flea

Casper has just written her first letter to the president.  It is about "tocsic gases" and global warming.  All her own work.  I helped her address the envelope.  I hope we get at least an email back.

David Brooks' column in the NYT begins today:

I have dreams. I may seem like a boring pundit whose most exotic fantasies involve G.A.O. reports, but deep down, I have dreams. And right now I’m dreaming of the successful presidency this country needs. I’m dreaming of an administration led by Barack Obama, but which stretches beyond the normal Democratic base. It makes time for moderate voters, suburban voters, rural voters and even people who voted for the other guy.

[I think he'll come closer to his dream than even he imagines, honestly.]

The top reader-recommended comment:

I have a dream where neocon propagandists admit when they're wrong and assume some responsibility for the past eight years of arrogance and neglect.

— Andrew Hyra, Los Angeles

[It is rare that I have cackled this loudly at the office. Excellently snarked, sir!]

I am supposed to be writing an essay, but my coworker is meeting with a student and I find it impossible to concentrate with them talking. Must consider earphones and classical music; this happens a fair amount. Or plan all writing for before 10am.

I have been really interested by the contrasts between Athens and Durham. Both are smallish cities, college towns, drops of blue in mostly red states. But they are VERY different.

In Durham, almost everyone I knew who was similar to me in demographic profile (latte-drinkin', volvo-drivin' elite-educated liberal types) was not from Durham, from NC, or from the south. At work, in my neighborhood, parents of the kids' classmates, all tended to be from New Jersey or Seoul or DC or California or Maine. The native Durhamites I knew socially were mostly the children of Duke professors. Very few had southern accents.

In Athens, I work most closely with 6 librarians. They are from AL, SC, FL, GA, NC (and, well, Connecticut). Two of them have strong southern accents (AL and SC). Athens feels much more southern than Durham to me. Interestingly, the parts of it I inhabit don't feel any less liberal - but it's a native southern liberalism, not a transplanted West Coast or Bos-Wash liberalism. I can't yet articulate how it's different, but it is.

Athens feels more segregated than Durham to me; there is no black middle class here as far as I can tell, and the poverty rate among minorities in general is high(er even than Durham). Athens is more a one-industry town than Durham, that industry being UGA, and Atlanta is further than Raleigh, and there's no RTP equivalent. Athens is more truly a college town than Durham, and I suspect is more like Chapel Hill in some respects (student demographics at a state university being rather different from those at Duke).

The weather's about the same, though. It's actually been a remarkably lovely early fall. Athens is horticultural zone 7b, where Durham was on the 7a/7b line.

You know you've been living in a small city long enough when you know (as in have met & had dealings with) two of the candidates for office whose names are on every streetcorner sign.

A woman running for school board runs (or ran) a program for at-risk teens that included finding them summer jobs. I used to hire one of her students in the summers; I stopped when she started being able to find them jobs that were more suited to their eventual career goals (i.e. in the hospital).

A man running for county commissioner is the neighbor of a good friend, and I have chatted with him at child birthday parties.

200,000 residents, 6 years - I guess that's long enough.

I have been thinking about what I would ask the presidential candidates, if I found myself with the opportunity to conduct one-on-one job interviews with them. My big question would be ye olde, "What is your management style?"

We see a lot in the press about likeability. I 'like' Obama, I don't 'like' Clinton, everyone seems to 'like' Huckabee, the press 'likes' McCain. But while I do like some candidates more than others, I hope it doesn't influence my actual voting much. (I realize that not all US voters are analytical like me, of course.)

We also see some comments in the press, and in those online quizzes that tell you who you should vote for, about policy positions. Nobody jibes exactly with my positions, and it feels to me like the differences between, say, Edwards, Clinton and Obama are miniscule.

What I want in a president is, first, someone whose basic stance I agree with. This matters a lot when it comes to things like Supreme Court Appointees and the power to appoint Cabinet ministers, conduct foreign policy, etc - the areas where the president has the most direct power. But second, I want someone who is intelligent and willing to think about decisions and their impacts, and is a good manager, able to delegate to good people when necessary, handle crises coolly and without being an asshat.

So I think if I had to vote for a Republican (which I don't, and I won't), I might well vote for Romney. I may like him least of the Republican candidates; I don't think he actually HAS any values, for example, and frankly I like someone with honest values that I disagree with wholeheartedly (Huckabee, McCain on many issues) much more as a person than someone who twists in the wind the way he does. But he does seem to have a high level of managerial competence (Massachusettians can correct me if I'm wrong). One could do worse (Rudy Giuliani, I'm looking at you.)

I don't have a firm handle on the managerial skills on the Democratic side, except that I know that much as my personal values jibe with Kucinich's, he was an absolute disaster as mayor of Cleveland (where mr. flea grew up), so even if he were electable I wouldn't be in his camp. I am not wild about Hillary Clinton's managerial skills; we saw plenty during Bill Clinton's years in office and one of my major complaints about the Bill Clinton presidency was the managerial incompetence that resulted in stupid time-wasting instead of accomplishing policy. I don't know much of anything about how Edwards or Obama actually run things when they are in charge of things; as senators and campaigners both have certainly had some experience managing things, and I haven't heard much about major screwups by either, but you just don't know.

I hope this doesn't sound dumb; I've never studied government, and I'm no political junkie. Feel free to correct any errors of assumption I've made.