gillibrand a bad idea for New York

2009-02-01T20:52:00.000-08:00

Kirsten Gillibrand's appointment to the U.S. Senate comes as a major disappointment to many who value immigrants' rights and the language diversity of our country. Gillibrand's record in supporting these issues has been nothing short of atrocious. In her quest to appeal to the much more monocultural and monolingual upstate region for which she served as representative, Gillibrand threw her support behind English-only initiatives and anti-immigrant pandering. One is baffled to understand why such a divisive figure would be considered, let alone appointed, for the vacated senate seat of now Secretary of State Hilary Clinton. The reasons are aesthetic, of course, more than ideological. Gillibrand is a woman (important in finding a replacement for Clinton) and she is from upstate. Turns out that before Gillibrand's appointment, not one statewide elected official was from anywhere in the State of New York but the five boroughs of the City of New York. Gillibrand fulfilled two criteria that were seen as vital to appeasing the various groups interested in who would replace Hilary Clinton.

However, Gillibrand's appointment missed the point that she is now a representative for every single person in the entire state - including New York City. An English-only position sounds every bit the ridiculous, cultural imperialistic piece of malarkey that it actually is when one spends a bit of time in a city like ours. New York City is a city of many, a city of diversity, a living, breathing example of E Pluribus Unum. Walk the streets of the Bronx and listen to English mesh with Spanish in a beautiful linguistic dance that boldly displays the heritage of its inhabitants. In southern Brooklyn, Russian is heard as it is in Moscow. Our Chinatown and Little Italy and Koreatown and Spanish Harlem are testaments to our rich culture and not detriments to a dominant language. For someone who supported such a narrow vision of the language diversity in this nation to be supporting a state with a city like ours is downright ridiculous.

Language imperialism is the most subtle of genocides. Think I'm delving into hyperbole? Well, then consider what any of the aforementioned cultural groups would be without their language? The answer is one of two possibilities; neither very good. Either they would be stripped of any sense of their history and their heritage rendering them indistinguishable from the dominant culture. Assimilation on this scale is eradication. Or, they would be forced to use their language only in social settings among themselves. The mostly poor immigrants that come to the United States would be rendered the sole caretakers of their home languages in our country leaving English to dominate the intellectual and academic spheres. This creates a classist paradigm based solely on language.

This nation has many great aspects that make it a truly wonderful experiment in history, but our youth also brings much ignorance. Fact is, of all the industrialized western nations, we are the only one that is striving for monolingualism and proudly doing so. Nowhere else in the western world is multiple language use seen as a problem to be rectified. Rather, it is seen as an enrichment to individuals and to the country as a whole. This has been the prevailing social consensus in New York City for a long while. Now that Kirtsen Gillibrand is representing all of New York, she is quickly doing an about-face and trying to be more open-minded about issues of language and immigration. She is trying to seem more like us - think more like us. Or at least seem that way. This is all a show, of course, and changes nothing about her mentality. Considering how these ideas were actually seen as a positive in her previous life as a representative of an upstate district, one must wonder if perhaps it is even worth it to have statewide representation from areas upstate. Fact is, the City of New York pumps the blood that makes the State of New York live. And if these ideas are the type coming down to us from upstate, then maybe there was a reason why statewide representation came solely from the more cosmopolitan and progressive-thinking New York City.

Kirsten Gillibrand is currently being opposed by various groups unconvinced that she will offer full and fair representation to her constituency now that her constituency includes speakers of various languages and immigrants of all stripes. Considering her asinine positions, it's hard to blame them.

Change you CAN'T believe in

2009-01-31T07:15:00.000-08:00

Why did the Republicans elect the first black chairman of the Republican National Committee at this time in history? Clearly, they're looking for an identity makeover after the trouncing they received at the polls in 2008, but the decision to elect Michael Steele strikes me as being quite predictable, if for nothing else, its intention to appear unpredictable. Think back to the campaign season of 2008. Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama are battling it out for the Democratic nomination in a historic battle that saw Obama eventually defeat Clinton and her vocal supporters. To feed on the bizarre anti-Obama sentiments of Clinton's backers in the early going, the Republicans tapped not a well-known or established politician, but Sarah Palin of Alaska. Ya betcha! This move was supposed to catch everyone by surprise and make it so that the female supporters of Clinton would vote based not on issues but gender. They misunderstood that Hilary Clinton is not just a female politician, but a skilled one that stands ostensibly for workers and health care and a slew of other issues that Palin wouldn't be caught dead supporting. Predictably the Clinton supporters came home eventually to overwhelmingly support the more-ideologically similar Obama. The Republicans chose a poor substitute for Clinton, one based on the most superficial of factors - her gender. They could not bother themselves to see beyond this simple aspect of her being and paid the price for it.

To prove that those that ignore history are doomed to repeat it, that was not the first time the Republicans had based major decisions simply on physical appearances. Back when Obama was running for the US Senate, the Republican machine plugged Alan Keyes in to challenge him. Keyes had run for President several times and was a well-established, but highly unpopular, figure in Republican circles. His selection would've been cause for eyebrows to be raised no matter where he was chosen as the Republican nominee. It brought a particular bit of interest to Illinois all those years ago, however, because Alan Keyes was something that made his running against Obama national news - he was African-American. The Republicans had seen Obama and looked past all the qualities that have endeared him to the American public at a 69% approval rating. They missed his charm, charisma, ability to communicate, world experiences, unifying message, and instead focused all their narrow energies on his black skin. The result was an embarrassing landslide victory by Obama. Lessons not learned will continue to plague those who do not learn them.

The election of Barack Obama proved that people crave a message of hope. He ended up carrying this all the way to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Unfortunately for the Republicans, hope is replaced with cynicism almost without exception. As soon as the press had reported Obama's presidential victory, Republicans were busy trying to find their own Obama. The names suggested proved that they were still missing the boat on who this man really is. Bobby Jindal, the far-right Governor of Louisiana, was mentioned as one possible answer. That Jindal is a fierce opponent of gun-control, abortion rights, and basically anything else that made Obama so appealing to a country tired of right-wing policies seems to have once more eluded the Republican Party. Rather, all they saw was a man of color (Jindal is Indian-American) who is tall, thin, handsome, and well-spoken. This is all they see as Obama's positive traits. This is all they focus on. Ignored is the fact that Obama united pockets of this country that had long been told that they were as different from one another as they are from the Chinese. So-called Red and Blue states forgot all the pundit-fueled junk and voted according to their own minds, united by a message of hope, peace, and equality. Jindal will find a hell of a time trying to do the same with his old and tired message of guns, forced births, and draconian immigration policies.

Undeterred, the Republicans yesterday decided to elect Michael Steele as head of the RNC. I will not knock Steele's credentials. Certainly, his long career in government qualifies him for the job of Chairman - and underestimating him is to the detriment of the Democratic Party. What I find most peculiar about this selection is the incredibly clear message it is sending from the party of Palin, Jindal, and Keyes: we, too, can be for change - and with a black leader all our own! Once more, the Republican party has chosen to be reactive rather than proactive and ignored all that makes Obama a revered leader even before his first fifteen days in office are up. It's not just that President Obama is black, or young, or handsome, or a great speaker. It's not his family, or his experiences, or the way he carries himself - it's all these things and more. But to the party that thought Sarah Palin could be a good replacement for Hilary Clinton or that any politician of color regardless of message or stance could substitute for Obama, all this historical president is is a black man who inspired change - somehow. How shallow a view can one have of Barack Obama? Good luck in 2012!

The Audacity of a Dope

2009-01-31T05:57:00.000-08:00

Rod Blagojevich continues to prove that there's no depth to which he won't sink. Just when you thought he couldn't dig further into the bottom of the barrel, he lifts the barrel up and finds the gall to express how he is now unemployed like millions of other Americans. For this disgrace to express any kind of fraternal bond with the millions of suffering Americans struggling to find work is the height of arrogance and delusion. The majority of Americans that are unemployed now are the real victims of the Wall Street greed that sank the US economy. While the government continues to dole out billions to corporations that are not even shamed enough to fully cut out bonuses, the people that have actually had their lives ruined by the failing economy continue lagging unassisted and increasingly desperate in a nation with rising costs and no health care program to speak of.

None of them deserved this. None of them decided to lie, cheat, or steal in order to amass more power or personal gain. None of them were crooked and conceited, living only in the moment and expressing no foresight with regards to their actions. None of them were guilty of doing what the executives in the banking industry - with the full consent of their leashed dogs in various political offices - did to deserve their current predicament. And they sure as hell did not try to sell off a high-ranking political seat formerly belonging to the President of the United States. Rod Blagojevich placed himself in the position that he currently finds himself. Whatever fate awaits him after this much-deserved impeachment is something that he should blame no one else for but himself.

It is an insult and a travesty that this moron, who continues to find himself the topic of cable news programs and a guest on the talk show circuit, can even compare himself to poor workers in Ohio or Michigan or Iowa. The decency he lacks is magnified by the audacity of his words. None of this months-long meltdown has taken place in private. The public lunacy of Rod Blagojevich had made his corruption transparent, and - here's the thing - he obviously does not care. I fully believe that Blagojevich believes he will be vindicated somehow. That by comparing himself to average Americans or heroic figures such as Martin Luther King, Mandela, or Gandhi (can't remember them ever wanting to sell a political seat) he will become like them - understood, accepted, and celebrated. (The irony that he compares himself to men that fought for equality in their own times yet tried to sell off the former seat of a President that has reaped the rewards of such battles escapes him, of course.)

One day, no one will remember this idiot. The jokes on late-night television will move on to the new subject of the day and 'Blago,' the ridiculous haircut, the profanity-laced phone calls, and the bizarre press conferences will all be a part of the past. At the rate stories are refreshed on the daily news landscape of America, he may well struggle to be remembered by the end of this year. However, now that he is fresh in the minds of the American people it is impossible to resist throwing a metaphorical tomato at the image of Rod Blagojevich - a man whose sheer refusal of the reality surrounding him has made clowns like Jim McGreevey and Eliot Spitzer seem almost more dignified for the way they accepted their fates and stepped down quietly.

And that is a true accomplishment, though not the one Blagojevich wanted I'm sure.

A Bronx Tale (the Proselytization of the Poor)

2009-01-25T13:55:00.000-08:00

Taking a walk down the Bronx's Kingsbridge Road, one sees all the usual sights of an urban New York setting, including the ubiquitous six-story brick apartment building. Vast parts of the Bronx look like Lego sets with so many of these geometric six-story dwellings on both sides of any given street. The buildings almost always look old and weathered offering only their fire escapes as a poor substitute for decoration. I'm not sure why this rectangular prism nightmare of a design ultimately won out in the Bronx, but it undoubtedly did. Maybe the simplicity of the design coupled with its form-follows-function blandness made it a perfect representation of the recently-immigrated America in which they were originally built; an architectural facsimile of the protestant work ethic and the idea of assimilation. No nonsense - we are here to work (and maybe fit in). Nonetheless, this is the Bronx I have always known. It's the Bronx that those before me have always known, and the Bronx that those after me seem destined to know. I'm willing to bet that if you peer into the Bronx in a few centuries you'll see flying cars impatiently honking at a line of traffic ahead of them as they snake around six-story brick apartment buildings.

