ianrandalstrock

words

Thu, 15 May 2008 03:28:41 GMT

Here's a neologism that's just been annoying me. The 11 o'clock news just reported that indeed, Angelina Jolie, who has been "sporting a baby bump," is indeed pregnant.

What the hell is a baby bump? (I know what it is; when did we stop saying "looked pregnant"?) Grrr.

Here endeth the grumpiness.

Thought Experiment: Science/Economics

Thu, 15 May 2008 01:01:46 GMT

If the rising price of oil continues, eventually it will drive the discovery or invention of a petroleum-gasoline substitute—one that is actually comparable to gasoline (as in, is as easily distributable, generates equivalent energy for about the same price, etc.). Although my value of "eventually" in this case is probably somewhere in the $8-$12 per gallon range; as much hand-wringing as we're seeing, I still don't see any real moves away from driving. And to switch over to a different fuel will mean that the energy companies will have to completely retool (a massive investment) and the car companies will have to completely redo their factories (a massive investment), so none of them will be terribly interested in moving away from gasoline-internal combustion engines anytime soon.

At any rate, the thought experiment/question is: If/when we have that substitute, say 25 or 50 years from now, will people look back on the George W. Bush administration as having caused this gas-substitute's discovery (much as the Watergate scandal seems to be the driving force behind campaign finance reform, or the Triangle Shirtwaist factor fire drove labor reform), or will they credit growing global demand and increasing commodities investing/speculation?

Randomness

Sun, 11 May 2008 21:25:55 GMT

I like white chocolate (I know this puts me in the minority; it just means more for me). What I can't figure out is why it's so hard to find white chocolate chip cookies without nuts. It seems everyone who's making white chocolate chip cookies feels there's a law requiring them to add macadamia nuts (which I also like, but I'd really like a good white chocolate chip cookie without 'em once in a while).

Political retreads

Sun, 11 May 2008 02:17:32 GMT

This brief New York Times article is about the new Prime Minister of Italy. Specifically, Silvio Berlusconi was sworn in on Thursday for his third non-consecutive term (he previously held the office from 1994 to 1995, and then from 2001 to 2006). Italy is remarkable for the speed with which it goes through prime ministers (Berlusconi's third go-round is the 38th since World War II. Before the war, Italy was a kingdom).

But this got me thinking about other national leaders who have had non-consecutive terms. In the United States, Grover Cleveland is unique in this respect. He's the only president to have served non-consecutive terms (1885-89 and 1893-97), and he was a candidate for the office in all three elections (he won in 1884, lost in 1888, and won in 1892).

Other western democracies, however, are far more comfortable with political retreads, and Berlusconi going three terms is not in any way unique. In Italy (again, noted for kicking out prime ministers so quickly), the leader is Amintore Fanfani (1908-99), who was PM a remarkable five times (18 January-8 February 1954, 1 July 1958-15 February 1959, 26 July 1960-21 June 1963, 1 December 1982-4 August 1983, and 17 April-28 July 1987). Seven others served more than one term, and only 15 PMs (out of the, remember, 38 terms) served only one term in office.

In England, Sir Robert Walpole is regarded as the first Prime Minister in the modern sense; he served from 1721 to 1742. Current PM Gordon Brown is the 76th. In between, there were several who served more than one term. The first was Thomas Pelham-Holles, the Duke of Newcastle, who served 1754-56 and then 1757-62. Sixteen more served multiple terms, the last being Harold Wilson (1964-70 and 1974-76). Several served three terms, and one, William Ewart Gladstone (1809-98), served four (1868-74, 1880-85, February-July 1886, and 1892-94).

In France, the President is the head of state, but the Prime Minister runs the government. Their first prime ministerial retread following the fall of Napoleon (1815) was Armand-Emmanuel du Plessis, Duc de Richelieu, who served from September 1815 to December 1818, and then again from February 1820 to December 1821. The current Prime Minister, François Fillon, is the 168th. More than 30 prime ministers have served more than one term, with the leader in this category being Aristide Briand (1863-1932). Briand served six separate terms as Prime Minister of France (1909-11, January-March 1913, 1915-17, 1921-22, 1925-26, and July-November 1929); he was the 73rd, 77th, 82nd, 88th, 93rd, and 96th prime ministers. In 1926, he won the Nobel Peace Prize.

Sometimes, I just don't get people.

Sat, 10 May 2008 23:38:53 GMT

Yesterday, we spent several hours at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (if you've never been there, you should go spend a week wandering its rooms and halls and galleries). We saw four temporary exhibits and pieces of many permanent exhibits. It's a wonderful place, but that's not the thrust of this post.

I lost count of how many times I was looking at a piece, or reading a description, and had people walk in front of me. You know how, when you're in a museum looking at something, you can't stand with your nose right up next to it (unless it's a very small piece) and get any appreciation for it. I usually stand back a meter or two to get the feel for the work, and a little closer to read the words. Mind you, most of these are huge galleries, lots and lots of space, and I could have backed up five or ten meters, in most cases, to admire the art, without bumping into the other wall. Truly huge spaces (and other than a very few places, mostly with very few people and ample walking room). So why, oh why, do so many people need to walk between the person looking at the art and the piece they're looking at, rather than taking two more steps to walk around the person looking? I try always to walk behind the other people, as do my two companions on the trip. I know the "walk in front of"s are probably a minority of museum-goers, but did they not learn the same museum etiquette I picked up when I was very young?

