I'm getting eight hour each night. Granted it's rarely an uninterrupted or uneventful night sleep anymore but lord someone buy me a coffin and kidnap Tinkerbell, I'm tired! Whatever happened to the nights I used to sleep like the dead?
The stress in the house over jobs, vacation, the kid, moving, every little thing and on top of it I've had four new clients go live on our interface in two weeks, one more tomorrow and possibly one next week. Then come to find out a client had "concerns" with me and my management staff and the account exec have known for some time and no one has bothered to tell me. The account exec has just started sitting quietly on all my calls with this client like vampire bat hanging from the ceiling ready to strike.
Boy when I found out she was playing me like that, I laid into her like a steamroller baby. She's the kind that will be sweet and happy with you but be slinging dirt behind your back waiting to bury you.
See 80% of my company actually, myself included, work from home remotely. We have employees all of the country and one even in Peru. So it's not a typical office where you can watch people or listen for conversation at the water cooler. If someone is laying wire waiting to trip you up, you never see it until your flat on your face.
Luckily the majority of the people in this company are really wonderful and we all work super great as a team. In fact I'd say the majority of the grief and mud slinging comes from the three accoun executives. They're nothing more really than overpaid, glorified client babysitters and kiss-asses. Their job it to keep up with the clients needs and make sure their happy with our product but because they are pretty clueless to how most of that clients needs get met, they promise them the world. Then who do they get upset at when things are done.. yep the worker bees keeping the fricken hive running.
Anyway, she didn't even have the nerve to repond to me today. She most likely forwarded it to head management and honeslty I hope she did. I already talked to my supervisor about it this morning and told him I didn't appreciate being left out of the loop and left to look like a fool. Furthermore it's not just coming from me but all three of the coding analysts so you know what I say about getting management involved?
BRING IT ON!
So I'm tired. I know I should exercise to stimulate my endorphins and seratonin but I hate working out and there's just too much fricken work to get done. Then someone must have been pumping Brandon full of Jump-Juice over night because he was bouncing all over the place like a ping pong ball or someone jacked up on massive amounts of speed. I mean LITERALLLY jumping everywhere all day. Hopefully he'll come back down to Earth by tomorrow.
So I'm off to bed to try and sleep. If anyone has seen the sleeping fairy please tell her I could use a shake or two.
Nite Nite!
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
You're SO SORRY!
Move 10 spaces forward or go backwards one. Go back 4 spaces. Don't expect me to be merciful. I play to win.
Brandon had three men home and one in the safety zone. I had two home and two still on start but it came down to the wire. He just couldn't get the card that took his last man home and that was all the advantage I needed to get both of my missing men all the way around the board.
It came down to one man each sliding up and down the safety zone like a soldier dodging enemy fire. Neither one of us drawing the elusive card that took our last man to safety.
We went through 1 1/2 piles of cards and when it was all said and done, Brandon was the victor.
It was a fight to the death and I lost but trust me I went down drawing!
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
We haven't played a game together in quite some time. I must admit in the age of all things technical I'm guilty of hiring a Nintendo Wii and DS as a babysitter. Sitting idly by while it sucks the childhood and creativity right out of my little boy.
Oh the shame!
Daddy doesn't really do a whole lot with us anymore being caught up in his own things. If his obsession with lifting weights and training gets any deeper we're going to need a serious intervention. Unfortunately I think it would come down to finding a way to resurrect Bruce Lee and letting the creator of Jeet Kune Do himself give Walt a lecture.
He's never been one to sit and watch movies and he can't type very well but has discovered the network of the ESPN sports blogs. At least he's actually communicating with people outside of work for a change.
We don't really ever go anywhere as a family unless it's to the mall or something. Yes in this family it's the man who likes shopping and the woman who dreads having to go.
Brandon had asked the night before to play a game with me and I didn't so when he asked last night while I was working my heart melted when he walked away quietly and said "Don't worry. Never mind you keep working".
I couldn't resist and I'm so glad I did. It's nice to reconnect with him and we should do it more often. He often gets caught up in his games to want to do anything too. But I really don't like how we're starting to become a house of three roommates who really just live together than a family.
I can't make Walt do anything but I can take time to do thing with Brandon.
Next week is Disney and at least that will get us all together. Away from games, television, computers, work, whatever. At least for a week.
I challenge YOU to a death match of SORRY with your family. Or what about Monopoly.
What was your favorite board game growing up?
Go play a game with your family and get some friends involved. We need to reconnect on a personal level. Not through instant messenger or email or phone. As human, in person.
What better time of year than now.
Hugs to all
Saturday, December 15, 2007
Question of the Week.
Here we are all in our own little corner of the world. I figured I'd do something I'm hoping will connect us all a little bit more.
