next

"He has a picture of you," says this girl I know but have never met. She's nothing like I've pictured: my image relied too much on her old-fashioned name, the stories I've heard of her struggles.

"He does?" I say, surprised but again not.

"Your hair was different then, shorter," she gestures. "But he still has it," she says brightly, as she concludes the photo is old.

I nod, wondering and realizing and thinking fondly of her brother. "I always did like George." I say it because it's true, and I say it to make a connection. No reason to worry that his reputation precedes. I smile when she tells me, "I'm nothing like him," anyway. I am an older sister.

We chat about his whereabouts, poke a little fun together as we walk down the hall to do her enrollment; she'll be my student next year, along with thirteen other freshmen. Until now they were just numbers: four non-English speakers, two beginners, four special education, three in various stages with various issues. Three described to me collectively as, "the devil," one selective mute. But now I'm here, and they're just kids, kids on good behavior because I am new, and I am High School. I am happy to take advantage.

Next school year, when they show up, I won't be a stranger regardless of cousins or brothers. I'll be the familiar face who helped them that time and will help them again. It'll make a good start, and, boy, will we need it.

First Petty and now Springsteen, it's like I'm picking

One of the stars in this video will play in Sunday's big game. The one who plays football will not. Bring on halftime already!

Finally, Progress at Ballpark Village

I suppose those footprints could be CGI too, just as I expect a computer-generated cityscape to be broadcast this summer when Busch hosts the All-Star game. I mean surely we won't show the nation a ditch full of stagnant water where we were promised shops and restaurants would be. I guess time will tell. But in the meantime, snow sure makes everything look better, doesn't it?

Dowd Unglued: Wall Street's Socialist Jet-Setters

By MAUREEN DOWD

As President Obama spreads his New Testament balm over the capital, I’m longing for a bit of Old Testament wrath.

Couldn’t he throw down his BlackBerry tablet and smash it in anger over the feckless financiers, the gods of gold and their idols — in this case not a gilt calf but an $87,000 area rug, a cache of diamond Tiffany and Cartier watches and a French-made luxury corporate jet?

Now that we’re nationalizing, couldn’t we fire any obtuse bankers and auto executives who cling to perks and bonuses even as the economy is following John Thain down his antique commode?

How could Citigroup be so dumb as to go ahead with plans to get a new $50 million corporate jet, the exclusive Dassault Falcon 7X seating 12, after losing $28.5 billion in the past 15 months and receiving $345 billion in government investments and guarantees?

(Now I get why a $400 payment I recently sent to pay off my Citibank Visa was mistakenly applied to my sister-in-law’s Citibank Mastercard account.)

The “Citiboobs” — as The New York Post, which broke the news, calls them — watched as the car chieftains got in trouble for flying their private jets to Washington to ask for bailouts, and the A.I.G. moguls got dragged before Congress for spending their bailout on California spa treatments. But the boobs still didn’t get the message.

The former masters of the universe don’t seem to fully comprehend that their universe has crumbled and, thanks to them, so has ours. Real people are losing real jobs at Caterpillar, Home Depot and Sprint Nextel; these and other companies announced on Monday that they would cut more than 75,000 jobs in the U.S. and around the world, as consumer confidence and home prices swan-dived.

Prodded by an appalled Senator Carl Levin, Tim Geithner — even as he was being confirmed as Treasury secretary — directed Treasury officials to call the Citiboobs and tell them the new jet would not fly.

“They woke up pretty quickly,” says a Treasury official, adding that they protested for a bit. “Six months ago, they would have kept the plane and flown it to Washington.”

Senator Levin said that the financiers will not be able to change their warped mentality, but will have to be reined in by Geithner’s new leashes. “I have no confidence that they intend or desire to change,” Levin told me. “These bankers got away with murder, and it’s obscene that close to nothing is being asked of financial institutions. I get incensed at the thought that a bank that’s getting billions of dollars in taxpayer money is out there buying fancy new airplanes.”

