Today, I look back

Today, I'm thinking of elections.  There is a recall election in Wisconsin happening today.  There is a presidential election that will take place this year in November.

As I think of this election, I am also thinking back to things I wrote during the last election cycle.

Today, I am really grateful for all of my followers, for all of my commenters.  I love seeing that people actually read what I write.

Most of my posts, lately, are pretty light-hearted.  It wasn't always so.

Today, I remember a post that received some serious negative feedback from commenters.  I am remembering all of the research I put into some of my posts.

I would like to take a trip down memory lane with you today.  I know some people don't like clicking links or reading old posts, but I promise, these are some good ones from my old, more serious, often political days of blogging.

First up, Response To Some Readers.  This post was a response to some negative feedback I got after I wrote about how lack of insurance and lack of adequate healthcare could have led to an event my friend and I encountered.  Even after this response, I still got some negative comments from readers.  It got to the point where I couldn't even respond, but fortunately, KBO responded well for me. (In this post, I was still using the moniker, Stuck In My Head).  WARNING: It is very liberal in my thoughts, don't hate me if we don't share the same ideas about government... we can still get along and hopefully, you will still read my posts in the future that are not political!

I also have posts that I just enjoyed doing research for.  Perhaps my future could include some "serious" journalism.

In Considering Politics & Religion I wrote about different people's desire to make race an issue in the election of 2008.

After the current administration came into office, I still wrote about politics as it ties to education.  Obama - We Need More Than Education To Help Minorities was a post where I addressed the discrepancies in punishments and treatment of students in schools.  I talked about the need for better classroom management and for more organizations like College Summit to get involved in schools.

Not all the posts I reflect on today were tied to politics... well not really.

I did a lot of research for a post on Haiti after the earthquake of 2010 that led to some questionable donating organizations (Haiti Needs Help - Be Careful How You Give It).  I wrote about about the history of the nation and its long-standing debt and the fact that many donor organizations don't actually give money to places they say they give to.  (Seriously!! Look into the organizations you donate to!!)  If there are so many NGOs and groups giving money to Haiti, why does it still look almost the same as the day the quake happened?  Why are there still SO MANY people living in tents to this day?!?!

I've connected with other bloggers doing Bloggers Unite.  For World AIDS Day in 2008 where I supplied a lot of information about the disease and those it impacts.  For Refugees in 2008 since there was a serious discrepancy in the number of refugees allowed into certain nations.

And, finally, there is the post This Always Tickles Me.  Because Vitas Bumac always does just that!!  I love him and the way he sounds.  And I can't help but smile at the way he can hit his notes.

Obama - McCain dance off

Hilarity!!!

Sarah plain and not so tall

This is why I taught African Studies:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/11/05/palin-didnt-know-africa-i_n_141653.html

NAFTA, Africa -- wow!! And people really thought she was capable.

She couldn't name all the countries in North America.

She asked if South Africa was just part of the country of Africa.

Granted, we don't know for sure that these are completely true, but I don't doubt it.

All the students in my African Studies classes could at some point name all the countries in Africa (50+ of them) and describe some characteristics of various regions.

All students in all of my classes can name the three nations that make up North America. How could she not do this? She lives in Alaska which is right next to one of them.

I guess all my students need to do now is keep looking good, have some kids, join the PTA and move to a small region of Missouri to become mayor, and they, too, may be vetted for a campaign for a high national office.

Cypress Hill on my mind - somethings I can't understand

The past few days I have had that old Cypress Hill song, "How I Could Just Kill A Man", stuck in my head. Not that I am trying to kill anyone, but there are several things that, like they say, I can't understand.

Here are somethings perhaps you can help me understand:

• What kind of a person goes off and just shoots through his door at kids coming to trick or treat? What the hell is wrong with him? And not just shoot, but let out 29 shots at the kids and kill the 12 year old.
• And why does the man have an assault rifle? An AK-47? I guess it's because people are so apt to fight for their 2nd amendment that they forget that they are protecting the crazies from not being able to have a gun as well. Some of them don't want any type of restrictions on who can own a gun.
• What kind of telephone screeners does Palin have that they let through a call by some Canadians who said they were French president Nicolas Sarkozy? And how could she not realize that it was a fake call with the person asking questions/comments about the Larry Flint porno with a Palin look a like? People really want her to be second in command?
• And finally, over the past 3 1/2 weeks, I have watched all four seasons of the ABC show, Lost. I had seen a couple of episodes from the fourth season this spring, and got hooked. I thought by watching the previous seasons I would understand more. I was terribly wrong. I am still in the dark. Honestly, if I hadn't watched the first seasons, I would still know as much about what is going on as I did after having previously seen 4 episodes of the fourth season. That show is wild, confusing... and yet so addictive.

Don't forget to vote tomorrow - if you haven't already.

Give money, listen, think

If you haven't given to KWMU for their fund drive -- hurry. I am so tired of them interrupting stuff I am listening to to beg people for money.

If you missed Morning Edition this morning on NPR, they did another part of the story on race and the election. It is really nice to hear someone else who recognizes that "Joe Six-Pack" is just a synonym / nice way of saying that you are talking about white, hardworking men (and women). And that it kind of implies that people of color are not ordinary nor do they work hard enough to fit into the society that some of the candidates believe is the right society for this nation.

Read. Listen. Pay attention to the words people say and what they really are trying to get across.

White privilege and the 2008 campaigns

This is scary, frightening, almost funny.

Funny until you realize it has to do with the future of the entire nation and the ignorance and lack of a sense of reality for many people who are not really paying attention to what is going on with the selection of the VP candidate and what is going on with the slamming of the Democratic candidate and the people around him.

Funny until you realize that brown people deal with way more than this on the daily.

Funny until you remember that it is not a game -- that the future of this nation and the relations of this nation and the rest of the world are at stake and will be partially decided in a few weeks. That this future is in the hands of some people who don't want to listen, pay attention, or even blink.

Tim Wise wrote an interesting little article "White Privilege, White Entitlement and the 2008 Election."

Here are some excerpts:

• White privilege is being able to be a gun enthusiast and not make people immediately scared of you. White privilege is… [when] no one questions your patriotism or that of your family, while if you're black and your spouse merely fails to come to a 9/11 memorial so she can be home with her kids on the first day of school, people immediately think she’s being disrespectful.
• White privilege is being able to convince white women who don’t even agree with you on any substantive issue to vote for you and your running mate anyway, because all of a sudden your presence on the ticket has inspired confidence in these same white women, and made them give your party a "second look."
• White privilege is being able to attend churches over the years whose pastors say that people who voted for John Kerry or merely criticize George W. Bush are going to hell, and that the U.S. is an explicitly Christian nation and the job of Christians is to bring Christian theological principles into government, and who bring in speakers who say the conflict in the Middle East is God’s punishment on Jews for rejecting Jesus, and everyone can still think you’re just a good church-going Christian, but if you’re black and friends with a black pastor who has noted (as have Colin Powell and the U.S. Department of Defense) that terrorist attacks are often the result of U.S. foreign policy and who talks about the history of racism and its effect on black people, you’re an extremist who probably hates America.
• White privilege is not knowing what the Bush Doctrine is when asked by a reporter, and then people get angry at the reporter for asking you such a "trick question," while being black and merely refusing to give one-word answers to the queries of Bill O’Reilly means you’re dodging the question, or trying to seem overly intellectual and nuanced.
• White privilege is when you can call yourself a "fuckin’ redneck," like Bristol Palin’s boyfriend does, and talk about how if anyone messes with you, you'll "kick their fuckin' ass," and talk about how you like to "shoot shit" for fun, and still be viewed as a responsible, all-American boy (and a great son-in-law to be) rather than a thug.
• White privilege is when you can attend four different colleges in six years like Sarah Palin did (one of which you basically failed out of, then returned to after making up some coursework at a community college), and no one questions your intelligence or commitment to achievement, whereas a person of color who did this would be viewed as unfit for college, and probably someone who only got in in the first place because of affirmative action.
• White privilege is being able to say that you support the words "under God" in the pledge of allegiance because "if it was good enough for the founding fathers, it’s good enough for me," and not be immediately disqualified from holding office--since, after all, the pledge was written in the late 1800s and the "under God" part wasn’t added until the 1950s--while believing that reading accused criminals and terrorists their rights (because, ya know, the Constitution, which you used to teach at a prestigious law school requires it), is a dangerous and silly idea only supported by mushy liberals.
• And finally, white privilege is the only thing that could possibly allow someone to become president when he has voted with George W. Bush 90 percent of the time, even as unemployment is skyrocketing, people are losing their homes, inflation is rising, and the U.S. is increasingly isolated from world opinion, just because white voters aren’t sure about that whole "change" thing. Ya know, it’s just too vague and ill-defined, unlike, say, four more years of the same, which is very concrete and certain.

