Like just about everyone else, including Barack Obama, I was surprised that Barack Obama won the Nobel Price Prize. I am not sure anyone really expected this. I did not even know that he was nominated for it.
My second reaction to Barack Obama winning was to think back to January when he was sworn in as president. It made sense to me if it was a reference to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. winning in 1964. When I watched Barack Obama being sworn in I did think of the Civil Rights March on Washington and the I Have a Dream Speech. I have the feeling if this prize was given out to in February or March of this year, the reaction would be very different. I think more people would have seen it better. It would have said something about civil rights in the US.
Now, I am on to my third reaction. My reaction now is that the Prize committee made a mistake. If you looks at Barack Obama's time as president you cannot see anything that makes this a good choice. Right now we are still in the potential part of his Presidency. He has not signed any new treaties, brokered any cease fires, or ended any long standing arguments. The truth is he might never do these things as President.
Maybe the pressure will be on now. Maybe winning the award will change the way Barack Obama approaches Afghanistan or Iraq. I am not sure that is the right way to effect change.
My biggest disappointment is that it might effect the image of the Nobel Peace Prize. I really believe in the Nobel Prizes. I think the price has added legitimacy to causes in the past. An act like giving it to Barack Obama hurts that legitimacy for the future.
I suggest every look at the list of past winners. You will see some other mistakes here, but not too many.
The more I see John Hodgman, the more I think he is a comic genius. I love him on the daily show, but he does not even show a quarter of his talent. Watching his above video really shows his skill. I was just amazed by this. His Ted talk about Aliens was really funny. When I see these clips I want to see more and more of John Hodgman.
The problem is that he is already on the best platform for his humor, The Daily Show. I cannot see how he can make use of what he does really well anywhere else in the mainstream media. I cannot see him getting a tv show of his own, a sitcom would not work, and I am not sure what else would work. There is so much in these clips. Maybe he will be able to make an internet future for himself, but will that make any money. I want to see more of John Hodgman, but I have the feeling I won't.
This week the Obama administration announced plans to help homeowners avoid foreclosure. I saw the Chairperson of the FDIC, Sheila Bair, talk about it on CNN and I heard people talk about it on KQED Forum. People have been talking about the plans and try to figure out what is really in the package. Even with the package being announced, people are not sure how it is really going to work.
I ask the question, "How important is it that the Stimulus package be fare in the way it helps homeowners?" When I was listening to KQED I was getting angry. I am not a home owner. I have been sitting in Silicon Valley watching house prices get further and further out of my reach. The housing bubble had a lot of air around here. I am angry at the idea of those house prices not getting to the bottom. I am angry that my tax dollars will be keeping the price of the house I buy someday higher. It is if I can ever afford to buy a house. I am worried my tax dollars will build the wealth of home owners.
Today on CNN I saw Housing Secretary Shaun Donovan say, "This package helps all Americans." Then he went on and talked about how all house prices go down when I house is foreclosed on and all homeowners should support this. I guess I am not an American because I do not own a house.
I am not too worried about the fairness of who gets help and who does not. I am not worried that we are not helping people who will stay current without help. Helping them is a waste of taxpayers money. I am reading a lot from these homeowners in the papers.
My fear is clear, I am worried that house prices will not reach the bottom. I have spent the last decade watching home ownership get further and further away from me. Even as my career has improved and my salary has increased, I still not afford to buy a condo without help. I am worried that if house prices do not hit the bottom there will be another bubble. I am worried that fixing the Crisis will not fix the problem. I am worried that we will back at this point again if we do not fix it correctly.
These bonuses are only a small part of the problem. The problem is a lot bigger than bonus pay or CEOs going on private jets. I think focusing on these issues is short sited and addressing these issue is grandstanding. I know symbols are important, but I want the president working to really fix the problem and not just the symbols.
Economics is not a science, exactly. But it does have enough scientific elements that it might contribute something useful to the debate.
Before the president signs anything, why don't we assemble a panel of distinguished economists -- say, the past half dozen chairs of the Council of Economic Advisers plus all the American Nobel prize winners -- to rate the different spending measures in the stimulus package according to how many jobs they will deliver at how much cost?
This is an important to answer this question. I know that the commentator David Frum is a partisan, but it is a good point. I hear lots of reports lately questioning the spending in the new stimulus package. People are pointing out bad spending and it is starting to worry me. It is starting to sound like politics as usual from Congress.
Barack Obama was elected not to be an old style democratic. He was elected with words like Hope and Change. To me that means that people wants Barack Obama will be a transformational politician. I think the stimulus package will be the first test of his ability to be a transformational politician. If he signs a bill full of old style pork, this can hurt his image and what he wants to do in the future.
I was listing to the radio today and a French man said "Now American shares the values of the rest of the world once again." This statement shocked me a little. I know that it should not have, but it still did. I am not sure when the last time that the French public was that happy with the American Government. I am not sure when they are going back to. The hated us before with McDonalds and Globalism.
I am worried that the world will be disappointed with Barack Obama. The world wants everything out of America. The world wants us to step in and help them when things go wrong. The middle east is a perfect example. We hear people say that we need to step in and act to do something. If we do nothing the situation gets worse.
I know people think Barack Obama will be difference. I know they think that Barack Obama is going to use diplomacy to change the world. It is not that I do not think diplomacy is not useful, but it has yet to solve all the world's problems. I am not saying that is not a reason to change how we do things. I am just saying that it sounds like the world is expecting too much out of Barack Obama. He is got going to fix Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Israel, Palestine, Dufour, Columbia, Mexico, and North Korea right off the bat. I wonder what the world will think about Barack Obama in one year's time.
I have been thinking about Barack Obama a lot lately. This might be because he is on the media everywhere. I cannot turn anyway in the media without hearing about the inauguration. Everyone is talking about what he is going to do as president and how exciting this historic moment is.
Today being Martin Luther King Day I heard a couple news stories with Civil Rights Leaders. Many of the stories the leaders talked about Barack Obama. It is with out a doubt that Barack Obama would not be President without the Civil Rights Struggles of the 1960's.
It struck me a while ago that Barack is the first African American to become President, but he is not the descendant of American slaves. He is the son of an immigrant. In some ways that changes his story. This means something, but it is hard to say what it means. It is like there is too much history and too much heartbreak for the descendant of slaves to become the President of the USA. It is almost someone who had a different history could bridge that difference.
The question I have heard a bunch of times is "What will be different about race relations with Barack Obama as President?" I am a pessimist when it comes to questions like this. In the recent past I have seen riots in Oakland over a white cop shot an African-American man. I grew up outside Philadelphia when they had their first African-American mayor. I am not sure how much that did to improve race relations in Philadelphia.
I am not sure how things will change. I have heard people will say that there will be no more excuses. There will be no more, "You can grow up to be anything but President." Of course this will not change the fact there are still kids growing up in poor neighborhoods with underfunded schools. I have a hard time seeing Barack Obama change thought things in eight years.
I wish President-Elect Obama all the luck in the world. I want to see him be a great president. Right now he is all possibility. I hope all that possibility does not crush him.
Now that the Barack Obama has won the Presidency and there will be Democratic majorities on in both houses of congress, they have a lot of work to do. In part that work starts now. The first big job Barack Obama has is to pick a good cabinet. I feel that a good cabinet is what makes the government run. The political appointments are one of the main reasons that Bush was the president he was.
Once Barack Obama is sworn in to office, he will have a lot of power. With both houses of congress in the same party, it will be hard for the Republicans to stop anything. There is a lot to be done and a lot that can be done.
The challenge for the Democratic party will be to governor from the middle of the country and not from the middle of their party. This is always the challenge that of a party in so much control. Many Democrats will say "the Republican did not govern this way, why should we?" If you look at the way Republicans ran this country that should be reason enough.
