Soccer & Politics

The two things I know the most about. Luckily then there were significant events that occurred in both spheres within the past 24 hours. Why not discuss? Late last night, the USA played a world cup qualifying match against Costa Rica, in Costa Rica. And today, President Obama gave a speech in Egypt, offering the proverbial olive branch to the Muslim world and discussing the problems we face & common interests we share.

First, soccer. Apparently the US has fared very poorly when playing in Costa Rica, with their last goal entering last night coming in 2000. And this poor play continued into last night. The two countries were ranked one and two, respectively, in the region's ongoing world cup qualifying competition, and so were essentially a lock to get into South Africa next summer when the big dance will be happening. I can't help but think that this affected US play.

The match was plagued with lackadaisical US defending and an absence of dangerous US offensive sequences. The game was on turf, which I find is a huge advantage to the player on the ball over their defenders because of the speed at which the ball moves across the pitch. The Costa Rican midfielders used this to their advantage and moved the ball around us with sharp passing. The US on the other hand could not get the ball up to their forwards enough to possess and play through balls. Part of the credit ought to go to Costa Rican defending; they never gave our dangerous forwards the freedom to control the ball and play back or turn and take them on dribbling.

Our defense on the other hand was a completely different story. Granted, we were without the shifty Freddy Heidjiuk (sp?) who was out with injury. Still these boys should know what "ball pressure" means and how to step up to meet & slow down attacking midfielders with the ball. Instead, we sat back and let the Costa Ricans own the great bubble above our defense, and gave up three goals as a result. Bradley, the coach, needs to work on defensive tactics. Switching to a 4-4-2 would help by providing a defensive midfield presence, but more importantly is getting our guys to step quicker and understand when to pressure and when to sit, with more focus on the former.

I've come to the conclusion that Bradley's son is the best player we've got. I think he played for UVA but I could be wrong. The kid knows how to get, hold, and distribute the ball better than anyone we've got. He also makes good decisions with his passes, which are usually headed to the place where they will cause the most distress for defenders.

That said, the coach's subbing decisions were questionable. At half he took out one of the quickest midfielders we've got, Torres (who I was watching play for the first time but was immediately impressed with), in favor of the slower Klejidian (sp again, wtf is it with these weird names). This is a serious failure to misunderstand the great benefits of quick midfielders on the quick pitch. He also failed to sub out some of our older players who were constantly losing the ball and getting circles run around them by the Costa Ricans. I hope to see a more dynamic and flexible subbing routine when we play Hondouras on the 8th.

Now, for Obama's speech. Here is a link to the text, given at a university in Egypt. It is classic Obama; identifying problems and interests that the West & Muslim people share, and pledging to work beyond decades of mutual ignorance and hubris to attack these problems together. He discusses inter alia the Isreal & Palestinian problem, nuclear proliferation, and spreading & recognizing democracies.

He dances skillfully between acknowledging the legitimate interests of the Muslim people and praising their rich history, and also pleading with them to recognize their great responsibility (one of the more frequently used words in the speech) to promote peace, tolerance, and human rights, in areas in which they're sovereign.

It's something when the text, let alone video, of a speech can give you goose bumps. But this one does it. Towards the end he outlines some of the actions that the government plans on taking to help promote healthy US- Muslim relations, and a good deal of it has to do with sharing resources in research settings and establishing financing mechanisms to assist small Muslim organizations and people working to promote some of the ideals that he outlines.

Kudos to the speechwriter.

Writing Blocks

I've been struggling to come up with new blog posts that aren't focused on some trivial political event du jour, and it's been difficult. So why not write about this difficulty itself? I'll begin by identifying its cause.

My brain isn't hard-wired to settle on expressive issues (i.e. what I'm 'feeling'); it seeks out information and attempts to synthesize it. The majority of the time my thoughts take me to topical issues or events, then I add some insight and opinion, and poof, a blog post. For instance, when I listen to someone speak during a conversation, I focus on the words that come out of the person's mouth in an attempt to understand the underlying logic of their statements and what if anything I might be able to add to what's been said. Ultimately I seek to understand it; I don't think about what the person's wearing, what expressions on their face might be betraying some hidden emotion, or what actor or actress their voice reminds me of.

But I'd like to be able to encorporate such aesthetic elements into my writing. Atypical, creative topics that engage my imagination are more interesting to me to read, frankly, and thus present a very big draw to write about.

