Entries Tagged 'thoughts' ↓

border wall under construction - Hidalgo, TX

Flickr has a weakness: it allows photographers to title their own photos. This is often a bad thing. Let me demonstrate:

Exhibit 1: a lovely photo. Simply great. It’s got a wonderful balance of color, some excellent use of depth of field, and really nice composition. Title: “Enchantment.” Now I’m forced to experience intrusive images from bad fantasy novels when I see the picture. Not even good fantasy; bad fantasy.

Here’s another one. Not as stunning as the first, but still, interesting point of view, nice visual lines, etc. And then a title that wrenches my mind toward bad 1990s Lifetime Network movies: “Follow Your Own Path.” Plus, in the description the artist says s/he “literally kissed the sun” in that spot. No, you did not. Back to my original point, the title is not good.

This one I really like, too. Great plant shot. While you’re enjoying the juicy green, look at the title. LOOK AT IT! Now wash your eyes out at the hazmat station for a minimum of five minutes. Follow workplace standards for contamination with caustic substances.

It goes on and on. Titles like “Freedom,” “Faerie-House,” “True Enigma” (these are invariably self-portraits), “Indescribably Luscious,” “Ultimate Escape,” etc. etc. etc. (got tired of sifting through the bad titles). And I’m not even talking about the pictures people take of their pets and children. No, these are good pictures, art-wise (IMHO), that have horrendous titles. I breathe sighs of relief when I see titles like “Jan 27, 2008″ or “IMG_2452″ or the ever-appropriate “untitled.”

People should maybe think of hiring someone else to do their titles. Also, Flickr should let me browse title-optional. Yes, I crave no-title browsing. Because this hurts my brain.

Watching Bill O’Reilly (why do I do this to myself? I do not know) “interview” two alleged experts on interrogation has been a frustrating, fascinating few minutes. He’s asking, of course, about torture, waterboarding, etc. One is an eggheaded intellectual, while the other is more of a pragmatic policy man. The intellectual was clearly chosen because he was predicted to oppose the use of torture in interrogations, while the other guy was supposed to support it. But neither of them would unconditionally sign on to the idea of using torture to get intelligence about terror. Bill went around and around, making his question more and more general and gotcha-esque, trying to extract some commitment from these two (or at least one of them) that waterboarding et al. would be the best national security choice in some undefined scary situation. He gives up in exasperation when neither of them will take his bait (probably guaranteeing an out-of-context sound byte later on).

Once again, and more forcefully, I’m struck with the sense that party politics in America is a game of cliques. The in-groups come first, with the dogma, policies, and even values and beliefs, coming afterward. The entertainers (masquerading as newspeople) like O’Reilly, Limbaugh, Maddow, and Olbermann understand this, and feed their audiences a steady diet of self-confirming sugar water. But it’s the clique first. The ideals serve the cliques.

How else to explain the supposedly “Christian” right’s insistence on supporting any war waged by a fellow conservative? Or demanding that concealed handguns be allowed on Texas university campuses¹? Or supposedly-fiscally-responsible party members calling for increasing expansion of prisons, the military, and police forces at taxpayer expense? Or the antagonism to environmentalism in any form not sponsored by hunters and fishermen? How else to account for the “progressive” left’s protection of endangered species, sometimes at land- and business-owners’ expense, while insisting on the right of choice in even late-term, convenience-motivated abortion situations? And what about the mainstream left’s emerging opposition to nontraditional environmentalism and feminism? The illuminating factor is group loyalty and identity.

The most telling points are the flip-flops whenever the regimes change in Washington. For eight years, conservatives lambasted anyone protesting any of Bush/Cheney’s policies as antipatriotic, while the liberals crowed about the patriotism of dissent. Now that Obama’s in charge, we have John Stewart et al. ridiculing the Tea Party folks² while the right-wingers remind us that our Founding Fathers were protesters. This pattern holds with the expansion of executive power, as well (Obama has decided it’s not so bad, while the Republicans have discovered a taste for restraint). We are true to our school, before all else. And if the ideology fits within that, great. If not, we’ll twist it around until it does. This explains, I think, a huge amount of what goes on in U.S. government.

