After reading how AIG spent taxpayers’ money, I wanted to respond to two things folks have said to me about our burgeoning economic nightmare. Be forewarned: I know very little about economics, and I shouldn’t even be talking about this publicly. However, what are blogs for if not to espouse uninformed opinion.

When my father started going off about how Obama is going to raise our taxes and I started going off about how that’s a lie, Dad threw this little bit at me: “Why do the Democrats insist on punishing the rich for being rich? It’s not like the poor pay any taxes anyway.” The government needs to get their money somehow, right? So if it’s not getting it from the people who can afford it, it’s raising fees or selling debt to the Chinese, neither of which is good for anyone. Don’t get me wrong — I understand that if you raise taxes on corporations, that tax money may come out of salaries and benefits. But individuals? If a person making more than $2,500,000 a year has a problem with paying an extra $300,000 a year so that our country isn’t in debt and we can improve our workforce by improving education, then that person should go screw themselves. (Then Dad started saying that Obama is a Muslim, and the conversation ended there.)

A client and friend of mine suggested that the problem is not a need more regulation. The problem is we aren’t enforcing the regulation that already exists. As he put it, “If the animals escape from the barn, don’t lock the door to the barn so they can’t get in.” Well, he has a point, but that barn, though, is collapsing in on itself. Deregulation (like the Commodity Futures Modernization Act and the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, both of which, incidentally, were signed by Bill Clinton) opened the door for subprime mortgage securities. There was a reason why FDR only wanted banks to worry about loaning money and let other firms worry about investments.

Other than that, I’m clueless about what’s going on. If economists support Obama 2-to-1, that’s good enough for me.

Update 10/10/08: I really forgot to change the title of this piece after I wrote it. It started out as one thing and became another. Neverthless, this seems like as good a place as any to point out that AIG loves retreats. (Via.)

I loved his acting. I loved his philanthropy. Hell, I loved his Balsamic Vinaigrette and his salsa.

Moment of silence for one of the all time coolest guys ever, Paul Newman.

David Foster Wallace died a few days ago, and I’ve been reticent to post this moment of silence. I know very little about the man other than the voracious appetite that people smarter than I am have for his work.

However, I do know a little bit about fighting mental health issues. Depression is a serious illness, and Wallace, like many other geniuses before him, succumbed to it. Depression is beyond rationalization or logic, a difficult notion for those who are capable of putting words to the indescribable.

Life itself, though, is too great a thing for one mind to comprehend. At some point in every person’s time here, we give up trying.

Some become pleased with what they have.
Some come to accept the limit of their understanding.
Some offer everything beyond their comprehension to God.
And some, unfortunately, lack the capacity to bear the weight.

When a person of genius takes their own life, I would like to believe they were so humbled by the vastness of the universe that they succumbed to their own futility. A comforting thought, but a silly one. Truth is, no matter how big you may understand life to be, when you suffer from depression, the sadness is always bigger.

David Foster Wallace surely still had a lot to say about our world. To his legions of fans who are rereading everything he wrote, I promise to pick up that copy of Infinite Jest* and try again.

Moment of silence for David Foster Wallace.

*A coworker pointed out this article. I share something in common with the writer:

In his honor, I plan to, once again, crack open Infinite Jest, make it about 15 pages in, then give up (again) and start reading that copy of Star (again).

Because, as mothers always say, if you can’t say anything nice…

John McCain has a fascinating story, and while I don’t agree with his stance on just about everything, I firmly believe that he really does consider himself a public servant. He had the audacity to stand in front of the RNC and vow for more transparency, which was a direct slap to the Bush administration. In fact, lots of slaps to Bush with references to change. To face the Republican party and demand that they reassess their policies to reflect the 21st century was ballsy. Finally, as presidential candidates always do, he threw a few good words to Obama; the words he used, though, were incredibly respectful and came off as honest.

Good for you, John.

Now to put the “dump” in “brain dump.”

I know you’re really only calling for “change” in an effort to steal the word from Obama.

The “Raising McCain” song is just embarrassing. And as I type this, they’re playing “Barracuda.” Not sure I get that one.

What part of Obama will lower taxes for 95% of Americans does he not understand? Or, as Republicans are wont to do, is he only speaking to the richest 5%?

John says I shouldn’t have a bureaucrat standing between me and my doctor. Well, currently, I have a corporation standing between me and my doctor. Either way, it sucks, but at least more people have access to healthcare under one of those scenarios.

McCain’s rhetoric skills are weak. The Obama/McCain debates may be like Kennedy/Nixon.

