Favorite Olympic Moment

Matt Lauer is charming, self-effacing, and constantly improving as an interviewer.

Mr. Lauer, may you have many more healthy and happy years to come.

That having been said, Lauer (or someone in his ear) created my first Golden Moment of the 2008 Olympic Games.

The opening night of the Olympics, with its parade of nations, gives each one of us a chance to learn about the world beyond our borders, and about the people, cultures and history all around our planet.

That’s why I was so delighted to learn from Matt, as the team from Malawi entered the stadium, that we’ll recognize Malawi because that’s the country where Madonna built an orphanage.

So, if you’re scoring at home, that’s Greece, birthplace of the ancient Olympics, Turkey, crossroads between Asia and Europe, and Malawi, where Madonna did some nice things.

Ooh. Here comes Norway. Don’t bore me with stories of Valhalla and Odin and Thor. Don’t tell me about Norwegian resistance in World War II. Just tell me—what does Leonardo di Caprio think of it?

We learn so much from the stars.

Beijing! Awhawww ....Mmmm!!!

In the Simpsons episode "Lisa Gets an A," Homer buys a small lobster named Pinchy, and brings him home to fatten him up, to eventually have a large lobster dinner.

Homer becomes attached to his red friend, and when it comes time to eat him, Homer cries as he remembers their friendship, and then says “Mmmm” after every bite, because the lobster is so delicious. “Aw-haww...Mmmm! Aw-hawww....Mmmm!”

It’s the experience I had watching Beijing’s opening ceremonies to the 2008 Olympics. Boy is that beautiful—my God, they’re so repressive. Gee, look at all the people who worked on that— How many of them at gunpoint?

Look at the beautiful children of China— whose parents needed a permit to have them in the first place! Such strong and limber gymnasts—what happened to the kids who didn’t make the cut? Are they in camps somewhere?

How lovely… there’s the symbol for peaceful unity… and there’s the symbol for Walmart!

Eyes Open, Please.

Already, the mumbling and grumbling have begun. Liberals are discovering that, lo and behold, Barack Obama is—horror of horrors!—a politician.

People have, for months, been crusading for a new kind of politics, and a clear choice against war, and a candidate who will bring us all together, a pure candidate. Now they’re discovering that Senator Obama first, and foremost, wants to win the election.

The liberals made the same miscalculation about Governor Howard Dean, the current Democratic Party Chairman. He, like Obama, believed in a fair and well-run government, but he was also a politician.

I disagree with Alvy Singer, Woody Allen’s character in his masterpiece, “Annie Hall,” who says “Lyndon Johnson’s a politician. That’s one notch underneath child molester.”

There’s no purity in politics. It’s not a field for people who don’t want their food to touch on the plate. In a democratic republic, the American form of government, compromise is called for in the Constitution. That was the whole point of dividing up the power.

Any candidate for the Presidency is committed to formulate policy that will work best for the United States. If that means you pledged “no new taxes,” but now find you have to raise taxes, you do it. Not because you lack character, but because nobody campaigning for the White House can possibly know how our circumstances will change.

If the Illinois senator has shared a detail or two about potential future policies, and those details don’t fit the liberal or independent orthodoxys, that’s no reason to withdraw your support.

The devil is in the details, of course. Which leads me back to my original reservation about Obama. Not that it would ever sway me over to vote for Senator Doubletalk.

My reservation is, Mr. Obama’s enjoys listing all the specific ways that the politicians and the politics of the last thirty years have failed. But he talks about the future in lofty generalities.

While he’s spoken nobly of improving all of our lives, and the character of our country, in general, I know of no one precise policy that Mr. Obama has promised to uphold. Perfect for an era where specifics make you vulnerable.

And just like a politician.

Conservation Guru, Anyone?

Advocates are calling on us to reduce fossil fuel emissions and conserve energy by reducing our speeds on the road. We’re also recycling more, to reduce waste and get more out of the packaging we use.

Plus, it helps to reduce the amount of air conditioning we run and to turn off lights once you leave the room.

All good ideas, but I need to find a “Conservation Guru” on some mountaintop to ask (after removing my sandals and bowing in humility):

If I’m driving uphill, do I conserve more energy by driving slowly, or by getting out of first gear, where my car works the hardest?

If I’m going downhill, do I conserve more energy by braking the car to slow down, or by using the momentum of gravity to create some of my cars acceleration?

