When you were young

Just watched Flashbacks of a Fool... good flick. Between the plot and this Roxy Music track, I had some of flashbacks of my own. Oh, the paths we take...

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RIP, Whitney Houston

Whitney died today; she was only 48 years old... so sad. Here's her classic "I Will Always Love You" from The Bodyguard soundtrack (which was, for the record, the first album of all time to sell more than one million copies in a week).

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Joke of the day

Today at CPAC, Rick Santorum's sugar daddy, Foster Friess, shared this joke:

A liberal, a moderate and conservative walking into a bar.

The bartender says "Hi, Mitt."

:-)

James Fallows on the Obama presidency

James Fallows takes a balanced look at the successes and failures of the Obama presidency, as well as the strengths and weaknesses of the man himself. It's long but well worth a read, especially for anyone who feels like Obama hasn't lived up to their expectations. A couple of excerpts about the presidency in general:

The end of a president’s first term is an important time to ask these questions, and not just because of the obvious bearing on his fitness for reelection. Hard as it is to have any dispassionate discussion of a president’s performance during an election year, it will be even harder once the election is over. If a year from now Obama is settling in for a second term, a halo effect will extend back to everything he did during his first four years. His programs will be more effective in reality, since he will get that many more years to cement them in with follow-up measures, supportive appointments to federal agencies and the courts, and possible vetoes of any attempts at repeal. And, through the lens of history, they will seem more effective, since whatever he did in his first term will appear to have been part of an overall plan that was ratified through reelection.

And:

We judge presidents by the specific expectations they ask to be measured against: inspiration (Kennedy, Reagan, Obama), competence and experience (Eisenhower, the first George Bush), strategic cunning (Johnson, Nixon), integrity and personal probity (Carter), inclusiveness and empathy (Clinton), unshakable resolve (the second Bush). But eventually each is judged against his predecessors, a process that properly starts with a reminder that all begin their terms ill-equipped, in ways that hindsight tends to obscure.

The sobering realities of the modern White House are: All presidents are unsuited to office, and therefore all presidents fail in certain crucial aspects of the job. All betray their supporters and provoke bitter criticism from their own side at some point in their term. And all are mis-assessed while in office, for reasons that typically depend more on luck and historical accident than on factors within their control. These realities do not excuse Obama’s failings, but they do put his evolution in perspective.

Presidents fail because not to fail would require, in the age of modern communications and global responsibilities, a range of native talents and learned skills no real person has ever possessed.

And then this really interesting insight into the inexorable growth of the U.S. national security apparatus:

It is no wonder that the “national-security state” in all its aspects has continued to grow throughout the decades since the beginning of World War II. Defense budgets, intelligence and surveillance networks, private military contractors, irregular forms of war: these and other executive-branch tools of international power work like a ratchet. Some presidents rapidly increase them in times of emergency, as George W. Bush did after the 9/11 attacks. No president scales them back. Thus the imbalance continues to grow between international efforts, where a president has an ever greater array of tools and weapons, and the frustrating domestic arena. Despite having run on his opposition to the Iraq War and overseen the formal U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, Barack Obama has, if anything, expanded the range of executive military power, from his unilateral (and mainly successful) decision to intervene in Libya to his expansion of drone attacks

For the Obama-specific analysis, you're going to have to read it here at The Atlantic.

Video for the day

Lana Del Rey's "Video Games"

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93%

The vast majority of Americans believe that foods containing genetically modified crops should be labeled:

In a nationwide telephone poll conducted in October 2010 by Thomson Reuters and National Public Radio, 93 percent said if a food has been genetically engineered or has genetically engineered ingredients, it should say so on its label — a number that has been consistent since genetically modified crops were introduced. (New York Times)

I first worked on the issue back in 2002 when I was active in the failed attempt to pass Measure 27 in Oregon. Somehow, despite the strong public support for labeling, it still hasn't happened.

If you're part of the 93%, let Congress know here.

The world moves on...

The world really does change. When I was back in Kansas visiting my family in January, I went out in Manhattan one night with my sister to celebrate her friend's birthday. Midway through the evening Molly and I were at a bar waiting for her the rest of the gang to catch up. I spied a table of guys and said, "Molly, those guys all look gay!"

"Oh, yeah, this place is gay-friendly," was her casual response.

I was floored. I had spent my freshman year at Kansas State back in the 80s, and the idea that there was now a gay-friendly hangout in Aggieville was a shock. I know, it's been a long time, and it shouldn't have been. But somehow we still sometimes expect that the places we've left behind are going to be preserved just as they were.

AND TODAY IN WASHINGTON STATE the legislature passed gay marriage. Governor Christine Gregoire has said she'll sign the bill.

The world marches on. :-)

Halftime

I'm thinking it's been about 20 years since I've seen the Super Bowl, the associated ads, or even the halftime show. Today I watched the ads here, but only this one stood out:

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Making sense of it all

I was pretty down throughout the second half of 2011, and I spent a lot of time beating myself up about decisions I've made over the past ten to fifteen years. Life often felt like I was looking in the rear view mirror and seeing one wrong turn after another...

I took a walk today, and it occurred to me that the vast majority of the bad decisions I've made in my life (with respect, at least, to relationships) were made in an environment that for a long time was my favorite place to be. What a paradox. I wondered what it was that I was looking for at the time, considering that I so clearly now feel like so many things I did were mistakes.

It makes me think that we can't really have it all. We all want many things; some of them require choices that make other things less attainable. No revelation there... but it does make it a bit easier to forgive myself now.

And I also realize that there isn't necessarily any logic to the past: my past behavior, my life as seen in that rear view mirror. Some of it just happened; some of the decisions were made in the heat of the moment. It's unchangeable yet malleable: what I couldn't understand or accept last fall can be reconciled in the bright sunshine of a February afternoon.

What's up in Nevada?

With 44% of the precincts reporting, Romney is the winner... with approximately 7000 votes state wide????

Even when the rest of the vote comes in, it's going to be a very underwhelming number.

Lame.

Yosemite memories

It's been far too long since I've been there... but this video sure brought back some great memories of hiking in Yosemite.

Yosemite HD from Project Yosemite.

Thanks to James for taking me there for the first time nearly a quarter century ago...

Mesmorizing...

Wow, just watched Ryan Gosling in Drive. Great flick!

And I love this song from the soundtrack: "A Real Hero" by College, featuring Electric Youth.

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