Archive for the ‘USA’ Category
Just a t-shirt
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Every Martin Luther King Day over the last few years, plus as many days as possible during February (Black History Month,) I have been wearing the shirt above and today is no exception. Mine is actually black, in some ways more fitting, but I wish I had seen the version above in wine-red first.
I bought it from the wonderful people at UrbanProfile.com, who also offer a wide range of other African-American themed t-shirts. For the inauguration this year, you could be wearing a shirt with the map of U.S.A. stamped “Under New Management” for example.
This particular shirt gets some of the strangest looks, not to mention some interesting reactions. This morning while lying down on my chiropractor’s adjustment bed, I noticed him reading the back out loud. He later insisted on reading the front before discussing my ever ongoing need for additional treatment.
Last year, while having breakfast out, a woman behind me couldn’t even wait that long and tapped me on the shoulder to ask if I could turn around for her to see the front!
What is on the back is a 1966 quote from writer James Baldwin. It reads;
America has created a state of mood, which is dangerous for the world. In order to buy and sell men like cattle one had to pretend they were cattle. Being Christian knowing it was wrong; they had to pretend it was not done to men but to animals. What has happened is that America, which use to buy and sell black men, still isn’t sure if they are animals or not.
But the most interesting reactions are usually drawn to the front, be it a supermarket cashier trying to read while avoiding my eyes, an African-American mother with kids being shocked first, then slowly realizing the point and looking up at me proudly and finally a young white dude that wanted to fight me, as he found it offensive.
Front of the shirt has a copy of an advertisement from Charlestown, carrying a date of July 24th, 1769. The text reads:
TO BE SOLD, ON THURSDAY THE THIRD DAY OF AUGUST NEXT, A CARGO OF NINETY-FOUR PRIME, HEALTHY NEGROES, CONSISTING OF THIRTY-NINE MEN, FIFTEEN BOYS, TWENTY-FOUR WOMEN, AND SIXTEEN GIRLS. JUST ARRIVED IN THE BRIGANTINE DEMBIA, FROM SIERRA-LEON, BY DAVID & JOHN DEAS.
I don’t wear the shirt to shock people. I wear it as a reminder. And it’s not just a reminder of look what YOU have done; it’s something we need to remember that many of us have also. For it, still goes on today, in many parts of the world, in many different forms.
Yes, as a nation, the United States needs to be held responsible for many atrocities, including its near annihilation of the first-nations, organized and sanctioned slavery of millions, multiple wars and military campaigns around the globe causing lives, economic catastrophe, famine, disease, and theft of other nation’ resources by force or deceit.
But if we start to hold such high standards, we better be prepared to look in the mirror to examine our own past, review our current conduct and keep an eye on the future.
Polls, Schmolls
After offering my take on the first presidential debate, it was interesting to see most of those presenting opposing comments based their responses on the results of polls conducted after the debate, particularly one by CNN (not “Perception Impression” gadget, but actual polls.)
I do not mean to change anyone’s opinion at this point. It is clear that in regards to that debate and perhaps others to follow, if you’re an Obama supporter, your guy won. If you’re a McCain supporter, your guy won. As Iranians, have always been politically stubborn and perhaps we are stubborn Iranian-Americans now.
However, the nature of polling is still at question and for those who do not question it, often citing some magical “scientific” reason behind the numbers, just ask yourself one question; if the polls were such a science, why would campaigns conduct their own separate, rigorous, frequent and very expensive polling instead of just looking at the CNN results?
The answer has much to do with the same “science” behind the polls, for as everything so scientific also leaves an opening to be scientifically manipulated, and it often is. And the reason I turned off my television right after the debate to write my opinion was to not hear those polls as well as the spin-masters’ version of what took place.
There are many ways to manipulate the outcome of a poll. The most common are of course;
- What questions were asked? In one of the campaigns I worked for, we got two separate results when asking whom “do you feel WON the debate” versus “do you feel CAME ON TOP at the debate”. The difference was close to a huge10-point margin when all else was equal and nobody could explain why. To this date I can’t understand why people responded so differently to essentially the same question.