New York’s attorney general, Andrew Cuomo, always gratifying on the issue of clawing back money from the greedy creeps on Wall Street, on Tuesday subpoenaed Thain, the former Merrill Lynch chief executive, over $4 billion in bonuses he handed out as the failing firm was bought by Bank of America.

In an interview with Maria Bartiromo on CNBC, Thain used the specious, contemptible reasoning that other executives use to rationalize why they’re keeping their bonuses as profits are plunging.

“If you don’t pay your best people, you will destroy your franchise” and they’ll go elsewhere, he said.

Hello? They destroyed the franchise. Let’s call their bluff. Let’s see what a great job market it is for the geniuses of capitalism who lost $15 billion in three months and helped usher in socialism.

Bartiromo also asked Thain to explain, when jobs and salaries were being cut at his firm, how he could justify spending $1 million to renovate his office. As The Daily Beast and CNBC reported, big-ticket items included curtains for $28,000, a pair of chairs for $87,000, fabric for a “Roman Shade” for $11,000, Regency chairs for $24,000, six wall sconces for $2,700, a $13,000 chandelier in the private dining room and six dining chairs for $37,000, a “custom coffee table” for $16,000, an antique commode “on legs” for $35,000, and a $1,400 “parchment waste can.”

Does that mean you can only throw used parchment in it or is it made of parchment? It’s psychopathic to spend a million redoing your office when the folks outside it are losing jobs, homes, pensions and savings.

Thain should never rise above the level of stocking the money in A.T.M.’s again. Just think: This guy could well have been Treasury secretary if John McCain had won.

Bartiromo pressed: What was wrong with the office of his predecessor, Stanley O’Neal?

“Well — his office was very different — than — the — the general décor of — Merrill’s offices,” Thain replied. “It really would have been — very difficult — for — me to use it in the form that it was in.”

Did it have a desk and a phone?

How are these ruthless, careless ghouls who murdered the economy still walking around (not to mention that sociopathic sadist Bernie Madoff?) — and not as perps?

Bring on the shackles. Let the show trials begin.

alert

I know the girl has no school today: the cancellation for snow has been confirmed via websites and e-mail. I suppose it's on TV. Now I'm waiting for the phone to ring so I can go back to bed. The snow day robocall is one of my favorite technologies, though today I think I woke up at my usual pre-dawn time because I had not heard it. I got up to see instead of laying in anticipation, and now I'm stuck in this twilight as the machine works its way to P. Doomed to be awake, I have checked the list for neighbors and teacher-friends(good for all of you). I have fiddled with the reluctant furnace. I have scanned the headlines and learned, if that's the word, that, "Local ERs expect increase in slips, falls after storm." Good to know I'm not the only one sleepwalking through the morning.

Facebook in Reality

Passed along by one of my friends (as opposed to one of my "friends").

From the mouths of babes

This land

Whatever happens in the next 4-8 years, let's at least remember this.

intervention

"I'm not going to tell them that. Are you nuts?"

"You won't be in trouble," I say, without quite knowing if it's true. But he rouses himself from his slouch in the corner and goes willingly to Chemistry for the first time maybe ever. And when he leaves I abandon my gathering class and warn him as he walks that if he won't go to the nurse, I will. I veer first to Guidance, roust his counselor then his principal, assemble a posse that fans out between classroom and clinic. The speed of our steps tells the story.

Doors are opened and shut, chairs pulled up beside. Denials are issued and vitals are taken. All are inconclusive.

I again meet his principal out in the hall. "He says he was joking, that you just overheard." I tell him the actual story, the one about the friend and the pills and the pain he was feeling: the facts as presented to me directly a ten-minute eternity ago. The father is called.

I'm not wrong. I am not mistaken. His past habits, his struggles, his complaints this morning--it adds up to a negative sum. Officially, what's true is irrelevant. His early morning confession is like shouting "bomb!" at the airport: say the word, be exited regardless. Liability is the watchword. But it's not why I dashed down the hall.

high school crush

"Ms. P! Look!" and she gestures me over to the antique computer and nods at the screen with covetous eyes. It's displaying an iphone case imprinted with Obama's face: cool multiplied by cool, circa January 2009.

