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President Barack Obama

Welcome!

One Year Later

I started this blog one year ago with the hope of writing down and making sense of the thoughts, observations and miscellaneous stuff that floats inside my mind. These thoughts and observations can be ah-ha moments, when I gain a moment of personal clarity, or a deep profound observation that questions our collective motivations. And sometimes my thoughts are best described as silly random stuff.

This post is a kind of coda to the years events as seen through my eyes. I do wear glasses but I don't think they are rose colored ;)

The U.S. Presidential Primary season began bright and early this past January 3rd and we were in for a long, drawn out and sometimes confusing time. Voters were faced with a large group of candidates competing

-to be continued-

Join The Impact

Protest Prop. 8 on November 15th!

Join the nationwide protest this Saturday, November 15, 2008, at your local City Hall. Thousands will take to the streets at City Halls and State Capitols across the nation, as well as in the Nation's Capitol to show their outrage over the passage of California's Prop. 8.

Hate should not be a family value.

The Passage of California's Prop. 8

I have chosen to reprint the complete text of Keith Olbermann's Special Comment from the Nov. 10th airing of 'Countdown' for I could not have said it better.

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Finally tonight as promised, a Special Comment on the passage, last week, of Proposition Eight in California, which rescinded the right of same-sex couples to marry, and tilted the balance on this issue, from coast to coast.

Some parameters, as preface. This isn't about yelling, and this isn't about politics, and this isn't really just about Prop-8. And I don't have a personal investment in this: I'm not gay, I had to strain to think of one member of even my very extended family who is, I have no personal stories of close friends or colleagues fighting the prejudice that still pervades their lives.

And yet to me this vote is horrible. Horrible. Because this isn't about yelling, and this isn't about politics. This is about the human heart, and if that sounds corny, so be it.

If you voted for this Proposition or support those who did or the sentiment they expressed, I have some questions, because, truly, I do not understand. Why does this matter to you? What is it to you? In a time of impermanence and fly-by-night relationships, these people over here want the same chance at permanence and happiness that is your option. They don't want to deny you yours. They don't want to take anything away from you. They want what you want—a chance to be a little less alone in the world.

Only now you are saying to them—no. You can't have it on these terms. Maybe something similar. If they behave. If they don't cause too much trouble. You'll even give them all the same legal rights—even as you're taking away the legal right, which they already had. A world around them, still anchored in love and marriage, and you are saying, no, you can't marry. What if somebody passed a law that said you couldn't marry?

I keep hearing this term "re-defining" marriage. If this country hadn't re-defined marriage, black people still couldn't marry white people. Sixteen states had laws on the books which made that illegal in 1967. 1967.

The parents of the President-Elect of the United States couldn't have married in nearly one third of the states of the country their son grew up to lead. But it's worse than that. If this country had not "re-defined" marriage, some black people still couldn't marry black people. It is one of the most overlooked and cruelest parts of our sad story of slavery. Marriages were not legally recognized, if the people were slaves. Since slaves were property, they could not legally be husband and wife, or mother and child. Their marriage vows were different: not "Until Death, Do You Part," but "Until Death or Distance, Do You Part." Marriages among slaves were not legally recognized.

You know, just like marriages today in California are not legally recognized, if the people are gay.
And uncountable in our history are the number of men and women, forced by society into marrying the opposite sex, in sham marriages, or marriages of convenience, or just marriages of not knowing, centuries of men and women who have lived their lives in shame and unhappiness, and who have, through a lie to themselves or others, broken countless other lives, of spouses and children, all because we said a man couldn't marry another man, or a woman couldn't marry another woman. The sanctity of marriage.

How many marriages like that have there been and how on earth do they increase the "sanctity" of marriage rather than render the term, meaningless?

What is this, to you? Nobody is asking you to embrace their expression of love. But don't you, as human beings, have to embrace... that love? The world is barren enough.

It is stacked against love, and against hope, and against those very few and precious emotions that enable us to go forward. Your marriage only stands a 50-50 chance of lasting, no matter how much you feel and how hard you work.

And here are people overjoyed at the prospect of just that chance, and that work, just for the hope of having that feeling. With so much hate in the world, with so much meaningless division, and people pitted against people for no good reason, this is what your religion tells you to do? With your experience of life and this world and all its sadnesses, this is what your conscience tells you to do?

With your knowledge that life, with endless vigor, seems to tilt the playing field on which we all live, in favor of unhappiness and hate... this is what your heart tells you to do? You want to sanctify marriage? You want to honor your God and the universal love you believe he represents? Then Spread happiness—this tiny, symbolic, semantical grain of happiness—share it with all those who seek it. Quote me anything from your religious leader or book of choice telling you to stand against this. And then tell me how you can believe both that statement and another statement, another one which reads only "do unto others as you would have them do unto you."
You are asked now, by your country, and perhaps by your creator, to stand on one side or another. You are asked now to stand, not on a question of politics, not on a question of religion, not on a question of gay or straight. You are asked now to stand, on a question of love. All you need do is stand, and let the tiny ember of love meet its own fate.

