Generation “What Change?”

Tengrain at Mock, Paper, Scissors was recently asked to review a book, and because the target audience was people under 30, he asked me if I wanted to take on the project. I agreed, then emailed him and a few other people about how to go about reviewing a book I didn’t like. Taking only some of their advice, this is the result.

Cassie

Generation Change by Jayan Kalathil and Melissa Bolton-Klinger fails in its attempt to encourage the Obama Generation to continue the campaign for change. Published by Skyhorse Publishing and subtitled “150 Ways We Can Change Ourselves, Our Country and Our World” this book is geared toward readers under age 30. The unsigned description on the back cover indicates that the “fun, witty, and optimistic approach [is] sure to attract readers of all ages” but the font size and writing style are more appropriate for middle-class or wealthier sixth graders. If reduced to a size 12 font, with chapter titles at size 14, the book would likely fit into 150 pages rather than the current 210.

Would you pay $12.95 to read a book that tells you to “Stay Young at Heart” and devotes a chapter to flossing? The best suggestion is #5, which encourages us to blog for good. We’re already doing that. “Find the cause that keeps you up at night and get blogging!”

 

Michelle Obama as Role Model

How cool is it to have a first lady who thinks that getting A’s is cool! After the Bushes telling acting like being stupid is the coolest, I really like Michelle Obama’s message. And her clothes! (But not the turquoise sweater.)

The reality is that I think we need more women role models who are famous for something that doesn’t involve their husband, but Michelle Obama is still the coolest ever!

This is from BBC:

The world needs strong young women to pave the way for the future, an emotional US First Lady Michelle Obama has told schoolgirls in London.

Mrs Obama was close to tears as she addressed the excited crowd at the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson School in Islington, north London.

She told them: “We are counting on every single one of you to be the best that you can be.”

Mrs Obama is in the UK with husband Barack for the G20 summit.

Her visit to the North London school was greeted with much excitement by pupils and she sat smiling, riveted, as Year 11 pupil Grace Hollowell and the school’s junior choir performed the Whitney Houston hit Believe.

Mrs Obama, a mother of two girls herself, smiled and watched intently throughout the other performances, which also included a modern-day staging of The Tempest, and a presentation on the school’s new Learning To Lead scheme.
‘Strength and dignity’

The First Lady high-fived one pupil after the performance before she took to the podium for her speech.

As she addressed the crowd, Mrs Obama choked up, saying: “Wow. I can’t follow that. Let me tell you, I am just very touched and moved by all of you.”

There isn’t a full transcript, but BBC describes it really well:

 

Eight Years in Eight Minutes

Are you depressed about the last eight years? Of course! But now that it’s ALMOST over, we can start looking back on it.

This is Keith Olbermann’s retrospective from the other night.

I can’t find the transcript, but it will be here when it does come up!

 

parody videos about Bush

Is he humble?

Or crazy?

(Yes, I already know that it’s 4000 US soldiers dead in combat and not 3000. It’s an old video!)

Or just plain evil?

 

Why Hillary?

Dan Solis from ThinkYouth sent me this video along with this note:

If this doesn’t get you motivated to endorse Hillary on your blog, I don’t know what will.
I gotta admit, this video made me tear up a bit. Have you seen it already?

I’ve seen the video, and I am well convinced that Hillary should make a statement with her hairstyle. So why does her hair look so flat on the video? And why should any of that mean that people should vote for her?

Vote for the candidate who will be the best president! Vote for the one who will be able to fix all the things that Bush and the Republicans broke. Don’t vote based on gender or race.

Here is my tribute to Ann Richards the week that she died.

 

White House a prison?

No Mrs. Senator Clinton. The White House is a Palace!

Hillary Clinton feels the White House is like a prison

from LA Times

Also, Obama says he’s no bureaucrat, more California voters decline to pick party, Michigan GOP congratulates the wrong fellow and a Lou Dobbs draft?

By DON FREDERICK and ANDREW MALCOLM
January 20, 2008

Not that it’s going to diminish her ambition to get back in there again, but Hillary Clinton says she views the White House as something of a prison.She also thinks that if she is elected president, she’ll have to have a contest on what to call her husband because “first lady” wouldn’t be appropriate.

This and other minutiae Clinton shared with Tyra Banks during a recent taping of Banks’ syndicated TV show.”Do you ever get lonely?” Banks asked the New York senator. “Do you ever sit in your room by yourself sometimes and just feel alone?”

