Once More, With Feeling

So it's been a couple of months since I last posted to this blog. A lot has happened in the world--the Macondo well has been capped and awaits completion of a relief well, the Tea Party has partied on at the expense of African Americans, the Shirley Sherrod saga played itself out, etc, etc, etc--but even though the news has not gone on summer vacation, I decided to go ahead and take a break of my own anyway.

But now I'm back for one last post before I take this show on the road a week from tomorrow night and begin my year abroad in Turkey and Ireland--and a few places in between--for which there will be a new blog (details to follow). "Ruffles and Flourishes," as its name implies, has always been and for now shall remain primarily domestically-focused. Barring some occurrence in U.S. national politics/life that absolutely demands a post, this blog will fall silent until sometime after I return to the States on June 1, 2011. For the moment, though, a few more ruffles and flourishes are in order, and I think I'll do them "10 Things"-style, since that's pretty much how I broke into this blogging business to begin with.

Ten Things I Think I Think

1. I think I'm thrilled that the well in the Gulf has finally, finally, been capped and looks on track to be permanently "bottom-killed" by an intercept well towards the end of this month. That said, I think the catastrophe has been a real black eye for the nation and the administration (and of course BP and the oil industry) from day one, and that Washington really fumbled the on-the-ground disaster response and especially the political one. If ever there was a time when the earth itself was crying out for us to take a serious look at the feasibility and sustainability of our energy policy and the political will to at least start addressing the issue existed, June 2010 was that time. Yet, as seems to have been the case all too often with this administration and this Congress, a little resistance went a long way in keeping anything from happening, and it's going to haunt us. As Tom Friedman likes to say, "Have they no grandchildren?"

2. I think, on the subject of the Gulf, that it's critically important that we as a country stay focused on the area and its rebuilding. August 29 marks five years since the storm--the rebuilding from which, let me assure you, is a work in progress--and now the economic rug has been pulled out from under the people of the region. With spill coverage already off the front page--when it appears at all--and BP/government claims that the oil from the largest maritime spill ever was somehow magically gone just weeks after the well was capped (which is bull; dissolved oil/dispersant is still there) being promulgated instead, the greatest threat to the recovery is that it simply disappears from the national consciousness as Katrina has. It's not that we have to raise awareness, per se, since the words "Deepwater Horizon" will quickly conjure images of catastrophe in the mind of any American, but the same is true of the word "Katrina" and yet hardly anyone thinks about the storm on a daily basis any more. As after the storm, the spill generated a lot of attention, exposure, and idea-generation regarding an economically, environmentally, and culturally important region of this country that is often relegated to "forgotten coast" status. Let's take a lesson from the last disaster and keep the Gulf in our minds this time, and keep the heat turned up on BP.

3. I think this is where the rubber meets the road, Mr. President. As you're probably aware, the country--myself very much included--is less than impressed with your job performance these days. Eighteen months in, with the first batch of aides/advisers leaving and midterms coming around the corner, yours is no longer a young presidency, sir. Whatever slack you might have been cut or excuses you could have made are pretty much non-existent by now. If your presence is as toxic to Democratic candidates this midterm season as it was in the last round of gubernatorial races, that's a sign that you're in deep doo-doo.

4. I think I have two hints for the White House on that front: 1) JOBS, JOBS, JOBS! Nobody cares about your legislative or stimulatory accomplishments if they're unemployed/underemployed. While you're on the Vineyard next week, listen for the Ghost of Bill whispering "It's the economy, stupid!" and take that message to heart. 2) Stop blaming Bush already, for crying out loud! Just yesterday, the New York Times ran a story about Obama practicing his latest campaign pitch, using an extended metaphor of the country as a car that the Republicans (read: Bushies) drove into a ditch, the Obama-ites extricated, and, now that it's back on the road, the Republicans want the keys back. Yeah, whatever. Bush happened, it basically sucked, now move on. As one of my lacrosse coaches once preached, "Are you a finger or a thumb?", i.e., are you going to spend all your time pointing the your finger at the Bush years or start pointing your thumb at yourself and say, "Maybe my perception problem is my fault, not Bush's...." Let's face it, Mr. President: the county picked you over Hillary because cojones trumped skin color. So far, your metaphorical cojones seem to have been lacking from your governing style. Screw the "No-drama Obama" image; you're not playing around with the Harvard debate team anymore, you're the President of the United States. Let me be perfectly clear: neither the "Party of No" nor the Taliban seems inclined to listen to the Unruffled Professor, so kick ass. Now that might be change we could believe in.

5. I think the single scariest trend in America today, and the greatest threat to our position in the world, is the downward revision of expectations by those in charge, coupled with the currency of "Man-on-the-moon syndrome." That is, when the economy nosedives and seems reluctant to recover, Geithner and Obama start talking about the "New Normal" of reduced expectations, while the punditry spouts off about our one-time greatness, as traditionally exemplified by the Apollo program ("We put a man on the moon, so why can't we kill an oil well?"). Here's why: in life, past successes do not guarantee future ones, and the basketball team at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. should be able to grasp that better than anyone. Does Bill Belichick tell the Patriots faithful, "Hey, we used to be pretty hot shit but the going's gotten kinda hard so now we're going to call making the playoffs a victory by the metrics of the 'New Normal' for the New England Patriots"? Hell, no--he takes all the pictures of the glory days off the walls of the team's facility and tells the team that if they want to see Super Bowl pictures on the walls again, they'd better man up and win one for themselves. JFK, like a good coach, coaxed the country into accomplishing more than it thought it could. Now, Obama is telling us that we're still pretty good but that we had our time. Again, let me be perfectly clear: that is un-American, and if we can't recognize that, it means that flag pins, Orange Alerts, "God bless America"s, and all the other trappings of post-9/11 shows of patriotism--as well as the triumph of Palinesque prideful ignorance--have done a deep harm to the fabric of this nation. If the "Post-American world" is to come about, it's because we will allow ourselves to accept that as the global "new normal" and take comfort, European-style, in our past glories instead.

6. I think that if a President rides into office on the highest, whitest, glowingest moral horse in history and pitches himself as the moral compass of America, he'd better be prepared to take some stands and stick to his guns. Maureen Dowd (whom I normally can't stand) wrote a great column on this topic in yesterday's Times in regards to Obama's equivocations on the proposed mosque near Ground Zero. Is it the right thing or isn't it? Constitutionally, it is, so if there's some higher moral reason why it might not be, there'd better be a damn good explanation why. Gov. Bloomberg has been crystal clear from the beginning that he wants that mosque built and that, essentially, the terrorists win if we don't build it. He's absolutely right, and Obama should be backing him to the hilt. (Hint: this might be a great time to teach a lesson to the 20% of the populace that thinks our commander in chief is a Muslim a little lesson in fact-checking and religious tolerance.)

7. I think problem number 1A (right behind the new normal) facing this country is the ascension of single-viewpoint, opinion-based "news" coverage being pitched to self-selected audiences, particularly on the far right. As one of my professors liked to say, "Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts." The Glenn Becks, Rush Limbaughs, Newt Gingriches, and especially Sarah Palins of the modern punditry fly in the face of this notion, presenting opinions wrapped in lies (explicit or implied) wrapped in shilling for corporate sponsors as fact. I'm not saying I think CNBC is any better or more responsible with the truth, but I do think that Fox News et al. take a particularly insidious, cynical, fear-mongering angle that is uniquely divisive and destructive (though the portion of the country that accepts Newsweek's "conventional wisdom" as gospel should bear in mind that its editor literally wrote the book on The Post-American World). Bipartisanship already looks enough like a pipe dream; the emergence of semi-factual, heavily slanted, ideologically-masturbatory single-viewpoint "news" outlets that both self-select and cater to their partisan audiences is really harming the tone and tenor of the national debate.

8. I think that's a problem that's crying out for some presidential involvement, and that the current President should have been the perfect person to deal with it honestly. Instead, when the going gets tough, he goes on The View. Yes, Obama, Glenn Beck is an ass, but crying on those ladies' shoulders about it really isn't bringing us any closer to the post-racial, post-partisan never-neverland you promised on the campaign trail. As Maureen Dowd wrote in her above-mentioned column, "What's so scary about Fox News?" You would think that a great moralist and vessel of truth should have no problem taking on some nay-sayers; you would at the very least hope that a former head of the Harvard Law Review would be able to pick up a piece of chalk of his own and show how everything on Glenn Beck's chalkboard logically reduces to lies, fallacies, and crap.

Try this, for starters: it's time somebody, anybody, stood up to all of the aforementioned talking heads and said, "Who are you?!" Seriously: who are these people? What have they done to deserve their exalted posts as shapers of a wide swath of American opinion? Gingrich hasn't been in office for half of forever, and he wasn't exactly a world-beater when he was in charge. Palin, upon discovering that her inimitable blend of willful ignorance, put-on populist mask, and Tina Fey looks resonated for some reason with the American people promptly quit her job to become a full-time "Mama Grizzly." Excuse me?! What the f--- kind of job description is that, "Mama Grizzly?" Who elected you that? Who pays your salary? Used to be, if you thought you had a message, you put it to the people by running for office. If your ideas resonated, you won your race. If they actually worked, you got re-elected. These days, if you have a message--particularly if it is aimed at the Tea Party crowd--you run away from office and into a ghost-written book deal and a slot on Fox News. That's messed up, and what's particularly messed up is how well-fortified The Punditry has convinced the country that its position is. It's long past time for The Punditry--left, right, and Tea-crazy--got taken to the woodshed and exposed for the pretentious, hot-air-blowing farce that it is, and I'm frankly shocked that Professor Post-partisan hasn't done so. Intellectually, it should be child's play to logically parse such misinformation to expose it for the garbage it is; instead, everyone's afraid of the talking heads. Even if Obama doesn't want to pay Beck an on-air visit, why not just put forward an FDR-scale jobs bill, wave it under the "Party of No"'s noses, and put the country on notice: if they say "no" to this thing, they're being worse than counter-productive. How can you vote for that? (Incidentally, how can you vote for the current GOP platform? Read it some time; you'll be shocked.) Being no-drama only plays into the hands of The Punditry: they're going to "no" and slander Obama to no end until he steps back. Like a child without parental control, they're just trying to find the limits of what he'll let them say and get away with. Draw some red lines, already, and fight back. Isn't that what great lawyers and logicians do?

