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I remember 9/11 well. I was 18. I was heading of to college, about to, for the first time ever, live away from home. I’d decided to move to California, halfway across the country from my hometown of Overland Park, Kansas, and on 9/11, me and my dad were halfway to California. We were in Flagstaff, Arizona, actually, on a quick stopover to visit the Grand Canyon.

That morning I turned on the TV to check ESPN. Instead, I found out the world I’d be entering college into a world completely different than the one I’d graduated high school from. The first thought on my mind as I saw the twin towers in flames - “please, let it not be Arab terrorists.”

I want you all to think for a second - on those first few days, when America was twisted inside out. I knew about the Japanese internments during World War II, of the history of slavery and subsequent Jim Crow segregation that had only ended when my dad was my age. As a brown American, not of Arab origin, but fully aware of the fact that most Americans could not tell the difference, I honestly wondered for a few days whether America would accept me anymore.

Fear gripped me.

Osama Bin Laden. He was everywhere. Terrorism had become communism of our era. My generation now had it’s JFK moment. Fear was pervasive, onmipresent. Not far from where me and my dad spent the following night, September 12th, at a hotel where the receptionist’s eyes were glued to pictures of Bin Laden on the news, Balbir Singh, a Sikh-American, was murdered in an hate crime for refusing to remove his turban.

It could very easily have been me. That was the world those days.

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You’ve not only made history, but you’ve restored my belief in the American dream and my country.

Now, let’s go change America.

12 1/2 months ago, I stepped foot on American soil for the first time in over a year. I wasn’t wearing a flag lapel pin, and my passport had stamps from some rather unseemly countries (Turkey, the Emirates, Malaysia, to name a few), my hair was long, and I was going to live at home. But I knew then that, even though I had just finished a trip around the world, with experiences that I’m only now starting to understand, I was starting a far grander journey.

The journey to change America.

Last night, we took a powerful first step in that direction.

I travel with a slightly different perspective than most travelers. The world is a patchwork of disparate peoples, each with their own dynamic and fascinating history - and I only wanted to tap into this great collective of knowledge. So I went, from the picturesque battlefields of Gallipoli, where the seeds were planted that led to the great ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia only a decade ago. I visited the remote kingdom of Nepal, where the rapidly changing weather patterns were wreaking havoc on subsidence crops (a precursor to the food crisis today, I now realize).

I realized what power I had - I was from America. Six years of Bush had taken it’s toll on me, but I still believed that I could make a different. I just hadn’t tried hard enough.

Change isn’t easy. And last night, we took our first step towards Change we can believe in, and for the world, an America they can look up to once again. The next step - beating John McCain.

First of all, my apologies to anyone who visited the website in the last few days and got an error message. My host, due to security issues, automatically changed the names of all the databases and unfortunately it took me two days to realize the change, and update my configuration. Hopefully, this will be the last time that this happens. I guess it’s the price you pay when you get 100% Clean Energy webhosting.

Coca Travel will officially be launching soon - be prepared for it. Besides that, I’m working on some more Tibet posts, just cause the torch is gone doesn’t mean the cause is over.

Classic

This man never ceases to amaze me.

In response to the elitism charges.

There is an allure to the Olympics games, and allure that transcends sport. It is the ultimate gathering of the world - because of the athletes who participate, amateurs from all different walks of life competing peacefully and representing their countries with valor that makes us all proud.

But the Olympics are far more than who wins the gold. From the Olympic charter.

Olympism is a philosophy of life, exalting and combining in a balanced whole the qualities of body, will and mind. Blending sport with culture and education, Olympism seeks to create a way of life based on the joy found in effort, the educational value of good example and respect for universal fundamental ethical principles.

Mimicking an idea from another Olympic games (see more below), China is organizing a worldwide tour of the torch as part of their grand public relations bonanza surrounding the games, and has invited 50 world leaders, including President George W. Bush to attend the opening ceremonies.

If there is one thing that history has taught us, is that we cannot divorce the Olympic Games from Politics.

