Message to McCain: Get Smart.

Let's say you have to choose between two candidates for a VERY important government job.

Candidate A graduated from an Ivy League university and went on to attend the best law school in the country, where he was chosen to be editor-in-chief of the most prestigious law review in the country. He graduated from law school magna cum laude.

Candidate B was accepted, largely based on legacy, to one of the most reputable military academies in the nation. He graduated 894 of 899 and immediately entered the military. He did not go on to obtain an upper level degree.

So, uh, who'd you pick?

Reading the credentials of Candidate A, I think it's pretty obvious who were talking about here. It's well-known that Barack Obama graduated from Columbia University and went on to become the first black editor-in-chief of the incredibly prestigious Harvard Law Review. Judging from his academic history, the eloquence of his speaking, and the political shrewdness displayed in his campaigning, Obama's intelligence is undeniable.

On the flip side, John McCain's intellectual capacity remains, to me at least, a bit of a mystery. I think that while many people are aware that he entered the Naval Academy as a third-generation legacy student, few realized that he graduated 6th-to-last of his class of 899. That fact doesn't exactly inspire confidence in his cerebral capacity. He entered the military immediately after graduation, as required of an Annapolis grad. Don't get me wrong here - McCain's military service as military captain was indubitably honorable, especially the six years he spent as a prisoner of war. But, I feel that the attention given to this experience often glosses over the fact that he subsequently retired from the military, left his wife for an heiress 20 years his junior, and then used his young wife's gargantuan bank account to finance his entrance into the political realm.

Twenty-six years in office later, McCain has no doubt accumulated a shrewd political education. He did not, however, deem it necessary to ever return to school to compensate for his poor academic showing as an undergrad. I know that as an upper middle-class college student, I sound very judgmental and even elitist for criticizing him for this. There are many successful, brilliant people in the world who never even attended or completed college (case in point: Bill Gates). However, McCain is not a Wunderkind whose genius allowed them to eschew traditional models of higher education. In fact, his academic showing at Annapolis was miserable and, arguably, despicable. Access to education is certainly an issue of great contention in this country, but John McCain, as a wwalthy, white American male, certainly had ever resource available to him to pursue some form of greater education in his twenty-six years retired from military service.

I'm sure some people would consider this a non-issue and throw around terms like "book-smart" and "experience." But this is the President of the United States we're talking about. Why shouldn't we expect the person in this position to be of superior intelligence? For eight years, we trusted a man who believes "misunderestimated" to be a word with this office, and look we're that's gotten us - engulfed in two wars, $400 billion in debt, and slowly finding ourselves being manipulated into destroying fragile American wildlife to further profit gluttenous oil companies.

I expect my president to smarter than I am, ok? And as a college student who aspires to one day obtain a masters AND a doctorate degree, I cannot respect a man who just barely managed to graduate college. In a country where so many communities desperately desire higher education, McCain's educational track record makes a mockery of their aspirations.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb: Economist, Philosopher, Badass

Nassim Nicholas Taleb: the prophet of boom and doom - Times Online:

Last May, Taleb published The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable. It said, among many other things, that most economists, and almost all bankers, are subhuman and very, very dangerous. They live in a fantasy world in which the future can be controlled by sophisticated mathematical models and elaborate risk-management systems. Bankers and economists scorned and raged at Taleb. He didn’t understand, they said. A few months later, the full global implications of the sub-prime-driven credit crunch became clear. The world banking system still teeters on the edge of meltdown. Taleb had been vindicated.

I enjoyed this article for three reasons:

1) He was right; that's kind of cool.
2) Explicit critique of the immensely flawed global financial sector.
3) This guy is freakin' awesome. Favorite quotes:

“The only way you can say ‘F*** you’ to fate is by saying it’s not going to affect how I live. So if somebody puts you to death, make sure you shave.”

About Ben Bernanke:

"I wouldn’t use him to drive my car."

About religion:

"Scientists don’t know what they are talking about when they talk about religion. Religion has nothing to do with belief, and I don’t believe it has any negative impact on people’s lives outside of intolerance. Why do I go to church? It’s like asking, why did you marry that woman? You make up reasons, but it’s probably just smell. I love the smell of candles. It’s an aesthetic thing."

