Obama's first weekly address (on YouTube)

During the campaign, Obama relied on technology to supplement his traditional media outreach.  He used the web to make the case directly to voters why is he was the best choice for President.  Whether you agree with his policies, the approach was a successful one.  As president, I had hoped that he would continue this approach while governing. However after the election,  some of the outreach efforts slowed down.  As some bloggers have pointed out, there had not been any action on his twitter page in 10 days.  When I saw his first weekly address yesterday, I was delighted.  I'm glad to see that he will continue his approach of talking to directly to the people.

 

Technorati Tags: Obama,YouTube,Web 2.0

I am asking you to vote because I can't

I can't vote today (for many reasons I've cited here before) but I'm asking you to. 

As it was written in the Economist several days ago, "it is impossible to forecast how important any presidency will be" nor can we predict how good of a president any politician will be.  In fact history has shown us that some of our finest presidents were mere novices in the political arena, or so we thought, while some of our worst presidents were seasoned professionals.  So In effect, no matter who we vote for today, we are all taking a gamble.

Recognizing that there is not much we can do about that aspect of elections, I urge you not to think of this election, or any other election, in that prism.  Instead, I propose that we think of this election, and all elections, as a responsibility and an opportunity. 

It is our responsibility to hold elected officials accountable, to hold the torch that was passed onto us by previous generations dating back to our fore-fathers, to tell the world that democracy is alive and well and is indeed the best form of government. 

This election is also an opportunity.  For some, it is the opportunity to correct the mistake from 4 or 8 year ago.  For others, it is the opportunity to re-affirm their beliefs from the same period.  For many, it is the opportunity to participate in the democratic process for the first time.  But for all, it is an opportunity to be heard; an opportunity to take this country in a different direction; an opportunity to make history regardless of ideology or background.

So today, I am asking you to vote.

I am asking you to vote for me and many others like me who won't have the opportunity to be heard.

I am asking you to vote for our men and women in the armed forces serving abroad that won't be able to vote because of archaic absentee ballot laws.

I am asking you to vote so that we can put people in office with the moral courage to deal with challenges facing our nation today at the national and local level.

I am asking you to vote so our generation may be heard.

Most of all I am asking you to vote because your vote, your voice, matters.

Some will dismiss my call to action as a gimmick to get people to vote for Senator Obama.  It is true that I support Senator Obama.  I do so for many reasons that others have penned more eloquently than I ever will.  And it is indeed my fervent hope that you do cast your ballot for the junior senator from Illinois.  However, this is not to say that Senator McCain will not make a good president.  In fact, I believe that he will be an adequate president or even a fine president.  Very few of us have served this country like he has over the decades.  Though I question his vice-presidential pick, I believe that he will take that same dedication and love for our country to the white house.  I did not write this to endorse any candidate running on any level, but simply to ask you to vote.

So I will ask again, please go vote.

The late Robert Francis Kennedy reminded us that "few will have the greatness to bend history itself, but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation." Today, your small portion is to go vote.

[picture by joecrimmings]

 

Technorati Tags: Obama,McCain,Election 2008,GOTV,President

Obama on Technology

 

 

Technorati Tags: Obama,Election 2008,Technology Blueprint

GhettodevTV Episode 3 - Good News/Bad News

In this video (taped yesterday) I share some good news and some bad news.  Bad News - I got laid off yesterday,  Good News - I'm closer to becoming a U.S. Citizen.

As I said in the video, I'm looking for a job so if you know of anyone hiring please pass along my resume.  Thank you.  As always, comments/suggestions about the video are welcome.

Technorati Tags: Makembe.com/TV,Career,USCIS,US Citizenship,Terps

You are my 5 friends and I'm asking you (NOT) to register to vote

Neat video. Glad to see the expansion from the usual politically active entertainers.

My take on it is - If I can't vote (b/c I'm a permanent resident), why should you?

On the serious. Don't forget to register to vote. Use Google maps to figure our you voting place (it will include links where you register to vote in your locality. If you're going to be out of town, use GovoteAbsentee.org.