Each week I'll ask a question. It could be on anything (but nothing too personal). Maybe an opinion, or a puzzle to get your brain thinking, or just something random. So here's the question of the week.
What character on TV (not the actor themselves) most resembles you? Why? If you don't watch TV then pick a movie character.
Monday, December 10, 2007
Dig Deep and Spread Some Tolerance
It's inevitable, you're going to get the email in your box. So before you pass it on here it is in all it's glory with the TRUTH attached.
I'll start with my thoughts on humanity overall.
This world is full of enough hate and slander and backbiting. Especially over religion. Every religion (except Buddhism - which to clarify isn't a religion at all and also believes there is one ultimate God over all things.) goes to war, criticises, ostracises, and even condemns the other religions yet ironically almost every "Gospel preaching the "word" of God instructs those who follow it to be tolerant, kind and compassionate. Muhammad, Jesus, Buddha & Lao Te Tzu all taught to "love thy neighbor - period". They didn't say "love only thy neighbor who believes like you, or looks like you, or thinks like you, or is as rich or poor as you. They simply said "love thy neighbor" and your neighbor is anyone you meet.
Yet the first thing we do it start "slinging" mud at someone else who doesn't believe the way "we" do.
Everybody is right but in reality everybody is so wrong.
We can be so narrow minded and judgmental without even taking the time to learn the truth about other belief systems. We take what we hear as fact without ever questioning on our own. It's sad and it's what's wrong with our world. Every religion believes they are the "one true belief" and prancing around saying "WE know what the truth is". But honestly nobody does.
I was a devote born again Christian for 27 years. But I also took the time to study in depth, other aspects of Christianity (Baptists, Catholicism, etc.) Judaism,Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormonism, Buddhism, Taoism, Muslim beliefs, and many others. Also to clarify Buddha was not a fat man who claimed to be a prophet, a god or a divine being. He was a Prince in India who denounced his throne to devote his life to helping man find an end to suffering. He also lived 2000 years before Christ. Muslims believe in the SAME God as Christians. When you think about it all the strife over religious beliefs comes down to which prophet was right. When in actuality it should be all about God. If it was we probably wouldn't be at war or constantly bickering over who's right and whose wrong.
Take the time to learn about your neighbors and what they believe. I think in the end you'll find God is much bigger and transcends all the little boxes we've put him in. God is not just big enough for all humanity but God is big enough for the whole universe.
In case anyone is interested here's the TRUTH about Mr. Barrack Obama. Who may or may not be the best candidate for US President but nevertheless is a good man.
Peace and tolerance to you all!
Tara
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Taken From Snopes.com
Article here - http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/muslim.asp
The Enemy Within
Claim: Illinois senator Barack Obama is a "radical, ideological Muslim."
Status: False.
Example: [Collected via e-mail, 2006]
Variations: A later version of this piece included the following sentence:
ALSO, keep in mind that when he was sworn into office — he DID NOT use the Holy Bible, but instead the Koran (Their equivalency to our Bible, but very different beliefs)
This statement is a mistaken reference to Minnesota congressman Keith Ellison, not Barack Obama.
Origins: Barack Obama, 45, served as an Illinois state senator for several years, and in 2004 he won a seat representing that state in the U.S. Senate. His keynote address before
the Democratic National Convention in June 2004 brought him national prominence, and he is currently one of the leading contenders for the nomination to represent the Democratic Party in the 2008 presidential election.
Barack Obama has an unusual and interesting background, which the above-quoted piece draws on to paint him as a dangerous, camouflaged radical Muslim. Much of the information presented therein about his background is distorted and exaggerated, however, and no evidence supports a claim that Obama is currently "ideologically Muslim" or has ever been a "radical" Muslim:
Claim: Barack Obama has been a U.S. senator for only 100 days.
Barack Obama was sworn in as a U.S. senator representing the state of Illinois on 4 January 2005, so as of late December 2006 (when the e-mail about his Muslim background appeared) he had been in that office for two years.
Claim: Obama takes great care to conceal the fact that he is a radical Muslim while admitting that he was once a Muslim, mitigating that damning information by saying that, for two years, he also attended a Catholic school.
Barack Obama has not "admitted" to being a Muslim, nor has any evidence been produced demonstrating that he is, or ever was, a "radical Muslim." (As with everything else in the e-mail quoted at the head of the page, this is asserted as "fact" despite a complete lack of supporting evidence.) "Senator Obama has never been a Muslim," Obama communications director Robert Gibbs said. "As a six-year-old in Catholic school, he studied the catechism." Barack Obama has been associated with the United Church of Christ since the mid-1980s, describes himself as a Christian, and says that he is "rooted in the Christian tradition."
