A Comic Masterpiece At The Walter Reade

Even for a broadly-defined blog, this doesn't really fit into it, but so what. Monday the 5th of January the Walter Reade Theater in Lincoln Center is screening Play Time, Jacques Tati's stunning comedy about the sleek, modern world of Paris and the crazy humanity that lived in it. Everyone who reads this blog should go see it. I've found one review here. The Criterion Collection synopsis is here:

Jacques Tati’s gloriously choreographed, nearly wordless comedies about confusion in the age of technology reached their creative apex with Playtime. For this monumental achievement, a nearly three-year-long, bank-breaking production, Tati again thrust the endearingly clumsy, resolutely old-fashioned Monsieur Hulot, along with a host of other lost souls, into a bafflingly modernist Paris. With every inch of its superwide frame crammed with hilarity and inventiveness, Playtime is a lasting testament to a modern age tiptoeing on the edge of oblivion.

The Rick Warren Controversy

I thought I’d say something about the Rick Warren-Obama inauguration flap. Obama has assigned the invocation at the ceremony to Reverend Rick Warren, pastor at the Saddleback church in California. This has gotten a lot of criticism because Warren was one of the main supporters of Prop. 8 in California. Warren is completely opposed to gay marriage and has equated it with incest and polygamy. (Melissa Etheridge claims he told her he regretted that choice of words and it's not the way he thinks. I’m a bit skeptical. Has he publicly disavowed these statements?)

I find the selection upsetting. To choose this man as the primary pastor presiding over the inauguration feels like a slap in the face not just to homosexuals, but to the principles of basic equality under the law. Obama has said that selecting Warren is about unity, about including people in a national conversation that others might disagree with. I get his point. True unity for the country means engaging people with whom you passionately disagree with and Rick Warren is a such a person. Unity, and real change, Obama is saying, is wrenching. I think, to have included Rick Warren among other pastors would have been exactly the right thing to do. He is an important member of the evangelical community and represents beliefs held by a sizeable percentage in this country. But giving him such a prime position is to associate him too closely with Obama’s vision for the entire country. I acknowledge that for Obama unity is an extremely important value. But I think that for me, basic rights are a bit more weighty on the scale. The decision feels against the spirit of inclusion and basic civil equality.

That said, I reserve final judgement on Obama. Symbols matter, but they are still only symbols. Obama’s ultimate test will be what substantive changes for gay rights he will achieve. If he were to get rid of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, repeal the Defense of Marriage Act and even legalize civil unions, then none of this would matter.

I want to say something else about Rich Warren. In that video that I linked to above, Warren is also asked this:

Q: Which do you think is a greater threat to the American family? Divorce or gay marriage?

Warren: That’s a no brainer. Divorce. There’s no doubt about it.

Q: …So why do we hear so much more, especially from religious conservatives, about gay marriage than about divorce?

Warren: Oh, we always love to talk about other sins more than ours.

“A no brainer”! “We always love to talk about other sins more than ours”! I know he's still being intolerant of gay marriage, he still considers it a sin, but still, these are not statements I expect to hear from a figure on the religious right. Rick Warren is an interesting figure in American evangelical movement. I remember reading a New Yorker article on him a few years ago and he seemed like someone who was trying to move past the issues normally associated with the religious right. He focuses on poverty, HIV. He truly practices what he preaches: he reverse tithes, giving away 90% of what he makes. He seems much more reasonable, and positive, than someone like James Dobson or Jerry Falwell. He is not pathologically, and creepily, obsessed with issues of sexuality like others seem to be. Warren represents a more hopeful future for religious conservatism in this country. He is someone who needs to be engaged, not pushed away.

Physics for Presidents (And Citizens, Too)

I recently found an interesting video called Physics 101: What Our Next President Needs to Know. It’s a lecture at UC Berkley given by Robert Muller. It’s a good primer for the science behind some of the most important issues of our time: nuclear terrorism, global warming, etc. The guy is a good lecturer, it’s not too technical, I don’t think, and it also addresses some of the misinformation regarding this stuff. You’ll learn things like:

- Radiological terrorism – a “dirty nuke” – is extremely hard to do and the fear is overblown. The most likely impact of a radiological bomb is to slightly increase the rate of cancer death rather than massive death at the scene.

