Wednesday, August 6, 2008
Race and the McCain Campaign
What the McCain campaign is doing with race sickens me...all the more so because I think it's working. The men and women working for both campaigns (but especially the McCain campaign which has lots of veterans of the Bush years) are experienced professionals. These are people whose job it is to understand the effects ideas, words, and images will have on the American voting public. So if you think there was one trace of innocence and naivety in McCain's recent accusation of Obama playing the "race card" or his commercial featuring Obama interspersed with images of Brittany Spears and Paris Hilton, think again. For all the progress America has made since the 1960s, there is still racism remaining. But that racism has morphed, from the white superiority movement of the 1960s, to a feeling of anger at African Americans, who many perceive are the beneficiaries of undue advantages in job-hirings, school admissions, etc, and are simultaneously the causes of much of urban blight and crime. If you ask the average American man or woman whether whites are superior to blacks, I think the answer you will get is a resounding no. However, if you put a white family in a black neighborhood, those car doors are going to be locked, and if you show a white man, a black student in an elite school or institution you can bet there's going to be whispers of affirmative action. It's for this reason that some Black leaders (Shelby Steele for example, have argued against affirmative action in general.) The McCain campaign officials, aware of this underlying resentment, are willing to capitalize it for political gain. There are no accidents of the campaign trail of the 21st century, only hidden motives, dirty politics, and the willingness to create disunity and dishonor for political victory.
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
McCain's Campaign
I have been completely disappointed with John McCain's Presidential campaign this year. It has endorsed no progressive policies, embodies no greater ideals for this country and the future other than patriotic platitudes and gives no impression that it will really reverse course on any of the Bush policies, which have so threatened this country's place in the globe, and the continuing prosperity and peace of the world itself. The Obama campaign, while far from perfect, has put together a coherent energy and semi-coherent economic policy. The McCain campaign offers none of the above. It has spent millions of advertising dollars blaming Obama for high gas prices (really, is it Obama's fault that the rising economies of the developing world are increasing oil demand at the same time that oil production is stagnating?) while promoting it's own plan of offshore drilling. A scheme, which sources as varied as T. Boone Pickens, an oilman, and the genius behind the 2004 Swift Boat ads and the White House's own Department of Energy, concede will make a negligible dent in oil supply, and whatever dent is made won't be present for at least ten years. None of this matters though because to voters who don't have the time or means to access in-depth information about policies every day, McCain's plan seems to make intuitive sense. More drilling=more oil=lower gas prices=me not defaulting on my mortgage. The fact that this logical string is incorrect is unimportant so long as voters believe it. Same thing with Iraq's involvement with 9/11 in the 2004 Presidential campaign. Even though there was a tenuous connection at best, enough voters believed the Iraqi connection, that it had a significant effect on the election. What is important is not what is true, but what voters believe to be true, and the McCain campaign has capitalized on this for the betterment of his candidacy and to the detriment of the country (the irony here is incredible as McCain made the recent assertion that Obama would rather win a Presidential campaign and lose a war.) John McCain may be a war hero and an honorable man, but his action's over the past few months have proved that he is not fit to be President of the United States.
Tomorrow: The Campaign and Race
Tomorrow: The Campaign and Race
Monday, August 4, 2008
Weekly Links (July 29th-Aug 4th)
Here are the new weekly links. Some of these articles I blogged about earlier in the week.
1)David Brooks op-ed on America's failing education system and its effect on our income gap. The US is lagging behind in human capital development (one of our hallmarks in the postwar years,) and this is part of a reason for our economic struggles. Also, the article cites research that "points out that big gaps in educational attainment are present at age 5. Some children are bathed in an atmosphere that promotes human capital development and, increasingly, more are not. By 5, it is possible to predict, with depressing accuracy, who will complete high school and college and who won’t." Obviously this should be a big issue in domestic policy and the current political campaign. Unsurprisingly, we haven't heard much from either candidate. Perhaps they were drowned out by the Media's screaming about the "race card."
2) Wall Street Journal piece on the changing demographics of the Mountain West states. Many professionals (both older and younger) are moving out from the West Coast, in search of cheaper real estate and a more laid back lifestyle. This is having serious ramifications for the political decisions of these states (for example Montana and Colorado are both in play for the Democrats this year.) It is also having an effect on the long-term residents of these states, many of whom don't like the changes instituted by the newcomers.
3)This New York Times article was my favorite article of the week. It dissected Barack Obama's tenure as a Law Professor at the University of Chicago. Obama was a highly-sought after lecturer, but was absent from much of the intellectual debating that is a hallmark of the university's faculty. Obama presented many interesting hypotheticals to his class, about such controversial issues as gay marriage and affirmative action, but often refused to take a stand, instead providing hypotheticals for both sides.
