The 10 Year Old Vote

The election season is all encompassing, and I've seen more than one online call for it to all just be over already.  The kid's school did a Mock Election, and he got to help out by making the ballot boxes.  They must have talked about some of the issues, because here's what he told me, completely unprompted.

"I'm voting for Barack Obama, because he thinks that government should help with healthcare.  Mitt Romney thinks that people should pay for healthcare by themselves.  But what about poor people?  They wouldn't get any health care. And that would be very sad."

I thought that was a pretty sophisticated argument.  However, when it came to the gubernatorial race, his thought process was more basic.  Rob McKenna runs a lot of ads on YouTube that he thought were annoying, so he voted for Jay Inslee.  I wonder if it was the ad interrupting what he was looking at on YouTube, or if it was because of the nature of the ad itself, a "Grumpy Old Men" motif.  I'd suggest that 5 seniors arguing in a diner about the taxation of small businesses would not be the most effective online ad format.  Certainly didn't work for Mock Election.

My Response to the State of the Union

As much as I admire President Obama as an orator, I have a cynical reaction to the State of the Union address.  The words about innovation and education are the right ones, but ultimately meaningless when so many from K to higher ed are fired, furloughed, or part-time.  (Including me, which is clearly why I feel so strongly about it.)  The false comparison between a family living within their means and the government balancing its budget is the hot new trend, but a government has nothing in common with a family.  It's a comparison that makes zero sense. We our family can't print money or pursue macroeconomic policy, can yours?  Rather than saying the government must cut expenses, like a family would, why not flip it around and say that the government must increase revenue, like a family would?  Yes, I'm telling the government to "get a job" by creating a tax system that makes sense.  When high profile billionaires are saying, yes, tax us, what is the major malfunction?  Oh, yes I remember, corporations are people now.  The elephant in the room is war expenses, and until that discussion is on the table, it's just words, words, words.

The hot takeaway is "win the future."  Seriously?  No wonder we love to go to and stay in wars, with that kind of language.  Life, the future, is something to be "won" which means taken away from somebody else.  I'd prefer to think of a future in which a Chinese scientist discovers a cure for cancer and the entire planet "wins," rather than the US "loses" because we didn't think of it first. Win the future.  I'd hate to see what means justify that end.

Getting Political

And I mean in a more big-picture way than whether or not mini marts should be able to sell alcohol. 

This article, and the resulting release of an innocent man, reinforce my belief that the death penalty in the US should be abolished.

It also supports my belief that long form journalism should be supported.  The format requires fact-checking and thoughtful reflection, more so than the exposes that steal the 1/2 day news cycle.

Wish This Would Stop the Ads

Don't Use your Kids

http://tinyurl.com/crw99l

#Cheney

Ariana Huffington said it better than I did.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/what-if-jon-stewart-inste_b_175503.html

Why is this being reported?

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/politics/2008862981_apcheneyterrorism.html

First of all, I've never really understood meta-news. Dick Cheney was on CNN. Oh, that's news. Okay, if I cared I would have watched him on CNN, not looked to the Times to report on it. Be sure to report the next time Katie Couric guest stars on Sesame Street, the public must know!

Second, I realize that ousted, sorry, voted out, wait, is there a better term, okay former officeholders go on the speech tour and make a buck here and there. Sure worked for Bill Clinton. But the gall of Dick Cheney, who looks worse and worse the more of that clamped-down inaccessible information wriggles free, to go and speak about terrorism like that? Less safe? Sure, I could be completely safe in a straightjacket in a padded room--which would be what Cheney was trying to turn the entire nation into.
Please, please, please go quietly into that good night!

New Administration=Third Culture Kids

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2008-11-26/obamas-third-culture-team/

Recommendations for the Micro Level Obama Economic Plan

Now that Obama has introduced his economic dream team, and details of his plan are out there, I'm starting to wonder about the effects on both the macro and micro level. I'm still a little worried about all the rhetoric about the "lack of confidence" which posits a "spend baby spend" reaction. I personally think that is already the problem. Not to mention the fact that increased consumer spending was the Bush Administration response and we see how well that worked. Those $300/$600 checks sure turned things around, didn't they? I like Obama's two birds approach--create jobs in green industry. Love it. So what can we do at the micro level along those lines?

1) Spend wisely--buy socks for the homeless, and an extra can of food for the food banks. Not only do the donations go to services during a time of increased demand, but also those sales taxes go to replenish state coffers. The states are already having a hard time funding services such as education, DSHS, etc. Spending money on a new Wii game sure feels good, but there's no doubling effect.

2) Do not encumber your own money. If all your money is already promised to somebody else, then it's not really yours is it? The doubling effect here is that if loan requests are more conservative (including credit card balances), then the loan grants are more conservative, which increases confidence. See how that works?

3) Look ahead instead of back. So many of us get so caught up in what we've always done, (the major problem of the Big Three) that we can't see what we can offer in the future. Been thinking of volunteering at your kid's school? Now's the time. Not only will the recipients benefit from your expertise, you will gain skills necessary in case of a job switch. Now, I know highly skilled tech folks who have been laid off, so I'm not saying a post-millennial attitude will save everybody, but change is constant, and we as individuals should be ready for it.

4) Get healthy. The health care system is so broken and overburdened, the more we can do to stay out of it, the better. The flip side to this argument is that lots of healthy people pay premiums to support those who can't get off the french fries. That's how insurance works. But if we're one of those, it's not only for our personal health but also for the common good to do what we can.

And that's as good a conclusion as any. Prez-elect Obama said it's going to take work and sacrifice. I agree. But if we're strategic about what we do, we can not only help ourselves, but our society at large. This is the attitude we need to engender, because we've seen what the me-first attitude can do. And it ain't pretty.

Behold the Power of Michelle

Where's my power?
http://www.slate.com/id/2205009/

This is History

I'm nearly in tears. There are just not enough words. We are indeed seeing a new day.

Is She Singing Yet?

Although I believe that we're seeing an unprecedented level of civic engagement this election, which is awesome, I sure will be glad next week when it's all over!

This is Why My House is Messy

http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/bigsort/

Active Civil Society

So one of the essay topics on my GRE (Graduate Record Exam, for entry to graduate school) was to take a position on whether or not government proceedings (trials, meetings, hearings) should be televised. I wrote a pretty darned good essay (I thought, we'll see how I score) UPDATE: I scored a 5.5 out of 6, or better than 88% of all GRE takers since 2003. Rock on. on transparency in government, and I also made the point that in a large country like ours, for which the distance to our nation's capital could prohibitive, television enables a wider portion of the public to inform themselves and be active members of civil society.
Then, when I went to my gym a few days later, the whole room of ladies was talking about the caucus on Saturday. "Are you going?" "What do you do?" "I went last year," "Here's how it works." etc.
It felt wonderful to know that apathy hasn't completely conquered, that these women are actively driving the political process, and that people are more knowledgeable than I usually give them credit for.

Plus, they were each and every one Democrats!!