Let's enjoy this, but let's move on soon...

I'm white. I'm the son of a civil rights lawyer - we spent part of my childhood in Mississippi while he filed lawsuits to advance African-American political rights. My first vote for a presidential candidate, in the 1984 Maryland Democratic primary, was for Jesse Jackson - not because I thought he was the most qualified candidate, but because I knew he was breaking new ground and I wanted to help.

So I'm excited we've just elected the first African-American president. It is a profound delivery on the promise that is our great nation. I think we should celebrate some about this singular fact.

But let's move on soon. I did NOT vote for Barack Obama because he's African-American. I voted for him because he struck me as the most competent - and certainly the least volatile - of the choices we had. I like him as he comes across in the media: He is of my generation, he is pragmatic not ideological, and he blends passion and "cool" and sincerity and good-natured humor. Yesterday he moved smoothly from profoundly serious economic and foreign policy questions from the press to silly ones about the dog and handled them with equal grace and a tone suitable to each. And when he blew it with an inappropriate crack about Nancy Reagan, he was quick to call her and personally apologize. I do like the fact that he's African-American, but that's much more of an abstraction than the fact that I like HIM (also an abstraction, admittedly, since I only know what I see and read by and about him).

Barack Obama won a larger % of the popular votes than any candidate in the last 20 years. He has promised to continue to work to bridge gaps and find common ground, and I believe him. We don't want his presidency to be about race any more than we wanted John F. Kennedy's to be about religion. I'm sure we all want it about the United States of America, so let's move on...

Era of consumer excess finally over?

The New York Times this morning says "sales at the nation's largest retailers fell off a cliff in October." Of course, the economy is the immediate cause, but it's seemed for a while that the 40-year orgy of spending beyond our means for more and cheaper stuff, financed by home equity and more work hours, has to end and now maybe it really will.

I know modern consumption really got going in the 1920s with the expanded use of credit, and so it's already survived one global economic depression. And I know any permanent declines in the level of consumption will bring real hardship and wrenching change given how much of our economy it drives.

Consumption in the 30s needed a boost, but ours is still over the top, even in its current contracting state. It's not that we buy stuff - it's that we buy more than we need and worse, we throw away perfectly good stuff when we're tired of it and buy more. It's bad for our wallets, bad for our environment, and is only so important for our economy because we're addicted.

So let's kick the addiction, we can all help: I'll buy less, and try to buy clothes I need from the consignment store. I'll encourage my government to spend MORE - not wastefully, but on infrastructure and clean-up. Fixing bridges and razing dilapidated buildings does more for me and creates more worthwhile jobs than giving me tax rebates to buy more TVs and fashionable shoes I don't really need. And the people who get those jobs DO need to consume more, though I'd like my government to figure out how to encourage them to spend the extra money on health and education.

I realize this is simplistic and there are a lot of issues. I fundamentally believe it's time to consign the Consumer Era to the history books. I've no idea how to do it, but will start with Gandhi's admonition to "become the change we seek."

One set of reasons Obama's warning us it won't be easy...

I haven't seen this movie I.O.U.S.A. but I'm going to - Peterson has been a voice of alarm - with good reason - for a long time, this is really important - and scary - stuff.

"Unfortunately, even as the federal government bails out Wall Street, the government's own finances are heading south. And $700 billion is a drop in the bucket compared to the $53 trillion in financial obligations that the government currently owes.

"Which is why, on this Halloween, we're bringing you a light-hearted horror movie - our acclaimed documentary I.O.U.S.A., which boldly and at times comically examines the nation's rapidly growing debt and its consequences. The film has been a huge hit, getting rave reviews from Roger Ebert and others.

"Today, we're pleased to release "I.O.U.S.A.: Byte-Sized" online. This is a 30-minute condensed version designed specifically for watching and sharing on the web - for free as a public service for all.

"Visit www.IOUSAtheMovie.com to check it out (we've even made it stream so you can start watching right away without having to download a file).
We're also pleased to announce another round of theater showings for the full-length film. Visit www.IOUSAtheMovie.com to see if the film is playing at a theater near you.

"We're not asking you to donate anything. We're not asking you to pay anything - you don't even need to buy popcorn. All we're asking is that you visit www.IOUSAtheMovie.com to find a showing at a nearby theater or check out the byte-sized version.