4)In-depth New Yorker report on the shadow economy of marijuana production in California. The state's legalization of marijuana for medical-purposes, which still runs counter to federal laws, has created a confusing situation, in which legality is never completely defined. The author chronicles the growers and sellers attempts to feel there way around the new laws, as well as the effect that the legalization has had on a formerly illicit business.
5)Autobiographical op-ed by Kristoff on his mixed feelings about meat-eating and animal rights. His memories from his childhood on a farm are pretty intense.
6)Sweet New York Times article about how a community emerged in New York City among people who took turns volunteering to read to a 101 year old woman. Kind of sappy, but still makes you feel good about the human race.
7)Another excellent David Brook's op-ed. This one deals with the topic of global sclerosis, or the inability for concerted global action on a number of very important issues, because so many countries now effectively hold veto power. He states presciently "...in each case, the logic is the same. Groups with a strong narrow interest are able to block larger groups with a diffuse but generalized interest. The narrow Chinese interest in Sudanese oil blocks the world’s general interest in preventing genocide. Iran’s narrow interest in nuclear weapons trumps the world’s general interest in preventing a Middle East arms race. Diplomacy goes asymmetric and the small defeat the large...But globally, people have no sense of shared citizenship. Everybody feels they have the right to say no, and in a multipolar world, many people have the power to do so. There is no mechanism to wield authority. There are few shared values on which to base a mechanism. The autocrats of the world don’t even want a mechanism because they are afraid that it would be used to interfere with their autocracy."
8)I found this article alarming. The government is currently allowed to confiscate any device which may hold digital or analog information that is held by travellers (US citizens or not) that pass through US borders. The government may hold the device for an unspecified period of time, and make copies of the information within. If the information is found to not be used in a criminal case, the copies must be destroyed, but the notes investigators made on the copies may be retained. This seems to me, to be a gross outrage against our rights, and emblematic of the type of police state action this country may see if another catastrophic terrorist attack occurs within our borders.
9) Interesting New York Times article about "the incline," a steep trail of railroad ties that gains 2000 feet in elevation over a mile of distance. It is located near the US Olympic training facility in Colorado, and is a "favorite" training tool of many of the athletes working out there.
10) Great inteview with Pakistan Scholar Ahmed Rashid. He just wrote a book entitled Descent into Chaos, about post 9/11 Afghanistan, and offers some excellent critiques on American policy, as well as some recommendations about how to create peace in the region.
Bonus Article: China's growing cities
1)David Brooks op-ed on America's failing education system and its effect on our income gap. The US is lagging behind in human capital development (one of our hallmarks in the postwar years,) and this is part of a reason for our economic struggles. Also, the article cites research that "points out that big gaps in educational attainment are present at age 5. Some children are bathed in an atmosphere that promotes human capital development and, increasingly, more are not. By 5, it is possible to predict, with depressing accuracy, who will complete high school and college and who won’t." Obviously this should be a big issue in domestic policy and the current political campaign. Unsurprisingly, we haven't heard much from either candidate. Perhaps they were drowned out by the Media's screaming about the "race card."
2) Wall Street Journal piece on the changing demographics of the Mountain West states. Many professionals (both older and younger) are moving out from the West Coast, in search of cheaper real estate and a more laid back lifestyle. This is having serious ramifications for the political decisions of these states (for example Montana and Colorado are both in play for the Democrats this year.) It is also having an effect on the long-term residents of these states, many of whom don't like the changes instituted by the newcomers.
3)This New York Times article was my favorite article of the week. It dissected Barack Obama's tenure as a Law Professor at the University of Chicago. Obama was a highly-sought after lecturer, but was absent from much of the intellectual debating that is a hallmark of the university's faculty. Obama presented many interesting hypotheticals to his class, about such controversial issues as gay marriage and affirmative action, but often refused to take a stand, instead providing hypotheticals for both sides.
4)In-depth New Yorker report on the shadow economy of marijuana production in California. The state's legalization of marijuana for medical-purposes, which still runs counter to federal laws, has created a confusing situation, in which legality is never completely defined. The author chronicles the growers and sellers attempts to feel there way around the new laws, as well as the effect that the legalization has had on a formerly illicit business.
5)Autobiographical op-ed by Kristoff on his mixed feelings about meat-eating and animal rights. His memories from his childhood on a farm are pretty intense.
6)Sweet New York Times article about how a community emerged in New York City among people who took turns volunteering to read to a 101 year old woman. Kind of sappy, but still makes you feel good about the human race.