- A straightforward explanation of why the World Trade Center fell.

- Spy satellites are increasingly useless at spying.

- The global warming that has occurred over the past 200 years until 1957 is actually not attributable to humans. It is only since 1957 that human activity has contributed to global warming.

- NYC does not have to worry about flooding due to rising sea levels. (Phew!)

- No matter how green our economy becomes, it will never be enough to solve global warming. The only way to really fix the problem is to pay developing countries to use green technology.

The professor starts talking at 7:20 and the video lasts about an hour. I know it’s a lot, but if you have some time I recommend it.

Machine In The Ghost, Ctd.

Before my little hiatus I posted this video:



I called it entrancing, fascinating and prophetic and was disturbed by the way, from what I saw, it depicts a human body under the control of external electronic signals. But a few commentors have taken me to task, and added some interesting nuances.

According to one commentor, we’ve even been able to induce emotional states in animals through electrical stimulation -- the kind of human/technological integration in this video is nothing new. That's true, of course. For a long time we have had heart pacemakers, brain pacemakers, cochlear implants, and more recently brain implants that allow for control of things such as robotic arms and computer interfaces. (Here is an interesting 60 Minutes report that shows some of the state of the art)

But I do maintain that the fact that, to me, it looks like his face is seemingly taken over by the music is a bit creepy. (I should say here that some people on YouTube have wondered if the effect is even real. I think it is. Watch some of his other videos, here, and here. It doesn’t seem possible for someone to control his face to this degree.) Pacemakers, cochlear implants, these affect involuntary systems inside the body. People that are able to control a robotic chair by thinking (as in the 60 Minutes video) are still in control of what they are doing. My point here is that this artist has voluntarily given up control over his muscles and lets them do what they will in response to the music. The feeling is one of willing surrender to overwhelming forces. One way that I look at it is as a metaphor for a future where humanity starts giving in to technological forces that it doesn't fully understand.

Commentor Invisible Man, however, does make an interesting and more hopeful point: the artist composed the very music that is being used to drive the electrodes that contract his muscles. So, in this sense, the artist is still in ultimate control over everything and his face becomes his instrument. Conceptually it isn’t that different than a singer or a dancer. In this case the control is just roundabout and indirect, but he is still in ultimate control. What this artist is doing is, I think, both a disconcerting and a reassuringly human use of technology. It points in brand new directions of how we can express ourselves, directions in which our own biology is plastic and malleable. I can imagine lots of very weird, freaky variations on this example. What if someone were playing this music live and had someone else hooked up by electrodes. Imagine a music and dance troupe: Four people make up the band, and play music normally. But then there are two other people, one of whom is the instrument for the other. One person plays the other like a puppet, interpreting the music that the regular band plays! A completely new kind of human performance!

I think I just blew my own mind.

Caroline Kennedy... Worse Than Palin

Back to politics. The more I read about Caroline Kennedy running... I'm sorry, presenting herself, for Clinton's soon to be vacated senate seat, the more pissed off I get. She's never run before for anything, claims she isn't running a campaign, claims that raising a family is a qualification for the office (these are mostly from this New York Times article) , and then says something like this today in an interview with NY1:

Dominic Carter: Okay. If [Governor Patterson] doesn't select you, will you run, right around the corner in 2010?

Caroline Kennedy: Well, if he doesn't select me, I would support the person that he does select. You know, I would love to do this, I feel like I have a lot to bring, and I would love to deliver for the people of New York. But, there's, you know, many ways that I can serve, and I can, and as I have been doing.

[and later]

Carter: ...There is also some people who perhaps may have not known Caroline Kennedy if her last name was not Kennedy we would not been having this conversation.

Caroline Kennedy: Well if my last name was not Kennedy maybe I would have run for office a long time ago. I don’t know.

As long as one person is selecting me then I'd be happy to serve. If the whole state selects me, then I'm not really interested. It seems like she wants to become a senator without going through the actual process of running. A once in a lifetime opportunity came up for someone with a famous name to bypass the democratic process and she took it. Wow, she must be so qualified she can't take the chance of mucking about in the tawdry world of electoral politics!

