“What are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?”

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At this point, McCain should be embarrassed to even say that tax cuts for the rich help the economy. Tax cuts for the rich help the rich, they don't help the economy. It's that simple.

This economic catastrophe was many years in the making. There is no painless way to recover from the collapse of the housing bubble and the correction from an over-valued dollar. We do know that Senator McCain's plan to keep giving the rich more money is not a road to prosperity because that is exactly what we have been doing.

We can't know exactly how Senator Obama will address the economy's problems if he takes office in January in part because we don't know exactly where the economy will be. However, a plan that focuses on supporting ordinary workers and promoting clean technologies, is likely to produce much better results than policies that are focused on redistributing even more income to the wealthy.

CEPR – The Whiner’s Recession, Dean Baker.

This piece could be subtitled, “Or why continuing the Bush/McCain class war is not a good idea.” Or maybe that Einstein quote about the definition of insanity as repeating the same thing again and again and expecting new results. I keep thinking, too about that “Drill Baby Drill” chant at the Republican Convention.

My immediate family, most of whom live on the Texas and Louisiana coasts, have been emailing in all weekend, reporting on everyone, talking about who had to leave for shelter and how long it might be before the electricity comes back. My mother was particularly scared by the Tornado warnings Friday night, in Lake Charles.

Meanwhile gas prices shoot up and giant financial institutions collapse. I can’t help but wonder if people are connecting all of the dots. We can’t blame global warming for a storm, although we might blame it for the ferocity. We can blame so-called free market capitalism, though, for destroying wetlands, which make the storms worse.

The Republican party, starting with Reagan, have consistently dismissed alternative energy and refused to provide capital and leadership. The gas hikes from Ike are a result of the disruption of domestic refineries and supplies. Unless we want to relocate our refineries in a bunker somewhere, Gulf Oil will always be unreliable.

Posted in: Autobiographical, Economics, Writing

Twit Twit

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It is easy to become unsettled by privacy-eroding aspects of awareness tools. But there is another — quite different — result of all this incessant updating: a culture of people who know much more about themselves. Many of the avid Twitterers, Flickrers and Facebook users I interviewed described an unexpected side-effect of constant self-disclosure. The act of stopping several times a day to observe what you’re feeling or thinking can become, after weeks and weeks, a sort of philosophical act. It’s like the Greek dictum to “know thyself,” or the therapeutic concept of mindfulness. (Indeed, the question that floats eternally at the top of Twitter’s Web site — “What are you doing?” — can come to seem existentially freighted. What are you doing?) Having an audience can make the self-reflection even more acute, since, as my interviewees noted, they’re trying to describe their activities in a way that is not only accurate but also interesting to others: the status update as a literary form.

Laura Fitton, the social-media consultant, argues that her constant status updating has made her “a happier person, a calmer person” because the process of, say, describing a horrid morning at work forces her to look at it objectively. “It drags you out of your own head,” she added. In an age of awareness, perhaps the person you see most clearly is yourself.

I’m So Totally, Digitally Close to You – Clive Thompson – NYTimes.com.

I’ve grown increasingly skeptical about Utopian claims for technology, mostly becuase they seem to ignore or minimize modern capitalist culture. Whatever else it is, micro-blogging is the latest in a long line of products designed to distract. That may or may not be good, and people may or may not use it for its original function.

I just don’t believe, though, that you can separate it from its “get rich now” roots; whatever else Web 2.0 might be or might become, it arises out of the same profit-minded system that produced the pet rock. So I was happy to see Thompson’s thoughtful piece and particularly surprised by the ending. Thompson suggests that micro-blogging may encourage self-reflection.

He also suggests what seems obvious: that these are, in effect, defensive technologies designed to help ameliorate the alienation and isolation that has always accompanied capitalist cultures. Things can get rough if the center is profit not people. The hope, of course, is that these technologies might also take on an offensive form too.

Posted in: Economics, Language, Writing

Governor Palin’s Choice

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Our nominee for president is a true profile in courage, and people like that are hard to come by.

He’s a man who wore the uniform of this country for 22 years, and refused to break faith with those troops in Iraq who have now brought victory within sight.

And as the mother of one of those troops, that is exactly the kind of man I want as commander in chief. I’m just one of many moms who’ll say an extra prayer each night for our sons and daughters going into harm’s way.

Our son Track is 19.

And one week from tomorrow – September 11th – he’ll deploy to Iraq with the Army infantry in the service of his country.

My nephew Kasey also enlisted, and serves on a carrier in the Persian Gulf.

My family is proud of both of them and of all the fine men and women serving the country in uniform. Track is the eldest of our five children.

In our family, it’s two boys and three girls in between – my strong and kind-hearted daughters Bristol, Willow, and Piper.

And in April, my husband Todd and I welcomed our littlest one into the world, a perfectly beautiful baby boy named Trig. From the inside, no family ever seems typical.

That’s how it is with us.

Our family has the same ups and downs as any other … the same challenges and the same joys.

Sometimes even the greatest joys bring challenge.

Governor Palin’s Acceptance Speech, the International Herald Tribune, September 4, 2008

It”s a good idea to keep the kids out of the press, as Senator Obama has insisted. I think, though, that we deserve answers to some specific parenting questions from Governor Palin, especially given that she has framed her credibility, at least in part, in terms of her role as a mother. There are several issues that seem worth exploring.

I’d like to know, for example, how she feels about embryonic screening, given her apparent willingness to have a child despite evidence of genetic damage. I find this choice especially troubling, given that she already had four kids. Does her opposition to abortion, in effect, make this sort of testing irrelevant?

I’d also like to know if she applied the ‘abstinence only’ model to her discussions of sexuality with her children. If she did, I would like to know if she now questions her decision and if she plans to stick to that plan with her other children. I find her behavior troubling here too, because it suggests a kind of ideological rigidity.

There are other questions about Governor Palin’s ethical judgment in more official matters, too. The choice of Governor Palin has also suggested questions about Senator McCain’s judgment; ambition seems to have been his guiding principal. We won’t have a chance to find out unless Governor Palin stops hiding from interviews.

Posted in: Uncategorized, Writing