My case for Obama

My friend Paul challenged me to write a positive case for Obama. (He’s still trying to decide who to vote for, and he similarly challenged another friend to make the case for McCain.) Rather then just email it to him, I decided to blog it.

The challenge is to make the case for Obama, not against McCain, and to keep it positive. I’m going to do my best, but some of my arguments are two-edged swords: saying what I like about Obama’s approach is, in part, a criticism of what I’d expect from McCain and what I’ve seen from Bush.

That said, the following is my case.

1. Foreign policy.

I believe that the US does much better abroad when we emphasize soft power and international cooperation over hard power and lone wolfism. In general, I expect that a Democratic administration’s foreign policy is more likely to follow the soft-power/internationalist approach. And in specific, I think that Obama will do a great job in these areas – just by electing him, the US would take great strides towards greater soft-power.

I also believe that one of the worst things that a national leader can do is get his country into an unwise and unjust war. (I view this as one of the biggest failings of the Bush administration.) I expect Obama to be a lot less likely to do this than McCain.

As to Iraq: I like the fact that Obama opposed it early. I think it was a particularly stupid war, especially at a time when we had little choice but to go to war in Afghanistan. Right now, pretty much everybody, including Bush, McCain, Obama, and the Iraqis themselves, agree that the US will be withdrawing sometime in the next two years. So I don’t see much practical difference in the current policies. (It should be noted that Obama favored the timetable before McCain did, but that McCain supported the surge, which probably made it possible for the timetable without greater chaos. I call that a tie, with Obama getting extra credit for not wanting us to be in Iraq in the first place.)

And don’t get me started on torture.  That would be a hard topic on which to keep positive.  Let’s just leave it that, based on political positions in the last two years, it seems probable that an Obama administration would be far more likely to get the US out of the ugly business of torture.

2. Domestic policy.

I expect Obama’s to be less beholden to big business and to focus more on the people. I expect this to play out both in specific domestic programs (e.g., health care) and in regulation. (And I do think that we need greater government regulation. The biggest fiscal crisis of the last few years – the subprime mortgage problem – was largely due to deregulation.) I think this will also improve the chances that we’ll do something meaningful on the environment.

I also want a fact-based science policy. The Dems support stem-cell research. The GOP platform opposes it.

Over the last few decades, the Dems have shown themselves to be better stewards of the economy than the GOP. I’d expect that to continue under an Obama presidency.

On the budget, I don’t really expect either side to be great. But the Dems are more likely to tax and spend, and the GOP more likely to borrow and spend, and so I’d expect deficits to be smaller under Dems.

3. Change.

Here I’m not talking the kind of change that is getting a lot of attention on the campaign trail these days. I’m talking two things in particular:

First, I believe that the Bush administration has badly screwed up this country and the operation of this government. I believe that we need a new broom to clean up all the mess. An Obama administration would lead to changes throughout the executive branch of the government and an overhaul of many of its procedures. I doubt that another GOP administration would lead to changes anywhere near as sweeping. Thus, I think an Obama administration would be more likely to give us this particular sort of change – something that is badly needed.

Second, I think we need to get past the culture wars that are left over from the 60’s. The only way we’ll do this is by getting past the Baby Boomers as the party in power. (And yes, I realize that if you look at the birthdates and demography, Obama can be viewed as a boomer while McCain is not. But McCain was shaped by the 60’s in ways that Obama was not, and so I don’t really view Obama as a boomer from a cultural perspective.) A vote for Obama is a vote for generational change, and I think that’s important.

4. Personal Privacy.

One of my biggest issues is keeping government out of my life. I expect that Obama would be less likely to engage in invasive surveillance methods, and much less likely to support policies that interfere with personal privacy. (I’d also expect his Supreme Court picks to be more supportive of individual liberty, but I’ll deal with that later.) I don’t want government in my bedroom, and I don’t want government on my phone lines. Here again, this is a matter where neither party is perfect in my mind, but I believe the Dems are far better.

5. The Supreme Court.

John Paul Stevens isn’t going to last much longer. If he is replaced by a Republican, kiss goodbye to all of those SCOTUS rulings that support individual privacy and choice. Abortion igets the most press, but it’s far from the only issue. Do you want continued access to contraceptives? Do you want the legal right to do whatever you want in your own bedroom with another consenting adult? (And bear in mind, there are laws on the books of several states, including Virginia, that outlaw oral sex, a practice engaged in by a majority of Americans.) You have those rights because the Supreme Court says you have them, and the balance of justices is such that another GOP administration could easily lead to overturning those cases.

