A Glass House.

Are you ever saddened by the fact that you’re unable to share every waking moment of your life with other people? Sure, your fancy phone is all right when you want to share pictures of cats, or carefully arranged lunches, but all of that taking-it-out-of-your-pocket-and-touching-the-screen business can really weigh you down.

Enter Google Glass -- a computer thing you wear on your face, all the time!

The existence of Google Glass -- Google’s foray into wearable computing -- isn’t exactly news. But Google just released a new video under the heading “How it Feels,” to convey, well, how it feels to use Glass. It’s an inspirational montage of footage, presumably taken by Glass wearers, that demonstrates just how much this technology will enrich your life.

Please, check it out:


Oddly enough, Google Glass is the least interesting thing about this video. The images are captivating -- tumbling through the air on a flying trapeze, jumping on trampolines, riding in hot air balloons, drifting down a canal in Thailand. At best, the little floating Glass display in the corner seems like an irritating distraction. And the functionality of the device isn’t exactly revolutionary either. If Google is trying to convey what Glass is capable of, the answer is clear: the same stuff your smartphone does. The difference is that Glass, in theory, is always on. Always a part of you.

The goal is to take you less out of experiences than your phone does. Instead of pulling out a little device, and staring at its screen, capturing your everyday existence will be as natural as breathing.

At least, in Google’s mind.

In reality, the concept falls short. If you’re eating lunch with your friends, is turning toward your plate of Pad Thai and saying, “Okay, Glass. Take a picture. Share with friends,” really more natural than pulling out your phone and snapping an old-fashioned, pretentious mealstagram? And if you really want to be more immersed in an experience, wouldn’t a better solution be to just experience something without worrying about documenting it?

In the age of social media evangelists and their gospel of an evermore-connected-world-in-which-personal-stuff-is-shared, this is blasphemy. The idea that perhaps someone would prefer not to take pictures and videos of everything they do is never considered. The inherent message of the Glass promo is that all the fantastic things the Glass users are doing are made more significant, and more magical, simply because they’re doing them while connected to the digital universe. Social media users already fall into the mindset that the things they do are meaningless unless they’re shared with others. Google Glass takes that concept, and puts it on steroids.

I’m not sure that’s what anyone needs.

However, philosophical objections probably won’t be what sinks Google Glass. The sheer, shall we say, dorkiness of Google’s product, paired with a lack of compelling functionality, make it unlikely to succeed. Visions of the future, even ones dreamed up by very intelligent people, are often remarkably wrong. Glass is a product that seems designed to evoke a sense of being futuristic, without actually filling a human need. This isn’t the best recipe for success in the marketplace.

I mean, am I the only one who immediately thought of this after seeing the first pics of Glass?

I rest my case.

The Distant Future. The Year 2016.

In honor of Obama’s second inauguration, I humbly present my predictions for the next four years of our nation’s history. The predictions are in a bulleted list, because those are easy to read. And fun. Bulleted lists are fun!

DURING THE NEXT FOUR YEARS:

• Republican in congress will oppose several bills Obama supports.
• Charges of “political posturing” will be made.
• Marco Rubio will continue to be Hispanic, and Republicans will continue to be excited about that.
• If you have guns right now, you will continue to own them.
• Obama will say, “let me be clear,” in various contexts.
• He will be accused of not actually being clear, in various contexts.
• You won’t have to worry about obeying "Sharia law."
• You still won’t know what "Sharia law" actually entails.
• You might still be kind of worried about obeying "Sharia law" at some point in the future.
• America will still be killing people we don’t like, and people who happen to be near them, using deadly robots.
•  We probably won’t care that much about the robot thing.
• Corn syrup will still be in stuff. Because it’s frickin’ delicious.
• Ever had pecan pie? It’s not delicious because of the pecans.
•  (It’s because of the corn syrup).
• (Pecan pie is basically all corn syrup).
• Michele Obama will remain a controversial figure, due to her insistence on talking to kids about eating right and exercise.
• The nerve! Also, she has muscles!
• That makes some people uncomfortable!
• Rush Limbaugh will say something that some people will interpret as racism.
• Some people will continue to listen to Rush Limbaugh.
• Cupcakes will no longer be a thing. 
• Conservative cupcake lovers, if there are any, will blame Michele Obama.
• Others will just acknowledge that cupcakes were always just normal cakes, but smaller, and move on.
•  I will still make cupcakes, though.
• Obama will scarf down some type of classic American food on camera.
• (Perhaps a burger.)
•  Conservatives will refer to this burger-scarfing as “liberal hypocrisy." 
• Obama will pose with some type of adorable animal on camera.
• (Perhaps a koala.)
• Conservatives will refer to this koala-hugging as "liberal hypocrisy."
• Global warming will continue to wreck havoc on the globe, while simultaneously not existing.
• This will continue to be super confusing. 
• Network morning shows will go for an entire week without a special report on "sexting."
• A day of feasting will be proclaimed.   
• The feasting will be short-lived.

