Little Obama

There's a lot of consternation in the liberal community that Barack Obama isn't making the most liberal of choices as he populates his cabinet and plans his inauguration. My friend Lucia has a great article that spawned me to think:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lucia-brawley/is-there-method-to-this-r_b_152189.html

I don't think the concerns are invalid, but I think maybe people need to think differently about their relationship to the President-Elect.

Rather than thinking of him as someone you'd hired to redo your kitchen, and now you're pissed because he put in the wrong tile and scratched up your sink, I think it might be more apt to think about him as your son.

We put our everything into our children, our love, our dreams, our time, but when it is time for them to become grown-ups, we have to let them follow their own path and make their own choices, even if they cause us pain. We can (and should) let them know how we feel, but we have to support them and trust that we did our best and made the right choices in preparing them for the big show.

So feel free to let Obama know how you feel, but maybe try to have a little patience to let him live his life and do what he thinks needs to be done. If you voted for Obama, you gave him a vote of confidence. Let's keep that confidence as long as we can.

Lamenting Xmas Glitz?

Several of my friends who are practicing Christians were lamenting the commercialism and materialism of Christmas. But I think that without those elements, Christmas wouldn't be the major holiday that it is.

It's a complicated holiday -- when the early Christians first celebrated Jesus' birth, they appropriated the Roman Saturnalia (more similar to Carnival/Mardi Gras), though the two had nothing in common -- it was a marketing ploy to get the pagans to join.

Then you throw in Santa Claus, St. Nicholas, who is the patron saint of pawn shops -- the three balls represent three bags of gold that he anonymously gave to a man so the man wouldn't have to sell his three daughters -- whose day was celebrated by giving gifts, and became part of the Christmas celebration when the Catholic Church was trying to woo his worshipers into joining them.

So the Christmas we have today is popular because it was designed to be popular. Maybe as a Christian, the best way to think about it is that its incarnation (glitz and all) is a way to get people excited about the season and interest them in the story of Jesus' birth and his teachings.

The Tribes

The Freakonomics blog asked "When is it ok to vote for your own race?" I thought that was a question that didn't get to the reality of the problem.

The word “racist” is so toxic that it’s preventing us from confronting the basic fact as humans, we are tribal in nature. I don’t want “tribal” to become an excuse for racist behavior, but I think it helps explain our affinities and voting behavior.

My favorite new word from this election cycle is “white ethnic”, which was a term coined to explain why working-class whites were not voting for Obama in the democratic primaries.

It’s my belief that one way to split the American demographic is into “ethnic” groups and the “mainstream.”

If you’re part of an “ethnic” group, be it black, white, latino, whatever, you are less likely to vote for someone from another ethnic group. They aren’t part of your “tribe,” and they’re perhaps even from a competing tribe (re: black factory workers cheering as their latino co-workers are rounded up by INS).

However, Barack Obama isn’t really part of the “black ethnic” voting group — he’s part of the
“mainstream.” And if you’re a “mainstream” voter, you don’t care that he’s black. However, if you’re an ethnic voter, you do — and if you’re black, you’ll vote for him; if you’re not, you might not.

The flip side of this is that a “mainstream” voter does not want to vote for an “ethnic” candidate. While Barack Obama is part of the mainstream, Al Sharpton, for example, is a "black ethnic" candidate. Most mainstream voters (especially non-blacks) won’t vote for Sharpton. The mainstream voter can be effectively just as “tribal” as the ethnic voter — it’s just that because it’s not drawn on color lines, it doesn’t come under the banner of “racism”.

Here's a proposal for some new definitions:

. If you are an "ethnic" voter but would not vote for a "mainstream" candidate with a different ethnicity, that could be termed "racism."
. If you are a "mainstream" voter but would not vote for an "ethnic" candidate of your own ethnicity, that could be termed "elitism."
. If you are mainstream or ethnic and would not vote for an "ethnic" candidate different from your own ethnicity, that could be termed "human."

