Photos from Associated Press

Gov. Howard Dean, M.D. delivered the keynote address to the Howaii State Democratic Convention this morning (Saturday, May 29). A jubilient crowd of about 1000 excited Democrats greeted the leader of the Democratic wing of the Democratic party. Read the local story here. Gotta admit, Howie looks great in that shirt! It was great to see the guv back in action in his usual style. Man do I miss him. Democrats don't know what they lost the chance to.

Phew! What a week! Finally my finals are over - well, for the semester anyway. Today's final was extraordinarily fast - took me about a half an hour to finish off the scantron. I am not sure I got it all right though! Heh, we'll see I guess. But I am hugely relieved the finals are over. Why do they have finals anyway? Couldn't we design an educational system where students would learn and discuss in the laboratories of nature to gain knowledge, but never take a conventional test? I mean, test performance doesn't always reflect depth of knowledge - in fact it rarely does.

Howard Dean (see his new site: Democracy for America), no longer running for president but still a potent political force feared by the right wing has taken on Diebold - the Ohio based electronic voting machine makers who refuse to print paper ballots. Incidentally their CEO is committed to "delivering Ohio to President Bush." Click on the logo and demand accountable - and countable - elections. No more Floridas.

(Photo from Washingtonpost.com)

Al Gore, in an energizing speech at New York University to MoveOn.org members, took on Bush's Iraq policy and demanded the resignations of Rumsfeld, Rice, and Tenet. Go to AlGoreDemocrats.com to read his speech as prepared, or you can watch it on C-Span.org. (ok, this post was stolen from dfasv.org).

	European Pressphoto Agency President Bush said at the Army War College in Carlisle, Pa., that he would maintain troop levels in Iraq. The Speech: Transcript | Excerpts | Video

(Photo from NY Times)  Well, there it is.  Bush spoke last evening telling people what he's going to do in Iraq.  Of course, as most of his speeches, this one came out to be vague on substance, reiteration of lies, and a make-believe of how great Iraqis are doing and how America can claim the moral high ground.  He didn't say anything about those WMD that enabled Iraq to launch an attack on the US in 45 minutes though.  I wonder why.

But I did notice a little indication of worry though.  That little smirk is gone.  Although I am not sure if that's from the grave situation in Iraq or from the fact that he fell off a bike over the weekend.

Read it here.. In this article, Paul Rockwell alerts U.S. Democrats of what history has taught us: Democrats cannot win by moving to the political right. Citing histories of Democratic landslides and defeats, Rockwell shows that when Democratic candidates for President have run on a robust progressive (yeah, that means liberal, for those who care) platform, they have won. Every time they have run enthusiastically declaring their support for the aspirations of the progressives in this countries: reducing poverty, limiting armed conflicts, caring about and standing firmly with African Americans and proudly touting their support for civil rights for all - they have won. And every time they have moved to the right - well, some call it center - by wavering on core issues like the ones mentioned, they have lost. The author doesn't examine Clinton too far into depth, but what elected Clinton twice was his progressive policies: his unwavering support for a woman's right to choose, an economic plan that shifted the tax burden (somewhat) from the poor to the rich, and supporting civil rights to the last end. Bill Clinton *was* referred to as the first black President of the United States. The message to John Kerry here is clear, and what Howard Dean has summed up for months: We cannot beat Bush by being Bush lite. The only way to beat Bush is to stand up to him, counter his radical right policies with our peace oriented progressive policies, and take him head on on every single issue. Again, you can read the article here..

More dance by the children. (song: O jonaki, jonaki, ki shukhe oi dana duto melecho...). This is tha last picture of this event posted here. Try this page for the full album (105 pictures in total): CLICK HERE.

Aditya Das performs a duet. (Yeah well, I am not that familiar with musical terminology). 

A solo singer at the Rabindra Sandhya. 

Recitating a poem by Tegore 

At the Rabindra Sandhya, children dance. 

At the Rabindra Sandhya, children dance. 

A picture of Nataraj, the Hindu God of dance is displayed on the backscreen 

Sishu Bholanath continues at the Rabindra Sandhya. 

Sishu Bholanath - a presentation of and by the children - to bring out our inner child. 

Well, I went to this cultural program with my parents today. Oh, well, you should know, I am Bengali. To give you some background, Rabindranath Tegore is somewhat of an icon in Bengali culture. The first Indian ever to win the Nobel prize, the poet, songwriter, and novelist (among many other things) authored enough work in his lifetime to last at least 5 of mine. His birthday is celebrated among the Bengali people as a cultural day with songs, poetry, dances, drama, and homage to the genius of Tegore. His birthday was actually 2 weeks ago. But the celebration was today. It was a nice program all in all. I really enjoyed the childen's performances. The later solo singers were great artists, but I got bored at times. Anyway, I took some pictures with my digicam, have a look. I am posting some of them on the blog. For the full set, click here.

Hi everybody! Welcome to My blog. I know you are wondering. What is "Deaniac83"? Well, Deaniac is easy enough to understand. I am a rabid fan of Gov. Howard Dean (former governor of VT and fmr. Democratic presidential candidate). 83 is a special number to me. So is this a political blog? I don't know really how it will shape up. But I plan on making it a personal blog. A lot of my life revolves around politics, so yes, you will get plenty of political posts here. But I also have a family, school, cultural events I go to, and other things I am interested in (Startrek, for example). So stay tuned, and find out what it shapes out to be.