What Makes America Special

The New Republic blog, The Plank, quoted a part of Colin Powell's endorsement of Barack Obama during his appearance on Meet the Press this morning. I found the general's words to be poignant and instructive for us in these days of partisan politics.

And it is permitted to be said such things as, "Well, you know that Mr. Obama is a Muslim." Well, the correct answer is, he is not a Muslim, he's a Christian. He's always been a Christian. But the really right answer is, what if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer's no, that's not America. Is there something wrong with some seven-year-old Muslim-American kid believing that he or she could be president?

...

I feel strongly about this particular point because of a picture I saw in a magazine. It was a photo essay about troops who are serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. And one picture at the tail end of this photo essay was of a mother in Arlington Cemetery, and she had her head on the headstone of her son's grave. And as the picture focused in, you could see the writing on the headstone. And it gave his awards--Purple Heart, Bronze Star--showed that he died in Iraq, gave his date of birth, date of death. He was 20 years old. And then, at the very top of the headstone, it didn't have a Christian cross, it didn't have the Star of David, it had crescent and a star of the Islamic faith. And his name was Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan, and he was an American. He was born in New Jersey. He was 14 years old at the time of 9/11, and he waited until he can go serve his country, and he gave his life.

The photo is from "The New Yorker".

Political Discourse

The campaign rhetoric has been increasing in its intensity as we enter the final weeks up to the election. There are enough examples of excess from followers of both candidates to keep one from pointing fingers. But, for me, until last night and this morning the examples of intolerance toward others political views was something I was watching from afar.

But now, this naked hatred has entered my neighborhood and I must admit to being somewhat shaken. In our middle-class community of mostly professional couples or single men and women, I believed there was an attitude of acceptance of our neighbors life style and political leanings. Since this is a townhome development, we don't have room for yard signs, but the ubiquitous campaign signs, both Republican and Democratic, have been making an appearance in windows throughout the complex.

One of my dog-walking neighbors is a quiet, polite, professional man who lives in a condo unit which has a brick patio wall facing the street. Yesterday, I noticed he had placed an Obama/Biden sign on this wall. I actually chuckled to myself, because I would have guessed him to have been a McCain supporter, if I had considered the matter at all.

Last night, on my before bed stroll with the bookends, I noticed something in the tree in front of this neighbors home. Checking it out, I found a hand-lettered sign taped to the tree claiming

OBAMA IS A SOCIALIST - SOCIALISM HAS NEVER BEEN AND NEVER WILL BE SUCCESSFUL

Now I realize this is not as bad as some of the other types of hate speech which one sees and hears on a daily basis, but this still had a tone of intimidation just from the way it was presented, seemingly as a direct rebuke to my neighbors posting of a campaign sign. However, I just shook my head and didn't think much about it.

This morning, the Obama/Biden sign was gone, and the offensive notice on the tree still remained. It had achieved its desired effect. My neighbor had felt sufficiently threatened to remove his campaign sign from his wall. In my disgust over the obvious implications of this tiny example of the ugliness that is a part of this campaign, I ripped the offending message from the tree and threw it away.

I love to see people involved in the political process and welcome a public debate over the issues. But, I would hope we can show respect for those that disagree with us. This display of intolerance just unnerved me a little, and this is my blog, so I thought I would share - even if off-topic.

Candidates on the Environment

There have been so many claims and counter-claims in the election coverage that it is difficult to sort out the facts from the fiction.

The Encyclopedia Britannica has posted a page on their website which reviews the voting records and positions taken by the candidates on issues relating to the environment and animal welfare.

This week Advocacy for Animals takes a look at the views of the U.S. presidential and vice-presidential candidates on issues related to the environment and animal welfare. Following is a summary of the voting records, official acts, and public statements of Senator John McCain (R), Senator Barack Obama (D), Governor Sarah Palin (R), and Senator Joe Biden (D) on drilling, mining, and energy
conservation and development; animal welfare, including the protection of endangered or threatened species; global warming; and environmental conservation.

Topics covered include: Drilling, mining and energy, Animal welfare and protection, Global warming, and Environmental conservation.

Read this detailed and thoroughly researched discussion of the candidates positions:

Special Election Issue: The Candidates on the Environment and Animal Welfare - Advocacy For Animals

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Political Labels According to LBJ

In yesterday's Britannica Blog, Robert McHenry discusses a quote from then Texas Senator Lyndon B. Johnson that appeared in the 1958 Winter Issue of the Texas Quarterly. As we are nearing the end of what has been a historic Presidential campaign and yet at the same time in many ways a campaign that has failed to rise to what many hoped would be a new level of issue-oriented political contest, I think LBJ's words are still relevant.

I am a free man, an American, a United States Senator, and a Democrat, in that order.

I am also a liberal, a conservative, a Texan, a taxpayer, a rancher, a businessman, a consumer, a parent, a voter, and not as young as I used to be nor as old as I expect to be – and I am all these things in no fixed order.

I am unaware of any descriptive word in the second paragraph which qualifies, modifies, amends, or is related by hyphenation to the terms listed in the first paragraph. In consequence, I am not able – nor even the least interested in trying – to define my political philosophy by the choice of a one-word or two-word label. This may be against the tide, but, if so, the choice is deliberate.

At the heart of my own beliefs is a rebellion against this very process of classifying, labeling, and filing Americans under headings: regional, economic, occupational, religious, racial, or otherwise. I bridle at the very casualness with which we have come to ask each other, “What is your political philosophy?”…

It is a part of my own philosophy to regard individuality of political philosophy as a cornerstone of American freedom and, more specifically, as a right expressly implied in our nation’s basic law and indispensable to the proper functioning of our system.