Sara Palin ran for city council, mayor and governor before running for... shudder... the vice-presidency. This is worse than Palin.

Of All the Charlie Browns In The World, You're The Charlie Browniest

My other Christmas related post (this was the first) is about my favorite Christmas music ever. It probably won’t be too surprising that it’s the soundtrack to the Charlie Brown Christmas Special. Not only is it intensely nostalgic, reminding me of so many winters watching the show as a kid, but it, alone among all the Christmas music I can think of, captures the grey, mixed feelings that is an unavoidable part of the holiday and of winter in general.

On a first pass, Christmas is a time of seeing family and giving gifts, of “holiday cheer” (I think it’s clear by now that what I’m talking about is the secular celebration of Christmas). And yet, there’s a flip side to that: the extreme commercialism and consumerism, the feeling of loneliness, the feeling of being out of place, of not getting invited to Christmas parties, that sense of forced cheer. The fact that it happens during the cold and short days of winter only intensifies everything. This is what the Charlie Brown Christmas soundtrack says in spades. To listen to it is to become Charlie Brown trudging through the snow, wondering why no one has sent him a Christmas card and yearning for something deeper from the season than pink, plastic trees. Now, my attitude doesn’t descend to his level of despair. Yes, I go to parties and get and give gifts and feel authentically cheerful. But, not all the time. The bitter cold, the disappointment when you get a gift you don’t really want, the sense, when it’s all over: “is that all there is?” It's all inevitable. A Charlie Brown Christmas is about reflecting on this. It reminds me that the holiday can sometimes get you feeling a bit down precisely when it’s supposed to pick you up. It expresses that sentiment back to you and becomes your companion in melancholy.

(NPR has done a few reports on the soundtrack over the years. They're good and they are here and here.)

It’s a Gap Christmas Flashback

I’ve always loved the Christmas season. I love the nostalgia it makes me feel for my childhood. I love the communal experience of it, how everyone shares in it in one way or another, the general feeling of warmth and community with my family and friends. And, I love how this feeling is extended when it’s incorporated into pop culture at-large. (If this post makes some people throw up for my shameless sentimentality, I’m sorry, but I’m sentimental about this) If it’s well done (that is, tasteful, not like a recent commercial where Santa Claus tries to buy sleigh, I’m sorry, car insurance. Groan!). One of my favorite examples of this is a series of commercials that Michel Gondry (director of the very good Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) created for the Gap in 1999.







Like the best Gap commercials, they are 30 second expressions of pure pop fun done in the most elegant way. They never stoop so low as to mention what is actually being sold (though, of course, the instant association of the brand with a broad cultural feeling is the point). They bring together a big-sounding version of the song Sleigh Ride (conducted by John Williams, I think) with, unexpectedly, yet wonderfully, Ice Ice Baby by Vanilla Ice. To top it off, the kaleidoscopic images of people dancing and skating is so playful, and done with such freedom, that, to me, they feel joyful. These commercials are quintessentially modern without sacrificing a genuine Christmas feeling. I watch them every year.

Where Have I Been For Two Weeks?

I think if there is one iron rule of blogging it’s probably this: you have to keep writing! Unfortunately, I have violated that rule in a big way, not posting anything since December 10th (and even then, it was a pretty lame post: Joe The Plumber?? Ugh!). Well, I am back. Hopefully, there are still one or two loyal readers left. I use Google-Analytics to track how many people read the site and I’ve been dreading checking the latest numbers. For a blog that is just the personal opinions of a political layperson, I’m frequently surprised that it’s more than just a few good friends who seem to read it -- for the last month it’s averaged about 18 visitors per week, peaking at 28 one week (who are these people?!) So much has happened in the last few weeks – Madoff, Blagojevich, the final Obama cabinet picks, the auto bailout, the Mumbai fallout, the shoe thrower – and I haven’t commented on any of it. I just hope that this time away hasn’t permanently lost me my “base”.

