Obama Can Relax Some Time in 2016

So a few days ago I was still thinking how I hope Obama can finally get health care passed so he can move on to other stuff, because there's a lot of it: energy, the environment, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, the 2012 election, the 2010 election, education, South America, financial regulations, the economy, jobs, Guantanemo, Mars, senior positions, Africa, federal court appointments, corporate compensation, reengagement abroad, race, the U.S. intelligence apparatus, Asia, drug policy, immigration, gays in the military, Europe and Antarctica (Australia can suck it.)

Please do not email me to tell me what I have left off this list.

J/k no one every reads this shit.

Then yesterday happened. My first thought was about my opinion of the whole plan which is not terribly interesting and no one cares about. My second thought was about how the Senate would react (in case you missed it) and about what in general the consensus or narrative on this thing was going to be (which I think is still emerging but may be "Repubs. favor, Dems. oppose.") My third thought was "okay, obviously this is all anyone on any news channel will be talking about for a while. What's happening with health care?" (answer: amendments, etc.)

But just now I had my FOURTH thought, which was "Obama is never, ever going to take care of everything on that list."

When I saw Obama in the last week or so of the election, I thought "laugh it up, Fuzzball." He looked soooo confident and soooo relaxed. It was sort of inspiring. Obama had seen all the numbers I was watching obsessively and decided that he was going to win.

Thing is, I knew that the minute a president takes office is the minute he loses control of his agenda. I could literally count the days until Obama was no longer master of his own destiny. It wasn't his fault - there's just too much that a president has to contend with for him to focus on his ideal priorities whenever he wants. I mean, people actively trying to foil you at every turn is just ONE of your problems. Imagine if you had to deal with that in YOUR job.

This is why I was pulling for Obama to front-load - stuff is always going to happen that throws the president off, but early on is when he has the most momentum, political capital, control of his agenda and ability to govern.

All of which was going fine until health care. There's no shame in it. Health care has been foiling politicians in this country since at least 1906 (fun fact: the first time, it was shot down as "Prussianization.")

So I have been waiting health care out. It was touch and go for a bit (4:38), but I was confident health care would pass eventually and if maybe we lost the public option, whatever (Act Three or point two of a National Review summary here.)

I had hoped that once we had taken care of health care, Obama could maybe take on some easy stuff, some one-acts. Fixing gays in the military is just a matter of signing an executive order, calling everyone who doesn't like it unpatriotic, starting a more interesting news cycle and then six months later letting everyone know how many lives our new Arabic translators have saved, thanks to you. It's like a political appetizer.

But here was Obama piling one major and controversial life-or-death political issue on top of another major and controversial life-or-death political issue. It's not that he wants to - it's just that he doesn't have a choice. Afghanistan needed announcing and health care is coming along but it just wasn't done yet. What are you going to do?

And so I must now kiss goodbye to my imaginary hypothetical breather for Obama. This is simply the highest level of difficulty for a presidency since FDR. I mean, Obama was getting grey hairs back in March (they come and go.) Pass or fail - and this plan is going to be make or break for his legacy - Obama still has his work cut out for him. This guy is not going to get to rest until he's done with the whole damn game and napping on the porch of his coming-soon political library in Honolulu, I am guessing somewhere by the beach.

Until then, good luck to him and all of us.

Can the Internet Answer Wildchild's "Wonder Years" Questions?

Alternate title: Dork + Google + Hip-Hop = ?

Can Internet answer Wildchild? I believe it can:

Answers Version (1 of 2)

[Goin' way, way back to the early days]
[Rememberin' well, seems like the other day]
[Goin' way, way back to the early days]
[Now when I mighta stayed from around the way]
[Goin' way, way back to the early days]
[Rememberin' well, seems like the other day]
[I just wish I knew]

Wildchild, check it.
I wish I knew if I woulda had a chance with Halle Berry at elementary
If this world we know was developed the way it was meant to be
A way to rid our street of corrupt cops up in Los Angeles
All female sexual thoughts perpetrated not scandalous
And why females are so overly sensitive
Why to this day a belt is a father's only form of discipline
Why major labels and artists rarely be seein' eye to eye
Why you never say your things to your loved ones before they die
But when they do, I wish I knew spiritually, if they still with you [iTunes]
Why you never stop drinking before the last drink hits you
Why is it okay to drink but marijuana's still illegal?
Though I don't smoke, I wish how to change it for my people.
How to read racist thoughts even before they get spoken
Which slot machine will hit the jackpot usin' my last token
[I just wish I knew]
You never know, right? The Wonder Years.