It is fitting that the torch made its only North American stop in San Francisco, the birthplace of the United Nations, and on my way to the Torch rally I passed through UN Plaza, where representatives from 50 nations, including China (the nationalists, not the communists) hoped to wipe away the ashes of war and lay the foundation for a humane, just world.

The Olympics have always been, and always will be political. pleasedontbefake wrote a diary about the 1968 Olympics, and how the international attention placed on the dictators in Mexico paved the path for eventual fair, free Democracy. In away, the Olympics helped bring about this change in Mexcio and the diarist believes that 2008 in Beijing will be similar. I fear, though, that another Olympics might be a better analogy. One where a similar torch rally was held to improve a nation’s deteriorating standing in Europe.

Berlin 1936.

Hitler was convinced by Joseph Goebbels to allow the games to take place in Germany. Preparation for the games started in the early 1930s. Hitler used the Olympics as a tool for propaganda. Film-maker Leni Riefenstahl, a favorite of Hitler, was commissioned by the International Olympic Committee to film the Games. The film, titled Olympia, originated many of the techniques now commonplace to the filming of sports.

Hitler removed signs stating “Jews not wanted” and similar slogans from the main tourist attractions. Hitler desired to clean up Berlin, the German Ministry of Interior authorized the chief of Berlin Police to arrest all gypsies and keep them in a special camp.[1] Nazi officials ordered that foreign visitors should not be subjected to the criminal strictures of anti-homosexual laws.

Politicizing the Olympics. Hiding repression. Throw in a military buildup and growing economic might, and you have Berlin/Beijing 2008, the sequel, with the Chinese Community Party in the starring role.

Beijing is mimicking Nazi Olympic preparations. In 2001, the communists promised the international community to improve human rights in order to win the Olympics but once the games were awarded Chinese officials changed their tune. Deputy Prime Minister Li Langing said his country would maintain its “healthy life” by combating the Falun Gong spiritual movement and Vice President Hu Jintao promised “… to fight … the separatist forces orchestrated by the Dalai Lama [the spiritual leader of Tibet].”

We didn’t boycott the 1936 Olympics. We did almost nothing to reign in Nazi Germany until it was almost too late. The international spotlight of the Olympics only enhanced Germany’s global standing and help move the country rapidly into a war economy. We all know the costs.

Would a boycott have made a difference? Would the international community paying attention to the already evident signs of gross Human Rights Abuses in Germany helped? We will never know.

But, in retrospect, wouldn’t it have been worth it to try? Is there anyone who doesn’t wish that the world had done more to stop Hitler before it was too late?

It is now 49 years since China illegally invaded and annexed Tibet – 49 years where the international community has done little for the Tibetan people, or the numerous other oppressed peoples of China. Southern Mongolia, East Turkestan - who speaks for them? Were it not for the sea, Taiwan, one of the few multiparty Democracies in East Asia, would also be under the reign of the CCP. As the cultural genocide continues, the world prepares to gather in the nation with more executions than every other country combined, with horrendous Human Rights atrocities, and rumors of mobile execution vans abound. Is that Olympism?

If we don’t do something now, if we don’t use this leverage to force reforms within China, when will we get the next chance?

I will end with a quote from an unlikely source, yet one that I agree with.

“Bush’s presence would be akin to President Franklin D. Roosevelt sitting in the same stands as Germany’s Adolf Hitler in 1936….any American seen waving in the stands “will go down in history as cooperating in the genocide Olympics of 2008. And history will never, ever, ever forgive them.”

From Republican Congressman Frank Wolf (VA).

It’s amazing how the 3am ad, of all of Hillary’s ads, has reached cult status and become the most iconic ad of the primary campaign. And how that hasn’t really been a good thing for Hillary. Let’s take a look at two spoofs of her 3am ads.

This from the Jed Report.

Those unpaid Hillary bills have, unfortunately, not become a large issue in this campaign, much to my chagrin. For someone who is running on competence and ability to lead, how can this be a positive testament to how she will run Government?

The second one comes from Saturday Night Life, and was far more controversial. I happen to think that it attacks Hillary more than Barack, but many on the blogosphere disagreed. Take a look.

Once again. I wonder how much we’ll see this in the fall.