Across the aisle, her friend calls to me, "Have you seen the shoes?" and points to presidential sneakers on the folded-back page of some teenage magazine. She has shown me before, recited the price: $60 announced with a half-awed, half-calculating voice.

They are not kidding. Instead, they are smitten. And really, who could blame them? I feel a little infatuated myself with the entire First Family and its smooth elegance, confident ease, and intelligent grace. What's not to admire? I'm sure we'll know soon enough. But in the meantime? It's beautiful. Just beautiful to me.

1000 More Words

from Popular Science. Click to see all the ants, I mean people.

1000 Words

Moving Day

And so they'll walk in to the Residence after the parade, and everything will be there. Clothes hung in closets, not piled in a heap. Photos displayed, walls anything but bare. The kitchen stocked with more than take-out and pickles. Tidy and finished, not endlessly cluttered. One final touch on a momentous day: it must be a little surreal.

Since the Bushes have mostly packed up and shipped out--good riddance--and the Obamas are leaving their Chicago home intact, tomorrow's White House transition won't be as much of a logistical miracle as is traditional. But still! What an out-of-sight experience.

The magical behind-the-scenes move has been my favorite part of Inauguration Day since I first watched Backstairs at the White House in 1979. I've more than made up in the, oh lord, 30 years since, but back then I'd never even moved once. And I was 10; I'm sure I didn't quite appreciate the work, but the beat-the-clock hustle captured my fancy. That and I think the verging-on-royal respect for the office: nothing moves until the outgoing exits, and everything's complete before the incoming does. It would have been enough to make even Amy Carter seem like a princess.

This time, of course, knowing that by tomorrow afternoon no sign will remain of the previous occupant is satifying in more seriously symbolic ways. But I know amidst all the balls and the speeches I'll also think of a family arriving home for the first time with everything taken care of and squared away. Compared to picking a path through cartons that should have been ignited not relocated, it sounds like the beginning of a fairy tale to me. It won't be, of course, not even remotely. But for their sakes and ours, I hope there are moments.

random tip of the day

The LIFE Magazine photo archive has been added to Google image search.

That, btw, is the front of the New York Stock Exchange in 1929. No reason.

just do it

How can I capture that tone?

"Ms. PppppPPPPpppPpPPPPpppPPppppPpppppp," is a whine that rises and falls, a failed wheedle that tightens my shoulders. A mistake. It is a too-common greeting before 7:30 a.m., an ungodly hour for conversation, let alone begging, let alone demanding, let alone insisting that all one's problems should go elsewhere for blame.

"I need a new geometry teacher." It's the second week of the semester.

"No." Even if it were possible, it wouldn't happen. "Besides, you said you liked him."

"Not now. He's going to fail me. He wants to." And with that, the button's pushed.

"Do we really have to have this conversation?" I want to say. "Do we really have to do this?" Do I really have to say for the six hundredth time that nobody wants kids to fail and that a 41 on a test in a class that you've skipped is not the teacher's fault?

I log in, pull up the grades, point out the zeroes and listen to him cling to an alternate reality where telling the teacher that attendance is none of his business has no consequence, where paying attention is entirely optional and effort is not required. We both are frustrated, him because he wants it to be easy, me because he's making it hard.

"Your grade. Your graduation. Your responsibility." The dreaded "R" word pulls the trigger:

"I don't care!"

"If you didn't, you wouldn't be in here," I say, and he raises his eyes to the ceiling with the universal adolescent gesture for, "why won't you do what I want?" The bell rings and the round ends. He walks away muttering, and I stand silent, resetting. It is 7:40 in the morning.

Podolak shuns Hawkeyes, chooses retirement over treatment

Legendary Iowa football radio broadcaster Ed Podolak has resigned after 27 years of Hawkeye coverage. The university apparently demanded he seek treatment after photos of a drunken Eddy in Tampa for the Outback Bowl surfaced on the Internets. The following is an exceptional column by my friend and fantasy football combatant.

