We have nominated a history-making candidate and it's time to celebrate!  I can't think of a better way to do so than to relish in the caliber of our nominee...

I've been reviewing the many ads submitted by people across the nation to MoveOn.org for Obama.  It's so heartening to see how people view his campaign.  I'm very moved and feeling re-energized and connected to this movement.  It is wonderful to see the extent to which Obama's messages have registered and how deeply people are feeling the same thing.  There are already over 3 million votes registered at MoveOn.  This has got to be one of the finest of internet grass-roots efforts.

October 2, 2002, in the streets of Chicago, Barack Obama had this to say about the Iraq War:  

You want a fight, President Bush? Let’s finish the fight with Bin Laden and al-Qaeda, through effective, coordinated intelligence, and a shutting down of the financial networks that support terrorism, and a homeland security program that involves more than color-coded warnings.

You want a fight, President Bush? Let’s fight to make sure that the UN inspectors can do their work, and that we vigorously enforce a non-proliferation treaty, and that former enemies and current allies like Russia safeguard and ultimately eliminate their stores of nuclear material, and that nations like Pakistan and India never use the terrible weapons already in their possession, and that the arms merchants in our own country stop feeding the countless wars that rage across the globe.

I guess I thought for all of the arguing that is going on against and for candidates most everyone would have explored policy statements from the candidates they are supporting or arguing against.  I'm learning tonight that a lot of people are missing and craving some substantive debate.  So I'm offering Obama's policy on Terrorism for your review.

Within the confines of these walls and the boundaries of this city, it becomes very easy to play small-ball politics. Somewhere between the partisan deadlock and the twenty-four hour news cycles, the contrived talking points and the focus on the sensational over the substantive, issues of war and poverty, hopelessness and lawlessness become problems to be managed, not crises to be solved. They become fodder for the Sunday show scrum, not places to find genuine consensus and compromise. And so, at some point, we stop reaching for the possible and resign ourselves to that which is most probable.

This is what happens in Washington.

Pretty good, huh.  Read on.

You know, just when I was comfortable with pretending my coffee is laced with acid in order to watch the morning news on CNN without screaming at the screen, Sanjay and the CPSC decide to blow my freaking mind.

Now, I'm a parent and an educator for kids with special needs, so I realize that I'm pretty sensitive about the innuendo in this morning's reports about lead in our kids' toys http://www.nytimes.com/...
but I don't think I'm out of control in my outrage over this. Watch Sanjay's "message" saying "DON'T PANIC" about this and try really hard not to say "Fuck You" I dare you.:

http://www.cnn.com/...

 

The Constitution of the United States of America
We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this system of political strategizing and endless campaigns for the United States of America.

Mother's Day was created by Julia Ward Howe, a poet and mother who was sickened by the blood spilled during the Civil War.  Like many efforts for Peace, that message has been edited from Mother's Day.  Here is a great reminder of what Mother's Day is really about, and a call to a balancing of intentions for war from those that know how to nurture and truly are pro-life.

Really, they do.

Bib buyers entitled to refund
Grandmother finds lead, triggers recall
By Liam Ford
Tribune staff reporter
Published May 4, 2007

Illinois consumers are entitled to a refund if they bought any of the bibs Wal-Mart pulled from stores nationwide because tests showed high levels of lead in them, state Atty. Gen. Lisa Madigan said Thursday.

The retailer's decision this week to remove the cloth-and-vinyl bibs was voluntary and not technically a recall except in Illinois, Madigan said. Because of strict state regulations regarding lead in children's products, Illinois is the only state where Wal-Mart is offering to replace bibs or refund money, she said.

...About 60,000 bibs were sold in Illinois, a Wal-Mart spokeswoman said. Lead sometimes is used as a stabilizing agent to help make plastics last longer.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/...

I've done just about everything I can think of to end this war.  I've marched in streets and stood in the rain.  I've hung signs.  I've screamed.  I've blogged.  I've called.  I've written.  I'd pretty much do whatever it took to move this catastrophe to its end.  So today I'm going to suggest something that is positively low-brow to get this over with, and I think it could work.

