Happy Memorial Day! Thank A Soldier Today

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Oakland, CA - I went to my stepfather's burial place today. Even though I was really ill, I forced myself to go and place flowers at his grave site as I've made it a habit to visit him on Memorial Day each year. He fought in World War II.

But this time, I took my biological father's burial flag with me. Both my father and stepfather died in 2005.

To some who are anti-war, the title of this video-blog will upset them. It should not. I'm against war and always have been, but the reality of my life is that both my late father and stepfather fought in World War II, and in my father's case, Zenophon Abraham Sr. of is his name (he lives in Chicago), I am the proud owner of his neatly folded burial flag and two bullets wrapped in them. I've never unraveled it.

Chester Harding Yerger III of Oakland is my late stepfather and he  often talked of his time in the service and of attending "Officer Candidate School", and being taught how to kill. While the stories were never ones I looked forward to, I learned that sometime people go to war not because they want to harm people but because they feel their duty to protect America. I used to question this "duty" but now I honor it, even as I disagree with the idea of war.

Why? I frankly can't explain the reason as well as I'd like to but I'll try. I think as I reach deep it's because I now know some people don't feel its their job or "place" to question authority, yet, those same people made it ok for me to question authority. That was my father and my stepfather, especially as they aged.

I think it's also because people who have taken the lives of another in a time of war generally have an appreciation for life that can't be measured. At times my stepfather would think back to the war and cry. That was hard to witness. My father never talked about the war, so I never asked him about it.

My dad talked about Chicago architecture, planes, trains, and automobiles. Not the war. It wasn't until he died and his funeral that I understood his role in the war; he received a 21-gun salute that October day in 2005 and I can feel the noise from the gun fire pass through me today.

It's those memories that cause me to thank a soldier when one is in my presence. I did that on a plane ride as I was standing next to a Army officer in uniform. I asked him where he was going and he responded "Home. And I'm so happy." I said "Hey, thanks for your service"; he said "I tell ya, I really appreciate that."

I got what he was saying. He was telling me, "You know, what we do isn't appreciated by a lot of people and believe me I understand why. But I'm glad you see that I'm carrying out my duty to my country, even if I may not agree with what we're doing all the time."

Thank a soldier today. Even though you may be anti-war, don't blame them for our foreign policies of the past or present. They're doing the best they can in an impossible situation.

Thank a soldier today, or any day. Even though you may be anti-war, don't blame them for our foreign policies of the past or present. They're doing the best they can in an impossible situation. They're serving our country and could die doing so.

Boxer Demands Obama Pick A Woman For Supreme Court

 

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Like other supporters, I received this email letter from U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer, but this one was pointed right at one of my favorite subjects: "Who should be Justice David Souter's replacement on the Supreme Court?"

After not much stewing on the matter, I would guess, Senator Boxer wants it officially known: President Obama's choice must be a woman and she's taking to the Internets to make it known. I still favor Kathleen Sullivan for the job so no harm there; this is what Senator Boxer wrote:

Dear Zenophon,

Women make up 51% of our nation's population.

Yet only 17% of the seats in Congress are held by women. Only 3% of corporate CEOs are women. And just one out of nine Supreme Court justices is a woman.

President Obama can change that.

Send an email to the White House now — and urge President Obama to nominate a woman to the U.S. Supreme Court!

Since Sandra Day O'Connor's retirement from the Supreme Court four years ago, Ruth Bader Ginsburg has been the sole female Justice.

Now, with Justice Souter's recent retirement announcement, President Obama has a chance to nominate an intelligent, well-qualified person to the Supreme Court — and I believe that person should be a woman.

We need a Supreme Court that is more representative of all Americans, so that its decisions better reflect the diversity of life experiences and points-of-view in America.

Send an email to the White House now — and urge President Obama to nominate a woman to the U.S. Supreme Court!

Many pundits have warned President Obama to make his choice based on merit — and I agree. In fact, there are many highly qualified women to choose from.

When 96 percent of all Supreme Court Justices throughout our history have been men, clearly it is evident that we need another woman on the Court.

Send an email to the White House now — and urge President Obama to nominate a woman to the U.S. Supreme Court!

When asked recently how it felt to be the only woman on the Supreme Court, Justice Ginsburg simply replied, "Lonely."

It's time to change that.

Thanks for your help.

In Friendship,

Barbara Boxer
U.S. Senator

Did you get that you're supposed to email President Obama?

I think its important to add that in a diverse society we must have a diverse Supreme Court that can make a contemporary set of laws rather than laws from another less diverse time in America. That written, we have the battle between Latinos, African Americans, women, and according to TIME Magazine's Mark Halperin, white men.

So what to do?

Obama should pick the person who has the best set of qualifications and I just can't see anyone better than Kathleen Sullivan. Period.

