September 2008 Archives

Well, Emanuel Cleaver had his opportunity and now a slightly amended version of the bailout, aka the Financial Rescue Plan will be heading to the Senate floor tomorrow night.  Sen. Bond has so far voiced his support of the plan, even speaking out against his colleagues in the house for not passing it.  Sen. McCaskill has voiced her reservations about the plan, but hasn't explicitly come out either for or against, so I'll be watching her vote and reaction a little bit more closely.

So, after railing on Rep. Cleaver, you must assume that I'm for the plan, right?  Well, it's hard to say.  Frankly, I'm glad I don't have to make a decision right now (though if it were my job, I'd have the time to do some real, in-depth research).  I've heard compelling arguments for and against, but what irritated me about the house vote was that many representatives simply seemed to be either protecting their seat or playing politics.  Those that had logical objections to the plan don't bother me, but from everything I read in the news, they seemed to be in the minority.

Now Rep. Cleaver doesn't have to worry about losing his seat this fall, but the way he voted and his explanation for his vote was rather distressing.  If he believed in the bill, which he seemed to be leading up to the vote, he should have stood up and voted for it.  If he was truly against it, he should have provided some reasonable explanation for why he voted against it.  Instead, he gave loose political justifications at a time when the country really needs leaders, not politicians.  That is what upset me and why I've been blogging about this so much.  If I do see something in the news where he gives further explanation, I'll post it here.  For now, though, the wire seems to be more caught up in the upcoming senate vote. 

Time magazine just posted an article about the failure of the bailout bill being a political credibility crisis.  Here's a quote, but I suggest you go read the whole article:

Asked to take a leap of faith regarding a dizzyingly complex problem, a critical mass of voters refused to trust their leaders, turning down the medicine that was offered. And so the politicians who are most exposed to popular whims have run for cover. With an election on the horizon, 95 House Democrats and 133 House Republicans opposed the bill. Some portion voted no for clearly ideological reasons. But many more were simply doing what politicians do -- responding to the will of the people.

An analysis by statistician Nate Silver, who runs FiveThirtyEight.com, made this clear. Of the 38 incumbent members of Congress from both parties who are considered vulnerable in the coming election, 30 voted against the bill, and only 8 supported the bill. By contrast, members of Congress from relatively safe districts were evenly divided -- 197 for to 198 against.

I've done a bit of digging around and this is some of the information I could find about Emanuel Cleaver II voting against the bailout bill.

From KMBC - "I voted 'No' because the most significant vote since the 1930's cannot and should not be a one-party bill. Something will need to be done to rescue the economy, and to that end we will now start crafting legislation that treats taxpayer protection as a priority rather than an afterthought. If we are going to stick our grandchildren with a $700 billion tab, we had better get it right."

"I think one of the problems is that people have continued to use the term bailout, and when that happens it is a toxic term, and so people get excited and angry over it because nobody feels good about bailing out somebody who has been irresponsible," Cleaver told KMBC.

What's interesting about this statement is that on one hand he describes this as costing our grandchildren $700 billion (both an erroneous description of overall cost and time frame) and then on the other says that the bill should not be described as bailout (Speaker Pelosi prefers the term buy-in).  I think this next quote is somewhat more illuminating.

From the Christian Science Monitor - Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D) of Missouri, a
member of the House Finance Committee, delayed his vote until the last minute to see if GOP leaders could deliver a majority of their own caucus. They did not, and he voted against the bill. "There's no reason for us to go in and bail Bush out if his own party rejects him," he said.

Update: The above quote gets expanded a bit by Bloomberg, and not for the better:  "There is no reason for us to go in there and bail out George Bush," Missouri Democrat Emanuel Cleaver said.  "I don't think anyone is going to step out on a limb," he said, because "there is no way to sell this" to voters.

If this is indeed the most significant piece of legislation since the 1930's (and it may very well be), then such political rhetoric is irresponsible.  I don't think the majority of democrats would have voted for this bill if it were simply a Bush bailout.  To reduce this measure to such terms is frankly startling.  The fact is that this is a compromise that leaders on both sides felt relatively comfortable with (even if their constituents did not), that included much more oversight and protection for taxpayers than the awful initial proposal, and yet Rep. Cleaver still voted against the measure.

It is true that both parties failed in their efforts to garner enough votes to pass this bill, but less than 12 hours after the vote I'm already sick of the finger waiving and Washington blame-gaming that's going on.  The Democrats have the numbers to pass this on their on, and if half of the Republicans would have voted for it, we wouldn't be having this conversation.  So rather than picking on either party, I'm picking on my representative, because he is the one representing me in this vote, and his is the job that I'll be voting on this November.

Well, Congress kinda screwed this one up, didn't they.  Or, more accurately, I should say the house of representatives.  Yesterday, we had the President, Secretary of the Treasury, Chairmen of the Federal Reserve, and congressional leaders on both sides saying they had reached a deal on this $700,000,000,000 bill (I wanted to see that all written out, even though it shouldn't cost anywhere near that amount in the long term).  So what happened?

No one knows for sure, and both sides are pointing their fingers at the other as expected.  Thanks a lot, folks.  Now, I don't personally know whether this bill is a great idea or not, and frankly there isn't really anyone on Capitol Hill whose judgment I trust that much, but if Warren Buffett says that we're on the brink of the worst financial meltdown in American history, I'm inclined to think that they better get something passed pretty soon.

So suck it up, reps, and get the job done.  Why don't you worry about the country a little bit more than your own reelection, or is that asking too much?

Update:  I just heard it confirmed on NBC tonight.  When you look at the representatives whose seats are secure, they voted for the bill.  If they had been in or are currently in a contentious race, they voted no.  I am very anxious to hear what my representative, Emanuel Cleaver II, has to say about his voting against Nancy Pelosi and voting no on this bill.  As soon as the House of Representatives website is up again (I wonder why it's down...), I'm going to be contacting his office.

I've just gone passed 2/3 of the way there with $335 dollars donated.  That's only $165 more to go!  Unfortunately, I'm quickly running out of people to hit up for donations.  My latest attempt was an email to my mom's multiple brothers and sisters with the promise that the largest donation gets the title of "My Favorite Aunt/Uncle."  Together, they've brought in $100, with my Aunt Mary currently holding the title.  :)

I went to the Lee's Summit Oktoberfest yesterday and thought it was rather silly that they were holding it on the last weekend in September.  I figured, well, it's a small town so what do they know, right?

So then I look up the Kansas City Oktoberfest, to see if there is somewhere I can go to get some good German beer on tap.  Turns out, it's running this weekend as well.  Maybe I'm missing something...

So I look it up on wikipedia, and it turns out that the traditional Oktoberfest is held in the 16 days preceding the first Sunday in October.  Who knew? 

As I was out on my run this morning, I ran by a run down football field behind a local school.  Anyway, this couple brought their dogs out there and those dogs were just going to town, running around, catching frisbees, etc.  A biker passed me as I was watching these dogs and said, "Those dogs are having entirely too much fun."

It got me thinking (2 hours running by yourself is conducive to this), and aside from companionship, I think people have pets because it's so much fun bringing joy into their little lives.  Granted, our cats don't get nearly as excited as dogs do, but a happy, purring kitty can be pretty wonderful too.  (-10 man points)

It's fun to make other critters happy, and the same is true for people.  So maybe today think about something you could do to bring a little joy into someone else's life.

I don't care what side of the aisle you are on, I think you got to hear some things that got you excited about your candidate and riled up about the other.  After the last two presidential debates (the Gore-Bush debates were just awful), it's nice to have a lot of give and take and difference of opinion on substantial issues.  In general I think you have to agree that Obama comes out ahead tonight, though, and I'm just speaking stylistically.  I think Obama came across as a bit more polite while being firm, whereas McCain was just a bit too forceful and, actually, long-winded.  The moderator had to work on more than a few occassions to cut him off, whereas Obama on at least two occassions verbally ceded controll to the moderator.  McCain's reactions while Obama was speaking were also more pointed.  You could really see that he disagreed strongly with what was being said, whereas Obama seemed cool and collected and waited to attack (with the exception of a few "That's not true, John" phrases thrown in). 

There was a lot of stump speech crap in there, and neither candidate answered what I thought was one of the best questions - how would the current financial crisis affect your priorities as president.  Obama wouldn't give specific examples, and McCain only said he'd consider a nearly complete spending freeze.  Neither candidate would cede any of their over-the-top campaign promises.

Still, I enjoyed this new format that was a lot more free form and I think illustrated the difference between the candidates well (of course it doesn't exactly take a microscope to see them).

It's nice to have some tv that isn't reruns.  I've watched Heroes and How I Met Your Mother (Neil Patrick Harris is brilliant), and now I'm watching The Office.  I kind of accidentally watched My Name is Earl (I should have been studying), and this quote came up, which I thought was really good (may not be completely accurate):

"My dad realized that anger was a tough burden to carry and that revenge didn't make it any lighter, but forgiveness did."

I like that.

