Who needs an opposition party? We’ve got Democrats

RooseveltAs long as I could recall, we Democrats have prided ourselves on being the “Big Tent” party.  This probably stems from a combination of deft political maneuvering by FDR and a singular hatred of the Republicans after the stock market crash of 1929.  The downside of the big tent is that nobody inside agrees on much.  Here is an article by Peter Baker and David Herszenhorn of the New York Times that talks about how allies in the U.S. Senate are criticizing President-elect Obama and his team about a stimulus package that they claim looks a little too much like trickle-down economics.  Everyone agrees that we need more jobs created.  Even Republicans!  But nobody agrees on how to go about it. President Bush was the darling of the party (not to mention their leader), and was able to set the agenda.  But he certainly did that with a lot of support from Republican congressional leaders.  Obama doesn’t seem to be doing the same.

This does not bode well for the next administration.  If Democrats form a circular firing squad, as they did in 1994, we can expect a Republican Congress just two years from now.

And so now I’m on Facebook

FacebookHaving staved it off for years I’ve finally joined Facebook.  Here are a few initial thoughts:

I was disappointed that the only authentication method offered was old fashioned passwords.  We are still as an industry struggling with making the leap to a better means.  And it’s not like there are none out there.  OpenID and Infocards can no longer be considered new.  A question for a future blog entry might be why these technologies are not succeeding.  Indeed just this week SlashDot.Org ran a story about how OpenID is losing ground.

There is a whole different set of social rules on Facebook, and I don’t know what they are.  For instance:

  • One of my friends wanted to add detail about my previous employment experience, which is something I wasn’t prepared to do myself.  And so I refused.  Have I offended him?  I don’t know.
  • My initial “note” indicated that I don’t do much with FaceBook, and that people should see my blog.  This elicited a long discussion, not involving me.  If I don’t reply, have I offended?

Why is Facebook even necessary?  Isn’t this what we want the Internet to be in general?  Why should this form of communication be limited to one site?  For one, people are tired of spam on the Internet and so they are looking for an email replacement.  Beyond that, having one’s own web server is a royal pain in the ass.  But moreover, the comment I got more than once was that a blog is isolating.  Why is that?  What makes this blog isolating as compared to Facebook?

A Question I keep getting asked: What do you think of Obama?

President-elect Barack ObamaAs an American living abroad, very few people ever asked me what I thought of President Bush.  They all have their opinions, it seems.  And while few Swiss generally share their opinions with me, they are very intrigued about my own opinion of the incoming president.  To this question, I’ve developed a pretty stock answer: “I don’t know.  Ask me in a few years.”

President-elect Obama has demonstrated thoughtfulness in the few times I have heard him speak extemporaneuously.  He also seems to have assembled a very competent cabinet with vast amounts of political experience.  This can be put another way- it’s the same old faces we’ve come to know.  Another young president did his best to put together a superstar team, and it led us to the war in Vietnam.  All this says is that brain power isn’t everything.

President Carter is perhaps one of the smartest men in the world, and yet his presidency is generally views as a failure.  It took President Bush to eclipse him in that department, showing that failure is not limited to one party or another.

Given the choice between having brain power and experience and not having it, clearly I’d rather have it.  But something more is required: wisdom.  While it’s easy to demonstrate a lack of wisdom, I’m not sure how easy it is to demonstrate that one has it.  Again, the thoughtfulness that he has applied to complex issues leads me to hope, but that’s the best I can do for now.

Yet Another Book Review: The Official Filthy Rich Handbook

I like a book that starts out in the following way:

Remember when having a couple of million dollars meant something?  Neither do we.

Thus begins The Official Filthy Rich Handbook (How the other .0001% lives), by Christopher Tennant.  Very few of us have been in the position of having to decide which island to buy, or how to throw an over-the-top society party.  And with the economy in the dumper, fewer of us are likely to get there any time soon, but when we do, this is the book to have.  It includes all sorts of fun directories, like private clubs, personal travel management, and realtors.  While not every restaurant mentioned is out of reach of us mere mortals- I have been to Il Fornaio often, and it is very affordable to working people – certainly I look forward to the day when I get to decorate my first private jet.  Did you know that Tom Cruise has a hot tub in his?  Talk about physics challenges.

Perhaps the best way to describe this book is to borrow from Tom Wolfe who has a splash on the back cover:

Reading this handbook is like eating 12 baked Alaskas in a row…

Ah glutony!  Those looking for charity should look elsewhere.