contents of a tea cup

The morning began with the primary election in the state of Mississippi and my anxious concern over maintaining the transparency of the vote not just in the South, but in the Midwest.  Pennsylvania waits.  Here in Ohio, the previous Secretary of State, Kenneth Blackwell, strong-armed county Board of Election offices into purchasing expensive and dated EVS (Electronic Voting Systems) machines which are as flawed as the humans who program them.  Indeed, in Toledo, voters in at least one township were not offered the entire ballot.  Our new SoS, Jennifer Brunner, recommended that some areas stop using the EVS machines and instead vote on optic scan ballots with pencil, which I find curious because in our township house we’ve always been offered permanent ink.  Pencil can be erased.  Voters in our county have been told that EVS machines are NOT computers but something analogous to a microwave oven.  We’ve been assured that our votes are completely safe.  In Chicago this February, voters on the North side questioned pens that wouldn’t make a mark.  They were told that the pens contained “invisible ink”, and their votes would count.  Unfortunately, optic scan machines cannot read “invisible ink”.

The problem, I concluded, was that for all the time spent registering voters, stumping, canvassing, and driving them to their polling places, once inside the precinct, the voters are on their own.  This March in Ohio, Jennifer Brunner rejected polling place observers even though they carried letters of notification.  Transparency, apparently, is no longer permitted in the voting booth in the United States of America, or at least in Ohio.  First-time voters must be educated and regular voters must be reminded of their rights and options.  If I can be sure that the electorate knows how to manage their experience while casting their ballots, then I can be fairly certain that the election results are trustworthy.  I am ready to get to work in Pennsylvania.

Determination is sloshing from my cup.

Despite the release of a thorough and factual memo by former director of the U.S. State Department Policy Planning Office, Greg Craig, debunking Senator Hillary Clinton’s assertions that she has ample foreign policy experience, the afternoon would take a frustrating turn.  A once public figure is the ideal surrogate to cry foul based on sexism and “reverse” racism.  Geraldine Ferraro had nothing to lose by losing her cool.  What client wouldn’t want to hire that fierce and unrelenting warrior for consultation?  Former U.S. Representative Ferraro asserts that the only reason U.S. Senator Obama has achieved his success is due to his skin color and gender.  Apparently, no other person of color has run for President of the United States except for Victoria Claflin in 1872, Shirley Chisholm, the first African-American woman to be elected to Congress in 1968 and presidential candidate in 1972, Jesse Jackson who ran in 1984 and 1988 (whom Ferraro also blasted for receiving biased attention), Dr. Lenora Fulani, the first African American to get on the ballot in all 50 states in 1988 and 1992, Alan Keyes in 1996 and 2000, the Reverend Al Sharpton, Jr., in 2004, the same year that Carol Moseley Braun became a candidate for president. 

For many years, African Americans have had a better chance running for President of the United States than they have becoming a quarterback in the NFL.  In 1953, Willie Thrower became the first black quarterback.  It took almost fifty years after the Chicago Bears brought that differently-colored person in before black quarterbacks would become customary in the NFL.  Prior to the 1980’s, only four black quarterbacks had seasons in which they attempted 100 or more passes.  Of course, black quarterbacks are only hired because of their skin color, while no regard is made for their ability to make wise judgments of when to throw the ball and when to rush with it. 

Ms. Ferraro has done her job well.  I’m distracted.  The media is distracted.  People are distracted.  There are, however, some Americans who desperately long for a distraction because they have no means to secure healthcare insurance for their families.  There are some families who would like to go to sleep tonight and wake up knowing that their home will not be foreclosed upon, but a second notice sits on the kitchen table.  There are kitchen tables in America that have not seen the full bounty of our nation’s farmland for far too long.  It’s hard to get ahead when you’re hungry.  Without vast quantities of money to throw into a research grant, I’m going to have to assume that these families really don’t care if Senator Barack Obama got where he is today because of his skin color if he is able to motivate millions of people to care about the well-being of their neighbors. 

My cup is tainted with bitterness.

