WTF, Barack?
I have been Barack Obama’s biggest fan and supporter. I worked for his election. I voted for him. I convinced other people to vote for him. I listened to his vision in his oratory, and found in him the promise of delivery from eight years of unethical, and even criminal, behavior by the Bush administration. Barack said clearly to us, that the war was wrong, that Guantanamo was wrong, that the intelligence community was bad, that our health care system was awful, that we were giving too much to major corporations and not enough to the average citizen, that we needed to repair the environment, that immigration must be fixed, and so on, and so on.
Brother Barack has now been in office for over 200 days, 2/3 of a year, about 15% of his first term. He has an incredibly wide margin of fellow Democrats in the House. He has an amazing 60 votes in the Senate. The people voted heavily to give him the largest mandate in years, based upon his intelligence, his promises, and his oratory skills. What do we have to show for our votes so far?
Barack has left our troops in Iraq and still has not defined an exit strategy. He has said that rather than bring troops home, he is going to commit more troops and money to a theater of war where he said we didn’t belong and from which he promised to extricate us. Along the way, he has continued to waste lives and money exactly as Bush and Cheney did, with no end in sight.
Guantanamo is still open and is still full of prisoners who are still being treated like animals.
He continues to export intelligence detainees to countries where they will be tortured. He has not rescinded, in any meaningful way, any of the more odious citizen rights abuses of the Bush administration, and has in fact spent much time defending those practices in court.
He has allowed health care to be tied up in committee and let health care policy be dictated by the health care, insurance, and pharmaceutical industries. He has spent the last two weeks preparing us for a watered down health care bill, likely to be little better than nothing.
He has presided over two wars that funnel most of their cost to the defense establishment, made up of private companies. He has spent billions more bailing out huge companies that have proven themselves ignorant of the most basic laws of business; banks, insurance companies, auto manufacturers, and every other type of corporate loser that would ask for money. Most of that money has gone into the pockets of the unethical and greedy people that ran those companies into the ground. Meanwhile, the rest of us have gotten nothing but deeper in public debt. Bush did his best to bankrupt the United States. Obama seems determined to finish the job.
Gasoline prices have risen steadily so far during the tenure of the Obama administration, once again making the rich richer, and obeying the dictates of an industry lobby. When given an opportunity to let the big three makers of the cars that spawned the oil glut, he instead gave them billions of dollars rather than investing those dollars in the renewable energy sources he championed during his campaign.
He has just announced that he can’t be bothered to deal with those pesky immigration problems for at least another year, thus continuing a system under which millions of people on both sides of the equation continue to suffer.
In short, Barack Obama promised us much. He promised that he would undo the ills of the previous eight years and make all of our lives better along the way.
Bullshit.
So far he has talked a big game and done nothing. No, that is not true. He has for all intents and purposes continued the policies of the previous administration, only more so. We may as well have elected Jeb to office to continue the George’s efforts. Look around yourself. Try to find something big, meaningful, and positive with which to credit our “new” president.
It was my intent to elect the most honorable man (or woman) in the race. It was my intent to bring this country back on course, to take control of the United States away from the corporations, rich white men, and lobbyists who now own it. Instead, we have gotten most of a year of more of the same. More of the same is what I was working against when I helped elect Barack Obama to the office of President. I voted for the change he promised. What change? Where is it? There has been no change. If anything, the problems have accelerated. Change, my ass.
And speaking of asses, Mr. Obama needs to get off his and do something. It’s wonderful to think about fixing things. It’s grand to talk about fixing things. But all of that is no good if all you do is think and talk. You actually need to do something, to take action. If you campaign on the promise of change, and are then unwilling to change anything, and if you have any ethics, you need to admit that you have a problem with fulfilling promises and move over in favor of someone, anyone, who will not simply preside over business as usual. We need somebody with some nuts to fix this mess we call a country.
WTF, Barack. Either do something or get the hell out of the way. Now would be good.
Voting Critically
It is getting harder every day to discuss politics, simply because the electorate is too polarized. I believe that to be on purpose, a ruse to keep people from talking about the things that matter. Politicians want this situation to be commonplace, in order that we stay disgusted with the process and don’t look at it too closely, or begin to think that we can repair the current abysmal state of government. The mainstream media is certainly complicit. They talk about what the politicians want to talk about, which has nothing to do with meaningful issues. It’s all fluff.