There were also some interesting diet tips thrown in:

But the biggest rule of all is his eccentric and punishing diet and exercise programme. He’s been on it for three months and he’s lost 20lb. He’s following the thinking of Arthur De Vany, an economist – of the acceptable type – turned fitness guru. The theory is that we eat and exercise according to our evolved natures. Early man did not eat carbs, so they’re out. He did not exercise regularly and he did not suffer long-term stress by having an annoying boss. Exercise must be irregular and ferocious – Taleb often does four hours in the gym or 360 press-ups and then nothing for 10 days. Jogging is useless; sprinting is good. He likes to knacker himself completely before a long flight. Stress should also be irregular and ferocious – early men did not have bad bosses, but they did occasionally run into lions.

...Which completely justifies my habit of going to the gym only once every three months or so.

Good read.

Thoughts on the Price of Food

I've been following the UN food summit going on now in Rome pretty closely, and to say the least I'm disappointed. Brazil is currently stalling the process because of a row over biofuels, which is really just inane and political. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon has rightfully called on developed nations to minimize export restrictions and import tariffs, but that's ignoring a huge injustice in international agriculture - non-tariff barriers, such as subsidies, that developed countries use to keep domestic agricultural lobbies happy... and in doing so, contribute to widespread hunger and poverty throughout the developing world.

The UK's The Guardian wrote a brilliant and concise editorial about this in 2003 to launch their kickAAS campaign against subsidies. An excerpt:

Giving subsidies to farmers was a brilliant idea that transformed the food shortages after the second world war into a surplus. But it has grown into an institutionalised nightmare preventing developing countries from fulfilling their potential in one of the few areas where they enjoy a natural advantage - agriculture. Europe and the US are the main culprits. It is economic and social madness for Europe to be growing, for instance, subsidised sugar beet when its average cost of production is more than double that of efficient exporters such as Brazil and Zambia. It is only possible thanks to ludicrous subsidies, including protective tariffs of up to 140%. As Kevin Watkins of Oxfam says: "The $1.6bn a year the EU gives to the sugar barons of East Anglia and the Paris Basin generates surpluses that deprive countries such as Thailand and Malawi of markets. Mozambique loses almost as much as a result of EU sugar policy as it gets in European aid."

Subsidies allow wasteful and inefficient agricultural practices to continue in countries whose comparative advantages have long since move to other industries. By continuing to produce agricultural products, developed nations have eliminated the ability for strong agricultural markets abroad.

However, given the current climate crisis our planet is facing, one could argue that the transport needed to import food will add to current high levels of carbon emissions and push food prices even higher. This is a foolish assumption. Subsidized agriculture forces developing to import food. It is estimated that more than $1 trillion will be spent on food imports this year, which economically vulnerable countries bearing the bulk of the cost. It's disgraceful that the food our subsidies have forced then to import costs us more to produce than it would to allow these countries to start their own food industries, where lower cost of production would lower food prices, benefiting us all. And eventually, we could move back to a regionally-based agricultural sectors, allowing domestic markets to continue to thrive while limiting transport and carbon emissions.

The only losers from a loss of subsidies would be the agricultural industry of the developed world. But given that, for example, the US government gave over $8 billion in subsidies in 2004 alone, there's plenty of room to give the economic losers in this situation unemployment benefits or funding for re-education. OR, they could always let them all grow (sugar-based) ethanol, thus curbing both global hunger AND climate change. Shabang.

Thoughts on the Middle East

BBC NEWS - Iraqi father seeks Blackwater apology

This broke my heart.

BBC NEWS | Middle East | Iraqi father seeks Blackwater apology

Mr Abdul-Razzaq had been driving home with his sister, her three children and Ali. He said that "everything was quiet, nothing was happening" when the security guards began to open fire on civilian vehicles, including his own.

"They just kept shooting, although no-one was moving, they were just combing the whole road, tat tat tat, like that, there was nothing in the road."