Tags: Election 2008, Obama, McCain, Google, Vote08

Money in Politics Grant Summit Wrap-up

Last weekend,  I had the distinct honor of participating the "Money in Politics" Grant Summit hosted by Mobilize.org in partnership with the Sunlight Foundation, and Common Cause.  According to their website, Mobilize.org:

Mobilize.org is an all-partisan network dedicated to educating, empowering, and energizing young people to increase our civic engagement and political participation. We work to show young people how public policy impacts our lives, and more importantly – how we can impact public policy.

The orgnization put its name on the map by taking over the 2100 Fund, an organization that raised funds for organzations promoting youth activism, and writing the  Democracy 2.0 Declaration (watch it). 

Admitidly, prior to the summit, I had heard of Mobilize.org but I was not very familiar w/ its work.  I had planned to submit a proposal for the summit but missed the deadline because of the Silverman campaign and the presidential forum.  As luck would have it,  at the forum, I got the priviledge and opportunity to meet mobilize's CEO, Maya Enista, and work with her in a breakout session. During that time, I told her about my interest in the forum and she invited me to attend.  

A crucial piece of the summit was the ability for those attending to present ideas and plans that solve the issue of money in politics. From the mobilize.org website:

Competitors in the Democracy 2.0 Entrepreneur Grant Summit must advance a new solution or approach to the money in politics problem - that will change the pattern in the field of civic engagement. Winners will each receive a grant, between $3,000 and $5,000 and will receive the support of Mobilize.org and its partner network to champion their proposal, creating systemic and sustainable change in the way elections are administered.Competitors in the Democracy 2.0 Entrepreneur Grant Summit must advance a new solution or approach to the money in politics problem - that will change the pattern in the field of civic engagement. Winners will each receive a grant, between $3,000 and $5,000 and will receive the support of Mobilize.org and its partner network to champion their proposal, creating systemic and sustainable change in the way elections are administered.

On the first day, keynote speaker, former Representative John Buchanan, gave an inspiring address encouraging and challenging my generation, the Millenials, to become the greatest American generation. He pointed out that money has become an element in our democracy. Technology, along with other tools, makes it easier to promote transparency and hold elected officials more accountable.

The morning on the second day, Nancy Watzman, of the Sunlight Foundation, and Political Party Time, a blog dedicacated to tracking parties thrown at both party conventions as well as fundraising activities of lawmakers, spoke about her exprience trying to bring transparancy to government since the 1990s and all the Sunlight Foundation's projects and resources.  Nancy's address was followed by a panel that included Josh Zaharoff of Common Cause and Matt Stempeck of Americans for Campaign Reform. In the afternoon, Sam Rasoul, candidate for U.S. Congress in VA-6,  stopped by to talk to us about his campaigns, his goals, the change would try to enact in congress and what he has been able to accomplish so far in VA.   Between the two speakers, competitors had a chance to meet with panels of experts who gave them feedback about their proposals.

On the last day, David Mark, Senior Editor at Politico and author of Going Dirty, shared his thoughts about the current Presidential campaign as well as some notes about his book. Competitors also got a chance to present their proposals in front of the entire conference. Four winners were later announced. The first prize went to Sam Oliker-Friedland of GoVoteAbsentee.org.  I whole heartily agree with the decision, as his proposal was the most developed and most likely to be sustained over the course of time. Basically, his website takes any voter of any district in the US throught the process of getting an absentee ballot. Check it out (Facebook Page) if you get a chance, and please spread the word.

The summit was a great fun and learning experience. It was a eye-opener in the fact that it made me realize how many Millenials are invovled in the political process and are seeking to improve the process and make it more accessible to everyone. I feel as though we sometimes get a bad rap for being overconnected and lazy and the summit gives us as a gneration the chacne to fight that stereotype and put our best effort into improving our democracy.

Tags: Democracy 2.0, Mobilize.org, Money in Politics Grant Summit, Sunlight Foundation, Common Cause, Just6dollars.org

Mid-Week Reads...