The election results came in extremely quickly from Mississippi with a win for Senator Barack Obama followed by an email shortly thereafter from the candidate himself.  My husband read the text aloud, “They’re not just attacking me; they’re attacking you.  Over the weekend, an aide to Senator Clinton attempted to diminish the overwhelming number of contests we’ve won by referring to places we’ve prevailed as ‘boutique’ states and our supporters as the ‘latte-sipping’ crowd.  I know that our victories in all of these states demonstrate a rejection of this kind of petty, divisive campaigning.”

After the losses in Ohio, Rhode Island, and the state-of-confusion results in Texas, many of the Obama-bloggers began to “flake out”.  I became familiar with “flake out” at the end of February when my husband and I volunteered at an Obama rally at the University of Toledo.  Duncan, the volunteer coordinator from Kentucky, explained the rules the evening before that would enable the rally to run smoothly.

Be nice.

Don’t run.

Know the answers.

Trust your captain.

Our answer for anything time related was to be “shortly”.  We were told not to pester the Secret Service and not to speak with the press.  Most importantly, he said, “Don’t flake out.”  As volunteers queued for metal detection and bag searches outside Savage Hall, three people began to make absurd and unreasonable statements.  One person not dressed for working four hours outdoors during an Ohio winter said, “I’m so cold!  They better let us in!”  Another person said, “This isn’t right.  We’ve been out here working all day, and they’re not going to let us in!”  A third person said, “We got shafted!  All of us who have been working outside got shafted.  We should have worked inside.  We got shafted!”  The complete and unabridged definition of “flake out” was demonstrated flawlessly before me.

A person standing next to me repeated Duncan’s words from the night before, “We’re here for the Senator. “

Some of the Obama-bloggers were just as flaky venting their frustrations after the election returns on March 4.  At the time when I needed my Obama community most, they were aggressive and draining.  Up until then, we had been very effective using self-policing measures.  Many of us reminded the group that, “We’re here for the Senator.”  I would add that we’re also blogging for the undecided voters.

Apologies began to trickle in now and then proclaiming a deeper understanding of our purpose.  I turned to timelines of suffrage and civil rights as well as Senator Obama explaining, “If it was easy, I could simply mandate change.”  If ending slavery, gaining the right to vote, breaking the glass ceiling, organizing farm workers, obtaining gay rights, amongst other things were easy; one person could have simply made them so.  However, it takes convincing; it takes a true challenge to create real and lasting change.  Could it be accurate that some Obama-bloggers were merely fair-weather-friends? 

After a win in Wyoming and some much deserved rest with his family, Senator Obama fired up Mississippi and his bloggers.  A couple of people watched his town hall and rally and cried, “He’s back!”  An astute blogger made it clear that our candidate never left.  It was the bloggers who had split.  “Look at the top of this page.  It says that the Senator is not asking us to believe in him, he’s asking us to believe in OUR ability to create change.”  Perhaps, now we could get back to work, I hoped.

In a quiet moment after receiving Senator Obama’s post-Mississippi email, it dawned on me quite suddenly that the test and challenges of March 4, weren’t for the bloggers I had been scolding.  Instead, it was MY belief that required testing.  You see, I have absolutely every confidence in our candidate.  His word is his oath.  Where I fell quite short was my belief in my fellow Obama supporters.  I didn’t have enough confidence in the bloggers to see beyond a temporary setback.  I am utterly ashamed of myself.  I apologize to my community.  I denounce my doubt.

At the end of the day, Geraldine Ferraro and others like her who espouse divisiveness and baseless claims of unfair treatment have no power over me.  It’s my choice; I won’t let them. 

My cup is replenished.  Barack Obama didn’t fill it for me.  He encouraged me to do it myself.

I have some extra to share.

 

 

Bulls, Bears, and Obama

Junior bulls and bears: School promotes financial literacy, gives kids money to invest

By DAVE CARPENTER , Associated Press

Last update: March 9, 2008 – 1:09 PM
http://www.startribune.com/business/16431301.html

CHICAGO – Like their peers elsewhere, the students at a one-of-a-kind public elementary school on the South Side of Chicago are dazzled by pop-culture stars — Beyonce and Common, Kanye West and Lil’ Wayne, LeBron James and Dwyane Wade.

Listen closely to the hallway chatter at Ariel Community Academy, though, and you may hear unexpected references to uncool dudes like Warren Buffett and Bill Gates. After all, these kids have their portfolios to worry about.

