This post is about politics. First of all, a summary of things thus far, from user "Fascist Funk" in the Something Awful forums: "Hillary Clinton in 2 months went from an empress approaching her coronation to a flaming untouchable wreck. Rush Limbaugh is attacking the GOP frontrunner. Pat Buchanan is praising the Dem frontrunner. Karl Rove is admonishing Republicans to keep it clean. And a young black man with big ears and a funny name is cleaning up at the polls."

And what a funny name it is. Barack Obama. Barak Hussein Obama. And what an unfortunate name given our cultural attitudes toward Arabs... particularly one Saddam Hussein and one Osama Bin Laden.

Couple the name with feeble accusations of anti-patriotism and a Muslim upbringing and, why, you've nearly got terrorist allegations!

First off, it wouldn't bother me in the least if Barak Obama weren't a Christian. It wouldn't bother me if he were a Muslim. Since when is being a Christian an official requisite for being President? The fact that it is an "unofficial" requisite is, frankly, disgusting.

Secondly, it wouldn't bother me if Barak Obama were Arab, rather than African American, as some ridiculous recent column suggested. "Gee, we can't hate on him because he's black, so why don't we find a more modern stereotype to harp on?" Why should his racial heritage make a difference?

Yes, it would bother me if he were lying, publicly, to his supporters about these things. I don't think he is.

Outside of the possibility that Obama is lying, the above allegations don't have an ounce of substance. They rely on triggering the present-day fears of the American public to sway them away from a candidate. What's even sadder are the bigots who use his name to attempt the same thing.

If you have ever heard anyone slam Barak Hussein Obama for his name, know someone who discriminates against him for that reason, or have wondered just what it means yourself, I encourage you to read this article about Barak Hussein Obama, Omar Bradley, Benjamin Franklin, and other Semetically named American Heros. Excerpts from the article follow:

"At Cincinnati, Bill Cunningham, according to the LAT, who "introduced presidential candidate John McCain at a rally here today accused Barack Obama of sympathizing with 'world leaders who want to kill us' and invoked Obama's middle name -- three times calling him 'Barack Hussein Obama.' " John McCain repudiated Cunningham's low tactics and said that using the middle name like that three times was "inappropriate" and would never happen again at one of his rallies.

I want to say something about Barack Hussein Obama's name. It is a name to be proud of. It is an American name. It is a blessed name. It is a heroic name, as heroic and American in its own way as the name of General Omar Nelson Bradley or the name of Benjamin Franklin. And denigrating that name is a form of racial and religious bigotry of the most vile and debased sort. It is a prejudice against names deriving from Semitic languages!"

[...]

"Barack and Hussein are Semitic words. Americans have been named with Semitic names since the founding of the Republic. Fourteen of our 43 presidents have had Semitic names (see below). And, American English contains many Arabic-derived words that we use every day and without which we would be much impoverished. America is a world civilization with a world heritage, something Cunninghamism will never understand.

Barack is a Semitic word meaning "to bless" as a verb or "blessing" as a noun. In its Hebrew form, barak, it is found all through the Bible. It first occurs in Genesis 1:22: "And God blessed (ḇāreḵə ) them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth."" (And from thereon, the word appears many times in the Bible)

[...]

"Now let us take the name "Hussein." It is from the Semitic word, hasan, meaning "good" or "handsome." Husayn is the diminutive, affectionate form.

Barack Obama's middle name is in honor of his grandfather, Hussein, a secular resident of Nairobi. Americans may think of Saddam Hussein when they hear the name, but that is like thinking of Stalin when you hear the name Joseph. There have been lots of Husseins in history, from the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, a hero who touched the historian Gibbon, to King Hussein of Jordan, one of America's most steadfast allies in the 20th century. The author of the beloved American novel, The Kite Runner, is Khaled Hosseini.

But in Obama's case, it is just a reference to his grandfather."

[...]

"Obama, being a cousin of Dick Cheney on one side and having relatives in Kenya on the other, is just more and more typical of the 21st century United States.

So, anyway, Obama's first two names mean "Blessing, the Good." If we are lucky enough to get him for president, we can only hope that his names are prophetic for us."
Posted on February 27, 2008 @ 8:21 PM | 2 comments

Comments:

Talk about yesterday's news...