Looking elsewhere one sees murals of graffiti - not the scribbling initials of some two-bit gangster wannabe but the high-quality variety, if that makes any sense. Sure it's technically vandalism but how could one equate three stupid letters spray painted in black to the elaborate and colorful murals of Kingsbridge (one of which includes a spot-on picture of Charles Bronson). You read right - Charles Bronson. I've wondered how a Hollywood actor like Bronson gained enough notoriety in this graffiti artist's mind to be splashed on a wall in this tough Bronx neighborhood. It seems that Al Pacino is not alone in being beloved in urban areas for his badder-than-bad portrayals in movies. Still, seeing Charles Bronson on a wall in the Bronx is pretty amusing. I also wonder who will adorn the walls of tomorrow's gritty hip-hop-influenced urban landscape. Matt Damon, maybe?

Walk further and you see other stalwarts: bodegas - three to a block, Chinese food restaurants that sell anything but genuine Chinese food (how many french fries do you think are cooked in the homes of Beijing?), and 99-cent stores that now contain the words 'or less' and 'or more' on their awnings rendering the original purpose of the store irrelevant. I actually got into a conversation with a cashier at the local 99-cent (or less or more) store and explained that the words on the awning made it just a store with no price incentive or built-in bargain. She smiled and packed my two-dollar deodorant in a plastic bag. I felt silly. Somehow things like this go unnoticed in the Bronx. It's the type of thing that people notice only when they come from the outside world to visit. Although I grew up in the Bronx, I am far enough removed now that things like the non-sense awning are visible to me now. I wonder how many things I did not notice growing up in my neighborhood; how many absurdities like fried plantains at Chinese food restaurants or misspellings of words like video (vidio) I just took for granted. I point these things out not to ridicule my home borough but to illuminate the kind of mentality that makes it possible to live on these mean streets and survive: you mind your business, I'll mind mine. Funny sign outside a store? No big deal, let it go, it's none of your business. So long as the stores have lottery tickets and cheap bathroom and kitchen items, no one seems to care. This mindset is extended to the streets. If you don't mind your business, you can get in some serious trouble. I still remember this last and most important message. Even now when walking through neighborhoods like Kingsbridge I keep my head down . This is not done out of fear, but out of a sense that I am not there to judge or be judged. Remember: you mind your business, I'll mind mine. Being a bit of an outsider now, however, I can also benefit by looking around me and finding humor in what is forever the urban culture in which I was raised. Sure it makes me irritated and even frustrated to see the ignorance around me - what else would an insular existence breed? - but I've also been raised on the precepts of cultural relativism and, as a result, just take in the sights and sounds with a peculiar interest.

This is the Bronx. And yes, despite it all, I am a proud resident. I explain the ways of the Bronx because parts of the borough are under intellectual attack. As a teacher, I am charged with reversing the trends that create unquestioning and accepting minds in neighborhoods like Kingsbridge. I demand my students to ask questions, take nothing for granted, and break free of whatever existence has been cut out for them. I want to create independent thinkers - to hell with test scores! These kids need a brain that functions at maximum output. This is my charge and I take it quite seriously. Thus, when I walk around the neighborhood and see the aforementioned things, I know what I am up against. No, I will not be able to change the neighborhood, but I will be able to change its young residents - hopefully enough to send them out into the world and change it for the better. But while it is fairly easy to combat the ignorance of the street (believe it or not most of the kids understand how pointless life is without an education and take their jobs seriously, too) what is not easy to combat is a systematic assault on the intellect and spirit of Kingsbridge. An assault from, of all places, Utah.

This may seem absurd at first, but look around Kingsbridge - beyond the Lego buildings, beyond the not-so-Chinese restaurants, beyond the could-be-any-price convenience stores. What you'll see is a community flooded by young white men in standard dress clothes with funny name tags. These young men are from the Mormon church. Let's get this straight now: I have no problems with Mormons at all. I believe vehemently in freedom of religion, no matter which one it is. In other words, if anyone wants to waste their brain energy on something like Mormonism - be my guest. I'm not here to convince anyone that Mormonism is ridiculous even in a field of ridiculous ideas like religion. Any religion that any adult chooses is fine by me. Hey, at the end of the day it's your time being wasted and your intellect being suppressed. My issue lies with the Mormon church's recruiting efforts. In my own experience, it is painfully clear that the young recruiters sent to save the souls of Kingsbridge are willfully targeting poor immigrants with their message. After all, besides poor immigrants, there aren't very many other people to choose from in neighborhoods like Kingsbridge. In their accented Spanish, they have their spiel all laid out: are you happy with your church? Would you like to come join ours? We have plenty of folks like you just waiting to be your friend!

To an immigrant freshly dropped in the neighborhood, it's candy to their ears. They long for a sense of belonging and acceptance. Wherever these strange young white men came from, their message sounds great. They're far friendlier than the other residents and how could God be a bad thing. I've done everything short of beg to get one of these young men to speak to me. I'd love to get an official statement about their targeting of needy immigrant populations in the Bronx - or at the very least an uncomfortable denial. I've yet to be spoken to. Maybe I'm too assimilated or well-dressed - beware if you've got on traditional clothes or work clothes because they WILL be talking to you.

I don't mind any religion trying to increase its numbers. Like any enterprise built on people buying in, religious groups have to recruit new members to believe the fairy tales they spew. Without it, they will go the way of the dinosaurs (which incidentally many of them believe coexisted with our ancestors). However, I do have an issue when poor, under-served immigrants are singled out for their susceptibility to the message being offered. It's easy pickings, but it's also unethical when you think about it in terms of the poor people that are being recruited. Their conservative message will serve nothing more than to make my job more difficult. What do you tell a student who is being raised on ideas like immortality and nineteenth century prophets?

To think rationally and scientifically about the world around them?