The further to the left they govern the country the less time they will have in office. If the Democrats go all out and try to reform health care, this might be the only think that will get done. If they want to majorly change energy policy, they might need to do that in steps. All at once it might be too much for Americans to deal with.
I wish Barack Obama all the success in the world. I hope that he has a big enough mandate to make real change. I just am not going to hold my breath. I guess Obama and the Democrats will have to show me.
I think Obama is going to win the election. I think the reason that will push him over the top is the economy. I think lots of people that go either way will kick out the republicans because of this crisis. The race was pretty close until the bailout started to dominate the news.
The U.S. economy is enormously complicated. Screwing it up takes a great deal of cooperation. Claiming that a single piece of legislation was responsible for (or could have averted) the crisis is just political grandstanding. We have no advice to offer on how best to solve the financial crisis. But these sorts of partisan caricatures can only make the task more difficult.
There is a reason what went wrong is important. There is a reason we should ask which steps were steps in the wrong direction. Without that information we might take the wrong steps to fix the problem. Remember that the economy is like a house on fire. Not only do we need to put out the fire, we will have to rebuild the house and keep it from happening again. I worry that the politics of the issue will cause people not to do everything they need to do.
I was listening to KQED Forum talk about election funding. They were talking about what is happening in the current presidential election with fund raising. Obama is just blowing McCain away. The question is will this year's election change the way funding happens in the future.
One of the people on the show said that Obama has more money because he is more popular. He used the example of San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom being popular before he won his first term and raising a lot of money also.
This reminded me of something my friend Fling93 says, "Price holds information." The idea is that price is really important. It tells companies the demand of their product. It tells companies if they should get into a business or not. It tells companies how to set their business priorities. The person is saying the same thing, Fund Raising holds information.
There is an important idea here. I am just not sure where the lines around this are. Fundraiser is good, but it can be bad also.
If you want to know more about election fund raising, look at Open Secrets. It is a good tool with good fund raising information.
Now that both conventions are over, we can look at the speeches and the facts. I have seen a lot of twitter posts and blog posts about the facts around the Sarah Palin convention speech. It should not be surprising that she is the only person who has stretched the truth. You should also check out the fact checks on the Obama, McCain and Biden speeches. I think it is really cool that this information is on the web. Every voter should check it out.
Was I the only person who woke up this morning humming John Melloncamp's "Smalltown" after seeing Sarah Palin's speech last night. You might not agree with the content of the speech, but the speech did make it clear why John McCain picked her. After the speech picking Sarah Palin seems like a much smarter pick than it did a week ago
Sarah Palin did a lot to cash in on the idea of being from a small town. Her speech went a long way to say "I am more like you than I am like them." The them being the inside Washington types and the costal media. She went a far way to define who she is. She went very far to say that is who she is and who she will fight for. Many people I know who live in small towns feel very alienated from the major American cities. I can see Sarah Palin playing well in these small towns.
I hear lots of people in the Bay Area use the term "fly over states" and that is exactly who she is trying to appeal to. She went as far as name checking the states that might be in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Minnesota. These are the places where she can make a difference. She is not meant to pick up New York or California Hillary Supporters. She is meant to pick up some of the places where Hillary did well and Obama did poorly. According to the CNN Electoral Map, these are places where
Why did John McCain pick her, because he has a gender gap problem. More women are democrats and John McCain is not going to win without closing that gap. He does not need to close the gap everywhere. The CNN political map points out some of the places Palin can make the difference.
Yes John McCain knew what he was doing when he picked Sarah Palin. I do not think she was his first pick. I do not think he thinks she is the best choose to be President if something happens to him. The VP is not about the best person to be president because they cannot be president if they cannot help win the election.
I was not happy when I read in Gizmodo that Joe Biden is Pro RIAA and MPAA. This scares me a little. There is more than enough reason to dislike the RIAA and MPAA. It is not only the lawsuits, but that they protect the industries and not the artist.
Obama's website piece about technology says that he is for Net Neutrality, but if vague about copyright and says nothing about file sharing. I want to know where he stands on the DMCA and extending copyrights again.