A Lack of Control.

After the unspeakable tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary, many Americans finally got the conversation on gun control they’d been waiting for. For a while, it seemed like it would never happen. As the last few years rolled by, the dark list of high-profile shootings kept stacking up. And every time, the call for tighter restrictions on guns was met with deafening silence from law-makers.

Now, the silence has been broken. Shortly after the slaughter, ideas for curbing gun violence were being openly discussed on Capitol Hill, from closing the “gun show loophole,” to banning high-capacity magazines for semi-automatic weapons. Yesterday, president Obama gave a speech endorsing a set of policies that would put many of these restrictions in place. Even some Republicans have squirmed out of the grip of the gun lobby to offer support.

For some, this is a hopeful moment in the wake of tragedy. But I’m not so sure.

None of the proposed policies are bad in and of themselves. They might do a little good, and they certainly wouldn’t destroy legitimate gun-ownership in this country. If you’re looking for someone to call for a revolt against the gun-snatching tyranny of Obama, look elsewhere.

There’s only one thing that bothers me: any new regulations on guns are highly unlikely to prevent the horrific mass shootings that inspired them in the first place. Support the regulations, if you like. Just don’t pretend that the president’s signature can stop tragedies like Sandy Hook from occurring.

I don’t doubt that laws can create positive changes in society. But public policy is most effective when it targets a broad problem. Changes in laws, and their enforcement, can alter general patterns of behavior in a population for the better. In recent memory, massive policy overhauls in cities like New York have helped to radically reduce crime rates. But in the case of mass shootings, policy-makers are setting out to combat what are still rare, highly individualized events. In the overall landscape of crime in America, these massacres are unusual exceptions, not the rule. Which makes it a lot harder for new rules to put an end to them.

Mass shootings are well-publicized, so it makes sense that Americans feel like they’re facing an “epidemic of violence.” This is true, in the sense that every murdered child is one too many. But from a purely statistical point of view, things are more complicated. Murder rates across the country have been dropping for decades. It’s likely that the America your children inhabit today is far safer than the one you or your parents grew up in.

Seen in this context, mass shootings aren’t a sign of a violent culture spinning out of control. Instead, they’re strange outliers that mask a long-term trend of declining violence. In raw numbers, mass shooters make up a microscopic slice of the violent criminals who take innocent lives every year. And the monsters behind most mass shootings aren’t your garden-variety murderers. They tend to have few or no past offenses, and come from middle-class, white families. Many acquire their weapons through legal means. Mass shooters also tend to be highly intelligent, and plan their massacres over long periods of time.

To prevent another Sandy Hook in any given year, a new gun law would have to change the behavior of fewer than a dozen extremely determined individuals in a country of 300 million. Needless to say, that’s an extremely narrow problem for a broad set of regulations to solve.

I don’t want to be a cynic when it comes to protecting our nation’s children. However, it’s important to recognize that there are limits to what our laws can save us from. Even if that’s something we’d rather not see.

After all, no one wants to face the nagging thought that we might just be helpless. That we might just have to accept the risk that terrible things can happen to us, or our children.

Which is strange, considering that we do this all the time.

Every second of every day, your life is at risk. There are an infinite number of opportunities for others to commit acts of violence against you. There are thousands of little things that could go wrong, with fatal results. You’re far more likely to die in a car accident than at the barrel of a gun, but that probably doesn’t stop you from stepping behind the wheel every morning.

If new restrictions on firearms are passed, I hope that some lives are saved as a result. Even one fewer murder would be a cause for celebration. But I’m also aware that we live in a broken world, where tragedy can always come when you least expect it. If you want to find something that can give you hope for a future without violence, legislation isn't the place to look for it.

Ferguss the Everbrown: A (Mostly) True Christmas Fable

Many years ago, on the island of Oahu, a sturdy pine tree was unpacked in the parking lot of the Hickam Base Exchange. 

(For the purposes of this story, we’ll call him "Ferguss.”)

