Last year, Jerome Armstrong, founder of the blog MyDD, and Markos Moulitsas, of Daily Kos, wrote a book called Crashing the Gate. It’s a quick and easy read, at around 180 pages, double spaced. And it is the best and most succinct account of the problems facing the Democratic Party, with some great solutions offered as well. Don’t be scared if you aren’t a dailykos fan, this book is much different than their blogs. I bought this book (and by bought I mean asked someone else to buy it for me for Christmas) mostly out of a sense of obligation to these guys. To say it was somewhat of a pleasant surprise is to say American Idol is somewhat overrated.
February 10th, 2007
When I was really young I used to love baseball. I was like my own asshole little league coach. I would have my dad hit me grounder after grounder, fly ball after fly ball, until he had to go back to work or the sun came down. To this day, if I play catch for too long, my arm starts to hurt as it remembers all the tennis and whiffle balls I’ve made it throw.
Towards the end of grade school, I went to a baseball summer camp. That kind of toned down my sports enthusiasm for a few years. A lot of the kids were a little older, a little meaner, and most of them were much better than I was. Before that, my experience with organized sports consisted of a couple years of coach pitch and t-ball, where our third baseman sat down to pick flowers during practice. As a kid though, you don’t really have much perspective on that kind of thing. I was completely shocked to learn that there were tons of kids out there who were not just better, but a lot better than I was.
Sometimes growing up feels like one long series of those kind of realizations. In some ways, I was relieved I was never in a position to apply to places like Berkeley and Standford and MIT. I would hate to go to one of those schools and be the dumb guy in every class. My comparative goverments professor asked the class to give examples of capital goods. One guy said corn. When she said um, not quite, he said what about potatoes. I don’t want to be that guy.
I know I had a point to make here somewhere. Umm, remember to be all you can be. And always finish your capital goods… I mean, your vegetables.
February 10th, 2007