But how to start such an essay? My training has been utterly unable to speak to my desire to write in this fashion. In consonance with my unwavering belief in the value of commodified higher education, I've enrolled in a "Creative Writing Intensive" course at a local State University. Three weeks of poety, short stories, and speaking about writing/revising them should help open my brain up to this heretofore untapped arena of writing.

My hope is that I'm able to harness my abilities to write clearly, concisely, and with logical progression, and apply these skills towards writing about more creative, imaginative topics, which interest me far more than the never-ending, farsical Washingtonian story of: Politician said X, did Y, the media believes it was for Z reasons, and A, B, C, and potentially that old horney devil D, will result.

xBox "Flashing" in Brooklyn

The other day a friend I've known since we were four ft. tall and I went on a drive down to Brooklyn, where a guy he'd contacted via Craigslist was operating a quasi-legal business out of his home to modify xBox gaming consoles. (Nerds!)

It proved to be a long trip from Westchester; traffic was clogged up from where we started and he had not chosen the most direct route, preferring to avoid toll roads instead of saving time (a strange boy, this one-- but I have a fondness for the strange ones). It was also in the afternoon, and getting close to rush hour. I was quickly reminded of how much I hated being inside a car for long periods of time, and how lucky I've been to live with easy access to public transportation.

I get restless within minutes of no progress and constantly fight the urge to jump out of the seat and walk alongside the plodding, smoky chain of cars. Getting stuck in traffic becomes something larger and more profound; I see us as pawns getting stuck in this weird and pointless journey whose destination in no way justifies the monotony we're willing to put up with behind the wheel. An analogy of life for the sad and passionless. My thoughts take me places.

But in addition to giving me some time to catch up with my buddy, this new update (for his xbox) was a good investment overall. And I'm not one to shy away from supporting good investments. After the modifiction, my friend would be able to play games burnt onto on blank CDs (say, games that he found off of the internet), as opposed to being forced to stick with over-priced games bought at the store.

For the trip I was dressed up in a shirt & tie because of a job interview earlier in the day. In other words I gave off some semblance of enforcement. Professionally dressed entourage usually translates into bad ass security. Or at least that was the message that I told myself this attire conveyed.

We exited off the highway onto what seemed like a neverending grid of small, single family dwellings, and drove through the part of Brooklyn that hipsters havent yet taken over and rappers never talk about. My friend and this business man had been communicating for a while on the cell phone and so we knew where to go and what apartment to enter.

Walking up the steps in his building and ringing his doorbell was a bit disconcerting. What type of person would let strangers enter his home for $30? I braced myself for what lay within, anticipating crack vials and huge bongs surrounded by grim, silent type fiends. But at the door we were greeted by a well dressed Italian-looking man in his late 20's with an untrimmed but not entirely gnarly beard. His accent placed him as a kid who has lived in the city for his entire life, and he immediately asked us to enter.

Inside was sitting this cute little girl, who I assumed was his daughter and was no more than 4 or 5. She was glued to a massive flat-screen TV playing some cartoon that showed Egyptian or Arabian princes, eating food and paid us no mind-- though offering furtive glances in between the occasional spoon fulls of rice.

The dude offered us chairs and my friend offered him his xbox, and this guy promptly went to work. Apparently Microsoft does not make it easy to open these things, and he had special tools that took him a good deal of time to get inside. Throughout this mechanical operation he was giving us the run down of what he was doing and the advantages of the modification my friend was going to receive.

In the other room I was hearing some movement and at one point a lady, presumably his partner, came out and greeted us as well. She left at one point for unknown reasons.

I tried to make small talk with the little girl but she just stared at me like I was speaking a foreign tongue. Then she got bored and started running around the apartment speaking gibberish to herself and playing with dolls. Young children are like aliens from the future who reflect adults' subconscious.

Final thoughts: The guy's professionalism and knowledge were impressive, but his willingness to have strangers into his home is either very stupid or very trustworthy, or both. But I know that with my family present, I'd make damn sure whoever I was opening the door to was not some psychopath with a penchant for finding people on Craigslist and robbing their asses blind.

His willingness to bring randoms into his life is a good sign for humanity, but I fear humanity lacks the capacity to refrain from exploiting this invitation and good will. For xbox players and the rest of us who find real life more interesting , I hope I'm wrong.

Ego Stroking and Sun Burns on Fire Island

This Memorial Day weekend I met up with some good college friends for a few nights in Fire Island, a narrow strip of land just off of the southern coast of Long Island. It was my first time there and we had a blast, all around.

