Posts under ‘service’

Every morning on my walk to the bus, I pass the windows of a shop called Bazar.  They sell imports, womens’ clothing, shoes, etc.  I often look at the dresses on display with an eye for something my wife would like me to surprise her with.  They often have some posters for bands or performances that I assume the owner fancies. 

However, in addition to their normal offerings for eye-candy, they offered something to reflect Barack Obama’s election.  Entitled "a historic night"; it was several large swaths of white paper hanging in the windows.  The hangings, read from left to right were one-line capsules of events, ideas, statements and thoughts from the beginning of the campaign up to election night. 

In an article entitled “Equal share in land, property for women urged” by Sikander Shaheen in The Nation (Pakistan) details a campaign by ActionAid within Pakistan, urging equal property rights for women. (ActionAid is an international anti-poverty organization that has been in operation for over 30 years.)

On this Veterans Day, I remember the soldiers in my family that came before me. They all fought in WWII. The war took a different toll from each of them.

My country just announced that we are migrating to a new platform to manage our domain, United.States.of.America.gov. It’s called Camelot v. 2.0. It is going to really change how we do things around here. It is about time.

I am pretty excited because frankly, since Camelot v. 1.0 was removed, we have changed platforms every few years with sometimes awful results.

On a January morning at 6am, I left my parents house to enlist in the United States Army Special Forces. It was 1981. I drove down to a building on Michigan Avenue to be processed into the service of my country. I remember filling out paperwork, seeing physicians, answering questions, waiting in line and moving from one room to another for hours. Sometime in the middle of the afternoon, I was taken into a room with several young men like myself. Some I had seen on my rounds that morning and some were strangers. I was excited and eager to begin my tour of duty in service to my country. We looked around the room at each other as we filed in and were asked to stand in a straight line.