Dear Mohamed,

Mohamed Al-Hamdani, in 2022, was elected the Chairperson of the Montgomery County Democratic Party Executive Committee. Mohamed has an inspiring life story. Coming to Dayton as a refugee from Iraq in 1992 as a ten year old, knowing no English, he now works as an immigration attorney. He previously served as a member of the Dayton Board of Education.

These are dark days. The disaster of the 2024 election is sad and depressing. It’s important for the MCDP Executive Committee to come to grips with the reality of this defeat. We had no meeting in November and at our December Christmas party meeting you asked that I not make a motion I had prepared. You indicated there would be opportunity for discussion at this January 23 meeting.

I believe the Executive Committee — as an obligation of leadership — must engage in a process of honest analysis of this disaster. What have we learned? What should we do differently in the future? As the elected leaders of the MCDP organization, we must acknowledge and accept responsibility for the failure of the organization.

I think we can all agree that if the MCDP had been stronger and more effective organization, the election results in this county would have been better, maybe, much better. We need to step away from the attitude that, “well, we did the best we could do.” Individually, that statement is true for many who tried so hard. But, our task of leadership is to engage in the painful task of honestly listing the ways that the MCDP, as an organization, fell short. Our task of leadership is to list the ways the MCDP, as an organization, can, and should, improve.

We need to be guided by measurable data and here are four questions that I believe should structure our research and discussions:

1. What are the benchmarks that indicate the strength of a Democratic Party county organization? (One benchmark, for example, is the number of elected precinct leaders in a county.)
2. What is the MCDP score for each benchmark? (Currently, only 168 precincts, out of 382 precincts in Montgomery County, have Democratic leaders.)
3. What are the MCDP goals for these benchmarks for January 2026, 2027, 2028?
4. What is the strategy and plan for accomplishing these goals?

Many rank-and-file Democrats are depressed, and, seemingly, are giving up on the Democratic Party. As Democratic Party leaders we shouldn’t pretend that everything is wonderful and that, if we just keep doing the same things, everything will be fine. To have any credibility with rank-and-file Democrats, we need to acknowledge there’s a lot a reasons to be discouraged with the Democratic Party, as an organization, and that the Democratic Party has a lot of room for improvement. Then, I think it is crucially important that we offer a positive vision for the future — a strong and thriving MCDP organization — and a plan for actualizing that future.

I’m hoping that you will support a motion that calls for the formation  of a study group with membership in this group open to all members interested in participating. This group would be charged with researching the above four questions and preparing a report for discussion at our February meeting.

Sincerely,

Mike Bock — Elected in 2022 to the MCDP Executive Committee to represent the Democrats in precinct Kettering 4-K and to serve as MCDP Precinct Leader. (First elected in 2006.)

WOW — It is October 25 And My Dahlias Are Still Blooming — Maybe Until November !

I started growing dahlias in about the year 1985 — mostly for my mom and dad at my parents’ home. I fell in love with them then, and, as I grow them now, I feel connected to my mom and dad who enjoyed them so.

I acquired this website in 2007 and it has become a good reminder to me of my thoughts and interests over the last 17 years. I found four other times that I posted about my dahlia efforts and looking at the pictures of these old posts reminds me of the glory that used to be.  Now, I have fewer plants and some spectacular varieties I used to have, over time, have disappeared.  The most beautiful seem to be the less hardy. There is probably a poem that develops that theme. Next year, I’ll hope to make my garden great again.

I provided this vase of dahlias for a neighbor. I enjoy sharing these beautiful flowers, but this year I had fewer to share.

Here are excerpts and links to the posts from previous years — lots of good pictures — even a youtube video.

• October 30, 2020. — It’s October 30 And My Dahlias Are Still Blooming — In Dayton Ohio — But Some Claim That Frost Is Coming.  So, yes, some claim that frost is coming. It’s Frost, Frost, Frost. I’d like to think all of this Frost attention is just part of the Fake News. I’d like to think that if people stopped predicting Frost so much, we’d have a lot less Frost. Anyway. These plants have been faithful to produce a lot of great blooms this year and I’m thinking that if they can withstand just one more cold snap — they might make it to Thanksgiving ! Please people, let’s stop predicting Frost.
• October 16, 2013 — Great Year To Grow Dahlias In Kettering, Ohio  A dahlia is an inspiring flower — a lot of work, but offering a big pay-off in its stunning, enchanting, mesmerizing and astonishing beauty. And this was a great year to grow them — lots of rain and not too hot. In my little backyard I had more plants than ever — about 100 plants — most growing about six feet tall and full of blooms.
• September 11, 2009 — My Dahlias Are Blooming !    I got interested in dahlias maybe twenty years ago when I noticed a dahlia garden as I was traveling with my mom on Route 48. The garden was just north of Lebanon, and a sign by the road advertised cut flowers. I had never noticed flowers so beautiful. I bought a vase of the blooms to take to my parents’ home. The next spring, I returned to this small farm and bought a few roots and every since I’ve been growing dahlias. The Lebanon garden was part of a mail order business of long standing called The Golden Rule Dahlia Farm. It is now long gone. I feel a little sad every time I pass by the place it used to be.
  October 10, 2008 — Today Is The First Frost Date And My Dahlias Are Just Now Starting To Bloom   My photography is not adequate to really capture the magnificence of these flowers. Sort of like trying to capture on film the Rocky Mountains or the Pacific Ocean.

Great article in The New York Times this morning — The Dangers of Donald Trump, From Those Who Know Him — shows the quotes of 91 prominent Republicans who tell that Trump is unfit to be President of the United States.

The article, written by the NYT Editorial Board, states: “The strongest case against Trump may come from his own people. For those Americans who are still tempted to return him to the presidency or to not vote in November, it is worth considering the assessment of Mr. Trump by those who have seen him up close.”

Here is a few of the 91 Republicans featured in the NYT article:

• Bill Barr, Attorney General  —  “He will always put his own interests and gratifying his own ego ahead of everything else, including the country’s interest. There’s no question about it.”
• John Kelly, Chief of Staff — “Trump is a person who admires autocrats and murderous dictators. A person that has nothing but contempt for our democratic institutions, our Constitution and the rule of law.”
• James Mattis, Secretary of Defense — “Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people — does not even pretend to try. Instead he tries to divide us.”
• Rex Tillerson, Secretary of State — “There were multiple occasions where, in my view, the actions the president wanted to take were not consistent with our national security objectives. … His understanding of global events, his understanding of global history, his understanding of U.S. history was really limited.”
• Ted Cruz, a Republican senator from Texas  — “This man is a pathological liar. He doesn’t know the difference between truth and lies. He lies practically every word that comes out of his mouth, and in a pattern that I think is straight out of a psychology textbook, his response is to accuse everybody else of lying.”
• Dick Cheney, Vice President of the United States from 2001 to 2009 — “In our nation’s 246-year-history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump. He tried to steal the last election using lies and violence to keep himself in power, after the voters had rejected him. He is a coward. A real man wouldn’t lie to his supporters. He lost his election, and he lost big.”
• Lindsey Graham, Republican senator from South Carolina —  “He’s a race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot. He doesn’t represent my party. He doesn’t represent the values that the men and women who wear the uniform are fighting for.”
• Paul Ryan, Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives from 2015 to 2019 — “Character is too important to me. And it’s a job that requires the kind of character that he just doesn’t have.”
• Liz Cheney,  chair of the House Republican conference from 2019 to 2021. — “The president could have immediately and forcefully intervened to stop the violence. He did not. There has never been a greater betrayal by a president of the United States of his office and his oath to the Constitution.”