When I first arrived I realized that my expectations of what the island looked like, and the people who inhabit it, were way off. For some reason I envisioned the place as extremely underdeveloped, like a small, simple cluster of houses hugging the beach surrounded by waves of sand dunes. But in fact we stayed in a reasonably sized town filled with restaurants, stores, a police station, even a little grocery.

Still -- my predictions were not entirely off, as there were no roads, only wide, paved walkways. Kind of like enhanced sidewalks. Alternative roads, like the canals of Venice. People liked using bikes to make their way around the island, and used carts to carry around excess baggage. The lack of cars was a nice touch that added to the place's intimacy.

The small size of everything and its seclusion did inflate prices ($6 beers, $3 gatorades), and the police had the authority to make ridiculous rules like prohibiting people from biking through town.

I also assumed that the majority of folks we'd run into would not exactly be good ole' boy NASCAR lovers. Fire Island has a reputation for being a haven of the -- lets say, Brokeback Mtn. crowd, and I was fully anticipating that we'd be some ex-soccer studs awash in a sea of rainbow colored bathing suits and fashionable sun glasses. Instead, the scene was more reminiscent of a spot on the Jersey shore or a trip to a techno club in Staten Island. The first indication of this was my ferry ride over to the Island from the mainland, at 8:45 on Saturday night. Affliction tees, blow outs, and unnecesary sun glasses were prevalent. Everyone was drinking surreptitiously from Sprite bottles, and were quick to insult one another or those around them (when their objects couldn't hear).

My friends and I stayed in a hotel, on the second floor of a restaurant/bar located on the main strip of the town. Hotels are not the most popular way of spending time on the island, as most folks rent out houses. And as a result they're pretty neglected. But ours had charm, in a run-down, dilapidated sort of way. The bathroom had no shower (we used communal showers down the hall), and the adjacent room's bathroom (as there were 8 of us we needed two rooms) was so small that its sink was located about a foot from the bed in the bedroom. The small size of the room kept the atmosphere nice and lively when we were all spending time in one.

The weather for the trip was great, and we played a good game of touch football on the beach our first full day in the AM after everyone had downed several beers. A thick fog that obscured the view up and down the length of beach gave way to some nice sun. Unfortunately the other team cheated (lots of pass interference) and so we only managed a tie. Yours truly was second pick, an obvious underestimation of my talent.

Our nights out were spent pre-gaming in the hotel room and dancing in one of the many clubs in town. Few events really stick out as note worthy, but one was very comedic.

A friend of mine who happens to be rather frank with the ladies sat in on a conversation among a table of girls while we were waiting for some late night pizza and ended up in a heated discussion with one who, in the course of it, called him "ineffectual." Aside from the fact that this is only arguably an actual word, it really doesn't mean anything and anyone who says it (particularly as an insult) ought to be tarred & feathered. Upon hearing this accusation my friend proceeded to make fun of this girls clothing, which was completely legitimate considering what she was wearing: a black tee shirt whose sleeves and waist were tassled. On the front was a picture of what could have been a care-bear or horse. She was therefore referred to as "tassle bitch," and may she die slow.

Anyways I won't get into too many anecdotal accounts. I'll just say that for anyone hoping to go to Fire Island, the best thing to do is to rent a place and expect to be surrounded by greasy guidos. Also bring your own provisions, as shit's expensive as all hell.

The Age of Gatsby is Over

In celebration of my monumental completion of graduate school, I've degenerated to a state of weekday boozing this body hasn't experienced since college. And let me say, it's been glorious. My afternoon and evening liquid-fueled adventuring has taken me around the District to locations I wasn't able to explore because of onerous erudite obligations. I've forgotten how damn good it feels to walk the sidewalks with a warm buzz in the middle of the afternoon. Along the way I've met some interesting people too, but one encounter in particular sticks out.

It happened last night, after an afternoon of sushi and sake bombs, followed by an evening of trivia and social (but overpriced) drinking at a gentrified oasis: Not a white person to be seen for blocks around the tavern, but once inside, it was filled with glasses-and-polo wearing crackers. But that is for another blog post.

After, I was reveling in my second successful DC bus trip in two years on the metro platform, waiting for the train, when I spied a clean cut, well dressed, prematurely gray-haired white dude stumbling around with his garment bags and approaching fellow metro takers who were keeping to themselves but obviously distressed by his presence. I was listening to music so couldnt hear the details of this sport-blazer'd, khaki'd accoster. My 'good neighbor' instinct kicked in (hey, I did just earn an MA in philosophy) and I took off my headphones to cautiously approach this situation that clearly needed intervention.

