There are literacy programs for partly-literate adults: I tutored at a GED preparation program which met exactly that need. All of the adults there knew the alphabet and could read: but not easily or well.

Volunteer to teach people to read: there are many programs out there that that need funds and volunteers. (I did not need any credentials or preparation but a High School education, myself.)

-FedoraLV

Sen. Obama is close to Rep. Conyers, now Chair of the House Judiciary Committee, who knows full well what happened (he held hearings and wrote a book, remember?)

Obama, a constitutional law scholar, taught a class at the University of Chicago pouring over the primary sources of every means of disenfranchisement used since the 1800's.

Don't panic: vote early, volunteer for the campaign, and serve as a poll worker or poll monitor on election day. We will do this, together.

-FedoraLV

yeswecarve.com

-FedoraLV

he wants to make Amtrak decent:
http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:6iOOv...

rail riders agree:
http://www.narprail.org/cms/index.php/reso... /

(Click on the dream map and the comparison to the actual map: it will rock your world.)

How'd we get this way?

Remember that our nation train system runs on freight-built and maintained tracks and bows to private freight companies' schedules and priorities -- we're the only industrialized nation that has this backwards notion -- and our national rail service (not a corporation like Delta ...) is not accorded the same sweetheart deals as our national airline industry.

This is exactly the kind of situation where changes in national policy would be the most effective agents in making a difference: we deserve a 21st century national rail (and bus) system that is not stalled in the 70's and is a real alternative to driving or flying. (<http://www.nationaltrainday.com/about-trai... >)

(The whistle-stop tour was on Amtrak equipment and Obama was proudly seen off by Amtrak personnel: let's hear it for a president who will take mass transportation seriously!)

-FedoraLV

are vague on just what she did and what results she achieved -- I 'support' a lot of things, too ... it's easy to be in favor of an idea, it's hard to put sweat and money behind that opinion. Do her deeds as a senator match the vehemence of her rhetoric? What bills did she author, sponsor, and vote for that made a significant change for the people affected by each of those issues she 'supported'?

(See the Young Turks clip on her legislative record -- she did a lot of commending and honoring with the bills she authored. Sweet, but not exactly the proactive, issue-solving work I expected from her record the way she talks on the campaign trail.)

Now that you've cut and pasted from her campaign site, could you kindly respond to the OP's post? What was Sen. Clinton doing during each of those junctures that prevented her from supporting the best interests her constituents, her party, and her nation?

(If you respond by denegrating Obama or making a joke you are avoiding the OP's points.)

-FedoraLV

for all intents and purposes we have our nominee.

You may find that unpleasant, unbelievable, or disappointing -- but it does not change the numbers.

Let's support the Democratic president that Sen. Clinton will be working with, providing we can get our party's candidate elected.

I know it's hard to hear -- but we have a nominee to support, right now. Continuing to back the trailer with Huckabee-like numbers is to trade in, well, false hope. I'm very sorry; but go to DemConWatch, pull out Slate's Delegate calculator, and brace yourself for the cold water of the numbers.

-FedoraLV

If you think you don't like Randi, try listening to her -- she does her homework and doesn't get outraged without reason. If she's criticizing something read up on what she's read (she posts it, after all) ... if it doesn't change your mind it will at least give you food for thought. If she has an opinion about something it's an informed opinion -- and worth following up on whether you end up agreeing with her or not. I have listened to her for years: she has never brought up a main show topic that wasn't worth a second look, further digging, and a re-think.

-FedoraLV

between this and the video where Sen. Clinton is booed is remarkable: she turns back to her notes, she does not react to how the audience is taking her words, she just gives the speech from the page no matter how people react. Sen. Obama listens to the audience, he listens for their responses, he talks to an audience member when he doesn't quite catch their reply. He's right there with them, talking without notes, exactly making his point that he's responsible to the people.

Wow.

