The Audacity of Hope on Flickr

TheAlieness GiselaGiardino²³ says:

how funny, yesterday when I saw your photo and quotes of Obama, I had a glimpse of JFK... I wondered exactly the same: "Is him the next JFK?"

My self answer was: "I don´t know, it seems so, yet hopefully nowadays things are different from the cold war context, so his future is -and so of your nation- I think, brighter -in case he is a new JFK." =)
Posted 27 months ago. ( permalink )

Josh Thompson says:

Second photo of you and Obama. Will you make a set for this by the end of the campaign? :-)
Posted 27 months ago. ( permalink )

Eye-Appeal says:

Wow, how fortunate you are to meet him. I saw him on John Stewart today and was impressed with his articulate responses. It is nice how he wants to talk to the people personally in each state, he seems very sincere.
Posted 27 months ago. ( permalink )

drona says:

Running mate? :)
Posted 27 months ago. ( permalink )

nels1 says:

in terms of hope, he's definitely the next obi wan kenobi...
Posted 27 months ago. ( permalink )

biotron says:

more classic Zeligism :) all we need now are photos of you with the Pope, Osama bin Laden and Woody Allen *
Posted 27 months ago. ( permalink )

menlo says:

New Rebublic article...isn't that the publication that has a nasty habit of printing false information?
Posted 27 months ago. ( permalink )

Philosoap [deleted] says:

You know...I like the guy. Nice smile. Good tan. However, what's his stand on killing babies in utero? Just curious.
Posted 27 months ago. ( permalink )

jurvetson says:

menlo: Wait?! Are you saying that they did not do their fact checking... and so you're basically telling him "'you're no JFK"? ;-)

Sound similar to the NYT or any major pub?
Posted 27 months ago. ( permalink )

benjiman says:

philosoap, I'm more interested in his stand on killing Americans, Iraqis, Iranians, Syrians, etc etc... And on torturing the same.

If we treat the living this poorly then WTF does it matter how we treat the unborn? We're leaving them a shitbox of a planet at the rate we're going.

As far as I can see Barack is the only one from either party who is willing to think outside of the status quo, AND he has a shot at taking the prize. I reject Hilary primarily because we don't need any more dynasties.
Posted 27 months ago. ( permalink )

BenODen says:

I hope that all the primaries voters vote their hearts, not who they think could win... I really do like Obama, but Sen Clinton's lead over him is daunting, and confusing, considering her stand on many of the issues compared to the progressive's ideals.
Posted 27 months ago. ( permalink )

msamaclean © says:

Ms. Clinton seems to have more support than I expected, so far. This means if we who have our hopes in a new, fresh start with Obama, we need to get out there & take action now! But, my fear is that not enough Americans give a sh--!
Posted 27 months ago. ( permalink )

jurvetson says:

Quote of the day:

"Liberals had more brain activity and made fewer mistakes than conservatives when they saw a W"

Why did they pick W???? ;-)

This just in... from the LA TImes:

Exploring the neurobiology of politics, scientists have found that liberals tolerate ambiguity and conflict better than conservatives because of how their brains work.

liberals were ... 2.2 times as likely to score in the top half of the distribution for accuracy.

Based on the results, he said, liberals could be expected to more readily accept new social, scientific or religious ideas.

"There is ample data from the history of science showing that social and political liberals indeed do tend to support major revolutions in science,"
Posted 27 months ago. ( permalink )

Philosoap [deleted] says:

Interesting quotes from the LA Times. I imagine its true, however the devil, as they say, is in the details. Killing is a profound evil. I agree with Benjiman about the evil inherent in war, however I submit the greater evil is on those whose lives are ALL innocent potential. Our brightest minds are not being killed on the fields of Iraq. They're being killed in the wombs of their mothers.

To protest one life and ignore the other is morally repulsive. Mr. Obama may have all sorts of charming and endearing attributes but I will pass him by purely on his support for killing babies in utero.
Posted 27 months ago. ( permalink )

Josh Thompson says:

@philosoap: I think jurvetson's quotes might be of some relevance to your point. For me, abortion is a complicated issue. I don't like abortion (does anybody?), but it is more complicated for me than "We cannot tolerate abortion in any form." Illustrations of my point: It doesn't bother me for a second if a month-old pregnancy is aborted, killing a handful of human cells in the process. (Do you oppose fertility treatments?) However, I do get concerned about the idea of an abortion in the last month of pregnancy. But what if that last-minute abortion is the best chance of saving the mother's life?
It is a subtle and difficult task to draw legal lines in the face of these issues.

