100 Post Goal

10/16/07. That was the date of my first post on this blog. Right now, I'm on my 91st post. For some OCD reason, I want to have 100 posts by the time I get to 10/16/08. So I have about 2 weeks to post 9 more times! Let's see, that's about every two days...I think I can do it!

Mike's Rescue Plan

Michael Moore. It seems that people either love him or hate him. I used to teach his first film "Roger & Me" in my film studies class, and I've been fond of his style ever since.

Anyway, I just got this email from him outlining his plan to get our country out of this financial mess. If you don't like Michael Moore, you probably won't read anyway, so never mind. But if you're curious about another way of approaching the problem that doesn't involve giving lots of taxpayer money to the banks and firms who dropped the ball (which is a weird "fix" when you really think about it), then it's worth a read. Some critics think he's just a bleeding-heart socialist liberal. Okay. If you have to put a label on him, so be it. If you find a better plan, feel free to post it on your blog and I'd love to take a look.

(Now if only Obama had a little more Michael Moore in him...)

Mike's Rescue Plan

The richest 400 Americans -- that's right, just four hundred people -- own MORE than the bottom 150 million Americans combined. 400 rich Americans have got more stashed away than half the entire country! Their combined net worth is $1.6 trillion. During the eight years of the Bush Administration, their wealth has increased by nearly $700 billion -- the same amount that they are now demanding we give to them for the "bailout." Why don't they just spend the money they made under Bush to bail themselves out? They'd still have nearly a trillion dollars left over to spread amongst themselves!

Of course, they are not going to do that -- at least not voluntarily. George W. Bush was handed a $127 billion surplus when Bill Clinton left office. Because that money was OUR money and not his, he did what the rich prefer to do -- spend it and never look back. Now we have a $9.5 trillion debt. Why on earth would we even think of giving these robber barons any more of our money?

I would like to propose my own bailout plan. My suggestions, listed below, are predicated on the singular and simple belief that the rich must pull themselves up by their own platinum bootstraps. Sorry, fellows, but you drilled it into our heads one too many times: There... is... no... free... lunch. And thank you for encouraging us to hate people on welfare! So, there will be no handouts from us to you. The Senate, tonight, is going to try to rush their version of a "bailout" bill to a vote. They must be stopped. We did it on Monday with the House, and we can do it again today with the Senate.

It is clear, though, that we cannot simply keep protesting without proposing exactly what it is we think Congress should do. So, after consulting with a number of people smarter than Phil Gramm, here is my proposal, now known as "Mike's Rescue Plan." It has 10 simple, straightforward points. They are:

1. APPOINT A SPECIAL PROSECUTOR TO CRIMINALLY INDICT ANYONE ON WALL STREET WHO KNOWINGLY CONTRIBUTED TO THIS COLLAPSE. Before any new money is expended, Congress must commit, by resolution, to criminally prosecute anyone who had anything to do with the attempted sacking of our economy. This means that anyone who committed insider trading, securities fraud or any action that helped bring about this collapse must go to jail. This Congress must call for a Special Prosecutor who will vigorously go after everyone who created the mess, and anyone else who attempts to scam the public in the future.

2. THE RICH MUST PAY FOR THEIR OWN BAILOUT. They may have to live in 5 houses instead of 7. They may have to drive 9 cars instead of 13. The chef for their mini-terriers may have to be reassigned. But there is no way in hell, after forcing family incomes to go down more than $2,000 dollars during the Bush years, that working people and the middle class are going to fork over one dime to underwrite the next yacht purchase.

If they truly need the $700 billion they say they need, well, here is an easy way they can raise it:

a) Every couple who makes over a million dollars a year and every single taxpayer who makes over $500,000 a year will pay a 10% surcharge tax for five years. (It's the Senator Sanders plan. He's like Colonel Sanders, only he's out to fry the right chickens.) That means the rich will still be paying less income tax than when Carter was president. This will raise a total of $300 billion.

b) Like nearly every other democracy, charge a 0.25% tax on every stock transaction. This will raise more than $200 billion in a year.

c) Because every stockholder is a patriotic American, stockholders will forgo receiving a dividend check for one quarter and instead this money will go the treasury to help pay for the bailout.

d) 25% of major U.S. corporations currently pay NO federal income tax. Federal corporate tax revenues currently amount to 1.7% of the GDP compared to 5% in the 1950s. If we raise the corporate income tax back to the level of the 1950s, that gives us an extra $500 billion.