School is definitely starting to get to me.  I'm taking my theory comprehensive exams this week (for my second masters), which if you aren't familiar with the concept, it's 8 hours of testing, though divided into only five questions.  So I've been studying a lot lately, while trying to stay on top of coursework and practicing.  Of course, once I'm done with this I'll have to start studying for my doctoral comps (24 hours of questions over a couple of weeks).  Rather than get into an I'm busier than you are competition (I won't win), I'll just say that I'm glad this is my last year of coursework.

Speaking of which, I've got to start getting some applications for jobs out.  Right now I'm looking at positions in Ohio, Tennessee, New Hampshire, Illinois, and Pennsylvania, and that's just to start.  :)

So I upgraded my blog software from 4.1 to 4.2.1 and consequently lost all those goodies on the side.  I managed to fix it, but using a workout that I don't like.  I've normally been very impressed with Movable Type, but for some reason things didn't quite work out as they should have.

This comic brought to you by the brilliant minds over at PhD Comics.

We're now at $190, so quickly closing in on the halfway point!  I just wanted to let everyone know that I've gotten a little shout out from the FirstGiving blog.  Their post also got me thinking about this ridiculously huge bailout the government is currently considering (and very carefully, let us hope), and maybe we could think of this as sort of a mini bailout for those who really need it.  Let's keep up the good work.

Well, within 24 hours, $115 dollars have already been donated to Harvesters, so I'm really excited.  It's amazing what can be done with technology.  I can set up the donation page, let all my facebook and blogging friends know, other people email those that they know and several hundreds of people have the ability to participate in this drive.  Now just to get 'em to donate $5 each and we're set.  :)  Seriously, though, I'm already impressed by the people that have stepped up and donated and even passed this along to people I don't know at all.  Let's keep the momentum going!

Carrie and I trekked out to the Plaza Art fair again this year, though for the first time our primary objective wasn't the art so much as the celebrities.  That's right, our favorite weathermen, Jeremy Nelson and Gary Lezak were going to be in the NBC booth, and we just had to go meet them (oh, and Gary's dog Stormy was there was well--yes, he named his dog stormy).  Unfortunately, I neglected to check out the battery situation in the camera, and the goofy picture I planned on having of myself and them did not bear out.  Oh well.

On the plus side, I did get an NBC Action News (yes, apparently their news is more 'action'-oriented than other news channels) watter bottle.  I even got a signature from both of them.  I suppose I could take this on my runs or bike rides, but I'd hate it if these signatures wore off.  :)  Anyway, since I didn't get a picture of them, here are some shots of the water bottle.  Why yes, I am short of blog material, why do you ask?

Well, I'm out to prove that good things do happen after midnight, if only on rare occasions.  For my last post, I spent some time on the Homeless World Cup website, and I noticed that they have a way to do raise money for them online.  So I started searching some of my favorite charities in the KC area to see if they offered similar programs.  Unfortunately, none of them did directly, but I did come across a website called Firstgiving, where you can set up a website to raise funds for any number of charities.  So I am.

As many of you already know, I'm planning on running in the KC Half-Marathon this coming October 18th.  While this race does donate a good chunk of the proceeds to a couple of charities, I've decided to do my own fund raising for Harvesters, Kansas City's only food bank.  With the recent economic downturn, more people are turning toward different charities for food, while fewer people are donating.  I've seen more than a few local news stories about places running out of food, so I thought this would be a good charity to support.

A bit more about Harvesters:

Harvesters mission is to collect food and household products from community and industry sources and distribute those products through a network of non-profit agencies. Harvesters is an essential partner with over 550 charitable agencies throughout our 13-county service area in Greater Kansas City. These agencies include emergency food pantries, soup kitchens, shelters, day care centers and senior centers. Together we feed the weakest and most vulnerable members in our community - the sick, the elderly and the very young. Our mission doesn't end with the collection and distribution of food. We believe that a long-term solution to hunger involves leadership and outreach programs to increase community awareness of hunger and generate solutions to end hunger.

For now, I've set a goal of raising $500, mostly because I have no idea what would be an appropriate goal.  I have less than a month until the race, but hopefully I'll be revising that figure sharply upward shortly.  :)

To make a donation, simply visit my donation page at http://www.firstgiving.com/andylee or click the link of the right side of this post.  Thanks!

It's national talk like a pirate day, mateys!

They make me sick, for starters.  One of the joys of being in a 'swing' state is that we get to feel like our vote counts a little more.  Unfortunately, it also means we have to tolerate all these awful political ads.  I can't stand them.  What shred of truth there may be in the ads of any camp are so exploited, so blown up, and so distorted it might as all be called a lie.  It only takes about 5 minutes on http://www.factcheck.org/ to get your gag reflex going.  Of course, it doesn't end with ads.  It seems like neither candidate can manage to maintain much truth for long when attacking the other or for that matter promoting themselves.

