Mr. Letter Writer, if I took your advice, I'd never get out on the trails. Of course I run alone -- how else could I explore the places that beckon, galumphing along at my own pace, occasionally turning up an unknown side trail or even stopping to take a photo?Safety in numbers
The latest tragedy on Mount Tamalpais underscores a basic hiking rule: Never, ever under any circumstances, hike alone in a wilderness area.
We see hikers often with no hiking poles, inadequate footwear, no water, no map, and no idea as to where they are, where they are headed, or how to get back to the car. Hiking trails are rough; rocks and roots can trip the most careful. A misplaced foot on the soft trail shoulder can send the hiker down into a ravine and into dense underbrush.
If you must hike alone, stick to Golden Gate Park or along city streets (stay out of Richmond). Hiking alone is simply asking for trouble.
The jubilation of Barack Obama's stunning win in Iowa was muted by the dismay of his defeat in New Hampshire.
Commentators have conjured up every conceivable explanation for New Hampshire's sudden change of heart as Obama's nine point lead evaporated within 24 hours. But, as they often do, most media pundits have ignored one of the most obvious factors: race.
Truly they are color blind.
The specter of Tom Bradley's California gubernatorial run in 1984 now haunts the 2008 election.
Like Obama, Bradley, a moderate black Democrat and former Los Angeles mayor, breached racial barriers and inspired massive support among white voters. But once he was perceived to be a serious potential winner, a backlash set in that prevented Bradley's victory.
In 1984 preelection polls and even the election day exit polls gave Tom Bradley such an overwhelming lead that news organizations hailed him the victor virtually the moment the polls closed. Instead he suffered an upset loss to Republican George Deukmejian.
Much the same dynamic sunk Andrew Young's gubernatorial bid in Georgia in 1990.
Behind the white curtain that protects the privacy of the voter, a large number of voters in California in 1984, Georgia in 1990 and New Hampshire in 2008 could not bring themselves to vote for the black man that they claimed to be so excited about just 24 hours earlier.
This so-called "Tom Bradley Effect" had not yet come into play in Iowa because Obama was not yet taken as a serious threat to win the nomination and because the caucus process was so intimate and open. His dramatic victory in that state means that no one can any longer doubt that he has a real chance to win.
Race is now openly central to the race. Are white Americans ready for a black president?
Most white Republicans and many white Democrats may not seriously consider voting for Obama, even if their politics coincide with his. Others may be on the fence. And still others, at this point a definite minority but clearly growing, say they will vote for him.
A lesson of New Hampshire and a testimony to the power of race -- The Tom Bradley Effect -- is such that even significant numbers of that growing and relatively racially enlightened group that says they will vote for Obama, won't.
Surely race was not the only factor behind which candidate that any person may support. But to ignore it altogether, as most commentators have in the wake of the New Hampshire primary, is a grand act of racial denial that is a disservice to all of us.
For once, let's deal with race straight ahead.
Obama supporters should be thrilled that Obama climbed from a 20 point deficit to a nine point lead in New Hampshire's preelection polls. But now it is clear that even that spectacular climb, a climb whose significance should not be lost, was not enough to win.
Of course Hillary Clinton also faces a version of the Tom Bradley Effect: Is the U.S. ready for a woman president? The vicious invective aimed her way can hardly be explained without factoring sexism into the equation.
But, in truth, Hillary's biggest task, and indeed for any Democratic candidate, may be to reverse the voting trends of white women. In 2004 white women went for Bush by a 55-44 margin and were the critical swing vote in his election. Women of color went for Kerry by 75 to 24.
The woman vote is clearly color coded.
The Good News is that Obama is a bonafide contender who is breaking racial barriers daily and Clinton is similarly bursting gender blocks. The Bad News is that means racism and sexism have become even greater factors in the voting.
The Grand Opportunity is that it will give all of us a chance to appeal to our better selves and overcome our so often denied racial and gender biases.
In this country, racial progress like that Obama is making always brings racial resistance. Further progress is contingent on seriously addressing the resistance.
Whatever the outcome of the nomination and general election, we all have the chance to ensure that the 2008 election serves to advance racial and gender progress by openly and frankly addressing these fundamental issues.
For a multi-factor analysis of the discrepancy between the pre-New Hampshire polling and the outcome, see this piece by Chris Bowers.A turnout like she got, the margins of support in certain key demographics, this isn't coincidence, this is straight up organization, preparation and tactical execution on game day. When the dust settles, I think you'll see that the biggest key to her victory was a textbook perfect endgame in the final 48 hours.
Okay, so I read the speech -- and then, since the text struck me as rather ordinary, I watched the video -- and that was more interesting, but I remain unconvinced.I read on your blog that you're planning to vote for John Edwards in the California primary and I want to make the case to you for supporting Barack Obama. I hope you'll give him another look and reconsider your plans.
