In The Woods

Stand By Me

Now that the election is over its back to me..... 3 videos to enjoy
Stand by Me

Brick Man

Caterpillar Wheelie Man 

Savor the Moment

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Obama and the War on Brains

Barack Obama’s election is a milestone in more than his pigmentation. The second most remarkable thing about his election is that American voters have just picked a president who is an open, out-of-the-closet, practicing intellectual.

Maybe, just maybe, the result will be a step away from the anti-intellectualism that has long been a strain in American life. Smart and educated leadership is no panacea, but we’ve seen recently that the converse — a White House that scorns expertise and shrugs at nuance — doesn’t get very far either.

We can’t solve our educational challenges when, according to polls, Americans are approximately as likely to believe in flying saucers as in evolution, and when one-fifth of Americans believe that the sun orbits the Earth.

Almost half of young Americans said in a 2006 poll that it was not necessary to know the locations of countries where important news was made. That must be a relief to Sarah Palin, who, according to Fox News, didn’t realize that Africa was a continent rather than a country.

Perhaps John Kennedy was the last president who was unapologetic about his intellect and about luring the best minds to his cabinet. More recently, we’ve had some smart and well-educated presidents who scrambled to hide it. Richard Nixon was a self-loathing intellectual, and Bill Clinton camouflaged a fulgent brain behind folksy Arkansas aphorisms about hogs.

As for President Bush, he adopted anti-intellectualism as administration policy, repeatedly rejecting expertise (from Middle East experts, climate scientists and reproductive health specialists). Mr. Bush is smart in the sense of remembering facts and faces, yet I can’t think of anybody I’ve ever interviewed who appeared so uninterested in ideas. Keep Reading Here:

Yes We Can!

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What a Long Strange Trip its Been

Looking back on a surreal campaign season

By BILL AYERS

Whew! What was all that mess? I’m still in a daze, sorting it all out, decompressing.

Pass the Vitamin C.

For the past few years, I have gone about my business, hanging out with my kids and, now, my grandchildren, taking care of our elders (they moved in as the kids moved out), going to work, teaching and writing. And every day, I participate in the never-ending effort to build a powerful and irresistible movement for peace and social justice.

In years past, I would now and then—often unpredictably—appear in the newspapers or on TV, sometimes with a reference to Fugitive Days, my 2001 memoir of the exhilarating and difficult years of resistance against the American war in Vietnam. It was a time when the world was in flames, revolution was in the air, and the serial assassinations of black leaders disrupted our utopian dreams.

These media episodes of fleeting notoriety always led to some extravagant and fantastic assertions about what I did, what I might have said and what I probably believe now.

It was always a bit surreal. Then came this political season. Keep Reading Here

Obama: Change has come to America

A Hebrew speaking Israeli Chief of Staff?

President-elect Barack Obama promised "a new dawn of American leadership" to the world as he stood before thousands of euphoric supporters and millions of international onlookers Tuesday night after vanquishing John McCain to claim his place in the history books as America's 44th president.

Obama began to make good on that pledge the moment he took the stage before 125,000 overjoyed supporters in Chicago as the country's first-ever African American to be elected president. The son of a white woman from Kansas and a student from Kenya, he inspired myriads of new voters across America to brave long lines and bad weather to break racial barriers and rewrite the electoral map of a nation.

But, as Obama himself also noted, the journey was beginning rather than ending. His victory offered promise and hope, but promises can go unfulfilled and hopes can be dashed. LINK or www.jpost.com

Obama mentor: Barack has a 'yiddishe nishama'

When Abner Mikva entered the lobby of his lakeside apartment building to vote on Tuesday morning, he wasn't surprised by the long voting line stretching down the hallway.
In the 2004 elections, there was no line at all.

"People are excited," Mikva told The Jerusalem Post as he stood in line to vote. "This election has people more involved."

Mikva knows a thing or two about elections. At 82, he is an elder statesman in his Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side. Sen. Barack Obama lives just up the street.
Regarding concern in Israel about an Obama presidency, Mikva said that "Barack will be the first Jewish president in the US."

"He has a yiddeshe nishama," Mikva said. "He is committed to Israel and its security concerns and understands that democratization does not happen by force but by example, and there is no better example in the Middle East than Israel." LINK or www.jpost.com

Obama acceptance speech

Election Guide: Keep early eye on Ga., Va., Ind.

WASHINGTON (AP) - Election watchers won't have to wait for polls to close in the West to know how things are going. The first clues will come early, when voting ends in Georgia, Indiana and Virginia. If Democrat Barack Obama wins any of the three, he could be on his way to a big victory, maybe even a landslide.
If Republican John McCain sweeps them, he could be headed for a comeback. And if any of these three are too close to call quickly, that could indicate a long night ahead - and, perhaps, a squeaker of a result.
President Bush comfortably won the trio four years ago. But Obama has used his financial muscle and his draw as the youthful first black Democratic nominee to put them, and other historically reliable Republican states, into play.
Thus, the Democrat has several routes he can take to reach the 270 Electoral College votes needed for victory. McCain's strategy has no room for error; he must win nearly all the states that went to Bush in 2004, and possibly even one or two that voted for Democrat John Kerry that year.
Here's a timetable for armchair election watchers, all given in Eastern Standard Time: READ HERE:

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