Some interesting blogs post that I think everyone should read. 

Mashable's posts about T-Mobile Google phone -  Google’s G1 Isn’t Pretty, But Is Impressively Disruptive and Now I’ve Finally Seen It, I Still Dig the ‘gPhone’.  I'm pretty sure I'm getting this phone when it comes out. Please share any reviews with me.

What color is your nonprofit's blog ? - In this blog post, Beth Kanter takes Nina Simon's categorization of different type of museums blogs and applies it to Non-profit blogs as well as provide some strategy tips.   Very interesting reading for those blogging for your job/company.

Why Doesn't Anyone Comment on Your Blog? -  In this article of ASAE, Maddie Grant and Lindy Dreyer suggest some ways to get ways associations can get more comments on their blogs.  I think the advice can also be true to individual blogger.  Simple suggestions but they work.

What is a non-profit blog?  - In this post, Britt Bravo - officially one of my new favorite bloggers - shares a list of blogs authored by non-profits/NGO orgs.  Some are worth adding to your reading list.

 Mass Instant Message That Link With The Tell-A-Friend Widget - TechCrunch shares what will possibly become the most annoying widget to date.  I might add it to my blog tho.  Thoughts?

If you like these, you can find more on my Google Reader shared page.  I'm also going over my feeds and removing the blogs that I don't read anymore.  If you're reading some good blogs and think I might find them interesting, please share them.   I'm pretty much  interested in everything -- from politics to fashion.

DC Primary Wrap-up & My YouTube debut

After a little hiatus for the ServiceNation Summit, I'm back at it.  More on the summit later, including pictures. While I was in NYC,  the post-election drama continued.   I will try to provide with a time line from the articles that have been written in the Post and the City Paper.   First,  the Board of Election & Ethics (BOEE) went on a communication blackout. This was actually not a bad idea, since their attempt to provide an explanation on election night was pathetic.  No offense to Dan Murphy, BOEE spokesperson.  When the BOEE came out of its self-imposed blackout, it provided some clarifications on the election night debacle but mostly blamed the irregularities on the equipment. However, California-based Sequoia Voting systems asserted that "there is absolutely no problem with the machines in polling places." Instead, the company brought up possibility of  human error.  Despite the assertion by Sequoia, BOEE stood by the results on primary night. As it now become the tradition in DC after a scandal,  Mayor Fenty fired someone and launched an investigation but not before the Ward 2 ANC  passed a  resolution calling for an investigation.  Maybe something will come out of this one.  In the middle of all the all this, Cary conceded. He thanked his supporters and staff.  He also called on BOEE "take all steps necessary to restore trust in the election results."  Cary concession essential ended the post-election drama.  However as the post put it,

SO ELEMENTAL to government is the conduct of elections that there can be no excuse for failure. It's important, then, that D.C. officials not minimize the problems with Tuesday's primary. The chaos surrounding the results suggests that there may be bigger issues that need fixing and that, if left unresolved, could undermine voter confidence.

The only good thing that came out of this drama is my debut on YouTube thanks to LooseLips Columnist Mike DeBonis.

Technorati Tags: DC primary,Ward 2,Silverman,Evans,DCBOEE

ServiceNation Summit Streaming online and on Twitter

Follow tonight's ServiceNation Forum online and on twitter.

On television we expect the Forum to be broadcast live, starting at 8 pm EDT, on CNN, Fox News Channel, MSNBC, C-Span, and selected PBS stations around the country (check your local PBS listings).

In addition, MTV will also stream the Forum live. To watch the MTV stream go to http://www.bethechangeinc.org/servicenation/live. Below the MTV stream, you can subscribe to the ServiceNation Kyte player for organic content captured by our mobile producers on the floor! They will be recording behind-the-scenes, exclusive footage throughout the two-day summit. You can also watch the stream on MTV's website at http://think.mtv.com/groups/servicenation.

Enjoy the broadcast, and stay tuned for further details on how you can watch Day 2 of the Summit. We will be sending another e-mail, and details will be posted on www.servicenation.org. You can review the full program here: http://www.bethechangeinc.org/servicenation/summit/schedule.

