The morning greeted me with many more emails, news stories, tweets, photos. The small sense of shared victory I had enjoyed the night before began to fade as I saw and heard about celebrations. I went about my day relatively normally today, not too affected by bin Laden’s death or the reaction to it. But I kept checking in, reading and seeing more. And I’ve become more emotional.

I don’t have too many original words to write about bin Laden, the United States, terrorism, and related issues, so let me quote liberally from others. I found all these authors through James Fallows and Ta-Nehisi Coates, among my usual go-tos for help thinking things through.

The group blog Fabius Maximus (via James Fallows) wrote:

Summary:  It’s not a big event.  It might not even be good news for the US, from a long-term perspective.

Contents

1. It’s not a big event
2. Killing bin Laden might make al Qaeda more potent
3. The weirdness of President Obama’s speech about the news
4. For more information

(The rest of the post fills in those subjects.)

Kai Wright (via TNC) wrote:

Upon the news of this victory, crowds gathered in front of the White House and at Ground Zero to chant “U.S.A.! U.S.A!” It was as if we’d just won an Olympic hockey game, rather than capped a decade worth of war and recession with a singular act of violence.

“Today’s achievement is a testament to the greatness of our country and the determination of the American people,” the president declared. “We are once again reminded that America can do whatever we set our mind to,” he concluded, after insisting that the execution represents justice. “That is the story of our history, whether it’s the pursuit of prosperity for our people, or the struggle for equality for all our citizens; our commitment to stand up for our values abroad, and our sacrifices to make the world a safer place.”

How perverse. President Obama is the leader of a nation in which justice is but a distant dream for millions of residents. He leads a nation that can afford billions of dollars annually for war but cannot feed the nearly 18 million children who lived in homes without food security in 2009. And yet, the Nobel Peace Prize winner can fix his mouth to say that killing a man on the other side of the globe provides proof of America’s exceptionalism.

The gap between rhetoric and reality has long been a defining trait of American life. Lies about our values have shielded us from the brutal facts of our nation ever since we built it on the back of genocide and slavery. But it is in times like these that the dissonance becomes unbearable.

The president says we can do anything we want because we can kill. We could not stop poverty rates from spiraling upward to a record-setting 14.3 percent of Americans in 2009, but we can kill so we are exceptional. One in four black and Latino families live below the poverty line now, and as a result America’s child poverty rate—one in five kids—is the second worst among rich nations, behind Mexico. But we can kill, so we are great.

Radley Balko (via TNC) wrote:

In The Looming Tower, the Pulitzer-winning history of al-Qaeda and the road to 9/11, author Lawrence Wright lays out how Osama bin Laden’s motivation for the attacks that he planned in the 1990s, and then the September 11 attacks, was to draw the U.S. and the West into a prolonged war—-an actual war in Afghanistan, and a broader global war with Islam.

Osama got both. And we gave him a prolonged war in Iraq to boot. By the end of Obama’s first term, we’ll probably top 6,000 dead U.S. troops in those two wars, along with hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and Afghans. The cost for both wars is also now well over $1 trillion.

We have also fundamentally altered who we are. A partial, off-the-top-of-my-head list of how we’ve changed since September 11 . . .

• [13 bullet points detailing U.S. government expansions to warrantless seizures, indefinite detentions, torture, spying and eavesdropping on citizens, and more]

I’m relieved that bin Laden is dead. And the Navy SEALs who carried out the harrowing raid that ended his life have my respect and admiration. And for all the massive waste and abuse our government has perpetrated in the name of fighting terrorism over the last decade, there’s something satisfying in knowing that he was killed in a limited, targeted operation based on specific intelligence.

But because of the actions of one guy, we allowed all the bullet points above to happen. That we managed to kill him a decade after the September 11 attacks is symbolically important, but hardly seems worth the celebrations we saw across the country last night. There was something unsettling about watching giddy crowds bounce around beach balls and climb telephone polls last night, as if they were in the lawn seats at a rock festival. Solemn and somber appreciation that an evil man is gone seemed like the more appropriate reaction.

Yes, bin Laden the man is dead. But he achieved all he set out to achieve, and a hell of a lot more. He forever changed who we are as a country, and for the worse. Mostly because we let him. That isn’t something a special ops team can fix.