The Ariel school is an experiment in financial literacy with real-life oomph: Each incoming first-grade class gets $20,000 that the children ultimately get to pick stocks for and manage. The goal is to add an I — investing — to the three R’s, according John Rogers Jr., chairman and chief executive of Ariel Capital Management, the Chicago-based money management firm that established the school in 1996.

At a time when pensions are being phased out and people must rely more on their own investment smarts, Rogers thinks saving and investment should be an integral part of the curriculum at schools across the country.

“It’s important to have all the reading and writing and arithmetic skill sets, but we can’t think of anything else more important than to be able to be financially viable and competent as you start to build your working career,” he said.

Experts say easy credit, aggressive marketing and the dizzying array of financial products and cashless spending options have led many American consumers astray, making it more essential than ever for kids to learn about money.

Iowa State University professor Tahira Hira, a member of the newly formed President’s Advisory Council on Financial Literacy, is among those advocating that personal finance be required teaching at every elementary school.

“People who were brought up with some lesson in saving or borrowing act differently than those who weren’t,” Hira said. Opening bank accounts for children, buying them stock in a fast-food company or the company that makes their favorite toy, teaching them to spend some, save some and give some away when they receive cash as a gift — “our research shows that all those things do matter,” she said.

The Ariel school’s success can’t be fully judged until its first graduates, now juniors in high school, make their own mark. But high math test scores give it a blue chip reputation and some cachet for its students in a mostly black, high-poverty area.

When eighth grader Victoria Bills talks about investments with her friends, for example, “They’re like, ‘Oh Victoria, that’s like so cool!’” she said. “They’re like, ‘I want to go to that school.’”

That’s music to the ears of the 49-year-old Rogers, who has long put a special emphasis on trying to encourage other African-Americans to save and invest more.

A South Side native, Rogers first got enthused about investing at age 12 when his father began buying him different stocks every birthday and Christmas.

After graduating from Princeton, where he was captain of the basketball team, he started Ariel when he was 24 with his own savings and investments begged from friends and family. Today, it has more than $13 billion under management in three mutual funds and separate accounts for 89 institutional clients. Rogers is also a close adviser to Sen. Barack Obama, who lives just five blocks down the street from the school in the Kenwood neighborhood.

Inspired by a symposium he attended on financial literacy in the mid-1990s, Rogers had Ariel team with fellow Chicago investment firm John Nuveen & Co. to fund the innovative school program.

The concept is simple: Ariel’s experts manage a $20,000 portfolio for each class until sixth grade, briefing them regularly along the way, and then begin turning over the decisions to the children. Upon graduation from eighth grade, each class returns the initial investment amount to the school for another first-grade class and donates, invests or pockets the profits.

After giving half the gains to community charity programs or school initiatives, each student can then take the rest in cash or invest it in a Section 529 college savings plan, in which case they are given an additional $1,000. Last year, 80 percent of graduates invested their $150 shares in a 529.

The financial focus extends well beyond the portfolio at a school where hallways are named after Wall Street and other marketplaces, and students announce the latest business news twice daily over the PA system.

Financial concepts are woven into the curriculum, with first graders learning about core economic principles, for example, while eighth graders put together their own business plans. All 440 students are offered free tutoring from Ariel’s professionals on Saturdays, and the older kids have the chance to hear analyst presentations and attend meetings at McDonald’s Corp., where Rogers sits on the board of directors.

There’s nothing dry about such schooling to these kids, according to Connie Moran, the school’s director of financial education.

“When I say we’re going to talk about money today, they don’t go ‘Eeeeewww’ like some kids might,” said Moran, a former bond analyst. “It’s like saying we’re going to recess — that’s never a problem.”

Moran said her students soak up financial information like sponges. Besides, she noted, “We don’t wait until our students are 16 to teach them how to read. Why wait until they’re 16 to teach them how to manage a bank account?”

Twice a week or so, junior boards of directors elected by the seventh and eighth grades gather around a table under a giant mural depicting a bull and bear to discuss their class holdings.

With the whack of a gavel one recent day, they were off and running. The lively discussion touched on everything from the merits of the maker of Ugg boots to their tendency to load up on tech stocks to whether they should profit from companies that make weapons used in the war in Iraq.

Student Jordan Lillybridge likes sitting in the boardroom.

