Yes, Barack.

For just under a year this Blog has been silent. Silent on politics, silent on culture, just silent. There has been great change in my life, and I anticipate even more in the few months ahead. And with change as a theme for this Blog, I want to officially endorse one Presidential candidate, and suggest you take a look at him as soon as you are able and ready to be inspired. Yes, Barack.

So back to my silence. I haven't been ambivalent. I have been active. Sometimes it's better to just focus on what you can change and affect by doing it, and time for reflection comes later. As many of you know, I am a high school teacher. Most recently, a little experiment I had been nurturing to get off the ground for three years (with the help of some amazing students), finally sat up and flew. After years of organizing, a club at my school raised money and brought Kenyan exchange students and a teacher to my school. The impact was undeniable. The Kenyans overwhelmed us with their openness, grace, and thankfulness to the opportunities their travels gave them. The many of us who spent any time with them were simultaneously reminded of our own privileges that we take for granted and also enlightened by what they saw in us. One of the Kenyans said, “You have everything you need, everything you don’t need, and then you have even more.”

Before the Kenyan’s arrival, I was caught up in creating new class curriculum and paying close attention to the wonders of raising a nearly two-year old. Any parent will tell you that having your first child makes you hyper-aware of change. Changes in his eating, changes in his vocabulary, and changes in his mobility. I like to brag. Its unflattering in parents, but do forgive us. My twenty-two month year-old can count to twenty in English and almost as high in Spanish. What kind of population change can our country expect? I am counting on my son being bilingual. I am also putting my hopes in a multiracial candidate for President because I WANT to live in a diverse America. Yes, Barack.


Swirling at the edges of American life has been a growing sense of unease about the economy. Gas prices drive the conversations in my classrooms about solving "climate change." Here’s my take on that. Hey, if the high cost of gas has us thinking about global warming, you can call it whatever you want. But what I like about one of the candidates on this issue is a commitment to building a new economy around green technologies. Yes, Barack.

George W. Bush has an approval rating approaching 30%. He should congratulate himself. He has a higher approval rating in his own country than his country has in the eyes of most of the world. Whether or not you care that the rest of the world DOES NOT LIKE US, is in some ways, a reflection on your lack of a desire to travel much. You laugh. Maybe I would join you if the dollar was worth anything. At least then when I left the country to travel and somebody told me they didn’t like me because I am American, I could whip out a few Dead Presidents to impress them, but somehow I think they’d rather take Euros. One Presidential Candidate wants to change the impression the rest of the world has about us. He wants to invest in super-sizing not our war machine, but our rather forgotten-about peace machine. You might recall them not so long ago…. The Peace Corps. A new generation of ambassadors for peace and development is waiting for us to reintroduce ourselves to the world, if we just get it right in the next election. Yes, Barack.

Finally, and let’s be honest, a little self-serving, one candidate would like to increase, even double, teacher’s salaries. He wants changes in education. He wants to attract professionals in all professions off the treadmill to self, self-improvement, and offer them the opportunity to mentor and teach for some other’s self-improvement. By flooding the teacher’s ranks with the highest quality teachers and giving them a salary to impress the youngsters in terms of salary expectation, why not improve our educational system to create opportunity for more Americans? Yes, Barack.

So I am changing my stance from silence. I am doing so because change can be inspiring. Very Inspiring. Yes, for the last time, Barack.