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Eskimo Witch #4: NewsTown, Mark Wheat, ice cream and monkeys

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Chuck Olsen's commentary on the Star Tribune's new video newscast.

The Dali Lama, Barbie and Commodity Fetishism

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Two 50th anniversaries happen this week. It is the 50th anniversary of the Tibetan uprising against Chinese rule. Also in China, Mattel is celebrating the 50th anniversary of Barbie by opening up a six story retail emporium- complete with a restaurant & bar, and salon to get facials and manicures: say hello to House of Barbie in Shanghai.

Written/ presented by Dennis Trainor Jr. Dennis Trainor Jr is a regular video contributor to TheUptake.org. He was a writer & media consultant for Dennis Kucinich's 2008 presidential campaign & a 2007 "Best of YouTube" nominee for his work as writer/ performer on "The Hermit with Davis Fleetwood." He is currently at work on two books: "My Progressive Dilemma" (chronicling President Obama's 1st year in office) and a novel adapted from his play, "I Coulda Been a Kennedy." Contact: dennistrainorjr (at) gmail (dot) com

Obama address highlights our audacity of hope

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We will rebuild, we will recover, and the United States will emerge stronger than before.

That was the message sent by President Obama during his address to the joint session of congress on Tuesday night.

Like a doctor talking to the family of an obese patient who has just undergone quadruple bypass surgery, President Obama had to walk the tightrope of instilling a sense of urgency and a sense of optimism to the American people.

For, just like our hypothetical heart patient, America as we know must undergo a metamorphosis or all of America’s yesterdays will have “lighted fools the way to dusty death.”

Metamorphosis- change- is what we bought when we elected Obama- and the time has come- as he said- to act boldly and wisely.

Among the metaphors that Obama used to illustrate the change that lie ahead what struck me most was his mention of the town Greensburg, Kansas,

a town that was completely destroyed by a tornado, but is being rebuilt by its residents as a global example of how clean energy can power an entire community how it can bring jobs and businesses to a place where piles of bricks and rubble once lay. "The tragedy was terrible," said one of the men who helped them rebuild." But the folks here know that it also provided an incredible opportunity."

From the rubble of our economic crisis, what how do we rebuild? By stimulating lending- Obama says- giving more money to banks- but telling us it is really to benefit main street- because we must grow- Obama says. Growth is good. Bigger is better. Right. America must continue biggering and biggering. So Joe the bus driver and Jane the teacher can buy more things. Cuz we need things. What is the real cost of our addiction to more things? Consider our foreign policy….

From the rubble of our health care crisis, how do we rebuild? By enacting reform that will give more public dollars to health care and insurance companies and moving towards the day when all citizens are required to purchase healthcare?

Do we get rid of insurance companies- except for those select few rich who choose to purchase supplemental insurance- and join the rest of the industrialized world and give public dollars to free health care for all?

From the rubble of our criminally insane and murderous foreign policy, how do we rebuild? Do we pay reparations to the Iraqi people, acknowledge in any way that this unnecessary and immoral war has cost the lives of somewhere in the neighborhood of 1 million innocent civilians not to mention gutted the infrastructure of a country that posed no threat to its neighbors or to America?

Or do we, in the face of international scorn say boldly- as President Obama did- because living our values doesn’t make us weaker, it makes us safer and it makes us stronger-

And continue a foreign policy of pre-emption and preventative war in places like Afghanistan and Pakistan?

America is not yet like the town of Greensburg, Kansas, the town that was completely destroyed by a tornado.

But that tornado is coming.

And President Obama may be bold- by the perverse standards that exist inside the beltway- but like our doctor talking to the family of an obese patient who has just undergone quadruple bypass surgery he must be aware that underneath his hubris, that the bedside manner he displayed in his address to congress on Tuesday night was full of sound and fury, yet signified nothing.

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Dennis Trainor, Jr is a regular video contributor to TheUptake.org. He was a writer & media consultant for Dennis Kucinich's 2008 presidential campaign & a 2007 "Best of YouTube" nominee for his work as writer/ performer on "The Hermit with Davis Fleetwood." He is currently at work on two books: "My Progressive Dilemma" (chronicling President Obama's 1st year in office) and a novel adapted from his play, "I Coulda Been a Kennedy." Contact: dennistrainorjr (at) gmail (dot) com

Op/Ed-Obama And Lincoln

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About this video:
Last week I brought to your attention the far flung theory of Russian academic Igor Panarin, who foresees civil war in the United States arising from the current economic crisis

With Obama's new Director of Intel Dennis Blair telling congress that the number one security peril facing the United States is global economic turmoil, has the Intel community agree with Panarin?

Furthermore, is the Obama strategy of inviting comparison between himself and Lincoln an example in "be careful what you wish for?"

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Dennis Trainor, Jr is a regular video contributor to TheUptake.org. He was a writer & media consultant for Dennis Kucinich's 2008 presidential campaign & a 2007 "Best of YouTube" nominee for his work as writer/ performer on "The Hermit with Davis Fleetwood." He is currently at work on two books: "My Progressive Dilemma" (chronicling President Obama's 1st year in office) and a novel adapted from his play, "I Coulda Been a Kennedy."

Contact: dennistrainorjr (at) gmail (dot) com

Op/Ed-The End Of America

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President Obama's stimulus package is intended not only to shore up the economy, but the U.S. psyche. The American Dream itself. But what if we euthanize the American Dream?

