Colleen Taylor

I have to say a highlight of my birthday was the McLaughlin Group's January 2nd episode**.  Well, specifically, John McLaughlin's "macro-prediction" for the year ahead:

"2009 will be the year when it will gradually dawn on U.S. policymakers that the cause of the global economic crisis is globalism itself. The premise that, as we shifted jobs to developing countries, new jobs would develop here to replace them is false. It is not possible to shift production jobs and service jobs to low-cost countries without hollowing out the purchasing power of the middle class."

My heartbeat actually sped up as I watched him say this, because I am so excited for this kind of real talk to be getting airtime and coming from such a respected person. I hope he's right that the next 12 months will bring a sea-change in way we perceive the pros and cons of our increasingly "flat" world. 

**I'm 25 now, which is safely and unabashedly grown up, so I am going to refrain from making any "Oh, ha-ha, isn't that so nerdy and boring of me" apologies/jokes. Because on the real, John McLaughlin is awesome, and is definitely on all my fantasy birthday/dinner/cocktail party guest lists.

I love Esquire Magazine's "What I've Learned" feature. 

Also, I was a total late bloomer in realizing how awesome Clint Eastwood is. I knew that he was a bit abnormally accomplished in the artistic sense as a jazz musician, actor, director, blah blah blah. But I learned in conversation only a couple of weeks ago that he has been super active in local politics for years (like, getting his hands dirty and going to meetings, not just wearing Vote or Die t-shirts) and was for a short time the mayor of Carmel, California. I mean, did you know that?

Seems to me that Clint Eastwood is just a man who has really taken life by the horns and has fully inhabited the space that he's in-- and from now on, anytime he's talking, I'm listening.  Some of my favorite bits from his "What I've Learned" appearance:

"Like Sir Edmund Hillary talking about why you do anything: Because it's there. That's why you climb Everest. It's like a little moment in time, and as fast as it comes into your brain, you just throw it out and discard it. Do it before you discard it, you know?"

"The Korean War was only a few years after World War II. We all went. But you couldn't help but think, Shit. What the hell?"

"That's why I [ran for mayor]. 'Cause I thought, I don't need this. The fact that I didn't need it made me think I could do more. It's the people who need it that I'm suspect of."

As everyone around me is coming down with a cold, I am so hoping that Helen Gurley Brown is correct when she wrote in her aforementioned book, Having It All:

"If you sleep enough, exercise a lot, take multivitamins, have work you adore and no secret need to be sick, you very likely never will be-- not even a cold."

Crossing my fingers and taking Emergen-C!

Just came across this Kurt Vonnegut interview from 1995.  I kind of love his take on technology, although he can of course afford to have someone else do his typing for him:

I use a typewriter, and afterwards I mark up the pages with a pencil. Then I call up this woman named Carol out in Woodstock and say, "Are you still doing typing?" Sure she is, and her husband is trying to track bluebirds out there and not having much luck, and so we chitchat back and forth, and I say, "OK, I'll send you the pages."

...So I go down the steps here, and I go out to this newsstand across the street where they sell magazines and lottery tickets and stationery. I have to get in line because there are people buying candy and all that sort of thing, and I talk to them. The woman behind the counter has a jewel between her eyes, and when it's my turn, I ask her if there have been any big winners lately. I get my envelope and seal it up and go to the postal convenience center down the block at the corner of 47th Street and 2nd Avenue, where I'm secretly in love with the woman behind the counter. I keep absolutely poker-faced; I never let her know how I feel about her. One time I had my pocket picked in there and got to meet a cop and tell him about it.

Anyway, I address the envelope to Carol in Woodstock. I stamp the envelope and mail it in a mailbox in front of the post office, and I go home. And I've had a hell of a good time.

And I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don't let anybody tell you any different.