Tag: Obama

Obama Fundraiser: Silverlake, October 4, 2008.

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For ten years a dead external hard drive lay abandoned in our garage, a device that once backed up our desktop computer from 2007-2012 and then suddenly died.

We cleaned our garage last month and found the dead drive. We took it to a tech in Toluca Lake who retrieved everything for $150.

Now we have tens of thousands of revived photos, seemingly taken yesterday, but actually 14 years old. I’m going through the files now and labeling them.

One folder contained a memorable evening from October 4, 2008. 

On that night, we attended an Obama fund raiser at a private home in Silver Lake along a winding street above Sunset.

There is my 36-year-old brother Rick with his wife, Pri, and her 27-year-old sister Rue. Muscular, smiling, shirtless Jeremiah and his girlfriend Ivy.

There are good friends and acquaintances in floor dragging denim and long t-shirts under short ones. Fun includes John McCain, Sarah Palin and Dick Cheney piñatas, lots of Shepard Fairey designed HOPE t-shirts with Obama’s face, and me in an Obama mask. There are masks of Biden too.

There is food and drink and Ivy in with her Smart Women Vote Obama button.  

The crowd is gay and straight, black, white, asian, male, female. There are high tech devices like digital cameras that are strictly digital cameras, not smartphones.

There are cute young kids and old dogs snuggled up on the sofa.

What I remember most from the event is that one of the guys there wanted to sleep with me, and a woman who had a high position in production wanted to hire me for photography but never hired me.

Through time all the famous faces from that night are connected in our long political show that never ends, jumping from event to event, begging for analysis, but often falling into irrationality, emotionality and missed opportunities.

State of the Union

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Chicago, IL
South Side
2013

“Tonight, I propose a “Fix-It-First” program to put people to work as soon as possible on our most urgent repairs, like the nearly 70,000 structurally deficient bridges across the country. And to make sure taxpayers don’t shoulder the whole burden, I’m also proposing a Partnership to Rebuild America that attracts private capital to upgrade what our businesses need most: modern ports to move our goods; modern pipelines to withstand a storm; modern schools worthy of our children. Let’s prove that there is no better place to do business than the United States of America. And let’s start right away.

Part of our rebuilding effort must also involve our housing sector. Today, our housing market is finally healing from the collapse of 2007. Home prices are rising at the fastest pace in six years, home purchases are up nearly 50 percent, and construction is expanding again.

But even with mortgage rates near a 50-year low, too many families with solid credit who want to buy a home are being rejected. Too many families who have never missed a payment and want to refinance are being told no. That’s holding our entire economy back, and we need to fix it. Right now, there’s a bill in this Congress that would give every responsible homeowner in America the chance to save $3,000 a year by refinancing at today’s rates. Democrats and Republicans have supported it before. What are we waiting for? Take a vote, and send me that bill. Right now, overlapping regulations keep responsible young families from buying their first home. What’s holding us back? Let’s streamline the process, and help our economy grow.” -Barack Obama, State of the Union Address, 2/13/13

We Must Never Allow America to Become European.

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“Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor who served as a missionary in France and recently toured Europe, said Obama is determined to impose a Euro-style welfare state on the U.S. at the expense of free enterprise.”-Washington Post, Jan. 11, 2012

And here are some ominous photos, taken from Google Street Maps, which show the dangers that await America should it adopt a more European system of government, taxation and environmental policy.

Scania County, Sweden

Zurich

Strasbourg

Bergen, Norway

Alscace, France

Netherlands

Bergen, Norway 2

Epitaph for a Weak President and Lost Nation.

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I did not write this, but the writer who did, printed in today’s NY Times, encapsulates and summarizes my sad feelings about the state of America and the weak character of our Chief Executive:

“When George W. Bush was President, I was ashamed of my country. Ashamed that we could have elected such an anti-intellectual, war mongering liar. My friends in Europe laughed at how stupid the American people had become. The nation seemed to be traveling down a path to all-war-all-the-time, led by a torturer-in-chief with a total disregard for civil rights and the truth. There was ample reason to be embarrassed and frightened.

