It’s easy to become a cynic about the state of the American citizen’s covetous psyche. The expansion of our desires long ago exceeded the boundaries of our wallets resulting in the constant expansion of the federal government and not just the lowest national savings rate in history but also culminating in a negative savings rate—most Americans spend more than they make.
But it is in times of calamity that the true spirit of Americans shines brightest, attested too by the collective selflessness of our citizens following 9/11, the Indian Ocean tsunami and Hurricane Katrina. When properly motivated to action, there is no nation on the planet more capable and more willing to help a neighbor in need. I believe this about Americans with every fiber in my body.
Today, our nation’s problematic petroleum paradigm is a serious vulnerability for the United States and a drain on our individual budgets and a constraint on economic growth. However, solving the P3 is a potentially lethal weapon against terrorism and given that our uniformed sons and daughters have been warring in the middle east for eight years in significant part because of our oil addiction, the most pro-American, “I support the troops,” “buy American” act we can endeavor. Reducing our need for oil is the most patriotic issue of the day.
One of the most significant ways we can reduce demand for oil and improve our qualities of life is to alter the composition of our local communities. These are choices American families can make today and which forward thinking urban planners can aid. Suburban sprawl, far removed from our economic centers, is a monument to the global misunderstanding about the role of oil in geo-politics, formulated when oil was thought to be cheap, accessible and secure.
It would be trite to say that more suburbanites simply need to move closer to the cities—a trend underway in several cities attested to by the sustained property values of residences closer to cities and mass transportation hubs. Importantly, there simply isn’t enough space in already land-constrained districts. Moreover, such a mass exodus by well-to-do suburbanites back towards city-centers would force less affluent citizens to move out, thus shackling those with the fewest resources with the greatest transportation burden particularly in an absence of established mass transit systems in our suburbs.
In the most innovative cities the urban development trend is mixed-use zoning policies. Areas that are built around a mass transit access point allowing easier and less energy intensive access to city-centers are popping up from D.C. to Portland. These mixed-use development centers have a variety of housing options from single-family homes (though often on smaller lots than the most recent suburban sprawl) to townhouses and apartments. Additionally, business space is interwoven both for service-oriented companies and also for the stables of modern existence—groceries, entertainment, dry cleaning, barbers, and restaurants. These town centers become professional, recreational and social gathering places for Americans of all ages and are easily accessed by foot, bike, or a short drive. Town centers use land more efficiently by emphasizing vertical construction while recognizing the evolving desire to blend our work, family and social lives. More than anything else, the modern American is short on time. Town centers return dividends on this scarce resource by collocating the services and commodities we need most thus reducing time in transit from one provider to another. No longer trapped and isolated in our cars and rushing through cold, impersonal, cavernous stores we increase personal contact with friends, coworkers and neighbors in ways that draw us closer together. Beyond their obvious patriotic advantages, town centers represent societies sharing their lives and experiences.
Connecting local citizens to both the smaller, outlying town centers which become the mini-hubs of daily life and to the larger cities around which town-centers orbit can be an urban planning challenge and capital intensive to build new infrastructure. However, more creative examples exist such as Bogota, Columbia’s Transmilenio that essentially created a city-wide surface subway system with cutting-edge bus service utilizing existing streets.
It is chic to look for the fastest and most impressive gains in energy efficiency to come from technology. This techno-chauvinsim in American thought might dated from the atomic bomb’s success in bringing an end to the Second World War, but techno-chauvinism removes emphasis from the greatest instrument of change at our disposal—our individual and collective will as Americans. As Headmaster Albus Dumbledore noted to young Harry Potter, “It is our choices….that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.”
Americans have a long history of rising to a challenge and doing what is necessary under difficult circumstances. Americans have decisions to make but it is the role of good policy to facilitate easier transitions and promote the general welfare. Innovative mass transportation solutions and the addition of town-centers to existing suburban sprawl can bolster plunging property values in the suburbs, promote an end to our problematic petroleum paradigm and pump money back into the economy.
Reducing our need for oil is the most patriotic issue of the day. Viewing urban planning through this lens opens the door to a variety of effective, community-enhancing, options that conserve the investments we’ve already made and engage Americans as part of the solution, and when Americans are part of the solution, all things are possible.
As I thought about that later though, I don't feel that way at all. Honestly, I don't know how Disney delivers as much as they do for so little money. $60 for park admission seems high, yes. But look at the infrastructure, the options, the employees, the transportation. I can't believe they do it for as little as they do. Personally, I think it's a tremendous value and worth every penny I spent. 
But on the more important substantive issues, it was full of contradictions and misleading statements. He talked about being knocked down as a child and how his mother taught him to pick himself up. (Great lesson) Later, though, he lamented that at a time when so many Americans have been knocked down, Washington has done so little to help them get back up. (I thought, Senator, the point was to learn to pick YOURSELF up.)
He talked about how the most important aspect of work is that it provides the benefit of dignity and respect to Americans; but he then prattled on about how the work people have doesn't pay enough.