Another thing that gets me going is the sound-bite culture we live in.  You can blame it on the media, if you want, but as usual I prefer to blame it on the consumer.  Nobody lasts long selling something that people don't want to buy, and the same goes for the news outlets.  In-depth analysis and reporting takes time, and most people don't want to spend the time it takes to really get to the bottom of any matter.  Heck, those that do don't always have the time to do that either.  The result is that the campaigns have to stick to their stump speeches and talking points (bye bye straight talk express, eh?).

Ok, as I write I realize that the same thing could be said about those ads.  If they didn't work, politicians wouldn't run them, so I guess this is more about us than politicians, right?  A politician isn't anything more than a brand that people are trying to sell (sorry for anyone who really believes in these candidates), and how they sell these brands is mostly a reflection of us.

Another thing that bothers me are people who can't see any validity in another political viewpoint, or for that matter, don't disagree at all with a party or candidate on at least something.  I don't care who you support, if you can't think of something you don't like about their positions you probably don't know enough about them.

In summary, I don't know if either candidate is going to earn my vote this time around.  I know a lot of people think that's crazy, that I should at least pick the lesser of two evils and not "waste" my vote, but I've become rather cynical in the few years I've been on this planet and am almost beyond caring.  They both make me so sick.  Whatever independence McCain has showed in his years in the Senate have been completely erased as he panders shamelessly to the republican base, and the thought of a democratic house, senate, and presidency makes me ill as well.  I'd like to think that Obama could change things, but that much power tends to do the opposite, doesn't it?  Of course, I could probably vote for one if I didn't disagree with both of them on so many different positions.  Sucks to try to think for one's self, doesn't it?

We'll see.  The debates tend to be a bit more revealing, and I usually try to withhold judgment until then.  It's hard for even a politician to keep up the BS for 90 or so minutes of live tv.

Well, the good news is that power is back on!  Behold the power!

Ok, I just googled electricity and found this image, and I felt like it needed an appropriate lead-in.  They're trying not to be too optimistic, as the power could just as easily be intermittent for a while, but it is nice to have lights again.  Since they have DSL, they'll most likely have internet running, but that's not necessarily a garauntee.  They'll probably try that tomorrow, as the thought of going through all the emails seems a bit daunting at the moment.

All told, it was right around 5 days without power, so not too bad.  Still, most people still don't have power, and a large number don't even have a house to go home to.  So while this looks like it'll have a happy ending for my folks (and my Dad's brother and his wife, who also have power back on), keep in mind that there are plenty of needs to still be met.  So if this hit home with you (as it did with us), it's worth considering a charitible contribution to the charity of your choice.  :)

Things seem to be looking up a bit.  Entergy has started getting a power plant in the area back on line, schools are going to open Thursday, trash service has resumed a bit, post offices are open, and they still have water.  It seems like things are definitely moving forward at this point.  There is also an estimate that power will be 100% restored to their area by the 29th.  Granted, that's a ways away, but that's for 100%, so they should have power no later than that.

The best thing at this point seems to be that their little neighborhood is really banding together and helping each other out.  People are not only helping with clean-up, but also hosting little get togethers as well.  In general, the phone conversations have been much more optimistic, especially when compared to when we thought they might lose water.  We'll keep hoping they get power back soon, but for now, things seem to be going about as well as they could be, considering.

For those of you who didn't know, my parents moved to Lake Conroe, which is just about an hour north of Houston.  Hurricane Ike passed a little east of them, and even though they are a bit inland, it was still at least a category 1 hurricane.

They are doing well, after sleeping in their huge closet that night, but are without power.  It may be a while before power is restored, but for now they are doing fine.  The house suffered no damage to speak of, mostly because there are no large trees in the area.  While they do live right on the lake, the lake is manmade, so they can release water if need be, but so far it hasn't been necessary as the lake level was low before the storm hit.

It looks like the US Postal service is going to get things up and running here as best as they can, so I'll probably be sending them a shipment of batteries and other non-perishables.  They aren't planning to leave at the moment, so hopefully the power will get restored before they have to eat their 30th peanut butter sandwich.  For now, I'll be acting as their primary contact.  I've spent a lot of time with them on the phone lately and have tried to get as much information to them as I can.  Unfortunately, as one might expect, there isn't a whole lot of local news coming out of this devistated area, but if you want to follow along, The Montgomery County Courier seems to be the best source.  In fact, they just updated that one of the two main power plants in the region may be coming on soon.  Good news!

