hope

Remarks of Senator Barack Obama: The Great Need of the Hour
Atlanta, GA | January 20, 2008

The Scripture tells us that when Joshua and the Israelites arrived at the gates of Jericho, they could not enter. The walls of the city were too steep for any one person to climb; too strong to be taken down with brute force. And so they sat for days, unable to pass on through.

But God had a plan for his people. He told them to stand together and march together around the city, and on the seventh day he told them that when they heard the sound of the ram's horn, they should speak with one voice. And at the chosen hour, when the horn sounded and a chorus of voices cried out together, the mighty walls of Jericho came tumbling down.

There are many lessons to take from this passage, just as there are many lessons to take from this day, just as there are many memories that fill the space of this church. As I was thinking about which ones we need to remember at this hour, my mind went back to the very beginning of the modern Civil Rights Era.

Because before Memphis and the mountaintop; before the bridge in Selma and the march on Washington; before Birmingham and the beatings; the fire hoses and the loss of those four little girls; before there was King the icon and his magnificent dream, there was King the young preacher and a people who found themselves suffering under the yoke of oppression.

And on the eve of the bus boycotts in Montgomery, at a time when many were still doubtful about the possibilities of change, a time when those in the black community mistrusted themselves, and at times mistrusted each other, King inspired with words not of anger, but of an urgency that still speaks to us today:

"Unity is the great need of the hour" is what King said. Unity is how we shall overcome.

What Dr. King understood is that if just one person chose to walk instead of ride the bus, those walls of oppression would not be moved. But maybe if a few more walked, the foundation might start to shake. If a few more women were willing to do what Rosa Parks had done, maybe the cracks would start to show. If teenagers took freedom rides from North to South, maybe a few bricks would come loose. Maybe if white folks marched because they had come to understand that their freedom too was at stake in the impending battle, the wall would begin to sway. And if enough Americans were awakened to the injustice; if they joined together, North and South, rich and poor, Christian and Jew, then perhaps that wall would come tumbling down, and justice would flow like water, and righteousness like a mighty stream.

Unity is the great need of the hour - the great need of this hour. Not because it sounds pleasant or because it makes us feel good, but because it's the only way we can overcome the essential deficit that exists in this country.

I'm not talking about a budget deficit. I'm not talking about a trade deficit. I'm not talking about a deficit of good ideas or new plans.

I'm talking about a moral deficit. I'm talking about an empathy deficit. I'm taking about an inability to recognize ourselves in one another; to understand that we are our brother's keeper; we are our sister's keeper; that, in the words of Dr. King, we are all tied together in a single garment of destiny.

We have an empathy deficit when we're still sending our children down corridors of shame - schools in the forgotten corners of America where the color of your skin still affects the content of your education.

We have a deficit when CEOs are making more in ten minutes than some workers make in ten months; when families lose their homes so that lenders make a profit; when mothers can't afford a doctor when their children get sick.

We have a deficit in this country when there is Scooter Libby justice for some and Jena justice for others; when our children see nooses hanging from a schoolyard tree today, in the present, in the twenty-first century.

We have a deficit when homeless veterans sleep on the streets of our cities; when innocents are slaughtered in the deserts of Darfur; when young Americans serve tour after tour of duty in a war that should've never been authorized and never been waged.

And we have a deficit when it takes a breach in our levees to reveal a breach in our compassion; when it takes a terrible storm to reveal the hungry that God calls on us to feed; the sick He calls on us to care for; the least of these He commands that we treat as our own.

So we have a deficit to close. We have walls - barriers to justice and equality - that must come down. And to do this, we know that unity is the great need of this hour.

Unfortunately, all too often when we talk about unity in this country, we've come to believe that it can be purchased on the cheap. We've come to believe that racial reconciliation can come easily - that it's just a matter of a few ignorant people trapped in the prejudices of the past, and that if the demagogues and those who exploit our racial divisions will simply go away, then all our problems would be solved.

All too often, we seek to ignore the profound institutional barriers that stand in the way of ensuring opportunity for all children, or decent jobs for all people, or health care for those who are sick. We long for unity, but are unwilling to pay the price.

But of course, true unity cannot be so easily won. It starts with a change in attitudes - a broadening of our minds, and a broadening of our hearts.

It's not easy to stand in somebody else's shoes. It's not easy to see past our differences. We've all encountered this in our own lives. But what makes it even more difficult is that we have a politics in this country that seeks to drive us apart - that puts up walls between us.

We are told that those who differ from us on a few things are different from us on all things; that our problems are the fault of those who don't think like us or look like us or come from where we do. The welfare queen is taking our tax money. The immigrant is taking our jobs. The believer condemns the non-believer as immoral, and the non-believer chides the believer as intolerant.

For most of this country's history, we in the African-American community have been at the receiving end of man's inhumanity to man. And all of us understand intimately the insidious role that race still sometimes plays - on the job, in the schools, in our health care system, and in our criminal justice system.

And yet, if we are honest with ourselves, we must admit that none of our hands are entirely clean. If we're honest with ourselves, we'll acknowledge that our own community has not always been true to King's vision of a beloved community.

We have scorned our gay brothers and sisters instead of embracing them. The scourge of anti-Semitism has, at times, revealed itself in our community. For too long, some of us have seen immigrants as competitors for jobs instead of companions in the fight for opportunity.

Every day, our politics fuels and exploits this kind of division across all races and regions; across gender and party. It is played out on television. It is sensationalized by the media. And last week, it even crept into the campaign for President, with charges and counter-charges that served to obscure the issues instead of illuminating the critical choices we face as a nation.

So let us say that on this day of all days, each of us carries with us the task of changing our hearts and minds. The division, the stereotypes, the scape-goating, the ease with which we blame our plight on others - all of this distracts us from the common challenges we face - war and poverty; injustice and inequality. We can no longer afford to build ourselves up by tearing someone else down. We can no longer afford to traffic in lies or fear or hate. It is the poison that we must purge from our politics; the wall that we must tear down before the hour grows too late.

