I have never seen so many politicial lies spread in all my 74 years as the lies the Republicans are spreading about Obama and his presidency.  To hear them, he has been a profiligate spender.  Let's set the record straight.  From Harper's Magazine, August 2012:

The percentage increase in average annual federal spending during the Obama administration:  2.4 %

The rank of that rate of increase among the lowest under any p[resident since Truman:  1

Let us not forget one other thing.  It was W. Bush who got us into this financial trouble, not Obama.  He simply inherited the mess.  He would have been able to dig us out of this hole a lot better if he had had any cooperation from the Republicans, but their stated object was to prevent him from getting re-elected, which meant that they had to thwart every effective measure he tried to put into action.  If we are in a bad way, it is the fault of the Republicans -- the fault of w., a Republican president, and the fault of a do-nothing Republican Congress.

Africans in the San Francisco Bay Area

Being a devotee of African travel, I was interested to note in today's Oakland Tribune some statistics about the number of Africans from various nations who now live in the San Francisco Bay Area. According to the Tribune, there are:

7,500 from Ethiopia

5,130 from other parts of Eastern Africa (not Ethiopia or Kenya)

3,850 from Egypt

3,770 from Nigeria

3,700 from other parts of Northern Africa (not Egypt)

2,940 from South Africa

2,480 from Kenya

1,200 from Ghana

Once in downtown Oakland when I was photographing someone originally from Africa, a fellow walked across a parking lot within our sight, and my model said to me, "He's African. I can tell just by the way he looks and walks." At that point I had only been to The Gambia for about 10 days and was not able to distinguish by sight between Africans and African-Americans. Having spent about five weeks in Cote d'Ivoire since then, I have become fairly able to distinguish by sight between Africans and African-Americans. In fact, I am getting accustomed to being able to identify what country many Africans are from.

At one of the Safeways I shop at, I always have a conversation with one of the security guards, who comes from Kenya. At several other stores, I have been able to tell that the security guards are from Nigeria. I am glad to see Africans here in Oakland. At the high school where I teach, I have had students from Mali, Cote d'Ivoire, Ethiopia, Cameroon and Ghana. These students are always polite and well-behgaved, and come from backgrounds where education is valued. They are a pleasure to have in one's classroom. We are all the richer for having Africans among us.