That's all for now.  I'll keep the updates coming as I know more.

Wow.  That's about all I can say.  Oh, and many thanks to David McIntire who almost single-handedly put the weekend together.  A review:

Thursday night was the official meeting of the Planning Committee for the Second International Conference on Music and Minimalism (we don't have an official name, but that sounds good).  Kyle Gann (Composer, Critic, Musicologist, Professor) was in town for a performance by newEar of his work Chicago Spiral, and joined our meeting as he also serves as the co-director of this enterprise with David.  An avid Scotch drinker himself, we had a wonderful meeting to say the least.  We did get some work done, but also enjoyed more than a few digressions.

Friday night was the party, and that was incredible fun.  Composition professor Paul Rudy hosted, David cooked ribs (the best in KC, several people who would know declared), Michelle (David's wife) prepared many other goodies, and others brought drinks and sides.  Among the guest list were the student members (sans Jedd) of the PCftSICoMaM (um, planning committee), Andrew Granade (who is currently cursing my name as he agreed to play David Borden's Double Portrait), music history faculty member, along with his wife and new son, Paul Dresher, whose ensemble was performing at UMKC in an unfortunate conflict with newEar, James Mobberley, another member of the composition faculty (who looks nothing like that picture), and even Peter Witte, the new Dean of the Conservatory.  Phew.  I'm not sure how I got invited, but I ate my fill in case it didn't happen again.  :)

After a while, the party dwindled down to myself, Scott, Kyle, David, Peter, and Paul (no Mary).  Paul was very generous with what Kyle told us was Nancarrow's favorite tequila (El Jimador) as well as a lovely port.  The conversation did consist of music, but also delved quite a bit into politics and other subjects.  As the evening wore further on, we lost the dean, but did move to the garage to enjoy some nice cigars (again, Paul Rudy was more than generous as a host).  Only Kyle and I partook (that's 3 this year, which is probably a good limit), but everyone else was polite enough to join us in the garage (it was raining a lot).  It was quite an experience.  I left with Scott around midnight, and left Paul, David, and Kyle to their own devices.

Saturday evening was the newEar concert, and boy was it a dandy.  I was familiar with some of the pieces, and knew most of the composers, but had never heard any of these pieces live, much less all in one concert.  Probably the biggest surprise for me was Wayne Siegel's Jackdaw for bass clarinet and electronic sounds.  I was totally unfamiliar with the work, but, as I was told by Brad Fowler, I have to get the CD that has that and some other piece titled The Devil's Golfcourse.  Ok, I'm interested!

What a great concert, and what fun to hang out at the reception for a short while.  Oh, I should mention that the other pieces performed were selections from David Lang's Child, Scott Unrein's Imanaka, and William Duckworth's (a favorite of mine) Mysterious Numbers.  I was getting ahead of myself.

Alas, all good things must come to an end, but this was certainly a weekend worth remembering.  Sorry I didn't blog about Sarah Palin, Mom, but that'll come eventually.  Perhaps once you get power back on from Ike (my folks live an hour north of Houston and are doing well, sans power of course).  

Much has been made about McCain's $5,000,000 comment, but as I watched both Obama and McCain being interviewed by Rick Warren, I knew I wouldn't even be president because my answer is probably more offensive than McCain's gaffe.  I won't put a dollar figure on it, but I'd probably answer something like this:

I think most people in America are filthy rich.  I think if you consider yourself middle class, you're rich.  I think if you own property, you're rich.  I think if you own a car or two, you're rich.  I think if you have the ability to save money and/or give it away, you're rich.  I think if you ever eat out, you're rich.  I think if you have cable and/or internet at your residence, you're rich.  I think if you've never had to worry about going hungry or thirsty, you're rich.

Yeah, I'd never be president.  We have blinders on in this country.  We compare ourselves to those immediately around us and those we see in the media, I imagine.  We forget that over 9 million people die from starvation and poverty, and that 854 million people don't get enough to eat.  And these are just some quick stats I got from the U.N. World Food Programme.  We forget how freakin' good we really do have it, and I think if reminded ourselves of that a little more often, we might not only be more content with what we have, but also be more generous with it.

Now, what got me really going on this was a credit card ad that said the following, "We are a nation of consumers, and there's nothing wrong with that."  I think my jaw just about fell on the floor.  I've never heard it said so blatantly, nor so easily passed over.  Are we really to the point where we don't even mind being called mere consumers?  I for one am not anxious to just entertain myself until I die.