April 6, 2008 archive

Obama’s Ultimate Test: The Sequel

Candidates for the Presidency of the United States raise hundreds of millions of dollars and compete in primaries and caucuses in state after state in order to win convention delegates.  They engage in a series of nationally televised debates, appear on political programs like Meet the Press and Hardball, and strive to demonstrate to America and the world in the early months of presidential election years that they are ready to take their campaigns to the next level.  

Obama’s campaign strategists knew all of these campaign events were relatively important, but realized they were just preliminaries to the supreme test of leadership that awaited him.  They knew by early April that the time had come to get serious, that the time had come to launch the most crucial phase of Obama’s presidential campaign, that the time had come for Obama to go where the votes are, to go to the only place he could go in all of America to face that supreme test of leadership.  

Grand Forks, North Dakota.  

I knew that too, so I went here:

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My brother Craig, a lifelong Republican, joined me as I waited in line.  That line kept getting longer, and longer, and longer . . .

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17,000 Americans came from small towns all across North Dakota and Minnesota to see the next President of the United States.  They came from farms throughout the Red River Valley, they came from the colleges and universities of the Upper Midwest, they came from Native American reservations, from the Grand Forks Air Force Base, from the VA Hospital in Fargo, from homes and schools and churches in this country’s heartland, where Americans still believe in decency and justice and democracy.  

These men and women and children who came to see and hear Barack Obama, who stood in line for hours on this spring day in this eighth year of BushCo fascism don’t want to see less jobs and more wars.  They’re sick and tired of less jobs and more wars, of lies and torture and Katrinas, of Enrons and Bear Stearns and Deciders, of endless coverups and endless betrayal.  They want to believe in America again, they want to be heard in Washington D.C. again, they want their country back, and it looked to me like they are damn well ready to take it back.        

         

Weekend News Digest

Weekend News Digest is an Open Thread

Four Star Final

From Yahoo News Top Stories

1 22 killed in Sadr City clashes

By SLOBODAN LEKIC, Associated Press Writer

1 hour, 23 minutes ago

BAGHDAD – Iraqi troops backed by U.S. forces battled Shiite fighters in Baghdad’s Sadr City neighborhood in clashes that killed 22 people and wounded dozens despite a cease-fire between the government and the militia, officials said Sunday.

To the north, police said gunmen seized 42 students off a bus near the city of Mosul – al-Qaida’s last major urban stronghold – but later released them unharmed.

The U.S. military said that fighting broke out overnight in Sadr City, a stronghold of anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s militants. Officials at two local hospitals said 22 people were killed and 92 wounded. The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media, did not say whether the casualties were civilians or fighters. U.S. and Iraqi forces released no information about the casualties.

A police officer said that a U.S. Stryker armored personnel carrier was damaged in the fighting, which continued with sporadic exchanges of fire through Sunday morning.

Two armored Humvee vehicles and two trucks belonging to the Iraqi army were also destroyed, said the officer, who also spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.

How about that “Surge Success” Betrayus?

Somehow This Madness Must End

I was born at the tail end of 1951.  My father was a soldier who served in WWII and Korea.  His brother came back from Korea so psychologically devastated that he never recovered.  He lived nearly fifty of his seventy years haunted by the horror of what he witnessed in the Korean War.  He was not alone.  Every war produces more casualties than are accounted for in the body counts.  My uncle died just a few years ago but it was the Korean War that killed him.  

This-madness-must-end

Café Discovery

Sometimes I wonder if it would have been better to have done worse in school.  If I had had some of my work rejected, maybe it wouldn’t have affected me the way it has as an adult.

But it never was rejected, all the way through college.  Whenever I tried, I did well.  Flunking out of Penn wasn’t the result of not doing good work.  It was the result of not working because I had already given up…on life.

So anyway, as I mentioned in Friday’s MitM, my birthday was followed the next day by a rejection form letter from Calyx press.  That was a downer.  They didn’t apparently think any of my six poems were suitable for their Journal.  They assured me it wasn’t just one person who thought so, but at least two readers thought they were not worthy.

That made me feel better, do you think?

News Of A Kidnapping

cross posted from The Dream Antilles

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Ingrid Betancourt In Captivity (11/30/07)

Ingrid Betancourt, while campaigning for the presidency of Colombia, was kidnapped by FARC on February 23, 2002.  More than six years later, she remains a hostage somewhere in Colombia.  She suffers from hepatitis B and leishmaniasis, a skin disease caused by insect bites.  She is also rumored to be losing the will to live. She is the public face of kidnapping in Colombia.  She is the most famous of hundreds of hostages.  Unlike most of the hostages, she has ties outside the country.

Please join me in the selva.

Women of the World, Rise Up!

My title is a quote from Buhdy yesterday in response to this comment from undercovercalico:

Female sexuality and the right to express it freely in any manifestation/identity is still really one of the corner stone threats to authoritarianism.

One of my favorite genres of books is autobiographies of everyday women from around the world. I’ve read tons of them and I remember at one point I recognized the theme that seemed to always emerge, whether it was burka’s in the Middle East, foot-binding in China, genital mutilation in parts of Africa, or chastity belts in Europe. The message was not only that women needed to be controlled, but more specifically, their sexuality needed to be controlled.

Many before me have come to this same conclusion. But the question still remains, why is it that women’s freely expressed sexuality is such a threat? What might change in this world if women were allowed individual choice about who to have sex with and when?