When he was a child in Indonesia, Obama spent a couple of years at a Catholic school and another couple of years at a school that was predominantly Muslim (because Indonesia itself is predominantly Muslim). In his 2006 book, The Audacity of Hope, Obama elaborated on his early schooling, explaining that he attended both Catholic and Muslim schools in Indonesia — not out of any particular religious affiliation, but because his mother wanted him to obtain the best education possible under the circumstances:
During the five years that we would live with my stepfather in Indonesia, I was sent first to a neighborhood Catholic school and then to a predominantly Muslim school; in both cases, my mother was less concerned with me learning the catechism or puzzling out the meaning of the muezzin's call to evening prayer than she was with whether I was properly learning my multiplication tables.
Claim: Obama's father, Barack Hussein Obama, Sr. was a radical Muslim who migrated from Kenya to Jakarta, Indonesia. He met Obama's mother, Ann Dunham, a white atheist from Wichita, Kansas at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Obama, Sr. and Dunham divorced when Barack, Jr. was two.
Barack Obama's father (also named Barack Obama) was born on the shores of Lake Victoria in Alego, Kenya. Although the elder Obama was raised as a Muslim, no evidence supports the claim that he was ever a "radical Muslim," and Senator Obama's family histories note that his father was an atheist or agnostic ( i.e., no longer a practicing Muslim) by the time he married the younger Obama's mother.
Claim: Obama's spinmeisters are now attempting to make it appear that Obama's introduction to Islam came from his father and that influence was temporary at best. In reality, the senior Obama returned to Kenya immediately following the divorce and never again had any direct influence over his son's education.
The notion that "Obama's spinmeisters are now attempting to make it appear that Obama's introduction to Islam came from his father" and deliberately obscuring the "reality" that his father had little "influence over his son's education" is just silly in light of the fact that Barack Obama himself has repeatedly acknowledged that his parents split up when he was two years old and that he scarcely knew his father:
My father was almost entirely absent from my childhood, having been divorced from my mother when I was two years old.
At the time of his death, my father remained a myth to me, both more and less than a man. He had left Hawaii back in 1963, when I was only two years old, so that as a child I knew him only through the stories that my mother and grandparents told.
(Barack's only other childhood contact with his father occurred when he was eleven years old, and his father came to visit Hawaii for a month at Christmastime.)
Claim: Dunham married another Muslim, Lolo Soetoro who educated his stepson as a good Muslim by enrolling him in one of Jakarta's Wahabbi schools. Wahabbism is the radical teaching that created the Muslim terrorists who are now waging Jihad on the industrialized world.
The claim that Obama attended a radical Wahabbist school in Indonesia in the 1960s is exceedingly far-fetched, given that:
The large Indonesian community resident in Mecca was a medium through which knowledge about Wahhabism reached Indonesia, but the community itself appears to have remained virtually immune to Wahhabi influences. In reality there was little direct influence of Wahhabism on Indonesian reformist thought until the 1970s.
Insight magazine claimed in a January 2007 article that Barack Obama spent at least four years attending what is variously described as a "madrassa," a "radical Muslim religious school," or a "Muslim seminary" in Indonesia, but CNN has more recently reported that its own investigation found those claims to be false:
[R]eporting by CNN in Jakarta, Indonesia and Washington, D.C., shows the allegations that Obama attended a madrassa to be false. CNN dispatched Senior International Correspondent John Vause to Jakarta to investigate.
He visited the Basuki school, which Obama attended from 1969 to 1971.
"This is a public school. We don't focus on religion," Hardi Priyono, deputy headmaster of the Basuki school, told Vause. "In our daily lives, we try to respect religion, but we don't give preferential treatment."
Vause reported he saw boys and girls dressed in neat school uniforms playing outside the school, while teachers were dressed in Western-style clothes.
"I came here to Barack Obama's elementary school in Jakarta looking for what some are calling an Islamic madrassa ... like the ones that teach hate and violence in Pakistan and Afghanistan," Vause said on the 'Situation Room.' "I've been to those madrassas in Pakistan ... this school is nothing like that."
Vause also interviewed one of Obama's Basuki classmates, Bandug Winadijanto, who claims that not a lot has changed at the school since the two men were pupils. Insight reported that Obama's political opponents believed the school promoted Wahhabism, a fundamentalist form of Islam, "and are seeking to prove it."
"It's not (an) Islamic school. It's general," Winadijanto said. "There is a lot of Christians, Buddhists, also Confucian. ... So that's a mixed school."
The Associated Press reported similarly:
A spokesman for Indonesia's Ministry of Religious Affairs said claims that Obama studied at an Islamic school are groundless.
"SDN Menteng 1 is a public primary school that is open to people of all faiths," said the spokesman, Sutopo, who goes by only one name. "Moreover, he studied earlier at Fransiskus Assisi, which is clearly a Catholic school."
