~Christopher Morley, American journalist

A great many opportunities have been seized and lost in America's history.  We've built great monuments to our successes, and our failures have been monuments unto themselves, manifesting themselves in our lives as poverty and greed, racism and sexism.  As a nation and a people we've proven time and again that we are capable of both the great and the terrible and can approach either with equal passion, efficiency, and courage.  But that's just our history and our style--these things do not describe who we are.  

Who we are is the question we must all answer if the American Experiment is to continue.  It's also the question we are rapidly becoming less and less equipped to approach.

When was the last time someone asked you, "What does it mean to be an American?"  If someone did ask you that question, might you respond along the lines of, "Apple Pie, Fourth of July, Bruce Springsteen, and Corn on the cob"?

Probably.  

But those are just the trappings of what it means to be an American.  What it really means is that you've been granted a massive number of rights and protections attached to a small number of obligations.  To be an American citizen is the greatest achievement unlock in the history of the world, and unless you've been naturalized (Welcome!) all you had to do was not a damn thing. 

In fact, you didn't have to do ANYTHING until your kindergarten teacher taught you the Pledge of Allegiance, and even then you could absolutely mangle it and no one arrested you and threw you in prison.  They probably even smiled when you tried to pronounce "indivisible."

So here we are, a nation of citizens who don't have a clue and can't be bothered to figure out just how and why this government exists in the first place.  Not only that, but we have the cajones to be cynical about a system the vast majority of us do not understand in the least.  Want to have some fun?  Ask the next person you see to explain the Electoral College.  Then ask them why it exists.  Hilarity.

Here is the big problem: "Our children is not learning."  

We hide politics and government from children.  We hide it in the classroom because our teachers would face controversy, we hide it in public policy because, let's face it, six year olds can't vote, and we hide it at home because Daddy and Uncle Tom will throw salad forks at Thanksgiving dinner.  So no one makes American children aware that they are members of something big, great, and in constant need of care.  This unforced ignorance seems to stick with most of us until our first High School civics class, and sadly far beyond, resulting in adults who are primed to see the government and its political parties as foreign entities to be mistrusted and gaurded against, rather than a part of the lives they've made for themselves.

Which is why I personally can't wait to read Roger Nix, President at Six.  A book for children about running for President.  I've personally pledged to buy at least two copies.  One for my own personal collection and one for the next kid that looks at me like they've just swallowed a bug when I ask them who their favorite author of the Declaration of Independence is.   And I'll probably buy about a dozen copies for the kid who responds, "Jefferson, duh!"

But here's the thing.  Roger Nix, President at Six doesn't have any big corporate sponsors, nor does it have any federal subsidies behind it.  It gets made on the merits of its potential and our desire to live in a world where everybody has a sense of what their citizenry might really mean.  So if you have such a desire, or a small child that could use a little book learnin', I implore you to support this Kickstarter effort and get Roger Nix's campaign off the ground.  

In the interest of full disclosure, it should be made evident that the author of this book and I attended Loyola High School together and have conspired on any number of Biology and History assignments in the past.  You might say he's my Bill Ayers or I'm his Jeremiah Wright.  Or something like that.  The truth is, he's a brilliant mind and I'm unashamed to be so blatantly cajoling you, dear reader, on his behalf.

The problem isn't that Chris Christie just made shit up when he cited fake numbers in explaining why he killed the ARC project.  That's something that lousy politicians do all the time.  The problem is that Chris Christie has less vision than my belly button, and refused to see the fact that the new rail lines were not only desparately needed, they were (are?) critical to economic growth in the region.  He didn't cancel the ARC project because it made good fiscal sense (it didn't) or because he thought it wasn't a safe infrastructure bet that would have created thousands of badly needed jobs, (it was) he canceled the ARC project so that he could divert those funds to the New Jersey Transportation Trust which allows him to avoid raising gas taxes to raise revenues to pay for all of New Jersey's roads.  He just didn't want to be a Republican raising taxes.  That's all there was to it.  And so New Jersey gets to keep it's slightly cheaper gas for a few more years, and in the meantime the future of the state's economy gets left where it was; a fucking hole in the ground.

I need a drink.

I have a few thoughs of a totally conventional and unexciting nature on the Hunger Games Trilogy. So if the spoilers concern you, just stop reading now and know that you aren't missing much.

Last night the L&T Liz and I stayed up way past (my) bedtime and listened to the final chapters of the final book, Mockingjay. And my initial reaction to the ending was that I felt cheated, that the books had had so much potential that had never been realized and that so many characters had not been given their due denouement. But then I slept for a few hours and spent another day thinking about it, and have come to the conclusion that the ending is perfect--I just wanted a different ending to a book the author hadn't written.

So much of the trilogy seems to be about the epic struggle for the hearts and minds of a nation and a girl overcoming momentous odds (with the help of her boyfriends) to deliver freedom to a people who have been without it. It seemed to be a story of power and politics, war and deceit. In fact the author does a damn compelling job of convincing us that that is the pin on which the book turns; a fight for Panem's better nature.