All of this combined should be enough to end the calamity. The rich will get to keep their mansions and their servants, and our United States government ("COUNTRY FIRST!") will have a little leftover to repair some roads, bridges and schools.

3. BAIL OUT THE PEOPLE LOSING THEIR HOMES, NOT THE PEOPLE WHO WILL BUILD AN EIGHTH HOME. There are 1.3 million homes in foreclosure right now. That is what is at the heart of this problem. So instead of giving the money to the banks as a gift, pay down each of these mortgages by $100,000. Force the banks to renegotiate the mortgage so the homeowner can pay on its current value. To insure that this help does no go to speculators and those who have tried to make money by flipping houses, this bailout is only for people's primary residence. And in return for the $100K paydown on the existing mortgage, the government gets to share in the holding of the mortgage so that it can get some of its money back. Thus, the total initial cost of fixing the mortgage crisis at its roots (instead of with the greedy lenders) is $150 billion, not $700 billion.

And let's set the record straight. People who have defaulted on their mortgages are not "bad risks." They are our fellow Americans, and all they wanted was what we all want and most of us still get: a home to call their own. But during the Bush years, millions of them lost the decent paying jobs they had. Six million fell into poverty. Seven million lost their health insurance. And every one of them saw their real wages go down by $2,000. Those who dare to look down on these Americans who got hit with one bad break after another should be ashamed. We are a better, stronger, safer and happier society when all of our citizens can afford to live in a home that they own.

4. IF YOUR BANK OR COMPANY GETS ANY OF OUR MONEY IN A "BAILOUT," THEN WE OWN YOU. Sorry, that's how it's done. If the bank gives me money so I can buy a house, the bank "owns" that house until I pay it all back -- with interest. Same deal for Wall Street. Whatever money you need to stay afloat, if our government considers you a safe risk -- and necessary for the good of the country -- then you can get a loan, but we will own you. If you default, we will sell you. This is how the Swedish government did it and it worked.

5. ALL REGULATIONS MUST BE RESTORED. THE REAGAN REVOLUTION IS DEAD. This catastrophe happened because we let the fox have the keys to the henhouse. In 1999, Phil Gramm authored a bill to remove all the regulations that governed Wall Street and our banking system. The bill passed and Clinton signed it. Here's what Sen. Phil Gramm, McCain's chief economic advisor, said at the bill signing:

"In the 1930s ... it was believed that government was the answer. It was believed that stability and growth came from government overriding the functioning of free markets.

"We are here today to repeal [that] because we have learned that government is not the answer. We have learned that freedom and competition are the answers. We have learned that we promote economic growth and we promote stability by having competition and freedom.

"I am proud to be here because this is an important bill; it is a deregulatory bill. I believe that that is the wave of the future, and I am awfully proud to have been a part of making it a reality."

This bill must be repealed. Bill Clinton can help by leading the effort for the repeal of the Gramm bill and the reinstating of even tougher regulations regarding our financial institutions. And when they're done with that, they can restore the regulations for the airlines, the inspection of our food, the oil industry, OSHA, and every other entity that affects our daily lives. All oversight provisions for any "bailout" must have enforcement monies attached to them and criminal penalties for all offenders.

6. IF IT'S TOO BIG TO FAIL, THEN THAT MEANS IT'S TOO BIG TO EXIST. Allowing the creation of these mega-mergers and not enforcing the monopoly and anti-trust laws has allowed a number of financial institutions and corporations to become so large, the very thought of their collapse means an even bigger collapse across the entire economy. No one or two companies should have this kind of power. The so-called "economic Pearl Harbor" can't happen when you have hundreds -- thousands -- of institutions where people have their money. When you have a dozen auto companies, if one goes belly-up, we don't face a national disaster. If you have three separately-owned daily newspapers in your town, then one media company can't call all the shots (I know... What am I thinking?! Who reads a paper anymore? Sure glad all those mergers and buyouts left us with a strong and free press!). Laws must be enacted to prevent companies from being so large and dominant that with one slingshot to the eye, the giant falls and dies. And no institution should be allowed to set up money schemes that no one can understand. If you can't explain it in two sentences, you shouldn't be taking anyone's money.