Choosing a politician to vote for can be a similarly subtle task. You don't like Obama (or Giuliani, etc presumably) because they are pro-choice. Would you prefer a president who opposes abortion, but preferring ideology over evidence, advocates abstinence-only sex ed and thus increases the rate of unwanted pregnancy? What if this same president carries his abstinence-only dogma over to his foreign aid policy, thus reducing the effectiveness of HIV-prevention programs in Africa?
I think it is short-sighted to evaluate politicians on one issue.

--
Seen in my recent comments. (?)
Posted 27 months ago. ( permalink )

TheAlieness GiselaGiardino²³ says:

What a complicated issue abortion is... one of those "Damned if you do, damned if you don´t" situations in life.

As a woman, the feelings I can assure you are a lot more complex in this regard. It involves our bodies and its health and transformations too. Something men can´t grasp. I can say that having faced the possibility of being pregnant from a relationship that was not meant to involve a commitment of such serious kind, I only wished that I had the legal freedom to choose whether to have "the accident", I mean "the baby", or going to a clinic and safely -without putting my life at risk-, act in consequence of the true facts that had happened: That I was expecting to have a baby, yes, but that in all truth it was an unfortunate accident.

Gladly this event in my life was nothing more than a great fear, for nothing happened in the end. I didn't have to make the decision. I perfectly understand too how deeply horrendous is to decide to stop a pregnancy... Yet, I also think that this world is more filled with "accidents", "unwanted outcomes" and "hostages" (women that get pregnant to retain their husbands, or couples that have kids to "save" their marriages, or give their lives "meaning") rather than welcomed children with bright outlooks of loving and happy lives ahead because their parents thoughtfully brought them to life. It´s very sad, but parents find it so very difficult to admit that having a child is a very selfish act... It´s almost never about the abstract, poetic "giving life", selfless act. Whether they act to fill a gap, to make a change, to do biologically "what they should", to bring "meaning", to avoid the fear of solitude... You don´t see a reflection being done like: "I am prepared to serve to the fulfillment of the development of the new life I will bring to this world? I am enough mature, secure, complete, strong? Do I have enough? Am I enough?" No. Future parents think of all the things that the new child will bring to THEM. So given this outlook, until I am not prepared to answer to the reflections I mention above about my own offspring, I will tend to be in favor of having the legal right to choose NOT TO do something I am not sure I am prepared for yet = motherhood.

(Let alone the sad cases in which the woman has been raped or pushed violently to have sex, something so very ordinary in daily human affairs...). As Josh put it, I think legal abortion is about freedom to choose. No-one would be forced to do it, yet neither not to do it.

My two cents on the subject, without thinking is "right", it´s just my personal feeling about it.
Posted 27 months ago. ( permalink )

Philosoap [deleted] says:

Josh: Thoughtful, and thought provoking response! (Yeah!) Also, pretty well-trod ground. Unfortunately, the realm of politicians and morality is filled with crevasses of subtlety (ahem). Politicians should, however, be able to rise above rhetoric and generalities and navigate the "Occam's Razor"-like qualities of representing the plurality while also representing the rarified atmosphere of societal ideals.

The difficulty for me arises around the spiritual gray areas of what we call a human. Obviously, this is difficult to quantify and equally difficult to create metrics around (arguably, the sinews of public policy). The same gray area occupied by intuition, emotion, and creativity. I choose NOT to define when a human becomes a human and would prefer to keep my hands innocent of "potential" murder if what we are calling a lump of human cells has the potentiality (at some other plane or level) of being fully human. (Physics alone can help inform us of whether the potential of a thing IS the thing.)

So, even though I know my position is NOT the common one, I stick to it. It is the same reason I do not like buying products from China. Because of human rights abuses there. It is the reason I do not leave my lights on when I leave the house. Because I want people to live a healthier life. My worldview values human life but also does not choose to define when it begins or ends based upon visual evidence ALONE.

Gisela: I HIGHLY respect the individual's needs and desires and I am loathe to "legislate" morality (I have two daughters, a wife, and a granddaughter), however my decision to NOT support Mr. Obama is based on my opinion that no one who ONLY sees things from a temporal/material perspective is fit for holding the office of President of the United States of America. I think we must elect an individual (male or female) who values LIFE. Who values LOVE (not only big, goofy, romantic love, but ALSO charity, care, mercy, tenderness, compassion). Who is not PROUD, but is humble and teachable. This means a person who is at once intelligent but also sees the edges of their own intelligence.

