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Yesterday, I asked residents of MA to vote for Alan Khazei. Many of them did but it was not enough to overcome the the State AG, Martha Coakley. Mrs. Coakley had a convincing win over the rest of the democratic field. Congratulations to her and best of luck against Scott Brown, the Republican nominee. Alan and his team ran a good clean campaign but as Alan put it when he quoted Ted Kennedy; “The work goes on”.
File under: Politics | Comments
Today, the residents of Massachusetts will take to first step to replace Senator Ted Kennedy by voting in the special election primaries. For the primary contest, the Democratic party fielded 4 great candidates by all accounts. All four candidates have superb resumes and possess progressive values aligned with the vast majority of the progressives in the country. However, of the four, Alan Khazei stands outs. Having worked with him for a Year at Be The Change for the ServiceNation Campaign, I truly believe that Alan has the skill set and the know how to be a great senator. During my time at Be the change, I watched him work diligently and tirelessly to build a bi-partisan coalition of organization and legislators around Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act (SAA) authored by Senators Ted Kennedy and Orrin Hatch (R-UT). If he can pull together the right people to get this don in the current political climate while he out of the Senate, Can you imagine what he will be able to do as a senator? Many others clearly agree with me on this. Newsweek has called Alan “Teddy’s Rightful Heir” while the Boston Globe has declared that Alan is “Massachusetts’ best chance to produce another great senator.” In addition to Newsweek and the Globe, The Blue Mass Group, MA’s most renowned progressive blog, has also endorsed him as well as many other local publications including The Daily News, AndoverTownsman, Cape Code Times, Telegram, Patriot Ledger and Wicked Local-West Roxbury. The Senate needs someone who can bring the gap and reach out to across the isle and Massachusetts need a senator with the potential being the next Ted Kennedy. I believe Alan is that candidate. If you live in MA, Find your polling station and Vote for Alan today. If you don’t live in MA, please share this blog post with any of your friend that may reside there. I leave you with this video from Professor Larry Lessig.
File under: Books, Good Reads, Politics, blogging | Comments
This blog post is cross-posted at Localpolitechs.com
Shortly after I turned my last paper for school, I wanted to pick up a book that had nothing to do with business, ethics, finances or leadership — which had constituted the bulk of my reading for the better part of the last two years. I knew I wanted to immerse into how political campaigns are organized, ran and won – at both the national and local level. However, the 2008 presidential election was too recent and none of the inside players had published in-depth account of the operations. That being said, David Plouffe, Obama’s campaign manager, recently released his book – The Audacity To Win. The 2000 presidential election, with its supreme court decision, was a bit of an anomaly. And let’s face it, I don’t remember the 1998 presidential election and I was not yet in the country for the 1992 election. That’s left 2004 election. The Dean campaign immediately came to mind because of their use of the Internet during the campaign. Additionally aside from Ted Kennedy being the first elected official with a web page and McCain raising $1 million online in 2000, the Dean campaign has been widely credited has with birth of Internet politics and advocacy and many of current players in the field are from that campaign. Having seen him speak and followed him on twitter, I decided on a Joe’s Trippi’s The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.
The book effectively chronicles Trippi’s love for technology and politics and how the two finally came together for Dean’s improbable presidential run. Filled with humor, the book begins with Trippi’s earl days as an activist on the San Jose State University and goes through his experience working four presidential campaigns prior to Dean’s. The reader can witness Trippi evolve as a political operative (and become more cynical) who manages to bring together all the lessons he has learned over the years to the Dean campaign. Without a doubt, the most interesting part of the book revolves around the Dean campaign. Trippi provides a candid insider account of what went on daily in the Burlington HQ as well as online. He goes over high and lows, the success and failures – both online and offline and ultimately leaving the campaign. All of it, very interesting. Knowing that readers would looking for the recipe of success online, Trippi’s provides the following points
- Be first – The first comer has a heard start on building a community.
- Keep it moving / Don’t be static – The Internet is a fluid medium and your presence should should be organic and flowing.
- Use an authentic voice – The Internet is not the place to be safe
- Tell the truth – The Internet has an inherent transparency.
- Build a community – Get people involved!
- Cede Control – Your supporters are smarter than you. Given them a chance.