To quickly mention why I’ve been away: First, I’ve been working a lot on the other main occupier of my time: a film script, which I’ve been working on for a year. Secondly, it’s the season of Christmas parties, and this year I’ve gone to more than in any other. Christmas parties mean a fair amount of drinking, and that, alas, does not go well with the focus that I like to bring to the blog. But now, that’s all done with. My head is clear and the posts will start to flow. But, I want to just dip my toe in first. Two Christmas-related, non-political and media-laden posts are in order.

Joe The Plumber, Class Act

Joe Wurzelbacher says that he was "appalled" by McCain on the campaign trail. He almost left the campaign bus at one point, but he thought Obama would be a lot worse. Palin, however, was the "real deal." God help us.

Shiv-seki

On Monday morning Obama announced that he has chosen retired General Eric Shinseki to be Secretary of Veterans Affairs. I don't know what the Secretary of Veterans Affairs does exactly, but as far as the symbolism goes it is an impeccable pick. Shinseki was the guy who told the country that the Bush administration was living in a fantasyland when it came to preparing for Iraq. He is the one who went before Congress and said that it would take, "something in the order of several hundred thousand soldiers" to occupy Iraq successfully. He is the one who, as Obama said on Meet the Press on Sunday, "was right."

Also, I think it's great to know that Shinseki was able to speak truth to power and eventually have his dignity restored. I would like to think that he been chuckling to himself a lot lately.

Morever, the pick illustrates Obama's deft political ability or, as James Fallows writes so well, his, "extremely refined aspect of sticking in the shiv." Obama can keep his rhetoric bipartisan and classy, his demeanor lofty and presidential, while still grinding the faces of all those responsible for the awful pre-war planning in the dirt. He doesn't need to say anything about what the previous administration did. He doesn't need to list and go off on their massive failures. The pick says it all.

"Revenge is a dish best served cold." (An Old Klingon proverb, I believe.)

What The Hell Is This??

So I just googled my name, something I haven't done in a long time, and this site comes up: http://www.axuve.com! What the hell is going on here? It's a very strange site that claims to be about foreign currency calculators, though, in reality, I think it's just some hacking site: other than explaining the different types of calculators out there it doesn't do anything; it has one sub-page -- axuve.com/axuve.html -- that I clicked on and took so long to load I stopped it for fear the site was doing something to my Mac. It also has space for you to sign up for a newsletter at the top, but it doesn't mention the newsletter at all in the body of the text. I would think that if it was designed to get you to enter in your email and name then the page would actually ask you to fill in your name and email. Weird. But weirdest of all... why is there a site out there with my name as its domain?? And it's the first thing that comes up in a Google search! Is this some ploy to get people who are looking for trapped in an internet scheme? Is this a trap for me somehow?? Any of the people who visit this site know a way to find out more about this site? It's very disconcerting.

Machine In The Ghost, Ctd.

A few commentors have wondered what is so "prophetic" about my previous post. Well, what I'm thinking is that the video points to the way in which human biology and technology are coming together. We are all familiar with prosthetic limbs, pacemakers, artificial hearts, etc. But within my lifetime, I think I will see a much deeper level of integration between the two, particularly involving digital information technology. We may one day augment our own mental abilities with computer chips. At that point, where the boundary is between man and machine becomes blurred, it seems to me. For those people who choose to incorporate this kind of technology into themselves, will it be accurate to describe them as human beings? Will their technology be dictating their actions to some degree? At least, will the fact that they incorporate so much technology into themselves make their behavior unrecognizable to non-technological humans? It's a huge question, and a huge subject, but it seems to me that the fact that technology will change our behavior so much that it becomes a major determining factor in that behavior is inevitable. We will be subject to technology in ways we can't yet imagine.

And this brings me back to the video. What is so interesting and disturbing and prophetic about it is that, in it, computer technology controls human muscles, not the other way around. The human being is subordinate here, the medium by which the music and the technology expresses itself. When the music really gets going, the expression on the guys face is almost one of being overwhelmed by the electronic pulses making his face spasm, like a swimmer out at sea giving in to the constant barrage of waves that bat him around.

Machine In The Ghost

This has go to be one of the most entrancing, fascinating, prophetic, and disturbing videos I've ever seen on the internet.