ServiceNation is also the talk of the town on twitter.

More at http://twemes.com/sn08

More at http://twemes.com/sn08

Election night drama

Last night, I was nominated to go to DC board of the election to await for the result of the primary.  I thought it  would a be a cool experience so I accepted.  Another volunteer and I headed down there  for what we thought was going 30 minutes then off to the victory party.  Little did we that the DC Board Of Election & Ethics (BOEE) complete incompetence would keep us there till the wee hours of the morning.  To make the long story short;  when first set of result came in, everything looked fine.  Evans was up 66% to 33% and .54% write-in with 14% of the precincts reporting.  When the second set the report came in, something didn't add up.  Evans was up 48% to 34% and 17% write-in with 94% of precincts reporting.  The second set of numbers estimated that 9000 people in our Ward, more than doubling the numbers from 2004 ( a mayoral election).  Having walked around throughout the day, I knew there was a low voter turns out.  Additionally, we were not aware of any write-in campaigns going on in our race, so 17% write-in made absolutely no sense.  My suspicions were confirmed by Evans' Campaign manager. We went upstairs along with Mara's campaign manager and Schwartz's campaign manager (They were having the same problem).  Meanwhile, The AP called the raced, then the post based on the AP the numbers.   And from there things went downhill from there.  Lawyers came, WaPo came, CityPaper came, Washington Times was called, I think the AP had take back calling the race and people at the BOEE just looked really really really really really bad.  The lawyers present requested precinct by precinct report.  The BOEE put out three sets of numbers after that but the damage had been done.  Everyone was dissecting the numbers and the whole thing was just a mess.

Needless to say, this was an eye opening experience for me.  I'm deeply troubled by the city's inability to handle such a small election.  By all accounts, the primary in February had a much larger turn and the city failed to properly handle that election as well.  As of this moment, I'm shocked, angered, and disappointed.  If I had any power, no one at the board of election would have a job this morning (except maybe nice security guards from last night).  I really hope Mayor Fenty and the rest of the council take a good look at this.  It's ridiculous that the capital of the free world can not manage to run an election smoothly.

As of the writing of this post, we have not yet conceded.  we are waiting for the precinct by  precinct report and results from the absentee ballots (if they can count them correctly.)  I'm headed to NYC for the ServiceNation Summit with Senators Obama and McCain, more on what I learn in this campaign when I get back from NYC.

DC PRIMARY RESULTS NIGHT COVERAGE

CityPaper - Live from the Clusterfuck

BOEE "Official" results

Washington Post

DC Wire

DCist

 

p.s.  I did not cut my hair for the next POTUS... whoever he is.

 

Technorati Tags: Cary Silverman,Jack Evans,Patrick Mara,DC primary,DC Board of Election & Ethics,DC BOEE

DC Examiner endorses Cary Silverman

Today, the DC Examiner endorsed Cary saying:

Cary Silverman promises open, competitive bidding for all city projects and a fully Freedom of Information Act-able financial reporting system. And more accountability and transparency is exactly what this city needs.

Read the entire article here .  I wish they did this last week so we would have been able to take advantage of it a bit more.  But hey an endorsement is an endorsement.  That marks our first endorsement by  a local paper. 

Now for all your Ward 2 (which includes Shaw, Dupont, Logan, Mt Vernon Sq, Gtown, Foggy Bottom, West End, Downtown, Chinatown) Residents go out and Vote!

Technorati Tags: DC Examiner,Cary Silverman,DC Primary

What impact will the next POTUS have on public service?

With all the (local)election stuff going on, I forgot to mention that BTC (along with our coalition partners)  will be hosting the first presidential forum since both nominees formally accepted the nomination of their respective parties.  From an e-mail we sent out today to our list:

It’s a HUGE week here in ServiceNation. This Thursday evening, Sept. 11, our Sept. 11-12 ServiceNation Summit in New York City will open with a Presidential Candidates Forum featuring presidential nominees Senators John McCain and Barack Obama. They will share their views on service and civic engagement in post-9/11, starting at 8 pm EDT. CNN and MSNBC have indicated that they will carry the forum live (we are hoping Fox will too), so invite your friends and family over for a night of inspiring television.