Eddie's choice: Iowa football loses something
By Mike Hlas
Gazette sports columnist

The University of Iowa made a hard choice. So did Ed Podolak.

As a result, Hawkeyes football is losing something significant. It didn’t have to come down this way. But Podolak apparently is unwilling to change his ways and is walking away from something he loved with all his being, being part of Iowa football.

That’s a choice to which he’s fully entitled, just as the university was entitled to ask him to change the way he represented himself and the school while out in public.

Presumably under direction in this matter by Athletic Director Gary Barta, Podolak was urged to seek alcohol treatment and then be welcomed back to the Iowa football radio booth this fall for a 28th consecutive year as an analyst.

Podolak took the other option, to retire from broadcasting at age 61. It truly is something he had already been considering, by the way.

While Hawkeye football will always remain a focal point in so many Iowans’ lives, it’s immediately less than what it was two weeks ago.

You’re talking about a broadcaster who not only was able to make a chaotic game more understandable to untrained eyes like mine and probably yours.

More importantly, it was someone who did it with charisma, humor, presence, and above all, passion.

The next person who sits in the Kinnick Stadium press box chair next to Gary Dolphin might become really good. But he won’t be an icon.

All that said, Barta and his school were backed into a corner by Podolak’s behavior. Embarrassing Internet photos of an inebriated Podolak in Tampa pushed this along, but probably weren’t the origin of the ultimatum. There are too many stories out there, with less tolerance for them today in certain circles than there in days gone by.

More than a few Iowa football players have had alcohol-related incidents the last couple of years, and the university is plagued by the drinking culture of students in Iowa City.

So when a primary spokesman for Iowa football is shown to be impaired by drinking by photos on the Internet and the photos spread to Web sites hither and yon, it doesn’t play well in the university.

Nor should it. Even if it again magnifies the hypocrisy of the school and its athletic department.

The Hawkeye Huddle in downtown Tampa that was attended by thousands of Iowa fans on Dec. 30? An eyewitness said there were at least 30 beer-dispensers there. The venue was criticized by those fans three years earlier for not having enough beer. The “mistake” wasn’t made again.

As was critically noted in this section earlier this month, a beer company is a sponsor on Hawkeye radio broadcasts.

And wouldn’t it be interesting to see what effect it would have on attendance at Iowa football games if a total ban on alcohol was strictly enforced in university-owned parking lots on Game Day?

Willingly smack-dab in the middle of it all has been Podolak, a living mascot for Iowa fans.

He is the entirely approachable former Iowa football great and NFL standout. He’s the guy who always perfectly captured Hawkeye followers’ joy or frustration, then would celebrate or commiserate with them afterward at tailgates and taverns.

Frankly, he got rip-roaring drunk in public on several occasions. I’ve seen it a few times over the years. Countless camp-followers of the Hawkeyes have seen it more. It was in the public domain, whether the university wanted to ignore it or not.

Someone else can throw the stones at Podolak and get all holier-than-thou. My media brothers and sisters and I have been in a couple of those hotel bars at the same times he was present.

I’ve never run around with Podolak, but I would have loved to have spent hours listening to his stories, things that stretch beyond his vast football experiences. He’s been a real estate developer in Aspen, Costa Rica, and now northern California. He is friends with the Eagles — the band, not the football team.

Legend has it that Jimmy Buffett’s song “We Are the People Our Parents Warned Us About,” was written for his close friend Podolak.

When author Hunter S. Thompson died, I phoned Podolak for what I hoped would be on interview about his friendship with his Aspen neighbor. To my eternal disappointment, he didn’t want to do it.

In the interest of full disclosure, I’ve had a small role on Hawkeye football broadcasts the last three years at the end of games. I’ve talked about what just unfolded on the field after play-by-play man Gary Dolphin read an intro promoting The Gazette and Gazetteonline.com.

Some of the best validation I’ve ever felt was whenever Podolak nodded in agreement with something I said.

All that said, I’m in no way pooh-poohing Podolak’s alcohol-related actions. He is an adult who has made his own choices and continues to make them. He has also had a lot of people in black-and-gold who have given him this different kind of validation: Drink, Eddie, drink.