He was placed in a row with others of his kind, to be presented to dozens of families eagerly awaiting the first shipments of Christmas trees from the mainland. It was an exciting time to be a tree.

It was also an exciting time to be a Lueders. In my family, getting a real Christmas tree wasn’t just a tradition -- it was a core tenant of our belief system. Artificial “Christmas trees” were for families that didn’t love their kids enough to give them the real thing.  

And so, it came to pass that my dad happened upon Ferguss in that tree-filled lot. 

Choosing a Christmas tree is perhaps the single most important decision one can make during the holiday season. You can’t simply rush something that will determine the overall level of Christmas cheer for almost a month. But this one was perfect.

In short order, Ferguss found himself strapped to the family van, and ferried to the home he was destined to fill with delight. But as we lovingly adorned him with an assortment of decorative items, none of us were aware of the Christmas magic that awaited us.

For you see, Ferguss was not an ordinary tree. Like other trees, he could not speak. But if he could, he might have said something like this:

How nice it is to be here, surrounded by adoring faces, each one filled with the joy of the season! And this acapella Christmas album playing on the stereo -- simply magical! How do they make such a diverse array of sounds with only the human voice at their disposal? You are quite right to listen to this incessantly for so many hours. And now -- at last -- I can do what I came here to do, surrounded by so much love!  

I can die in peace. Farewell!

And verily, Ferguss passed away.

Unlike other Christmas trees, which had filled our living room with their jolly green boughs, and our nostrils with the perky scent of pine, Ferguss quickly began to do something else: decompose. In a few days, his needles were already turning brown, and falling out in alarming quantities. Ferguss was like that wretchedly touching tree from a Charlie Brown Christmas -- except that the more love we bestowed upon him, the more scraggly and depressing he became.

Dad did not take it well.

For years, Dad had prided himself on being a tree hunter extraordinaire. It was no small task to pick out a tree that fulfilled his standards from amongst the battered, lackluster shipments that arrived on the island. And with each year, his taste in trees had become more exacting. The tree had to be full, tall (but not too tall), with minimal shedding, and a price that wouldn’t deplete the general gift fund.

Other families had merely acceptable Christmas trees. Trees we would scoff at in private.

Now, we were worse than those other families, snookered by a deceptive nevergreen. Rather than a point of pride, Ferguss had become something else.

Not just a bad tree. The enemy.  

“I hate that tree,” Dad would say, staring at it from across the room.

“I really hate that tree.”

Still, the rest of us endured. We pretended that the piles of brown needles were a festive addition to our home decor. Maybe brown was just a different shade of green! Maybe the tree would even get better. If we just believed hard enough, anything could happen. This was Christmas, after all.

And when Christmas morning rolled around, all eyes were on Ferguss.

For you see...

… Nothing had changed.

Still brown. Still ugly. Still dead.

Ferguss was just a frickin’ awful tree.

Typically, Christmas trees in the Lueders home stuck around for a while after the big day. Ferguss, on the other hand, was quickly hauled to our backyard fire pit, to await his final judgment.

Some say that when Ferguss was lit ablaze, he burned more warmly and brightly than any other Christmas tree had. Perhaps he did. But in the glow of his light, someone was heard to remark,

“That was the worst Christmas tree ever!”

And it was.

THE END

A Balancing Act.

For those of us who don't see the debate over the size and role of government as a cosmic battle between good and evil, there was a glimmer of hope in Romney’s debate performance last week. In front of millions of Americans, the Republican candidate for president made a shocking admission: government regulation is not inherently evil:

From NPR's debate transcript: Regulation is essential. You can't have a free market work if you don't have regulation. As a business person, I had to have — I needed to know the regulations. I needed them there. You couldn't have people opening up banks in their — in their garage and making loans. I mean, you have to have regulations so that you can have an economy work. Every free economy has good regulation.

This shouldn’t be that surprising, considering that few Republicans want to do away with all government regulation. But, they often make it sound like they do. Railing against the tyranny of federal regulation is a well-worn page in the conservative playbook.

Frustration with government regulation isn't without cause. For every sensible rule that benefits the marketplace, there's sure to be one that has unintended consequences that more than offset the intended good. But the conservative instinct to dissolve government’s regulatory function, and let corporations roam free, is ultimately destructive. Even more, it reflects an incoherent view of human nature.