6. Symbolism.

I believe that the central theme of American history is race. Slavery is one of the two great sins on the American conscience (the other being our treatment of the Indians). And people still alive felt the bite of Jim Crow laws – I recently had a friend tell me what it was like to be told that he and his mother had to move to the back of the bus.

I think it would be a great and a glorious thing if, on the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, we had a black president. It’s a symbol we need – proof that in America, anyone really can grow up to be president.

7. Obama the man.

I like the idea of having a president who is thoughtful and articulate. I like the idea of having a president who can himself craft words to convey complex ideas in a way that speaks to millions. I like the organizational talent that Obama has shown in running one of the most impressive presidential campaigns in recent times. I like having a president who can inspire Americans to do better. I like a president who can inspire youth.

Obama is all of these things.

8. Biden.

I’m extremely happy with the choice of Biden as VP. I wanted him as part of the administration – I had been thinking Secretary of State, but am happy with VP. He’s a solid choice with experience in a lot of important areas. Moreover, he has been one of the most creative thinkers in areas where we’ve had troubles of late, most notably including Iraq.

One of the most important tasks of a president is selecting the right people. Selecting Biden as his VP strikes me as solid evidence that Obama will do a good job of this.

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More blogging by me!

I’m going to be occasionally blogging on technical matters on the new Mixx Engine Room blog.  (Mixx is where I work, for those who may not know.)  Those posts are going to be seriously geeky, so don’t be ashamed if you don’t decide to read those.  But if you are interested in how one goes about building a social news site in Ruby on Rails, check the Engine Room.

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Sloth

Sloth is not usually one of my vices.  But this week, well…

This past week, here at the beach, a typical day would go something like this:

9: Wake up.   Lie around in bed, talking to Julie.

9:30: Eat breakfast while reading a book and looking out over the bay.

10:00: Read while sitting on the deck.

11:00 Time for the late-morning nap.

12:30: Lunch!

1:00 Short walk on the beach (optional)

2:00 Sit on the deck and read.

3:30 Afternoon nap

5:30 Check email.

6:00 Dinner!

6:30 Read

8:00 Short walk on the beach.

8:30 Read

11:00 Go to bed.

When I comment on how little I’m doing, Julie usually responds, “Well, you probably need it.”  And boy, do I!

Anyway, I don’t want you to think I did absolutely nothing this week.  I went out sailing a couple of times.  (The wind wasn’t great, but there were dolphins in the bay one day, and the girls and I sailed with them.)  I played some RockBand with the family.  I even made it out to Mathews to see a movie one day.  And did I mention all those naps I managed to have?

Okay, so maybe I didn’t do much.  And it was everything I hoped it would be.

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Recent reads

– Hens’ Teeth and Horses’ Toes by Stephen Jay Gould. A collection of essays about various aspects of biology and the history of biology. Gould was an expert as essay writing, mastering the technique of starting with some small but interesting fact and deriving from it a more general and important principle. In this, he champions certain historical scientists, reveals some wild facts about animals (did you know that male angler fish are a fraction of the size of females, and in fact merge with the female, becoming little more than an embedded sperm donor for her), and pays homage to his great hero, Darwin. I haven’t finished all the essays yet – the joy of a collection of essays is that you don’t have to read them all at once. But it’s good stuff – I heartily recommend any of Gould’s works. (I’m a particular fan of his Wonderful Life, which is about how contingency has led to the modern world.)

Charlie Wilson’s War by George Crile. I recently saw and loved the movie, the story of how roguish and scandal-mongering congressman Charlie Wilson got congress to fund the Afghan resistance to the Soviet invasion back in the 80’s. I came away from that wanting to know more. And boy, does the book deliver. It covers in greater detail Wilson’s various scandals (the night before one of his major trips to Pakistan, he fled the scene of a collision that he caused out of a well-founded fear that he would be arrested for drunk driving if found by the police) and the way he played the Washington political game to keep the war funded. It also tells the CIA side of the story in great detail – Gust Avrakotos, who was played by Philip Seymour Hoffman in the movie, comes across as even more of a loose cannon. Very entertaining, especially if you want a view into how political power really works when the cameras aren’t rolling.

The Forgery of Venus by Michael Gruber. A nice light beach read, a thriller all about art, madness, and international crime, with an engaging prose style and lots of oddness. A nice book to bring on a beach vacation.