Because if Dr. King could love his jailor; if he could call on the faithful who once sat where you do to forgive those who set dogs and fire hoses upon them, then surely we can look past what divides us in our time, and bind up our wounds, and erase the empathy deficit that exists in our hearts.

But if changing our hearts and minds is the first critical step, we cannot stop there. It is not enough to bemoan the plight of poor children in this country and remain unwilling to push our elected officials to provide the resources to fix our schools. It is not enough to decry the disparities of health care and yet allow the insurance companies and the drug companies to block much-needed reforms. It is not enough for us to abhor the costs of a misguided war, and yet allow ourselves to be driven by a politics of fear that sees the threat of attack as way to scare up votes instead of a call to come together around a common effort.

The Scripture tells us that we are judged not just by word, but by deed. And if we are to truly bring about the unity that is so crucial in this time, we must find it within ourselves to act on what we know; to understand that living up to this country's ideals and its possibilities will require great effort and resources; sacrifice and stamina.

And that is what is at stake in the great political debate we are having today. The changes that are needed are not just a matter of tinkering at the edges, and they will not come if politicians simply tell us what we want to hear. All of us will be called upon to make some sacrifice. None of us will be exempt from responsibility. We will have to fight to fix our schools, but we will also have to challenge ourselves to be better parents. We will have to confront the biases in our criminal justice system, but we will also have to acknowledge the deep-seated violence that still resides in our own communities and marshal the will to break its grip.

That is how we will bring about the change we seek. That is how Dr. King led this country through the wilderness. He did it with words - words that he spoke not just to the children of slaves, but the children of slave owners. Words that inspired not just black but also white; not just the Christian but the Jew; not just the Southerner but also the Northerner.

He led with words, but he also led with deeds. He also led by example. He led by marching and going to jail and suffering threats and being away from his family. He led by taking a stand against a war, knowing full well that it would diminish his popularity. He led by challenging our economic structures, understanding that it would cause discomfort. Dr. King understood that unity cannot be won on the cheap; that we would have to earn it through great effort and determination.

That is the unity - the hard-earned unity - that we need right now. It is that effort, and that determination, that can transform blind optimism into hope - the hope to imagine, and work for, and fight for what seemed impossible before.

The stories that give me such hope don't happen in the spotlight. They don't happen on the presidential stage. They happen in the quiet corners of our lives. They happen in the moments we least expect. Let me give you an example of one of those stories.

There is a young, twenty-three year old white woman named Ashley Baia who organizes for our campaign in Florence, South Carolina. She's been working to organize a mostly African-American community since the beginning of this campaign, and the other day she was at a roundtable discussion where everyone went around telling their story and why they were there.

And Ashley said that when she was nine years old, her mother got cancer. And because she had to miss days of work, she was let go and lost her health care. They had to file for bankruptcy, and that's when Ashley decided that she had to do something to help her mom.

She knew that food was one of their most expensive costs, and so Ashley convinced her mother that what she really liked and really wanted to eat more than anything else was mustard and relish sandwiches. Because that was the cheapest way to eat.

She did this for a year until her mom got better, and she told everyone at the roundtable that the reason she joined our campaign was so that she could help the millions of other children in the country who want and need to help their parents too.

So Ashley finishes her story and then goes around the room and asks everyone else why they're supporting the campaign. They all have different stories and reasons. Many bring up a specific issue. And finally they come to this elderly black man who's been sitting there quietly the entire time. And Ashley asks him why he's there. And he does not bring up a specific issue. He does not say health care or the economy. He does not say education or the war. He does not say that he was there because of Barack Obama. He simply says to everyone in the room, "I am here because of Ashley."

By itself, that single moment of recognition between that young white girl and that old black man is not enough. It is not enough to give health care to the sick, or jobs to the jobless, or education to our children.

But it is where we begin. It is why the walls in that room began to crack and shake.

And if they can shake in that room, they can shake in Atlanta.

And if they can shake in Atlanta, they can shake in Georgia.

And if they can shake in Georgia, they can shake all across America. And if enough of our voices join together; we can bring those walls tumbling down. The walls of Jericho can finally come tumbling down. That is our hope - but only if we pray together, and work together, and march together.

Brothers and sisters, we cannot walk alone.

In the struggle for peace and justice, we cannot walk alone.

In the struggle for opportunity and equality, we cannot walk alone

In the struggle to heal this nation and repair this world, we cannot walk alone.

So I ask you to walk with me, and march with me, and join your voice with mine, and together we will sing the song that tears down the walls that divide us, and lift up an America that is truly indivisible, with liberty, and justice, for all. May God bless the memory of the great pastor of this church, and may God bless the United States of America.

Christmas 2007

this christmas blog is a long time coming and here is some picture of ciuapilli's great 6 year old birthday party at the albany village. We had a great thanksgiving at my grandmother's up by Chico and when we left pilli cried asking me not to leave and that's how I felt too. but were planning on the same for christmas but with some added snow up in the mountains as long as we don't get lost like that family in paradise. I sad not to have been able to go to Oscar's first lead in the play of miracle on 34th street. hopefully my interview for a job went well and I get a job soon. pero if not going to still be studying for the LSAT and we'll see where that takes us. well like little timmy said before, god bless every single one of us.

Overnight musings

I'm frustrated with life... not that things are well they just could be better. I'm in month 3 of my job search and although I have a part time overnight job, my struggles with full time employment have soured my mood as Christmas roles around. This is the first Christmas that ciuapilli is going to remember and truly enjoy but were tight on money so we're going to make a strong effort to make it as fun as possible. Halloween was great and our neiboors are being great. I can't wait for thanksgiving and to hang out with my family. I'm sad to not be able to attend my cousin's ocsars theatical debut but I do hope there are other opportunities. Oh and I have decided to apply to law school this coming spring so I will be starting to study hard. Well goodnight.