Is John McCain a "white ethnic" candidate? I don't think he is. But Sarah Palin is definitely a "white ethnic" candidate, which ups McCain's "white ethnic" connection through his choice. So in choosing Palin, McCain had to do the calculus that she would help him with the "white ethnic" vote and probably hurt him with both the mainstream and the other ethnic votes. And I'm sure the polls would reflect this fact exactly. Question is, is the net help greater than the net hurt? We'll find out.

Palin, Palin, Baby

My friend Jason Preston thinks Sarah Palin is the Vanilla Ice of politics. In ten years you'll be embarrassed to admit you listened to her...

INT. The White House, Spring 2009:

McCain: Sarah, we can't get to an agreement with the damn Europeans... What say you?

Palin: All right, stop. Collaborate and listen.

McCain: Of course. And while I have you, the Iranians are threatening our carrier group in the Gulf...

Palin: Light up a stage and wax a chump like a candle.

McCain: Good to hear you say it. I've been wanting to try out our new two-hundred-megatonners, too.

Palin: You better hit bullseye, the kid don't play.

McCain: Oh, they have the latest guidance systems. Plus, two hundred fucking megatons, how can you miss?

Palin: Cookin' MCs like a pound of bacon.

McCain: You know how to hit a Muslim where it hurts.

Palin: If there was a problem, yo, I'll solve it.

McCain: Sarah, will you marry me?

Palin: Word to your mother, let's get out of here.

60 seconds

Random thought I had last night:

We count years starting with 1 AD, January is month 1, and the first day of the month is 1.

The first hour of the day is 12.

The first minute of the hour is 0, as is the first second.

I expect Wikipedia can answer why this all is. The years/months/days is almost surely related to the fact that Arab mathematicians first introduced the concept of '0' -- before that, there was just I. II. III, IV, etc.

But what's up with the hours? When was the hour first introduced? And minutes and seconds? Before or after we had mechanical clocks?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hour

I knew that the Mayans had a base-60 numeric system, but I didn't know the Babylonians did as well -- this is what Wikipedia credits with our 60 seconds to a minute:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numeral_system#Sixty

Base sixty is awesome, in my opinion, though it might make arithmetic tricky. Why so cool? Because you can divide sixty by 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 -- so if you need to split stuff between people, 60 is a good number to divide. 10 sucks. 2 and 5. 12 would be better -- 2, 3, 4, 6. Interesting how prevalent 12 is, yet 10 managed to win out as a counting system. Guess it's easier to just count fingers than to count fingers plus your feet.

Monday boozin'

It was a little chilly this morning, so I put a couple of dark Hefs in the fridge; by lunch, it was hot as usual outside. Alas.

First up: Kapuziner Schwarz-Weizen. Pretty good dark beer, would drink it again. But felt like it was missing a little something, reminded me a little of drinking Guinness in the US instead of Ireland -- not quite the richness you'd like.

Also, the monk on this bottle isn't quite as old-school as the one on the other. Kinda looks like he came out of a comic book bible for drunk kids.

http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/412/17140


Aventinus -- excellent dark hefeweizen, great flavor -- this was the clear favorite today, definitely will drink again. If you like hefeweizens and you like dark beers, definitely give this a try.

Also, the monkish fellow is old-school sepia style. Maybe early Gutenberg days.

http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/72/224

Avalanche o' Beer

Man, it's a beer party! No, we didn't taste these all in the same day -- a little behind, this is over the span of a couple of weeks, plus a bonus brew from Ben Chess (the official team photographer).

Hacker-Pschorr Weisse. Ok weisse, wasn't blown away by the flavor.

http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/76/873









Hopf Helle Weisen. The Hopf Bock was a champ before, and this Hopf is another champ as well. Very solid wheat flavor, clear and classic. Drink me!

http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/1357/4852







Tucher Hefeweizen. Ok, taste, we drank it too cold. Not necessarily needing to write home about it.

http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/129/371









Traquair House, that is from a night out at Monk's Kettle. Special guest beer from Ben!

http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/24/36








Lindeman's Framoise Lambic. If you haven't tried this one, it's not to be missed. It's the king/queen of girlie drinks -- yes, it's a beer, but it tastes more like a raspberry sorbet. My one regret with serving it is that we didn't have a big bottle, just this little one. I won't make that mistake again.

