Ramadan Kareem!

President Obama continues to extend the unclenched fist forward to improve relations with the Muslim world by building on the Cairo speech and extending best wishes to Muslim communities here in the U.S. and around the world. A smart strategy of forging good relations based on respect and understanding.

Getting Universal Coverage Will Be A Major Achievement

Granted it would be great to have a bill that will magically half the cost of health care, to the level other industrialized nations spend per capita, and still provide universal coverage. It would be great if we could simply control the exploding cost that is pacing to bankrupt our country. It would be great [...]

Health Care Reform Is Coming!

For all the hoopla and shameless hypocrisy of the opponents of health care reform, major change is on the way. And there is nothing the other side can do about it. Just look at this nice summary from Ezra Klein about what is already agreed upon and other pertinent issues.
“Here are the things that, broadly [...]

Here Comes the President!

You had to know President Obama was simply not going to allow the opponents of health care reform continue to spread lies and scare people in an effort to throttle this necessary and much too delayed effort at change. This is the kind of inspired, passionate, and reasoned argument, which he has shown to be [...]

Priceless!

This is the kind of priceless picture that really says more than a thousand words.
As the president said: “I do so recognizing that change cannot happen overnight. No single speech can eradicate years of mistrust, nor can I answer in the time that I have all the complex questions that brought us to this point. [...]

Truth Telling: A Pragmatist’s Foreign Policy

Many things can be said of the speech (I would say it is more of a lecture and a lesson in smart diplomacy than a speech) President Barack Obama gave to the Muslim world in Cairo, Egypt. One thing is certain; the president believes in truth telling and partnership built on mutual respect and appreciation. [...]

Obama with Umbrella

A well composed photograph of President Barack Obama for your viewing pleasure. Always the center of attention…

Bringing Science Back to Its Rightful Place

It is incredibly refreshing to hear a leader clearly articulate the importance in dedication to and advancement of science and technology is in either good times or bad. President Obama, ever since his inauguration speech where he famously declared his intent to bring science to its rightful place, has been making a clear and convincing [...]

What You Need to Know about Swine Flu

ABC news is reporting that people are being advised “Don’t shake hands, don’t kiss on the cheeks, don’t go to the movies — best of all, just stay at home” in Mexico, where this deadly outbreak has already sickened more than 1,000 people and killed as many as 68. Various new cases are now being [...]

The Hope-Change Index

Via, The Economist, an interesting diagram on the usage of the words hope and change in inaugural addresses by Presidents of the U.S.:
“While hope has found a place in each of the 26 inaugural addresses, change is used more sparingly. Seven inaugural speeches did not contain the word; six more made use of it just [...]

Aneesh Chopra Named as Federal CTO

As promised, President Obama has appointed a Chief Technology Officer for his administration. In his weekly address, he announced the appointment of Aneesh Chopra for this post. The envisioned responsibility is:
“As Chief Technology Officer, Chopra will promote technological innovation to help the country meet its goals from job creation, to reducing health care costs, to [...]

Anatomy of Misinformation

Sarkozy: Obama “Weak, Inexperienced and Badly Briefed” states the headline at The Page, Politics up to the Minute blog by Mark Halperin. To the unassuming eye and one that has propensity for running with such snippets of information without the full context, it can send the message that President Sarkozy thinks lowly of President Obama [...]

On the Release of “Torture Memos”

On a fundamental level, the action of Obama’s administration in releasing memos authored by Department of Justice officials to give legal backing to the “enhanced interrogation tactics” that were applied in the post 9-11 era of the Bush administration is a testament of the enduring strength of the rule of law. It also demonstrates the [...]

Obama’s Vision for High-speed Rail in America

President Barack Obama announced today about his plan to spend $13 billion to build a vast high speed rail network across the nation. It is announced that the stimulus plan will provide $8 billion initially, after that it will require $1 billion each year for the next five years.
“There are those who say high-speed rail [...]

In Obama’s Footstep

President Barack Obama has attributed the time spent as a community organizer as one of the most defining experiences in his life. Needless to say, the consequence of his service was far broader than the immediate assistance provided to the communities in Southside Chicago. That experience paved the way to his engagement in politics and, [...]

War on Terror >> Overseas Contingency Operation

Much has been said and made about the the leaked memo directed to Pentagon staff, in which an official from the defense department’s office of security review noted that “this administration prefers to avoid using the term ‘Long War’ or ‘Global War on Terror’ [GWOT]. Please use ‘Overseas Contingency Operation.” As pragmatism goes, I find [...]

National Service Corps

The bill is on the way for passage in the Senate. Behind the urging of President Obama and the backing of policy makers on both sides of the aisle, the bill would institute a growth in public service from 75,000 community service jobs to 250,000. This, of course, is a significant development towards fulfilling the [...]

