Even though the framers were pretty bad about race, and they certainly didn’t understand sex equality, the one thing the framers got was class. They understood that the biggest risk was to create an aristocracy. And so they insisted, as Madison said, that ‘the people’ meant ‘not the rich more than the poor.’ We’ve completely betrayed that commitment.
— Lawrence Lessig
Watch Lessig’s entire 12-minute interview with Bill Moyers:
Suppose you were an idiot and suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.
— Mark Twain
As I watched the latest meltdown from the latest cabinet confirmations I can’t help but think that Mark Twain may have been on to something in his assessment of people who run for political office.
It has been obvious to me for a long time that congress is broken. I couldn’t quite articulate exactly how I thought it was broken but I knew something was wrong. And then I discovered Lawrence Lessig’s latest mission. Partnering with Joe Trippi, he is determined to change congress. He makes a powerful case that lobbying and special interests have eroded the very foundations of the constitution.
Geography has made us neighbors, history has made us friends, economics has made us partners, and necessity has made us allies.
— President Robert F. Kennedy on US / Canada relations.
The US President’s first foreign trip is highly symbolic. Yesterday President Obama reinforced a long standing tradition and made Canada the destination for his first foreign trip. President Bush’s first foreign trip was to Mexico. US / Canada relations were strained throughout his entire term. Presidents Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford never visited Canada at all.
Granted, this trip was more than a pit stop than an extended visit. He arrived in the morning to meet with Prime Minister Stephen Harper, ate through a working lunch, held a joint news conference, met briefly at the airport with the leader of Canada’s opposition party, and was back home in the White House in time for dinner.
Even though he only had time to pop in for a quick chat, I am glad that my native country is back at the top of the list for our new US President.
David Byrne has an excellent article on the music business over at Wired. He offers this brilliant insight into music business today:
What is called the music business today, however, is not the business of producing music. At some point it became the business of selling CDs in plastic cases, and that business will soon be over. But that’s not bad news for music, and it’s certainly not bad news for musicians. Indeed, with all the ways to reach an audience, there have never been more opportunities for artists.
A very good read.
If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.
—James Madison, fourth US president (1751-1836)
The Writers Almanac tells a story about Frank Conroy today.
Once, while directing the Iowa Writer’s Workshop, Conroy scolded a student for using irrelevant details in her short story. He said…
The author makes a tacit deal with the reader. You hand them a backpack. You ask them to place certain things in it — to remember, to keep in mind — as they make their way up the hill. If you hand them a yellow Volkswagen and they have to haul this to the top of the mountain…
Gretchen Morgensen has written an insightful article in the Sunday Business Section of the New York Times. After the heartbreaking introduction of a homeowner in New Jersey who would like more than anything to keep her home, Gretchen offers the following insight:
Lenders, government officials and loan servicers, who take in borrowers’ monthly mortgage payments, contend that troubled borrowers everywhere are being helped to stay in their homes by those overseeing their loans. But neither data nor anecdotal evidence supports this view. A recent survey of 16 top subprime loan servicers by Moody’s Investors Service found that for the first six months of 2007, an average of only 1 percent of loans experiencing an interest rate adjustment, or reset, had been modified.
A few minutes of logical thought would lead one to assume that lowering the interest rate of troubled loans so that the homeowner can continue to make payments and keep the house would be the best result for all concerned. …