A group of Muslim women got together to discuss My father's dream by Pres.Obama at a local book store. The interesting thing is that a few christian women joined in the discussion. I noticed that Pres.Obama has revived new life in women. They admire and respect the first family a lot, but especially how Obama treats Michell and their daughters. Despite coming from a broken family, he credits his mother for instilling family first values along with love and kindness towards humanity in general. The ladies had a unanimous agreement that Obama is the ultimate American; all Americans are immigrants and have shared the experiences in their new homeland which their future generations have forgotten but Obama is an American who has the wealth of immigrant experiences first hand. He saw that he was black yet not black, he was both Muslim and christian, an American yet an immigrant. These cultural, physical, and religious variations connects him to so many Americans who are tied up in two cultures and religions. Therefore, he is one of us.

Another interesting topic that come up in the discussion was the state of the union address. It seems that everybody is confused about the distribution of the stimulus package #2. Everyone understands that the President has to take some very bold measures to save the country from a complete break down, but the president in his address, it seems, touched bases on health care, green renewable energy, education plan, taxes and the creation of jobs and yet did not give a road map as to how is he going to achieve all that. I would like to know if there is blue print to all these plans, how will all this create new jobs immediately and will the people who have been laid off be qualified to take up these jobs? At what level would we be able to measure these projects as successful? Is there a deadline to achieve, say,20% success in any project? I believe I have the right to know, because this is my money the government is giving stimulus from?

This administration should be transparent in its decision, and the nation should be taken into confidence. We should get out of the mind frame of the Bush administration where the Americans were to believe every misinformation of the Newspeak.