7)Another excellent David Brook's op-ed. This one deals with the topic of global sclerosis, or the inability for concerted global action on a number of very important issues, because so many countries now effectively hold veto power. He states presciently "...in each case, the logic is the same. Groups with a strong narrow interest are able to block larger groups with a diffuse but generalized interest. The narrow Chinese interest in Sudanese oil blocks the world’s general interest in preventing genocide. Iran’s narrow interest in nuclear weapons trumps the world’s general interest in preventing a Middle East arms race. Diplomacy goes asymmetric and the small defeat the large...But globally, people have no sense of shared citizenship. Everybody feels they have the right to say no, and in a multipolar world, many people have the power to do so. There is no mechanism to wield authority. There are few shared values on which to base a mechanism. The autocrats of the world don’t even want a mechanism because they are afraid that it would be used to interfere with their autocracy."
8)I found this article alarming. The government is currently allowed to confiscate any device which may hold digital or analog information that is held by travellers (US citizens or not) that pass through US borders. The government may hold the device for an unspecified period of time, and make copies of the information within. If the information is found to not be used in a criminal case, the copies must be destroyed, but the notes investigators made on the copies may be retained. This seems to me, to be a gross outrage against our rights, and emblematic of the type of police state action this country may see if another catastrophic terrorist attack occurs within our borders.
9) Interesting New York Times article about "the incline," a steep trail of railroad ties that gains 2000 feet in elevation over a mile of distance. It is located near the US Olympic training facility in Colorado, and is a "favorite" training tool of many of the athletes working out there.
10) Great inteview with Pakistan Scholar Ahmed Rashid. He just wrote a book entitled Descent into Chaos, about post 9/11 Afghanistan, and offers some excellent critiques on American policy, as well as some recommendations about how to create peace in the region.
Bonus Article: China's growing cities
Friday, August 1, 2008
Ramblings
Today's been a long day at work (for once) so here's a few quick things.
1)There was a Wall Street Journal article today about how Walmart is having meeting with its employees about the negative implications for the company if the Employee Free Choice Act passes Congress. The human resources supervisors who lead the meetings emphasize that the act, which will facilitate unionization, will be likely to pass if the Democrats win the White House and a majority in Congress. They are not out and out telling their workers to vote Republican, but atre toeing a very delicate line on the legality of political influence by employers and employees (evidently employers are allowed to give political suggestions to salaried workers, but not to hourly workers.)
Even though this seems like a broken-record story of inappropriate corporate interference on first telling, I am of mixed feelings about this. Yes, in an ideal world, workers would be able to unionize without either political or economic ramifications, but this is not the world in which we live. Especially in times of economic downturn like the present, companies are forced (or choose) to deal with lower income and rising costs by downsizing. Unionization, if successful, will bring workers more pay and better benefits, which also increases costs for the company. The company may then respond by downsizing because it cannot afford to pay the higher costs. So as much as I don't like corporations meddling in their employees political affairs, don't employees also have a right to know how their government's decisions will affect their job security and future pay? Yet at the same time, isn't what Walmart doing akin to saying, if the Democrats win in the fall, there will be downsizing, and thereby implying that for their own financial security their workers will be forced to vote Republican. I am sort of thinking out loud here, and I'm not exactly sure what the right answer is, except that it's always important to remember that in our flawed society there's almost never one correct black and white answer, cven as the news media and campaigns do their best to eradicate all gray area from our public life.
2) David Brooks wrote a great op-ed today about the paralysis in making global decisions that defines our world today. He contrasts it to the world after WWII, when all power was cemented in the hands of the "Atlantic Alliance" and even within these countries was held by a "bipartisan governing elite." Contrast that to today, when there are 15 or 20 countries ranging from China to Brazil who have power to prevent important global consensuses on topics like global warming and non-proliferation of nuclear weapons. Even in our own country, power is so splintered that it's hard to create a national imperative to accomplish anything. Brooks argues that we need some sort of global governing mechanism to enforce obedience (or at least acquiesce) to the majority's decision. I agree that some sort of organization like this would be an incredible step forward, but I am pessimistic on it being accomplished within the next 25-30 years. The goals and priorities of the established superpowers (US, Japan, Germany, UK) and the emerging superpowers (China, India, Brazil, even Turkey) differ significantly, are often at odds, and will not be reconciled easily.
3)Haruki Murakami just came out with a new book on distance running, entitled What I Talk About When I Talk About Running. Murakami is one of my favorite fiction authors and I've run competitively (well, sort of) for the last 8 years, so I'm eagerly anticipating getting this book. Though ironically I haven't yet had time to buy it, because I run every day after work.
4)Finally the weekend. I needed this break pretty badly.