- Believe again
I really enjoyed reading this book. It provided me with a behind the scene context of the 2004 election. Having read Matt Bai’s The Argument, I’d say this book is a good pre-cursor to that one because it helps frame meteoric rise MoveOn.org, DailyKos and the political blogosphere. One disappointment that I have after reading the book is Trippi’s blog itself. There is a disconnect between what he writes in his book about the Internet and blogging how he runs his blog. These days, his blog is a collection quotes from articles that he read or promotion of recent works (and sometime speaking engagements). It lacks original content, thought leadership, and forward thinking especially for someone who The New Republic called “the man who reinvented campaigning” and GQ dubbed “the new Carville”. Despite this, I still recommend the book. It’s worth the read.
File under: Career, Personal | Comments
Many things have happened since my last blog post. I’m not sure the fact that so much has happened because I had lots to going on or is simply due to the fact that I don’t blog as often as I should. Regardless, I want to share three and half new things in life.
First, I have a new place in Mt Pleasant/Columbia Heights. Per my previous blog post, my last living situation was not ideal and I choose to move on my own. Unlike with my previous living arrangement, I will not be hosting a house warming party. Sorry to disappoint those of you had had gotten used to the tradition. That being said, feel free to come visit. Mount Pleasant and Columbia Heights are full good bars and eateries that I love check out with some good company.
Second, I’m DONE with school. That’s right. I’m going to add “M.B.A” after my name in my e-mail signature. I kid, I kid. While I didn’t finished with my 4.0 like I intended when I started the program, I’m very happy with my end 3.5 that I ended with. Overall, I thought the program is wonderfully designed so that students were able apply the lessons learned in class in their daily workplace. Another aspect of the program that I really enjoyed is that each class built on previous one. And this class brought together many of the lessons from the previous classes. I was also very pleased with the quality of the professors throughout the program. Though, I may have had qualms with some of their teaching style, it never occurred to me that the professors or teaching assistants were unqualified to discuss the topic that were being brought up in class. I walked away from the with better research skills, better critical thinking skills, better writing skills (don’t use my writing on this blog as evidence) and better presentation skills. During the entire two years, I also had the pleasure to work with an amazing cast that made group work enjoyable. And to them I say, “Thank you”. I had planned to go law school after the finishing this program but as of right now those plans have been pushed back — pending further evaluation.
Lastly, I’ve moved on from DCI Group LLC. I very much enjoyed my time at DCI group. During my time there, I had the opportunity to meeting and work with some nice people on some very interesting projects that provided me unparalleled experience in the world of public affairs and government relations. As f this week, I now employed with Blue State Digital (BSD). My move to BSD will also take me to Boston late this year or early next year. While I love DC and its atmosphere, I’m excited about the prospect of living in another city. Although to be quite honest, It’s freaking cold in Boston. P.s. The move to Boston is the half item that I referred to in the first paragraph.
And that’s all for now folks. I’m looking forward to riding the quiet wave for a bit before getting busy again…. at least outside work.
From the looks of this blog, it would appear that I’m dead or something. But in reality, nothing could be further from the truth. I’m very much alive, just busy. Honestly, I spread myself too thin and I’m now in the process of regaining a more suitable schedule that will allow me to write more often and focus on items that will further my career in the right direction.
Well what I have been up too? I moved (again), and the possibility does exist that I will move again as soon as next week. Beside that, my number 1 focus recently has been helping the gff move Beantown. It’s a big move for her and I’ve been trying to be supportive…or something like that. It looks like Beantown will be my second home for the foreseeable future. With that said, I don’t think I’m quite ready to become a fan of Boston sports. If you know of any spots in Boston that I should check out, let me know. My second priority has been school. I’m currently taking my last class which ends on 9/15. I’m counting the hours till the end of the program. I’m excited about finishing up. I’ve learned tons thanks to my professors and classmates. The entire ordeal has been both humbling and rewarding but I’m ready for the end so I can come out of my rat hole.
Lastly, based on some feedback I’ve received from the very few loyal readers that I have, I decided to launch another blog. The blog is called LocalPolitechs and will focus on politics and technology. If you are interested in those topics, please head over to http://www.localpolitechs.com. This blog will remain remain personal as requested keep my loyal readers.