From all appearances Mr. Obama is a very intelligent and appealing individual on many levels but I question his values when he uses an arbitrary measure of human life as defined by people who have a financial and moral stake in the continuation of abortion services. Because, regardless of how you look at it, there are people out there who KNOW there are viable humans being killed and yet CONTINUE to support this abortion/euthenasia BECAUSE it lines their pockets with gold...and they lobby in a big way.

It's only a big question IF we draw the lines around what and when a human life begins OR if those lines are kept gray. But I would hate to be the person who has commits an abortion KNOWING they're killing a human life or, even worse, be the person carrying LIFE inside them who has the abortion.

Yes. It is emotionally charged because it ought to be.
Posted 27 months ago. ( permalink )

nhr says:

Philosoap wrote:
I think we must elect an individual (male or female) who values LIFE. Who values LOVE (not only big, goofy, romantic love, but ALSO charity, care, mercy, tenderness, compassion)

Completely agree. Hence the danger for a voter to simplistically assume that, say, a Christian individual might be more compassion-prone or have more desirable moral values than an atheist or an agnostic.
Research shows, for example, that Christian physicians are actually certainly no more likely than their non-religious colleagues to care for the poor and marginalized...
Posted 27 months ago. ( permalink )

TheAlieness GiselaGiardino²³ says:

Philo, I understand your point. Without trying to make you think differently, I just express this to show you another way the issue can be approached:

My personal breaking point isn´t the moral/ethical/religious line to draw to define human life (where it begins, when a couple of cells become a fetus, if those two stages are "human life" or the first isn´t yet (is still raw cells in a "biological process")). I don´t care much about that. For me there are no shades of gray here: It is life since the beginning, or it isn't.

My appreciation and feelings on this topic are based in the thought that human life is not "more important" than any other form of life in this planet in any case. So as I see it, a "human life" being killed is not more terrible than any other killing of life. From this perspective I see nature and its ways and I see that life and death are cycles and part of an overall process in which we, all life forms, are envolved equally in to configure the ecosystem we are: Earth. I see how in nature an animal or insect gives birth or lay a lot of eggs only to get a mere few surviving. It´s a necessary cleansing response to otherwise unsolvable problems. In this regard my view is that is very difficult to hold a "moral" position on the subject on human-life preservation alone, when at the same time, humans devastate million other non-human life forms and spread like a virus on Earth, and find ways to extend its lifespan so much that it is leaving the Earth with an overload of geront population... Euthanasia, in this regard is a sort of solution, also based in the pro-choice idea. I think I have the right to die and stop wasting precious resources, causing me pain in the futile preservation of my life, which is clearly termintated or about to.

My approach is like less moral-coated, if you will. It´s life dynamics, that´s all. I see life in a more raw way, the point that we are humans makes no difference to me from a systemic view of the matter. It´s an ecological approach, if you will. However I understand that it can be difficult to grasp. Now if you are thinking that I think all this because I was not the one being killed in the womb, or because I am alive and kicking... well, no, it´s just becase I am very certain of the insignificance of my own existance to the whole process on life on earth, from a biological point of view, and from a spiritual point of view too. Being human is no greater or "more important" than being a cow, a rabbit, a bee... (and forget about the buddhist approach here, because even they consider animals as "less developed" beings). Whether all life forms deserve full respect to blossom and non-abortive neither pro-euthanasia procedures... or none in particular.

And on regard of the people how may make money out from activities related to abortion and euthanasia... I don´t care more about them than I care about the healthcare/drug labs system as a whole money-making machine. Always someone makes money and lobby, whether to kill you or to preserve you, so it´s ultimately not a criteria to me. We are all economic SUBJECTS and OBJECTS. And certainly both abortion and euthanasia are very personal choices, no-one will put a gun on your head to do it, so in front of the choice I don´t think it matters much who will make money from it afterwards. I don´t think that in reality bringing a legal frame to this 2 unhappy situations will increase their number, because it´s not a less traumatic event just because it´s legal, neither will be less expensive and costly, so people will anyway continue to use counter-conception methods than relying on abortion as a procedure to avoid gaving children. It will always be a drastic, non desirable measure. So with Euthanasia- This is my forecast..