Ok. Your thoughts?

TV Show "The Blog Report" Features Oakland's Young Politicos

 

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Last weekend's installment of "The Blog Report with Zennie62" features the 16th District Delegate Election that was held in Alameda in January. The show segment, which is shown here, covers the election process and why its important to the political future of the Democratic Party in the Bay Area.

But the real stars of the show are Oakland's young political activists who are bringing a new energy to the scene here. East Bay Young Democrats President Frieda Edgette, union leader Dan Rush, and Peralta Community College Trustee Abel Guillen are just some of the faces interviewed in the second Episode of "The Blog Report."

Personally, I think Frieda Edgette's the one to watch. The leader of the East Bay Young Dems and "MixitUp East Bay" has a unique combination of energy, intelligence, empathy and direction to rise to the level of congressional representative or senator, and I'm not writing anything here I've not personally told her. In fact, once Frieda learns to ignore the voices that say either directly or indirectly "she can't", she will.

I don't make that statement lightly. The Oakland / East Bay Area political establishment is not known for growing and mentoring future leaders; that happens by the next generation of voters elevating its own officials for the future. In Edgette's case she and others in her organization and many who were former Obama volunteers but not in the East Bay Young Dems have formed new groups of friends and other informal alliances that go out and do everything from raise money for causes to gain votes for delegate candidates like Edgette and Rush; both won the January election.

Take one look at the slate cards made by the organizations aligned with Senator Don Perata last year and one would be hard pressed to find a young political star in the group. Nothing against Senator Perata but it's a wake up call to him that there's a powerful anti-establishment wind blowing and people like Frieda are being carried by it. Perata should get on the right side of it.

President Obama Goes "Three-For-Three" In UConn Shootout

In a video that's just plain fun to watch President Barack Obama hosts the National Champion University of Connecticut Women's Basketball Team at The White House and in an impromptu game of P-I-G, hits three straight shots from about 17 feet out.



What's so cool about President Obama is he's one of us,not the staid person that we've come to expect our leaders to be. He's a much needed breath of fresh air.

Michael Vick To Be Spokesperson For PETA

 

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Yep, you read this right.  According to AdAge.com Atlanta Falcons former quarterback Michael Vick is reportedly "in talks" to be a spokesperson for PETA.  He's ready to do a series of ads for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals when he's released from jail later in May.  Vick wants to clean-up his image as a dog-killer and reenter society with the problems stemming from his dog fighting business a thing of the past.

You know, as silly as it reads and sounds, Vick may just be able to do it.  It depends on the commercial and how it's done.  If it comes off as Vick just proclaiming his love for dogs, I'm not so sure. (See my video) But if it's done as more of a documentary style, then yes.  That would work. 

Everyone deserves a second chance, and that's certainly true for Vick.  But let's be honest, too.  Michael Vick is very concerned he will not be able to achieve the lifestyle he once enjoyed again.  He wants the bling.  He also wants to play football and knows that's the only way he's going to have even a snowballs' chance in the hell he's created for himself to do that.

I root for Vick because I met him at a 1999 EA Sports Super Bowl party in Atlanta and when Vick was still in college but a star, and I was really shocked at how much a fish-out-of-water he seemed to be.  I really believe he surrounded himself with the wrong kind of people at a very young age and didn't know any better. 

Now he does, but what a price he's paid over the last two years.

More on this soon.

Art Torres, California Democratic Party Chair Sends Letter of Resignation

This came to me via email just three minutes ago:

My Fellow Democrats,

It has been an honor to have served for thirteen years as Chairman of the most incredible state Democratic Party in the nation. Together we have made great strides in improving our Party by registering voters with the Bounty program, by grassroots activists opening up offices and creating a sense of community and service to many, and by electing Democrats to the Assembly, Senate and Congress who are protecting the values we all cherish in our state.

Our Party has also embraced our young people and they have joined with us as never before, creating a new generation of Democratic voters and activists. We have elected the first woman Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi of California -- one of the highest offices in our country. And of course, California proudly provided a strong margin of victory to elect President Barak Obama.

We are all proud of what President Obama has accomplished during his first 100 days, giving our nation strong initiatives to renew and reinvest in our economy and improve the quality of our lives in the most difficult of times. He is a President who will provide great leadership for our country and our world.

Since 2004, we have added six blue counties with the help of dedicated folks in Alpine, Stanislaus, San Bernardino, San Diego, San Joaquin, and Ventura. We also increased our numbers in Orange County to nearly 34% Democratic registration. These are not small achievements! This is the result of a huge amount of hard work by very dedicated Democrats.