One thing the RNC and the DNC have in common — lots of white people who can’t dance.

Since when does John McCain know what information technology is?

I also Twittered a few things during McCain’s speech.

Bonus thought!!!

From last night: If Sarah Palin is an advocate for families with special needs children, then why doesn’t she believe in universal healthcare?

In a world… where a singular voice can embody an entire industry…, one man stood alone. As the movie makers threw bomb after bomb at him…, he rose up… to make all of those terrible films sound… interesting. That man… was… Don… LaFontaine.

Moment of silence for “Thunder Throat.”

P.S.: Watch this.

Too much is at stake this election, so I’m fighting dirty.

UPDATE: Okay, so it’s not real. I don’t care. But this one is real.

Here are some of my snarkier answers:

What traffic law do you break the most?
“I can’t answer that question due to pending litigation.”

What TV show comes closest to your day-to-day life?
“The Golden Girls”

Describe your co-workers (nicely) in one word
“tolerable”

What New Years resolution did you or will make?
“I can’t answer that question due to pending litigation.”

What activity do you look forward to the most on the weekends?
“Drinking my pain away.”

Isaac Hayes’ turn as Chef was a ballsy move. It was a great way to laugh at himself and still always be the character that knew more than anyone else. Scientology aside, Isaac Hayes was a bad mother… shut your mouth!

Moment of silence for Isaac Hayes.

Did anyone see that one coming? Jeez. That was one funny man.

Moment of silence for Bernie Mac.

Dear Mr. Hustwit:

Like ever other nerdy graphic designer, I experienced major tingles in all my special places when I first learned about Helvetica, your film celebrating the 50th anniversary of the most ubiquitous typeface in history. Mrs. Guthrie and I got roped into the hype, which included purchasing a pair of Veer’s Helvetica mugs. In fact, I sport the “I Love Helvetica” and the “I Hate Helvetica” pins on my bag, and my “Helvetica” t-shirt is still one of my favorites.

However, I’m very different than many of my designer colleagues in my reaction to the film. Many designers, including this one, got sucked in by oh-my-God-that’s-Massimo-Vignelli moments, but I had hoped that Helvetica would have been more than typography’s answer to US Weekly.

At it’s core, Helvetica amounts to little more than graphic design porn. Not that there isn’t a market for that; I salivate over design annuals all the time hoping one day my skills are as refined as those award winners. Clearly, I’m the audience for your movie. However, typography has become more pervasive in our culture than ever. Fewer and fewer citizens of a modern community can escape set type. Perhaps I wanted too much from your film, but I had hoped that your 90-minute love-letter to a font would include an exploration about how the invisible art of typography influences society and why it matters.

I asked you a question after the opening night screening at the Gene Siskel Film Center here in Chicago, and I wish I had phrased it differently. I started with:

For every person in this audience, there are 50 administrative assistants out there setting their email in Comic Sans.

Don’t get me wrong, I knew this would be a laugh line for the audience, and I’m sure you had heard statements like this before. You had even said that you would not make a sequel called “Times New Roman,” and you interrupted me here to comment that if you made “Comic Sans,” it would be a horror film, which made me chuckle. I continued:

My question to you is: are those sorts of people seeing this film? How are they reacting to it? And do you see your film as being at all evangelical to those people?

That last part of my question was where I screwed up. Instead of challenging your own description of the movie — “It looks at the proliferation of one typeface… as part of a larger conversation about the way type affects our lives” — I asked you about how we can make the rest of society pay attention to the work we do, a silly and arrogant notion on my part. My mistake left you the opportunity to answer, “That’s not the movie I wanted to make,” and left me without the opportunity to follow up and inquire what you learned about “the way type affects our lives.”

You are now shooting Objectified, a documentary about industrial design. I am sure, judging by your previous work, that it will be an exemplary, well-crafted look at beautiful, functional objects and the talented people who design them. Your website suggests that the film will examine “our relationship to mass-produced objects and, by extension, the people who design them.” You are putting the consumer first in your thesis, and I applaud you for that. The consumer, I believe, was overlooked in Helvetica. I hope that consumers of design will learn from Objectified that design is a problem solving process that combines functionality with beauty and elegance, that the user’s experience has more to do with good design than ambiguous aesthetic whims.

In other words, as you said in your answer to my question on the opening night of Helvetica, I hope viewers of Objectified learn more than “Designers are weird.” Yes, we are, but we’re not without purpose.

Thank you. I look forward to some oh-my-God-that’s-Dieter-Rams moments.

Sincerely,
Arlo