democratic debate - ohio

As a democrat myself, I've found these last 13 months in the realm of politics to be extremely exciting. I've watched every debate and have generally been fascinated with each little tidbit of "breaking news," especially since the primary and caucaus elections began. I've supported Sen. Barack Obama from the beginning for a variety of reasons, and I feel like I'm watching a very close basketball game, biting my nails hoping my team wins. The most recent Democratic debate was, of course, held this past Tuesday and it was chalk-full (as is usually the case) with policy as well as drama. I've heard all the policy before and definitely enjoy when things heat up a bit between the two senators. This time however, I heard something new, which I found quite shocking – a 100% support of Israel, hand-in-hand with a complete shun of the Muslim- and Arab-American populous.

When Tim Russert first posed the question of Minister Louis Farrakhan's (former leader of the Nation of Islam – NOI) support of Sen. Obama, Obama barely let him get the question out of his mouth before he was explaining that his view of Farrakhan has been made quite clear. Russert goes on to say that, "The problem some voters may have is, as you know, Reverend Farrakhan called Judaism 'gutter religion,'" to which Obama responded that he does not approve of Farrakhan's anti-semitic remarks made in the past, and even finds them "reprehensible." Russert then adds that even Obama's own minister, who Obama is known to hold in high esteem, supports Farrakhan and has "said that Louis Farrakhan 'epitomizes greatness.'" After further research on this issue, I found that Farrakhan actually made this statement more than 20 years ago (in 1984) and has since made numerous apologies and retractions of his anti-semetic statements.

I thought that Obama fielded these questions well, but I did find myself extremely disappointed that he did not take this opportunity to reach out to the Muslim community as a whole. Maybe he felt that drawing any connection between the NOI and the larger Muslim world would have been considered insulting to Muslims, but I don't think so. I think he was more concerned with distancing himself from Islam because of the right-wing conservative suspicions throughout his campaign that he is really a Muslim himself, just waiting to get into the White House so that he can hand the U.S. over to Muslim extremists. These suspicions are ridiculous on top of showing extreme prejudice. I am disappointed that Obama is succumbing to this pressure by distancing himself from the Arab/Muslim world. Many people, myself included, support him mainly for the idea that he will be the candidate most open to all sides of issues in the Middle-East and deal with world issues as a whole in a balanced way.

From Obama's support of the Jewish community and his hopes to bring the Jewish and Black communities back together, the debate moved naturally to Israel itself. Obama endorsed Israel 100%, leaving no room to question Israel's policies. Senator Clinton echoed this sentiment, a sentiment which sounds uncritical and uniformed. I think that anyone with a little information on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict can see that both sides have validity and that Israel has been less than fair in its dealings with the Palestinians. I think this speaks to who holds more power in this country, and more than the Jewish vote itself, the power lies in the Israel lobby. One of Obama's advisors is considered anti-Israel, simply because of his support of a book that explores the power of this lobbying group. This speaks to a climate in which politicians are unable to deeply explore all sides of this issue without being labeled anti-Israel and persecuted for it.

I still support Sen. Obama but this leaves me wondering if he can help U.S. relations in the Middle-East in the way I was hoping. The fact that the Arab/Muslim world was left completely out of this discussion was a bad move and will likely result in his losing votes in these communities. But who can they turn to now, besides Ralph Nader, who is pro-Palestinian but clearly doesn't have any chance of ever being elected president.

oh my - stars!!

meteor shower!!

it's that time of year again, it always coincides with marti's birthday. ;)

does anyone remember the meteor shower parties
that we used to have in my backyard?

fun fun fun!!!
and waaaay tooooo many good brain cells lost!
hahaha!!

;)



August 12th - Perseid Meteor Shower



nasa story with images

Got a calendar? Circle this date: Sunday, August 12th. Next to the circle write "all night" and "Meteors!" Attach the above to your refrigerator in plain view so you won't miss the 2007 Perseid meteor shower.

"It's going to be a great show," says Bill Cooke of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office at the Marshall Space Flight Center. "The Moon is new on August 12th--which means no moonlight, dark skies and plenty of meteors." How many? Cooke estimates one or two Perseids per minute at the shower's peak.

it's been a while...

wow, it's really been a while since my last blog!! so much has happened over the last couple months. overall life is good, but things have been intense, and this will definitely be a summer to remember!

here's a quick recap:

i'm not sure if you saw the picture of the little sparrow in my "los animales" album, but this was an amazing experience. that little sparrow is actually sitting on my hand! can you believe it? somehow it must have gotten seperated from it's parents and for one magical morning, he thought that my neighbor and i were his two moms. the trust he put in us was mind-blowing.

of course we couldn't keep him, but the people at the animal rescue place said that he'd be fine.


i'm sure most of you know that quinlan is now in san diego. she moved down the 15th of july. i miss her like crazy and i know i'm not the only one. she's settling well into her new adventure though. ;)

before she left, we really made the most of our time - we had parties, went to concerts, did lots and lots of bar-hopping through midtown, got tattoos...

cancer b-day party
quinlan, me, marlena, shasara


shasara and sevgi...