9. I think the Sorry Saga of Shirley Sherrod showed made everybody involved look bad, including the country as a whole. It showed how the far right, operating without limits, is wont to willfully twist the truth; it showed how the left, from the NAACP to the administration, is running scared from the fear-and-misinformation-mongering and won't bother to fact-check, either; and it showed us, as an op-ed that I believe was written by Gail Collins said at the time, that Obama still hasn't gotten his finger on the "black thing." (Paradoxical as this might sound, he doesn't; as one of the most perceptive and prophetic Post op-eds I read last year around election time noted, we have a black President, not an African-American one. Without the history of slavery and the unfulfilled promise of 40 acres and a mule in his background, Obama might be the product of the union of an African and an American, but he does not share the cultural heritage of the African-American community.)

But I've already hammered on all those points, so the one I want to make here is this: what the Sherrod Saga really illustrated is a worrisome look at the emerging division of American society along precisely the lines Mrs. Sherrod was speaking about in the speech from which the vignette that got her fired was lifted. As her experience with the farmers taught her, Mrs. Sherrod noted that the real divisions in this country aren't of race, but of class. Often, it is easy to mistake one for the other, but at the end of the day it is class, the Haves vs. the Have-Nots, that marks the boundary in the increasingly stratified society in which we live today. Middle America and the coasts are barely on speaking terms; Red States fundamentally don't understand Blue ones, and on and on and on. Moreover, the divisions are widening: as the Times noted recently, it's harder to find a Future Farmer of America or a 4-H member on the campus of an elite American university these days than it is to find an ethnic minority student. With the confirmation of Elena Kagan, there are now zero Supreme Court Justices who are not Ivy League-educated. Whatever the racial/gender/religious breakdown, the true diversity of the court is of school colors, rather than class or life experience. Hence, in many ways, the rise of the hated "Beltway Insiders," the propensity of yacht-toting billionaires to run as outsiders to get inside said Beltway, and the Gilded Age 2.0 blind trust in industry robber barons to do the right thing in the total absence of government regulation. We got out of the first Gilded Age when T.R. realized that there is a place for government in society and a place for regulation in industry, and the same will have to happen now. In order to do so, Wall St. and Main St. will have to come back into conversation with one another, and the country will have to recognize and accept that its Future Famers, its future captains of industry, and its future political leaders all have different and valuable viewpoints, and that all deserve a seat at the table.

10. I think that's enough of ruffles; it's time to close on a more positive flourish. (If the previous Things I Think I Think froze your liberal blood, I hope you're still with me--this is the light at the end of the tunnel.) In criticizing the Obama administration, in no way am I rooting for it to fail. Quite to the contrary, I would very much like to see it succeed and fulfill the promise that so many Americans, myself included, saw in it during the campaign. I'm still not sure why the smart, incisive, motivational Candidate Obama disappeared and the no-drama-to-a-fault President Obama emerged after Inauguration Day, but I'd really like to see the candidate's personality make a comeback and inspire the country to pick itself up and get moving. Of course some campaign promises have been unfulfilled; that's the nature of the beast, especially when pre-election expectations are so high. That said, I think the major problem with the administration so far is that it has allowed itself to lose authorship of its own narrative and message. Yes, he was dealt a shitty hand and yes, many people were excited to be done with Bush, but what hasn't been fulfilled is our excitement for Obama. I'll remember making the spontaneous run from the Hilltop to the White House to celebrate on election night 2008 for the rest of my life, and I would very much like to remember the election I was celebrating along with hundreds of other young people in D.C. to have marked the beginning of a great and transformational presidency.

While Candidate Obama emerged to a desperate-enough electorate with a relatively ambiguous pie-in-the-sky message and not surprisingly became an vehicle for millions of hopes and dreams, I think what's been missing so far has been the sense that all of the fervor that led up to the election was felt or is felt by the White House. More than half the nation--and huge numbers of its young and independent voters--were head over heels for the junior senator from Illinois, and now that he's in the highest office in the land, we'd like to see him show us some love (or any emotion, really) in return. We got excited about you, Mr. President--don't be so cool in the name of bipartisanship or some such thing that you don't harness what's left of that excitement.

Finally, while I pointed to a lot that I see as flawed or worrisome in society today, that doesn't mean I think the system is irrevocably broken or that America's time has passed or any such thing. I do think that we're in a pretty good-size pickle, but it's not like that's never been the case before, and the country has so far managed to pull through its moments of crisis and self-doubt, usually emerging stronger for the experience on the other side. I also think that we're on the cusp of a time of great change and reckoning, as economics, politics, demographics, the environment, and technology as we've known them for most of modern history are all at momentous tipping points, and navigating how, when, and where each of these factors tips is going to take a concerted effort on the part of public- and private-sector leaders the world over.

In the course of this change, it is vital that we recall President Kennedy's admonition to ask what we can do for our country (and the world), but it is also important that we do ask what our government can do for us. This should not be wheedling for entitlements or other handouts, but rather a legitimate effort to offer constructive criticism to a government that has come to seem in many ways too ossified for its own good--or that of the people it nominally exists to serve. That is one of the great strengths and values of American democracy that must not be allowed to die out; the First Amendment, in the hands of informed, concerned, and activist citizens, is a mighty thing indeed. It's time we as citizens--future farmers and future Ivy Leaguers alike--took some time to get to know one another, get to know the issues, and then take some responsibility for our government. America has always had a vast, youthful energy, but we do have some intellectual growing-up to do. Enough with the championing of false populism and willful ignorance. Stupid isn't sexy; it's just plain stupid. We have every right to want our politicians to be coherent and able to converse with the common man, but why not want them to be smart, too? Moreover, why should we so undervalue and understate our own intelligence as to choose the candidate with the lowest perceived intellectual wattage on the ballot?

At my brother Taylor's graduation from high school this June, the faculty address was given by an English teacher, Mr. Adam Cluff, that both of us had as sophomores. In his talk, Mr. Cluff quoted the character Prior from Angels in America, who says that "The world only spins forward." Mr. Cluff said that he agreed with Prior: even when negative forces try to spin the world backwards, they may slow it down, but in the end, the world always spins forward. Obviously, the point has stuck with me (now I'll have to read the play myself), and I agree with Mr. Cluff's analysis that while the negative forces seem to have been in ascendancy lately, they will not win out over what Lincoln termed "the better angels of our nature." With that, I'll let Prior deliver the final "flourish" before I go abroad: "The world only spins forward. We will be citizens. The time has come."

THE HOUSE ON FREEDOM ROAD

You betta Belize it: Global ESCAPE Team IV and I had a wonderful time in Belize, C.A. From the time we all met up last Sunday afternoon in Miami International Airport to yesterday afternoon’s parting over a last cup of (remarkably good) café con leche from the airport edition of the Miami institution Café Versailles, the 11 of us navigated customs, learned to live on Belizean time, saw Mayan ruins, ate mountains of fryjacks, demolished pounds of rice-n-beans, tortured our taste buds with Marie Sharp’s famous Belizean habañero sauce, roasted in the sun, sweated through outfit after outfit, got drenched by the beginnings of the rainy season, shook it with Garifuna dancers, “went slow” on Caye Caulker, sampled a few bottles of Belikin (the Beer of Belize), saw crushing poverty butted right up against relative opulence, and in so many other ways crammed a remarkably large slice of Belizean life into a weeklong trip—oh, and let’s not forget: we left a bright yellow, 16-by-16 foot home behind as a lasting legacy of our time there.
After snatching about four hours of fitful sleep, my trip started with the beep-beeping of my alarm clock at 3:55 AM on the 23rd. I shoveled a bowl of cereal, threw a last few items in my bag, and jumped in the car with Dad for the ride to Logan to catch the 7:05 American flight to Miami. There, I met up with the rest of the group, which was making its way in from New York, New Jersey, and Washington, for the flight to Belize City and the more official start of the trip.

***

Aggravating/Enjoyable Travel Note of the Week I: Sitting at the gate in Boston, sipping a Starbucks and perusing the Sunday Globe, I’ve been watching Nervous Nellie a few seats away fidgeting and glancing worriedly out the window for some time. Turns out she’s concerned about the fog that’s blanketing the airport; unable to contain herself any longer, Nellie turns to the gate attendant and asks, “What do you think are the chances of these clouds lifting in the next hour and a half [before takeoff]? I mean, how do we know if there are other planes flying around out there so we won’t hit them?” Mystified gate worker: “Ummm, it’s all electronic, ma’am.” Welcome to the 21st century, Nellie: the fog didn’t lift, but we took off on time and without incident.

Aggravating/Enjoyable Travel Note of the Week II: Thanks to a booking snafu, I was not ticketed with the rest of the group, and ended up being booked in business class, front row, port side, aisle seat. I’d never flown anything but steerage before in my life, and, especially given that American’s nickel-and-diming is especially noxious (you have to pay for snacks, blankets, pillows, and earphones, for crying out loud), found that the front row suited me just fine. I spent the first half-hour of the flight luxuriating in my leather seat, stretching out for every inch of that legroom, figuring out where all of the tray tables and stuff are stowed (in the armrest, apparently), turning down glass after tiny plastic glass of champagne, and scoffing at Celebrated Living, American’s special in-flight magazine for the upper classes. The extra-attentive service, warm dish of mixed nuts at takeoff, and curried rice and shrimp entrée with salad, bread, and dessert served on real china and silver were also much appreciated.

***

Unsurprisingly enough, my 96 minutes of celebrated living ended rather abruptly upon deplaning. That will conclude the climate-controlled portion of today’s service, ladies and gentlemen: a giant staircase improbably perched in the bed of a 90’s-vintage Ford pickup made a few awkward passes at the side of the aircraft before coming to rest squarely against the door, which was duly opened into the 80-plus-degree heat with 80-plus-percent humidity that is Belize on the cusp of the rainy season. After letting the less-celebrated folk catch up inside the terminal, we all cleared customs and immigration together and got the Belizean portion of the trip officially underway.

