On The Shoulders Of Giants

“Not only do I want an elite president,
I want someone who’s embarrassingly superior to me.”
– Jon Stewart, 4/15/08

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A while ago, I posed this question to some friends: “Is loyalty a good thing?” Most of my friends said, yes, loyalty is a good thing. Only one person gave what I think is the right answer: “Loyalty to what?”
This editorial about the accusation of disloyalty to Steve McClelan reminded me of this question.

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I guess Desmond Tutu has joined the anti-Semites.

I haven’t written a daily wrap in a while, but today just calls for one. I got up and decided to stay home today. I worked until around noon and then I got very hungry. There was no food in the house. I called and ordered Chinese food. I paid with a credit card and completely forgot to tip the deliveryman. (Note to self: Find a way of paying him.) I sat on the couch multi-tasking: watching MSNBC and muting the commercials, eating Chinese food and browsing. TV was still talking about Hillary’s RFK comment. I guess, I only need to watch TV twice a week and due to the multi-day half-life of the news, I could still figure out what they were talking about without the risk of running into redundancy. I got tired of the TV and went back to my bedroom/office and continued work. I finished reading the FastCompany’s long article about China and Africa. I like this magazine. They ask good questions. I chatted with a friend and told him that I don’t have much hope for Africa. An hour later, he told me that he didn’t get the job that he so badly wanted and needed. I was speechless. I didn’t know what to tell him. I felt bad about talking to him about Africa on this hard day. Had I known…. Continued working. Around 7, I called my friend to console him but I didn’t have anything meaningful to say. He was at Borders, pondering his next move. I wrote a class paper on Standards of Competency for patients when making treatment decisions. Randi came home. She said her lesbian friend decided at the last minute not to go to Canada to see her family, because her traditional dad is still not accepting her. I got a message on Facebook by a guy from my entrepreneurship class and he said, I added you not because of the class but because you spoke up at the Horowitz event and I applaud you for that. I thanked him and said I’d be happy to do it anytime. This was the only positive note of this dissonant day.

This post makes some good arguments for putting James Webb on the Democratic ticket. These are some of the arguments: help with Obama’s credibility on military affairs, could campaign for the military vote, help Obama with white voters, openly defines himself as a “Reagan Democrat” and could bring the votes of the disenchanted republicans, Webb will protect Obama over his alleged weakness on national security, Webb can attack McCain on issues he is planning to run on, in office, Webb will be a good spokesman for some of Obama’s less favorite initiatives such as limiting excessive incarcerations.

A glimpse into how the Iranians treated the Afghan refugees:

“…Many told how unscrupulous employers offered them the drug, telling them it would make their work seem easier - and how in the end they had been rounded up and thrown back across the border, some after brutal treatment in Iranian detention….”

Among the maxims on Lord Naoshige’s wall, there was this one: “Matters of great concern should be treated lightly.” Master Ittei commented, “Matters of small concern should be treated seriously.”

My teacher gave me a sheet copy of ‘Ode to Joy’ of Beethoven. There are two variations, one of them starts on F, and the other one starts on E. The one on F, is a blasphemy.

Today, I really feel sorry for Hillary. After the ‘assassination’ comment in Sioux Falls and the media backlash, she must be going through very rough times. I believe, each one of us have a wide spectrum of ’selves’ within us and at different times we become guided by different ’selves’. Hillary has been guided by a very dark self of her for too long, and she needs to come out of it and redeem herself as soon as possible. I send her my best wishes.

When I was in middle school, I used to play basketball. I came across a book titled, “Bodybuilding for Basketball”. I got a kick out of the title of that book and I joked that one day, I am going to write a book on bodybuilding for chess.