Obama later transferred to SDN Menteng 1 the elite, secular elementary school at the center of the controversy. The school is public but is very competitive and has exceptionally high standards. It is located in one of the most affluent parts of Jakarta and attracts mostly middle- to upper-class students, among them several of former dictator Suharto's grandchildren.
Indonesia is home to several of the most radical Islamic schools in Southeast Asia, some with alleged terrorist links. But Akmad Solichin [the vice principal at SDN Menteng 1], who proudly pointed to a photo of a young Barry Obama, as he was known, said his school is not one of them.
Moreover, a statement released by the Obama campaign affirmed that:
In the past week, many of you have read a now thoroughly-debunked story by Insight Magazine, owned by the Washington Times, which cites unnamed sources close to a political campaign that claim Senator Obama was enrolled for "at least four years" in an Indonesian "Madrassa". The article says the "sources" believe the Madrassa was "espousing Wahhabism," a form of radical Islam.
All of the claims about Senator Obama's faith and education raised in the Insight Magazine story and repeated on Fox News are false. Senator Obama was raised in a secular household in Indonesia by his stepfather and mother. Obama's stepfather worked for a U.S. oil company, and sent his stepson to two years of Catholic school, as well as two years of public school.
To be clear, Senator Obama has never been a Muslim, was not raised a Muslim, and is a committed Christian who attends the United Church of Christ in Chicago. Furthermore, the Indonesian school Obama attended in Jakarta is a public school that is not and never has been a Madrassa.
Claim: Since it is politically expedient to be a Christian when you are seeking political office in the United States, Obama joined the United Church of Christ to help purge any notion that he is still a Muslim, which, ideologically, he remains today.
As noted above, Barack Obama describes himself as "a Christian," says that he is "rooted in the Christian tradition," and his association with the United Church of Christ began well before his political career. (Obama was first elected to the Illinois state senate in 1996, but he has been involved with the United Church of Christ since the mid-1980s.) The beginnings of Obama's relationship with the church were described in an April 2004 Chicago Sun-Times article:
Obama is unapologetic in saying he has a "personal relationship with Jesus Christ." As a sign of that relationship, he says, he walked down the aisle of Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ in response to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's altar call one Sunday morning about 16 years ago.
The politician could have ended his spiritual tale right there, at the point some people might assume his life changed, when he got "saved," transformed, washed in the blood. But Obama wants to clarify what truly happened.
"It wasn't an epiphany," he says of that public profession of faith. "It was much more of a gradual process for me. I know there are some people who fall out. Which is wonderful. God bless them ... I think it was just a moment to certify or publicly affirm a growing faith in me."
These days, he says, he attends the 11 a.m. Sunday service at Trinity in the Brainerd neighborhood every week — or at least as many weeks as he is able. His pastor, Wright, has become a close confidant.
So how did he become a churchgoer?
It began in 1985, when he came to Chicago as a $13,000-a-year community organizer, working with a number of African-American churches in the Roseland, West Pullman and Altgeld Gardens neighborhoods that were trying to deal with the devastation caused by shuttered steel plants.
"I started working with both the ministers and the lay people in these churches on issues like creating job-training programs, or after-school programs for youth, or making sure that city services were fairly allocated to undeserved communities," he says. "And it was in those places where I think what had been more of an intellectual view of religion deepened.
"I became much more familiar with the ongoing tradition of the historic black church and its importance in the community. And the power of that culture to give people strength in very difficult circumstances, and the power of that church to give people courage against great odds. And it moved me deeply."
No evidence supports the claim that Barack Obama is, despite his professed Christianity, "an ideological Muslim," and those who have made this claim have offered nothing to support it — no letters or documents in which Barack Obama has ever stated such, no reports of conversations in which he ever admitted such, no revelations from friends or associates that he ever demonstrated such.
Additional information:
Debunked Insight Magazine and Fox News Smear Campaign Debunked Insight Magazine and Fox News Smear Campaign
(U.S. Senator Barack Obama)
Last updated: 15 March 2007
The URL for this page is http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/muslim.asp
Urban Legends Reference Pages © 1995-2007
by Barbara and David P. Mikkelson
This material may not be reproduced without permission.
Sources Sources:
Falsani, Cathleen. "'I Have a Deep Faith.'"
Chicago Sun-Times. 5 April 2004.
Goldenberg, Suzanne. "Candidate Obama Attacks Madrasa Smear."
The Guardian. 26 January 2007
Kurtz, Howard. "Campaign Allegation a Source of Vexation."
The Washington Post. 22 January 2007 (p. C1).
Obama, Barack. Dreams from My Father.
