TODAY

MANIFEST OBAMA

A friend of mine sent this to me it brightened my day so much I thought why not share it. Please take this idea and run with it. Millions of our fellow citizens here in the U.S. are trying to create a sweeping change. Check out ManifestObama.com for a fuller explanation. You gotta love creative people they can make us see the future with a simple well executed idea. You can help by VOTING EARLY





From the email....

About two weeks ago, I got an idea for this site --> ManifestObama.com which would help people visualize Obama being president. We felt that people seemed to be focusing on what they DIDN'T want, paying alot of attention to the other side's 'low-road' behavior & especiallyPalin's shortcomings. And their poll numbers were going up, b/c so much (negative) attention was focused on them. We strongly believe that 'what you focus on grows' - we've seen this over & over again in our lives & the world around us - and wanted to help ourselves& our friends change our focus to what we DO want. Which is peace,prosperity, leadership, hope & change - all possible if Obama wins on November 4th.

It seemed very improbable 2 weeks ago that we could find time in our seriously overcommitted schedules to make any kind of viral video or website. Where would we get any compelling footage - wandering around downtown Asheville? Who would make the video - we don't know anything about videography - and make it something worth watching? How would we find the time & resources to get this thing done? But we just hada sense that it was going to happen somehow, and decided not to focus on the questions, but instead to visualize it being complete.

Things started 'magically' falling into place - Jamie's scheduled barbershop chorus competition last weekend got canceled, so I had time to work on it;Patrick Scully - Jamie's dear buddy, boss & graphic design genius - had an unexplainable hole in his production schedule; he had just bought a digital video camera he lent us. Then Obama announced he would be preparing for the second debate IN ASHEVILLE of all places and would be speaking at a rally that weekend. Who were we to question at that point? We packed up the kids and got in line 5 and a half hours before the speech, with video camera in hand.

The energy at the rally was unlike anything I've experienced. People smiling, making friends, comparing stories about why we're so energized, and admitting we've never been so devoted to any political cause in our lives. The emotion was palpable. When Obama finally took the stage, with an estimated 28 thousand supporters packed in &around Asheville High football field, I don't think there was a dry eye in the place. It was a day that all six of us will always remember.

We got just the right footage, and Jamie & I stayed up till 2am onTuesday night editing it down with iMovie. The next day, we got the gracious permission of Billy Jonas to use his recording of 'Sanctuary'as the soundtrack. Patrick created an amazing design. Jamie spent most of yesterday programming the website. Even though it's been a while since he has done it, everything fell into place.

What are we asking from you? Email a link to the site to everyone you know who might be receptive, and ask them to do the same. If you know how,use social bookmarks/media (Digg, StumbleUpon, Facebook...) to promote the site to people we don't know. Blog about it, link to it, tell people about it - spread the word in any way you can. It only takes a minute, and every person who feels it, even a little bit, will have a ripple effect in their thoughts & actions. We've got to use the power of visualization and let it spread. Let the smile on your faceas you say 'President Obama' spread to others as if you were handing them a flower. This really works, and we've got to do it.

Jamie and I strongly believe that this is the most important election in our lifetimes, and that the stakes are extremely high. We believe that Obama is the leader we need right now - he has emerged against the odds for a reason. Please, join with us in holding the image of President Obama in our minds & hearts, until we watch him take the Oath of Office together on January 20th.

ManifestObama.com we can do this.


Much love & many blessings,

Lauren

TROUBLE THE WATER

Trouble the Water

I’m a writer, so I can’t help analyzing and sometimes over-analyzing films and books. Because of this built-in tendency toward critiquing, I often come away from stories feeling empty handed. So, when this is not the case, I’m energized and somehow renewed, which is how I feel after seeing Trouble the Water. This film was educational on so many levels. First, I have tremendous respect for musicians who communicate effectively through their art. Black Kold Modina’s “Amazing” decoded the core power of rap for me. I now perceive rap music, at its best, as the modern blues. Blues singers are storytellers. Rappers are storytellers as long as their content stands on substance. Something about the name, Black Kold Modina, makes me think of the name, Son House. Black Kold Modina—that sister’s story comes from her soul.

Trouble the Water is a hero’s journey in the Joseph Campbell sense of the term. Not only did Kim and Scott, the protagonists, weather the storm, they filmed it from its middle. They showed respect to those who disrespected them by “following orders” that would have broken lesser human beings. Their relationship with each other, and the ones they formed with others are nothing less then exemplary.

One must ask how many others in their shoes—their bare feet robbed of leather by nature’s wrath at the folly of the greedy and those who have trespassed on the crossroads, never looking back over their shoulders to ‘fess up to the wrong turn that makes anything go—could walk through that life “with ease and grace,” as I heard a reverend say.

Amazing.

VHP

http://www.troublethewaterfilm.com/
September 2005, New Orleans Louisiana, a massive hurricane lashes ashore. The name Katrina becomes synonymous with a lethal form of benign neglect, leaving the poorest of the poor victim to the rising waters and plummeting hope. All of the wheels of the federal government grind to a halt leaving people stranded and alone. Bodies float in the fetid water, shelter is no where to be found, and promised services evaporate into the swollen rain clouds. The Bush administration waits in the wings,FEMA is immobilized by the volume of suffering. Slowly unlikely heroes emerge. In the 9th ward a group of survivors were determined they were not going to go out like that. On the scene footage draws us into their lives -- and it won't let go!