The ending, though, tells a different story. The ending of the final book seems subdued, almost surreal in it's slow pace as it putters about the business of describing Katniss' new life. And it's here in the end that the reader discovers it's all been about us--humanity, such as it is. It wasn't about President Snow or the Hunger Games or the Dozen Districts or the emotional struggle for Katniss' affection. The real subject of this three-part Bildungsroman is the ignominy of humanity and the ugly world we've created for ourselves to live in. In the end, Katniss and Peeta are not heroes of the games or veterans of a war to save us all. They are just two more humans left scarred by their misdeeds and misfortunes, living in a world defined by the latest toys of the latest game maker. In this context, the ending is brilliant in it's ability to snatch tragedy from the jaws of a happy ending. And I think that's someone anyone who has been on this planet for more than five seconds can relate to.

Apple sold over three million new iPads over the weekend.  What did you do?

First, there are a lot more stars now.  Or to be more specific, there are a lot more objects in the universe as we know it.  Some of them might be asteroids hell-bent on destroying our planet, but hey, that's why we went looking in the first place, right?   

 And speaking of space, we now have a date for the first attempt at a private space vehicle docking with the International Space Station.  SpaceX's attempt this spring will not be any massive technological leap, but it's a huge deal for those of us who'd like to see someone continue to explore possible solutions for getting off this rock.  (See also: hurtling asteroids)

Good news for physicists everywhere.  All that homework they did predicated on the idea that nothing with mass can move faster than light is still valid...for now.  It looks like those neutrinos weren't moving faster than light afterall.  Personally, I was hoping they had, if only because it would have called into question most of the last century's physics--and that kind of thing is always fun.  

In the vein of time travel, here's a neat opensource prject called ChronoZoom, which will certainly come in handy if you ever need to explain to someone just how small human history is on the scale of time as we can measure it.  Or if you ever have a couple hours to kill.  

Last but certainly not least is the news that Netflix has made a deal with TED, the extemely popular ideas conference, to bring curated TED Talk Shows to their sttreaming library.  Hopefully this will bring this format a wider audience.  

I found an interesting Wired article--with no less than a dozen geek culture references--regarding driverless cars and how they might traverse roads as they exist today, particularly when (as thhere must be) a mix of driverless and drivered (Horseless Buggy? Driverless Car?  Detroit Special?) cars share the same roads.  In my head I imagine it will look a lot like the switch from IPv4 to IPv6, ie we screwed the pooch on this one long, long ago.

(And yes, I am afraid to Google the origins of 'screwed the pooch')

It would be easy to drive down my street and see all the unattractive aspects of living here--and they are legion--without considering that there are (literally) hundreds and hundreds of kids living in this small ugly neghborhood that most people speed through just as fast as the speed bumps, double-parked cars, and wandering trash cans will let them.  There are so many kids its no wonder the city is building three(!) Elementary schools simultaneously and just completed a second massive High School.  There are so many kids that they're running out of places to put them.  

And the interesting thing is that because this is a neighborhood where heating decades-old apartment buidlings is expensive, and cooling them is almost out of the question, the kids are essentially cold-blooded creatures.  In the winter months, they seem to dissapear, seen only scurrying to and from school and otherwise vanishing.  But as soon as it starts to warm up even a little bit--as it did today--it's as though someone got the gremlins wet and fed them after midnight!   

For the past two hours there has been an impromptu kickball game being conducted in my street, comeplete with the younger kids watching from the curb and pauses in the game for passing vehicles.  And this isn't just 12 or 13 kids playing in the street.  This is (literally) 20-30 kids playing kickball, keeping score, and ignore their mothers who are attempting to referee from the windows several floors above.  It's an event that's kind of difficult to describe, so I stuck my iPhone on my windowsill and recorded some of the audio.  It will give you some sense of the chaos.   

There's been a lot of talk in the (Extrmely Loud and Incredibly Insular!) press lately regarding Iran's nuclear programs and whether or not Barack Obama has been doing enough to thwart their efforts--that being his only job besides making gas prices higher.  

During his press conference today, Obama answered a question about whether or not the criticism leveled at him from the right, specifically from Mitt Romney, had any merit.  He answered thusly:

And he's right.  It's not a game.  Nothing about the Middle East is a game.  Or did we think that the last decade spent in Iraq was just a romp through the sandbox?  

 The way in which the conservative rump of our political class has positioned themselves in favor of a completely unplanned and ill-considered war is utterly insane, even if we hadn't just spent trillions of dollars and thousands of American lives in a similarly unplanned and ill-considered war.  In fact, the only thing more disturbing than the reckless war rhetoric coming out of the GOP leadership is that they've also decided that if President Obama doesn't do exactly what the Isaeli Prime Minister says he should, then he's axiomatically failing as President.   Which is not the definition of patriotism.  I checked.

 I'm no fan of our "special relationship" with Israel but I'm willing to recognize that for a few political reasons and a lot of geographical ones, it's not going anywhere anytime soon.  But here are Republican leaders in Congress and running for President who are pulling us to war not because it is in America's best interest, but because it's in Israel's interest.  Actually.  Scratch that.  It's in Benjamin Netanyahu's best interest.  Why then are the Republicans pushing so hard for war?  It's not as though a large preponderance of their constituency is clamoring for it.  It's not as though Israel doesn't have an incredibly well funded lobby to speak for them in Washington or that their government has difficulty getting our attention.  Maybe it's just that without perpetual war, fear, and uncertainty, Republicans know Americans won't vote for them.  Then again, not one of us voted for Netanyahu either, but look where we are.