Here and There

Okay, the swearing in has happened, the balls are commenced. Now comes the sobering moment — there’s work to do, folks.

You see, many of us lost our jobs. I was fortunate to find work quickly. But others are still hurting. We’ve got to get work for them, and we’ve got to buttress our unemployment insurance programs for those who aren’t able to find work in the meantime.

We’ve got wars to end, troops to bring home, foreign alliances to rebuild. There’s an active Middle East conflict in progress, and godammit, we better really try to help bring about a peace this time.

Also, at home, there’s an urgent need to start real programs to try to stop global warming. We’ve got to kick into gear cleaner ways of generating energy, whether by tidal power, solar, wind, geo-thermal, whatever. There’s smarter, more efficient ways of going about our daily lives, like high-speed rail, hybrid vehicles, reusable bags at the grocery and drug stores. The list goes on.

The point I’m trying to make is, let’s recover from our inaugural hangovers and get to work. Lord knows there’s no shortage of work to be done.

I must’ve missed last week. Oh, well:

Of course I’m ecstatic over this, but what I really like is that the administration will hold states to real, measurable progress over public works. Also, I’d like to see “rail” included in any “roads and bridges” talk.

But the bit about schools and information infrastructure gets me all giddy. Still kinda can’t believe this guy is about to be our president (not a moment too soon, of course).

Ignoring the economy and my personal stake in it, I’m becoming quite a fan of the United States of America these days.

Okay, that’s the capsulized version. I just really trust that we’re reprioritizing, and doing it right this time. This really does feel like a once-in-a-generation election. Obama has already made some very important decisions, and despite disagreeing with a few, they’ve almost all been good ones.

Matt Yglesias reports that McCain, in addition to agreeing that the Department of Education should be abolished, stated his desire to see the Department of Energy be eliminated. HUD, too.

Now, I’m a cynical bastard, and I bitch about things like public transportation, dirty streets, crime, and any number of examples of broken government on a daily basis. But my god, the answer is not to rid ourselves of the pillars of society. Remember your call to reform the system, senator? Why not just come right out and say, “We’re for abolishing the government.”

When I was teenager and flirted with anarchy (going so far as to wear T-shirts emblazoned with the circle-A symbol), I was on the receiving end of unbelievable amounts of shit. This guy, on the other hand, gets a legitimate shot at being president? What am I missing here?

I’m not Michelle Obama, so I have impunity in saying it: I am ashamed of my country.

I mean, what do I have to be proud of? Our record on international relations? Our economy? Our entertainment industry? Our environmental record? Schools? Banks?

I used to be okay with the United States. The 1990s were, taken as a whole, pretty great. There were plenty of bumps in the road, but income disparity shrank, innovation exploded, and we were well-liked the world ’round. Work was easy to find, and Seinfeld was on.

Now, what?

Anyway, the way I’m feeling about the upcoming election hinges on this question of pride and shame. If Obama-Biden pull it off (or, more accurately put, if the American voting public pulls it off for Obama-Biden), pride will be restored. It would be a mea culpa, a rejection of the bad policies and divisiveness of the last eight years.

But for McSame-HockeyMilf to win would serve as a stamp of approval for the dismal job Bush-Cheney have done. I cannot be proud of that, and instead, my shame will only harden. It may become permanent.

Matthew Yglesias » Worst President Ever

I don’t know. Yglesias is really only thinking domestically. Bush has let a major U.S. city disintegrate, overall infrastructure deteriorate, drastically increased the disparity between rich and poor, and plunged the country into massive amounts of debt after years of surplus.

He’s helped the international community slide into chaos, invaded a sovereign nation for virtually no reason at all, snubbed international legal and environmental treaties, and presided over perhaps the most drastic fall of the U.S. dollar in history. He’s allowed (possibly knowingly) the U.S. to torture prisoners, when he wasn’t farming it out. I know I’m forgetting plenty here.

This is no statistical analysis, mind you. Nor am I anywhere near as versed in history as Yglesias. And I agree: Buchanan was abysmal. I just think he’s giving Bush too much credit here, or not holding him as accountable as he should.

Needless to say, count me in that 42 percent that thinks he’s the worst. I think he’s a great candidate for it, anyway.

I brushed off your endorsement when I got wind of it early in the day. But damn you, you made me watch your speech.

And now I copy the embed code with wet eyes. Yes we can!

Just got done taking a Zogby poll. Setting aside questions of the pollster’s reliability, I like taking these surveys from time to time.

Something I had been thinking about as I was wandering the streets near my work the other day came up on this poll. It comes up frequently on Zogby’s, as I’m sure it does on others. It’s where the poll asks you to name what issues are most important to you (choose only two), and there’s a list of things like Taxes, Education, Economy, Space Exploration.