Sometimes, I just don't get people.

Fri, 09 May 2008 03:37:45 GMT

Meant to post this morning, but I couldn't, and then forgot:

I walked out today to head to work, and the rain had stopped very soon before. It was wonderful. I walked out of the building, inhaled, and with the smell, could have sworn I was in the country. The rain, the plants, the incredible freshness of countryside after rain (even in the city): it was wonderful!

Then I headed to the subway, and within a block, passed a cloud of noxious fumes generated by a man with a cigarette. It completely blocked out that incredible fresh smell, smashed me back down to the reality that I live in the city, and it made me sad. Sad for the smell and the taste and the feeling and the memories of fresh countryside I'd just lost out on, and sad for this guy who, I assume, never gets that smell. Yuck.

They say justice, but they mean vengeance

Fri, 09 May 2008 03:23:30 GMT

For those of you outside New York City who may not have heard, a quick recap:

A year and a half ago, three policemen shot at and killed a man named Sean Bell, and injured his companions. The cops were indicted, tried, and recently acquitted of any wrongdoing in the death.

Now Bell's fiancee, friends, and relatives—all whipped into a frenzy by Al Sharpton—are protesting across the City. (Here's one article on the current events.)

When it all started, they were quite verbal, demanding an indictment against the cops ("justice"), and they got it. When the defense requested a change of venue to outside New York, the Sharpton & Co. were loud in their opposition to the motion, and they won ("justice"). Then the three were tried on various charges, in open court, accordingly to the law of the land… and they were acquitted.

Now the protestors are marching, demonstrating, blocking traffic, and chanting their favorite slogan: "No justice, no peace" (actually, I kind of liked Sharpton's comment when the verdict was announced: "This wasn't a miscarriage of justice. It was an abortion of justice." Gotta love that man).

I fully support their right to protest, to peaceably assemble for redress of grievances, to march, to shout, whatever. They're not doing anything wrong. But where do they get off saying they haven't received justice? Justice is a fair trial according to the law. Their version of justice, apparently, was not a fair trial. Their version of justice is a conviction, and only a conviction. Well if they'd said that before the whole rigamarole started, we could have saved ourselves a lot of time and heartache. They don't want justice: they wanted vengeance. Why can't they just say so?

Movements and fashion: I'm not sure I get them

Thu, 08 May 2008 19:23:12 GMT

Reading this article in today's New York Times on the Steampunk movement (which article, by the way, I found remarkable for not being insulting, condescending, or patronizing: it simply reports on the fashion trend. Perhaps I ought to read the Fashion section more often) made me think about movements in general. I was never interested in having the latest fashion clothes, toys, or whatever (in fact, I was pretty much aloof [some of my friends would say ignorant] to the world of "trends" and "cool" when I was growing up), so perhaps it's simply a gene I don't have, but I'm not entirely sure I understand the motivation behind being part of the crowd, or behind joining (or leading) movements. Why do people do it? Why do they need to be a part of a movement? And, more to the point today, why do they need to publicize their movements?

Well, okay, the publicizing thing makes some sense: if you're going to do or be something, you want others to know about and emulate it, so that, instead of being an oddball, you're an insider, or perhaps even an innovator. I get that aspect of things. It's the whole concept of movements that I'm a little fuzzy on. I'm thinking mostly of literary movements (cyberpunk, slipstream, mundane, interstitial) and the concomitant lifestyle movements (goth, punk), and now steampunk (which is both). During my school years, I wasn't close enough to literature (or at least, then-current literature) to know if there were movements and what they were (though after the fact, I know about the New Wave), but in fashion, I knew there was the preppy look, and then the grunge look. But along with those groups, I don't recall members attempting to publicize their membership (other than the marketers trying to sell more clothes), and I definitely don't remember manifestos.

Over the last few years, however, I've seen that line of genre literary movements, each of which required a manifesto to announce itself to the world, along with a list of names of current practitioners and forebears they accepted into the clique. Perhaps those manifestos, which frequently appear as anthologies, are merely a way to make money, but I don't want to be quite that cynical.

So I ask: is the conscious formation of "movements", along with the publication of manifestos, a new thing? And if so, why? Or is it merely that I wasn't paying attention, and it's been going on all along? And also, are these announced/publicized/marketed movements destined for shorter or longer lives than the previous unannounced, but merely recognized-after-the-fact movements?

Thought Experiment: Politics

Wed, 07 May 2008 00:36:59 GMT

Thought experiment. I know there's no way to keep the media from reporting exit polls for a series of contests lasting several months, but…

What if we didn't get the primary results until all the primaries were over (as with the real election)? It could either be because we move all of the primaries to one day, or we simply hold the results until after the last primary (this year, South Dakota on 3 June). We'd have the difference that the campaigns would actually be "who do we want to be the candidate?" rather than "why is this candidate still hanging on?" And we'd lose the sniping and scheming over which delegates have already been won or pledged or bought or sold; the candidates would either have 50% less to say, or they'd be forced to talk about issues more.