Avenal progress

If I ever had the funding and the commitment from people like the Santino's did to the newspaper I would like to keep it going even underground just for the community, plus a local location where all the Progress's could be digitized into PDF so future people could read them or use them for research. The voice of this great little city has been quieted for now.



End of an era comes with this issue

By Progress Staff
The staff at the Progress has been looking toward this issue with bittersweet thoughts - we are sad knowing the community will now be forced to get their news in other ways, but happy that now we won't be facing that deadline every Monday.

Over the past 25 years, we - Joe and Arlene Santino - have worked sometimes overtime to get the news to you our faithful readers.

Our work with local newspapers began with submitting news items for the church page and then evolved to that of a stringer doing little league and then meetings as a stringer for the Record.

We sat at a computer much of the day on May 3, 1983 at the Coalinga Record only to lose all our work when the brick wall fell in as the 6.7 magnitude earthquake hit, just as we were leaving town.

Over the years, we have covered meetings in both Avenal and Coalinga - city council, school boards, planning commission and even recreation. Arlene did the meetings and Joe covered sports.

Many photos have also been taken of students receiving honors, scholarships, on the field and in the gymnasium.

There were wins and losses and championship games, we were there to cheer them on and cry with them.

Many graduations - pre-school, middle school, high and adult school. We were there for each of you.

We tried to bring you the good news and temper the bad news.

There was the curb and gutter project, that tried many a person's soul, as it seemed to never end, and work to get the landfill permitted to allow for the city to make money and residents a less costly means of refuse pickup, we were there with you.

The fun times - Old Timer's Day, what has become Avenal's annual celebration, and now the great Independence Day celebrations.

Avenal is young as a city, but mature as a community. It continues to change day by day. With those daily changes, support for the newspaper waned leaving the owners little choice but to discontinue printing.

Many are angry, sad and disappointed. This will all get easier as time goes by.

As time goes by newspapers, sadly, are becoming a thing of the past. It isn't a good thing, because as the newsprint goes, so will our freedom of speech go.

We will be here as residents, but no longer writing the history of Avenal as a newspaper. We will join you in other endeavors free of that weekly deadline.

Good-bye for now.

(Sept. 26, 2007)

Sad note for small towns

For as long as I can remember my home town has had a paper. it will stop publishing next week and I'm very sad at the news.

Progress to cease publication Sept. 26

By Progress Staff
Lee Central California Newspapers announced last week that two of its weeklies, the Avenal Progress and the Twin City Times, will cease publication at the end of this month. The last issue will be printed Sept. 26.

"Both of these publications have a long history in their city, and with the people they serve. However that number has dwindled to the point where it no longer makes sense to publish," said Randy Rickman, publisher of LCCN and the group's daily newspaper, The Sentinel.

Lee Central California Newspapers will continue to publish The Sentinel, as well as its remaining weeklies, the Selma Enterprise, Kingsburg Recorder, Coalinga Record and Lemoore Advance.

Subscribers to the Avenal Progress will be offered alternate subscriptions to the Coalinga Record or a refund. They will continue to receive weekly advertisements and information through the Central Valley Guide.

The move comes as LCCN pursues other long-term opportunities, said Rickman.

"This move will position us better to take advantage of the tremendous growth in online and niche publications," he said.

Lee Enterprises, with headquarters in Davenport, Iowa, is a premier publisher of local news, information and advertising in primarily midsize markets, with 51 daily newspapers and a joint interest in five others, rapidly growing online sites and more than 300 weekly newspapers and specialty publications in 23 states.

With the acquisition of Pulitzer Inc. in June 2005, Lee became the fourth largest newspaper company in the country in terms of dailies owned, and grew from 12th to seventh largest in terms of total daily circulation.

(Sept. 19, 2007)

Clean house

one of the procratiantion things I've started doing is actually a good hobby I usually for get to do. I just finished cleaning the house and am about to go pick up pilli from school I hope her PE went well. Will post new pictures from the Reunion later tonight.

Thank yous

Just wanted to thank the people that commented on my blog, it always surprises me that there's people that do read my blog. Thanks. But in keeping up with the blogging I'd like to quickly explain why there was nothing on Saturday or Sunday. My wife and I had guests over, which now officially breaks the record number of guests that we had when we lived in Phoenix by a long shot and we've only lived here in Berkeley for a month, how sad that fact is. We had a great time with your friend Amy and some other fellow Alumni at Part 4 of our 18 part House Warming lecture series this one taking place on el dia del Grito. Alvaro didn't make it but we still had a blast and now that Pilli is sleeping on a regular schedule because she has morning kindergarten we get some nights of her in bed. Fun times plus her Tio Gabby made a guest appearance from Phoenix and although brief it was wonderful to be able to share our new home. On Sunday we went to church after nursing a semi cruda and were welcomed to our new church by the 25 year anniversary of the padre whom proceeded to use the homily as his recounting of his experiences which is not typical but nice to know a bit about our new spiritual guide. I got a good feeling about the church although wasn't able to get completely into it because Ciuapilli is at that age where she gets bored easily but understands things more complexly, thus I was trying to explain to her parts of the mass to which she responded with gusto that she wanted to be a part of it all, especially receiving communion. The waiting till her first communion did not sit well with her but she understood. Then a small festival at our new village complex with a pony ride and petting zoo. The location of the family housing is great and we are blessed with very kind and ambiable neighbors one of which brought us Zuchini bread. All in all another great weekend, now to the job hunt.

