Shocking!

The New Yorker has a recent profile of Naomi Klein. I haven't done much substantial reading of any of Klein's work, but despite that, I'm pretty sure I would marry her if I could.

Spreading the Social Gospel?

I must say that I'm still a bit conflicted about Rick Warren doing the invocation at Barack Obama's inauguration. Since I'm not that all religious, one part of me thinks that there shouldn't be an invocation anyways. But I recognize the role religion plays in many lives and in American society, so with that assumption, what does it mean to have Rick Warren give the invocation? I wouldn't want someone playing an important part in the inauguration to be a bigot in any way, be it anti-gay, anti-black, anti-Catholic, anti-Semetic, and so on. So what would be the reason to have Rick Warren there, who has made comparisons between gay marriage and incest?

I enjoyed reading Juan Cole's recent take on Warren, where Cole showed that in many ways, Warren is not the typical evangelical bigot. He bases his teachings on personal betterment and preaches a compelling social Gospel has been neglected from many religious teachings in recent years. 

Furthermore, if Barack Obama were a conservative Republican and picked Warren, then you could easily read into it as giving support to Warren's anti-equality views. But Obama obviously didn't pick him for that reason, or to give a wink to any particular political faction. I think that he did it in a sincere effort to bring people together (didn't he say once or twice or a million times while campaigning that he would be doing that?). I think what would be unfortunate with such gestures is that often they end up insulting many of your supporters while not meaning much to your political opposites. 

I think that in the end, this was a bad move, and I think that Rachel Maddow makes a good point: Obama's inauguration is to be a day that is a culmination of a long fight for equal rights in this country, so what's that guy who opposes equal rights for some people doing there?

My "Bill Kristol is always wrong" theory gets challenged

Oh dear Lord, I never thought this would happen: I actually got through one of Bill Kristol's NYTimes columns without going nearly blind with rage. His one use of the phrase "political and media elites" notwithstanding, Kristol actually sums up a lot of my feelings on the current progress of the US auto industry bailout. The basic question of the article is: why the animosity towards the auto companies and its union? Kristol actually gives some accurate answers.

On the home front...

Originally, I thought Mitt Romney's NYTimes piece on the auto industry bailout was surprisingly realistic and reasonable. However, I find this piece from salon.com to be more on target. It recognizes the historical fact that Henry Ford and the industry he led helped to create the American middle class, along with the UAW, which rose standards for all worker, and made reality the idea that a factory worker could make enough to live the same quality of life as his company's management.

This piece gave me more perspective on the recent outsing of my former Congressman John Dingle from his commitee chairmanship; though Dingle can easily be portrayed as defending the auto industry at all cost, he has also been introducing legislation for univeral healthcare every year for the last half century. The fact is that Dingle cares about the people involved in the industry and the reprocussions that its failure would have, while someone like Romney doesn't.

I also like the point of view that the salon piece takes on the SUV boon of the last decade: though it is widely viewed as irresponisble, it was a way for the Big Three to countiue to live up to their obligations in the social contract.

Maximum Fun

Check out the work of Chip Kidd, who has designed book covers for the last 20 years or so. I saw him being interviewed at Bumbershoot this year at a taping of The Sound of Young America.

The South will come again!

The South seems to be becoming politically irrelevent, and from the sound of some of these comments, culturally and intellectionally isolated.

Ear Irrigation

Over a month ago, while visiting my family in Ohio, I went swimming and soon after developed an ear problem. At the time I didn't know what it was, but it turned out to be earwax buildup. My right ear was plugged up and I could not hear anything out of it. I used some ear drops and an ear cleaner kit, and that help, but it did not solve the problem. So I scheduled an appointment to see a doctor to actually look in my ear and tell me what was in there. I really thought that it had to be something other than earwax, because I had been using the drops regularly and nothing was happening, so I figured it had to be something else.

Well, no, the doctor looked in there and said there was just a lot of earwax. Then she looked in the other ear and said that there was plenty more in that one too. So she scheduled me to have my ears irrigated, which I did today.

Oh man, what a mind blower. My ears are still feeling the sensation of that experience. First of all, I can hear a million times better. Also, because of the pressure applied to my eardrums, its made me kinda lightheaded, which feels kinda pleasant at this moment. But I guess psychologically, too, I feel clearer.

Basically, the nurse had a long rubber syringe that she used to squirt hot water into my ears. She started with the right one, and boy did it need it. She showed me the water that irrigated out of my ear, and it was pretty gross, with one large brown chunk in it. I could not believe that that was actually in my ear. And that it was able to make its way out. Then she did the same in the left ear, which took a bit longer because there was a chunk that would not come out all the way. It was funny, she actually said "C'mon baby!" encouraging it on the way out.

I would recommend that you get your ears irrigated if you feel that you have ear problems or trouble hearing. It's a wild experience.