Perhaps another explanation for my mood swings…

There’s the obvious, of course: the fact that I have to deal with people who are certifiably insane on a near daily basis.

Then there’s this:

It has been 20 years in the making but researchers at the University of Western Ontario saw they’re confident their HIV vaccine is only months away from being approved for human trials.

Lead researcher Dr. Chil-Yong Kang said Thursday the approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration can come as soon as two or three months.

I’ve gotten excited by some variation of those two paragraphs several times over the past year. Even if it works, it will still be years before the results of the human trials can draw any hard conclusions.

And even though I know the odds are against it working, I’m still hopeful.

And so I’ll in all likelihood be depressed in either three months or several years.

I really hope I’m wrong.

Woe! To be a Governor…

I’ve grown sick of Minnesota. Since Election Night, it has been impossible to be a political observer and avoid the news out of Minnesota. Coleman, Franken, Pawlenty, et. al. I’ve basically tried to stop reading all the news about it.

But, you can’t ignore Presidential politics (in spite of the fact that we basically just swore in the last guy), and the Republican race for the nomination is already heating up. There are the people who always get bandied about: Haley Barbour might run (just what the Republican’s need, a White Southern Governor), Newt Gingrich might run (which I’m kind of hoping for, just so the media will finally realize how much Americans as a group dislike him). Sarah Palin, Bobby Jindal, Mark Sanford (the man had the gall to cheat on his wife on taxpayers dime, if you think he’s got some shame left, you’re sadly mistaken). I’m wildly unimpressed by the Republican field. Which is fine, because I wasn’t going to vote for them anyway.

Then of course, there’s the Governor of cursed Minnesota, Tim Pawlenty, who strikes me as a most shocking potential contender. Running Tim Pawlenty would be like running toast. Or tofu. He’s bland, boring, and looks as though he’s never had a thought that wasn’t fed to him by the staffer at the other end of his ear piece. Any number of commentators (both in the blogosphere and in the traditional media) have speculated that the reason Pawlenty announced he would not seek another term as governor was so he could get out before the shit really hit the fan. Right now isn’t the best time to be a governor, what with every state facing massive budget shortfalls and the prohibition against states running deficits. Right now isn’t the best time to be a governor, so why not get out while people still have fond memories of your tenure (in Pawlenty’s case, I guess that would be the warm and fuzzy feeling Minnesotans get when they think about the St. Paul bridge collapse).

But, as a Floridian, it got me thinking: what about governors who don’t have the luxury of a few years between campaigns? What about the governors who are running right now. Charlie Crist, a man beloved by the Floridian populace, is running for the Senate seat being vacated by Mel Martinez. He’s facing a pretty terrible budget deficit. A deficit that you don’t want to confront while running for election. He recently cut 400 teachers from Broward county (that’d be just north of Miami-and my hometown) alone. That’s 400 votes he probably won’t get in his primary against Mark Rubio (R-batshit insane). Plus the votes of the family members of those 400 people, plus the parents of the students who are losing their teachers, plus the parents whose children will now be forced to cram themselves into 40 student classrooms, plus all the people who’ve paid taxes in Florida to ensure that Floridian tots receive a good education (at least by American standards). Thats a lot of people to alienate…and that’s just one county.

I’m not saying that this is what will necessarily happen. I’m not a pollster or a political analyst. And Charlie Crist is still pretty damn popular in Florida (we like his tan). But a lot of governors who are running for reelection have had to confront similar problems, and they don’t have nearly the approval ratings that Crist has as impact padding. But asking people for their vote when the memory of your betrayal of their children’s future is fresh in their mind has got to be tough, and it’s a situation countless governors will find themselves in over the next few years.

Quick Query

Do you think the Guinness Book of World Records has a category for fastest sell-out?

And the award for the best alliteration of the day goes to…

Politico, for this gem: Sordid Sanford Saga Adds to GOP Troubles.

(Note: the dead tree version includes “sordid,” while the online link does not.)

Bonus points for running it next to the massive headline: “Barack Obama is better than you are.”

Iran

I don’t really know what to say about the election in Iran (or, more appropriately, the election’s aftermath) other than to note that I’ve been completely transfixed by the updates coming out of the country via Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, and other social networking sites that protestors are somehow managing to access in spite of an immense government crackdown on information technologies.

I suppose it would be accurate to say that, as odd as it sounds, I’m a little bit jealous. Certainly, I am happy that I live in a country where I can be reasonably sure that my vote in any given election will count. And I’m appreciative of the fact that when I march on Congress or the White House,  I don’t have to worry about being shot at by paramilitary thugs or beaten with batons by police with the tacit consent of the government. But I am jealous of the fact that, when presented with an obviously unfair election result, the vast majority of Iranian’s in Tehran seems to instinctively understand that the only reasonable thing to do was go out into the streets and protest.

