Dear Sir Obama: Presidential Advice

By JORY JOHN
Published: New York Times, January 15, 2009

Every day after school about 65 children come to our center to get help with their homework. The place is always vibrant, but on Nov. 5, 2008, the 20 tutors in the room essentially played zone defense to keep things in order. For the students, the election of Barack Obama had overturned their world.

The children had been interested in the election all year but few of them, truth be told, really thought Mr. Obama would be elected. When he won, their talk quickly and excitedly turned to what would happen next.

We decided to channel this energy into a writing assignment. We asked our students — not just those in San Francisco, but ones in Ann Arbor, Mich.; Boston; Chicago; Los Angeles; New York; and Seattle — to offer their thoughts, hopes and advice to Mr. Obama in handwritten letters (many of which came with drawings). These were two letters that particularly caught my attention.

Dear President Obama,
Here is a list of the first 10 things you should do as president:
1. Fly to the White House in a helicopter.
2. Walk in.
3. Wipe feet.
4. Walk to the Oval Office.
5. Sit down in a chair.
6. Put hand-sanitizer on hands.
7. Enjoy moment.
8. Get up.
9. Get in car.
10. Go to the dog pound.
— Chandler Browne, age 12, Chicago

1. Make everyone read books.
2. Don’t let teachers give kids hard homework.
3. Make a law where kids only get one page of homework per week.
4. Kids can go visit you whenever they want.
5. Make volunteer tutors get paid.
6. Let the tutors do all the thinking.
7. Make universities free.
8. Make students get extra credit for everything.
9. Give teachers raises.
10. If No. 4 is approved, let kids visit the Oval Office, but don’t make it boring.
— Mireya Perez, age 8, San Francisco


Jory John, program director at 826 Valencia, a nonprofit writing and tutoring center, is the editor of the forthcoming “Thanks and Have Fun Running the Country: A Collection

Let the Right One In

One Sunday morning at 11:00 am I attended the Brattle theatre’s Eye Opener series to watch Let the Right One In. I knew I would not like it. I only went for the free breakfast and to support the group; it would not kill me to stay 30 minutes. When 30 minutes was up I thought hum! I can stay another 20 minutes it’s not a bad movie. I ended up watching the entire movie and loving it; what a surprise! I then read the book from beginning to end in three days; that also was thrilling.

It is a great vampire and coming of age film and beautifully filmed in Sweden. It stays true to the book while leaving out a complete chunk around Eli’s so called father. I think this was a problem but understand that it would have made the film run well over two hours.

Oskar is a 12 year old fragile and very anxious boy that is regularly bullied by his stronger classmates. He seems to have no friends until he meets Eli, also 12, who moves in next door to him with her father. She is a pale, serious young girl or is she? She/it/he only comes out at night and doesn’t seem affected by the freezing temperatures. Coinciding with Eli’s arrival is a series of inexplicable disappearances and murders. One man is found tied to a tree, another frozen in the lake, a woman bitten in the neck.

Being a vampire movie, Blood is the common thread - and for an introverted boy likes Oskar, who is fascinated by gruesome stories, it doesn’t take long before he figures out that Eli is a vampire. But by now a subtle romance has blossomed between Oskar and Eli, and she gives him the strength to fight back against his aggressors. Oskar becomes increasingly aware of the tragic, inhuman dimension of Eli’s plight, but cannot bring himself to forsake her. Frozen forever in a twelve-year-old’s body, with all the burgeoning feelings and confused emotions of a young adolescent, Eli knows that she can only continue to live if she keeps on moving. But when Oskar faces his darkest hour, Eli returns to defend him the only way she can… and what an end it is; wow!!

Swedish filmmaker Tomas Alfredson weaves friendship, rejection and loyalty into a disturbing and darkly atmospheric, yet poetic and unexpectedly tender tableau of adolescence. LET THE RIGHT ONE IN is based on the best-selling novel by John Ajvide Lindqvist.

One Week to Go: Uprising or Celebration

In 2009 I look forward with great joy to a new president and the hope that Congress gets its act together to support him in producing a new look and feel for our country.

