Obama is a big deal in Africa

IvyTodd (Daily Kos) posts an essay about his/her take on Obama from the perspective of a "White" traveling in Africa.

Almost too often, as I spent my two weeks in Tanzania, people would, upon finding out I was from America, say "Obama." It wasn’t merely a noun, or an exclamation, but a statement. Children would cross the street, the oldest would ask if I was from America, then the whole group would shout "Obama!" An older man, would ask the same, calmly state "Obama" and nod. Obama. Obama! OBAMA!!! I felt like the coolest kid in school, that all those years of being an unnoticed nobody at Kopachuck Middle School were all reversed. All because I came from America, the place where Obama was from. One of John McCain’s many campaign boo-boos was the ad mocking Obama for being the biggest celebrity in the world. Now, Obama is.

A hundred miles from the nearest electrical outlet, even further from the nearest high-speed internet line, a camp attendant in the middle of the Serengeti wanted to talk with me about Obama. I often asked, what does Obama mean to you, a few would try to give sophisticated answers, but it was that he was African. He looked more like him than I. The most powerful man in the world is not white, his relatives live in a village that hugs the equator, his name isn’t Christian.

I don’t know if the pride that so many Tanzanians feel about Obama is because he is a role model, or for the first time in the modern age, the most powerful person in the world, was not white. And I don’t know if this gives so many of them hope, if not the courage to tackle the incessant problems that ill much of Africa. Or if it will even change a damn thing.

Black politicians whining about Obama appointees

The Hill (Jared Allen) wrote that the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) is dissatisfied with President-elect Barack Obama's cabinet appointments. USA Today has a web page with all Obama's cabinet nominees.

Who was the one member of Congress quoted in The Hill article? Danny K. Davis.

“Did the African-American community probably expect more appointees at that level? Probably so,” said Rep. Danny Davis (D-Ill.), an early Obama supporter who has expressed an interest in filling Obama’s vacant Senate seat.

Davis said he was pleased with Obama's Cabinet, but confirmed that there is some angst within the CBC.

“On balance, I’d say a great deal of thought went into the shaping of this Cabinet,” Davis told The Hill. “And he ended up with a real rainbow. But some people, sure, thought there should be a bit more color in it.”

Another senior member of the CBC who requested anonymity said more pointedly that Obama “isn’t doing enough for the black folks.”

BTW, of the eighteen nominees Obama's cabinet includes four (22%) African-Americans (Blacks are about 13% of the U.S. population), three (17%) Latinos (Latinos are about 13% of the U.S. population), two (11%) Asian Americans (Asian-Pacific Islanders are about 5% of the U.S. population) and one (6%) Arab American (Arab Americans comprise about 1% of the U.S. population).

There is no reasonable argument that Blacks or people of color are underrepresented in Obama's cabinet.

Before the 2000 Census Davis liked to talk about all the great things he was accomplishing on the subcommittee overseeing the Census. I hope Davis is aware of the demographics of the United States.

What the CBC is miffed about is not that Obama didn't appoint Blacks, but that he didn't appoint any of them. And I suspect that in addition to not appointing any members of the CBC, he didn't especially consult them about who he was going to appoint.

Issues the CBC should probably consider.

Being re-elected to Congress may impress your family, neighbors, local politicians back home and each other, but if you want a job with Obama, he expects you to be able to accomplish stuff for him.

Look at the Blacks Obama did appoint. They had jobs that emphasized accomplishing things besides getting elected.

Eric Holder "is a former Judge of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia, United States Attorney and Deputy Attorney General of the United States."

Susan Rice graduated from Stanford and was a Rhodes Scholar. She benefited from being born into an exceedingly accomplished and networked family. "Rice served on the staff of the National Security Council and as Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs during President Bill Clinton's second term." While Rice's accomplishments don't greatly outshine a typical member of Congress, she's also 23 years younger than Danny Davis. When Rice is 67 I doubt she'll be telling stories about growing up in DC.

Lisa Jackson is chief of staff to Gov. Jon Corzine (D-NJ). Previously she was New Jersey Commissioner of Environmental Protection.


Ron Kirk was mayor of Dallas, Texas, ninth largest city in the country. Kirk then ran for U.S. Senator in 2002. For a Black Democrat running in Texas in 2002 he did pretty well with 43% of the vote.

If members of the CBC want to get appointed to the executive branch they should probably demonstrate skills at getting stuff done in executive jobs. Obama has at most eight years to enact his agenda. He's not going to hire people who want to validate their importance by sitting around in high office.

