Mumbai

I was stunned to discover Mumbai is the former title for Bombay. Equally surprised to learn that Pakistan was part of India until 1947. Thereafter many Muslims moved to Pakistan and Hindus moved to the new boundary of India. As we know it today, India has a youth population of kids under 18 equal in size to that of our entire American population, 300 million.
Of course we have a global economy. Along with China, and all the rest of the world, the middle class is going to be crowded. It is what everyone strives for and wants to exceed. Our current financial crisis no doubt reflects the problems with all this growth. I feel confident that great minds are able to resolve this and all political and economic dilemma as they occur.
It is evident that the criminal global counterpart, a deviant mind set, wants to use the threat of death as a way to obtain power in an extreme and selfish way. Non repenting CEOism is a twitch that requires a firm "oh no you don't" before a revolution is more ingrained in our own country. Although originally within legal contractual agreements the similarity to hijacking oil freighters does not go unnoticed. Its because they can.
The Mumbai attack could be a retaliation against the India Navy's sinking a Pirate ship recently. Somalia, where the freighters are ransomed, is a source of income to those that hold an ill will to our pursuit of happiness. Used to be the US Navy would be asked to dispatch an aircraft carrier to monitor such a problem. Although we have one President at a time its more like we are between Presidents. The general consensus, even before this last attack, is that our global life will get worse before it gets better. Let us be good to each of our friends we are going to need them.

Election Day and the Youth Vote

Well this is it. After almost two years of constat challenge in the political arena, and renewed interest in debate nationally, we get to make a choice. The youth vote is of interest, and the fact that they say they'll vote, but often do not is curious. I think perhaps they are overwhelmed by the ballot. All that is talked about are the major candidates and little emphasis on all the rest of the ballot. A loss of purity is realized, I belive, when they are aware that they don't know what to do about all the numerous other catagories that they have little information about.
Recommendations to follow a local newspaer suggested vote choices may not be getting through to them. The loss of idealism might be that they realize that in order to fill in the blanks they have to trust people they don't necessarily agree with. First of all , they should know that its ok to just vote for the categories that they are familiar with, even if its just the major candidates. At least they will then have voted. A question at the end of the ballot asks "You left some choices blank. Is that OK?" You just says yes and get done with your vote. Learning to vote is also learning to trust. Blind party loyalty is significant if you work and are paid as a political participant. Otherwise, its impossible to find one person that is going to be your political everything. It is fine to vote for your candidate of choice on major issues and oppose him or her on those facts that you are in disagreement on. Of course, as an individual, you won't be able to directly oppose the person you selected but you can support those issues that concern you by joining a group that is in agreement with you. For example if you like Obama but also like guns, you have to support the National Rifle Association. They of course would have prefered you didn't vote for him in the first place. But if he has everything you support except that one issue you have to act on your own to get the best of both worlds.