kudos . . . now let’s move on

Kudos to the president for discussing the Professor Gates situation, laying the issue out there as it really is.  And double kudos to the president for trying to ratchet-down the controversy.  Like he said, it was a teachable moment all around.  Now, let’s get back to work.

xerox and the demise of the soviet

Ronald Reagan and Jackson Democrats gave the push that ultimately toppled a USSR hobbled by the weight of rampant paranoia that stifled innovation needed to keep up with the United States.  The Russian Communist Party kept close watch on all forms of communication fearing that users of something as simple as the xerox machine would be up to no good.  Scientists and entrepreneurs could not operate effectively in this climate of suspicion.  Repeated decades of stunted growth finally caught up to the Communist Party, who by the late 1970s found that they did not posses the economic base and intellectual capital to keep up with the West.  Efforts by Gorbachev to reform and open up the economy through perestroika were too late.  The Soviet system gasped its last breath in 1991. In clamping down on the free exchange of ideas via the Internet by requiring all computers to include web-filters, strangely enough, we find the Peoples’ Republic of China repeating the paranoia of the old Soviet, inviting the same consequences born by the Communist Russia onto itself.   Will these communists never learn?

mon dieu! foie gras!

Mon dieu!  Le President ate foie gras while in Paris.  San Franciscans would not be pleased.

identity politics and sotomayor

How we see the world is intimately tied to who we are.  The lens through which we see the world is made from the raw materials of personal history and background.  Those who have always known privilege will tend, more or less, to see and order the world from that framework.  Likewise, someone who has not experienced privilege will tend to order her or his world accordingly.  Therefore, identity politics should and must factor when considering appointees to high positions along with a host of other important factors.  Thus, I am okay with Obama’s emphasis on empathy in selecting Supreme Court appointee-Sotomayor.

100 days

“I think Obama has done a great job of putting us in the right mood. We can argue the policy details or minor mis-steps like the Chavez thing — as pundits, politicians, and policy wonks will certainly do. But in Obama we see we’ve got a leader who’s doing things (maybe even experimenting) within reason to get us out of our funk with respect to the economy and global issues like the war on terror or g’warming. Had McCain won you would have seen more of the same that we’ve seen, well, since 1980. On global warming, all others either said there isn’t a problem, there might be a problem, or there’s a problem but I’m not going ‘to the mat’. On terrorism, others would say pass the ammo, maybe talk later. The point is that in Obama we see a level-headed guy who’s trying his hardest to solve deep-seated problems the magnitude of which all of us know will grow even more if we continue with half-measures of the past. So, 100 days into Obama’s term, we’re hopeful, saying, ‘Finally!’”

(note: originally posted on CBS’ Facebook page in response to a query on assessing Obama’s first 100 days)

european vacation

Come on!  What’s not to like about the President and First Lady’s trip to Europe this week?  Having Europe and the world over warmly receive the both of them like they did makes you optimistic, that while we might be down economy-wise, soon enough, if we all stay positive and stick to a good plan, we’ll all have our game back and everything is going to be all right.  And, leading the pack through it all will be the good old U-S-A.

aig, obama, bay of pigs, and the south

There’s a passage in Schlesinger’s book, a Thousand Days, in which the author recounts how Kennedy felt burned by the CIA, who told JFK that everything was in place for the overthrow of Castro.  Reflecting on the failure at the Bay of Pigs, Kennedy concluded he was set up by the CIA.  It wouldn’t surprise me if Obama is harboring the same feelings toward AIG that Kennedy harbored in the aftermath of Bay of Pigs.  Obama worked with AIG for all the right reasons and this is what AIG does to return the favor?  No accident if you ask me.

In fact, all of America is feeling burned by AIG: I was on a roadtrip through the South last week, and, at a motel in Pooler outside of Savannah, Georgia, a bunch of hard-hat construction workers were talking out loud about their disgust with AIG.  So Obama is doing the right thing by going on Leno, 60 Minutes, etc.

Speaking of my roadtrip through the South: my significant other and I started in Nashville, TN, went to Asheville, NC, then the next day on to Columbia, SC, then Myrtle Beach for two days, and from there to Charleston, SC, then to Savannah, GA, then Atlanta, GA, (visited the MLK Center among other sites) finally circling back to Nashville via Chattanooga, TN.  Here’s a map.

I really enjoyed this road trip for the reasons I enjoy all of our road trips.  The chance to visit and see other places, walk through historic districts, take photographs, enjoy the scenery, and, well, drive, drive, drive.  Here’s a photo montage of a waterfront promenade along Charleston’s historic Rainbow Row residential area.  (That’s Carrie in the distance).  Here’s a stitched-together panorama shot of a historic Savannah, GA neighborhood surrounding a quiet tree-filled park – straight out of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.

