No, no, I'm gonna vote!!

Easily the best form message I've ever received:

Dear Jomo,

You're in this video. Check it out!



Remember Florida in 2000--the election was decided by just over 500 votes. Imagine what it would feel like if you didn't vote, the election went the wrong way, and, well--it was actually your fault?

With the help of our friends at MoveOn.org, we've prepared a video that paints that picture, with you, Jomo, in it. It's a funny and scary reminder of how important voting is. After you watch, it's easy to send to your friends and family with their names in it, along with a simple email from you saying "hey, looks like you're in this video." They'll be surprised; they'll think it's funny, and most of all, it'll make them think twice about the importance of their vote.

Thanks and Peace,

-- James, Gabriel, Clarissa, Andre, Kai, and the rest of the ColorOfChange.org PAC team
October 27th, 2008

The Obama Effect?

As a subscriber to Modern Jackass, I'm glad to see the Bradley Effect explained and examined in this post by Daniel Okrent.

His five points seem reasonable enough to me. But racism confounds reason, so I guess we'll have to wait and see how this all plays out.

One more thing, Mr. Nutjob... about your paper's candidate

Setting aside for the moment who's to blame for this mess, what about getting us out of it? Your paper endorses the senior citizenSenator from Arizona. What's he doing these days to resolve the fiscal crisis? Let's check in on that real quick:

And so, a bailout proposal that once seemed likely to pass now is back to negotiations. In the process, Secretary Paulson was reduced to getting on his knees to beg House Speaker Nancy Pelosi not to have her party members bail on the proposal; President Bush was forced to ponder a market meltdown on his watch; and Democrats were left fuming that in a bid for the leadership spotlight, John McCain may have simply gone and fouled things up.

"Bush is no diplomat," said a Democratic staffer, "but he's Cardinal freaking Richelieu compared to McCain. McCain couldn't negotiate an agreement on dinner among a family of four without making a big drama with himself at the heroic center of it. And then they'd all just leave to make themselves a sandwich."

Smooth move.

A wee bit of wonkery

On WTOP this morning, some nutjob from the Washington Times said the current fiscal crisis is the fault of overregulation, specifically the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977.

A primer:

The Community Reinvestment Act (or CRA, Pub.L. 95-128, title VIII, 91 Stat. 1147, 12 U.S.C. § 2901 et seq.) is a United States federal law that requires banks and thrifts to offer credit throughout their entire market area and prohibits them from targeting only wealthier neighborhoods with their services, a practice known as "redlining." The purpose of the CRA is to provide credit, including home ownership opportunities to underserved populations and commercial loans to small businesses. It has been subjected to important regulatory revisions.

Now, explain to me, Mr. Nutjob, how did a law to prohibit financial institutions from "redlining" force Wall Street whiz kids to create sophisticated credit default swaps and leverage themselves out of business? That's (CRA is, according to Mr. Nutjob) a magic bullet with an incredibly slow velocity, taking fully 31 years to pierce the heart of global finance. No less a personage than the estimable Warren Buffet criticizes these pieces of hokum as "financial weapons of mass destruction". But, again, Mr. Nutjob says it's not the whiz kids and their FWMDs, it's the poor folks who used CRA to get a house, that are to blame for this mess.

But that's not the point of this post. The point is when I pointed all this out to my wife, who was driving me to work, she asked why I don't do political work instead of political armchair quarterbacking.

Good question.

I holler at the TV a lot. Maybe one day I'll be on TV hollering instead. I dig this wonkery stuff.

Hanna who?

We thought Hanna was supposed to be some kind of storm. I actually bought a tarp, finagled it into the gap between our porch and the Nicholson's porch, and set up an elaborate system of towel rotation-to-spin cycle water damage prevention in our leaky basement.

For what? A little bit of a trickle? It's been an hour and my towels aren't soaked through. Hanna, you disappoint.

P.S.,
Not to disregard the very real damage done. It just didn't happen so much at our house.

P.P.S., The tally:
$ 5.97 >12 towels
$ 9.27 >200 'rags-in-a-box'
$22.98 >9'x12' tarp (flammable!)
$ 2.20 >sales tax
$40.42 >total earned by Home Depot #2583

Post-euphoria, still can't beieve it

It's Saturday morning. Luz is asleep and Marta's off to Babies R Us. I, for the first time since the historic acceptance speech Thursday night, am taking a moment alone to let it all sink in:

I am about to celebrate my 5th wedding anniversary
Luz turned 8 months yesterday
On the 45th anniversary of the March on Washington, Barack Obama spoke to more than 38 million viewers - plus the rest of the world not gauged by Nielsen - and brought the ruckus!

Mo' Houses, Mo' Problems

I smell a new theme song in the air!

Margaret Atwood

Since her book inspired the poem in my last post, I thought I'd feature some of her work directly. Here goes:

from Variation on the Word Sleep

I would like to be the air
that inhabits you for a moment
only. I would like to be that unnoticed
& that necessary.

