My thoughts on the race for the 2012 GOP Presidential nomination.

Since my last blog post, many things have happened in the GOP nominating process. It is pretty amazing to watch the ebbs and flows of the race continue, even though polls have shown that most Republicans are satisfied with the choices that they have in the race. One thing has become very evident to me throughout this race: Govs. Mitch Daniels (R-IN) and Chris Christie (R-NJ) look like absolute geniuses right now. Why would I make such a statement?

It’s been a while….

Let me tell y’all something: Ph.D. programs are NOT conducive to regular upkeep of a blog. I am in my first semester here at The University of Alabama, and sometimes I feel like the guy from the Lending Tree commercials, except it is homework that I am in up to my eyeballs. Anyway, this post is just to say that this blog will ACTUALLY start having blog posts. What a novel concept!

Today is September 11th…..

….and I feel numb. Not sad, not angry, not anything. Just numb.

Everybody has their “where were you when this happened?” story, and I am no different. I was in the 12th grade at Tallwood High School in Virginia Beach, Virginia, and I was sitting in Ms. Hilker’s Trigonometry class. Before class even gets started, another teacher runs in and says that “another plane hit the World Trade Center, and there is a large fire at the Pentagon.” We have a television rolled into class, and we just watched the events unfold for the rest of the class. We saw the towers collapse in front of our eyes, and we were horrified.

When I heard about the fire at the Pentagon, I became really worried, as I have an uncle who works there (he lost friends in the attacks). I called my mother to tell her what happened, and she instantly started her attempts to make contact with her sister (a high school teacher at this point) and her fiancée (now husband that worked at the Pentagon). Unfortunately, trying to make calls to anywhere north of Richmond was a problem, as the phone lines were jammed. I got out of class, and my best friend Jonathan brought me home that day. My mother called the house and said, “If I can’t get in touch with my sister, then we are heading to Northern Virginia. So, pack your bags in case.” This was a frightening prospect to me. Driving to Northern Virginia at a time when we did not know whether there were more attacks coming on the horizon? I was hoping that it did not come to that, and it luckily did not; she made contact with them shortly before she left work. Everyone was okay.

The constant images made me sick to my stomach. I remember that it was on every channel; even The Weather Channel made heavy mention of it during its weather broadcasts. At a certain point, I asked my mother if we could just watch HBO because they were the only channel that was not showing ANY coverage of 9/11 at all. She obliged. But when we turned away from HBO to watch the 11pm news, we saw that there was rampant price gouging going on across America. The news announcer, apparently believing that these spikes in gas prices were real because of the likely origins of the attack, was panting on about “$4.99/gallon gas in Kansas City, Missouri…” So my mother and I went out to fill up our gas tanks, and I could not help but to notice just eerily quiet and peaceful it was. After that, I went to bed, frightened at what the next day had in store for us. Of course, the news that Mohamed Atta had actually lived in Virginia Beach and scoped out potential targets did not do anything to make me feel any better in the subsequent days and weeks.

Well, I am ten years removed from that day. And I feel numb.

Principle, party, or person? A progressive’s struggle with President Obama.

I have been a very staunch defender of President Obama, both on this blog and in person. It has been only on the rare monumental screw-ups where I have upbraided his poor decision making (see Shirley Sherrod). But lately, I have faced a really big struggle within myself because this Administration has undertaken some actions that I have not agreed with at all. It has made me question where my allegiance truly lies.

Does it lie with my principles (leftist), my party (Democratic Party) or a single person (President Barack Obama)?

The first day of college…..at 26.

I have to be honest…..this feels a little weird.

Today, I started my studies at The University of Alabama. These studies will eventually lead to my earning a Doctor of Philosophy in Political Science, with focuses in American Politics, Comparative Politics, and Public Administration. I really could not wait to start them, since it is pretty boring sitting around the apartment doing absolutely nothing (this, of course, being facilitated by the fact that my beloved 2004 Ford Taurus SES decided to kick the can while at the family reunion). Plus, I am always like this as the summer wears on; I need to be in my element, which is working around other researchers.

Still though….this feels a little weird.

Importance to Civics

Being an educated citizen is probably one of the most important things that a resident of the United States should be. A high school diploma is commendable, a college degree admirable, but being knowledgeable and fluent in civics and current events. By civics, I mean the basic understanding the rights and duties of citizens.

For this post, I will focus on the results from the 2010 NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress). You can see the Nation’s Report Card on this subject here. While there are statistics based on the 4^th, 8^th, and 12^th grades, I will focus on the twelfth grade. Only 64% of 12^th-graders performed at or above the Basic levels in 2010, while only 24% of 12^th-graders performed at proficient levels. In the advanced category, only 4% of 12^th-graders reached this mark.

