Presidential Power

For the first time since WWII, no presidential candidate in either Party has served in the military. As Jeffrey Toobin points out, this is the culmination of a recent trend in American Politics over that last two and a half decades: " In every election since 1988, the candidate with the better military record lost." Some may lament the fact that military experience has played a decreasing role in how we evaluate a person's ability to become Commander and Chief - and there are valid points to be made in favor of electing a person who has seen the horrors of war up close - but there are also persuasive arguments against electing a person purely on the basis of military prowess.

Once such argument can be found in Richard Neustadt's seminal work, Presidential Power, where the author asserts that a President's greatest asset is his ability to persuade others - whether the public or in the administration - to do his bidding. As opposed to in the Military where a soldier is legally bound to obey his General, there is no such obligation in politics. This fact was not lost on President Truman when he commented that Eisenhower, should he become president, will just "sit here, and he'll say, 'Do this! Do that!' And nothing will happen. Poor Ike-it won't be a bit like the Army. He'll find it very frustrating."

And after being elected, Eisenhower found this to be true. In his very own words, "I sit here all day trying to persuade people to do the things they ought to have sense enough to do without my persuading them.... That's all the powers of the President amount to."

Americans say they don't want professional politicians in the White House, but a politician is the exact type of person who embodies and has spent his career honing these skills. We just want a politician so good, that he persuades us he isn't one.

Freedom

This actually looks like a staged photograph one would find at a fine art gallery in New York or Philadelphia. The facial expressions are tremendous, each one different from the next. The hand gestures add an additional layer of emotion and subjectivity.

Tehran, Then and Now

As Carla Parks of Foreign Policy puts it, "when Westerners think of Iran today, images of women wearing chadors, American flags burning, and militant crowds shouting nationalistic slogans often come to mind." It was, however, not always thus.

Parks' Foreign Policy photo essay, Once Upon a Time in Tehran, puts on display a city that once was, but no longer exists outside the memory of those who walked the streets of the modern pre-Revolution Tehran. What is truly striking about these photographs is how they seem as if they could have been shot in any American city during the 1970s. Needless to say, such a societal parallel is now just a distant memory.

The story of Tehran's descent from cultural bastion to Theocratic stronghold is reminiscent of Berlin's in the early 20th century. Let us hope that the former can break through its tyrannical chains without the bloodshed that accompanied the latter's accomplishment of this feat.

False Assumptions

I must admit that I put off watching Bennett Miller's rendition of Moneyball for quite some time, primarily due to its hype (especially its association with Lewis' novel), accessibility (on its face, a cliche biographical sports drama), and big-league (my apologies)  roster (Pitt/Hill/Seymour-Hoffman)--what a mistake.

Breakfast at Taco Bell?

There's something unrealistic--or, perhaps, overly romantic--about the philosophy of Yum Brands' (NYSE:YUM) CEO David C. Novak. His obsessive focus on leadership and culture (as explained in his new book Taking People With You: The Only Way to Make Big Things Happen) is wonderful in theory, but I fail to understand its tangible connection to reality, namely profit margins. Of course a good company starts with good people, but there's undoubtedly more to the story (to start: business acumen, entrepreneurship, and timing). Clearly Novak has done well for himself, though, if director seats at J.P Morgan/Bank One, a 250% YUM stock price appreciation since 2004, and a $199.88 million five-year personal compensation package are any sort of indication.

A Brilliant Pairing

Just yesterday, I came across one of the best video representations of Bon Iver's "Holocene." Larkin Seiple's stunning cinematography highlights both Iceland's natural beauty and man's innate curiosity. Although I agree that "youthful curiosity" on its face sounds cliche--and, admittedly, it pains me to use such a term--watch the video (lights off, full screen, with Bose QC3 noise-cancelling headphones) and see for yourself.

Particularly touching is the sequence starting at 02:13: "Third and Lake it burned away, the hallway / Was where we used to celebrate." Towards the end, the boy tosses a handful of pebbles in the air, ultimately puncturing the lake's metallic reflection. Fittingly, this action occurs in tandem with Vernon's utterance of "to celebrate," verbiage clearly associated with action and merriness. This type of pairing is precisely what brings the [now-corrupt] concept of a "music video" to life.

Presidential Dialogue

The NYTimes rightly places Obama's State of the Union Address in the context of electoral politics in its piece, "Obama Sets Sights on Romney." When reading excepts of Obama's speech juxtaposed with Romney's critiques, a dialogue between the two men emerges, elucidating two very distinct world views which will soon be put to the test in the general election. But not if Newt Gingrich has anything to say about it...