1)There was a Wall Street Journal article today about how Walmart is having meeting with its employees about the negative implications for the company if the Employee Free Choice Act passes Congress. The human resources supervisors who lead the meetings emphasize that the act, which will facilitate unionization, will be likely to pass if the Democrats win the White House and a majority in Congress. They are not out and out telling their workers to vote Republican, but atre toeing a very delicate line on the legality of political influence by employers and employees (evidently employers are allowed to give political suggestions to salaried workers, but not to hourly workers.)
Even though this seems like a broken-record story of inappropriate corporate interference on first telling, I am of mixed feelings about this. Yes, in an ideal world, workers would be able to unionize without either political or economic ramifications, but this is not the world in which we live. Especially in times of economic downturn like the present, companies are forced (or choose) to deal with lower income and rising costs by downsizing. Unionization, if successful, will bring workers more pay and better benefits, which also increases costs for the company. The company may then respond by downsizing because it cannot afford to pay the higher costs. So as much as I don't like corporations meddling in their employees political affairs, don't employees also have a right to know how their government's decisions will affect their job security and future pay? Yet at the same time, isn't what Walmart doing akin to saying, if the Democrats win in the fall, there will be downsizing, and thereby implying that for their own financial security their workers will be forced to vote Republican. I am sort of thinking out loud here, and I'm not exactly sure what the right answer is, except that it's always important to remember that in our flawed society there's almost never one correct black and white answer, cven as the news media and campaigns do their best to eradicate all gray area from our public life.
2) David Brooks wrote a great op-ed today about the paralysis in making global decisions that defines our world today. He contrasts it to the world after WWII, when all power was cemented in the hands of the "Atlantic Alliance" and even within these countries was held by a "bipartisan governing elite." Contrast that to today, when there are 15 or 20 countries ranging from China to Brazil who have power to prevent important global consensuses on topics like global warming and non-proliferation of nuclear weapons. Even in our own country, power is so splintered that it's hard to create a national imperative to accomplish anything. Brooks argues that we need some sort of global governing mechanism to enforce obedience (or at least acquiesce) to the majority's decision. I agree that some sort of organization like this would be an incredible step forward, but I am pessimistic on it being accomplished within the next 25-30 years. The goals and priorities of the established superpowers (US, Japan, Germany, UK) and the emerging superpowers (China, India, Brazil, even Turkey) differ significantly, are often at odds, and will not be reconciled easily.
3)Haruki Murakami just came out with a new book on distance running, entitled What I Talk About When I Talk About Running. Murakami is one of my favorite fiction authors and I've run competitively (well, sort of) for the last 8 years, so I'm eagerly anticipating getting this book. Though ironically I haven't yet had time to buy it, because I run every day after work.
4)Finally the weekend. I needed this break pretty badly.
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Languages
Looking back over my three years of college, there isn't much that stands out classwise. There have certainly been a few classes I've really enjoyed (History of Globalization, Meaning of America and Civil Liberties, jump to the forefront,) but overall I feel like I've largely forgotten much of what I've learned. Yes, I'm sure much of it there is still buried in the dingy stacks of my mind, and with a certain amount of effort could be recalled, but it's also likely that I won't need much of this information barring an obscure jeopardy question or trivial pursuit game.
The biggest theme to my college academic career is that there is no thematic order in my classes. For example were I a bio or engineering major my classes would logically build on each other, so that instead of having shallow knowledge in many areas I would have extensive knowledge in one area (which is still in itself exceeding broad, (and my knowledge relative to experts in that field, would still be exceeding shallow, but that's a whole other topic.) Now I have no one to blame for this course of events but myself. I like taking diverse classes, that was and is the appeal to college for me; being able to take classes that have nothing to do with each other for the sole reason of their appeal to you. But looking back from a slightly more mature standpoint than I had when I entered this school it occurs to me that I could have been served in creating a more logical academic program for myself, since I can always read about other topics I am interested in. ON the other hand, I do think that I have gained non-tangible benefits from these classes (I have been able to form my thoughts more coherently, I have a less naive worldview, I am able to be more critical and analytical of ideas,) but these can be frustrating when you don't see evidence of these improvements on a daily basis. Whereas if I were an engineering major I could point to a problem I can now solve, which I once could not. However, the one tangible benefit I have gotten out of academic college is the acquisition of languages. Prior to entering college I had been ambivalent about languages. I always loved geography and learning about other cultures, so on that level languages always appealed to me. But Spanish was always hard, I was bad at speaking and listening to it and though I took it all throughout high school I didn't sign up for it in my first semester of college, because I believed I knew it well enough to get by, and that was enough.