Another Anniversary remembered

6 years ago I became very depressed. A depression that I still struggle to break out of on most days. Six years ago so many tremendous things happened around the same time. So much so that I buckled and most of my former character collapsed. The prospect of being pregnant for our senior year was not a completely welcome one but one that we geared up to handle together as a very green but hopeful couple. Doubts were all around us but so was the hope and the help, from our friends from our professors and school, so much so that we dubbed it our Yale family that helped with classes, laundry, and childcare. But juxtaposition to the help and the inevitable fear of becoming a family and parents came events completely out of our hands. August ended with a cousin in an accident going home and another in jail. September 11th happened while I sat on the cusp of our Senior year in Accounting class, that evening I think my personal dam began to overflow. How could we bring a child into this madness into the foolish world that resulted from the attacks. The prospects of graduating and getting decent jobs evaporated that morning the economy would be stuck for while and still our baby grew. When she was born the hope returned but only for a while again as classes began again the dark vibration of postpartum gripped my wife but the chuckles of the baby would shake those away. Suddenly my cousin in the accident died on the road to recovery. In a whirl we were back in California for the funeral of my cousin introducing my family to our new daughter at the bleakest of times. My hopes and dreams were shattered by so many unfixable things that fear invaded my heart and planted the seeds of doubt so deep that nothing has been able to kill the roots of it. The move to Arizona only helped to feed this illness and breed the accompanying depression that coupled with a depressed spouse made for an unhappy home. That's not to say we both didn't try but the joys of Arizona came in spurts and aside from our daughter they mostly came from outside sources but within me the apathy to live fogged my joy. 3 years later SoCal came in a whirl as I knew once a sink cut a gash on my head that I need to change although the follow through of that change was not there the job in California was the impetus of that change. While enjoying my new line of poorly paying work, my spouse's will also broke and the calamity of being in Arizona crashed upon the family. My obsession for the next calamity since 9/11 was linked to my being hooked to the depressing news cycle that was like m&m or soda, tasty but not filling, I've indulged myself in useless toys and artifacts. Then the final year in Arizona made the hope of California like a fleeting moment that was wrapped up in the crash of our marriage in late September. This crash has made me scared of change any even the kind that I know is necessary to move forward, the finding a job and getting back into school so I can become a Lawyer that at times is all I want and in a flash I let go of those ganas as if it were a fish following the current. Why now that we are in California and my spouse is out of her depression can I not move forward with conviction? Why do I still feel the fear of six years ago and the hopelessness of the following spring a spring that never came for me. That void I think will exist in me for ever but I wonder if the wound of it will heal. I wish I were the blaming type but I'm an internalizer and a lingerer that has not let go of the past or the wrong decisions that I have made. Once upon a time and in flashes I'm confident to the point of being arrogant but that was a part of me that helped me get through Yale and High School. The highs and lows of my life have been extreme and usually very closely aligned to one another. Near fatal illness/ wining the lottery, birth of my child/ death of a family member. I don't hold anger but the saddness of those incomplete times in my life, the joy of being a college freshman was not to be mine, the joys of being a senior were not either, and sharing the beauty of my daughter with the hope of recovery with my cousins in LA and in jail were not to be mine either. Those moments came and went and slowly but firmly have broken my spirit. Now being back were I once was well is a strange feeling. Not the this is not the same feeling of my surroundings I expected most of that and enjoy exploring the changes, no the change is in me. Dean Loge once told me or emailed me the story of returning to the same camp ground in Vermont year after year and that each time it was not exactly the same and he wondered if it was the site or himself having changed through out the year. In this vain I write this to expose the unhealthy ruts I have fallen into to see that I'm back but not well as I once was or hope to be. Hope is returning though with the adventures of my daughter in kindergarten and with a neighborhood of good people and children, she seems at peace and in place here. My family is enjoying being in closer proximity with us here in California and the joy of life has returned to my spouse, now the project and focus is on myself, which after so many years of neglecting myself its a small paradox in exactly how to do it. The list of things to do are compiled and yet still I procrastinate, why? I don't know... the fear of getting to a good place and having something terrible shatter it to bits? Probably, I don't want to lose anymore happiness but the happiness is not as bright or vivid (without Tide) as it should be so I must fight to move it forward. That is one of the big reasons for my 5 year delay in writing my essay something like most that I should have done years ago. At cultural connections I was famous for reading Dr. Seuss - Oh the places you will go. That book inspires me now to move forward because as god's creatures we must.

If I continue to write here it will be a sign I'm moving forward if not then the fear will still be gripping my soul, but I promise to fight it.

6 year Anniversary

In the Bay

Very happy to be back in California, now i just need a job.

Chicano Minute

Monday Videos

new videos for you to watch and comment on.




Pilli blogging will comence once again this week. 2 more till we move.

new videos watch them...

Cumbia Lunera by el Gran Silencio perfomed by fans


this cumbia video is great! check out the spinning dip at right before the half way mark i think that couple is the best.


Avril's Girlfriend song is catchy

Dissapointment

I wish these observations weren't true but Villaraigosa just became the next Henry Cisneros. Damn you gore jr.... I'm still pushing for Obama but we'll see what happens.


Managing Disappointments

by Steve Soto

I’ll cut to the chase and say it, even though most of you will disagree: Al Gore’s chances for a successful entry into the presidential race ended the moment his troubled son was pulled over and busted once again. You can disagree all you want, but the truth is that the media has a new club to use against Gore. His son was busted in a Prius going over a hundred miles an hour (wow, who knew?), possessing marijuana and prescription drugs that weren’t his.

We can bleat all we want about how this is a family matter and is irrelevant to whether or not Gore is the best candidate in 2008, but anyone who really believes that is doing their best to ignore the reality that the GOP, the Mighty Wurlitzer, and their ilk have fresh meat to beat us over the head with. The right-wing talking points write themselves: “they must be bad parents”; “he can’t even guide his son let alone guide a country”, yada-yada-yada.