And James Fallows quoted a reader who wrote in response to him:

I did not find the news heartening, I found it slightly depressing. I support the action to kill OBL, and I believe that the world is a better place w/o him. But I find that reality depressing, and the fact that ‘we’ choose to celebrate his death (there were fireworks in SF) more depressing still. It reminds me how base we (humans) are. I’ve never lost anyone in a terrorist attack, so this is easy for me to say, I know.

Let me, after a day of consideration, echo all these sentiments. Today I am glad Osama bin Laden is no longer alive—but I am unable to forget the world that existed yesterday and still exists today, I see no reason to celebrate his death, and I am disturbed by that response from my countrymen and friends.

I had been meaning to share, before events of the last week, recent events and feelings inspired by two books I’ve read. A couple months ago I read The Looming Tower, a “biography” of Al Qaeda. The book is remarkable for its comprehensive, straightforward account of how Al Qaeda began, how it grew, and what it became in the 1990s. No reader can come away from the book thinking that Osama bin Laden equals Al Qaeda, or that either one is the only principal in 21st-century terrorism. Soon after reading The Looming Tower, I read Columbine, which gives similarly comprehensive treatment to that high school’s massacre, covering the school, the killers, the community, the causes (as well as they can be determined), and the aftermath.

“Reading” both of those as audiobooks during my commutes, I set myself up for an unfortunate experience: Three or four times during Columbine, I began to cry, not loudly, but visibly to any fellow bus riders who happened to glance my way.

Descriptions of kids running away from gunfire, or trying to get their dying friends out of a school erupting with the sounds of explosions, absolutely melted me. Even harder to hear about were the parents collected at the school, kept behind the police perimeter, losing their minds trying to find their kids, desperate to learn that theirs weren’t the ones who had been killed.

[In this space I wrote and deleted four paragraphs about September 11 and me. That's not what I wanted this post to be about. I'll get to that eventually, when I'm ready to really cry and write about it.]

September 11 began years of suffering that can only be described by communicators far more skilled than me. New Yorkers experienced heart-wrenching pain that day, and 3,000 families have not been whole since then. Millions of Afghans and Iraqis have lived through similar events every day for nearly a decade. Americans all over the country, and people all around the world, have suffered much less visible and much more insidious violations that will probably never end. Terrorism and counterterrorism live on. Wars, targeted and global, continue. Suffering continues. Pain remains.

Yesterday’s flawlessly executed mission was a long-sought and hard-fought victory for the United States military and intelligence community. It was (probably) a limited strategic victory for the security interests of the country. It was another day of suffering for so, so many. It is fire with fire at its most necessary—and its most futile, since neither fire is anywhere near extinguished.

The last 24 hours have seen city-wide parties across a country.

Why?

“Catharsis” is the reason I have most frequently heard today. I don’t understand.

For those who feel victory today, I ask what has been won. What will be better tomorrow?

For those who are happy today, I ask: Why is death—even when it is just—to be celebrated? What does it build, create, or improve?

For those who feel catharsis, who just feel calm and at peace as a result of this, I ask what you will feel tomorrow. What has been made whole? What pain has been undone?

For the last 24 hours I’ve been wondering how I can possibly motivate myself to go vote in November. Ezra Klein has been putting into words what I’m feeling and why:

For now, it’s worth observing that a Democratic Party that would abandon their central initiative this quickly isn’t a Democratic Party that deserves to hold power. If they don’t believe in the importance of their policies, why should anyone who’s skeptical change their mind? If they’re not interested in actually passing their agenda, why should voters who agree with Democrats on the issues work to elect them? A commitment provisional on Ted Kennedy not dying and Martha Coakley not running a terrible campaign is not much of a commitment at all.

And here‘s a longer way of saying that:

The loss in Massachusetts was a terrible disappointment to Democrats. But it can be explained away. Martha Coakley was a terrible candidate. Scott Brown ran an excellent campaign. These things happen.

But the reaction congressional Democrats have had to Coakley’s loss has been much more shattering. It has been a betrayal.

