Tell Congress to Let DC Vote!

Today could be a historic day in the history of our nation’s capital as the US House of Representatives prepares to vote on H.R. 1433, a bill to give the citizens of the District of Columbia the right to be fully represented in the House of Representatives.  For the over 600,000 residents of the District of Columbia, “taxation without representation” isn’t just in the history books, it’s alive and well. District citizens are denied voting representation in the United States Congress, but are still under the same obligations to pay Federal taxes as any citizen of the other 50 states. 

The House of Representatives is currently considering a bill that would give the residents of the District of Columbia voting representation in the House, something they’ve never had.  The legislation has bi-partisan support, but members of Congress need to hear from real people who support this bill. That’s where you come in. Please take a minute and help end the disenfranchisement of over a half-million of your fellow American citizens by visiting http://www.freeandequaldc.com/ and signing the petition, or by calling your Representative and/or Senator’s DC Office.  (To find out who your Representative is, and their contact information, please visit http://www.house.gov/ and enter your zip code in the upper left hand corner.)

The citizens of the District of Columbia have been denied a vote in Congress for over 200 years.  This is the best chance that DC residents have ever had of gaining the right that every other American enjoys.  Please send a message to Congress that 600,000 American citizens should have a vote on issues like the war in Iraq, healthcare, social security, education and any other issue that faces Congress.  Please tell your Representative that you support DC voting rights today.

Your support is particularly needed today, one day after President Bush  threatened to veto the DC Voting rights bill.  Bush has questioned the constitutionality of allowing 600,000 Americans to have a vote in Congress.  If I remember my Civics 101 class correctly, it is the responsibility of the Supreme Court to determine if a law is constitutional, not the President.  But the Court can not rule on a law that has not been passed.  Let’s give the Supreme Court a chance to fulfill its constitutional obligation to interpret the laws by passing this bill on Friday. 

Thank you for your help and support.

Candidate Video Blogs – More work than you think!

Welcome to campaigning in the 21st century.  With the advent of video sharing services like YouTube, video web-casts and video blogs are making it easier for candidates to reach voters and share their views with Americans across the country.  YouTube, in recognition of the power of video sharing for political candidates, announced today that it is launching its new channel You Choose ‘08 to provide a central place to see the official campaign messages from all of the camps in the presidential race. 

I think that its great that YouTube is providing a space for all of these candidates to offer their message, and for voters to visit and have access to that message from one resource.  If most voters are like me, though, (and according to the Washington Post, they are) surfing through YouTube for candidate videos wouldn’t be complete without the parodies and candid videos that make these politicians just a little more human.   My personal favorite is of John Edwards showing just how hard it is to look good in front of the camera for those “official” videos.  Enjoy!

US Markets are Back in Business

After yesterday’s dramatic sell off saw the Dow Jones Industrial Average drop over 416 points, today the US markets opened higher and kept trading.  What we seemed to see yesterday was just a market correction, particularly in the manufacturing industry, that has been coming for some time now.  What goes up must come down, and the markets have been heading up for a while now, despite some depressing data about the economy slowing.  This was going to happen sooner or later, and the sudden drop in prices makes this a great opportunity for speculative investors to get a bigger piece of the market and ride out the correction in order to position themselves for the inevitable up swing.  Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke pointed out this morning that “the markets appear to be working well” and that the correction yesterday does not seem to have a “single trigger” but was a confluence of events that created the appearances of an emergency. 

Gray skies are already starting to clear up…

An Inconvenient Stage Cue

I’m sure that half the country was holding their breath last night as Al Gore pulled that folded sheaf of papers out of his tuxedo and started into his “My fellow Americans…” bit.  With one more sentence, Mr. Gore could have changed the entire presidential primary race for the 2008 election, by stating that he would throw his hat into the ring and make it a 3 person primary race.  Gore is certainly capitalizing on the success of the Academy Award winning movie, “An Inconvenient Truth,” with a number of public appearances scheduled over the next several months, including testifying before 3 Congressional hearings on climate change issues.  Gore will also be releasing his new political book, The Assault on Reason, on May 22 in his most recent foray into political punditry.  The question on everyone’s mind in Washington, DC this morning is whether Gore is positioning himself for a major comeback to the national political scene. 

Former Gore campaign Director Donna Brazile has expressed what many pundits have known for many months but been afraid to say aloud, that “Gore’s political stock is hot right now. “ 

Grades are up, Scores are down

The US Department of Education announced today that the national average on the National Assessment of Educational Progress was down dramatically with only 35% of high school seniors across the country scoring “proficient” in reading.  The percentages for math and science were even more dismal with less than 25% of Seniors scoring proficient in math and about 18% scoring proficient in Science.  (The National Assessment is often viewed as the nation’s education “report card” because of the assessment being the only nationally standardized exam.) 

At the same time, the transcripts of students coming out of high schools make these kids look like the smartest generation in years.  The national average GPA for students is a 2.98, about a B+.  So why the discrepancy?  Shouldn’t these little savant’s be aceing the test like it’s just another Teen Beat Poll? (By the way, in case you were wondering, 35.6% of Teen Beat readers LOVE Justin Timberlake’s new “Future Sex/Love Sounds” album.  Come on, you you know you were curious.)  The problem seems to be that the questions on the National Assessment don’t ask about Britney’s new hair style or how many shades of lipstick Paris carries in her Gucci purse, but real questions that should be covered in the classroom and these “high performing students” with B+ averages would be expected to know. 