But the South we visited last week in a few ways was and is very unlike the many places we’ve road-tripped to, and I say this not so much in the vein of  “this is right” or “this is wrong.”  I know and respect the fact that it is what it is.

What am I getting at, you wonder.  Well, let me put it this way: on all our roadtrips, we map out where Costco is, stop there to stock up for the road trip and motels, as well as to snack at the food court.  We’ve visited so many Costcos I can tell you that, in Canada [Toronto and Vancouver] , Costco serves french fries, in the Pennsylvania-New York region, a super-sized italian sausage, along with the regular hot dog and polish sausage.  A row of caskets stand upright next to the food court at the Naples, FL, Costco.  Costcos in southern California serve hotdogs in a yellowy sweet bun, whereas most everywhere else it’s the standard issue bun.   But I am digressing . . .

 . . . [August 12, 2009: Note: San Diego's Costco serves three flavors of gelato at the food court] . . .

. . . At the Costcos in Myrtle Beach and Charleston, I got not just a bunch of stares and head turns, but also several comments directed in my way.  Not racial epithets, mind you; but clear mutterings (if you will) about me and my s.o.  You see, my s.o. is white.  She didn’t pick up on it like I did. Funny thing is, this didn’t happen in the Super Wal-Marts we stopped in, or during our various walks through the downtowns we visited.  But I distinctly felt that something was very, very different in these two particular Costcos.

Why these two Costcos?  I’m not sure but I think it might have to do with the fact that generally this is a membership store and maybe this results in a dynamic peculiar (in a non-Kenneth Stamp sort of way) (August 12: note: in retrospect, I’m starting to think that maybe I am correct to use ”perculiar” in a Kenneth Stamp sort of way)  to Myrtle Beach and Charleston.  In other words, perhaps in the context of these respective communities, Costcos are “white stores”, whereas the Super Wal-Mart is for the mixed crowd, so to speak.  I do not know.  This is just a supposition, a perception or perhaps even a mis-perception. . . . A maybe . . . or a maybe not.  (By the way, I felt right at home in the Nashville, Tennesse Costco).

Is this “good”?  Is this “bad”?  “Right”? ”Wrong”?  I don’t actually know.  It might be that trying to frame my particular experience in terms of binary opposites of “good-bad”, “right-wrong”, or even ”white-not white” to make some universal comment or judgement is incidental to what matters most, that people like me and my s.o. are free to travel like we do, be served and accommodated generally in the manner we expect, and always have fun.

by the way . . .

 . . .  By the way, the bulk of my spare time is spent publishing a newletter on local economic development in California’s Central Valley, which the San Joaquin Valley and the Sacramento Valley region.  I track a variety of local economic development matters, particular what local governments and the private sector are doing to revitalize downtowns, retain and attract businesses, strengthen cities’ fiscal positions, and generally plan the local economy.  The feedback I get from my audience – economic development practitioners including developers, city staff, realtors — is that they love the newsletter because it allows them to keep abreast of latest news and innovations.  Below are links to newsletters that I produced this year thus far.

californiareview.com

. February 18-24, 2009
. February 10-17, 2009
. February 4-9, 2009
. January 27-February 3, 2009
. January 13-26, 2009
. January 6-12, 2009

use it . . . or lose it

Certain number of Republican governors are grandstanding with respect to the stimulus, saying they will not receive the money.  Really?  No problem: just redistribute the unused dollars to states who want and need the funds.  I know our state – California – can certainly use any additional dollars, and if we manage to get Louisiana’s unused share, well, we’ll just say, “Thank you Louisiana!”

kudos to secretary of state clinton

Kudos all around to Madame Secretary of State Clinton.  She’s handling the relationship with the Peoples Republic of China as she must, not as activists like Amnesty International would like.  She made her point about what we as Americans value, but was also clear that we must be strategic in pursuing this.  Without a doubt, what China does to throttle peoples’  freedom is reprehensible, and in my estimation will ultimately hurt social and economic progress there.  But, at the end of the day, China is a major power, and, as we expect from them, must be treated as such.  We can’t wish it away, from the global financial markets and trade, competition for scarce resources, Africa, the war on terror, etc.  We will need China in our corner as President Obama reaches out to the muslim world, which might be tested soon somewhere in and around the shared borders of Afghanistan and Pakistan.  To paraphrase (or mangle) John Lewis Gaddis’ thesis, our means must be in proportion to and ultimately serve our ends.