A commentary on the subject of unconscious racism ........

Image via WikipediaI wanted to share this with everyone. I wish I knew the source. Hopefully everything in it is accurate. You never know with un-sourced emails, but if anyone knows differently about any of the facts listed here, please let me know. Obviously there are negative things about Obama left out and positive things about McCain left out, but the idea is to compare the type of scrutiny and judgment people often place on minorities. I think the article does a great job of making people realize the types of double standards that still exist and the way stereotypes can influence not only people's individual lives, but the entire country and world!

It's truly sad that the color of someone's skin even crosses people's minds anymore. We unfortunately have a long way to go in this country, but there is still hope and progress being made! After all, we wouldn't even be talking about this if Obama wasn't the first African American to come this close to the US presidency! All I an say is that with McCain/Palin as the alternative, I have put all my hope in Obama!

Please read and pass this on:

A commentary on the subject of unconscious racism ........ What if things were switched around?

• What if the Obama's had brought five children onto the stage, including a three month old infant and an unwed, pregnant teenage daughter?
• What if John McCain was a former president of the Harvard Law Review?
• What if Barack Obama finished fifth from the bottom of his graduating class?
• What if McCain had only married once and Obama was a divorcee?
• What if Obama was the candidate who left his first wife after a severely disfiguring car accident?
• What if Obama had met his second wife in a bar and had a long affair while he was still married?
• What if Michelle Obama was the wife who not only became addicted to painkillers, but also acquired them illegally through her charitable organization, narrowly avoiding a prison sentence after being represented by a top lawyer and causing a doctor employed by her to lose his license?
• What if Cindy McCain graduated from Harvard?
• What if Obama had been a member of the Keating Five? (The Keating Five were five United States Senators accused of corruption in 1989, igniting a major political scandal as part of the larger Savings and Loan crisis of the late 1980s and early 1990s. The five senators were accused of improperly intervening in 1987 on behalf of Charles H. Keating, Jr., chairman of the Lincoln Savings and Loan Association, which was the target of a regulatory investigation by the Federal Home Loan Bank Board (FHLBB). Lincoln Savings and Loan collapsed in 1989, at a cost of over $3 billion to the federal government. Some 23,000 Lincoln bondholders were defrauded and many elderly investors lost their life savings. The substantial political contributions that Keating had made to each of the senators, totaling $1.3 million, attracted considerable public and media attention. Senators John Glenn and John McCain were cleared of having acted improperly but were criticized for having exercised "poor judgment".)
• What if Obama had trouble reading from a Teleprompter?
• What if Obama was the one who had military experience that included discipline problems and a record of crashing seven planes?
• What if Obama was the one who was known to display publicly, on many occasions, a serious anger management problem?
• What if Michelle Obama's family had made their money from beer distribution?
  

This is what unconscious racism does. It distorts, rationalizes, and minimizes positive qualities in one candidate and emphasizes negative qualities in another when there is a color difference.


Educational Backgrounds



Barack Obama:

Columbia University - B.A. Political Science with a Specialization in International Relations

Harvard - Jurist Doctor (J.D.) Magna Cum Laude.



Joseph Biden:

University of Delaware - B.A. in History and B.A. in Political Science.

Syracuse University College of Law - Jurist Doctor (J.D.)



John McCain:

United States Naval Academy - Class rank: 894 of 899



Sarah Palin:

Hawaii Pacific University - 1 semester

North Idaho University - 2 semesters - Journalism

Matanuska-Susitna College - B.A. in Journalism

The not-so-rediculous "overhead projector" earmark

Image by oceandesetoiles via Flickr

Every time McCain brings up Obama's earmarks for an overhead projector being wasteful, my husband and I laugh. We've been to the amazing Adler Planitarium in Chicago that was budgeted for, and we can tell you straight from the horses mouth (the man running the gigantic star machine that projects the entire sky above you), that their machine is at the end of it's life. In fact, they can't even get replacement parts for it anymore. We can't get over how McCain tried to portray the machine as your run-of-the-mill classroom transparency projector - ha!

Please read the following from an article on Wired Magazine to hear the real story:

During the Wednesday night debate, McCain once again brought up the issue of the $3 million "projector" that Obama asked appropriators for in 2007 as an example of an egregious earmark request. The "projector," it turns out, is Chicago's Adler Planetarium Sky Theater Projector, which is a complex piece of equipment used for public education purposes, and it was in severe need of an upgrade.

Obama never managed to land the money for the planetarium. But that's beside the point.

Numerous scientists, most notably the late Stephen Jay Gould, have said that it was public outings with the family to science museums as children that inspired them to go into the field.

After McCain made the same comment during the previous debate, the Adler Planetarium's chief Paul Knappenberger himself noted that the theater presents "an inspiring opportunity to get students interested in science, interested in math."

Great and Not So Great Animal Protection Charities

Image via WikipediaThose of you who are regular visitors to the Friendster social networking site and other popular websites are probably familiar with the animal cruelty prevention ads by WSPA. Since I'm a big supporter of animal rights (both protecting endangered species and preventing all forms of cruelty) I thought I'd check out the charity on Charity Navigator to see how they rated. Unfortunately they only got 2 out of 4 starts. It got me thinking that I should look for what organizations doing similar work were rated as. I found a fantastic international organization doing lots of great work with a 4 star rating.

Please check out The International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW). I'm seriously considering adding them to my charity list.

I do think that WSPA should receive credit for making such prominent and catching ads. They really pull people in to helping the cause. It's just disappointing that they have such a low efficiency rating. Their executive and other employee compensations are ridiculously high compared to the much larger and better funded IFAW. Hopefully WSPA will work to improve this and help end the cruelty for more animals!

It's unbelievable how cruel and nasty people can be to our fellow mortals! I hope you will read more about what they do and how you can help!

Other great organizations for both animal and human welfare are:

• Conservation International (See their Charity Navigator Report)
• Human Rights Watch (See their Charity Navigator Report)
• Oceana (See their Charity Navigator Report)
• Defenders of Wildlife (See their Charity Navigator Report)
• Doctors Without Borders (See their Charity Navigator Report)
  

and of course many more!