By  Kyle, at 10:48 AM, February 28, 2008  

Shut up, Kyle. UR a jerk. ;)

By  Kat, at 11:19 AM, February 28, 2008  

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Here's a video I hacked together of some clips I took while riding the Chilly Hilly:



The full quicktime version (38MB) is also available.

Yeah, I know it's weird that I take photos and video while riding, but it's a fun way to commemorate the experience. It only slows me down when I'm actually using the camera (which is a tiny Canon SD 700IS) because the rest of the time it just hangs from around my wrist on the strap.
Posted on @ 1:10 PM | 0 comments

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I've uploaded the photos from the Chilly Hilly ride this past Sunday on Bainbridge Island. Thanks to La Nina, the weather wasn't chilly... and the hills actually weren't worth fretting over. Overall, a lovely ride with great scenery!

I'll be uploading a video shortly.



( Chilly Hilly Photo Gallery )
Posted on @ 12:04 AM | 0 comments

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The update...

After a visit with my doctor, during which time I showed him the studies about the injury in question ("Well hey I got to learn something new, I didn't know those got injured." says he...I can't really fault him because it doesn't really happen to people who don't rock climb) and after he got on the phone with a hand surgeon the prognosis is that I do not have a full rupture, just a partial tear. Now I don't trust that diagnosis 100%, he wasn't inclined to do the ultrasound which is the definitive diagnostic test for a full tear. Again, not really surprising since it's a procedure that probably only gets done in clinics when they're doing studies on rock climbing injuries, I doubt most ultrasound techs would be familiar with the exam (they could wing it!).

So treating conservatively...I have a finger brace for the next 2 weeks, perpetually giving everyone 'the finger' 24/7. No climbing for 6 weeks. With luck, my doc is right and it's only a partial tear and I can recover fully with time.

As a sidenote, the hand surgeon said to my doc "Those are really tough to repair with surgery if they're fully torn". Great thing to hear from the guy who fixes hands for a living.
Posted on February 26, 2008 @ 5:41 PM | 0 comments

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I am really hoping that the popping sound I heard at the rock gym as I hung onto a hold with two fingers was not the sound of my A4 pulley snapping. The A4 pulley is what holds your tendon to your finger between the middle knuckle and the last.

I am really hoping that the pop was a perfectly timed joint cracking.

I am really hoping that when the swelling goes down that I find I just tore the pulley without rupturing it completely.

I am unfortunately not so hopeful as to think I might have escaped with no damage. I am afterall typing with one hand (yay highschool + internet!) and ignoring the throbbing coming from my finger through the compression wrap.

I am hoping that something happens between today and tomorrow that convinces me my finger will heal on it's own. I really can't afford the series of doctor's visits necessary to diagnose and grade this particular sport specific injury. Let alone the surgery a full rupture would require.

I hope that in the next 4-6 weeks of rest I don't lose all the progress my last 3 months of training have won me. I hope when all is said and done I can still climb at all with this hand.

It really was a good day until 4:40.
Posted on February 25, 2008 @ 6:40 PM | 2 comments

Comments:

Mmm, typing one-handed.

^_^

By  Kat, at 10:23 PM, February 25, 2008  

Umm, eww?

And I really do hope everything turns out alright for you.

By  Allie, at 4:52 PM, February 26, 2008  

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Fuck you, Ralph Nader!! FUCK YOU!!! Just... go the fuck away already!

I realize that having a two-party system is not ideal. I think it would be lovely to have more options. In fact, I believe in some of the tenets of the Green Party. But Ralph Nader is not a representation of those ideals. To borrow a phrase from a friend, he's like an old drunk guy who shows up late and uninvited to your birthday just to piss in the punch.

His timing couldn't be more impeccable.

Didn't he say he was done putting in his bid for the presidency after his party failed to secure 10% of the vote last year? He just had to bring his smirking mug back for one more shot at screwing up the voting system?

I would thank you, Ralph Nader, if I were a Republican. Thank you for being an asshole. Honestly, I wish my party didn't need the votes of the disillusioned idealists who will sacrifice theirs to vote for you. I wish that weren't the kind of system it is.

Honestly, I hope that this time it will be different, because we have Obama, and he is someone who even the most daring of idealists can believe in.

