by Eugene Yoon

If you’re like me, you’re probably twiddling your thumbs as you anxiously watch the Dow plummet down, down, and further down. With no foreseeable end in sight, I advise you to not sit near a window in the case that another bad day in the market persuades you to jump out. However, if you already find yourself with one foot outside the window ledge, and the other inside your apartment reading this blog, then let me give you an inspirational tid-bit — you’re not alone. Just know that there is a fellow Zimbabwean with his hand extended because he understands your pain. New York Times reported that “Zimbabwe’s inflation rate, already one of the highest in world history, rose from an annual rate of 11 million percent in June to 231 million percent in July.” In comparison to their economic situation, the American crisis, even in its darkest hour cannot empathize. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to smooth over any punches and say that what we as Americans are going through is not a brain-wrenching struggle. All I’m simply trying to do is shed some light and turn a bad situation into an opportunity to understand the world around us — a world that is much less privileged than ours. So, if you’re still standing outside the window, get back inside and trust me — in the end, everything will be okay.

takepart with garden africa, an organization that helps Zimbabweans plan their own gardens to sustain themselves

(Photo: Gregor Rohig Flickr’s photostream)

If the TakePart.com bloggers had a chance to chat with the candidates tonight, here are our Top 10 questions:

From Andy:

1) What would your strategy be in attempting to halt the nuclear programs of Iran and North Korea?

2) What books would you recommend as required reading for all high school seniors, and why?

From Jon:

3) Would you support a measure to limit the length of Federal election campaigns - Presidential, House & Senate - in order to keep holders of elected office doing their jobs working for the people instead of campaigning and fundraising?

4) Once in office, what will you do to change the fact that 500,000+ residents of Washington DC are afforded no voting representation whatsoever in either the House or the Senate?

From Gina:

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I didn’t expect the Republicans to be nice last night, they needed to energize their base and make a strong case against Obama and while they veered farther to the right than I thought they would, what surprised me and actually really angered me was when Rudy Giuliani mentioned that Barack Obama was a community organizer and following which, the crowd and Giuliani both laughed. And after that, Sarah Palin also dogged on Barack’s community organizing..

A group of young Obama supporters. Photo by Barack Obama (Creative Commons)

This I thought was pretty disgusting. Community organizing isn’t easy work, it doesn’t pay well and often yields small results, meaning the person doing the work has to find motivation somewhere other than instant success and change. They have to find motivation in the people they are meeting and truly believe in the grassroots work they are doing. And even if you can’t usually pinpoint it’s success, community organizing is vital to understanding how communities work and what the needs of working people, and low-income people are. And this it seems to me would be an important thing to understand as the President of our country.

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If you’re near BFI Southbank you’ll have another chance to catch Jonathan Demme’s documentary about former president Jimmy Carter. The doc, entitled Jimmy Carter Man From Plains is an intimate and personal look at our 39th President and his quest to promote peace. The story revolves around a promotional tour for Carter’s controversial book “Palestine: Peace, Not Apartheid.”

Roger Ebert made a pretty good case for seeing the film when he wrote: “One reason to see this film might be to learn more about his views on the Middle East, but a better reason might be to observe how he attends to the privilege and responsibility of doing what he believes is the right thing.”

Seems a good way to spend a few hours.

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As Wendy mentioned, last weekend was Netroots Nation, where lots of awesome bloggers and folks got together to talk about exciting things in the realm of making the world better. Not only was Al Gore there, but my fellow TakePart blogger Katie Halper (she’s on a break this summer) was there too!

And in case you miss your daily TakePart dose of Katie, check out the video below, it’s sure to make you smile!

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My good pal Elliott over at Meerkat Media did an interesting post recently about unique songstress Joanna Newsom and the labor movement. In it, he looks at one of Newsom’s earlier songs “Yarn and Glue” and he points out what seems to be an awesome political message:

But it’s the song’s lyrics, not the production, that’ve got me stoked. Catch these selected lines from the track Yarn and Glue, which catalog the toasts of conspiratorial workers on their day of rest, amid a world of power, money and surveillance:

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Is it any coincidence that Dr. Edgar Mitchell’s claim that there are aliens in space comes 1 day before the new X-Files movie opens???

I wonder… Maybe this fan video (with super cool Blink 182 music) says it all:

More on Mitchell after the jump

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I’ve always been interested in the impact of our vanishing water resources, an environmental issue that seems to get left behind a lot. A point Elizabeth de la Vega echoes in a piece she recently wrote for TomDispatch entitled “Our National Water Policy - Oh Wait, We Don’t Have One“. The piece opens with as American of a quote as you can get, one from Homer Simpson:

“Lisa, the whole reason we have elected officials is so we don’t have to think all the time. Just like that rainforest scare a few years back. Our officials saw there was a problem and they fixed it, didn’t they?” — Homer Simpson

Simpson’s aside, De la Vega explores the much needed state of water policy here in the US as a time when we have floods in the Midwest and wildfires on the West Coast, here’s a taste of the confusion and lack of definition she explores:

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1) Burgers, Tofu, and Climate Change

For the Cinema YouTube Video of the Day, Click here>>

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Feeling alienated from the election process with all the headlines and spin? You should head on over to jibjab.com, where you can watch their latest election satire and even put yourself in it!

You can watch mine here : (although I’m not sure why I have a mustache in it…)

• It’s time for some campaigning !

It’s kind of fun and the video does a great job of poking fun at everyone. I have to say that this years election is already pretty intense considering we haven’t even had the conventions yet. Since I’ve been in Ohio, I ‘ve seen atleast 3 John McCain TV ads, and I haven’t been watching much TV…

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