Per Chance To Understand

Every year that I get to experience this life, I gain a deeper understanding of the cliché, "The more I learn, the more I realize how little I know." This does not stop me from trying to, at the very least, understand what is going on. So I read. I read anything and everything that I can get my hands on. On some nights I wish I didn't need eight hours of sleep so that I had more time to read.

Lately I am trying to understand two things, at least at a basic level: the current recession and the health care system debate. I think if people read more, and tried to understand more, there would be a great deal less shouting at town hall meetings across the land. I could be wrong. It may very well cause more.

These items gave me some greater understanding today:

On the recession:
How Did Economists Get It So Wrong?
Paul Krugman, NY Times

On Health Care:
How American Health Care Killed My Father
David Goldhill, The Atlantic

Bending the Curve: Effective Steps to Address Long-Term Health Care Spending Growth
The Brookings Institution

I must give a nod to yesterday's David Brooks column for pointing me in the direction of the two items on health care.

"In Search of Dignity"

"The old dignity code has not survived modern life. The costs of its demise are there for all to see. Every week there are new scandals featuring people who simply do not know how to act."

In Search of Dignity - David Brooks, NY Times

If more people in the public eye had a sense of dignity, what would our scandal-mongering press have to cover? There are so many things going on in the world today... but what is going to get the coverage? Michael Jackson's funeral.

I'm Very Thankful...

...To live in a country where I can post my thoughts on this blog, and not fear retribution from our government. I am thankful that the worst of my problems with local, state or federal government mainly deals with taxes or partisan bickering.

Please read this article from the NY Times: Stark Images, Uploaded to the World

"Responsible Capitalism" Gaining Traction

I'm seeing the glimmer of a positive shift in business news. It is nice to see that people are realizing once again that we are all in this together.

A Promise to Be Ethical in an Era of Immorality - NYTimes.com

DIY stimulus: CEO gives workers $1000 each from his own pocket

DIY stimulus: CEO gives workers $1000 each from his own pocket

Now, if more businesses in the insurance, real estate and banking sector CEOs were like this, maybe we wouldn't be in this huge mess.

I Manage To Find The Time...

AP study finds $1.6B went to bailed-out bank execs...

Ok, the main subject of the article linked above is infuriating enough, but here is what put a bur under my saddle:

"Goldman Sachs' tab for leased cars and drivers ran as high as $233,000 per executive. The firm told its shareholders this year that financial counseling and chauffeurs are important in giving executives more time to focus on their jobs."

Wow, I have to focus on my job and give my company 100% for at least eight hours a day (most days it's nine hours), and drive myself to and from work, and do my share of household chores, and be a father, and be a husband, and still be expected wake up and do it all over again the next day, and the day after that. Most days I'm happy to be able to put in a hard day's work. All this and Phil Gramm has the nerve to call us the whiners!?

A Witness To History

Someday, I will be telling my children, "I was there when..."

All during the day yesterday, from when I awoke, to waiting in line in the early morning to vote at the Mahoney Recreation Center, to listening to the radio on the way home from work and then watching the returns on the election coverage provided by PBS, I felt that I was a part of and a witness to history being made. Last night, I stayed awake while most had already gone to bed. After the announcement of victory had been made, I had to hear President Elect Barack Obama's speech as it was given live. I only wish I could have been in Grant Park to feel the elctricty that must have been in the air.

As I worte earlier this year, Barack Obama gave me a sense of hope that we desperately needed as a country. The opening comments of his speech last night spoke directly to what I believe:

If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible; who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time; who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.

Who ever you voted for yesterday, I pray that everyone can believe in yesterday's answer.

Someday, when my children are learning US history in high school, I will be giving them a little bit of extra credit homework of my own. I want them to read these two speeches by Barack Obama. I believe that at least one of them will be tought in history classes fifty or one hundred years from now.

A More Perfect Union - March 18, 2008
Yes, We Can - November 4, 2008

I look forward to teaching my children about yesterday. Teaching them about the dream of our forefathers, why we are all so lucky to be citizens of such a great republic, and that my vote yesterday was to pass along my hopes and dreams to them as they grow up in this world that we are all creating for them.

Yesterday gave me my answer. Yes, we are all in this together.

I'm Mad As Hell!