He said that he and his sister huddled together, each trying to protect the other, while the four children tried to find protection under cushions in the back of the car.

He said the shooting lasted "10, perhaps 15 minutes" and that when he climbed out of the bullet-ridden car, shaken but unharmed, one of his nephews called out to him from the back seat: "Uncle, Ali's dead."

Sobbing, he described opening the car door to a scene of horror. His son had been shot in the head. "I pushed him back inside and I began to shout down the road, 'They've killed my son, they've killed my son'."

This is horrible. Children are not terrorists. We need to end this war so they can go to school and play with their friends without the fear of being struck by the crossfire of
misguided war that has only served to increase hate and intolerance in the Middle East.

HRC: Enough Already!

I am so over Hillary Clinton. Seriously. SO over her. Why? Just a few reasons:

1. Her promise to "totally obliterate" Iran in the case of an airstrike against Israel. Just what we need - more belligerent rhetoric about our policy in the Middle East! The unfoundedness of this statement is well-explained here in The New York Observer.

2. The undeserved claim that she represents "progress" for women in politics. Feminist progress in politics, to me, means the election of female politicians who promote values traditionally deemed "feminine." These values include compassion, understanding, greater attention to social welfare, and the use of comprehensive diplomacy in lieu of military force. That's not to say the are inherently feminine values, but the hyper-masculine political culture that has prevailed for centuries has labeled them as such to emasculate men less inclined towards war-mongering and oligarchical American values. More on this over at The Phoenix.

3. The incredible poorly-chosen and racially-fueled remarks she made Wednesday, in which she essentially equated "working, hard-working Americans" to "white Americans." No really... she did! A great response/analysis to these remarks can be found over at Salon. For me, this comment is absolutely the last straw.
Clinton is arrogant, belligerent, and her obstinent refusal to drop out of the campaign is killing her party's chances of winning the general election. Two weeks ago, I still contended that I was open-minded in this campaign, and therefore would vote for whoever got the Democratic nomination, but since then, I've changed my mind. It seems inevitable at this point that Barack Obama will be the Democratic nominee, and I'm thrilled.

I'm sorry, Hillary Clinton, but we are no longer friends.

Misogyny in America, Round #4

My friend Natalie recently introduced me to Current.com, the media website for which she works. It's very cool, and VERY necessary - I think it shows that democratic media is still possible in today's world of corporate media conglomerates. It also facilitates dialogue and discourse about current events and issues, which ensures that slanted news stories aren't just getting forced down our throats.

Unfortunately, the platform for open dialogue also allows some bigotry and ignorance to take some of the Internet limelight. I stumbled across the following comment in response to this video:

Women making peace?

Women want to rip eachother's hair out when another woman is wearing the same dress at the party.

I can already see her slashing the national security advisor's tires at first disgreement.

Clinton smoking wasn't the bad part. Things like NAFTA and ridiculously high minority jail rates for petty offenses had something to do with Billy not being a perfect president. Not going to war doesn't make a great president. He was a god compared to GW, though. I've had enough Clinton/Bush in my life.

I sill love you woman/women.

I couldn't hold my tongue after reading that one. My response:

shanesbaby... Your response is one of the most sexist things I've read in ages. "Women want to rip eachother's hair out when another woman is wearing the same dress at the party"? Seriously? It's statistically proven that men are 10x more likely than women to commit murder, and they are 9x as likely to end up in prison. Our current world political system is driven by the "masculine" ideals of militarization, intimidation, and self-interest, and just look where that has gotten us. A "feminine" approach to world politics, emphasizing cooperation and compassion over a belligerent pursuit of self-interest, could definitely do our world a lot of good. However, the overwhelming presence of hyper-masculinity in world affairs has, and will continue to, prevent a more compassionate breed of global interaction by disseminating these myths that women are more "driven by emotion" than men.

Some people! And the most incredible thing about this ridiculously sexist and ignorant commenter?

It was a WOMAN.... YIKES.

[EDIT]: To clarify, my belief that we need more "feminine" compassion in American politics does NOT mean I believe Hillary Clinton represents those values. SHAbang.