Do I save more energy by shutting off the air conditioning completely when I leave, or by setting it at a reasonable temperature so that when I come in at 2 in the afternoon I don’t have to blast it to cool it down?

Do I save more energy by turning the lights off every time I leave the room, or only if I’m sure I’m not coming back in in a couple of minutes? In other words, does it take more energy for the bulb to burn, or to turn it on? Actually, I have the same question about the car. If I’m stopping for under a minute should I keep the car running? Doesn’t it use the most fuel when I start it up?

Does the amount of energy and water used to clean my recyclables, and the resources necessary to reconvert the plastics back into usable plastic objects, justify the recycling process?

How about paper? Why don’t newspapers simply pick up the papers at the end of the week, the way milkmen did back in the day?
Pick up the “empties,” recycle them, and send ‘em right back to us the next week.

Is it fair?

I rent my home.

It’s not that I don’t want to own a house. It’s not that I don’t understand that home ownership is one of the keystones of our communities.

It’s that I can’t afford to buy a house.

My work supports me. But when I looked at the cost of houses, the crazy mortgage terms out there, the important additional budgeting you need for repair, maintenance and upgrading the property, and the insecurity of the business I’m in, I felt that it’d be irresponsible to buy a home.

If you bought your home, that’s terrific. I think it’s wonderful.

Now, here comes the tough part. I pay taxes. Including property taxes, by the way—they’re passed along in my rent. But why should my tax dollars be used to help out homeowners who got in over their heads?

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t want anyone to go homeless, or needlessly suffer.

But while I’ve been living within my means, people have been going out and getting second and third mortgages, and buying themselves everything they “deserve.”

Life challenges all of us. All of us deserve the best.

But if you’ve just eaten a lavish gourmet meal, why should somebody who never entered the restaurant have to pick up the check?

S U V; No C U

While we’re on the subject of happy motoring, let me mention… gas guzzler gas guzzler gas guzzler… that’s all I hear about SUVs. Believe me, they’ll eventually find a way to make SUVs a lot more fuel efficient. And when they do… SUVs will still be a terrible idea.

Let’s remember that all of our roads, parking spaces, no parking zones, signs, lights, intersections and lane lines, are all based on the idea of a society predominantly filled with sedans, wagons, or coupes, their widths fairly standardized, their drivers relatively close to the ground.

All these years, when the surveyors came out with their little tripods and markings, they’ve based their measurements on the standard lines-of-sight in a sedan-dominated world.

Our roads are a national, state and city “common.” They’re an area we all share. It’s like a neighborhood grazing ground. If your cows eat more, it’s less for everyone else. If your vehicle is taller and wider, you take away visibility, maybe safety, and certainly peace of mind, from everyone else on the road.

If you’re in front of me in an SUV, I can’t see where I’m going. If you’re parked next to my car, in an SUV, I can’t see oncoming cars when I back out.

In traffic, the driver behind you has no idea what’s going on—what other traffic is in the area, why there’s a delay, or what obstacles might be coming up.

My first objection to the whole giant car craze is, you’ve just built walls around the rest of us.
Sure, then there’s that whole thing of consuming the same amount of gas that I use when I drive my sedan, if I’m towing a flaming gas tank behind me.

I Hate to Nit-Pick

On July first, California's new "hands-free" cellphone law went into effect, requiring all drivers to use hands-free cellphones.

There are only 2 things wrong with the law:

1. Drivers aren't complying with it. I've seen dozens of fellow motorists zipping by with their hands welded to their ears; and

2. If everyone complies, it won't work. The National Safety Council did a study on the dangers of cellphone use while driving. Their conclusion? It's not what your HANDS are doing; it's what your HEAD is doing:

"The study found that driver distractions due to cell phone use can occur regardless whether hand­held or hands­free cell phones are used, and that cell conversations create much higher levels of driver distractions than listening the radio or audio books.

The authors suggest that banning hand­held devices, but permitting hands­free devices in motor vehicles is not likely to significantly reduce driver distractions associated with cell phone conversations."

Carnegie Mellon Professor Marcel Just told the Pennsylvania State Legislature the same thing, in March of this year.

But there are benefits. If you own a company that makes Bluetooth or other hands-free gadgets, this is a terrific law.

It's not that hands-free is a bad idea. It just doesn't solve the problem.