Leaving aside my prejudice against taxpayer-funded primaries at all, I think the whole primary process would be improved if we didn't know how California, or New York—or for that matter the massively important (though microscopically small) Iowa and New Hampshire—had voted until everyone had a chance to have a say.

More on why the Democrats are in trouble no matter what they do

Tue, 06 May 2008 14:27:54 GMT

I'm a big fan of CNN's "Quick Vote"s. I know they're unscientific, using an entirely self-selected polling sample, but they still tend to give a feel for what the people who read the page care to express their opinions on (I still can't find the archive of these polls).

The current poll is "Democrats, what will you do if your candidate isn't the nominee?" The results as of right now (10:30AM EDT) are:
Not vote: 15% (7,390)
Vote for the nominee: 45% (22,888)
Vote for John McCain: 41% (20,686)
Total Votes: 50,964

It just bolsters the point I keep making: before they can seriously contend for the White House, the Democrats really need to figure out who they are and what they stand for (as opposed to against) as a Party.

Today in Presidential History

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 16:05:05 GMT

I've been slacking off on this feature of late; sorry about that.

But today is a red-letter day in Presidential History. It was on this day in 1789 that George Washington took the oath of office as the first President of the United States of America. The ceremony took place on the balcony of Federal Hall, on Wall Street in New York City (which was, at the time, the national capital). Washington's inauguration ended to longest period of time in US history when there was a vice president, but no president (first Vice President John Adams had arrived in town earlier, and was sworn in on 21 April 1789). Washington is the only president to have been sworn in on 30 April, and one of only a handful who were sworn in on two different days.

In somewhat related news, carrenstrock pointed out to me that Amazon now has a cover image of my book on the listing. I'm not sure if this is the final cover, since it's the same image the publisher sent me a few months back as the first draft, but it feels good to know there is actually a cover with my name on it.

Howard Dean confirms primaries and convention useless exercises

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 18:08:12 GMT

Well, not in so many words. But in this article, he does confirm that the Democratic Party needs to know who their presidential nominee is by June… even though the convention at which they'll nominate that person is the last weekend in August. Why bother waiting so long?

Dean also says "We want the voters to have their say. That's over on June 3." There's nothing wrong with that statement, but I love the tone which I hear: "the voters have to vote, but after they're done voting, we'll make a decision anyway."

But all the to-do is because "We really can't have a divided convention. If we do it's going to be very hard to heal the party afterwards." No, please save us from letting a (theoretically) deliberative body actually debate and make a decision. Can't have any of that at a nominating convention. Dean continued, giving the true reason for the fear: "So we'll know who the nominee is and that'll give us an extra 2 1/2 months to get our party together, heal the wounds of having a very closely divided race and take on Senator McCain." If they need those extra ten weeks, again I ask, why not have the convention ten weeks earlier? On the other hand, the entire "we'll know who the nominee is in June" is based on either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama dropping out of the race, so it isn't really up to the voters (see above), but rather, it's a game of chicken: to see which of them flinches first.

It all just goes to confirming my distaste for taxpayer-funded primary elections in the first place. Either the party elders should choose their candidate, or they should let all the qualified candidates appear on the ballot. But to "give the people a say in the process," and then decide that their say didn't achieve an expedient result, smacks of a very expensive form of paternalism.

Random thought on popularity

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 03:25:27 GMT

When I was up really early (or was it absurdly late?) Sunday morning, trying to finish going through my copy-edited manuscript, I had the radio on (not an uncommon state of things), and American Top 40 was counting up their list of the most popular songs (y'know, that show with Casey Kasem, except now it's some other guy who isn't nearly as good doing the counting and babbling).

Anyway, listening to them counting up to number one, it struck me that, at least with music, most of the biggies don't start off at the top of the chart. They get released, they get air time, they get more air time, and they climb up the lists over a matter of weeks, then they peak, and then start back down, sometimes faster, sometimes slower.

Then I thought about movies (since I list the top genre box-office grossers weekly on SFScope. With movies, the blockbusters open at #1, and then work their way down the charts. With the lesser films, well, they also open at their peak, and only go down (excepting Academy Award nominees, which tend to re-surge after the nominations are announced). But again, as a general rule, movies only move down; songs move up and then down.

Which led me to think about books… and realize I have no idea how they play out on their best-seller lists. I assume it's the song model—climb, peak, fall—rather than the movie "open and drop," but I really don't know.

Anyway, it was an observation. And now I look around for other examples of either chart. Comments?

Handicapping the 2008 presidential races

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 04:24:39 GMT

I've been talking politics a bunch recently, and with Nightline now on the air babbling about the Pennsylvania primary in the other room, I thought I'd commit my thoughts to photons, for the rest of the world to mock.