The next day, the 12th, the ServiceNation summit continues with a gathering of 600 leaders from every sector of American society. The summit will release a bold policy proposal, and a Declaration of Service, which you can sign to declare your support for the idea that service to community and country can help unite America and solve problems. We hope to gather 1 million signatures (up, that’s 1 million!) on this Declaration, to show our leaders that America is ready for a new era of service.

I'm very excited for this event. I'm looking forward to hearing what both Sen. McCain and Obama have to say.  It should be fun, interesting and tiring.  I'm heading up to NYC on Wed morning for the forum (all my NYC people, holla me).  I will be part of the content production team but I'm not exactly sure how much freedom I will have to roam around.  Regardless,  I will be blogging (here and ChangeWire),  tweeting (BTC Tweet feed), taking pictures and possibly streaming (working out the details on that).  The full schedule of the event is at http://www.bethechangeinc.org/servicenation/summit/schedule (Sorry for the formatting). 

 

P.S.  The biggest dilemma if my life right now is whether or not I should cut my hair just in case I get to meet the next POTUS.  Feel free to weight in.

4 Days till the election

It’s down to the wire. Since June (actually a lot longer than that for Cary), we’ve been working hard to make the case to Ward 2 Democrats that it’s time for change on the City Council. We’ve had three debates; one in Foggy Bottom, another in Dupont, and another on the Kojo Show on WAMU. We’ve had tons of candidate forums, some at 8 AM and others at 8 PM. We filled out more questionnaires than I care to remember, attended neighborhood picnics, block parties, tenants association meetings and what seems to be every ANC meeting in the ward. Supporters hosted countless meet and greet events as well as fundraisers. We played the endorsement game - got some and lost some. We met some fun people, some interesting people, some skeptic supporters, some enthusiastic supporters and people didn’t care much for us. We’ve walked through part of the city that I never knew existed and rediscovered parts that I had not visited in a while. And of course there was the parade. Everywhere we went and to everyone we met, we made the case for Cary. I think we’ve made a compelling case and put ourselves in a position to win on Tuesday. With a strong GOTV effort, I believe that we can seal the deal. I’m very excited about the election on Tuesday. The only thing that would have made it better is if I could vote. Oh well, can’t have everything at once. If you’re registered to vote in DC, Vote Cary Silverman on Tuesday!

The truth about Nigerian soccer ... from a Nigerian

If you follow African soccer at all, you know that Cameroon (CMR) and Nigeria have been rivals since they both fielded national teams.  Needless, to say this rivalry has followed me state side and I consistently trash talk my Nigerian friends - mostly because they always lose to us.  This morning, I woke to find the e-mail below from a Nigerian friend and I thought it was worth sharing with the rest of you because it's so true.

