Great Blog..

Think of our little circle here at mindsay

Thanks, Ray.

Yep...

I'll have to look for that when I rejoin Netflix one day. Our library doesn't have it.

Good post and good reminder. We need some backyard radicals about now.

Yes, we need lots and lots of radicals about now.  The thing that has impressed me, having been a community organizer myself and trained by Alinsky, is that I've seen how great Obama has done his homework.  He had his donations together online, very early on.  And more than 18-19 months ago, folks were out in our local farmer's market, selling his bumper stickers and getting out information about him.  He's done a good job.  Unfortunately, now he is up against a very nasty political machine that will stop at nothing.  And they've been organized since Georgie Sr.

Wow. I didn't know you were trained by Alinsky.

That was my Philadelphia community organizing.  When my boyfriend went down south with SNCC the summer of 65, I decided I needed to do something in Philadelphia while he was gone.  So I volunteered with the city and they trained me along with Vista volunteers and others (I wasn't a Vista at this point) for going into different neighborhoods to do organizing.  Interestingly, as I've written on here, but you might not have seen, I wound up working in the very neighborhood I was born into, which is where I wanted to work.  I already knew by this time (1965) that where the work was needed was in poor white neighborhoods, at least by me.  I was fortunate...then after that, I went into Vista.  My heart was broken when I broke up with my boyfriend, so I wanted to get away from Philadelphia - and boy, I did - all the way to Alaska!  That was in around Mar-April of 1966.

So true. It bothers me that people talk like being a community organizer is a bad thing. It's puts them on the same level as the hard-working middle and even lower classes and allows for them (the community organizers, like Mr. Obama) to understand the lives and everyday situations the ordinary people go through. People always say how this is supposed to be government by the people, for the people. Well this community organizing is just that.

Obama has worked with the people that are being affected most by our screwy economy and shitty political actions, so he knows what they're feeling. He knows what its like to be in down-on-your-luck kind of position because he's worked it before, he's witnessed it first hand. And I think people really need to look deeper into this than just let it roll off their shoulder and snicker at it, like, "Ugh, community organizer, puh-lease." And I'll betcha 100 pesos that all these people who mock community organizers, people who actually work with the people, wouldn't and aren't doing a damn thing for their own communities or the people in their own towns that need this kind of dedicated help.

Yes, I was repulsed when they laughed about community organizers at the RNC.  I hope it comes right back and smacks them in the you-know-where!!!! 

rules for radicals... oh yes. any news? I am thinking of you.

Yup...that was us ;~)

 

Thank you dear, for your very timely and wonderful card that came in the mail yesterday and I received it when we got home last night.  Here's my post to Shade that I copied and added some things:  (about yesterday) -

 

It was really frustrating.  We went with expectations (I should know better) and they were not at all met. 

UCSF is a HUGE bureaucracy and some of it was easy to get through - other parts very difficult.  There were highs and lows.  The bottom line is we are no closer to any answers except to know that yes, he is a candidate for surgery, if that is what he should choose.  But we have no further appointments yet and who knows when they will schedule it.  We had some dreadful news too - like he could have been walking around with this for 5 years (the PSA showed that) and our family doctor didn't send him for tests then. 

 

There were positive things too.  We tried to make it an outing, so that it wasn't all negative.  We had been planning to have lunch at our favorite Russian restaurant in the City; however, we found out that my spouse couldn't have anything to eat for 4 hours prior to the CT scan.  So after the CT scan but before the urological appointment, we found a meditation garden in the women's hospital across the street, and had our bag lunch.   And on the way home when the traffic was horrendous out of SF, we drove through our old stomping grounds.  We used to live in a community called Fairfax in Marin County.  Still very alternative and we had dinner at an Indian restaurant there.  Very life affirming for us. 

 

I'm trying to think of other things that happened.  The doctor didn't speak English as his first language and we couldn't understand half of what he said.  And the rest was non-committal.  He just said B could do whatever he chose.  The good news in that is that he is indeed a candidate for surgery.  However, he was telling us, I hope, statistics for the regular surgery and not the DaVinci laparascopic robotic kind, cause B had to even correct him about his percentages and then he went online and found out that B was more accurate than he was!!!!  I'll call you and tell your more when I get a moment - most likely Tuesday.  Anyway, we were not knocked out with this guy and he's our first contact there at UCSF and who we will now need to go through.  Damn...Love you.

CBC Radio did a 5 part Series on him a few years ago

 

You get some really good programming up in your part of the world, Ray!