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A job well done

Julie and I are reaching a major transition in our lives. Our three kids are all reaching major milestones on the growing to adulthood, and those in turn mark major milestones for us.

– Diana, our youngest, graduated yesterday from high school. In the fall she’ll be going to UVA – our third to go there. We’re immensely proud of her.

– Kate, our middle child, has what is pretty much the ideal summer job for her. She is studying to be a biologist, probably working in genetics, and this summer she is working in the lab of one of UVA’s bio professors. She’s the only undergraduate in the lab, and she is getting a lot of attention and chances for glory. Most notably, her name will be going on the papers that the lab publishes over the summer – and there should be several. That’s likely to do wonders for her grad-school resume. We’re immensely proud of her.

– Andy, our oldest, has been out of UVA for a year now. He’s planning his first big solo vacation – next weekend, he leaves for Japan. He’ll be attending a J-rock concert, going to a tea ceremony, and sleeping one night in a Buddhist monastery. It all sounds like a tremendous blast – and we’re immensely proud that he’s doing so well on his own.

Taken all together, our three children are moving up and moving on in the world. It’s an exciting time in their lives, and an exciting time in mine, to see them all blossoming. I guess Julie and I did something right!

Postscript: On Thursday, my sister Sara gave birth to her first child. A little strange: she’s entering the active parenting world at around the same time I’m exiting it. Curious how these things go.

But in any event, congratulations to Sara and Gary, and a welcome to the family to Marjorie Grace Heard.

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Latest readings

The latest few books that I’ve read:

The Odyssey by Homer, in the Robert Fagles translation.  Somehow, I managed to get this far in life without ever reading the Odyssey, other than a kid’s version many moons ago.  The biggest surprise to me was how minor the most famous scenes are in the story.  Rather then primarily being a story about Odysseus’s voyage, most of the action surrounds the loutish suitors who are courting his wife in his absence.  They are eating her out of house and home and generally being a big nuisance.  But Odysseus comes home and, with the help of his son and a pair of loyal servants, brutally kills them all.

And all the famous stuff?  The Cyclops, Circe, Scylla and Charybdis, and so on?  Well, they’re all there.  But they’re covered briefly, taking up a chapter or two in total in a book that goes over 20 chapters.  And even then, they appear only in flashbacks, as Odysseus is telling the story of his wanderings at a place where he stops.  Which is too bad, because I found those parts more entertaining than all the descriptions of loutish suitors.

But the action scenes are pretty spectacular.  That Homer had a way with a good combat sequence.  The scenes were Odysseus kills the suitors are great stuff – they are in keeping with the Illiad (which I first read last year), with some of the best fight scenes that I’ve ever read.  Fairly gory – spears get thrown through skulls, teeth and blood go flying, livers are pierced and mighty men do mighty things.  Really a revelation to me, just how thrilling they could be.

Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex, by Mary Roach.  An entertaining romp through the story of scientific investigation into sex, including both the history of the research and coverage of what is going on today.  Roach has an amusing and breezy style, though sometimes she gets a little too irreverent for my tastes.  But the information is endlessly fascinating, and she certainly goes all out to get her story.  (She recounts two cases in which she volunteers as a subject for studies.  Not surprisingly, sex studies don’t allow outside observers, so volunteering is the only way that she can get first-hand knowledge with what goes on.  And so one fine day in London finds Roach and her husband having sex while a doctor monitors what’s happening inside using a sonagram.)  What did I get out of it?  Sex researchers face special hurdles in getting funding, and women are awfully complicated sexually.  Neither of which, come to think of it, comes as a big surprise.

The Sharing Knife, vol 3: The Passage, by Lois McMaster Bujold.  I’m a big fan of Bujold’s work – she’s one of the few authors whose every new book I buy without second thought.  Such authors, for me, usually fall under the category of guilty pleasure – a nice quick read for when I’m in the mood for something fun.  Her Vorkosigan Books are high quality character-centric space opera – fine science fiction built around strong, quirky characters.

That said, I’m not quite so fond of her current series.  It’s a fantasy world in which a set of tribes known as Lakewalkers fight an ongoing war against a supernatural foe called Malices that occasionally pop up and cause trouble (think evil demon, or liche to you D&D’ers out there).  Meanwhile, an agricultural society at roughly late medieval tech level is growing, largely ignorant of the battle and hostile to the Lakewalkers (who have their own hostilities to the farmers).  The central characters are a Lakewalker and the farmer girl that he married in the first book.

