5046

PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES 4 YEAR TERM (1) POSITION
DEM Obama, Barack
5046 South Greenwood Avenue
Chicago, IL 60615

Why does that address sound familiar?
I can't believe that I actually lived exactly one block away from the potential president of the United States of America. That's pretty cool.

Re: A Cautionary Thought About Egomaniacs

Obama's Egomania is, in the view of at least one commentator, nearly messianic in scope. In my view, though, Obama's Egomania is a significantly smaller problem than his unknown position on Israel and other foreign affairs and his pink-o economic plans. The fact that he palls around with terrorists like Ayers and people like Khalidi and Mazen Asbahi does not particularly endear him to me, to say nothing of his relationship with Jeremiah Wright. In fact, I do not see how one can consistently support both Israel and Obama.

A Cautionary Thought About Egomaniacs

When I attended a rally in Detroit for Barak Obama I knew what he was going to say. Not the general content, but the exact words he was going to use. I am not telepathic, I just happened to hear excerpts from the speech he had given the day before in Virginia on NPR that morning. I knew what his pleas for the economy would be. I knew his zingers. I knew that he cared about Main St. It is for that reason that I either pity the man or suspect him--who in their right mind would subject themselves and their family to 20 months of public exposition?

Public service is honorable, but there is always the question of whether you intend to serve the public or you intend for the public to serve you (re: Kennedy's "Ask not" speech). Obama moved from an Illinois state senator to run for U.S. House three years later. Four years after that he ran for U.S. Senate and four years after that (well two, really) he ran for president. The humility of civil service is realizing that whether you serve 100,000 or 100 million you are still doing the same amount of good. The moral obligation to serve others is not about the effect, but the responsibility.

I am bothered by this. I am bothered that such a bright man would be willing to give the same stupid stump speeches (allbeit eloquently) day after day after day, reducing political discourse to a pabulum over the course of 400 days. I am bothered by the fact that he is willing to vote for the USA Patriot Reauthorization Act despite having grave concerns about it. I am bothered that he voted for FISA and still does not believe it was the wrong vote. I am bothered because I cannot tell whether Obama wants to serve us, or we are supposed to support him.

This election is certainly an historic one, and I understand that Obama had a shot at the Whitehouse that might not have presented itself again, but I am still bothered. I hope to be shown what this man can truly do for our country.

The Atlantic's Redesign

I might cancel my subscription, or at least print out the articles online. The new Atlantic typeface is actually painful. What's worse is that The Atlantic was just given a facelift a few months ago and I liked the results. The less cluttered cover, the centerfold table of contents, even "the agenda, " which was a digest of academic articles has been replaced by "the dispatch" which is just more reporting. Boo.

But the typeface is really abysmal. I can live with the new sarif mercury cover font which is supposed to be a 60's era throwback (someone likes Mad Men a bit too much), but the Titling Gothic is blocky and hefty, lacking all the elegance and grace of their earlier fonts. It's like pulling out a terrible copy of an old Life magazine. Gawd.

I hope an pray that they change the font back. Why mess with a good thing?

As I live and breath

I knew Alan Dobry for four years. If I gave him an aliyah once I gave him an aliyah a hundred times. Never did I suspect that he was the man who gave Obama his start in public office, nor had I any inkling that he was a major operator in HP politics.

You just never know.

Here's Rooting for you, Buddy

The thing the article about Jose misses is that people have been holding by his geyrus for four years now. He has been getting aliyahs, layning, being yotze others with brachos, counting in minyanim, that kind of stuff. Real people in real shuls. It seems strange that the sochnut is deciding who can and can't be yotze others, essentially.