New York: Three Rivers Press, 1995. ISBN 1-4000-8277-3.
Obama, Barack. The Audacity of Hope.
New York: Crown Publishers, 2006. ISBN 0-307-23769-9.
Pickler, Nedra. "Obama Debunks Claim About Islamic School."
Associated Press. 24 January 2007.
Reid, Tim and Tom Baldwin. "Obama 'Was Educated in Madrassa'."
The London Times. 20 January 2007.
Turow, Scott. "The New Face of the Democratic Party — and America."
Salon. 30 March 2004.
van Bruinessen, Martin. "Wahhabi Influences in Indonesia, Real and Imagined."
Summary of paper presented at the Journée d'Etudes du CEIFR (EHESS-CNRS) et MSH sur le Wahhabisme.
Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales / Maison des Sciences de l'Homme, Paris, 10 June 2002.
Watson, Paul. "As a Child, Obama Crossed a Cultural Divide in Indonesia."
Los Angeles Times. 15 March 2007.
CNN.com. "CNN Debunks False Report About Obama."
22 January 2007.
Insight. "Hillary's Team Has Questions About Obama's Muslim Background."
16 January 2007.
I'll start with my thoughts on humanity overall.
This world is full of enough hate and slander and backbiting. Especially over religion. Every religion (except Buddhism - which to clarify isn't a religion at all and also believes there is one ultimate God over all things.) goes to war, criticises, ostracises, and even condemns the other religions yet ironically almost every "Gospel preaching the "word" of God instructs those who follow it to be tolerant, kind and compassionate. Muhammad, Jesus, Buddha & Lao Te Tzu all taught to "love thy neighbor - period". They didn't say "love only thy neighbor who believes like you, or looks like you, or thinks like you, or is as rich or poor as you. They simply said "love thy neighbor" and your neighbor is anyone you meet.
Yet the first thing we do it start "slinging" mud at someone else who doesn't believe the way "we" do.
Everybody is right but in reality everybody is so wrong.
We can be so narrow minded and judgmental without even taking the time to learn the truth about other belief systems. We take what we hear as fact without ever questioning on our own. It's sad and it's what's wrong with our world. Every religion believes they are the "one true belief" and prancing around saying "WE know what the truth is". But honestly nobody does.
I was a devote born again Christian for 27 years. But I also took the time to study in depth, other aspects of Christianity (Baptists, Catholicism, etc.) Judaism,Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormonism, Buddhism, Taoism, Muslim beliefs, and many others. Also to clarify Buddha was not a fat man who claimed to be a prophet, a god or a divine being. He was a Prince in India who denounced his throne to devote his life to helping man find an end to suffering. He also lived 2000 years before Christ. Muslims believe in the SAME God as Christians. When you think about it all the strife over religious beliefs comes down to which prophet was right. When in actuality it should be all about God. If it was we probably wouldn't be at war or constantly bickering over who's right and whose wrong.
Take the time to learn about your neighbors and what they believe. I think in the end you'll find God is much bigger and transcends all the little boxes we've put him in. God is not just big enough for all humanity but God is big enough for the whole universe.
In case anyone is interested here's the TRUTH about Mr. Barrack Obama. Who may or may not be the best candidate for US President but nevertheless is a good man.
Peace and tolerance to you all!
Tara
------------------------------
Taken From Snopes.com
Article here - http://www.snopes.com/politics
The Enemy Within
Claim: Illinois senator Barack Obama is a "radical, ideological Muslim."
Status: False.
Example: [Collected via e-mail, 2006]
Variations: A later version of this piece included the following sentence:
ALSO, keep in mind that when he was sworn into office — he DID NOT use the Holy Bible, but instead the Koran (Their equivalency to our Bible, but very different beliefs)
This statement is a mistaken reference to Minnesota congressman Keith Ellison, not Barack Obama.
Origins: Barack Obama, 45, served as an Illinois state senator for several years, and in 2004 he won a seat representing that state in the U.S. Senate. His keynote address before
the Democratic National Convention in June 2004 brought him national prominence, and he is currently one of the leading contenders for the nomination to represent the Democratic Party in the 2008 presidential election.
Barack Obama has an unusual and interesting background, which the above-quoted piece draws on to paint him as a dangerous, camouflaged radical Muslim. Much of the information presented therein about his background is distorted and exaggerated, however, and no evidence supports a claim that Obama is currently "ideologically Muslim" or has ever been a "radical" Muslim:
Claim: Barack Obama has been a U.S. senator for only 100 days.
Barack Obama was sworn in as a U.S. senator representing the state of Illinois on 4 January 2005, so as of late December 2006 (when the e-mail about his Muslim background appeared) he had been in that office for two years.