Obama and the P’s

Do you notice anything common to these words?
public, private, partnership, patience, persistence, …

Teleprompter vs. No Teleprompter

This one is priceless.

Another Great Move By President Obama: Check to the Iranian Leaders

Here again is another impressive and exemplary move by the president. In the language of chess, check to the Iranian leaders…
President Obama’s special video message for all those celebrating Nowruz, or “New Day.” This year, the President wanted to send a special message to the people and government of Iran, acknowledging the strain in our [...]

Baby Boom Birth Record Broken

It is official. The New York Times reports that 4,317,000 births in 2007 just edged out the figure for 1957, at the height of the baby boom. I suppose this provides yet another historical demarcation for this momentous past two years – the other one being the election of Barack Obama to be President of [...]

Muscular Presidency

To the attentive observer of the trajectory President Obama’s political career has taken from having to be relegated to the back of a march, just in front of the garbage collectors (as he described it) and denied entry to the democratic convention, no less, to being the president of these United States, this article will [...]

Why David Brooks Is Wrong

Of late, David Brooks, columnist at The New York Times and one of “The Liberal Media’s Conservatives,” has taken to pushing the idea that President Obama and his administration are stretched too thin in attempting to do too many things at once. His recent column was filled with sentiments that can be summed up in [...]

Barack Obama: “Breakfast of Champion”

This one is quite an impressive work by Hank Willis Thomas and Ryan Alexiev.
In “Breakfast of Champion” Thomas and Alexiev are commenting on the iconization and consumerization of the President of the United States. The piece appropriates the religious imagery of Byzantine mosaics to create a sugar cereal image of President Obama. Does the election [...]

Reliving History

It was only a little more than a month ago that a nation collectively lived through euphoria and the reaffirmation in the American ideal. In the interest of reliving this momentous historic demarcation, I enter here President Obama’s inauguration speech. I believe it serves us all well to remind ourselves of the hopefulness experienced in [...]

In a League of His Own

That is all I can say about President Obama’s speech tonight. He is a master of communication and is still as audacious as ever in the bold goals he is setting for his administration. I am certain he does so with a sure knowledge that this abmitious agenda will be a [...]

Nate Silver Gets It

My take on President Obama and his team’s  political skillfulness and dexterity have been documented, among others, here, here, and here. These previous postings had attempted to highlight the disconnect political punditocracy in the media and reality, which I believe have consistently resulted in the underestimation of the politician Barack Obama. In the latest episode [...]

Speaking in Tongues

There is a distinct pleasure in reading a well crafted argument and piece like this one by Zadie Smith about voices and multitudinous of life lived at the borders. It provides as truthful and insightful of an assessment as I have come across about the person of Barack Obama, as Joe Klein rightly observes, partly [...]

Advice to the Republicans in Congress: Do the Opposite of Your Reflexive Impulses

By now most of you must have read and heard about the squabble that is going on at the Congress regarding the recovery and investment plan that was put forward by President Obama. There have been a few illuminating incidents about this issue which I wish to highlight in this entry. My affection and admiration [...]

Beyond The Echo Chamber

The President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board

Chairman
Paul Volcker
Staff Director and Chief Economist
Austan Goolsbee
Members
William H. Donaldson, Chairman, SEC (2003-2005)
Roger W. Ferguson, Jr., President & CEO, TIAA-CREF
Robert Wolf, Chairman & CEO, UBS Group Americas
David F. Swensen, CIO, Yale University
Mark T. Gallogly, Founder & Managing Partner, Centerbridge Partners L.P.
Penny Pritzker, Chairman & Founder, Pritzker Realty Group
Jeffrey R. [...]

“I Screwed Up”

President Barack Obama acting as a responsible leader that he is… Admittance of a mistake and willingness to highlight and correct it is crucial in earning and keeping the trust of those who invested so much confidence and hope in him.

Asleep at the Inauguration

You would think that the honorable Justice Clarence Thomas would find in him the strength to at least stay awake through the inauguration speech. Well, if you thought that, you would be wrong. Thanks to this high resolution photography on that historic day, you can have a glorious view of a people attentively hanging onto [...]

Barack Obama: The Underestimated Chess Player

I have come to realize that a number of actions President Barack Obama takes require meditative reflection in order to grasp the full measure of the intention and desired outcome behind them. The hyperventilated punditry, which passes for media and analysis these days and has been so common place in the past some odd years, [...]

