Hip Hop for Obama

Hip Hop icons, Pharrell Willaims, Shawn "Jay-Z" Carter, and Russell Simmons, all who back Senator Obama's bid for the White House, have designed Obama inspired t-shirts. These t shirts are included in what has been called, "Runway to Change." Each item's proceeds are being donated to the Obama Victory Fund. Along with the three hip hop icons, designs by Marc Jacobs, Vera Wang, and Juicy Couture have all been added to the "Runway for Change" campaign right before New York fashion week. McCain has similarly enlisted the help of Northern Mariana Island's local sweatshop workers to create the first in many styles of "Straight Talk Express" T shirts.



Source,
"Runway to Change". Barack Obama official website. .

Red Bull Hit and Run Denver

This is for a video competition that Red Bull is hosting. The top 5 crews with the most youtube hits by Oct 4th will be judged and the winning crew gets flown to France to go to BC One, one of the the largest international 1 on 1 bboy contests. Please help the homies get to France by watching the video...

Thanks for your support!


Derek

Dirty Tricks

"A vote for John Kerry is a vote for gay marriage," the recorded message on the other end of the autodialer spouted. Robocalls supposedly from the Kerry campaign were made to key battleground states during the 2004 presidential election, intended to paint Kerry as candidate who supports gay marriage. The Republican National Committee mailed out literature to socially conservative black Democrats in West Virgina and Arkansas, stating that if elected, John Kerry would ban the Bible! Both of those examples were not the policies of John Kerry, but none the less influenced people's voting habits. So why am I talking about things that happened during the 2004 Presidential election, because the same sly tactics seem to be happening again.

Is the Republican National Committee up to their old tricks? I believe so. Yesterday AP reporter Kelli Kennedy reported on Jewish voters in Florida and Michigan being called and asked if they would be less likely to vote for Senator Barack Obama if he was linked to the PLO and a member of his staff to Palestine. Mik Moore, co-executive director of the Jewish Council for Education & Research is not surprised by this and stated, "We see this as a disturbing but not unexpected ratcheting up of the kind of misinformation and outright lies about Obama's record that we've literally seen since he declared his candidacy." I'm sure that these types of smears will continue and attempt to sway voters with the election less than two months away.

Dirty tricks are the norm in politics, I get this-- but do people have to be so gullible? "Well Sean Hannity said Obama is a Muslim, so it must be true," or "this poller on the phone said Obama is in bed with Hamas, I better vote for McCain, we can't forget about 9/11 dag nabit!" We know that isn't true, but some people are, how can I put it, too stupid to know any better, and will believe it. Let's just hope these people do the research, or at best we try to inform them of what is true and what is false. If that doesn't happen, the Republican's next bag of gimmicks will open up and potentially cost us another election. With Karl Rove now acting as an adviser for the McCain campaign there is no telling what kind of mud slinging and tricks Obama and the Dems are in store for.




sources
Brune, Adrian. "Kerry backs Mass. amendment ". Washington Blade. 9/17/08
Daniel, Douglass. "RNC Says It Sent Mail Warning Bible Ban". Associated Press. 9/17/08.
Kennedy, Kelli. "Jewish voters report calls disparaging Obama". Associated Press. 9/17/08 .

Uncommon Valor: A Vietnam Story

Back in 06 RA the Rugged Man had a guest verse on Jedi Mind Trick's song, Uncommon Valor: A Vietnam Story. He recounted his father's experiences in Vietnam and how it affected his life after. Senator John J. Flanagan recently honored RA's father with the Conspicuous Service cross from the state of NY.

Lakai and BAL (Balance Wear Design) Collabo

Lakai Footwear teams up with BAL of Japan to create a new shoe with a nice collage graphic on both the inside and outsie panels with a black upper. This model is simaler to the MJ 3's that Lakai put out that is based on "Where The Wild Things Are." I doubt we will get these at Zappos.

Obama popularity around world proven in new poll

According to polls conducted around the world by the BBC, Senator Obama is seen as more popular than John McCain in the Global Spectrum. In the 22 countries polled by the BBC, Senator Obama is looked at as more favorable in each country polled. Out of the 22 countries polled, 17 countries felt that US Foreign relations would improve under Senator Obama. The countries of Egypt, Russia, Lebanon and Singapore felt that relations would remain the same with Obama as President . Turkey was the only country polled who felt relations would worsen, and that was by a margin of 4%.

These poll numbers are probably due to the fact that our economy has a strong tie to markets abroad. With the credit/housing crisis effecting economies all over the world, the results are not that surprising. I do not feel that this poll could be construed as inaccurate either, but with how the McCain camp is refuting polls, and misleading the public over facts, I am sure that they would say something about the fairness of this poll. I would love to hear what the McCain camp would say to try and discredit these stats, or how they could spin this to McCain's advantage. With Lipstick/Pig gate in full force, I can see the press release now, "The BBC poll regarding Senator Obama's popularity abroad is biased because not enough foreign pigs were polled! This poll is blatantly 'pigist' and goes against our policy, of not only working to strengthen ties with foreign countries, but our bond with our foreign pig friends as well."

Derek Flores

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7606100.stm

Other Blogging

I have long wanted to branch out and blog about my daily thoughts, the happenings in hip hop, fashion and politics. I have taken the first steps in documenting what I feel is important not only to me but to others who share my common interests.
I had been interested in blogging for 944 magazine, and met this past weekend for lunch with a friend who is an editorial contributor for the magazine. I let her know that I was interested in contributing some blogs about politics, and issues that are close to me. Seems easy enough, right? I have tried today for a good while to find a topic that I can write a quick blog about, but it has been pretty difficult. Not because the topics are irrelevant, or not something that interests me, but because I keep stopping short because of fact checking. It would be really easy to go off on a tangent and not care whether what I am writing about is true or not. I decided not to do that out of respect for my college professors who taught me all I know about citing and doing your best to research everything fully. I have spent a good amount of time checking my topics to make sure that my blogs are not easily refuted. I should have a couple of good ones here soon.