Second semester of college I decided I was going to be an IR major, which required 8 semesters of a language. So I manned up, signed up for Spanish 4 and found it, in an extremely surprising first day to be ridiculously easy. Unfortunately, a lot of the time when things are easy for me, my effort starts slacking. So I coasted through Spanish 4, and then Spanish 21 and 22, getting A-/B+, doing the minimum amount of homework possible and cramming and then forgetting vocab. (As a sidenote, the fact that Spanish 4-22 was easy for me should not be surprising, really my AP spanish in high school should have prepared me for 22 at the least, and it was only because I did poorly on the placement test that I started out so low.) I finished 22 at the end of my sophomore year, which is a pretty odd time for self-analysis. You're halfway through your college career, by definition probably haven't accomplished very much, the job threat is too far away for it to be anything, but an abstraction in your mind, and yet at the same time you really have to decide what major you're going to focus on, and what, if anything, you might want to accomplish after college. I had assumed from the start that I was going to go abroad, but none of the Spanish-speaking countries really appealed to me. I wanted to be somewhere that was the center of the action, but at the same time wanted to escape going to Europe, because I wanted to be somewhere that would push me outside my comfort zone a little bit. I had always been interested in the Middle East and while browsing abroad options there, Cairo stood out as a possible destination. Center of the action? Yes. Adventure? Definitely yes. The only problem was that I didn't know any Arabic, but as it happened Tufts was offering a first-time experimental summer course for Arabic 1-2 in 6 weeks.
I made the decision one day in March. I remember it because it was one of the first warm days of the beginning of spring. I had skipped class and walked down to Porter Square Bookstore, in order to buy the Lonely Planet Egypt guide and apply for a job (no dice.) I stopped back at the Powderhouse Park to browse through the guide and kill the hour or so I had before my workout. After thirty minutes of looking through the guide, I had already made up my mind."Fuck it, I'm going," I thought, and that was that. Coincidentally or not, I ran one of the best workouts of my track career that day, which convinced me of the idea that workout and race performance is at least partially tied to life-confidence levels.
Three months later I started Arabic, and I tried harder in the beginning than I have in almost anything else in my life. There are few things more fun than the beginning of learning a new language, before the frustration of the plateau sets in, and every day you can understand exponentially more and more. Of course as the class wore on, I tried less. It's tough to keep up the same enthusiasm you feel in the beginning for something new over a long period of time, and the time constraints of running and working were definitely taking a toll.
Another three months later school started again. I was taking both Arabic and Spanish, which created some confusions, especially in prepositions (it's odd what the brain will confuse and what it doesn't.) But the more I learned about Arabic the more it enthralled me. There's an elegant logic to the Arabic language that's missing in both English and Spanish. So while it doesn't sound as beautiful as Spanish, at least to my ear, it achieves more beauty in its logical perfection. Almost every word is based off a three letter root. There are 10s or even 100s of patterns which you can perform with a root in order to change the meaning. For example the word qaara means to decide or to settle. But the word istaqara means to decide to settle down in a place because the form ista+root means to seek something. This creates infinite poetic possibilities. Furthermore because of the languages intimate connection with the Koran, words take on a preciseness lacking in English (of course in everyday colloquial language they lose this preciseness.) For example the words raja'a and 'aada both mean to return. Yet technically in the Koran, raja'a means to return to God after death, or in other words returning to your original and ultimate destination, while 'aada means to return to dust after death, or returning to an impermanent destination. So in fusha (formal arabic) raja'a can mean returning back home, or somewhere you will stay, or 'aada means to return to a temporary destination. There's something in this order and preciseness that really appeals to me. The library's closing now, which means I have to go, but I'll finish on this entry (though I forget what exactly I was trying to say when I started writing it) soon hopefully.
The biggest theme to my college academic career is that there is no thematic order in my classes. For example were I a bio or engineering major my classes would logically build on each other, so that instead of having shallow knowledge in many areas I would have extensive knowledge in one area (which is still in itself exceeding broad, (and my knowledge relative to experts in that field, would still be exceeding shallow, but that's a whole other topic.) Now I have no one to blame for this course of events but myself. I like taking diverse classes, that was and is the appeal to college for me; being able to take classes that have nothing to do with each other for the sole reason of their appeal to you. But looking back from a slightly more mature standpoint than I had when I entered this school it occurs to me that I could have been served in creating a more logical academic program for myself, since I can always read about other topics I am interested in. ON the other hand, I do think that I have gained non-tangible benefits from these classes (I have been able to form my thoughts more coherently, I have a less naive worldview, I am able to be more critical and analytical of ideas,) but these can be frustrating when you don't see evidence of these improvements on a daily basis. Whereas if I were an engineering major I could point to a problem I can now solve, which I once could not. However, the one tangible benefit I have gotten out of academic college is the acquisition of languages. Prior to entering college I had been ambivalent about languages. I always loved geography and learning about other cultures, so on that level languages always appealed to me. But Spanish was always hard, I was bad at speaking and listening to it and though I took it all throughout high school I didn't sign up for it in my first semester of college, because I believed I knew it well enough to get by, and that was enough.