An example of each skill can be seen below:

• Basic: Interpret a political cartoon
• Proficient: Define the term “melting pot” and argue if it applies to the US
• Advanced: Compare the citizenship requirements of the US to other countries

Boiling that down, only 24% of America’s high school seniors in 2010 could define the word melting pot in the political context.

Our high schools are focusing more on the hard sciences, and rightfully so. However, I believe that we cannot forget the social sciences and remember that its being an educated citizen that makes us capable of electing the best candidate, supporting the right initiative petitions on the ballot, I will even go as far to say that the more knowledgeable about the political process we
are: the better news media we will have and better politicians we will have.

I would argue that the more civically and politically knowledgeable, the better politicians, better laws, and better society we will become.

I wanted to use this to introduce the issue of civics and how the United States is lacking in civic education for future articles. In the future, I plan on discussing the knowledge needed to become a naturalized citizen, how our education system deals with social studies and civics, and how the media has adapted to what people want as opposed to investigative reporting.

I hope to offer not only criticisms of our current educational or societal system, but will devote a section to an idea of how I believe we can help slow and hopefully stop the decline of civic, legislative involvement among our fellow Americans and encourage an political environment that fosters healthy debate on merit as opposed to an R or D next to a person’s name.

why meeting carl wilkens made me geek out.

Fellow Progressive Life-rs:

I am currently working out of San Diego, as a “roadie” intern for Invisible Children. The experience has been, thus far, indescribably amazing. There have been beautiful moments, heartbreaking ones, and times when I have questioned the sanity of the world around me. I feel constantly reaffirmed in what I am doing, however, when I see the unwavering passion for the cause of ending the murdering, rape and abductions of the Lord’s Resistance Army through the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Republic of South Sudan, and Central African Republic reflected back at me in the eyes of the people around me. The continued efforts in lateral and locally based programming in northern Uganda are an inspiration as well. This last weekend I had the distinct privilege to be part of Invisible Children’s Fourth Estate conference, a gathering of young people from around the world who are devoted to social justice and global citizenship. Although many phenomenal speakers presented to the group, one of the most inspirational for me was Carl Wilkens.

Carl Wilkens was the only American who chose to stay in Rwanda during the Rwandan genocide in 1994. Because he stayed, the lives of hundreds of children were saved as he provided food and water to those in need. Wilkens is a charming, normal guy. Hearing him speak with his wife as they held hands on stage and shared the story of the decision to split up their own family for the sake of what they felt was right was powerful. I met Carl after he spoke, for a few minutes. All he wanted to talk about was me and the work I am doing. It was super humbling and I felt a little star struck.

I guess what I’m trying to share with you is that although Wilkens’ motivations for staying or personal reflections may be different from my own, or from yours, his words are so significant in that he reminds us that activism does not always necessarily need to derive from the root, “act.” The title of his book is I’m not leaving. The simple act of not leaving areas or spaces of conflict, struggle and disagreement is sometimes the most basic and significant thing we can do with our lives. What you choose to do when you stay in that space is up to you. But choosing to use the weight and reality of your body to make a statement is something we often overlook as important. Being an activist doesn’t need to mean organizing protests or making signs or writing letters every day of our life, another point that several speakers of the weekend alluded to. Sometimes the location and commitment of the body is just as powerful as the mind.

Bachmann garners narrow win in Ames Straw poll, Perry surprises and Pawlety is Toast!

So the results from the Iowa GOP are in. . .

Ames Straw poll picks

In a little over an hour we will be getting the results of the Ames straw poll. But for those of you planning to watch preseason football tonight and who therefore can’t be distracted by hitting the refresh button for the next hour, I have the results early for you! Please remember this straw poll is democracy GOP style. . .  these elections are a  fundraiser; a vote costs $30 and the candidates pay for you to vote for them.

The Results!

The road trip musings of a young Black man.

Today I drove from my new home in Tuscaloosa, Alabama (roll tide) to Virginia Beach, Virginia, which is where my mother lives. This is a semi-ritualistic trip (semi because there are occasional gaps, and this is my first time back in Virginia in two years) as it always occurs around the time of my mother’s family reunion, which is in another week. I am always excited about the trip because in addition to my love for driving across the country, I always enjoy exploring new routes and seeing the way that different metropolitan areas handle traffic in and out of cities (it should come as no surprise that I am a pretty big geography geek as well).

The first three and a half hours of my route takes me down Interstate 20 from Tuscaloosa to Atlanta, where I hop on Interstate 85. It is the last 10-15 minutes of that stretch that inspired me to write this blog post.