More campaign distortions, missteps, and round about answers

I keep trying to stay away from the politics but like Michael Corleone, "just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in."

First up, McCain campaign ad distortions (otherwise known as lies). Unfortunately the people who really need to see these lies are probably not going to see them or even click to see this video.

Do watch.



Next we have him saying that governors and mayors do not have national security experience. You can also read the transcript here. He said it during a debate last year. But, suddenly your VP pick is ready when last year you said someone with th same experience as her would not be ready to be in office?



Here, Palin finally addresses (you be the judge of how successfully) the bridge issue. Again, she is good at bringing the question to an answer she has practiced giving rather than actually answering the question being asked of her.



You can also read this article here about Palin's words that were not so nice to various people in the community or to the Democratic presidential nominee. It also talks about how many people in her home state and where she was mayor are afraid of speaking out against her for fear of the "Republican Party machine".

If she's not going to blink, the rest of us need to. Blink. Open our eyes. And really see and listen to what is going on here.

Palin and Gibson

No matter how hard I try to stay away from politics, it keeps coming at me.

Check out this video of Palin with Charlie Gibson on ABC. Long, but listen to it all. Come back later if you need more time.


She is the one that people are completely switching their political views for? She is the one that is revving up the Republican party? She is the one they want to be a heartbeat (literally) from being president?

She doesn't even fully understand what the Bush Doctrine is.

I do have to give her credit for being good at not directly answering questions, though. The McCain campaign has trained her well to bull shit some answers and go around the question to answer it in a way that gets the points she is trained to answer out there.

I am ready for the debates.

He knows how the world works?

Possibly the best lines in the speech by McCain yesterday. (And by best, I mean the ones that caused me to gasp in astonishment and wonder if he really thinks these things of himself.)

"I know how the world works."

Oh. Really. I know you are older and perhaps that makes you a bit more knowledgeable about this. Though, most of the older people I know don't claim to understand the complicated workings of the world in which we live. Or maybe you are God.

"I know how to secure the peace."

Oh. Why have you been hiding this from the rest of the world for all these years? What's the secret? Please, do tell.

Video from John Stewart. Saw it the other night, then was reminded of it on KBO's site. Great at showing the contradictions that are huge in the right's media sources.

WOW! This explains her international experience?

This is how Cindy McCain explains Palin's governmental experience and international experience.



Yes. She believes she will be good because Russia is close to Alaska.

Wow!!!!!!

Impacting and saving lives - one vote/call at a time

That man and that woman will be in O'Fallon, MO Sunday along with some of the other people in the party. It really makes me hurt inside that people support them and their beliefs. Check that. They support the fact that they are anti-abortion. They support the fact that they are anti-gay marriage. They don't think about the implications of many of their other stances on the citizens of this nation. They don't think about what will change/remain horrible for them and others in this nation. They stick with them because their church leaders tell them to vote against abortion (rather than just not having one themselves) and tells them to vote against a constitutional amendment to legalize gay marriage. They want to keep taxes low. But they don't care that the tax system is disproportionate to people's incomes.