But the CBC also has a tarnished reputation at this point. The outgoing chair of the CBC, Rep. Carolyn Kilpatrick (D-MI) almost lost re-election to the U.S. House because she stood by her scandal-plagued son, former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick.

Rep. Charlie Rangel is in ethics trouble.

And more damning than senior members of the CBC being in trouble was when Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA) was caught by the FBI with $90,000 cash in his freezer, the CBC opposed the Democratic leadership stripping Jefferson his assignment to the powerful Ways and Means Committee. Jefferson subsequently lost re-election in his majority Black, overwhelmingly Democratic district to an ethnic Vietnamese Republican.

Politicians who stagnate at a certain level start thinking of ways to enrich themselves and their relatives and cronies. Much of the CBC has been stagnating too long. Obama doesn't want to waste time with the media asking about some appointee getting a sweetheart deal for someone back home.

The only appointment I can see Davis getting is an ambassadorship. If he mixes in some stories about knowing Obama in Chicago maybe people in some other country won't get too bored by his stories about growing up in Arkansas. He tells the stories really well, but I fail to see how those stories are doing anything besides endearing Davis to Blacks constituents who came North between WWII and 1975.

The country is in a mess. Obama expects public officials who can perform. I'm hoping we can replace some of our nice elected officials with people who can perform to improve our economy and public education and resolve Bush's endless Global War on Terrorism.

Fox reports Blagojevich will appoint Emil Jones to U.S. Senate

Fox News reports Gov. Rod Blagojevich will appoint Emil Jones, Jr., former president of the Illinois Senate, to be Illinois junior U.S. Senator. This vacancy was created when former Senator Barack Obama resigned in preparation for becoming the 44th President of the United States.

I get the impression Fox News is less than 100% sure that the decision will stick. Read the last two sentences of the article and make your own judgment.

Other potential replacements mentioned are state veterans official Tammy Duckworth and Illinois Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias.

While Blagojevich has given no indication of whom he will appoint to the seat, he has said that he wants to make an announcement before the end of the year.

Archpundit, aka Larry Handlin, has called Blagojevich a "madman" in the context of trying to figure who he would appoint to the U.S. Senate.

Of the candidates to appoint Jones would be the least surprising in some ways. He's a close Blagojevich ally. Many people consider Blagojevich obligated to appoint an African-American since Blacks comprise 12.3% of the U.S. population (or more if the 2000 Census under-counted African-Americans) and Obama was the only Black U.S. Senator (and along with Edward Brooke, III and Carol Moseley Braun one of three Black Senators since Reconstruction).

The Proviso Township angle for this appointment is that it won't lead to any changes, promotions or upward mobility for Proviso politicians.

If Fox has the story right, congratulations Emil Jones.

Because of Jones advanced age (73 years old) and his reputation as someone who used politics to enrich his family and friends, many observers assume Jones will not run for re-election in 2010. This will leave the position open and it could draw more than one strong Democratic candidate.

Obama and McCain debate education

The New York Times has posted a transcript of last night's debate between the major party presidential candidates, Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) and Sen. John McCain (R-AZ).

Because the Commission On Presidential Debates is controlled by the Democratic and Republican Parties the following candidates who have qualified for the ballot in Illinois were excluded: Charles Baldwin (Constitution), Bob Barr (Libertarian), Cynthia McKinney (Green) and Ralph Nader (independent).

Having a ringside seat to one of the most screwed-up school districts in the country, I thought I'd comment on the portion of the presidential debates that had to do with education.

I categorize District 209 (Proviso Township High Schools) has one of the most screwed-up in the country for a couple reasons. Test scores are abyssmal. Last ranking I heard was 90th of 90 districts in northeast Illinois.

But, getting lousy test scores is even more shameful in D209's case because it's not serving students that exclusively come from impoverished families or immigrant families. In the aggregate the families the students come from are not poorly educated. Proviso doesn't have the highest level of students walk through the door, but it's a long way from the lowest too. District 209 takes students who should be doing at least so-so and turns them into low test score machines.

Obama said a couple things that made sense in his initial response. Getting better results is going to require we invest money. People who claim there are money-for-nothing solutions are usually fudging or outright lying. Obama also emphasized getting children on-track early, “early childhood education”.

Then Obama talked about higher pay for teachers, especially in math and sciences. I don't agree that raising pay by itself will improve the situation. I would reduce barriers to people with math and science skills getting into education. Also, the quality of life for teachers is an issue.