I signed on long ago because I think he is the best democratic candidate. He's smart and streetwise, and yet he's still got integrity. He's real, not poll tested. He embodies change because of the color of his skin, his age, his short time in Washington and because of his mixed race and international heritage. He's been right on so many issues, especially the war, on which he is the only consistently anti-war candidate. He's tough--not only has he beaten a Clinton, but he's won in rough and tumble Chicago politics. He owns the change message for 2008, which will win over independents and which appeals to so many democrats, liberals and progressives who desperately crave a change. And, he ran a phenomenal ground campaign in Iowa--you've got to admire the campaign this organizer-at-heart put together and ran.
... Did you listen to or watch his speech [in Iowa]? Here's the text and video.
Many hope or fear he is a new John F. Kennedy, a charismatic figure whose election brought youth and vigor to a stodgy country. Young people do thrill to him -- that makes sense to me, because I am fortunate to have worked politically with lots of young people. Many are sick to death of feeling simply stuck, unable to move on to solving obvious problems because of fights that seem to them mired in old history. They want a hero who feels like one of their own to cut through the morass; Obama has won that role. The JFK role can have many implications. This comment catches some of the hopefulness that came of the JFK election:The Obama campaign has the feeling of real change, powered by real people. And in a period of our history where people want real change, I think that means Obama is going to win. ... the dynamic in this race overwhelmingly favors Obama.
And this comment catches the pain of the aftermath:JFK's election was never seen by many of us as any great millennium. But, fueled by many younger people and others of similar inclination, it reflected the profound discontent and frustration that had festered in the "dismal '50s." The election of '60 ushered in a rapidly growing atmosphere of Realistic Hope.
Movement picked up -- and up -- and People Wanted More -- and More. They pushed and More came.
It's always been my experience that, when folks start winning on good and tangible fronts, they shoot higher -- and higher. The Kennedys et al.[and the System in general] were pressured from the grassroots For More -- and More. And a fair amount of More did indeed come.
Of course, we, the tired and the disillusioned, don't get to tell anyone who they can fall in love with -- it is not our time.Now they are comparing Barack Obama with JFK. I'm sad that young people put that kind of enthusiasm, place so much hope, in a politician again. Most of all it makes me sad to see them "fall in love" with a political leader. I been there, I done that. It still hurts. ...
Frankly, I don't think any of the candidates this year are very impressive, but after eight years of Bush, the bar isn't very high. I would be amazed if any of those running could do a worse job than he has. I would also be amazed if any were too successful either. It is no longer in their hands to be so.
But please, please, don't let the children fall in love with a politician again, the disillusionment is not worth the enthusiasm and does terrible damage to an entire generation.
McCain's endorsement for permanent occupation followed.McCain was confronted by Dave Tiffany, who calls himself a "full-time antiwar activist." In a heated exchange, Tiffany told McCain that he had looked at McCain's campaign website and had found no indication of how long McCain was willing to keep U.S. troops in Iraq.
I'm going to bend the rules. I did one of these with six factoids awhile back; I'm bored with my many oddities. This time I'm going to post seven photographs I've taken over the years and tell you a little about what they show, and if relevant, what I was doing there.1) Link to the person that tagged you, and post the rules on your blog.
2) Share seven facts about yourself.
3) Tag seven random people at the end of your post, and include links to their blogs.
4) Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.
Not too tough. Schools need to achieve a score above 925 on this measure to avoid sanctions -- but 16 of the 64 teams playing bowls this year are flunking even this soft standard.The NCAA's APR measure is a real-time indicator of the progress of each team's student-athletes toward a degree. But it’s a much less rigorous test of academic performance than students actually graduating. ... Half of each school's APR score is based on student-athletes just being enrolled as students. The other half is derived from the number of student-athletes completing 20 percent of their courses toward a degree each year, with no minimum GPA required.
That's not good, but the picture gets even worse when overall graduation rates are broken out by race. The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport at the University of Central Florida (a Liberty Bowl participant this year) publishes an annual report on the difference in graduation rates between black and white football players. This yearOnly 56 percent of Division I-A football players entering college between 1997 and 2000 graduated within six years of initial enrollment.
The top teams for graduating their African American players were the military schools, Navy and Air Force, as well as some regional powers like Boston College and Cincinnati.
- 47 schools (73 percent) had graduation rates of 66 percent or higher for white football student-athletes, which was more than 3.6 times the number of schools with equivalent graduation rates for African-American football student-athletes (13 schools or 20 percent).
- 27 schools (42 percent) graduated less than 50 percent of their African-American football student-athletes, while only Florida Atlantic graduated less than 50 percent of their white football student-athletes.