Aside from the heat, the lifestyle contrast was the most striking thing: I’d gone from business class to the land of the bicycle right-of-way (“They have to ride, you don’t have to drive,” explained one of our hosts) in a matter of minutes. Hand In Hand Ministries, the Kentucky-based organization that was our in-country host group, sent us Roxanne and her giant maroon van to meet us outside the terminal. That van, and the Starfish House to which it would take us, would be our twin homes for the next week.

After getting settled in at the Starfish, we met in the kitchen over chips and salsa (to sate those who’d missed out on the curried rice shrimp-and-scallop bowl) to go over the schedule for the week and other orientation matters with Roxanne and Bridget, the ESCAPE director our group’s leader. Once we’d gotten the logistics ironed out, Roxanne introduced to the story of the starfish, for which the house we were staying in was named. As the story goes, a little boy is walking along the beach, throwing stranded starfish back into the water. Along comes a cynical old man, who watches for a while, then chides the boy for the futility of his action: he can’t possibly save every starfish washed up on the beach, so why bother? The boy simply tosses another one back, then turns to the old man and replies: “I made a difference for that one.” The metaphor was well-chosen. Starting Tuesday, we’d be headed into one of the poorest parts of a very poor town in an impoverished country—the entire population of which is about half that of Washington, D.C.—to build a house for one woman and her daughters. We’d see a lot of other struggling families in the area, some only feet away, that we couldn’t help, but we knew that we could make a real difference in the life of one of them.

That night, we attended Mass at the local Jesuit parish, St. Martin de Porres. The celebrant, Fr. Brian, began his homily with an anecdote from his days as a student at none other than Boston College. After a very upbeat worship service that induced a serious case of “ministry envy” in Keith, our Jesuit novice, we went back to the Starfish to rest after a very long day of travel, feeling immersed in the Belizean culture and reminded of the high calling of our mission that week. Exhausted, we fell asleep to the unique drumming sound of heavy tropical rain on a zink roof.
Having celebrated the birthday of the Church the previous night (Pentacost), Monday marked another birthday celebration: the Queen’s. A former British possession—hence its English-speaking presence in a decidedly Spanish-speaking neighborhood between Guatemala and Mexico and its membership in CARICOM despite its Central American location—Belize celebrates Commonwealth Day, the Queen’s birthday, as a bank holiday. That being the case, not much work, including of the Global ESCAPE variety, gets done on Commonwealth Day. Instead, we reverted to some good old-fashioned volantourism, taking a field trip to the Maya ruins at Altun Ha with Roxanne, her husband David, and their adorable youngest son, Asher. After climbing the pyramids, we piled back into the van for a trip to Old Belize, a very cheesy tourist location that attempts to market “old-time” Belizean heritage along with a Zipline Adventure and artificial lagoon (yours with Slippery Conch waterslide access for $10BZ). Resisting the temptations of the Slippery Conch, we took a van tour of the north (nicer) side of the city, giving us an image of Belize that would be challenged by the beginning of the build the next day.

Tuesday morning, we arrived onsite to find Miss Amybell, the woman whose home we would be building, standing in the door of her colorful but obviously precarious shack with a gaggle of children and grandchildren. In front of the house (such as it was) was the 25-by-25-foot square of more or less packed and leveled soil, required by Hand In Hand of all potential home recipients, on which the house would be built. Besides the dirt patch, all we had to work with was a load of lumber, some coarse aggregate and cement mix, cinder blocks, tools, and our site bosses, Beto and Alfonso. After a quick opening prayer, we unloaded the truck and set up the tent that would offer some shade to those working beside the foundation site throughout the week.

The work went blindingly fast. In the space of three and a half days, we went from dirt patch to fully-constructed (if sparsely-appointed) house. By 4 PM on Tuesday, we’d constructed the five cinder block columns that would form the house’s foundation, built and laid the two halves of the floor, and framed two of the exterior walls. As the day progressed, many of the neighbors (some of them daughters of Miss Amybell, some recipients of Hand In Hand houses themselves) pitched in to help with the construction. This had not been planned, but more hands made for lighter work and they were welcomed onto the jobsite.

Before we’d even reached the site that morning, however, we’d had an incredibly touching visit to a Hand In Hand homeowner named Lauren, whose house had been built by the first Global ESCAPE team three years ago. Roxanne had driven us on a somewhat meandering route through the south side of the city to get a glimpse of what the impoverished half lived like, Lauren’s house was our last stop before heading to work. After seeing what she’d done with the home in three years—a remarkable transformation from basic structure to small but very personalized and well-kept home—Lauren launched into a parting soliloquy on what a blessing the house had been in her life the past several years. She concluded that all good things came from God and that she was convinced that we doing His work—a powerful sentiment with which to begin the workweek—then told us to wait one moment before we left.
Ducking behind a doorframe into the master bedroom, she retrieved a card and held it out to us. There, in a poor but proud home in the poorest section of Belize City, we beheld a picture of Healy Hall, the main building on Georgetown’s campus. This card was one of the GU bookstore staples, one we’d passed by half a zillion times on our way through to pick up textbooks or trinkets. It was a note from the members of GET I, which she read and then passed around the group. On the back of the card were the signatures of all the team members, many of whom we knew personally. It’s hard to describe what it feels like to see something like that, lovingly preserved for three years, in such a foreign corner of the world. “Hoya Saxa” doesn’t quite cut it; I think our other, unofficial, slogan may do better: Georgetown Forever!

The next days passed in a sweaty haze of sun, occasional rain, and furious work. We made so much progress on Wednesday—walls framed, planked and painted; bathroom nook floored and framed; first cuts made on the next day’s lumber—that there was hope of finishing the entire build on Thursday. As it happened, that was getting a little ahead of ourselves, but by the end of Thursday the end was clearly in sight. Another few hours, we knew, should do the trick. Caught up to the schedule of the week, we knew we’d have time to make our planned visit to Hand In Hand’s older ministry, an outreach center for children infected and affected by HIV/AIDS on Friday morning before finishing construction and blessing the home that afternoon.

The trip to the outreach center was both touching and devastating. First, we talked with the Belizean director of the center and its two nurses, one a Belizean woman and the other a nun from Wisconsin who’d spent years as a nurse practitioner in Belize working with HIV/AIDS patients. After a question-and-answer session with them and a quick tour of the facility, we got to meet and play with about two dozen children of preschool age who were attending the center that day. Closer inspection of these apparently happy, normal, young children quickly revealed the lesions on their legs characteristic of their disease. Though they are all nominally on antiretroviral drugs, ensuring compliance of these children (whose parents often don’t tell them that they are sick or what ails them) with their drug regimens is always a challenge. It was absolutely heartbreaking to see these kids running, playing, eating watermelon, and doing all the other “kid things” that their peers in would be while knowing that they were all living under what could be viewed as either a life sentence (of ARV’s, doctors, and sickness) or a death sentence (of noncompliance, ignorance of their illness, infection, and eventual death, reviled by a society that deeply stigmatizes HIV and AIDS).

Still running on the deliciously fresh local pineapple and bananas Bridget and Keith had surprised us with at breakfast that morning, we headed for the worksite and the completion of the project. A few hours of especially energetic work saw the roof completed, the final paint jobs completed, the windows and doors installed, the interior partition nailed up, and me earning the title “Wet Boy” by remaining outside to finish nailing false rafters up under the eaves despite a sudden tropical downpour while everyone else worked inside the house. Toeing in the last nail atop a ladder, water pouring down off the roof into my face, and swinging the hammer with one hand while trying to hold electrical wires out of my face (smart move, Colin) with the other, Beto finally called me inside. Another nail here, a little redecoration with a Skil Saw there, and it was time to hand over the keys.

By that point, the directors of Hand In Hand had arrived to participate in the blessing ceremony, and they brought Miss Amybell and her daughters from their old house out to their new home. After singing a few songs, dripping onto her new floor, Keith led us in a blessing focused on sharing what we were each grateful for in life, in hopes that the new home and its owners would be filled with the spirit of gratitude long after we had left. After the sharing concluded, we extended our hands over the family in blessing and then “grabbed a wall” and blessed the home. That done, Bridget handed the keys, a card, and a housewarming gift to Miss Amybell, who held them up, smiling and wiping away a tear. After hugs all around, we sang Bob Marley’s “Redemption Song,” posed for a group photo in front of the house, and then waved goodbye to Miss Amybell, clambered into the van one more time, and left the bright yellow house—the newest address on Freedom Street—to its proud new owners. We couldn’t help every family there, but seeing Miss Amybell hold up her new keys made clear beyond any shadow of a doubt that we’d made a difference for that one.

***

The rest of the trip put the tourism in “volantourism.” Friday night, a troupe of Garifuna dancers came to the Starfish to share their culture with us through dance. Though their people make up only seven percent of the population of Belize, as the dancers said, the Garifuna make a disproportionate amount of noise. Their singing and drumming is loud, to be sure, but his point was more broadly taken: they might be a minority but the Garifuna, children of the Arawak, Carib, and African peoples, exert a loud and proud influence on the culture of Belize as a whole.

Early Saturday morning, we were off to Caye Caulker (pronounced “key”) for a day of fun in the sun before leaving the country. Fun it was, but sun there wasn’t: yet another rainstorm rolled in and blanketed our one day on the island with clouds and showers. The official motto of the island, Go Slow, set a vastly different tone from the jam-packed days of construction that had preceded this one. We started out with a wonderful snorkeling trip out to the reef, then spent the rest of the day wandering the streets haggling at tourist traps, drinking coffee and playing UNO at a café, and generally going slow. Being ESCAPE leaders, we couldn’t really go a night without reflecting, so we all went up to the roof of our hotel after supper to stare out over the ocean, shoot the shit one more time, and simply enjoy each others’ company for one last night.