“I don’t feel lonely,” Clinton said. “But I do feel sometimes isolated. Because when you are in these positions that I have been in, it can be very isolating. It is one of the reasons I [used to] put on the dark glasses and the baseball cap and go out of the White House. President Harry Truman once said that the White House was like the crown jewel of the American penal system because you can feel confined.”

“And kind of [like jail],” Banks added.

“Yeah,” Clinton replied. “Because you feel so set off and really isolated.”

Banks also wanted to know what Clinton’s husband would be called if she won. “He will always be Mr. President,” Clinton said. “But now we need to do a nationwide contest for a name.”

“Like a reality show,” Banks suggested.

“Like a reality show,” Clinton agreed. “This is good, because think about it — here are some of the things that have been suggested like First Mate. His Scottish friends say ‘First Laddie,’ but we need ideas. I’ll just keep calling him Bill.”

Banks didn’t get around to asking policy questions, but she was curious about something that so many of us have also long wondered about: which reality show Clinton might like to be on someday — “Dancing with the Stars,” “American Idol” or “America’s Next Top Model”?

“In my dreams,” Clinton said, “I would be on ‘America’s Next Top Model,’ but in reality I would have to choose [among] my limited talents, and of them, dancing is better than singing. You do not want me to sing.”

Finally, Clinton announced her decision: “I think it would have to be ‘Dancing with the Stars,’ ” she said, “especially if I could have one of those really good partners.”

 

How to Prevent a War with Iran

These suggestions are from Code Pink. (Thanks Franya.) What else might work? Please leave a comment.

1. Tell Senator Lieberman: No War in Iran! Joe Lieberman is waving his sword again. On Sunday, he told CBS “I think we’ve got to be prepared to take aggressive military action against the Iranians to stop them from killing Americans in Iraq.” Upon hearing these words, our own Leslie Angeline, a CODEPINK member from Santa Rosa, CA, decided to go on a hunger strike until Senator Lieberman agreed to meet with her. Leslie, who recently returned from a peace delegation to Iran, has made it her mission to prevent America from attacking the country. You can join us in solidarity by calling and emailing Lieberman’s office to demand that he retract his irresponsible call for military action in Iran. Call (202)224-4041 and ask to speak to Vance Serchuck, Lieberman’s Legislative Aide on foreign relations and Iran, or click here to send an email along with the picture on the above right of our action outside his office. We are holding photos taken from Leslie’s recent trip to Iran. Ask Lieberman if he really wants to attack these beautiful people, this beautiful place. See more action photos here. As Leslie says, “70% of the Iranian population is under the age of 30-the age of my son. Iran is a country of warm, kind, and generous children and their families. We cannot start bombing these kids.” Download and distribute our latest DON”T IRAQ IRAN flyer!

2. Learn What Presidential Candidates Are Saying About Iran It is critical during this election season, to listen to what the presidential candidates – both Republican and Democrat – are saying about Iran. When a candidate says “No options are off the table,” they are sanctioning not only a possible military attack, but also a nuclear attack on Iran. This is totally unacceptable. We must insist that they put a nuclear attack off the table, and that they call for negotiations, not war. Click here to download our list of presidential candidates and their positions on Iran.

3. Sign Our Petition to the UN Security Council! Click here to add your name today!

4. Tell Congress! Don’t Iraq Iran! Help us prevent another war in the Middle East. This time Congress must stop a pre-emptive attack! Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA) has introduced legislation (S.759) that would prohibit any funds from the recent supplemental bill to be used in attacking Iran. Urge your Senator to support S.759 TODAY!

5. Ask Your Press to be Critical and Vigilant! The mainstream media is already jumping on the bandwagon about the Iranian threat. We hoped they would have learned their lesson after spreading falsehoods about WMDs in Iraq. But once again journalists such as New York Times’ Michael R. Gordon, Judith Miller’s sidekick in the WMD and phony aluminum tubes reporting, are quoting anonymous sources as proof that Iran is providing Iraqi militias with powerful explosives to attack US troops. For more analysis of the press and Iran, click here. In fact, the evidence against Iran is insubstantial and full of exaggeration. Even General Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said he hasn’t seen any intelligence that supports the claim. We need to tell the press that now is the time to ask serious questions instead of blindly supporting the administration’s headlong rush into another tragic and unnecessary war. Please contact media outlets and tell them we demand a critical, vigilant press. Click here to send your letter now!