I understand that any of a number of students can be members of conservative, even fundamentalist, churches, but no other congregation is aggressively sending more of its soldiers into the war than the Mormons. The utter novelty of the faith and its conservative structure makes it highly difficult to question or independently think once a member. It's young men and women have consistently displayed a more regressive mentality than that of the rest of the country throughout the decades. The latest example of this occurred in California when the Mormon church was largely responsible for stripping gay Americans of their right to marry. Utah, home-base of the church, voted overwhelmingly for John McCain in an election that saw him lose by nearly two-hundred electoral votes to a man that wouldn't have been able to join the Mormon church as a full-fledged member as late as 1968 because of the color of his skin. No wonder it was difficult to elect him president, for crying out loud! Again, I bring this up not to single out the Mormon church (believe me no religion is free of criticism from my cynical mind) but to show that the intellectual capital I am hoping to invest in the minds of Kingsbridge's youth is now firmly being battled over by forces on the other end of the intellectual spectrum. If they were recruiting fair and square, talking to everyone and including everyone, I wouldn't mind it so much (maybe they could stand on the corner with pamphlets like the fun-loving Jehovah's Witnesses) but it's their focused approach on those most in need that sickens me. If there is anyone who should be spared a conservative religious groups propaganda it should be the poor citizens of Kingsbridge Road in the Bronx and communities like it. This is one situation where you wish the Mormons would accept the unspoken Bronx ethic that binds its neighborhoods together: you mind your business, and I'll mind mine. After that, I'll go back to doing the same.

Access to the Axis (or how the concept of evil is archaic)

2009-01-25T12:12:00.000-08:00

There is something uniquely American about the way we express contempt. Much like the rest of our culture (and our waistlines) America's emotional output is super-sized. It should come as no surprise then that people or nations with whom our government have disagreed over the years are not just poor leaders, or men with whom we disagree, but rather they are evil. You know, evil. Like Darth Vader or Lex Luthor or the Devil. Not just evil, but if they've expressed sentiments against America (whether or not they're justified is irrelevant) then they are damn evil!

This is why we constantly hear the name Hitler in the news. All of our enemies are either compared to him or outright called the Hitler of our age. Ahmadinejad? Evil, anti-Semitic, Iranian Hitler! Kim Jong-il? Evil, nuclear, Hitler of the Orient! Hugo Chavez? Fatigues-wearing, Castro-wannabe, Socialist...Hitler! (Socialist Hitler?) Repressive Saudi and Chinese regimes guilty of crimes against humanity even toward their own citizens? Allies, of course. Ah, well it all makes sense to those folks who think America is an exceptional and infallible land under assault from all sides by the All-Star Axis of Evil multi-cultural Hitlers. But to the rest of us, the idea of evil as an actual factor in who we deal with diplomatically is a primitive idea that is best left in the distant past. While America ought to be a force of human rights in the world (in earnest) we should also maintain a pragmatic approach with regards to the aforementioned leaders. In fact, a pragmatic approach may well be the very best tool in promoting human rights around the world.

It is the hope of many that Barack Obama's election will usher in a new age of diplomatic relations around the world. With the way most of the rest of the planet has greeted his election, it appears that the world is also ready to rid itself of the antagonistic foreign policy paradigm laid down by the previous American administration. Truth is, there are no more Hitlers in the world. The perfect storm of events that led to the rise of the infamous Nazi leader are difficult to replicate, if not impossible. No one is advancing on their neighbors with brutal military force, murdering civilians in the name of expansion, and threatening to purify their continent of enemies amongst the list of rogue world leaders above. Osama bin Laden fulfills the role of the Hitler of our time far better than any world leader but he is rather the head of a clandestine terror organization. On the other hand, Ahmadinejad and Kim Jong-il are much more Francisco Franco than Adolf Hitler: much talk, abusive to their own, but little more than an empty threat to the rest of the world (think of the occasional false bravado of North Korea against its southern neighbor and the ludicrous threats of the Iranian republic). While I am not dismissing Iran's nuclear ambitions, fact is that Ahmadinejad may well see a need for a nuclear weapon diminish with a new American foreign policy approach. Even Kim Jong-il, not exactly a paragon of compromise, was willing to include concessions on his nuclear arsenal when America chose to diplomatically engage his nation.

Let us not forget how the people of these nations are who we should ultimately try to win over. When we shut out a nation, like we have with North Korea, we allow their government to win the propaganda war by forfeit. That North Koreans have grown up for generations thinking of our government as evil is the result of hard-line American foreign policy over the years. It's a damn shame that a nation like ours, ostensibly free and independent thinking, probably has similar feelings for the North Korean peoples. This absurd status quo must come to an end! If America can become a leader on the diplomatic front and lead by example, people in the nations that have long troubled our leaders will begin to see our nation as so many other people in the world have long seen us: a shining beacon of freedom (whether or not we are deserving of this title is beside the point). We must understand that many of these people are scarred not just by years of isolation at the hands of our nation and its governments, but because of some frankly awful policies that we have supported and/or initiated over the years.

This has all escaped the majority of the American people and, seemingly, our leaders due to political indoctrination over the years. The Iranians don't hate us because they're evil or because we're evil, it might just have something to do with our removal of their democratically elected government decades ago and its replacement with an American-backed monarch. Yes, that's right, a monarch - in the twentieth century! (Didn't we reject a similar system back in the eighteenth century?) And is it that difficult to see why so many Latin American nations have turned to socialist, often anti-American, governments when the Monroe Doctrine and the Roosevelt Corollary are still proudly taught to our school children?

With this in mind, may I offer a metaphorical toast to our new administration: here's to the hope that Obama can usher in a new age where even the most 'evil' of nations can shed the cartoonish reputations we have built up for them over the years and be invited to the adults' table for dinner. It's just up to us to leave the kiddy table first.

The Most Watched Jan. 21, 2009

2009-01-21T19:44:00.000-08:00

Hilary Clinton's confirmation was a foregone conclusion way back in November. No one really doubts her ability to serve as this nation's top diplomat. She will use the relationships she has built over her many years in politics and work her hardest to spread a renewed message about America to a world eager to hear such things. Doubtless, President Obama's selection of Clinton as Secretary of State was seen as one of his easier, yet still best, decisions.