But Ralph Nader, I hope even more that this is the end of you.
Posted on February 24, 2008 @ 7:13 PM | 2 comments

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No, I'm with you. Fuck him for siphoning off the democratic vote. And fuck the girl in high school who told me we'd need 'some hard times' before we broke out of the two party system. I hope she thinks this is fucking worth it.

By  Sara, at 9:27 PM, February 24, 2008  

I don't think he has as much chance of screwing with things in this election as much as he did last time. But yeah, it still ruined my morning to read that news in the newspaper. Flugh.

By  Rachel, at 7:32 PM, February 25, 2008  

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Tomorrow I'm taking my bike across the Puget Sound on the Bainbridge Island ferry to ride the annual Chilly Hilly. The aptly named route is a 33-mile tour around the Island's rolling perimeter with some lovely views. Hopefully the weather will hold-- it's been warm. And hopefully Justin will feel good enough to ride in the morning. We both registered over a week ago, but he's caught the crud that I came down with earlier and have just recovered from. Poor guy.

I'm not really looking forward to 2,675 feet of climbing. I did bike up 3,703 feet over 22 miles on Going to the Sun Road from Lake McDonald to Logan Pass last summer without a problem, but that was over a steady and low grade. Welp, we'll see how it goes!
Posted on February 23, 2008 @ 10:41 PM | 0 comments

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I took a few photos of the lunar eclipse from Gasworks Park. They're not great photos, and trying to set up these shots made me wish that I had more expertise with my camera. Maybe it's time to take a photo class!



There were also a few things working against me besides a lack of skill:

- I had only heard about the eclipse in the morning and didn't charge my camera batteries at all, so I ran out of juice while still testing shots
- It was dark and on a hill and I didn't bring a light to help me set up the tripod or focus or anything
- My lens is really not good for telescopic photography... it's rather wide angle
- I don't have a remote, and pressing the shutter button (even when using a tripod) creates some movement on long exposure shots... this was particularly frustrating
Posted on February 22, 2008 @ 1:42 PM | 2 comments

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If next time you find yourself with out a remote, just use the 10 second timer. That way the shake stops by the time the shutter fires. Also, if you use the Mirror Lock Up function in custom settings for your camera you won't get the shake from the mirror going up and down as well. :)

By  Zac, at 12:11 PM, February 23, 2008  

Oh yeah, I tried that too... but the timer blinks a bunch before the shutter closes and it was annoying the people sitting around me. :(

By  Kat, at 2:27 PM, February 23, 2008  

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Justin and I attended the Washington State Primary's Democratic caucus at 1 PM on Saturday.

The caucus was required in order to cast a vote in the primary because WA state democrats are protesting and refuse to count the state primary ballot. I somehow had neglected to learn this by osmosis until late the night before we were set to vote. It was almost a major clusterf*ck:

The next morning, we went online to find our caucus location and the only tool we could locate with google was completely overrun by traffic and nonfunctional. We hit refresh and tried again... and again...

With the time to vote fast approaching, we tried the caucus hotline and got a "mailbox full" message telling us to use their (broken) online tool or call their offices. Their office line was constantly busy. Finally, their tool stopped responding even to refresh requests. We figured that we (and probably tons of other potential voters) were just going to get screwed out of caucusing due to a completely unprepared grassroots organization and underpaid (probably volunteer) web programmers.

Thankfully, their site came back up with links to a number of other, more functional caucus locator tools and we were set. The massive takedown of their website and phone lines was the first indicator we'd seen of what a huge response there would be to the caucus "call to action."

As we drove to our caucus location, we passed several other venues, and people were just STREAMING in from all directions to vote at their precincts. There was a line down and around the block at ours.

Once we got into the building, we were shepherded into the gymnasium where members of our precinct and six others were congregating. It was packed far over capacity, which was both inspiring and utterly frustrating. We were expected to caucus at tiny tables with no discernible signage to differentiate precinct. Some brilliant person had taped sheets of paper with precinct numbers on them to the edge of each table... leg-level, which was blocked by throngs of people.

We found our table and signed in to indicate voter preference, which was effectively all we needed to do before we could leave, but we decided to stay for the whole process just to see what it was like.

The best way I can describe the local precinct caucus experience is "very loosely organized chaos." The crowd was remarkably responsive to direction. There were 96 people in our precinct and 7 precincts in the auditorium, so my guess is that there were roughly 650 people to corral in 7 different directions. Somehow we managed to get it done, and in close quarters.