Claim: Obama takes great care to conceal the fact that he is a radical Muslim while admitting that he was once a Muslim, mitigating that damning information by saying that, for two years, he also attended a Catholic school.
Barack Obama has not "admitted" to being a Muslim, nor has any evidence been produced demonstrating that he is, or ever was, a "radical Muslim." (As with everything else in the e-mail quoted at the head of the page, this is asserted as "fact" despite a complete lack of supporting evidence.) "Senator Obama has never been a Muslim," Obama communications director Robert Gibbs said. "As a six-year-old in Catholic school, he studied the catechism." Barack Obama has been associated with the United Church of Christ since the mid-1980s, describes himself as a Christian, and says that he is "rooted in the Christian tradition."
When he was a child in Indonesia, Obama spent a couple of years at a Catholic school and another couple of years at a school that was predominantly Muslim (because Indonesia itself is predominantly Muslim). In his 2006 book, The Audacity of Hope, Obama elaborated on his early schooling, explaining that he attended both Catholic and Muslim schools in Indonesia — not out of any particular religious affiliation, but because his mother wanted him to obtain the best education possible under the circumstances:
During the five years that we would live with my stepfather in Indonesia, I was sent first to a neighborhood Catholic school and then to a predominantly Muslim school; in both cases, my mother was less concerned with me learning the catechism or puzzling out the meaning of the muezzin's call to evening prayer than she was with whether I was properly learning my multiplication tables.
Claim: Obama's father, Barack Hussein Obama, Sr. was a radical Muslim who migrated from Kenya to Jakarta, Indonesia. He met Obama's mother, Ann Dunham, a white atheist from Wichita, Kansas at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Obama, Sr. and Dunham divorced when Barack, Jr. was two.
Barack Obama's father (also named Barack Obama) was born on the shores of Lake Victoria in Alego, Kenya. Although the elder Obama was raised as a Muslim, no evidence supports the claim that he was ever a "radical Muslim," and Senator Obama's family histories note that his father was an atheist or agnostic ( i.e., no longer a practicing Muslim) by the time he married the younger Obama's mother.
Claim: Obama's spinmeisters are now attempting to make it appear that Obama's introduction to Islam came from his father and that influence was temporary at best. In reality, the senior Obama returned to Kenya immediately following the divorce and never again had any direct influence over his son's education.
The notion that "Obama's spinmeisters are now attempting to make it appear that Obama's introduction to Islam came from his father" and deliberately obscuring the "reality" that his father had little "influence over his son's education" is just silly in light of the fact that Barack Obama himself has repeatedly acknowledged that his parents split up when he was two years old and that he scarcely knew his father:
My father was almost entirely absent from my childhood, having been divorced from my mother when I was two years old.
At the time of his death, my father remained a myth to me, both more and less than a man. He had left Hawaii back in 1963, when I was only two years old, so that as a child I knew him only through the stories that my mother and grandparents told.
(Barack's only other childhood contact with his father occurred when he was eleven years old, and his father came to visit Hawaii for a month at Christmastime.)
Claim: Dunham married another Muslim, Lolo Soetoro who educated his stepson as a good Muslim by enrolling him in one of Jakarta's Wahabbi schools. Wahabbism is the radical teaching that created the Muslim terrorists who are now waging Jihad on the industrialized world.
The claim that Obama attended a radical Wahabbist school in Indonesia in the 1960s is exceedingly far-fetched, given that:
The large Indonesian community resident in Mecca was a medium through which knowledge about Wahhabism reached Indonesia, but the community itself appears to have remained virtually immune to Wahhabi influences. In reality there was little direct influence of Wahhabism on Indonesian reformist thought until the 1970s.
Insight magazine claimed in a January 2007 article that Barack Obama spent at least four years attending what is variously described as a "madrassa," a "radical Muslim religious school," or a "Muslim seminary" in Indonesia, but CNN has more recently reported that its own investigation found those claims to be false:
[R]eporting by CNN in Jakarta, Indonesia and Washington, D.C., shows the allegations that Obama attended a madrassa to be false. CNN dispatched Senior International Correspondent John Vause to Jakarta to investigate.
He visited the Basuki school, which Obama attended from 1969 to 1971.
"This is a public school. We don't focus on religion," Hardi Priyono, deputy headmaster of the Basuki school, told Vause. "In our daily lives, we try to respect religion, but we don't give preferential treatment."
Vause reported he saw boys and girls dressed in neat school uniforms playing outside the school, while teachers were dressed in Western-style clothes.
"I came here to Barack Obama's elementary school in Jakarta looking for what some are calling an Islamic madrassa ... like the ones that teach hate and violence in Pakistan and Afghanistan," Vause said on the 'Situation Room.' "I've been to those madrassas in Pakistan ... this school is nothing like that."