[Goin' way, way back to the early days]
[Rememberin' well, seems like the other day]
[Goin' way, way back to the early days]
[Now when I mighta stayed from around the way]
[Goin' way, way back to the early days]
[Rememberin' well, seems like the other day]
[I just wish I knew]

Uh, yeah.
I wish I knew the cure for the diseases and next week's lotto numbers
Terrorist acts before they planned and who they planned them under
How to prevent and conquer death.
I wish I knew if my family would be beside me when I be takin' my last breath
I know Mother Nature and rapists, two different death traps
I wish I knew the mindset of both, to catch 'em up in the act
And if there was someone else in the word who looks and acts just like me
A way to cop me a pair of Michael Jordan reissue Nikes
A way to end world sufferin'
Why interracial relationships are the key and most be hesitatin' to show love to them
If time travel's possible
How to return love back to my wife [iTunes], who's been there through every good and bad obstacle
And why people live with so much hate [iTunes]
Every good and bad secret about a girl on the first blind date
Yeah.

[I just wish I knew]
You never know, uh?
[Goin' way back]

I wish I knew why men lust for strip clubs
Why white labels exist and if your music ain't Outkast, you already know got dubs
Why females need so much attention and ill affection [iTunes]
If there was a scandal in the Bush presidential election
If UFOs really exist
When I'm at work, who will say the wrong thing next to me, get me pissed catch a fist?
If street beggars you know be frontin' and really got money
How to take MCs I hear been fakin' and then use 'em as crash dummies
How to film it and release it on a commercial
Take the place of programmers and play hip hop that's universal
No mainstream and underground records sales to control
So you won't know what's gonna be next, only music with soul
If my daughter will use the true path that God has laid
The key to success so all of my people can get paid.
[I just wish I knew]
You never know, uh. The Wonder Years.

[Goin' way, way back to the early days]
[Rememberin' well, seems like the other day]
[Goin' way, way back to the early days]
[Now when I mighta stayed from around the way]
[Goin' way, way back to the early days]
[Rememberin' well, seems like the other day]
[I just wish I knew]
You never know, uh? The Wonder Years






Or you can see for yourself:

Questions Version (2 of 2)

[Goin' way, way back to the early days]
[Rememberin' well, seems like the other day]
[Goin' way, way back to the early days]
[Now when I mighta stayed from around the way]
[Goin' way, way back to the early days]
[Rememberin' well, seems like the other day]
[I just wish I knew]

Wildchild, check it.
I wish I knew if I had woulda a chance with Halle Berry at elementary
If this world we know was developed the way it was meant to be
A way to rid our street of corrupt cops up in Los Angeles
All female sexual thoughts perpetrated not scandalous
And why females are so overly sensitive
Why to this day a belt is a father's only form of discipline
Why major labels and artists rarely be seein' eye to eye
Why you never say your things to your loved ones before they die
But when they do, I wish I knew spiritually, if they still with you
Why you never stop drinking before the last drink hits you
Why is it okay to drink but marijuana's still illegal?
Though I don't smoke, I wish how to change it for my people.
How to read racist thoughts even before they get spoken
Which slot machine will hit the jackpot usin' my last token
[I just wish I knew]
You never know, right? The Wonder Years.

[Goin' way, way back to the early days]
[Rememberin' well, seems like the other day]
[Goin' way, way back to the early days]
[Now when I mighta stayed from around the way]
[Goin' way, way back to the early days]
[Rememberin' well, seems like the other day]
[I just wish I knew]

Uh. Yeah.
I wish I knew the cure for the diseases and next week's lotto numbers
Terrorist acts before they planned and who they planned them under
How to prevent and conquer death.
I wish I knew if my family would be beside me when I be takin' my last breath
I know Mother Nature and rapists, two different death traps
I wish I knew the mindset of both, to catch 'em up in the act
And if there was someone else in the word who looks and acts just like me
A way to cop me a pair of Michael Jordan reissue Nikes
A way to end world sufferin'
Why interracial relationships are the key and most be hesitatin' to show love to them
If time travel's possible
How to return love back to my wife, who's been there through every good and bad obstacle
And why people live with so much hate
Every good and bad secret about a girl on the first blind date
Yeah.

[I just wish I knew]
You never know, uh?
[Goin' way back]

I wish I knew why men lust for strip clubs
Why white labels exist and if your music ain't Outkast, you already know got dubs (?)
Why females need so much attention and ill affection
If there was a scandal in the Bush presidential election
If UFOs really exist
When I'm at work, who will say the wrong thing next to me, get me pissed, catch a fist?
If street beggars you know be frontin' and really got money
How to take MCs I hear been fakin' and then use 'em as crash dummies
How to film it and release it on a commercial
Take the place of programmers and play hip hop that's universal
No mainstream and underground record sales to control
So you won't know what's gonna be next, only music with soul
If my daughter will use the true path that God has laid
The key to success so all of my people can get paid.
[I just wish I knew]
You never know, uh. The Wonder Years.

