Helping in times of crisis (please read!)

As I was going through my daily routine of looking through Twitter updates and blog entries, I came across this poignant thought from a commenter on lightrailblogger.com. This hearkens back to an entry I posted back in December with some words of wisdom from Kirsten Martin, a good friend and one of my Student Ambassador colleagues:

With all the cuts in the Phoenix city budget and Maricopa County budget, there are going to be far fewer services to help the homeless get off the street and back into productive living. We need to step up and help - NOW. Whether it's serving food at St. Vincent de Paul, or Andre House or getting involved at the Lodestar Day Resource Center or making a financial donation (even $5 will be welcomed) to CASS or SVdP -- every little bit helps. In my experience, volunteering my time to help those in need provides far greater personal rewards than the help that I give. I particularly suggest it if you are having your own pity party about your personal financial situation. It helps put life into perspective. Donation and volunteer opportunities can be found at www.stvincentdepaul.net.

Please feel free to pass this along to your contacts and networks so that we can make Phoenix a better place, even if it is in a time of economic hardship.
-Edward Jensen

Yes, we Did.

Yes, we Did.

This is the journey we continue today. We remain the most prosperous, powerful nation on Earth. Our workers are no less productive than when this crisis began. Our minds are no less inventive, our goods and services no less needed than they were last week or last month or last year. Our capacity remains undiminished. But our time of standing pat, of protecting narrow interests and putting off unpleasant decisions - that time has surely passed. Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America. -Pres. Barack Obama, 20 January 2009

The string of unliklies

This has been a rather intense last couple of months with unlikely things happening:

1. Barack Obama is elected as the nation's first black president
2. The miracle on the Hudson River
3. The Cardinals heading to Super Bowl XLIII

Perhaps this is a sign and that which was thought to be unlikely realizes itself...

Cheers-
Edward Jensen

Light Rail Opens: Pictures from the festivities

To great fanfare, Valley METRO Light Rail opened today after a decade in the making. Here are some highlights from the day's events from the Encanto/Central Ave station:


if you cannot see the slideshow, stop by my blog to see it!


if you cannot see the video, stop by my blog to see it!

With METRO now open, some of the fixed-bus service in Phoenix will change on Monday December 29. The major change is that bus trips that begin within the city of Phoenix before 5am and after 10pm on weekdays will be eliminated. Saturday service will mirror Sunday service.

Since free rides on METRO continue through 2am January 1 2009, I'll see you on the trains!

Cheers-
Edward Jensen

Fundamental human rights

A couple of days ago, Gov. Mike Huckabee was on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. They had a conversation on the same-sex marriage debate that is worth 7 minutes of your time. Both sides do make some great points, but with how Mr. Stewart frames his argument, it seems like marriage is something that should be enjoyed by all and not controlled by one religion or one sect:

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Mike Huckabee Pt. 2

Barack Obama Interview
John McCain Interview

Sarah Palin Video
Funny Election Video

if you cannot see the video, stop by my blog to see it!

Cheers-
Edward Jensen

The ASU Downtown Phoenix Campus Chorale goes caroling!

Come join the Downtown Phoenix Campus Chorale and Glee Club spread winter cheer in downtown Phoenix.

To create a festive atmosphere around the Downtown Phoenix campus, the Downtown Phoenix Campus Chorale and Glee Club are going to go caroling around the campus on Wednesday December 10 in the afternoon and evening. So, come join us for a rehearsal on Thursday December 4 from 4.30-6pm in UCENT 286. We'll work on traditional holiday favorites and new music.

Come check us out on Facebook. Please forward this to anyone who might be interested in joining us! The more we have, the merrier the campus will be!

Best-
Edward Jensen

Keith Olbermann on Prop. 8 in California

On 10 November 2008, Keith Olbermann on his program Countdown expressed some thoughts on what marriage apparently isn't now in society.

