Eideard

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Two months ago, the U.S. marked the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. Sadly, we commemorated a tragedy without celebrating much triumph. The post-9/11 moment was an unheralded instance of national — even global — unity. The Bush administration could have used it for almost anything. And, to be fair, it did. The nation burned trillions of dollars in two wars and a budget-busting round of tax cuts. The president told us to go shopping, and the Federal Reserve held interest rates at extraordinarily low levels. The result? Deficits and a credit bubble. That was missed opportunity No. 1.

Three years ago, Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. fell. The ensuing financial crisis dwarfed anything seen since the Great Depression…For a country with more than $2 trillion in unmet infrastructure needs, this is a remarkable opportunity. But it gets better. Weak global demand means raw materials are cheap. And the bursting of the housing bubble means unemployment in the construction sector is high. We can borrow at a bargain, buy at a bargain and ease the unemployment crisis in the hardest-hit sector of our economy, all while making desperately needed investments in our future competitiveness and quality of life.

Plus, if we don’t do it now, we’ll have to do it later. Delaying a dollar of bridge repair just means it’s a dollar we’ll have to pay later. And by that time, it might be more than a dollar, because it’s cheaper to repair a bridge than rebuild one that has crumbled.

So are we taking advantage of this opportunity? No. Are we seriously discussing it? No…That’s missed opportunity No. 2…

The Obama administration was able to use the aftermath of the financial crisis to pass health-care reform, which made a good start on both covering the uninsured and controlling costs. It also secured a package of financial- regulation reforms to limit the risks of another catastrophic meltdown. Today, Republicans want to repeal both laws, and if they win the next election, they might just get their wish. In the meantime, they’re defunding the implementation of the two laws, and bogging them down in the courts.

It’s entirely possible that we could wake in 2013 only to realize that we have made no durable progress on any of our pressing national problems over the course of the Bush and Obama presidencies, and have, in fact, made some problems worse. That would mean a loss of 12 years during which we could have been moving forward as a country. And we won’t be able to blame it on a lack of opportunities.

I don’t read Ezra Klein often enough to know if his remedies would have differed or agreed with mine as we trudged down this primrose path. Rules made by the incompetent and administered by the inept seem predestined to ennui and unproductive finger-pointing.

The hope we had following universal revulsion at Bush’s policies has been undone by reliance on uncreative legislation and leadership that smacks more of cowardice than clarity. Heading towards the potential of a second term for Obama versus a Republican party that wavers between simple-minded allegiance to corporate America and truly reactionary scumballs – I can’t rev up very much enthusiasm for one more election where I get to not vote for the evil of two lessers.

Like many of my colleagues in Silicon Valley, I was having a fantastic day today. It is crisp in the shade, warm in the sun. The skies are a magical blue with puffy clouds floating like dreams. And when all seemed to be going well, an email in my inbox — without as much as the new message sound — arrived: Letter from Steve Jobs. It was as if the inbox was observing the solemnnity of the occasion. It is an end of an era.

The first thought that ran through my head was about Steve’s health, and I thought to myself that this cannot be good. I don’t care about him being the CEO or head of Apple. What I really do care about is his health. He wouldn’t be making this decision unless things were pretty dire.

It is incredibly hard for me to write right now. To me, like many of you, it is an incredibly emotional moment. I cannot look at Twitter, and through the mist in my eyes, I am having a tough time focusing on the screen of this computer. I cannot hear the sounds of the street or the ring of my phone. The second hand on my watch moves slowly, ever so slowly. I want to wake up and find it was all a nightmare.

And while I wish for him to have more time with his family, I am also being very selfish. I will miss the thespian who made inanimate objects like a computer become a thing to behold. A few years ago, I compared Steve to Howard Hughes using the line, “Some men dream the future. He built it…”

Jobs (and by extension, Apple) has taught me (and I am sure others) a big lesson: If you want to change something, you have to be patient and take the long view. If Apple and Steve’s incredible comeback teaches us something, it’s that when you are right and the world doesn’t see it that way, you just have to be patient and wait for the world to change its mind.

Today, we are living in a world that’s about taking short-term decisions: CEOs who pray to at the altar of the devil called quarterly earnings, companies that react to rivals, politicians who are only worried about the coming election cycle and leaders who are in for the near-term gain.

And then there are Steve and Apple: a leader and a company not afraid to take the long view, patiently building the way to the future envisioned for the company. Not afraid to invent the future and to be wrong. And almost always willing to do one small thing — cannibalize itself. Under Steve, Apple was happy to see the iPhone kill the iPod and iPad kill the MacBook. He understands that you don’t walk into the future by looking back. If you do, you trip over yourself and break your nose.

