Quote of the Day

"It took that long because I like to know what I'm talking about before I speak." ~President Obama, to a reporter asking why it took a few days before he formally responded with anger to the AIG debacle


It feels really good to be an American these days.

Happy St. Patty's Day 2009

In honor of the Irish, here's a quote from one of their own (and one of my favorites) that seems fitting given the current social and economic context in the U.S.:

"America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between." ~Oscar Wilde

Interestingly, I think we've now mastered barbaric decadence as well. Yes, we are a fascinating people.

Good Post on Reproductive Health and Education

I thought this was a really well-written piece by Kirsten Moore addressing women's reproductive health.

She concludes with the following:

For me, the value of this work is not solely about reducing abortions, or even unintended pregnancies. It is about creating a sense of ownership among women and men -- old and young -- about their own body and their relationships with others because this ownership is a key to healthy bodies -- bodies free of substance abuse; healthy relationships -- relationships free of coercion or violence; and healthy children -- children who are born to parents who are ready to commit to their obligations as providers, caretakers and role models.

Yes, we all should be more thoughtful and deliberate about our sexual and reproductive lives. Speaking for myself, though, I'm not motivated to do this when some elite white male points his finger at me and says, "What is wrong with you? Why don't you see the world the way I do? If you would only do what I think is right we could all be in Oz." So Tin Man, don't forget to ask for that heart. And maybe a little humility.

Yuki Johnson

I know that LBJ was protested until the cows came home over that incident where he lifted one of his beagles by the ears for a photograph (I probably would've been right there on the White House lawn protesting too), but this pic and story about Yuki, the abandoned-at-the-gas-station mutt, and his singing companion, President LBJ, is easy fodder for a dog lover. When you see a guy throwing his head back and howling in unison with a dog, it's hard to not instinctively know that he's an animal lover.(U.S. Ambassador to Great Britain, David Bruce, in the background.)

Speaking of which, I really wish the Obama's would pick a rescue pitbull mix (www.badrap.org has pics of a pit Katrina survivor sitting proudly among a class of autistic children that her new owner teaches). Those dogs are the sweetest, most photogenic group on the planet.

And . . . I'm sure Sarah Palin could really use the positive PR right now. :)

Another good Suleman piece

Tim Rutten's got a great article in the LA Times today: The excesses of Nadya Suleman

The last couple paragraphs are worth reproducing in their entirety:

When the Nadya Sulemans of the world say, as she has in interviews, that they undergo these extreme, invasive, unpleasant, uncertain and expensive medical procedures because they "want children," that isn't really the case. If what people want is children -- and the incomparable experience of parenthood -- there are tens of thousands of children in our country and perhaps millions more abroad waiting for adoption. Thousands of others in our country are waiting for foster care.

The impulse that has made fertility medicine such a large and lucrative specialty in American medicine is about something other than children; it's about the narcissistic assumption that one is "entitled" to "the experience" of childbearing and, more to the point, the notion that, somehow, if your particular strands of DNA don't live on into another generation, the species will be poorer for it.

That sense of entitlement and its enabling delusion are about a lot of things -- but none of them really involve children.

Dr. Jill

LA Times article on Dr. Biden's new teaching job


Given my own community college roots, and the fact that I also hope to teach at a community college someday after earning my PhD in education, I was quite happy to see that Jill Biden has found a new teaching position at Northern Virginia Community College.

Other than the incredibly annoying and patronizing comment so typical of Amy Sullivan included in the article, this is actually a nice discussion of Biden's work and the ongoing debate over the use of the term "Dr."---which, by the way, is very standard within academic circles and not at all uncommon (however pompous it might seem in other contexts).

A Poem for 2009

The following is a poem written by my dad that he asked if I would post :)

Echoes

Little shoes clicking, clicking on the marble floor
Beneath the Great Dome

Footfalls of two little girls
Louder than a 21 gun salute

Little shoes clicking, clicking
Truer than a promise kept

Little shoes clicking, clicking
Footprints on the heart of a Nation

Little echoes rising, rising
Beyond the dizzying height of the Great Dome

Four little girls listening, listening
Hearing the echoes rising, rising

Four little girls in white dresses
Home from church at last

Four little girls in white dresses home at last
Beneath the Great Dome

Aretha . . . Warren?

A follow up to the Inauguration Gigapan:

I was just fooling around with the zoom feature on this again and decided to zoom in and look for Aretha Franklin's face by combing the group behind Obama for that big bow hat that she wore that day.

Interestingly, I've found that the picture that was taken for the gigapan view has some incomplete faces here and there, and in this case you can see the majority of Aretha's face mounted directly above the lower half of Rick Warren's face. This gave me quite a chuckle for many reasons--mostly though because his face is pretty much cut out and hers put it its place.

So out of R-E-S-P-E-C-T for the First Lady of Soul, here's an unfettered shot of her that day!

Inaugural Gigapan

Whoa! I think I can tell what color eyes the secret service posted on the far rooftops have. Very cool.

OBAMA INAUGURATION ZOOM CAM

(You can zoom in and out and adjust the angle using the tool on the left or by using your mouse wheel. Give it a second or two to refocus after you zoom in.)