"What's up, man?" I asked.

He slurred out his destination, and asked how to get there. Unfortunately he was looking for a stop on the other side of the district that would require several train switches -- a cerebral task that this man had drank away his capacity to complete.

I tried to think of the simplest way to explain how he could get there. He, sensing my benevolence, dropped his bags and sat down on the floor of the station, using a bag as a pillow. He asked my name, and we exchanged pleasantries. Soon he understandably began getting looks from strangers who wanted to know what this lost, preppy man was doing drunk off his ass laid out on the floor on a Wednesday night.

He miraculously sensed their disapprobation and started off on how his family had "a ton of money," and he couldn't care less what they think. I grew intrigued; I sensed that I was in the presence of some bourgeois class member that grew up on yachts, mimosas, and nannies. In short, that I was in the midst of greatness. He was from "Park Avenue" and visiting his sister.

My fascination kept the conversation going for another minute before he once again began to spontaneously talk about all of the wealth his family owned, obviously not due to his thriftiness. I immediately grew disgusted, wished him good luck in finding his sister, and walked off. He called after, but did not get up to stop me.

I'd like to comment briefly on my weird attraction to the social class that he claimed to be from. For some reason I've conflated good with wealth. I think that most of us -- if not all of us -- do that. We enshrine those around us who earn money, thinking that this accumulation inherently places them above others.

This encounter has made me realize that this is simply not the case. Sloppy drunks are sloppy no matter who their father is. It is absurd and pathetic that one of the first things he mentions to total strangers concerns the amount of money he has. I fear that his lifestyle (and the lifestyle of all of those sad people who grow up with everything they need) stunted his growth. This money is no substitute for character. Who we are is independent of what we own. And I'm starting to think that it is only those of us who own less that can actually grow into men worthy of listening to, speaking with, and gleaning wisdom from. For it is our lack of immediate satisfaction that forces our brains to turn on.

But the drive of those who have little wealth should not be towards this arbitrary medium. The man who seeks happiness through wealth is a poor man; indeed, let those few and courageous ones who seek it through self expression, creativity, justice, and truth, be inscribed in the annals of history. Those are the ones I want our progeny to hear about.

2666

About an hour ago I finished reading Bolano's final novel, 2666. At over 850 pages in length, and comprising five different tangential plot lines, it was no easy read. But I must say his prose is easier to digest than DFW's. Like DFW though, there is something utterly dark and mysterious about the writing. His characters are beautifully flawed, and while this may cause them grief, to the reader it only adds color and content. Without these idiosynchracies the novel would lack its quality. To a certain extent these fantastic characters and situations also give the novel some credibility; some semblance of reality that it would lack if they were perfectly "normal." In his mind, normality is essentially a vacant concept, bereft of meaning or desirability. It is the abnormal that finds a home in his writing, the abnormal that comes to exist as the normality it seeks to replace.

We are left in the midst of a world inhabited by maniacal geniuses, whose stories, conversations, and thoughts are left exposed for us to ponder with wonder. It is sort of like driving by a car accident, but Bolano doesn't illicit feelings of shame at being entranced with his stories. Instead we are offered a glimpse into the minds of those who have little thought to their own mortality but who are bound to heed to the will of some cruel God who has fashioned gifts and curses for them to suffer through and which determine their fate.

I won't go into too detailed an explanation of the plot of the novel. Frankly I am too callow to do such a work justice. Even after reading this book five times I would likely never fully appreciate the depth and complexity of the work, nor understand the connections and meaning that Bolano is trying to make. His work, unlike Orwell or Hemmingway, is not a clear window through which we better see the world and ourselves. It is a barred hole into a steaming, red hell, filled with howling creatures whose form we can only catch fleeting glimpses of. But it's still quite a view.

Graduate

I am, for all intents and purposes, a Master of Arts. The time that I used to spend attending to agonizingly boring readings and assignments for school will now be free for, well, whatever I want. This freedom is scary but potentially profitable. For now I will devote more time towards making ridiculous claims and fabricating fantastic stories on this blog. Stay tuned.

Neighborhood Battle Ground

One afternoon last week my normally banal journey to class was interrupted with some not-so-welcome excitement.

Behind my house is a paved path, which parallels the metro line and leads to the nearby station that I use to pick up DC-bound trains. It is a path tucked away, hidden from the general neighborhood and house lined street grid. This quality helps attract people to venture it who do not use it for reasons of convenient transportation to and from the metro. For those of us that use it regularly, it's hard to ignore the dubious characters that tend to congregate on and around it.

