Talkin' Politics with a Six-Year-Old

While walking to Clinton Hill during a recent babysitting-adventure, Claire, Rob's six-year-old daughter, we passed by a brownstone with a "Support Obama" flyer in the window, complete with his silhouette.

Claire, being the weirdly-observant girl she is, noticed it. "They like Obama," she said. I looked at the window and agreed with her.

"Who do you like?" she went on to ask.

"Obama," I answered. Figuring it couldn't hurt, I asked her, "What about you?"

"I like Obama," she said. It made sense because Rob was supporting Obama too.

Deciding to go further with this, I said to Claire: "Did you know Hilary Clinton dropped out of the race? So now only Obama's left and he's running against John McCain."

Claire smiled and said, "Good." She paused.

"Do you want to know something really funny?" Claire asked with a smile. I nodded.

"There's a boy in school and he couldn't remember McCain's name, so he said 'you know, that really old president!'" she said, laughing.

Bits: Peace on Paper, Obama's Grammy, International Learning, Modernizing India, Getting Those Step-Ons and Turtle and Elephant Tales

Unfinished highway in Mumbai. Photograph by Adam Ferguson, via Time.

1.

"Virtual Peace Isn't Enough" by Zalman Shoval, from the New York Sun

Bush's new goal is to set a definition of the Palestine state, rather than creating it. Granted, though, that would be impossible to do in his remaining 7 months.

And Shoval does bring up a good point: on paper, peace means nothing; it's the actual implementation of peace and laws that create it that really mean something.

2.

"Maine to Obama; Clinton Replaces Campaign Leader" by Katharine Q. Seelye, from the New York Times
Hahahaha, Obama won a Grammy and beat Bill Clinton.

3.

"U.S. Universities Rush to Set Up Outposts Abroad" by Tamar Lewin, from the New York Times

Globalization is obviously big and now, instead of international students flocking to the U.S. for education, there is a new place for them in the Middle East and American universities are giving them those opportunities. Brian Baird, a subcommittee member, brings up an interesting point:

"Still, he said he worried that foreign branches could undermine an important American asset--the number of world leaders who were students in the United States.

'I do wonder," he said, 'if we establish many of these campuses overseas, do we lose some of that cross-pollination?'"

4.

"Rebuilding Mumbai" photographed by Adam Ferguson, from Time

These pictures remind me a lot of Bangladesh, except that one picture of the brightly-lit streets at night. In Bangladesh, there was always a dark soft glow of light.

5.

"Indonesia to spray train roof riders" from Reuters

I saw this a lot in Bangladesh: people cram into any space they can when using public transportation, even if that means sitting on the roof of a car, truck or train, without any fear. In this article, it says about 53 people died traveling that way in Indonesia. I wonder what the number for Bangladesh would be. And, come on Reuters, Indonesia isn't part of Africa...

6.

"Turtle Swims from Indonesia to Oregon" from the AP

So he swam 13,000 miles. You go, turtle.

7.

"Wild elephant stray into B'desh village, kill man" from Reuters

And another elephant, though nowhere near where I was.