Some interesting stuff, but not Bujold’s best.  And there’s an awful lot of romance-novel tropes in here – take one look at the covers and you can see it.  But still, overall a quick, fun read.

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The temperature of Art

I view art of all sorts as having a temperature. Whether painting, sculpture, literature, theater, cinema, or music, art can be coolly cerebral or hotly passionate.

Consider, for example, the Mona Lisa.

monalisa.jpg

The most famous painting in the world, she is cool and comforting, her beauty lying in the subtle blend of colors and  mysterious smile. Something to contemplate in serenity matching the subject.

Contrast that with the statue of Cupid and Psyche, a neighbor of the Mona Lisa in the Louvre:

cupid_and_psyche.jpg

There’s nothing cool or subtle about that sculpture. It’s hot and passionate, and one glimpse can set your heart racing, even as the hearts of the depicted lovers do.

In general, I much prefer hot art.  (And, in fact, Cupid and Psyche was my favorites of the pieces that I saw in the Louvre.)  I prefer romantic symphonies to chamber music, hot rock to cool jazz, the ragings of King Lear to the musings of Hamlet.  I want art that reaches deep into my soul and calls on me to bay passionately at the moon.

A case in point: Friday evening, I went to the National Symphony’s performance of Mahler’s Second Symphony.  This has been one of my favorite pieces of music since the first time I heard it, back when I was in college.  Back then, Julie and I decided on the spur of the moment to go listen to the Symphony.  Mahler was playing, and I had heard good things about Mahler.  (Yeah, I know, a wonderful combination of arrogance and ignorance.  What can I say, I was an undergraduate at the time.)  We stood in line waiting to buy tickets when an older man came up to us and asked in a disgruntled voice, “Are you buying tickets to tonight’s symphony?”  When we said yes, he said, “Don’t bother,” and thrust into my hands two excellent tickets.  I can only assume that someone had stood him up, leaving him with two tickets and a bad attitude.  But whatever the back story, it added a bit of magic to our evening.

As it did this past Friday, on my first listening the music overwhelmed me.  The symphony is big – between orchestra, chorus, and soloists, it takes something like 250 musicians to perform.  It goes from a dramatic and stormy first movement to a transcendent chorale finale that is the music I imagine sung by the angels as one ascends into heaven.

Which makes it, perhaps, my favorite piece of music to listen to when I am in a bad mood.  Because as the stormy first movement plays, I find myself wrapped up in the music as it expresses the gloom in my soul.  But then, the music climbs out of the depths and reaches for the heavens, and I find my spirit reaching with it.

Mahler called it his Resurrection Symphony.  For me, the symphony lives up to its name.

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More on what I’m reading

I finished off the Sharpe’s Rifles series.  Nothing much to add to the previous notes on them – all good, quick reads without a whole lot of depth.

I’ve moved on to read Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World by Jack Weatherford.  This is a biography of Genghis Khan, that continue past Genghis’s death to cover the subsequent history of the Mongol empire.  A fascinating read, but it does stray a bit into hagiography.  It makes a big deal about the more enlightened aspects of Genghis Khan’s rule (forbidding torture, allowing religious freedom to his subjects) while glossing over some of his harsher policies (mostly, the tendency towards widespread slaughter of the ruling elite of any nation that he conquered, and the enslavement of the common people in such nations).  It mentions those things, but tends to excuse them by comparing them favorably with the practices of the Europeans at the time.

Still, it’s a fascinating portrait of a fascinating person.  And one whose rise to power is stunning.

I always find it interesting to consider the difference between someone’s life from the low point to the high.  Up until this time, the broadest range of low-to-high in my knowledge was Adolph Hitler, who went from being homeless in Austria to ruling all of Europe.  (And this should not in any way be considered praise of Hitler, who was, of course, astonishingly evil in his methods and policies and not at all worthy of admiration.)

But Genghis Khan’s range was even greater.  In his youth, after his father was killed by enemies, the young Temujin (Genghis’s name before he became ruler of the Mongolians) and his family scrambled to achieve a bare subsistence.  At one point Temujin was captured by enemies and enslaved for a period.  From that low, he grew to conquer and rule one of the largest empires that the world has known, an empire that eventually stretched from the Pacific Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea.

I’m not quite finished with the book yet – while Genghis is long dead, the Mongol empire has yet to collapse.  But the book is an excellent read about a period of history that I little knew.