We are kept focused on non-issues; the age, color, or sex of candidates, not what they believe about critical issues. We don’t even talk about critical issues. We talk about the difference between pro-life and pro-choice, two meaningless word-sets if I ever heard any, and not about the deeper societal issues around sex and birth. All issues are polarized, all have buzz-words, while most mean nothing. They are words and phrases meant to confuse, sound bites meant to divide us into ever smaller groups.
As long as we let it be about Republican vs. Democrat, conservative vs. liberal, man vs. woman, and so on down a long list, the politicians and the monied elite that have bought and paid for them them will have their way with us. Thay will have the control; we will be subservient. We will not talk about the important things that could make our lives better, could alleviate the suffering of citizens, and stop the bleeding of our institutions. We vote instead on buzzwords, wardrobe, and haircuts, not substantive matters. This ludicrous process is killing our citizenry and our country.
You can help to alleviate this critical problem. Pick an issue that means something to you. Figure out why it means something to you, exactly how you feel about it, and why. Then find out how the candidates feel about it. Read their position papers, the long versions. Dig into it. See if what they say changes your mind. Look at their records and see if it matches their words. Finally, decide which candidate is closest to your position, and is likely to stick to it.
Then select another issue. Repeat. Do until done.
Islands
When you are young and free of care, sometimes you see something especially shiny. You stop and pick it up, and look at it, and play with it. Usually, the shine goes away and you get bored with it. Sooner or later, you lose the shiny thing and usually don’t even care. Once in a great while, you find something good enough to keep, and so you do. Life progresses quite nicely in that fashion until you begin to understand concepts such as responsibility, and ethics, and compassion (that is, if you ever do.)
These concepts are good things, but they tend to gum up the works. Although you may continue to pick up shiny things, and even keep a few of them, it does not happen nearly so often. Instead, you tend to notice things that are broken. So you pick up those things and try to fix them, and to make them shiny. That sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t.
Occasionally, you will run across a broken part of the society in which you exist, and you will work to fix that. That almost never occurs, at least to the extent that you will see the change that you believe to be best for society. That, of course, should not stop you from trying. A lot of things are so big, and so broken, that it takes a very long time and a lot of people to fix them.
If your tendencies are social at all, you will often find a broken person, and you will try to make them shiny, too. This happens especially if you feel you have a debt to pay, or if you believe in paying it forward. The problem is, most people don’t really want to be fixed, no matter what they say. The other problem is that unless you really know how to fix people, you won’t. The best you can hope for is an occasional success.
If you’re especially lucky, you may run across interesting and attractive people that are not very broken at all, although they may have a lot of questions, just like you do. Those people can be like magnets. One of the hardest parts of all is understanding that these people are on their own journey. You may get to walk alongside them for a while, but that is as good as it is going to get. They are as intent on their journey as you are on yours.
Sometimes all those things and people and causes that you have picked up get heavy. You want to just put them down, and start over. Sometimes you can do that, and sometimes you can’t. It would be especially good to find a like mind to walk with for a personal forever and share part of the load. In my experience, that doesn’t happen. With a new load, or an old load, you’re on your own. That is as good as it is going to get.
John Donne was wrong, in the end. Some people are islands, not because they want to be, but because it’s so hard to find someone that is going where you are going, at the same time you’re going there. You’re very lucky if you ever bump into someone like that. I’ve been lucky a couple of times, but just on the destination and not on the timing. That’s life, and that’s often as good as it’s going to get.
Islands are, by their nature, lonely places, and the walk seems longer when you’re alone. The periods just after the close brushes with people going to the same place, but at different times, are the hardest times to be alone. The island seems very small and the ocean seems very large. It probably is not good to stop, though. You just have to keep traveling. 
Wage Parity and the Lack Thereof
Inclusive of my rant day before yesterday against spoiled gangster athletes, I hate it when things get obviously, wackily out of control in society. Compensation falls into that category just now. Yes, I know, it is always a bit skewed towards famous people, but is has gotten well past the point of ridiculousness. It is having an increasingly negative effect on society. We need to do our best to turn this one around.
You know that things are wrong when a mediocre shortstop in the majors makes $3 million a year and an excellent elementary school teacher command perhaps $40,000. We entrust our children to the teacher during their most formative years, but pay her only about 1% of what we pay the baseball player, who is likely as not to be on drugs, hanging out all night in strip clubs, beating his wife, and will probably go to jail at least once in his career.