Inauguration in Photographs

It is no surprise to most, who frequent these pages, that I am particularly fond of how well folks at The Boston Globe put photo-essays together. Previous examples can be found here and here. They continue to impress. Photographs from the inauguration can be found here:

He Stood

He stood
beaming hope
on a day icy cold
preaching truth.
He stood
with a nation
tall and proud
born again
vivacious and free
basking in memories golden.
He stood
with echoes of past
on shifting sand
a union
built on blood
of distant shores
in suffering shed.
He stood
with a people brave
seekers of liberty
free and gallant
in pursuit of happy.
He stood
with humanity
of corners of the world
yearning liberation
freedom and food.
He stood
the 44th president
confident [...]

Obama’s Promise

Via The Huffington Post, the crystallization of President Obama’s promise, in the words of a seventh grader:

Dejanae Ware: I’m thinking right now that if America can change, so can I. I can change my behavior, my attitude. I can make so many improvements. Like Barack, I am going to be somebody. I, too, will [...]

In the Sense of Time

In the sense of time I die
I die cell by cell
and piece by piece
destined for a life mortal
in war and peace.
Yet I breath
knowledge I absorb
expressions of self
in spite of death.
In the sense of time we die
yet dreams of a preacher
live on to see
a destiny fulfilled
a changed generation
and a nation perfected.
The hope distilled
of pain and despair
seeing [...]

Life and Fractional Distillation

Fractional distillation is a process by which crude oil is extracted from the belly of the Earth, refined and desegregated into its multiple components.  A more elaborate explanation about the process is found in the video above. The topic I wish to discuss about is far from the actual process of [...]

Yearning for Levitation

In the physical sense, levitation is a defiance of nature. It is a defiance of gravity; a force that is as powerful as any keeping us firmly aground and ensuring the working order of the small and grandiose stretching out to the heavenly bodies. Then, there is also levitation in the emotional sense. I am [...]

Mightier than the Sword

Time has a photo-essay entitled “Obama’s Nation of Hope” by Christopher Morris. The following photograph grabbed my attention. In one simple image the transcendental ideal that is America is shown being breathed into life from a historical giant, Abraham Lincoln, to a boy who firmly retains his balance while gazing higher up; the continuity of [...]

The Utopian African Way That Is As Real As Barack Obama Is African

You can imagine my surprise, given my take on the current state of leadership in Africa, when I learned that Archbishop Desmond Tutu believes:
Obama himself embodies the best African tribal values. Remarking on Obama’s dignity, patience, and inclusiveness, Tutu noted that these traits reflect “the African in him.”
The African in him is the one who [...]

The Job Impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan

Via Ezra’s blog, the following is a graph showing the projected job impact of The American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan, which is outlined in this report by Christina Romer, the Chair-designate of the Council of Economic Advisers, and Jared Bernstein, from the Office of the Vice President-elect. It is certain that with or without the [...]

On New Year Resolutions

This is the time of the year when we start discovering that we have set unrealistic expectations for ourselves. It is the time when that new year resolution that was set in the spirit of excitement and desire for self-improvement slowly slips from the grasp of reality. It is the time for an awakening; a [...]

Obama: After Four Years

Take a look at the following image to see what President-elect Obama is projected to look like after four years in office. It turns out the toll of the stress of the job causes presidents to age twice as fast, according to Dr. Michael Roizen, a chief wellness officer at the Cleveland Clinic.
…as the years [...]

The Paradox of Conventional Wisdom

There is a surging interest in tapping into the collective wisdom of a group. Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations, one book summarizes it in a title. The idea behind such thoughts is that the sum of the collection of [...]

The Making of a President: Interpretations

I would not dare add my words next to those of the seminal speeches of Barack Obama shown below in condensed word cloud representation with the exclusion of common words in the English language. It is very striking to note that each of these speeches have a particular and unmistakable message and theme as exemplified in [...]

The Making of a President: Seminal Obama Speeches in Word Cloud Representation

Portraits: Youthful Obama

Along with their story about the selection of Barack Obama as the person of the year, Time has pictures of him taken in 1980 by Lisa Jack, a then-20-year-old-aspiring-photographer.

Chance Encounter
In 1980, when Obama was a freshman at Occidental College in Los Angeles, he was approached by an aspiring photographer named Lisa Jack, who asked him [...]

The Confidence Man

Below is an extract from a blog entry posted by Amy Sullivan at Swampland, on August 29, 2008, that I thought was an accurate assessment and reflects some of the sentiment I described in the previous post. I am quoting it here in its entirety for your reading pleasure:
You’d think we’d remember by now. Obama and his [...]

Barack Obama

This is a thought put together much later than almost all has been said about the person of Barack Obama and the significance of his rise to the highest office in the land. As my former teacher would say, it is better late than never. What pushed me even more to jot down my thoughts on this [...]