Is it worth saving? I’m not sure. I’m quite conflicted on this one.
On one hand, I agree with Mark Morford that GM, Ford and Chrysler have been woefully inadequate in the last several years and don’t make any cars really worth buying. They’re obsession with the SUV and the big margins they made on them got them drunk and silly… now they’ve got a hangover and we’re supposed to bail them out? NO WAY!!
But then I read articles like this with some really great ideas on ways we can transform the beleaguered auto makers with government intervention because they obviously haven’t been able to do it themselves. Thomas Friedman describes how we got here and where we might want to go from here better than anyone.
Here are some suggestions that have been put out there… and the upcoming Obama administration is probably going to do some or all of these things when they do bail out Detroit. I hope it works:
Stock goes to zero
Existing debt-holders take a hit ($0.30-$0.40 on dollar?)
Money dispensed in small amounts in return for senior convertible debt, pending the meeting of goals
Management and board gone as soon as strong replacements can be found
Union contracts torn up
Company radically downsized
Remaining employees offered new, fair employment terms (pay, benefits) which they can accept or decline at their choosing
Company commits to designing and building cars that people want.
No, I’m not talking about the last two weeks in the news. I’m talking about my life over the last two plus weeks.
For those of you who are new to the blog and have only been reading Justin’s comments over the last several weeks, allow myself to introduce…myself. I am his other better half. You can think of me as the rational side of the argument. I need to very much apologize for being distinctly absent on these pages over the last few weeks. Especially over an incredible election. This blog was never intended to be a one way conversation on the issues. Justin recently told me that he believed my lack of input was due to my apathy over the poll numbers leading up to the election. I won’t say he is entirely wrong, though I would only attribute apathy to about 10% of why I haven’t been writing recently. Instead, I can attribute my absence to the ridiculous nature of my life over the last 14 days. One week before the election, I began six straight days of shooting in which my earliest call time was 5:30 am and my earliest arrival home was 11 pm. Didn’t expect that. We were shooting in a location where cell phones worked only half the time. Didn’t expect that either. I got very little sleep. After those six days, now one day before election day, I planned on sleeping in and catching up on the latest news only to discover that my landlord rented my apartment (I had given her 30 days notice in October and never rescinded it). I definitely didn’t expect this. So last week, I was forced into an emergency move which took the better part of the week. On election day, after one all-nighter, rather than staying updated on the latest poll numbers, I was stressed with trying to move my refrigerator and large bookshelf from my old apartment to my new apartment. Moving a frig sucks! Then I had a shoot that lasted into the early evening. But, at the end of the move, I found myself in a one bedroom as opposed to a studio so there is a good part to the story. Due to the move, I was without internet for a full five days! Can you imagine? No internet for five whole days!!! It’s amazing how much we rely on computers and the internet to conduct our day to day affairs. I have to admit it was kind of nice to not check my 50 plus emails a day. But it was painful to go through 250 emails at the end of the week. I now on and off contemplate moving to a remote location in order to shun all technology and cleanse my spirit. Maybe I’ll study math in a tiny little cabin and start wearing hooded sweatshirts. Just joking! Gosh, calm down.
As you can guess, this was the last way I expected to spend election week. I was, however, able to make it over to Justin’s on election night to see the speeches by John McCain and Barack Obama. I was impressed by both. For the record, I voted for John McCain. He remains to me a true patriot and American hero. But, I share in the concerns of many fellow conservatives in his distinctly negative campaign and his selection of Sarah Palin (I know I didn’t always feel this way). As it turns out, these two areas ended up hurting him in the end. It does sadden me the finger pointing I’ve heard about from the right after the election. As for the election of Barack Obama…I’m happy for him! Truly. I wish him the best. I’m happy for my liberal friends who are so energized by this event. I will say that one comment I heard on election day, “He shouldn’t be called President Obama, he should be called King Obama” made me chuckle before realizing the potential power that the people could give to this man. Just as a word of caution, we should think very clearly and carefully as an electorate, especially in this time of economic emergency, in giving too much power to any one man. Obama’s celebrity image makes it all the more likely that we will willingly give him a blank check to do as he wishes. I’ll admit this is cynical. But crazier things have happened in history. In the end, I think Obama has the potential to be a good, if not great, president. I’m happy that the Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton era of race relations will now come to a close. No minority has an excuse for the “man” keeping him down as a reason to not succeed and excel in life. For this reason, I have hope for an Obama presidency. I will pray for him as I did his predecessor.
Well, my place is now less of a disaster than it was two days ago, which is saying a lot. I couldn’t even walk through my living room without stepping on bags, papers, and other stuff that I should have burned long ago. Had I needed to move into a place other than the building next door, I would have contemplated lighting a match and throwing it on the floor before I left for one of my shoots. I don’t consider myself a very materialistic person, but daggonit I have a lot of junk!
In time, I’ll respond to some of Justin’s recent comments. Stay tuned…..
The red/blue map of the United States we’re used to changed on Tuesday. Obama’s 50 state strategy made the electoral college work for him, unlike Al Gore in 2000. Obama won more than double the electoral votes that McCain but only 6% more in the popular vote. The electoral college doesn’t fully represent the population in each county or state and certainly not the margin by which the candidate wins. For a better look at our country scroll down…
I cried a little last night about the election. Last time my tears were not quite so happy… to say the least. My spirit is refreshed, my confidence surges and my optimism transcends. Hope. It’s infectious I guess… it’s all around. Even W seems pretty happy about it. How can one not pause and appreciate the sheer magnitude of what America did last night? This is why I love America and her democracy… it has the ability to reinvent itself. A dramatic force for justice is the US election this year… and if Obama has anything to say about it, ad infinitum.
My real kick in the ass came when I thought back to Martin Luther King, Jr. and the passionate hope filled fight he waged against intolerance and justice… and I cry again. Sob, in fact…. so proud of my country right now that I hope it will take a long time to wear off. I’m sure it has something to do with how angry I was for the last 8 years. The release is incredible… and the best part is that I know millions of Americans feel the same joy. This is an amazingly historic time to be alive and tonight I want to thank God for today.
Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. dared to dream of this day back on August 28, 1963. Many of my fellow Americans saw this speech 45 years ago. I can only imagine what they must be feeling when they think back to this moment of history from the prism of November 4, 2008:
Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning.
This will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with a new meaning, “My country, ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim’s pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring.”
And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!
Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!
Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California!
But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!
Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!
Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.
And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”
Obama won last night and America has changed for the better. We will be a more united and ambitious than even the landslide of the election shows. I have tremendous hope for our future… now more than ever.
But there was a setback for equality yesterday as well. Florida, Arizona, and even California voted to deny same-sex couples the right to get married… (but not Connecticut) and Arkansas even will deny gays the right to adopt children. Predictably, it was the bigoted Mormon church that funded Prop 8 in California and ironically it was the huge African American turnout that may have spelled its doom… but the battle has not been lost… just put off.
My favorite enigma, Andrew Sullivan, who is a conservative gay blogger supporting Obama, has has a great deal to say about this issue and no doubt will lead the fight in the future. But today, his sober thoughts:
But I realize I am not shattered. My own marriage exists and is real without the approval of others. One day soon, it will be accepted by a majority. And this initiative in California can and will be reversed, as California’s initiatives are much more fluid than those in other states; and the younger generation is overwhelmingly - 2 to 1 - in our favor. The tide of history is behind us; but we will have to work harder to educate people about our lives and loves and humanity.
To gay people across the nation, your separate but equal status will be shot down one day as it was for blacks in the 60’s. Have faith that Americans are inclusive and loving as a people… this election on a broader scale has proven that progress will come. You’re next.
Ironically, given that he first won over so many independents by speaking his mind, the case for Mr McCain comes down to a piece of artifice: vote for him on the assumption that he does not believe a word of what he has been saying. Once he reaches the White House, runs this argument, he will put Mrs Palin back in her box, throw away his unrealistic tax plan and begin negotiations with the Democratic Congress. That is plausible; but it is a long way from the convincing case that Mr McCain could have made. Had he become president in 2000 instead of Mr Bush, the world might have had fewer problems. But this time it is beset by problems, and Mr McCain has not proved that he knows how to deal with them.
Is Mr Obama any better? Most of the hoopla about him has been about what he is, rather than what he would do. His identity is not as irrelevant as it sounds. Merely by becoming president, he would dispel many of the myths built up about America: it would be far harder for the spreaders of hate in the Islamic world to denounce the Great Satan if it were led by a black man whose middle name is Hussein; and far harder for autocrats around the world to claim that American democracy is a sham. America’s allies would rally to him: the global electoral college on our website shows a landslide in his favour. At home he would salve, if not close, the ugly racial wound left by America’s history and lessen the tendency of American blacks to blame all their problems on racism.
and the persuasive closing argument:
…this cannot be another election where the choice is based merely on fear. In terms of painting a brighter future for America and the world, Mr Obama has produced the more compelling and detailed portrait. He has campaigned with more style, intelligence and discipline than his opponent. Whether he can fulfil his immense potential remains to be seen. But Mr Obama deserves the presidency.
Prop 1A, on the ballot in California tomorrow, looks to me like a good, forward looking idea to create high speed mass transit between big cities in California. Imagine getting from LA to SF in an hour or two at 200mph and never leaving the ground! That is the future!
From Environment California:
The vote tomorrow on Prop 1A, the ballot measure to create high-speed rail, is expected to be really close. If California is serious about fighting global warming and cutting our use of oil and other fossil fuels we can’t let this opportunity pass us by. Join me in voting YES on Prop 1A!
Dixville Notch starts voting at midnight on election day and are always the first precinct in the nation to report their results, since 1968 always votes Republican… but not this year!
CNN has just reported that Dixville Notch has voted 15-6 in favor of Obama! It wasn’t even close! Ladies and gentlemen, it’s going to be a great day for change!!!!
As you head to the polls tomorrow to cast your ballot, ponder the following. I got this as a forward and have edited it for accuracy and fairness and post it here because I think it poses an important question:
What if the Obamas had paraded five children across the stage,
including a three month old infant and an unwed, pregnant teenage
daughter?
What if John McCain was a former president of the Harvard Law
Review and Barack Obama finished fifth from the bottom of his
graduating class?
What if Obama was the candidate who left his first wife after a
severe disfiguring car accident to marry a rich heiress with whom
he had a long affair while he was still married?
What if Michelle Obama had become addicted
to pain killers and acquired them illegally through her
charitable organization?
What if Obama had been a member of the Keating Five?
(The Keating Five were five United States Senators accused of
corruption in 1989, igniting a major political scandal as part of the
larger Savings and Loan crisis of the late 1980s and early 1990s.)
What if Obama was known to display publicly, on many
occasions, a serious anger management problem?
What if Michelle Obama’s family had made their money from beer
distribution?
What if their educations had been reversed like this: John McCain: Columbia University - B.A. Political Science with a Specialization
in International Relations.
Harvard - Juris Doctor (J.D.) Magna Cum Laude Barack Obama: United States Naval Academy - Class rank: 894 of 899
Sarah Palin: University of Delaware - B.A. in History and B.A. in Political
Science.
Syracuse University College of Law - Juris Doctor (J.D.) Joseph Biden: Hawaii Pacific University - 1 semester
North Idaho College - 2 semesters - general study
University of Idaho - 2 semesters - journalism
Matanuska-Susitna College - 1 semester
University of Idaho - 3 semesters - B.A. in Journalism
If either their background or race were reversed
do you think the election numbers would be as close as they are?
We are on the cusp of history tonight, so I don’t mean to complain
or belittle anyone, but I wanted to send this to remind you that there is still prejudice in this country to overcome… and while we’re at it… those of you who live in California should stand up for progress towards equality and vote NO on Prop 8 to fight against prejudice of a different kind.
thanks,
justin
“When our days become dreary with low hovering clouds of despair, and when our nights become darker than a thousand midnights, let us remember that there is a creative force in this universe, working to pull down the gigantic mountains of evil, a power that is able to make a way out of no way and transform dark yesterdays into bright tomorrows. Let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.” - Martin Luther King