"I don’t have to tell you things are bad, everybody knows things are bad: It’s a depression! Everybody’s out of work, or scared of losing their job; the dollar buys a nickel’s worth; banks are going bust; shop-keepers keep a gun under the counter; punks are running wild in the street; nobody anywhere seems to know what to do and there’s no end to it! We know the air is unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat. We sit watching our TVs whilst some local newscaster tells us that “today we had fifteen homicides and sixty-three violent crimes” as if that’s the way it’s supposed to be! We know things are bad, worse than bad: they’re crazy! It’s like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don’t go out anymore! We sit in the house and slowly the world we’re living in is getting smaller and all we say is “please, at least leave us alone in our living-rooms - let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radials and I won’t say anything! Just leave us alone!” Well I’m not going to leave you alone. I want you to get mad! I don’t want you to protest, I don’t want you to riot, I don’t want you to write to your congressman because I wouldn’t know what to tell you to write, I don’t know what to do about the depression and the inflation and the Russians and the crime in the street – all I know is that first you’ve got to get mad! You’ve got to say “I’m a human being goddammit! My life has value!” So, I want you to get up now, I want all of you to get up out of your chairs! I want you to get up right now, and go to the window, open it, and stick your head out and yell “I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!"

-From the character Howard Beale in the 1976 film Network.

In Memoriam: Tim Russert 1950-2008

Turning on the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer last night, wanting to catch up on the news, I was deeply saddened to find out that Tim Russert suddenly died yesterday. I never had the pleasure of meeting him, but on Sunday mornings and election nights, he was a trusted voice on a subject that I care a great deal about. Seeing the outpouring of commentary by his colleagues and politicians, both in printed word and on television news, is a testament of the great loss to serious political journalism in Washington D.C. with Mr. Russert's passing.

During national election years, to drown out the noise created by most political news coverage these days, I tuned in to Meet the Press on Sundays to get a sense of what was really going on. In my opinion, Tim Russert was in the same league as Walter Cronkite, and Edward R. Murrow. Mr. Russert was always described as tough, but he was fair. He had integrity, a quality that is not center stage as much as it should be.

I most appreciated his working class roots. Mr. Russert did not put on airs. To me, he was a person who embodied the ideals of what is so great about our country. He was another example of what you can do if you worked hard and had integrity.

Good bye Mr. Russert, you will be sorely missed in this household on the historic upcoming election. It is a shame that you will not be here to see it and share with us your obvious love and excitement for the election process. Peace be with your wife, son and family during this time of sorrow.

An excellent article about Mr. Russert from the Gray Lady

Checks and Balances

It's Congress, not a king's court | csmonitor.com

A thought provoking commentary that should be read by every member of congress and also to remind us that the president is only the head of one third of our federal government.

Barack Obama: My Generation's JFK?

Being an independent voter, I look forward to the horse races of the primaries to be over with. I wish that I lived in a state with open primaries. If I did, I would have cast my vote for Barack Obama. For the first time since I could vote, I have never been as hopeful for a presidential candidate as I have for this person.

This November, I think our country has a chance to shed its cynicism, shed its fear and believe once again that we can make tomorrow better than yesterday. I long for renewal of my faith in the idealistic principles that our country was created from. I believe that Barack Obama can heal this country in a way that John McCain cannot. In a word, Barack Obama gives me Hope.

He gives me hope that he can truly do something to help the squeeze that is on working/middle class Americans. Everyday it feels like I have to make more just to break even. Obama is not a child of privilege. Although he may not have to worry about his finances now, I'm sure that he remembers what it was like to try to make ends meet.

Barack Obama gives me hope that he can restore America's standing in the world. Our current president and his administration has squandered everything that this country stood for in the world. I think that if the world sees us elect Barack Obama, they will realize that it is our resolve to move on from the failed policies of the last eight years and rebuild.

Most of all, Obama gives me hope that we can heal the divisions in our country like no one else in the last two hundred years of our federal republic. Whether those divisions are racial, economic, political, religious, or whatever else those in power have used as a wedge to drive us apart. I hope that I can show my children that it doesn't matter who you are, we are all in this together and we all can make a difference.

Since his speech at the DNC in 2004, I have held out hope for this person to run for president for the reasons above and many more. I'm happy that he has made it through his party's process to become a presidential nominee. So without a doubt, my vote this November will go towards Barack Obama. I hope yours will as well.