Pictures of the beautiful wedding at http://www.flickr.com/photos/makembe/collections/72157618782437666/
This weekend I got the great opportunity to attend South by Southwest. I’m very excited about since it’s my first time attending. Given this opportunity, I want to put my down my goals for this weekend on "paper". They are as follow:
- First and foremost I am here to learn. There are great panels assembled here and it would be a shame to walk away without learning anything. I’m going to focus my attention around social media marketing, social media & non-profits/ advocacy and social media and politics.
- Second I want to network with people of similar interests. It never hurts to expand your professional network especially to include folks that working on stuff that you are interested in.
- Lastly I hope to reconnect with some acquaintances that I don’t see often for various reasons. As important as growing your network is, nurturing your current network is that just as important.
That being said, I also plan to have tons of fun (as much as one can have a much 48 hrs). And I must not forget to watch Manchester United v Liverpool and write my final paper. This should be one hell of a weekend.
This entry was backdated because my blog was down over the weekend.
Sunday at the Powershift09was just exciting, energizing and informative as the day before. This despite a late night impromptu rally in front of the White House after the Roots concert. Look at the slideshow below to get a taste of Sunday’s action.
Pictures from the middle of the action
Cross posted on http://www.itsgettinghotinhere.org/ and http://www.powershift09.org
File under: Advocacy, Climate Change | Comments
This is a guest post from the GFF– We recently attended the Powershift conference that brought in 11k youth to talk about climate change
At PowerShift09, I attended the session: Healthier Planet, Healthier People – The Dual Fight for Health Care and Climate Change Solutions. I’m very interested in both public health issues and climate change, so I though this session would be a good mix of both topics. The speakers were Cindy Parker and Anna Gilmore Hall of HealthCare Without Harm; and they spoke about how climate change has, and will continue to have, a dramatic impact on healthcare and how we need to fight both issues simultaneously. The session room was completely full, clearly many people are interested in these issues.
Cindy focused her remarks on how climate change is affecting health. She spoke about how climate change is affecting our food supply, causing droughts and floods, and increasing the risk of infectious diseases. She used the example of West Nile Virus, which as she said, came to the US because of globalization, but spread rapidly because of climate change. When mosquitoes infected with West Nile first arrived in New York City, there was a drought, which cause animals to gather at the sparse water sources. This made it much easier for the mosquitoes to infect others and spread the disease. This was certainly a great example of how climate change really is affecting the diseases that we are now fighting.
According to Cindy, the World Health Organization (WHO) di d a study to get a rough estimate of how many people are dying as a result of climate change. They used measures such as deaths from infectious diseases, storm surges, and droughts. I would argue that there are probably even more indicators they could have used, but I’m sure that gave a good rough estimate. What WHO determined from the study was that about 150,000 people around the world each year die as a result of climate change. I think, and Cindy agreed, that the actual number is much much bigger and that number will probably only increase.
The most interesting, though unsurprising and depressing, aspect of the WHO study was that most of those dying as a result of climate change are people living in the developing world. But as we all know, most carbon emissions come from developed nations. I think Cindy put it best in her remarks:
The developed countries are producing the problem; the developing countries are suffering the consequences.
How depressing, and completely unfair to the rest of the world. After this depressing news, Cindy closed her presentation with a bit of optimism, saying:
the bad thing about climate change is that we’re all part of the problem, the good thing is that we can all be part of the solution.
Anna then spoke about how hospitals and other health care organizations are working to green their operations. She spoke about a tool that allows hospitals to see the direct impact of their energy usage on the health of their communities. I’m sure that would be a sobering thing for any hospital administrator to look at.
Anna also spoke about things that individuals can do, including becoming more efficient in our personal energy usage, in how we drive and use transit, and how we eat. She noted that we need to think of climate change as affecting our children and our future, more than just the polar bears and other wildlife. She said we need better community design and a better food system in our country to really address climate change.
The big point of the presentation was that:
global warming is a global issue with global solutions.
But each individual person has a role to play. It is a huge opportunity, as well as a huge challenge. I really couldn’t agree more.
After taking a few questions and discussing a few other topics including healthier food and a greener pharmaceutical industry, the presenters wrapped things up. It was, overall, a phenomenal session. It was a great way to tie health care and climate change together and show that we can, and should, work on both these issues simultaneously.