As preface, and Mr. Olbermann says it eloquently: "I don't have a personal investment in this: I'm not gay, I had to strain to think of one member of even my very extended family who is." But, unlike Mr. Olbermann, I have personal stories of close friends or colleagues fighting the prejudice that still pervades their lives.


if you cannot see the video, come over to my blog to see it

"With your knowledge that life, with endless vigor, seems to tilt the playing field on which we all live, in favor of unhappiness and hate... this is what your heart tells you to do? You want to sanctify marriage? You want to honor your God and the universal love you believe he represents? Then Spread happiness—this tiny, symbolic, semantical grain of happiness—share it with all those who seek it. Quote me anything from your religious leader or book of choice telling you to stand against this. And then tell me how you can believe both that statement and another statement, another one which reads only 'do unto others as you would have them do unto you.'"

-EJ

If things were switched around...

I rarely pay attention to things that have been forwarded to me over e-mail, but this was something that caught my eye. And it's not because it's a pro-Obama piece, but because it still shows that racism is still out there. Sadly.

Obama/Biden vs McCain/Palin, what if things were switched around?.....think about it. Could the country's collective point of view be different? Could racism be the culprit?

Ponder the following:

• What if the Obamas had paraded five children across the stage, including a three month old infant and an unwed, pregnant teenage daughter?
• What if John McCain was a former president of the Harvard Law Review?
• What if Barack Obama finished fifth from the bottom of his graduating class?
• What if McCain had only married once, and Obama was a divorcee?
• What if Obama was the candidate who left his first wife after a severe disfiguring car accident, when she no longer measured up to his standards?
• What if Obama had met his second wife in a bar and had a long affair while he was still married?
• What if Michelle Obama was the wife who not only became addicted to pain killers but also acquired them illegally through her charitable organization?
• What if Cindy McCain graduated from Harvard?
• What if Obama had been a member of the Keating Five? (The Keating Five were five United States Senators accused of corruption in 1989, igniting a major political scandal as part of the larger Savings and Loan crisis of the late 1980s and early 1990s.)
• What if McCain was a charismatic, eloquent speaker?
• What if Obama couldn't read from a teleprompter?
• What if Obama was the one who had military experience that included discipline problems and a record of crashing seven planes?
• What if Obama was the one who was known to display publicly, on many occasions, a serious anger management problem?
• What if Michelle Obama's family had made their money from beer distribution?
• What if the Obamas had adopted a white child?

You could easily add to this list. If these questions reflected reality, do you really believe the election numbers would be as close as they are?

This is what racism does. It covers up, rationalizes and minimizes positive qualities in one candidate and emphasizes negative qualities in another when there is a color difference.

Educational Background
Barack Obama
Columbia University - B.A. Political Science with amSpecialization in International Relations.
Harvard - Juris Doctor (J.D.) Magna Cum Laude

Joseph Biden:
University of Delaware - B.A. in History and B.A. in Political Science.
Syracuse University College of Law - Juris Doctor (J.D.)

John McCain:
United States Naval Academy - Class rank: 894 of 899

Sarah Palin:
Hawaii Pacific University - 1 semester
North Idaho College - 2 semesters - general study
University of Idaho - 2 semesters - journalism
Matanuska-Susitna College - 1 semester
University of Idaho - 3 semesters - B.A. in Journalism

Education isn't everything, but this is about the two highest offices in the land as well as our standing in the world.

Cheers-
Edward Jensen

Greater Phoenix Forward

On 29 October 2008, the Dean of the College of Public Programs (my college!), Dr. Debra Friedman, spoke on KAET's Horizon program about Greater Phoenix Forward, a report on the human services infrastructure in the Phoenix metropolitan area.

Watch her remarks below courtesy of Arizona PBS/KAET:


if you cannot see the video, stop by my blog to see it

Cheers-
Edward Jensen

Review: Haydn's Creation as performed by the Phoenix Symphony

[The Phoenix Symphony Orchestra and Chorus performed Joseph Haydn's oratorio The Creation on 2nd, 4th, and 5th October. This review is on the October 4th performance at Phoenix Symphony Hall. In addition, this was originally posted to my Life at the ASU Downtown Phoenix blog.]

Few works in the entire repertory of Classical music have achieved such notoreity as Joseph Haydn's oratorio The Creation. Composed in 1796 during Haydn's most productive and famous years (The Creation was the first work to be published in two languages at the beginning, it was also written in German as Die Schöpfung), this oratorio explores the first days of earth as recorded in Genesis beginning with a musical representation of chaos up through the first few happy hours of Adam and Eve.