And on this particular day, events had apparently transpired there which not even the Police could ignore. Upon making the right hand turn around the corner of my place and setting foot on to the path, I witnessed no less than 5 cop cars, lights twirling but thankfully sirens silent, grouped in bunches at different points on the path. There were officers speaking with small groups of young women, also spaced out around the area. While at certain points the whole path was blocked, I still managed to make my way through the crowd without being questioned. Clearly something had just gone down.

The women had looks of impatience on their faces, as if the police were questioning them for no good reason, or they wouldn't give the officers the information they wanted even if they knew what it was that was being asked of them. Walking by one of these impromptu interrogations, something ratty looking caught my eye. What first appeared as a piece of garbage focused into the unmistakable black wiry bunch of a hair weave. Why would one of these be on the ground? Thinking through its possible source while walking, I noticed another clump of this dark hair mass sitting violently a few dozen yards down the path.

The message was clear: there had just been a furious cat fight. And judging from the number of women and police present on the path and street (not to mention the coiffured casualties), this had been no small affair.

But this story does not end here. Apparently the Police didn't consider the ripped out hair weaves as useful evidence, because they continued to lie there, like fallen soldiers, for days following the event. We have seen more police presence on the path, but those weaves just did not disappear.

Then this week, I was startled to see the largest, most impressive clump of fake hair, hanging proudly from the limb of a leafless tree next to the path. I'd like to think that it was placed there intentionally by one of the victorious Amazons. Like a decapitated head stuck on a pole placed firmly in the ground, warning savage tribes of yore to steer clear of a given area, this wind-swinging weave is an atavistic reminder to those unwelcome females who come by our parts that they ought to think twice about this decision, if they wish to continue enjoying their fraudulent hair.

The Death Knell of Economics

I think it's uplifting to conceive of our financial nightmare as a funeral. Unlike most other entombments, which cause mourning over the loss of a loved one, this funeral should only elicit celebration in lieu of the end of a particularly deleterious branch of the social sciences: economics.

A famous and well-respected man once said (well, you could at least imagine one saying), "You can only trust an economist so far as you can throw one."

Or, as a distinguished female (we don't discriminate here at Introspective Excess) once exclaimed, "Economists are about as useful as screen doors on submarines."

There is truth to these statements.

Economists are a sanctimonious breed, on par with priests and pet lovers. Regardless of an economic trend or phenomenon, there will always be some "explanation" that fits within their current "model" or "theory." Their concepts are unfalsifiable. I do not know what one could possibly say to a man of this occupation that would convince him that he were wrong. God have mercy on the poor aides and journalists forced to suffer through attending a conference filled with strong headed economists of opposing views.

Case in point: Republicans still argue that tax cuts (a byproduct of Reagan's free market, trickle down ideology) are the solution to our ongoing economic woes. Obama, ever the consumer of economic "expert" advice, sought to attack this myopic understanding when he suggested yesterday that,

In recent days, there have been misguided criticisms of this plan that echo the failed theories that helped lead us into this crisis...

But what if Obama's plan doesn't work? What if spending is not in fact the way to go, and only proves to be slow, cumbersome, and symptom-and-not-problem attacking, as the Right alleges?

Then you can bet the farm his camp will have their excuses. I can just hear their kvetching now: "The Republicans made it too small," or "We were forced to wait beyond the point of no return to implement it." Guaranteed, something to protect their fundamental (Keynesian) model while shifting the blame will pervade these excuses. You can also bet that no matter what the outcome of the bill, economists on the Right (and likewise, their mouthpieces in the Halls of Congress) will have their fair share of criticism for it.

The irreconcilable differences between economists on the right and left are an indictment against the field itself. Think about it this way: If two scientists can look at the same piece of data and come up with not just differing opinions but opinions that are fundamentally contradictory, then what can you say about that science?

The most fundamental question that has been neglected by mainstream writers is, whether or not there is a right answer to an economic problem. Is there really a "correct" and an "incorrect" way of approaching an economic crisis? And if you answer this question in the negative (as I believe), then what's economics' purpose beyond stifling more effective solutions from being pursued, like those not wedded to an "ism"?

Anyone involved with a hard science, like physics or mathematics, would vehemently deny that economics can approach their level of objective judgment. In their fields, fundamental, natural rules set the boundaries to a problem's potential solution. Rules (like gravity, or Pi) dictate the outcome of a given action and enable these scientists to accurately predict its effects.