When he was arrested for public intoxication and interference with official acts after falling asleep on the lawn of the University of Iowa’s Pentacrest in 1997, there didn’t appear to be a blip in Podolak’s broadcasting duties.

He pleaded guilty to the charges, and was sentenced to 50 hours of community service and a $50 fine. He didn’t look back, and neither did the university.

Who has been the biggest enabler over the years since when Podolak would slur his words at a Hawkeye rally? That very university. But no more.

Not to worry, though. You’ll still be able to tote your 12-packs down Melrose Avenue on the way to your tailgates.

Go Hawks!

Pitts: History 'last refuge of the failed president'

By LEONARD PITTS JR.
in the Miami Herald

``History. We don't know. We'll all be dead.''
-- George W. Bush

Dear President Bush:

I am glad you are, at 62, still a relatively young man. I am glad you are in robust health. This means there is a good likelihood of your being with us for decades yet to come, and I dearly want that. You see, history's verdict is on the way, and I want you to see it for yourself.

We've been hearing the ''h'' word a lot from your surrogates, your supporters and you as you make your final rounds before handing over the keys to the new team. History, we are told, will render the truest verdict on your time in office. History, it is implied, will say you were a far better president than we ever gave you credit for.

You said it again Monday in your farewell press conference. History will have the final say.

It is a curious position for someone who has been, as the quote above suggests, rather dismissive of history's judgment. It occurs to me that, as patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel, so history is the last refuge of the failed president.

But you and yours keep returning to it, reminding us how Harry Truman left office not much more beloved than you are now, but history took another look and decided he was a better president than anyone thought at the time. Frankly, the very fact that you and your team repeatedly invoke the 33rd president in defending your legacy is rather telling.

That's not a defense, it's a Hail Mary pass. It's hoping against hope. Truman enjoyed an extreme makeover, yes. Most presidents do not.

Yes, history does refine our initial assessments of a given president. But those refinements usually move in increments.

You would need more than increments of movement, sir. You would need a football field. I don't see it happening.

Credit where it's due: you were the best U.S. president Africa ever had. Your work to reduce AIDS rates on the mother continent never got as much attention -- and praise -- as it deserved.

But there the list ends: I find it impossible to think of another praiseworthy achievement. The failures, though, rush readily to mind: Katrina, Abu Ghraib, Justice Department scandal, torture, Iraq War, Social Security, immigration . . . You leave a legacy of regression and division, and a nation worse off by multiple measures than before you took office.

But you know what, sir? That's not even the worst of it. No, the worst is the way you turned our government into a wholly owned subsidiary of the Republican Party, the way you disdained objective truth in favor of ideological fiction, the way you treated dissent as disloyalty, the way you repeatedly poured sewage on our heads and swore it was water from a mountain spring.

So yes, I'm happy you'll likely be around 20 years from now. Because, contrary to what you seem to think, it doesn't take centuries to get some initial sense of history's verdict. That takes about a generation. Meaning that when history weighs in on your presidency, you'll probably be here to see it. And I don't think you're going to like it.

Yes, I'm stepping out on a limb here. The future is, by definition, unknowable. But it is simply inconceivable to me that history will judge you anything but harshly. Frankly, I think it will judge us all that way, will marvel at the things we let you get away with, the principles Americans can betray, when they are scared.

As with the internment of the Japanese during World War II, and the McCarthy excesses of the 1950s, I think fear will be the defining statement of this era. Fear, and the terrible things we did, condoned and became as a result.

Godspeed, then, Mr. Bush. Good health and long life. I hope you live to hear history itself tell you what an awful president you were.

this time around

Her English seems to be improving. Either that or she's grown comfortable with me. I wish she wouldn't have so many reasons to talk, but I know better than that.

The first times we met she was collapsed on her couch, pausing between jobs in a blue uniform t-shirt. We'd spend a polite hour trying not to bother each other as I tutored her daughter in the bedroom. She'd sometimes get up, bring me a drink, sometimes bring me a chair. We would both look at the baby. In the beginning, she only said, "thank you," and I would nod, smile, and come back tomorrow.

