Friday Fact – How to get people to vote for you: Be on American Idol

A record 74+ million people voted on American Idol during the finale.

Less than 60 million people voted in the 2004 Presidential Election.

Wow. I wonder how much Jordin is going to help get this country on the right track?

Priorities sure are interesting…

One Love. One II.

How was I supposed to know?

This will be the type of ignorant but calculating excuse that Bush would use if and when a conflict would breakout with Iran. In the latest development, “the U.S. Navy staged its latest show of military force off the Iranian coastline on Wednesday, sending two aircraft carriers and landing ships packed with 17,000 U.S. Marines and sailors to carry out unannounced exercises in the Persian Gulf.”

The CBC is a trip

Check this out, “Twenty-six members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) have signed letters to Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) and former Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) urging them to reconsider their decisions to skip a debate cosponsored by the CBC Institute and Fox News.”

Do you want more Independent TV?

A group of independent filmmakers called the Independent Film & Television Alliance (IFTA) want the FCC to mandate that 25% of Prime Time TV be reserved for independent shows. I don’t think this is a bad idea.

I’m not writing about this because I want to see better movies or better television (which I do, for the record). I am writing about this because more than being an issue about specific content, this is an issue about gaining access not only to the media, but to the people.

Democrats blink

The Democrats in Congress acquiesced to Bush by agreeing to scuttle a timeline for withdrawing the troops. The bill does “include conditions prodding Baghdad to make better progress toward quelling violence or risk losing around $1.3 billion in U.S. reconstruction aid. Bush could waive the provision, however.”

Detroit City Council: Impeach Bush

I missed this last week because I had not been staying up on news back home like I should. The Detroit City Council approved a resolution to impeach President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney last Wednesday.

While such a vote is “meaningless” in terms of being respected by the federal government, it does demonstrate yet another local body/group of citizens (there have been others) publicly communicating their frustration with everything that is the Bush Administration.

If you had a vote, would you vote to impeach the president?

One Love. One II.

Social Justice pt. 1

Last week, I was able to participate in a roundtable discussion with leaders from progressive organizations here in Michigan. The discussion was led by Professor John Powell, a simply brilliant man who is the executive director of the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity at The Ohio State University. I am proud to add that he is a Detroit native. It took me days before I could talk about what I learned. This will be the first of many posts related to this dialogue.

The Weekly Dream: Growing Pains

“When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child.  When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.”

-1 Cor. 13:11

“You cannot put a grown head on a child’s body.”

The last couple of weeks this particular verse has been on my mind.  As my peers and I are undergoing tremendous changes and new responsibilities, maturity is something that I keep coming back to.  I remember when I was seven and my father told me I was the man of the house and what that meant to me.  I knew I was held to a different standard because I had responsibility.  I could not afford to be careless or to set a bad example for my siblings.  I could no longer comport myself as a child. 

Bush doesn’t like the troops, I don’t like Bush

I really, really don’t like this guy. Why do he and his political allies talk all this noise about “supporting the troops” when they treat them like the little green army men that small children play war with?

Case in point: Democrats today called for the President to support a compensation increase for the soldiers via The National Defense Authorization Act:

Obama and Clinton back Iraq Pullout Deadline

Wow.

It takes a lot for most politicians to be explicit about something. Anything. These two are definitely no exception. The strange similarities between Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton’s stances on Iraq continue, but they took a turn for the better yesterday. Instead of dancing around the idea of having a firm date for US troop withdrawal like they did in the past, both of them voted yesterday to set a 31 March 2008 for US troops to be out of Iraq. While it is sad that these two candidates are some of the last to have some Iraq sense knocked into them, this is actually a good sign for anti-occupation efforts.