7. NO EXECUTIVE SHOULD BE PAID MORE THAN 40 TIMES THEIR AVERAGE EMPLOYEE, AND NO EXECUTIVE SHOULD RECEIVE ANY KIND OF "PARACHUTE" OTHER THAN THE VERY GENEROUS SALARY HE OR SHE MADE WHILE WORKING FOR THE COMPANY. In 1980, the average American CEO made 45 times what their employees made. By 2003, they were making 254 times what their workers made. After 8 years of Bush, they now make over 400 times what their average employee makes. How this can happen at publicly held companies is beyond reason. In Britain, the average CEO makes 28 times what their average employee makes. In Japan, it's only 17 times! The last I heard, the CEO of Toyota was living the high life in Tokyo. How does he do it on so little money? Seriously, this is an outrage. We have created the mess we're in by letting the people at the top become bloated beyond belief with millions of dollars. This has to stop. Not only should no executive who receives help out of this mess profit from it, but any executive who was in charge of running his company into the ground should be fired before the company receives any help.

8. STRENGTHEN THE FDIC AND MAKE IT A MODEL FOR PROTECTING NOT ONLY PEOPLE'S SAVINGS, BUT ALSO THEIR PENSIONS AND THEIR HOMES. Obama was correct yesterday to propose expanding FDIC protection of people's savings in their banks to $250,000. But this same sort of government insurance must be given to our nation's pension funds. People should never have to worry about whether or not the money they've put away for their old age will be there. This will mean strict government oversight of companies who manage their employees' funds -- or perhaps it means that the companies will have to turn over those funds and their management to the government. People's private retirement funds must also be protected, but perhaps it's time to consider not having one's retirement invested in the casino known as the stock market. Our government should have a solemn duty to guarantee that no one who grows old in this country has to worry about ending up destitute.

9. EVERYBODY NEEDS TO TAKE A DEEP BREATH, CALM DOWN, AND NOT LET FEAR RULE THE DAY. Turn off the TV! We are not in the Second Great Depression. The sky is not falling. Pundits and politicians are lying to us so fast and furious it's hard not to be affected by all the fear mongering. Even I, yesterday, wrote to you and repeated what I heard on the news, that the Dow had the biggest one day drop in its history. Well, that's true in terms of points, but its 7% drop came nowhere close to Black Monday in 1987 when the stock market in one day lost 23% of its value. In the '80s, 3,000 banks closed, but America didn't go out of business. These institutions have always had their ups and downs and eventually it works out. It has to, because the rich do not like their wealth being disrupted! They have a vested interest in calming things down and getting back into the Jacuzzi.

As crazy as things are right now, tens of thousands of people got a car loan this week. Thousands went to the bank and got a mortgage to buy a home. Students just back to college found banks more than happy to put them into hock for the next 15 years with a student loan. Life has gone on. Not a single person has lost any of their money if it's in a bank or a treasury note or a CD. And the most amazing thing is that the American public hasn't bought the scare campaign. The citizens didn't blink, and instead told Congress to take that bailout and shove it. THAT was impressive. Why didn't the population succumb to the fright-filled warnings from their president and his cronies? Well, you can only say 'Saddam has da bomb' so many times before the people realize you're a lying sack of shite. After eight long years, the nation is worn out and simply can't take it any longer.

10. CREATE A NATIONAL BANK, A "PEOPLE'S BANK." If we really are itching to print up a trillion dollars, instead of giving it to a few rich people, why don't we give it to ourselves? Now that we own Freddie and Fannie, why not set up a people's bank? One that can provide low-interest loans for all sorts of people who want to own a home, start a small business, go to school, come up with the cure for cancer or create the next great invention. And now that we own AIG, the country's largest insurance company, let's take the next step and provide health insurance for everyone. Medicare for all. It will save us so much money in the long run. And we won't be 12th on the life expectancy list. We'll be able to have a longer life, enjoying our government-protected pension, and living to see the day when the corporate criminals who caused so much misery are let out of prison so that we can help reacclimate them to civilian life -- a life with one nice home and a gas-free car that was invented with help from the People's Bank.

My new bass

It's been 15 years since I sold my bass, but today I bought a new one.

After doing careful research to find the best entry-level bass for the money, I settled on the Ibanez GSR200. A good, solid bass with nice features and decent craftsmanship for the cost. I mean, you get what you pay for in musical instruments, but at this point in my life, I do not need to spend a lot on a bass, nor can I afford to. So the GSR200 was my choice.