First, the easy one: McCain has the Republican nomination. The key question for that party is: who will they pick to run for vice president. The "veepstakes" these days isn't always about who would be the best vice president, but rather who can pull in the greatest number of voters who wouldn't otherwise vote for this party. So McCain has to look for someone who isn't John McCain. In my mind, the choice is narrowed down to three (although I think he most recently said the list they were considering was about 20 names): Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman, Florida Governor Charlie Crist, and Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal. Crist has executive experience—being the governor of a state—which all three senator-candidates lack in spades. He also has the advantage of being from a large state, and potentially a contentious one, given its history in the 2000 election, as well as the to-do over Florida's primaries this year. Jindal also has the executive experience, but he has the added advantage of not being a white guy: his parents were immigrants from India. That gives Jindal the "non-white" label so beloved in this year of "it's finally time we had someone other than an old white guy in the office," and yet he's not so black as to completely turn off the lesser bigots among us. Lieberman doesn't have the executive experience, being a senator himself, but he shakes up all the electoral math because he's a Democrat (or was; hard to tell since he lost the last primary and then beat the Democratic nominee for his seat). He's an aisle-crosser like McCain, so the two of them on a ticket would go a long way toward convincing the undecideds in the middle, as well as the liberals in both parties, to vote for them. If I had to pick one of the three (on the assumption that McCain won't be knocking on my door for the spot, though I may be available), I think Jindal would probably be the choice. In addition to his heritage, he also turns 37 this summer, completely balancing McCain's age.

The Democratic side of this to-do is harder. As we heard on tonight's news, Hillary Clinton "won" the primary in Pennsylvania today. The problem with that "win," as it has been for both her and Barack Obama the entire year, is that the Democratic Party's primaries are not winner-take-all. And this year, with the Dems' embarrassment of riches (the first serious female and the first serious black contender for the presidency), the primaries have been neck-and-neck, with the result that neither one of them will have a majority of the delegates locked up by the convention. As a political scientist, the idea of an open convention has me salivating for the spectacle: Finally, a convention that will actually be worth watching, rather than simply a scripted coronation. Unfortunately for the Democrats, and for Clinton and Obama, their party really is very evenly divided. This poll, or another like it, caught my eye recently. The finding I'm pointing to is where it says "in an Obama-McCain match-up, 14% of Democratic voters say they would support McCain, compared with 8% who would do so if Clinton is the nominee." That's a whole lot of Democrats who are so committed to their candidate that they really, really, don't want to see the other one nominated. And that is not good for the Democratic Party. [Update on 23 April at 11:30AM: See also this Time magazine analysis, which quotes a number of 43% of Clinton voters who say they won't vote for Obama.] For the past few weeks, my notion has been that neither one is going to be nominated. Forget the "dream ticket" of both of them: neither one could feasibly serve as the other's vice president (Patrick Healy said it rather well in today's New York Times). No, I'm not sure who's going to ask, or how, but I'm pretty sure that someone (or some group) is soon going to realize that their best bet is to turn to Al Gore (remember him?) and say "Please, come save the Party. Run for President, so we have a good chance of winning, and unite this divided crowd before our party goes the way of the dodo." I give Gore a better than 50% chance of being this year's Democratic nominee. Then, of course, all the polling of who will win whichever match-up gets thrown out the window. Gore vs. McCain strikes me as a pretty fair fight, and I don't know who'll win. Oh, but if Gore does get the nomination, he'll still need a vice presidential running mate. Again, I look first for executive experience, and I find Bill Richardson. Current Governor of New Mexico, former Cabinet Secretary, former ambassador (hell, he may have the most actual foreign policy experience out there, which ain't a bad thing to have). And he does, kind of, break the "old white guy" mold: he's Hispanic (three of his four grandparents were Mexican). He's probably the ideal vice presidential choice, no matter who gets the Democratic nomination, but if it's Gore in the top spot, he may just be a little too white. Which means Barack Obama may have to swallow his pride and sign up for a term or two as vice president to get the experience he needs to be more than just an inspiring speaker. Gore-Obama, now that's a ticket that would attract votes. I think it's likely… if there are enough cool, clear heads left in the Democratic Party's leadership who are more interested in winning than in making a spectacle.

So that's my analysis: I expect to go into the voting booth in November to see a Republican line for John McCain and Bobby Jindal, and a Democratic line for Al Gore and Barack Obama, and about ten other lines which will disappoint me (not for their presence, but for their appalling silence before the election, and also the complete disdain shown them by the established media, but that's another windmill). And y'know? I think I could actually be happy seeing those two sets of names on the ballot. I think I could be satisfied with either of them winning.

Presidential trivia considerations of my expected tickets: If John McCain is elected, he, at 71, will be the oldest man elected to a first term as president; he would also be the first national office holder born outside the 48 contiguous states (he was born in the Panama Canal Zone). If Bobby Jindal is elected vice president, he, at 37, would be the second youngest vice president (after John C. Breckinridge); he would also be the first national office holder of Asian descent. If Al Gore is elected president, he would be the second former vice president to come back to win the presidency eight years after losing the presidential election (Richard Nixon did the same thing); he would also be the first Nobel Prize winner to be elected president after winning the Prize. If Barack Obama is elected vice president, he would be the first national office holder of African descent; he would also be the first national office holder born outside the 48 contiguous states (he was born in Hawaii).