I read somewhere, perhaps The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell, that to get good teachers to work at challenging schools it helped to bring a cohort of good teachers together and also bring in good administrators at the same time.

It's hard to convince people who have the math and science skills that they should go into teaching if they are going to be supervised by people who are mediocre and worse managers.

What management training do education administrators receive? The career path seems to be that they get certified as teachers and then get an additional degree and shazam! the people are now managers.

So, if schools want to retain teachers who are talented enough to get other forms of employment the schools need to treat teachers better in the workplace.

Obama scolding parents rubbed me the wrong way.

But there's one last ingredient that I just want to mention, and that's parents. We can't do it just in the schools. Parents are going to have to show more responsibility. They've got to turn off the TV set, put away the video games, and, finally, start instilling that thirst for knowledge that our students need.

It's not that there's not some truth there, but it's not a prescription to do anything useful. Does Obama want to create a program to prepare parents to do something? Does he want to issue a checklist of things parents should be doing? Or does he judge want to encroach on Joe Lieberman's turf of being the national scold.

McCain started off completely full of shit.

There's no doubt that we have achieved equal access to schools in America after a long and difficult and terrible struggle.

But what is the advantage in a low income area of sending a child to a failed school and that being your only choice?

Which is it, Senator? Have we achieved “equal access to schools” or do we have large swaths of the country with “failed schools”? If we have families who are forced to use “failed schools”, how is this equal? Or are all schools failing equally?

Both McCain and Obama seemed to buy into the notion that there are people who good teachers and bad teachers and that the bad teachers should be identified early and transitioned to something else.

Here's what I suspect is a more accurate model.

Most teachers start as middling teachers. They haven't become skilled yet, but they bring the energy of a newbie. All of them get at least a little better; some get significantly better. Eventually, almost all of them become less effective than they were at their peak. This is called "burn-out".

The problem is partially the salary structure. By the time teachers lose effectiveness they have enough seniority that it's very difficult for them to transition to something else and get paid as much money. The teachers feel they have to stay for the retirement benefits.

The problem isn't teachers who were bad from the beginning, but teachers who have significantly declined in effectiveness.

Neither Obama nor McCain seemed to understand the problem of ineffective teachers.

McCain touted the idea of rewarding good teachers. How would this work at District 209? Would the teachers with the best students (PMSA) get most of the rewards? Aren't they already getting the easiest students to educate? Let's say someone did come up with a formula that took into account where the students were at the beginning of the year and at the end of the year. There were no questions about fairness. (This assumption is completely unrealistic, but ignore that.)

How does rewarding good teachers fix a dysfunctional and corrupt school board? How does it fix incompetent administrators? How does it get better prepared students to start at the district? How does it get families to be a more constructive part of the process?

McCain's idea about rewarding good teachers won't accomplish much in the real world except to cause teachers to spend time and energy criticizing the formula for determining who is a good teacher.

No Child Left Behind. Two of the most useful insights I've gotten on NCLB have been at the local level.

Randy Tinder, the former superintendent of District 91 (Forest Park elementary schools) said that NCLB is a rigged evaluation system that will label every public school in the United States a “failing school” in a few years.

I will add to Tinder's thought process (and perhaps he already thought of this, but declined to say it publicly), that the Republican Party wants to cut money going to public schools and send it to private schools, especially religious schools. Labelling public schools as “failing” is part of a strategy to shift public money from public schools to private schools.

Barbara Cole is a local voice that defends NCLB. Cole reasons that by testing and including categories and subcategories that there's no way for schools to overlook when they are providing lousy education to minority groups and special needs students.

Obama criticized NCLB as an unfunded mandate. McCain wanted to renew it, but was reluctant to spend more.

McCain and Obama differed on vouchers. Rachel Cooper discusses the definitions of "vouchers" and "charter schools". Ryan Grim (CBS/The Politico) sorta criticizes Obama on the details of the DC schools. And Steve Benen (Washington Monthly) rips McCain's explanation of the DC program and cites research that says vouchers are ineffective.

Here are the links I found for the minor party candidates' education policies.

Charles Baldwin (Constitution) wants to disband the Department of Education.


Bob Barr (Libertarian) wants to privatize education and speaks favorably of homeschooling.

Cynthia McKinney (Green) calls education a right and decries the disparities in U.S. education.