Sunday was a blur, from 5:30 AM (central time) wake-up to 7 AM water taxi back to Belize to 9:30 flight to Miami to 6:10 flight to Boston. After an excruciating odyssey through the T (thanks for the heads-up on the maintenance work, D line), I arrived at Woodland station pretty spent and hungry (nothing to eat that Cuban coffee and pastry in Miami just after 5). Sans car, though, I decided to walk home. Turns out the Newton to Wellesley schlep takes a bit longer by foot (with duffel bag) than by car; about 45 minutes after leaving Woodland, I finally unlocked the door to my empty house just after midnight. Fighting back the initial panic at seeing the note from my family (away camping on the Cape) that apologized for the lack of food in the house, I managed to put together enough leftovers, cereal, and granola bars to make a very late supper. Tired beyond sleep, I read a few pages, fell asleep on the couch (a time-honored tradition of mine), woke at 4 AM with all the lights on, and stumbled to bed. And slept till 9.

And so ended, for good this time, sophomore year and my time as an ESCAPE leader. I covered what those milestones meant to me last time; suffice it to say for now that those feelings have only been deepened by this past week’s experiences. It was a wonderful and challenging experience that was also deeply rewarding and memorable. I’m sure I’ll treasure it for a long time, especially as I head into the summer and then into my year abroad. I’m certainly glad to have had this taste of life in a foreign country before heading out into the world (God willing, I’ll be touching down at Ataturk International in Istanbul in less than three months).

More than anything, the feeling that abides with me from this trip is the one that I felt at the beginning when Lauren showed us her Healy Hall card and that I felt again when Miss Amybell held up her new keys. Quite simply, that feeling is this: Georgetown, no matter its faults, has a longer reach and a wider net than I ever could have appreciated before this, and it produces a lot of good people who do a lot of good in the world. We might not be able to save the entire world or even an entire neighborhood, but we can be angels to a woman and her family, and at the end of the day it’s a real blessing to be part of something like that and to have the wherewithal to have done what this group did. Few twenty-somethings in this world have the resources and opportunity to do something like that, and few of those that do choose to make use of them. Back in my multi-roomed, multi-storied, fully-wired and –plumbed yellow house on Clifton Road, I’m immensely grateful to have been one of nine students at a school that provides and encourages such opportunities to have said Yes to the chance we were offered.

Who can know what becomes of the starfish the boy in the story rescues, how many little starfish they have, what sorts of lives they live? The important thing is that live they do, and that’s difference enough for each that gets rescued to justify the apparently quixotic effort in the first place. Who can know what will become of Miss Amybell’s new home, how it may impact the lives of her and her family and any future inhabitants? Perhaps a solid structure will be satisfactory enough, perhaps she’ll take what she has been given and run with it as Lauren has. At least we helped give her a chance. And that’s something, isn’t it?

How Long's It Been?

WASHINGTON, D.C.--That's the last time you'll see that dateline from this writer for at least a year. This show is indeed hitting the road sometime Sunday morning, not to return to the Hilltop till the fall of 2011. That's a really big thought and I'll get to it, but I'm going to lead with a few paragraphs of the more political/polemical nature that you're probably more used to seeing on this site. As my last post of the first half of my time at GU and given that it relates to an issue near and dear to my heart, I hope it makes up for the two-month lag since the last one.

***

As most of you know, I spent my spring break this year in Biloxi, MS with one of Georgetown's Alternative Spring Break trips called GU HERE. GU HERE--Georgetown University Hurricane Emergency Relief Efforts--began five years ago in response to Hurricane Katrina. I never did get around to putting some words on the experience to my pictures; before going further, however, the trip does deserve a little bit of background.

Katrina, in most people's minds, conjures up images of New Orleans and especially the Lower Ninth Ward. The city and the Lower Ninth were indeed inundated; I wish to take nothing away from the catastrophe wrought there. As one of the people I met on my spring break trip smartly pointed out, however, New Orleans was fundamentally a man-made disaster: terrible errors in human judgment and the failure of man-made safety measures were primarily responsible for the cataclysmic damage suffered in that city.

What fewer people remember, though, is that the eye wall of the storm--the most intense part, with the highest storm surge, the highest winds, and the most natural damage--actually hit a little town called Bay St. Louis in Mississippi, the third-oldest city on the Gulf Coast. Bay St. Louis is just a little bit west along the coast from Biloxi; we were working in a town just in between the two called D'Iberville, in which, like in Biloxi proper and Bay St. Louis, the damage from the storm is still very much visible. In my estimation, in the poorer sections of town in which we were working, probably every third lot or so had only a concrete slab in the shape of a house's footprint where the house once was. At least one of the other two homes usually showed evidence of storm damage, too.

GU HERE was set up in response to the storm to give students a chance to go down to the coast, lend a hand in reconstruction in some of the hardest-hit neighborhoods, and also to see the New Orleans side of the story on the way back, driving the hour and a half west along the country's southernmost interstate, I-10, to spend a few hours in NOLA before turning back north to Chattanooga and Washington.

Don't get me wrong--my time in D'Iberville and Biloxi was absolutely incredible, filled with great people and great experiences that I will carry with me for a very long time. That said, I lost a big piece of my heart in New Orleans in the four hours we spent there, and it hasn't returned yet. As my parents will tell you, the second I got back on campus, I whipped out my cell phone and called home to say that, yeah, we'd had some fun building on houses and stuff down in Missi, but damn, I was ready to move to NOLA!

I've never been so captivated by a city in my entire life. We parked at the old Jackson Brewery (now a mall), walked a half-block over to Cafe Du Monde, somehow managed to seat 25 people with no wait, demolished a staggering amount of coffee and chicory au lait and the Cafe's signature item, heavenly French doughnuts called beignets, little triangular delicacies that come with about a half-pound of powdered sugar over top of them (standard order is three).

After a couple of hours exploring the French Quarter--including the requisite photo op under a Rue de Bourbon street sign--we piled back into the vans and headed down into the Lower Ninth. I don't have an appropriate adjective to describe it. Most homes are still sealed from the storm five years later, bearing the spray-painted "X" the National Guard troops who searched the area after the water drained left on the front of each building denoting the date of inspection, the unit that opened the home, and the number of dead found within. It's absolutely haunting.

We had some more spectacular cultural experiences in the Big Easy, but I'm already pushing the envelope on the "short" description I promised. The take-away point I left with was that the people and the land of the entire region had been deeply and unforgivably wronged by other people, especially by the government at all levels. Resentment towards local, state, and most of all federal government handling of the hurricane and its aftermath still bubbles acidly just beneath the currents of daily life there; it doesn't take much prodding to bring it to the surface, and with good reason. FEMA, justifiably, remains a four-letter word.

I'm sure you know where this is going by now. Gulf Coast...combined man-made/natural catastrophe...threatened economy and way of life...rebuilding yet again...preventable disaster...Katrina-esque deja vu all over again: it's time to talk about the Deepwater Horizon debacle. The first thing I'll say is this: it's almost physically painful to read the Post's stories each morning about the coming coastal apocalypse. As one resident was quoted as saying about a week ago, it's like watching a train wreck unfold inevitably in slow motion: you can only imagine just how horrible it's going to be, but there's no way you can turn your head. In semi-deference to finals week, I've only been skimming so far and I haven't explored much coverage beyond the Post, but even a story a day is sickening.

The next thing I have to say about the crisis is: What. The. F---. Were they thinking?! I'm going to go way out on a limb here and say that whatever thinking was undertaken here had solely to do with the bottom line; in an ironic echo of the financial crisis, blinding greed has hoisted BP on its own petard (only with the potential for real consequence for the firm, unlike what has happened in the financial industry). Harold Meyerson wrote a great op-ed in the Post on May 12th referring to the "Doomsday Machines" embedded in the financial sector, lurking unseen to destroy the system at some future time. He did extrapolate his point to cover the drilling disaster and other contemporary instances of severely lacking morality, but I'd like to ride his point out a little bit further here.

A couple of months ago, I went to a great lecture on campus by an innovative Shenandoah Valley farmer named Joel Salatin, who's been featured in The Omnivore's Dilemma and "Food, Inc." Though he was railing against the evils of industrialized agriculture (which are legion, but will remain for another day), one of Salatin's big themes was that the pace of human technological advance has outstripped our moral capacity. Thanks to modern science and technology, he argues, we are able to do things that we simply can't comprehend on a moral level because they are so new and unprecedented, leading us into the awful position we so often find ourselves in of seeing immoral and illogical practices develop in the name of efficiency. Therefore, said Salatin, the liberal arts education we all were receiving as students of Georgetown was vital to the future of the human race: we can always learn the science of farming later if some of us want to be farmers (or whatever else), but if we don't get the moral grounding of a traditional liberal arts curriculum in the first place, we will be unable to instinctively see the wrong in Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations--or deep-sea drilling, or letting industries police themselves, or the unregulated market, or a NINJA loan, or a sub-prime mortgage, or...

If someone asked you what you thought of putting 20,000 genetically mutant cattle on a feedlot not much bigger than the area needed for that many beeves to stand side by side, then feed them things they were never meant to eat (from corn to the brains and other non-saleable entrails of their predecessors), shoot them all full of antibiotics and steroids to keep them alive just long enough to be killed for meat while spending their whole lives wading in a vast lake of their own excrement (into which their food is dumped), you'd be revolted, right? Well, that's a CAFO, and it's not only considered "sound agricultural practice" by your very own USDA (i.e. encouraged by the U.S. government), when beef is what's for dinner at your house, nine times out of 10, that's how it lived before you found it on a styrofoam tray.

The implication should be obvious: offering a NINJA loan (No Income, No Job, no Assets); a sub-prime; a Collateralized Debt Obligation; or drilling through 13,000 feet of the Earth's undersea crust about 80 miles from land should be just as obviously wrong as any CAFO from the same common-sense morality standpoint. At the risk of sounding a bit shrilly populist, the fallacy of letting the same kind of people who seek to boost their own bottom lines (and line their own pockets) with such "innovations" regulate themselves should be equally apparent. Memo to the "the government is the problem" crowd: how's that market self-regulation working out for you?