- Seven schools (11 percent) graduated less than 40 percent of their African-American football student-athletes, while no school graduated less than 40 percent of their white football student-athletes.
- Seven schools (11 percent) graduated less than 40 percent of their African-American football student-athletes, while no school graduated less than 40 percent of their white football student-athletes.
- 14 schools (22 percent) had graduation rates for African-American football student- athletes that were at least 30 percent lower than their rates for white football student- athletes.
- 24 schools (38 percent) had graduation rates for African-American football student- athletes that were at least 20 percent lower than their rates for white football student- athletes.
- Four schools had graduation rates for African-American football student-athletes that exceeded their rates for white football student-athletes: Florida Atlantic (15 percent higher), Florida State (ten percent higher), Connecticut (four percent higher) and Rutgers (two percent higher).
And what about Arkansas, where McFadden earns millions for the college, but can't have an SUV without becoming ineligible? Again according to Jackson,Ohio State has a 43 percent black player graduation rate -- 31 percentage points behind white players. ...
LSU's black player graduation rate is 42 percent, 28 percentage points behind the white players.
College football is a brutal sport and an exploitative business - and still beautiful to watch.The worst graduation gap, a 53-percentage-point difference between white and black players, belonged to Arkansas.
... even if Edwards is just pandering, praise friggin' Jeebus that we finally scored a conversion with such a prominent Democrat. Isn't that exactly what we have been trying to do with Democrats? If progressive activists aren't happy that one of the six people who still has a shot at being our next President caved to our pressure on a wide swath of both policy and rhetoric, then what was the point of engaging in all of that activist pressure in the first place?
They've learned, under the dictator and amid the chaotic violence we've brought. Who's been driven mad, the interviewee, the journalist, or those of us who peer into the fishbowl at them? What are we going to do about it?One week ago, we started work of the end year story that we share the work together. Sunni journalist took the Sunni neighborhoods and Shiite journalist took the Shiite neighborhoods. I was excite to do this story. I had to visit one family in each of mine neighborhood, I mean the Shiite majority neighborhood. But when I started my trip to do my job I faced so many difficulties not because the fears of the militias or terrorist.The difficulty was that most people feel afraid from the journalist and they deal with them as spies who work to serve the interest of their enemies. ...
New Baghdad [is] one of the mixed neighborhoods so to get more benefit for our story I should talk to Christian person to ask him or her about the security in the neighborhood. As usual I couldn’t stop oneone in the street to talk to because this thing can be done only in Democrat countrie not Iraq. So I phoned my Christian friend who guided me to her grandmother to interview her.
When I talked to the old lady, I felt that the woman was doubtful about my intention. I hardly convince her that my story talks about the changes that happened in Iraq through 2007. Then I talked to her about many stuff in her neighborhood. She was very kind and generous woman and she was very accurate in her describtion for her neighborhood, she showed me a perfect image about her neighborhood.
Next day my friend phoned me to ask about the kind of conversation that I took part with her grandmother.
"it was about the security situation in the neighborhood" I answered.
She said, "my grandmother doesn’t feel comfortable she is afraid that conversation will bring troubles for her"
"Why? she did not say anything may cause troubles" I replied.
"Please Jenan don’t use this conversation in your story…. That what my grandmother wants"
"Ok dear I will not, don’t worry". Oh God why people are terrified from journalists. We try to help our country by showing the truth no more, no less. ...they afraid may we hurt them if we publish their opinion about what is happening in Iraq.
The case at issue involved union members asking mall customers to boycott a store within the facility. The court decided that malls may regulate speech and behavior to prevent disruption (and they do rather rigidly), but they cannot discriminate between speech they like and speech they oppose, such as calls for a boycott of a tenant. This finding upheld a 1979 California ruling that protects some speech on mall property"a shopping mall is a public forum in which persons may reasonably exercise their right to free speech."
Volokh and the court are right, if we hope to preserve a culture of democracy -- small "d". Preserving some public entitlement to free speech in privately owned, public used, spaces is much like the fight to protect "net neutrality", the regulations preventing telecommunications carriers from playing favorites among those who use their pipes.Eugene Volokh, a constitutional law professor at UCLA, said California and a few other states back free speech at large malls on the theory that they function as modern-day town squares.
"That's where people congregate these days, and that's where it's important that free speech be protected," he said.
Extending free speech access as much as possible onto private land used for public functions is as important a cause as maintaining the openness of the internet. In most of our car-centered, sidewalk-free suburban, exurban and semi-urban settings, private venues are the only public spaces.Federal courts have held that the U.S. Constitution provides no public assembly rights in privately owned shopping centers. But state courts are allowed to adopt greater protection for free speech on private property.
