gone fishing.

Work. Eat. Sleep. (Repeat.) is on hiatus.

Thank you for visiting.

war and peace.

-+- $500,000: Amount the Iraq war costs per minute, according to a joint analysis by a Nobel-prizewinning economist and a Harvard scholar, who noted that the amount spent on the war each day could pay for health care for 423,529 children.

From the October 8, 2007 issue of TIME

from demokratia to dermokratia.

The New Yorker reports that Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (The Gulag Archipelago) recently told Der Spiegel, “If you take an unbiased look at the situation, there was a rapid decline of living standards in the nineteen-nineties, which affected three-quarters of Russian families, and all under the ‘democratic banner.’ Small wonder, then, that the population does not rally to this banner anymore.”

In that same article, titled The Tsar’s Opponent: Garry Kasparov takes aim at the power of Vladimir Putin, David Remnick writes, “Who can prove to (Putin) that stability and prosperity demand democratic politics? Without the trappings of democracy, China is hoping it will become the world’s biggest economy. Oil-rich and liberty-poor Iran and Venezuela are ascendant. And Russia itself is growing richer; with the foreign debt gone, a multibillion-dollar stabilization fund has been established as a hedge against lower oil prices. For the first few years of Putin’s reign, there were several liberal advisers in his retinue, but once oil prices began to rise, from around twenty-five dollars a barrel to more than three times that, and analysts determined that such prices were sustainable, a more assertive statist policy took hold. Liberal advisers were fired or marginalized, kept on only as decoration for Western eyes. And few complain.”

Finally, there’s this ignominy: “In today’s Russia, demokratia as it emerged in the nineties has been derisively called dermokratia: ‘shit-ocracy.’ The notion of liberalism, too — a belief in the necessity of civil society, civil liberties, an open economy — has been degraded.”

Clearly, much has changed since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Nor do recent developments — the Iraq War and the US’s go-it-alone approach in the world, as symbolized by John Bolton’s combative UN tenure, our failure to ratify or improve the Kyoto treaty on climate, and our renouncement of the World Court — bode well for the spontaneous blooming of democracy.

Democracy is in need of a make-over, and Americans can lead in this by practicing what we preach. This means conducting elections in which the results are undisputed (a paper trail is required). Ridding ourselves of the outdated and anti-democratic electoral college (popular vote = president). Less corruption and more accountability in our government (jail-time usually gets people’s attention). And true campaign finance reform (either public financing of elections, or anonymous donations to eliminate any quid pro quo).

We’d also do well to address the growing divide between rich and poor in this country. One percent of Americans now hold 40 percent of the nation’s wealth. If Americans truly believe in democracy, we’ll find ways to rebuild our middle class. We’ll either lead by example or watch democracy continue to become marginalized both here and abroad.