And now, a picture of some flowers:

1. but notably not in any legislative buildings [↩]
2. you will note my amazing restraint in not calling them Teabaggers [↩]

The photo and my comments are unrelated, today. The comments are about the Swedish movie Let the Right One In. Holy creepy awesome, Batman. I have been sick to death of the stupidity, self-importance, and adolescent inanity of most vampire movies, but now I concur with the comment on the poster: BEST. VAMPIRE MOVIE. EVER. There’s absolutely no reveling in power while pretending to be humanitarian. There’s no “tee hee I know so much more than you mere mortals.” There’s no vicarious power-tripping at all, really. There’s no moralizing with the lips while contrived plot devices make a bloodfest inevitable. By dodging the pitfalls of teenage mentality that infest most vampire movies like vermin, this film acquires the power to be simply a good film.

Why is this movie so awesome? It’s real. The vampires (the two we see) are real, gritty, sometimes-hard-to-watch humans. The painstakingly slow scenes as Eli’s middle-aged partner drags the body of a man he’s killed to satisfy Eli’s hunger, step by grunting step through the snow on a child’s sled. The horrible scenes of bullying and violence as Oskar tries in vain to assert himself with his peers. The painfully tender scenes of the romance (or whatever it is) between Oskar and Eli, two twelve-year-olds (though Eli has “been twelve for a long time”). It was eviscerating to watch at times, but I could not take my eyes away. To call this movie “horror” is to insult the movie and create unrealistic expectations for the genre.

As a kid, patriotism was all around me. You couldn’t have too much of it. Bad things might happen if you were suspected to be deficient in it, but you weren’t supposed to question what it was. Since then, I’ve thought about it frequently, and my ideas have both changed and remained the same. This post isn’t to bash patriotism or patriotic people, though. I believe that the factors that lead to being a good human are often the same as those that lead to patriotism. This post is because my life and development have  followed a path, and led me to places, that will not allow me to hold an uncritical position on this issue. Hello. I have been in college since 1987. I have met people who consider “patriotic” to be a swear word.

My thought process in this area has largely been one of ideological reduction; an unrelenting pruning of ideas acquired sometime in childhood. I’m now much less certain than I was then of what patriotism is (or should be), but I have ideas about what it’s not (or shouldn’t be). So here are my thoughts, so far: Continue reading →

A central tenet of rabid nationalism (erroneously called patriotism by some) is a blind insistence on the superiority of the nation one happens to be born into, over all other nations. In the U.S., this usually involves an assertion of economic and military superiority, along with a vague “better in every way” attitude about other domains. I have always felt extremely fortunate to have been raised in the USA, which had (and still has) serious claims to greatness in several areas. Objectively, there are some pretty awesome things about the USA, nationalistic fervor or no.

Unfortunately, data are starting to roll in suggesting that we may have spent the last many years shooting ourselves in the foot, greatness-wise. Over the last half-century, we have increasingly structured our political and economic systems such that our previous wealth has been redistributed away from the large number of middle- and lower-class citizens, and toward the few wealthy. This is no longer just an angry assertion of the Left; it’s a clear pattern in the data. We have granted greater and greater rights to what is now undeniably a corporate oligarchy, selling them protection from open market competition and government regulation alike. We have granted our executive branch the power to govern in an ever more autocratic manner (Obama might end up being just as bad as Bush in this area), and we have steadfastly resisted real progress  in reducing the corrupting forces of monetary influence in Washington.

The Land of Measurably Less Opportunity
Now the piper is getting paid, in pieces whittled off the American Dream. Social mobility is now lower in the United States than in other Western nations. That is, it is more difficult to succeed here, economically (compared to, say, Western Europe), unless your parents have already succeeded. The rich stay rich, and the poor stay poor. The gap between them is getting larger, and there are fewer people in the middle than there used to be. This is bad. Recent data show that citizens in nations with greater income disparities have poorer mental and physical health (apparently even for the wealthy citizens) and worse education. Continue reading →

This post is a response to Laine’s thoughtful post/essay on some of the issues involved in the “gay marriage” debate(s). She was interested in a religious person’s POV, and I figured I fit the bill. It’s a monstrous response, and didn’t fit in LiveJournal’s character limit. So, after the cut, the whole way-large response.
Continue reading →

Newsweek has what I think is a point-on article by David Frum, a conservative with some impressive credentials, titled “Why Rush is Wrong.” The piece details the political suicide Rush Limbaugh is inciting within the GOP in exchange for his personal financial gain. I resonated strongly with this article, and I think I would enjoy having a conversation with Mr. Frum. I think we’d agree on quite a lot.

