What I've Learned So Far

Check out this ESPN feature on the all-time-greatest sports TV moments. My favorite was the footage (follow the link under #4) of Secretariat’s 1973 win at the Belmont. A great horse and a great broadcast call.

“Secretariat is widening now! He is moving like a tremendous machine! Secretariat by 12, Secretariat by 14 lengths on the turn!”

Bob Herbert will be dismissed by many conservatives, but he offers a stem-winder of an Op-Ed in yesterday’s New York Times:

America the Fearful

“President Bush wants Americans to remain in a perpetual state of fear so they will not notice the many ways in which their fear is being manipulated.”

(If you subscribe to Times Select or want to, you can read Herbert’s entire column here.)

Yes, there are many problems in the world today — real problems in want of real solutions. The United States is threatened by evildoers (I use the term advisedly) who would gladly kill American babies by the thousands. Plus there’s the usual assortments of crooks, con men, and garden-variety thugs who will gladly wreak damage here, or to U.S. assets and citizens abroad, as much as they can.

But we are not beset. We are not assailed on every side by dangers. We face nothing nearly so severe as the Great Depression or World War II — not by a mile, thank goodness. It ill becomes the Bush Administration to act as though we face dangers so grave, though their promotion of fear may help them to forward their policies.

Maybe — we can hope — the President’s low approval ratings reflect the realization by many Americans that this administration has exaggerated many of the problems we face. The problems are real, and they are serious. But we are not on the brink of disaster . . . unless it is one of our own making.

We need every good mind we can get on the problems our society does and will face as oil becomes more scarce and more expensive. This complex of issues need not turn into a political football — it can be addressed sanely, with a combination of technology, policy, education, and a movement for social change.

The Business Innovation Insider blog presents: Alternative energy innovation at MIT.