There were a few used ones on Craigslist, but I was leaning towards a used one at this guitar shop called Guitar Center (it's a chain...I don't know how widespread it is). So I finally got a chance to check it out again today. I wanted to make a decision before it got bought by someone else. I played it and it seemed fine. I'm going to get a little technical here, so if you don't care about technical details, just skip down to the next paragraph. Basses these days sometimes have an active pickup. That means that the guitar has a 9V battery that powers one of the pickups. Kind of like a preamp in a microphone. If this existed 20 years ago when I bought my Peavey Foundation, I hadn't heard about it. I think it's a relatively new feature. I dunno. Anyway, according to the dudes at Guitar Center, it's a feature that the higher-end basses usually have. My research had shown that the GSR200, however, had an active pickup, but the used model I was considering didn't seem to have one. When I asked about it, the guy said that the model in question was from a kit, and the GSR200's that come in a kit (that is, packaged together with a little amp, strap, cord, etc.) do not have the active pickup. Hmm. This was a bit of a bummer. I was really kind of excited about having the active pickup. So as I thought things over, I got a new GSR200 off the wall, plugged it in, and played it a bit. It just sounded better. More responsive. The fretboard felt better, maybe just because it was new instead of a few years old. It was $75 more than the used one, but I decided I'd just work a few sub periods to cover the difference. So I got it. A brand new, black Ibanez GSR200.

When I got home, the real test began. Last Wednesday, I bought a used Peavey KB-60 amplifier off Craigslist. It's 50 watts (despite what the model number might imply), which is more power than I could possibly need for my purposes (but better to have too much than not enough!). Peavey makes good amps. My original bass amp was a 50 watt Peavey. This one is technically a keyboard amp, but everything I had read said that it was a great multi-instrument amp, including bass. When I picked it up, it had a bit of a buzz to it, which made me a little nervous. But amps often buzz a bit, so I chalked it up as negligible. And I hoped in the back of my mind that it was just the dude's bass that was causing it, because the jack on his guitar was really loose. So I plugged my new bass into the amp this afternoon and turned it on. No buzz! And it sounds freaking awesome. I think it sounds better than my bass and amp did 20 years ago. I could never really get a slap and pop effect with my original bass and amp. But with this one, it's easy. Not that I use much slapping and popping, but it's still fun to do once in a while.

So that's it. Now I just need a good microphone that can connect to my computer, and I'll be ready to start adding bass tracks to Baffum's new songs. And I need to practice. My ring finger feels like it's half asleep when I go through my scales. Gotta get in shape again.

Here's some pics of the new bass.

I told Alex to give me his rock-n-roll face in this one.

Vivien likes the "new bass" smell.

Writing Songs

My friend, Steve, and I have been making music together for 20 years. It sounds funny to say that, because it makes us sound old! But it's true. In 1988, we each bought our first electric guitars. Mine was a black cheapo I got at a pawn shop. Paid 100 dollars for it. It didn't even have a brand name (probably got painted over). I think Steve's was a Harmony that he bought at Service Merchandise. My amp was tiny and weak. But it was a start. Within a year, we had formed a true band with our friend Dom and another friend named Steve. We bought a drum set, Dom got a bass guitar...we even bought a second-hand 4-track recorder. We recorded several songs and even played live once for a talent show. It was a blast and we still chuckle about it today.

When our band (Skulk of Thieves) broke up before senior year, Steve and I continued to play music, and even took it up a notch. We auditioned for the school vocal emsemble, Breez, which included a guitarist, a bassist, a drummer, and a keyboardist. Steve was the guitarist, and I was the bassist. Steve upgraded his guitar and amp, and I bought a new bass and amp. The cool thing about Breez is that for a class period every day we got to play our instruments. Though the music we had to play was not our favorite type of music (Wind Beneath my Wings? C'mon!) it gave us experience with our instruments as well as lots of practice playing in front of live audiences. And yes, the Citrus County Watermelon Festival counts as a live audience. And never discount the value of playing Christmas songs at a nursing home!

On the side, we played covers of the music we liked (REM, Beatles, The Cure, etc.) and wrote some tunes of our own. We called ourselves B.A.F.M., after a crude nickname for Steve's car. Alas, when we graduated from high school, Steve went back to his homeland of Scotland, and it seemed that our musical partnership would be severed. But as Lee Corso would say, not so fast, my friend! We mailed cassette tapes back and forth and continued to share our lives and our favorite music with each other. After living in the States for most of his formative years, Steve had some rough years of depression trying to adjust back to life in Scotland. Many of his early tapes expressed his frustration, and you could tell he wanted to be in the States. I think the tapes were a nice outlet for his sadness and maybe helped him make the transition. One nice result of his longing for Florida was that he came back to visit a couple of times. In those short times he returned, our musical partnership, now called Baffum, continued. We wrote a few more songs and even recorded some with his old guitar teacher.

