Starting Your Dreams Later In Life and Embracing the Detour

Jenee Darden speaking at Creative Mornings I know it's been a while since I've posted anything but that's because of my job. I'm working as a reporter covering Oakland and I host an arts segment on the radio where I get to interview amazing artists from around the Bay Area. Plus I'm publicizing my book  and building my speaking career!  You know what's funny? I thought this would all happen by the time I was 27-30.  Nope. That wasn't God's plan for me. I'm finally beginning to do the things I've wanted to do and I'm almost 40 years old. Some people reading this who are 40 will say 40 is still young. But some younger people reading may think 40 is nearly ancient. But I'm writing this post for those who like me, thought their career and personal dreams would come true much early in life. I'm here to tell you not to give up.  You know, death inspires life. A number of my relatives and friends have passed away, ranging in ...
2

Mr. President, What About the Wars On Our Home Soil?

Obama outlines plans for 30,000 more troops in Afghanistan during West Point speech

More troops, huh? I'm not shocked. Mr. Obama did say on the campaign trail that the war should be fought in Afghanistan. I'm no war expert so I'm a bit torn on this issue. On one hand we need to find the terrorists. But, I'm tired of young people dying over old men's war as they say. Al Qaeda has terror cells all over the world. We can't even keep some wannabe socialites with bootleg formal wear from crashing a White House party. How effective are we gonna be in stopping Bin Laden and his followers. A lot of American and Afghan lives will be lost in 18-months. But there are plenty of wars here we need to fight. What about the war on drugs in poor communities? How about declaring a war against the rising HIV/AIDS infections? World AIDS Day just passed. There are some cities right here in the U.S. whose infection rates nearly match those in African countries. What about the war on poverty and poor education? Poverty and bad schools are damaging our children and their future. If they don't have skills how will we stay a first -world nation when I'm a grandma? President Obama's speech last night left me with more questions than answers. What did you think?

Comments

  1. ErikaDecember 3, 2009 at 1:33 AM

    I think there are two problems:

    1) No one really believe Osama bin Laden is still in Afghanistan. Most every analyst I've heard talk about the subject says he's most-likely in Pakistan. So we're not going to route him out in Afghanistan.

    2) Terrorism is not fought with military force. It's fought with good old law enforcement/detective work. The CIA, Special Ops, FBI, and Homeland Security should be the ones fighting this "war" not the Air Force, Army, Marines, etc.

    Even though I always supported Obama as a candidate for president, I never bought his spiel about Afghanistan being the war of necessity and Iraq being the war of convenience. They're both wars of convenience. We went to war with Afghanistan because we were angry and needed an enemy to pounce on. It isn't the Afghan people's fault that some jerk-offs setup terrorist training shop in their country. Just like Iraq, this is about nation building more than anything else. It's the US trying to force our way of doing things on others. I just hope this doesn't become another Vietnam.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Jenee DardenDecember 3, 2009 at 11:12 AM

    Great points Erika. These wars have become another Vietnam. The thing is even if they do get Bin Laden I'm sure he's already trained people to take lead.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment