The day Obama gives his acceptance speech as the Democratic nominee for the President of the United States at the Democratic Convention on August 28, 2008 will be the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King's "I Have A Dream" speech.

A few weeks after Obama takes the oath of office as our next President, we will be celebrating the 200th birthday of Abraham Lincoln.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...

The symbolism of these historic events coinciding is too momentous to ignore.

I find genetics and genealogy fascinating.  I think there's so much to explore in the area of how much our genetic makeup contributes to our personalities/tendencies throughout our lives as opposed to our upbringing.

With that, I found it incredibly intriguing that Barack Obama's lineage has ties to quite an impressive list of leaders (regardless of whether they were good leaders):

We are a Jewish nation.  We are a Buddhist nation.  We are a Muslim nation, Hindu nation.  And we are a nation of atheists and non-believers.

Obama said this at the end of his interview in the Compassion Forum when asked, (paraphrasing), what is your response to those who say religion has far too much influence in public life?

He said religion and religious metaphors have a place in the public square (i.e. pulic discourse), but then he went on to say...

ABC reports:

February 20, 2008 8:49 AM

This morning brings the news that the campaign of Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, has launched a new website where they are announcing how they are officially preparing to make the case that the rules of the Democratic nomination process should be changed.

More below.

With the recent diary claiming the NYT's has Hillary Clinton ahead in the delegate count by 912 to Obama's 741, it's time the DNC took over the delegate count in this very closely contested race.

So far, the delegate counting is all over the place.  

Just got home from seeing Obama at the Universal Amphitheater.  Was looking for a diary on it, and I can't find one, so guess it's up to me.

Let me just start off by saying, this event was fun.  I don't normally think of political rallies as fun.  They're informational and can be motivating or inspiring, but fun?  Eh, not really.

In fact, the first time I saw Obama was in Crenshaw last spring.  Now, that was pretty much like a typical political rally.  This time, it was a rock concert.  Literally.

As RJ Eskow noted in his blog today on the HuffPost, there was a very disingenous blog post today in the NYT's political blog The Caucus.

Patrick Healy, the Caucus' blogger, quoted a "fundraising analyst" who said,

"Clinton’s blow-away third quarter fundraising total is likely to have, among other things, a profound psychological effect on voters," Mr. Panagopoulos said. "It will give the impression of growing Clinton strength — both in terms of dollars and number of donors."

"Obama also raised impressive sums," he added, "but he may be seen as languishing relative to previous quarters. Obama’s lackluster third quarter intake, relative to previous quarters, reflects, at least in part, waning enthusiasm for his candidacy and diminishing prospects for an Obama victory."

More below

My sister just doesn't know what to do, and neither do I.  My nephew will be 16 in January, and he wants to drop out of High School.

On the front page of WaPo's online version (it's page A15 of tomorrow's print version), there's an article about how a growing number of Congress Critters are starting to blog, either by hosting their own blogs on their websites, posting articles on the Huffington Post or creating diaries on "the populuar liberal blog Daily Kos."

As I did the other day here, I'm posting the emails I receive from my good friend in Montgomery, AL who has volunteered with the Red Cross to help Katrina evacuees.  She has also taken in a couple with a very traumatized pet.

What I found particularly troubling was her comment about FEMA at the end of her update. The agency's performance so far has been beyond shocking.  

Entire email posted below.

A good friend of mine who lives on a military base in Montgomery, AL (I believe her husband is in the Air Force, but it may be the Army...he flies fighter jets) and who volunteered with the Red Cross after the hurricane hit has been sending me emails of her situation there, which I've been forwarding to friends and family, who, in turn, have shown great interest in them.

So, I thought the dkos community might also be interested.

About my friend:  she's the biggest bleading heart liberal I've ever met, and that says a lot.  She's also a HUGE dog-lover, constantly rescuing dogs from the pound and finding homes for them.  She and her husband were, until a few months ago, stationed in France.

Emails below the fold.

Wow, maybe there really is a sea change going on here.

Just watched KNBC 4's report on the vigils in the Los Angeles area.

It focused on the vigil in Studio City on Ventura Blvd and Laurel Cyn, which by the look of it was HUGE.  (They were expecting over 600.)  They interviewed Richard Dreyfuss and some other actor I did not recognize, who had joined the vigil.  They also showed a bit of the band that was there, singing a tribute to Cindy.

The one counter protester they interviewed on the segment had only this to offer: "I just think we should support our president no matter what."  

They also showed footage of the vigil in Huntington Beach, which seemed to be equally large.

The thought for this poll occurred to me after answering Kos' Student Roll Call last week.

What I noticed was an utter lack of business school or MBA school students responding.  Granted, the thread in LONG, so I may have missed one or two, but overall, Kossak students appear not to be of the business school variety.  

Which leads me to conclude one of two things:

1)    Kossak business students are too embarrassed to admit it; or
2)    The true cultural divide in this country is between corporations/businesses and the rest of us.

If my first hypothesis is true, let me say to all you business type Kossaks:  WE NEED YOU.  Do not be ashamed!

If you missed it, or don't have cable (like me), here's a link to the video of Olbermann's piece on
Democrats in Exile inspired by Georia10's recent  Democratic Church Purge Part II Diary.

Many thanks from me to the DU poster who provided the link, since I don't have cable.

The member Olbermann interviewed said he votes as a Christian, and not as a Republican or Democrat.  While he voted for Bush, he does not feel it is up to his pastor or the church to dictate for whom he should vote.

He said that at a special meeting he did not attend but heard about later (which, he admits, is hearsay), the pastor said the church was a political church, and if members weren't on his political side, they needed to leave.  At which point nine members got up and walked out, to the applause of others.  

The member ended by stating that he couldn't understand how the women of his church would allow  men to tell them how to vote after they fought so hard for the right to vote in the first place.

Hmmm.  Sounds like there's more to explore in this story.

Arianna Huffington is set to launch an interactive, Celebrity Blog this May 9th.

Contributers will include:  Walter Cronkite, David Mamet, Nora Ephron, Warren Beatty, James Fallows, Vernon E. Jordan Jr., Maggie Gyllenhaal, Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., Diane Keaton, Norman Mailer and Mortimer B. Zuckerman.

Tell me it ain't so!