Before I begin, I'd like to say that I've been watching Nigerian football since Sam Okwaragi's time, back when Jay-Jay Okocha was still playing for Rangers FC in Enugu, Nigeria.
That being said, I'd like to take this time to re-iterate what I've said in the past. Nigerian soccer performance has been awful since France '98. The last impressing performance by Nigeria was beating Spain with that lovely shot from Sunday Oliseh during the 1998 World Cup. Ever since, they've been nothing more than just another average African team. Not to mention the fact, they didn't even make the World Cup in 2006.
Why I'm I writing about this? Because I'm tired of all the hype and people (Nigerians and non-Nigerians) telling me Nigeria is really good in soccer. No, they used to be 10 years ago. Now, they suck.
How have they been able to win some games? Easy, regular teams are still haunted by the performances in USA '94, Atlanta '96, and France '98. As a result, they are defending more, and attacking less. Great teams like Argentina, Brazil, Spain and more destroys Nigeria in matches. They attack Nigeria's unconditioned defense full of mistakes, especially after the 70th minute. Well, maybe the fatigue that shows at that time is due to African soccer players reducing their ages by 5-10 years in order to make it pro. So while they are listed as 30, they are possibly 40 year old men...lol
I woke up this morning and watched the Nigeria/USA game and was not impressed. With USA playing with only 10 men, Nigeria barely squeezed out a 2-1 win. First, we know Africans can't shoot...at least not from outside the 18-yard line. They were shanking shots wide away from target. On a break away, they lack individual skills to make a counter attack deadly. In most cases, the attacks were slowed down and waited for the other team's defense to get back. In other cases, people were trying to do moves and losing the ball. On the offensive third, it looked like they were playing monkey post (Ban all Monkey Post games in Africa now!...lol). Players held the ball long enough to draw 2-3 players in the attack and were still passing it around, trickly within the same little area.
Late in the game, U.S learned that they needed to score a goal and began pushing. The defense was totally exposed and U.S could've capitalized especially with the one that hit the cross-bar.  The next round will be very tough for them. Even the goalie was caught off his line a couple of times, I can imagine what the likes of Messi and other stars can do to that defense.
Just tired of hearing that Nigeria is good. Personally, I've never been a fan of false praises whether it benefits me or not so I had to tell the truth if no one else will.
Do you care? Yes, you do because you made it to the end of this article :)

Of course, I can't say  the same for CMR because, well we win Olympics medals in soccer and were second in the more recent African Cup.  I will admit that our performance in the last couple of world cups have been less than stellar.

 

Technorati Tags: Soccer,Nigeria,Cameroon,CMR,World Cup,CAN,Africa

Vlogging it is! My first video post.

My first video. Enjoy. Leave any feedback. Sorry for the cheap camera. If I follow through, I will upgrade.

The Democratic System at its worst...

As many of you know, I now volunteer to Cary Silverman who is running to be full-time DC council member for Ward 2.  Yesterday, we had a chance to compete for the much coveted endorsement from the Ward 2 Democrats.  Going  into the voting meeting last yet, I felt that we had a good chance to win.  We had a good turn out from our supporters and they had brought friends with them.  However, as the night continued I began to think we weren't going to win but at least make a good showing. And that we did.   Cary lost the Ward 2 endorsement 105 - 67.  But in order to win the endorsement, our opponent "bused" people as well as provided Fried chicken for his "supporters".   As one of my co-workers put it:

I don't care if you give ALL your voters an incentive to come out and vote.  However, I do have a HUGE problem when you give selective incentives and it appears to cut across racial lines.  I am under the belief that voting should be its own reward.  The carrot should not be chicken dinners, but civic duty and pride.  It got fuzzy for me when the people with the dinners went in and voted for him.

Moreover, the process was completely screwed up.  People presenting themselves were not not even asked for IDs when they came in to vote.  So basically there was no way for people to check if the people voting the endorsement were indeed Ward 2 residents.   From talking to one person that was bused in by our opponent , she said she was a resident of "ward 1, Ward 2, Ward 3 and Ward 4... Whatever you want me to be."  Something like that should have easily caught. What's the point of calling it a ward 2 Endorsement, if people from around the bused in?

The most frustrating part of last night was the realization I can't vote while  people who don't care about this election and would gladly give their vote for a KFC dinner are allowed to participate in the election.

Despite all of this there is a silver lining to last night meeting.  We can win this election. Had we convinced 15 more people to show we would have blocked him from receiving this endorsement.  So despite our opponent's questionable tactics, we can still win on Sep 9th.

You read comments from other frustrated voters in the dcwire blog post.

The life Journey of our presidential Candidate on Google Maps

I saw this while reading a TechCrunch Article this morning, so I thought I'd share for with the rest of people not reading techcrunch. Also check out the Fundrace on Huffington Post.  Every time politics meets technology to make the process more transparent and easy for the people, I get giddy inside.