The ultimate cynicism, of course, is that the benefits of these utterly immoral innovations go to their inventors, while the costs of catastrophic failure are socialized, whether through government bailouts of the financial sector or massive federal mobilization to contain an oil spill. There are some things, like those mentioned above, that it should be pretty clear to anyone with a functioning moral complex that you just plain shouldn't do. Drilling where BP was drilling is like sticking a needle down into the deepest, hardest-to-reach recess of your body to draw blood; you'd better hope there's a truly "fail-safe" equivalent of the oil well's blowout preventer to shut things down if the needle happens to break off deep inside you.

That's the best analogy for the spill I've come up with: we stuck a needle way deeper into the Earth than we were ever meant to, it broke because we didn't fully understand what we were messing with down there (!), and now no one's sure how to stop the bleeding. The blood analogy is especially useful for understanding the spill because of the environmental consequences: just as blood is one of the most toxic substances to the human body when found outside of its normal place in the circulatory system, oil released unchecked into the environment is horrific. I won't retread the Exxon Valdez comparison--that coverage is easy enough to find elsewhere--other than to say that Prince William Sound is still very obviously feeling the effects of that disaster today; there is already serious talk of this spill setting a new standard for oil-spill catastrophes.

In the case of the Gulf Coast, moreover, the environmental effects will be quickly and harshly tied into economic effects for local residents. No matter what happens to the "cute" animals (sea turtles, pelicans, dolphins...) and the beaches or how you feel about that, consider this: thanks to BP's greed, an entire way of life and virtually the only source of income other than the casinos on the Gulf Coast will be destroyed for at least a generation. The Post ran a heart-wrenching feature about a week ago on a fisherman whose father made his living out of the Gulf back when it was the seafood capital of the world (it was only eclipsed in the last couple of decades) and who has carried on the family business. The shellfisheries have already been closed by federal fiat, likely never to open again in this man's lifetime. He knows no other trade; he cannot hand his operation off to his son as he planned. After vowing on Page One to never sell his soul in such a way, by the end of the story he goes meekly to put his name in a hat for BP's daily employment lottery. The only thing left to fish for in the Gulf these days is oil; the region's famously skilled fishermen have been reduced to working on contract for the very people who destroyed their cultural heritage and way of life, hoping each day for their names to be called to have an opportunity to go out and skim oil off the water and into the very holds they used to fill with fish.

Regardless of whether or not BP collapses from the expense of the cleanup efforts, they've already torpedoed the traditional ways of life and livelihood of a very culturally rich part of the country. For anyone who's ever enjoyed a fresh oyster, a rich gumbo, or a shrimp etouffee, consider that those dished all evolved thanks to the Gulf's bounty. As if the continued rebuilding from Katrina wasn't challenge enough, making a traditional area dish will now likely require importing or captively raising the main ingredients. That is immoral, and it is shameful.

***

On that happy note, I'll revisit my lead and tack on a post-script commemorating the completion of my first half of college. As of 2:25 this afternoon, when I turned in my last exam, I'm two years, [redacted] dollars, and a whole lot of life experience into this Georgetown thing. I've seen some of my very worst days here; I've also seen some of the very best. I've thought there weren't any of "my people" amongst the 6,000 Hoya undergrads; I've been humbled and proven wronger than wrong in finding some of my most treasured friends here. I've learned the difference between my degree and my education; I'm still learning how to balance the two. I've ESCAPEd, I've learned the Jesuit ideals and what they mean in my life, I've become a blogger, I've agonized over my major, I've seen the grand life plan my high-school-aged self concocted go up in smoke, and I've learned to appreciate all of that and more. I've certainly gotten older (I'm 20? WTF? [I hear a lot of guffawing from some of my loyal readers, but 20 was a big deal once for you, too, and you know it!]) while I've been here; here's a little attempt to see if I've grown any wiser along the way.

As most of you know, last year was the hardest of my life. All the gory details aren't relevant anymore; it was just a hell of a lot harder from September to March than anyone ever expected, most of all me. I thought I'd love it here, thought I'd "find my people," thought I was finally off the the races of Real Life. Not so fast, as it turned out. Depression, loneliness, homesickness, workaholic-ness, and a bunch of other ugly little "ness"es got in the way. Let's just say I wasn't my best self last year, and I sure didn't learn to appreciate Georgetown properly. Thankfully, there was a very strong ray of hope by the end of last year, and I left here hurriedly but optimistic that Act II would be a lot better than Act I.

With about 60 hours left here until sometime after May 27, 2011, when I'll finish exams at the National University of Ireland, Galway, let's hear a "Hoya, Hoya Saxa!" for the dear old Blue and Gray. Hoyas always yell "How long's it been?" to lead into our fight song; I'll try to answer the question as it relates to my time as a Hoya so far.

How long's it been? Last May 9th, I took my International Relations exam, packed the van in such a haste as to forget my toiletries in my room, and hauled ass, utterly spent. Tonight, I'm deliberately avoiding the packing project I haven't started yet. (Of course I'll be all boxed up when you arrive on Saturday, Mom!) Sure, blogging's kinda fun, but the real reason is that I'm simply not ready to think about leaving. There's so much to look forward to--a week in Belize, starting a week from Sunday; a semester in eastern Turkey, starting August 25; and a semester in Galway, Ireland, starting next January--but closing the curtain on this year and saying goodbye to the Hilltop for that long is simply too big a thing to contemplate right now. A "180" doesn't even begin to do justice to the changes I've undergone in the past 369 days.

Better, I think, is the example I thought of when I first returned this year. Remember the end of "It's a Wonderful Life," when Jimmy Stewart leaves the dystopian Pottersfield fantasy the angel Clarence puts him in and comes back to the real world? He simply can't contain himself, running up and down Main St., shouting hello to every person and building he sees, seeing a new value in each of them that he never saw before and simply bursting with newfound life. That was me when I came back here in August, and I haven't really stepped down off of Cloud Nine yet. For the first several weeks of school, I joined a new activity or club at a rate of about one every 36 hours; almost every night, I'd walk around campus and the neighborhood and call home, bursting with my own newfound happiness and life energy, and simply unable to contain it. "Hello, Healy Hall! Hello, Intercultural Center--you sweet old thing, I might have all my classes in your windowless bowels, but I still love you! Hello Lauinger Library, embodiment of all that was wrong with 70's architectural aesthetic! Hello Leo's dining hall, purveyors of the food (?) Georgetown loves to hate!"

Just as Jimmy Stewart's greatest joy and ultimate salvation is found when he returns home to his family and the townspeople who are his best friends, though, my greatest joy and development was to finally start finding friends here. They weren't few and far between and they hadn't been hiding--I'd been the one under a rock, and once I started looking, I found "my people" everywhere. Let's not get carried away here; there are still people, places, and things here that make me roll my eyes and say "Oh, Georgetown!", but at the end of the day, I'm one happy Hoya.

What happened? I haven't been introduced to my Clarence yet, but I firmly believe that he's out there somewhere and that he earned his wings (Lord knows I made him work overtime for 'em!). More temporally, though, I've found a sense of place here through the people I've met that have given me a sense of belonging; people that clearly care about me, and that I care about right back. Basically, that's what was missing last year, and I paid the price--feeling friendless in the midst of 6,000 people is a hard way to live. To appropriate a phrase from one of my favorite Jesuits here, Fr. Ryan Maher, while my progress towards my degree has remained on track, I've finally started getting the education that is the real goal of my time here. A GPA is just a number and a diploma's just a piece of paper with fancy words I can't read on it; each pretty much worthless unless I can connect them to some real personal growth and meaningful relationships. I think I've finally started to get it together in that department.

Just a couple of nights ago, I ran into one of my best friends and we ended up walking around campus, just talking. At one point, sitting on some stairs overlooking the football field and watching the sun set over the Potomac, she asked if I ever felt I took this place for granted. I had an answer ready for her; it's something I think about a lot. The answer was, "Not as much as I might if last year hadn't been so bad." I've finally started to see the benefits of having been tried like that. If I hadn't had to work so damn hard at learning to love this place, I probably would take it for granted. Instead, I can honestly say that there have been very few days this entire year when I haven't gone to bed at night without feeling a deep gratitude towards and sense of connection to this school and the people here. And that, to me, is a true blessing.

In fact, one of the things standing in the way of packing up right now is a sense that I'm just finishing my first year of college. If I'd had two years to learn to take Georgetown for granted, I'd be totally psyched to go gallavanting across Europe for a year. As it is, all I can think of is that I've finally had a year of feeling like I've got a handle on this place, from friendships to ESCAPEs to lattes to half-pound burgers to dinners with Jesuits to the Dupont Circle farmers' market to beautiful long runs around Arlington, over Memorial bridge, around the monuments, and back up the Potomac river. Every so often I have to pinch myself: how many people get to roll out their door and have all that at their fingertips every single day?

Finally, there's this readership. Yes, y'all. We all know I've got enough opinions/hot air to go around; it's nice to have so many people who actually seem to want to hear it. Go figure. Part of the reason I datelined this post was as a little preview of coming attractions: get ready for BELIZE CITY; ALANYA, TURKEY; GALWAY, IRELAND; and probably another exotic locale or two along the way. I won't actually have my computer with me in Belize two weeks from now, but I'll try to encapsulate the experience as soon as I'm back in the First World. I certainly owe it to you all: in response to my request, you've more than paid for that trip. I've opened up a commanding (and still-growing!) lead in team fund-raising for the trip, covering the entire cost of my participation and then some. I've been absolutely floored by the response I've gotten (as has been the program director!); you all deserve a huge thank-you that I haven't figured out how I can every properly express.

I am, finally, about out of gas. It's been a pleasure to share this little foray into the blogosphere (love that word!) with you all over the past year and a half and I very much look forward to providing you with updates of my future adventures. I'm not exactly sure how that will look yet; I might start a new blog and leave this one for domestic political use, keep writing on this platform, or mix the two. No matter what, you'll be informed of where and when to check in for what I hope will be some fun and interesting travelogue.

Till senior year, that's all from Washington, folks! Happy summer, and HOYA SAXA!

Obamacare, Here We Come

With the House looking set to vote on and likely pass national health care on Sunday, the crown jewel of President Obama's (and most of the Democratic party's) legislative agenda is within tantalizingly close reach. The Republicans are setting their heels to resist this thing tooth and nail in both the House and Senate, but it's really looking like the United States might be just about ready to join the developed world in offering universal health care by Monday morning. For better or worse, we're about to take the plunge, and after a lot of soul-searching, I'd argue that what should have been incontestably "for better" has shamefully become "for worse."