Well, it could happen. And if it does, remember, you read it here and laughed.

I'm "caught up"

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 03:47:10 GMT

I read my friends page yesterday. Today, I read it again, and got all the way back to entries I read yesterday, so I'm officially declaring myself "caught up," and pinching off the two- or three-week span of time that I missed, simply ignoring its existence in the lj world. Sorry, everyone who said things of vast, weighty import during that time: I've missed your words, and my life will forever be poorer for it.

Ah, that relaxing feeling of exhaustion

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 02:15:16 GMT

I finished going through the copy-edited manuscript (way too little time for the job, and thus, way too little sleep over the weekend), and brought it in to my editor today (I do so love saying that: "my editor." Odd how those words engender such good feelings, when I've been an editor myself for so long). I discovered that I really, really like my editor (Jill Schwartzman). I went through the entire 350-or-so manuscript pages of the copy-editor's copy-editing, accepted some of his changes, rejected some, grudgingly admitted that some of it improved my work, and figuratively tore my hair out at some of it. I wound up with a handful or two of questions, indecisions, and "can I really contradict him here?"s, so I brought them (and the whole rest of the manuscript) to Jill. In every case, she agreed with me, and more than once said "It's your book."

Ah, bliss! Precisely what an editorial experience should be! I knew I liked her.

Commas, copyedited manuscripts, and the lesser god "stet"

Sun, 20 Apr 2008 22:38:54 GMT

When I read this John Scalzi post about a month ago, about having to put commas back into his manuscript after his copy editor got through with it, I thought "Hmm, yeah, I think I agree."

Now, however, I'm scrambling to get through my own copy edited manuscript (I have just a few days to go through the entire manuscript, either agree or disagree with the C.E.'s changes, and make sure all the words and stuff are exactly the way I want them, before returning it to the publisher tomorrow). Well, I guess I'm more like Scalzi than I thought: my copy editor (who otherwise seems very good at his job), seems to have a strong distaste for commas. He's taken out many, many of my friendly little pauses marks, phrase set-offers, and just plain reading-eye friends. And I find myself stetting a good, large percentage of his deletions. Sure, I can understand that some of them really aren't, in strictest grammatical construction, necessary. But, even though The Presidential Book of Lists is a non-fiction book, the writing therein should (to my mind, and eye) be pleasingly easy to ready, with sufficient pause marks emplaced so that the reading brain can take its breaths as necessary. Dammit, I like my commas! (And semi-colons, too, but that's an issue for another time.)

I guess grammar is on a minimalist swing in terms of punctuation: the more I read, the less punctuation, it seems, the better (as far as those doing the editing and publishing are concerned). Perhaps it's an outgrowth of the instant-messaging culture, where punctuation marks are almost completely absent. And if I'd written my book in IM-speak (or leet-speak, or any of the other new hip jargons floating around), I imagine my punctuation would stand out like a screamingly sore thumb. But I didn't. I wrote it in basic English, and I like my punctuation. It isn't excessive; it's like seasoning—just enough to properly enhance the flavor, to make the whole more palatable, without actually overwhelming the underlying words.

So, when you do read my book, be forewarned: there will be lots of little dangly things on the lines, between the words. Sometimes, indeed, there will be more than two between one period and the next (though sometimes not). If you're a devotee of ee cummings, you'll probably have trouble with it. But if I prevail in the great comma battle, I'll feel better about the book, which, after all, will have my name on the cover.

(And don't get me started with the capitalization: that's a windmill to tilt at another day.)

Gotta love that Congress of ours

Fri, 04 Apr 2008 00:53:16 GMT

I know I've been too long silent; several comments I have to respond to, and I haven't even peeked at my friends list since last Thursday. I'm still swamped, but I had to post this little gem that just arrived in the form of an electronic newsletter from my Representative in Congress, Yvette Clarke. (You can actually read the whole thing on this page.)

The part I simply love is the first sentence:

The Economic Stimulus Act of 2008 was signed into law by our Democratic led Congress on February 13, 2008.

Anyone else catch it? "Our Democratic led Congress" signed the Economic Stimulus Act into law. Gosh, and here I always thought Congress adopted bills which the president then signed into law. Silly me, I'll have to correct Schoolhouse Rock.

I can't decide if she screwed up all by herself, or if she's got a staffer writing these things with nobody bothering to check. Either way, I'd expect more from a Congressional representative, like, a knowledge of what Congress actually does.

The Social Security Asteroid of Doom

Thu, 27 Mar 2008 18:38:39 GMT

My ego says "Wow. Glenn Beck read my post of two days ago, and went on to write this CNN opinion piece." The rational part of my brain says "It's an issue that affects us all, that is (or should be) a campaign issue, and that isn't discussed enough." Whichever part of the brain is right, Beck's piece talks about the impending financial obligations Social Security is bringing down on us all (well, we US citizens).

