Roosevelt the Great

Recently, I finished this book about FDR, and I loved how it ended. I loved it so much, I'm going to share it with you:

"It had been a remarkable accomplishment, reflecting a unique bond between the president and the American people. They put their faith in Roosevelt because he put his faith in them. He believed in democracy - in the capacity of ordinary Americans, exercising their collective judgement, to address the ills that afflicted their society. He refused to rely on the invisible hand of the marketplace, for the compelling reason that during his lifetime the invisible hand had wreaked very visible havoc on millions of unoffending Americans. He refused to accept that government invariably bungled whatever it attempted, and his refusal inspired government efforts that had a tremendous positive effect on millions of marginal farmers, furloughed workers, and struggling merchants - the very people who now lined his train route north.

Did he get everything right? By no means, and he never claimed he did. But he got a great deal right. He caught the banking system in free fall and guided it to a soft landing. He sponsored rules that helped prevent a recurrence of the banking collapse and of the stock market crash that preceded it. The programs that his administration formulated furnished jobs and experience to much of a generation of young people. He helped the parents of these young people keep their homes and farms. He showed their grandparents that old age need not be accompanied by poverty. He gave workers a hand in their efforts to rebalance relations between labor and capital.

Beyond everything else, he provided hope. He didn't end the Great Depression, which was too large and complex for any elected official to conquer. But he banished despair the depression engendered. He understood intuitively - or perhaps he learned from Uncle Ted and Woodrow Wilson - that the presidency is above all a moral office. A president who speaks to the hopes and dreams of the people can change the nation. Roosevelt did speak to the people's hopes and dreams, and together they changed America.

They changed the world as well. Just as he trusted democracy to reach the right decisions regarding America, so he trusted democracy to reach the right decisions about the rest of the planet, if perhaps more slowly. He concluded, long before most other Americans did, that the United States must take responsibility for the defeat of international aggression. Yet he understood that he was merely a president, not a czar, and that until the Americans came to share his view any efforts to intervene in the struggles unfolding in Europe and Asia would be worse than wasted. He patiently, and sometimes deceptively, guided American opinion, through public statements and carefully measured actions, until the leader became the led and the country demanded what he had wanted - what he knew the country needed - all along.

His performance during the war was no more perfect than his New Deal policies had been. The fiasco of Pearl Harbor was neither a crime nor a conspiracy, but it was a fiasco nevertheless. The insufficient coordination of America's war production impeded the efforts of the armies of the Grand Alliance. The repeated delays in opening the second front antagonized the Russians and perhaps prolonged the war.

But even more than in domestic matters, he got the big issues right. He held the alliance together. Contemporaries and historians often credit Hitler with providing the cement that kept Americans, British, and Russians working in concert. That assessment wasn't wrong, but it was incomplete. Without Roosevelt to mediate between Churchill and Stalin, to dole out American supplies in sufficient quantities to keep British and Russians fighting, the alliance might have splintered before the Axis did. Did Stalin trust Roosevelt? Probably not; the Soviet dictator hadn't gotten to where he was by trusting others. But the more important question was whether he trusted Roosevelt's judgment - Roosevelt's judgment of the degree to which American and Russian interests coincided during the war and would continue to coincide after the war. The evidence suggests that Stalin did trust Roosevelt's judgment. He tolerated the backsliding on the second front, and he had little difficulty coming to terms with the president on the fate of Germany.

Did Roosevelt trust Stalin? Probably more than the reverse. But if the president was less cynical than the Soviet strongman, he was no less pragmatic. He understood that Russia could insist on controlling Poland and that there wasn't much he could do about it - because there wasn't much the American people were willing to do about it. Had Roosevelt lived, he would have been obliged to lay out the facts of great-power life to the Poles and their American partisans. Had he lived, he would have had to manage the inevitable loosening of bonds among the Grand Allies. He would have had to face the emotional exhaustion that follows every great sacrifice and the fiscal tightening required to bring means and ends more closely into alignment. He didn't choose the moment of his death, but had he scripted this part of his performance he couldn't have timed his exit better. He left on a high note, before the predictable discord set in."

And the last paragraph of the book ends with Churchill describing his feelings of Roosevelt right after the last time he would ever see Roosevelt:

"As the door of the aircraft closed, Churchill turned to the American vice consul, Kenneth Pendar. 'Come, Pendar, let's go home,' he said. 'I don't like to see them take off.' The car carrying the prime minister and the diplomat began to pull away. Pendar watched through the rear window as the president's plane gained speed. Churchill couldn't look. 'Don't tell me when they take off. It makes me nervous.' He touched Pendar's arm. 'If anything happened to that man, I couldn't stand it. He is the truest friend; he has the farthest vision; he is the greatest man I've ever known."

My general impressions of Roosevelts to come in another post.

