Groundhog Day

Do you recall the 1993 comedy starring Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell called Groundhog Day?  For the benefit of those who aren’t fans of Ghostbusters star Bill Murray; aren’t film buff or are not that old, I’ll briefly go through the move plot: “A self-centered weather forecaster (played by Bill Murray) ends up reliving Groundhog day every morning until he finally realizes that in order for this routine to stop he must change from within. What is most striking about this movie is the alarm clock at the B&B Murray resides in; it wakes him up the same rituals and activities as the day before and Murray soon realizes, the day after.” IMDB rate this move at 8.1/10 and places is at position 168 of the top 250 movies of all times. 

 Photograph by Jason Cohn, Reuters

Has SASM started reviewing movies? No yet. We want to discuss the holiday celebrated on February 2^nd. Tradition has it that when a groundhog leaves its burrow on this day it will look for its shadow. If it can’t see its shadow (because it is cloudy) than the groundhog will leave its burrow signifying that winter-like weather will soon end. On the other hand if the groundhog sees its shadow (meaning that the sun is out), the critter will head back into its burrow and winter weather will continue for another six weeks.

Punxsutawney, a borough in Jefferson County, Pennsylvania, 135 km northeast of Pittsburgh holds the largest Groundhog Day celebration. It is followed by thousands of locals, tourists and news crews who gather every year to observe whether winter has come to an end or still has a few more weeks.

German immigrants brought the tradition with them. As they settled in hills of Pennsylvania, they began using the Groundhog to predict the arrival of spring. The tradition is based upon Candlemas, the day that is the midpoint between winter and spring. A famous Candlemas poems goes:

If Candlemas be fair and bright,
Winter has another flight.
If Candlemas brings clouds and rain,
Winter will not come again.

Obama vs Romney?

Mitt Romney's 16-point victory over Ron Paul in the New Hampshire primary provided a big boost for his candidacy as the race for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination heads to South Carolina. Romney is the first non-incumbent Republican presidential candidate to win both Iowa and New Hampshire since Iowa assumed the pole position in the party's race to the nomination in 1976.

New Hampshire is a state with only 12 delegates of which Romney picked up 7. The remaining 5 delegates went for Ron Paul and Jon Huntsman. This is still a long way from the 1,144 delegates needed by a candidate to secure the nomination but this state represents the first tangible step in the stuff that counts, delegates.

The next primary now moves south of the Mason-Dixon Line to South Carolina were there will be 25 delegates up for grabs. Polls see Romney leading with Gingrich close behind and Paul coming in third. The actual outcome will now depend on the rallying and lobbying of each prospective candidate’s camping team.

Mitt Romney was born in Detroit on March 12, 1947. His mother, Lenore, gave up an acting career when she met and married his father, George. Mitt’s father came from humble origins and never graduated from college. He apprenticed as a lathe and plaster carpenter and sold aluminium paint before beginning a career that brought him to the head of American Motors and then the governorship of Michigan.

Mitt married his wife, Ann, in 1969. They first met in elementary school when he was a Cub Scout. When they met again years later at a friend’s house, he was smitten. Between them, they have five sons and sixteen grandchildren, who are the center of their lives. Like any family, the Romney’s have faced hardship: Ann was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1998, and more recently fought a battle with breast cancer. She credits her husband’s unwavering care and devotion to her for helping her through these ordeals.

Martin Luther King Day - Jan 16

Martin Luther King Day is a federal holiday that will fall on January 16 this year. It celebrates the life and achievements of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (MLK), the civil rights leader. He is best known for his campaigns to end racial segregation on public transport and for racial equality in the United States.

This federal holiday is a relatively new one with all states observing it from the year 2000 -- New Hampshire was the last state to observe it. Four days after Dr King’s death in 1968, Congressman John Conyers, Democrat from Michigan, first introduced legislation for a commemorative holiday. Even though Illinois was the first state to adopt Martin Luther King Day as a state holiday in 1973, at a federal level everything was at a standstill. When the bill did not progress, a campaign was started. Following support from the musician Stevie Wonder with his single "Happy Birthday" and a petition with six million signatures, the bill became law in 1983 and Martin Luther King Day was first observed by some states in 1986.

MLK was born on January 15, 1929, in Atlanta, Georgia. According to him the civil rights movement began when he was six years old. Two of his friends did not show up to play ball and Martin decided to go look for them. He was met by the mother of one of the boys who told him in a very rude tone that her son would not be coming out to play with him ever again because they were white and he was black.

Rev King is probably best known for the speech he gave on August 28, 1963 on the steps of the Washington DC Lincoln Memorial. It goes as follows:

“I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal. I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave-owners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

Iowa Caucuses: And then there were 8

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has won the Iowa caucuses by only eight votes. Romney narrowly edged out former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum. Romney got 30,015 votes while Santorum received 30,007 votes.　

During the Iowa caucuses residents of Iowa State meet in precinct caucuses in 1,774 precincts and elect delegates to the corresponding county conventions. There are 99 counties in Iowa. These county conventions then select delegates for both Iowa's Congressional District Convention and the State Convention, which eventually choose the delegates for the presidential nominating conventions.

Romney was born on March 12, 1947. He was the 70th Governor of Massachusetts from 2003 to 2007. While Governor he presided over a series of spending cuts and increases in fees that eliminated a projected $3 billion deficit. He also signed into law the Massachusetts health care reform legislation, which provided near-universal health insurance access via subsidies and state-level mandates and was the first of its kind in the nation.

Santorum has on numerous occasions made derogatory statements against homosexuals. In 2003, Santorum stated that he believed mutually consenting adults do not have a constitutional right to privacy with respect to sexual acts. He described the ability to regulate consensual homosexual acts as comparable to the states' ability to regulate other consensual and non-consensual sexual behaviour, such as adultery, polygamy, child molestation, incest, sodomy, and bestiality, whose decriminalization he believed would threaten society and the family, as they are not monogamous and heterosexual.　

　

US Primary Elections

The election for the president of the United States occurs on the Tuesday after the first Monday in November.  In 2012 this date will fall on November 6th. On that day the two main political parties will have their candidate’s name written on the ballot.

But how does each party choose the candidate it wants to back up for president? That’s where primary elections (or as they are better known, primaries) come into play. Primaries are elections in which party members or voters select prospective presidential candidates from a set of contestants. Primary elections are one way by which a political party nominates candidates for the next general election.

Outside the US, primaries are not that common mainly because in other countries the selection of the leader is the responsibility of the political party itself and does not involve the general public. One exception close to Malta took place when Italy, in 2009, the Italian Democratic Party opted for primaries to select the party’s Secretary. In this election 17-year olds were allowed to vote.

Back to the USA, the Democratic Party will not hold primaries this election because President Obama is not being contested. During the early stages of the campaign there were rumors that the Secretary of State Hilary Clinton would attempt another go at the presidency but she has declared that she did not intend to run. Even though the Democrats’ presidential candidate is not being contested, the Democratic National Convention to be held in North Carolina still has to confirm President Obama.

On the Republican ticket the contestants still in the run are Fred S. Karger, Gary Johnson, Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul, Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, Michele Bachmann, Buddy Roemer and Rick Perry. On January 3rd, Iowa will kick off the primaries. As the months roll by, the prospective candidates will gain delegates who will vote for them in the 2012 Republican National Convention that will be held in August 2012. As the weeks pass, candidates who feel they do not have a chance will pull out of the race and will transfer any of the delegates they would have won to someone still in the running. At the end of it all, one candidate will take the party to the polls.

Election Count Down

The clock is ticking. In less than a year the United States (and the rest of the world) will know if President Obama will lead the United States for the following 4 years or whether he will be sitting on the side on January 20, 2013, as the Republican nominee takes the oath to faithfully serve his or her country.

The time between when the polling booths shut down and when the official results are published will depend pretty much on how close the two candidates stand and whether there are States in which a few hundred votes can tip the balance and the outcome of the election either one way or the other.  Everyone hopes that this time around the electoral officers do not end up having to manually decide if each pregnant punched card is valid or not.

Yet the scenario described about is a possible reality. The first reason why this is more likely to happen is because today it is becoming increasingly more difficult to not get involved in the electoral process. Switch on the TV, read a newspaper, listen to a radio station or surf the internet and election related content envelopes you. Prospective candidates will be spending more than $1 billion to promote themselves to the voting public. And $1 billion, even in today’s watered down economy, still buys you a heck of a lot of attention.

The second reason why the difference between the winner and the loser are becoming slimmer lies in how difficult it is becoming for voters to pick the better candidate. For starters political extremes no longer exists and irrespective of whether one chooses a Democrat or a Republican, the expected real difference between one and the other are subtle. Secondly, each campaign has mastered the art of promoting their candidate as being the perfect choice while demonizing the other side. Many a time voters will clinch on a issue that they feel is important to them and cast their vote accordingly.

Citizenship for children of Maltese citizens

As we stated a few months ago we started investigating what is necessary to gain US citizenship for your children. Our research focused on children under the age of 18.  In order to qualify the following conditions must be met:

• At least one parent is a U.S. citizen or, if deceased, the parent was a U.S. citizen at the time of death.
• The U.S. citizen parent or his or her U.S. citizen parent has (or at the time of death had) been physically present in the United States or its outlying possessions for at least 5 years, at least two of which were after attaining the age of 14.
• The child is under the age of 18 years.
• The child is residing outside of the United States in the legal and physical custody of the U.S. citizen parent (or, if the citizen parent is deceased, an individual who does not object to the application).
• The child is temporarily present in the United States after having entered lawfully and is maintaining lawful status in the United States.
• An adopted child may be eligible for naturalization under section 322 of the INA if the child satisfies the requirements applicable to adopted children under sections 101(b)(1)(E), (F) or (G) of the INA.

If any member satisfies these criteria and you would like to start the process of applying for citizenship for your children contact us.