Go see this beautifully layered, brooding, thought provoking film, this is some of the best film making I have seen in years! Well rounded compelling characters wound in a tight gripping story.
FDP


Thanks to RR for this link.

NESHOBA ~ DOCUMENTARY ON THE MURDERS OF CHANEY, GOODMAN AND SCHWERNER

This clip from "Neshoba" perhaps gives an idea why the deaths of three Civil Rights workers in the mid 60's resonates today. The movie gives a face to the faceless victims around the world who have been murdered and dumped in unmarked graves. the people who have been disappeared, their history wiped away after being intercepted on a dark road, on what was to have been just another night. Whether in the alleys of Baghdad or the jungles of Columbia or the back streets of Haiti these three have come to symbolize what happens to our humanity when it is polluted by hatred. Inside of all of us their is small fire burning, the light that hope and love can shine through the darkness.

The emotion that this incident stirs still rises to the surface refusing to be held down. Seeing the faces that emerge from the shadows of this wrenching moment in our national history belies the commonly held view of how far we have come. Rather here we begin to understand the fundamental underpinnings of how hatred turns on fine points and how forgiveness can be the most powerful weapon in the arsenal of war. Join the filmmakers as they interview the participants of the 60's drama down in Neshoba County Mississippi
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Go to this LINK to read about the Nw York premiere.

Here is an article written for New-Vision entitled It Makes Your Blood Run Cold It is the single most visited article in this blog.

Workers Protest California Wage Cuts

SAN FRANCISCO, CA - 30JULY08 - Union members protest the decision by California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to cut the wages of hundreds of thousands of state workers to the Federal minimum wage of $6.75/hour, because the state legislature has not passed a budget. Workers accuse the governor of using their jobs and wages as a means of blackmailing the Democratic legislature into agreeing to Republican budget cuts. The workers, members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, left their national convention and marched through downtown San Francisco to protest the wage-cutting order.

Copyright David Bacon

TO THIS

TO THIS, originally uploaded by B I R D.

EXT DAY The Embarcadero ~ San Francisco CA
View On Black

...and so
it comes down
to this
and this
alone
echoes here
like footfalls
from passerby
that does not hear
the quickening
like numbers
on a ledger sheet
put down with these
two hands
each entry
firmly made
circumstances
accumulated
like water
beneath a wharf
the tide breathing
as it makes its way
sometimes pulled to the brim
then emptied on the lower passage
but here
to this slack tide
we come
and so we come down
to this
and this
alone
echoes here
like footfalls
from passerby
to this
mirrored in
the last moment of
slack tide
poised above the Embarcadero
B I R D
Poem & Image
©2008, Frederick Douglass Perry, All Rights Reserved

CHARLIE ROSE 0N ~ NELSON MANDELA 90TH BIRTHDAY

RECYCLE

RECYCLE, originally uploaded by B I R D.

Please add a snippet about the story of this photo.... I know there are some writers lurking out there... tell me a story.
B I R D

Uploaded by B I R D on 19 Jul 08, 12.05PM PDT.

RECENT BIRDPOEMS ~ Inspired by Friends and a couple from my archive

RECENT BIRDPOEMS ~ Inspired by Friends and a couple from my archive, originally uploaded by B I R D.

Some more great photos accompanied by birdpoems. I am blessed to be inspired by so many great photographers and lucky enough to be able to use their work to practice my trade as a jack legged poet. Click on one of the links below and scroll down until you see my icon and a poem - it IS that easy.

BIRD
Thanks to all of the artists who have participated in this project

1. art from heaven, 2. ABOUT Henna Tattoo and MEHENDI Designs..., 3. Withered...., 4. I still feel...., 5. bliss ??, 6. Ms R, 7. on the side, 8. EVIDENCE OF LIGHT ~ 32, 9. EVIDENCE OF LIGHT ~ 31

Copyright for all of the photos belong to the photographers.
Created with fd's Flickr Toys.

Rep. John Lewis Sponsors Bill to Honor Sacrifice of Cheney, Goodman, and Schwerner

June 27, 2008: Rep. John Lewis Sponsors Bill to Honor Sacrifice of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner

On Monday, Rep. John Lewis introduced H. Res. 1293 to commemorate of the 44th anniversary of the deaths of civil rights workers James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner who were murdered during the Freedom Summer campaign of 1964. The effort was a nationwide call for volunteers to help register black voters in Mississippi.

The brutal murders drew the nation’s attention to the violent resistance of Southern segregationists and provoked an outpouring of support for the Freedom Summer campaign and the ongoing Civil Rights Movement. Despite the widespread attention received by the case, no one was convicted for the murders for more than forty years. In 2005, on the day they disappeared more than 40 years later, Edgar Ray Killen, a leader of the local Klu Klux Klan group responsible for the deaths, was convicted of those crimes.



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Brenda Jones

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