My Wife's Birthday

Saturday was my wife's birthday. So, if you see her wish her a belated Happy Birthday (if you haven't done so and many of you have, she is loved). I came into it scared because I was unprepared. True I had bought her a nice gift, something she wanted, something she helped me pick out, but I felt like if that's all I did, that would be pretty lame for her. And going in, that's all I had, and I suspected thats all she expected. I did not want her day to be just another typical day.

Work has been unbelievably busy lately (I know the universal excuse all men make to their wives), but its true. Its actually somewhat comforting to be this busy with work while much of the rest of the economy is rapidly grinding to a gut-wrenching hault, but we're full speed ahead. But there I was, working late on Friday night, barely thinking about Saturday, knowing that every hour I was awake past midnight was going to drain a bit more energy away I needed to make Saturday nice.

I finally went to bed, setting the alarm for 6am, knowing that was probably pretty much impossible. Our daughter's violin group class was at 9am and she was scheduled to perform in the recital portion of the class, so we were all planning on being there. We also have this tradition that on birthdays, the birthday person gets breakfast in bed. To make my wife breakfast in bed (meaning it had to be ready before she was up), I had to be up early, and that turned out to be impossible. I set the alarm, but I have no recollection of it going off. We were finally awoken by our kids at 7:30.

So, what do you do on your wife's birthday when you have nothing else planned? You basically volunteer to do everything possible, I rushed into the kitchen and made waffles for the family, while my wife got ready. With breakfast out of the way, we rushed to violin class.

Quick aside, the violin class is interesting, its broken up into three portions, the first is a classical violin group class. (There are many classes at different levels happening at the same time). In the second, all the students and their families gather together in the gym for a student recital - and some of the more advance students were darn impressive that day, the third portion involves a non-violin specific music class. All run by volunteers who are generally pretty amazing teachers. We pay a measly $140 for the entire year. But our daughter played well, and I did my best to hold our newborn and keep our son in check so that my wife could have a bit more relaxing time enjoying our daughter.

Ok, so nothing much has happened yet.

After violin, it was lunch time. I made lunch, of course. Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for the kids, leftovers for the adults. Yeah, yeah, again nothing special. But I did make sure I remembered and administered many of the blood sugar tests and insulin shots for the day, so my wife had a little break from diabetes.

After that, I volunteered to take the kids and my wife's grocery list with me and shop for groceries for the upcoming two weeks. All she had to do is get our new-born to sleep, then she could have some personal time alone. After compiling the list, she handed it to me laughing, "Good luck with that, you'll be wandering the aisles for hours, call me if you have questions".

So, off we went, but I had an extra-special secret plan. We drove off to the coolest strip mall in Tempe, probably in all of Arizona, the one with "Changing Hands Bookstore", "Trader Joe's", and surprisingly a cool, previously unrecognized record store and a few small little interesting restaurants.

First stop, Changing Hands.

Let me tell you about this bookstore. It is independent, locally owned, but very large and always very busy. It was originally located in downtown Mill Avenue in Tempe, but they moved, both to get bigger and because Mill Ave did not have the foot traffic they wanted. They often host book readings, Hillary Clinton has read there, they have first Friday poetry nights, that I have enjoyed in the distant past, and it has this hippy, politically liberal feel that every good bookstore should have. (What would a conservative bookstore be like - I guess Deseret Books qualify - nothing wrong with that store, but I really appreciate Changing Hands).

Here's the thing about books as gifts. My wife just finished reading a book, and she was drawn into it. She read and read, even if it meant ignoring the kids or household responsibilities. I found this so refreshing because she is often the epitome of self-sacrifice. I really, really enjoyed seeing her indulge in herself during times other than when our kids are asleep. I wanted to get her another book that she could keep this going.

And books are such a great way to self-indulge. They draw you into another world for an extended period of time that no other medium can do. You are carried into people's heads, you experience another's life you can experience in no other way. My wife loves to read, and I hoping to keep the experience going for her with another book.

But what book to buy? I wanted it to be a novel, I wanted it to be a good author. But its hard to find novels, I am not in the literature loop and I have no idea who the great modern writers are. I didn't want to buy her something boring like a Jane Austin classic. I wanted a book she had never heard of before. If only I could go to the library and ask a librarian for some advice. But I settled on a newly published book by Toni Morrison, who we have both enjoyed reading before. It was the best I could do. So, I bout the book, a couple of nice birthday cards, and some chocolate assortments, and we were off.

Done with gifts, off to Trader Joe's, a really cool, one of a kind grocery store chain. They have these little shopping carts for the kids, so they could help with the shopping too. The store is nice, tidy, and small so you don't get too overwhelmed. And what's up with the workers? Those folks have this aura of cool and hip (I know it doesn't take much to be considered hip and cool with me), what were they doing bagging my groceries. It's a weird place. I know they get paid more than they would working at Safeway, but not that much more. But they seem to thoroughly enjoy working there. And admittedly, its actually a nice, enjoyable place to shop. At least if you don't have two kids and a shopping list a mile long.