The Phoenix Symphony Orchestra (PSO) has just recently established itself as a master of large but nimble symphonic works under the batons of Robert Moody (who is now at the helm of the Winston-Salem Symphony Orchestra in North Carolina and the Portland Symphony Orchestra in Maine) and present music director Michael Christie. But The Creation should not be regarded as a small chamber piece: it calls for full complements of strings, woodwinds, brass, and tympani as well as a chorus. Soloists Celena Shafer (soprano), Gregory Kunde (tenor), and Philip Cutlip (baritone) complete the ensemble for the performance.

The three soloists were on top of their game Saturday evening. Their dynamic with Maestro Christie was fantastic. They were free to add their own cadenzas whenever the parts fit and Christie was receptive to that. Their dynamic with each other in trio sections was sublime. Even with supertitles projected above the stage, hearing what they were singing was easy, despite being in the back of the house with a lot of coughing going on from my fellow concertgoers. Mr. Cutlip, playing the role of the angel Raphael, manipulated his voice to imitate the different things that were being created.

There were a couple of movements that Maestro Christie took simply too fast to accommodate the orchestra and chorus. Typically this was during some of the contrapuntal sections. A good example of this was during the finale to part II, "Achieved is the glorious work". Both the orchestra and the chorus were having difficulties keeping up with Christie's tempo. Articulation by the orchestra was sub-par and so was the chorus's diction. Having played and sung this movement, the proper articulation and diction conveys the jubilation that Creation is complete.

All in all, the PSO and the Symphony Chorus presented a tour de force and only further proved that Phoenix and the Southwest are incredibly lucky to have such a fantastic orchestra in the region. If I had to rate this, I would give it 8.3/10.

Cheers-
Edward Jensen

This is the Sheraton Phoenix Downtown

Today was a big day in downtown Phoenix history. Downtown Phoenix's first new hotel in over 30 years opened. This is the Sheraton Phoenix Downtown, located along 3rd Street between Taylor and Van Buren Streets.

I went inside and had a look around to see what was on the inside (after a couple of years of seeing construction on the outside!).


if you cannot see the slideshow, click here for the album

Cheers-
Edward Jensen

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at the UN

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad delivered his speech to the United Nations General Assembly recently. The speech went on for a while (rambling, anyone?), and while the US delegation to the UN left the room, this video from 23/6 (236.com) should fill them in.

You know the drill...


if you cannot see the video, click here

Cheers-
Edward Jensen

Happy Big Bang Day!

Today, physicists in Switzerland and France started up the Large Hadron Collider, a 27km ring designed to see what the universe was like billionths of a second after the Big Bang. If you want more information, check out this stuff from the BBC (UK) or the New York Times.

Also, check out the "Large Hadron Rap" done by physicists with obviously too much time on their hands.


if you cannot see the video, click here

For more on the rap, including lyrics and a downloadable MP3 file, click here.

Cheers-
Edward Jensen

Dinner with Aaron Brown (ASU Barrett Honors College)

This evening was the first of the Barrett Honors College Student/Faculty Dinner series at the Taylor Place residential hall cafeteria. Tonight's faculty member was Aaron Brown, former ABC and CNN anchor, and present Walter Cronkite Professor of Journalism. (Yes, that Aaron Brown.)

All the students in attendance were from the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, except for Sam Richard and me, and everyone was a resident of Taylor Place except Mr. Brown and me. Naturally, most of the conversation focused on journalism and what the journalism students wanted to be upon exiting college, but Mr. Brown and I had a fantastic conversation on city management, the dichotomy of politics and administration, and growth politics. (More specifics of content to come later.)

The man is extremely nice and personable. He teaches a course in the Cronkite School about turning points in television news history, which is a class I intend to take. I remember watching the horrors of 11 September 2001 happening on my television with Mr. Brown standing from a Manhattan rooftop watching American history unfold. To be there - right next to the man - is quite an honor.

And one I will long remember.

Cheers-
Edward Jensen

Weather discussion, 28 August 2008

Some interesting facts about last night's storm:

Midtown Phoenix (defined as Central Avenue E/W 2 miles from the Deck Park to Camelback Road) got hit the hardest. Over Midtown, there were three distinct storms that passed. The first was from 9.42-10pm, the second from 11-11.20pm, the third from 11.30-11.45pm. For each of the three storms, the strongest period of activity was in the trailing edge of each storm as it moved west.