Frum laments Limbaugh’s cultlike power and damage it has done to what used to be the conservative party in the US. He describes the carnage resulting from the GOP’s recent two-decade binges. He implicitly defies all Limbaugh seems to stand for by doing this without any of Limbaugh’s invective, exaggeration, or fear-mongering (for something a little less measured, see Frank Schaeffer’s piece in HuffPo). Here are my favorite bits:

You don’t have to accept Al Gore’s predictions of imminent gloom to accept that it cannot be healthy to pump gigatons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere … as a party of property owners we should be taking [conservation] values more seriously.

Above all, we need to take governing seriously again. Voters have long associated Democrats with corrupt urban machines, Republicans with personal integrity and fiscal responsibility… After Iraq, Katrina and Harriet Miers, Democrats [dominated polls] on the competence and ethics questions. And that was before we put Sarah Palin on our national ticket.

Every day, Rush Limbaugh reassures millions of core Republican voters that no change is needed: if people don’t appreciate what we are saying, then say it louder… Certainly this is a good approach for Rush himself. He claims 20 million listeners per week, and that suffices to make him a very wealthy man. And if another 100 million people cannot stand him, what does he care? …if we allow ourselves to be overidentified with somebody who earns his fortune by giving offense, [voters] will vote against us.

To stem this onrush of disastrous improvisations [e.g., increases in Medicaid, SCHIP, and federal debt], conservatives need every resource of mind and heart, every good argument, every creative alternative and every bit of compassionate sympathy for the distress that is pushing Americans in the wrong direction. Instead we are accepting the leadership of a man with an ego-driven agenda of his own, who looms largest when his causes fare worst.

Should conservatives be trying to provoke or persuade? … To enflame or govern? And finally (and above all): to profit—or to serve?

That is music to my formerly-Republican ears. Sadly, some core Republicans seem to value loyalty over reason. They especially hate having the party’s dirty laundry aired to outsiders. I can hope the GOP responds to advice like that given in this article, but many Republicans will consider the act of giving such advice in public to be treason. I expect Mr. David Frum’s political life will get worse before it gets bettter.

Despite being a hypocrite (at times, a raging one) I really despise hypocrisy. Which is kind of hypocritical of me, now that I think about it. One of the most ridiculously hypocritical things I know of is the “why should I have to press 1 for English” meme (typical link). Seriously, it makes my skin crawl. Don’t the people who say this have any sense of the horrible, horrible irony?

Of note, I never ever see this phrase trotted out in left-wing venues, in left-of-center venues, or centrist venues. This seems strictly a right-of-center conservative American complaint. Actually, let’s call a spade a spade: this is more of a whine.

Now, I’m not gonna say liberals ain’t whiny. They are plenty so. But I’m talking about conservative whiners right now. And why is this a hypocritical whine? Because of two little concepts you might have heard of: capitalism and democracy.

Right-of-center ideologies in the U.S. generally support ideas about business and government that are, well, conservative. If the Founding Fathers wanted a constitutional republic, then we should stick with it and stop trying to tweak the system. If our economic system has been capitalist for 200 years, then we should leave it alone and stop trying to regulate the corporations built up by the hard labor of good Americans. But when the ethnic demographics of the country start changing, this becomes problematic for some people.

It’s business’ God-given right to make money in nearly any way they can, so leave them alone, you bloated and inefficient government folks. Unless those corporations start to respond to a shift in American demographics and try to make money by offering service that shifts toward ethnicities that are not mine. We need English-Only rules. They should apply to all businesses, no matter what.

And we’re a constitutional republic, so our leaders have the responsibility to represent their constituencies… oh wait, unless their constituencies are brown and speak a different language. Nevermind. There oughta be a law.

The whole concept is similar to John Stewart’s recent observations that Republicans seem to believe that it’s only wrong to criticize America  if Republicans are in charge of it. The principles seem to shift when their consequences hit a little too close to home.

Maybe the problem is a clash between two conservative positions: do we stick with the old rules or with the old outcomes? If the former, then we should let the businesses and government respond to demographic shifts. If the latter, then we should, by all means, protect the status quo.

The problem with that analysis is that the ideology of the conservative worldview seems to support living by a consistent set of rules, whereas statements like “WSIHTP1FE” ignore those rules in favor of an Us-Versus-Them mentality. Maybe there are really good reasons (that I do not understand) for the apparent flip-flopping, but from the outside it just looks like another group of people whose ideology is a disposable mask for more crass, selfish, and unflattering human tendencies. Rules, schmules. Protect the people who sound like us.

