Category Archives: Current Affairs

Cats and dogs and big cats

Americana, Current Affairs, San Mateo County

When I was a boy, we had a dog named Zola*. Almost everybody I knew, that had a pet, had a dog. Dogs were the heroes in movies like Old Yeller. Lassie, and Rin Tin Tin. The only people that had cats were villains and old ladies. Cats were bad – well, not exactly bad, more couldn't help it evil. Think Silvester.

Now everybody I know who has a pet, has a cat. Even people who have dogs, have cats**. 

When I was that same boy, there were no longer wolves in the Bay Area and coyotes had yet to move in. There were no cougars or mountain lions, either. But, while the wolves seem to be really gone, the cougars are moving back in. And they are being embraced. The cover of our local park district magazine sports a mountain lion on the cover and an article inside promotes their virtues. So, it seems, both General U. S. Grant and mountain lions are making a comeback. Maybe health care will pass after all.

Mtn. Lion Cover 

* for Émile Zola who accused the French Army of antisemitism and obstruction of justice when they convicted a Jewish artillery captain, Alfred Dryfus, of treason. 

** except for the Obamas who only have a dog.

The Blind Side

Americana, Books, Current Affairs, Film, Religion, Sports, What's a man?

Michael Oher and family

I just finished reading The Blind Side by Michael Lewis and I would recommend it to anybody who is interested in football, or US social policy, or the human potential, or race relations, or, for that matter, just wants a good read.I just finished writing about David Foster Wallace and how much I have enjoyed his writing and The Blind Side is the polar opposite.

With DFW, I am always aware of, and dazzled by, the writing. In the The Blind Side, the story is everything – more accurately, what is being told is everything. All the words, all the sentences are pushing a narrative forward. And I mean that in the best possible way. 

At this point, I think everybody knows the basic plot – how a poor black kid, Big Mike who become Michael Oher,  is discovered (not quite the right word, maybe found) by a very rich, white, Christian, family and how his life and their lives are changed. That does not do it justice. Michael Oher is a 350 pound, 6'4", freakishly quick, and astonishingly graceful black kid who is invisible.  He goes to school, sort of, but nobody cares if he learns anything – they just pass him on to the next grade where he is invisible again.  He is one of those kids we read about every once in a while that just slipped through the cracks. At 6'4" and 350 pounds!

Except that, when he is starting his junior year in high school, everything changed. Michael is very likable but he is very lucky. As the book says, among other things, Pity the kid inside Hurt Village who was born to play the piano, or manage people, or trade bonds. This book made me realize, again, that we, me and the people who read this blog, were all born on third base, at least, and, even on our best days, think we hit a double.We didn't we are just enormously lucky.

A Nation of Owners? Renters? Both?

Americana, Current Affairs

This is a post from Richard Taylor.  The last time I stepped in as the
blogmasters' avatar I was posting from Italy, just south of Switzerland.
 That seems like a good enough segue to muse for a moment on a great
article by the economist  Robert Shiller in the Sunday
New York Times. (You have to read the article to find the connection.)
Noting the myriad federal subsidies to the housing industry, Shiller
asks "what is the long-term justification for putting taxpayers on the
line to subsidize home ownership?"

Old_timer_structural_worker2

His answer is a complicated
one.  I won't try to summarize it here; there is enough nuance and food
for thought that it deserves its own reading.  I will say that I
appreciated having an economist acknowledge that our decisions cannot be
reduced to simple economic efficiency.  He talks about the role of
values (and not the kind showcased on "The Price is Right"). In addition
to finding policies that make economic sense, those policies need to
take account of some fundamental values that run much more deeply in our
national psyche than simple economic efficiency.  His point is a bold
one because his critics could argue that the values he describes are
contrary to the change in policy direction he seems to be proposing.  He
seems more committed to recognizing, naming, the values than in winning a
technical argument (and willing to insist that we look deeply at the
values before jumping to policy conclusions).  The piece feels like an
invitation to conversation rather than a prescription for legislation.

Some
may differ with his take on our values as a nation.  That could be an
essay in itself.  To me, the first step is to acknowledge that values
have a place in the discussion.  Now we can talk.