-FedoraLV

I think in your suspicion you are mincing his words too finely, looking for things to doubt. Obama cannot know what congress we will give him to work with (that's our job) and, as a Constitutional law expert, he understands that his will as Chief Executive is not what will change federal law. He is leaving room for what congress will permit -- and what the LBGT community will request (he kindly says that he can't speak for us later in the piece: I can't think of the last time a politician who wasn't gay left room for that vital fact ... many speak as though their advocacy and our concerns are one -- with no acknowledgments that we (like most minorities) have a variety of views and no one, official spokesperson. )

From the interview:

"I reasonably can see “don’t ask, don’t tell” eliminated. I think that I can help usher through an Employment
Non-Discrimination Act and sign it into law .... I have been clear about my interest in including gender identity in (civil rights) legislation, but I’ve also been honest ... it is a heavy lift through Congress. We’ve got some Democrats who are willing to vote for a noninclusive bill, but we lose them on an inclusive bill, and we just may not be able to generate the votes .... my goal would be to get the strongest possible bill -- that’s what I’ll be working for.

The third thing I believe I can get done is in dealing with federal employees .... I think can be done with some opposition, some turbulence, but I think we can get that done.

And finally, an area that I’m very interested in is making sure that federal benefits are available to same-sex couples who have a civil union .... I strongly respect the right of same-sex couples to insist that even if we got complete equality in benefits, it still wouldn’t be equal because there’s a stigma associated with not having the same word, marriage, assigned to it. I understand that .... I’m the product of a mixed marriage that would have been illegal in 12 states when I was born."

(Many African-Americans reject that very comparison: it is brave of Obama to make it.)

-FedoraLV

Not AAR. According to the station manager only 1 or 2 people (of the more than 500) present complained:

1) maybe, like Rev. Wright, this sounds different if you listen to Randi's entire statement in context
(rather than running with the 2 words you find offensive)

2) this is getting blown up now by folks with ulterior motives

Listen to the excerpt again -- the audience is laughing and cheering. Not a boo to be heard.

When Randi speaks out against someone she usually has a lot of reasons and a lot of research to back her up (see her success in the CACI lawsuit) ... I notice the You Tube clip (posted by someone with a Clinton avatar) lacks exactly the context and reasons for Randi's words - there's no lead up and no follow up. I've listened to Randi for a long time: her research is always in one of the two. Cutting them distorts what she is saying.

-FedoraLV

 
There isn't enough of the clip to show why Randi was talking about this topic -- after years of listening to her show I know her opinions have a lot of research behind them and she wouldn't call someone this unless she had *a lot* of evidence that they were pandering for the sake of fame or publicity or violating principles they'd previously held. Randi is not a shock jock: if she has strong opinions its based on hours of reading from sources she usually posts on her show's home page.

Again, she was not on the air and this was a local station event, not an AAR one.

I think this is another Rev. Wright job, this time on Randi. Those who have published this clip want you to focus on two inflammatory words and ignore the background and larger point that Randi is making: both Ferraro and Clinton have been saying odd things for political gain, reflecting an unsavory style of politics that we should reflect on carefully before we support it or let it go as 'well that's how politics always is'. (We have a choice in what politics is, we are not helpless, passive victims.)

Randi has the right to speak her mind, even if her opinions are offensive and her language burns yours ears.

(Yet if the mere word 'whore' offends you then you weren't listening to Stephanie Miller, last week: she had a running joke about saying the word on several cable news networks. (And she meant in in exactly the same sense Randi did of 'doing anything for publicity/votes.'))

-FedoraLV

Cooper Union address (audio + text):
<http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/a... >

-FedoraLV

Attack his supporters, the states who voted for him, the delegates who support him, the primary process itself, his next-door-neighbor, his race, wife, his church, his minister ... and back to the same again? (When none of it has stuck?) (When it just makes her look worse?)

Her op research can't come up with anything else?

Folks, it looks like Obama is exactly what he appears to be: a once in his lifetime candidate with nothing to be ashamed of in his past (or his present.) We need an extraordinary leader -- not to be an even more authoritarian commander in chief -- but to energize all us us to work together to set this country back on its feet.

Gobama.

-FedoraLV

as a transsexual (or as a gay person) then you already know how unready (and uneducated) most people in this country are about our issues. Would you sink either of our candidates by demanding they look and talk just like hardline activists within our community? (Who don't always meet with universal agreement even when they're talking to us, alone?)