Today's New York Times op ed suggested that we should have an uprising against the outgoing president. Because "this is the man who gave us the war in Iraq and Guantánamo and torture and rendition; who turned the Clinton economy and the budget surplus into fool’s gold; who dithered while New Orleans drowned; who trampled our civil liberties at home and ruined our reputation abroad; who let Dick Cheney run hog wild and thought Brownie was doing a heckuva job." Check out the entire piece at
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/30/opinion/30herbert.html?th&emc=th

The damage is done, the media do not even talk about him anymore, and our lasting image of him is OF the Iraqi journalist who throw a shoe at him; an apt visual for all that went wrong during his administration over the past eight years. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OM3Z_Kskl_U

And so, I wonder do we show our anger (after all he was voted in despite his ineptitude or do we celebrate a new beginning?)

As the weeks wear on I constantly find pictures of Obama coming into my head and think how goal orientated he was and his "yes we can" has turned in my head to "Just do It." So America, lets get on with our lives, even though we are broke we can still make significant changes to our environment and lives we just have TO DO IT!

What are YOU afraid of?

Have you noticed lately that so many more people seem to be more afraid now than 20 years ago? Your friends and family are constantly warning you against “life” and when you ask them where they got that idea from it will generally be the news. I myself don’t watch TV and I suggested that they did not either. My fear factor has not changed one bit since my teens. This week in two different journals I found the answer to why fear is on the increase.

In the Fall 2008 issue of The Berkeley-based literary magazine Threepenny Review http://www.threepennyreview.com/current.html they published the proceedings of a symposium they held on the subjedt of fear. A portion was reprinted in the Utne Reader magazine www.Utne.com. In a nutshell it said that the “example rule,” dictates that the easier it is to gin up a memory of something, the more likely it is to be a repeat threat. This worked well before the advent of TV but now we are being bombarded constantly with pictures of plane crashes, superbugs, and child abductions; faced with related decisions, our guts are now make the decidedly wrong decisions. Utne printed three favorite moments from the symposium and I have reduced it to one because each time I read it, it makes me smile and that is what I like to do.

“If I’m tempted to boast that I have no fear that is not because I am fearless by nature, more that I have almost never found myself in situations in which I have had any need of fear…I’ve had no experience of loss. My parents are both in the 80s and still going strong. Also, since I don’t have – and never want to have – any children, I am not prey to the parental terror that they will be snatched any (by pedophiles, illness, or accident) without warning. …So there’s been no grief in my life, only a massive amount of irritation, and I suspect there is a relation between this and living without fear. To put it simply, I’ve just been too childishly pissed off, frustrated, and enraged to feel fear.”
Geoff Dyer, British author of But Beautiful, among other books.

The other article was in the Ode Magazine blog “Avoid Mental Toxins for 2009“
http://www.odemagazine.com/exchange/4208/avoid_mental_toxins_for_2009
In the same vein as Utne Reader they say that “Sadly, the news and media these days are flooding the airwaves with negative, anxiety and fear-producing stories. While it is important to know what is happening, I would strongly suggest being careful about taking in too much of that fear and negativity. It can be bad for your health.”

Hear! Hear! Do something positive in the New Year, skip television and volunteer at a shelter (human or animal), work with kids, help the environment, work at your church, or just meditate. Remember it is important to be in sync with the Rhythm of Life. Happy New Year

Mr. Meow Meow 1996-2008

Mr. Meow Meow had to be put to sleep on Friday December 5th. Fortunately he was only sick for one week; the diagnosis was chronic pancreatic disease. He did not respond to treatment and his daily blood results were deteriorating rapidly so there was no point in continuing. Thank goodness I had the courage to listen to my cat who was telling me it was time to go. A small point I would like to make is that the vet was not much help to me in making the decision. It seems that they just like to keep trying even and no want to give up.

Sometimes life works in peculiar ways those. Two weeks prior I had taken in two foster cats from an animal hoarder’s house. One of these cats was perhaps the most frightened cat that I had ever met in my life. It took two weeks to get him to come from under the sofa. He hadn’t eaten for days. Now he is acting more like a normal cat and has even learned to play with a ball. I think he is well on his way to recovery. So while I mourn by beloved Meow Meow, I was able to help another cat overcome his abject fear and have him ready to move on to his forever home.

His ashes will be spread around his garden in the spring time. Goodbye Meow Meow I miss you! Thank you for being the cat you were.

Brother, can you spare a Dime?

We live in the world's richest state and we are befuddled, numb, angry and hungry. In fact 30 millions folks are getting food stamps. How did this happen?

It isn't often that I read a piece of journalism that resonates as much as this piece in the Guardian Weekly December 19, 2008. Ed Pilkington reminds me how important journalists are in geting out the information that we need to know and not what corporations dictate. Lets hope that after the technology shake out that they bounce back in a different medium.

Please check out his article on a week in the U.S. economy that we wish had not happened. The only difference between this soup kitchen picture and the line today is that women and children have joined it. I guess this is what happens when the foxes watch the chickens. It is sad that "Brother can you spare a dime" is as true today as it was in the 1930s.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eih67rlGNhU

http://www.guardianweekly.co.uk/?page=editorial&id=866&catID=17

Parrot Snatched from the Tarmac

A Story about an African Parrot

The New York Times “books of the year” includes a book called Alex and Me by Irene Pepperberg. In the first few pages you will realize how much Ms. Pepperberg and the African Grey had bonded. It is a very interesting book and one that I would recommend any bird/animal lover will want to read. But this story is not about Alex but about another African Grey.

Back in the early 1970s, during Idi Amin’s campaign against Asians in Uganda, households and their animals fled to whereever they could for safety. Pilots from the East African Airways would fly in and literally grab whatever was on the runway and take off without ever turning their engines off. One day an African Grey was rescued from the tarmac and made it to London at the beginning of the winter season. Since no one would take him in I did even though I was scared of parrot like birds.

To make a long story short, he was not happy, his feathers began to molt and he looked very sad and never said a word. I tried leaving music on for him to no avail. Then I tried leaving the heat and the music on and still no luck Then I went to Harrods department store who are suppose to know everything about everything and I came back with guaranteed parrot food mix; that did not work either. What was I going to do, he was almost bald now. Perhaps he needed to fly a bit! So I let him out of the cage without any thought of how I would get him back in again. That was a disaster. I tried throwing (from a distance) a large sheet over him so I could than capture him! I guess that God gave birds’ wings so they can evade such primitive efforts of capture. Each time the sheet landed on him he flew from underneath the sheet and squawked and squawked. I think he had a grand old time. I went to bed exhausted. The bird was free and he celebrated by pooping everywhere.

Four weeks later the owners arrived in the UK. They were conservative Hindus. They gratefully took back their parrot and immediately fed him green chilies; this is what the bird was missing and definitely not on the Harrods menu of bird feed. But then, much to my astonishment and shame the bird began to talk. He spoke every bad thing I had said about it along with all the swear words I spoke in frustration because he would not eat.

How you Can do to Help:
Never get an animal that you keep in a manner they need to live a comfortable life.

Sponsor a parrot at Best Friends Parrot Garden

Sarah Palin

Sorry folks couldn't help posting this. Dick Cavett is so funny!

http://cavett.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/14/the-wild-wordsmith-of-wasilla/?th&emc=th

Sarah Palin: New York Times Nov 8, 2008

Wel I know that I had removed all stories on the Republican run for presidency but I think this story in the New York Times needs our attention. While I did not think Sarah Palin was suitable as VP of our country that does not mean she should be treated this way. Even if she lobbied for the job, which I don't believe she did, she was picked by John McCain. So that is where the buck stops. She certainly gave him the initial boost that he needed. Would he have done better if he had chosen someone else? Perhaps, but he didn't choose someone else, he choose Sarah Palin. So give her a fair break as we would all want for ourselves.

Here is the story http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/08/us/politics/08palin.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin

One World, One Planet: Lets Sieze the Moment

Let's seize this opportunity to create a major global moment of unity, reconciliation and hope by sending a million messages of warm congratulations and invitation to work together to the new President and the American people.

