What if there was no "Rush" to guide the GOP?

In no way is this blog post a secret hope or desire for the demise of any human being; however, it is speculative based on the hypothetic demise of a human being: Rush Limbaugh. As a sidenote before this entry begins, it should be known also that after the demise of any strong, powerful leader not much really changes. Someone else steps into his/her place, usually doing a better job than their predecesor.
The BBC just posted that Mr. Limbaugh was taken to the hospital in Hawaii recently. What would happen if the millions of people that listen to his Extreme Right Talk Show everyday were to not be able to listen any more? What would happen if the de facto voice of the Grand Ol' Party were to not be around any more?
Would Glenn Beck take his place? Do they both rule the same political kingdom?
There is something deeper here and it is the age-old extreme right vs. extreme left debate, a debate that never really has been and never really will be a debate for the simple reason that it lacks basic verities that guide a true debate. People seeking a balanced vision should read the BBC News or CS Monitor as well as listen to both Beck and Limbaugh as well as Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann. The balance that comes from a distillation of these sources of news/politics/entertainment should give the average thinking person a well-grounded point of view on any one issue. I cannot help, though, but wonder how the more left-leaning and right-leaning news sources contort truth so masterfully well?! Pretty well done, I might say.
(Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8435727.stm)

Virginia and North Carolina Ignorance

Some unbelievable results came out of a recent poll taken by the Public Policy Polling, a non-partisan polling group based in Raleigh, N.C. The Washington Post and Newsobserver.com both covered the poll shedding light on some numbers that some might find shocking.

The lie:

A poll done in Virginia showed that "of 579 likely voters queried between July 31 and Aug. 3, showed that 74 percent of those people who identified themselves as Democrats thought Mr. Obama was born in the United States, while 41 percent of those who said they did not think he was born in the United States were Republicans." -Source: Washington Times

A poll done in North Carolina showed that "Barely half of N.C. voters believe President Obama was born in the United States, according to a poll released Tuesday. Public Policy Polling surveyed 749 North Carolina voters Aug. 4-10, and found that 54 percent believe that Obama was born in the United States. Twenty-six percent of those surveyed said they do not believe Obama was born in the U.S., and 20 percent said they were not sure. The survey found that only 24 percent of Republican voters in North Carolina believe Obama was born in the U.S." Source- NewsObserver.com

The truth:

President Barack Obama was born on August 4, 1961 at the Kapi'olani Medical Center for Women & Children in Honolulu, Hawaii, United States, to Stanley Ann Dunham, an American of mainly English descent from Wichita, Kansas, and Barack Obama, Sr., a Luo from Nyang’oma Kogelo, Nyanza Province, Kenya. Source- Wikipedia.org and Biography.com and Biography.com Video and WhiteHouse.gov

Let's spread the truth and not lies. Do your part.

"A Debate"- We can do better

From the Dictionary on my MacBookPro the word "debate" is defined as follows:

debate |diˈbāt|
noun
a formal discussion on a particular topic in a public meeting or legislative assembly, in which opposing arguments are put forward.
• an argument about a particular subject, esp. one in which many people are involved : the national debate on abortion | there has been much debate about prices.
verb [ trans. ]
argue about (a subject), esp. in a formal manner : the board debated his proposal | the date when people first entered America is hotly debated.
• [with clause ] consider a possible course of action in one's mind before reaching a decision : he debated whether he should leave the matter alone or speak to her.

The word "formal" is essential here in order for a debate to be properly called a debate, (if this definition is the one being used). I have been watching the amount of informalities and uncourteous and outright rude people standing up at these "meetings" and proposing their ideas. I have seen proper debates and do not remember any yelling. I do not remember any violent behavior. I do not remember the other side making T-shirts and signs with the opponent's face contorted to resemble Adolf Hitler. Let's do a little better.

You may be wondering why I am posting a definition of debate at this juncture of time; the reason is wrapped around our country's current "health care debate".

It has been quite eye opening how much people are fighting this reform bill. Personally, I am quite excited that people are coming out and questioning what is being proposed. What I am not excited about is the lack of "true debate." The false allegations-- euthanasia, death panels, having the government choose your health care/doctor for you, and the list goes on and on--are jaw dropping to anyone who is not being fed fear-based lies.

For anyone who is looking for an article that enumerates what this bill is really about, see Robert Pear's recent article from the 10th of August found in the New York Times. (There are some that discredit the NYTimes automatically due to the growing allegedly-biased reporting going on; however, this article has been referenced by many critics as a solid and unbiased perusal and explanation of the plan the Obama Administration is presenting). Click here to link to the article.