4th of july with the maxey's, at their new place in san pablo
chanté, marlena, troy


marlena and joaquin, troy, quinlan and shaye


lots of bar hopping...
at the tavern - nabor, troy, sevgi, jason


hahaha!! troy doing the cabbage patch! so hella cute!


at the monkey bar for q's birthday - jason, troy, sevgi


quinlan and me


we went to live 105's bfd concert and the warp tour, along with many, many smaller shows.

quinlan and me at warp, pretty buzzed.


kids skating the vans ramp....


one of the smaller shows was "hurts so good" at the poleng lounge in s.f., featuring one of my favorite hip-hop artists, niko villamor. if you haven't added him yet, do it today!


niko and me


quinlan, sevgi and i also made sure to get tattoos before quinlan left. i didn't get pics of sevgi's (my battery died), but here's some pics of mine and q's.




here's a pic of mine, it's on the back of my arm - half sleeve here i come!


okay, i think that's enough pics for now....

my final piece of news for this blog is that i passed my statistics class, which means that i'm on my way to s.f. state. i move at the end of the year and i absolutely can't wait!!

i feel really good about life right now and am so excited to see what happens next!

mystery pissers weekend

i had such a great memorial day weekend, and am finally getting around to posting a blog about it. friday night, eric and i got all dressed up and went out for dinner and drinks.

it's the first time i've been that dressed up in ages. i loved it and will be doing more of it! it was so nice to feel like i was being shown off all night. ;)

then our friends' band, the mystery pissers, hit northern cal for a little mini tour over the holiday weekend, stopping in sac on saturday night. their show ended up getting cancelled, but we had tons of fun bar hopping w/them anyway.

we hit the tavern, then benny's. also met a fun guy named shawn, and had my palm read by a frisky old man. it was a blast. ;)

l-r: shawn, john and chris (mystery pissers), sevgi, quinlan


since we didn't get to see the band play on saturday, quinlan, sevgi and i went down to sf to watch them play on saturday night. they performed at annie's social club with the white barons - man, they rocked!

annie, of annie's social club


mystery pissers on stage... l-r: john, nate, chris


since we were in sf, it only made sense for troy to make a special guest appearance...


chris did a great job of looking just like the crazy guy on this flyer. ;)


chris, me and q...


aaaww, me and my girl...


eric and i spent monday evening together, first taking a long walk all over midtown, then taking a long drive down the garden hwy. it was such a nice, relaxing way to end the wild weekend. i love long drives and it was so nice to be by the water.

all the pics of the weekend, including some of the white barons' performance, can be seen here, in the album titled "memorial wknd 07."

life is good. ;)

jason's grad party

this past weekend, jason graduated from uc berkeley as a mechanical engineer. jason is chanté's husband and it seems like these two have been through it all together. he's been on this education journey for a long time now (haven't we all), but he finally made it!

chanté and jason have struggled to provide the best possible schooling and experiences to their three kids, while satisfying their own needs for advanced education. throughout this journey, they've both taken turns working, but have always both attended school.

now jason is done and chanté's on her way to a second bachelors at mills college, then i imagine grad school will be next for her. these two are absolutely hooked on education!

they've been an inspiration to us all and we're so lucky to have them in our lives. here are some pics from the party...

this picture turned out interesting, very "album cover." (quinlan, suzi, troy)

chanté and jason's youngest, joaquin - isn't he stunning!

family portrait - shaye, chanté, jason, joaquin and shiloh. the second pic is of suzi and quinlan chattin' it up by the bar - of course! ;)

chanté and jason - to quote troy, "the couple of the decade." the second pic is of chanté and branimir, another old friend.

this is annie, who has been an amazing friend to chanté and jason. she's also hilarious. she has that wild british humor and keeps us all laughing. ;)

chanté and her dad in the first pic, the second pic is of branimir with his wife melissa, and quinlan.

troy w/quinlan and joaquin. doesn't he look so cute with the piece of the gold curtain as a headband. jajajaja!!

chanté and laura with the gold curtain, and a picture of shaye w/the balloons.

the next morning we all went to brunch. shaye w/uncle troy's sunglasses, joaquin refusing to put on mine. ;)

back at jason and chanté's to say our goodbyes... shaye and uncle troy chillin' on the lawn...

it was an amazing weekend with a group of friends that is more like family... i was feeling pretty emotional on sunday, after quinlan dropped me off back home, thinking about what an incredible group this is and how these times are going to become less frequent after quinlan and troy move. q's leaving for san diego in july, troy's leaving for spain in august...

we're all spreading out, but i have no doubts that these ties will remain strong and that now we'll just have more cool places to visit. ;)

san diego - thanksgiving '07!
madrid, spain - spring break '08!

you can also view videos of the grad party here.

poker night...

Jon, Carlie, Corey and I (along w/many others) have been doing poker night now for a couple of years. It's amazing how fast time goes by!

I hosted it last weekend and thought I'd post some pics of the night....

Here's one of Jon and his girls... ;)

Aaaww, me and my baby...

Corey and Ryan, being silly and looking cute as always...

More cute kids on the porch...
1st pic: Eric, Bill and Carlie
2nd pic: Crista, Carlie and Noah

Corey's the official dealer - he's so good at it! This was the first time in a while that I'd seen Ryan or his brother Noah. Noah had just gotten home from Kuwait that day! He was tired after a 22 hour flight, and ready to get messed up. We helped with that, Eric made him lots of appletinis. You can see that empty one in his hand. ;)

Bill, smiling like always, and Eric, trying to make one of those tough poker decisions. Can you see Jon in the background of the first pic, checking his myspace? ;)

Jon, Carlie and I usually seem to run out of money early, but I think we half plan it that way so we can get down to bull-shittin', which is what we do best. ;) The guys played poker late into the night, while Jon, Carlie and I sprawled out on my bed and got our gossip on.

The next morning, when I was cleaning up, I was amazed to find that we'd used all these glasses and not broken one of them. Way to go! We were pretty messed up, so that was a real accomplishment. ;)

Fun, fun, fun!! ;)