Global Warming Urgency
Not long ago, maybe two or three years, there was a feeling that the issues around global warming were not the problem of the current generation. Our generation, and the ones immediately preceding it, had certainly caused the problem through the overuse of fossil fuels: gasoline, coal, natural gas, and so on. Eventually, that was going to cause a lot of ice to melt near the poles, causing ocean levels to rise, among other problems.
But none of that was going to get serious until perhaps the beginning of the next century, that is to say the year 2100 or so. That meant that it would not be our children’s problem, or probably even their children’s problem. Most of us thought that it would probably be all right to relax for a while, and not get too worked up about finding solutions for the problem.
The Electoral Circus – The Wannabe Kings
The 2008 election appears to be on cruise control. We have untenable candidates that say they are being unfairly ignored, even though they are being ignored because they are untenable candidates. We have Democrats sniping at Democrats, Republicans sniping at Republicans, and Democrats and Republicans sniping at each other. We have celebrities joining in the fun, clouding all the issues, just hungry for more fame.
We have candidates saying stupid things. We have candidates saying intelligent things. But mainly, as has become common in America, we have candidates saying absolutely nothing in an endless stream of words. As has also become common, we have almost no one talking about substantive issues. Instead, we have people talking about religion, and “family values” for days on end. Those are minor issues made major by the Dark Ages far right; in general, they have no place in a meaningful campaign outside of the repetition of rhetoric.
The Mortgage Boondoggle
Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson indicated today that the U.S. government is hard at work putting together a program to help “struggling mortgage holders.” I have a question. Where the hell was Henry Paulson, his predecessors, and the rest of the supposed watchdogs in government when the mortgage lenders were granting loans that the borrowers were obviously going to be unable to pay when conditions changed? They were, I would suggest, sitting on their thumbs.
Mortgage lender after mortgage lender issued variable mortgages to people whose assets and incomes would cover the low payments required by the first year or two of the contract. However, those same borrowers could not have qualified for the payment amounts that would take hold one or a few years into the contract. Simply stated, the lenders were leading the borrowers on just to get the business, not to mention the closing costs and loan fees. They were all too aware that the vast majority of those borrowers were likely to lose their homes in a few years.
Yet Another Reason to Ditch Microsoft
As I have said before, I spent a lot of time as a project manager, so I feel a little naked without Microsoft Project somewhere around me. I bought 2003 Standard when I was forced to stop working, and thus use a client’s copy of Project. I used it occasionally to plan things that needed some logistics; as an example, I planned the MS 150 Bike Tour, a charity event in my area. It did occasionally come in handy.
Somewhere across the course of the last few years, I had to replace a disk drive. The old one was partitioned into two drives: K and L. That had been kind of a pain anyway, so I did not partition the new one. I just let it be 250GB of L:/. That worked fine until I was unable to open a project file sent to me by a friend who needed help. I had not applied the SP3 upgrade for Project, which has those filters.
Is My Cell Phone Going To Be Liberated?
I wrote a column a while back bemoaning the fact that Verizon does not let me control my own phone. I had wanted use MP3 files, recorded by friends and family, as person-specific ring tones on my phone. The idea was, when Fred called, to have my phone announce (in Fred’s voice), “Hey, this is Fred! Pick up, will ya!” But, alas, Verizon disabled my ability to moved files on and off my Motorola Razr, requiring that I use their proprietary V Cast service instead.
Now I read that Verizon has decided to open their cell phone system to developers, and even allow subscribers to use cell phones from other companies on their system. All of this is supposed to take place by the first quarter of 2008, which is coincidently when I should be getting a new phone under Verizon’s New Every Two Plan. There may be some chance that I will be able to have my ultra-geeky ring-tones yet!
Want a Mortgage on a New Home?
For all of you worrying about the twin crises involving housing prices and mortgages, please note that the government is worrying right along with you. According to a report by the Census Bureau, new home prices managed to tumble another 13% in October. That is the largest dip in home prices since 1970. One reason for the fall is the approximately 200,000 new homes that still remain on the market from prior months, driving prices down.
The extreme issues facing the mortgage market are also contributing to the crisis conditions. Facing a record number of foreclosures as payment amount increases hit more and more variable mortgagees, the mortgage market is in disarray. This is keeping many buyers from finding the financing they need to buy a home. The mortgage crisis may be more dangerous than the slide in new home sales, with approximately 250,000 American homeowners currently involved in some sort of foreclosure.