I know this might sound like a small issue in terms of everything in this election. I know it is not as important as Iraq, Energy Policy, or Health Care. The problem is that I work in the Tech Sector. The last two companies I have worked for could have been legislated out of existence. It is important to me to know how these things might be treated.
There is one thing I want to hear from Barack Obama's speech tonight. I want to hear that his administration will not treat the Constitution with the same disregard as the Bush administration. I want no warrant wire tapping, no spying on American citizens, and now water boarding. I want no black site prisons, no passing prisoners off to other countries to be tortured, and no holding people without charge. These are the real things that can be done to get America's standing back in the world.
If Barack Obama addresses these things in his speech he will go a long way toward winning my vote. If he does not I worry that the change and hope he is talking about is all a smoke screen.
At the Democratic Convention yesterday everyone kept on saying that Obama is going to create new jobs and he is going to create them in the areas that are hardest hit by out sourcing. These jobs are going to be good playing and for the middle class. There is a lot of talk that they are going to do it, but not a word of how they are going to do it.
I know in elections people do not give out specific plans. They do not want to be judged on the details of their plans in case they get elected and cannot pull it off. The problem is I really want details. I already know what republicans will do to spur job growth. You are saying the republicans have failed. I want to know just want you will do to create those jobs. I do not want to hear "invent in green technology and clean energy." I want to know just want that means. If you want to win over people like me, I think the plans will have to be more detailed.
I recorded the CNN coverage of the political convention. I will admit that I picked them because they are in HD. If MSNBC was also in HD on my cable service I might need to pick them.
In the first three hours that I watched, it was 80% about the Clinton and Obama struggle. Will the Clinton support vote for Obama? Did Obama do enough to reach out to Clinton and her supporter? Are Bill and Hillary to blame for being bad losers? The same questions over and over again to different people.
The next 20% were about the horse race between Obama and McCain. What Obama needs to do to win. How he needs Clinton Supporters to win. How McCain is trying to drive a wedge.
They used up a lot of time without making mention of the platform at all. They did all this without even covering what Obama wants to do as president. I think this is one of the big problems with American political news. They cover the race far better than they cover the polices and platforms. In the end the electorate is much worse off for it. No surprise that Americans vote for the candidate who they want to share a beer with and not whose policies are better.
PS. CNN, stop having Wolff Blitzer say "The Best Team in Politics." It is cheap and cheezy.
It is also an election of ageism. Everybody seems to have fun making fun of McCain's age. How come native Indians chose their "Elders" as leaders and why are older people in China the most respected as they are looked upon as wiser than younger ones? Only in our rotten civilization, we are required to "shut up" once we are past the average "dinks" age of 40. Nobody asked Hilary for a medical exam although she could have aids or STD with all the women who s...her husbands d.....
I had not thought about this before, but I should have. A friend brought my attention to younger than McCain. The point of this to mock age. I know that Obama's campaign is all about change. His message is that McCain is part of the Old Guard and that will be business as usual.
I can tell Munichmaedchen why age and wisdom is not valued in our culture. It is bcause we are always looking for something New. America was made on the next idea America was made by people trying to get away from their past. That is way experence is a dirty word in politics.
It will be interesting to see what happens with the ageism going forward. I think it will become an issue when McCain picks his running mate.
On the radio today I heard people talk about the race between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama for the race for the Democratic Presidential Nomination. The conversation was about race and the Presidency. One of the people on the radio said that Just because Bill Clinton has Credibility with African Americans that does not automatically transfer to Hillary Clinton. They went on to talk about Tony Morrison calling Bill Clinton our first black President.
I have heard this before. I cannot really tell you off the top of my head what Bill Clinton did for African Americans. I cannot think of one policy choice he made or big effort out of the White House that was Pro African American. When I try to look for it I find stories like this one. If you know any policy or law making that would answer my question, please let me know. I am wondering if I am missing something.
I know that DeWayne Wickham is saying in the story above. I think that a president should be judged on one thing, how he runs the country. How you feel about them is not important.