Vause also interviewed one of Obama's Basuki classmates, Bandug Winadijanto, who claims that not a lot has changed at the school since the two men were pupils. Insight reported that Obama's political opponents believed the school promoted Wahhabism, a fundamentalist form of Islam, "and are seeking to prove it."
"It's not (an) Islamic school. It's general," Winadijanto said. "There is a lot of Christians, Buddhists, also Confucian. ... So that's a mixed school."
The Associated Press reported similarly:
A spokesman for Indonesia's Ministry of Religious Affairs said claims that Obama studied at an Islamic school are groundless.
"SDN Menteng 1 is a public primary school that is open to people of all faiths," said the spokesman, Sutopo, who goes by only one name. "Moreover, he studied earlier at Fransiskus Assisi, which is clearly a Catholic school."
Obama later transferred to SDN Menteng 1 the elite, secular elementary school at the center of the controversy. The school is public but is very competitive and has exceptionally high standards. It is located in one of the most affluent parts of Jakarta and attracts mostly middle- to upper-class students, among them several of former dictator Suharto's grandchildren.
Indonesia is home to several of the most radical Islamic schools in Southeast Asia, some with alleged terrorist links. But Akmad Solichin [the vice principal at SDN Menteng 1], who proudly pointed to a photo of a young Barry Obama, as he was known, said his school is not one of them.
Moreover, a statement released by the Obama campaign affirmed that:
In the past week, many of you have read a now thoroughly-debunked story by Insight Magazine, owned by the Washington Times, which cites unnamed sources close to a political campaign that claim Senator Obama was enrolled for "at least four years" in an Indonesian "Madrassa". The article says the "sources" believe the Madrassa was "espousing Wahhabism," a form of radical Islam.
All of the claims about Senator Obama's faith and education raised in the Insight Magazine story and repeated on Fox News are false. Senator Obama was raised in a secular household in Indonesia by his stepfather and mother. Obama's stepfather worked for a U.S. oil company, and sent his stepson to two years of Catholic school, as well as two years of public school.
To be clear, Senator Obama has never been a Muslim, was not raised a Muslim, and is a committed Christian who attends the United Church of Christ in Chicago. Furthermore, the Indonesian school Obama attended in Jakarta is a public school that is not and never has been a Madrassa.
Claim: Since it is politically expedient to be a Christian when you are seeking political office in the United States, Obama joined the United Church of Christ to help purge any notion that he is still a Muslim, which, ideologically, he remains today.
As noted above, Barack Obama describes himself as "a Christian," says that he is "rooted in the Christian tradition," and his association with the United Church of Christ began well before his political career. (Obama was first elected to the Illinois state senate in 1996, but he has been involved with the United Church of Christ since the mid-1980s.) The beginnings of Obama's relationship with the church were described in an April 2004 Chicago Sun-Times article:
Obama is unapologetic in saying he has a "personal relationship with Jesus Christ." As a sign of that relationship, he says, he walked down the aisle of Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ in response to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's altar call one Sunday morning about 16 years ago.
The politician could have ended his spiritual tale right there, at the point some people might assume his life changed, when he got "saved," transformed, washed in the blood. But Obama wants to clarify what truly happened.
"It wasn't an epiphany," he says of that public profession of faith. "It was much more of a gradual process for me. I know there are some people who fall out. Which is wonderful. God bless them ... I think it was just a moment to certify or publicly affirm a growing faith in me."
These days, he says, he attends the 11 a.m. Sunday service at Trinity in the Brainerd neighborhood every week — or at least as many weeks as he is able. His pastor, Wright, has become a close confidant.
So how did he become a churchgoer?
It began in 1985, when he came to Chicago as a $13,000-a-year community organizer, working with a number of African-American churches in the Roseland, West Pullman and Altgeld Gardens neighborhoods that were trying to deal with the devastation caused by shuttered steel plants.
"I started working with both the ministers and the lay people in these churches on issues like creating job-training programs, or after-school programs for youth, or making sure that city services were fairly allocated to undeserved communities," he says. "And it was in those places where I think what had been more of an intellectual view of religion deepened.
"I became much more familiar with the ongoing tradition of the historic black church and its importance in the community. And the power of that culture to give people strength in very difficult circumstances, and the power of that church to give people courage against great odds. And it moved me deeply."
No evidence supports the claim that Barack Obama is, despite his professed Christianity, "an ideological Muslim," and those who have made this claim have offered nothing to support it — no letters or documents in which Barack Obama has ever stated such, no reports of conversations in which he ever admitted such, no revelations from friends or associates that he ever demonstrated such.