Today's Post quoted House Minority Leader John Boehner as saying that "The American people are saying 'Stop!' and they're screaming at the top of their lungs." Republicans, he vowed, will "do everything that we can do to make sure that this bill never, ever, ever passes." The sad part is that he's got a point, at least with the first half of that statement. Thanks to the administration and the Democratic leadership having made an utter hash of this bill, people have every reason to be screaming "Stop!" on fiscal grounds, regardless of all the other baggage (kickbacks, abortion, and all the other goodies buried in this unpalatable sausage) this bill carries. The farcical calculations of the enabling book-cookers at the Congressional Budget Office notwithstanding, this legislation simply doesn't add up. If this were the late 1990's, with a budget surplus and a healthy economy, I'd be inclined to say "Pass it first, we can always go back and fix it later." Sadly, given the shambles the economy is currently in, I simply do not believe that a bill like this can be passed in good conscience.

I'd argue that Congress knows it, too. As if passing this thing through the back-door process of budget reconciliation--a parliamentary tool never intended to be used on legislation this big--wasn't slimy enough, the House has now dusted off yet another convoluted, cover-my-ass measure to avoid taking any credit (i.e. responsibility) for this thing. I have no idea what in the world convinced Pelosi and her Oompa-Loompas this might be a good idea after the furor raised by the prospect of reconciliation, but she has decided that the best way to massage this thing is to pass it without even acknowledging it. Why does Pelosi like it? Because "people don't have to vote on the Senate bill," that's why. If she thinks that's going to save Democratic skins in November, she probably deserves to lose the leadership, if not the majority.

As if taking pride in finding a way to weasel out of actually putting this bill per se on anyone's voting record didn't show enough gall, Pelosi was quoted today as saying that the bill is "a triumph for the American people in terms of deficit-reduction." Um, bullshit. If I was about to pass a triumphal piece of legislation, I'd want that sucker front and center on my voting record. If I didn't, my constituents ought to be worried about me. Based on the deadlocked, bitterly partisan, compromise-free zone the U.S. Congress has become, I'm not sure that it would be realistic to hope for a second chance at health care under Obama if this one doesn't go through, no matter if he's elected to a second term or not. Based on his mishandling of this process from start to finish, that'd be just too damn bad.

I seem to recall Candidate Obama--then working in the Congress himself--deploring the petty, partisan, small-minded embarrassment that body had become. What on Earth caused President Obama to cast aside his own logic and entrust the drafting of the bill to that very same institution is beyond me. I do believe that this country elected him with a mandate for change, and letting someone else make the sausage for his signature domestic agenda item was, in a word, shameful. You're the President of the United States--lead, dammit! And do it from the front: it took until just recently for Obama to actually articulate his own vision of his legislative holy grail in front of some real, live Republicans, and even then it was basically an edited version of the Senate bill. Fixing partisanship does not mean waiting on Congress to fix itself. It's clearly incapable of that. If you've just been given such a mandate for hope and change, Mr. President, why wait around for Congress to give you some to sign when you could have written it yourself (presumably without "Cornhusker kickbacks" and all the other junk the Congress would inevitably cram into it) and then served it up for a vote with the kind of intellectual, rhetorical-flourishy, hope-and-changey message you so like to give? If you're going to be "the law professor," teach this country why it needs your bill. If you're going to be the Chief Executive, execute.

At this juncture, I agree with the Republicans: it's in the national interest to tear up this bill and start again. Not that I trust the Republicans to follow through on the starting again end of the deal, but I don't trust the Democrats willingness or ability to improve the bill after "passing" it enough to root for their success. I can't productively criticize Pelosi, Reid, or the Congress much more than I already have, other than to say, Shame on them, and their constituents should validate their elected representatives' terror of them at the ballots this fall. But shame, too, on Obama and the White House for being just as reluctant to attach his name and reputation to what was intended to be his seminal achievement as the Congress has been, albeit under the guise of post-partisan leadership. Declining to write your legacy the way you want it isn't leadership, it's cowardice no matter how you slice it. The great Presidents have been remembered as such not for their willingness to sit around waiting for someone else to bring their priorities to them for signature but for their proactive role in shaping and authoring their key initiatives as much as possible. The author of the Declaration of Independence and founder of the American liberal democratic tradition, Thomas Jefferson, went so far as to write his own epitaph. If Obama couldn't be bothered to craft and defend his prize, dare I say that maybe he doesn't deserve to see it realized?

At the end of the day, Obama's failure to take authorship of his own destiny is what I see as the great shame and sadness in this badly-botched process. Not owning it from the start opened the door for Congress to do so, when the risks of letting that happen should have been glaringly obvious all along (kind of like trying the architect of 9/11 in downtown New York City). In a farcically fitting ending, Congress itself has now settled on an ultra-sleazy method of doubly insulating itself from the passage of its own excrement. While head-in-cement syndrome is par for the course in Congress these days, it was not expected of Obama, and his succumbing to the commonest of Washington insider ailments is what ultimately doomed what should have been a defining, triumphal "Welcome to the 21st Century" moment for this country to become Pelosi's "triumph" of cowardice, waste, and outright untruth. If ramming this through against the wishes of Americans is a shame, selling something no one will take ownership of for its obvious brokenness as a fiscal triumph is an outright sin.

As one of my professors likes to say, "Never underestimate people's intelligence, but never overestimate their information." "Professor" Obama's fundamental failing in this process was to ignore both halves of this dictum. Given a chance, the country has been known to formulate a coherent opinion of what it wants, whether or not Congress sees things the same way. On Obamacare, the White House never gave us that chance. Obama should have crafted one of his ballyhooed orations and delivered it to the people, making a clarion case for his agenda. If that was indeed the kind of hope and change America wanted or could be persuaded that it wanted (after all, a leader is supposed to be able to get others to want what he wants and make them think it's their own idea), America could have ganged up with Obama and rammed (sensible) health care down Congress's throat rather than the other way around.

Welcome to the sorry and shameful state of partisan politics today. If we can't even trust St. Obama to present us with truthful information, thoughtfully considered, and then to trust our collective intelligence to come to the right conclusions with it, we should indeed be screaming "Stop!" the madness at the top of our lungs. With the halfway point of one of the most widely-anticipated terms in recent history rapidly approaching, it's time for some serious soul-searching at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. There's no hope in following the old truism about insanity, doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result every time. Congress has proven that it can't be trusted, so why trust it again and again and hope for the best? A chief executive of Obama's political and rhetorical skills and with the kind of approval ratings and connection to the public that he began his term with in sharp contrast to his predecessor ought to be clever enough to overcome 535 reactionary, election-oriented cranks by generating real popular support for his agenda. At least taking some ownership and authorship of that agenda--in short, showing us that he's in fact glad to be the President, as a recent Post op-ed argued--would be a good start. Absent that, what are we left with but plus ca change we can't believe in?

A "Millennial" Manifesto

Yesterday, I read an opinion piece urging President Obama not to abandon the crucial under-30 voter bloc, the so-called "Millennial" generation that mobilized so much to help get him elected. The theory was that my generation is the most liberal since those that grew up under the New Deal and is unusually politically active for our age group, both of which trends should in theory be key to keeping Democrats in power and keeping Obama's agenda on track (!). On top of all that, we've got arguably the most at stake: it's our tax dollars that will attempt to pay down the massive debt that's growing by the day, ours could be the first generation to grow up with universal health care, and so on and so forth.

That piece motivated me to write something I've been thinking about for a long time, namely my version of what I believe should be the political agenda of the Millenials: what we want from government, what we don't, and how we want our government to look in the 21st Century. Bear in mind that this is coming from a registered Democrat with a strong self-identified independent/conservative leaning. Still, I hope it serves as a reasonable starting point for thinking about where we go from here.

What We Want from Government

1) Moral courage in office: elected officials that take the long view and do what's right for the country instead of what's politically expedient at the moment. Constant election-driven politics in Congress are a big part of the reason for the "deadlock" we're seeing now.

2) A responsible budget. Individuals and states are required to live within their means; surely the federal government could at least make an honest effort to do so. Taking on debt is an important federal power and one that should remain exclusively in the federal purview, but the kind of tax cutting/expenditure binging trend we're on now is unsustainable.

3) Coherent and realistic tax law. Might be progressive, might be flat. That's a task for those with better economics backgrounds than mine. Still, the loopholes, exclusions, credits, and such have got to be taken out, or at least brought under control. There's nothing inherently wrong with tax credits, but there can be too much of a good thing.

4) A realistic plan for the future of health care. It might be time to make universal coverage a reality (it probably is), but we've got to try to get it as right as possible the first time instead of ramming it through via budget reconciliation to make a point. Are the Republicans out of control in their "Party of No" thing? Yes. But they also raise some legitimate points founded in real ideological differences, and those need to be heard and, if possible, respected. As Charles Krauthammer pointed out in his column today, it's fallacious for Obama to argue that Americans support his bill because they like its components. Krauthammer argued that if the government offered a steak to every citizen every Monday, ice cream on Tuesday, Flowers on Wednesday, etc. that everyone would be happy to get the handouts individually, but probably less than thrilled if they could only get them in one big bill that happened to control 1/6th of the economy, added untold zillions to the national debt, and also mandated how the steak should be cooked. That's a fair criticism, and it accurately identifies the underlying issue: contra the GOP, the country is ready for health care. Contra Obama and the Dems, however, we're not ready for health care at any cost.

5) A sensible foreign policy focused on maintaining U.S. power and predominance in the world and keeping the country safe without unnecessarily entanglements. OK, that might be the holy grail of security studies as a field and no one's found the just-right balance yet, but it's probably safe to say that the war in Iraq was a mistake, the war in Afghanistan may have been necessary but should have been prosecuted better, and that the administration's current policy of bending over backwards to accommodate China is absurd. It's crazy first of all because we should never have allowed ourselves to become a Chinese vassal in the first place and also on principle: the President of the United States does not bow--literally (Japan) or figuratively (China)--to anyone. Thankfully, declinism hasn't progressed that far yet.