Love it or hate it, I think you must admit the Obama Presidency is a clear break from the Bush Presidency. Of course, I think many (though certainly not all) of these changes are for our long-term good, but that’s just me. Obama’s White House doesn’t just show us what a different President looks like; it shows us some interesting things about other organizations, too.

A discussion of a recent White House press conference (on one of my favorite political blogs) was thought-provoking. It seems the reporters kept grilling the White House spokesman about Obama’s intention to actually implement the tax plan he campaigned on. As it turns out, it’s in the budget, nearly word-for-word as he explained it during his campaign, and that is apparently shocking for some people. The White House guy kept telling the reporters (who kept repeating the question in some aggressive ways) the basics:

• 95% of American families will see a tax cut. As mentioned 100+ times in 2008
• Those making above $250,000 per year will see a tax increase. As mentioned 100+ times in 2008.
• Nobody — not even rich people — will have tax rates any higher than they were during the 90s, with the Clinton Presidency. As mentioned 100+ times in 2008.

For the record, there was strong economic growth during recent Democrat Presidencies (especially Clinton’s), though causes might be debated.  Here’s a chart showing that, during Democratic presidencies, those with lower incomes benefit the most, economically. During Republican presidencies, the greatest beneficiaries are the minority who are the richest. Surprisingly, Democrats are (so far) better for everyone’s bottom line. Gotta think about that one. Hm. Here‘s another chart, showing that the federal deficit (or surplus) has followed the same pattern since 1980. This one goes back 50 years (note: y-axis is reversed). Pretty convincing stuff.

So, after a contentious press conference, with reporters grilling the WH spokesman, bringing up terms like “class warfare” and “income redistribution” in connection to this “new” (not really) tax plan, one (presumably print) reporter apparently observed,

“Did you notice all the questions about taxes came from reporters making over $250,000 a year, especially the TV guys?”

In some domains, I fully believe there is a liberal bias in much of the mainstream US media. However, I think bias must be more like granite than obsidian. Different biases are strewn throughout an industry, or even an individual, packed together into hard little lumps. How else to explain some media outlets’ nearly rapturous praise of then-Senator Obama, back in 2007, while these same companies buckled to Bush Administration demands on how they should (and should not) cover his two very unpopular wars, his massive increase in deficit spending, and a dozen other potential scandals that were never fully reported?

Maybe part of the answer is that journalists, idealists or not, respond to nice, big, personal income tax cuts.

So the other day (last week, actually) I was doing some elliptical at the gym. The only machines available were in the “big plasma TV” corner. Fox news was on. I tried not to watch it, but there it was. Now, I’m no fan of the mainstream media in general, though usually I can chalk their journalistic failures up to maxims like “if it bleeds, it leads” and “don’t scare the demographic.” But Fox? We need new pithy sayings to describe just how thin the veil has become between their protestations of journalistic integrity and the reality clearly visible beneath.

The newscasters talked a bit about the bailout, and the Republicans in the House refusing to vote for it. Now, I’m no fan of the current plan either, but I think most people would agree that phrases like “They held the line,” and “They stood strong” indicate a lapse of objectivity. When discussing Rush Limbaugh’s apparent power with the GOP leadership, as well as Obama’s criticism of Republican leaders who seem to model their rhetoric on Rush’s, the talking heads were saying things like, “doesn’t the President have more important things to do than discuss radio talk show hosts? Isn’t there an economic crisis going on?” and accusing him of wasting the nation’s time.

There was more of this. It made me shake my head in wonder. Okay, maybe there’s never true objectivity or neutrality in journalism, but since Fox keeps claiming (loudly) that it has no agenda and no political leanings, can’t they at least try to look like something other than self-esteem coaches for the conservative base? Sheesh.

I’ve heard Fox compared to CNN or ABC News, as if it’s just across the political spectrum from those networks; but it’s something else, entirely. It’s more like the conservative answer to the Huffington Post. No wonder I surf news online instead of watching TV. The TV news experiences are pretty punishing, and at least most of the news blogs admit their biases up front.

I was at this flash fiction workshop today, and we did an exercise with lists (naturally this made me think of my sister-in-law, Susan) that I think produced bloggable results. I don’t claim this is some kind of high literature (this will become obvious); but it was fun to write, and perhaps it will be entertaining to someone else, as well.