Still, because of the financial relationships of Mrs. Clinton's husband (Bill I believe is his name), some chatter was heard about potential conflicts of interests. It was mostly partisan bickering. For anyone to truly believe that Hilary Clinton would be hampered in her duty as Secretary of State because of Bill Clinton's past associations, they would have to believe her to be unqualified from the get-go. Yesterday, Hilary Clinton was informed that her nomination would be held up - forced into a role call. The culprit was Texas junior senator John Cornyn. Mr. Cornyn indeed brought up the financial dealings of Bill Clinton's post-presidential activities. He spoke of how concerned he was about what these relationships would do to the integrity of Hilary Clinton's post. This was all, of course, rubbish. Mr. Cornyn was not concerned with any of this but chose instead to get his name in the news and seem like he was standing up to big lefty Hilary for all his Texas constituents. Today, Hilary Clinton was confirmed as our nation's new Secretary of State by a vote of 94-2. A real nail-biter, I know.

Nothing like having the people's time wasted and making government drag its feet needlessly all at once. Heckuva job Corny? In the midst of all this post-Obama inauguration talk of post-partisanship, we got a clear reminder yesterday that in many, unfortunately irreparable ways, Washington D.C. is still Washington D.C.

Oh and in case you were wondering, John Cornyn voted to approve Hilary Clinton's nomination. Who else could be chosen as today's Most Watched other than the suddenly more famous than he needs to be junior senator from George W. Bush's Texas?

The Most Watched is awarded to the person making the most interesting, funny, talked about, or bizarre news of the day.

Caroline, we hardly knew ye - and that was precisely the problem

2009-01-21T18:19:00.000-08:00

And just like that, it was, you know, all over..you know? Tonight, Caroline Kennedy withdrew (was pushed aside?) from consideration for the vacated senate seat in New York. Should it come as a surprise to anyone that Kennedy was overwhelmed by the weight of this potential job from the very start? Exactly what were Ms. Kennedy's qualifications aside from her bloodlines? To remain honest in the world of politics, one must remain objective. After the fiasco that was the candidacy of Governor Sarah Palin in 2008, no liberal worth his or her weight could justify supporting Caroline Kennedy as Hilary Clinton's replacement. Fact is, an unprepared person for an important government position is an unprepared person for an important government position no matter their political leanings. I, for one, did not oppose Sarah Palin's candidacy because of the 'R' next to her name (though that little letter never seems to help anyone when it comes to me). Rather, I opposed her because she was unqualified to hold the office of the second most important person in our government. Her candidacy, quite honestly, was a threat to the national security of this nation - especially when considering that the man before her in succession was cancer survivor in his seventies.

Thus, the same standard must be held when someone from the Democratic Party comes along with equally flimsy credentials. Caroline Kennedy was not ready weeks ago when her name first appeared, she was not ready when she gave her first interview and in typical Palin fashion became a YouTube sensation, and she was certainly not ready today when someone (who cares who?) finally made the wise decision to not make hypocrites of the Democrats. Caroline Kennedy may be a fine person and an honest individual, but enough to represent the State of New York in Congress? I think not. If, indeed, Governor Patterson was behind this as so many suspect, well then kudos to him for standing up for what is right. While Kennedy would have been even more of a media sensation and received all sorts of praise from the entrenched liberal elites of the greater New York political scene, her appointment would have been utterly embarrassing. Don't believe me? Well just flash back to the campaign of 2008. Governor Palin is being grilled by media outlets with 'gotcha' questions about tough subjects like current government policy and reading. Her credibility was being rightfully put on trial. Now try to remember what the number one piece of evidence held up by her sycophantic supporters was. Her experience. Yes, we all laughed. How could governing a state as remote as Alaska prepare you for the office of Vice President, we snickered. But the truth is, absurd as it was, that ridiculous resumé of Palin's was more than what Kennedy could boast - far more. Now that one places it in that kind of perspective we begin to see what a disaster her appointment would have been. New York can breathe a sigh of relief.

I do feel badly for Caroline Kennedy, don't get me wrong. I don't enjoy schadenfreude (at least not when it comes to likable people), but this is the jungle that is serving - or in this case, merely being considered for service - in public office. To demand proper prior work experience for an appointed position to the most democratic of our three branches of government is not unfair or mean-spirited - it is our duty as constituents. In this way, I am proud that either the hierarchy of the notoriously do-little New York State government was able to understand this entire situation for what it truly was or that Caroline Kennedy herself was clear-headed and honest enough in deciding to back down. Or maybe it's uncle Ted Kennedy's health that made the decision easy. Either way, the Governor of New York State will eventually name a junior senator that will not be constantly second-guessed or mocked or worse of all, do a terrible job because of inadequacy. Anytime government, at any level, could avoid the last of those scenarios, it is a victory for the people.

The Most Watched Jan. 20, 2009

2009-01-20T20:06:00.000-08:00

This is by far the easiest decision I'll have to make all day. While the Most Watched award is not a top newsmaker award (otherwise today's winner would probably win every one for the next four years), today there is no debating the choice. In the age of cynicism, of doubt, and of apathy, to run a political campaign on the promises of hope and change may have come off as naïve or perhaps even pretentious. To have done so for the office of President of the United States makes the task of victory all the more daunting. To do so an man of color with an African name is not just remarkable, it is awe-inspiring.

This country has not been so united in its optimism in quite some time. Many have recalled the Kennedy campaign and subsequent victory with its youth and excitement, but this is far more meaningful because it is not just a victory of the young and progressive. This is a victory of the oppressed, of the denied, and of the ignored. Those that were shut out of yesterday's national discussion are now dictating the terms of the today's. People are empowered, openly and shamelessly stating their belief in America's bright new sunrise. The cynics have been silenced. In the midst of war, a recession, and two terms worth of broken promises, the cynics have been silenced. For this, amongst his many other remarkable feats, Barack Obama - President of these United States - is the Most Watched person of the day.