Five states -- California, Colorado, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Washington -- have held that the government may require mall owners to permit some political activity in common areas of the mall.
The California and Washington decisions relied on public-referendum laws, in which proposed laws can be put on the ballot if enough signatures are collected. ...
Massachusetts allows political candidates to collect signatures in malls. New Jersey and Colorado allow people to leaflet on societal issues.
For something of the flavor of the experience of passing through the Israeli Wall daily, watch the You-Tube below:Tens of thousands of pilgrims from around the world descended on Bethlehem yesterday, encouraged by the recent Middle East peace talks and lull in violence. ...
Those gathered outside the Church of the Nativity included American tourists with Santa hats, Japanese pilgrims in silk robes and faux white beards, and Palestinian Scouts in Scottish kilts. ...
In his homily delivered at Midnight Mass, the Latin Patriarch Michel Sabbah, the top Roman Catholic official in the Holy Land, delivered a politically charged appeal for peace and love in the city of Bethlehem — and independence for the Palestinian people.
“This land of God cannot be for some a land of life and for others a land of death, exclusion, occupation, or political imprisonment,” said Patriarch Michael, the first Palestinian to hold his position.
Patriarch Michael could only enter Bethlehem after passing through a massive steel gate in Israel’s separation barrier. Israeli mounted policemen escorted him, in his flowing magenta robe, to the gate, and border police clanged it shut behind him.
20th of December 2007–Gaza
It is Eid ALADHA Eve; Xmas is so close, Happy Eid, Merry Xmas and Happy New Year
The siege against Gaza has completed its six months 1.5 million of population are not allowed to travel outside Gaza, ...
In Gaza today our stories are the stories of loss of hope lack of just realistic political solution, poverty, despair, unsafe streets irregular power, lack of clean water, all sorts of frustrations. increasing percentage of children who suffer of posttraumatic disorders, desperate women and men increasing of domestic violence, hungry kids in the streets, increasing number of children laborers, increasing number of school leavers, lack of proper environment for children upbringing etc……..
in the middle of all that Israeli military operations are continuous ongoing practice, 20 Palestinians at least were killed last wee , many were injured in military incursions and air [raids] in different areas of the Gaza Strip. ...
Xmas time is so close, from Gaza I send my love... I ask you while celebrating and rejoicing, not to forget us in Gaza. ...
When it is late, it is not acceptable for the world to say: WE DID NOT KNOW WHAT WAS HAPPENING IN GAZA!
Suppose you were acquitted of a crime? A jury found you innocent -- wouldn't you figure you'd get to go home? Not so for the unfortunate Lyglenson Lemorin, a legal U.S. resident originally from Haiti, who was cleared by a jury of "terrorism" charges in Miami a couple of weeks ago. The government swooped the man up and dumped him in a deportation holding facility in Lumpkin, Georgia. Apparently under the Patriot Act, a finding of innocence means nothing to immigration authorities.Several scary elements stand out about this bizarre parody of criminal process.The group's only link to ''terrorists'' was an FBI informant paid $80,000 to pose as an al Qaeda contact. The group was so hapless that it couldn't afford boots and relied on the informant for cash and guidance.
That is, unless the next jury includes people who understand how very removed from the mainstream some of our poorer and less educated fellow citizens live, these guys could get sent away for a long time. Will the legal system find a jury that can imagine the lives of these guys? Imagining such an outcome is a stretch. Let's hope this episode does not end up added to the catalog of such shameful blots on the U.S. legal system as the prosecutions of the Scottsboro Boys and the Jena Six.University of Miami law professor Bruce Winick says "the [second] trial will depend on jury selection -- that's such an important part of the case."
"Here we had an interracial jury [in the first trial] that understands what goes down in the 'hood," he said. ...
A couple of weeks ago in the Episcopal church where I worship we sang Psalm 72 in a version that I think comes from the New Zealand Prayer Book. Verse 3 perfectly captures that seasonal yearning as I feel it, imploringI think it has to do with yearning and loss and beauty and hope. ... And the beauty makes us cry, which is as it should be.
That's the yearning the lives in me, surfacing more consciously each year as we wait for the light. The harsh and beautiful mountain in Lebanon pictured at the head of this post is perhaps one of the scenes the psalmist had in mind when writing the petition.Let the mountains bring forth peace for the people;
and the hills prosperity with justice.
Still she unearthed some interesting tidbits:"Muslim immigrants are not any different from earlier immigrant groups who came to America –- they are motivated by the same desire to integrate and achieve a better way of life," Ghazal Read said.
"So what this means in terms of their political involvement is that the same things that dictate your average American's political attitudes and behaviors –- socioeconomic status, marital status, race/ethnicity, age, gender and so on –- dictate their attitude and behaviors."