Additional information:
Debunked Insight Magazine and Fox News Smear Campaign Debunked Insight Magazine and Fox News Smear Campaign
(U.S. Senator Barack Obama)
Last updated: 15 March 2007
The URL for this page is http://www.snopes.com/politics
Urban Legends Reference Pages © 1995-2007
by Barbara and David P. Mikkelson
This material may not be reproduced without permission.
Sources Sources:
Falsani, Cathleen. "'I Have a Deep Faith.'"
Chicago Sun-Times. 5 April 2004.
Goldenberg, Suzanne. "Candidate Obama Attacks Madrasa Smear."
The Guardian. 26 January 2007
Kurtz, Howard. "Campaign Allegation a Source of Vexation."
The Washington Post. 22 January 2007 (p. C1).
Obama, Barack. Dreams from My Father.
New York: Three Rivers Press, 1995. ISBN 1-4000-8277-3.
Obama, Barack. The Audacity of Hope.
New York: Crown Publishers, 2006. ISBN 0-307-23769-9.
Pickler, Nedra. "Obama Debunks Claim About Islamic School."
Associated Press. 24 January 2007.
Reid, Tim and Tom Baldwin. "Obama 'Was Educated in Madrassa'."
The London Times. 20 January 2007.
Turow, Scott. "The New Face of the Democratic Party — and America."
Salon. 30 March 2004.
van Bruinessen, Martin. "Wahhabi Influences in Indonesia, Real and Imagined."
Summary of paper presented at the Journée d'Etudes du CEIFR (EHESS-CNRS) et MSH sur le Wahhabisme.
Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales / Maison des Sciences de l'Homme, Paris, 10 June 2002.
Watson, Paul. "As a Child, Obama Crossed a Cultural Divide in Indonesia."
Los Angeles Times. 15 March 2007.
CNN.com. "CNN Debunks False Report About Obama."
22 January 2007.
Insight. "Hillary's Team Has Questions About Obama's Muslim Background."
16 January 2007.
Thursday, December 06, 2007
Blathering Idiot!
I feel like that right now. I'm mentally, physically and emotionally exhausted.
I flew out to California by way of Charlotte and Pheonix on Monday. Got up Tuesday, spent three hours with our client went right back to the airport to fly back home by way of Pheonix and Atlanta.
I got home at 12:30 am on Wednesday. Then Wednesday was a total catch up day with no enough time in the day. On top of it Hubby had the day off and didn't do too much but expected me to go get Brandon from school. So when I didn't have time he got totally pissed. Whatever. The least of my problems.
Today was starting to calm down. Still feeling the jet lag though. Got some work done. Enjoyed the air with both doors open while I worked. Brandon had a physical today. Did excellent. Got two shots he took like a man. Is the picture of health.
Got him to school. Had some conference calls, had to run to the grocery store (because hubby sees that as MY job and didn't take the time to do it while he was off for two days), then pick up Brandon, dash home, make dinner then get in a MASSIVE knock down drag out fight with Hubby all because he blew a gasket because he found his towel on the floor behind the door in the bathroom and Brandon wore his new pullover - designated ONLY for our Disney trip - to school today.
It got ugly and drained the rest of the life out me.
I'm going to go visit my mother and father for the next two days. Will take Brandon and head down after school tomorrow. I need the peace of mind and I only get it when I'm out of the house.
I miss them.It'll be good to see them. We're going to kick back and watch Ratatouille.
Looking forward to it.
for now it's time to sleep.
Good night!
I flew out to California by way of Charlotte and Pheonix on Monday. Got up Tuesday, spent three hours with our client went right back to the airport to fly back home by way of Pheonix and Atlanta.
I got home at 12:30 am on Wednesday. Then Wednesday was a total catch up day with no enough time in the day. On top of it Hubby had the day off and didn't do too much but expected me to go get Brandon from school. So when I didn't have time he got totally pissed. Whatever. The least of my problems.
Today was starting to calm down. Still feeling the jet lag though. Got some work done. Enjoyed the air with both doors open while I worked. Brandon had a physical today. Did excellent. Got two shots he took like a man. Is the picture of health.
Got him to school. Had some conference calls, had to run to the grocery store (because hubby sees that as MY job and didn't take the time to do it while he was off for two days), then pick up Brandon, dash home, make dinner then get in a MASSIVE knock down drag out fight with Hubby all because he blew a gasket because he found his towel on the floor behind the door in the bathroom and Brandon wore his new pullover - designated ONLY for our Disney trip - to school today.
It got ugly and drained the rest of the life out me.
I'm going to go visit my mother and father for the next two days. Will take Brandon and head down after school tomorrow. I need the peace of mind and I only get it when I'm out of the house.
I miss them.It'll be good to see them. We're going to kick back and watch Ratatouille.
Looking forward to it.
for now it's time to sleep.
Good night!
