Volunteering time lately

Light blogging this week as I'm volunteering some time to some worthwhile causes.

Soulful, funky, hip-hop for this rainy Saturday morning in Portland

k-os's "Yes!" is my favorite hip-hop release so far this year, and perfect for this rainy Saturday morning in Portland. .mp3s via my 4shared folder.

The Dream of Our Youth

I'm picking up where I left off reading Roberto Bolano's The Savage Detectives. Scott Esposito has a good theory why this literature has taken off in the States:

What is it about Bolaño that has permitted this author success over here? To start with, he himself makes for a great story, and that counts for a lot. Forgetting even how Bolaño first left Chile and then returned to fight for it and was captured and nearly executed, his lifestyle of tramping around the Hispanic world and then suddenly setting down and writing masterpiece after masterpiece appeals deeply to our idea of the romantic artist, the man who lives life on his terms and seems to grasp the muse between his fingers. Perhaps Bolaño himself best summed it up when he said, upon accepting the Rómulo Gallegos Prize, that good writing “doesn’t mean just to write well, because anybody can do that, but to write marvelously well, though not even that, because anybody can do that too. Then what is writing of quality? Well, what it’s always been: to know how to thrust your head into the darkness, know how to leap into the void, and to understand that literature is basically a dangerous calling.” The writer who boldly leaps where none have leapt before, who mixes passion and love together into art. This is the Bolaño we love to read.

How to deal with the village idiot

Frank Schaeffer, author of Crazy for God, commenting on Fundamentalists (Evangelicals), said it very nicely. You don't try to cater to the village idiot, but you try to pass around them. Good advice for the times.

The Acorn Scandal

The is ACORN's purpose: "ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, is the nation's largest community organization of low- and moderate-income families, working together for social justice and stronger communities."

A couple of filmmakers encouraged a couple ACORN employees to act unprofessionally for the camera and then used the lapse of professional judgement to tarnish the organization. This is obviously a political smear campaign.

ACORN CEO Bertha Lewis has twenty years experience in community organization, and no doubt has done a great deal more good than her opponents. The organization has the following campaigns: Foreclosures, Gulf Coast Recovery, Immigration, Living Wage, Paid Sick Days, Voter Engagement. I think most people see the benefit of such an organization on their side, yet the smear has been successful.

H.R.3200 - America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009

OpenCongress.org appears not to have caught on yet -- there were 641,480 views of the health care bill when I visited -- yet it is an important technological development in giving more transparency to government. You can search legislation, locate and contact your representative, and even vote on a bill (non-scientific).

The Authoritarians

This is a necessary read for anyone concerned about the future of our democracy.

Today's "grassroots" anti-Obama rally was brought to you by:

Corporate contributers:

FreedomWorks

1. MetLife (source: Wikipedia)
   
2. Phillip Morris (source: Wikipedia)
   
3. SBC/AT&T (source: Wikipedia)
   
4. Verizon (source: Wikipedia)
   
5. Bristol Myers Squibb (source: Rachel Maddow)
6. SleepMed (source: Rachel Maddow)
7. Medicines Company (source: Rachel Maddow)

Americans for Prosperity/Patients United Now:

1. Koch Industries (Koch’s founder helped found the John Birch Society)
2. Altria (formerly known as Phillip Morris)
3. Blue Cross/Blue Shield
4. CIGNA Dental
5. Pfizer
6. Microsoft
7. ExxonMobile

So this is how these people afford to roam the country with crazy signs? And that's supposed to be grassroots? Looks like racist hillbillies doing the dirty work for billion dollar corporations.

Deep Thought: House of mirrors

The banning of Obama speaking to students last week by the Neo-John Birch Party, makes me think these people are censoring the President in their private lives as well; instead, they're probably watching Fox News or Cops or America's Stupidest Videos.

They do not accept him as the President; what reason do I have to think they'd listen to him. Or give him a chance. That makes their craziness all the more a house of mirrors.

Obama's candid moment with a student

I've been vegging out today watching news and caught on CNN a story where Obama answered a student's question so candidly, mentioning how although his father was a smart man that he was also arrogant and argumentative, and if he had stayed around they probably would have been arguing a lot. The student, also the child of a single parent, told CNN how responsible it made him feel.

Obama is probably more like Honest Abe than any President since Lincoln. Which is probably why a school district in Texas barred students from hearing Obama and instead will bus them to hear former President Bush speak.