$700B and 2,131

I can't be the first person to notice the resemblance between Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson (particularly as seen on the cover of this week's Economist)

 

and Baltimore Orioles legend Cal Ripken …

Blame the French

I started watching The Battle of Algiers last night (admittedly, I've had it from Netflix for probably five weeks). I knew almost nothing about the Algerian War for Independence, or even the Casbah, other than the Clash rocking it. Despite its neo-realism (which feels stuck in 1966 but makes it a sterling example of the progressive films of the period … also, I have no idea what I just typed), it has a very current feel to it (in fact, the Pentegon hosted a showing of the film in 2003). The Muslims appear to have hated the French long before they hated the Americans. Now, they hate us both. Well, at least Dunkin' Donuts is taking a stand against jihad.

“That’s all right, I don’t eat colored people”

Great post from Doug Haslam re: Dick Gregory and his 1968 Presidential Campaign. Added bonus, a comment from the wife of the late Pat Paulsen. Very cool. I read Gregory’s Nigger in college. I remember feeling self-conscious when people of color saw it on my bookshelf.

It’s Obama

So I’m lending my highly-influential endorsement to Sen. Barack Obama.

He may not want it. As far as I can recall, here’s my voting track record (I’m including only president, governor and for kicks, mayor of Washington, D.C.; I’m not including U.S. senators or congressmen, mayors and aldermen of Somerville or school committe folks) as an indicator of a major candidate’s overall sucess (hint: it’s not great):

1990 Mass. Dem. Gubernatorial Primary: Francis X. Bellotti — LOST
1990 Mass. Gubernatorial Election: Bill Weld (R) — WON (more of a vote against John Silber; that’ll learn him to yell at Natalie Jacobson)
1992 Mass. Dem. Primary: Jerry Brown — LOST (what the hell was I thinking?)
1992 Presidential Election: Bill Clinton — WON
1994 Washington, D.C. Mayoral Election: Carol Schwartz (R) — LOST (to be fair, I was voting against Marion Barry)
1996 Presidential Election: Bill Clinton — WON
1998 Mass. Gubernatorial Election — Scott Harshbarger — LOST
2000 Presidential Election: Al Gore — LOST* (we all know why the asterisk is there)
2002 Mass. Dem. Gubernatorial Primary: Robert Reich — LOST
2002 Mass. Gubernatorial Election: Shannon O’Brien — LOST
2004 Mass. Dem. Primary: Dennis Kucinich — LOST (purely an anti-war vote)
2004 Presidential Election: John Kerry — LOST
2006 Mass. Dem. Gubernatorial Primary: Deval Patrick — WON
2006 Mass. Gubernatorial Election: Deval Patrick — WON

(There was a fairly brutal ten-year streak in there between Clinton and Patrick. You’ll also note that both times I strayed to the Republican side of the ticket, it was to avoid a candidate that was either a certifiable nutjob (Silber) or crackhead (Barry).)

So, for those of you scoring at home, I’m 5-9; I probably would get fired after two years if I were an NFL coach.

Important News from Harrison3 — Goodbye John Edwards

With John Edwards’ departure from the race for the White House, Harrison3 will be announcing its Super-Duper Tuesday candidate endorsement at a gala news conference later today. Actually, it’ll just be me banging out some sort of entry later on when I get time.

But in closing, here’s the Esquire piece that strengthened my support for the former Senator who cares deeply about improving the lives of poor people.

Mrs. Kucinich

The Washington Post has a great piece today on what, on the surface, appears to be a mismatched pair, Mr. and (the lovely) Mrs. Dennis Kucinich …

"They were by the window. They were holding hands. Elizabeth Kucinich was looking lovely, as usual — the red hair, the luminous skin, the green eyes, the fine cheekbones. Dennis was looking, as usual, like Dennis Kucinich."

Note: Elizabeth was the subject of a humorous Daily Show piece on FLILFs. And I voted for Dennis in the 2004 primary.

Q: Are Stars Just Like Us? A: Yes

I read articles like this one from the AP, on Carl Bernstein rapping the media’s infatuation with trash culture, and I feel that I fed the beast by purchasing Juliet a subscription to Us on a lark last birthday.

Bernstein, 63, said he believes an "idiot culture" is partly to
blame for the dysfunction of political life in the United States.

"You
can’t separate the appetites and demands of the people themselves and
what they are given," he said. "The blame simply can’t all be put at
the feet of those who present news."

Next year, she’s getting The Columbia Journalism Review.

You shall not crucify mankind

So, at last week’s Bruins game, the topic of conversation with Erin and Doug turned, as it always does, to William Jennings Bryant’s “Cross of Gold” speech. George Mason University has a link to a 1921 recording WJB did of the speech on the Gannett Records label — for history buffs, it’s worth a listen; I imagine it lacks some of the punch that the live delivery of the 1896 Democratic Convention. But man, that dude hated the gold standard (and rightfully so, I might add).

Hokie Nation

Harrison3.com has shied away from being a source for links to better articles, because 1) there are other sites that do that much better and 2) why would I want to send my loyal readers (hi Dad!) away from harrison3.com?

That said, here’s a few links I wanted to share:

• NPR had a great interview this morning with Ishwar Puri, the head of Virginia Tech’s engineering department who lost numerous friends, colleagues and students on April 16. I will post it later today, but his comments managed to be poignant and touching while painted with an engineer’s straightforwardness and an academic’s respect for learning. (The Hokies open their football season, by the way, tomorrow vs. Coastal Carolina.)
• I haven’t read Rolling Stone regularly since 1992. But recently, I’ve read a few political pieces that have impressed me. If The Great Iraq Swindle doesn’t make you angry, well, then … hmm, I was going to write something filled vaguely with pity or doom, but … screw it, just read it:

According to the most reliable ­estimates, we have doled out more than $500 billion for the war, as well as $44 billion for the Iraqi reconstruction effort. And what did America’s contractors give us for that money? They built big steaming shit piles, set brand-new trucks on fire, drove back and forth across the desert for no reason at all and dumped bags of nails in ditches. For the most part, nobody at home cared, because war on some level is always a waste. But what happened in Iraq went beyond inefficiency, beyond fraud even. This was about the business of government being corrupted by the profit motive to such an extraordinary degree that now we all have to wonder how we will ever be able to depend on the state to do its job in the future. If catastrophic failure is worth billions, where’s the incentive to deliver success? There’s no profit in patriotism, no cost-plus angle on common decency. Sixty years after America liberated Europe, those are just words, and words don’t pay the bills.

It’s also worth checking out The Ethanol Scam; opened my eyes on the involvement of Big Agriculture and the importance of celluloic (rather than feed-based) ethanol. (While not a political article, the story about the making of G ‘n’ R’s Appetite for Destruction is pretty amazing, too; for mature audiences only).

Imposing our will (and morning darkness)

Something I pondered sitting in the Starbucks (yay America!) near my hotel in Ottawa this morning, as it was 6:45 a.m. and pitch black outside — did the U.S. government check in with Canada to make sure it was cool with starting DST a month early when it enacted the Energy Policy Act of 2005? Given the current administration’s lack of, um, skills in the art of collaboration, I’m going to say no.