The fundamental pact between a political party and its supporters is that the two groups believe the same thing and pledge to work on it together. And the Democratic base feels that it has held to its side of the bargain. It elected a Democratic majority and a Democratic president. It swallowed tough compromises on the issues it cared about most. It swallowed concessions to politicians it didn’t like and industry groups it loathed. But it persisted. Because these things are important. That’s why those voters believe in them. That’s why they’re Democrats.

But the party looks ready to abandon them because Brown won a special election in Massachusetts — even though Democrats can pass the bill after Brown is seated. What that says is crucial: Whereas the base thought it was making these hard compromises and getting up early to knock on doors because these issues are important, the party thought all that was happening because, well, it’s hard to say. It was electorally convenient? People need something to do? Ted Kennedy wanted it done?

If Democrats let go of health care, there is no doubt that a demoralized Democratic base will stay home in November. And that’s as it should be. If the Democratic Party won’t uphold its end of the bargain, there’s no reason its base should pretend the deal is still on.

Luckily Glenn Greenwald has pointed out that shit’s a little more complicated, and reminded us that we should think back a few years:

All that said, and as horrible as the Democrats have been all year, the most amazing — and depressing — aspect of all of this is how Americans have so quickly forgotten how thoroughly the Republicans, during their eight-year reign, destroyed the country.  Whatever the source of our national woes are, re-empowering that faction cannot possibly be the answer to anything.

So rather than ask others to convince me why I should bother voting for a party that shows no evidence of principles or a spine (I get it, the Republicans are a lot worse), I’ll ask this: Shouldn’t the primary goal of anyone who wants to support a progressive agenda be, not the election of more spineless and unprincipled deal-breakers, but rather the end of the filibuster? Is there anything that can be done in the next year or five years that will more effectively advance these causes (not to mention the cause of democracy) than the mounting of a large-scale campaign to convince Senate leaders to ditch the filibuster now and forever?

Maybe there’s something else that can be done. Maybe a grassroots campaign showing strong political support for the end of the filibuster won’t work. But there must be something that passionate citizens can do that will be more effective than influencing electoral outcomes. After all, this group of elected Democrats has shown that elections can be ignored even by those elected. So are there any ways we can empower our elected officials to work for the better future we envision—across the board, not just by, say, lobbying issue to issue—that won’t set us up to be betrayed by those very people?

I received three replies, all from people I know. (The list includes, I believe, hundred of students, most of whom I do not know.)

One, a close friend, sent back a video of Noam Chomsky with the title, “In swing states vote Obama without illusions,” and asked whether I wanted to get lunch soon. (We’re on for next Tuesday.)

One, a budding politician, wrote a thoughtful, three-paragraph response, making the following arguments (with more words in between): “There should have been a greater effort to restrict the filibuster months ago,” “I don’t think that we’ve been abandoned by anyone either. … The spineless dealbreakers who slow-walked the process are exactly who we thought they were; did you expect anything different from Lieberman, Nelson, Baucus, or Conrad?” and “I think that the take-away is that we have to stop voting for candidates because of their partisan affiliations or because of what they run against. We have to become active in primaries and put our energy and resources behind those who actually seem to have agendas. And, of course, we’ll be disappointed sometimes.” He finished by writing: “But the next election is never too far away.”

And one wrote back: “Nice email,” before a couple more paragraphs about how bad the Democrats’ “messaging” has been and how Obama has “abdicated all pretense of leadership.”

In the last couple days, since I sent my email, the listserv has seen emails about an event discussing Israel and Palestine, Cindy McCain appearing in the “NO H8″ campaign, a used 2008 Princeton Review MCAT review book, an effort to get Yalies to fill out their census forms in New Haven, and a poll showing Mike Huckabee barely beating Obama in a hypothetical election today.

No one came close to answering my questions.

Of course, they don’t have to. I’m just one person; I’m a reasonably cynical voter, so some who know me might have thought that any response would have been a waste of their time; and no one has to answer any email. But I think the fact that the above are the only responses I got from hundreds of young, active Democrats is telling—and discouraging.

As much as it was an invitation to engage in discussion on an issue (which I very much hoped people would do), it was also a challenge to the people in this group to think about how they want to spend their time and energy between now and November, and beyond

Many of the people on the list have devoted hundreds or thousands of hours to campaigning in recent years. So I understood I was challenging the activity they’ve poured themselves into, and which many of them find as rewarding as any in life. I wasn’t trying to dissuade them from their passion, but I was trying to get them to think about it, to think about whether that’s the best way they can work toward their goals for the country and the world.