Margaret Atwood (b. 1939)

"Variation on the Word Sleep" from Selected Poems II: 1976-1986 by Margaret Atwood, published by Houghton Mifflin. Copyright © 1987. Reprinted by permission of the author.

haiku

handmaidens

objectivity
treats spin as truth's rebuttal
...carborundorum

Milestone? An apology from Congress for U.S. slavery

As told by the Washington Post:

The House yesterday apologized to black Americans, more than 140 years after slavery was abolished, for the "fundamental injustice, cruelty, brutality and inhumanity of slavery and Jim Crow" segregation.

The resolution, which passed on a voice vote late in the day, was sponsored by Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.), a white Jew who represents a majority-black district in Memphis. Cohen tried unsuccessfully to join the Congressional Black Caucus this year.

"I hope that this is part of the beginning of a dialogue that this country needs to engage in, concerning what the effects of slavery and Jim Crow have been," Cohen said. "I think we started it and we're going to continue."

Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) is considering introducing a companion measure in the Senate, he said.

Now for those 40 acres and that mule...

Participants said that the while the issue isn’t exactly capturing attention from Congressional leaders, it is getting attention in scholarship and in classrooms. “Most white Americans view the idea of reparations as a new or strange idea, but in fact it isn’t new or strange,” said Ray Finkenbine, a professor of history and director of the Black Abolitionist Archives at the University of Detroit Mercy

It's proven in fact/ it takes a nation of millions to hold us back (Public Enemy)

Lyrical distillation of expansive article on Timberland's green bona fides

Article
Good corporation - not an oxymoron.

Distillation
Timbo's on my toes.../I like the way it's goin' down... (Q-Tip of ATCQ)

Solidarity

That's what I'm talkin' 'bout! The media need to stick together. Big up to Vanity Fair!

Alright, break's over. Back to work.

Sanctuary, borders, justice, salvation

For the people in Prince William County, VA and the anti-immigrant lobby...

What!

But the memory of the Holocaust has a way of making the world feel smaller. People of different nations can imagine they share a single human drama. Salvadorans have been as surprised as anybody to rediscover their part in it. To have been on the side of the angels at one of the darkest moments in history, when other countries stood by, is something a small, relatively poor, geopolitically minor nation can be proud of.

It would be no surprise to me if my wife reads this post, sends word to her mom, and we find out this Col. José Arturo Castellanos was a family friend.

Go, Elissa!

Elissa (and some other reporter) wrote a great piece on DC's illustrious mayor. Seems he has a penchant for forging ahead, imperial-style like that other DC-based executive branch guy. You know the one.

Gotta love those Stanford Zen Buddhists

Trey Ellis on Obama 'moving to the center'.

I've had some head-scratching moments the past few weeks watching the Obama camp switch up the game for the general election - most recently with the swift dis of Wes Clark and the faith-based initiative pledge.

All this makes me want to dig out that old Harper's article about how Obama isn't some new-style politician. Hope we didn't toss it out with the rest of the spring cleaning!

"The Not-For-Much-Profit Company"

I just happen to work there. Dave's a good guy, and I'm glad to see him published.

O in '08

Oprah at Stanford Commencement. Lots of multimedia content in the right-side nav bar.

Mugabe and Mbeki

Joe Lauria's got an interesting piece on Thabo Mbeki's "quiet diplomacy". It's hard to fathom how Mbeki makes sense of his position, given this exchange:

I asked him: "Do you feel you can be objective about Robert Mugabe, given his legendary status as a fighter against colonialism and the loyalty you might feel towards him that may make you unable to see what he is today, 30 years later?"

Mbeki scoffed at my question. "No, I've heard that story told. I think that one thing that could happen is that the people might credit us with the capacity to think. I know as much as you do," he said, "that when something is wrong, it is wrong. The fact that I came from the liberation struggle doesn't mean I can't recognize a wrong thing. So this argument, that because all of us come from liberation struggles, when something goes wrong, even in our own movement, we won't recognize it because of some loyalty to ourselves ... We are perfectly capable of recognizing something that is wrong."

Mbeki defended his "quiet diplomacy" to the hilt, widely denounced as enabling Mugabe. The furthest he would go with my question was: "There are many things wrong with the politics of Zimbabwe, otherwise why go mediate something that is right?"

Jeff Chang on Obama, Muslims, and identity politics

Another thought-provoker, Jeff Chang, writes today:

The most frustrated surrogate of all is Minnesota Democrat Keith Ellison, the nation's first Muslim congressman, who has seen efforts to bring the Muslim communities in greater contact with Obama stopped dead by the campaign.

It's hard not to notice that this is where the "change" message gets run over by the still largely white mainstream Democratic party operatives who control Obama's campaign. Again, to all those who want to complain about allegedly coalition-fragmenting "identity politics", here are the real identity politics at work.

Mugabe kills opposition; clears path to "re-election"

One day the people of Zimbabwe will be free of Robert Mugabe. Unfortunately, today is not that day.

Background reading for those interested:
1. a network of Zimbabwean activists has a site and a blog.
2. Human Rights Watch puts out great reports

Or, if you just want the prophetic Bob Marley take...


(Verse 3)

To divide and rule could only tear us apart;
In everyman chest, mm - there beats a heart.
So soon we'll find out who is the real revolutionaries;
And I don't want my people to be tricked by mercenaries.