Is Trump the Ultimate Radical Community Organizer?
I hadn’t given much thought to the term: “Community Organizer” (CO) until Barack Obama. As the Right demonized him, the idea of a CO as something sinister and radical became common. This article on Obama’s Radical Past is a good example. In retrospect, this is especially hilarious since Obama was almost ineffectually centrist. So when I […]
Healthy campaign; Sick government.
I just finished reading Double Down: Game Change 2012. It’s a tick-tock of the last presidential election. As you might expect from someone who ran for Congress (and is a geek), I’m fascinated by the behind-the-scenes stuff. (Yes, recommended for those w/a similar mindset.) One of the sharpest points in the book was just how finely-tuned the […]
the deal with manufacturing.
A few years ago I was obsessed with manufacturing. While not an expert, I have read thousands of pages on the topic and hundreds of articles. In my campaign for Congress, I tried to make jobs, and as a result, manufacturing a cornerstone. All that to say, that this is something I find interesting and […]
the platform owns you.
For the past year, I’ve been asked (a lot): “Will you ever run for office again?” My answer is somewhere between “NEVER!” and “probably not.” I gave the same answer throughout the campaign — the only way I knew to not become a politician, would be…well, to not…become a politician. This week I saw a […]
obama’s failure.
It’s good to be declarative when talking about presidents. They should own things. Think ‘Bush’s War’ for Iraq. And, now, it seems ‘Obama’s War’ for Afghanistan. So, I’m declarative here: Obama’s failure. I’ve wanted to write this for a long time. It really built over 2010. As my feelings grew stronger, I felt trapped by […]
a sane political campaign.
I’ve got a lot to say! Especially around this past election. To set the stage for that, I want to describe my perspective as it’s been informed by this unique experience. It’s the lens by which all future commentary and thoughts can be viewed. Here goes: I’m biased, but I believe I ran the most […]
financial services reading.
Lots of disturbing, horrifying, and bizarre facts out there about the state of the financial services sector of our economy. One of my all-time favorite writers, Michael Lewis, has a great piece on AIG in Vanity Fair. Much more controversially, Matt Taibbi, in Rolling Stone posts a searing indictment of uber-bank Goldman Sachs. Almost must […]
good articles to read, take two.
Con’t… 6) Dream on a shelf — ESPN.com OTL. Interesting read on the insides of big money sport. More as a human interest story than financial deep-dive. 7) What makes us happy? The Atlantic. An ongoing *72* year study of 268 men at Harvard college probing the factors that make some men happy, and others […]
2 hours of pain and bliss.
Below are some of the more interesting articles I’ve found over the past month. Not sure if it adds up to 2 hours of reading, but it sounded like a good title to me. Why pain? Because reading some of these articles made my blood boil and indignation rage. After avoiding these kinds of articles […]
reading joker one.
At one point in 2004-2005 I read a book or two a week. In retrospect, it was a phenomenal time. Some of my earliest memories are of reading soo much. At one point, I remember that my brother and I were so engrossed that our father took our books away from us when we had […]