Here in the Twin Cities the Northwest/Delta merger has been big news. Minneapolis and Saint Paul was the hub for Northwest and thus it will be hard to fly in or out of Minnesota without encountering Delta. As a Mac user, I loved the nwa.com web site. In almost 10 years of flying Northwest, I never had a Mac-related browser hitch. When you consider how Apple was doing 10 years ago, that’s pretty amazing.

Last week I used Delta’s web site for the first time. It had some major hiccups related to seat selection that prevented me from buying a ticket with Safari. I started over again with Firefox and all went well. OK, I thought, that is unfortunately more typical of the industry. I’ll just let them know and hopefully they will fix the bug.

I filed a report and got back the a form letter that said, among other things, the following:

To view delta.com, one of the following browsers is recommended:

Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 or higher
Firefox 2 or higher for Windows and Mac
Safari 2 or higher for Mac

Great! Safari was on the list. I wrote back pointing out I’d used Safari 4, which was supposed to be supported. That’s when I got this puzzling reply:

Currently, delta.com is designed and constructed to be best viewed by a
Windows-based, PC platform using Internet Explorer 6.0 (and higher), as
well as Netscape 7.2 (and higher) browsers. This was established based
on the dominant type of users throughout the industry. We regret that we
cannot guarantee service on every computer platform. However, we will
regularly review the Mac population of users and respond accordingly.

Huh? IE6 and Netscape7.2? Not even any support for the Mac until some further “regular review” happens? That does not sound very helpful. Given the penetration of Macs into the home market that sounds downright disrespectful of customers. Not to mention blind to the direction web standards are heading.

If anyone knows the right way to put pressure on Delta to fix delta.com, I’d love to hear it!

Somewhere in 2007, when I was not yet blogging again, I began to articulate my hopes for an Obama presidency. One foundation on which my hope for change rested was the simple symbolism of his name and skin color. I wanted to be able to hold his image before the world as a concrete demonstration that the US was changing course. He hardly had to do more than exist, I imagined, to make the world a better place.

Today that vision became real, and so much more. Barack Obama not only exists, he invites, engages, and challenges the world. He calls us all to be better than we have been. His speech in Cairo makes me feel like we are not in Kansas anymore (so to speak). We have entered a new era.

Without leadership painting a vision of the world we want it is very hard to act together toward a constructive end. Obama is laying that vision out, and the world he envisions is a world I want to live in. It is a world I want to work to create. I doubt I am alone. I think we are in the presence of true leadership.

All of us share this world for but a brief moment in time. The question is whether we spend that time focused on what pushes us apart, or whether we commit ourselves to an effort — a sustained effort — to find common ground, to focus on the future we seek for our children, and to respect the dignity of all human beings.

It’s easier to start wars than to end them. It’s easier to blame others than to look inward. It’s easier to see what is different about someone than to find the things we share. But we should choose the right path, not just the easy path. There’s one rule that lies at the heart of every religion — that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. (Applause.) This truth transcends nations and peoples — a belief that isn’t new; that isn’t black or white or brown; that isn’t Christian or Muslim or Jew. It’s a belief that pulsed in the cradle of civilization, and that still beats in the hearts of billions around the world. It’s a faith in other people, and it’s what brought me here today.

We have the power to make the world we seek, but only if we have the courage to make a new beginning, keeping in mind what has been written.

I’ve never smoked a thing, much less marijuana. On the other hand, I don’t feel terribly judgmental about pot. If anything, I think it is probably on par with alcohol, redeeming social qualities in a package I just don’t happen to enjoy (I run from smoke). It amazes me we spend so much energy outlawing the stuff, that seems like a true waste of time.

Andrew Sullivan’s Daily Dish has spent a good bit of time covering cannabis this season. Today I noticed two posts that discuss the value of pot in taming the emotional outbursts that attend Aspergers Syndrome.

One reader of the Dish writes:

I first tried cannabis at age 17. I quickly found that when I was medicated, people around me coped far better with my eccentricities. Like many ASDs I have a violent and explosive temper and am often described, especially by women, as a “Scary Guy.” The cannabis increases my tolerance for interruption and also helps me be more extroverted and therefore social.

Another chimes in with:

Example: my morning routine is to wake up early, put on a pot of coffee, let the dog out, pour my cup of coffee, let the dog back in, stir in my cream, then sit on the couch and read or listen to my iPod until my coffee is done. If I haven’t been smoking regularly, and my girlfriend comes down and lets out the dog BEFORE I put on the pot of coffee, that will completely ruin my day if not my entire week. I’ll be irritable by the time I get to work, and liable to snap at the smallest provocation.

