I’ve always had a lot of respect for Elliot Spitzer. You might as well take look at his current Governor of New York page, because it won’t be there for long, as his statement today is listed on the website as “Recent Events.”
I’ve been listening to the shock and awe of Spitzer’s announcement that he had a “private” mishap being involved with some kind of prostitution ring and/or being a john. But while the pundits are focusing on his poor family and wife, they seem to have forgotten that Hillary must be pissed off. As the Senator from New York and a Democrat closely aligned with the good works for the Spitzer administration and fund-raising machine, she must be livid. Additionally, the pundits I’ve heard are ignoring the possibility that he was targeted for this transgression by either the Feds or some kind of Republican apparatus, whether New York State-based or otherwise. Spitzer was dangerous to the Republicans and now, I think, he’s a danger to the Democrats.

So, “Raul Reyes, a FARC leader, was killed in Saturday’s raid into Ecuadoran territory, which sparked the rising border tensions” among Ecuador, Colombia and Venezuela. The latter is now accused of providing $300 million dollars to FARC, which has for a long, long time, sought to overthrow the Colombia government in favor of a socialist-type government.
In lefty news, like Democracy Now, Farc is treated something like Ralph Nader’s Public Citizen organization. But it’s not. Farc is a malevolent organization, bent on kidnapping, hurting, and killing people in the name of their aspirations. The murder of Raúl Reyes, imho, should be applauded. While he was on the “diplomatic front” of Farc and not so much a military leader, he was also the public face to a very malignant organization that plants land mines, sells and profits on massive drug trafficking, recruits kids for killing, and punishes its own with more violence.
I don’t doubt that the U.S. and other countries were involved in the murder of Reyes and that Farc is only part of a reaction to U.S.-supported death-squads.
But Farc and its leaders deserve to be decimated. They killed my friend, Ingrid Washinawatok, who was in Venezuela on a peace mission exactly nine years ago in 1999, after kidnapping her along with two of her colleagues.

Hillary doesn’t have much of a chance this week but I give her credit for her SNL appearance last night.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9gFvqB7tvs]
You can tell, when asked about how her campaign is going, that she’s less than confident in her response. Maybe her campaign should have made a better video for her than this one, which looks like it was directed by a 14 year old who studied video production in Romania in 1992. It’s called “Hillary4U&Me.”
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FvyGydc8no]

I just watched the freely downloadable film Zeitgeist on my little laptop. It’s a very powerful, if deeply flawed film, that tries to tie together the ritualistic domination of religion, government, and corporations into one fell message: That the future will be theirs if we, as North Americans, don’t wake up. I won’t give away the semi-science fiction ending of the two-hour long semi-documentary. But I will say that the film makes a good case study for us to look at the hard reality of the world and not the one filtered for us by television, the media, the workplace, major corporations, tax and national regimes.
The film, with its retailored conspiracy theories and rehashing of religious history, doesn’t break a lot of new ground, but it does make me ask the bigger question of why we are in the state in which we are.
The film is immensely watchable and it make me really wonder if I should shut off my television for my family for one week or maybe two, look around, and read and love more deeply than ever before. It actively calls for a profound awakening among all of us to look at the world through the lenses of love and natural being rather than war and fear. As banal as that sounds, it reminds me of many of the messages of the early English Romantic poet, William Blake, who I studied and wrote about in college.
Here is just a sampling of quotes from the great Blake:
“The foundation of empire is art and science. Remove them or degrade them, and the empire is no more. Empire follows art and not vice versa as Englishmen suppose.”
“To see the world in a grain of sand, and to see heaven in a wild flower, hold infinity in the palm of your hands, and eternity in an hour.”
“I must Create a System, or be enslav’d by another Man’s. I will not Reason & Compare; my business is to Create.”
And the most powerful of them all:
“If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite.”
If you want to see the movie the Googlopology, it starts here. More info about the movie and its critics can also be found, though, surprisingly, these seem few and far between.

The New York Times has crafted a smartly detailed timeline of Barack Obama’s political and non-political life. The thing is very well thought out, rich in different kinds of media (from photos to video), and shows what Flash can do in the right designer’s hands. Hey, check out Obama in Central Park in 1981!

