Obama's suggestion to host a Unite for Change event triggered my community organizing imagination. Though I'm not big on hosting an event like that for a bunch of people who are already sold on Obama, I am interested in encouraging more people to register and actually vote. I decided I would host the event for the young adults I know... many of whom will be first-time voters this election. I called on one of the college students who said she'd be interested to learn more about the process to help me organize.

To prepare for the event, I began looking up statistics.

As in many inner city communities across the nation, our wealthier and whiter northern part of the city votes at a higher percentage than our lower-income, highly minority southern sector. This is what I found:

• In northern Dallas, 31.61% (166,848) of all eligible voters show up to vote at the last presidential election
• In southern Dallas, only 18.77% (63,816) of all eligible voters showed up

What was even more sobering... and disturbing... was to find that my neighborhood, zipcode 75223, the turnout was much lower... only 8.51%. (source: www.analyzedallas.com) So, instead of creating a Unite for Change / Obama event, I contacted the Dallas County Elections Department to see if they would agree to educate and deputize everyone...

As I drove through my neighborhood, the planted flowers immediately caught my eye.

I continued driving up the street... but the more I thought about it, I had to turn around and go back.

Flowers outside of a business in my neighborhood...spending extra time and money on making their place aesthetically pleasing... is pretty much unheard of. It amazed me how much of a difference this little row of flowers made!

Back in the 1940s and 50s, white Dallas residents and politicians purchased land and created laws that relegated black Dallas residents to Rochester Park. Unknowingly to the black residents at the time, Rochester Park was a flood plain, as were many other parts of Dallas. The Dallas politicians purchased land (some of which is now the downtown area), created laws that provided them economic benefit, and redeveloped their land, causing even more flood waters to be channeled to the Rochester Park area. For more information, see Jim Schutze, The Accommodation. (fyi...This area is also known as Bon Ton, though in this blog, I most often refer to the housing development in Rochester Park called Turner Courts.)

Six months ago we started our very first Town Hall meeting in Turner Courts. Deputy Mayor Pro Tem, Dwaine Caraway, came with many different city staff and committed to us that he would not allow Rochester Park to be neglected anymore. For the next six months, he agreed to attend our meetings. With the exception of one meeting, he has been there and fulfilled his promise... and even when he's not there, he makes sure city staff people are. His assistant, Stephanie Pegues, has helped us tremendously and has always arranged for whatever city staff we asked for to attend the meeting. Mike Davis, has been an amazing advocate with us and for us--often, I'm sure, when we don't even know it.

I believe everyone deserves to find something they're good at.

Tim Russert was someone I watched every Sunday morning. Though I find politics very interesting, some political discussions are dry. Not Tim Russert. He was interesting. He brought together important people. He challenged. He laughed.

As I watched Meet the Press after Tim Russert passed, the heartfelt comments moved me.

I admit, I was disappointed when I received the email from the Obama campaign that said Barack Obama had decided to opt out of the public funding. I suppose I don't want to hear that Barack is just like any other politician. I want him to be different. Yet, this felt very much like a political move.

Not too long ago, Obama advocated for a fair and equal system of funding and agreed to sit down with and work on equal terms with McCain. His email video, in my opinion, was a lame attempt to explain to his supporters that the system is broken and he is working to rise above it. Instead, it seemed like a typical politician's message to try to pull the wool over our eyes once he realized and had confidence that he could raise much more money using his own supporters and funding base.

Personally, I don't mind if people come to new understandings and "flip-flop." I actually applaud that because it tells me they are listening and learning instead of remaining unmovable in their thoughts and ideas.

Not too long ago, Dallas Independent School District (DISD) passed a bond package to build 15 new schools. I attended the DISD Bond Election Townhall meeting in my neighborhood to find out more about the bond package. I was always in favor of the bond simply because I think anything the schools can do to improve education for the students in DISD is a good thing. While at the meeting, however, I questioned the efficiency of the way they were planning to spend the money.

Just a year or so ago, they spent a huge amount of time and money on O.M. Roberts Elementary school (my neighborhood school) to install elevators in order to be ADA approved. I completely agree with that move... except that I think it should have been done long ago. What bothers me is not that they spent the money to meet ADA standards... nor is it that the new bond package will mean tearing down O.M. Roberts and rebuilding the school. What bothers me is that there doesn't seem to be foresight as we look to the future of our schools and our children. As a result, it seems to me that we are wasting money that could have been prevented had we looked ahead and spent the money rebuilding the school the first time.

This seems to be a problem in our broader society as well.

I just came back from a family reunion in San Antonio.

Lots of fun. The older I get, the more I realize how important it is to (re)connect with family. It was great being with cousins I rarely see...even though some of them live in the Dallas area.

We enjoyed homemade Mexican pastries... the Schlitterbahn...

I was talking to a Muslim friend of mine who is very much a Barack supporter. He was explaining to me that he has recently become disappointed in Barack because of his pandering to the Israeli/Jewish vote. He feels this approach is alienating many Muslims.

That disappointed me. I have been very impressed with the high road Barack has taken so far. I hope he doesn't digress now.

It made me think of a recent documentary I saw on PBS's Independent Lens. The documentary followed the first year of Liberia's first female president.

Last Tuesday night I attended Vanessa's "crossing over" ceremony as she completed middle school and got ready to attend Skyline High School.

As I watched her walk across the stage, I had to lean over to her mom and ask, "Is she really going into 9th grade??!!"

"Back of the problem of race and color lies a greater problem and that is the fact that so many civilized person's are willing to live in comfort even if the price of this is poverty, ignorance, and disease of the majority of their fellowmen, [and] that to maintain this privilege men have waged war until today war tends to become universal and continuous." ~W.E.B. DuBois

I chose a few of my favorites that reminded me of the current election...