Giuliani Might Not Be the Candidate After All

Mitt Romney has just become the projected winner in Nevada. This means, more or less, that Rudolph Giuliani hasn't. He just retreated again. Maybe Giuliani won't be winning the nomination after all, but at least he has the consolation of not having tried.

Who Is This Subcommandante Person Anyway?

Subcommandante Marcos does not support Lopez Obrador because he believes the socialist candidate for the presidency of Mexico to be to conservative.

Subcommandante Marcos travels around Mexico on a motorcycle bicycle. Years ago, this would not have meant anything to any American (in Mexico, we are "estadounidenses," because Mexicans are Americans too.) Now, because of the movie The Motorcycle Diaries, a generation of estadounidenses will know what Marcos--the man in the wool mask--means.

Subcommandante Marcos believes that all Latin American governments, including the government of Hugo Chavez is a scam. He believes that these left-wing dictators have failed to deliver on what they have promised. The subcommandante (literally translated: Undercommander) desires that all natural resources be nationalized. He is opposed to privatization of Mexico's oil fields.

I doubt that Subcommandante Marcos is proud to be from the same country as the world's richest man.

Subcommandante Marcos is a ghost. He wears a black mask. His first name "Subcommandante" is an impersonal title. His last name merely means "Mark," the name of the traveling companion of St. Paul and St. Barnabas who refused to travel to Perga. He cared more for this life than his cause, at that time anyway.

Subcommandante Marcos no longer has an identity. Not one that can be put on paper or official documents. A rifle is always strapped to his back. A pipe protrudes from his mask. It might be part of his face, or maybe he breaths through it.

One wonders what Subcommandante Marcos is doing when he writes collections of fables and children's stories (one was published by the Lannan Foundation). Not long ago he tried writing a crime novel. A reviewer said that his co-writer was a lot better. He belongs to an outdated age, but I am told that women still find his mask to be cool. He is not a man of practical communism. He is the sort of mystic who still has faith without the religion. The others--Castro, Chavez, Obrador--learned, a long time ago, to endorse the religion without the faith. If there is one thing that is known, it is that people, whether directly or indirectly, die because of both types of men.

Some Notes on Nate Wilson's First Novel

I just finished reading Nathan Wilson's first novel, Leepike Ridge. After having read it, I can see why it is popular. Mr. Wilson is a good writer and his novel teems with luscious and imaginative descriptions of his fictional setting. The work, though it does not make any secret of this influence, is well informed of the classical traditions as well, whether this be the Homeric allusions which are scattered upon the surface or the classic adolescent adventure novels like Treasure Island, Kidnapped and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (mentioned in the acknowledgments) which make up the book's DNA. This does not mean that the novel is perfect. The allusions to the Odyssey seem forced, at times; for example, the characters "based" on Polyphemus and the Lotus Eaters are here members of a gang of treasure hunters which also includes a corrupt cop named Sirens. Perhaps Mr. Wilson does not intend a perfect transcription but is merely acknowledging his debt to Homer but, whereas Mr. Wilson is clearly interested in themes such as civilization in the same way that Homer was, the thematic make-up of both works does not comfortably parallel; Homer was concerned with civilization in the future tense, Mr. Wilson is interested with past civilizations. Furthermore, the boy hero of Mr. Wilson's novel, Tom Hammond is never sufficiently developed to embody the charisma that such a story requires. This role is not fulfilled until later, by Reg who becomes is surrogate father. But, in spite of this, Leepike Ridge is by far better than most adolescent literature which is produced in this day and age, and, if you are a starving college student who is unable to afford a copy not unlike I, than I would recommend finding someone from whom you may borrow it.

In Defence of Governmental Education

Steven Landsburg, a radical libertarian economist at the University of Rochester, had a somewhat polemical article in the NYTimes today in which he argued that the government should not pay for the reeducation of workers who lose their jobs to globalization nor give them workers' benefits. The premise on which he based his argument was that if people are unwilling to give money to the government when the benefit from free-trade, why should the government have to give to the people who don't benefit. Landsburg went on to argue that protectionists are "bullies" of sorts. They keep consumers from getting the best deals possible by regulating what leaves the country and, more importantly, what comes into it. For example, if I could buy a car in the United States for $10,000 and the same car in Mexico for $5000, then it is unfair for the government to charge me an additional $5000 to import the car in order to protect the autoworkers' union. On this basis, I agree with Dr. Landsburg from a purely theoretical point-of-view. I support free trade. But I disagree that reeducation programs and/or workers' benefits are unethical and should, therefore, not be practiced by our government. Education (and reeducation) of our workers, in fact, has largely positive economic benefits from the standpoint that it allows us to reallocate our industry in this country and find a new workforce whom we can adapt to it. This is the entire point of free trade: To assure that the right person fills the right job. Furthermore, if our trade deficit (the margin by which we buy more than we sell) continues to grow in this country, it may very well lead to further economic instability and higher chances of recession. With the decreasing value of the dollar, we have an opportunity to reverse this trend, and trade barriers are the last thing that we need to plague both the supply- and the demand-sides of production. Nevertheless, we're going to need a technologically literate workforce if we want to keep our edge as one of the world's leading industrial nations. Reeducating the unemployed is a step in the right direction, regardless of whether they deserve it or not.

Most Dangerous Places to Be a Vampire

1.) San Francisco, post-Summer of Love era

2.) Woodstock, NY - 1969

3.) Victorian London

(to be continued)

Three Generations That Didn't Shake the World

A few days ago, an odd sociological phenomenon which makes very little sense occurred to me. Namely, that the Baby Boomers were the first generation to beget (meaning have) children who filled two other generations. The spawn of the Boomers are represented by both Generation X (people born between '65 and 79) and Generation Y (people born between '80 and '95). This might mean the people are living longer and, therefore, extending the time period over which they choose to have children. But the solution that I find by far more likely is that the country, as a whole, is becoming wealthier; this was what allowed for Generation Y. Generation X were the children that were begat (not a real word, I know, but it should be) during the summer of love and Woodstock concert. They were born because their hippie parents couldn't afford birth-control pills or condoms. Generation Y, on the other hand, was born because their Yuppie parents (Boomers whose parents were Republicans) were able to afford not to wear condoms or take birth control; they could pay for a nanny, boarding school tuition and college fees. What is consistent about all three of these American generations is that none of them is particularly impressive, nor are there many in any of these generations who accomplished anything. The Boomers are perhaps the people who were radical until they needed to get a job, the Generation X's are the cynics who are entrepreneurial, and the YGens are still yet to have any notable members. But at least we're not of the MFA guild.

The Problem with Barack Obama

I was reading in a recent article (probably by a pundit) that Barack Obama has a stepbrother who he is, more or less, off speaking terms with. I suppose that wouldn't matter, but for the reason. From the passages in Barack Obama's memoir that I read, it appears that Senator Obama and his stepbrother decided not to write to one another because his brother did not have such kind "dreams of his father." Of course, Barack Obama hardly knew his father, so what is disturbing is that an abstraction of Sen. Obama's dreams could matter more to him than an actual person. Why we would want a leader like that I can't imagine.