grace notes

Families USA will select one talented and motivated candidate to fill the Wellstone Fellowship: http://www.familiesusa.org/about/wellstone-fellowship.html

Through this 12-month fellowship, Families USA hopes to expand the pool of talented social justice advocates from underrepresented economic, racial and ethnic minority groups, including black/African American, Latino, Native American, and Asian and Pacific Islander communities. The goals of the Wellstone Fellowship program are three-fold:

1. To address disparities in access to health care;
2. To inspire Wellstone Fellows to continue to work for social justice throughout their lives; and
3. To increase the number and racial and ethnic diversity of up-and-coming social justice advocates and leaders.

If you know of anyone who’d be interested, please share this information with them. Thanks! -G

Popularity: 4% [?]

A few people have asked me how the SleepOut went this past weekend. All I have to say is, thank Science Matthew arrived there first, because I would’ve been livid at what happened.

We basically disqualified ourselves from the SleepOut because:
1) Smoking wasn’t allowed…and we’re smokers.
2) Drinking wasn’t allowed…and we’re drinkers.
3) Pets weren’t allowed…and Matthew had D’Arcy with him (the new Caroline Collective puppy!).
4) You weren’t allowed to leave the park until 8am the next day - at all - and we’re averse to being locked up.
5) It was freezing out, and we didn’t want anyone on our team to get sick.

We also had a moral objection to the fact that NO HOMELESS PEOPLE WERE ALLOWED IN THE PARK!

All the acts canceled, it was freezing, and Andrew Zarnavas and Clory Martin were playing at Leon’s Lounge; so we opted to put the sleeping bags away and go see them perform. All’s well that ends well.

From the Houston Chronicle (http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/chronicle/6114464.html)

“Someone once said racism is like cancer: It’s never totally wiped out, it’s in remission.”

If so, America’s remission lasted until the morning of Nov. 5.

The day after the vote hailed as a sign of a nation changed, black high school student Barbara Tyler of Marietta, Ga., said she heard hateful Obama comments from white students, and that teachers cut off discussion about Obama’s victory.

Tyler spoke at a press conference by the Georgia chapter of the NAACP calling for a town hall meeting to address complaints from across the state about hostility and resentment. Another student, from a Covington middle school, said he was suspended for wearing an Obama shirt to school Nov. 5 after the principal told students not to wear political paraphernalia.

The student’s mother, Eshe Riviears, said the principal told her: “Whether you like it or not, we’re in the South, and there are a lot of people who are not happy with this decision.”

Channel 13 did *something* right this week: it featured the Recipe for Success Foundation, a non-profit organization whose mission is to combat childhood obesity and encourage long-term health by helping children understand, appreciate, and eat more healthful food.

The piece shows Carlos Meltzer, Director of Media and Community Outreach, teaching children how to make healthy choices as they prepare dishes: http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/video?id=6501722

From the Recipe4Success site - http://www.recipe4success.org:

Our Program is focused on integrating nutrition vertically throughout curriculum and after school programs, and operates in selected H.I.S.D. elementary schools.

We train parent-volunteers; connect them to a broad spectrum of community resources—including our Chefs in Schools series; and mentor a city-wide collaboration to affect change. We created a model that will soon be replicated in other schools and communities in Houston and across the country.

Now that he’s made history, can Obama deliver on his promise of bringing our country together? Or, the real question: will the partisan hacks around the country let him?

After his acceptance speech Tuesday night, I was inspired by his hope that we can move beyond being a collection of blue states and red states and, instead, stand together as one United States of America. After weeks of hearing about “pro-American” parts of the country (which implies there are “anti-American” parts), and being hammered by divisive “us v. them” rhetoric, I feel that it will be a long struggle to heal those wounds.

McCain’s campaign staff did such a good job of painting Obama as anti-American, socialist, and a terrorist sympathizer that when he gave his concession speech, the crowd booed. To McCain’s credit, he tried to quiet them by saying Obama had been duly elected President, and, as such, would be his President. The speed at which he made this 180-turnaround from smearing Obama to praising him was incredible to watch.