Archive for February, 2008
Wednesday, February 20th, 2008
Kosovo: To Be or Not to Be; How and Why are the quesitons
Kosovo has finally declared independence from Serbia. This didn’t seem like much of surprise or controversy to me, but frankly, I am simply not that informed about the pros and cons of an independent Kosovo.
As a matter of fact, it all seemed pretty logical. After the fall of communisim, death of Tito, and civil war […]
No Comments » - Posted in Essays by eric
Wednesday, February 20th, 2008
Give Us More Credit
Yesterday I asked the question “how dumb are Americans“. A Washington Post op-ed piece had earlier claimed that Americans had lost their attention spans and were anti-intellectuals. Then today, Wikipedia founder, Jimmy Wales, has written a counter argument. In some senses, I would agree with him. But, my original point was whether we’d let ourselves […]
2 Comments » - Posted in Essays, Obama 08 by eric
Tuesday, February 19th, 2008
How Dumb Are Americans?
Yesterday I read an article in the Washington Post by Susan Jacoby called “The Dumbing of America“. The article argued that video, the Internet, the fact that people don’t read any more, and the culture of anti-rationalism have all (further) reduced the limited attention spans of Americans.
This got me thinking about how the candidates and […]
1 Comment » - Posted in Essays, Obama 08 by eric
Tuesday, February 19th, 2008
Fidel Not Seeking Re-election
In a bold and historic move, Fidel Castro has decided not to seek re-election. After only 49 years as president of Cuba and after discussions with his family and close friends, Castro resigns and will not seek a new term. Because elections in Cuba are typically highly contested and competitive, now its anyone’s guess as […]
1 Comment » - Posted in Essays by eric
Monday, February 18th, 2008
The Tragic Irony of the Clinton Legacy
As people go, Americans are incredibly uptight. We’re puritans and naive. We don’t want to hear bad words on TV or, God forbid, see a stray nipple. We want our politicians to be moral leaders, good Christians, good family men, and corruption free. Before the presidency became a reality show, Americans (and the press) simply […]
2 Comments » - Posted in Essays, Obama 08 by eric
Monday, February 18th, 2008
Obama’s Superior Executive Skills and the Challenges Ahead
Last Friday I wrote about Hillary’s lack of a track record and how her campaign has been everything but impressive. As discussed yesterday on Meet the Press, this campaign is the biggest thing that any of the candidates — Hillary, Obama or McCain — have ever run. The three are senators and lack real “executive” […]
1 Comment » - Posted in Essays, Obama 08 by eric
Friday, February 15th, 2008
Clemens: Who F-ing Cares?
I don’t follow Major League Baseball, and I am not following the recent Roger Clemens “controversy”. But as my bro, ReWrite, very accurately pointed out to me in an email minutes ago:
every newspaper cover says something like ‘who is the liar’ or ‘who is lying’ … someone should have the balls to write ‘who cares’.
Word!
7 Comments » - Posted in Essays by eric
Friday, February 15th, 2008
A Proven Track Record of a Poor, Scrambling Campaign
In listening to Hillary’s repetitive rhetoric about her “proven track record”, experience, and day-one readiness, I keep wondering what she is talking about. As I have noted before and ad infinitum, Hillary’s experience/readiness argument fails simply because her campaign stragegy has been failing. Regardless of whether she wins in the end, we have seen her […]
No Comments » - Posted in Essays, Obama 08 by eric
Wednesday, February 13th, 2008
John.he.is and Political Parodies
After the popularity of the “Yes We Can” video by will.i.am, now there’s a new John McCain parody video. Then there is always the Onion:
No Comments » - Posted in Essays, Obama 08 by eric
Wednesday, February 13th, 2008
Obama’s Potomac Sweep and the Race Fallacy
Obama has swept the “Potomac Primaries” consisting of my hometowns: Virginina, Maryland and the District of Columbia. Not only did Obama win by large margins in all three jurisdictions, he has also proven that there is no “race card” or ethnocentric voting imperative. The only voters who overwhelmingly sided for Clinton were middle aged women, […]