Ralph Nader (independent) begins his statement about education by say,

Education is primarily the responsibility of state and local governments. The federal government has a critical supporting role to play in ensuring that all children -- irrespective of the income of their parents, or their race -- are provided with rich learning environments, equal educational opportunities, and upgraded and repaired school buildings.

Nader sees the two greatest threats to education as being commercialism and vouchers.

Did you know Obama was left-handed?

h/t Jeff Wegerson at Prairie State Blue

At some point during the 1992 campaign for president it was pointed-out that George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Ross Perot were left-handed.

The video shows that Obama shoots left-handed.

media weirdness in Obama speech

I was watching the election results with Bill Dwyer, a Forest Park neighbor.

We noticed that there was a difference between the WGN coverage of Obama's speech and MSNBC's coverage.

In WGN's coverage Obama's background included 2-4 African-Americans pictured with a large number of people who looked "White". In the MSNBC coverage the background was almost entirely African-American.

Bill and I went back and forth between channels. I concluded that there was no way different camera angles could account for the difference. Either WGN or MSNBC was doing something to alter who appeared behind the candidate on television.

WGN is a local outlet. MSNBC is a national outlet.

I'm going to avoid making explicit allegations, but I'd like some media experts to examine the difference and get the explanations from the two networks for the differences.

"Yes We Can" music video & other videos

This video was created by will.i.am of Black Eyed Peas and Jesse Dylan, son of Bob Dylan. See ABC. h/t Archpundit.

Remember to vote Tuesday.

Here's some more video if you are among the undecideds.


That's Michelle Obama. Her husband is one of the candidates running on Tuesday.

And here's a couple endorsements Senator Barack Obama received.


Lorna Brett Howard, former President Chicago NOW.


Helen Halpin, a California academic.

Every generation leaders must emerge

Fred Hampton was a Maywood native and chairman of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party. Image taken from The Two Malcontents.


Harold Washington was the first African-American mayor of Chicago. He was elected by energizing large numbers of voters. Image taken from Encyclopedia Britannica.


Barack Obama is the junior U.S. Senator from Illinois. On January 3, 2008, Obama received 38% support in the Iowa caucus by energizing large numbers of voters. (Two other candidates received slightly less than 30% support.) Today, New Hampshire voters hold the first in the nation primary. Image taken from The Stranger, Seattle's Only Newspaper.

In Proviso Township the delegates for Obama are:

If you live in the IL-03 (Brookfield, La Grange Park, North Riverside, southern Forest Park or southern Westchester):
* Martin Arteaga, Chicago
* John Daley, Chicago
* Lisa Hernandez, Cicero
* Shirley Roumagoux-Madigan, Chicago
* Albert D. Tyson, III, Chicago
* Arthur Velasquez, Palos Hills
* Diane Viverito, Burbank

If you live in the IL-04 (Stone Park, part of Melrose Park):
* Leticia DelGadillo, Chicago
* Miguel De Valle, Chicago
* Soraida Gutierrez, Chicago
* Jesse Ruiz, Chicago

If you live in IL-05 (Northlake and part of Melrose Park):
* Margaret Laurino, Chicago
* Sylvia Martinez, Chicago
* David Ernesto Munar, Chicago
* Renae Ogletree, Chicago
* Mike Quigley, Chicago
* Henry Tamarin, Chicago

If you live in IL-07 (Bellwood, Berkeley, Broadview, Hillside, Maywood, northern Forest Park, northern Westchester):
* Byron T. Brazier, Sr., Chicago
* Deborah Graham, Chicago
* Mattie Hunter, Chicago
* Mike Kruglik, Chicago
* Bill McNary, Chicago
* Amalia Rioja, River Forest
* Ed Smith, Chicago
* Karen Yarbrough, Maywood

Obama's family tree examined

Sun-Times (Scott Fornek) scoured Sen. Barack Obama's family tree and found he's related to an interesting cast of characters.

Obama definitely has presidential timber in his family tree: He's distantly related to three U.S. presidents -- Harry S Truman, George W. Bush and George Herbert Walker Bush -- as well as to Vice President Dick Cheney.

I don't know how significant most of this stuff is, but it's news because it's interesting and about someone important.

ETHNICITY, Peraica tries to play race card against Obama

I'm a fan of Commissioners Tony Peraica and have written favorably about him. See Carl Nyberg (Forest Park Review).

In Madison County Record Tony Peraica wrote a piece intended to slam Sen. Barack Obama. Peraica would probably claim that he's trying to tarnish Obama's reputation as a reformer by linking him to politicians in Chicago who Peraica identifies as corrupt.

