Something to Know - 2 November

Chris Christie and Hurricane Sandy

1.  In doing his job as President, and drawing on the skill sets as a 'community organizer', Barack Obama has demonstrated that he has the ability to transcend the mundane level of crappy politics and do the job he was elected to.  In the political season, it does reap benefits for his re-election.  Meanwhile, MittPoop is stuck in his grime and sludge of his political tactics - probably looking for more cans for a photo op or little white lies that he can possibly turn into Nixonian dirty tricks.  The Mayor of New York lined up to endorse the President:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/02/nyregion/bloomberg-endorses-obama-saying-hurricane-sandy-affected-decision.html?hp&_r=1&pagewanted=print&

2.  Sandy.   Of course the naysayers are not saying anything.  However, it would appear that we cannot ignore the distinct evidence that weather events are now more volatile and frequent than we have had in the past.   Is it possible that Sandy is indeed the wake-up call needed to prod public policy on the way we screw up the environment, or are we going to kick the can down the road of ignorance like we do with gun violence:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/eugene-robinson-will-hurricane-sandy-be-our-wake-up-call/2012/11/01/eb50acd6-2447-11e2-ac85-e669876c6a24_print.html

3.  I am get really pissed when I hear people who are not going to vote because they really think that both candidates are beneath their support, because they just don't care.   I am a regular listener to the Freakonomics iPad radio series, and the academic econ, guys from the University of Chicago opine that they probably will not be voting for any of the two candidates.   If that is where you exist, if nothing else, the Supreme Court will undoubtedly be greatly affected by which type of nominees the president puts up there.   Any one who is professing to be a "severe conservative" is really going to put the Court into Right Wing mode which will propel this nation into misery.   We need a progressive and liberal Court to take this country back:

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-chemerinsky-scotus-future-20121030,0,782910,print.story

4.  The creative energy that drives this country to new territories through new challenges come very often through new immigrants.  This has been shown to be true through our history.   Whether it be in the entrepreneurial drive in new ways to make things, or a community of newly arrived who have a refreshing view of what it means to be a patriotic U.S. Citizen.   We need to reform our immigration system to make sure that we constantly reinvent ourself:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/02/opinion/immigrants-as-entrepreneurs.html?ref=opinion&pagewanted=print

 

--
Juan

"A chess genius is a human being who focuses vast, little-understood mental gifts and labors on an ultimately trivial human enterprise." 
       -- George Steiner

"So much of what we call management consists in making it difficult for people to work." 
       -- Peter Drucker

"The penalty for laughing in a courtroom is six months in jail; if it were not for this penalty, the jury would never hear the evidence." 
       -- H. L. Mencken

"It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations." 
       -- Sir Winston Churchill