It seems more than a meaningless exercise to me. Because no one can solve all problems, and it’s best to have your priorities at the ready, I thought I’d share what I told the pollsters.

If I were allowed to choose five issues important to this country, they would be, in this order: Environment, Economy, Diplomacy, Education, and yes, Defense (thanks to the mess we’ve inherited).

Environment gets top billing because we’ve simply got to start, really start, making an effort now. Environmental damage is the farthest reaching and most potentially intractable. The economy trends up and down over time. Left alone, our climate is headed toward a condition in which no of us could live here anymore.

Economy because, frankly, it sucks. It sucks bad. Taxes are too low on the top earners, and too high and complex for the rest of us. It’s been seven years of skew, and it’s time to recognize that the experiment failed and get back to something more fair and sensible. A subsection to this issue is jobs, which can be created in areas concerning the environment, from cleanup to renewable energy, etc. Health care is tied in here, too. It should get its own topic, but there’s no lack of good healthcare in this country. There is, on the other hand, a telling lack of affordable healthcare.

Which kinda sorta leads to diplomacy. We’ve simply got to get our good standing back. Not launching unilateral wars for falsified reasons is a good start, but we’ve got to go so much farther. Helping struggling peoples where we can, but staying out of sovereign nation’s affairs is a safe bet, too.

Education is fourth, sadly. It should be first. But the world is fucked right now, so those others get 1-3. We’ve simply got to clamp down on education, from pre-school to college. Quality education needs to be made available at all levels. And affordable college, with reasonable loans in place, needs to be there, too. It will take a dramatic shift of emphasis, because at the current rate of school and student failure, this country is headed down the drain.

Defense because there are people who want to fuck shit up. We should be ready to stop them, but a true effort in these other areas might also reduce the threat. It’s all so wonderfully intertwined.

Do not give a misbehaving child what (s)he wants.

And with that implicit analogy, this blog now turns its full attention toward taking down John McCain. Reader submissions are accepted.

The aim will be to expose John McCain for what he is — an old-school politician, beholden to special interests with deep pockets who play by their own rules. The arguments about approach to government are tired, but must be hashed out. The real question is who these candidates are, what they represent, and how they will lead and represent the United States of America at home and to the world.

Given these tenets, the choice should be pretty clear, methinks.

Srsly.

But I have to give props to the Master. Now, if only I could ride those coattails …

I’d read about this on Craig Newmark’s blog a few months ago, and was pointed to a Today Show clip from … today, featuring Stephen Colbert. Colbert was discussing a straw poll being conducted at DonorsChoose.org, in which voters from around the country can give directly to schools and educational endeavors in the name of their preferred Democratic candidate.

No matter whom you support, think about giving to children in need of a good education.

The Clinton smear team was (need I say?) falsely claiming that Barack Obama had been a senior lecturer, not a professor, as he claimed, at the University of Chicago Law School.

Today, the school confirmed that:

From 1992 until his election to the U.S. Senate in 2004, Barack Obama served as a professor in the Law School. He was a Lecturer from 1992 to 1996. He was a Senior Lecturer from 1996 to 2004, during which time he taught three courses per year. Senior Lecturers are considered to be members of the Law School faculty and are regarded as professors, although not full-time or tenure-track.

It’s amazing. Seattle artist Chris Jordan makes art of truly mesmerizing detail, and every bit, zoomed at every level, offers commentary on who we are and how we live.

I’m speechless.

I’m reading and hearing more and more that Barack Obama lacks substance, that people don’t know what he stands for, other than the played-out cliché, “change.” Funny, but no one seemed to question this until it appeared he was a contender. I guess that’s to be expected, now that people are taking a closer look at him. But that’s what I can’t understand. Are people taking a closer look, or are they latching on to a desperate tactic employed by the ever apparently vulnerable Clintons?

Anyone watching any debate that wasn’t simply a petty rehash of candidates’ past sins would have been keeping score. Obama’s controversial (in that it doesn’t mandate, and therefore cannot guarantee universal coverage) health care plan has been pored over perhaps more than any other of his policies. His stance on the troops in Iraq is simple enough. His energy and education and tax policies have been laid forth for the electorate time and again. He weaves some policy into his stand-alone speeches, and definitely covers it well in debates.

I certainly didn’t come to support him by letting myself get carried by his so-called poetry. I admit the man can speak, but to me, he’s even more of a policy wonk. Funny, but I remember the exact same thing being said about a certain former president whose wife is running for the nomination now.

So, really people, what’s the problem? Or are you already grasping at straws?