One of the foundations of Hitler's and the NSDAP's social policies was the concept of racial hygiene. It was based on the ideas of Arthur de Gobineau, a pseudo-science called eugenics (race purity and race-ranking), and social Darwinism. Applied to human beings, "survival of the fittest" was interpreted as requiring racial purity and killing off "life unworthy of life." The first victims were crippled and retarded children on an order signed by Hitler. After a public outcry, Hitler made a show of ending this program, but the killings in fact continued. This deadly program was called T-4 and many of its killers soon moved to death camps.

http://en.wikipedia.org/...

"The will to give and not receive
The strength to say what you believe
The heart to feel what others feel inside
To see what they can see

A man is something that's real
It's not what you are
It's what you can feel
It cant be too late
To look through the hate and see
I know thats what a man can be"

from "To be a Man" by T. Scholz, performed by the late Brad Delp

I leapt out of bed this morning when I heard Brad Delp (Boston) had died.  I take the music I grew up with pretty seriously, and I suppose that's because despite the cliche, 60's and 70's rock and roll really was my religion as a teenager of the soul-less eighties.  Brad Delp's voice soothed, protected, led, taught, and set up a haven from the yuppiedom that loomed in my future.  He was the sole singer for most of Boston's music, and a man unafraid to sing like an angel.  He was a hippy vegetarian animal right's advocate, amongst other things, and we need more strong male voices like his in our world today.      

I can't believe a Republican said this today.  Was it because of the Iraq War, or Katrina, or illegal spying on U.S. citizens?  No, it was because of two border patrol agents that a lot of Republicans seem to be up in arms about. Dana Rohrabacher (R) California is responsible for the quote above.

Many of us are asking "why" as our Democratic candidates take a back seat to the warpath the Bush administration is laying toward Iran, even as the Iraq war is finally realized for the catastrophe that it is.  When I find myself dealing with the seemingly illogical actions of politicians, it is useful to follow the money, and AIPAC has lots of it.

AIPAC also has had Iran on its hit list for a very long time, cruise their website if you have any doubts:  http://www.aipac.org/...

But I'm not writing a diary about the evils of powerful lobbyists, we already know that story. I'm writing to tell you about the Franklin spy scandal and an interesting fact that we've all forgotten about..  

at Alice's Restaurant."

I was born in 1966.  I grew up hearing this on the radio every Thanksgiving.  My mom and dad didn't play it in my house, but all the "cool" radio stations, (WPLJ, WAPP in New York) played it and I listened on my transistor.  When I got older we played it when we were out partying on the eve of Thanksgiving.  It was always a quirky folk song that really didn't fit in with our rock and roll playlist.  But we played it every Thanksgiving because it was part of the rock tradition, it made us think about things we weren't quite old enough to remember with clarity, about a generation that we were attracted to but not part of.  

Today on Meet the Press Russert asked David Gregory if Bush misled the American people by stating that Rumsfeld would remain until his term was over.  David Gregory's response has been haunting me all day long.  He said "A lot of people think different things about that."  I think Mr. Gregory has been hanging too long with the Rove crowd to have not been able to state the obvious on that one.  

On CNN this morning, a spokesperson for Palestine said the following (paraphrased, transcript not available yet):  "Israel wants to stop Hamas and Hezbollah, two goals that are impossible..."  Impossible, there is a word that should be coming out of the mouths of brave men about the war on terror.  Impossible.

This morning CNN aired a recording of Bush once again forgetting the mic is on, but this time at the G8 summit in a conversation with Tony Blair.  I'm posting the transcript below, but to hear it is to really experience the horrific shame for our nation this fool for a President inspires.  Throughout he is eating and he discusses matters of life and death and world war with his mouth full.  The image of this has brought me to a state of seething mourning today.  I cannot believe this is what is leading my beautiful country.