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A Message from Congressman Todd Akin

Dear Missouri Friend:

What is your share of the national debt? Would you believe that Congress just raised it’s own credit limit again – and your share of the bill will be $46,319 by the time they are done spending?

On Thursday, I voted against increasing Congress’s debt limit (the amount that Congress can spend our country into debt) and I introduced legislation to make it more difficult for Congress to keep raising its debt limit. I blogged about how it is necessary to force Congress to take responsibility for out-of-control spending: “Congress needs every possible incentive to get its fiscal house in order. My resolution requires that a debt limit increase be voted on separately – not hidden in another bill. And, with a super-majority requirement, raising the debt will not be quite so simple.”

On Wednesday, I went down to the House floor to discuss the President’s new budget. In case you missed it, my staff has put together parts of that discussion on YouTube for you to watch. While we are still not finished reviewing the new budget, the big picture is clear. This budget will raise the deficit to a record level: $1.6 trillion and 10.6% of our nation’s gross domestic product. It will double the national debt in five years. By 2020, the interest on our debt will reach $840 billion. In addition, this budget raises taxes by $2 trillion. Even as our current entitlement spending is ballooning out of control, the White House has added brand new entitlements to this budget, including $1 trillion for government run healthcare.

As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts on the President’s budget, the debt limit increase or any other subject.

Sincerely,

W. Todd Akin

P.S. The 2010 Congressional Art Competition  for high schoolers is coming up soon. If you know a talented student who lives in the 2nd District, invite them to complete a student entry form on my website and submit their work for this exciting event.

Filed under: Todd Akin, other , Todd Akin, US Congress

CommonWealth in Columbia Heights

The cask ales at CommonWealth in Columbia Heights, D.C. are a reminder of Boom Times in W1, London.  Tonight’s Oliver’s Bitter is a 20 ounce imperial pint teasing my emotions with fondest memories of The Strand, and of Trafalger Square … but where?  The Cole Hole, perhaps … beside The Savoy?  What did I drink at The Coal Hole?  What did Oscar Wilde drink at the Coal Hole?

A young couple is seated at the table beside me.  Small talk ensues.  Very small talk.  Then he lets slip a statement beginning, “My last girlfriend…”  But he recovers quickly with: “So what’re you drinking?  Beer?  Cider?  Wine?”

The waitress comes by and they order ciders and I get my bill.  $31 plus a $10 tip.  As I get up to leave, the guy asks his date, “So what kind of peanut butter do you like?” A table for one, it seems, is a lonely freedom.

Filed under: true stories , Columbia Heights, CommonWealth, D.C., London, restaurants, The Coal Hole

On the Metro

On the Washington, D.C. METRO, a placid old Asian face reads Jesus and Your Sorrows as black children share a 99¢ bag of Spicy Sweet Chili Doritos. One chip falls on the ground at U Street-Cardozo Station — five second rule. crunch. — as a cute blonde looks on with careful ambiguity through naughty librarian frames.

Filed under: true stories , D.C., Five Second Rule, On the Metro, Spicy Sweet Chili Doritos

Offline this Week

A week-or-so ago, my iPhone was stolen. A day-or-so ago, the Airport Utility (whatever that is) on my Apple PowerBook G4 somehow disappeared from within the machine. Thus I am left with no way to access the internet except through public computer clusters, where I don’t enter my passwords and can thereby not post to this blog without jumping through hoops I don’t feel like jumping through right now.

That said, I’ll be offline this week. This does not mean, however, that I will not be writing posts. Indeed, I will be; but in Word Documents, which I haven’t used since my undergraduate days and nights in at the Hesburgh Library in South Bend, Indiana. Thus, it is likely that my initial posts when I return to the Internet will likely be longer, perhaps more-narrative in structure, and contain very few links, as I’ll be doing my reading on paper.

Okay for now. Hasta luego. Be safe.

Filed under: true stories , maintenance

The Real World in D.C. in my Real World in D.C.

A few months ago, I was waiting tables at the Hawk ‘n’ Dove on Capitol Hill when I was suddenly blinded by floodlights coming from the alley bar. At the moment, I was taking drink orders from a tableful of Capitol staffers. One of them asked, “What’s going on back there?”
“No idea.”
“Are those cameras?”
“Could be. I dunno. You want something to drink?”