The National Security Team

So we now have Obama's national security team, and for the most part, I like it. Gates staying at Defense is a strong choice, from what I've read. He has started to turn the department around, he actually respects and listens to the military more than Rumsfeld ever did, and seems able to work with people instead of maneuvering around them. I believe he comes from the classic realist school of foreign policy, so the Iraq War is something that he would probably have been skeptical about from the beginning. And yet he has also come to understand the inescapable reality of the 21st century where America will need to be deeply involved in the world for the foreseeable future. Retreating inside fortress America and worrying about narrow economic and military interests is not an option.

Eric Holder seems like perhaps an excellent choice. Here is someone capable, and more importantly, someone who might actually care about the law, the constitution and executive power, someone who has pointed out that the Justice Department must stand with some distance from the rest of the White House, and who said today that Justice plays a, "unique role," in the administration and that, "it is incumbent those of us who lead the department to ensure not only that the nation is safe but also that our laws and traditions are respected." I'll take it with a grain of salt until I see actual results, but he feels like a clean break from Bush enablers like Gonzalez and Mukaskey.

Of James Jones I have read little except that he's opinionated and another foreign policy realist who's come around to seeing things a little differently, like Gates. He should not be the failure that Rice was. He will hopefully have the strength to wrangle the heavyweights Obama has chosen.

Lastly, of course, is Clinton. My feelings about her as Secretary of State are mixed. She has star power and intelligence and toughness, all of which help her new job. But she was a terrible manager of her campaign and is a... Clinton, which always means ego and potential for distracting, high drama (and it always means Bill!). On that tack I hope Obama knows what he's doing. I really, really do. And, on substance, while I initially wondered why he chose her, I'm starting to see that it fits with Obama's foreign policy beliefs and general character. During the campaign, they were never that far apart on policy, but there were some interesting, and telling issues where they differed, and where I agreed with him more: on Cuba, where he was for greater openness and rapproachment, on nuclear proliferation, where he was more clearly for significant change (I think), and on the initial vote to go to war, of course. These are not major differences, at least not now (though they disagreed on the vote for war, that's not a barrier to them agreeing on getting out), but still they made me wonder if the two saw eye-to-eye on that as much as they should.

After listening to Obama today, it occurs to me that to focus on these issues is to miss the forest for the trees and ignore who Obama is. He and she may have differences on some things, but as he said today, on the overall course U.S. foreign policy should take, they are in, "almost complete agreement." The point here is that what he really cares about is the overall shape of his foreign policy. The other, individual issues are simply not that important to him. He's focusing on grand strategy, as is his tendency: Obama has always tended to "go big" on issues and ignore or compromise or postpone dealing with smaller issues. Even if he would like to, say, have a closer relationship with Cuba, he has too many other problmes of global scope on his plate to have his main goals disturbed by a regional issue. On the broad strokes, I bet Clinton really does agree with him and that is why he chose her and she accepted. She has always been a bit of a hawk, but he has also made somewhat aggressive, or just plain agressive, comments: on killing jihadists inside Pakistan, on Russia invadeing South Ossetia, on the issue of Jerusalem in any Israeli/Palestinian agreement. When it comes to overall foreign policy I think he's actually a pretty pragmatic realist who wants diplomacy to work, but has no problem using physical force when necessary. (Obama has been known to admire George Bush, Sr.'s foreign policy, and has received advice from Brent Scocroft.)

Finally, part of the reason for agreement I think might also be that, because things are in such a bad place right now for the U.S. in the world, the different branches of U.S. foreign policy (minus the crazies -- isolationists or neoconservatives) have come into closer agreement on what that policy should be. Both progressives, liberal hawks and realists all feel that we must: pull out of Iraq, repair our international relationships, shift more of our resources away from military spending and more towards aid and diplomacy, and take greater action on issues such as climate change, energy security and nuclear proliferation. The previous eight years have just made these issues very clear and a rough consensus has emerged. At least for now. If Obama is successful and a good part of these issues is taken care of, then, ironically, I wonder if more cracks will start to show as everyone's differences become magnified. It's entirely possible that this team works precisely because the U.S. is in such a bad place that what we have to do to get out of it is obvious to everybody. What happens later is a different story.