Thanks, Steve.

Thank you, Om, for bringing insight and understanding to sadness. Thanks for opening the door to the future – that seemed like it was ready to be shuttered by the naysayers who never believed in anything enough to fight for it with their whole being.

Click the link in the post and read the whole letter. I’ve posted about half of it here.

A soldier who joined the French Foreign Legion after he was rejected by the British army on medical grounds is in line to be received into the Légion d’honneur for his bravery.

Alex Rowe, from Gloucestershire, was turned away by British recruiters as a teenager because he had a detached retina but, determined to follow a military career he signed up for the Légion étrangère, which accepts troops from any country.

Now 43, Rowe has served in the Gulf, the former Yugoslavia and has just returned from Afghanistan, where he earned his award after fierce fighting against the Taliban.

His mother, Jennifer…revealed that Rowe is to be received into the Légion d’honneur, the order established by Napoleon to recognise extraordinary service by military personnel and civilians…

Despite his history of visual problems, Rowe was first made a sniper and was known as a top marksman.

He was previously awarded for bravery while serving in Sarajevo after braving sniper fire to run across a city plaza and shield a mother and daughter from a hail of bullets. In all, his mother said he had already received four awards for bravery.

In Afghanistan he has been fighting alongside Britons, dozens of Russians, and others from as far as Algeria and China. He was involved in a gunbattle recently in which 10 comrades were gunned down.

My respect for courageous, brilliant members of any military is no surprise to regulars here. Day-by-day, the easiest way to distinguish between traditional conservatives and the occasional brain-dead right-winger who wanders in the door is understanding that many of us who fight against unjust and criminal wars don’t roll over and play dead just because we’re confronted with war.

Alex Rowe, I salute you.

The police officer who ended the Fort Hood massacre by shooting the suspect is known as the enforcer on her street, a “tough woman” who patrolled her neighborhood and once stopped burglars at her house.

“If you come in, I’m going to shoot,” Kimberly Munley told the would-be intruders last year.

It was Munley who arrived quickly Thursday at the scene of the worst massacre at an Army base in U.S. history, where 13 people were killed. She confronted the alleged gunman, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, and shot him four times. Munley was wounded in the exchange.

That’s just like her, friends and family say…

Munley, the mother of a 3-year-old girl, lives on a street where a lot of homes are vacant because so many residents are deployed at war in Iraq and Afghanistan…

“We sleep a lot safer knowing she’s on the block,” said Sgt. William Barbrow, another neighbor…

Her bio on Twitter makes the point: “I live a good life….a hard one, but I go to sleep peacefully @ night knowing that I may have made a difference in someone’s life.”

You surely made a difference, this time.

Our president said this – tonight.

Barack Obama in November 1991. He didn’t back down, back then, either.

An elderly British couple who died together at an assisted suicide clinic in Switzerland died “peacefully” after receiving “wonderful and humbling care” from their doctors, the couple’s family said.

Peter and Penelope Duff from Bath, England, died in Zurich on February 27, according to a statement released by their family and reported by Britain’s Press Association. Both had terminal cancer, the statement said.

“Penny had fought a rare cancer, GIST, since 1992 and Peter’s colon cancer had spread to his liver,” the statement said.

“Their decision in no way reflected on the wonderful and humbling care they have received from their consultant, doctors and nurses, for which the family, and they, were so appreciative…”

Dignity in Dying, a British charity that advocates the choice of assisted death for terminally ill patients, said it was “extremely sad” that the Duffs had to travel abroad to die.

“Had they had the option of an assisted death in this country they may still be alive, as their physical ability to travel would not have been a factor,” said Sarah Wootton, chief executive of Dignity in Dying.

Wootton called on Parliament to modernize laws on suicide to allow for assisted dying.

The sort of end I have to keep in mind – being an old geezer. I’d only have to travel about a thousand miles till I reached a state that has laws on assisted suicide that belong to the 21st Century.

Here in New Mexico, the good Christians of our state legislature oppose just about any modern idea this side of making a buck from alternative energy sources. We have a surplus of sunlight and wind – that is, non-political wind – so that works for our politicians. Otherwise, they’re about as courageous as an old crutch.

I’ve always really liked this pic [from chessbase.com], full of courage and determination. I hope she will never lose this indomitable spirit.

Her opponent is Jude Acers during one of his simuls. I was thinking of him today on account of the evacuation of New Orleans. Take care, Jude!

Related Link: Jude Acers’ Katrina Experience Revisited