Second semester of college I decided I was going to be an IR major, which required 8 semesters of a language. So I manned up, signed up for Spanish 4 and found it, in an extremely surprising first day to be ridiculously easy. Unfortunately, a lot of the time when things are easy for me, my effort starts slacking. So I coasted through Spanish 4, and then Spanish 21 and 22, getting A-/B+, doing the minimum amount of homework possible and cramming and then forgetting vocab. (As a sidenote, the fact that Spanish 4-22 was easy for me should not be surprising, really my AP spanish in high school should have prepared me for 22 at the least, and it was only because I did poorly on the placement test that I started out so low.) I finished 22 at the end of my sophomore year, which is a pretty odd time for self-analysis. You're halfway through your college career, by definition probably haven't accomplished very much, the job threat is too far away for it to be anything, but an abstraction in your mind, and yet at the same time you really have to decide what major you're going to focus on, and what, if anything, you might want to accomplish after college. I had assumed from the start that I was going to go abroad, but none of the Spanish-speaking countries really appealed to me. I wanted to be somewhere that was the center of the action, but at the same time wanted to escape going to Europe, because I wanted to be somewhere that would push me outside my comfort zone a little bit. I had always been interested in the Middle East and while browsing abroad options there, Cairo stood out as a possible destination. Center of the action? Yes. Adventure? Definitely yes. The only problem was that I didn't know any Arabic, but as it happened Tufts was offering a first-time experimental summer course for Arabic 1-2 in 6 weeks.
I made the decision one day in March. I remember it because it was one of the first warm days of the beginning of spring. I had skipped class and walked down to Porter Square Bookstore, in order to buy the Lonely Planet Egypt guide and apply for a job (no dice.) I stopped back at the Powderhouse Park to browse through the guide and kill the hour or so I had before my workout. After thirty minutes of looking through the guide, I had already made up my mind."Fuck it, I'm going," I thought, and that was that. Coincidentally or not, I ran one of the best workouts of my track career that day, which convinced me of the idea that workout and race performance is at least partially tied to life-confidence levels.
Three months later I started Arabic, and I tried harder in the beginning than I have in almost anything else in my life. There are few things more fun than the beginning of learning a new language, before the frustration of the plateau sets in, and every day you can understand exponentially more and more. Of course as the class wore on, I tried less. It's tough to keep up the same enthusiasm you feel in the beginning for something new over a long period of time, and the time constraints of running and working were definitely taking a toll.
Another three months later school started again. I was taking both Arabic and Spanish, which created some confusions, especially in prepositions (it's odd what the brain will confuse and what it doesn't.) But the more I learned about Arabic the more it enthralled me. There's an elegant logic to the Arabic language that's missing in both English and Spanish. So while it doesn't sound as beautiful as Spanish, at least to my ear, it achieves more beauty in its logical perfection. Almost every word is based off a three letter root. There are 10s or even 100s of patterns which you can perform with a root in order to change the meaning. For example the word qaara means to decide or to settle. But the word istaqara means to decide to settle down in a place because the form ista+root means to seek something. This creates infinite poetic possibilities. Furthermore because of the languages intimate connection with the Koran, words take on a preciseness lacking in English (of course in everyday colloquial language they lose this preciseness.) For example the words raja'a and 'aada both mean to return. Yet technically in the Koran, raja'a means to return to God after death, or in other words returning to your original and ultimate destination, while 'aada means to return to dust after death, or returning to an impermanent destination. So in fusha (formal arabic) raja'a can mean returning back home, or somewhere you will stay, or 'aada means to return to a temporary destination. There's something in this order and preciseness that really appeals to me. The library's closing now, which means I have to go, but I'll finish on this entry (though I forget what exactly I was trying to say when I started writing it) soon hopefully.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Daily Ramblings
1) Extremely interesting Wall Street Journal article today about affluent West coasters moving into Montana and changing the political and economic demographics of that state. The state is now split between the largely rural, libertarian and Republican East and the more affluent, left-leaning West. A Democratic Presidential candidate has a chance to win here for the first time since 1992 (which wasn't even really a win for a Democrat since Ross Perot siphoned away a large proportion of Bush's votes.) The shift in US demographics is really a facinating subject that's being highlighted by this election cycle. Former "cowboy" states like Colorado and Montana (and even to some extent North and South Dakota) are suddenly in play for the Democrats. Similarly, states "colonized" by residents from more liberal areas of the country like Virginia (the DC suburbs) and North Carolina (the research triangle) are also now potential sources of votes for Democrats. Yet at the same time, states like Ohio and West Virginia are beginning to lean more heavily Republican. One theory proposed for this is that state's are dividing into those who have been affected positively by the shift to the information economy and those who have been affected negatively, with the former voting Democrat and the latter voting Republican. This seems to be a little democratic-centric to me. My personal opinion is that our current economy allows people to become much more flexible with where they live. So if liberal software programmers from California, like the man described in the article, wish to move to a place like California or North Carolina there is less standing in their way. So new democratic "enclaves" are springing up throughout the country, wherever large groups of these young (or youngish) urban professionals decide to set up shop. Meanwhile the Republican parties embrace of the religious right's social agenda, has consolidated their support of economically disenfranchised voters in former Democratic strongholds like Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia, who vote according to social issues, because neither party well represents their economic agenda (less free trade, etc) because it's worse for the country as a whole. So this trend of what we're seeing in Montana is only the beginning and over the next 10 to 20 years I believe a large part of the traditional post-Southern Strategy political map of the United States will be rewritten.