“It gives me an opportunity to express my opinion on which stock we should pick — especially me and Sony, because I am a big fan of Sony,” said Lillybridge, who is 12. “Also Panera Bread.”

Bills, too, revels in the whole experience, keeping tabs on financial news and monitoring her class’ stocks at home.

“When I go to this school I actually feel special, because I’m learning things that most kids probably wouldn’t even learn,” she said, adding that she hopes to make enough in the market to help her mom.

Rogers, whose company spends nearly $1 million a year on the school, would love to see it churn out future portfolio managers, accountants and investment bankers. But for now he finds it “absolutely thrilling” just to sit in on the children’s discussions about stocks.

Nurturing their education and watching them grow up and have fun with the stock market, he said, is “one of the greatest feelings in the world.”

___

On the Net:

Ariel Community Academy: http://www.arielmutualfunds.com/content/view/107/1067/____

http://www.coopamerica.org/

Reflection Fast

For those who are fasting in order to be extra mindful of today’s events, I’m thinking on you.  Your act, as you know, goes beyond just you, it will  have a positive impact on others.  Thank you for this gift of yourself!

For those who may have glycemic issues or just won’t have the energy to knock on doors or drive voters safely to the polls without a meal, may I suggest an alternative fast? 

In order to tie into a health-care plan that emphasizes prevention, in order to connect with humanity that cares about its planet, in order for neighbors to better identify with others in their community, try one of these…

- eat from a locally owned restaurant that is known for buying from local growers and reflect on the delicious indigenous flavors
- eat simple meals of beans and rice and reflect on the blessing of choice
- eat low-on-the-food-chain and reflect on the energy and water required to grow and transport your food

Invite someone to join you on your reflection-fast. 

If, at the end of the day, you find that your alternative-fuel enabled you to get through the day, try another alternative-fuel-reflection-fast next week.

Each time we consider where our food comes from and make our choices accordingly, we are VOTING for lower energy consumption, or less packaging, or supporting local growers and business owners, and our own good health.

 

When voting, choose well!

Choose a different path to the White House!

VOTE BARACK OBAMA!

It seemed as if every single one of my classmates was pulling one of those bejeweled cubes from their book bags and, by golly, I desperately wanted one, too. According to wiki, Rubik’s Cube arrived on Western shores in 1980. I was 11. My parents chose not to indulge any of my whining or pleading for the toy, but I couldn’t help but believe my life would be better, richer, and more complete if I had my own cube. One morning that year, I awoke from a dream that had weaved the tale of my eventual ownership and indeed, life was grand. The dream was so vivid that for a moment upon waking, I was sure I would be able to reach over and hold the cube in my hand. I also knew that having had an unconscious dream meant that my desire for that particular thing had become a true passion.

Seven years earlier, I had dreamt that I was outside on the sidewalk in front of my home and was gently lifted into the air by an autumn wind enabling me to fly, rather much like the Flying Nun. I was genuinely convinced of my ability to fly. The dream was so real: the desire to fly had become a passion.

When I fell asleep on Sunday evening, March 2^nd, 2008, in my home state of Ohio, the entire night was overcome with intense images that included canvassing for Barack Obama, organizing phone bank lists for Barack Obama, and helping with a meet-and-greet for Barack Obama. Whilst I was sleeping, I kept asking myself, “Am I still dreaming? Yes, I’m still dreaming. Is the election over yet? No, it’s not over yet. Is Barack Obama President of the United States, yet? No, not yet. So, it’s all just a dream?” It seemed as if I had hardly realized any benefit from shutting my eyes save one, the necessity for Barack Obama to lead our country from the White House has become a true passion. I truly believe that having Barack Obama as our President will result in our lives being better, richer, and more complete. No amount of whining or pleading on my part will make it so. I must participate in order to make my dream come true.

Participating is the whole point. Those of us who have made phone calls, knocked on doors, made T-shirts and buttons, donated money, and walked with clipboards and GOTV volunteer sheets the winding queue of thousands of people have participated. We’ve offered our skill set to the cause and gained more experience along the way. We are the sort of people who will continue to participate after January 20^th, 2009. We must participate if we want our government of the people, by the people, and for the people to succeed. The result will be a more satisfying, longer-lasting, farther-reaching democracy for everyone.