I can’t remember whether he did nor; and if he did, what he drank; but I remember that the Hawk ‘n’ Dove was mad busy that night, and the distracted staffer’s was costing me money elsewhere at my other tables. So I was firmly brief with the guy. Later, when his table asked for their bill, I brought it with answers–

“So, I just asked the bartender and he said they’re filming The Real World. That’s what the cameras are.”

The table was aware that MTV’s Real World was coming to D.C., but they weren’t sure when or where the shows would be taped. They left excited, as the cameras were pointed in our direction for much of the time the production crew was in the bar.
Fast-forward to today where I read at DCist that The Real World D.C. premiers tonight on MTV. This would mean significantly less than nothing to me were it not that for all I know it may be my cable television debut–if, that is, that the cameras were indeed fixed in my table’s direction. I’ll ask around and see when/if the Hawk ‘n’ Dove appears in the show and keep you posted here.

Filed under: true stories, work , D.C., hokndov, MTV, The Real World

Obama Should Articulate Financial Industry Reform

This year James Kwak emerged as a prominent voice in the booming economics blogosphere as Simon Johnson’s counterpart at the exceptional Baseline Scenario blog.  This morning Kwak posted re Barack Obama:

To me, the real question is whether he simply couldn’t get more done because of Congress, and it was actually a wise strategy for him to sit in the background and let Pelosi, Reid, and Baucus (and Lieberman??!!) take the lead, or whether he could have gotten more done by pushing harder and more publicly. I have no basis to know what the right legislative strategy is for health care, which is an intensely divisive issue where more Obama might have backfired. When it comes to financial reform, however, I think he clearly has not done enough. The public overwhelmingly wants reform; they just don’t know what reform should look like, and Obama and his team haven’t done a good job of showing them what it should be. As a result, they have not capitalized on the strong anti-Wall Street sentiment, and the result has been a classic interest-group battle on Capitol Hill.

I wholeheartedly agree with Kwak here. The public needs to know what meaningful financial industry reform should look like before the issue — which is Too Big to Ignore — is ignored.

Filed under: economics, politics, punditry , Baseline Scenario, James Kwak, Obama

“Forever” Stabilized the Diamond Market

In February of 1982, The Atlantic published an article by Edward Jay Epstein asking titularly Have You Ever Tried to Sell a Diamond? As it turns out, I have tried to sell many diamonds.  Nevertheless, while my stint at Diamonds International began with fairly extensive instruction in diamond history, it had never occurred to me to ask why people never sold their diamonds, only why people bought them in the first place — the latter question to perhaps be explored in a future post.  Epstein answers the former in his article –

The diamond invention is far more than a monopoly for fixing diamond prices; it is a mechanism for converting tiny crystals of carbon into universally recognized tokens of wealth, power, and romance. To achieve this goal, De Beers had to control demand as well as supply. Both women and men had to be made to perceive diamonds not as marketable precious stones but as an inseparable part of courtship and married life. To stabilize the market, De Beers had to endow these stones with a sentiment that would inhibit the public from ever reselling them. The illusion had to be created that diamonds were forever — “forever” in the sense that they should never be resold.

Filed under: observations, true stories , De Beers, diamonds, Diamonds International, USVI

Quick Apology to Readers

Since deciding on The New Ruffian as title for this blog, it’s annoyed me like whoa that it’s not yet posted at newruffian.com.  This is because I have no bank account for paying the ‘Custom Domain’ charge online, and WordPress didn’t reply to my tweet about paying for it with snail-mail cash or a money order. So please accept my apology for the bizarre discrepancy between this blog’s title & domain. It looks sloppy, I know, and will soon be fixed.

Filed under: other , maintenance

Obama as Tenant

The St. Petersburg Times runs a site called Politifact that was first brought to my attention while working as New Media Director of a Chicago technology firm in 2008. At the time, I was auditing political websites for elements to use in one of the firm’s several online spamming abominations. There was very little about Politifact that caught my eye. The site seemed pretty straight-forward, and thereby useless to us, as we sought magical traffic widgets and functionality and the like.  In short, my job was to find substantial traffic support to unsubstantial content.