Advice

You must not show mercy, but that’s not because you don’t have empathy; you simply have a job to do. You must not show fear, or he will use it to defeat you. It is best not to show anger, though you will be tempted; instead, try a tone of condescending cynicism.
When you send the woman, she must be the strongest, smartest, most beautiful woman you can find. you must not show mercy, even though everyone knows she will die. She has her job to do.
You must not kill him too quickly, or there will be no suspense. Your defenses must not be absolutely impregnable, no matter what the brochure says, or he will have no chance to demonstrate the superiority of Western technology. Your plan must not be perfectly devious, no matter what your IQ tests show, or he will have no opportunity to demonstrate the superiority of cleverness and homespun grit.
When you capture him, you must torture him. He will understand; he has a job to do. Often, you will have to torture the woman you sent to kill him, as well. Remember what I said about mercy. Your prison should have a hidden flaw; not too obvious, or he won’t respect you. You will capture him again, and he must truly believe that he will now die, or he may not find the strength to defeat you.
Though it seems unnecessary, you must explain your almost-perfectly-devious plan as he is placed in an overly complex and theatrical situation that should kill him, if all goes well. All must not go well.
Yes, it must be overly complex and theatrical; you must be who you are. Consider utilizing lasers, construction machinery, undersea environments, aerospace vehicles. Yes, you must explain your plan. Out loud. You owe him that much.
In the end, he must rescue a different woman, not as strong or as smart as the one you sent, though I’m sure she has her virtues. In the end, he must defeat you, for reasons too complex to explain here.
When you die, remember who you are. Scream a little. Writhe. Die badly. Give him a show. Then, you may want to find the woman you sent. Maybe she will forgive you.

In other news, I seem to be missing people, today. Especially my old internship friends, whom I haven’t seen for a year and a half. :(

One difficult element of my decision to vote for now-President Obama was his stand on this bailout stupidity. He is all for pumping failing banks (and auto companies and some other industries) full of taxpayer money. I think it’s ridiculous, and I’m not alone. Here is a list of people who think we should let the banks fail. Those highly intelligent economist types also suggest that the bailouts will prolong and perhaps deepen our misery.

Now, before you tell me I shoulda voted Republican, remember that the GOP stepped right up to the trough beside their Democrat brethren as soon as enough pork for their constituents was added to the mix. John McCain was right in there; the difference between him and Obama at the time seemed to be that Obama was working with others to fix the problem (stupid as I think their solution is), while McCain was just getting in the way. Even now, the Republican boycott of this bill seems to be principally about what kind of bailout. In one Republican proposal, for example, stuffed with political pork as well as tax cuts for the very rich, and for corporations (both of these groups have higher effective tax rates than Joe Middle Class, but less than their peers in your average Westernized nation) is estimated to cost three times President Obama’s plan in lost revenue. Alternative plan or no, it’s only the Republican congresspeople resisting Obama’s initiative; the Republican governors are all fighting for their pieces of the bailout pie (including Sarah Palin, who is deeply allergic to even the smell of socialism when cameras are pointing at her).

Rescuing institutions that are failing because of risky decisions is bad behavior management. If it’s socialism, it’s the stupidest form (called “Lemon socialism,” a term for which there is already a Wikipedia entry). And no matter how you slice it, this is a flat-out rescue.

To President Obama and the Democrats who fall in line behind him, I would say, “Listen to the economists, and not just the left-wingers.” To the Republican congresspersons who are stonewalling, I’d say, “Good on ya!” To the Republicans who have decided to clamor for their chunk  of the stimulus, I’d say “It’s a good thing capitalism is not truly a religion; if it were, you wouldn’t have enough faith to get out of bed on Sunday.”

To the financial analysts who worry that Obama’s strict caps on executive pay in organizations living on the dole will drive talented executives away from those organizations to others that are not wallowing in TARP funds, I would say, “Yep.” Then the bailed-out companies will fail, the non-bailed-out ones will fill their places, and market forces will eventually re-prove themselves. And all it cost us was our grandchildren’s standard of living.

These things been in my head.

1: A conversation I overheard in a quiet 6:55 a.m. university locker room. Two fairly soft-spoken college kids were having a conversation while they got dressed to work out.