In 1993, a few months before my wedding, I sold my bass and amp, to help finance our wedding. It was kind of sad, but I felt like it was necessary. A year after our wedding, I bought a classical guitar in Costa Rica, so at least I could continue to play.

Around 1993 or 1994, Steve and I first figured out email, which completely revolutionized our ability to keep in touch with each other. I think the onset of email, and later instant messaging, phased out our audio tapes, which had been mostly filled with discussion and small talk. And later, with the accessibility of CD burners, we just sent CDs of our favorite music to each other. Even this has now phased out, as our music has gone digital thanks to the iPod. We just email songs to each other now.

In the late 90's, the songwriting bug got us again and we sent cassette tapes back and forth, adding tracks to a few songs which we were working on. This was definitely a crude system, with each recording resulting in lower quality. But it was the best we could do at the time.

Recently, Steve has found a program called Garageband, which makes it easy to record music on the computer. So the bug has hit again. I'm in the process of buying a bass. I got a used amp this week off Craigslist. We looked through our songs from years ago and found one that we would use as a trial-run, a kickoff project for our new recording sessions. Steve sent me a rough draft track yesterday and I'm excited at the possibilities. Now I find myself working on lyrics while I'm teaching. This morning I got an idea for a new song and I've been toying around with it in my head. I have a little microphone on my computer at school, so I can record ideas that I get while I'm at work.

I shared all this with Cristina last night, and she asked me a good question: who is our intended audience? It hit me that I do it not so much for any audience, but because I love the act of creating. And I love the collaboration of working on music with Steve. We have many of the same music sensibilities, so we're a good fit. We understand each other musically like twins can understand each other's gibberish. I have no aspirations to perform live, or to make a demo CD to try to get a record deal. That's just crazy talk. We're not the most talented musicians. We don't have great equipment. But we have fun with the process. We love to surprise ourselves. We love the challenge of trying to craft a song that we really like, and the pleasure of knowing that it's ours. Writing lyrics is like writing poetry. It's hard to avoid cliches and pretentiousness and banality. And that adds to the challenge. Which is why we're so slow. The song we're working on now has been a work in progress for about 17 years! We're like the Stanley Kubrick of songwriting. We take forever to apply our craft!

Back to the matter of audience, I'm not even eager to send copies of our stuff to all my family members. It's not that I don't want my family to hear our stuff, I'm just not doing it for them. I'm doing it for me. I do get excited at the positive byproducts which will result from getting back into making music, like being a role model for my kids. They'll see that Sofia isn't the only one making music, and that their dad does it for fun and friendship. Some guys enjoy playing online games, some go bowling, some hang out and watch sports and drink beer. I like to work on songs with my buddy, my musical other-half.

I know I really love something when my sense of time dissolves. It used to happen when I'd be working on a video. I could be at the computer editing and the hours would just fly by without me being hardly aware of it. It's the same thing with music. It's a little tricky creating songs with Steve being across the ocean. But thanks to computers, it's a lot easier. The time difference is really the only obstacle now. When I get home from work, he's gone to bed. At night, when my kids are in bed and I've got some time to collaborate, he's leaving for work. But on the weekends, we can sometimes be online at the same time. And once we get fully set up with our music software, it won't matter as much. When one of us finishes a track, we'll just email the file to the other one and continue the process.

Stay tuned. When we have our first new song, I'll post it.

Sofia's music

I recorded a little bit of Sofia practicing her instruments tonight. Sorry the footage is kind of dark. That's what you get with our camera. Camcorder would have been better, but it's easier to post video from my digital camera.


Star Wars Trumpet from Wayne Eury on Vimeo.
Sofia's band class is doing a cinema retrospective, and the brass section is working on part of the Star Wars music for their exam. Here's a preview!


The Entertainer from Wayne Eury on Vimeo.
This piece is a work in progress, but she's doing pretty well with it, so I figured it was time to share. Even though this piece is an obligatory rite of passage for every piano student, she honestly loves Scott Joplin. Maple Leaf Rag is her favorite, but she's getting her feet wet with this classic.

Food for Thought

I don't post much political stuff on my blog, but this post is an exception. If you're not interested in a healthy debate about the candidates in our upcoming election, then stop reading now! I won't be offended.

One of the things that has always bothered me about Bush is the way he always seems to act so decisively and never waver, even in the face of information that shows he made a bad choice or was just dead wrong. I get it. He's tough. He's determined. To change your mind about something, God forbid, has become anathema. Flip-flop is a bad word. Well, this comic sums it up best...