Last, from a purely political perspective, I witness that the basic point on which politician discuss abortion law is not moral or ethical, is administrative. The only question is: "Is it alright that we legitimate by law the killing of our own working force?" (working force = hman resorces (not "people" or "human beings" or "lives") The same goes for drugs and smoking and other selfdestructive behaviours. The State has to condemn them, because it goes against the economic interests of the State itself not to do it. So, my conclusion is: Don´t worry, the U.S. will likely NOT aprove such laws, unless they achieve a level of economy in which sacrifying resources will make no difference to the GNP. It´s State policy... no president on his own may change that overnight.

I think... (Again, it´s just my personal view (which is not static, btw)).
Posted 27 months ago. ( permalink )

Philosoap [deleted] says:

nhr: Just as an aside, while my views are grounded from within a Judeo-Christian perspective, I consider myself only marginally operating along the periphery of that sphere -- at least from the perspective of the centrists operating in that sphere. Which is a way of introducing the that I completely agree with you. One's religious perspective (or lack thereof) does not necessarily mean you're a nicer individual than another. In fact, I would generally argue that the less-"nice" individuals in society, the less internally perplexed and externally challenged, are the ones typically desiring a power "outside themselves" to assist in their daily affairs -- whether its, alchohol, cigarettes, calories, excitement, or God.

So, from a purely rational perspective, you are 100% correct. What is ironic, however, is that hospitals and the medical profession as a whole only developed within societies where human life is identified as very specifically sacred -- including the elderly, lame, or otherwise marginalized. In highly materialistic societies where only the "productive" are valued, or in societies where where human life was just seen as part of a larger skein of life, medical care was/is generally reserved for the elite.

So little has changed.

So...getting back to the original point...I will support the most charitable, humble candidate who values LIFE in all its stages and degrees of relative competence. Does anyone know of one out there?
Posted 27 months ago. ( permalink )

jurvetson says:

You beat me to it. I was going to ask you the exact same question.

Have you ever found a candidate you could vote for? (Someone who swears that they would never allow the country to go to war... and would ban the death penalty... and redeploy over 90% of the federal budget to international humanitarian programs... etc.)

And if not, do you not vote, or do you vote for the lesser of two evils? ...by total body count?

If it's absolutism that you seek, is there any candidate in any national election in any country that has campaigned with a message to do all that possibly could be done to preserve life?
Posted 27 months ago. ( permalink )

Philosoap [deleted] says:

jurvetson: I may be an idealist, but I also have a pragmatic side. The problem I encounter is when I vote "my heart" the candidate never wins, and when I vote pragmatically, I feel lousy about myself EVEN (perhaps especially) if they win.
Posted 27 months ago. ( permalink )

Rory Finneren says:

I will leave my comments regarding the abortion debate to this:

The essay written by Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan: “Abortion: Is it Possible to be both “Pro-life” and “Pro-Choice”?”, excerpts of which can be found on the web here: www.2think.org/abortion.shtml and the full text in their book Billions and Billions.

philosoap:Remember, an election is not a horserace. The objective isn't to pick the winner. It's to vote for who you think would make the best president. I think many Americans fall into this trap.
Posted 27 months ago. ( permalink )

jurvetson says:

On a lighter note, the Kennedy family must have read that New Republic article in deciding to support Obama as a symbolic successor... They just wanna have fun....

This flickr time capsule is fun for me... thinking back to how different the landscape looked just four months ago....
Posted 22 months ago. ( permalink )

!efatima says:

dude you are the man with the plan - am sure one day i will see you as a senate member. :) great smiles.
Posted 22 months ago. ( permalink )

guesswhoimet says:

hey man great pic.... post it to my group? www.flickr.com/groups/guesswhoimet. And also my site - www.guesswhoimet.com!!
Posted 17 months ago. ( permalink )

claudiaveja says:

oh I see
you have pictures with the president
this is a 2007 picture
wow
so you know something ;)
Posted 12 months ago. ( permalink )

sam_ says:

I'd vote for those two guys!
Posted 5 weeks ago. ( permalink )

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The Audacity of Hope

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TheAlieness GiselaGiardino²³ says:

Josh Thompson says:

Eye-Appeal says:

drona says:

nels1 says:

biotron says:

menlo says:

Philosoap [deleted] says:

jurvetson says:

benjiman says:

BenODen says:

msamaclean © says:

jurvetson says:

Philosoap [deleted] says:

Josh Thompson says:

TheAlieness GiselaGiardino²³ says:

Philosoap [deleted] says:

nhr says:

TheAlieness GiselaGiardino²³ says:

Philosoap [deleted] says:

jurvetson says:

Philosoap [deleted] says:

Rory Finneren says:

jurvetson says:

!efatima says:

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