Mumbai Motivation

At Counterterrorism blog there is an interview discussing the motivations behind Mumbai. I don't know this guy's reputation, so, just skimming it I don't know how authoratative he is, but his analysis is very plausible. I should have seen it, knowing what I know from my class: First, this is about sparking a war between Pakistan and India. Second, this is about sparking such a war so that pressure is relieved from Pakistan's Western front, where Pakistani soldiers are fighting jihadists. Third, Al-Qaeda is probably involved in this at some level -- if not at the operational, planning level, then at the inspirational, global strategy level. This kind of attack, whether directed by Al Qaeda or not helps its overall mission, and, as I mentioned, helps its current state of health in Pakistan by potentially making the Pakistani forces that are fighting it withdraw to go fight along Pakistan's Eastern border in a conflict with India. The whole point of terrorism is to create an overreaction from the countries involved.

Oui Nous Pouvons!

Sheesh! Sarkozy is just shameless! A reader of Andrew Sullivan's blog sent this in to him from Paris.

My Italian Twin

Apparently, I haven't been living my life in New York City. I've actually been living in Florence. Click on this picture to get a better view:

I'm No Terrorism Expert But..., Ctd.

A column in today's Times is a great place to start understanding what happened in Mumbai. It seems that it is about Indian issues, about the clash between traditional religious ideology and the new, business-oriented, cosmopolitan India that it opposes. Mumbai is the commercial center of India, the center of Bollywood filmmaking, a place that attracts international travellers and Indians with dreams of making it big: "Just as cinema is a mass dream of the audience, Mumbai is a mass dream of the peoples of South Asia."

And all this worldliness is anathema to the fundamentalist religious traditions in India, both Muslim and Hindu:

In today's Mumbai... Hindu and Muslim demagogues want the mobs to come out again in the streets, and slaughter one another in the name of God. They want India and Pakistan to go to war. They want Indian Muslims to be expelled. They want India to get out of Kashmir. They want mosques torn down. They want temples bombed.

And now it looks as if the latest terrorists were our neighbors, young men dressed not in Afghan tunics but in blue jeans and designer T-shirts. Being South Asian, they would have grown up watching the painted lady that is Mumbai in the movies: a city of flashy cars and flashier women. A pleasure-loving city, a sensual city. Everything that preachers of every religion thunder against. It is, as a monk of the pacifist Jain religion explained to me, “paap-ni-bhoomi”: the sinful land.

I'm No Terrorism Expert But...

Commentor "Frank" asked me what I thought about the Mumbai attacks because he, " heard you hold some expert knowledge in the field of terrorism.' Right off the bat, let me correct you. I have NO expert knowledge in terrorism. I took one course in the subject at Columbia over the summer. I can tell you what I think, but it's really only half a degree above a lay-person.

First, from the reports I've read, here and here, it's not yet clear who did this. What I think we do know so far is that the attackers were young men, that the targets were the Indian elite and U.S. and British foreigners, that the attacks were dramatic and involved direct action by terrorists rather than timed explosives as in previous attacks, that they were fairly sophisticated in their planning, that a little known group, Deccan Mujahadeen, has claimed responsibility, though this group may not exist. The Indian Prime Minister has implied that Pakistan is linked to the attack and this may be true. The issue of Kashmir is a big one for India and Pakistan -- apparently Pakistani intelligence runs an organization named Lashkar-e-Taiba associated with Kashmir and maybe they helped plan this attack, though this group has denied it.

This is what occurs to me: Making the target the commercial capital of India, elites and foreigners, and making it such a big and sophisticated attack, using a direct attack instead of bombs, these are all strategic choices aimed at escalating the degree of notoriety and getting international media attention. Modern terrorism is pretty much defined by the use of modern media, which multiplies the effects of limited actual violence to make a small event into a really big one. Why do these militants want the attention? Maybe it's a show of force and makes militants get taken more seriously; maybe it ups the profile of the issues involved like India's growing economic power, it's elite classes, India perhaps becoming "owned" by foreigners (I'm just guessing here); maybe it is really about internal politics -- just anger filled Muslims saying, "no one is safe, not even the elites; maybe it's an attempt to globalize a local grievance by Indian Islamic militants playing to a global Muslim audience. The fact that U.S. and British citizens were taken hostage is interesting since these are the two main countries involved in Iraq. Maybe this is a way for Indian Muslims to exploit the Iraq War, getting their local situation noticed by a global Muslim community angry over Iraq.

