Month: October 2004

Well, someone doesn’t care about common sense

Last time I visited Ohio, it seemed like a perfectly nice place. But apparently anyone with half a brain is ready to leave.
This is part of the knowledge economy, I think, part of a significant shift in the productive centers of the world. Many jobs can be done from anywhere, so they migrate to hot spots like Atlanta, San Francisco, Austin, Boston, Bangalore, Tokyo, Seoul. People with the skills to fill those jobs move with them. People without skills are abandoned in ghost towns like they were during the Dust Bowl days. They grow xenophobic, regressive, strange. Their customs are alien to us.

P&G is a major source of jobs and a community anchor in Ohio, but the AFA and other groups are attacking it. They’re attacking their best and brightest, driving out the diversity that makes an economy thrive, eliminating the kinds of things that could make cities like Dayton an attractive place for new jobs and new talent. Bite the hand that feeds you, and eventually, you’ll starve.

Hey, where are we going, and what’s with this handbasket?

IN some ways, speculating on a merger for Merrill or Morgan is like forecasting a World Series championship for the Red Sox: every year, the possibility emerges, gaining some momentum and passionate supporters, only to crumble at the last moment as the stakes and pressures build. All the same, many people continue to believe that some kind of deal is inevitable.

Yeah, they’re screwing it up. All I can watch these days is Futurama and Family Guy– the Sox are of course doing what they do every year. The politicians are doing their thing. Realtors and lenders are duping their customers. Nor do our current soldiers have much hope for respect as vets,

Well, I’m going to start writing more poetry.

Everyone Needs to Read Suskind’s Article

Everyone needs to read Ron Suskind’s latest article on Bush. I quote:

[While discussing who would act as a nonpartisan peacekeeper in Gaza, it was mentioned that] Scandinavian countries were viewed more positively. [Senator Tom] Lantos went on to describe for the president how the Swedish Army might be an ideal candidate to anchor a small peacekeeping force on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Sweden has a well-trained force of about 25,000. The president looked at him appraisingly, several people in the room recall.

”I don’t know why you’re talking about Sweden,” Bush said. ”They’re the neutral one. They don’t have an army.”

Lantos paused, a little shocked, and offered a gentlemanly reply: ”Mr. President, you may have thought that I said Switzerland. They’re the ones that are historically neutral, without an army.” Then Lantos mentioned, in a gracious aside, that the Swiss do have a tough national guard to protect the country in the event of invasion.

Bush held to his view. ”No, no, it’s Sweden that has no army.”

The room went silent, until someone changed the subject.

Or, later, Suskind’s meeting with a senior official:

The aide said that guys like me were ”in what we call the reality-based community,” which he defined as people who ”believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.” I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ”That’s not the way the world really works anymore,” he continued. ”We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality.

Now, I prefer fact-based leadership to blind guessing, but hey, take your pick. You are, after all, as certain as I. The difference is that I am right, because I have relied on facts, and you are wrong, because you have gone with a hunch. But hey, certainty is what matters, right?