Dukakis on US Railway Transport

Wired's Autopia Blog has a nice interview with former Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis on the revival of trains and mass transport in America.

It's encouraging, but I can't help but worry that President Obama's stimulus package spends way too much on roads and way too little on public transport and railways. As someone who worked in the US transport industry I can't buy the argument that there are no "shovel ready" public transport projects, why I know about $10 billion worth in San Francisco alone.

The End of the Financial World as We Know It

There was a great pair of articles about the financial crisis by Michael Lewis (he wrote Liars Poker) and David Einhorn. One of the great quotes:

Our leaders have framed the problem as a “crisis of confidence” but what they actually seem to mean is “please pay no attention to the problems we are failing to address.”

The first article is called: The End of the Financial World as We Know It and the second is called: How to Repair a Broken Financial World. Easy to understand and full of good ideas for solving the problems.

Uncle Jay Explains: Year-end! 12-22-08

Great video by Uncle Jay explaining all the news in 2008 in about 4 minutes. Here it is:

A community organizer as president

I just read a very interesting post from The School of Life's Ideas to Live By column. It was by their politics course instructor Maurice Glasman on the secret of Obama's success. The article described how Obama used the basic rules of Saul Alinsky in his campaign and then says:

The result is that the new Commander in Chief is schooled and versed in the tactics of urban guerrilla politics, of how to turn a disaggregated rabble into an organised community, of how to organise the defeated and win, how to increase your power through your action, how to generate new relationships through political victory.

Glasman ends his article by describing two massive failures of the Bush Administration: the idea that greed is always good and the idea that military strength alone is enough to wield power. The Bush administration's total pursuit of these ideas has almost destroyed our country, let's hope Obama can organize us to turn things around as successfully as he organized us to make history voting for him!

I cried today

Today I cried. I cried at the sight of a black man, surrounded by his family, elected to lead our country and the world through very difficult times.

I cried because I remember the black friends I grew up with in my progressive school. I cried because I remember when my mother told me why Mamie, always more a surrogate mother than cleaning lady, couldn't read. I cried because I remember my friend David talking about the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. just before he was assassinated. I cried because I remember Robert Kennedy's funeral and the Battle Hymn of the Republic. I cried because I thought how happy my father would have been to see this day. I cried because I realize that, while the path is back in view, the process of change is only just beginning.