Soon, my position at the firm was eliminated in the global financial hemorrhages of late-2008; then, Obama won the White House, the Democrats increased their majority in our Congress, and Politifact has emerged as one of the most important sites I regularly visit; and I regularly visit it for tidbits like this one –

To give the economic stimulus plan some perspective, “if you started the day Jesus Christ was born and spent $1 million every day since then, you still wouldn’t have spent $1 trillion.” (Mitch McConnell, Feb. 1, in appearance on CBS’ Face the Nation)

Senate Minority Leader McConnell, R-Ky., sought to put the proposed economic stimulus bill into some sobering perspective. We saved you from counting zeros on your online calculator by doing a quick and dirty assessment of whether the analogy is right.

We went with the commonly accepted theory that Jesus was born around 4 B.C. So we’ve come 2012 years since the birth of Christ. Now, 2,012 times 365 (yes, we are aware there are leap years … don’t be like that) times $1,000,000 is $734 billion, give or take a few hundred million.

The final stimulus bill checked in at $787 billion. So not only was McConnell right that $1 trillion is more than spending $1 million a day since Jesus was born, but the stimulus bill itself was also more than $1 million a day since Jesus was born.

Tonight I type from 2009’s finish line and the question that hangs heaviest in my mind about 2010 is whether or not such massive spending will serve anyone but that thin upper-slice of Americans that rode a windfall winning streak through the last decade.  In his inaugural address, Obama referenced much of the last decade as a period of “greed and irresponsibility” and cited as culprit “our collective failure to make hard choices.”  One ”hard choice” that Americans must make as we proceed to the International Year of Biodiversity is to reexamine our relationship with our government.

On Sunday, I took a friend visiting from Duke to the Capitol to observe the hard edge made by the bright white dome and the night’s cold dark. As we approached the the building he grew increasingly nervous, finally asking me, “Are you sure we’re allowed to be here?”  Immediately I recalled (as I so often do) A Seriously Funny Man from Missouri on the cover of 3 July 2008’s TIME Magazine –

In the 1880s the british poet and culture critic Matthew Arnold paid two visits to the U.S. to observe the native customs. Eventually he set down his impressions in a book, Civilization in the United States. On the whole, he didn’t think there was much. For one thing, he was troubled by the way Americans appeared to lack any capacity for reverence toward superior men. “If there be a discipline in which the Americans are wanting,” he pronounced, “it is the discipline of awe and respect.” And in that connection, one institution of American life struck him as an especially bad idea. That was what he called “the addiction to ‘the funny man,’ who is a national misfortune there.”

Arnold didn’t mention any funnyman in particular. He didn’t have to. In an essay six years earlier, he had already attacked by name the most famous American funnyman of all, Mark Twain. His humor, Arnold sniffed, was “so attractive to the Philistine.” It would be truer to say it was attractive to anyone who valued plain speaking and the kind of deadly wit that could cut through the cant and hypocrisy surrounding any topic, no matter how sensitive: war, sex, religion, even race. Twain was righteous without being pious, angry for all the right reasons and funny in all the right ways. You might say he gave virtue a good name.

All the same, Twain was stung by Arnold’s words and prepared a reply that he never published. That’s a shame, because it includes the single best one-line defense not just of himself but also of how a democratic society works in the first place. “A discriminating irreverence,” he wrote, “is the creator and protector of human liberty.”

Regrettably, the “discipline of awe and respect” is alive and strong in our American political scene today; particularly among Democrats; particularly on Capitol Hill, where journalists and correspondents jockey for luncheons and call backs; where activists are herded from seminars to brown bag lunches to rallies and back to then to the bar and then home. All the while, no one seems to notice that lawmakers are your employees. So are the staffers they hire and the custodians who clean our congressional offices and the rooftop snipers whom I sincerely hope were ready & willing to brain my Blue Devil friend and me where we stood, if necessary, to protect our U.S. Capitol.

Barack Obama is my employee, too. He is also my tenant. To me, his Election ‘08 was a job interview and the candidates, applicants. We the People were a hiring board and once we’d hired our representatives, my hope was that they would … well, represent.

