History and My Story

See 4:30 on this clip from last night’s Presidential Address to Congress:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ib2X1syZgkM

Sorry, embedding not working…will attempt to fix later…

Those of you not inclined to search laboriously through the LOC website, check out Ron Paul (Republican Congressman from Texas and 2008 candidate) re-introducing legislature to abolish the Federal Reserve.  This is a position that strict constitutionalists have taken for decades, but in light of the current state of our economy the idea is getting new interest.  Does make you wonder if our economy is some giant conspiracy a la The Matrix. 

Not alot of “transparancy” going on in Congress.  In an effort to get information “from the horse’s mouth” so-to-speak and not from second hand sources like the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, CNN, etc., I attempted to find the original bill on house.gov.  The bill that is currently being debated on and compromised on was originially written by members of The House of Representatives (in hindsight Obama should have written it himself–we’d have a bill passed by now no doubt, but Washington politics does not work that way) but their website is not so easy to navigate.  Everything Congress does is recorded on the Library of Congress website–and their site is very searchable if you know what you are looking for.  During my search efforts I came across these interesting bills that are working their way through Congress:

A Bill to lift the trade embargo on Cuba;    A trade enforcement act that includes creating an “office for trade enforcer” in an attempt to increase exports by identifying trade partners who have protectionists practices that limit competitive trade with the U.S.  (a long bill, but very interesting); A Bill to ensure that “Air Force One,” the airplane that the President of the United States uses when traveling, is entirely made in the U.S.A.; and “The Dollar Bill Act” that would give Congress the power to re-set the value of the dollar and control its value—this one is very odd since it is completely unconstitutional as well as anti-capitalist. 

Finally I did find the “stimulus” bill aka the “American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009″ and the most recent Senate Amendment.  Take a peek and let us know what you find.  Anything that would be excited to see happen?  There are several references to schools and education.  Anything that you think is a complete waste of money? 

For those of you who have enjoyed this site you might want to venture over to the President’s new blog on the new white house site.  Very ambitious proposals to connect us to the administration as part of the goals of communication, transparency and participation.  Can you tell Mr. Obama used to be a teacher? 

Also, I had this great idea to put the inaugural address into wordle….apparantly not such an original idea because even though I went on around 1 pm yesterday many others had beat me to it and it was already posted on news sites like BBC:

 
Please see the entire speech on the white house site, but this was one of my favorite lines:

To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect. To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict, or blame their society’s ills on the West – know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy. To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history; but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.

There are some interesting comments about the war on Tzipi Livni’s Facebook page. She is the current Foreign Affairs Minister and frontrunner to be Israel’s next Prime Minister after elections that are supposed to take place next month. Check out “The War” posts under discussion board–the comments are mostly in English compared to the rest of the page which is written in Hebrew.

I just finished looking through all of the news stories you wrote about and questions you asked and I have to say news was depressing. From an historical perspective, however, these sure are interesting times. Instead of writing a post I decided to put up some recent editorial cartoons. You may choose any one you’d like and comment on the artist’s message.

Found this when trying to find the answer to your questions about how Muslims celebrate birthdays (that is actually not difficult infor to find) and if Muslims are actually considered older than Westerners born on the same day.

Gregorian-Hijiri Calendar converter. Have fun!

See November 26th post to get the full story.

And I know first hand that there are several of you (Katie, Michael, Tyler, Jesse) check out the group You know you live(d) and work(ed) in Liberia when…  There are funny stories and pictures on the page.  The reason this is called round 2 is because of a similar post I made last year.  Check that one out too if you get the chance.

Many thanks to Damaris for posting this link.  I had mentioned in class that Les Miserables the novel has been translated into many languages and is one of the best selling books in history.  We also listened to some of the music from the Schonberg and Boublil opera and discussed how the musical version has been translated into many languages as well.  The clip below is from the 10th anniversary celebration—so from 1990 I guess?  You will hear “Do You Hear the People Sing” sung in several languages.  It is beautiful to listen to all these different words, yet the message of the song is not “lost in translation.” 

However, upon further inspection you will notice that all of the countries represented—all of the countries for whom Les Miserables carries a special meaning—are democracies.  So really does this story unite the world or just people who share an ideology?