On the other hand, if I had smoked the night before, I will notice that my routine has been jockeyed, but it just won’t bother me that much. The same goes for my social connections; when I smoke, I reflect upon, and come to value a social connection, but it’s a cognitive process for me… It’s not something I do naturally, and it’s not something I’m inclined to do if I’m sober (my mind says, “THERES NO TIME, THERES NO TIME”)

Now I wonder, might judicious use of cannabis help, for example, Alex cope with daily life? What if it were available in a non-smoking, perfectly legal form? I get angry all over again that we spend out time outlawing something so benign as marijuana. What a waste.

Mary loves walking Nathaniel to the school bus because it is a time that he often shares things happening in his life that she might not otherwise learn about. I can understand that. I love those moments of sharing. Still, I wish we could let our kids go a bit further afield. The other day I let Nathaniel go to the local park with two friends to play basketball. That earned me a horrified look and an order to head over to the park myself to keep an eye on the three of them. I went, I played b-ball too, I had fun. But I failed to let Nathaniel and his friends own the afternoon.

Today Andrew pointed me to an interview of Lenore Skenazy. Remember her? She let her 9 year old ride the subway alone in New York, earning all sorts of praise and condemnation. I believe she is right, we fundamentally wrap our kids in too much “protection”. They need room to grow, we keep them in pots way too small.

You want kids to feel like the world isn’t so dangerous. You want to teach them how to cross the street safely. You want to teach them that you never go off with a stranger. You teach them what to do in an emergency, and then you assume that generally emergencies don’t happen, but they’re prepared if they do. Then, you let them go out.

The fun of childhood is not holding your mom’s hand. The fun of childhood is when you don’t have to hold your mom’s hand, when you’ve done something that you can feel proud of. To take all those possibilities away from our kids seems like saying: “I’m giving you the greatest gift of all, I’m giving you safety. Oh, and by the way I’m taking away your childhood and any sense of self-confidence or pride. I hope you don’t mind.”

Amen. Of course, some kids will be hurt this way, but you know, kids get hurt every way you turn. How do kids get hurt the most? By being in cars with their parents.

We visit my grandmother in Austria regularly. On a recent trip my kids worked up a “Vienna Culture” comic book. Many pages were devoted to public transit, and one in particular to kids taking public transit to school. Alone. Heck, I took public transit alone in Cleveland, Ohio, from third to sixth grade. Why do we run school busses hither and yon instead of making public transit more multi-age and core to our society?

We worry so much about the worst case scenario instead of celebrating the varied and welcoming world around us. The irony is that the more we wall ourselves and our children off from the chaotic and beautiful world around us, the more that world loses its light and our children fail to thrive. Sounds like a vicious cycle to me.

Today my home town of Cleveland, Ohio, began to accept domestic partner registrations. As bigger dominos fall around the country (yeah Maine yesterday!) this can seem like a small step. But even small steps help move us forward. I particularly like that heterosexual couples are registering, some in lieu of marriage, as an act of solidarity with gay friends. One couple writes:

We’ve both always felt strongly about equal rights for everyone, and for the past four months, we’ve been working with the gay-rights organization called Ask Cleveland, on their “Keep the Registry!” campaign. Marriage may be in our future somewhere down the line, but we feel it is important for us to show our support for the LGBT community by registering now.

When we were married, we shared our vows with everyone who joined us, because we knew many of them had not been allowed to share such vows with one another publicly. I am hopeful that the day is coming when our friends won’t be excluded from the peculiar pleasure and pain that is marriage.

I think one brand of evil is extreme selfishness. Such as gaming a tax break just to pull in money even though you know you are doing the precise opposite of that the tax break was designed to accomplish. Why do people feel they can just wash their hands of this sort of behavior?

“The credit is supposed to encourage the use of green fuel.” Sure, I said, but isn’t it a bit weird you’re now adding diesel fuel to the process in order to take advantage of it? “It is what it is,” she said.

Who is this? Ann Wrobleski, vice president for global government relations at International Paper. What did they do? IP and other paper manufacturers added diesel fuel to the “black liquor” they use to cook fibers and make paper. Black liquor is the carbon-rich residue of the paper making process and until now has been sufficient to fuel the process without any diesel additive. Why add diesel? Because that allows the paper moguls to claim a tax credit for the use of a fuel mixture that combines “alternative fuel” with a “taxable fuel”. Get that? They add fossil fuel to a biofuel and claim the mixed fuel credit, even though for decades the biofuel alone has been sufficient for the industry.

The current estimate is that this will net the industry $8 billion in tax credits. So $8 billion of our tax dollars is going to fund this travesty! Your money, my money, paying to burn diesel for no reason other than to line paper pockets!

Read the whole story at The Nation. Get angry. Write your Senator and congressperson.

Update: Slashdot has picked up the story.

