Why I’m supporting Barack Obama

Posted on by

Barack Obama appears to be a once in a generation candidate: he’s smart, he’s appealing, he speaks well, and he seems to be viewed more positively across the political spectrum than negatively. In addition, his policy positions are closer to mine than I could reasonably hope from a leading candidate. I’ve been supporting his campaign for a while, but haven’t been too vocal about it until now.

I should start off by saying that I think it’s clear that any of the leading Democratic contenders would do a much better job as President than any of the Republicans. In policy, in temperament, in intelligence, all three of Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, and Obama all have the makings of a very good President.

If Hillary Clinton weren’t the former first lady (can we lose that title?), she’d be easier to support; but after a sequence of Bush/Clinton/Bush, the last thing I think this country could use is another Clinton — handing power between two dynasties feels distinctly unamerican. Her early vote for the Iraq war was either too naive, too hawkish, or too cynically political; in any case, she was wrong and it reflects bad judgment. The 1994 health care plan showed her doing a bad job on policy and politics at the same time as holding Cheneyesque views on secrecy. And I think the intense dislike that much of the country feels for her is a problem, both in a general election and, assuming she’s elected, in governing; it could just be too easy for Republican legislators to demonize her and obstruct any of her proposals, with no political consequences.

I keep wanting to like John Edwards, but I find it hard not to fault him in part for the incompetence of the 2004 campaign. As a pro-business liberal, I think his policies on trade and globalization are wrong-headed and short-sighted. And, Edwards, too, has an Iraq war vote that shows poor judgment, even if he’s now willing to call it a “mistake.”

Obama, first and foremost, was right on the Iraq war in his pre-Senate days. At the same time, he isn’t isolationist or always opposed to intervention, as his statements about Pakistan made clear. I find his ability to make his policy a function of the facts appealing. As to details of his policy proposals, I prefer some to those of his opponents, some of his opponents’ to his (Edwards on health care, almost anyone else on ethanol), but, overall, there is not much difference among the Democratic candidates and a lot of difference between the two parties.

What also seems different about Obama, though, is his appeal and lack of negatives across the political spectrum, which makes him feel more like a Kennedy or Reagan than any other active politician. (That sense of Kennedy may only be true in hindsight and not reflect any actual mandate while he was alive; I was born three years after his assassination and have no memories of the time.) Obama’s success in his state senate career in uniting people behind progressive measures is impressive; getting things done counts.

Currently, it looks as though it’s Clinton’s race to lose. It would be a shame if she walks to the nomination without competition — it’s still early (even with this year’s ludicrously accelerated campaign schedule) and it doesn’t seem like much of the country is paying attention yet. Still, the good news is, any one of these three (or several of their competitors) would be as good a President as we’ve had in a long time.

Why I don’t blog more

Posted on by

In theory, at least, I like to blog. I’ve tried to do it for at least five years. And I’ve never averaged more than one post per month.

I’ve come to realize that there are two things which I consider important in my life: my family and my job. (This should be an obvious fact about a married professional with two children, but I’ve rarely stated it that way for myself.) Most of my time is spent on one or the other. Add in the things I can’t seem to avoid, such as commuting or home renovations, and I’m left with almost nothing. I’ve lost touch with lots of friends. I rarely end up replying to personal email. My job is my only hobby. I do the other things I want to do — work out, cook, read books, see friends — much less than I’d like to.

This applies in the internet space, too. I don’t blog often. I haven’t written any open source code in years. I use Wikipedia but I don’t contribute back very often. I don’t post photos publicly.

It’s also why I haven’t tried out social networks. It seems that I have a hard enough time keeping up with my existing friends using traditional means that adding new techniques wouldn’t help — it would just create more obligations for me — though I’m beginning to rethink that.

So, maybe, when I ask myself why I’m not blogging, I need to remind myself that, in fact, I’ve made it less important than the few things I do actually find important. And I admire the people who blog well quite a lot, especially if it’s not their full-time career.

Terrible title, but a surprisingly good movie

Posted on by

We watched Who is Cletis Tout? tonight. We’d held off on watching it, even though we’d had the disc at home for a while, because, given the title, we just weren’t looking forward to it. But it turns out to be a really fun caper movie. A little contrived and with holes in the plot, but I enjoyed it a lot more than I had expected to.

Kudos to Netflix for their recommendation system, which picked this as one we’d really enjoy.

Coulda, woulda, shoulda … but not really

Posted on by

First of all, congrats over to the team at Mint.com for going live and winning the Techcrunch40 prize. As a die hard Quicken user, I think it’s great that companies are pushing in this space. I can’t say I save money or time by using Quicken, but it lets me feel in control. (And I could always tell when I wasn’t feeling in control of my finances, because I would avoid Quicken.) I wish Mint much luck.

But I’m also left with a slightly nostalgic feeling — and even a bit of jealousy — because I tried to create a similar venture back in late 1999. I was coming off of another startup (which I got wistful for when I first heard about Entise Systems and Azul Systems), all my friends were starting web companies, and I thought that what the world needed was a web-version of Quicken. At the time, everyone I talked to thought it was a crazy idea. People wouldn’t trust some web company with access to all their accounts. I was too late and the market was going to be owned by Yodlee or MyCFO. Only obsessives used Quicken and they were already satisfied.

I built a small prototype that could import my Quicken data. And I managed to disable my Bank of America and American Express accounts a few times while building screen scrapers for them. More importantly, though, I learned a few lessons about startups (don’t try to do it as one person — you need moral support and someone to bounce ideas off of) and about myself (I’m good at technology but not at sales). And, after working on it for a few months, I realized I wasn’t actually interested in building and selling the product, only in using it. So, I closed it down and took a job at a startup some friends had founded, which then disappeared with most of the rest of Web 1.0.

I wonder if it’s still a crazy idea. I hope not. Mint, with their scraping and auto-categorization, seems to have done a nice job. I suspect I’m going to hold off on using Mint.com, because this is one kind of data I actually like to have sitting on my hard drive and not out in the cloud. At least for now.

Work is what we do

Posted on by

I read today’s NY Times article on Silicon Valley millionaires who don’t feel rich with a mix of amusement and annoyance. With a few exceptions, it doesn’t feel like the Silicon Valley I know — perhaps it’s just that, when I’m in the valley, I tend to hang out with hard core engineers. I’m astounded by the folks who consented to be interviewed and gave such idiotic-sounding quotes.

There’s one thing that the article does get right, other than the high cost of living in the bay area, which is that it does feel like everyone I know who made money in Silicon Valley credits luck as the first factor in their success. I think that’s right.

But the main thing that I’ve noticed among people who are still working after having made a lot of money is that money does not seem to be the reason they’re working. First, the typical Silicon Valley engineer, regardless of where they’re from, seems to have grown up with a middle class work ethic; absent work, they don’t know what to do. Second, people who work in tech usually have a sense of progress which is very tied to technology; when engineers think about making a contribution to the world, it’s often in terms of new technology — clean energy, a new programming language, organizing the world’s information, etc. Finally, most of us do like our work, at some deep level; how many Silicon Valley engineers do you know who wouldn’t putter around with technology in their spare time?

What in this changes when someone makes money? From what I can see, very little.

And what’s the alternative? Managing one’s estate? I think most engineers don’t want to become full-time financial advisers to themselves. Philanthropy? I’ve heard a lot of admiration of Warren Buffet’s approach, keeping working and giving away money to someone who knows how to give it away well. Playing golf or flying planes? There’s some of that, but it’s hard to get a true sense of accomplishment from most hobbies. I don’t think Silicon Valley should aspire to recreate the English upper classes of the 19th century, which seems to be the vision the Times article had for the wealthy.

As an aside, I know a good number of people who’ve gotten off of the treadmill and are retired. Some are happy, some are not, mostly the same as they were before retiring.

How does he know?

Posted on by

Senator David Vitter, caught in the DC madam brouhaha, said, according to the Washington Post, “This was a very serious sin in my past for which I am, of course, completely responsible. Several years ago, I asked for and received forgiveness from God and my wife.” Now, I’m not a believer, but how does one know that one has received forgiveness from the almighty? Isn’t there a certain lack of humility in such a statement?

Our Dinner at Ame

Posted on by

We celebrated our twelfth wedding anniversary last night with dinner at Ame. It was our first visit and we did it up: we shared a tasting menu, several other dishes, and a flight of wine and sake. That was right as a way to explore the restaurant, but I look forward to going back and just having the hamachi tataki and, especially, the black cod. If you’ve never had marinated black cod, it’s just a sublime dish, and this is a perfect rendition of it: soft and warm and lucious, with no one part overpowering the others. (To think that this is the same fish as the sable we got from the deli when I was growing up; also delicious, but very different.)

The dining experience is a bit of a contrast: the look is fashionable and stark, but the service was casual, friendly, well-informed, and helpful, offering tastes of this and that as we went along. I think some softer edges in the design would have fit the restaurant better. We’ve been to Terra, Ame’s older sibling, a couple of times. Ame’s food is at least as good and doesn’t require a two hour drive. I wonder if the more modern design of Ame was meant as a contrast to the rustic, homey Terra? In any case, we’re definitely going back.

Children of Men

Posted on by

We saw Children of Men tonight. It is unrelentingly bleak and one of the best movies I’ve seen in a long time. The handheld, jerky cinematography starts off distracting and then became essential to the storytelling. Terrific performances from everyone, especially Clive Owen, Julianne Moore, and Michael Caine.

(I’ve read most of P. D. James’s novels, but I hadn’t read this one; I’ve heard the movie diverged quite a bit from it. After Oryx and Crake, I wasn’t ready for another near future world without children. Now I’m probably going to give it a try, probably as an audiobook.)

What a beautiful, brutal film.

It was twenty years ago today…

Posted on by

I first moved to San Francisco twenty years ago. It was a different city then, and I was a different person, but it’s been a great place to live. It’s felt like home since just after I got here.

It was my sophomore year of college and I had been told to take some time away, grow up, and figure out if I really wanted to be in school. I had never been west of the Mississippi. On April 22, 1986, I took a People Express flight from Newark to San Francisco, paying $99 on the plane. I stayed at the Embarcadero YMCA, where I paid $20 per night. The desk clerk told me I had a room on the fifth floor and asked if I minded something facing the street; I thought it was fine, not realizing until I got to the room that there was an elevated freeway about a car’s length from my window.

That, of course, encapsulates a few of the changes to San Francisco. The Embarcadero Freeway is blessedly no more, a casualty of the Loma Prieta earthquake and San Francisco doing some sensible urban planning. The YMCA hotel is now the Harbor Court, which runs $220 per night, according to Trip Advisor.

I’ve had a bunch of different lives here: single, part of a couple with Susan, and as a parent; working for CalPirg or in Silicon Valley or as a consultant; renting and as a homeowner. Every life change has made me see new parts of San Franciso. In my early time here, AIDS and homelessness drove the tone of the city, which had a “we’re in this together” feel in those days. During the boom, geeks like me were (almost) the cool kids, though I never made it to cool kid. Now, as a parent, the awful state of the public schools, the frothy housing market, and the consequent flight of the middle class leave me depressed; at the same time, the physical plant of the city is better than ever: the new De Young Museum, the ballpark (which I voted against, but now approve of), Octavia Boulevard, the Ferry Building, and the soon-to-open Third Street Muni Line are all good things.

San Francisco feels more divided to me than it has before. There used to be some cohesion to being the most liberal big city in America, but now it feels like the infighting in local politics is dominating all the big issues. It almost feels like the city, after a long time as a forward-thinking place, has just fallen off the map.

I’ve lived and traveled elsewhere since I first arrived — back to finish school, some time in the UK — but I’ve been here for a total of about fifteen years of the last twenty and expect to call it home for as long as I can see.

Book of the Day: Perfectly Legal (David Cay Johnston)

Posted on by

Appropriately for tax season, I recently finished reading David Cay Johnston’s Perfectly Legal. The book describes the current state of the U.S. tax system; the description is of a no-longer progressive, mostly flat system which systematically offers loopholes to the richest while hunting for cheaters among the poorest.

Johnston covers taxes for The New York Times. I’ve read Johnston’s articles for years and I had expected the book to have the Times‘s grand, objective style. It doesn’t; it’s an angry, muckraking book about what he rightly sees as an injust transformation. The message of the book, ultimately, is that the tax code is promoting income inequality.

Johnston blames the current situation on the power of the “political donor class,” the rich few who make the bulk of political donations in this country. That’s undoubtedly true, but I think it’s only part of the story. I think that the rise of an anti-tax ideology as the key pillar of the dominant political party in this country — and the attribution of Republican success to the party’s opposition to taxes — has meant that, regardless of how it happened, taxation doesn’t need explicit opposition from the political donor class anymore.

His chapters on the lack of enforcement of the tax code among the rich and the tax-deniers were, I thought, the most interesting and informative. He also goes into great and informative detail Alternative Minimum Tax; the AMT has been discussed a lot, but Johnston makes clear how far from its original purposes it is today.

The book does has flaws. The biggest is probably that it’s very repetitive. On the other hand, for a book on taxes, it’s not in the least dry — this is a book which should make you angry.

The question, of course, is how to do anything about it. As a political donor, it makes me want to give money to candidates who’ll fix the system, even if that runs counter to a narrowly-constructed version of my self-interest. But nobody’s even running on a “collect the taxes we’re owed” or “make the tax system more progressive” ticket — as Johnston points out, people run away from those ideas today. I don’t think the American political mainstream includes the notion that taxes can be done well; ultimately, I don’t think the country can survive that for very long.