At 5pm today, I saw something that I will likely never see again in my lifetime.  And just before midnight I saw another.  The first was the Cornell Men’s Basketball team destroying the 4th seed Wisconsin Badgers to move on to the sweet 16.  After nearly beating Kansas (the#1 team in the country) earlier this year and then being ranked as a top 25 team in the country we knew this was a strong team.  But really?  We’re going to the sweet 16?  I honestly couldn’t fathom Cornell making the tournament for the past 20 years.  And now we’re the Cinderella team being covered by ESPN, Sports Illustrated and nearly every major news organization.  When I decided to attend Cornell as an undergrad, it was with some disappointment that I wouldn’t have a sports team to follow.  Well, today I wore my Big Red t-shirt with pride.  Go Big Red!

The second historic moment was a vote to pass major healthcare legislation.  Whatever your political persuasion,  we have gone 50 years without a much needed change to our healthcare system.  And if nothing else, this day marks a step towards increased coverage and care for those with pre-existing conditions.  This isn’t the ideal solution, but it’s a step in a political environment where steps seem nearly impossible.  And despite all the anger from the past year, it will be interesting to see how this day is portrayed and discussed in my son’s high school history book.   My guess is it will be a very positive portrayal and a defining moment in the Obama presidency.    And I’ll look forward to trying to explain the confusing paragraph in his book about the “Tea Party.”

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Just returned from a trip to NYC and then Las Vegas for work.  A few thoughts on the week…

1.  It felt great to return to New York, not as a resident but as a visitor.  I missed the energy, the food, the diversity, the history, the friends and family.  But while the place will forever be a special place to me, we get along much better when we don’t live together.  

2.  Las Vegas.  I guess it’s important to have a place of unabashed indulgence and materialism.  It’s a part of life, so why not let it exist in one place, in the middle of the desert in Nevada.  And I guess this is how the city planners and hotel management intend it, but I honestly felt like I was in another world the whole time.  I felt completely disconnected from reality.  I couldn’t get a newspaper in the hotel and the news channel on TV was hidden after 30 stations of Vegas radio.  But if the stories I heard while there are any indication, Vegas is not recession proof.  There are numerous developments being scaled back or canceled altogether.  One of the employees at my hotel told be about a group of investors that bought a hotel, demolished it, and then ran out of funding to build their new resort.  And all the taxi drivers were complaining about a drop in tourists. But with all the bad news going around, nobody seemed to care in the casinos.   The juxtaposition between Obama’s national speech on the recession and people dropping thousands at craps tables was pretty fascinating.  

3.  But if tourism is waning, the healthcare industry appears to be strong.  I was attending a conference for the AAOS (American Association of Orthopedic Surgeons) and there were plenty of companies shelling out upwards of $100k for a booth exhibiting their technology for a few hundred orthopedic surgeons.   

4.  Marathon training is going well.  Fundraising is not.  It’s probably not the best time to be asking people for donations.  But I’m pretty short on my goal.  Nonetheless, the training is on track.  I ran 16 last weekend and 14 on Sunday.  Running in an upstate NY winters is cruel, but it should make race day in Nashville that much easier.  Right? 

5. Podcasts are made for marathon training.  They really help pass the time.  This American Life and Planet Money have really gotten me through miles 10-16 with a much needed distraction.  They also make me realize how unnecessary live radio and TV are.  Sure, there will always be a need for live news and entertainment, but the majority of programming serves better on-demand.  

6.   My mom’s dog, which came to the family 7 years ago left on Tuesday after suffering a stroke.  All that dog ever wanted was affection and food.  I think Rachel married me as much for access to my mom’s golden retrievers as anything.  Here’s a picture of her with Cougar on one of their early visits.  R.I.P. Cougar

English economist John Maynard Keynes, seen here circa 1940, believed no one in America was smart enough to run it

During a 14 mile training run for the Nashville marathon today, I listened to another great podcast by the folks at Planet Money.  Adam Davidson and Alex Blumberg, the duo that brought the brilliant podcasts about how we got into our current economic mess (see previous post), released a new report, making  sense of the  stimulus plan.  Specifically, where does this figure of $750+ Billion come from?  What’s it being used for?  And why does Obama and his team think it will work?  The short answer is John Maynard Keynes.  The long answer, takes about 10 minutes, and you can listen to it here (click on the listen now button in new page)

Following in the “footsteps” of now infamous shoe thrower, Muntadhar al-Zaidi, there have been a series of new flying loafer attacks.  Zaidi of course, was the journalist that hurled his dress shoe at Bush during a press conference with President Maliki of Iraq. And earlier this week the Prime Minister of China was attacked by a flying sneaker during a speech at Cambridge University in London.  Then yesterday, the Israeli ambassador to Sweden, Benny Dagan, was hit in the chest by a red Nike during a speech at the University of Stockholm.

And now the shoe attacks have hit small town America.  In last night’s common council meeting in Ithaca, Mayor Carolyn Peterson was the target.  Protester, and former Weather Underground member Robin Palmer spoke during an open-mic opportunity at the beginning of the meeting.  He was speaking out against the city’s Community Sanctuary Resolution.  The resolution declares Ithaca a “Community of Sanctuary, thus respecting the rights of its residents to support lawfully and proactively military personnel and veterans who are organizing to stop the wars in and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan and all future violations of the United Nations Nuremberg Charters.”

