The Things on My Mind

It’s funny, as I realized that my schedule that I set in my comeback post has me (likely) doing the posting on Mondays. Which led me to remember the writings of a Detroit legend, Bob Talbert. His tagline for his first column of the weeks was “Out of my Monday Moanin’ Mind”. They would have a tendency to be little snippets of sentences. Think Andy Rooney, or better yet, the old Larry King columns but with more joy. It’s my brain playing tricks on my jumping around like this but I’m burying the lead…

I’m generally a live-and-let-live sort of guy. Most people that know me would probably leap to “nice” as the word to describe me. But as the election season has been heating up, and I’ve been doing my best to keep up with it on the local and national levels, I read a few things this week that I felt compelled me to focus this post on what’s passing for politics right now.

It started with this post by Digby, the gist of which is the more politically knowledgable a conservative is, the more likely they are to discount the science behind global warming and other politically charged subjects. Which at first glance seems counter-intuitive since you would assume that there would be a certain amount of respect given to those who had dedicated their lives to studying things like weather patterns, those ice cross-sections from Antartica, and the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. All this based on a post by Chris Mooney (which is really just an excerpt from his upcoming book).

The reasoning behind all of this is that conservatives have a preference for, as Digby put it, “tribal solidarity”. They tend to get all their news from sources that reinforce what they already believe in and don’t feel the need to reach out beyond that comfort zone. They would prefer to argue that their facts are “more righter” than the real facts. It’s truthiness, writ large and (with apologies to Stephen Colbert) at its most damaging.

I guess I felt so strongly about it because I fall on the liberal side of things and like Mr. Mooney says:

Let’s face it: We liberals and progressives are absolutely outraged by partisan misinformation. Lies about “death panels.” People seriously thinking that President Obama is a Muslim, not born in the United States. Climate-change denial. Debt ceiling denial. These things drive us crazy, in large part because we can’t comprehend how such intellectual abominations could possibly exist.

And not only are we enraged by lies and misinformation; we want to refute them—to argue, argue, argue about why we’re right and Republicans are wrong. Indeed, we often act as though right-wing misinformation’s defeat is nigh, if we could only make people wiser and more educated (just like us) and get them the medicine that is correct information.

Turns out, the logic and reasoning isn’t going to get us anywhere with the people we’re trying to convince. What it does raise as an interesting point is proposing a solution of more “emotional”-based arguments. Again, logically this makes sense but given the state of the Democrats, it’s going to take some getting over knowing logic and reasoning aren’t going to work. President Obama was very good at this in his first campaign and as he starts to move into re-election mode, expect to see more of the same if he wants to win.

This post by Ezra Klein is a perfect example of the factual arguments that have “changed” over the years. The idea that holding any given position could put you on either the left or the right depending on when you held it should blow your mind. His explanation, as I see it:

Consistency is an overrated virtue. But honesty isn’t. In many of these cases, the parties changed policy when it was politically convenient to do so, not when conditions changed and new information came to light.

sums up a lot of what’s wrong with the political debate now. It’s not even about the win anymore, it’s about beating the other side. So when you’re in power and you want to change the rules of the Senate to aid you and your agenda, it’s fine. If the other guys take that control away from you and are now proposing the same changes you wanted to make, you don’t get to call them a threat to democracy. You need to either accept the fact that when you’re not in power, you’re going to get screwed or everybody needs to take a breath and (gulp) work through our differences together like adults! The winners and losers in November aren’t just going to be those voted in and those voted out, respectively. The government and the Republic will continue to exist after the election. That’s where the fun really begins.

As a preview of what to expect over the next eight months, this post from Laurence Lewis seems to me to be a good assessment. The Republicans are likely to nominate Gov. Mitt Romney, Sen. Rick Santorum and Speaker Newt Gingrich are going to continue to say wack-a-doodle things that will infuriate me and lots of other people while continuing to shift the Repubilican Party ever right-ward into Unelectable-land, and Rep. Ron Paul will keep alternately making sense and sounding as presidental as the guys who hand out leaflets near Port Authority telling the “truth about what’s really in Fort Knox!!! (SPOILER ALERT: ALIENS!)”. As the Romney campaign tries to walk back some of the odder things that their candidate has said to alienate the electorate, President Obama can swoop in and win over the majority of voters with the 1-2 combination of emotion and facts that he can be very good at delivering (see 2007-8).

There are big problems in our country. Big problems call for big solutions. The past four years have seen a political system that has been used to stymie any size solution based purely on the fact that no one can let the other side even be perceived as having a victory. I’d like to think that someone in a position of having already made history might be willing to burnish that reputation with a few more dalliances with greatness, damn the consequences. If that happens, if there’s even a chance that we could see some truly bold thinking, there could be a renaissance of political literacy and a change in public opinion about our democracy that we all could be proud of. I think I’d like that. I’d like it very much.

Dormancy aside, I’m bringing it back to life. I won’t dwell on the hows and whys of the lack of posts, I’ll just give the summing up:

• Right around the time of the last post, my wife and I found out we were having a baby. He’s now 21 months old and The Kid is awesome. So much so, the second one is on the way.
• After nearly destroying an antique chair, I buckled down (pun intended) and lost 60 pounds and I mean to keep it off. People keep asking me how I did it. The pithy answer I give is “It turns out when you don’t eat a lot of food, you lose weight.” The slightly longer version is I found an iPhone app called Lose It and by diligently entering the data, I knew where my limits were and stuck to them.
• Still have the same job with a little more travel as I’m taking on some new accounts based out of Philly. It’s an adjustment but it’s just starting up really and I think it’ll be good.

That’s the gist. I’m sure all me of you reading this will be clamoring for details.

Now back to the show. Discipline is the first word that came to mind when sitting down to get back on this blogging track as I recently came to the conclusion that in order to accomplish a series of personal goals, I was going to have to step up to a level of discipline that a year ago I wouldn’t have thought possible for me. The weight loss (I know this is going to sound cliched) proved to me that I could be more mindful of my actions. So I’ve set myself a pretty rigorous schedule that will provide the structure for improving myself. Things on my list:

• Keeping my weight loss off and getting into better shape.
• Refreshing my Spanish language skills plus add Italian for my wife’s family plus Latin (just ’cause but it’s related)
• Getting back into math. I’m a nerd.
• Getting back into coding and keeping up with the ever-changing digital landscape. See above re: nerd.
• Keeping better track of my poker playing and working on my game. It can’t be all heavy lifting.
• Reviving the blog to create an air of external accountability and bring back the outlet for my blathering opinions. Even if no one’s reading this, it’s out there.

What I’m really hoping for is that the structure will allow me to make some progress (slow progress is still progress) on all fronts but I’m also smart enough to be flexible and that I’ll miss some days. The true goal is to keep the misses to the minimum and be come a better me. It’s apropos that this is all coming as Lent is starting. I’ll be going with what has become my standard Lenten sacrifice the past few years, thanks to a work buddy: I’ll be giving up the elevators at the office. Nine floors up, nine floors down. I’ll probably add something else too but I’ve got a whole day to figure that out.

So here’s to a new discipline. I, for one, am looking forward to it. Meanwhile, I’m going to figure out the best place for me to get a paczki.