Unsurprisingly, they haven’t. Our Congress remains a brothel where our future is whored out to the highest bidder. And suddenly I feel like a sucker, having worked for Obama in ‘08 and believed in Obama in ‘09.

So what’s it going to be then, eh? in 2010.  This year’s trajectory suggests that “conservatives” will remain united against Obama, “liberals” will continue to shift conservatively, and “progressives” will continue to get their asses kicked all over the gym, as they always have — at least, in my lifetime.  That is, unless Americans — particularly We the Correspondents — employ Mark Twain’s “discriminating irreverence” toward the faux-majesty of government that somehow lifts citizens elected to national office beyond the reach of their employers: We the People.

NOTE: These are my initial thoughts on a philosophical shift I’ve advocated in American politics for some time.  I post them here, now, without much of a proofread as it very early in the morning and I’m aching to write on something else.  I may more-thoroughly edit this post later for publishing on FireDogLake.  Then again, I may not.

Filed under: politics, punditry , Mark Twain, Mitch McConnell, Obama, Politifact, US Congress

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Filed under: true stories , economics, Gwen, microlending

The New Ruffian

I am suddenly elated by the knowledge that newruffian dot com — a domain I registered a long time ago and that I had assumed was expired — is, in fact, still registered to the accounts I created for it. And so now, after putting up way too damn many posts this week about the title of this wretched waste of digital space, and virtually none of any significance … I finally state with confidence that the selection of this blog’s title is now definitively closed.

SO, what’s The New Ruffian? Well, that depends on the outcome of some inquiries I currently make. More to follow…

Filed under: other , brand

blood, bills, paper

Tonight I was archiving through a dusty Inbox for a custom domain I’m to finally put to good use, when I discovered an email from George Hay dated 4 March of this year.  The subject line is skid marks but I very much prefer the title Blood, Bills, and Paper.  Perhaps you agree –

All I see is
blood, bills, and paper.
and more,
more, more of the same.

But you are
oh! so quick to quip
Its not my fault,
I’m under the whip.
Dying in a cell
with paperback walls
and Pier One bile.
Good God,
I haven’t moved in awhile.
On the road so long
I cant remember,
how to live at home.
Just cigarettes
and coffee all damn day
spendin’ time passin’ away
beneath
blood, bills, and paper
more
more more of the same.

My brother lost his job
so I gave him mine.
I can’t find work
or love or time.
And the rail
is the only sound
that lets me know
movement is my home.
Bored with melancholy,
and burned out,
on education and apathy.
I’d rather talk to myself,
than be the gentle creature
that kind catcher,
in the rye.
But they say there’s
jobs in Detroit
if your handy,
with a gun and a joint.
Gonna find a new game
with less hassle,
And no goddamn point.
Less channels and
A little less choice.
Someplace where
I can pretend to
hear my voice
above the
blood, bills, and paper.
More blood, bills, and paper
more more of the same.

Plastic is the future,
and electricity
is the new combustion
But I don’t have the know how,
the patience, or the gumption.
It’s a buyers market
sell your retirement
and grab the future.
Plant and pray for rain.
I’d make a killing
but my money wont buy
a half price
pie in the sky.
There’s not a penny
pound or shilling,
that could save me now.
Hold onto the wheel
And keep your weight on the plow
this is no place for
man, woman, or savior.
Wading knee deep
in blood, bills, and paper
more
blood, bills, and paper.

Filed under: true stories , California, poems

New Blog Title (again)

SO, after having changed this blog’s title several times of recent, I have decided to go my original intention to use the title as a geographic marker for where I’m currently based. Right now I’m on Capitol Hill and so the blog’s title is ON CAPITOL HILL. In three years, I hope to be permanently returned to London. At that time I may change the blog’s title to LONDONTOWN, for example. In South Africa later this year, the blog’s title will be WORLD CUP 2010.

I’m told changing the site’s title may diminish it’s SEO. To this I say, no worries. At this point I’m more concerned with how the thing looks and what it says than with whether or not it generates a organic search traffic.

Filed under: other , SEO, South Africa, World Cup

Does Froomkin Decide These Things?