I think that's what bothers me most about Sarah Palin. I see that same "don't blink, just react, never waver" mentality. I guess some people respect that type of leadership, since we've elected and endured it for 8 years. But I'm ready for something a bit more thoughtful.

Anyway, I read this op-ed piece this morning, written by a conservative, who seems to share my opinion.

Why Experience Matters

By DAVID BROOKS

Philosophical debates arise at the oddest times, and in the heat of this election season, one is now rising in Republican ranks. The narrow question is this: Is Sarah Palin qualified to be vice president? Most conservatives say yes, on the grounds that something that feels so good could not possibly be wrong. But a few commentators, like George Will, Charles Krauthammer, David Frum and Ross Douthat demur, suggesting in different ways that she is unready.

The issue starts with an evaluation of Palin, but does not end there. This argument also is over what qualities the country needs in a leader and what are the ultimate sources of wisdom.

There was a time when conservatives did not argue about this. Conservatism was once a frankly elitist movement. Conservatives stood against radical egalitarianism and the destruction of rigorous standards. They stood up for classical education, hard-earned knowledge, experience and prudence. Wisdom was acquired through immersion in the best that has been thought and said.

But, especially in America, there has always been a separate, populist, strain. For those in this school, book knowledge is suspect but practical knowledge is respected. The city is corrupting and the universities are kindergartens for overeducated fools.

The elitists favor sophistication, but the common-sense folk favor simplicity. The elitists favor deliberation, but the populists favor instinct.

This populist tendency produced the term-limits movement based on the belief that time in government destroys character but contact with grass-roots America gives one grounding in real life. And now it has produced Sarah Palin.

Palin is the ultimate small-town renegade rising from the frontier to do battle with the corrupt establishment. Her followers take pride in the way she has aroused fear, hatred and panic in the minds of the liberal elite. The feminists declare that she’s not a real woman because she doesn’t hew to their rigid categories. People who’ve never been in a Wal-Mart think she is parochial because she has never summered in Tuscany.

Look at the condescension and snobbery oozing from elite quarters, her backers say. Look at the endless string of vicious, one-sided attacks in the news media. This is what elites produce. This is why regular people need to take control.

And there’s a serious argument here. In the current Weekly Standard, Steven Hayward argues that the nation’s founders wanted uncertified citizens to hold the highest offices in the land. They did not believe in a separate class of professional executives. They wanted rough and rooted people like Palin.

I would have more sympathy for this view if I hadn’t just lived through the last eight years. For if the Bush administration was anything, it was the anti-establishment attitude put into executive practice.

And the problem with this attitude is that, especially in his first term, it made Bush inept at governance. It turns out that governance, the creation and execution of policy, is hard. It requires acquired skills. Most of all, it requires prudence.

What is prudence? It is the ability to grasp the unique pattern of a specific situation. It is the ability to absorb the vast flow of information and still discern the essential current of events — the things that go together and the things that will never go together. It is the ability to engage in complex deliberations and feel which arguments have the most weight.

How is prudence acquired? Through experience. The prudent leader possesses a repertoire of events, through personal involvement or the study of history, and can apply those models to current circumstances to judge what is important and what is not, who can be persuaded and who can’t, what has worked and what hasn’t.

Experienced leaders can certainly blunder if their minds have rigidified (see: Rumsfeld, Donald), but the records of leaders without long experience and prudence is not good. As George Will pointed out, the founders used the word “experience” 91 times in the Federalist Papers. Democracy is not average people selecting average leaders. It is average people with the wisdom to select the best prepared.

Sarah Palin has many virtues. If you wanted someone to destroy a corrupt establishment, she’d be your woman. But the constructive act of governance is another matter. She has not been engaged in national issues, does not have a repertoire of historic patterns and, like President Bush, she seems to compensate for her lack of experience with brashness and excessive decisiveness.

The idea that “the people” will take on and destroy “the establishment” is a utopian fantasy that corrupted the left before it corrupted the right. Surely the response to the current crisis of authority is not to throw away standards of experience and prudence, but to select leaders who have those qualities but not the smug condescension that has so marked the reaction to the Palin nomination in the first place.

Bella's Snap

Last night, when I was lying down with the kids, Bella announced that she had just snapped her fingers for the first time. It was too dark for me to visually confirm this, but the little sounds coming from her hands were quiet, but unmistakable, 4-year-old finger snaps.

Today, while we had blueberry pancakes for lunch (yes, lunch) Bella was showing off her new skill. So I recorded it for you all.


Bella's Snap from Wayne Eury on Vimeo.