Traditionally, conservatives have held a dim view of the human capacity to handle power. Conservatives believe that if too much power is concentrated in the hands of government leaders, it will inevitably be abused, regardless of any good intentions that may be present. Seen through this lense, the inefficiency of America's constitutional government is a feature, not a bug. Better a gridlocked congress than a charismatic leader with the ability to strip away our rights.

The conservative aversion to concentrations of government power is perfectly reasonable. But is government power the only power that can become dangerous? Conservatives may believe that people tend toward corruption in the context of government, but they simultaneously hold that unbridled power in the corporate world will only lead to affordable toasters and joy. This, we are told, is thanks to the power of the marketplace to harness greed for the common good.

In thousands of cases, this works. But what if a factory can save millions of dollars by dumping chemicals into a local river? What if the CEO of an investment firm can make millions in the short term through practices that will likely lead to disaster after he leaves the company? These aren't just rhetorical questions -- companies in the pursuit of profit have done bad things. Sometimes, really bad things. And it's not un-American to acknowledge the reality of capitalism's dark side.

Greed is sometimes good. But, as some guy once said, it can also lead to "all kinds of evil." Neither CEOs or congressmen are angels, and both can wreck havoc if left completely unchecked. The conversation we need to be having isn’t about whether all power should reside in the hands of the public or private sectors, but rather, how genuine public good should be balanced with economic freedom. We don’t need burdensome regulation, but we do need some regulation. Focusing on cutting the size of government alone distracts of from the real question: what regulations are a beneficial and proper exercise of the government’s power, and how can they be enforced in the most efficient way possible? Simply deriding the ineffectiveness of the federal government, and then gutting staff and budgets across the board, is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Romney seems to get this, and that makes me kind of happy. Although that might have more to do with the brownies I just pulled out of the oven. BRB.

Downtown!

The tale of downtown revitalization has been a big one for the past couple of decades. Urban cores across America that had declined into post-apocalyptic chaos during the '60s and '70s have reinvented themselves as havens for the hipster swarm, called forth by their insidious overmind. Goodbye hobos, hello adorable lattes. And some new numbers from the Census Bureau seem to add weight to this trend:

Via Nate Berg at Atlantic Cities: Big city downtowns are becoming people places – again or, for some, for the first time. New figures [PDF] out from the U.S. Census Bureau show that downtown areas saw huge jumps in population between 2000 and 2010. The biggest of these metro areas, those with populations of 5 million or more, saw a collective growth rate of more than 13 percent in the areas within two miles of city hall, a stand-in measurement that, for these purposes, designates "downtown."

In all U.S. metro areas, 16.1 million people were living within two miles of City Hall by 2010, about six percent of the total metro area population of 258 million.

Combined with the populations slightly farther out, in the two to four mile radius outside city hall, the numbers increase dramatically. Together, the total metro population living within four miles of city hall is more than 54 million – almost 21 percent of America's metro population. That's 17.5 percent of the national population living within a quick car ride, 30-minute bike ride or hour-long walk of the center of a big city.
...
The report also shows that areas farther from city halls are still dominant population centers. And that's especially true in the largest metropolitan areas. While the close-in areas in these metros' downtown saw double-digit growth between 2000 and 2010, so did areas 30 miles and beyond. So while it's true that people are moving into downtowns, that doesn't mean they're still not moving out to the suburbs and exurbs as well.

As the commentator noted, the real story of downtown America isn't the death of suburbia, which is alive and well. It's likely that American cities will never become the dense, centralized places they were in the past. In most cases, downtown is simply becoming one thriving neighborhood among many, and an attractive regional destination. The end result is more choice for middle-class consumers and home owners/renters, which is generally a good thing.

On the other hand, the trends that are revitalizing downtown areas in big cities don't seem to be doing anything for the decaying inner-ring neighborhoods of mid-sized cities that were hit hardest by the changes in America's economic landscape. Pockets of persistent poverty and inequality remain the biggest challenges facing American cities. And no, these problems won't be solved by artisanal cupcake shops.

Election Thoughts.

I haven’t been writing a whole lot for the past couple of months. Or at least, I haven’t been finishing a lot of writing. Stringing together coherent thoughts is hard and tiring.

So, I won’t try to.

As you may know, there's an election going on. Better yet, it's the exciting kind where we get to pick a president! Because I graduated from college, I have many thoughts, or ponderances, when elections occur. I wrote some of these down, and am now putting them on the Internet for you to enjoy. If you don't want to read these thoughts, you can continue staring at the patriotic image above. It will undoubtedly stir the soul of all true patriots, due to its patriotic nature, and I'm very proud that I was able to find it via a simple Google image search.

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VARIOUS THOUGHTS ABOUT THE ELECTION, PRESENTED IN BULLETED POINTS

- Joe Biden’s recent campaign trail gaffes reminded me that Joe Biden is still vice president. That, in turn, made me giggle.

- Does anyone truly believe that Obama personally dislikes people who start businesses, and is actively plotting to make people dependant on the government? Inventing secret motives behind an opponent’s policy is a mainstay of American political discourse, but it still manages to irritate me. See also: Republicans don’t really care about abortion -- they want to turn women into a perpetually pregnant slave-race!

- I think most people in the media were thrilled that Romney chose Paul Ryan as his running mate. Despite the best efforts of the Democrats to paint Romney as a Snidely Whiplash, and the Republicans to portray him as an heir to Reagan, he doesn’t really incite any emotion beyond mild like or dislike. Paul Ryan is a dynamic character in our current political story, and journalists are suckers for narrative. Like 2008, this is going to be an election cycle dominated by discussion of the GOP’s veep-to-be.

- Ryan’s infamous budget plan contains big cuts to almost everything the federal government does. These cuts would be very painful, and a more reasonable approach to reducing the deficit would likely include some sort of revenue increase. On the other hand, such a tough budget would actually tame many of our entitlement-related fiscal problems. Democrats who raise hue & cry over the Ryan plan should be willing to offer their own plan to reign in entitlements. Given the size of the projected deficits in medicare, social security, and other major programs, there will likely be some painful cuts no matter what.

- I am not really an expert on tax policy or entitlements. Luckily, no one in Washington is either, so I can get away with it.

- Even with Ryan on the ticket, I expect that entitlement reform will be pushed into the background. Old people vote, and they want what the guv’mint owes them, regardless of their political philosophy.

- Commentators say that Paul Ryan’s selection shows that Romney isn’t trying to sway women to his side. Ryan’s abs say otherwise.

- Paul Ryan was (is?) really into Ayn Rand, and her ever-popular novel Atlas Shrugged. This has set many folks in the punditsphere a-twitter. As for myself, I read Atlas Shrugged a few years ago, and it was terrible. To this day, I can’t figure out why it appeals to people, since the characters, plot, and morality of the book are all equally dismal. Even the numerous sex scenes manage to be preachy and disturbing. Gross.

- The fact that Paul Ryan has been selected as VP doesn’t mean Romney has to defend all of Ryan’s policy positions. The president sets the agenda.

- Mitt Romney has never been much of a foreign policy buff. Even worse, he seems to be filling in his gaps in this area with advice from dubious Bush-era hawks. Anyone who would like to avoid the mistakes of that presidency should be troubled by this.

- Fortunately for Romney, this race has never been about foreign policy. Voters seem to prefer picking their presidents based on an imaginary role the president doesn’t actually play (magical jobs fairy), rather than the ones he actually does (commander-in-chief of the armed forces, international head of state). Pity.

- Obama hasn’t made any terrible blunders in the realm of foreign policy and national security. He also hasn’t fundamentally changed the trajectory of Bush’s overall anti-terrorism policies. It seems that Democratic foreign policy boils down to, “the war on terror is a ridiculous construct designed to oppress us, but we can fight it better than Republicans!”

- The fact that Obama has largely pursued Bush’s war on terror policies doesn’t leave Romney with a lot of actual things he can contrast his own positions with. So, it seems that Romney plans to do the same things, but in a more American and assertive manner. Obama, for example, has said that all options (including military force) are on the table in dealing with Iran’s nuclear program. Meanwhile, Romney says that all options are REALLY, TRULY, VERY MUCH on the table. I’m not sure what this means in practical terms.

- I could care less that Romney isn’t releasing his tax returns. If you’re wondering what they would reveal, I can give you some spoilers: Romney made a truckload of money, and like every other taxpayer, he paid as little as he could within the confines of the law.

- As a PR thing, maybe it would it would make sense for Romney to release his tax returns. But really, this is his choice to make.

- Note to the American public: Obama is not like you. Romney is not like you. People who become president are not normal, and that’s okay. An average Joe has no business running the most powerful nation on earth. Isn’t time we celebrated elitism? Just a little?

- "Celebrate Elitism" will be the name of an annual banquet, hosted by me, as soon as I become wealthy and powerful. If you think this sounds awesome, I'll gladly take donations to hasten my ascent to wealth and power. I accept Paypal.

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That is all, for now.