Another thing that is quite eye opening is the amount of people that are being fed overly-nationalistic lies from the FAR right. You just have to listen to this guy for a little while to realize this. Click here for Glenn Beck's argument against Obama.

Anyone looking for a wonderful "Special Comment" about the Health Care Debate, please tune into the following video.


From Republicans to "Blue Dog Democrats", this is a great argument against our "leaders" serving the corporations and not the people.

Ok, enough said. Enjoy and keep on questioning.

Must needed diplomacy at its best!

President Obama speaks in Cairo, Egypt, June 4, 2009.

Please watch this and comment as you see fit.

Jobs That Affect Needed Change

Look at these job postings on the amazing website Change.org. It is impressive the amount of opportunities waiting for willing workers to take advantage of them.
This country is calling on everyone to give of themselves as much as they possibly can. It will only be together that we successfully come out on top from our financial, social, and political issues that are currently being dealt with.

nonprofit and social enterprise jobs

New Music Website Up

I would like you to check out my new website that just became public today!

Click here to go to the Official Website of Jon Hinthorne

Michelle + Barack = Two World Leaders

Not many people can doubt the exciting nature of the recent G-20 Summit of which Barack Obama was such a huge part. After watching all of the television debates and coverage of the events as well as reading article after article, it is hard to deny that the world has been waiting for a leader like President Obama for a long time now.
To judge a person's sincerity is near-impossible; however, the facial looks and body language on each of the worlds' leaders were quite obviously full of hope, sincerity and positivity. Their comments also were filled with a genuine sense of gratitude and appreciation for Obama's policies and actions thus far in his first 70 days in office.
What was most impressive to a lot of the people was the role that Obama's wonderful wife played in this trip to Europe. Michelle Obama has and most certainly will continue to grace the world with her sincere and unconditional sense of love and respect for everyone she encounters. Along side of her husband, they rival the best of the worlds' most prominent statesmen and stateswomen. Her emotional and eloquent speech that she gave at the girl's school that she visited in England is proof that she is not trying to win political points, but rather trying to live the egalitarianism and compassion that she preaches.
Lastly, in this blog entry, there will be a short discussion of Obama's character. If we look at what is going on in the world--a horrific and down-sliding world economy, a handful of full scale and guerrilla wars, and a few resilient and longstanding religious fights/problems just to name a few--it is quite amazing how calm and collected President Obama always is. Each time Obama is on television, on the radio, or delivering weekly addressed at www.whitehouse.gov, Obama proves time and time again that he will help lead our country and the rest of the world in transcending the issues it is powerful dealing with. He has plenty of people that believe he is doing the absolute wrong things and quite frankly a group of people that hate everything about him; hence, he has reason enough to throw a few bones of his own. The GOP has gotten close to not voting for a single one of his proposed policies. That is just enough to maybe getting a bit worked up; however, Obama continues to transcend that pithy game called politics and will continue to work day after day, hour after hour, at digging us out of our economic, social, and political holes that we have dug ourselves into.
The world has been in great need of a resilient, graceful, compassionate, and diplomatic world leader. We now have one for the next four years; better yet, this leader has come with one of the most incredible woman in the world: his wife, Michelle.

Will and Deni McIntyre Use My Music

The world renowned photographers, Will and Deni McIntyre recently used my song "Hoping" from my second CD called "Elation" for a Montage video they were doing for a project for a professional group in Raleigh, NC. Enjoy!

Click here to watch the video.

Patience

It has been a little while since I have last written. My topic for this post is patience.
The news has been filled with critics and outright disagreeances (both from "Blue Dog" Democrats and Republicans alike) of the approach President Obama is taking in tackling our massive economic problems.
My answer to their concerns is: Be patient.
Our problems in the economic sector are so multi-faceted that they will probably not see a huge turn around for a year, or possibly two years. I am no economist, but I do understand our economic issues to be not only multi-faceted, but also global problems. Our world is often in much more harsh recessions and depressions than we are here in the United States. Why is this important to note?
We must look at the US's connection to the world at all times and under all circumstances because of our "flat" our world is now (to borrow T. Freidman's term). The financial systems around the globe are so interconnected and interacting that this problem is just as a domestic one as a global one. With that being said, we must support the global markets and countries in their own efforts to pick up the pieces and dynamically regroup just as much as we are supporting our domestic efforts at home.
Patience, please. It is a virtue that people will find comforting in times of high stress levels and strong distastes for our government and/or financial system. Huge problems call for huge solutions. Furthermore, huge problems sometimes take a large amount of time to turn the problem around. We must look for opportunities amidst our tumultuous times.
Patience.