2) I'm reading David Herbert Donald's biography on Lincoln and I have just gotten to the section on Lincoln's tenure in Congress and his speeches on the Mexican War. Two things stood out for me. First, Lincoln believed that once a President began a war the populace should not criticize the President until after it's completion. He stated "that all those who, because of knowing too little, or because of knowing too much, could not conscientiously approve the conduct of the President, in the beginning of it, should...as good citizens and patriots, remain silent...at least till the war should be ended." Of course Donald added in a few ellipses there so it's possible he slightly misconstrued Lincoln's meaning. Second, the following quote is an interesting rebuttal to the Bush doctrine of preemption:
"Allow the president to invade a neighboring nation, whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion,...and you allow him to make war at pleasure...[this would] place our President where Kings always stood."
3)You know its going to be a long week when Tuesday feels like a Thursday.
4)Interesting link in the Financial Times to a US Obesity Map
5) 14.5 mile long run on Sunday, personal PR and did it at 6:45 pace
2) I'm reading David Herbert Donald's biography on Lincoln and I have just gotten to the section on Lincoln's tenure in Congress and his speeches on the Mexican War. Two things stood out for me. First, Lincoln believed that once a President began a war the populace should not criticize the President until after it's completion. He stated "that all those who, because of knowing too little, or because of knowing too much, could not conscientiously approve the conduct of the President, in the beginning of it, should...as good citizens and patriots, remain silent...at least till the war should be ended." Of course Donald added in a few ellipses there so it's possible he slightly misconstrued Lincoln's meaning. Second, the following quote is an interesting rebuttal to the Bush doctrine of preemption:
"Allow the president to invade a neighboring nation, whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion,...and you allow him to make war at pleasure...[this would] place our President where Kings always stood."
3)You know its going to be a long week when Tuesday feels like a Thursday.
4)Interesting link in the Financial Times to a US Obesity Map
5) 14.5 mile long run on Sunday, personal PR and did it at 6:45 pace
Monday, July 28, 2008
Weekly Links (July 22-28)
I'm starting a new thing where I will list the ten best articles that I've read over the past week. I have a lot of time to read articles, since I have like 6 free hours at work, so these came from a bigger pool of about 140. Most of them are from the nytimes and washingtonpost since those are what I read more.
1)This Washington Post article describes how the rise in global food prices affects people at the lower end of the world "food-chain." It focuses on the story of one woman's family from Burkino Faso and the tribulations she is forced to go through to put food on the table and to sustain herself in that strongly sexist society.
2)This Washington Post article describes the transformation that has occurred in Medellin thanks partially to US free trade allowances. The city has gone from having the murder rate of a war zone to a murder rate less than DC. The free trade allowances have been put into a treaty which is currently the subject of debate as its ratification vote approaches in the Senate.
3)This is actually an older Washington Post article from 2006, but it still has extreme relevance today. It describes the failure of the farm subsidy program in the United States to accomplish the goals for which it had supposedly been created. This quote from the article sums it up well-"The farm payments have also altered the landscape and culture of the Farm Belt, pushing up land prices and favoring large, wealthy operators. The system pays farmers a subsidy to protect against low prices even when they sell their crops at higher prices. It makes "emergency disaster payments" for crops that fail even as it provides subsidized insurance to protect against those failures. And it pays people such as Matthews for merely owning land that was once farmed."
4) Another article from the New York Times series on the Public Writers Project of the 1940s. It describes the movement to create the new state of Absaroka out of parts of parts of Wyoming, Montana and South Dakota.