Technorati Tags: Obama,McCain,Election 2008,Google Maps,Mash-ups

Congratulations to my friend Wei

Wei and I've been friend going to back to my years in undergrad.  He was a big influence on me getting involved in web dev.  We started by writing our blogs in ASP and Access DB (remember when that was cool?).  Over the years, Wei and I have come up a multitude of ideas for websites and the services we would offer.  Some of the ideas  include sitter (pets and kids) search site (http://www.sittercity.com/)  and teacher document share (http://teachers.yahoo.com).  As we grew older, we spent nights coming up with these ideas and the proceeded to develop a multitude of excuses (lack of staff,funding, hardware expense, etc...) why we could not get them up and running.  Eventually, someone implemented our ideas close enough to what we had in mind and we would abandon our idea.

Recently, Wei had idea for  another website.  Instead of just talking about like we used to, he researched the idea more and when he decided it was feasible to implement it, he quit his job and started working on it.  That's how easyautosales.com came to be.  The site is a place where people can sell cars as well as buy new or used cars.  Based on his research, Wei decided his latest idea was good enough to compete with the likes of cars.com, carmax.com, vehix.com and even craigslist.  It's hard to know whether or not Wei and his team are going to be successful but since their launch 2.5 months ago they managed to  have a million cars listed, have over 100,000 pages indexed in Google, achieve over 100,000 visits to the page and as he put it "spend a crap load of money with Amazon Web Services".  If you're bored enough, you can follow the trials and tribulations of Wei and his team over at http://comefortheride.com/.  Of course if you're in the market for a car, you should include http://www.easyautosales.com as one the websites that you visit.

Congrats Wei, Way to go all out.

 

Technorati Tags: Cars,EasyAutoSales.com

My favorite Obama YouTube Vidoes

Over the last year and half, I've looked for various YouTube videos on Obama.  Of course some where in complete utter distaste and should prolly be take down, but the vast majority were inspirational and depict the American genius and  creativity.  Below are my favorite YouTube videos about Obama with a few honorable mentions.

Barack Obama/Bobby Kennedy - Hope

Work to Do Remix

Yes We Can - Barack Obama Music Video

Barack Obama: Reflections of Bobby Kennedy

Barack Obama: We Shall Overcome

The Obama Dream

The "Obama Movement"

BARACK OBAMA YES WE CAN RAP SONG

 

Honorable Mention

Baby Got Barack

Sing for Obama Grassroots Music Video

Barack Obama: Poetic Politics

For Obama: "Si Se Puede Cambiar" by Andres Useche

 

What are your favorites?

All politics is local... so It's about time I get involved

Someone once said all politics is local.  I don't know who that person is (I suppose I could Google it) or why that they said that, but it turns out they must have been right because people have been repeating it ever since.   Since I enjoy politics and all politics are local, I figured it's about time to get involved in local politics. I have thus decided to join the campaign of Cary Silverman running for Ward 2 DC Council seat.  We are looking a unseat current 17 yr Council member Jack Evans.. what can I say? Go  big or go home. I'm not going to seat and tell you why my candidate is better Ward 2 residents than Mr. Evans, nor am I going to tell you that He will solve every issue facing Ward  2 and the rest of the city.  What I will tell you is that he is a person dedicated to the DC neighborhoods and it is reflected in the involvement the years.  His presence on the council will be a breath of fresh air and new ideas to what has become an old boys club serving developers instead of citizens (yes I'm talking about the DC council). One thing I've learned so far is that local politics isn't sexy but it matters. It matters because it affects our daily lives, from recycling to schools, from liquor licenses to gentrification and from sidewalk construction to zoning restrictions.   The campaign currently  has a small staff thus my role will vary greatly. Regardless, I look forward to meeting many of the residents of Ward 2 and making the case why it's time for change in Ward 2 Seat.  If you're in DC and would like to meeting Cary Silverman, please join us at a Happy Hour this Wed at Wednesday 6/4  at 1625 17th Street, NW from 5:30pm - 8 PM.  If you have any other questions about the Campaign feel free to e-mail henri at caryforcouncil dot org.

Technorati Tags: DC Politics,DC Council,Cary Silverman,Jack Evans,DC,Ward 2,Local Politics