Our hearts go out to those in Japan who have lost homes, loved ones, and whose lives are in chaos and uncertainty. It is an amazing and terrible display of nature’s might:
Although, there’s a lot of press right now about the nuclear reactors potentially melting down, The Wall Street Journal has a reassuring article on how Japan is not Chernobyl (containment shells, first-world regulatory protections etc.). We hope they’re right.
Now that all the excitement from the historic 2008 U.S. Presidential election has died down, Yuval Levin’s ‘The Meaning of Sarah Palin’ is the best analysis I’ve read yet on Sarah Palin and her symbolism, and why people reacted as they did to her. (And I’ve read a lot of them.)
It’s a fair and sober piece that understands the depth of Palin’s strengths – a stubborn belief in the importance of ethical government and the redeeming virtues of fair competition – as well as her (and more centrally McCain’s) electorally fatal deficiency in painting a full vision of why their beliefs would make Americans better off: “Palin’s potent combination of cultural populism and social conservatism might provide the roadmap a Republican politician will need in the future to make headway against the Democratic tide. But that roadmap will only take that Republican politician so far. The rest of the journey requires the articulation of a broader vision for American families, American prosperity and freedom, and American security; a vision of conservatism, not only a nimbus of populism.”
This sort of stuff sent me straight to the Land of Nod in college, but it looks like political markets may be more accurate predictors than the entertaining-but-often-wrong talking heads on TV.
Justin Wolfers at the Wall Street Journal
reminds readers that the political markets figured out the Democratic takeover of Congress during the midterm elections an hour before the talking heads assimilated all the data coming.
Who cares? In short, everyone should care – the results of Google trying to take on the big bell companies could have major benefits for consumers, small entrepreneurs, and every kid curious enough to try to make something work a little better.
Just last night, I caught a segment of Alive Day Memories, a documentary of ten soldiers and Marines who survived severe trauma accidents in Iraq – and lived to tell the tale of their ‘Alive Days.’
Regardless of one’s feelings about the Iraq War, “Alive Day Memories” brings into sharp relief the human cost of the war – the most jarring thing is seeing the videos of the young men and women prior to trauma, intact, confident, horsing around in their barracks; and after, missing multiple limbs, eyes, scarred faces. At the same time one is weighing the cost in lives – both American and Iraqi – the film elicits a contradictory feeling of pride in the committment and strength of the soldiers and their matter-of-fact optimism in the face of devastation.
The subject doesn’t need any added drama, but it’s produced and hosted by Tony Soprano! aka James Gandolfini, who does a fine, understated job giving center stage to the people who matter – the soldiers who fought for their country and survived.
I’ve been a fan of Doonesbury since high school. I must say, at that time a lot of his sly humor went over my head – not least because of its wordiness. Nevertheless, I’ve always admired author G.B. Trudeau’s willingness to really use his forum – even when it occasionally landed him in the Editorial pages instead of the Cartoons.
Anyway, the from-the-front dispatches from Iraq are worth a look. Not least because it appears the editor took a light hand to them. I wonder though how frank most military personnel can (or want) to be while still in active duty.
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Now that all the excitement from the historic 2008 U.S. Presidential election has died down, 
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