More than a year has passed. The baby is full of bilingual chatter, and now her aunt is my student alongside the mother: a freshman and a wanna-be junior. Most of the time, they're here. But more often than I'd hope at a few minutes past my phone rings on an outside line, and a grown voice asks for Ms. P. I know who it is from the Caller ID; I know who it is from the timing. But I don't cut off her introduction. I listen to her more confident voice, and I promise to relay the message. I don't mind if she'd rather call me than the actual attendance secretary. Calling anyone is progress, a change for the better. An attempt to do it right.

Last January, the daughter called nearly every day for a while swearing she'd attend-- and then showed up in August. Better late than never, indeed. This being real life, the return hasn't been triumphant, but it hasn't been half bad. For a full-time worker/full-time student/full-time mother/ full-time teenager, she makes an honest effort. Or at least she tries more than she did when there was neither job nor baby. She's not there yet, but she might be. It's possible. It could happen.

I don't know what her mom expects, but I know what she hopes for. In the meantime we do what we can.

Iowa joins teacher-student sex craze

That's right. Even in this wholesome, family-friendly state, we've got teachers hooking up with students.

Granted, this is no Pamela Short affair. But still. When did this become fashionable?

Here's the gist from the Des Moines Register:

A Des Moines Dowling Catholic High School teacher has been arrested on a charge of sexual exploitation by a school employee.

West Des Moines police said today that Erin Marie Rohwer, 27, had a sexual relationship with an 18-year-old male student.

Rohwer was arrested at her home at 3900 Bel Aire Road in Des Moines. She was released on a $5,000 bond.

School president Jerry Deegan said at a press conference today that a member of the "Dowling community" called him to report "a possible inappropriate relationship."

He declined to say whether the tip came from a student, parent or teacher.

Sexual contact between any school employee and a student, regardless of age, is against the law in Iowa. A one-time encounter is an aggravated misdemeanor, while a pattern of sexual contact is a felony punishable by up to five years in prison.

Rohwer faces the felony-level charge.

Polk County Attorney John Sarcone said his office has prosecuted teachers, ministers, counselors and a psychiatrist in recent years. He declined to comment about specifically about Rohwer’s case.

“It’s not a daily thing,” Sarcone said. “But it’s not all that unusual."

Deegan confirmed that Rohwer is the daughter-in-law of Dowling choral director Karl Rohwer. She is the head of the English department and has taught at Dowling since 2003. Deegan called her a "very good and effective" teacher.

In a note to parents, Deegan wrote that Rohwer has been suspended.

"It is our understanding from law enforcement that this matter occurred off campus and outside of school hours," he wrote.

Krugman: The Obama Gap

from the New York Times

“I don’t believe it’s too late to change course, but it will be if we don’t take dramatic action as soon as possible. If nothing is done, this recession could linger for years.”

So declared President-elect Barack Obama on Thursday, explaining why the nation needs an extremely aggressive government response to the economic downturn. He’s right. This is the most dangerous economic crisis since the Great Depression, and it could all too easily turn into a prolonged slump.

But Mr. Obama’s prescription doesn’t live up to his diagnosis.


The economic plan he’s offering isn’t as strong as his language about the economic threat. In fact, it falls well short of what’s needed.

Bear in mind just how big the U.S. economy is. Given sufficient demand for its output, America would produce more than $30 trillion worth of goods and services over the next two years. But with both consumer spending and business investment plunging, a huge gap is opening up between what the American economy can produce and what it’s able to sell.

And the Obama plan is nowhere near big enough to fill this “output gap.”

Earlier this week, the Congressional Budget Office came out with its latest analysis of the budget and economic outlook. The budget office says that in the absence of a stimulus plan, the unemployment rate would rise above 9 percent by early 2010, and stay high for years to come.

Grim as this projection is, by the way, it’s actually optimistic compared with some independent forecasts. Mr. Obama himself has been saying that without a stimulus plan, the unemployment rate could go into double digits.