You don't have to help it, you don't have it applaud it, you don't have to fight for it. Just don't put it out. Just don't extinguish it. Because while it may at first look like that love is between two people you don't know and you don't understand and maybe you don't even want to know. It is, in fact, the ember of your love, for your fellow person just because this is the only world we have. And the other guy counts, too.

This is the second time in ten days I find myself concluding by turning to, of all things, the closing plea for mercy by Clarence Darrow in a murder trial.

But what he said, fits what is really at the heart of this:

"I was reading last night of the aspiration of the old Persian poet, Omar-Khayyam," he told the judge. It appealed to me as the highest that I can vision. I wish it was in my heart, and I wish it was in the hearts of all: So I be written in the Book of Love; I do not care about that Book above. Erase my name, or write it as you will, So I be written in the Book of Love."

Tears of Joy!

Barack Obama is the 44th president of the United States of America!

Dixville Notch votes for Obama

Dixville Notch, Hew Hampshire (pop. around 75) started a tradition in the 1960 election, allowing all registered voters to cast their ballots at midnight. One minute later the polls are closed, the votes tallied and the results are televised.

21 votes were cast this year, and for the first time since 1968 the voters have elected a Democrat for President, Sen. Barack Obama!

Early Voting

Today, I went over to City Hall and voted early. At least 35 states now allow early voting, so that ballots can be cast before Election Day, either in person at designated sites or by mail.

The entire process, from joining the long line to casting my ballot, took me just under 2 hours. And let me tell you, with the economy, marriage rights, health care, two wars and much more affecting the people of this country (and around the world), it was worth the wait!

Socialism

so·cial·ism (sō'shə-lĭz'əm)
n.

1. Any of various theories or systems of social organization in which the means of producing and distributing goods is owned collectively or by a centralized government that often plans and controls the economy.
2. The stage in Marxist-Leninist theory intermediate between capitalism and communism, in which collective ownership of the economy under the dictatorship of the proletariat has not yet been successfully achieved.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2006 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

As you can see from the above citation, this is the definition of the word.


What Sen. Barack Obama said to Joe Wurzelbacher, aka "Joe the Plumber"
Joe: "Your new tax plan is going to tax me more, isn't it?" (after telling Sen. Obama that he was trying to buy a plumbing business and was concerned about paying higher taxes under Obama's proposal)

Sen. Obama: "It's not that I want to punish your success. I just want to make sure that everybody who is behind you, that they've got a chance for success too. My attitude is that if the economy's good for folks from the bottom up, it's gonna be good for everybody. . . . I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody."


What some Republican politicians, operatives and pundits say they heard.
Joe: "Your new tax plan is going to tax me more, isn't it?" (after telling Sen. Obama that he was trying to buy a plumbing business and was concerned about paying higher taxes under Obama's proposal)

Sen. Obama: I'm a socialist, and I want to take away your hard earned money and give it to someone else.


I think the Republican politicians, operatives and pundits need to re-read their dictionaries and then re-read what Obama actually said.

After that everyone should focus on fixing our current regressive income taxation by replacing it with a progressive tax, where rates increase proportionally, and on fixing the country's old infrastructure.

It's been so long

Hello there. As you can see it has been a few weeks since my last post, and of course a lot has transpired, so here are a couple of items to tell you about.

Marriage
Anne and I are now married! This marvelous event occurred back on 31-July, 2008. And it's about time don't you think – after 17 years together – that we made our relationship legal! I didn't really think that I would feel differently, after all these years together, but I do. We have always had a deep sense of commitment to one another and to the relationship, yet after declaring such in front of the judge and our friends/witnesses has taken us to a much deeper level. I am very proud to call Anne my wife (although usually I just call her Anne).

Yet there are many people in this country who believe that marriage between two consenting adults of legal age must be denied to some: Gays and Lesbians. This is a very distressing reality, that my fellow humans would want to exclude me from such a personal choice, and that they also feel my choice should be subject to the vote of others. Proposition 8. If you're a registered in the state of California, I urge you to vote NO. If you live outside of the state, then I ask that you consider making a donation to the No on 8 campaign. We shouldn't eliminate marriage for anyone.


AIDS/LifeCycle: Ride to end AIDS
Participating in this 7-day, 545 mile bicycle ride, from San Francisco to Los Angeles, has been bouncing around in my head for a few years, since my dear friend Kyle rode it in 2005.

From 31-May to 06-June, 2009, it will be my turn to a) physically and physiologically test my limits, and b) be a part of something bigger than myself – raising money to benefit those with AIDS. If you too would like help, please sponsor me on my ride! http://www.tofighthiv.org/goto/Renita_Taylor