And gentlemen, don't think you won't like this one just because Mark Colbert, King of the Girlie Beers, does. It's just awesome.

http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/187/599


Framboise Boon Lambic. I picked this one up to taste it vs. the Lindeman's above. No competition. I guess it's possible that maybe this one is more "traditional" or something, but we're not historic beer drinkers -- we like what's good today. And sadly, this isn't.

http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/47/2427






Hofbrau Munchner Weisse. Ben has fond memories of visiting this brew hall in Munich -- the site of Hitler's Beer Hall Putsch that kicked off his rise to power. Salacious history aside, an excellent and tasty beer.

http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/4686/3836







Schneider Weisse. Solid hefeweizen, relatively traditional if I recall. Very good.

http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/72/3280








Ayinger Ur-Weisse. Brought this one back for a second tasting as a "control" to make sure we weren't nuts to like it so much the first time. Holds up well, still king of the Dunkles Weisses.

http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/39/135

Beer Tastings

I'm a big lover of beverages, and though my in-laws are far more gifted win-os than I am, I think I far outpace them when it comes to sodas, mixed drinks, and beer. My lunch buddies at work have started a beer tasting tradition at lunch -- it's perfect, because no one drinks enough beer that it kills our afternoon, but it's just the thing to spice up last night's leftovers. Anyhow, I'll start posting our reviews here.

I went to BevMo this weekend and bought most every German hefe-weizen, dark and otherwise, that they had in stock. It was foggy this morning, so I thought it might be chilly for lunch, so I thought we should try the dark beers -- turns out, it warmed up; didn't matter, we drank inside anyhow.

Here's a link to the Wikipedia article on Hefeweizen.

Here's what we had:

Bamberger Der Weisse Bock

I liked this beer, it was dark and quite rich, more akin to a porter than our other tastings today. One fellow liked this one the best. I don't know if I'd go out of my way to buy it again, but it was pretty good.

http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/8346/41805





Hopf Weisser Bock

This was definitely today's champion. It was more similar to a traditional Hefeweizen -- "bock" indicates a strong, dark beer; it was strong, but it wasn't as dark as our other two samples. I'd like to stand this up against our reigning champion, the Ayinger Hefeweizen.

http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/1357/3673




Weihenstephaner Korbinian

This bad boy is super-malty; it's actually listed as a malt liquor, though its alcohol level was in the range of the other two. Just drinking at lunch, it was too malty for everyone -- but I could imagine it as a fun food pairing.

http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/252/779

Part of the pack

For several years I worked as a writers' assistant on TV shows. Basically the primary job is to type on a computer (which has a screen that all of the writers in the room can watch), either taking story notes or taking directions to edit a script.

One morning while I sat at the computer in the writers' room, the writers were chatting away, chatting which, as an assistant, you're pretty much supposed to stay out of -- but you still have to listen, as at any moment one of the writers might say the funniest line the world has ever heard or come up with a genius story twist or idea and if you don't capture it verbatim, you have failed at your job.

For me, that was one of the hardest things about working as an assistant -- there's no such thing as excelling as an assistant. If you do everything right, if you go above and beyond, you're just doing your job. The paradox is that most people who are entertainment assistants actually want to be doing a creative job, and the assistant job is a way to make contacts and build experience to make the leap to the creative job -- but if you are a really great assistant, instead of giving you that chance to get ahead, you boss is likely instead to thwart you because hell, you're a good assistant, and he doesn't want to have to hire another. So the target? Be a good assistant, but not too good.

Anyhow, back to that morning. The writers are prattling on, and then one of them starts talking about their child's upcoming and very important upcoming preschool interview.