Even the C.B.O. says, however, that “economic output over the next two years will average 6.8 percent below its potential.” This translates into $2.1 trillion of lost production. “Our economy could fall $1 trillion short of its full capacity,” declared Mr. Obama on Thursday. Well, he was actually understating things.

To close a gap of more than $2 trillion — possibly a lot more, if the budget office projections turn out to be too optimistic — Mr. Obama offers a $775 billion plan. And that’s not enough.

Now, fiscal stimulus can sometimes have a “multiplier” effect: In addition to the direct effects of, say, investment in infrastructure on demand, there can be a further indirect effect as higher incomes lead to higher consumer spending. Standard estimates suggest that a dollar of public spending raises G.D.P. by around $1.50.

But only about 60 percent of the Obama plan consists of public spending. The rest consists of tax cuts — and many economists are skeptical about how much these tax cuts, especially the tax breaks for business, will actually do to boost spending. (A number of Senate Democrats apparently share these doubts.) Howard Gleckman of the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center summed it up in the title of a recent blog posting: “lots of buck, not much bang.”

The bottom line is that the Obama plan is unlikely to close more than half of the looming output gap, and could easily end up doing less than a third of the job.

Why isn’t Mr. Obama trying to do more?

Is the plan being limited by fear of debt? There are dangers associated with large-scale government borrowing — and this week’s C.B.O. report projected a $1.2 trillion deficit for this year. But it would be even more dangerous to fall short in rescuing the economy. The president-elect spoke eloquently and accurately on Thursday about the consequences of failing to act — there’s a real risk that we’ll slide into a prolonged, Japanese-style deflationary trap — but the consequences of failing to act adequately aren’t much better.

Is the plan being limited by a lack of spending opportunities? There are only a limited number of “shovel-ready” public investment projects — that is, projects that can be started quickly enough to help the economy in the near term. But there are other forms of public spending, especially on health care, that could do good while aiding the economy in its hour of need.

Or is the plan being limited by political caution? Press reports last month indicated that Obama aides were anxious to keep the final price tag on the plan below the politically sensitive trillion-dollar mark. There also have been suggestions that the plan’s inclusion of large business tax cuts, which add to its cost but will do little for the economy, is an attempt to win Republican votes in Congress.

Whatever the explanation, the Obama plan just doesn’t look adequate to the economy’s need. To be sure, a third of a loaf is better than none. But right now we seem to be facing two major economic gaps: the gap between the economy’s potential and its likely performance, and the gap between Mr. Obama’s stern economic rhetoric and his somewhat disappointing economic plan.

Be the change

That's the message of the official inauguration poster. According to Huffington Post reporter Sam Stein, "The image will be available on buttons, lapel pins, stickers and t-shirts."

No kidding? I bet I get 100 e-mail offers to get it free in exchange for a contribution of one sort or another. This pay-for-play business is not reserved for the rich and powerful.

Though I remain hopeful, I'm less optimistic with each passing day.

best laid plans

"So my mom and I had a conversation."

My heart sinks a little. She tells me, a little deliberately, how her mom doesn't want her to go to college here. How there's no reason to complete the program for free college money. She tells me about a hair salon in Mexico and her place in a chain of events. If her aunt gets married. If the new bride moves to Chicago. If this and if that, and if the other thing happens, then a business will change hands, and this girl will go back to Mexico. An aspiring nurse will cut hair.

I feel my shoulder drop. "All I'm saying," I lie, "is that you should never close a door."

"You know, " I say, "as well as I do--better--that sometimes things don't work out."

She nods.

"My mom said it would be easier. It does sound easier." She correctly interprets my look.

I can't help it: "But you have always wanted to be a nurse!" She agrees.

We sit.

"I didn't think you wanted to live there."

"I don't. But I might." I tell her I understand, that I think she probably can't know what she wants, since when she lived there she was just a girl. She continues to try to convince herself. I listen. The arguments are sound, some of them. More realistic, I finally confess. Except for the fact that they ignore everything she has always wanted and believed in order to satisfy someone else. But, family is family. I try to know my place.