Thought experiment: how much more money would you have in your pocket, and how much more of what you want would the government be able to do if there was no Social Security? When it was started, it was a surplus the government could borrow against. Very soon now, it will become a liability. Remember, your social security taxes are not being held for when you retire; they're going out almost instantly to someone who is already retired (or otherwise receiving social security payments). By the time you get around to retiring, if the Social Security system still works, the money you paid in will have long gone back out, and circulated through the economy who knows how many times. That small monthly check you'll be getting will be the taxes paid by people working at that time.

If Social Security can't be saved—if there must come a time when we say "No more. I'm sorry. It doesn't work any more"—then there will be a generation of people who are rightfully pissed off for having paid so much into the system and gotten nothing out. And they'll also be upset for having planned on using that money as some of their living expenses during their retirement, only to have no money there. It's probably going to happen, unless we start working on it now. Start reducing payments and increasing taxes to cover what's needed today. Start educating people that their Social Security checks will be smaller, and that they need to save more for retirement on their own. Start at the very least discussing what is commonly known as the third rail of politics. Maybe what we need is a President who comes to office and says "I don't intend to run for another term. I want to do the best job I can today, and I want to work with a Congress that cares more about doing its job than keeping its job." With that group of people maybe, maybe, they can rationally discuss Social Security and implement the changes necessary to wean us from it. Anyone willing to try?

Sometimes, I just don't get people

Wed, 26 Mar 2008 20:09:48 GMT

Friday night, we got on the subway to go home after seeing an interesting exhibit at the Museum and American Folk Art (which closed Saturday, so I wasn't in a rush to say much about it here, figuring no one reading would get a chance; I may yet talk about it).

Anyway, we got on the train, and then a youngish woman got on pulling a rolling briefcase with a fistful of advertising postcards in her hand. She stuck one of the cards in the advertising frame over the door, one in the frame next to the door, and then walked down the (mostly empty) car, putting cards on empty seats and occasionally in frames. I asked Kit "How can she not think those are all going to wind up on the floor?"

At the next stop, more people boarded the train. The fellow directly across from us picked up the card, looked at it, and then reached to put it back on the seat he was now sitting on (it wound up on the floor). The family sitting across from us and one section over simply brushed the card to the floor.

That was it. The postcards didn't last more than one stop before winding up on the floor. And I actually paid a little attention to them during our trip. No one gave the cards on the floor a second glance. And by the time we got to our stop (the youngish women got off four stops before us), there were at least five of the cards on the floor, waiting for the cleaning crew to sweep them up and throw them out. I made a point of taking one of the cards that was still on a seat (it was on the seat the woman had been sitting on, and she'd been holding several of the cards in her hand the whole trip).

The card was a supposedly pithy comment in small type and, in larger type, a url, on both sides of the card. No name; no other way to contact the litterbug; just a url. I was torn between posting that url here to shame the site for its littering, costly method of advertising, but then I decided it would be giving them far more publicity than they deserve. Instead, I'll simply note that however much they spent for these postcards was good for the economy, but bad for their bottom line. And whoever the woman "distributing" them is, she's a litterbug who's throwing away the company's money.

C'mon people, seriously, a city of eight million people is going to get dirty no matter how hard we try to keep it clean, but do you have to add to the litter for no good reason? How can you not know that just about all of those cards are going to wind up on the floor before they wind up in the trash, and not one of them is going to result in any more business for you? (Actually, even I haven't looked at the web site to see what it is she was advertising.)

How confident are they, if they won't tell you who they are?

Wed, 26 Mar 2008 18:12:46 GMT

This New York Times photo of Iraqi Mahdi Army fighters is not, of course, definitive, but it prompted me to wonder:

Did you ever notice that, whenever we see pictures of "militants," "insurgents," "rebel groups"—heck, even "freedom fighters"—they're always wearing masks? It got me wondering if they wear the masks because they know they're going to lose. Or perhaps because they know that what they're doing is wrong. Or maybe, simply, because they're embarrassed by what they're doing.

Consider all the insurgents, rebels, and freedom fighters who came before, but who knew they were going to win (or who were willing to die trying): they didn't wear masks. Everyone knew who they were. It goes all the way back to the Declaration of Independence (and possibly earlier), when John Hancock signed his name large "so King George won't need his glasses." But all the rebels involved in it signed that document, so that everyone would know who they were. They pledged their lives, fortunes, and sacred honors to the cause. And then they went out and won.

But today's insurgents and rebels wear masks. They make damn sure you don't know who they are, whether it's in the midst of a gun battle on the streets, or in a propaganda video released on the web. Even when they take responsibility for an act, they do it anonymously. It's almost like they're saying "Yeah, I want to do this, but I really don't think I can win, so I'm hedging my bets."

George Washington wasn't an anonymous American insurgent. Jefferson Davis didn't wear a mask. Robert E. Lee didn't cover his face when he turned down command of the Union armies. Fidel Castro didn't feel a need to hide his identity when he overthrew Batista or forced out Miro. Lech Walesa's identity was quite clear when he formed Solidarity. Pretty much all the successful insurgents were proud enough of their causes and themselves to take credit for their activities.

