obamarama

as some of you may know, obama spoke to congress yesterday (tuesday) about the economy, his focuses during his term, and some important goals.

one goal is to cut his country's deficit by half at the end of his first term - that's quite ambitious.

obama's other goal is that by 2020, America will (once again) have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world. that is, despite obama acknowledging that America has one of the highest high school dropout rates of any industrialized nation, and half of the students who begin college never finish. he also requested that "every American to commit to at least one year or more of higher education or career training."

"we know the countries that out-teach us today will out-compete us tomorrow.. (and) I speak to you not just as a president, but as a father, when I say that responsibility for our children's education must begin at home. That is not a Democratic issue or a Republican issue. That's an American issue." i don't think it gets much truer than that.

obama may have a lot of lofty goals, high expectations, and overly-optimistic views of the future,
but you know what?

"we are not quitters."

obama's placed his faith in the american people, and i think that now it's time for that to be reciprocated. feel free to comment/bash this!

obama's full speech

brett dennen

so a friend said i should recommend some more music to her. there's a lot of weird music that i listen to, so i thought that i'd try something more listener-friendly. this is where Brett Dennen comes in. he's got one of the most uniquely beautiful voices in the world. he was at the edmonton folkfest last summer, and i missed him. don't you hate it when you fall in love with an artist AFTER they visit your hometown? it's happened too many times to me. anyways, i'll list three songs i like from his most recent album 'Hope for the Hopeless'.

San Francisco:


Make You Crazy (complete with his own cheesy video):


Heaven:

Juan Enriquez: How mindboggling science will outlast the crisis

you MUST watch this talk. this is a recap of some of the most important technological advancements you DON'T know about. absolutely incredible. and yes, i know it's long, but trust me, your mind will be blown.

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/juan_enriquez_shares_mindboggling_new_science.html

look around the site for an endless amount of deliciously interesting presentations on anything and everything.

you HAVE to see this!

wow, this is absolutely and positively the coolest music video i have ever seen. there is really no match for this. seriously. you HAVE to watch it. please, do it now.



thanks goes to kaitlin hickey for showing me all these cool things at work today.

black cab sessions

at work today someone showed me a very cool site, called 'Black Cab Sessions.' they're video recordings of musicians playing a song in the back of the cab. they've got some nice ones on there like death cab for cutie, the new pornographers, and fleet foxes.

http://www.blackcabsessions.com/

one of my favorite artists is ryan adams, and he does a song from his new album 'Cardinology' called 'Sinking Ships.' it's a great song with a really awesome bridge. take a listen!

http://www.blackcabsessions.com/sessions.php?id=1231499191