I do not claim to have the answers. I do not criticize. "More education can't hurt," I tell her. I do not change her schedule, and she does not object.

Reacquainted

Two kids in a chair meant for one: I think that's what I remember. Hanging out in a room I can't quite recall. Dark paneling, maybe. What seemed like the first VCR ever. An old house, with narrow stairs. A Saturday, could be, or maybe the summer. A polo shirt with a turned-up collar-- yes, it was that many years.

His friend was my friend, so we knew each other, kinda. We knew each other well enough to electronically say, "Hey, Friend, remember?" then spend a few minutes catching up here lately. A quick glimpse is plenty, if that's all there is, but oh, those intervening years.

The center of this not-quite-trio is still in that same country town, the one where uptown is a place called Dairy Queen even though it isn't and downtown is the flag pole, turn around and cruise back. She lives down around the corner, I think, from the home that is fading from my memory, the one over next to the cemetery. I believe I still could find it. She has kids now, and Jesus, but in her notes she still sounds like the girl who hid joints in her room and took me to parties out in the fields.

And him, he's on his second or third real city, now two time zones away. He has what we'd have called a big job, a house, two dogs and a husband. None of that is a real surprise. He is so far away, in more than one sense. She is right there. I look for things in common between them, see two lives chosen. Satisfaction. I think those kids would be pleased.

Delayed gratification is no stimulus

President-elect Obama began to lay out his economic stimulus proposal today, and I'm worried. Isn't two weeks before inauguration a little early to begin laying down for Republicans? Apparently, tax cuts are a significant part of the package in an effort to sway the minority party -- and, I suppose, to be able to say you cut taxes. At least make them retroactive to 2008. Otherwise, sellers will get all the stimulus and the buyers will get an IOU. That's not the change I was convinced to believe in. That's not really change at all.

At this point, it's either laugh or cry

Contest

Obama's inaugural committee is giving away ten trips to the event. To enter, one must either donate or write an essay ("Tell what the inauguration means to you."). I chose option B:

"This is usually only a Civics word," I sometimes say, as a heads-up to my students. They are learners of English as well as government, so they need every bit of context. They've no time for the confusion of trying to connect "impeach" to a fruit; I try to anticipate, fill in the gaps. And when a word's meanings and uses are multiple, when it's for life and not just for school, I tell them that, too. "Inauguration" is one of those words.

"Inaugurate," I might explain, is not often for conversation, but sometimes people use it. Although it means to start or commence or begin, it represents something formal and official. The day the new president starts working, I could continue, is called Inauguration Day. And here I know they'd stop me: "When?" I have been asked, a dozen times already, both before and after November. Being kids, they're anxious to get on with things. So, this time, is their teacher.

A skeptic by nature, I was, this Fall, energized and excited. I made phone calls. I knocked on doors. I gave money, and then I gave more. I collected magnets and buttons and t-shirts, both for myself and for my daughter. We joined tens of thousands under the Arch to see the man in person, more or less, and I let myself believe. The thrill of election night goes without saying.

Since then my hope is alive, but tempered. There is so much to overcome, both within our government and beyond. Each week the stakes seem higher, the challenges greater, but I remind myself: we've yet to begin. And that is what the inauguration means, what January 20 will represent: hope empowered. Action commencing. A formality that will translate into something we can all understand: times are different now. "Possibility" is again in our lexicon.

For new language learners, visuals are crucial. Pictures cut to the chase. If I am in my classroom at noon on Inauguration Day, the television will go on, and not just because I want to be part of this still. No matter what class I'm teaching, we will watch, and we all will learn. We will understand something about America and the workings of its government, but more than that, we will share in the experience. We will see the change with our own eyes. And we will know what Inauguration Day means.

question of the day

Do you think it's coincidence that the day the state's pay-to-play legislation goes into effect (much to Blago's chagrin, it's now illegal for contractors to contribute to those responsible for awarding state contracts) that billy clubs have been banned from government buildings and brass knuckles are completely verboten?