Life updates along with bread and circus

[pmb]

I have advanced to candidacy. Now there are only two things standing between me and graduation: dissertation proposal (12-16 pages) and dissertation (many many pages). I am proposING to finish the proposAL by the end of this term (quarter system can suck my ass with its stupid ending in mid June when everyone else has been out for a while already) and then finish everything else by the end of next school year. My advisor thinks that this goal is both a) doable and b) necessary (for funding reasons), and since he's department chair when he talks about funding I believe him. He does think I can finish by next summer, but he doesn't think that I can get him a good proposal by June 13 (although he said he is very willing to be wrong about that).

Life is about to be very exciting - I am flying out on Thursday to North Carolina for agthorr's wedding this weekend (can I drop my car off in front of some PDXer's house from Thursday AM til Sunday AM?), goteam and I will be traveling around Holland on our bikes from June 17 to July 5 (and I am trying to learn Dutch in an effort to fit in), then we get back, have a brief downtime, and then I teach programming 101 again. Phew.

---

I was at a party recently, and I proposed that people are now rooting for political parties the way they root for sports teams. Particularly now that everyone agrees that terrorism is bad and the environment is good and jobs are good, and so everyone promises to stamp out terrorism, save the environment, and boost the economy. Almost all the candidates say the exact same things - they may disagree on how we get there, but even that is not as true as they pretend. This led to me hoping that we could get politics to be as well-run and orderly as, say, the NFL, where teams compete (on a game-by-game basis) in pursuit a common goal (entertaining people and making money). And that caused people to look at me in horror - apparently this was found to be a depressing and cynical statement. But I contend that it isn't. The NFL is pretty well-run. It has its scandals, but by and large it works. It provides people with what they want, and they continue to support it. Wouldn't that be nice if we could get even close to what we want from the government?

Right now it's all circus and no bread. I'd like to think that a truly well-operating government based on a system of mutual competition and common goals could provide both. And by "circus" and "bread", I mean provide people with teams to root for AND successfully establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity. The fact that we aren't getting both indicates, to me, that there's some inefficiencies in the system that could be exploited to someone's gain.

Comments

[lindseykuper]

Some friends and I were thinking about this a few days ago in the context of how to get people more interested in voting, and our thought was: what if we ran elections like American Idol? I know it seems crazy, if our goal is to elect policymakers and not showmen. But it can't get a whole lot worse than it is now. We might as well start trying crazy things.

[ideath.livejournal.com]

One thing that we constantly have to do as advisors to the power game (House of Reps simulation) is remind them, over and over, that this is not a team sport. Each of them has a primary goal of re-election. This is hard for them to grasp, i think, so most of the time it's pure partisanstuff.
I suspect they already feel like they know how it works, which led me to think that the class should have a sequel, which would be a simulation of a multiparty parliament, with a real variety of party ideologies and the necessity of coalition-building. Most of these kids wouldn't know a coalition if it bit them.

I agree, more bread would be good.
And roses, while we're at it.

[stereotype441.livejournal.com]

You are welcome to leave your car in front of my house. If it doesn't conflict with my schedule, I could even offer you transportation between my house and the airport.

oh, and for "bread"

[ideath.livejournal.com]

i'd ask for more, maybe, than you,
because in these post-1948 years, we people of this planet have a universal declaration of human rights
and i wish i could ask our government to do something about protecting and promoting them.

f'r example:
* Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.
* Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection.
* Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay.
* Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.
* Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.
* Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms.
(etcetera)

[mauitian.livejournal.com]

There's lots of bread -- it goes to government employees and contractors, at the expense of the taxpaying public.

[pmb.livejournal.com]

That's fine, as long as the contractors maintain and build infrastructure or assist in any of those goals. I'm not going to argue that it's perfectly efficient, but the assigned contracts should at least pretend to provide for the common defense or promote the general welfare.

[misuba.livejournal.com]

I don't find your comments cynical. Quite the contrary, I find them naive of the very real differences between the parties.

[esmesquall.livejournal.com]

Cynicism is the rotten fruit of naivete -- but yes, both are the opposite of pragmatism.

[pmb.livejournal.com]

If they are different, then let them proclaim their differences. Mealy mouthed wishy-washitude cuts no bait. For example: what in congress *of consequence* do you feel would have gone differently in the past 5 months if the Republicans were still in power? One deputy attorney general would still have their job? The head of the GSA would not have gotten scolded with (as of yet) no consequences? The president would have gotten a blank check for war instead of ... a blank check for war?

While I agree that this administration is corrupt as all hell, I hesitate to call that fact partisan. I think that it's more likely that they are just overtly corrupt.

[drinkywinky.livejournal.com]

Rumsfeld would still have his job.
The AG would still have the power to circumvent congress for appointments
Minimum wage would not be increased
Various spending and taxing priorities would be different

[pmb.livejournal.com]

Minimum wage would not be increased

Thanks! That one is actually important!

[misuba.livejournal.com]

The question of what would be different were we in an alternate timeline is not terribly useful, and yes, we need vastly better Democrats than we've got. But to say a difference is no difference because it's not different enough is, well, see Xen's comment above.

[drinkywinky.livejournal.com]

This thread is all circus and no bread.

But congrats on coming closer to graduation.

[clipdude.livejournal.com]

Congrats!

[boojum.livejournal.com]

You can leave your car in front of our house and take yellow line to red line to the airport. I may or may not be able to offer a ride, depending on...actually, depending on scheduling stuff I'm unlikely to know one way or the other in advance. I have a cell phone now, though, so I can participate in the no-forward-planning sort of planning.

I will stop trying to communicate and sleep now.

[pmb.livejournal.com]

I hope you had a good sleep. I think I will use your place, as I will be arriving at very-early on Thursday AM, and the buses don't start until too-late in the morning, but it looks like I could catch the first Yellow MAX to the Red MAX to get to the airport 1 hour early like they say you are supposed to.

[agthorr.livejournal.com]

I have advanced to candidacy.

Congrats!

I am flying out on Thursday to North Carolina for agthorr's wedding this weekend ... and I am trying to learn Dutch

I'll have to introduce you to my cousin Shannon and her Dutch husband, Jeroen. I know Shannon had to learn enough Dutch to pass the citizenship test. Actually, they'll be really easy to spot since they have a 7-month-old baby.

I was at a party recently, and I proposed that people are now rooting for political parties the way they root for sports teams. Particularly now that everyone agrees that terrorism is bad and the environment is good and jobs are good, and so everyone promises to stamp out terrorism, save the environment, and boost the economy. Almost all the candidates say the exact same things - they may disagree on how we get there, but even that is not as true as they pretend.

I recall being unable to distinguish Gore and Bush in 2000. In hindsight, I think our country would be in a very different place today if Gore had won.

This led to me hoping that we could get politics to be as well-run and orderly as, say, the NFL, where teams compete (on a game-by-game basis) in pursuit a common goal (entertaining people and making money).

In politics, it isn't the entertainment, or the flashy controversial issues, that really matter. More often, it's all the decisions that get made behind the scenes that don't inspire much debate by the public, except perhaps long after the fact. The politicians use the controversial issues to get elected so they have the power to make decisions favorable to their own interests.

What we really need is a good system to for the public to figure out which people genuinely have the public interest at heart along with the wisdom and experience to advance the public interest effectively.

[kirin]

What part of North Carolina? (I'm in Chapel Hill / Hillsborough.)

[amoken.livejournal.com]

Congrats on candidacy! :D