The Uptake wants to hear your voice. Submit your own video "letter to the editor." More information:
How to submit a video
1) Have something intelligent to say 2) Record it on a video using your real name. 3) Upload it at www.tubemogul.com using info@theuptake.org as your log in and uptake411 as your password. 4) Send an email to info@theuptake.org telling us about your video.

The "Obama Abortion Ad"; The Super Bowl Ad Rejected By NBC

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The Uptake wants to hear your voice. Submit your own video "Op/ED." More information here: http://opinion-editorial.groups.theuptake.org/en/summary/
How to submit a video
1) Have something intelligent to say

2) Record it on a video using your real name.

3) Upload it at www.tubemogul.com using info@theuptake.org as your log in and uptake411 as your password.

4) Send an email to info@theuptake.org telling us about your video.

ABOUT THIS VIDEO:
NBC has rejected a anti-abortion ad submitted for its Super Bowl broadcast. After several days of negotiations, an NBC representative in Chicago told CatholicVote.org today that NBC and the NFL are not interested in advertisements involving "political advocacy or issues."

Brian Burch, President of CatholicVote.org reacted: "There is nothing objectionable in this positive, life-affirming advertisement. We show a beautiful ultrasound, something NBC's parent company GE has done for years. We congratulate Barack Obama on becoming the first African-American President. And we simply ask people to imagine the potential of every human life."

The ad reads: "This child's future is a broken home. He will be abandoned by his father. His single mother will struggle to raise him. Despite the hardships he will endure...this child...will become...the 1st African-American President." The ad concludes with the tagline, "Life: Imagine the Potential." The ad is the first of several ads in new campaign launched by CatholicVote.org.
Dennis Trainor, Jr has worked as a writer/ media consultant for Dennis Kucinich's 2008 presidential campaign. In addition to contributing video commentator to The Uptake (http://www.theuptake.org ), he is host at Operation Itch ( http://www.operationitch.com )

Op/Ed-Our Safety And Our Ideals

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The Uptake wants to hear your voice. Submit your own video "letter to the editor." More information here.

ABOUT THIS VIDEO: Barack Obama wrote the headline to chapter one in his own administration's history when, with George Bush sitting just feet away and the whole world watching, he seemed to wipe away a whole doctrine with:"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals."

As he the new president was signing executive orders that shut down the detention facilities at GITMO, U.S. military drones fired missiles that killed at least 15 people inside Pakistan, leaving people around the world asking if the controversial military policy begun by George W Bush had changed after all.

Dennis Trainor, Jr has worked as a writer/ media consultant for Dennis Kucinich's 2008 presidential campaign. In addition to contributing video commentator to The Uptake (http://www.theuptake.org ), he is host at Operation Itch ( http://www.operationitch.com )

Op/Ed-History Book Material-Where Were You?

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Dennis Trainor talks about today's inauguration. No longer with head in the sand, is America really going to change?

If you'd like to submit an Op/Ed video for consideration, here are the instructions

1) Have something intelligent to say

2) Record it on a video using your real name.

3) Upload it at www.tubemogul.com using info@theuptake.org as your log in and uptake411 as your password.

4) Send an email to info@theuptake.org telling us about your video.

Watch more Op/Ed videos from Dennis and others here.

Op/Ed: Open Letter to the Citizens of Israel

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The UpTake is opening up a call for Opinion/Editorial videos. To kick this off, we bring you all the first video by Dennis Trainor, who will be providing a regular voice to our media palette. We do not have a name for the show yet, and look forward to hearing ideas for the show's name from our audience. We also hope that more people feel inspired to send us "video op/eds" and will be providing guidance in the near future on how to submit your own opinions to our site.

Join the "Opinion/Editorial" group HERE

For more about Dennis, here is what Steve Grove, the head of news and politics at YouTube had to say about him:

"I first met Dennis when he started his channel on YouTube under the moniker "Davis Fleetwood". Playing the role of an angry hermit in the basement of his home, Dennis' character was a unique bird to the Internet community - combining the satire of a Lenny Bruce with the performance style of an Andy Kaufman, all the while offering an acerbic social commentary that resonated with a large audience on the site. "Davis Fleetwood" soon became one of the most prominent voices in YouTube politics, posting daily videos that were thoughtful, provocative, and darkly humorous.

When YouTube teamed up with CNN to host a part of presidential debates, we tapped "Davis" to come to the debate and produce commentary from the scene on YouTube's behalf - and a question he'd submitted online was posed to Dennis Kucinich in the live televised debate. It must have been a sign - within weeks, Dennis had been hired by the Kucinich campaign to do reporting and commentary for the campaign. To my knowledge this was the first time a video blogger had been plucked from YouTube and hired by a presidential campaign. Demonstrating he could shift from theatre to politics, Dennis produced some
great online and on-air video content for the Kucinich campaign, breathing a fresh perspective into the campaign.

In the new and undefined field of online video, Dennis has proven he knows both how to create compelling work, and how to distribute and promote it. One of the videos in the "Davis Fleetwood" series – challenging students to protest the governments' actions on Iraq & Iran – has risen to over 4.8 million views on YouTube. The video was so popular that it became a nominee for the "Best of YouTube" awards in 2007.

I've had the pleasure to meet Dennis in person several times, both at YouTube events and at various points along the campaign trail, and have found him and affable and earnest activist who brings a unique voice to the political discussion today. He's passed the test of being able to churn out daily content yet remain fresh, to take a unique approach to message delivery yet remain relevant, and to be flat-out-funny while also delivering a poignant message that resonates with a broad spectrum of people."