Avaaz has built a huge wall near the White House in Washington DC where the number of signatures on our message and personal messages from around the world will grow over the next several hours. Let's get to 1 million signers and messages to Obama! Sign on at the link below and forward this email to others:
http://www.avaaz.org/en/million_messages_to_obama

This is a time for celebration of democracy. So let's act quickly to make sure the people of the world are heard as Obama makes crucial choices in the coming days on how to live up to his campaign promises. Rarely has a US President been more likely to listen to us. Sign below and forward this message on:

PS - You can send them a picture of yourself for the wall - email it to obamawall@avaaz.org

PPS – Here's a link to a report on Avaaz's past campaigning – http://www.avaaz.org/en/report_back_2/

PPPS - And a list of 10 of Obama's campaign promises that concern the world – you can find his full platform here http://www.barackobama.com/issues/

1. Reduce the US's carbon emissions 80% by 2050 and play a strong positive role in negotiating a binding global treaty to replace the expiring Kyoto Protocol

2.Withdraw all combat troops from Iraq within 16 months and keep no permanent bases in the country

3.Establish a clear goal of eliminating all nuclear weapons across the globe

4. Close the Guantanamo Bay detention center

5. Double US aid to cut extreme poverty in half by 2015 and accelerate the fight against HIV/AIDS, tuberculoses and Malaria

6. Open diplomatic talks with countries like Iran and Syria, to pursue peaceful resolution of tensions

7. De-politicize military intelligence to avoid ever repeating the kind of manipulation that led the US into Iraq

8.Launch a major diplomatic effort to stop the killings in Darfur

9. Only negotiate new trade agreements that contain labor and environmental protections

10. Invest $150 billion over ten years to support renewable energy and get 1 million plug-in electric cars on the road by 2015

OBAMA IS PRESIDENT!!

It's over with a result that most of us of our black elders could only have dreamed about. Visit the YouTube video of Obama/Dr King tribute from Sister Monica Parker - I Have a Dream http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04mlGzHyjmg and then remember the words of Obama "It’s been a long time coming. But tonight, because of what we did on this date, in this election, change has come to America."

Check out the Chicago Tribune's coverage of last night. http://www.chicagotribune.com/ They are one of the premier papers in the United States

And to the President Elect I would like to suggest that he gets his dog from one of the many rescue groups in the city he loves. New Leash On Life Chicago has a dog that looks perfect. His name is Mr Sniffs and he is a standard poodle.

Well he missed out on this wonderful dog because some else adopted him last week. Way to Go Mr. Sniffs.

Pictures from Harvard Sq, Cambridge MA OctoberFest

Question 1 is the initiative to eliminate our state tax thereby ensuring that our roads and bridges remain in a mess, a massive layoff of government workers such as social agency workers, and fire and police personnel. We cannot afford this with the current cuts made in the State budget due to the financial melt down.

Should the US lead the world out of the Fiscal Disaster?

Check out an excellent article in the latest issue of Business Week on the Bush Administration's and the financial industry's involvement in the mortgage crisis which is at the heart of the unravelling of the entire financial system. After you have read this article decide, what do you think?
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_42/b4104036827981.htm

It was only last week that a friend of mine told me how the entire mess started with the excess cash available in China and India that they were begging to invest in the U.S. As a result the U.S. financial industry created esoteric derivatives. Then she went on to say "but I've no doubt we will be blamed for the crisis." Just because there is excess cash does not mean that we should have created what I consider fradulent transacations.

So, yes we are to blame and who will pay the most for this is the countries whose populations are living on the brink. It is unforgivable. The good news is that perhaps we will change drastically the way we view capitalism which would give our ecosystem a chance to recover. Unfortunately though I think it will take five hard years for the financial system to recover as no one is talking about the next major shoe to drop: unpaid credit bills. Many jobs will be lost, less money means we will drive less, buy less, and live more within our means because we will be forced to. many people will be forced to downsize the size of their houses which will save a lot of oil in heating them. Of course, I acknowledge that those folks at the bottom of the economic chain will suffer the most for they don't drive, buy little and do live within their means, but most of us don't. This could lead to a more healthly life style for all.

There is massive resentment in the U.S. at this time, as there should. Perhaps folks will step back now and reconsider the notion that there is no end to growth, because I have always believed there is. A moral I live by is "just because it is available, does not mean that it is the right thing to do." As to our upcoming elections, I would ask our candidates to focus on the crisis rather than mud slinging. This is unappropriate and unappreciated at this time.