Remember that advocacy requires education and diplomacy: you can't simply go at a broad audience with requests and demands that the LBGT community is still sorting through, among ourselves. (We have a long history of not being sure if the lesbians belonged ... if the people of color belonged ... if the bi folk belonged ... if the trans folk belonged ... if the intersexed folk belonged ... if the queer theorists belonged ... and whether we should push for some kind of separatism - or for acceptance and integration with the larger society - or if categories like "gender" and "orientation" should just be dissolved as meaningless or theoretically untenable ....)

Would it be better for global warming if all of us became lifelong raw foodists,tomorrow? Yes. What is Al Gore asking of us? One vegetarian meal a week.

I know that frustration and injustice tempts us to ask for everything *right now* ... but tell me a time when a minority group's global and unequivocal demands, by themselves, have been successful. History shows such demands spook the very people we are trying to coexist with ... and they don't work without majority allies, societal change, and positive political and economic pressures. I'm not advocating incrementalism as an excuse to give up fighting (and I think occasionally shocking the majority can be useful ... heaven knows we have a long history of that, too ) but let's get a Democrat in office *then* push them to be more progressive.

(Have you ever considered that perhaps they're deliberately moderating their positions on the campaign trail in order to get into office?

Go listen to Obama's speech from Tuesday again ... and to his 2004 convention speech if you haven't heard it recently -- this man, this Constitutional law professor, works from principles, not issues. He truly believes in thoroughgoing equality before the law, on every front ... even if getting into office requires him to tread carefully with a nation of voters that *isn't* as progressive as he is. (Again: go listen to the "More Perfect Union" speech ... he's way ahead of us.)


-FedoraLV

I'm now a citizen of Gaylandia, a separate nation?

(Oh dear, I should have read those papers that came with membership card far more carefully....)

My larger point was, listen to what Obama has said, overall, on LBGT issues (and everything else) instead of stabbing yourself repeatedly with a single, small wedge issue and bewailing the pain it causes you. Do not let the sentiment of "Wait, but it's *my* turn for *my* issues on the national stage" talk you out of supporting a candidate who will help all of America ... no matter what subgroup(s) they belong to.

(Go listen to his St. Patrick's day speak to an Irish booster league if you don't think Obama can speak successfully to audiences with focused interests and concerns.)

In listening to "A More Perfect Union" I didn't need high-signs to my little group to know I was being spoken to. In our community we have our own angry older generation, we have our own young people who see the world very differently, we have a majority that sometimes resents and fears us for misplaced reasons, and we have all felt (like a certain young Kenyan-Kansan Hawaiian) that we were born into a world without a place or a category for us: unless we made one for ourselves.

He's offered us an opportunity to take a look at just how we do this, and at just how we go about being Americans. I welcome that. He has challenged us, he has changed local politics (and he will do it again across this nation as other Democratic candidates are elected in his wake). Even if he can do nothing for our community during his time in office, he has put forward a model where giving an ally of our community a lot of power then requiring certain legislative and policy changes of them, as obligations, is *not* the only way to change things in this world.

A lot of minority communities still cling to that model -- "Who is one of us? Oh, they aren't? Well, how good are they on our issues? Oh. What strings can we pull to make them more compliant with our hot button issues?" I know this is a natural response to, well, being a minority -- but folks, there's other ways of going about it. I'm going with the classic argument that we are all, all of us, entitled to equal regard and equal rights, that our fortunes are tied in with our neighbors', and that getting too strident about how we've been wronged and need recompense *now* will not commend us to the very majority that we would like to be on better terms with.

Obama is a very interesting lesson on how to handle ourselves in the world, how to look at more than just our own group's issues and problems, and how to find solutions that in a genuine and non-calculating way benefit the most people in the best way. (Look at how he persuaded the police to accept videotaped interrogations: he did not use the traditional arguments about African Americans and the corrections system.) Let us learn from what he is teaching us and let us listen for more carefully to what he is saying.

It will only benefit all of us.

-FedoraLV