The Most Watched is awarded to the person making the most interesting, funny, talked about, or bizarre news of the day.

This generation will NOT be unaware of what they saw today

2009-01-20T18:23:00.000-08:00

This was quite a day. So often we search for those such moments that we'll tell our children and grandchildren about. Today was, without any hyperbole, one of those days - chock full of those moments. Seeing Barack Obama being sworn in made me think of how lucky we are to be living through this monumental historical event. And how lucky we are to be joined to our technologically-driven minds. This post is a defense of our modern, technological way of living - and the advantageous results that have sprung from it.

Let us take a trip backward in time to another memorable historical occasion - one that was often brought up in the prelude to today's inaugural speech . Truthfully, it's hard to picture those gathered at Gettysburg a century and a half ago understanding the magnitude of the speech they were listening to. Understanding that it would echo through the annals of history and be recalled for generations as a benchmark to strive toward whenever a crowd gathers to hear a speech. That moment was set in the midst of a watershed moment in American history when national society and culture were changing at breakneck speed, and yet no one there could have been as knowledgeable of their place in history as anyone in Washington today.

This historical implication of the speech at Gettysburg is entrenched in the collective memory of the American people. Its words are recalled with ease and regularly referenced. The moment so iconic that it's almost difficult to accept that there was ever a time when people couldn't download 'fourscore and seven years ago' into the memory. After today, we will feel the same way about seeing Barack Obama take the Oath of Office.

This is no stretch. Seeing an African American man become president is one of those events in the future that many of us thought we'd never live to see - and yet we saw it today. Children born after today will forever grow up in an America that elected a black man to its highest office. They will not think of a black president as an unrealistic occurrence but as a point in history; a point we have now lived through.

We are a fortunate generation. Our habits, so often derided as superfluous, have made us crave information with a ravenous appetite. We are no longer contented with waiting to be home and going online - we must be able to access the web from our phones. Gone are the days when a website could take more than three seconds to lad without drawing our ire. Cellphones have even become the documenting instrument of our time as people take the first opportunity to whip them out and record any moment they deem worthy of sharing in the future. Our dependence on technology is often seen as a negative. It separates us into individual computer users too busy texting to look up and be social. It has, however, created a certain desire for knowledge that can be easily quenched. Far more easily, I would contend, than in the past. People search for answers often receiving them within a few clicks. People, in other words, are not just more easily informed, indeed they are better informed.

Knowing this, I imagine that everyone of the millions of people that crammed into the National Mall today understood the implications of what they were watching. No one there was unappreciative or ambiguous about this momentous event and its resonating effect on our history. The generations of yesterday saw many historical moments in much the same way as the millions of people in Washington did today. The only difference is that everyone today knew that their descendants would be reading about what they saw today in the future.

Those who control the past...

2009-01-20T11:57:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, the propaganda machine that is Fox News Channel continued the far right's revision of history. The formula is quite simple: believe not your memories of the last eight years, for you are surely mistaken. Rather, allow the powers-that-be and their media minions to sort it all out for you. Details you once thought illuminated the flaws and deceit of this administration can now be shown as they truly are: groupthink misunderstandings (or should I say misunderestimatings?)

To be fair (and balanced), Fox News is not alone in the construction of this retroactive continuity. Rush Limbaugh, Michelle Malkin, and countless other right wing voices are all guilty as well. In fact, this very administration initiated this exercise in mass brainwashing months ago when, in interviews with various media outlets, they elicited the name of none other than Harry S. Truman (I know - it's shocking whenever Republicans reference any former leader other than Ronald Reagan). So, why Truman you might ask? It's devilishly simple, really. You see, Truman was an extremely unpopular outgoing president (sound familiar?) who is now remembered fondly by history. Bush is hoping that his fate would be just as Truman's: an unpopular present existence followed by vindication in the future. I'm sure George W. will look back and forgive all of us peasants for having doubted him. Does this all sound so simple that it could never work? Keep in mind, this is the Republican party - it is in their devilishly simple tactics that they find the most success. Of course, these simple tactics are often equally simple to debunk. Take for instance the fact that they ignore how Truman could forever claim victory in a little thing called World War II or that he helped rebuild Europe's infrastructure with remarkable rapidity. What claim could Bush makes that even comes close? But we mustn't forget our duty to debunk them. Failure to do so out of some sense of intellectual superiority has always led to some rather unfavorable results in the past.

I'm sure some of their other outrageous claims are now coming to mind. You know them all - that they inherited a recession, that Iraq will eventually become a beacon of Middle Eastern democracy, and that torture actually produced some credible, viable intelligence that's helped keep us safe for the last seven years. The last seven years, they say. You know, as if that massive attack their first year is akin to a mulligan in golf. This is but a sampling of what the propaganda machine is churning out these days. All of them flimsy arguments that could easily be exposed for the malarkey that they truly are when exposed to just a sliver of light. To believe that Bush inherited a recession when it actually began a full two months after he took office is laughable. Even more so when considering that the two presidential terms that preceded Mr. Bush's first were filled with economic prosperity unseen in decades.

Then, of course, there's the claim that Iraq will eventually become something of a Middle Eastern Sweden - a democratic oasis that could be utilized by future administrations to help strengthen relations with the troubled region. History, unfortunately for Mr. Bush, is not on his side in this regard. How often has it been seen that democracy is forged (or forced?) from the top down? Anyone who believes that a thriving democracy could be formed in the Middle East through American military intervention is ignoring the lessons of history. It is precisely this type of mentality that has fostered such hatred of America in the troubled region. And who can take the claims of democratic expansionism by Bush and his cronies seriously while an intolerant monarchy like Saudi Arabia remains a top ally in the region?

