Christmas Lights Gone Wild

Les MisBarack

Amazing Canine Freestyle Performance

GOP Hell

It's hard to figure Republicans out. I was left shaking my head as the same group that elected the worst President in American history gathered to nominate two people who couldn't be less fit for the job of U.S. president in 2008. Right now we need two even tempered diplomats with problem solving skills who are open to reaching across party lines, not two unpredictable, stubborn, dogmatic attack dogs who are only too willing to do both the bidding of big oil and special interests and make a pact with Rovian strategist to win the presidency at all cost.

This time Rove has sunk to a new all time low. By using an "Evangelical Christian mom" to slice and dice community organizers with a smile, Rove and the minions of the Religious Right have fully demonstrated what whitewashed tombs look and act like. Sorry if that sounds like I'm judging them. I think God wants us to use our brains. How dare the Republican Party preach God and country and then deride what is the foundation and purpose of Christ's teachings...community service.

The "Prosperity" crowd showed their real color at the Republican convention this week. I was terribly disheartened by their derisive attacks, empty rhetoric and lack of "Christian" charity. God help our country if McBush/Plain end up holding this country hostage for another four years.

Now, the Hillary issue is sensitive. How can she attack Palen? That is why Palen was a brilliant strategic pick. That's not to say she is the best VP, she is just a clever pick if the GOP wants to try to win. Forget about Palin's ability to run the country if McCain dies. We aren't supposed to question her leadership abilities because that would be sexist and we should just trust the wealthy Republican party knows what is best for us poor, common folk. Haven't they done a great job for the working poor…I mean the middle class…these last 8 years? And they tell us, if we didn't know it already, Presidential campaigns are just popularity contests like high school elections. Forget issues.

Sadly McCain is pretty boring to the American public. Once a dashing naval officer, now, at 72, he can't walk normally or raise his arms very high because of extensive physical damage suffered during torture. (No one ever asks if he is on pain meds...hmm) His disability and his robotic smile just don't appeal to the T.V. audience. Palen to the rescue. As a collection of working moms gushed tonight on CNN, Palin has a lot of personality, is a super organized mom and has a great family like their family. I must say she also has great hair…I love her glasses and frumpy updo. Republicans feel these are apparently all good credentials for the 2nd most powerful political position in the world.

Maybe we need to examine what the public schools have been teaching in political science classes. Just an idea.

Anyway, McCain plans to survive the presidency (his mom IS pretty old, though she wasn't tortured and starved for five years). If anyone has any doubts, McCain has stated the VP job isn't very important anyway. I'm hecka glad McCain know what a VP does 'cause Palen sure doesn't. But as a dressed down Republican delegate in a designer cowboy hat joyously exclaimed during the GOP convention, Palen will eagerly sit at the "feet of the Master" and take the accelerated learning course on "How to Run the World (…if necessary)" to achieve prosperity for all (or at least the super rich). She submissively says she learns fast. Maybe it's the same accelerated course George W. took eight years ago.

But back to Hillary…

Palen is supposed to attract Catholics, Evangelicals, blue-collar moms, parents of Special Needs children, book censors, sarcastic female Republicans, mothers of pregnant unwed teen daughters, those who believe the war in the middle east was ordained by God, and, last but not least, Hillary's loyal supporters. As a blue-class, female, Evangelical candidate Palen has effectively backed the DNC into a corner. And now that the GOP has set a historic precedent by nominating its first woman VP (admittedly just for the purpose of winning the election), if Obama rolls out Hillary as his Democratic heat seeking missile it might just gall some of her female supporters who have not been happy he didn't ask Hillary to join his ticket. Obama is in a strategic pickle. Hillary is the most influential female politician the DNC has. Using the Clintons is a risk Obama must now take.

If nothing less, Palen is a much-needed distraction from the issues of health care, a failing economy, a failing educational system, the war in the middle east and McCain's alliance with the catastrophic Bush policies.

Again, chalk one up to Rove.

Be Careful What You Say

From Huffington Post
http://news.yahoo.com/s/huffpost/20080807/cm_huffpost/117463_200808071148

Obama's Self-Defeating Rhetoric

Joseph Romm Thu Aug 7, 12:48 PM ET

While Obama is a terrific rhetorician, he and his ad team don't understand a core principle of rhetoric. Never repeat the word your opponent is trying to push. That is not just a basic tenet of the 25-century old art of persuasion, but a well-demonstrated principle of modern psychology.

Never say things like "They're going to say I'm a risky guy. What they're going to argue is I'm too risky." All that does is plant in the listener's mind the word "risky" associated directly with Obama. It's like saying, "I'm not a crook."
Never say things like "I know that Sen. McCain likes to call himself a maverick.... that doesn't meet my definition of a maverick. You can't be a maverick when politically it's working for you and not a maverick when it doesn't work for you, when you received your party's nomination."