They don't recognize their impact and hatred for people of this nation.

On another note, I do. In fact KBO and I saved a man's life yesterday.

We were going to meet some other cool blogger people for dinner. When I got out of her car I noticed a man laying on the sidewalk. I was speechless and just pointing. When she came around the car to start walking down the sidewalk he started to seize uncontrollably. I have seen people have seizures, but never some as long and as convulsive as this one he was having. I immediately called 911 and gave them the location. They asked me a series of questions that I could not answer (does he have a history of seizures, is he diabetic). I interrupted the man a few times to let him know that I did not know the guy and so could not answer his questions and he told me that I still had to tell him "I don't know" when he asked them. KBO talked with and tried to calm the man down and make sure he didn't get up while I was on the phone with the operator. The ambulance came and the paramedics started to try and assist him.

He did not want their help. He said that he did have history of seizures, that he had been taking medicine for them before, but had stopped.

This made me super pissed. Likely, he does not have insurance, and can't pay the exorbitant price for the ambulance let alone the hospital care. He said he wanted them to just take him to his daughter's house. They said they would at least give him some oxygen. Then they sent us away. A few minutes, after we had met up with our company at dinner, we heard an ambulance with sirens pass by -- likely him.

It took me awhile for all the adrenaline to pass through my body and for me to stop shaking, slow my heart beat, and for me to just generally calm down from my anger at the whole situation.

Insurance is another issue people should seriously look at when trying to pick a candidate. Not that some people are really looking to "pick" a candidate -- they will just go with whoever their friends/church/Fox News etc tell them to vote for.

Things that make you go hmmmmm

Palin does not know what a vice president does and seems to have preferred remaining governor.



However as Sojourner's Place discusses, there has been some effort into getting her to be the VP nominee at least as far back as 2007. Check out all the links to the different sites she has on her blog.

Also questionable is how many of the links to her election sites to become governor now link directly to the McCain-Palin sites. A big question is how and why did she get on the radar so early with so little experience? Another question is why does the party seem to want to make it seem like she was just all of a sudden picked and that McCain only just now thought of her and only spoke with her once when she seems to have been being thought of for such a long time?

Unintentional comedy

There is a student teacher at my school who is really the epitome of a nerd. Picture some of the guys from those old 80s Revenge of the Nerds movies. He is nice, but he seems a bit like he just wants to show off his Webster U education - though it comes off more like he is confused and not sure of what he is doing in the process.

Every day for the past two weeks, I see him and I just want to bug up laughing. Not because of the way he looks, but because of the way he showed up for school the other day.

He had on a dress shirt and some slacks and a tie. The problem was the tie.

He had the shirt buttoned up all the way, but the tie was on his neck.

I don't think you understand what I am getting at.

The tie was on his neck and not underneath the collar of his shirt. It was really confusing at first. He walked toward his cooperating teacher's classroom and the teachers I was standing with and I just looked for a moment. It was one of those times when it is hilarious, but you just can't bring yourself to laugh just yet because you are not sure if this is really real.

Fortunately the department head called him out on it and the next time we saw the kid he had adjusted his collar.

He had on the same outfit today, and it really just brought it all back to me. I couldn't help but smile whenever he started to talk.

All this while trying not to puke at the department head's camouflage Crocs, this other woman's dress Crocs, and the other woman's regular black Crocs.

In other news that I'm still not sure is funny, scary, or just stupid, the republican candidate picked a running mate. Yea for picking a woman to try to woo the disgruntled Hilary voters. Boo for picking a person who has been mayor for two years, prior to that was mayor of a town of 9000, she has no Washington experience -- but leave it to her to already have been under investigation for corruption. Her husband is connected with oil companies. She believes in creationism and is a staunch pro-life advocate.

But I guess she shows that he is looking for change and that he is willing to have a woman by his side even if he doesn't respect his wife.