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What I’m reading

My reading list so far for this year:

– Several books from the Sharpe’s Rifles series by Bernard Cornwell.  These are historical adventure novels featuring Richard Sharpe, a soldier in the British army during the Napoleonic wars.  I’m enjoying the books, but they are really just pleasant fluff.  Sharpe is a straight-up hero-type, largely lacking in any character depth, and the books do get a bit repetitious after a while.  (The books are often compared to Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin books, a series of historical novels set on shipboard during the Napoleonic era.  In my mind, the O’Brian books are much better, primarily because Aubrey and Maturin, the central characters, are far richer and more complex than Sharpe.)

The first of these books, Sharpe’s Tiger, was a particular treat.  In it, Sharpe finds himself in India at the battle of Serringapatam fighting with the British army against the forces of Tippu Sultan.  I’ve twice visited Serringapatam, which is near Mysore.  I’ve seen many of the sites mentioned in the novel, including the fortress itself, the mosque and Hindu temple within the fortress, and Tippu’s nearby Summer Palace and tomb.  So when the book described Sharpe visiting these places, I could easily imagine it.

So far this year, I’ve read the first four of these novels, which takes Sharpe from India to the battle of Trafalgar.  (Yes, I know.  A soldier is out of place at a naval battle.  But his presence is not too far-fetched as arranged by the author.)  I’d recommend these if you’re in the mood for a quick, fun read.  But don’t look here for any depth.

Empire of Ivory by Naomi Novik.  This is the fourth of a series of books set during the Napoleonic Wars including dragons.  (I seem to reading a lot of Napoleonic fiction lately – I’ve got two others sitting on my to-read pile, including Dumas and Tolstoy.)  The dragons are teamed with men and serve as an important arm of the various militaries.  I quite enjoyed the first book of the series – His Majesty’s Dragon – but have found the novels to decline in quality over time.  This one is the worst, with a confused plot that seems a contrived excuse to show us what dragons do in Africa and France.  I can’t recommend it, I’m afraid.

The Man who Knew Too Much: Alan Turing and the Invention of the Computer by David Leavitt.  A biography of Alan Turing, a fascinating figure who is one of the half-dozen or so people who could lay claim to being the inventor of the computer.  Turing was instrumental in Britain’s efforts to break the Nazi codes during WWII, and was probably personally responsible for shortening the war.  But that was not enough to spare him from post-war persecution and prosecution for homosexuality, when he was hounded into suicide.  (A fan of “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” Turing killed himself by eating an apple dipped in cyanide.)

I enjoyed the book, which spends as much time explaining Turing’s ideas as it does his life.  But I found some of the psychoanalytic approach of the book to be a bit heavy-handed.  I’m afraid it lost me when it started trying to find psychological reasons for some of the things that Turing put in his technical papers.  Still, I was curious to learn more about Turing, and the book satisfied much of that curiosity.

That’s what I’ve read so far this year.  I’ll update here as I read more.

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Springfield Mall jumps the shark

Springfield Mall, in Springfield, Virginia, fills a surprisingly large role in many of my memories.  My first date with Julie, my wife, was going to see “And Justice for All” in the movie theater there.  (Lousy movie.  Nice date.)  My most traumatic experience took place when I took my son to see “Bambi” there and a guy sitting a few rows behind us choked to death on a piece of popcorn.  And I have many fond memories of taking my kids there, to see movies or shopping.

Over the past few years, the mall has been in decline.  The movie theater is hardly worth going to – the seats are all springs and the aromas are far too strong.  There are more and more empty storefronts, and the shops that are left are weighted towards oriental kitsch shops.  (I bought daughter Kate a katana set for Christmas at one such shop, and the storekeeper complained about the declining quality of the mall.  When a kitschy katana-selling shopkeeper complains about the quality of a mall, you know it’s in bad shape.)

But this last weekend, the mall finally jumped the shark.

I stopped by to grab lunch at the food court.  I sat there, pleasantly reading as I ate, when at three locations spread out throughout the food court guys simultaneously stood up and started preaching at a full shout.  They told of a local revival, and promised free admission with the tickets being handed out by their collaborators.

I suppose Springfield Mall cannot be blamed for such offenses.  But I was disappointed that mall security did not quickly escort these solicitors from the premises.  And even more disappointed that none of the folks running food stands bothered to pick up a phone and call security.  If they don’t care about the quality of life in the mall, why should I?

Perhaps they will renovate the mall and it will come back from the dead.  But until then, I won’t be going there any more.  Goodbye Springfield Mall – I have many fond memories of you.  But no more, no more.

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