And, more than that, I was hoping to inspire them to make their case for something—anything—to a depressed voter right now who has voted before and seen that elections aren’t enough to make a difference. And I got silence.

I understand that many of them are similarly depressed. I think it’s fine to check out from time to time, to give yourself a break from your passions when they become too much. And, again, I recognize there are countless good reasons for individual people to have ignored my email, or to have read it and not responded. But I’m discouraged that the collective response was so weak.

This generation of young activists is being squeezed on both sides by two competing, and very much related forces. On one side, the public is increasingly cynical, a trend that began decades ago and will continue until something acts to stop it. On the other, individual people have ever less ability to make a difference. (Big news announcing one more step in the the perpetual march against real democracy came out yesterday, thanks to five justices on the Supreme Court.) And caught in the middle for the coming generations will be these young activists, the people on the listserv—if they keep up the fight.

If they want company in the cause, they’ll have to take up the challenge I gave. They’ll have to convince me and millions of other voters not only why we should vote a certain way, but also how we can work to change the political system. Right now—if they didn’t before—the arguments for voting smell like bullshit. As I wrote in my email, we’ve seen that elections can be ignored even by those elected.

This week has been one more reminder that in our political system as it is today, electing some people over others won’t create the meaningful progress craved by people on the left. (And maybe people on the right feel the same way, but I won’t speak for them.) “Messaging” certainly won’t. Maybe something will. I challenge someone to help motivate me, and show me what I can do to make a difference in American politics between now and November, and beyond.

Please don’t say “vote.”

Update 1/23/10: The House is doing something to try to fix the Senate, urging the upper house to restrict its use of the filibuster.

For King, giving money to Haiti would not be enough. In order to be good citizens of the world, it is not good enough to just to give money, we must make sure to end the economic and social climate that led to the disaster. Here’s an excerpt from his speech “Beyond Vietnam.”

A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand we are called to play the good Samaritan on life’s roadside; but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life’s highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth.

And:

So on Martin Luther King’s birthday, let us reflect on our fellow human beings in Haiti. Let us help them out with our donations, but also let’s fight so third world people do not have to suffer through the poverty that has inflamed this natural disaster. Let us be reminded of how what goes on in our own country affects the rest of the world.

My story had to change quickly: I had planned on writing about why an anonymous hold might be placed on Groves and how long it might last. And though much of the original inspiration for the post was voided, I jumped on the new story. I got Reid’s office to confirm late this evening that the senator would be filing for cloture on the nomination vote, and I broke the news.

I expected I’d have more time to write this summer, and that I would. No such luck. I’ve been working 50 hours a week at my internship. I squeeze in several hours of socializing each evening to recharge between work days. I try to read a little, to spend some time with my parents. This schedule was hard to adjust to, and it has meant a difficult first month–in a lot of ways. I’m enjoying the lifestyle more, but I’m not finding any more free time. So while I’d like to post more frequently this summer, I won’t be writing much. Expect a few pictures, a few thoughts, maybe some links. But personal essays will have to wait. My spring semester and my weeks in Tanzania never got written up. Hopefully they will be at some point. And my time at Talking Points Memo, as fascinating as it has been so far, won’t be described here until after I’m gone, if even then.

But, as I’ve done for a year, I’ll share my accomplishments, especially those already public, here proudly. Blogging is, after all, an undeniably exhibitionist activity, as modestly and discreetly as one tries to do it. This shit is on the internet, basically a glass box with contents that go in, never out, and become permanent immediately.

That’s a lot more than I’ve meant to write. In short, I’m really busy these days. I won’t take the time to write the backstory behind my work, but I will share it when there’s a finished product, as there was for the first time today. Here is my first (shared) byline in a professional publication–albeit a blog. Seeing it when it went up was very exciting. And equally exciting was this shout-out from the boss, which greeted me when I got home tonight and helped cap off an up-and-down month with one final up. More of this is, hopefully, to come.