But George W. Bush was a winner. That man did everything he wanted to do. His administration controlled EVERYBODY, including the media, and they brooked no dissent. They spied at will, tortured at will, started the wars they wanted to start and took the money they wanted and gave it to their friends. In terms of policy victories, it can be argued that the Bush administration was the most successful in history.

Now, I am ashamed of my country and my President for entirely different reasons. We are now led by a President with neither the desire, inclination nor the ability to win anything. Unwittingly, we elected a man with a fetish for defeat. With public sentiment on his side and victory at his beck and call, he chooses to surrender. He betrays his followers and chooses to lose. From a character standpoint, he is the biggest coward and loser ever to occupy the White House. This latest surrender is the most bizarre one to date, and will prove to be the most calamitous. He has ripped his own party to shreds. He has chosen to lock in the exponentially-widening gap between rich and poor. He has chosen a path to economic ruin. Things are about to get worse. Put another way, America cannot afford to have Barack Obama as President. We desperately need a leader, and I am terrified of what that leadership deficit might bring about in 2012.”

Infrastructure Photos from Around the World.

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Michigan Central Station, Detroit, Michigan

Photo: by Juan n’Only

President Obama spoke today about infrastructure underinvestment in America and the critical need to finance and rebuild public construction projects in the US.

Our decaying roads, substandard transportation, shabby airports, underfunded parks, collapsing bridges; all of these are evidence of how America is falling apart. We need to invest in our own nation.

Around the world, other countries are spending huge sums of money to build better systems and facilities required in a modern world. China, Europe and even South America and Asia look much better than many parts of America these days.

If you don’t believe me, try using Google Maps Street view and just drop the yellow man on any part of Denmark, Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands and France. You will see evidence of parks, bicycle lanes, smooth roads, and environmentally sensitive design. People will be walking, biking, or strolling along canal paths and well-paved streets. Cities and towns boast many trees, ornamental lampposts, modern and graphically up-to-date signs and well paved streets. This is what infrastructure investment means: better living through domestic investment in the public realm.

Los Angeles and places like Detroit look barbaric and primitive compared to other places around the globe.

 

Havenage Nyborg Denmark

 

 

Islands Brygge Copenhagen, DENMARK

 

 

Quai du Fort Alleaume,Orleans, France

 

 

Shanghai_Light_Rail_Caoxi_Road_Station.preview

 

 

Kuala Lumpur Airport, Malaysia

 

And recently Der Spiegel published photos showing East Germany in 1991 just after the fall of the Berlin Wall, and in 2010, after a massive reinvestment program undertaken by the German government.

 

Ostarchitektur/ East Germany, 1991

 

 

Ostarchitektur/ East Germany 2010

 

 

E. Germany, 1991

 

 

E. Germany, 2010

 

 

E. Germany, 1991

 

 

E. Germany, 2010

 

 

Vanowen near Kester. Housing in Van Nuys, CA

 

War and Health Care.

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War and health care.

These are the two big issues I care about.

Even as I look for work, being unemployed for some time now, I think that our nation must end its destructive and expensive interference in other nation’s affairs, and bring our spending priorities and needs back to the US.

Obama has not ended the war in Iraq, and he has ramped up the war in Afghanistan. What war is next? Yemen, Pakistan, Indonesia?  We are on a constant war footing with boogie men on every continent.  An endless battle with no end.

And what became of health care? It has been downsized, weakened, bended, fractured, anesthetized to make it palatable to Lieberman and Blue Cross, Pfizer and John McCain.  I still paid over $3,000 last year to cover one $40 doctor’s visit.

President Obama, you are losing my confidence because you seem to stand for nothing. You “lost” in Massachusetts because you don’t stand for anything. You are continuing the Bush, Clinton, Reagan policies of neo-conservatism, neo-militarism and neo-know nothingism that furthers the decline and impoverishment of the United States.

If you had only been bold and courageous enough to end the wars and demand single payer health care, I would respect you. Again.