Check out the 20-page section in the latest Economist on the World financial meltdown. http://www.economist.com/specialreports/displayStory.cfm?source=hptextfeature&story_id=12373696
The picture at top is from this latest edition.

The Forever War

The focus of our election over the next few weeks looks as if it will be entirely focused on our financial crisis rather than the War. However, since the war has cost $500 billion to date (August 2008) the two cannot be separated. There is also the question on how the war is being fought, for what, and the number of dead which vary wildly but appear to be around 950,000. When you finish this book you will understand why we are in such a quagmire. The book left me very angry. I wish that every politician who voted for the war had been made to spend time in the war zone and share what our soldiers and the Iraqis have gone through.

I will be the first to say that this is not the type of book I would generally read much less buy. When I started reading it a few days ago, I could not put it down. Once you are a third of the way through the book you will fully understand why the author chose the title that he did, and that all by itself is depressing. In fact this realization made me feel that I had been hit in the chest by a very large object. I don’t want to give away anything in the book except to say that the Iraqis must think that they are living through Dante’s Inferno. One wonders who is better off, the dead or the living and were the Iraqis better off before the Americans arrived? What is the price of democracy, is it possible for an occupier to impose democracy on another, and if so is this democracy?

My biggest surprise reading the book was not the lies we were told about going into Iraq but simply what we were not told. Who knew the numbers of different nationalities involved in the war, particularly the Pakistanis and the Uyghur’s’ from Western China. The book opens with the seize of Falluja in November 2004. Dexter Filkins had gone in with the troops and wrote what he saw from his side of the invasion. This chapter is the best piece of war reporting that I have read in a very long time. You could smell the fear and sweat from the soldiers and the reporter. My heart was in my mouth for that entire first chapter.
Picture U.S.1st Calvary Divison


Also read Jo Wildings report of the same event from the other side. Click on the articles tab and then go to April 11th Falluja. http://www.jowilding.net/archiveframeset.html

Now I have finished the book I will add one more comment. Massoud is not who you thought he was, Chalobi was a chameleon and as to Paul Bremmer less said the better.In fact the only person who appears to be what he says is Muqfada Sadir. So while he may be the villian of the piece, I am left wondering about all the other folks on the Iraqi stage, how many of those are equal vilians too?

Dexter Filkins went into areas in Iraq and Afghanistan that most would not. He talked to ordinary Iraqis and Afghans about their life and what they thought of the invaders. He had high level access to folks on both sides of the war which is what makes this book so invaluable. Read this book and you will understand why the war has gone on forever, why it has cost so much in human lives and money, and what Iraqis’ really think about us.


If you want to understand the U.S. role in Central Asia read Ahmed Rashid's Descent into Chaos, a very aptly named book. http://www.democracynow.org/2008/6/10/descent_into_chaos_ahmed_rashid_on

At the end of a four year history of the war I felt that the shifting sands of Iraq had slipped through our fingers and what we were left with was a $550 billion dollar debt and counting. So how do the Iraqis feel? If Iraqis cannot go outside without the fear of being killed what kind of freedom do them have? Please read this book. In addition for your teanager is Walter Dean Myers' excellent book Sunrise Over Fallauh http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/life/stories/2008/09/29/2_YA_BOOK_REVIEW.ART_ART_09-29-08_D2_OVBEJLV.html?type=rss&cat=&sid=101

To keep up to date with what is happening in these areas of the world visit the New York Times site of Dexter's Filkins reporting.
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/f/dexter_filkins/index.html?inline=nyt-per

The Week that Shocked the Global Economy

Two major bank collapses and one more on its way out, One huge insurance company,and four money markets in trouble for risky investments. The house of cards has collapsed. I don't think that any one party was particuarly at fault but rather our entire government that allowed the deregulation of the banks with no follow up. To say they would self regulate themselves was ridiculous and again who is left holding the price tag for this? The same folks who have lost their houses due to the unethical behaviour of the folks who worked for the financial institutions. So in the huge bail out of the financial institutations we should ensure that the folks who will lose their jobs (the worker bees), the folks who were foreclosed on, and those who need a leg up directly due to this clamity are taken care of too.

Check out Obama and McCain position on this currant calamity. Here is Obama's take on the sitation
http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/economyvideo

Alaskian Anti Palin Rally

Added 10/12/08 picture from the Cambridge, MA OctoberFest



Thanks to my friend in Seattle who sent in these great photos.