Who does Peraica start with? Ald. Dororthy Tillman. Why Tillman? Why not start by linking Obama to President of the County Board Todd Stroger? There's more ammunition to indict Stroger of cronyism and he's a bigger fish than Tillman.

Tillman is perhaps most famous for her staunch advocacy of slavery reparations, but also is renowned for....

I want to give Peraica the benefit of the doubt, but by making Tillman the first example of his story, it's hard not to read Peraica's words as pushing divisiveness along racial/ethnic lines.

Peraica also includes this old chestnut:

Perhaps Obama is hoping for the same Chicago Election Day magic that the mayor's father provided for another presidential candidate, John F. Kennedy, back in 1960.

In the 1960 presidential election Kennedy/Johnson received 303 electoral votes and Nixon/Lodge received 219. (Fifteen electoral votes from Alabma and Mississippi were unpledged.) Illinois was worth 27 electoral votes. Even without Illinois' 27 electoral votes Kennedy/Johnson since had over 270 electoral votes. So the idea that Mayor Richard J. Daley threw the 1960 election is just a myth. Kennedy didn't need Illinois' electoral votes to win. See Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections for election results.

I don't know the purpose of Peraica's op-ed. Since it's published downstate, maybe he's contemplating a run for U.S. Senate against Sen. Dick Durbin in 2008.

I like Peraica, but I think he should avoid running for Congress in 2008. The GOP is going to get shellacked at the national level and the party is going to write-off Illinois early. If they have an extra million dollars it is going to be used to defend vulnerable incumbents, not for high-risk candidates in expensive states.

POL, JFK, RFK & Barack Obama

I'm highly skeptical of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East.

I sometimes get frustrated at Sen. Barack Obama pandering to the Israel lobby. I get angry when he parrots the nonsense about Iran acquiring nuclear weapons being a threat. Iran isn't close to acquiring nuclear weapons. And even if Iran did acquire nuclear weapons it wouldn't use them against the United States. And Iran is less likely to transfer nuclear weapons to non-state actors than other sources, like Pakistan, North Korea and the former Soviet Union.

However, when I'm feeling optimistic about Obama I see him as a modern John Kennedy. Kennedy had the political savvy to improve his vote totals (over the previous Democratic ticket) with both "White" Southerners and Blacks. He cast votes on key issues in the Senate that appealed to the segregationists. And in 1960 JFK also called Coretta Scott King and pledge to help get Martin Luther King, Jr. freed from jail.

Maybe, I'm too optimistic, but in Barack Obama I see the kind of person who has the personal courage to listen to his own wisdom and common sense and reject the unimaginative conventional wisdom he will get on foreign policy issues. Kennedy had the sense to walk away from the Bay of Pigs. I think Obama will have the sense to decline some of the more hair-brained schemes the Israel lobby will be pushing for, like bombing Iran.

h/t lovingj at Daily Kos for the You Tube.

F08, Obama at UIC Pavilion

This photo is Sen. Barack Obama at his campaign announcement at the UIC Pavilion. Photo by Atika N Sukhera.

F08, Obama announces Sunday at UIC Pavillion

Who is going to Senator Barack Obama's announcement at UIC?

Sun-Times (AP) has the text of Obama's speech in Springfield.

Capitol Fax Blog (Rich Miller) has links to the audio.

If you go, please leave comments with your impressions.

F08, Obama announces Sunday at UIC Pavillion

Senator Barack Obama is officially announcing his campaign for the Democratic nomination this weekend. There is both a Springfield announcement and a Chicago announcement.

Date: Sunday, Feburary 11, 2007
Location: UIC Pavillion
At the corner of Racine and Harrison
Doors open at 3:30

If you want to go call (773) 235-1773. Also, both the Oak Park and Proviso Democratic organizations may have some tickets left.

F08, what to volunteer to help Obama?

Tenth District Democrats are organizing to get supporters to Obama's announcement events.

[We] will be phone-banking for Obama this week to encourage supporters to attend his free Announcement events in Springfield (Feb. 10) and Chicago (Feb. 11). Please let us know if you can help organize this committee, or would just like to help as a member. We will be fluid and open so that people can feel free to join another committee later on as they are formed. Our goal is to allow everyone a voice and place as well as to provide information to undecided voters. Ultimately, we will be a part of electing a new Democratic President, Congressman, etc. in 2008.

Contact us at 847 266 VOTE (8683) or email events@tenthdems.org