“I think that the future success of our business depends on journalists enthusiastically pursuing accountability and calling it like they see it. That’s what I tried to do every day. Now I guess I’ll have to try to do it someplace else,” said Dan Froomkin when the Washington Post canned his ass, and he was right. He is now Washington Bureau Chief for Ms. Huffington’s Post, and the contact for the reporting/editorial internship I covet. Is it too much too assume the decision is his? I don’t know…

But I do know one thing is certain: my American Dream is on the line and I am where I need to be. It is comforting to know that Froomkin was “very disappointed” with WaPo’s decision to terminate their relationship with him. Now I know that he and I at least this much in common. And here at the finish line of a remarkably foul Year of the Ox, I do solemnly wonder if I will find a homeboy in Dan Froomkin.

Filed under: questions , Dan Froomkin, internship, The Huffington Post

Resolutions for 2010

• quit smoking
• intern editorially
• out-lobby the student loan industry

Filed under: other , New Year's Resolution, student loan industry

Brutal.

Last night I again sat up all night writing, and continue writing now. So many words; so few posted. “In a world of thieves, the only final sin is stupidity.”

Unfortunately, stupidity marks many of my decisions lately — many more, perhaps, than it did before. I not uncomfortable enough anymore, as I can finally see the home fires from the summit of a brutal crag.

Brutal is how first described 2009, in 2008, because I knew it would be then. It was. And now some rotten bastard has stolen my iPhone at the finish line. Mother. Fuck. Er.

Bring on the International Year of Biodiversity. I’m ready.

Filed under: true stories , 2009, crime, iPhone, Year of the Ox

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Filed under: true stories , transcripts

The Unlearned Bliss of Curiosity

Education consists mainly in what we have unlearned. -Mark Twain, 1898

The Unlearned. No words hold truer about my time at Notre Dame. Like most ignorant young university-bound folk, I arrived at Our Lady’s Golden Bubble with nothing but answers. My grandfather — a bonafide American gentleman of the class of 1940 — told me that above all else, my time at Notre dame must be devoted to “getting educated.”

I smiled and put forth a countenance that accepted his advice; but beneath the mask I saw Notre Dame as my avenue to one thing: riches. Education? I already had it. The craftiness I’d employed to get into Notre Dame was a legendary swindle, at least in my mind. No one had ever played the game like me, by my reckoning.

Four years later, the air of confidence has blown away on the answers it rode into South Bend. What was once was certain is now a question. Education, it seems, is not the accumulation of truth or strategems, but the art & science of the question; the mighty quest for conviction.

It is to this point in life journey that I’ve finally arrived. Nothing is certain. Nothing is comfortable. Everything sits strangely & new in my heart & brain. That which was once my guiding light has been smothered by the very question of flame, and I find myself alone and enveloped in the bliss of curiosity.

NOTE: I wrote this in my Moleskine notebook on 6 June 2006 in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Filed under: observations, true stories , 2006, Mark Twain, Moleskine, NOLA, Notre Dame, undergraduatism

From the desk of Congressman Todd Akin

Dear Missouri Friend:

On Wednesday night, the U.S. House of Representatives adjourned for the year. There will be no more bills, no more laws and no more spending until 2010.

Before leaving town, the majority voted to increase the nation’s debt limit by $290 billion. It seems that when Congress puts too much money on the charge card, it can just increase its own credit limit. That’s what happened on Wednesday. America had exceeded the amount of money that our country can legally borrow, so Congress changed the law. In fact, Congress has raised the debt limit 91 times since 1940!

The individual share of the National Debt is now approaching $40,000. What’s the big deal? Irresponsible spending drives our annual deficit and total national debt up further every year. For example, next year, Congress has voted to increase optional, non-defense spending by about 8% over 2009 levels.

And, in the long run, wasteful spending limits economic growth and kills jobs. I went on the House floor to talk about this on Wednesday night and you can listen in here.

I’ll be enjoying time with family over the next couple of weeks and I hope you will be as well. Have a safe and happy rest of the year and a wonderful 2010.

Sincerely,
W. Todd Akin

Filed under: other , Missouri, MO-2, Todd Akin, US Congress