GUY 1: As I was driving over here, I pulled up beside this mustang.
GUY 2: Yeah?
GUY 1: Yeah. When the light changed, I just smoked him.
GUY 2: Heh.
GUY 1: Something about mustangs just makes you…
GUY 2: Angry?
GUY 1: Angry.

2: X-Files: I Want To Believe

Let’s cut to the chase. This movie was disappointing. I chalk it up to the directors losing their focus. Instead of making a movie about the unknown, about a desperate quest for truth, about paranoia and a struggle for individual freedom… they made a movie about squeezing bucks from an aging X-Files audience. You see the difference? The eye of the tiger, man. They does not has it. Maybe my guesses about the reasons are off, but the movie was a big letdown, in any case. Entertaining enough to watch, but not twice. Also, I got bored in the middle and did some filing. There were moments when the shameless manipulation of Scully & Mulder’s relationship almost burst into smouldering lukewarmity, but it was so contrived that it hurt my head.

3. Mirror Mask

Now this movie was awesome. Just perfectly delightful. Sure, some of the acting (especially Valentine) was clunky at times, but not too clunky, and the overall impact was very strong with me. It feels sort of like what Tim Burton might have grown into, if he hadn’t gotten stuck in kiddie-goth, 20 years ago. It’s a lovely young adult movie, but there’s enough visual delight to keep adults (or me, anyway) fascinated. Plus, the plot avoids the hackneyed after-school-special  riffs that must be constantly tempting creators of these kinds of movies. Well, it’s lovely. You should see it.

Roy Baumeister is one of the most respected social psychological researchers alive today, so when I saw that he had given a talk with the title of this post, I had to read it. It has given me much to think about, and of course I’m going to share.

Baumeister starts by noting the obvious: there is a strong thread of man-bashing in the world (especially in academia). But the talk isn’t just a balance-the-scales exercise; it’s a thoughtful look at why various gender differences might be the way they are, from an evolutionary perspective, and whether the things that make men men might not play an important part in the success of cultures (the answer is yes, if you want to skip the rest of this post).

Dr. B suggests that culture is a higher-level strategy developed for improving our odds of surviving. Thus, whatever works for a culture must also help its members reproduce… at least on average (it’s evolution, yo). The history of gender then shifts from men versus women to men and women in groups versus other groups, and against the harsh realities of the physical world. Many gender differences — biological, social, cultural, psychological — can be seen as adaptations resulting from this struggle.

So, how does culture use (exploit) men to perpetuate itself? Baumeister’s answers are embedded in a “radical theory of gender equality. Men and women may be different, but each advantage may be linked to a disadvantage.” This leads to some very thought-provoking evidence and implications, many of which I’m about to summarize (warning: lots of content after the cut): Continue reading →

I been thinkin’ for a while that Obama is not the savior some of his more… devoted… supporters make him out to be. He is, I  believe, one of the most skilled politicians of our time. This, however, may be either a good or bad thing.

President Obama started his reign of disappointment by simply being what he is — a guy with lots of progressive liberal ideas. He p*$$ed off the entire right wing the way any Democrat does — by not being a Republican.

That leaves his supporters. Many of them have, I think, focused selectively on the far-left channel of information emanating from his campaign. This includes certain themes in his speeches, and certain actions he’s taken in the past. However, these folks are starting to feel the burn of unfulfilled expectations, too, because Obama is not what they’ve tried to make him into. Along with the steady stream of extremely optimistic and sweeping ideals, he has always had a full current of political compromise. In fact, that’s one reason I preferred him to the other very respectable candidate (and his less-than-respectable running mate).

So, he’s been in office how long? A week? Here are some nifty highlights:

I have to say I’m very pleased with the level (and many of the targets) of reform that Obama has commenced. He’s started limiting the power of the Presidency, as he said he would, and I think our Founding Fathers would approve of this, specifically. They never wanted us to have kings.

He’s also taken some steps, both symbolic and practical, to redefine (I hope in improved ways) our response to growing terrorism threats.

And he ended our practice of torturing political prisoners, right? Wait, did he? Maybe not.

Then there’s his continuation of Bush Administration policy of ordering military strikes into sovereign nations that don’t want them, sometimes killing civilians in the process.

And his continued protection of illegal wiretapping of U.S. citizens by their government.

And, finally (for now), his decision to simply waive many of the anti-lobby-influence rules he set up (and touted as part of his election campaign), so that he can hire a corporate defense contractor lobbyist as his Secretary of Defense. Niiiiice.