6) The return of common sense and morality to government. I went to a fascinating lecture by a "renegade" organic farmer last week and one of his take-home points was that human scientific and technological progress has come so far and so fast that we've actually outstripped our own ability to cope with what we're creating. We're creating foods, goods, and ideologies that we simply cannot physically, mentally, or emotionally metabolize. It should be government's role to see the bigger picture and keep the best interests of the citizens at heart, which endorsing things like industrial farming surely is not.

7) A sane re-calculation of the balance between young and old in political influence. Again, it's government's job to give voice to those who don't really have one, and it takes courage to do that (the AARP has a lot more political influence than the average infant). Still, years of kowtowing to the AARP--which is only growing in size and influence as medical technology keeps people alive for such a long time that the population pyramid has been inverted--have played a big part in creating our fiscal imbalances. Medicare and Medicaid need reform, and the savings (and then some) need to be invested in public education and paying down the debt so that my generation and all younger Americans can stand a fighting chance of getting ahead for ourselves, if that's still even a possibility. Mandating downward mobility because no one will stand up to interests like the AARP is, frankly, un-American.

8) Environmental conservation, climate control, and resource management. Unbridled capitalism and self-interest have led to shamefully poor resource management in so many areas, from collapsing fisheries (seriously, enjoy your seafood now) to clear-cut forests to holes in the ozone layer. This stuff doesn't get destroyed overnight, and it takes far, far longer to regenerate--again, if able. If we put the right incentives in place, we could be off of our oft-cited "addiction to foreign oil" in a big hurry. Forget cap-and-trade: taxing polluters until they howl would do some economic damage in the short run but would set the best minds in the country into overdrive to come up with solutions. If we could have our best and brightest work day and night to create the nuclear bomb and the space program, surely we could find today's Einstein of energy solutions to create the bright idea that's going to own the post-petroleum world economy. Cornering that market now will more than pay for itself economically in terms of the short-run damage of the high taxes that created it, to say nothing of the environmental and quality-of-life payoffs to all citizens.

9) Defining a sensible role for a 21st-Century federal government. We could do a lot better than the infamous Washington bureaucracy we've got now, and once again we're just a good dose of spine away from having something better. We need to demand an efficient, meritocratic, bipartisan government that has a clear sense of the long-term national interest both at home and abroad, as well as a clear vision of how to bring that "more perfect Union" to fruition. Government should be limited, but that does NOT mean, as the "Party of No" and especially the Tea Party circus would have it, that the United States should have a little-bitty government with a nominal executive. Weak government and non-intervention led to the current financial crisis and our international position is far too deep-rooted and important to the cause of democracy worldwide for the U.S. to turn to weak, isolationist, "front porch" conservative policies. As plenty of (I think) reasonable conservatives (like Teddy Roosevelt) have noted, it is government's role to referee the marketplace to prevent unfettered capitalism from creating things like mortgage-backed securities bubbles. Like the executive and the legislature, government and the markets must be set in tension with one another: the market has to be free to be as robust and independent as possible, but the government has to ride herd on it at all times, wielding the "big stick" when self-interest gets the better of national interests.

10) Inspirational leadership. It's time to open the doors to intelligence and energy in politics at all levels. Remember how tantalizing the rhetoric of Candidate Obama was? In my opinion, a big part of the reason behind President Obama's flagging popularity is that people saw in him the first truly transformational executive of any of our lifetimes, and his failure to deliver on that promise so far--arguably due in part to the pettiness of the 535 Fools on the Hill that are dead-set opposed to ANY transformation whatsoever because it would mean they would all be seen for the frauds they are--has led to mass disappointment, perhaps even more than the "disillusionment" with his agenda that so many like to point to. America has a long tradition of "City on the Hill" rhetoric (not an unknown phenomenon in Obama's speeches), contending that we're some kind of exceptional example to the world of what liberty and justice for all is supposed to look like. If we're going to hold Tiger Woods to superhuman standards and he's only a golfer, why shouldn't we demand the very best in governmental officials, particularly the President? "Just-folks" is fine at the block party. The President of the United States should be a true "first citizen," a guiding light that shines so brightly that it can provide direction even to the "City on the Hill."

Our End of the Bargain

No 10 points here: this is the (deceptively) easy part. If we're going to demand moral courage and transformative leadership from government, it becomes (as if it ever wasn't) our supreme civic duty to have the moral courage to unfailingly and unflinchingly hold our elected representatives to those ideals. Don't like what they're doing for you? Throw the bastards out--but for real this time. We've been saying that for years; what no one wants to admit is that throwing them all out would require taking responsibility for governing ourselves. As long as we tolerate bloated, self-interested, head-in-cement-syndrome-afflicted leadership, we can point the finger. It's time to start pointing the thumb at ourselves as a polity: Why don't we demand more? Why have we all bought so unquestioningly the biggest bill of goods in American politics, namely that there is some sort of impossibly high bar to entry into our popular government? If that bar is anything other than money, then how in the hell did 90% of our Congressmen and -women clear it? We live in the most advanced democracy on Earth: the barriers to entry aren't really that high at all. Constitutionally, they consist of age, citizenship, and residency requirements. If you're of age (25 for the House), can vote, have been a citizen for seven years (House), and live where you're campaigning, congratulations! You officially have the Constitutional right to "throw the bastards out." Anybody with a plan that hasn't done so yet is letting down their end of the bargain and accepting government that's worse than it could be.

That brings us full circle: in about five years or less, the "Millenials" the Constitutional clock is going to start ticking on the "Millenials." Having the government we wish to have is about to become our responsibility. As an unusually politically-active and--it seems--rationally-minded generation, I can only hope that we as a group take a good look in the mirror, point the thumb at ourselves, and take up the mantle. Our country hasn't been doing right by us. How will we do by our country?

S.O.T.U, Day-After Edition

Thanks to some skillful scheduling, I don't have Friday classes, so I thought I'd add to my usual Friday workload of dropping by our Chaplain-in-Residence's apartment to watch The Office at 9pm (she always bakes; tonight's "Death by Chocolate") by adding another post about the speech last night, developing some of the ideas I tossed out there in last night's post along the way.

***

Quote of the speech I: "We face more than a deficit of dollars right now: We face a deficit of trust."

Couldn't have said it better myself. People just plain don't trust the United States Government right now, with the Congress (especially the Senate) probably leading the pack but none of the three branches looking too great right now. Obama pointed the finger at the "fourth branch"--lobbyists--for this phenomenon; I'd say that's only part of the problem. A big part, to be sure, but it still fails to account for the parochialism and small-mindedness I wrote about yesterday. The Senate can't even be accused of looking at the trees and not the forest right now--they're too focused on the twigs.

Quote of the speech II: "The nation that leads the green economy will be the nation that leads the world economy, and America must be that nation."

Also true. Promptly offshoring all the manufacturing jobs in wind power (we invented the technology but we import the physical components from China) was a good start. Not. We have got to do better than that. It used to be that buying a home was the surest way of "buying American." That's no longer true, but it could be again if we get serious about designing and building or retrofitting green buildings (solar panels on the roof, greenhouses off the back, whatever).

Random thoughts and wrap-up:

I broached a pretty big topic by bringing up childhood obesity and industrial food production last night. That could be an entire column, or even a book or several (it has been). I started thinking seriously about this issue while on my NOLS course over the summer because one of my best friends on the trip was an Ag major at Texas A&M. He's devoted his studies to figuring out the future of farming, and it was fascinating to hear him tell about the way things are and the way he thinks they should be for a month. This is a guy who earns spending money by growing organic vegetables in his backyard at school and selling them to the organic restaurant around the corner. He's also given up meat, and not because he doesn't like it or for health considerations (he used to be a chef at a BBQ joint), but because he claims he doesn't want to give his food dollar to big agriculture, specifically big meat producers.

That was a bit of an eye-opener: I love my steak (and fish and pork and poultry...) and spend every Friday afternoon when it's nice out grilling up 300lbs. of burger meat and a few butts of pulled pork with the GU Grilling Society (GUGS). Even before NOLS, I'd heard that red meat was bad and blah blah blah, but never really paid attention because 19-year-olds don't give a damn about cholesterol, artherosclerosis, or what have you. But my friend Brady got me thinking, and since I've been back to school this semester I've stumbled across and read some pretty serious material on what exactly big agriculture means.

Now, I'm not about to tell you all that I've gone veg--far from it, and there's good evidence that "flexitarians" or occasional meat-eaters are actually healthier than strict vegetarians anyway. Still, it's fascinating and frightening to read up on this issue and the story behind everything in your favorite local supermarket, Whole Paycheck included (we're going to assume that "Fast Food Nation" and "Super Size Me" have delivered enough evidence for the prosecution against fast food). First of all, agricultural specialization is intimately tied to global warming. As much as a third of all fossil fuel consumption in this country is related to the transport of foodstuffs from their far-flung points of origin to your refrigerator; ethanol actually takes more carbon to make than it saves by being added to the gas in your car; etc, etc, etc. Second, and far scarier, is the real science (as opposed to the junk science preached by big ag and rubber stamped by everyone's favorite government) concerning the effects of industrial food on the human body. Let's face it: our bodies haven't even really come to grips with bread and other high-carb foods from an evolutionary standpoint, and they don't stand a chance against Coca-Cola, rBGH, high-fructose corn syrup, or any of the other crap (sometimes literal) that has been allowed to enter the food supply thanks to specialized, industrial agribusiness practices. I won't even begin to get into what the animals go through before slaughter; that's just gross.

Very long story short, I highly suggest doing some research of your own and then thinking about how you want to vote with your food dollar. Depending on what angle you approach this from, there are tremendous benefits to be realized: nutritional, ecological, environmental, humane, etc. The more you read, the more disgusted you'll be at both the scope of the problem and the apparent ease of the solution. There's no reason on Earth (other than the "corrosive influence of lobbyists" that Obama cited last night) for our country and the rest of the world to be beholden to the insane system that's come to rule food production and distribution in the last couple of decades.

