My congratulations go out to environmental activists in Iowa, for sustaining a great idea for the presidential primary season beyond that short time frame. The project is called Iowa Global Warming, and it was created by a combination of local and national organizations:
The idea of the Iowa Global Warming project was to use the attention of the Iowa presidential primary to bring pressure upon presidential candidates to pay attention to issues of climate change. Now the Iowa presidential primary seems long gone, but the Iowa Global Warming project goes on.
The Iowa Global Warming people have got exactly the right idea: Work on a global problem in terms of the location you find yourself in. I hope they keep it up, next year and for years to come. The problems of global warming are not fading away, and that’s why we need good organizations with equal staying power.
Barack Obama exposed - what is that like? Well, in Wilmington, North Carolina, it looks like humility. The text below is what Barack Obama had to say to a crowd of people there, and it wasn’t about what a great guy he is. Barack Obama talked about his failings, and the temptation to negativity he sometimes feels, and about how the important thing isn’t himself, but all the voters in America, and what they want.
When we started this campaign, I told my campaign team, “We can’t run the same old Washington textbook campaign. We can’t be just poll driven. We can’t be just worried about what the other candidates are saying. We’ve got to try to run a different kind of campaign that gets the American people involved,” and I am proud of the fact that we have succeeded.
But, I won’t lie to you. There are times when we sometimes get sucked into this whole negative thing. People throw an elbow at you, and you start feeling like oh, I’ve got to throw an elbow back. I’ve noticed over the last several weeks, I told this to my team, “We are starting to sound like other folks, starting to run the same negative stuff.”
It shows that none of us are immune from this kind of politics, but the problem is that it doesn’t help you. Having politicians bickering back and forth doesn’t help you. Having them worry about superdelegates doesn’t help you.
This selection is not about me. It’s not about Senator Clinton. It’s not about John McCain. It’s about you. It’s about your struggles, your hopes, your dreams.
Here’s a video of the speech:
Well, okay. So, Barack Obama says that the campaign is about the hopes and dreams and struggles of the people of North Carolina. But what are those struggles?
I’m talking about the silent struggle of a huge number of high school students in North Carolina who participated in the national Day of Silence protest. At one high school alone, 275 students joined in the protest. The numbers were record-breaking.
The Day of Silence was held to show solidarity against students and administrators who bully non-heterosexual students. It’s a shame that some school administrators, in coordinators with some church leaders, responded to the anti-bullying protest with new attempts at bullying of their own.
With the strength of the Day of Silence protests across North Carolina, in spite of massive efforts at intimidation, the Barack Obama campaign ought to take note, and remember that part of the hopes and dreams and struggles of many North Carolinians is just to live as equals, without having their safety endangered by people who cannot tolerate other people having the freedom to choose who they want to have sex with.
In Minneapolis, ObamaWorks volunteers are being called upon to “wear your Obama gear and come help serve the community,” in order to help prepare for and volunteer at the Powderhorn Park May Day Festival (I believe that the parade and festival will actually be on May 5th, not on May 1st).
Obama supporters will be have the chance to help out at art booths, doing stage coordination, or serving as block hosts for the parade. Sure, they will be wearing buttons showing support for Barack Obama for President, but that’s about it for the campaigning. They’ll be working for the parade and only campaigning in as much as they show that Obama supporters are people who are willing to help out their neighbors.
That seems like a very mature, responsible approach for Obama supporters to take.
Today, students in at least 55 schools across the state of
"http://www.cafepress.com/irregularstates/168718">Indiana are taking place in the national Day of Silence protests. Those are the number of schools from which students have officially registered their intent to protest. It is expected that students from many other schools in Indiana will participate without registering.
Students participating in the protests will remain silent throughout the day of school, in symbolic recreation of the silence in which non-heterosexual students often experience intimidation and even physical attacks.
It’s a protest against intolerance, and a protest against bullying, and a protest against violence.
There are some right wing extremist groups that are trying to organize opposition to the protests. What a shame it is to see such people organizing in defense of bullies in Indiana’s schools.
To those students participating in today’s protests: Thank you, and keep quiet.
The Old Man’s Lavender World cites the Des Moines Register as reading that 43 high schools across Iowa will be participating in tomorrow’s Day of Silence protests.
At these protests, students will remain silent, except perhaps during class when directly asked to speak by their teachers for instructional purposes. Their silence will be in protest against bullies who attack and intimidate non-heterosexual students.
The protests aren’t just happening in Iowa, of course. They’re taking place across the United States, and in schools in Canada too.
There will be some who, not getting the message of the Day of Silence, will attempt to indimidate and attack students who are silent tomorrow. Chin up to those who keep the protest strong.