There is a lot of handwringing about the death of the newspaper these days. But I found myself arguing, a couple weeks ago, that a newspaper could still be viable. I thought it would take some real embrace of the medium, the opportunities a printed page offers to one-up the experience of the screen in resolution, beauty, and context. Little did I know there was already such a pathfinder out there.

I love how Utko focused on the constraints of the printed page, and then pushed up to those boundaries. He does not let any of us off the hook, anyone, with or without budget, with or without staff, anyone can push to be better than good.

A friend just pointed out this NYT article about the 5 November 1999 repeal of Glass-Steagall to me.

Who was clueless? Try Larry Summers:

“Today Congress voted to update the rules that have governed financial services since the Great Depression and replace them with a system for the 21st century,” Treasury Secretary Lawrence H. Summers said. “This historic legislation will better enable American companies to compete in the new economy.”

Phil Gramm:

“The world changes, and we have to change with it,” said Senator Phil Gramm of Texas, who wrote the law that will bear his name along with the two other main Republican sponsors, Representative Jim Leach of Iowa and Representative Thomas J. Bliley Jr. of Virginia. “We have a new century coming, and we have an opportunity to dominate that century the same way we dominated this century. Glass-Steagall, in the midst of the Great Depression, came at a time when the thinking was that the government was the answer. In this era of economic prosperity, we have decided that freedom is the answer.”

or Chuck Schumer:

“If we don’t pass this bill, we could find London or Frankfurt or years down the road Shanghai becoming the financial capital of the world,” said Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York. “There are many reasons for this bill, but first and foremost is to ensure that U.S. financial firms remain competitive.”

Who realized we were playing with fire? Try Paul Wellstone:

“Scores of banks failed in the Great Depression as a result of unsound banking practices, and their failure only deepened the crisis,” Mr. Wellstone said. “Glass-Steagall was intended to protect our financial system by insulating commercial banking from other forms of risk. It was one of several stabilizers designed to keep a similar tragedy from recurring. Now Congress is about to repeal that economic stabilizer without putting any comparable safeguard in its place.”

and Byron Dorgan:

“I think we will look back in 10 years’ time and say we should not have done this but we did because we forgot the lessons of the past, and that that which is true in the 1930’s is true in 2010,” said Senator Byron L. Dorgan, Democrat of North Dakota. “I wasn’t around during the 1930’s or the debate over Glass-Steagall. But I was here in the early 1980’s when it was decided to allow the expansion of savings and loans. We have now decided in the name of modernization to forget the lessons of the past, of safety and of soundness.”

The repeal of Glass-Steagall passed by overwhelming margins toward the end of the Clinton administration.

The measure, considered by many the most important banking legislation in 66 years, was approved in the Senate by a vote of 90 to 8 and in the House tonight by 362 to 57. The bill will now be sent to the president, who is expected to sign it, aides said. It would become one of the most significant achievements this year by the White House and the Republicans leading the 106th Congress.

As it turned out, it didn’t even take ten years for the house of cards to fall. And who’s advising Obama now? Larry Summers and Goldman Sachs. Not a very good sign.

Maybe we’ve been thinking about electric cars backwards. Shai Agassi of Better Place sure thinks so. He tells David Pogue:

Most of the car efforts were done from within the car, and assuming that there is no infrastructure change at all. It’s as if people were trying to build cars, but skipping over the gas station.

We started from the infrastructure. We came up with an electric car that would have two features that nobody had before. 1) The battery is removable. So if you wanted to go a long distance, you could switch your battery instead of waiting for it to charge for a very long time.
And 2) It was cheaper than gasoline car, not more expensive. Because you didn’t buy the battery. You paid just for the miles and for the car.

His interview with Pogue is fascinating. Israel, Denmark, and Hawaii will be giving this a go within three years. The San Francisco Bay Area is getting very serious about building this infrastructure. I wonder if the Twin Cities or state of Minnesota could make a run for it? Talk about stimulus!

Today’s front page of the Cleveland Plain Dealer feels like a Celeste family edition to this far-removed Clevelander. The Sunday PD’s painful article about the closing of parishes in Cleveland includes an image of St. Colman’s and another of St. Malachi’s. St. Colman’s is the church I went to as a boy, it is where I had my first communion. I remember waiting on the street after Sunday School there, thinking heretical thoughts about our lessons. St. Malachi’s is where we worshiped as a family when I was a bit older, though high school. I learned to love the music now in the Gather hymnal there. My sister was married there. It looks like St. Colman’s will be closing as the Cleveland Catholic Diocese adjusts to new demographic realities. St. Malachi’s will stay open, though the picture in the paper is a far cry from the standing-room-only crowds I remember there in my youth. Sad news, though I must say the church is bringing this on itself.

Meanwhile, at the bottom of the front page a glimmer of happier news from the Cleveland International Film Festival. My sister has worked with the film festival for years and next week I may have my first chance to attend since she has been involved. Happy news!