Two and a half years later I had grown up enough that, when my city was in the news for even more historical events, I was a regular newspaper reader. No longer did individual days’ headlines grab me and get lodged in my memory the same way, but the events unfolding before me affected me even more as I grew up. My adolescence was framed–even defined, in some ways–by a series of events that could only have been covered on A1. After wars, murders, and terrorism in 1999 and 2001 came a war in 2003 and elections in 2004, 2006, and 2008. Each event was important in world history and equally so in my coming of age.

Given how powerfully these events have affected me, I’m fascinated by other historical events that happened in my lifetime. I’ll never really be able to believe the Cold War ended after I was born, or that apartheid in South Africa fell apart when I was in elementary school. Without memories of those events–of seeing them written about the next day, or over weeks, on the front page of the Times–they feel like history to me, rather than the current events they were not too many years ago.

Another such event was made current again today, on its twentieth anniversary. As with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of apartheid, I’ve also never understood the Tiananmen Square protest, I suspect because I didn’t experience the event as it happened. The narrative as I’ve learned it after the fact–students and intellectuals in China protested for more freedom in 1989, the protest was quashed with a massacre, little more freedom arrived, and twenty years later no one protested–doesn’t make sense. Then again, I can’t expect China to make a lot of sense to me. In every way, it’s as foreign, as far from what I know, as anything on Earth.

I’ve loved learning just a little about China over the last year from a few sources. James Fallows, the Atlantic writer and editor who has lived in China for the last few years, maintains a blog that I’ve read religiously since last summer. He writes about technology, aviation, the craft of journalism and the life of a journalists, and China. All of his writing is interesting; his observations and understanding of China are enlightening. And since January a friend of mine, Dylan Suher, has been studying abroad in China. He too has kept a blog, where he has given a mostly personal account of his time there, but through which he has shared impressive insight into a country he is just getting to know. I’m glad he has blogged so regularly while abroad, disappointed his dispatches will cease when he returns to the U.S. this weekend, and most happy his wisdom will last in his writing. Trusting him to have something interesting to say in response, I recently sent him this Atlantic article by Mark Hertsgaard about China’s balance between economic development and environmental protection. The article is especially interesting because it was written in 1997, and yet it reads as if it could come out tomorrow: all the issues it covers seem as relevant, if not more so, today as they were a dozen years ago. Being the good friend and smart guy he is, Dylan replied to the article with a surprisingly long and thoughtful response, which I’ll assume his permission to reproduce here:

I was only too happy to read this article instead of reading [sic: missing word], although I was sad I couldn’t watch the YouTube video (damn you, China, don’t you know seeing the “Leprachaun” video is an inalienable human right?). I think it’s really right on. I think people who are not here can sometimes get the impression that the Chinese government and the Chinese people just don’t give a shit about the environment. But actually, compared to the Americans, the Chinese lifestyle is much more environmentally friendly (air drying, no heat below the Yangtze by government order, great public transportation, lots of biking). What we’re really worried about is that more and more Chinese will start to live like us, which would undoubtedly lead to a world environmental crisis. Also, the sense I’ve gotten is that in recent years (since this article has been written), the government has taken serious steps to improve the environmental situation. This of course varies from province to province and city to city (Yunnan has a particularly good party boss, according to people I’ve talked to), and some cities are still absolutely awful (I had a hard time breathing in Tai’an in Shandong province and in China’s coal centers in the Northeast, and the smog in Xi’an is really sad). But the government is limited in what it can do, both by corruption and by the economic/demographic situation.

I’ll give you the example of Kunming, since I know a bit about it. Kunming has about six million people, and is growing at an insanely rapid rate. The government expects it to reach ten million people by 2012 or so. Kunming’s main source of water is the filthy Dian Chi lake. Now, in America, most water pollution is agricultural or industrial. However, this is not the case with Dian Chi. Years ago, fertilizer and tanning plants did a number on Dian Chi, but most of those have been shut down; now, the main source of pollution is literally household sewage. But what can you do? It has to go somewhere. It doesn’t help that the marshes that used to clean Dian Chi were drained during the Great Leap Forward, but it’s now not an option to restore the wetland: it would mean the relocation of thousands of people who now live in the reclaimed land. So what can the government do? It can’t stop the migration. All it can do is really what it’s doing now, which is throwing millions at sewage processing plants and punishing people who violate plumbing regulations.

Which brings it back to the point that this guy made that I think is the most insightful and right on. China’s problem is a world problem. We have a billion very poor people, and the real question is, can we fulfill the promises that modern, liberal, capitalist society has made to allow every human being on the planet live a life of unprecedented comfort without destroying the planet. It’s something to lose sleep over.

With friends like these, who needs professionals to tell you about the world? Nevertheless I appreciate what professional journalists do (of course). In addition to Fallows’ writing and the Hertsgaard article, I recommend today’s column by Nick Kristof, in which he recounts his experience in Tiananmen Square twenty years ago, when he was the Beijing bureau chief for the Times. Here is a fascinating recent blog post by John Pomfret outlining China’s relationship with North Korea, explaining why it may be that China watches happily as North Korea antagonizes the United States and the West. (H/T to Fallows for recommending it.) And here the Times runs down the stories behind the iconic photos of Tank Man in Tiananmen Square during the protest. (Here too is a follow-up post with a never-before-published picture of the event.) All interesting reads to learn just a little more about the Middle Kingdom in the modern era.

At work today, with the TVs on the cable networks, an MSNBC afternoon anchor said the following as the channel cut to a commercial break: “A dark chapter in China’s history: Tiananmen Square, twenty years later. What do you remember about the event?” This was followed by a call for viewers to send in their recollections of the protest and the massacre. The line was completely in character for cable news, and had I been barely less attentive I would have missed it. But I heard it, and it struck me. This simplification was just one example out of hundreds I must have heard on TV today. Yet it perfectly encapsulated a source of sadness in me: Here was “coverage” of a truly fascinating historical event that–by the choice of the “journalist”–removed all the elements that could have educated, enlightened viewers. Instead, we were given a vague allusion (“dark chapter”) and encouraged to be egocentric, to share our memories of the event, as if they were, are somehow relevant, as if they mean anything at all. Nothing before or after that teaser gave viewers any better understanding of what happened in Tiananmen Square twenty years ago, or what has come since. For that, one would have had to look elsewhere, far away. Cable news is pitiful, but the 2009 media landscape includes more media offering the same antisubstance. I’m saddened that so little attention is given to the most interesting parts of the news, which also happen to be the most valuable to know. And I’m fearful of a media that is ever receding into a universe of headlines.

Update 6/14/09: How many of my friends will go to China? With one high school friend recently back, another is leaving for Beijing in two days. And a friend from college will be there all of next year, taking a year away from Yale to study Chinese more in China. He’s a tremendously talented guy, as can be seen in this video of him speaking Chinese, playing cello, and beatboxing:

So, although Minh Tran, one of the candidates defeated, is a friend of mine and although I have great admiration for Katie Harrison, the other candidate defeated, I took pride in the fact that the vote on Friday aligned nearly with the strength of support I felt the endorsement gave each candidate. No one can know how much the endorsement mattered, but I’m proud that the vote indicated some may have followed its arguments to the polls.

One TPM reader less than a year older than me perfectly summarized my feelings about the day and the new era beginning:

From TPM Reader AH …

George Bush was sworn in just before my 13th birthday, and i really the only president I’ve ever known (aside from my passing awareness of Lewinsky-era Clinton). I’ve never known a world in which government could be trusted, or where I really thought the president’s administration had noble aims. I think the Bush administration has bred a deep cynicism in people my age who’ve never known better. Now, a few weeks before my 21st birthday, Obama’s inauguration means that, for the first time in my life, I’ll be able to believe in government, and feel like it’s actually my government. For the first time I can remember, government can be, as it should be, a force for good and decency.

My appreciation for the event of the inauguration, however, was tempered by my unfair disdain for all the people I know skipping school to head to Washington. I have ideas about good and bad reasons to miss out on obligations, and symbolic ceremonies don’t count as a good reason by my prejudiced logic. Plus the inauguration fell almost six years to the day (six years and two days) after I felt moved to head to Washington. That day I was with only about a hundred thousand other people, not one-and-a-half million, and we were trying to stop a war, not welcome a new president. It would have been nice if as many people as wanted to see Barack Obama inaugurated had decided to come to Washington on January 18, 2003. Maybe it (I should should own up to my agency and say “we”) would have made a difference. But by now, in part because of that experience, I don’t believe strongly in protests. So I don’t know. This is about as deep as my acknowledged hypocrisy and bias goes. Anyway, I’m glad Obama’s in office.

Here‘s the YDN editorial I wrote after Obama’s address yesterday.

And here’s the most visually beautiful thing to come out of the event (even though I don’t understand how or why inaugural balls still exist):

P.S. On another subject, here‘s another editorial I penned last week, commending Yale for rejecting the SAT’s new Score Choice option.

When McCain’s campaign manager declared that the election was not “about issues”, he was trying to craft a reality that suited his campaign: one in which he believed they had an advantage, rather than one in which he knew they were dreadfully behind. So while McCain attempted to drive the discussion away from policy, Barack Obama – holding the winning cards, if he ever got to play them – attempted to keep voters focused on the things they claimed mattered to them. Meanwhile, someone had to decide what, in fact, the election was “about”.

Thanks to the Times, we learn that skateboarders in California are newly responsible for some great civic contributions. This winter they’ve been cleaning out the abandoned swimming pools of foreclosed houses, refusing to add graffiti or trash while they’re trespassing, and they even only skate for short periods during the day to avoid disturbing neighbors. How considerate!

But here’s the real story, revealed in the third paragraph:

Across the nation, the ultimate symbol of suburban success has become one more reminder of the economic meltdown, with builders going under, pools going to seed and skaters finding a surplus of deserted pools in which to perfect their acrobatic aerials.

Unfortunately for thrill-seeking readers, most of the article is about that stuff, or actually even more boring stuff. We learn about pool builders in Phoenix and fines for homeowners who leave standing water in their pools — things related neither to skateboarding nor the economic meltdown, as if people are reading the article because they just love pools.

The article’s kind of cool overall, and it’s helped out by some choice quotes – “God bless Greenspan,” the post [on skateandannoy.com] read, “patron saint of pool skatin’.” — but it drifts from the good stuff. It should focus on the skateboarders, both because they’re the most fun part of the article and because simply recording the color of their hobby right now will tell the economic story most vividly. Strengths and weaknesses aside, this article also highlights the inherent limitations of print journalism and written storytelling. This isn’t a story to be written; although the article is accompanied by a slide show, we need to see action and panoramas. We need video: we need to see the skateboarders moving, not just through pools but among them, hitting pool after pool and wandering newly abandoned neighborhoods. Let’s see those foreclosed homes, not just read about them. New media, where are you?

2.

The Post tells us that Virginia Senator Jim Webb is set to introduce legislation to “reform” our prison system. As a citizen long interested in the subject, and as a current employee (sort of — well, not really, but more on this later) of the correctional system of the State of Connecticut, I’m personally invested in this topic. Too bad for interested readers, the article doesn’t hint at how Webb envisions this reform, or even whether he’s gotten that far. What we get instead is that Webb thinks we have too many people in prison (as everyone agrees) and quote after quote from people skeptical to critical of his forthcoming effort, rebutted only by assertions of Webb’s fortitude and maverickyness. Get ready for a showdown! But don’t hold your breath for meaningful reform. If there’s any on the way, this article won’t help shed light on it.

3.

Popular sportswriting often approaches oxymoron territory: it’s writing only in the technical sense of involving letters, words, and sentences in a single language. The “writers” for MLB.com and its daughter sites devoted to the individual teams are as guilty as any others of this butchery. But I was positively struck by this lede in an article today:

Whatever interest the Mets might have had in diminished center fielder Andruw Jones had a rather short shelf life.

The “rather” could have gone, but the sentence is informative, descriptive, and even poignant. It evokes some humanity deeper than that commonly found in front offices. Just from this sentence, I feel for Jones and even the Mets, though I don’t know why. I could be alone on this.

4.

Yeah, I always saw the Fall of Bush this way. Cool to know I agree with him and his people on something. Plus those are some sweet quotes. Props to Vanity Fair.

5.

This is now a week old, and, like Josh Marshall, I’m hesitant to cite Tom Friedman positively in the blogosphere, but give credit where credit’s due. Or at least acknowledge that which you dig. And I dig this recent column. I think Friedman’s right on the money. Don’t expect me to say that again soon.