Bush's Sec. of Energy vs. Obama's Sec. of Energy: Oh, how different they are

Something prompted me to compare President George W. Bush's Secretary of Energy to our current one under President Barack Obama. The differences in their credentials are staggering.

Serving for President Bush's second term in office, Samuel W. Bodman appears to be more of a money man and less of an energy man. Graduating in 1961 from Cornell University with a B.S. in chemical engineering and then receiving his ScD from MIT in 1965, it looked like Bodman was on track to work in the chemical engineering sector. Plans changed as, after 6 years of teaching as an Associate Prof. at MIT, he became the "Technical Director of the American Research and Development Corporation, a pioneer venture capital firm. He and his colleagues provided financial and managerial support to scores of new business enterprises located throughout the United States." (Source-http://www.climatescience.gov/Library/bios/bodman.htm). From there, he started working for another financial firm, Fidelity Venture Associates, for which he later became the Chief Operating Officer.

Then, he was understandably asked to be the Secretary of Commerce for Bush's cabinet in 2001 and late the Deputy Secretary of Treasury in 2004. A money man it appears. Then, for the second term of President Bush, Bodman was appointed and unanimously confirmed as Secretary of Energy. History shows us that the alternative energy research and institutions were not at the top of the Bush Agenda in either his first of second terms in office. Maybe his appointments had something to do with this resistance to change; the leader of the Department of Energy was a financial giant not an energy giant.

Now, let's look at our current Secretary of Energy under President Obama: Steven Chu, the first Chinese-American to hold this position. Besides, Dr. Chu's degrees from University of Rochester and UC Berkeley, he is currently one of the leading, vocal scientific experts on moving our coal and oil world to alternative fuels and energies in an effort to combat Global Climate Change. I strongly recommend you read his autobiography on the Nobel Price website as it gives you a clear and profound understanding of where this extraordinary man comes from. Link to Autobiography

Among his accomplishments and prolific scholarly published articles are: founder of the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology at Stanford University, member of the Copenhagen Climate Council which helped create momentum for the upcoming 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, and co-winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1997 for his development of methods to cool and trap atoms using a laser's light.
Sources: http://www.good.is/?p=14784; http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1997/chu-autobio.html; http://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/cabinet/; http://chineseculture.about.com/od/thechinesediaspora/p/Stevenchu.htm

It was strange to me that the previous Secretary Bodman did so much less than Secretary Chu to lead the field of energy, but rather much to help the financial sector in his careers before becoming Sec. of Energy.

Many millions of people are elated about Obama's choices for his cabinet. Time will demonstrate how Dr. Steven Chu does in his newly appointed position. An educated thinking-person might surmise that our nation will finally become a leader in clean, 21st century, alternative, and sustainable energy! How delightful and comforting that the new Secretary of Energy is at the forefront of the science and technology sector working tirelessly to champion the fight against Global Climate Change.

Bookmark this new website!

Five minutes after President Obama was inaugurated into the Presidency of the United States of America, his old website of www.change.gov instantly became www.whitehouse.gov

Please put this new website as a bookmark that you check often and with a skeptical eye. He is calling for every citizen to stay informed and making it easier than ever to do so.

I am including this video as a reminder of the confidence and good hands that we now have as our nation's leader. He will not be perfect for everyone, but the fact that 100's of millions of people were watching him on Inauguration across the globe means that Obama and his administration must be doing quite a bit in the right direction. A direction leading the nation and the world closer to hope, peace, civil rights for all, cleaner and sustainable environment, and real economic growth.

January 24, 2009 Weekly Video Address by President Obama

थिस इस अमज़िंग ठाट इ कैन राइट इन हिन्दी विथौत क्नोविंग हिन्दी. This simply means: "This is amazing that I can write in Hindi without knowing Hindi."
A bit of amazement of the modern translating and language tools/technologies our friends at Google have come up with.
Could we have gone too far down the "technology rabbit hole"?

A speech for yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

I have included the speech for anyone's interest in watching again and/or locating parts they want to review. If you have not seen it yet, you are lightly scorned, and then politely urged to watch it right now. :)

Perfectly Said and Worth Repeating Regarding Human Rights (Prop 8)