Spending less than half of the government's budget

Wed, 26 Mar 2008 01:24:29 GMT

In this post, lonfiction talks about his desire for a politician (or an average person, for that matter) to "put your money where your mouth is." In other words, don't just tell the electorate you're for education: show it by increasing the budget for education. It's a good, passionate argument.

Unfortunately, it reminded me of this editorial from the March issue of Kiplinger's which my father pointed out a few weeks ago (and I inconveniently forgot to write about). In it, Knight Kiplinger starts off by saying "If you really want to know what people value most, look at how they spend their money." Basically, the same argument Lon is making. Kiplinger goes on to look at the various chunks of the federal budget*. Kiplinger talks about how little, as a percentage of total tax dollars, each field gets. After enumerating most everything the average person thinks about (including the Department of Defense, which has a whopping 21% of the budget), he notes that he still hasn't accounted for more than half of federal spending. "So where do the majority of your federal tax dollars go? To your fellow citizens, in direct payments and benefits." He explains how those payments and benefits make up 56% of annual federal spending. "[A]bout one-third of all federal spending goes out as Social Security benefits and Medicare payments."

His summation: "the vexing problem of reordering national priorities is that 65% of the current federal budget (56% in transfer payments and 9% in interest on debt) is virtually untouchable." Good and read the entire article: he spells it all out simply and clearly).

Finally, there's this AP article which talks about the nearing difficulties of continuing Social Security and Medicare as they have been. Quoting from it: "While the Social Security trust fund will have resources until 2041, the more critical date in terms of government revenues will occur in 2017. In that year, Social Security, which has been providing billions of dollars in surpluses to the government for over two decades, will start having to pay out more in benefits than it will receive that year in payroll taxes.

"At that point, the government will have to start replacing the money it has borrowed from the Social Security trust fund. It can do that only by increasing borrowing from the public, raising taxes or cutting other government programs. The elimination of the Social Security surplus is a key reason that experts are projecting sizable budget deficits in future years."

Did you catch that? We've been borrowing from Social Security (yes, yes, I know that wasn't a secret, and it's been going on for many years), but that fund will soon be unable to loan the general budget any more money.

All in all, a sobering look at the finances dictating the federal budget. We can complain about insufficient funding for education, too much money being wasted on science, even overspending on needless wars; but all of those pale in comparison to the 56% gorilla sitting over there in the corner. We've got entitlements which were designed during the Great Depression as stopgaps and assistance programs for a populace living shorter lives, but those programs have become so institutionalized that politicians feel they can't even talk about them.

You want fiscal responsibility in our leaders? Make them talk about Social Security. Not "how do we keep funding it," but rather "does it make sense to keep looking for bandages to keep the system limping along."

* Something I've been talking about since I was actively involved with the Artemis Project: to wit, everyone complains about over-spending on space and science, but those expenditures are less than 1% of the federal budget.

21—a movie review

Tue, 25 Mar 2008 18:19:52 GMT

Saw 21 last night. As with lots of movies, the less you know about it going in, the better you'll like it. In this case, I haven't yet read the book it's based on (Bringing Down the House),but I do know enough about it and the backstory to realize that this movie is a very different adaptation. In the same vein, I know enough about how the Las Vegas casinos operate to know that there were some liberties taken with their reality in the movie (not enough that the average person would find them disconcerting). And I recognized far too readily Boston University's Towers dormitory and Bay State Road as our hero's MIT dorm room.

But leaving aside all those little details which must be changed to make a good movie, I enjoyed this one. It moves very quickly (it definitely didn't feel like the 123 minutes IMDB claims it runs). Graduating MIT senior Ben Campbell (Jim Sturgess) has his whole life working out just as he's planned it, except for the looming inability to pay for Harvard Medical School, to which he's been accepted. Campbell is a genius, on several levels, and displays his mathematical talents in a class, which brings him to the attention of his professor, Micky Rosa (Kevin Spacey). Rosa invites Campbell to join his team…his blackjack team. And from there we're off and running.

Rosa has assembled a team of students who are adept at the simple—but incredibly rapid—mathematics needed to gain the edge in blackjack from the house. "This is a business," he repeats, "we're not gambling." And the numbers prove him out. The blackjack team has been making good money for quite a while. But there's an opening on the team, and comparing what they can make on a weekend Las Vegas junket to Campbell's $8 an hour in a clothing store, it doesn't take a math whiz to figure out how to spend his time. Of course, nothing is ever simple in the land of Hollywood (or Las Vegas, or pretty much anywhere else), and after Campbell's first $20,000-weekend trip, he's in for setbacks and confusion. But they're all part of the story, and help him to grow into the person he needs to be.

Campbell is an engaging character, and the other members of the team are also fully fleshed-out, fully realized people (I was very impressed with the entire cast). We see Campbell mature from being "just" a hyper-smart nerd to being a worldly young man with a lot of experience earned through some hard knocks and some easy gifts. The hard work is glossed over (this is, after all, a movie), but we know it was there.