I never did own a genuine Rubik’s Cube, the one with the bright, solid colors. You know the one I am referring to, the toy with the well-known brand name that demands to be in every household. Instead, I collected cereal boxtops and sent for a grassroots cube instead. I didn’t simply save up a few bucks, rather I had to be patient, eat my cereal, cut out the boxtops, and mail in my request. Then, I had to allow six to eight weeks for it to arrive!

It is Tuesday morning, March 4^th, 2008. I have awakened from another set of intense campaigning dreams in time to hear the freezing rain that was forecast has arrived. There is still much more work to be done today. Twenty-four hours from now, we may still not know the results of the primary. It would seem as if the one thing this process asks of its participants is patience. It probably won’t take six to eight weeks, but it will take time. According to Jill Kelly, Director of the Lucas County Board of Elections in Ohio, four to five hours are required to run 10,000 ballots. If done openly and transparently, the time it takes to tabulate the results is secondary. Have a bowl of cereal and dust off the Rubik’s. It may be awhile.

Knocking on doors in Ohio for Barack Obama

My husband and I canvassed in NW Ohio today.
We had beautiful blue skies, and the temp hovered around freezing. We knocked on about 100 doors in an area that claims to be mostly Republican.

We were given lists of voters, maps, and canvassing supplies. I felt really good about the fact that we were targeting registered voters who would be receptive to talking briefly about Barack Obama.

If you have never canvassed before or are shy around people, I find talking person to person easier because you can learn what people care about before you even get to the door. Statues of Saint Francis, bird feeders, dogs, cats, historical neighborhoods all offer clues.

Nearly everyone we spoke with was UNDECIDED. We asked if they had any questions we might try to answer and if there is any one issue that was of concern. Everyone had a different answer!
- health care
- gas prices
- globalization
- job creation
- teachers / will pay be reduced for student performance?

There were lots of dogs and cats to meet, as well, which gave us the opportunity to speak to people about what Senator Obama has said about how we treat animals reflects how we treat each other.

We really think we had an impact today when talking with undecided voters. All the excessive time that I have spent on line reading up on the issues and the candidates feels like it has paid off because I can address the concerns of the electorate.

One door we knocked on belonged to my kindergarten teacher (1974). She smiled and said, “I’m voting for Barack!” Of course, we encouraged her to vote early because the polls are expected to be extremely busy here in Ohio.

I hope Ohioans prove to be made of as hardy stuff as some of our neighbors in the snowy, cold states. Tuesday morning March 4th is forecast to be cold and slippery. Be careful out there canvassing and voting! I went splat on the ice twice today.

Peace, hope, and denounce the bad stuff…

Ohio Obama

Some talk has been made of supporters of Barack Obama being infatuated or delusional.  My husband and I volunteered to greet and guide those who came to hear Senator Obama speak in Toledo.  When time allowed, I asked people what brought them to the Senator’s campaign.  Let there be no misunderstanding, Obama supporters are entirely grounded, sincere, and realistic to the challenges we face.  That 15,000 people could organize peacefully, patiently, and professionally in such a short time tells me, tells Senator Obama, and should tell everyone that we are ready for change and the responsibility that change entails.  Well done, Toledo.  Thank you.

Ohio, what’s in a name?

In 1969, I was born to Republican – Independent parents who lived a middle-class, civil-service, stay-at-home-mom lifestyle in a very homogenous Republican county in northwestern Ohio.  I still live in the area with a husband imported from southern Florida.  Though college graduates, we earn under $50K a year. 

Since Barack Obama’s 2004 DNC keynote, we have been closely following his stand on issues and his vision for the United States.  I thought I was well versed in Obama and could speak convincingly to any challenger with a CREDIBLE argument until yesterday.

Yesterday, I was waiting in a dentist office for my 96 year-old grandmother to have a cavity filled.  Two ladies from a neighboring county came into the waiting room and remarked on my vest covered in Obama buttons.  They both stated that they really like what Senator Obama says, but that his name was a little too Islamic for their comfort level.

I was stymied.  Those fear-emails that have been going around on this subject are easy to ignore because they are spammed by faceless cowards, but here were two human beings in front of me who deserved the very basic offering of respect.  How could I address them whilst keeping hidden my anger that they could aloud even say such a thing? 