Obama took our precinct, and the others in the room by a landslide. We had 6 people undecided, 10 for Clinton, and 80 for Obama. After various participants stood up and campaigned/debated in 1 minute speeches for their candidate of preference, the undecided had a chance to change their votes. Then we elected delegates for each party-- Obama received 5 and Clinton 1.

We were encouraged to volunteer either as a delegate or alternate if we wanted to participate in further caucuses at the local, state, and national levels. Originally, I didn't have much interest in volunteering-- I am very eager to back Obama but I have enough trouble managing my time as is. However, when I saw that the only volunteers were men, and mostly white, middle-aged men, I had to sign myself up. As they were trying to convince people to put themselves down as alternates to avoid having to "elect" delegates, I signed up as an alternate.

Once we had signed up, there were still too many volunteers for delegates to simply hand out cards and call it good-- we had to have an "election." (Yay democratic process!) We were all called to the front, again it was all men and me, and then the alternates were told to be seated.

When I sat down I started having second thoughts about signing up as an alternate. I suddenly felt much more heavily obligated to represent myself as a delegate. I was about to say this to Justin when someone in the room shouted "I think we need to have that woman back up there as a delegate rather than an alternate," to a chorus of "yeah!"s.

So I got back up there, we each talked a little bit about ourselves and our interests in being a delegate. I said that this was my third presidential election and my first caucus. I said I knew that during the last election it was going to get worse before it got better, and that volunteering to be a delegate was the best way I knew to help make things better. I said that I had previously spoken in favor of Obama despite his lack of experience because I believe that experience is less valuable than motivation, skill, and the ability to take a job and run with it and that I hoped they would grant me the opportunity and experience of being a delegate.

I realize I was a sho-in, and for the somewhat silly reason that I have breasts, but nevertheless I am proud to say that I got the most votes. I am really quite eager to see this through, despite the 5 or 6 Saturday commitment, and I hope that I can remain a delegate all the way through to the Democratic National Convention in Denver this August (even though it is only a little over a week before our wedding). I'm really looking forward to being a part of the political process in a way that I never have been, to seeing new things and meeting new people, and hopefully learning a lot more along the way. Wish me luck!
Posted on February 11, 2008 @ 10:39 PM | 2 comments

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Awesome! Good luck!

By  inkandpen, at 10:23 AM, February 12, 2008  

Self-Improvement
By Tony Hoagland

Just before she flew off like a swan
to her wealthy parents' summer home,
Bruce's college girlfriend asked him
to improve his expertise at oral sex,
and offered him some technical advice:

Use nothing but his tonguetip
to flick the light switch in his room
on and off a hundred times a day
until he grew fluent at the nuances
of force and latitude.

Imagine him at practice every evening,
more inspired than he ever was at algebra,
beads of sweat sprouting on his brow,
thinking, thirty-seven, thirty eight,
seeing, in the tunnel vision of his mind's eye,
the quadratic equation of her climax
yield to the logic
of his simple math.

Maybe he unscrewed
the bulb from his apartment ceiling
so that passersby would not believe
a giant firefly was pulsing
its electric abdomen in 13 B.

Maybe, as he stood
two inches from the wall,
in darkness, fogging the old plaster
with his breath, he visualized the future
as a mansion standing on the shore
that he was rowing to
with his tongue's exhausted oar.

Of course, the girlfriend dumped him:
met someone, après-ski, who,
using nothing but his nose
could identify the vintage of a Cabernet.

Sometimes we are asked
to get good at something we have
no talent for,
or we excel at something we will never
have the opportunity to prove.

Often we ask ourselves
to make absolute sense
out of what just happens,
and in this way, what we are practicing

is suffering,
which everybody practices,
but strangely few of us
grow graceful in.

The climaxes of suffering are complex,
costly, beautiful, but secret.
Bruce never played the light switch again.

So the avenues we walk down,
full of bodies wearing faces,
are full of hidden talent:
enough to make pianos moan,
sidewalks split,
streetlights deliriously flicker.

By  Anonymous, at 8:45 PM, February 17, 2008  

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We went and played in the snow last weekend. It was awesome. Here are some photos and a video:



My pics:


Brad's pics:


Rachel's pics:

Posted on February 04, 2008 @ 5:30 PM | 0 comments

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