McCain IS a Warmonger ( UPDATE No. 2 )

 Well, I’m disappointed in Obama.  Alas.  Cajones?  What Cajones?  Not that Hillary would be any better, mind you.

There’s a minor flap (which I wish would become a major one) over Ed Shultz calling McCain a “warmonger” at a Democratic Party fundraiser in Grand Forks, ND, which the Obama campaign  scrambled to repudiate, certainly out of a knee-knocking fear that Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh would say mean things about Obama –  horrors! (and as opposed to the nice things they say about Obama, and, for that matter, Hillary, now).

Gad.

 

Pony Party: Sunday music retrospective

Jim Croce



Time in a Bottle

Congratulations to Undercovercalico!

WARNING — The following essay contains information about sports, which apparently does not have much of a following at Docudharma, so I’ll keep it brief.

All hail the winner of the DDMMTTPP (Docudharma March Madness Tournament Time Private Pool):  Undercovercalico!!!

Even with the championship game still to be played Monday night, Undercovercalico has already clinched victory by having correctly picked all of the Final Four teams (Memphis, UCLA, North Carolina, and Kansas) and correctly picking Memphis and Kansas to advance to the championship game.

The Memphis Tigers defeated UCLA 78-63 in the first semifinal game Saturday.  This was the 38th win of the season for Memphis, which sets a new NCAA record for most wins in a single season.  Their only loss of the season was by 4 points to Tennessee.  In the other semifinal game, Kansas beat North Carolina 84-66.  North Carolina coach Roy Williams had previously coached for 15 years at Kansas before leaving to coach North Carolina.  Kansas fans have been cranky ever since, so beating Williams’ team was sweet revenge.  The winners of Saturday’s semifinal games play for the championship on Monday.

Who will win Monday night’s championship game between Memphis and Kansas?  UCC picked Memphis to win it all, and only an idiot would disagree with her record of success thus far.

I predict Kansas will win.  

When Soldiers Return from ‘Wars Of Choice’!

This is just one result of the Apathy after the Cheering and Support of!

The above video comes from this report Researcher uncovers what caused Gulf War Syndrome

Docudharma Times Sunday April 6



GOT MOTION RESTRAINED EMOTION

BEEN DRIVING DETROIT LEANING

NO REASON JUST SEEMS SO PLEASING

GONNA MAKE YOU, MAKE YOU, MAKE YOU NOTICE

Sunday’s Headlines: Army Worried by Rising Stress of Return Tours to Iraq: Texas officials remove 183 from polygamist compound: Drought ignites Spain’s ‘water war’: France debates Beijing boycott as Olympic torch reaches London: Army faces new torture claims over arrest of Shia leader: Iran joined militias in battle for Basra: China struggles to quell Tibet rebels: Afghans Battle Drug Addiction: Beatings and abuse give Mexico’s emo teens plenty to feel anguished about: Thousands flee floods in Brazil: Zimbabwe on the brink: War or Peace?

Bush Listens Closely To His Man in Iraq

In White House Deliberations on War, Gen. Petraeus Has a Privileged Voice

For months, a debate raged at the top levels of the Bush administration over how quickly to reduce the number of U.S. troops in Iraq. But the discussion shut down soon after President Bush flew to Camp Arifjan, a dusty Army base near the Iraqi border in Kuwait, in January for a face-to-face meeting with the man whose counsel on the war he values most: Gen. David H. Petraeus.

During an 80-minute session, the president questioned his top commander in Iraq on whether further troop reductions, beyond those planned through July, would compromise security gains.

The Ultimate Test

Candidates for the Presidency of the United States raise hundreds of millions of dollars and compete in primaries and caucuses in state after state in order to win convention delegates.  They engage in a series of nationally televised debates, appear on political programs like Meet the Press and Hardball, and strive to demonstrate to America and the world in the early months of presidential election years that they are ready to take their campaigns to the next level.  

Obama’s campaign strategists knew all of these campaign events were relatively important, but realized they were just preliminaries to the ultimate test of leadership that awaited him.  They knew by early April that the time had come to get serious, that the time had come to launch the most crucial phase of Obama’s presidential campaign, that the time had come for Obama to go where the votes are, to go to the only place he could go in all of America to face that ultimate test of leadership.  

Grand Forks, North Dakota.  

I’m only an advocate, but I knew that too, so I went here:

My brother Craig, a lifelong Republican, joined me as I waited in line.  That line kept getting longer, and longer, and longer . . .

17,000 Americans came from small towns all across North Dakota and Minnesota to see the next President of the United States.  They came from farms throughout the Red River Valley, they came from the colleges and universities of the Upper Midwest, they came from Native American reservations, from the Grand Forks Air Force Base, from the VA Hospital in Fargo, from homes and schools and churches in this country’s heartland, where Americans still believe in decency and justice and democracy.  

These men and women and children who came to see and hear Barack Obama, who stood in line for hours on this spring day in this eighth year of BushCo fascism don’t want to see less jobs and more wars.  They’re sick and tired of less jobs and more wars, of lies and torture and Katrinas, of Enrons and Bear Stearns and Deciders, of endless coverups and endless betrayal.  They want to believe in America again, they want to be heard in Washington D.C. again, they want their country back, and it looked to me like they are damn well ready to take it back.

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