Look, I'm pretty good at math. I get math. My brain works well with numbers. But finding obscure items (like avacados or sour cream) at the grocery store is beyond me, way beyond me. Maybe if the shopping list had ten items on it I would have been ok. But there must have been like 50. Every single item was a chore. I would go down the same aisle multiple times before I found what I was looking for. And in the meantime, my kids were grabbing for cookies, or spinning donuts with their mini-shopping carts around other patrons, or generally complaining about being tired or hungry, or wandering off. It was exhausting, for them and for me.

After at least an hour of this, I looked at the list and thought I must have at least 80% of this stuff, so I decided it was time to check out, drop the kids off at home to watch a promised movie, and head back to Fry's to polish this list off. And so I did. But first, I crossed off all of the groceries I bought, and to my horror, I still had half the list left, and my wife was adding more items to the list.

Before I left, I did quickly wrapped up the book, had my children quickly right nice notes on the purchased birthday cards, and we presented everything to my wife waiting patiently in the bedroom. Obvious and unplanned, but it was better than nothing, and she loved the book.

I then got the kids settled into a movie, and I was at Fry's for another solid hour or more until I finally found every last one of those items (except peanut butter crackers of course - Trader Joe's was the best spot for those and I wasn't going back there - and wasn't there a salemena outbreak in peanut butter anyway?).

Back at home with all of the remaining food. I began dinner the never before accomplished task of parallel cooking. Normally, I like to do things one at a time. Trying to do too many things at once is a recipe for disaster - did I already put two tablespoons of sugar in the bowl, I can't remember... But, I was ready for this (it helped that the dinner was pretty easy). I had corn on the cob boiling in the pot. I had the barbecue grill heating up outside. I had my store bought potato salad all ready to go. I had a cake mix getting stirred up in a bowl. I was cooking away. We did had a nice dinner with my parents, veggie burgers for them (they prefer no meat), steak for the wife and I, and burgers for the kids. I cleaned up dinner escorted my parents to their car, got the kids ready for bed, and then I collapsed on the couch exhausted.

I know, I know, my wife gets all of this and much, much, much more done every single day of the week. I know I would be lost without her. I know I was lost without her in my single days. I'm glad I have her now, and I think, hope, feel she had a nice, relaxing birthday.

So message to my wife, if you're reading this: Happy Birthday.

Yet Another Education Post

Well, I just wanted to point you to interesting essay about education.

He starts off the essay describing some countries where the university entrance exam has an incredible effect on how the rest of your life goes. And the university you graduated from becomes your credential that affects how you are treated for the rest of your career:

"The use of credentials was an attempt to seal off the direct transmission of power between generations, and cram schools represent that power finding holes in the seal. Cram schools turn wealth in one generation into credentials in the next."

A cram school is a sort of college preparatory school that enables parents with money to drill their kids into getting into a credentialed school. An easy way to transfer power and influence from one generation to another.

But this is not good for society:

"History suggests that, all other things being equal, a society prospers in proportion to its ability to prevent parents from influencing their children's success directly. It's a fine thing for parents to help their children indirectly—for example, by helping them to become smarter or more disciplined, which then makes them more successful. The problem comes when parents use direct methods: when they are able to use their own wealth or power as a substitute for their children's qualities"

But America is ahead of this game (not completely) but especially in my field:

"In a world of small companies, performance is all anyone cares about. People hiring for a startup don't care whether you've even graduated from college, let alone which one. All they care about is what you can do. Which is in fact all that should matter, even in a large organization. The reason credentials have such prestige is that for so long the large organizations in a society tended to be the most powerful. But in the US at least they don't have the monopoly on power they once did, precisely because they can't measure (and thus reward) individual performance. Why spend twenty years climbing the corporate ladder when you can get rewarded directly by the market?"

This is exacerbated in the high-tech world. It is becoming easier and cheaper to start your own software business, and start-ups abound. And largely, its very much merit based. Many large companies still require a college degree, but you can do very well without one. Again, its based on what you can do not what piece of paper you have in your hand.

Another cool thing about our country (and I am ripping this idea off from an article I read a while back but would have a hard time finding now) is that we are literally the land of second, third, fourth, and fifth chances. You messed around in high school and didn't get into college. Not a problem. There is always time and opportunity to get a degree, to get educated. And access to university education is getting easier and easier in many important ways.

And this is a good thing. We have a very dynamic economy in this free country of ours and its getting more dynamic all the time.

There are two sides to this coin. Say you worked your tail off to get into an Ivy league school, you expect that once you entered that door, the rest of your life should be smooth sailing. There's still some truth to that.

But, largely, and I think this is a good thing, there is room for many more of us to really, truly excel, and I believe that most of us are more capable than we realize.