Never run an ad with a picture of your opponent that opens, "He's the original maverick" and ends "The original maverick?" That's especially true because "maverick" is such a strong and memorable word.

When voters go into the voting booth, especially the key voters the campaigns are targeting with these ads that don't actually pay close attention to the race, they focus on just a few key thoughts and words. The last thing you want to do is repeat and reinforce your opponent's message.

The bottom line is you can't debunk a myth by verbally repeating it. This is actually very basic stuff, so it is surprising that neither Obama nor his team understand it.

It's why linguist George Lakoff titled his best-selling book, Don't think of an elephant. If I say that to you, you will think of an elephant. Negatives carry very little rhetorical weight.

This notion is so core to rhetoric that the ancient Greeks even had a figure of speech named for it -- apophasis, (from the Greek word for "to deny"), the figure of speech that emphasizes a point by pretending to deny it, that stresses an idea or image by negating it. As Shakespeare has Marc Antony say to the Roman citizens in the "Friends, Romans, Countrymen" speech after Caesar's assassination, "Sweet friends, let me not stir you up to such a sudden flood of mutiny." He wants -- and gets -- a mutiny.

This is not just a long-standing principle of rhetoric, but something demonstrated by numerous recent psychological studies. In one 1990 study, undergraduate students observed sugar from a labeled commercial container as it was poured into two bottles. They then labeled one bottle "sugar" and the other "Not Sodium Cyanide." Students avoided eating sugar from the second bottle even though they had watched it being poured and "even though they had arbitrarily placed that label on it" and knew the label was accurate--that it was not sodium cyanide. Such is the power of words or, rather, the insidious lack of power of the word 'not.'

Even more insidious, "when people find a claim familiar because of prior exposure but do not recall the original context or source of the claim, they tend to think that the claim is true," as noted a 2005 journal article, "How Warnings about False Claims Become Recommendations," which concluded telling people that a consumer claim is false can make them misremember it as true. In two experiments, older adults were especially susceptible to this "illusion of truth" effect. Repeatedly identifying a claim as false helped older adults remember it as false in the short term but paradoxically made them more likely to remember it as true after a 3 day delay. This unintended effect of repetition comes from increased familiarity with the claim itself but decreased recollection of the claim's original context. Findings provide insight into susceptibility over time to memory distortions and exploitation via repetition of claims in media and advertising.

As explained in a Washington Post article from a year ago explained, "Persistence of Myths Could Alter Public Policy Approach": Indeed, repetition seems to be a key culprit. Things that are repeated often become more accessible in memory, and one of the brain's subconscious rules of thumb is that easily recalled things are true.
Another useful article is " 'I am not guilty' vs 'I am innocent' " by Ruth Mayo et al in The Journal of Experimental Social Psychology in 2004, which found that for many people, the "negation tag" of a denial falls off with time: "If someone says, 'I did not harass her,' I associate the idea of harassment with this person," said Mayo, explaining why people who are accused of something but are later proved innocent find their reputations remain tarnished. "Even if he is innocent, this is what is activated when I hear this person's name again. "If you think 9/11 and Iraq, this is your association, this is what comes in your mind," she added. "Even if you say it is not true, you will eventually have this connection with Saddam Hussein and 9/11."

Mayo found that rather than deny a false claim, it is better to make a completely new assertion that makes no reference to the original myth.

It takes a lot of message discipline to do this. But then again, it usually takes a lot of message discipline to become president. Obama is lucky that he has one of the weakest presidential opponents in US history in terms of message discipline.
But if Obama could match his eloquence with a genuine understanding of the principles of rhetoric, this race would be a blowout.

El Sistema

El Sistema started in 1975 by Jose Antonio Abreu with 11 musicians. Today, there are nearly 300,000 children participating. Most of them come from the most impoverished sector of Venezuelan society. Among its unique components is the CORO DE LAS MANOS BLANCAS----a choir of deaf girls, boys, and young people. For more info about a documentary film about EL SISTEMA, please go to: http://www.tocaryluchar.com

60 minutes show about El Sistema.
http://60minutes.yahoo.com/segment/184/el_sistema

El Sistema and Special Education



El Sistema and Juvenile Deliquents



Trailer for the Film

Socialism for the Rich?

Read the full article "The U.S. Economy is Socialism for the Rich" at http://www.alternet.org/story/92426/the_u.s._economy_is_socialism_for_the_rich/

Today, the United States is the leader in a number of shameful statistics: the highest percentage and total numbers of its population in prison, the highest consumption of the world's natural resources, the only industrialized nation without universal health care, the biggest military budget. It seems that the greatest product that the United States is capable of producing today is war, and this makes us a very dangerous country. Our primary role in the global community is as a mercenary army in the interests of big business.