We would be remiss in forgetting perhaps the most insidious of this administration's many sins: torture. The administration argues that it received viable information through extreme rendition (or whatever euphemism they choose to use to hide their war crimes). For those of us who uphold the values of the Geneva Convention, who still believe in human rights and the decency of America as imprtant factors in our dealings with the world, who still and forever view torture as a means not worthy of any end, that argument, coupled with the lack of proof of any prevention to a major terrorist attack, is simply not good enough. Fact is that high level intelligence agents have long since debunked the myth that torture can lead to anything other than faulty information. Sorry fans of '24' but Jack Bauer would make one lousy officer in real life.

Fast forward eight years after the attacks of 9/11 and bin-Laden is still a free man, al Qaeda has branched out into Iraq, and the Taliban is making serious gains in the battlefields of the impossible-to-conquer Afghanistan. Kept us safer, you say?

But leaving all that aside, yesterday an even more outlandish claim came to us courtesy of a talking head at Fox News. His name - as if it matters which of the deaf, dumb, and blind made the statement - is Wendell Goler. Mr. Goler made the following claim with a straight face (though I don't know how): that George W. Bush inherited the attacks of 9/11. Inherited them. Like a trust fund baby turning eighteen. How exactly does one inherit a terror attack? Did one plane strike minutes before Mr. Bush's inauguration followed by a second attack afterwards? As I've discussed, this isn't the first claim of inheritance by the far right. Bush apparently also inherited a recession, remember? Poor guy!

Well, this all begs the question: if Bush shouldn't deflect responsibility for the recession of 2001 since it started two months into his first term, why should he deflect responsibility for an attack that occurred a full eight months after he took office? That somehow Bush inherited the attacks of 9/11 is proof that this attempted mind-swipe will slow down for no one or nothing, no matter how crazy the claim may seem. Remember that memo Bush was handed in August of 2001? The one about how al Qaeda planned to attack the U.S. imminently? Yeah, that one. the one that Bush flat out ignored to further concentrate on his planned invasion of Iraq. And yet they still claim inheritance. I am not one of those conspiracy theorists who believes Bush wanted the attacks to happen or, more extremely, that he was implicit in their planning and execution. I am just steadfast in my belief that when this country most needed George W. Bush, he let us down by not acting swiftly and with leadership to stop the greatest threat of our time.

Instead, Bush fixated on the issues of yesterday. He wanted to finish a job that his father had started a decade earlier. His focus was so single-minded that he failed to understand the problems of today, and far worse, those of tomorrow.

And to you Mr. Bush I say this: the cowardice in claiming inheritance for the worst attacks in U.S. history is shameless. It was under YOUR watch that those buildings fell, under YOUR watch that those people died, and under YOUR watch that New York City and Washington D.C. were turned into war-zones. Take responsibility for once in your life and accept that this was all YOUR fault.

After this debacle, what's next for the talking heads at Fox? Will they claim that Bush inherited two failed wars? A market disaster? His embarrassingly low approval ratings? What will they admit was Bush's doing?

George Orwell wrote in his landmark 1984 that those who control the past control - not the present - but the future. Allow the Bush propaganda machine to continue pumping out these lies at our own peril. If the further we get from the attacks of 9/11, the further we get from the truth of that day, we will pay with the honor and integrity of the American people. We mustn't allow these lies to seep into the American conscience unchecked and unchallenged. Claiming intellectual superiority will get us nowhere, as it did in the elections of 2000 and 2004. We must combat these claims by exposing them and then tactfully deconstructing them. This must be done to prove wrong the words of Hitler himself, master propagandist, when he said, 'if you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed.' Indeed, let us not forget that Orwell also wrote that those who control the present, control the past. Luckily it is us, and not this outgoing administration or Fox News or Wendell Goler, that control the present - if we so choose. It's apparent that the outgoing administration and its cronies are hard at work trying to do the same.

The Most Watched Jan. 19, 2009

2009-01-19T19:09:00.000-08:00

It is not often that we get a glimpse into the way political deals are completed. We hear announcements and proclamations as if they are being revealed even to the parties involved for the first time. Joe Biden is announced as Barack Obama's vice presidential candidate and we all believe that he's hearing it for the first time like the rest of us. Call it our vanity or perhaps the internet generation's refusal to believe that anyone could be in the know before them. Of course we all know that this can't be so, but so long as these juicy news items continue to be completed in private, we will continue either fooling ourselves or waiting for the rare tidbit that may leak out.

Call it our lucky day!

Today, courtesy of Oprah (who else?) we got that fly-on-the-wall status that all politico-fanboys crave. To hear that Joe Biden was offered his choice of Vice President or Secretary of State was a revelation that came as unexpected as any we have heard since the campaign season began two years ago. It illuminates those dark meetings that we often never hear of or hear of only after all the potentially embarrassing details have been sorted out. That Hilary Clinton may indeed have been the vice presidential candidate in Biden's stead is the logical conclusion. The dream team of Obama-Clinton that Democrats were drooling over was thusly avoided based solely on the whims of the Biden family. In other words, the Clintons were having their futures decided by the Bidens. Who still doubts that this party now belongs to the Obamas?This is all very interesting stuff.

Naturally the P.R. wizards immediately got to work trying to explain away Dr. Jill's statements as a case of mistaken details. Joe Biden was never officially offered the post of Secretary of State. Sure - just unofficially we are to presume. It's a preposterous thing to believe (particularly since rumors of this exact story had been heard before so today's nugget comes more as confirmation than revelation), but what else is there to say after such a moment of candor?

So thank you to Dr. Jill for giving us a rare peek into the world of political dealings and bringing just a little more light to the darkest regions of our headlines - and doing it all on Oprah! The look on Joe's face was priceless, by the way. For that, Dr. Jill Biden, you are the Watchman's Most Watched person of the day.