I've always felt that people put way too much emphasis on their little kids getting in to the "right" school. I grew up in a small town, went to that small town public school system (with a 50% drop out rate, by the way) for K-12, and then went on to an Ivy League school. I feel confident that no matter what school I'd gone to, I still could/would have ended up at the same college. I went to Whatever preschool, what's with the freaking out over a preschool interview?

Yet here I was, highly educated and skilled American worker, smarter than anyone else in the room (though there are many very academically smart writers I've worked with, but not on this particular day), and I was working as a less-than-gruntled assistant. What the hell?

Well, it was then that I realized something. That writer's kid is likely pretty average, ok, benefit of the doubt, above-average, but not someone whose toddler brilliance will make your jaw drop. But their parents have very high hopes for them; and the best way to make sure those dreams come true is to make sure that they give their child absolutely every possible advantage, build them the best resume you can imagine, hire tutors and trainers and take them to museums and buy them books and basically hustle their asses off, anything to make them stand out from the pack so they can get into an Ivy League college.

I was in the same boat as that kid.

I was working as a writers' assistant because I wanted to be a writer. I made the somewhat Faustian bargain to work as an assistant in exchange for connections and exposure and the chance to make the leap to writer. But there are many working writers who didn't take that path -- they wrote some great samples, got an agent, got a job, and were off and running.

But although I had been an academic superstar, I wasn't a writing superstar. I was average, hey, benefit of the doubt, above average. But I didn't drop jaws. And just like that kid, I was going to have to use every connection, hustle every moment, build the best resume I could, because now I was just part of the pack.

I should quit typing and schedule my daughter's preschool interview...

Make Canadian $$$$!

Yes, it's prime time for us southern gringos to get off our lazy asses and go to where the real money's being made -- Canada!

The whole illegal immigration issue (it doesn't ever actually rise to the level of a "debate," unfortunately) and Americans' tribalistic "Mexicans are ruining America" complaints are a bunch of bullshit. I don't think Americans have the perspective they need to understand what's actually going on.

Let's say you can't find work as a web developer -- the way the economy is, that's not really much of a stretch -- but if you could, you'd make $75,000 a year. Not a bad deal, assuming you live somewhere where a starter house isn't tipping the million-dollar scale.

But you have a friend who has a great lead for you -- in fact, has a job already lined up for you -- and all you have to do is go up to Canada and start working. Problem is, the Canadians have made it illegal for you to take this job right now. They say they already have plenty of native Canadian web developers to do the work.

But it's clear there are tons of web developer jobs in Canada, and none of those Canadians are taking them -- they like ice-skating too much, and they can't bear to be cramped up in front of a computer when they could be out zipping around the frozen ice. And here's the kicker:

...They'll pay you $600,000 a year.

You go up there and work, and send the money back to your family in the US -- can you imagine the stuff you could own? The houses? The cars? No worries about paying for college, or even for retiring -- hell, you could retire plenty early!

And there are already ten million Americans working illegally up there, raking in a half-mil a year! What the hell are you doing unemployed in America? Sure, they're talking about building a wall, but how high does that wall have to be to keep you away from $600,000?! And if they catch you, they'll just send you back home to your family (or dump you in Montana), no big deal.

See you in Ottawa!


$600,000? Really? Well, in 2005, a Whirlpool exec told the NYT that "We may pay $23 an hour in Clyde, including benefits, versus $3 in Mexico versus $1 in China". So take your $75K and multiply it by 8, and there you go.

Americans have a problem with Latin American immigrants for one fundamental reason. They're different. Americans have had problems with every group of people who've come to this country; the Irish, the Italians, the Chinese, the Japanese, the Russians, the Latin Americans. Did those waves of immigrants sink the country? No, they made it the incredible place that it is today.

I believe that if you want to come to this country to find a better life, if you want to work, and you're willing to do whatever job we'll throw at you, damn it, you have a right to be here. So, hope to see you all soon! That includes you, Canada.