I rarely write about political topics on my blog, but when I heard former President Jimmy Carter speak about the undertones of racism in the opposition against President Obama I had to write about this. When I see avatars on Facebook of President Obama in white face, when I still receive emails that he is not a US citizen, when I see posters at tea parties portraying our President as a voodoo doctor, I can longer sit back quietly.

If the opposition, those that attend tea parties, those that go to town hall meetings to shout down people that are attempting to learn about Health Reform will take the time to denounce these blatant acts of racism, then maybe I’ll start to believe that you are fighting against policies and not against the President’s race.

Denounce the racism! It is that simple. I do remember Senator McCain not allowing any racist comments during his campaign against then Senator Obama. I know there were several local Republican committee leaders that did so too when mailings or emails went out with racist overtones. There may be others, but there needs to be more. If not, we will have more outbursts like Rep. Joe Wilson’s and more frightening events too.

My blog, BrainFoggles.com is the overall winner of the Summer 2009 Blog Competition at MurrayNewlands.com! This is my biggest honor to date as my blog itself has won. The contest was based on ” Content,  Layout, and Overall Quality”.

52 blogs entered and people voted for the first round. With only 14 votes despite, tweets, posts on forums and Facebook, I still made it to the second round, where my blog was judged by Steve Hall of Adrants, Ted Murphy, CEO of Izea, Heather Smith of Heather in Beautiful British Columbia, Joe Coleburn of JoeTech.com and Murray Newlands of MurrayNewlands.com

What I’ve won:
-2 Gold Passes for Affiliate Summit East on August 9, 2009 in New York City: ($1800 value) for the best blog overall (NYC here I come!)
-A Full Pass for Adtech London (£835) – I’m going to have to pass on this unfortunately.
-A portrait of you by Mari Kurisato
-A competition winner logo for your blog
-The chance to say you have an award winning blog. (I’ve done that here and will be adding it to my About page that I’m working on.)

So after I arrive home from my daughter’s wedding, I’ll be re-packing to go to ASE a few days after. For someone who usually goes to Disney World all the time, this is a dream come true!

Thanks  to the judges and the sponsors: Affiliate Window, Ad:tech London and Market Leverage.

Congrats to Honorable mention:
http://www.benspark.com/
www.trisha-lynn.com

Today I began to watch the Micheal Jackson memorial on television, but unfortunately had a dentist appointment. I wasn’t able to see the entire service, but what I saw had me in tears.

His death was a shock to me, but I didn’t really feel that sad. I grew up knowing and loving his music and especially his videos, but as he began to change his appearance and was involved with controversy I lost interest in him. I forgot about his charitable work, his unbelievable talent and his sad childhood. He became an oddity.

This past week, I watched some interviews of people who knew him closely, an old movie about the Jackson Five, and of course his videos. I learned more about what his life was like as a child star and the emotional scars left on him by his father and his feeling that he didn’t have a childhood.

When the casket was rolled into the Staples Center, all of the feelings of loss came upon me. We lost a musician like no other, someone who gave from the heart to charities of all types, a father, son, brother, uncle. I realized that we all have terrible things in our own closets but we are not under a microscope. Later when I heard his daughter tearfully speak about how Michael Jackson was the best Daddy, that it was I remembered.

After a weekend off I returned a review about me – ConnieFoggles – and my blogs posted on Murray Newland’s blog, Murraynewlands.com. Murray called me a prolific blogger and listed some of the things that I do that are green, one thing that people may not know about me, who I would recommend and a lot more information.

Murray is an affiliate marketer, the author of two Carbon Footprint ebook and Twitter ebook and is well known on Twitter. He is currently running a Blog Competition in which this blog is entered.

Please check out my review, not only to read about me, but to read about the people that I recommended and see if you guessed the one thing that you may not know about me. Please take the time to vote for my blog in the competition if you feel my blog is worthy.

Thank you Murray Newlands for your kind review! I truly appreciate it.