National Weather Service Doppler radar indicated winds at 1,500 feet above ground to be in excess of 95 miles per hour on the first storm and slightly under that for the second storm. No winds data is available for the third storm. (The same radar indicated the strongest winds to be over 100mph just west of Sky Harbor International Airport at 9.45pm.)

By the media coverage, the hardest hit urban area was centered at the intersection of Central Avenue and Encanto Boulevard. Parts of the roof and windows from the 22-story Regency House condominium tower broke off and landed on Central Avenue, most notably on the overhead catenary wires that will power METRO when it opens 27 December 2008. Scores of east-facing windows in the Tapestry on Central condominium complex were blown out with glass shards from these windows traveling distances of over 500 feet to the west. Many roof-mounted air conditioning units on the Tapestry complex's roof were damaged or destroyed. Power lines on 3rd Avenue and 7th Street were blown over causing widespread power outages.

At this hour (9.20pm 29 August 2008), power is off in the Willo Historic District, the Encanto-Palmcroft Historic District, and other adjacent neighborhoods. Power was largely lost during the second storm that blew a transformer at 7th Street and McDowell Road.

A more scientific discussion with detailed Doppler radar images can be found from the National Weather Service's Phoenix office webpage, online at http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/psr/pns/2008/August/28thStorms.php.

Cheers-
Edward Jensen

Chengdu after the earthquake

NPR has been doing some fantastic journalism from the site of Sunday's 7.9 magnitude earthquake that hit Chengdu and the Sichuan province of China. They haven't been going for sensational journalism or competitive journalism: just reporting what's happening as it happens.

NPR's "All Things Considered" hosts Robert Siegel and Melissa Block have been in China since Sunday's temblor, and they've been writing a blog they're calling "Chengdu Diary". Go check it out at http://www.npr.org/blogs/chengdu/.

And while you're at it, go help out those in need. Phoenix and Chengdu are Sister Cities. Here's a list of ways to help out.

-EJ

Okay, Hillary, step aside

I have long been a supporter of the Clintons. Bill Clinton was a phenomenal President from 1993-2001. When Hillary entered the race for the 2008 Presidential race, I knew that she would be a great President.

When the field was effectively reduced to two - Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton - the two candidates seemed to have little difference in their policy positions and so on. I selected Hillary because she had the experience. But now, America has indicated that Obama would be the better candidate.

And so he might be. We'll never know. But the will of the American people is that the Illinois senator would be better. The math shows that Obama is the presumptive Democratic nominee. With that, Clinton should step aside.

The question is how she continues on. Recent polls have indicated that an Obama-Clinton ticket is the 'dream ticket'. But I'm not sure if Clinton would be that. A recent entry by a Lutheran blogger (and Obama supporter) had proposed a Clinton-Obama ticket, but that was written just after Super Tuesday.

Don't get me wrong: I will support the Democratic ticket. John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, offers policies that are not sustainable for the United States. This once 'maverick' Senator that regularly crossed party lines now panders to his own party. As some have said, a McCain presidency is a third G.W. Bush term. Continued presence in Iraq - with all the financial resources associated with it and the harm that it has done to the foreign relations of the United States - is not right. The central cities need funding that has not been given to them in the past eight years. Our national infrastructure is one step away from complete collapse. Healthcare in this country is a privilege of few and not the right of all.

By taking the United States out of Iraq, we can shift funding to those above areas. The Democrats will do that - either Obama or Clinton. Let's end this madness and start a national race: Barack Obama vs. John McCain. And you know for whom I'm voting.

Cheers -EJ

China earthquake update

You have to feel sorry for the Chinese people that have been affected by Monday's 7.9 earthquake in Chengdu, China. Beyond the main earthquake, I've counted over 50 aftershocks to the main quake. The aftershocks never help out, it seems.

If you didn't know, Chengdu is a Phoenix Sister City, and so Phoenix is helping out. (This is good.) My good friend and fellow Student Ambassador for Recruitment Sam Richard has given us some helpful information on how to help out. Thanks, Sam.

Thanks, -EJ