6. Learn More! PowerPoint Show of influential and famous Iranians in our midst: In recent years, the media has damaged Iran?s image so badly that when people hear the name of Iran, they only picture black chadors, terrorism, and ayatollahs. These stereotypes are being constructed to make it easier for governments to attack Iran with public approval. This is why NoWar SA has produced a prsentation to help break down these negative stereotypes.

 

Washington, DC and Voting

Why would anyone in congress keep the people of Washington from voting?

 

D.C. Vote Bill Dies in Senate

By Mary Beth Sheridan

Washington Post Staff Writer

Republican lawmakers yesterday blocked the Senate from taking up the D.C. vote bill, a potentially fatal setback for the District’s most promising effort in years to get a full member of Congress.

The opposition to the bill is this, but I think that the Republicans don’t want people in Washington, DC to vote because many of them are black and most of them are registered Democrats.

The Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), and the White House have strongly criticized the legislation. They maintain that, because the District is not a state, the bill violates the constitutional mandate that House members be chosen by the “People of the several States.”

“I opposed this bill because it is clearly and unambiguously unconstitutional,” McConnell said in a statement. “If the residents of the District are to get a member for themselves, they have a remedy: amend the Constitution.”

The article points that out too.

In addition to voicing legal concerns, opponents were wary of the bill’s potential political repercussions. Some Republicans feared that the measure could eventually lead to the addition of two full D.C. senators, who probably would be Democrats.

If this is a real democracy, then the citizens of our country’s capital city should be able to participate also.

 

Two Political Cartoons on the Surge in Iraq

How stupid does Bush think that we are?

Note: spew alert for the second cartoon.  Don’t have anything in your mouth that you don’t mind having all over the screen and the keyboard.  —Freckles

 

Gonzo is finally Gone-zo

Wouldn’t it be nice if Bush would nominate some honest lawyers who respect the constitution to head up the justice department?  All of the top spots are empty.  But he will want people he can trust to not investigate his administration, someone who agrees to illegal wiretaps and torture and  prisoner rendition around the world, and I really hope that the congress doesn’t give in.

Gonzales leaves Justice Department

from Yahoo! News

AP – Resigning Attorney General Alberto Gonzales left the scandal-scarred Justice Department on Friday, declaring himself hopeful about its mission of ferreting out crime and defending the truth. Gonzales quit after 2 1/2 years at the department amid investigations into whether he broke the law and lied to Congress. He has denied any wrongdoing.

 

Progress

Bush is supposedly all about accountability. Every year we have to do better on the tests and every year the tests get harder. Know what the teachers say when you don’t pass a test the first time? They say you’re making PROGRESS. I think that means you did better than you did before, and that you’re getting closer to passing.

But that’s not what it means to Bush. Watch this video from MoveOn.Org and see if you can figure out what the word PROGRESS means in his world. If you figure it out, please let us know in the comments section.

 

Are we ready to fight?

    My brother was 6 when he decided to join the military and 18 when he did. He was not drafted. It was his choice. I do not want to get drafted when I turn 18 in 2 yrs (and a few months). Do you? If Bush doesn’t ever let this war end, and if Congress never pushes for it to end, then we all might end up fighting. Even with enlistment bonuses and 5th tours of duty, the military is going to run out of soldiers and marines.

This is an ad that is being run in Maine where Susan Collins is up for re-election, but it could run anywhere. Watch it. Share it with people. Keep me and my friends and our classmates and our generation from having to get drafted to fight Bush’s war.

Are you ready to fight? Are you ready to go on 3 or 4 or 5 deployments? Are you ready for PTSD? Are you ready to die?

 

Bush’s legacy

It seems that George W is concerned about his legacy, and he is talking to a biographer named Robert Draper:

In book, Bush peeks ahead to his legacy

from Americas – International Herald Tribune

In an interview with a book author in the Oval Office one day last December, President George W. Bush daydreamed about the next phase of his life, when his time will be his own.

The articles talks about these kinds of issues

First, Bush said, “I’ll give some speeches, just to replenish the ol’ coffers.” With joint assets that have been estimated at as high as nearly $21 million, Bush added, “I don’t know what my dad gets – it’s more than 50-75″ thousand dollars a speech, and “Clinton’s making a lot of money.”