In short, I leave the new Chair and Party leadership a healthy Democratic Party, both politically and financially, as I move to another chapter in my life -- the Vice Chairmanship of the Independent Citizens Oversight Committee of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM), which was created by the voters as Proposition 71 in 2004.

As a colon cancer survivor, I will also be a patient advocate for CIRM in my new role. I join a team of dedicated scientists and policy makers to help raise the more than $400 million needed to fund the research necessary to target diseases that have plagued so many California families. Every day I spend at CIRM headquarters, I sense the excitement of a field of science moving forward rapidly, in fact more rapidly than anyone on the science staff there imagined possible even a couple years ago. When CIRM adopted a scientific strategic plan in October 2006 the scientists there envisioned reaching a stage this year where they could fund “disease teams” that would combine basic researchers and clinicians to work together to develop a therapy ready for clinical trials three-to-four years from now.

In 2006 they predicted funding one or two such teams that would be ready for this challenge today. But when the initial grant applications for the Disease Team Awards were counted a couple weeks ago, there were 73 of them. That is 73 California research teams that think they can get a stem-cell based therapy ready for clinical trials within four years. These teams are targeting a broad array of diseases from osteoarthritis and blindness to cancer and a host of neurodegenerative diseases. Only a subset of these applications will make it through CRIM’s rigorous grant review process, which strives to bet on only the very best science in which to make California’s investment, but no matter the outcome of the grant reviews, this represents a tremendous acceleration toward reaching the promise of stem cells.

The California research community has been able to get to this point in large part because of three years of sustained funding from CIRM. Since the agency issued its first training grants in April of 2006 it has been able to provide consistent support for its new cadre of stem cell researchers. All the scientists I talk to tell me that this type of sustained funding is what science requires to get the results that create new therapies and even cures and, in turn, the jobs that the fast growing biotech industry will provide for Californians. CIRM’s ability to continue this sustained funding is linked to the budgetary health of the state and the state’s ability to issue bonds that support CIRM’s work. So the health and well being of patients in California – and around the world – is one more thing to keep in mind as we vote on the budget initiatives May 19.

This letter is not a goodbye for me, but rather a fulfillment of new path ahead – as we all continue to make a difference in the lives of Californians.

God speed my fellow Democrats!

Sincerely,

Art Torres

Sen. Art Torres (Ret.)
Chairman, California Democratic Party

President Obama Was Correct To Bow To King Abdullah; Conservatives Are Idiots Here

Warning. If you're conservative, you're not going to like this post, ok? But the fact is President Barack Obama was correct in his act of bowing to Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah. It's called - drumroll please - the right protocol. What it does reflect, is the end of American Machismo in foreign affairs. You know what I mean. The desire to show we're better than someone else, (because they're different) which could be thought of as a kind of racism since the basic idea is to put someone down because of their race. President Obama is a breath of fresh air here. He seeks to make partnerships around the World, not line up new candidates for industrial exploitation.

Conservatives are upset because many it seems want Obama to show America as tough. OK. That got us September 11th 2001, or what we call "9-11." Yes, much of our foreign relations have been tied to America showing its military or economic muscle over the decades, but now the era of Pax Americana is over. We have to use another approach. It's called diplomacy. But the general, accepted rule is Royalty outranks heads of state. The idea is a President is only such for a few years, but Kings and Queens are that for life.

Obama not only did the right thing, even if his press secretary is trying to make it go away, but Obama signaled a major shift from how America has dealt with the Arab world, and he did it at the right time. We need to have a better image around the World.

Also, bowing is considered a move of affection in East Asia and Obama was expressing just that. What masks an appreciation of Obama's act is simple, pure, American ignorance. The xenophobic idea that one who's of the USA doesn't need to know about another country or its customs, but that everyone should know about ours. It explains why so many of us don't know another language let alone english, or embrace the themes of other cultures. Here, the San Francisco Bay Area is different from America (come to think of it, so is Manhattan and Seattle and LA, and Miami). We don't have that problem to as great a degree as in, say South Carolina, and at least in what I call the "Inner Bay Area", which is between the Pacific Ocean and the Hayward Fault line.

But other parts of America need a whole sale intellectual cleanup. And yes, we have a lot of appologizing to do around the World because we've screwed up so much of late -- that's what created 9-11. Remember our ill-advised President Clinton-directed 1993 Somalian incursion under the idea of a humanitarian mission, when it was really an occupation? It was Osama Bin Ladin's group that got us out of there. And successful, they were emboldened to consider an attack on America which led to 9-11.

The Chicago Sun Times ran a shameful opinion piece on this matter and Sun Times Columnist Steve Hunley wrote a column that represents the macho, non-thinking American more concerned with being tough than being smart. I just hope he's not that way.

Frankly, Rambo was a dumb movie and an even dumber idea. Best to leave him where he belongs -- in the past.