They were expressing fear.  Earlier in the week, I wrote about acknowledging that fear is a motivating factor that Obama supporters should treat with compassion: http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/voteonpaper/gGgMtX .  The question was, would I be able to practice what I had been preaching? 

The first card punched with rectangular dots that my brain pitched out was, “It doesn’t matter if the candidate is red, white, or blue, striped, tooty-fruity, man, woman, gay, straight, one eye-browed, left-handed, ambidextrous, right-pant-leg-first, floss-before-brushing, atheist, agnostic, Mennonite, Mormon, Muslim, or Methodist, we need to hire the best person for the job.”  However, this was not the audience for that argument.

The next card suggested that I, “Point out that Mr. and Mrs. Obama are practicing members of the United Church of Christ. “  This tactic goes against what I believe, because it should not matter.  It may calm the fears of my audience, but doesn’t help Muslims live more safely or more freely.

The third card asked me, “What evils have been perpetrated in the name of religion?”  While true and Christians would be on the losing end of that debate, my audience might recoil at my dissing Onward Christian Soldiers.

When I relayed the situation to my husband, his first reaction was, “What’s in a name?  Take John.  Why should we elect someone whose name is John?  A ‘john’ is a toilet.  I don’t want a toilet for a president.  We’ve already had a “John” as President.  He was assassinated.   You know what a ‘john’ is, don’t you?  A ‘john’ is a customer of a prostitute.  Do you really want to get up everyday in the United States with THAT hanging over your head?”  I appreciated his argument because it points out the absurdity of the entire matter.

I continued to ponder the “fear-of-a-name” problem.  Senator Obama didn’t choose his name, his parents did.  In the early sixties when Barack Obama was born, Americans weren’t concerning themselves with Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden but with Communists and war with the Soviet Union.  If the young parents had named their son after a communist leader, one could make an argument about how they were going to raise their child.  According to a web search, the top three most popular boy names in 1961 were Michael, David, and John.  If Barack had been named “John Dunham Obama”, it wouldn’t have changed where he spent his childhood or who had a hand in his upbringing. 

This morning, after being reassured that Senator Obama’s wins have been by double-digit leads in the last ten contests, my mind wandered back to the two ladies in the dentist’s office.  Perhaps my trouble was I not only wanted to diffuse their fears, I wanted to win them over so they would vote for Barack Obama on March 4^th, if not earlier.  I found my brain resorting to fear trumping fear.  “Well,” I sighed , “what concerns me more than the origin of someone’s name is the practice of politicians selling off our interstates and toll roads to foreign companies.  Governor Mitch Daniels, the Republican Governor of Indiana and Governor Ed Rendell, the Democratic Governor of Pennsylvania, states which border Ohio on the west and east, have already or intend to sell off toll roads to the highest private bidder.  Foreign countries are hi-jacking our roads.  They can raise the toll at anytime.  There are non-competition clauses that prevent states from building or expanding near-by roads.  These roads were built by U.S. taxpayers.  We should control our roads, not private interests in Spain and Australia!  This is not the interstate highway system that Eisenhower envisioned!  (I’m on the soapbox now.  I’m using key words and phrases that speak to the concerns of the American people, and I threw in the name of a former U.S. President for good measure.  However, I haven’t addressed their fear, and I’ve compounded the problem with another fear.)

I need to change my aim.  Instead of trying to convert everyone I meet, I should simply and plainly address and calm their fear and counter with a different, positive image for my audience to focus on.  The positive seed is the one I want to be responsible for planting.  Nurtured by other Obama supporters they may encounter and by the actions and deeds of the candidate himself, the image will grow.  I believe that the seeds of truth and hope are making the difference as voters are deciding who will be inaugurated President of the United States of America on January 20^th, 2009.

 

 

 

No Time to Wallow in the Mire

For twelve years, I worked for a county government agency with about 20 employees.  I loved my work, but the administration was a retentive, micro-managing freak-show.  When disputes between admin and peons arose, we had to work hard to stay above the junk lest we prove to be no better than our keepers.  One of my dearest friends within the agency helped me through the mire by giving me a couple of images to hold closely in times of difficulty.

One image was that of a crab bucket.  I’m from the Midwest and a vegan, so I’m not familiar with crab buckets, but my friend described how if you’re a little crab in a bucket with a bunch of other crabs and you try to get out, the other crabs will reach up and try to pull you back in.  It is a helpless feeling.