The Most Watched is awarded to the person making the most interesting, funny, talked about, or bizarre news of the day.

We are not yet a post-racial society

2009-01-19T08:57:00.001-08:00

The issue of race has long caused folks in this country to cringe. We are to be a colorblind society oblivious to the divisions that have long kept us separate and unequal. For those of us living in the real world we understand that this is an unrealistic goal. The following statement may shock some people who have long strived for a colorblind society as a solution to the racism that has plagued us: a colorblind society is detrimental, no matter how well-intentioned, to the cause of creating a post-racial society. Which inevitably brings us to the question: what exactly does it mean to be a post-racial society?

With talk of such a society reaching a fever pitch since the historic election of Barack Obama, there must be a careful and responsible definition of the term. Colorblindness is, by definition, a position of ignorance. It chooses to ignore and deny the reality around us, opting for a collective mental enema that makes social thought-criminals out of anyone intrepid enough to acknowledge or discuss race. It looks upon the rainbow that is our country and see a dull, gray arc. A post-racial society cannot be one bred in defiance of the truth but one bred in reason and intellectualism - one that can intelligently use the lessons of the past and thusly strive toward a better, more cohesive future.

Order at the expense of knowledge is a tyranny of the ignorant. We must reject this existence for ourselves.

Since we have already discussed the differences between post-racial and colorblind, let us no longer confuse the two. Rather than colorblindness, let us strive for a respectful color-conscious society that chooses to see and know our differences - that fearlessly confronts the most uncomfortable qualities from the underbelly of our nation. Indeed, a color-conscious society is a more realistic society capable of reaching the post-racial status.

So once more, what is a post-racial society? I define post-racial as a society that acknowledges the differences between us, fully respects those differences, and celebrates our ability to overcome those differences to form, as our founding fathers put it, a more perfect union. In other words, America ought to be a nation that is greater than the sum of its parts. We ought to look at our nation and see the rainbow in its full splendor. Each color of the spectrum holding up the other and standing united as one. This is a post-racial society. One that sees the racism that led to the annihilation of the Native Americans, the enslavement of Africans, Jim Crow, and countless other stains on the fabric of our nation, and still can find a way to unite for a common goal. Let us never turn a blind eye to the lessons of our history but rather apply them now as we inaugurate the first African American in history to be elected President of this nation.

This is a very paradoxical Martin Luther King day for me. I've always reflected on the racial and social divisions in our nation on this day and have seen the distance ahead of us needed to reach the dream that Dr. King so eloquently proposed in Washington forty-five and a half years ago. This year, however, I - like many other Americans - are not looking solely at the distance ahead but the ground we have covered behind us. In just two generations we have gone from segregation to Inauguration, and for that we ought to stand tall and proud as a nation capable of achieving such a milestone. Not even the nations of Europe, often seen as a paragon of sophistication, have elected a black man to their highest office. No doubt for this we have already rightfully received the admiration and awe of the world from those first-world nations on the European continent to the perennially neglected third world.

Here lies the potential obstacle to our march toward Dr. King's dream, however. Appropriately enough, it is the election of an African American man as President that has triggered a feeling of final accomplishment in the social war on racism. Let us not fall prey to this trap! It is precisely now that we must stand up and lead an active movement of empowered and dedicated citizens in backing the election of Barack Obama with a full-fledged assault on the racism, hate, and inequality that still exists in this country. We must at this time demand the true and complete fulfillment of King's dream. Not just that we end the racial divisions that exist all around us, but that we together build a better nation that can fully embody the potential of 1776.

There is a festive mood in the air. Just look at the crowds in our nation's capital for proof. This should be a time of unity and celebration but not of complacency. Let us not forget that we still are the only nation in the industrial world to not provide free health-care to all its citizens, still a nation that denies marriage to a section of its population, and still a nation that has the memory of the Jena 6, the murder of Jose Oswaldo Sucuzhañay, and the death of Oscar Grant fresh in mind. I bring up these incidents not to detract from this momentous occasion (of which I am immensely proud) but to place this time in history in better perspective.

We are, for all our accomplishments and achievements, not yet a post-racial society. It pains me to make that statement on this day and in this time when we all are celebrating the election of a man himself described as a post-racial candidate. However, the facts remain as they are. Obama has stated several times since November that he is not a messiah or a deliverer. Indeed, this is true and must not be forgotten. Winning a race does not mean pushing ahead of your competitors, it means finishing the race first. We are ahead now as a nation with an African American president but we are not yet finished. Remember that it is possible to look back and celebrate our accomplishments while still moving forward as a nation. We have a long way to go, but the same was said in 1963 by Dr. King - and look how far we've come. My only message is the same one that I believe the man we celebrate today would have: let's not stop now.

Welcome

2009-01-18T18:27:00.000-08:00

I've long debated sharing my beliefs, thoughts, and general musings through the now ubiquitous blog. While simple vanity is always a reason behind any blog (what else would you call a forum where you think people want to hear your ideas?) I also feel that my views are unique enough to inspire some genuine debate and thought provoking discussion.

For any and all who will eventually read my postings I say welcome. I enjoy a good debate and shun no thought or idea in the name of ideology. In other words, censorship is not an option for me when it comes to political discourse nor should it be for anyone truly in search of a better world. In fact, I welcome disagreement believing that it leads to a more accurate discovery of the ultimate goal of any intellectual: truth.

My views are sure to upset some and cause incessant agreement from others. Beneath it all, I too have a political ideology and hold fast to some beliefs that will inevitably lead to my being labeled. It is our nature to categorize, after all. My goal, however, is to cause enough deep and stimulating discussion to feed the mind of the reader and lead to more discussion on all ends. Let this blog be a forum to counter ignorance and complacency leading to more inspired and informed citizens. Indeed, an informed public is an empowered public. May we do our part at the very least.