"Then, tell your friends, your family, your Facebook friends and your Twitter followers about the staggering amount of money - $53 trillion - in financial obligations owed by the federal government to foreign investors and to every single American in the form of pensions, health benefits, Social Security and Medicare.
For our children and grandchildren. For ourselves. Watch I.O.U.S.A.: Byte-Sized and join us in our Fiscal Wake-Up Movement. Together, we can make American fiscal responsibility a reality.

Saw Bruce and Barack

It was a great crowd, here's the best picture I could take. We didn't get very close, and everything was an hour late, but it was still a wonderful experience. Bruce Springsteen was great with his acoustic guitar, harmonica, and reinstated verses Woodie Guthrie should have never let be taken out:



In the squares of the city, In the shadow of a steeple;
By the relief office, I'd seen my people.
As they stood there hungry, I [heard them grumbling],
Is this land made for you and me?

Bruce then gave his own great speech about the American Dream and what's happened to it and why Barack Obama can help us rebuild it, before introducing Obama and his family.

We've all heard Obama's stump speech - alot of times. But it's great to hear - he's so right about the need to end the tired politics of hate, division, and fear. I know it can't just be fixed in one election on Tuesday, but I believe we'll take an important step forward Tuesday.

For one thing, I think (and hope) Obama will actually disappoint us liberals. He's going to tell fathers to do their jobs, he's going to kill government programs that don't work, he's going to honor the role of faith-based organizations in social work. I think he's determined to lead from the center, not by triangulating like Clinton did but by continuing to reach across tired old debate lines. I don't think he'll use the mandate he wins on Tuesday to over-reach like Clinton did a little and Bush II did ALOT.

I hope I'm right and, if so, I look forward to having my assumptions challenged.

3 presidential candidates I WON'T vote for - without some clarification

I don't believe in single issue politics, but at the GOP Presidential Candidate debate last night 3 of them raised their hands when asked to indicate if they did NOT believe in evolution.

Not believe that evolution is a process at work in the natural world? If so, they can stare scientific fact in the face and deny it, and that's scary and stupid - a disqualification if I've ever heard of one for being the President of the United States. The President of South Africa has (in the past) denied AIDS existed while millions in his country suffered and died. This is the same stupidity.

NOW, if Huckabee, Brownback, and Tancredo can acknowledge the FACT of evolution as a process and clarify that they don't believe it accounts for the state of the world's biological diversity or the emergence of man or even the fossil record - then I still think they're nuts but it's not going to be the thing that keeps me from voting for them. I DO acknowledge that evolution as the explanation of these things is a THEORY, not a FACT.

Another good decision - that took too long

USA Today today reports that Benson HS Principal Lisa Dale was reinstated after a brief suspension - she was put on administrative leave for letting the student newspaper run with what sounds like a pretty responsible article on student use of "The N-Word." When schools retreat from responsible conversation about controversy and, even worse, try to stop students from having those conversations themselves, they are gutting one of the best institutions we have for building a more civil society. Students at Benson HS certainly hear Imus - and much worse - outside school without any critical conversation about it. In school, they MIGHT get a chance to reflect on whether what's going on in our popular culture is good or not. Kudos to Principal Dale for apparently supporting that and shame on her superiors for needing to suspend her while they figured that out.

If you sell your speech, you don't have the same rights to "free speech"

On thing that really bugs me about the whole Imus affair is this "concern" I hear expressed, even by very bright people in the media, that this puts a damper on "free speech."

Imus wasn't practicing his 1st Amendment right to free speech, he was SELLING his speech - and making a lot of money. He didn't have a right to free speech in that context, he had the right to say what advertisers were willing to sponsor. If I make a lousy product and you don't want to buy it, I don't get to say my rights have been violated, even if you used to buy it and have suddenly changed your mind.

Maybe all these media people don't want to admit the commercial implications of what they do. Maybe they want to pretend that what they do is pure. But they work for corporate managements, which are only responsible to their shareholders for profit. Maybe they have more independence than the people who write advertising copy, but it's only a matter of degree.

Imus was offensive. That helped make money until it didn't. End of story. If he wants his free speech, he can blog and he can podcast. But if he wants a paycheck for it, it isn't about the 1st Amendment. Same goes for the rest of you who take a paycheck from the corporate-owned media. Get over it.

(And if I could afford to run these media companies, I'd take them private and do the right thing: Drop all trash-talking entertainers from Imus to the rap artists. Pandering to the most base elements of our culture may generate short-term profits, but I think it's bad long-run business strategy as well as bad for America.)