Also, commentor Frank seems confused by the fact that the attacks were not suicide attacks. Well, yes, many attacks throughout the world are suicide attacks, but many are not -- the Madrid and London train bombings weren't, for example. There could be many reasons why they're not: greater possible damage; a longer event -- and longer media coverage -- as hostages are taken and held for days; the particular character of a group which rejects suicide terrorism, perhaps. There are many possible reasons.

Transformational Change

In my previous post I mentioned some of the big, ambitious changes I thought Obama might make. Here is a little information on what I think these new policies might look like. It's late, so for now I'm just going to put up the quotes without commentary.

First, I said he would re-orient our national security towards global issues. In a New Yorker from October, Obama and McCain's foreign policies were contrasted. It discusses a group of foreign-policy Democrats who call themselves The Phoenix Initiative. Among them was Susan Rice, being considered for a top spot in the new administration. They wrote a report about a new vision for U.S. foreign policy:

“This report,” Rice writes in her preface, “breaks away from such traditional concepts as containment, engagement, and enlargement and rejects standard dichotomies of realist power politics versus liberal idealism.” It “offers bold and genuinely new thinking about America’s role.” The report lists five top “strategic priorities” for the United States. The first three are issues that governments, or even international organizations, can’t handle on their own: counterterrorism, nuclear proliferation, and, taken together, climate change and oil dependence. The other two are regional: the Middle East and East Asia. The report barely mentions great-power diplomacy, the traditional core concept of statecraft. It is not just post-Cold War but post-war on terror and, arguably, post-American hegemony. (It makes a point of describing the war in Iraq as a bad idea, rather than as a good idea poorly executed.) It speaks of “interconnectedness” and “diffuse power.” It isn’t dovish or sanguine, exactly—those top three strategic priorities are all threats—but it definitely does not envision American military power, or even power combined with diplomacy, as the only effective tool of foreign-policymaking.

Well before the Phoenix Initiative’s report came out, Obama was using similar themes in his speeches.

I also mentioned that Obama would put energy policy at the center of everything. I got this by reading an interview he gave to Joe Klein at Time Magazine. It's long and very interesting, but the key part (or "money quote" in blog terminology) is here:

The biggest problem with our energy policy has been to lurch from crisis to trance. And what we need is a sustained, serious effort. Now, I actually think the biggest opportunity right now is not just gas prices at the pump but the fact that the engine for economic growth for the last 20 years is not going to be there for the next 20, and that was consumer spending. I mean, basically, we turbo-charged this economy based on cheap credit. Whatever else we think is going to happen over the next certainly 5 years, one thing we know, the days of easy credit are going to be over because there is just too much de-leveraging taking place, too much debt both at the government level, corporate level and consumer level. And what that means is that just from a purely economic perspective, finding the new driver of our economy is going to be critical. There is no better potential driver that pervades all aspects of our economy than a new energy economy.

I was just reading an article in the New York Times by Michael Pollen about food and the fact that our entire agricultural system is built on cheap oil. As a consequence, our agriculture sector actually is contributing more greenhouse gases than our transportation sector. And in the mean time, it's creating monocultures that are vulnerable to national security threats, are now vulnerable to sky-high food prices or crashes in food prices, huge swings in commodity prices, and are partly responsible for the explosion in our healthcare costs because they're contributing to type 2 diabetes, stroke and heart disease, obesity, all the things that are driving our huge explosion in healthcare costs. That's just one sector of the economy. You think about the same thing is true on transportation. The same thing is true on how we construct our buildings. The same is true across the board.

For us to say we are just going to completely revamp how we use energy in a way that deals with climate change, deals with national security and drives our economy, that's going to be my number one priority when I get into office, assuming, obviously, that we have done enough to just stabilize the immediate economic situation.