End of sermon. Do a quick online search or pick up one of Michael Pollan's books or the film (and/or accompanying book) "Food, Inc." You'll be shocked and awed... In the meantime, go, Michelle, go--obesity is a huge problem with American kids and it's about time someone took it on.

Finally, a quick point on Obama's remarks on topics related to me and my generation. He acknowledged that Americans want to give their children better lives, that a world-class education is the best insurance against poverty, and that student loans need to be brought under control. Excellent points, all. But I still don't see how that can be squared with the rest of his speech. It's the economy, stupid! Trillion-dollar deficits (likely spurred on by Obamacare) are going to cause downward mobility. Simple as that. They are also going to mean "settling for second"--or worse--internationally. Repeat after me: fiscal responsibility is going to be the order of the next decade, minimum. Regulation, taxation, all of it. Gotta get fixed. Luckily, my family and I are in a position where I am able to pursue a world-class education. A little upward mobility--preferably in a country that's still the world leader--as a result would be much appreciated.

State of the Union

A few picked-up pieces while waiting for the first State of the Union address of the Obama presidency...

--A "government spending freeze?" Really?! First of all, it affects 17% of the Federal budget. OK, I guess that's something, but talk about putting a band-aid on a gunshot wound. What are we, a Third-World country? Read my lips: a deficit north of $1 trillion and growing by the minute means it's time for new taxes. Do it right, do it quick, and do it in one fell swoop, but the time for a now.

--Enjoy your football while it lasts. Next year is 99% certain to be uncapped and it's looking more and more likely that no new CBA will be in place in time for a 2011 season. Seems to the rest of the world like there's both more than enough money to go around and so much at stake (remember the MLB and NHL lockouts? Those leagues still haven't recovered while the NFL has become the national pastime) that a deal should happen, but it's really not looking that way.

--More from the Dept. of Counterproductive Negotiation: I'm now firmly convinced that if this country does lose influence in the world and/or come to ruin as the Fareed Zakarias of the world would have it, this congress will be at fault for that happening. Small-mindedness, parochialism, corruption, political (mental?) stupidity, squandered chances...you name it, they got it. And if they got it, it turns rotten in a real big hurry. Obama pointed out that "the ship of state doesn't stop on a dime." Fine. We get it. The problem is when the engine room telegraph is set to full speed ahead port and full speed astern starboard.

--On a related note: "the Party of 'No'?" Come on, GOP. It's ridiculous that that's even a viable opposition strategy these days, but that's no way to move forward as a country. I've said it before, I'll say it again: true conservatives don't oppose all forward progress, they just try to make sure things move at a reasonable pace. Let's think logically for a second, since it's an election year: who really wants to put senators/representatives of "No" in office? More to the point, who wants to elect a "President of 'No?'" You want the party of No, you get the representation of No, you get the president of No, you get--yep--Sarah Palin. As in no experience, no plan, and no chance of putting Humpty together again.

***

Now that the speech is over and I've gotten out of a meeting, it's time to skip a bunch of homework and stay up past my bedtime to get this thing in your in-boxes by the time your coffee's brewed tomorrow morning. Off to the races...

Overall, I'd say that was a better-than-we've-seen-recently version of Mr. Hope & Change, but still not Candidate Obama or the kind of assured, deeply grounded bravura performance that most people were hoping for. I still don't get a strong sense of what--if anything--this President is willing to fight tooth and nail for in the legislative arena. There was a lot of imploring, a lot of promising, and a lot of planning, most of which had to do with the future ("That's how budgeting works!"). There were also some good calls to the Republicans to either start cooperating or start coming up with new ideas if they're so intractably opposed to the agenda the administration is pushing. That's a solid point. As Obama noted, "Just saying no to everything might be good short-term politics, but it's not leadership." I couldn't agree more with the second half of that statement, and I'd go so far as to say that the first half is pretty off-base as well. You have to think in an awfully short term for "'No' to everything!" to look like sound politics.

Obama's short-term political agenda is clearly focused on the three best ways to fix the economy, meanwhile: Jobs, jobs, and saving Tim Geithner's hide (aka more jobs). Lots of crooked numbers about who gets tax cuts and why, which sectors need to be encouraged, where we're going to get all the money to keep stimulating growth without adding the proverbial dime to the budget (!), and so forth. All of which boiled down to acknowledging what Main Street has been crying out for some time now: We need jobs, and we need 'em yesterday. For someone with political astuteness Obama has shown previously, I'm still incredulous at how badly botched his message has been lately as executive bonuses shoot right back up while employment in fundamental industries like construction continues to dive. This royally pissed off the all-important middle class and independent voters, who took the first opportunity given them to voice their concern and chose Scott Brown to send that message loud and clear. Talk about short-sighted politics, but to a large extent Obama and the Dems got what they deserved. There's not much time left to reformulate the message before the mid-terms offer a wider referendum on the administration to date.

Other important notes from the speech:

1. Repeal "Don't ask, don't tell." I assume the Chiefs (sitting in the front row) either heard about that one or relied on decades of practice with their poker faces to keep from appearing like they had severe indigestion when this little bombshell dropped right in their laps. The policy probably should go; it's not like we've never had gays in the military before and there is of course no question regarding their fitness for duty from an operational standpoint. Still, the Pentagon is going to have a cow on this one because soldiering is by nature a fairly homophobic profession, often practiced in an environment that lends itself to exacerbating that very homophobia. It will be interesting to see if any restrictions are placed on openly gay soldiers as there are on female ones: no serving in front line infantry units, submarines, or special operations forces, to name a few. In the extremely close and rough quarters of the front lines, a metal tube under the ocean, or behind enemy lines, conventional wisdom says soldiers don't do well to have women or gays along for the ride. I'm not really advocating the conventional wisdom on this one, because I feel that both sides have some merit to their positions. The Pentagon's going postal, just watch.

2. College loan payment/forgiveness. I'm conflicted on this, too. Sounds great to those of us in college, not exactly rolling, and not necessarily opposed to 10 years of post-college public service to have all college debts forgiven after 10 years. Still, that's another welfare state element that for some reason is really getting under my skin.

3. New energy sources/leading the green economy. Good thoughts both, but also requiring significant changes in the way we think about and meet energy needs. I'm not opposed to nuclear and I certainly support leading the green economy (and thus the world economy, if Obama is to be believed), but as with all of climate change at this point, those represent only part of the picture. Carbon offsetting is a bunch of BS--it's time to get serious about what's going on around us and how we propose to fix it.

4. If the climate crisis hasn't scared the Bejeezus out of you yet (and it should), take a look at food. Food is intimately related to the climate crisis, so it makes sense to look at and try to handle the two in tandem rather than individually. Food has been a little hobby of mine lately in the sense that I've read a couple of interesting books and articles on food and diet and how the modern diet is slowly killing us and not-so-slowly killing Mother Nature. The more you learn, the more perverse it all seems and the fewer options appear but to become the most educated food consumer you can be and to be damn scrupulous with your food dollar. I can't recommend enough the value of at least doing some internet searching on industrial food production or--better--picking up a Michael Pollan book or something similar. In addition to climate change, Michelle Obama's national campaign to combat childhood obesity is a worthy and sorely needed effort.

5. Finally, the one you've all been waiting for: Barack Obama & the Supremes. To call the Court's ruling last week boneheaded would be complimentary. I won't go into full detail on why I think that ruling was 100% dead wrong, but suffice it to say that I absolutely do. Legislation such as Obama proposed tonight must be forthcoming, and fast, preferably before the mid-terms.

***

One last issue to hammer away on before I call it quits for the evening. Economics. I'm no econ major (suffering through my last required semester of econ right now), but the number of fallacies, fantasies, and just plain crap that's been emanating from the White House lately regarding the economy--this speech very much included--has been mind-boggling. Again, this isn't the space to list every single bit of gobbledy-gook and/or outright garbage, but the bottom line is that there's a lot of you-know-what flying to cover up the very obvious fact that this country is in a serious fiscal pickle. If Obama wants to talk about taking strong stands and telling "hard truths" despite poll numbers and popular opinion, it's time to talk budget, deficit, and taxes. As I mentioned at the top of the column, a spending freeze that starts next year and doesn't touch defense or entitlement spending actually freezes less than 20% of the federal budget. In times of trillion-plus dollar deficits (that will only increase between now and when the "freeze" comes into effect), that doesn't even begin to address the problem. Please, please don't insult my intelligence or this fancy education I'm working on here by telling me that all this stuff you just promised isn't going to add "a dime" (that phrase again) to the budget/deficit. Health care is not free; people won't just forgive student loans after 20 years or accept smaller payments on them without compensating somehow; defense and entitlement spending are snowballing; etc. Freezing 17% of the current budget level will probably mean less than a 15% freeze on discretionary spending by next year.

The answer, of course, is revenue. About the only times the Republican side of the Congress stood (or even applauded [jerks!]) was when Obama mentioned yet more tax breaks. Taxes may or may not stifle innovation--they probably do--but we've put ourselves in such a hole that the only way out is going to be finding new revenue streams and getting more out of the old ones. If Obama is serious about "not accept[ing] second place for the United States of America" (when was the last time you even heard that kind of thing in a State of the Union?), it's time to think a little harder about economics than faux-freezes and recycling bailout money from banks to stimulus to whatever. In the final analysis, the U.S. government is going to have to raise taxes in very explicit and painful ways for the first time in a long time in the near future. It will have to be quick and dirty, but effective. Just look at the income tax: In early U.S. history, this was unthinkable and unlawful, but the passage of the 16th Amendment in 1913 finally allowed Congress to levy an income tax, which Americans have been grudgingly but pretty much automatically paying ever since. Like climate change or the ship of state, our deficits will not stop on a dime. Even freezing the budget entirely wouldn't accomplish that, and that's never going to happen. Real and painful measures will have to be enacted in the near future to begin to tackle the deficit in meaningful ways.

For now, it's back to business in the happy little hamlet of Washington, D.C. Time to find out if wearing a red tie and dressing the Veep, the Speaker, and the First Lady in purple can actually yield some bipartisanship around here. Wouldn't that make for some nice Hope 'n' Change?