It’s over folks. Gore needed a reentry without distractions and without providing his political opponents in the media any ammunition. That isn’t possible now, and the Gores need to focus on family matters at this time.

And while we are on the topic of disappointments, Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is a slug who can’t seem to keep his zipper up. Take a hike mayor and forget about running for governor of California. You will never get my vote. And please don’t insult my intelligence with that “it’s a personal matter” bullshit. It’s not personal but rather a reflection of character and judgment, or lack of the same. There are plenty of politicians who manage to stay faithful to their spouses, who deal with the same temptations and challenges without wrecking a marriage, a family, or an administration of supporters. Just as Clinton showed a character flaw and poor judgment, Villaraigosa has done the same. It’s ludicrous for Democrats to blast Rudy Giuliani for treating his wives as toilet paper but to then give Villaraigosa a pass for infidelity.

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Steve Soto

Grand Canyon Visit

I'm DONE!!

I'm ready to dance and come on out. Senior ESSAY Done!!

Mo'Money Mo Problems steals the song so well

My new favorite song

East Coast Classic

Lety Graduating

Graduation Pictures

Pictures from Wellesley and Boston.

The future

We are moving to Berkeley so and I'm overwhelmed by a season of graduations, Gabriel's, Ciuapilli's and Biggest and Bestest Graduation at Wellesley. For my sister Leticia whom I am so proud of, more pictures will be coming on the blog. I have decided I truly want to go to law school hopefully in the next 3 years. Getting a master would be good but it needs to be in the bay. I don't know what will happen but I'm exicted that what will happen will be good. Plus were going to the reunion in New Haven. I need to finish before then and I will but I just wanted to write about the excitement and other things are shaping up for the future.

Wellesly Graduation

Pictures from the departure flight and moving out.

Mario Kart movie

Steve Gilliard RIP

Orcinus does one of the best jobs to remember Steve.

Steve Gilliard, 1966-2007
Saturday, June 02, 2007

--by Sara

It's not news to anyone that the Internet is an emotionally complicated place. It binds us tightly to people we may never see in person. It makes us care about things that are farther away than we might ever imagine. It gives us communities in which we can celebrate and grieve things that those we share our meatworld homes with may not understand.

I'm coming up hard against all those walls today. My birthday -- the last one of my forties -- dawned with the news that one of my favorite online friends-I've-never-met, Steve Gilliard, died this morning in a Manhattan hospital.

It was not unexpected. Steve was already on kidney dialysis, and had survived a previous heart surgery. So those of us who were part of his blog's lively online community were deeply concerned when took ill in late February with a heart valve infection. A valve replacement surgery followed; and when he came to, it became clear that he'd had a stroke during the operation. From there, things went downhill, with moments of hope cycling with despair.

In terms of grandeur and prestige within Blogtopia, The News Blog was similar in many respects to Orcinus -- a down-home two-person blog with a strong perspective, loyal following, and Technorati rankings right in the same range. It was my second online home after this place -- a home I shared with a group of regulars who were as eclectic and lively as the subjects Steve covered, and whom I came to regard as some of my best online friends.

Gilley's main contribution to the progressive conversation was his incredible depth as a military historian. That was the blood and bone of his blog -- careful explanations of strategy and tactics, illustrated with annoted satellite pictures of Baghdad neighborhoods showing what our troops were facing, and interlaced with stories from other wars throughout history in which troops had found themselves in similar situations. It was the kind of interpretive, explanatory war reporting Americans used to get before Vietnam: here's where we're going, what we're doing, what we hope to achieve. And, too often, Gilley's analysis -- simply by showing us the players, the field, and the scoreboard -- also showed us with perfect clarity why we were going to lose.

His blogging voice was brash and authoritative -- just what you'd expect from a lifelong New Yorker. We gave him no end of shit for the bold pronouncements and predictions he'd occasionally issue, which would often enough turn out to be dead wrong. But when he wrote about New York politics (he was merciless on Giuliani, and it's one subject on which we will be poorer without him), he had a way of making even an expat on the opposite coast care about the local political oddities of the Big Apple. Reading Gilley on NYC was like reading Molly Ivins on Texas. You could only sit back, mute, at the gobstopping wonder of it all.

Earlier in his career, Gilley worked for several years in Silicon Valley; and he and his blogging partner, the lovely and talented Jen, made scathing critiques of the tech industry's overhyped anything-goes corporate culture. As an African-American man, Gilley knew the same lesson that I'd learned as a woman there: Any time an employer starts making the office "more like home," it's because they never intend to let you go home. The day they put in the gym and hire a chef for the employee cafeteria, your life, as you once knew it, is over.

Beyond that: any time a company starts making noises about how the "old rules don't apply" to them, it means they have no intention of respecting the values those old rules represented. Those of us who depend on scrupulous attention to those traditional employment rules to protect us from abuse, exploitation, and discrimination should not welcome this announcement as happy news. It means they're going to screw you. Gilley knew -- and was gutsy enough to say right out loud -- that rich white West Coast boys with Stanford engineering degrees can be every bit as racist and sexist in their business practices as any southern cracker.

We had several rather heated arguments about this before he convinced me he was right. I don't think I ever conceded the point outright, but he got me to re-think those years of my life, and frame them in a way that helped me get some peace. I'll always owe him for that, and I regret that I didn't thank him for it.

What happened to The News Blog after Gilley took ill was one of the more remarkable experiences I've had in my online life. Within hours, TNB's commenter community seamlessly stepped up and found a way to keep the thing going -- and then kept it up, day in and day out, for nearly four months. Part of it was that we didn't want to lose each other's good company; but most of it was that we knew the blog was Steve's life and livelihood, and we wanted him to have it to come home to when he got well.

