Obama: Judged on what you build

Yesterday, in his first interview as president, Barack Obama reiterated a line from his inauguration speech directed at the Muslim world:

To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict or blame their society's ills on the West -- know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy.

It's a good line but when I first heard it, I was struck by how the second half of the sentence was a threat of imminent demise, not by the power of US bombs and bullets, but rather by a people who realize their leaders' policies and methods are bankrupt.

Again, Obama was addressing the Muslim world but I suspect he is aware that his statement is just as equally applicable to the former US administration as well as himself. To be sure, Bush tried to achieve presidential greatness through destruction. Whether it be terrorists, Social Security, FEMA, welfare, or banking regulations, Bush was always on the side of tearing things down. (To be fair, I suspect he honestly thought doing so was in the best interest of the country but alas, we know now that it was not, good intentions aside.) And sure enough, the people judged him accordingly and he was ran out of office with his tail between his legs: perhaps the closest we can get in a democratic system to a coupe.

Obama, I think, knows that people will judge him too by what he builds rather than what he tears down and I believe that his choice of words at the inauguration exhibit a degree of intellectual subtlety, nuance, and self reflection we have not seen in a while.

Thanks for commenting.

The Saudis: US Allies / Terror Sponsors

After 9/11, the US administration (and pretty much the whole of America) began lumping together terrorists into the same basket with those countries and groups that support terrorist organizations. In this equation, the Saudis were always the most problematic since the kingdom is a major sponsor of various kinds of terror, not least of which includes that directed at their own people (sound familiar?). Yet the Saudis are also staunch allies and friends of the US.

Well, here's yet another example of this profound irony.

At the close of the recent Israeli-Hamas "conflict," the Saudi king Abdullah pledged US$1 Billion to rebuilt Gaza. After seeing the horrific images of death and destruction that flowed out of the Palestinian territory over the past several weeks, few would object to such a gesture. But let's think about this a little deeper. How will the Saudi's donate this money to Gaza? Do you suppose they'll drop it from helicopters? Probably not. How about sending in Saudi diplomats to pass it out from door to door? Nope! Perhaps some NGOs will get a cut, maybe even the Red Crescent, to be sure. But almost without a doubt, the ones who will be entrusted with the largest portion of that huge sum of cash will be the territory's legal and democratically elected government: Hamas. Yes, the same Hamas that the Israelis and the US tell us incessantly is a terrorist organization.

The Saudis are close allies and friends of the US.
The Saudis give money to terrorist organizations.

Any questions?

Thanks for commenting

American images of Australia, in jest

Jon Stewart's joking about Australians but probably correct about Howard.

"Historian" among top ten jobs in the US

Being an historian is among the top 10 best jobs in the US, according to a survey reported on in the Wall Street Journal today. I wonder how my profession fairs in Australia; top 5 perhaps?

Ordering a Cappuccino from the driver's seat and other bunk ways to save Detroit

In a New York Times opinion piece published today, a Stanford professor of computer science (Sebastian Thrun) and a product manager at Google (Anthony Levandowski) propose four ways Detroit can "save itself." The suggestions are striking for their prohibitively high costs and complexity, and frankly, I can't see how any would address the American automotive industry's single biggest problem: how to make cars that have fuel efficiency high enough to counter the rising cost of driving.

In a nutshell, they propose the following:

1. Prevent fatal traffic accidents by installing WiFi technology into all the nation's cars, traffic lights, bridges, and intersections, allowing each to "communicate critical information" with each other.
2. Fix the problem of highway congestion and allow people to relax behind the wheel by building robotic cars that drive in a tight formation automatically, creating what's called a "highway train."
3. Build cars covered with photovoltaic cells to save fuel and "reduce our dependence on foreign oil."
4. Connect cars to the Internet. This will enable people to (ready for this?) make restaurant reservations or place takeout orders all from their cars. They will also be able to purchases instantly the songs they hear on their new Internet radio. Installing sensors on such things as parking spaces too, the authors suggest, will help drivers save time and fuel.

Suggestion 1 does nothing for fuel efficiency and the task of equipping the nations cars, traffic lights, bridges, and intersections with WiFi devices would be a monumentally complex project of enormous cost. It would also take many, many years. Sure it would save some lives but remember the assignment was to save something else: Detroit! How many people decide not to buy an American car because, as the article suggests, fog can be such a terrible hazard at intersections?

Suggestion 2 is just plain ridiculous (as is the accompanying sketch of a "highway train" made up of robotic cars, all lined up in an orderly file on the highway). I'm not an engineer but I think this one belongs to the realm of science fiction. If it were feasible, as it may be in a decade or two, I think cultural issues would prevent it from functioning well. Moreover and yet again, the complexity and cost of pulling such a thing off would be enormous.

Suggestion 3 is probably the best of the bunch but the authors themselves acknowledge that as a technology, it's far from perfected. It's not a short-term solution to anything, really.

Suggestion 4 is the most puzzling, not only because it echos suggestion 1 so closely (yet with a different but equally insulting image) but because it's entirely unnecessary with smartphone technology already achieving most of what it suggests.

Overall, I think these suggestions reflect the professional mind-sets of the authors. Notice how each relates to the advancement of computer infrastructure and Internet use? There's absolutely nothing on new legislation, bio-fuels, or alternate business models.

The biggest failure of this piece is that it lacks a clear problem to solve. They claim to want to "save Detroit" yet give no explanation for what's broken about it.

I have my own ideas on this topic but what do you think? What is the problem and how would you "save Detroit?" More fundamentally, should it be saved at all?

Thanks for commenting.