Say it ain't so...

The New York Times reports that Barack Obama is defending his choice of Rick Warren as a keynote speaker at his inauguration : "But Obama told reporters in Chicago that America needs to 'come together,' even when there's disagreement on social issues. 'That dialogue is part of what my campaign is all about,' he said."

Should Obama also invite David Duke to speak so that he can "come together" with white supremacists? Or should have L. B. Johnson felt the need to have noted segregationists speak at an inauguration (hypothetically speaking)?

I find this exceptionally disappointing. I understand the need to bring people together, but there must be limits to the bigotry that you include, and including a man who took an active role in stripping the benign rights away from citizens based on a myopic view of morality clearly crosses this line. Yes, I believe Obama should continue to engage Evangelicals in an open and respectful dialog, but I think it is rather obscene to give Warren the cache and acceptance that an inaugural address grants.

Drunk on technology

I keep hearing that the US is falling behind in science and technology. So what? What are the opportunity costs of gains in science? Less literature and music? Less idle time for the young? Less time spent home with family? Less values? Less joy? In the extreme, we will have a generation that can create the wonders of the future, but have no moral bearings as to if and how they should. It seems that often it is not more technology that is needed, but rather less. The problems of systemic obesity in the US will not be cured through the further implementation of food science, but through its significantly reduced application. The world will not be safer if we continue to master the splitting of the atom, but rather will only be secure if we remove the Damoclean nuclear threat by obliterating the technology used to achieve the feat in the first place. The advances in risk management technologies have not insulated our investments from wild swings, but rather have acted antipodal to this desire, creating unprecedented volatility and uncertainty: created systemic risk. Everywhere I look technology seems to be at the root of our problems; the very same technologies developed a generation before with the intent of fixing the problem leftover from the previous technologies, and so on and so forth. We have become drunk on technology and the misbegotten hangover is just starting to commence.

That is so classist (classless)

“You had a library in your house? That’s so bourgeois and snobbish of your family.”

“You honestly think so? You know, if this was a TV room we were talking about no one would bat a lash at its mention.”

“No one here is creating a fuss.”

“No, hear me out. It is completely acceptable to spend thousands of dollars every four or five years to have brand new state of the art televisions and hundreds more on speakers and cables, and DVD players, and God-knows-what-else, et cetera, et cetera. And then add on top of that a thousand dollars a year for the satellite hookup and TIVO subscription, and movies at $20 a pop…and all that extravagance is completely non-elitist, non-snobbish, kosher middle class values but when my family decides to spend an equivalent, or perhaps even lesser sum of money on properly and adequately storing our books all of a sudden it's snobbish. That is downright classist when you say that. Now I’m not accusing you of being malicious, but subconsciously all this disaffected middle class propaganda has definitely infected you, turned you against us.”

“Wait, you think there is some sort of middle-class war on the rich?”

“Not against the rich per se, but against upper-class intellectualism. It’s these same people that turned the words elite and elitism into pejoratives in the first half of this last century. And do you ever watch TV? Remember Frasier? The whole premise was let’s have viewers laugh at these two upstanding brothers because they are well educated and have modicum of refinement. Or on Law & Order, it is always some rich old-moneyed type who is involved in some heinous crime. It is all right there.”

“Wait, I thought your family didn’t have a TV room?”

“No - of course we have a TV room, but that's immaterial here.”

Thoughts on Brooklyn

There is something very organic and comforting about old Brooklyn. I can work north down my avenue and find boutique shops and Zagat rated restaurants, but there is something missing. Everything is too transitory. South, that is the direction I want. People at the diner know each other’s names. “Joey A died yesterday.” “I heard.” “His poor mother.” “She never did nothin’ to no one.” It is almost perverse, I feel, to sit at that counter and absorb their lives. This is their congregation, their lives intersecting; their stories concatenate and entwined, knit in one grand cloth that covers the blocks and guards their souls. Walking home I see the candles lit for Joey A, struggling in the wind, outside his poor mothers stoop. I want to stay here long enough so I too can feel their pain, can say things like “But what can you do?” and have it mean something. I see the condo buildings rising down Forth and hate them now. This is not their neighborhood, they will not cry and bleed here, and they will not sit at that counter and listen.

The guy-girl friendship matrix

And yes, the solution is sub-game perfect.

I was so much older then, I am younger than that now...

I have become convinced that the American soul is incredibly undernourished and see this as one of the most pressing policy concerns of the coming decades, if not the most pressing policy concern. I do not think hundreds of channels of TV or the proliferation of i-pods is going to do it. And no number of youtube videos or blogs can make up the deficit. We need a system over-hall. Jesus, I already sound like an old man. Maybe, but I see no other truth.

Economics and my heart

As always, Bellow puts it best...

Cities that I incorrectly assume are neighborhoods of New York City

-Baku

-Doha

-Lobamba

-Oslo

-Philadelphia

SAT Analogy

Barack Obama in March – “What exactly is this foreign policy expertise? Was [Hilary Clinton] negotiating treaties? Was she handling crises? The answer is no.”: Barack Obama in December “[Hilary Clinton] is an American of tremendous stature who will have my complete confidence, who knows many of the world's leaders, who will command respect in every capital…”

Me in March – “I sure hope this change motif is real.” : ?

A. Me in December - “Gosh, this change seems very much like something I’ve seen before.”

B. Me in December - “Thank god change is here. All that two-faced politicking was getting old.”

C. Me in December - “I wonder if this means McCain is really qualified for the office?”

D. Me in December - “I need another beer.”