Rebuilding the Constitution

Cartoonist Mike Luckovich provides this observation on the state of the union:

And this from the Moscow Times:

Getting Along With Obama
By Vladimir Ryzhkov
Almost every country greeted the news of President-elect Barack Obama's victory with joy, hoping that the United States would carry out a new, more balanced foreign policy relying primarily on diplomacy and multilateralism and rejecting the previous administration's heavy dependence on military power and unilateralism.

Fascinating. History will not be kind to the United States for the past eight years, nor to its President.

Election Day Coverage

Some are worse than others. At least the New York Times seems to value journalistic integrity and recognizes the value of a national audience—unlike CNN, who seems only to want to rush to make the earliest possible projection of a winner.

Given the vagaries of the Electoral College, making early projections in Ohio or Pennsylvania or New York or Florida has a real effect on the voting in western states. We've seen it in past Presidential elections; I wonder what the effect will be this year. It's not even 7pm PST, and CNN's already projecting Ohio and Pennsylvania victors—states with enough electoral votes that, given the very likely outcomes in a few other states (e.g., California), make it very difficult to see a McCain victory. Will this mean that many California, Washington, Oregon, and Hawai'i voters who've not yet voted will just head home, instead of to the polls?

Solutions?

How about forbidding early projections? No projections until after the last polls in the country close.

Ah, but that's contrary to too many great American principles (free enterprise, e.g.) and hallowed traditions (scooping the competition, e.g.).

What if the polls all closed at the same time throughout the country? Not the same local time: the same time GMT (okay, UTC—or, for the wonderful East-coast-centric television networks, EST)? What if the polls were open for 24 hours, or 30 hours, or 36 hours, and all closed at 0200 GMT (10pm EST, 7pm PST, 5pm HST)? Heck, the networks don't let the World Series games start until 8:30pm Eastern, leading to the game ending between 11:30pm and midnight (or later!), so they must think people will stay awake.

Or, even have them open at 6pm EST on Monday and then close at 9pm EST on Tuesday.

Vote!

Vote!

It's election day across the U.S.

Vote. Sure, I care how people vote, but not nearly as much as I care that they do vote.

Vote!

The Marvels in the Skies

It's remarkable what meaning we find in celestial objects. Take the APOD for October 31, 2008: the Witch Head Nebula. A nebula, in the stereotypical shape of a stereotypical ugly witch: long, pointy nose, long, pointy chin, tuft of a beard.

Remarkable.

The Good, the Bad, and the Beautiful

The good news: Elisheva (our congregation's rabbi) and her daughter came over for Shabbat dinner last night in the sukkah. The bad news: I missed it, being out of town. The good news: I was out of town visiting my folks. The bad news: the trip was by way of Philadelphia. The good news: flights were smooth and on time. The bad news: the initial flight left SFO at about 6am. The good news: I got into Syracuse not long after 5pm. Combine the route and the time: that's where the beautiful comes in, which makes this last doubly good news.

Sometimes, it would be nice to have a direct flight (sometimes?), non-stop from SFO or SJC to Syracuse. Though I've flown direct here three times, they'e never been non-stop, and they took 10-12 hours of flight time (once in 11 hours elapsed, once in about a day and half elapsed). Much as I love general aviation, the nature of the trip has to be a bit different from this one to use the Mooney instead of the airlines. (I suppose if I had a TBM850, it would be a different story. Fast as 2FR is, a TBM850 is quite a bit faster!) Flying the airlines into a small market like Syracuse means at least one stop and an almost certain plane change. Philadelphia ended up being a fortuitous choice, even though much less direct than, for example, Chicago, Denver, or St. Louis.

Though we're very (very, very, exceptionally) spoiled by the weather in the Bay Area, we lack the spectacular fall colors of the northeast. I miss those colors. Heading to Truckee is a consolation, but only that. (Yes, the aspen groves in full color are fabulous, but still nothing compared to an entire counrtyside in the autumn of the northeast) Flying from PHL to SYR in the late afternoon presented the most lovely vistas. As we flew north, the hills changed color, from a rather dull greenish-yellow to brilliant yellows, golds, oranges, flaming reds, deep reds, speckled throughout with green. As the sun set and the light got longer the hills all-but came alive with their colors.

I wished I'd been on that flight in the Mooney, down low, around 3,000 AGL, taking it all in.

Variety vs. Serenity

I didn't realize I was making the choice. At least, not this particular choice.

When I ride to work, it's through the Baylands Nature Preserve and Shoreline Park, then along the Stevens Creek Recreational Trail. Especially the part that's all but right at the Bay shoreline is a lovely way to start the day. Often, the sun's shining (these days, it'll be not far from just having risen!), there's no wind, it's quiet, there are very few others out on the trails, the shorebirds are feeding close-in to shore, often in large clumps, and it's remarkably peaceful.

For a change of pace, I rode up to Foothill Expressway and then into Los Altos. I used to ride along Foothill occasionally, when I biked frequently back 25 years ago (before my wrists made bicycling on a diamond frame very uncomfortable), and lots of people ride along Foothill today. The road's fairly flat—a few rolling hills, but nothing that even pretends to be steep, an important characteristic of a route these days, while my legs figure out just what to do with a 'bent.

Wow! Talk about a jarring experience. I'd forgotten what it was like to have lots of traffic whizzing by at 45-50 mph just a few feet away. Whiz, whiz, whiz, whiz, whiz. And traffic wasn't even terribly heavy!

It might just be "the same old route" over and over, but until I'm ready for bigger hills that are a bit off that beaten path, I think I'll stick to the serenity of the Baylands and Shoreline!

Serendipities

Serendipities can be such wonderful surprises.

I found out about the Stanford Hospital's Jewish Chaplaincy's shofar sounding event (noon today at the hospital). As much as I enjoy sounding shofar, knowing that this would be the only opportunity for some in that community to fulfill the mitzvah of hearing shofar, I went.

Kids from Hausner went, too.

Aviv Monarch was there with them! Such wonderful memories from when the kids were at Hausner, sounding shofar each morning in Elul with them, sounding with Aviv, such an inspirational teacher for so many students. Faces lit, shofarot were juggled to make room for hugs, all-too-brief updates exchanged.

It was a wonderful surprise and, though it should certainly have been wonderful, I really shouldn't have been all that surprised once I learned that Hausner would be there: Aviv and his shofar were, when the kids were there, legendary!