How To Sell a Book

How a Hockey Mom Turned Alaska's Political Establishment Upside Down

Product #: 7084
Price: $19.95
160 pages
Hardbound
5 1/2" x 8 1/2"
Biography
50 color photos
Pub Date: May 2008
ISBN: 978-0-9790470-8-4
First Edition
A GREEN BOOK: Text printed on reycled paper with 100% post-consumer content

Get selected to be a Vice-Presidential candidate when no one has heard of you!!

From Shelf Awareness:

Senator John McCain's announcement Friday that he had picked Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate caused a bit of an earthquake at Epicenter Press, the Kenmore, Wash., house that has the only biography of the Vice Presidential candidate, Sarah: How a Small Town Girl Turned Alaska's Political Establishment on Its Ear by Kaylene Johnson.

Epicenter was founded 20 years ago by Sturgis and Lael Morgan, who were both Alaska journalists. The press specializes in general nonfiction titles about the state as well as books about sled dog racing and the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race. According to the Seattle Times, Sturgis decided to publish a biography of Governor Palin after meeting her at a fundraiser in 2006. "No matter what you think about her politics, she's an interesting and an unusual politician," he told the paper.

To write the book, Sturgis recruited Kaylene Johnson, who lives near Wasilla, the town where Palin was mayor and still lives. Johnson has contributed to a variety of publications and written several books.

Johnson told the Associated Press (via the Seattle Post-Intelligencer) that while working on the biography of the Governor, she met with Palin twice and corresponded via e-mail. After the book was published, she asked Palin for her reaction, but the Governor said she hadn't read the book because it was "too strange" to read about herself.

On Friday morning, Kent Sturgis, president and co-founder of Epicenter, wrote, "The incoming phone traffic at our little office, mostly from media looking for the author, kept our two lines tied up for six hours, unable to make outgoing calls because of volume. Thank goodness for cell phones!"

By 10 a.m. that day, Epicenter sold the last 3,000 hardcover copies it had of Sarah, originally published in April. Epicenter is distributed by Graphic Arts Center Publishing, which itself is handled by Ingram Publisher Services. By the end of Friday, IPS had orders for 40,000 more copies. On Friday, Epicenter arranged with Ingram's Lightning Source POD operation to print a trade paperback edition of Sarah. By Friday evening, Lightning Source received the necessary files from Epicenter and began printing books. As of last night, some 30,000 copies had been printed and are shipping today. The Lightning Source staff reportedly worked overtime over the Labor Day weekend to make this happen.

The new edition, with a slightly different subtitle, is called Sarah: How a Hockey Mom Turned Alaska's Political Establishment Upside Down and is priced at $15.95 (9780980082562/0980082560). The hardcover was 159 pages.

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C-SPAN Goes High Tech for Convention Coverage

Politics is not the focus on this blog but it is the season which comes around every four years when politics invades everything we do and so it is with my blogging. And with the Democratic National Convention being held in Denver next week it is hard to not want to be a part of the excitement. Actually, I am a political and news junkie.

I have been a fan of C-SPAN and Brian Lamb for 5 or 6 years after discovering BookTV one lazy Saturday afternoon when I was looking for something to watch as I settled down for a winter nap. I started noticing how the news coverage of what happened on the Hill was strikingly different than what actually transpired during debate or how sound bites could be used out of context to bolster any position. So I became intrigued with getting my information first hand.

My impression is that C-SPAN is always willing to take advantage of new technology. The first I heard about the new XM-To Go portable was on some C-SPAN program when Brian Lamb was announcing the roll-out of C-SPAN radio. Their coverage of the party conventions confirms what I always believed.

When I posted a twitter message about watching the Saddleback Presidential forum on C-SPAN I received a message inviting me to watch the coverage on the C-SPAN Convention Hub. I'm hooked!




From Techcrunch:

But today C-SPAN gets fairly cool with the launch of two new sites dedicated to the upcoming Democratic Convention in Denver and Republican Convention in Minneapolis. ...links for DNC08 and RNC08. Both are similarly formatted sites that incorporate citizen journalism via blogs, Twitter, YouTube and Qik into portals to cover convention and related news. They will complement the existing C-SPAN Politics.

Third party blog content from sites like Huffington Post, Instapundit, Gateway Pundit, RedState, etc. will be incorporated into the site and Twitter messages marked with hash marks #RNC08 or #DNC08 will also appear on the site (with moderation). C-SPAN employees will be given Qik cameras to record the action when not on main camera.

All in all, it’s a great effort to spice up coverage with user-generated, up-to-the-minute content. This may not make the cable channel more watchable, but political nuts will definitely want to bookmark the sites. It may have the most up to date news on the conventions.

John McCain Woos Bloggers

The political bloggers are all actively pursuing an invite to Senator McCain's blog briefings. The Moderate Voice reports in a post titled:

The Bloggers Invited to Question John McCain:

"Going forward, Mr. Hynes said, the campaign would like to have Mr. McCain talk to sports bloggers, too, as a way to “humanize John McCain as something other than a carbon-copy politician running for office, delivering talking points.”"

What about the bookseller and book review bloggers?

Hillary and Barack Fight it Out in Texas

We really do have choices to make in the presidential primaries this year and candidates for the Democrat party have brought their fight to Texas.

texas.barackobama.com | Texas Office Locations

HillaryClinton.com - Online Headquarters - Texas

I wish I could vote in the primary here - but I'll just have to be ready for the November elections. I have my voter registration card sitting right here on my desk ready to be completed and turned in!

The exciting part is that I will be in Denver for the convention and it should be a thrilling couple of days for a news and political junkie.

If anyone has attended any of the RGV rallies, I'd love to hear your comments or impressions.