- In what order were the questions asked? It is known that you can “lead” a subject by just choosing the order you ask the questions. If you get 4 positive answers in a row, the 5th is most likely a positive also, for example. Or if you set up the interviews so your most crucial question (D) is always asked before (E), (G) and (Z) to get the result you want.
- How random were the people interviewed? Again from my personal experience, I’ve seen media choose random phone-in interviews to conduct a very critical poll. What they didn’t take into account was that according to latest stats, 58% of renters in California don’t have landlines anymore and this was a poll that directly affected renters on a proposition initiative in CA. Needless to say, they had a list that excluded cell numbers, leaving the most important folks out of their poll. They were calling areas that had high renters, but mostly talking to their landlords that had 2-6 units for rent in, living in the same complex!
I am not suggesting CNN wanted to manipulate the results (although it would be naive to suggest any media is without a bias these days) or they are close-minded to such issues. But they are a news organization, filling their time and I am not going to let them tell me what I think. Poll or no poll, from what I watched, Obama lost round one. Sorry if he’s your candidate and hope he prepares better for round two.
This post deals with traditional and accepted methods of polling and not what is used at most focus groups today with a small sample of people and a gadgets to indicate based their immediate responses.
McCain 1 – Obama 0
Greg Craig - Barack Obama's Policy Advisor
Greg Craig would need to do MUCH better if his candidate wants any chance of winning upcoming debates. He has played the lead role in preparing Obama for his debates and even posed as McCain while they practiced.
Obama performed so poorly against a much weaker candidate, I feel obliged to offer a few points as a one time aspiring politician with some media training for such occasions:
- Get your candidate in a jacket that is at least half a size too big for him. His thin, long stature could use the puffing up. Navy suits look Presidential.
- Avoid a tie with small print. Light blue or red only and find someone in the campaign that can tie a perfectly straight and long half or full Windsor necktie.
- When your opponent is deliberately avoiding looking at you, do not look at him as it comes across like you are begging to have a confrontation and he doesn’t see you as a worthy adversary.
- If your opponent is successful at smiling confidently while you make your best points, return the favor and smile while he’s making his.
- Stop enforcing what you have in common; unless you are so much better, he has a longer record and better credentials.
- Take your shots while he lobs all those softballs (and gaffs) at you immediately and not a minute later when you remembered the right answer. He’s 72; you can’t afford to look 82!
- Take that cane out of your ass and relax, be mildly animated and exude confidence.
Better luck next time!
“Less Taxes, More War”
Tough yet very very soft
With hundreds of thousands of active blogs out there, who needs another one that focuses on all the doom and gloom of daily life?
Who cares if we give our money to banks to hold, they occasionally lend it back to us at outrageous interest rates, pay mind-blowing salaries out of it to their executives and dividends to their largest share-holders. Then when we need it back they say “oops, it looks like we may not have it anymore…could you bail us out with your tax money and basically just pay yourselves?”
Who cares if one candidate holds three separate news conferences in a day to put out three very different messages about the economy as the market plunges further while the other refuses to carry the “change” flag by pointing out the real reasons behind the collapse?
Who cares if an Israeli cabinet minister thinks kidnapping another country’s president is a good idea and an Iranian one keeps coming up with fake degrees to keep his job?
Not this blog! At least not at this very moment, before I change my mind! It’s time for only good news. We’re talking good words, thoughts and deeds. Things like; “sanctuary”, “quality time”, “extra fibers” and “softness.”
Aren’t those nice things? Well, that’s what the “toilet-paper researchers” have developed for us and it will be available as of Monday.
Yes, these may be tough times on many fronts. But at least for “women 45 and older”, there will be something soft available not only for its intended uses, but perhaps for other times also, such as crying when you open your next 401(K) statement.
Wallace interviewing Ahmadinejad
Dazed & Confused
DISCLAIMER: Posting of this or similar material does NOT constitute an automatic endorsement of Sen. Barack Obama or other declared or undeclared candidates by this blog.
Honkey-Tonk war protest in Nashville
R.I.P. Peace Movement
Let us all be frank here, many of the so-called “peace activists” in this country are not really against wars, they are against losing wars.
