change

LAST WEEK we watched a young man (whom one person wrote me and called "arrogant") engage the democratic process as he questioned Hillary Clinton during her Town Rally at the South Eugene High School (April 4, 2008). The bold student wanted to know if when all was said and done the Senator was more interested in her own candidacy than preserving or encouraging the viability of the Democratic Party's eventual as-of-yet-unselected nominee. In Part 4, this conclusion to our four part series, she responds.

(Please excuse the audio buzz that can be heard for aprx. the first 50 seconds.)

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3
• Part 4

The latest video by Oregon's Official MTV Choose or Lose Street Team 08 Citizen Journalist, Nezua.

Clicking the picture above will take you to the video page.

Crossposted to The Unapologetic Mexican and OpEdNews.

Barack Obama: Barack Obama Last night I collapsed with exhaustion after spending several days coughing my lungs out. My son "Thing 2" probably saw it on my face when he asked me to snuggle with him in bed. I just passed out.

The last thought on my mind was --and I was thinking about this because I had every intention of blogging it-- that Edwards was going to win Iowa with Obama coming in on second. This was purely based on gut instinct and the kind of grassroots work I have seen unfolding from both campaigns. Hillary Clinton's campaign is too corporate, too top down and for that matter completely open and vulnerable to grassroots upsets.

And it showed last night.

Interesting piece of trivia : I should have known last night that Obama was going to win. I received a bulletin saying that Iowa had decided to lower the caucusing age to 17. Yes. 17 years-olds were voting last night at the caucuses. It may well explaining the huge turn out as well as the 57% of under 30 voting for Obama.

Here's the bulletin put out by the Maryland Democratic Party :

SOME OF MY regular readers (I do not, at this point, necessarily refer to the bran-eating amongst us, though they are a well-stirred crew, I'm sure) remember the day back in August I casually (you should have seen me, I was sipping a mint julep as I typed) posted on the MTV Choose or Lose '08 Vlogger competition. Others came to this ongoing Chronicle of Nezua when I created a short video auditioning to represent Oregon for the 2008 Presidential Media Hellfest Cycle (that is the proper name, qué no?). And still others joined our Videolicious adventure when I was named one of the three finalists for my state.

Well, I'm sure you can tell I am not winding up this big delivery to announce that I lost! So here is the day I say ¡Órale vatos! for I am now officially operating as the Oregon Street Team Vlogging Citizen Journalist Beauty Queen. Or will be from January 7 to mid-November of '08, at which point I will accept the inevitable invitation to model the next iteration of the iPhone. Anyway, all blushing and preening aside, I am very excited about the larger platform and greater exposure, and I plan to use it to bring as many gorgeous pixels to as many computer and television screens as I can, perhaps sandwiching a few factoids in there as well. Please see me as your personal man on the inside. Of Oregon, too. And who will be sending moss-scented missives out through the mighty mouth of MTV Vloggerland. In fact, if you live in Oregon and have local news, please get in touch. (And Nike, can't you see my face on a sneaker, come on! WRITE MUH PEEPLES! We'll call it the "Sweatshop Stomper," no? We can make it out of hemp. COME BACK!!!)

What follows is completely true and yet unreal.
Stephen Foster met Uncle Ben in my radio reverie this morning. For real, or so it seemed. (Y'all know I hear odd connections in that place between asleep and awake.)

Two southern stories that seem literally black and white, but turn out to be anything but.

Radio news reported that the Southland's good old-fashioned composer is on his way out; our conservative and affable new governor actually refuses to have our state song played in his presence! (yet in the same breath he says "whatever the people want satisfies me" and that sure sounds unreal to me.)

Nobody said anything unmannerly or politically correct about unpopular language, although that's likely the truth. One legislator did mention the word "darkies" but to hear them tell it, it's not that, just the times they are a'changin' . . .hey, now THAT would make a great state song!

Meanwhile good old-fashioned Uncle Ben got a promotion to Chairman of the Board. He isn't the kindly kitchen rice-cooker anymore, now he's the Donald Trump of Rice, with his own fancy penthouse office, jet-setting schedule and authoritative rice-education curriculum. (You can poke around his empty office, open his travel journal, it feels almost like corporate espionage, with him hanging on the wall watching your every move!)

Look, I want to love this world

as though it's the last chance I'm ever going to get

to be alive

and know it.

Mary Oliver, "October"

I woke up with hope on my tongue this morning. It was a sweetness on the flesh of my lips, a tiny taste of something larger than myself, some reason to get up this morning and partake of a mad world.

I have been resentful as hell that it's autumn. But this morning, something shifted.
I have spent the past couple of weeks in fear. Dread, from the Old English, ondrædan may be a better word. My fearful self counseled against staying here through another winter. Winter here is cruel. There is no mercy in the January wind, no safe place to walk when treacherous February freezes every surface.

As much as I love autumn, its beauty is ominous. And for the past two weeks, I've allowed that sense of fear to cloud my ability to see the beauty around me. To lose track of time and space and my own heartbeat amidst the roar and rush of fear.