That kind of thing doesn’t happen here. As much as we like to pat ourselves on the back about how open and democratic we are (and ya know, we are), a protest in America is looked upon by the elites in America as some kind of retro holdover from the 60s. Anyone who takes the time to go out and protest must be a damn dirty hippy-or a welfare queen, because all the responsible people don’t have time to protest, since they’re working.

Here’s what I do know: as much as I’d love to see Obama stand up for the reformers in Iran, as much as I’d love it if he put on a green tie and pledged any and all necessary support to the hundreds of thousands of Iranians standing up for their rights, I know that to do so would seriously weaken the forces of reform in Iran. Such is the stellar history of American involvement in Iranian politics that just a hint of American approval of Mousavi’s supporters would completely destroy the entire movement.

I know one other thing too: If American’s wanted to follow John McCain’s advice when it comes to foreign policy and engagement in the internal affairs of countries other than the United States, people would have voted for him. Just as we weren’t all Georgians this summer, neither are we all Iranians now. We’re still Americans, though hopefully one day soon we’ll be Americans with a much better relationship with Iranians.

For the kind of obsessive coverage that only a new junkie can love, check out Andrew Sullivan, who’s apparently blogging the revolution from a deck chair on a dock in Cape May.

They speak it other places too…

President Obama landed in Saudi Arabia today, the first stop on a multi-nation trip which will also take him to Egypt and his long awaited address to the Muslim world in Cairo. I’d imagine that the Obama Administration wanted that speech to be the highlight of the trip, and you have to feel bad for the President-who’s every gesture of curtesy or civility has thus far been twisted to prove he’s an agent of this or that shawdowy regime.

The latest comes from Michael Goldfarb writing at the Weekly Standard, who was mighty peeved when he heard that, after receiving some pretty impressive praise from Saudi King Abdullah, Obama had the gall to say thank you…in Arabic.

This apparently suggests that Obama has been less than forthright about his fluency in languages other than English. After listing the languages Obama has claimed any knowledge of (Spanish, Swahili, and Bahasa from spending several years in Indonesia), Goldfarb asks:

With even the White House now smearing Obama as a Muslim, one wonders if the president hasn’t been concealing some greater fluency with the language of the Koran.

I pay more than a little attention to politics, and I’ve neither seen nor heard the White House smear Obama as anything. But beyond that, why on earth would you refer to Arabic as “the language of the Koran?” All that does is make the language, Arabic, sound more menacing. It would be just as accurate to ask if Obama is concealing fluency in a major Semitic language claiming over 500 million speakers.

The latter question would be just as stupid, though, since the ability to thank someone in a language does not necessarily translate to fluency in that language. Steve Benen already did this over that the Washington Monthly, but I think I’ve got him beat of the number of languages (plus he grew up in Miami, and South Floridians need to stick together), so here, in no particular order, are the languages that I, according to Michael Goldfarb, am fluent in:

Spanish

French

German

Japanese

Hebrew

I can speak at least three words in all five of those languages. I am most proficient in Spanish, a language in which my mastery extends to an absolute maximum of 100 words and maybe two or three sentences. (I can sing the Hebrew alphabet-only in duplicate though). I say this in the interest of full disclosure. I don’t want any of you to think I’m concealing my proficiency to further my political goals.

Entourage goes to high school

I haven’t been out of high school for that long, but I’ll admit to becoming moderately self conscious about my age after reading this story in the New York Times about students hugging one another in greeting.

Back in my day (all of seven years ago), a kiss on the cheek sufficed for greeting close friends of the same gender, while one of those awkward, weak-jointed hugs that I yell at people for giving me now was reserved for greeting friends of the opposite sex. I don’t know if I’d have a problem with it if I were in high school at present, but the idea of bear hugging everyone you walk past in the halls strikes me as more than a little odd.

Still, I know it’s tempting to accuse the administrators who are trying to clamp down on hallway hugging and adults who find themselves uneasy with the practice of being akin to the thought-police and turn the ban on hugging in high school into a civil rights issue.

It’s not, for any number of reasons. First because, as I complained about vociforously while crusing the halls as a public school student, you essentially turn over 90% of your rights when you walk onto school grounds. They can’t beat you or deny you medical care, but beyond that, they can search your locker, confiscate your bookbag and–as is looking more likely considering the recent oral arguments before the Supreme Court–perform invasive and humiliating cavity searches if they suspect you of packing contraband Sudafed. 

But beyond that, we do a disservice to young people if we insist on considering them the same as adults. We don’t allow ~75% of high school students to vote. 50% can’t drive. 100% can’t drink (legally, of course). Schools serve in loco parentis in a way your office or place of employment does not.

As a 25 -year-old, I am very nearly a fully formed person, well aware of what I think and believe and not altogether too concerned with speaking my mind, regardless of who is hurt or put off by what I say.

As a 15-year-old, I was relatively sure of what I thought, trying to figure out what I believed, and absolutely terrified of offending–or being disliked–by anyone. 

If someone I didn’t particularly like came up to me today and asked me for a hug, I’d refuse. If someone I didn’t particularly like walked up to me ten years ago, arms outstretched, I’d have held my nose and hugged them back, terrified that my rebuff would do incalculable damage to my standing within my social sphere.

When adults cave to peer pressure, we chastise them and ask them why they didn’t know better. Why they didn’t stand up for themselves. We never ask that of young people. We assume that the peer pressure an adult feels on a daily basis dwarfs the pressure students endure. And it generally does. 

I think Matt Yglesias is right in noting that Sarah Kershaw writes her Times article like a researcher studying the social habits of aliens, and most of her story is hilarious, if only for the quotes from administrators and teachers which, despite the fact that I’ve aged a decade, sound as ridiculous now as they did when I was 15. He pulls this quote:

Comforting as the hug may be, principals across the country have clamped down. “Touching and physical contact is very dangerous territory,” said Noreen Hajinlian, the principal of George G. White School, a junior high school in Hillsdale, N.J., who banned hugging two years ago. “It was needless hugging — they are in the hallways before they go to class. It wasn’t a greeting. It was happening all day.”

But he left out the quote that immediately preceeded it:

“If somebody were to not hug someone, to never hug anybody, people might be just a little wary of them and think they are weird or peculiar,” said Gabrielle Brown, a freshman at Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School in Manhattan.

That’s the problem with hugging in high schools, and why administrators have a compelling reason to put an end to it or, and I think more appropriately, curtail its frequency. Its the same reason, though obviously on a much smaller level, that we don’t allow prayer in schools. At the end of the day, some kids just don’t want to do it, and they shouldn’t have to face any negative consequences for that.

This is awesome.

Via Andrew Sullivan, don’t watch if you’re afraid of heights.

El camino del Rey

Also, this:

The Facebook Generation

High gas prices: or, how not to make a point

Ok, I know this will probably sound crappy coming from someone who hasn’t driven regularly for several years, and who doesn’t own a car (and yes I’m still mad my parents sold my baby) but high gas prices are good.

Check out this lede from McClatchy:

When long-haul trucker Rusty Wade pulled his rig into a Missouri truck stop last week, he noticed something strange.

Of the 50 or so 18-wheelers parked in the lot, only five had their engines idling.

“That’s only because of the high price of fuel,” said Wade, an independent owner-operator from Brundidge, Ala. “A year ago there would only be about five that weren’t running.”

-Tony Pugh and Kevin G. Hall “As economy worsens, coping becomes a way of life”

I certainly understand that there are people who absolutely have to drive (public transport in rural America ain’t what it is in big cities) and I sympathize with people who have to cut back because of that (I think families should be able to eat out at least once a week), but this little parable is hardly the way to compel my sympathy. Idling engines? Are you kidding me?!

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the planet has been getting progressively hotter over the past decade or so. Environmentalists and scientists are warning that the arctic ice sheet is going to continue melting this summer, and that global warming will soon begin affecting the Antarctic region. Considering that our survival as a species is at stake, I think everyone can muster the enormous effort it takes to flick your wrist when turning the ignition on and off.

I know it’s an election year, so honestly is pretty much a pipe dream until November 6, but high gas prices are good. Less driving is good. Forcing the market to search for alternative energy and fuel sources is good. Leaving your truck idling while you run inside for a bathroom break and a cup of coffee is not worth the skin cancer we will all inevitably have if the ozone layer keeps depleting.

The only way we’ll actually develop viable alternative fuels (as opposed to the goofy wastefulness that is ethanol) is if gas prices are so high that the public at large demands a response from the government.

Most Annoying Vindication. Ever.

This is kind of old, but whatever.

I’ve always said there are no good men in Washington, D.C. or New York and guess what? It turns out I was right.

Apparently, it isn’t so much that there are no good men, but more that all the good men are already dating people.

Via the census (screwed by the government, yet again), you can see that there are over 200,000 more single women in NY than there are men. And D.C.? There are so few men that they actually have two enormous red dots overlapping each other.

So basically, the odds of meeting a dude in NY (and that isn’t even assuming that said dude isn’t totally creepy or still living with his mother) are 200,000 to 1. To put that in perspective, I could be dealt four individual straight flushes in a poker tournament before I met a guy I’d agree to go out with.

Sex in the City was bullshit, man.