While clearly not all scientists will agree on every new, technical discovery, there at least ought to be some consensus on the more fundamental tenets of the field. For instance, doctors concur that smoking causes cancer. Physicists concur that when you drop something, it will accelerate at a given rate.

After economists' long, arduous and costly journey in search of the holy grail of rules; in other words, their journey to legitimately call themselves a "hard science," I think it is finally time for them to understand what they really are: wannabes.

In conclusion, despite their fundamental, surreptitious role in the activities of public and private America, these wannabes' have received surprisingly little castigation since it was discovered that this America had thoroughly bungled things for the rest of us.

Instead, the financial bankers and corporate executives who rely on the wannabes' models are feeling the brunt of public vehemence. I for one feel sorry for these public figures, who after all, just acted in consonance with economic predictions that foretold the economy would continue as it had been since Clinton. At least they do not hide what they really are -- slick crooks out for a profit. Economists on the other hand insist on considering themselves "scientists," when all they really do is cover up an ideological bias and excruciatingly pathetic yearning for recognition as a worthy member of the scientific community, with fancy graphs and scatter plots.

Economics, R.I.P. Go find a ditch and throw yourself in it. God knows that when that happens, you can count on at least one of us to be standing there with a shovel, waiting anxiously to cover you up.

As the Jamaicans say,

BIG UP to my inchoate fan base. It takes a lot of gumption to openly admit you enjoy reading this esoteric nonsense.

Signing in to this blog for the first time in a while and reading that someone had actually commented on a post has inspired me to make an addition. There are so many things to write about I struggle to focus my thoughts on any single topic. Why not spew forth some thoughts on the economy & impending stimulus package?

I am hesitant to endorse any spending spree, though I understand the argument that we need to do something now, else all will be lost. I do think there is something to the converse of the argument: that we ought to let the problem play out, so that the system will re-start itself and shed all of the pernicious assets, activities, etc. that fueled the crisis. The problem with this is the sheer amount of short term costs that it will create. No one wants to suffer through poverty for the sake of future generations, or for the health of the system itself.

Because this non-action has no political feasibility, it is better to focus criticism on the nature of the proposed package itself. In my opinion the foundation of the plan ought to be job creation-- I think this almost goes without saying. "Freeing up credit" is useless if the majority of society lacks the ability to cover loans requiring that credit. WWII ended the Great Depression by creating a demand for all new types of labor. When consumers have money to consume, all is well. The question therefore becomes, how do we catalyze a similar demand? Surely starting a war of similar proportions would help, but let's not endorse that option just yet.

Here is a break-down of the Stimulus package that passed the U.S.H.O.R. last week. Where do we find this job creation?

Extended unemployment benefits are a short term band-aid, helping those who don't work to not starve. Important, yes, but not a priority. When their aide runs out and there are still no jobs for them to enter, what then?

In health care we have some line items that might help create jobs, especially the notion of modernizing the health care system. But the tasks this entails are for skilled workers, and won't create a dent in the under-educated class' unemployment.

It is in the categories of infrastructure, energy, science & technology, housing, and environment, where we begin to see items that will spur job creation. In each of these categories are billions being dedicated towards starting new projects and getting all kinds of people to work. Hence it will be in the success of these projects that the economy will rebound or crumble.

So clearly the Obama camp recognizes the need to get people off of the welfare doles and into work. But the question then becomes, what are they working for? What kind of society are these projects creating? The answer to this will set the direction our country will head in for the next century. It is also where the underlying value of the stimulus package is to be found. Unfortunately the future this bill is funding appears to be shaping up to repeat a lot of the past.

I would argue that these jobs should be used to facilitate a "Green Economy," one in which we maximize our ability to reap the resources offered to us by the planet without damaging it. From this CBS overview, I fear this priority has received little direct attention. Look at the infrastructure piece, for instance. New highways, bridges, and mass-transit lines will be springing up all over the place. But where's the incentive to use alternative fuels?

Likewise, none of the other job-creating categories seem to officially embrace the importance of creating a new, green economy, founded on sustainability and not profitability. I may be overlooking something, and I hope I am, but I fear I'm not. Creating jobs to just increase the scope of the economy we already have will just delay the inevitable transformation that our economy must undergo if we at all care to have our progeny exist as Americans in 500 years, or if we care whether or not the planet they live on will be inhabitable.

Obama's rhetoric indicates he'd like to see this bill stimulate the type of advanced economy I'm referring to. I can only hope he won't have to compromise this ideal in order to get the bill passed.