The other was an old saying: Never wrestle with a pig.  You will get dirty, and the pig likes it.  (I think pigs are awesome critters, but I get the point.)

I put up posters in my workspace to remind me of my friend’s advice.  The images kept me above the lowest common denominator, and when the time was appropriate, I was able to resign with dignity and grace.

Participating in an election is exhausting work.  Senator Clinton and Senator Obama as well as their families have made extreme sacrifices in order to campaign for public office.  When election results and media coverage don’t go as planned, it can be devastating. 

I am loathe to say it, but from all appearances, Senator Clinton’s campaign seems to be operating out of a crab bucket. 

As supporters of Senator Obama’s campaign, we must do our best to blog and interact with respect.  There are some people out there who are afraid of change, but we know that, “Fear is a bad advisor.”  Accept that there are some people who would rather spend all of their lives in the crab bucket or the mud puddle than experience life outside.  Understand that they are afraid.  Show compassion even if they show hatred for the unknown.

Obama supporters can see beyond the moment of distrust and fear.  Inside our core there is an anticipation of the brighter day tomorrow will bring.  We want everyone to know that feeling.  That feeling is empowering and connects us to those who wrote America’s founding documents.  Some of our neighbors may be so downtrodden that the sensation of hope may be so foreign to them that they prefer the familiarity of fear.  Take their hand, literally or figuratively, and remind them that we will be here after even January 20, 2009, to see it through.

 

Kids, football, and what to do with those unseated delegates.

Responsible parents set rules for their children.  At a certain age, when children break the rules, they know there will be consequences and punishment to endure.  Responsible parents enforce the rules even if the children think the rules aren’t fair.  Responsible parents don’t give in even if the children whine and act out.  Responsible parents take these actions because they know by providing their children with a solid foundation of rules and consequences, their children will grow up to follow laws and standards of society.  This is the hallmark of citizenship. 

You can see the importance of following rules in games of sport.  For example, the National Football League has a standard set of rules that apply to games played under NFL jurisdiction.  The NFL rules aren’t laws, but they must be obeyed by players, coaches, and franchises involved with football.  If the rules are broken, those individuals involved must pay the consequences.  Sometimes breaking the rules can result in a small five-yard penalty.  Sometimes that five-yard penalty can affect the outcome of the game.  Fans can be affected even though they didn’t have a say in the rules or in the referees that made a call on a VIOLATION of the rules: their team might not make it to the Superbowl that year.  Nonetheless, rules are established prior to the beginning of the season so that there are standards, not chaos.

Florida and Michigan Democratic leaders knew the rules set by the Democratic National Committee regarding changing the date of the state primaries: voters could vote, but no delegates would be elected.  Perhaps the party leaders in Florida and Michigan thought that they could get away with breaking the rules, because they moved up the dates of the state primaries despite knowing the consequences.  Democratic candidates including Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama agreed to abide by the rules set by the Democratic National Committee and promised they would not campaign in Michigan and Florida.  The voters in these states did not get to meet and ask questions of the candidates.  It is unfortunate, but the state party leaders did not follow the rules.  As a result, the votes do not reflect a campaigned constituency, and the delegates don’t get to go to the party.

If anyone dislikes the rules of either the Democratic or Republican National Committees, I suggest he or she become more involved during the “off-season”.  Alternatively, candidates can always elect to run as an Independent and not be subject to the RNC and the DNC rules.  We’re in the middle of a primary election and cannot change the rules upon which have already been agreed. 

 
Anyone who insists that the rules should be broken needs to take a time out.

Fire Mary Peters

Transportation Secretary Mary Peters is the latest member of the Bush administration to break the law: She continues to give dangerous Mexican trucks access to our highways despite overwhelmingly bipartisan measures passed by Congress and signed by President Bush.

What would happen if you broke the law, or violated company policy? You’d be fired! So should Peters. Read More
Join Us at the Rally to Protest Dangerous Cross-Border Trucking Plan
Make plans to attend the Teamsters rally in San Francisco on February 12 outside the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco to protest the Bush administration’s illegal cross-border trucking pilot program. Download rally flier.

http://www.firemarypeters.com/