The shoes fell short of Mayor Peterson, and the following conversation ensued:

Palmer (protester) said, “I want my shoes back.”

“You’re not getting your shoes back,” Peterson responded.

Palmer said, “I’m not getting them back? Then I’m not leaving.”

He sat down and insisted he would not leave until he was arrested.

Read the full article from the Ithaca Journal here.

The buzz around Cory Booker has been getting pretty loud. He was a surrogate speaker  for Obama during the campaign, traveling around the country and across TV networks on his behalf. He was a Rhodes scholar, attended Standford, Oxford, and Yale Law.  He became a councilman in Newark and earned a reputation for living his politics. For almost 10 years, he resided in a Newark housing project, working with tenants to fight for better conditions.  He then moved to a drug and gang-plagued housing community in South Newark, fighting a drug war while living at the  epicenter.  His  grassroots efforts included both a 10-day hunger strike to protest open drug dealing in the projects, and living out of a mobile home, parking on street corners known to be places where drug trafficking occurred.  His actions earned him the moniker “The Savior of Newark” from Time Magazine and resulted in increased police forces in several neighborhoods.

He clearly has high ambitions and his name has been tossed around as a future Governor, Senator, or even successor to Obama.  So, when the Ithaca Youth Bureau held a 60 year anniversary party and pulled Booker as the keynote speaker, Rachel and I decided to hear what he had to say.

His Ithaca speech was a little underwhelming.   It came across a bit too rehearsed and preachy for our taste.  But, he appears to be a politician with a bright future.  If you’re curious about the speech, it was very similar to this graduation speech I found online:

Barack Obama Taking the Oath. Russ Dreaming Of Change. And did I snap a picture of hope in Obama's palm?

There are so many moments to write about from yesterday.  The crowd, the speech, the poem, the music, the benediction, Michelle, Malia and Sasha, the moving vans outside the White House, Ted Kennedy on the floor, Bush in a Helicopter, Cheney in a wheelchair, the Obamas walking, the Obamas dancing, the Chief Justice stumbling….

But when I finished listening to his speech I grabbed my pen and wrote down three words.  Service, Cooperation and Community.  They were the words that jumped out to me during the speech.  The belief that if we can all find a way to serve something greater than ourselves, work together, and care for our community; be that local, national or global, we can turn this spirit of hope into real change for the future.

It’s a simple message, and it may sound idealistic, but so did the idea of electing a black man, Barack Hussein Obama, to be the 44th  president of the United States.

What a day.

The speech gives chills on a regular day.  In the context of tomorrow’s inauguration, there are no words.

This is far from my area of expertise, but I’ve been trying to get a better grasp of the economic situation we’re in, and how we got here.  Depending on where you get your news, it’s easy to find an email or article to point blame on a person or group.  I received an email the other day, placing much of the blame on Barney Frank and Chris Dodd for missing the signs from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.  And giving kudos to those on the right for recognizing the signs before the democrats.  One thing I do understand is that there is plenty of blame to go around, and the crisis was too large to place blame on a few people or one party.  For a layman like myself, there has been one source for explaining the economic crisis in simplified terms.  This American Life.  Which is not only a great radio show, but makes a great podcast for long marathon training runs!  The radio show produced two outstanding shows that explain the housing, credit and economic crisis through simple stories and language.

Show 1:  Housing Crisis & the Giant Pool of Money

Show 2:  Credit Default Swaps and CDOs

The team behind these two shows have also started a blog called Planet Money which has been helpful in tracking daily events, news and stories that relate to the status of our economy.

2008 was a year for change and a year for hope.  Personally, it was a year with a big move, a new dog, and a career switch for Rachel.  For our country, change and hope were the themes, and words of the year.  When I moved to Ithaca, I saw an announcement in the local paper asking for article submissions along the theme of hope.  It seemed fitting for where we were in our own lives, so I submitted an article and it got published over the holiday.  To read it online, click here.

Ithaca Commons

One of the reasons for moving back to Ithaca was to get involved with a community that’s close to both of our hearts.  With the gorges, the lake, the parks and two Universities, Ithaca has a lot to offer.  But like many towns across America, one of the major issues is the struggle of local businesses to stay relevant despite the growth of big box stores.  Stores like Walmart and Target have brought much needed sales tax revenues to struggling communities, but at the cost of locally-owned businesses.  For an interesting documentary on this subject, check out Independent America. The movie does a good job of highlighting the effect of these stores on town culture as well as the limited fix the sales tax has on the economy.

Ithaca was an early adopter of a downtown pedestrian mall, paving over two blocks of a central downtown street and turning it into the Ithaca Commons.   Since its development in the mid 70′s, The Commons has seen ups and downs, with several proposals to turn it back into a two-way street.  However, the last few years have seen a slight resurgence and there is hope that Ithaca’s downtown can be a successful story.   I’ll be writing about several of these developments as I see them from my apartment  located in the newest building downtown.  We’re living in the Cayuga Place apartments, a new “green” building with storefronts, riverside walk and a yet to be developed neighboring condominium.  The Commons will also see the development of a new home for Cinemapolis, the local art theater, and there is a proposal being debated by town counsel to redesign the entire Commons in 2010.  We’ll see how all of this plays out, but there’s plenty of reason to hope and to get involved.  We need to bring the same kind of energy and focus we saw in this national election to our local communities if we want to see real change in the country.

Cayuga Place Apartments

New Seneca Place Building

Cinemapolis Theatre Construction