Sara Haile-Mariam

Yeah…I’m not sure I want to comment on this much more than to say that I find the media frenzy, while at times entertaining, to be really extravagant. Obviously, as a political junkie I appreciate the discourse and speculation as much as the next person– but at the same time, given everything else going on in our country, now isn’t the time for politics. So while I sincerely wish we were at a point where Sarah Palin’s resignation was the most dramatic thing happening in the world- it’s not, and we can’t forget that. So, I figured, I could (A)write about Sarah Palin(from a social commentary point of view, there’s certainly a lot to dissect)….or (B)I could write a piece where I point out everything else that actually warrants our attention. I went with option B.

“It’d be easy to talk about Sarah Palin—but those conversations won’t bring us closer to reforming an education system that leaves children, and in some cases entire districts, behind. Those conversations won’t bring us closer to reforming our immigration system or to giving every young person who wants a college education a way to afford it. I get it, she resigned, her decision has sent the political world in a frenzy. But c’mon- how much more is there to say?”

Full Global Grind Piece here.

Latest piece on Huffpost

“The assumption that our abilities are determined by our make up, and our futures limited by conventional wisdom, has been denied traction by people like Michael Jackson. We are indebted to those who have confronted these limitations and destroyed them, who acknowledged societal expectations and exceeded them.”

Read the rest here.

Also posted on VampedNY.com

Another piece on Global Grind on how the situation in Iran speaks to the importance and power of one voice.

Speaking of which, checkout this WAPO piece on exactly that, how Americans are using technology to impact events over there. One of the individuals profiled, Chas Danner, is a good friend. Over the last few weeks, I’ve been blown away by how his actions (on his computer in Brooklyn) could have such a profound effect on so many.

My newest post on Global Grind grapples with the ramifications of new media on our expectations of political discourse and the metrics we use to evaluate our leaders.

“As it stands, social networking enables everyone to broadcast inside jokes, silly pictures, even indiscretions, in a forum that can be accessed by individuals from all over the world. Without context, these images and sound bites could prove damaging for those who decide to take the path of public service. Similarly, the days of blackmail are threatened by instant access. The time between action and confession is shortened by the tendency, and ability, to confess while in the act.”

You can read the rest here.

My thoughts and prayers are with this blogger, and everyone else, who protests tomorrow.

“I will participate in the demonstrations tomorrow. Maybe they will turn violent. Maybe I will be one of the people who is going to get killed. I’m listening to all my favorite music. I even want to dance to a few songs. I always wanted to have very narrow eyebrows. Yes, maybe I will go to the salon before I go tomorrow! There are a few great movie scenes that I also have to see. I should drop by the library, too. It’s worth to read the poems of Forough and Shamloo again. All family pictures have to be reviewed, too. I have to call my friends as well to say goodbye. All I have are two bookshelves which I told my family who should receive them. I’m two units away from getting my bachelors degree but who cares about that. My mind is very chaotic. I wrote these random sentences for the next generation so they know we were not just emotional and under peer pressure. So they know that we did everything we could to create a better future for them. So they know that our ancestors surrendered to Arabs and Mongols but did not surrender to despotism. This note is dedicated to tomorrow’s children…”

(h/t) Andrew Sullivan

My latest piece on Huffpost.

Translation: "Trust us! We had counted the votes a few days before the election."

I’m going to write more on this tonight– but in the meantime, wanted to share my first post for Global Grind on the Iranian elections.

Global Grind is Russel Simmon’s website, I’ll be contributing posts weekly.

Over the last few days, something was visibly happening in Iran. The images of women and young people flocking to the streets in support of reformist candidate Mir Hussein Moussavi displayed the kind of hopeful unrest that promised a sea change. Many have conceded that Mr. Moussavi was a sort of political blank slate, making it hard to say what his Presidency would have meant to the country and the world. Nonetheless, the last few days reflected the intersection of emotional intensity and politics, reminiscent of what we saw here in the US in 2008. On Saturday, these supporters sat in anguish as current President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was declared the winner in an apparent landslide. The results are suspect, and accordingly, blogs and twitter and facebook consist of speculation and reporting of what’s currently going on as Moussavi supporters take their cause to the streets.

Roger Cohen’s column in the Times today notes a women telling him:

“Throw away your pen and paper and come to our aid,” she said, pointing to my notebook. “There is no freedom here.”

Andrew Sullivan, The Tehran Bureau, and Nader Uskowi are all doing an incredible job of uncovering events as they unfold.

Today, my thoughts are with the Iranian people.

A look back on the first Earth Day (Via CAP)

The Article was published in 1970- checkout how young people responded then:

Campus Ritual. Expectedly, youth predominated at most of the ecological happenings and teach-ins across the U.S. At 1,500 campuses and 10,000 schools, students, teachers—and sometimes parents—observed Earth Day by studying such previously recondite subjects as hydrocarbons and acid drainage from coal mines. Much of the day was given to theater and ritual. At the University of Wisconsin, 58 separate programs were staged, including a dawn “earth service” of Sanskrit incantations.

Car wreckings—followed by interment of the beasts—were a common protest against the internal-combustion engine. Some students at Florida Technological University held a trial to condemn a Chevrolet for poisoning the air; they tried to demolish it with a sledgehammer, but the car resisted so sturdily that the students finally shrugged and offered it to an art class for a sculpture project.

Some 1,000 students at Ohio’s Cleveland State University worked throughout the city gathering litter and loading it into garbage trucks. They ended the day by marching to the almost pestilentially polluted Cuyahoga River. Standing at the spot where Founding Father Moses Cleaveland allegedly landed in 1796, a student held aloft a plastic bag full of garbage and intoned: “This is my bag.” Another student, dressed as Cleaveland, rowed up, declared: “This place is too dirty to build a colony,” and double-timed back down the river to the almost equally scabrous Lake Erie. In Letcher County, Ky., part of the most ravaged section of Appalachia, 1,200 students buried a trash-filled casket. A young Denver group called CARP (Citizens Concerned About Radiation Pollution) gave the Colorado Environmental Rapist of the Year Award to the Atomic Energy Commission.