Steve, of course, didn't make it easy. He took all the access and account information with him into his initial coma. But a system emerged as Jen found workarounds, and a volunteer webmaster stepped in, and all of us took turns submitting stuff that we thought was in keeping with Steve's vision of the blog. Two of us emerged as the blog's strongest voices, launching what should by rights become stellar blogging careers (Lower Manhattanite and Hubris Sonic, let me know where you land); but we all chipped in with the usual mix of tech and humor and Steve's signature food blogging to keep several posts going up per day.

A lot of blogs have meatspace metaphors for the kind of "place" they are -- whiskey bars and whaling shacks and public streets and cozy salons. TNB had been, perhaps, a sort of busy midtown coffeehouse with a raucous group of regulars. But when Steve went into the hospital, it transformed into a 24-hour vigil of close friends hanging out in the waiting room of a Manhattan hospital, keeping each other fed and entertained while worrying, praying, and waiting together for the news.

And today, we got the news we dreaded most. Gilley is gone. The News Blog has gone dark. Jen told us from the first week that it would be closed down if Gilley died, and I expect she'll stick to that.

And the rest of us are left counting our losses. There are too few African-American voices in the progressive blogosphere anyway, but Steve's was simply irreplaceable. I've lost an online community I valued deeply. We'll mourn together for a while, and then scatter. It's the way of things in the online world: the feelings we have for people are very real; but sometimes, we're forced to reckon with the reality of just how ephemeral the connections that bind us are. The contradiction is not one that is sitting comfortably today.

It is the most beautiful of June evenings here in Vancover. My family's getting ready to take me out. We'll take a walk through the rhododendrons and heron rookery in Stanley Park, then find a seaside restaurant for dinner, and maybe go see a movie or take in the scene down on Robson Street. For a few hours, we'll celebrate what's been achieved in 49 years -- a loving and sturdy marriage, handsome children, a comfortable home, work that suffices, money enough, more good things to come.

And I'll resolve more firmly to drop some weight, watch my blood sugar, get those heart checkups...and keep blogging. If we're going to fill the silence left by the loss of Steve Gillard's great big voice, we're all going to have to keep ourselves strong, stay healthy, and learn to speak up a whole lot louder for what's right.

Updated with corrected information on Gilley's health. He wasn't diabetic.

3:40 PM Spotlight

Zonald

Another Lopez goes down!

George Lopez, the first Latino to lead a television series successfully, isn't laughing.

ABC, he said, has "unceremoniously" canceled his self-titled comedy, which over the years chronicled his personal life from his sad childhood growing up with an abusive grandmother, to his alcoholism and kidney transplant.

"The George Lopez Show" will live on in syndication, but that's not making Lopez feel better about not getting the chance to tell one final season of stories. Lopez said Steve McPherson, ABC president of prime-time entertainment, called him over the weekend to explain that "financially" it wasn't working out, that the network would lose money if it picked up the show again.

That explanation was painful to hear, Lopez said, considering the way the network has shuffled his show over the years -- four different time slots in five years -- and putting it up against "American Idol" time and time again.

It all contributed to the show's low ratings, a point not lost on Lopez who noted that this season his show out-performed two freshman comedies that were renewed: "Notes from the Underbelly" and "Knights of Prosperity."

"I’ll take the good and the bad," Lopez said. "I took the five years of good and I did a lot with the good. My popularity, I was involved in charities, I overcame my illness, all on TV. I shared all of that with America—every secret I had. Every personal feeling. Every emotion. Everything was open to the show. And what happens?"

Lopez said he attributed the cancellation in part to the fact that the show is produced by Warner Bros. Television, and not ABC Television Studios. Using some colorful language that cannot be printed in a family newspaper, Lopez scoffed in particular at another ABC pickup: "Caveman," about two brothers and one best friend, described as sophisticated cave dudes living in modern-day Atlanta, who will continually find themselves at odds with contemporary society.

"I get kicked out for a...caveman and shows that I out-performed because I’m not owned by [ABC Television Studios]...So a...Chicano can’t be on TV but a...caveman can?" Lopez said. "And a Chicano with an audience already? You know when you get in this that shows do not last forever, but this was an important show and to go unceremoniously like this hurts. One hundred seventy people lost their jobs."

For his part, Lopez will be fine. He has an HBO special and a movie coming in the summer, and a deal with Warner Bros. to produce television movies.

"TV just became really, really white again," he said.

--Maria Elena Fernandez

Wii addiction

Bumping in the Ipod

Ilegales - La Otra

Pilli story time

Pilli blogging

Long time no blog her pictures, here's her picking veggies at a local farm and at Cesar Chavez day making a friend with her parasol. I'm trying to keep it up. Going to Avenal this weekend for Old Timers Day.

Mari's Friday videos

White and Nerdy

Gwen Stefani - Sweet Escape

paletero man

Wenesday night videos

Me & you


Say it Right


Signs


these should keep the internet me occupied (PS) pilli blogging is on its way back.

Momas and Papas

I hate mondays but this song helps.

California song that got me through Yale

Scrubs

This is by far my most favorite show, it reminds me that things will be ok because its a sitcom but that weird situations do happen to relationships and with life. The dark humor is what I thrive off on. Much in the way that the Harry potter books deal with the bubble that we lived in at Yale. But anytime you have a chance to watch especially now that there in reruns on all kinds of stations. Anyways heres a clip from the show.



Nnamdi - My Chocolate Bear

Q-Tip - Vivrant Thing

Alejandro Sanz & Shakira

Cupid's Chokehold

HT Vox i want one

Great Talib Video

in the 60's mood - Viva los Monkees

One of the originally made boy bands. I love Davie Jones... and the line... I need sunshine on my brain.

I'm a believer
Pleasant Valley Sunday

More Laugh-In

Stomach bruise

Time Zones

Friday night accident

I was in a accident that totaled my car on friday night. I'm sad its gone the escort got me across the country and almost made it for the final trip to cali. I'm ok but my face got a bit of a beating. Here's the picture.