The year in which the movie takes place isn't made explicit, in part to appeal to a present-day audience (the book was written five years ago about events that were ten years in the past then), so there are some asynchronicities having to do with the changing world and new technologies, but again, they can be safely ignored to enjoy the movie.

Don't bother looking for a sequel: you can safely feel that the story is complete in this one movie. But do look for it: it's a good movie.

Barack Obama announces that he's black

Thu, 20 Mar 2008 20:09:45 GMT

One of my most loyal readers asked why I hadn't commented on Senator Obama's speech on race, which is seemingly the hot topic (or was yesterday) in the presidential campaign. I told her I didn't think it was terribly important.

But in fairness, I decided to take another look at the speech as a speech and as a news story. (For those who haven't read it, the full text is here, and there's a video of it [which I haven't seen] on the same page.)

There is a chance that it's such a hit because of the way he delivered the speech: Obama is a good speaker, so that's always a possibility. But since I didn't see it, and I'm not willing (or able) to sit through watching it on the computer screen right now, all I have to go on are the words. And judging from the words, it's a good talk, but I don't think it says anything terribly new or inspiring.

In the speech, Obama talks about his black father and white mother, his family of many religions and different backgrounds, and growing up in the United States knowing that racism and other forms of bigotry exist. So far, he's not so very different from my family (my father isn't black, but aside from that…). It's a stirring recitation of how he got to a point where he, a black man, is a serious candidate for the presidency of the United States, but for those of us raised with the "anyone can grow up to be president" ideal, it's not news that a qualified candidate looks a little different than most.

He also talks about the fact that racism, both overt and covert, has been a factor in the development of US society since the nation's founding. And again, it's true, but not really new or interesting to those of us who have been paying attention over the years. Judging people as "different" or "same" is an unconscious act: we all do it, just as we all judge situations as "dangerous" or "safe" before putting any conscious thought into it. The fact that some people don't then take a few more seconds to ask if "different" does or does not equal "dangerous" is, again, something we know about, and something that thinking people have been combating for years.

And he addresses the current flap over remarks his church's pastor made. Actually, this is the point that I'm laughing about: his enemies are screaming that he must condemn those remarks or be branded a racist himself. Who among us doesn't have a family member who loudly, and sometimes embarrassingly, makes crude, rude, obnoxious comments? Not many. But we don't have to stand up and say "I'm no longer part of that person's family. His/her remarks are not mine." We all know that it's possible to associate with someone—heck, even love someone—without necessarily agreeing with anything that person says.

So what's the big news with Obama's speech on race? I'm still trying to figure that out. I mean, other than this is the first time during the campaign that he's explicitly talked about the fact that he doesn't look like the majority of the voting public, he didn't say anything new.

Those of us who think know that there are US citizens who don't look alike, and that distrust bred solely from that fact is not logical. And those of us who think know that the best way to choose a president (or a governor, or any employee, for that matter) is to look at the candidate's experiences and abilities, and completely ignore his height, hair color, age, skin color, sex, etc.

And for those of us who don't think, for whom this speech was an entirely new thought, a radical departure from the status quo, yeah, it's a very important speech that they should read again until it sinks in. But those who most need it won't ever bother to read the speech, they'll turn off the news commentators discussing it, and they won't ever think about the issues Obama raised in it. I guess that's more of a statement on the growing divide I'm seeing between people who want to be educated and those who don't; people who want to think, reason, and understand versus people who are content living in unreasoned, unenlightened ignorance. But that's not what Obama was discussing.

Obama's speech, I think, boils down to "judge me as a person, not as a black person." That's what I hope everyone will do, not just to him, but to all the 10 or 20 candidates who'll be on the ballot in November.

The while-I'm-reading-it on-the-subway book review

Thu, 20 Mar 2008 18:51:59 GMT

Riding the subway this morning, I was reading a book (as I always do), and when the train popped out of the tunnel to cross the Manhattan Bridge, I put the book down in my lap to look out the window (as I do whenever I can actually see out the window) for that incredible view (the Statue of Liberty, the Brooklyn Bridge, the harbor, lower Manhattan, Governor's Island, the water, the boats and ships moving around, helicopters coming and going, Staten Island, parts of Brooklyn, the sky, the clouds… well, you begin to get the idea). After crossing the bridge into Manhattan and diving back underground, I picked up my book and continued reading.

I realized, however, that when I put my book down, as I do every day, I place it on my lap (or on my briefcase on my lap) consciously in one position or another. When it's a book I've just started, and I'm still not sure if I like it or not, I place it front cover down and spine in (toward my body). However, if it's a book I'm nearly finished with and I've decided I do like it, or if it's a book by a friend that I'm sure I'll like even when just starting, I place if front cover up and spine out. I don't know if I started this as a conscious thing or a subconscious thing, but now I know I do it. I guess it's sort of like admitting what I'm reading to the world at large, or hiding it, or advertising it (of course, the number of people in the subway car who will care enough to actually look is so vanishingly small that in the larger scheme of things, the way I place my book matters not).

Nevertheless, it's a habit I find I've adopted. Sort of like an instant "while I'm reading it" book review.

Anyone else do something similar?