It would be perfectly valid and reasonable for anyone to raise that as a self-proclaimed peace activist, an Iranian in U.S. and someone with enough audacity to consider himself a “progressive”, why I am no longer participating in any anti-war rallies, such as the ones held yesterday. I say no longer as I did for a while, even to the point of helping in organizing a few but have since lost all interest.
My complete explanation would take much more than this forum allows but here is the basic version; there is no such thing as a peace movement in U.S. or more accurately, it is so diminutive and inept, it is often hijacked for promoting a narrow agenda and occasionally even used by the most regressive elements in this country.
To explain further, let’s look at the numbers. The last “anti-war rally” in my hometown of Los Angeles, an area that is the second largest in this nation with a population of over 14 million and certainly one of the largest urban regions in the world, managed to bring out a few thousands on an optimistic estimate.
Less than one percent of this area’s people felt the need to protest being lied to for going into a war. For having billions of their common resources wasted on false promises. For the dignity and reputation of their country being marked to promote viewpoint of a select group. For having hundreds of thousands of world’s population killed by their armed forces, most of them non-combative and unarmed civilians. For thousands of their own young to pay for an unnecessary and illegitimate war with their limbs and lives.
Not even one in a hundred cared enough to take part in protest and that should not surprise many.
Let us all be frank here, many of the so-called “peace activists” in this country are not really against wars, they are against losing wars. For that, had the war in Iraq been going the Cheney-Bush way and we were “winning”, a very large portion of that few thousand wouldn’t even care. Which leaves us with a very small core group, perhaps best described as professional activists. That includes the core believers as well as those within the labor movement and political organization who “organize” for a living.
But is there a solution? I believe there is and that solution starts with education. That’s why I’m here typing away at my keyboard instead of out there with a placard. I need to get my voice out to define WHY war is not the answer and HOW fear mongering is leading us towards more confrontations. That, in my opinion, is where the current activists have failed so far and unless it changes, they can expect an even smaller role to play in any future developments.
If lies have led us to where we are today, truth should set us free. For the peace movement, the truth starts with a look within and admitting it has failed to the point of self-annihilation.
Meet Iran’s Basketball Team
Thanks FG.
Quakes & Record Crashes
Southern California (and reportedly even parts of Nevada) residents were treated to a bit of shaking with a 5.4 Richter rattle centered around Chino Hills earlier this week. To most it actually felt more as a back and forth “roll” than anything, particularly to those in large concrete buildings on rollers and seismic joints like myself. Most residents took it (or at least acted) remarkably in stride. After all, this is LA and Angelinos are supposed to be used to quakes. Tourists were another story though, and most TV reporters somehow found a few of them for interviews to tell of their “scary” experience.
The Quake story however overshadowed another more important story of the same day. One having to do with how predatory management style of major corporations acting on pure greed, combined with a lack of safeguards stemming from a weak political system catering to the richest of the rich, is affecting the U.S. economy.
This time it came in form of yet another bleak report on housing values. According to LA Times, May 2007 to May 2008 average prices for 20 cities in their U.S. study saw a record 15.8% decline with LA being down 24.5%. Only Las Vegas, Phoenix and Miami had a larger percentage decline in the same period. Other cities that also saw record decline in numbers included San Diego, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle and Washington, D.C.
To offer a better perspective of what those kinds of numbers really mean, let’s try this; the early 1990’s downturn in property values in Los Angeles areas caused a 27% decline between 1990 and 1996 before stabilizing. That 27% number is already matched this time for declines between the peak of September 2006 and May 2008.
Are we done yet? Well, depends on whom you ask but if you are asking me, we are FAR from bottom, as the early 90’s decline didn’t take place in the aftermath of the kind of mess we have seen over the last 8-10 years, not only as it related to the sub-prime and “creative” financing available to the most vulnerable amongst us, but also the speculations and false values created far beyond reaches of most.
This is not a free market anymore, it truly is a bubble market where large sums of money is made and lost on paper and overnight, but lives are often ruined in a very real way.