Come on Gloria lets go...

Weekend Pilli Blogging

Pilli has been gone for one week. I miss her and her mami. I wanted to share some pictures since there gone and I just scanned one of my favorite pictures ever with my sister.

Read Bulletin

From: Walter

Date: Mar 11, 2007 8:46 PM
Subject For those of you who dont know
Body: I have finally been given a date for my brigades deployment to Iraq. We will have boots on the ground July 30th, meaning I will be leaving the states sometime around July 15th ish. Right now my Block Leave is scheduled for the last two weeks of June, which is a good thing because if it doesnt change then Ill get to turn 21 at home. We are also already being told to expect an 18 month deployment possibly longer.

For Lety and Tony

Click through to see the rest.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=3xn4MzEOF2Y

Saturday videos

its a nice day here,

Friday Pilli blogging

bad video quality great song....

back in the day 1998 style

when things were better and life was easier... hootie ruled,


then when the Stile's disease hit their song time got me through the long nights.


this was the first song I danced to after I got better in the future birthplace of pilli.

Candelita

One of my most favorite ever!

Aunque no sea conmigo

Song I remember from Ciuapilli's snowy birth.

This last video is dedicated to all the Mecha de Yalies working their butts off to get ECCSF going. La union hace fuerza.

Mil hora

Got the test in a few hours heres a good Sonora Dinamita Cover of Mil horas by the Agrentina band Los abuelos de la nada. A bit too sexy but the song is great plus a song for lety.

Long week

So this has been a really long week. Night classes suck and I have an insurance test on Tuesday I need to be ready for all while trying to do like 5 different things for SVrep. Damn I didn't do enough in that regard this weekend. So I'm going to have a tough beginning of the week and hot damn its valentines day...man I can't wait for President's day, so I can just sleep in. Anyways here's a belated pilli picture and a video of a song I didn't know Julieta Venegas had covered with Jarabe de Palo and the original version below that. Plus if you like good fusion music like I do please check out Pistolera a fusion band from NYC who's coming to the southwest at the beginning of March for more info and a taste of there cool song Algo pa que te olvides or something so you can forget. Pistolera.net

Late night video & post

I post this video because of my weekend at a National Leadership Summit on Immigration Policy
which went very well and fills me with hope to truly get an immigration policy that will give legalization to all the million people that need it in the country.

I am going to be writing more especially my weekly post of pilli pictures so check it out every friday to see what pilli's up to, I'm going to be taking classes for an insurance exam I'm going to be taking in a week or two pretty soon.

Drop a comment if you have a chance.

this other video is dedicated to Denise who has left Arizona for the safer and better confines of Ohio.

I love drew

Drew Barrymore's nude sprint
Jan. 23, 2007 07:44 AM
Drew Barrymore loves to run naked in Irish fields.The actress - who claims she has outgrown her wild teenage years - admits she still loves to be spontaneous sometimes.Drew confessed to Parade magazine: "I'll drive in Ireland and park my car and run out into the field and rip all my clothes off and just run in the wheat fields naked. That's for no one to see. That's to have that freedom of feeling at one with nature. So I am completely unguarded, still."

The 31-year-old star admits she still finds it difficult to forget her troubled childhood, but is determined to remain positive.Drew, who recently split from her boyfriend Strokes drummer Fabrizio Moretti, said: "It was hard. My childhood lacked structure, stability and consistency. You want to place blame on people, but I don't think it's fair. You're dealt the cards that you're dealt. You can let that be your downfall or a springboard to become something better."For me, I just thought, 'What a waste of time to be angry at my parents. What a waste of time to feel sorry for myself.' The best thing I can do is learn all the things I've learned from them, good and bad, have my own family someday and just keep on going. So many things are thrown at us as human beings, but you can't let any of them get you down, or you're just going to be defeated."After starring in classic sci-fi film 'E.T.' aged just seven, Drew started smoking cigarettes and drinking alcohol by the time she was nine, smoking marijuana at 10, and taking cocaine at 12. Drew opened her heart about her childhood drug use in her 1990 autobiography, 'Little Girl Lost'.

I like her and depression sucks

Mandy Moore: I struggled with depression

Mandy Moore told Jane magazine her depression came on as if "someone had flipped a switch in me."

POSTED: 11:53 a.m. EST, January 23, 2007

Story Highlights• Mandy Moore: Though "positive person," was hit by depression• Says breakup contributed but not only reason• "Writing has been really therapeutic," she says

NEW YORK (AP) -- Mandy Moore has a lot going for her, including a starring role opposite Diane Keaton in the upcoming comedy "Because I Said So." Even so, she says she's grappled with depression.
"A few months ago I felt really low, really sad. Depressed for no reason," the 22-year-old actress-singer says in an interview in the February issue of Jane magazine, on newsstands Tuesday.
"I'm a very positive person, and I've always been glass-half-full," she continues. "So it was like someone flipped a switch in me. I wanted to figure out why."
Moore, newly single after high-profile relationships with actor Zach Braff and tennis standout Andy Roddick, says her recent split with Braff didn't help matters.
"The breakup added to what I was going through, but it's not the complete reason," she tells the magazine. "It definitely doesn't help if you're already in that place ... ."
Moore, who is working on a new record at a studio in Woodstock, New York, and feeling better for doing it, says writing songs "away from friends in L.A. or New York" is good for the soul.
"Writing has been really therapeutic," she says of her music. "These little nuggets that have come up over the past eight months have made me look at things in a different way."
Moore started out as a squeaky-clean teen singer and later crossed over into movies with featured roles in such films as "A Walk to Remember," "Saved" and "American Dreamz."
"I feel bad that people wasted their money on such trite, blah pop music," says Moore about her earlier music.
Moore has been looking inward a lot of late.
"I've been going through this really crazy time in my life -- it's what I imagine people fresh out of college go through," she says. "I'm asking myself life-altering questions, like 'Who am I? Where do I fit in this world? What am I doing, what do I want to do? Am I living to my full potential?' "

Happy thankgiving, Merry Christmas &Happy 2007

We I've been away from my blog for long time. I just haven't been in a writing mode. Lots to talk about but not wanting to write. Living in AZ again new job as an insurance guy going decently. My organizing job was more than worth all the time and money spent to get a democratic congress elected and working in California. Mari's doing great busting her butt to get her grad school apps done and out and were glad at the progress pilli is making in school she is very inventive and creative. Will probably blog time permitting and I think the Colts will win the super bowl.