I know that this is Super Duper Tuesday. Or Super Special Tuesday. Or Stuesday, or whatever. I’m very excited to see how the day turns out and I’m not making any bets.
But I do think that, as much as this race has been unusual, compelling, and complex -what with a racial minority, a woman, a Vietnam vet, a Mormon, and a pastor all competing for the highest office of the American land – this campaign has been very vacuous. What are the true policy initiatives of each of the candidates? Where do they really stand on Iraq, abortion, poverty, and race? Where is there a website that clearly delineates these aspiring pols’ differences, their similarities, their accomplishments on the behalf of those who they represent?
More specifically, I wonder how well did Hillary Clinton do for upstate New York? How did Illinois fare under Obama’s senatorship? Are U.S. soldiers, sailors, and marines better off with McCain’s support of the war and the surge? Are Iraqis better off? How exactly is Romney’s business experience relevant to running a country? Where does Huckabee stand on issues of church and state?
Granted, the debates have been good and illuminate strategy, personality, persuasion, rhetoric, aspirations, ideas, and grace under pressure. They demonstrate that the American media is fully capable of posing good questions about a campaign’s given momentum and turn-out. But where are the issues? Am I wrong to think that this race is more high school than executive office?
Postscript: Obama’s site just gets more and more beautiful everyday. It’s a keeper, done by a real group of professional designers that actually care about their customers and Obama’s audience. If Obama hires designers the way he hires Vice Presidents and cabinet members, the U.S. will be in pretty good shape.

I just watched, out of the corner of my eye, the President of the United States, give an address to Congress. Supposedly, it was a “State of the Union” but I didn’t hear any statesmanship. Instead, the President made references to his accomplishments; it was a sordid attempt to ensure his historical place, despite everything. Here are some questions:
1. Why is Mr. Bush signing autographs to members of Congress on his way out the door? Can’t Congresspeople get signatures from the President pretty much any day of the week? Is his signature worth much on eBay these days?
2. Why do Republicans like Mitt Romney need to praise the current President? Has he really done anything for them in terms of assisting their political strategy, helping their candidacy, or lending legitimacy to the party?
3. Is the economy really okay? It’s so hard to tell who is telling the truth, who is speaking lies, who knows nothing but looks knowledgeable, and who knows lots but needs votes.

With George Bush’s constantly self-proclaimed presidency (e.g. “I’m the President,” “I”m the Decider,” “The Commander-in-Chief must…”) comes an ironic one as well. A new movie is coming out about the guy and, now, the famous painting in Bush’s office gets an airing in a recent issue of Harper’s. It turns out that the rider, who has a striking resemblance to Mr. Bush, is not a heroic figure charging up Lordly Mountain but a lowly thief, “fleeing his captors.”

It’s Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day in the US and I had the honor of listening to his entire I’ve Been to the Mountaintop speech, delivered one day before he was murdered in 1968. King was prescient in almost every way: around race, democracy, American political structures and imperialism, global Marxism, gender, religion in the US, and, not least, his own death. His brilliance and challenge to all of us shines powerfully, 40 years late and later.

Well, I don’t know what will happen now. We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn’t matter with me now. Because I’ve been to the mountaintop. And I don’t mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people will get to the promised land. And I’m happy, tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.

What with my last post and all, I thought it would behoove me to actually register to vote. Sure, I’ve voted in almost every U.S. presidential election since I was 18. But, when I left New York City in 2005, I also relinquished my ability to easily vote. And, unless I become a citizen of Canada, I can’t vote here.
After a bit of research, I found a great site, called Democrats Abroad (and there’s a “sister” site called Republicans Abroad as well). The site has a very nice, intuitive Web-based wizard that collects your information and spits out a well-formed PDF that is then ready to send to the Federal Voting Assistance Program, an agency dedicated to helping those overseas (including those in the U.S. military) to vote. It’s all rather cool, except that, before finding the Democrats Abroad site, the information on the Web and the FVAP site was confusing to the point of being obscure. It wasn’t clear, to me, what information on the form I needed to complete and where to send the form. For instance, did I really need to provide my full Social Security number or not? (For New York State, it turns out the answer is “not.”)
After printing the completed PDF, I faxed the pre-built cover page and associated application to the 703 number provided. I then mailed the cover page and application to an address in Kings County (Brooklyn) that was also provided. (This part was never truly clarified for me but, essentially, you register to vote with the county in the state where you last resided, regardless of your current state residency status. In other words, though I’m no longer a resident of New York State, I sent my application to Kings County in New York State, which, apparently, has been given the responsibility of caring for me in my voting old age.)
Long story short, if you’re overseas and you’re an American citizen and you want to vote (and you should), use the Web wizard found on Democrats Abroad, regardless of your political affiliation.