Incidents in the life of.....

Friday, February 29, 2008

BPARKER

Hello world! How are you on this fine Friday night? Great. Oh me, you ask? I'm slightly tipsy (as one of my co-workers so kindly pointed out). I'm good though. I just tried to call BParker (so maybe I'm not good), but he doesn't have the same number. I must admit that I was a little upset. I want to see him. I wish he would have happened into my life about a month after he actually did. When I met him, I was still on that Kerry trip. WTF was I thinking? Somebody should've slapped me. BParker is great. I wanted to like him, but something was in the way, something named Kerry. BParker was smart, charismatic, funny, all of the things that you say you want in a man. I just couldn't shake KC. Oh well. You win some, you lose some. In the infamous words of Lauryn Hill, you just lost one!

Posted by Nik :: 2/29/2008 :: 1 Comments:

Thursday, February 21, 2008

Change We Can Believe In

I am finally posting about Tuesday's rally.

OMG!!! It was awesome. I absolutely loved it. CNN does his speeches absolutely no justice! (J/K! I love CNN!) It was amazing to be able to actually attend the rally. The energy and excitement was just contagious. Everyone was just so thrilled to be there. I was just excited to get in line.

I find myself smiling periodically and clapping sporadically at the TV. However, at the rally, I found myself smiling the entire time. Thanks to Lakia, I was right in the door. Had I not known her, I would have been at the very back. When I got there, the line was wrapped around like three times. I must admit that I was pretty worried on my way to the rally. I didn't get to leave work until 4:15. So I spent my entire drive worrying about whether or not I would get in. At one point, I thought I was driving the wrong way. I had to call Veronica and have her to mapquest me! (I do that often.) I couldn't miss it because I just love him and everything he stands for. Anyway, here are the lines of his speech that I really enjoyed(some of which must be paraphrased because I can't remember the exact words)...

"We can stop using immigration as a political football and actually start solving the problem." This I strongly believe. I can't seem to figure out why the Hispanics are supporting Hillary. What exactly is she doing for them? Is their support stemming from some long ago allegiance to Bill Clinton? I have yet to see the difference between the two of them. I do know that yesterday Hillary Clinton also called for an end to the political football being played with immigration. If I were Hispanic, I would have began to reexamine my support of her after she fired her Hispanic campaign manager after she delivered California.

Washington is a place where good ideas go to die. Though I agree with this for the most part, I think he may want to be careful because this sort of implies that Washington is doing nothing positive. Good things come out of Washington, just not enough good things.

"I opposed this war in 2002. I will bring this war to an end in 2009!...I don't just want to end the war; I want to end the mindset that got us in the war." This is self-evident. Just take a look at the number of our soldiers dying in Iraq. They are ill-equipped and dying at an alarming rate. Veterans are coming home to maltreatment. They are injured and the health treatment is subpar. Hillary supported this war and despite everything we now know refuses to say it was a mistake. I'm not convinced that she doesn't still have the mindset that got us into war in the first place.

I want to give college students a $4,000 credit, but college students are going to have to start doing more community service. I strongly agree with this. I love this idea. America is sinking on the world's educational and economic totem pole. The two are intertwined. One way to boost our economy is through a stronger educational system. The more people we educate, the more people we have to do the jobs that require analytical and critical thinking. These are the big bucks jobs. Foreigners are coming to America in alarming rates taking the jobs that we are not qualified to complete. Once we strengthen our educational system, we will enable ourselves to become competitive in the global market. Also, not enough people understand the significance of community service. Each of us has the responsibility to give back. Often times we tend to think that if we give of our finances then we have done enough. We need to give of our time and talents. I don't mean that once a year work for Habitat for Humanity (though I think it is wonderful and helps a lot of people). I think people need to consistently volunteer at a nursing home or Boys and Girls Club or school or youth center. We need to touch lives. We have to take care of our seniors and children. They are the substance of our existence. Sometimes people just need to know that someone cares.

I'm not here because of some preconceived ambition though some people have been searching through my kindergarten papers showing how I planned this years ago. I am here because of the urgency of now. The first part was funny. The second part touched me. Now is the time to stand up and take Washington to a new level. Bush has literally and figuratively destroyed our country. We are on the verge of recession. We are engaged in a war with Iraq that no one understands. Nor do we understand why we aren't fighting Afghanistan as vigorously. The housing market in a slump. The New York skyline has been forever altered. Gas prices are at an all time high and the companies are making colossal profits. (This is to be expected because Bush is an oil man.) There is definitely an urgency for change. The definition for stupidity is to keep doing the same things and expecting different results. We cannot continue to put these same bureaucrats in office if we want a better nation. Obama is change we can believe in.

Change in America does not happen from the top down. It happens from the bottom up. When will we realize that we have to be the change we want to see in others? It starts with individuals, regular, everyday people. We don't need a president or a governor or a senator to tell us what needs to be changed or improved. We know these things already. As those at the bottom, it is our job to find a mayor or govornor or president or congressman whose beliefs most closely resemble ours. For me, Barack is that Senator and President. I proudly chant,"Yes, we can!"

"We can restore some balance to our economy...When we got CEOs making more in a ten minutes than ordinary workers are making in a year, and it's the CEOs getting the big tax breaks, there is definitely something wrong." So what's really going on with the tax cuts. I'm not mad at the CEOs. They worked hard to put themselves in a position of power and deserve to reap the benefits. However, the tax breaks are rediculous. They help foster the term "working poor." That's oxymoronic. If you are working, you shouldn't be poor. Of course there will be those that splurge, those that need the bling, those that need to trips, those that need the clothes. I'm not referring to them. I am more concerned with those who go to work everyday and cannot afford gas and milk. Yet, they are paying a higher percentage to the governmnent than those who are making billion dollar profits. Did Spike Lee not tell us to wake up in School Daze. What's the hold up, America?

"Some of you know that I talk about hope a lot. My family gave me love, education, and hope. I put hope on all my signs and wrote a book called The Audacity of Hope . Nothing worthwhile every happens without hope.That is how this country was founded, a group of patriots. That's how slaves and abolotionists rid the country of slavery. That's how immigrants travel under great difficulty. That's how women won the right to vote. That's how workers earned the right to form unions." This is my favorite line of the entire speech. It shows from where we have come. It shows progress and the steps necessary for the progression. It further proves that change doesn't happen from the top down but the bottom up.

"We think that those children in inner city Houston are those :) children. We think that they are someone else's problem. That's not our problem. That's not our child. I'm here to tell you that every child is our problem. Is child is our responsibility. Every child needs to be nurtured and embraced. So we will invest in early child education....I will reward teachers for their greatness by giving higher salaries and more support. I don't want standards based on one high stakes test because I don't want our teachers teaching to the test." AH, A MAN AFTER MY OWN HEART! I think this is the perfect place to stop.

Goodnight!
Barack the vote!

Posted by Nik :: 2/21/2008 :: 1 Comments: