June 20, 2016

Bernie's influence, his ideas, his suggestions, his work

will remain in our society while the bulk of his supporters continue to work for the goals he set out for us. Much has been done already that people do not realize.

300+ people are now running for elective office all over the Country on Bernie's platform. They are not taking corporate money to finance their elections. Additionally, when Bernie asked for a call for action for supporters sincerely interested in making a change to consider running for public office, approximately 7,000 people signed up at his website to get the information he was giving potential candidates to organize a campaign. This was just last week.

There is a political party getting up and running for the last year dedicated to the principle of removing from elected office those who represent the wealthy and corporate interests as opposed to the benefit of the people. They have a plan and they are implementing it as I type this post.

Bernie Sanders' fingerprints will be all over this society in changes we will see made slowly over the next few years. People who are now more aware of what they can do to change this country will step up to the plate and start doing.

I feel we owe Bernie Sanders so much for just showing people the way. He is an incredible politician and well as a great humanitarian.

Sam

June 8, 2016

You know I have been sitting here analyzing the Guardian website (live results voting)

and I just don't see what all the crowing has been about.

First of all, I think Hillary jumped to a big lead in California because they counted the mail in votes, which many of her supporters do. Over the last hour as I tediously watched, her percentage has very slowly been dropping and Sanders has very slowly been inching up. When last I looked, she was at 59.7 and he was at 39.3 with 36 percent of the vote counted. I don't know what percentage of the overall vote the mail-in constitutes, but at this point, I don't know how anyone knows how California ends up. Now this from looking at the Guardian website.

She did do well in NJ as expected, winning by 26.6 points when I last looked, and that was with 99.1 percent of the vote in. That is about what was projected.

She won New Mexico by 3 points. That was one that could have gone either way. They both hoped to take it, she did but only by 3. Won't make a big difference.

Montana Bernie won as was expected. When last I looked with 77.4 percent of the vote he won by about 5.4; don't know what the final numbers will be but that is respectable and it has been called for him.

Bernie hoped to win both the Dakotas -- he lost SD by 2 points but won ND by 38.6 points. The Dakotas gave him a good night!

So we just have to have wait for California to finish and we do have the comfort of knowing the election is being monitored by the Election Integrity group since there are no exit polls. So I think it too early to tell if that early AP maneuver hurt him or not.

But I am proud of Bernie Sanders performance, and I am proud to be his supporter. Nice going, Senator Sanders.

Sam

June 4, 2016

We have lost "The Greatest" but his legacy will endure forever

I first saw him dancing across the Olympic boxing ring when I was very young, and I could not take my eyes off him. He was mesmerizing. As a young sports enthusiast, I loved basketball, volleyball, many competitive activities but absolutely not boxing. It was just too violent. Yet here I was watching a man dancing across the boxing stage "floating like a butterfly but stinging like a bee." I followed his career the rest of my life, and he became a superhero to me in many, many ways.

Not the least of these ways by any means was his willingness to protest the Vietnam War by refusing to serve. What type of person does something like that when he or she is at the top of his game and stands to lose everything? A humanitarian does that.

In 2008, during the election, I wrote a piece and posted it here. It received some attention away from this site. I knew this when the election was called, and Chris Matthews remarked to the panel words to the effect that Obama was floating like a butterfly but stinging like a bee, and they all laughed. The piece I wrote compared similarities between these two great men who came out of nowhere and against all odds ended up sitting on top of the world.

I would like to share that thread with you in case you missed it. Here are the first few paragraphs and a link to the rest. I still have the two pictures mentioned in the thread proudly hanging on my hallway wall, and I count them as true treasures.

Sam

From: Political Sporting Comments from Inside the Beltway, May 17, 2008

He danced across the Olympic boxing stage more quickly than a tae kwon do tornado, whipping down to earth as if a killer whirlpool. So graceful was his footwork across the ring, Michael Jackson must have gazed at the sight of him in open awe. His punches were lightning-bolt swift and just as electrifying. He fought the bruising battle like a giant smashing a bug with a swat too quickly to be observed with the naked human eye. His float like a butterfly, sting like a bee motto could not have been more fitting. He was mesmerizing – this man to be known as Muhammad Ali.

And so I watched from across the room with unabashed thrill at the sight of a man participating in a sport I had vigorously avoided all my young life. It was simply too barbaric a thing - that sport called boxing -- for me to observe. Yet here I stood in my Republican father's living room, saying "look at him, look at him!" The man from Tennessee watched momentarily and then responded, "He's no Joe Lewis." "But that's why I like him," I excitedly yelled.

I followed the career of Muhammad Ali the rest of his professional life. As a young female who migrated from Knoxville to Washington, my ears were roundly boxed at times by all my Southern family members. "What do you possibly see in him - this guy who's going to ruin boxing?" was their constant admonishment.

As his career started to take off, I found myself some years later just a few short miles from where he set up his training camp to prepare to fight Jimmy Young. By then, I was married to an artist, who himself practiced tae kwon do by night, and indulged in photography with a gifted eye. This man I married had zero interest in the boxing world. But knowing of my fascination with Muhammad Ali, he came home to tell me one night of the training camp just down the road from where we lived.

"Would you like to go -- I could take some pictures for you," he asked.

Later that evening, there my artist mate was at ringside, snapping away with the press photographers. Roll after roll of film he took. It was simply one of the best nights of my life. When the film was developed, he asked me to pick two that he would enlarge. Today, these two are among my most valued treasures. One of them is a close up of a young Muhammad Ali. Every muscle from the waist up is captured in one of the photographs, showing beads of perspiration dripping from the ripples of those incredible muscles after his dazzling workout in the ring. The other is a full body shot which showcases the perfect position of the man in action, pulverizing the leather of a full body bag, with the bag in full swing into the air, and the body of the boxer throwing a perfectly-executed punch. Both are simply beautiful.

More at: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x6005693

I believe we will never see the likes of someone like him who through a myriad of avenues taught us all a very important life lesson: it doesn't matter what people say about you, it doesn't matter what people think about you, but when you are knocked down, you have to always get back up and keep following that personal road to your destiny. And that is how one becomes "The Champ."

Peace to the soul and to the family of the Great Ali. We will never forget and the love will never die.

Sam