The discrepancy comes from an issue that has been creeping up in academia for a number of years now, performance blind grade inflation.  Teachers seem to be in an ever increasing predicament with expectations of the performance of their students tied to their career ambitions, as well as to their personal connection with the kids. 

The cycle goes something like this:

Lieberman Threatens to Run Away, Again

In what shouldn’t be a too surprising turn of events, Joe Lieberman announced today that if the Senate voted to cancel funding for the Iraq war, that he would officially turn his allegiance towards the GOP.   This move could only be described as extortion towards either party on Lieberman’s part as he now single-handedly controls the balance of power in the US Senate.  After losing the Democratic primary in Connecticut to Ned Lamont in August 2006, Lieberman successfully won the General Election after changing parties to the “Connecticut for Lieberman” party.  His role as an independent caucusing with the Democrats was viewed as so critical by the Senate Democratic leadership that they named him Chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs committee.  I’m sure that the GOP has made him quite an offer behind closed doors to swing his allegiance to the other side of the aisle. 

No one seems to know where this guy stands or what he stands for, not even Joe Lieberman himself.  His only loyalty seems to be to his own advancement, not to a party, an ideology, and one would surmise, not even to his own state.  This is exactly the kind of self fulfilling behavior that voters all around the country rejected in November 2006 when they dumped a number of crooked, self motivated politicians.  Regardless of what party Joe decides to stay loyal to, it’s time for the people of Connecticut to recall this self-interested politician out of office and into permanent retirement.

So Far, Off to a Bad Start…

It’s now mid February.  It’s been a whole 7 weeks into DC Mayor Adrian Fenty’s first 4 year term and we are already off to a bad start with a School takeover plan that was virtually D.O.A. and completely botched the response to the first major winter storm of 2007.

The rough stuff for Fenty started when his Inauguration was delayed as a result of Former President Gerald Ford’s State Funeral in the first week of January.  The Big kickoff event for this “constituent Mayor” was to be the Inaugural Ball held at the Downtown DC Convention Center, free to anyone who could make the hike to the Reeves Center at the corner of 14th and U Streets, NW to pick up tickets in person.  I was able to gather a reasonable size group to come with me to the Inaugural Ball and was excited as anyone else to celebrate the start of a new and prosperous time for our great city.  I never realized what a challenge simply getting INTO the party would be. 

Our group spent roughly 30 minutes being crushed by a crowd of a few hundred people attempting to enter the main hall of the convention center because of the failure of multiple metal detectors at the entrance points.  After 30 minutes of stagnation, the entry personnel opted to simply let people walk right in, straight through the beeping metal detectors, without having to stop or even so much as have their bag or ID checked.  I understand that the logistics of moving a large group of people through a building can be daunting, but I have less sympathy when I think that this whole debacle was orchestrated by the person, or team of people, that we have just recently ordained to handle the operations and logistics of our bustling metropolis. 

Fireworks mark the Start of DC Coffee Talk

Well, I might need to use the term “fireworks” a little loosely.  There was definitely fire, and excitement, that’s for sure.  I’m not sure if I would say “works,” per se… 

 Last night around 10 as Roja and I are sitting in the living room and deliberating on the urgency of bedtime, there was a substantial explosion from just outside of the front door to the condo.  The first “pop” was followed by a second and third and as I turned towards the (glass) door, there were sparks and fire shooting out of the electrical meter closet that services our’s and our neighbor’s condo units.  Smoke and the smell of burning plastic filled the foyer and we immediately started shutting off lights and appliances thinking that something was draining too much power from the closet. 

After a few more ”explosions” and the hiss and sizzle of an electrical fire, I called the DC Fire Department who came amazingly quickly.  They came down, took a look at the closet and proceeded to tell me that “yup, it looks like an electrical fire.  Something got burned up in there,” and that it was all up to Pepco at that point.  Pepco’s emergency team arrived within 20 minutes and started poking around in the closet to confirm that “yup, it looks like an electrical fire.  Something got burned up in there.  Looks like your breakers are on fire.”  “You mean, like, right now?”  “Yup! Hey, if you wouldn’t mind, can I take a look at your fuse panel, you know, if its not too inconvenient.”  Now, luckily I had just vacuumed and cleaned the other day and felt totally comfortable with some stranger walking into the house to prevent it from burning down.  There’s nothing more embarrassing than someone coming to service your flaming breakers and to see tumbleweeds of cat hair rolling across the living room floor like it is a barren waste land. 

The Pep(co) Boys determined that it wasn’t OUR breakers that were on fire, but our neighbors’ and that they would need to cut the power to service it.   I’m guessing that they went up to tell our neighbors that before they cut their power and that the next explosion that followed (while I was staring at the box moving some of the more flammable items out of the vicinity, mind you) was the result of an angry consumer jumping out of bed and flipping on a light switch to yell at whatever creep was at his door at 12 at night. 

Hi-jinks ensue as the Pep(co) Boys attempt to cut the power: