He Means Well, But...

...Mr. Obama's stimulus plan strategy looks like it relied to much on the goodwill of Republicans - you know, the minority party that, politically speaking, has an interest in seeing his presidency go down in flames - and now the plan is that much poorer for all this "cooperation".

"The Dude" Gets Smacked Around at Sundance

To think that I always thought that The Dude was a lover, not a fighter ("Just take the four dollars, man!"). Well, maybe he's not really much of a fighter, since he apparently didn't get a punch in.

[for those of you non-Achievers, Jeff "The Dude" Dowd is the real-life person upon which the Cohen Brothers based Jeff "The Dude" Lebowski]

Sasha!

It's unsurprising, but still pretty remarkable, that the arrival of such a small creature can cause so much...commotion. So many regular activities, so much of life's daily rhythm, blown completely away with the birth of a child. It certainly made a difference that this particular child (my daughter! even a few weeks in, still somewhat strange to think of oneself as a father) added to said commotion by arriving well ahead of schedule, by a whole five weeks!

As lucky as we are to have Sasha healthy, despite being pre-term, we're equally fortunate to have our families and friends so involved, and so very generous. It's far too easy to take those around you for granted, but ocassions like this really bring all the generosity, caring, and concern, into focus. Whether a beatiful baby shower - complete with a special guest, the actual baby! - or the food that nieghbors, family, and friends brought over, or a grandma who hopped on a plane not twelve hours after the birth to come help us out for a few weeks, or grandparents who cleaned our house, took care of our furry, non-human (sorry to break it to you Marty, but you're actually a dog) daughters, and outfitted their first grandkid with enough clothes to last until she's age five, it's all been quite cool to have all of you around and watching out for us. Thank you.

Will this blog turn into "All Things Sasha"? I don't think so; I've tended not to include too many personal/family posts in the past, and that trend will probably continue. But there will be updates here and there. And you never know - after all, one shouldn't underestimate the enthusiasm of a proud dad...

Panic In Detroit

(Apologies to Bowie for the title. It's a reach, but I like the song and wanted to use it.)

Why is there so much vitriol directed towards Detroit over their potential government bailout, so much scrutiny of their recovery plans, when Wall Street - whose bailout is at least thirty times more expensive, and still counting! - gets off without any demands for recovery plans or ridiculous harping about their CEOs' modes of transportation? After all, the automakers actually produce something, it's not just money and paper changing hands. Maybe (call me cynical) it can be traced back to campaign contributions; there was a lot more money on Wall Street, some of which naturally found its way down to D.C. Maybe it's simply a question of bad timing - "bailout fatigue" on Capitol Hill - the Big Three are last to the window, so they have to beg for the leftovers. Or maybe they're simply easy targets. These companies obviously don't have the best reputation over the last 30 years. So even though they have, by all acounts, cleaned up there act a lot in the past five years or so, they're still being punished, fairly or not, for past mistakes and shortsightedness. Not that fairness has anything do do with this economic mess at this point - after Bear Stearns, AIG, Citigroup, et cetera, "fairness" hasn't been spotted around here in quite awhile.

But how did Detroit really get into this situation? Well, I'm not the biggest Malcolm Gladwell fan, but this article by the pop-statistician from The New Yorker two years ago explains the long history of the troubles in Motown (and for American industry, in general) better than anything else I've read recently.

The Dude and The Gray Lady

The Dude moves up in the world! (but is this a positive development?): a mention in the New York Times, with a focus on the Caucasian.

More of the Same?

To anyone that expressed optimism (delusion?) that the forthcoming Obama administration would actually bring "change" to Washington, this is not a good sign. Yes, it looks like Joe keeps his committee chair despite his very active campaigning against his ostensible party's nominee. And like Obama himself said, there will be Republicans serving at high levels in his administration.

Did I miss something? Didn't the country, on the whole, vote for Democrats over Republicans at every federal level? Why do Dems seem to have this bi-partisanship fetish? They WON! That means they can select people from their party who should share a progressive viewpoint and support a progressive/liberal agenda, and then..they can go out and enact that agenda! Holy shit, it all seems so easy! But that's not what's happening. Greenwald, as usual, sums it all up nicely:

Our political system is afflicted by many, many problems. A lack of bipartisanship hasn't been one of them. At least during the Bush era, the Beltway political establishment has been fueled by trans-partisan cooperation and internal allegiance far more than by any ideological differences, policy debates, or partisan warfare. Do the last eight years -- defined by George Bush's virtually unimpeded political agenda -- leave any doubt about that?

That's why the outcome of this Joe Lieberman "controversy" is anything but surprising. Having Democrats overlook Lieberman's extremist views and reward him is anything but "change." That's perfectly consistent with -- not a departure from -- how Washington works: political disagreements can be expressed on the rhetorical level but they're virtually always subordinated to the far greater imperative of bipartisan harmony within the political class.

If this is how the next four (or eight) years is going to be: spineless Democrats enacting a half-baked, flaccid agenda with the help of all of their bi-partisan Republican friends, count me among the seriously underwhelmed.

Update: It's official! But I don't think Kos' comment about a tone-deaf Senate is entirely accurate; the Senate is quite aware of the political tone of this decision, it just realizes that ignoring the current tone will have absolutely no repercussions. Until Greens poll at more than one or two percent nationally, progressives are stuck - with Harry Reid and the Democrats.

Word Games

It's one week before the election, but is it 2008 or 1950? The dreaded label of Socialist has been hurled at Barack Obama so often in the past month, it's difficult to tell what year it is. Is this Palin-McCarthy - um, sorry - McCain-McCarthy versus Obama-Marx? Maybe it's a good sign that the hugely succesful demonization of liberal has run out of gas, and the Right has to reach further back in time to when their candidate was still a teenager...and Obama's mom was 8 years old.

A new Red Scare is just what this country needs, isn't it? It's not like we have any other problems to worry about at the moment. Plus, Capitalism has kicked ass lately, hasn't it?

A Real Threat to the Nation

No, this isn't about last night's debate (Sarah Palin scores major points for remaining upright and conscious, right? Oh ya, you betcha!). Nor is it about the financial "crisis". It's about how we just might be a nation of jerks. Tools. Pricks. You get the picture. Why else would Bow-Flex feature Brian Alvarez in its TV ads, other than as an mass appeal to our inner douchebag? If you've seen the ad, you know what I'm talking about. If not, lucky you! I could go on at length, but it wasn't hard to find another blogger who shares a very healthy, heart-warming hatred for Mr. Alvarez.

Palin: Scarier Than Cheney?

I know, what a crazy thought, right? Still, her interview with Katie and some of her mayoral policies make me wonder; her cluelessness versus Cheney's diabolical evil? It's a closer call than I would have thought:

A few clips of her interview with Couric, surrounded by some discussion by Mr. Greenwald (second clip is worse).

Billing rape victims in Wasilla?!?

Brian Drain (aka Gordon Gekko Lives!)

This is the second time in the past few months I've seen this topic broached in our newspapers in the past year, but it seems more relevant now than it did back in February:

In his February 20 column, Steve Pearlstein of the Post railed against how the Finanical Industry operates at the top:

Wall Street's hypocrisy on this topic is nothing less than breathtaking. When times are good, its champions will claim that their brilliance and hard work account for the spectacular returns. But when markets turn and investors lose their shirts, these same brilliant managers are sent off with golden parachutes and invariably scooped up by rival firms that are only too willing to chalk up their mistakes to bad luck.

It would be bad enough if the consequences of this excessive pay were confined to Wall Street. Unfortunately, it has not worked out that way. For the prospect of earning untold wealth also has attracted an enormous amount of young talent that could have been more productively used in science, engineering, medicine, teaching, public service and businesses that generate genuine long-term value.

Is it not fair to ask whether the United States can remain the world's most prosperous and innovative economy when half of the seniors at the most prestigious colleges and universities now aspire to become "i-bankers" at Goldman Sachs?

Now Roger Cohen visits this same territory in his Wednesday column in the New York Times:

When I taught a journalism course at Princeton a couple of years ago, I was captivated by the bright, curious minds in my class. But when I asked students what they wanted to do, the overwhelming answer was: “Oh, I guess I’ll end up in i-banking.”

It was not that they loved investment banking, or thought their purring brains would be best deployed on Wall Street poring over a balance sheet, it was the money and the fact everyone else was doing it.

I called one of my former students, Bianca Bosker, who graduated this summer and has taken a job with The Monitor Group, a management consultancy firm (she’s also writing a book). I asked her about the mood among her peers.

“Well, I have several friends who took summer internships at Lehman that they expected to lead to full-time job, so this is a huge issue,” she said. “You can’t believe how intensely companies like Merrill would recruit at Ivy League schools. I mean, when I was a sophomore, if you could spell your name, you were guaranteed a job.”

But why do freshmen bursting to change the world morph into investment bankers?

“I guess the bottom line is the money. You could be going to grad school and paying for it, or earning six figures. And knowing nothing about money, you get to move hundreds of millions around! No wonder we’re in this mess: turns out the best and the brightest make the biggest and the worst.”

According to the Harvard Crimson, 39 percent of work-force-bound Harvard seniors this year are heading for consulting firms and financial sector companies (or were in June). That’s down from 47 percent — almost half the job-bound class — in 2007.

These numbers mirror a skewed culture. The best and the brightest should think again. Barack Obama put the issue this way at Wesleyan University in May: beware of the “poverty of ambition” in a culture of “the big house and the nice suits.”

39% of Harvard seniors going into the financial sector, down from 47%? I don't know what's more depressing, that some of the very best and brightest only want to make money, or that they're doing such a poor job of it. Sure, there's no guarantee that, had any of these people gone into medicine or engineering, they would have found a cure for cancer or developed a car that could be powered by mayonnaise. Who knows, maybe they'd be making weapons for our massive war machine (there's plenty of money there, too) or inventing less-weighty items. But I'd sure like our odds for a better world if they had chosen those careers. Too bad that it's just about the (obscene amounts of) money.

Isn't Tech Awesome?

Here's the latest small step in the march towards....dystopia? the surveillance state? the end of speeding, illegal lefts, and mowing pedestrians down in crosswalks? Time will tell. Makes me wonder, though - did Orwell, Bradbury, Gibson, Gilliam, and all those fellows who write/wrote about a dystopic future anticipate the advance of technology, and that humans just wouldn't be able to resist using it for these purposes? Or did they think the worst of humankind, and assumed that given enough time it was inevitable that we would consciously work toward the development of these tools of the police state? In other words, which comes first, the camera or the man in the control booth studying you on the monitor? And does it even matter, now that it's here (and growing)?

Real-Life Wire

Straight from the TV screen to the actual streets of Baltimore! OK, maybe this guy and his East Side drug ring weren't as big-time as Proposition Joe or B & B, but it still sounds like David Simon could have written the script for this one.

Beaten to the Punch

I was all set to comment about the latest comments from Jacques Rogge (head of the IOC) about phenom sprinter Usain Bolt, which further cemented Mr. Rogge's reputation as a paragon of hypocrisy. This bourgeois Belgian's buffoonery cannot be bested!

But Sally Jenkins wrote it better than I could in her latest column (albeit absent the alarming attack of alliteration).

Cabin Noise

Considering (1) how inconsiderate some people can be when using their mobile phones in public and (2) that assaulting another airline passenger during these days of the Bush-Cheney regime could get you shipped to Guantanamo, this bill seems like a great idea to me. I even like the name! But it's probably only a matter of time before phones on U.S. flights are a reality; they're already allowed on planes in other parts of the world, after all.

Festival 2008 Recap

We hit the 2nd day of the '08 Virgin Mobile Festival on Sunday, and while not as good as last year (how can you top The Police, Beastie Boys, LCD Soundsystem, Cheap Trick, and even a vacant Amy Winehouse?), it was still a good time. There was a lot more separation between the two headliners, Nine Inch Nails and Kanye West, and the rest of the lineup - seemingly, all of the on-stage energy for the entire day was saved up for the last two acts. There were certainly other solid if unspectacular performances from Stone Temple Pilots, the Black Keys, Bob Dylan, and Moby, but nothing that could touch the aggressiveness of Mr. Reznor or the showmanship of Mr. West. There were a few acts that I had never heard of, or that had heard very little about, that I'll be checking out more, including Andrew Bird and Chromeo.

Legalizing the Surveillance State

It's done, the new FISA bill has passed in the Senate. No, this doesn't plunge us into 1984. But it does bring us a few steps closer.

I think Obama's stark reversal on this issue is oddly reassuring - having a principled, honest person running for president is way too suspicious, but now we know he's just another politician. Will I still vote for the guy? Sure! (as if I'd vote for McCain). But he's not the Second Coming, as his hard-core supporters like to imagine. He's just another poll-driven, broken-promises, triangulating candidate. Much more appropriate behavior for someone running for president.

Why The Left Runs To The "Center"?

Here's an insightful post that builds on Greenwald's latest and asks why Weakness is Strength for Dems. The answer is intriguing, although I'm not sure I buy the entire premise; I guess I have a hard time believing that today's media stars are that influential with voters, but then again for the premise to work, they only need to be influential to candidates and their advisers. The concept of "moving to the center" is summed up nicely with this line:

The entire construct is based upon Democrats distancing themselves from their most ardent supporters (which is quite convenient for Republicans.)

The Problem with Democrats

[Note that the post is the problem, singular, not problems; I don't have all day!]

Over the past...30 years (?), it seems to me that Republicans have been very successful in moving the accepted political spectrum farther and farther right - what was Right is now Center, Far Right is now just Right, Left is now Far Left, you get the picture. Don't ask me why that is, or how it came to happen, but I think there's ample evidence. Even in Clinton's eight years in office, this process was going on; look at welfare reform and the SEC during that time, as a few examples.

Democrats have been in charge on Congress for a few years, and stand in opposition one of the most unpopular presidents in history. But are they actually in opposition? Not really. Even the party's presidential nominee has fallen into an all-too-familiar Democratic trap: the fear of appearing weak on national security, which of course leads to actually becoming weak in defense of one's principles. Congressional Democrats, as a block, only allow themselves token, symbolic opposition to Bush policies; Glenn Greenwald is calling this The New Republic Syndrome. I'm glad our congressman, John Sarbanes, voted against the latest bipartisan disaster, and plenty of other Democrats did as well. But what to do when the House "leaders" are in opposition to the majority of their own party? Either try to change their minds, or remove them from these leadership positions. Too bad it's so difficult (read: expensive) to run against an incumbent. It's a sad time for Democrats when both Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer can't be relied on to protect the Constitution. At least the sprinkler system at the National Archives is still on the job (I hope!).

The merits of the FISA bill or other Bush administration positions can be argued, I suppose - you won't read me defending them, but one could make a go of it, I guess. But without any meaningful opposition, no substantive defense of those positions is even required; proponents can throw the flag around this bill (or a potential war with Iran, or a morally and intellectually bankrupt energy policy), question the patriotism of those in genuine opposition without addressing their real concerns, and be home in time for the summer recess.

Of Beer and Hostile Takeovers

If the Belgian-Brazilian brewer InBev wants to buy Budweiser - that's their problem. As for any patriotic defenses of the American-brewed "king of beers"? Andrew Leonard at Salon sums it up much better than I ever could (excerpt below):

For true beer-lovers across the world, Budweiser is a joke. It's embarrassing. Since when does America mean watered down pablum, forced down the throats of an unthinking populace by sheer power of mass marketing muscle? Since when does America stand for homogenized, lowest-common denominator swill? Michelob? Busch? These are not the names of American patriots -- these are signposts of the triumph of a particular strain of capitalism in which true identity and taste are sacrificed in the service of gaining greater market share.

If we're looking for real American icons that represent the grandest traditions of our founding fathers, who threw off foreign rule so they could stand independent and seek their own destiny, we have to search elsewhere than in the realm of giant conglomerates with humongous Super Bowl advertising budgets. I'm talking homebrewers, microbreweries, and those brave, privately-owned breweries that have yet to sell out to the false dream of "going public" -- and all the betrayal of brewer freedom that such slavery to the market implies.

Well said!

The Obnoxious Factor

Dan Connolly is completely correct in his latest blog entry (and so far, his readers agree); for the past four years, the Red Sox have not only had more on-field success than the NYY, but their fans that infest Camden Yards nine times per season have definitely surpassed New York fans in obnoxious behavior. It's almost pleasant to go to an O's-Yanks game these days, if only because it ensures than no critical mass of Boston fans will be at the ballpark. How times have changed...