5) An article from the Washington Post describing the blog Kaboom, by a young army lieutenant serving in Iraq. The army forced the lieutenant to take down the blog after he wrote an entry criticizing a superior officer, but the archive of the blog remains online and is extremely engrossing.
6)A Wall Street Journal article about the Primal Quest, a 500+ mile wilderness race in Montana told through the eyes of a mother and daughter team. This quote sums up well what the competitors go through:
"Those who continue battle hallucinations and blackouts from sleep deprivation. Paul Meade, a pharmaceutical sales representative from Seattle, saw a new house for sale. A moment later, it was gone. Others saw grizzly bears morph into tree stumps. During a 45-mile overnight hike, Julie Ardoin, a New Orleans lawyer, saw Elvis Presley and then wandered off the trail. Her teammate tied a nylon rope to her waist and towed her until daybreak. Blain Reeves and his team held fifth place for the first half of the race, but they quit after a teammate fell ill. "It's so hard to walk away," says Mr. Reeves, a 43-year-old lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army's southern command."
7) Very interesting New Yorker article on how the youth in China are Westernized, but also becoming intensely patriotic and turning away from the democracy movements of the early 1990s towards a powerful strain of nationalism.
8)Brezezinski warns in a Financial Times editorial against excessive US involvement in Afghanistan, fearing that we will follow in the footsteps of the Soviets. There are many striking parallels-believing in a small communist elite v. believing in a small democratic elite-escalating military presence-similar types of insurgencies, with even some of the same players
9) Frank Rich editorial about how Obama has stepped into the leadership vacuum left by Bush. He claims that events are starting to conform to Obama's vision of the world.
10) New York Times article on the debate over the value of internet reading. Is it a useful skill and should we be worried that it is replacing reading of hard print books?
1)This Washington Post article describes how the rise in global food prices affects people at the lower end of the world "food-chain." It focuses on the story of one woman's family from Burkino Faso and the tribulations she is forced to go through to put food on the table and to sustain herself in that strongly sexist society.
2)This Washington Post article describes the transformation that has occurred in Medellin thanks partially to US free trade allowances. The city has gone from having the murder rate of a war zone to a murder rate less than DC. The free trade allowances have been put into a treaty which is currently the subject of debate as its ratification vote approaches in the Senate.
3)This is actually an older Washington Post article from 2006, but it still has extreme relevance today. It describes the failure of the farm subsidy program in the United States to accomplish the goals for which it had supposedly been created. This quote from the article sums it up well-"The farm payments have also altered the landscape and culture of the Farm Belt, pushing up land prices and favoring large, wealthy operators. The system pays farmers a subsidy to protect against low prices even when they sell their crops at higher prices. It makes "emergency disaster payments" for crops that fail even as it provides subsidized insurance to protect against those failures. And it pays people such as Matthews for merely owning land that was once farmed."
4) Another article from the New York Times series on the Public Writers Project of the 1940s. It describes the movement to create the new state of Absaroka out of parts of parts of Wyoming, Montana and South Dakota.
5) An article from the Washington Post describing the blog Kaboom, by a young army lieutenant serving in Iraq. The army forced the lieutenant to take down the blog after he wrote an entry criticizing a superior officer, but the archive of the blog remains online and is extremely engrossing.
6)A Wall Street Journal article about the Primal Quest, a 500+ mile wilderness race in Montana told through the eyes of a mother and daughter team. This quote sums up well what the competitors go through:
"Those who continue battle hallucinations and blackouts from sleep deprivation. Paul Meade, a pharmaceutical sales representative from Seattle, saw a new house for sale. A moment later, it was gone. Others saw grizzly bears morph into tree stumps. During a 45-mile overnight hike, Julie Ardoin, a New Orleans lawyer, saw Elvis Presley and then wandered off the trail. Her teammate tied a nylon rope to her waist and towed her until daybreak. Blain Reeves and his team held fifth place for the first half of the race, but they quit after a teammate fell ill. "It's so hard to walk away," says Mr. Reeves, a 43-year-old lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army's southern command."
7) Very interesting New Yorker article on how the youth in China are Westernized, but also becoming intensely patriotic and turning away from the democracy movements of the early 1990s towards a powerful strain of nationalism.
8)Brezezinski warns in a Financial Times editorial against excessive US involvement in Afghanistan, fearing that we will follow in the footsteps of the Soviets. There are many striking parallels-believing in a small communist elite v. believing in a small democratic elite-escalating military presence-similar types of insurgencies, with even some of the same players
9) Frank Rich editorial about how Obama has stepped into the leadership vacuum left by Bush. He claims that events are starting to conform to Obama's vision of the world.
10) New York Times article on the debate over the value of internet reading. Is it a useful skill and should we be worried that it is replacing reading of hard print books?
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