Then he said, “We’ll have a nice place in Dallas,” where he will be running what he called “a fantastic Freedom Institute” promoting democracy around the world. But he added, “I can just envision getting in the car, getting bored, going down to the ranch.”

and

The transcripts and the book show Bush as being keenly interested in what history will say about his term despite his frequent comments to the contrary; as being in a reflective mode as his time at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue dwindles; and, ultimately, as being at once sorrowful and optimistic – but virtually alone as commander in chief, and aware of it.

Here is the worst line in the whole article:

And in apparent reference to the invasion of Iraq, he continued, “This group-think of ‘we all sat around and decided’ – there’s only one person that can decide, and that’s the president.”

HE just wants to make money, but I think that his real legacy will include these:

1. a million people dead because of wars that we started
2. 3000 dead at Ground Zero, flight 93 and the Pentagon, with bin Ladin still on the loose and not even a suspect by the CIA
3. an unsolved anthrax terrorism case that killed five people
4. increased opium exports all around the world
5. privatization of everything from highways to schools to prisons hospitals to the maintenance of Walter Reed hospital and rehab
6. many millions of uninsured and underinsured Americans with no access to decent health care when they need it
7. the drowning of a city and a whole section of another state
8. hard times for poor people, and a whole lot more poor people
9. most of his administration resigning on him, and some of them being investigated and tried and convicted for crimes
10. having the whole world hate us
11. almost (I hope) starting a war with Iran
12. stealing elections
13. having hookers in the white house pretending to be reporters
14. the giant corporations having a super time while the planet heats up and regular people suffer
15. high gas prices and high prices to heat houses
16. spying on Americans without a warrant or even telling the FISA court
17. locking up Americans for years without a trial
18. locking up thousands of other people in torture camps with no lawyers and no rights
19. making students only learn stuff that is tested in April and not the important things in each subject

I bet George won’t talk about those things when he has speaking tours. (He’ll get more for one talk than my whole family has in a year!) What do you think his legacy will be? Can someone please call the Hague?

Like most of my political posts, this is cross-posted at
Political Teen Tidbits and at YouThinkLeft.

 

When can we leave Iraq?

So …. If half the republican people want us to withdraw troops from Iraq, we can assume that even more of the democratic people want to withdraw troops. So when will the politicians in Washington know what the people know? When will they listen? When will they start a withdrawal?

This is from ThinkProgress:

51 percent:

Number of Republicans in Iowa who “favor a withdrawal of all United States military from Iraq within the next six months.” Just 39 percent are against a withdrawal. (via Atrios)

 

Fox and War with Iran

Why does Fox News want us to have a war with Iran? Why do Americans let Fox News decide what is happening in our foreign policy? Why don’t they have to report real facts?

 

call to action on CHIP

I just got this email. But it sounds like people in other states can call their governor too.

—Freckles Cassie

Dear Cassie,

George Bush has done it again. He has sided with insurance and drug company profits over the health and well-being of our nation’s children. Late Friday night, the Bush administration released a letter to state health officials that
effectively eliminated health insurance coverage for millions of American kids. This underhanded one-size-fits-all cutback limits Texas’s ability to cover uninsured kids and cripples any chance of reasonable expansion.¹

What can you do? Let’s face it; President Bush isn’t going to take your call.

On the other hand, when the governor of a state calls, even Bush will listen.

Call Governor Perry right now and demand that Texas stands up to President Bush’s anti-children campaign.

Governor Rick Perry
512 463-2000

Here’s what you can say:

“President Bush’s new rules which reduce the availability of the Children’s Health Insurance Program for uninsured kids must be repealed. Governor Perry must call President Bush today and demand a complete rollback of the new rules. Can I count on the governor to stand up for our kids?”

Please report how your call went here:
http://www.DemocracyforAmerica.com/chipcalls

This is a very important time. Congress is poised to send an extensive expansion of the Children’s Health Insurance Plan to Bush’s desk next month, and Bush has already threatened to veto it. If we amp up the pressure now on a rules change they didn’t even think we’d notice, we send Bush and Republicans in Congress a clear message that the health of America’s children always comes first.

Please call the Governor right now. Your neighbor’s kid might be depending on it.

Charles Chamberlain

Political Director

¹: “Rules May Limit Health Program Aiding Children” NYTimes,8-21-2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/21/washington/21health.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin