Hello to everyone who cared enough to stop by. Essentially what I envision for this space is to comment on issues, mostly related to politics and sports, and to generate discussion among friends.
I had a lot of fun doing the blog when I was living in Ireland and while my living arrangements and day-to-day activities are no longer exotic, I'm hoping to return to the quality of the previous blog. There are two voids to fill: first, a creative writing outlet that I get antsy if I don't have (I have to do academic writing now - it can be enjoyable but it lacks flavor), and the ability to talk to my friends and family about things that matter to us since we all grew up and moved to disparate parts of the country. Feel free to stick me if the quality ebbs or things become either too preachy or to oriented around "things that piss me off." No one likes a narcissist or an emo-kid.

Politics
I saw the recent inauguration more like a coronation. I started to write a play-by-play commentary on it last week but never went though with it, and I'll forgo a detailed treatment of it. Suffice to say I thought it was pretty un-American to sell the rights to the concert to HBO so the majority of Americans couldn't see it it live. Or, as Richard suggested, patently American in its cutthroat capitalism. Oh, and I emailed Rahm Emmanuel to let him know I'm available to write speeches...

As far as Obama's opening moves, which seem to be as productive as advertised - more akin to knight/bishop pinning than central pawn pushing - there seems to be more waiting to be done. I must confess that I was pretty confused by the revocation of the "Global Gag-Rule" on abortion funding, in that it seems so silly I feel like I've missed something important. I can see the problem with being too choosy with federal money and withholding it for anyone who counsels abortion (because I'm fine with it when the mother's health is in question). What I don't understand is why we're funding family planning in other countries. I'm baffled that our tax dollars are being spent on that at all, abortion or no abortion. I'm open to an explanation from someone in all seriousness who can show me the reason we do this at all.

I was encouraged by the closing of Guantanamo, as I'm sure all intelligent people are. However, I think there are serious questions about the way forward. The Bush Administration wasn't kidding when they said there were reasons why it had to stay. Several of the people released from there went straight back to al-Qaeda (and we didn't deal with them in a way that would suggest any other outcome). They can't be put in normal max-security prisons, with people who did GTAs and Enron executives and people who offed their spouses. As a matter of fact, they can never interface with other inmates of any kind, ever. For their own safety. They're in a gray area in our Constitution and also in the Geneva Convention, so we don't even know how their going to be tried. Obama made a good move in starting to fix a horrible international embarassment, but he has these serious questions to answer now. Can he? What do you think should be done with the Guantanamo inmates?

The bailout passed. It's pretty obvious we needed a stimulus package, and its well done by Congress to go ahead and get it passed. The Republicans in Congress face a dilemma over whether to be cooperative or oppositional at the beginning of the Obama era, and they stand to lose a lot with either choice. As a moderate conservative who supports Obama, I was hoping they'd be cooperative, but they voted against the stimulus package in the House. In this case, I think they made the right choice and for the right reasons. See, many of us know only one detail about the stimulus package: its overall cost, and no more. It happens to be loaded with useless pork that was apparently irresistible for the Democratic majority, even at such a crucial time. $200 million for contraceptives for low-income families. I don't fall in with the Cro-Magnons who oppose sex education for kids and prefer abstinence-only counseling over contraception. However, I walk upright and use my thumbs to feed myself and I can immediately sense the idiocy of such a provision in a package like this. I'm looking for someone who's had a closer look at the fine print of the whole package and can comment more extensively on the possible pork and whether the contraception made it through the House committees.


Sports
There's more to come here with sections on college basketball, college football, the NFL, and soccer/football.