BBC Interview with Former Little Rock Niner

There's quite a bit of good stuff out on the web today in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

I thought this was a pretty simple but poignant piece from the BBC:

Three Generations: Little Rock to Obama

Great Minds Think Alike

And sure enough, Zingerman's already stole my idea. Three cheers for BARACK-Y ROAD GELATO in honor of inauguration day!

Obama in your Freezer

I was kind of hoping for Barack-y Road, but I think the collective spirit of this one is probably more appropriate.

NEW BEN & JERRY'S AVAILABLE NOW!

Back to Los Angeles City Hall: In Protest of Prop 8

I think that the last time I was at Los Angeles City Hall was for a candlelight vigil the day after September 11th, 2001. I will be going again this Saturday and expect it to be considerably more upbeat, but certainly for just as serious a purpose: No on Prop 8.

A thoughtful commentary on Prop 8

A nicely written piece on state constitutional amendments vs. the rule of the U.S. constitution.

One week ago today

One week ago today, the world started turning again. We elected Barack Obama President of the United States and suddenly it was okay to think about "other things" again. (Those other things primarily being the Himalayan pile of work for my doctoral program that has been piling up for almost two months. Lately my "detached study" status has been a whole lotta detached, and not much study.)

Although I'm still occasionally scanning websites for good post-election commentary and can't-miss photos such as the ones of the Obamas emerging from their car to be greeted by the Bushs at the White House yesterday (it reminded me of a Dave Chappellesque Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?), I am no longer glued to my monitor ravaging HuffPost and Google News for what seemed like hourly twists and turns in the most important political, social and cultural year of my life. I am no longer obsessively turning on NPR the second I hop in the car and then sitting in the parking structure at work for 5 or 10 minutes to finish listening to the morning's election controversy. And although I am still on edge about the passing of Proposition 8 and the social rift it's causing in California and elsewhere right now, I do at least have some faith in its inevitable repeal now that the presidential race has been celebrated and folks are ready to give it their all on what appears to be an ongoing fight for equality and civil rights.

So, I celebrate this one week anniversary with a personal anecdote. Sunday evening we watched the 60 Minutes interview with Obama's "inner circle" and were awed by their admission that Obama's "race speech" he gave in Philadelphia was in fact his idea and almost entirely his doing, only solidifying one of the primary reasons I voted for him--that he is one of the most intelligent and remarkable people we will ever see hold this office. Then later in the evening, I caught a few minutes of Larry King interviewing Obama while I was folding some laundry. And for a split second I caught myself thinking "man, I am so sick of listening to this guy talk." And then I just started laughing. It was like having the euphoria of election night when the results were announced race back through me again. For the past year, I would've listened to Obama talk--about anything--24 hours a day, 7 days a week if I could have. But now the reality of his election sets in, and I feel liberated to both celebrate him and even be mildly annoyed by him as I would any other President--even though I may believe that he is nothing like "any other President."

No on Prop 8 Letter to UM Friends

Emailed Wednesday, November 5th, 2008

Dear U of M Friends-

At the risk of sounding cliche, I'm not a fan of mass emailing and I'm embarrassed to be sending an email to such a large group of people, some of whom I haven't seen or spoken with in quite a while. However, at this point I'm willing to risk my good standing with some to address the gravity of this issue. So please forgive me and know that I would not do this if I didn't really think it was important. Yesterday in California, Proposition 8 passed. And while similar measures passed in other states, the terrifying significance of California's bellwether vote has honestly rocked me to the core. On the same day that we elected our first African-American president, we stripped an entire demographic of its civil rights. This wasn't just a measure to ban gay marriage. Same-sex marriage was already legal and recognized here. Yesterday our state took away rights that had ALREADY been won.

A number of my friends here have expressed varying sentiments to help them deal with the bittersweet nature of Obama's win and Prop 8's passing, such as "We can't win them all" or "win some, lose some." While I too have been so moved by last night's presidential election that I can barely believe it's real, I am also dumbfounded by the irony of these two simultaneous events and the inaccuracy of the above sentiments. This wasn't about "winning" anything. Last night, basic human rights were literally taken away, and done so in the grossest, most unconstitutional fashion imaginable.

As most of you know, I am not a religious person, I am not a traditional person, and I am likely not what you would call a "politically correct" person. In fact, I spend most of my time trying to convince people NOT to get married. However, this proposition is not about marriage, it's not about family, and it's not about being politically correct. It's about civil rights, human rights. And I cannot imagine what it must have felt like to sit there and celebrate an Obama win last night in the face of having one of my basic rights taken away from me. My heart breaks at the very thought of experiencing that kind of personal conflict.

The No on Prop 8 campaign (http://www.noonprop8.com/) and the Human Rights Campaign ( http://www.hrc.org//) struggled to raise the money they needed to fight this outrageous measure in part because so many of us who would have normally donated to this cause, were busy donating whatever we could give to the Obama campaign, and understandably so. Now they need support and money to fight this proposition's passing after the fact, before California's example sets the bar for the rest of the country. Donating even just $5, or passing this on to others you know, really will make a huge difference. And I know that many of you already have.

Again, I'm uncomfortable forwarding this kind of request, but it's just too important not to. Thanks so much for reading this and for your consideration.

I hope all of you are well and still celebrating!