Yale Ivy League Champs Beat Harvard 34-13!!

Final
Yale (8-2, 6-1 Ivy)
Harvard (7-3, 4-3 Ivy)
1 2 3 4 T
7 13 0 14 34
0 7 0 6 13


Yale takes down Harvard for share of Ivy League title

Go sons of Eli!

Friday Pilli blogging

this one month old pilli picture is in honor of Jackie's visit from Detroit to who showed Ciuapilli how to properly be in a car seat. This also marks the first week of me begin part of an Insurance agency in Phoenix things certainly have changed in the last week. Mostly postitive, I turned 26 and thank everyone that sent a cared or called me on or around the 15th. We are still not done moving everything to the new apartment but will get around to it most of this weekend. I'm excited and have a really good vibe about this place. If your ever in town please stop by. paz y amor.

He had the math.....the wrong math

How'd that happen?

Karl Rove: The Architect's Faulty Specs
Rove believed in his metrics. He miscalculated. How did Bush's guru get the numbers so wrong?
By Richard Wolffe
Newsweek

Nov. 20, 2006 issue - President Bush knew he was in for a rough night. As he settled down in front of the TV in the White House residence to watch the election results, the numbers were already grim. By 8 p.m., long before the polls closed out west, Bush realized it was over. "It looks like this is going to be a rout," he lamented to a handful of aides.

...................................

How did the man they call Bush's brain get it so wrong?

...................
Based on his models, he forecast a loss of 12 to 14 seats in the House—enough to hang on to the majority. Rove placed so much faith in his figures that, after the elections, he planned to convene a panel of Republican political scientists—to study just how wrong the polls were.

His confidence buoyed everyone inside the West Wing, especially the president. Ten days before the elections, House Majority Leader John Boehner visited Bush in the Oval Office with bad news. He told Bush that the party would lose Tom DeLay's old seat in Texas, where Bush was set to campaign. Bush brushed him off, Boehner recalls. "Get me Karl," the president told an aide. "Karl has the numbers."

The numbers looked a lot less rosy to the other architect of the campaign—RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman. It was Mehlman who built the much-vaunted turnout machine. But he feared that many inside the party were relying too much on technology, like voter databases, and had lost sight of the bigger picture: that voters were turning against them. "We've built a great new car, but the gasoline for the car isn't us; it's the candidates and the issues," Mehlman told NEWSWEEK. There was no bigger issue than the war, which Rove had pushed as a winning theme for the GOP. As he flew back to D.C. on a private jet two days before the elections, Mehlman scribbled his predictions on a card—not to be revealed until after the elections. His numbers were much closer than Rove's: the GOP would lose 23 in the House (5 short of the final tally), 5 in the Senate (1 shy) and 6 governors (spot on). Last week Mehlman announced he would step down and pursue opportunities in the private sector.

Rove blames complacent candidates for much of the GOP's defeat. He says even some scandal-tainted members won when they followed what he calls "the program" of voter contacts and early voting. "Where some people came up short was where they didn't have a program," he told NEWSWEEK. But even Rove concedes that there were several hardworking incumbents, like Mike Fitzpatrick in Pennsylvania's Eighth District, who simply couldn't overcome the odds. In an election overwhelmed by war and scandal, the program was no match for their party's problems.

Mehlman may be the only Republican with a clue. Rove is a fucking idiot. Program? He's got one third of evangelicals voting for Dems, moderates fleeing from the GOP and he wants to talk metrics?

Mehlman actually gets that the path of Rove and the GOP means defeat for the foreseeable future, and he tried to alter it, but he didn't have much of a chance. Why don't the GOP gets that the American people have tired of them.

posted by Steve @ 2:33:00 PM

Math Major?

Where's your math at now ROVE??? What didn't add up? forgot to carry the 1? either way you lose and America wins!!

Me and Li Yun in DC in March

Pilli-Blogging Friday

  

Very Niiice - Life is difficult

the intro to M. Scott Peck’s The Road Less Traveled:

Life is difficult.

This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths. It is a great truth because once we truly see this truth, we transcend it. Once we truly know that life is difficult - once we truly understand and accept it - then life is no longer difficult. Because once it is accepted, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters.

Most do not fully see this truth that life is difficult. Instead they moan more or less incessantly, noisily or subtly, about the enormity of their problems, their burdens, and their difficulties as if life were generally easy, as if life should be easy. They voice their belief, noisily or subtly, that their difficulties represent a unique kind of affliction tha tshould not be and tha thas somehhow been especially visited upon them, or else upon their families, their tribe, their class, their nation, their race or even their species, and not upon others. I know about this moaning because I have done my share.

Life is a series of problems. Do we want to moan about them or solve them? Do we want to teach our children to solve them?

Discipline is the basic set of tools we require to solve life’s problems. Without discipline we can solve nothing. With only some discipline we can solve only some problems. With total discipline we can solve all problems.

Spider-pilli

My costume - Halloween

Maligno

Homework Pilli

Pre Halloween pictures

Pilli blogging

Ciaupilli's last years costume of a pink unicorn/horse.

Nearly Halloween