Unlike traditional presidential campaigns, which just focus on how great the candidate is, the Barack Obama campaign has organized ways to bring out the greatness of the people who support Obama for President. It’s a form of community service campaigning called ObamaWorks.
Through ObamaWorks, people gather to work on projects to improve their neighborhoods. Last weekend in Missoula, Montana, for example, Barack Obama supporters got together to clean up a stretch of the Clark Fork River.
Now, does making the Clark Fork River clean help elect Barack Obama as President? Not directly, but it does show that Barack Obama’s supporters care about a lot more than just electing Obama President. There’s a great deal of idealism among Obama supporters, and yes, that does reflect well upon Barack Obama himself.
Politics aside, good for the ObamaWorks crew in Missoula for helping to keep Montana’s rivers clean.
The ABC News Democratic presidential debate this week was a new low point in a campaign that has exposed once more the profound superficiality of television news organizations. Although the ABC News moderators, Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopolous never could find the time to ask a single question about this week’s astonishing admission from George W. Bush that he now openly admits having known about, and even approved of, a program to administer torture.
Although not a single question dealt with the important and substantial constitutional crisis created by President Bush’s open violation of the law and the Bill of Rights, Charles Gibson did find the time to demand answers from Barack Obama about why he wears flag lapel pins some days, but not every single day all the time.
For almost an entire hour, the Gibson and Stephanopolous refused to ask any questions about any topics that would actually affect the American people, and instead offered question after question about non-policy character attacks. Gibson and Stephanopolous treated the presidential debate like a piece of entertainment news. True to form, ABC/Disney could only look at the 2008 election at the childish level of a cartoon.
In Burbank California from 4:00 until 7:00 this evening, a group of citizens will gather outside the ABC/Disney headquarters at the West Alameda Gate, between South Buena Vista and Keystone Streets. Organized by the Courage Campaign, they will hand out American flag lapel pins to ABC employees as they enter and leave headquarters, in protest of the shameful disservice done to American voters by the ABC News team behind this week’s presidential debate.
In the glossy word of TV Land Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopolous live in, all it takes to be patriotic is to put a little pin in your jacket. Here in the real America, we citizens know that genuine patriotism comes from speaking out against those people who try to cheapen our democracy with scapegoat politics that avoids the real issues upon which our nation needs to get to work.
Today at noon in Palo Alto, California, the FCC - Federal Communications Commission - will hold a public meeting to discuss and hear public comments about issues related to the development of the Internet
If I could be there, I might make a comment about network neutrality, or about the need to develop protections for the Internet-using public from illegal spying by the government on our private Internet activities without a search warrant.
I went to Yazoo in the 1990s, and found it a charming small town. As nice as the town was, however, the Yazoo River had much more of an impact on me. I saw it in a time of high water, mind you, but the vision of its thick, muddy water surging through that small town will never leave me. The Yazoo is quite a river.
It’s easy for those of us who are not from Mississippi to make fun of the name of Yazoo. It’s an odd name - no denying it. Let’s get past the name, now. Yazoo is in trouble.
The Army Corps of Engineers has come up with a scheme to build the world’s largest water pumping station on the Yazoo River, even larger than the mammoth pumps used in Holland to keep the ocean at bay. Why do they want to put such a huge pump there, right in the middle of Mississippi?
They want to drain over 200,000 acres of prime wetlands, including federally protected wetlands in the Delta National Forest, that draw in a huge range of migratory birds. The presence of those birds adds significantly to the local economy. Drain those wetlands, and the birds are gone.
There’s good news and bad news on this matter. The staff of the Environmental Protection Agency has reviewed the matter and recommended that the Yazoo Backwater Pumping Plant project be vetoed. That’s good news.
The bad news is that, in the past, the staff of the EPA has not always had final say. EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson, a political appointee of the Republican Bush Administration, has sometimes chosen to ignore the advice his own staff of scientists give him.
John McCain is coming to Pittsburgh today, and progressive activists will be there to meet him, and confront his campaign with a demonstration against McCain’s terrible right wing record. The focus of the protest will be against John McCain’s anti-choice politics, calling attention to McCain’s voting record against reasonable reproductive health. However, the protest will be a good opportunity to highlight McCain’s other significant compassion deficits: Pro-war, pro-torture, anti-health care, anti-freedom.
Here’s what you need to know to get to the protest:
Noon Today
Omni William Penn Hotel
530 William Penn Place
Pittsburgh
Signs will be provided, but if you’re feeling creative feel free to bring your own!
For more information, Contact Molly Johnson, at 412-434-8957 ext. 126