Pres. Obama is not a bad president. I think he will, on balance, be a good influence on this nation. I think he was the better of the paltry choices (2?!) that we realistically had. But he’s not some Messianic harbinger of a new kind of politics; he’s a politician. If he does certain things differently from his predecessors, that will be enough for me, but it may not be enough for his soon-to-be-really-frustrated fan club.

We’re all afraid of the political middle, or so it seems when I look at what passes for political dialogue out there in the blogosphere and on TV. We sometimes want to be able to claim centrism, but most of us don’t have much centrism in our dialogue. Here’s a hypothesis about why this might be so: maybe we’ve bought so fully into the two-party system that we truly see the political world in America as a war between two factions. If you’re not one of us, you’re against us. If you’re not clearly, unquestionably one of us, then you’re also not one of us. So, you darn well better make it clear just how radically left/right you are. Say nothing that could be construed as giving an inch to the enemy.

The nasty secret is that we’re not actually afraid of the enemy; we’re afraid of being branded traitors. The enemy can’t hurt us, in this situation; only our allies can. Continue reading →

The business of election politics seems to sweep aside the uncertainty and concern that some of us may feel during the decision process. I feel a sense of dissonance when I see the rah-rah signs and slogans that seem to assume a monolithic, eternally-supportive fan base. It’s even worse after the election, when the candidates begin to allow something other than their one-dimensional elect-me faces to show, and We the People are reminded of what a compromise democracy is.

So, without further ado, here are some campaign stickers, horked and shamelessly vandalized to represent something much closer to my true feelings on the subject of our president-elect:

this is my fave

I realize my font choices were pretty bad here. What am I, a designer?

yes, this one is just silly

(if you really wanna see which websites from which these done been ganked and then abused, you should click through to the flickr pages and read the notes there)

Flying out in about 12 hours, so I’m motivated to distract myself from that reality. Here is some of what has distracted me today:

:) – K’Naan, a Canadian rapper who grew up in Somalia, has some choice words for American “gangster” posers:

Where rocket-propelled grenades are fired around you on a daily … a guy bragging on TV talking about how gangster he is? For us, it’s more a source of entertainment. It’s more like a comedy or something we watch. Say, ‘Oh wow, that’s kind of cute of American gangsters.’

:( – War Nerd analyzes the recent Israeli offensive, with his trademark cynicism and with few or no holds (apparently) barred. Bottom line: The Israelis hit the Palestinians during the slowest news days of the year, knowing there would be heavy civilian casualties, but that the news organizations and the American/European public would not get off their a%%es right after Christmas. WN thinks the IDF is likely to have the campaign all wrapped up before Obama takes the oath, later this month, because they can’t count on him rubber-stamping every aggressive action they take, like GWB has.

:) – The Trans-Texas Corridor is (hopefully) dead. This thing reeked of more pork than Sarah Palin’s Bridge to Nowhere. Good riddance.

>:| – The Wall Street Journal just ran a column claiming that frugality is going to prolong our current recession/depression, and implying that this is a horrible thing. Here’s my take on that: Yes, mass frugality will probably prolong  our crisis, but I (hesistantly) suggest that this is a good thing. Instead of viewing an economy that requires ever-increasing doses of consumer spending to stay afloat as normal and healthy, I think these are the symptoms of a sick system.

We have demonstrated, through at least half a century, that any attempt to move the system toward a more sustainable model without large-scale economic pain results in no change whatsoever. Consumers and businesses show great solidarity in resisting shifts to the status quo, no matter what evidence or moral arguments are behind them. We have demonstrated that the only thing that will prompt us to change is painful necessity, on par with the Great Depression. Now that the survivors of the Great Depression are mostly not-so-coincidentally dead, we’re wallowing in the same economic sins that brought the wrath of the marketplace down on our heads, back then. So, if the only way we can learn is through punishment, then maybe we need some of that, to save our children or grandchildren from whatever is worse. And there’s always something worse.

Sigh. Back to packing.

“…is made harder and more important by the fact that the warnings of most worth are about dangers that people don’t yet think are real.”

–Henry B. Eyring

Here are screen grabs from the most recent articles I found online about breast cancer stuff (it’s a common topic, which is a good thing). Check them out (especially the first and last, which I find the most weird; I mean, does that first lady have silver gloves on, or something?)

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