We will become what we value

Without a critical rethinking of how we calculate wealth, or GDP, to include the benefits of a healthy and well-educated workforce, we will never stall the slow loss of our national economic security.

We need a national health care plan. We need an across the board increase in taxes to pay for quailty education curriculums, quality teachers, and new facilities in our schools. And, above all else, we need to remind our citizens that sacrafices are needed in order to regain stability. We did not become an economic giant without sacrafices, and we certainly won't remain one if we do not admit this fact, embrace our hardships, and shoulder the burden of our parent's mistakes.

We still have hope, but not much time.

A Quick Thought

An odd and always changing sleep schedule is just about the only consistent thing in my life right now. But it's not necessarily a bad thing. I do my best to take advantage of different waking hours and enjoy them for what they offer. One of my favorite things about being awake this early in the morning is watching the news networks start their political coverage at 5 am. Yes 5 am!!! I'm a diehard political junkie and even I don't want to know what's going on in politics at 5 am. Give me game scores, jokes, and water skiing squirrels!

Sigh.

Sadly, I crave the silly, non-essential stories because the media have long since abandoned covering pertinent issues in a responsible and rational manner. After all, they have 24 hours of television to fill every day. For the past three days I've watched MSNBC's Morning Joe (Fox News isn't an option and the CNN people don't randomly joke about being drunk) and they've been obsessing about President Obama's weekend media blitz on five Sunday morning talk shows and the Letterman program on Monday night. The consensus on Morning Joe: President Obama is wasting his political capital by overexposing himself.

Jokes about exposure aside, I really just want to observe aloud that there is no winning with the media these days. (President Bush rarely spoke to the people and that too was criticized) It's been true for a long time that the weekly stories in politics are set and controlled by what is said on Sunday mornings. That means a strong communications strategy will effectively use Sunday newspaper stories and popular surrogates on the morning talk shows. So when lies and distortions (death panels anyone?) have made it impossible for a fair and honest debate about health care reform to take place, it makes sense for the president to put himself out there in order to re-establish the facts by presenting his argument directly to the voters.

Unfortunately, rather than focus on the President's message, the pundits have decided it is necessary to obsess about the number of interviews the President gave one weekend in mid-September. When the President speaks to the people it is far more important to analyze his words than to debate the process story. There is a time and place to discuss new political strategies in this constantly changing media environment, but it should be kept separate from policy.

smiley

"Hey man, could you grab that end?"

The Official White House Photo Stream is quite fascinating.

I'm working on some more in depth articles for you. Hopefully I'll start turning out some content next week. Until then, enjoy the photos!

Good Shoes Bad Feet

So it appears that buying those hi-tech sneakers with impact resistance, spring cushions, and alien technology designed to magically give you orgasms (what?) don't actually help. The report shows that there may be a linkage to hi-tech sneakers and the increase in knee and foot problems. Who would have thought?

El Paso

Melissa del Bosque writes a fantastic article in The Texas Observer about the real situation at the El Paso/Juarez border. I won't inject my own opinion on this item except to say that it's a great moment to be considering this issue, given President Obama's visit with Mexican President Calderon.

Hey, that's my armrest!

One of my constant complaints when flying around the country is people's theivery of my armrest. I don't understand how people can justifiably try to wager control of both of the armrests around them. They don't seem to possibly even fathom the idea of sharing. Let's not even get into the fact that some people's body actually flows over the armrest...well actually lets:

United is now charging passengers who can't fit into their seat (with a seatbelt extender) for 2 seats. About damn time. I don't have anything against fat people (enough people are harsh enough to fat people without my two cents) but if you are ruining my quality of service then something is wrong. I can understand how fat people can call this discrimination but it's ultimately affecting the fellow passengers more than the airline.

Here's a cheers to owning your piece of seat without someone overflowing into you.