[Goin' way, way back to the early days]
[Rememberin' well, seems like the other day]
[Goin' way, way back to the early days]
[Now when I mighta stayed from around the way]
[Goin' way, way back to the early days]
[Rememberin' well, seems like the other day]
[I just wish I knew]
You never know, uh? The Wonder Years

Fall Is Not a Time for Dan Brown

Fall reading spotted on the Brooklyn-bound F train: Meditations of Mind and Body, The Complete Dramatic Works of Samuel Beckett, Introduction to Scholastic Process. (I myself am listening to a Yale Intro. Psychology courses courtesy iTunes U.) Conclusion: Fall is when our brains go back to school (if not necessarily our bodies.)

Q and W

Some shockingly typical Questions I have seriously considered just in the last 12 hours, and the reasons Why I'm Asking them (it's a Q & W).

Q: Can the past truly be said to exist if it no longer exists in the present?

W: Hearing this iTunes U lecture, in which a charmingly-accented biographer, Richard Carwardine, reminds us that Abraham Lincoln is the most biographied man to ever live. Then wondering if anyone can really be said to be right about Lincoln.

Q: What happens if the villain succeeds in Act 1?

W: Re-reading Mell's strangely gratifying first attempt at world domination in Narbonic: Director's Cut. (*spoiler:* Mell does okay, but later admits that she made some crucial mistakes.)

If the villain fails in Act 3, that's normal. If he succeeds, that's a tragedy. Plenty of villains are foiled in Act 1 only to make a better go of it in Act 3. But what if the villain succeeds in Act 1, and so thoroughly that there's no hope of beating him back?

Thing is, in the real world, villains succeed all the time. Stalin died sleeping in his own bed. People like Alexander the Great even occasionally conquer the world.

However, unless someone is particularly bad off or goes about seeking out people who are, we don't usually think of this as a world created by villains. We tend to accept the world as it is presented to us early on.

Maybe that's because the run of history is where a traditional story act structure breaks down. It's like Malcolm says in Jurassic Park (page 369 of the paperback, or you can search for "destroy the world") - we may be in peril, but "the world" is not. Maybe it's not about good or evil, only change.

Maybe I should change my blog's motto to "making the case for relativism." Or is that too subjective?

ribbles on Taliban on Nobel Committee on Obama

The Taliban is apparently immune to both aerial bombardment and irony:

"The Nobel prize for peace? Obama should have won the 'Nobel Prize for escalating violence and killing civilians'," Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told Reuters by telephone from an undisclosed location.

(via Reuters)

Outbreak Theory

Just finished reading a very comprehensive New Yorker article [log-in required] on the events leading up to the collapse of Lehman and, by extension, the world economic crisis. 

The article's conclusion is that despite the extensive (and arguably justified) critism of the bailout, the feeling that at least some comprehensive plan was in place prevented the worldwide financial panic we feared in the nervous months after Lehman. 

This reminded me of two things. First, an article in Wired about virus theory wherein researchers ran thousands of computer simulations to predict the spread of world-threatening viruses if they found their way in to the population. The other, a practical guide to removing stains. 

In both cases, the conclusions were the same.  I doesn't so much matter what you do as long as you DO SOMETHING. Close the schools, quarantine, stop interstate travel, rub with soap and warm water - any preventative measure is better than nothing and, generally speaking, enough to stop a crisis.

First Draft Complete, Cue Soul Searching

This weekend, I biked out to the end of an isolated pier in Red Hook and read the first draft of my script, out loud, to myself.

This was a big moment for me. Just like it says in the book, there are things I thought were there that weren't there, and things that are there that I had never expected. The most unexpected of the latter: what I have seems to be a completed story. It's a script. It's a first draft, with big chunks missing and other chunks that will need to be completely reimagined and rewritten, but it is a whole script, heavy, made of paper, physically indistinguishable from, say, Good Will Hunting or Poltergeist 2, except for the words on the page.

This is a HUGE relief.

I had gotten so focused on each individual part of the script that I didn't quite understand that by the end I would have a whole thing, a coherent work that I had written, an object made of words.

Right now, I am sitting in the lower 60s section of Riverside Park, reading my reference book, and thinking about what comes next. I am trying to figure out what the biggest changes will need to be so as to make them first. Giving my main character more of a role in the main action of the story seems to be my greatest initial challenge. There will be many others.

In the book it says that once you finish your first draft, you're a writer. I don't know if that's true exactly. But when I was working on the first draft I found that the best time to stop writing was when I started wondering if maybe I was doing absolutely everthing wrong - something I wondered literally every day that I wrote. I assumed that once I'd finished a first draft, I'd spend the next week as drunk as physically possible. Instead, I find myself thinking, anticipating, and hoping just to make it through the second draft.

Wish me luck.