Obama for President

Hello All


For those of you who could not listen to the Obama Democratic acceptance speech for President here it is

http://my.barackobama.com/barackspeech<

Not Made in China

Some time ago I sat down in a Borders bookstore and browsed through a book titled “A Year Without “Made in China”: One Family’s True Life Adventure in the Global Economy" by journalist Sara Bonjiorni. I found the book a bit disappointing because she still bought cheap, sweatshop-produced products from other countries such as Thailand and Vietnam which are mainly produced in Chinese owned factories. The only lesson she had in the entire book was that the money she saved from not buying cheap Chinese goods meant she had enough at the end of the year to buy quality goods but less.

When I mentioned this to a friend she said that she did not think that anyone could survive without buying goods from China; a challenge was issued! I have spent the last eight months seeing how I could do. So without beleaguering the issue I bought clothes from: Italy, Scotland, USA and Canada. I did buy one skirt, jacket and two pairs of jeans that were made in China. I bought wonderful shoes made in Spain and boots from Canada, socks made in USA/Italy. I bought bedding from Turkey, Pakistan, and Canada. I bought household goods from Germany and USA and miscellaneous items such as pens, pencils, pencil sharpeners, erasers, notebooks all made in Germany or the EU. I would say it definitely can be done you just have to be willing to pay for design and quality, and fair labor rates for the folks who made the goods that you purchased.

The White Tiger

Update: This book is now on the short list of six for the 2008 Booker Prize. In celebration I bought a second copy.

by Aravind Adiga

What a wonderful read! The story is written as a letter to the Premier of China who will be coming to visit China. This sets the stage for a very funny novel indeed, as the writer compares how these two tigers match up in their new found wealth. A particularly funny line was when, addressing the Premier, the writer says “I gather you yellow skinned men, despite your triumphs in sewage, drinking water, and Olympic gold medals, still don’t have democracy. We Indians…may not have sewage, drinking water, and Olympic gold medals, but we do have democracy. If I were making a country, I’d get the sewage pipes first, then the democracy.”

In 276 pages I felt that I had lived a life time with the driver Balram Halwai the narrator of the story alias The White Tiger. The book was both extremely funny and at the same time a bitter critic on how the rich and the poor live in India today. It is one of the few books that I wanted to reread immediately. The need to read it again was because I had been so swept up in the tale that I wanted to make sure that I had not over looked some of the social issues that come to play in the tale. As I put the book down to go to sleep I suddenly realized that although Balram had murdered his employee he was in some ways better than him. For when his employer’s wife did a hit and run they had tried to put the blame on him, their driver. Later in the story, when one of Balram’s (now Ashok Sharma) driver’s runs over a child and kills him, Balram immediately goes to the scene of the accident and takes responsibility. Of course, I realize that he does this because he has paid off the Assistant Commissioner to ensure that nothing gets in the way of his success; lessons that he had learned well from his former employer. And so in the dog eat dog world of India, injustices abound, and everything is possible if you grease the wheels of those in charge.

This book is now on the Man Booker Dozen List. Visit the site at
http://www.themanbookerprize.com/>

Are you a Runner or Cyclist?

If so, what did you forget this morning?

Benji is in need of a home right NOW and he would love to be your loyal companion and friend on your bike rides or daily runs. ++++Update Benji has been adopted. September 2008++++

Benji is approximately 2 .5 yrs old. He is a Black Lab/ Retriever Mix. He was found as a stray - skinny, afraid and hiding under an abandoned trailer. After he was rescued he became a happy young boy BUT he has been crated for far to long now and we are very anxious about his well being under these circumstanes. Benji tells us that he would like a gentle and committed leader who appreciates consistency as much as he does. He is a smart dog who gets along well with other well mannered dogs but would be equally content being the only dog. Benji loves long hikes in the woods and loves being outside. He has excellent house manners. No cats for Benji (he likes to chase them).

If you are interested in adopting Benji or have any questions please feel free to contact Raeann email: ahimsadogwalker@yahoo.com or call 978-808-4994. Benji is currently living in a foster home. You can find an application at www.ahimsahaven.org