He talked about how tax breaks for corporations, which McCain supports, send jobs overseas. No, Joe, they don't. Tax breaks for corporations brings jobs home; companies have been sending jobs overseas because it already costs TOO MUCH to do business within the US.
He talked about a "promise that their tomorrow will be better than their yesterday." Who is making that promise, Senator? Only we can make our tomorrow better. Government can't and if government is promising that, and Americans want that, then this is the discussion that we should be having in America.
He quoted John McCain on Afghanistan from 3 years ago and Barack Obama on Afghanistan from 1 year ago. Why not break out a quote from McCain on Georgia from years ago and a quote from Obama on Georgia from last week?
Viewers of this speech who pay attention to his words, will not have been impressed with the content or the medium. 
However, the speech itself probably did little. She certainly had nothing to say that might sway Republicans to rethink their party affiliation. Furthermore, absent too were talking points that independents might find attractive. The speech seemed to have two purposes. First, convince her supporters to vote for Obama. But who else were they going to vote for? Those people involved enough in politics to be at or watch on tv the DNC convention are also likely to be people who will value their vote and not stay at home. Those who might elect not to vote at all, certainly were not in attendance and might well have been watching America's Got Talent and missed the speech completely.
Secondly, and more importantly to Mrs. Clinton, the speech was littered with reminders of why she should remain relevant in the Democratic Party. This was a "You Picked the Wrong Guy" speech.
Will we remember her or this speech in 4 or 8 years? I suspect not. The speech didn't brand itself with any tag lines that might survive the next few years. But it was a hell of an effort.
I believe not attending to these differences is the cause of the apparent divide in American thought. True conservatism (not that practiced by the Republicans) understands the importance of relationships between people and values those relationships over the individual. The whole is indeed greater than the sum of the parts. Liberal ideology seeks to raise the needs and desires of the individual above the collective good. This is where the Libertarians lose most Americans. Intuitively, Americans sense the error of the "my liberty is more important than the collective good" ethos and shun the movement. Neither the modern Democratic Party nor the Republican Party has found a way to tap into the American belief in Freedom while simultaneously bonding us to society. This is the time for Democratic and Republican ideologies to be replaced by less "me" centered thinking and our nation should return to its ideological roots, which means that we understand our obligation to each other to value and defend each other's freedom, not just our own.
The Democratic support that the super delegates are so keen on being a part of should be viewed as something of a mirage. What would the delegate count be if the events of the last month had taken place in December? Would Obama have as much support as he does now? Would he be the presumed candidate? And yet the Obama of today is the one the Democrats are likely to insist represents their party. The Obama that sees middle America as "clingers," the Obama that wouldn't repudiate Wright but is now quite right to repudiate, this is the Obama that will face McCain in November. For a party as down on America as this one, an Obama nomination seems awfully optimistic. Perhaps, it's not just Michigan and Florida that need a do-over: perhaps the Democrats ought to have a national do-over.
Sure he's liberal. Liberal we can handle. Heck even socialist we can handle. We have systems in place to deal with presidential initiatives which we ultimately don't approve of. But relinquishing any control to any kind of world organization is very troubling. Being outside of our borders and constitution, we could find ourselves subject to a body we don't agree with and yet have few ways to get out from under its jurisdiction. This is a slippery slope. I fear Obama's need to be liked and validated will prompt him to try to enter the U.S. into many global initiatives.
Hillary, despite her belief that her ascension has been preordained, has a low ceiling and a high floor. Obama continues to manifest himself as a divisive candidate, creating his own new voting demographic within his party, one that surely will never be as influential as, say, the evangelicals have been for the GOP. It is no wonder that Clinton supporters would sooner vote for McCain, the two have significantly more in common and, to their credit, Clinton supporters can see through the audacity of hype. The sad fact for the democrats is that these two represented the best the Democrats had to offer. Perhaps it is a tacit admission of poor policy that the Democrats chose two candidates who are best known for their celebrity status and not their policies or experience. If the policy postulates of the democrats had more merit, a "celebrity" wouldn't have be needed to endorse those policies.
I'm afraid I just don't believe that her feelings are the result of poorly timed contemplation. My understanding is that the family was present for the photo shoot and got to see the picture in advance. They liked it and moved on. NOW all of a sudden Miley is embarrassed? These are smart people familiar with the media. I, of course, have no inside information, this is just my opinion, but it would appear she wants to have her cake and eat it too: do the photo shoot (be edgy, become known to new demographics) and then make a heartfelt apology to appease the core fan group.
Is Obama smart enough to see the error of his proposal to meet with such foreign leaders? Probably not. Too impressed with his own palaver, he'll stand by his words. But can McCain and the GOP make the same connection and exploit Carter's follies as empirical evidence that they were correct in postulating what such visits from US dignitaries would bring about?
His words address the inherently conservative values (not republican--conservative) most Americans believe in. But he also points out that while we believe in them, we don't LIVE them. His article can be, and should be, a call for personal change. It will be an exciting read for the number of times you exclaim (too loudly for those sipping coffee nearby) "Yes!" Although, if I'm honest, it is depressing on a national scale because I know most Americans act on their immediate desires and not on the values they hold most sacred. But, in the end, change starts at home.
