So I have double-checked my notification settings to make sure I don’t miss anything truly critical, and am using Better Facebook to completely hide the news feed. It’s break time…

The thing is, I’ve been spending a lot more time on Twitter (handle: @recordofm) than blogs or even Facebook these days. I used to check Facebook religiously – 3+ times per day, if only to check in with everyone else who posts. But more recently, I’ve been interested more in what’s going on in my professional word (technology leadership, cloud computing), and have been using Twitter to both learn about what’s going on and contribute to ongoing conversations with other Twitter users. Most people I know on Facebook aren’t in my line of work, and so aren’t as likely to post content (or comment on my content) there, so no conversation.

The other thing about Facebook for me is the relative frequency of my logging in and feeling up to date. With Twitter and RSS, it’s pretty constant – miss a day and have a lot of catch-up to do. With Facebook, not so much – usually 20-30 minutes twice per week suffices. Occasionally, I contribute to a conversation, but they’re often more political in nature, which given my level of disappointment with pretty much all of government, I’m not inclined to want to spend a lot of time on.

Then there’s this blog. Facebook and Twitter, both microblogging tools, have almost rendered obsolete blogging for the sake of updates. On my professional blog, I devote more space to longer-form matters about management in the technology arena. But here? I’m not sure, and should try to figure that out. Maybe it’s just random thoughts like this one.

• People don’t save enough, and 401(k) (or equivalent) plans often don’t provide a lot of incentive for people to save.
• Employers don’t use the 401(k) enough as a competitive factor in recruiting and retaining employees, preferring to simply shed the costs formerly associated with pensions.
• Current parameters for Social Security make it untenable in the long run, even at the inadequate rates paid out to eligible people.

Of course, this has been a known problem for a long time with no real discussion about the black hole of politics that is entitlement reform.  The unknown is whether enough people in Congress will put governing over elections long enough to do something – make payroll taxes less regressive, reset the retirement age, close loopholes in business contributions, other ideas I don’t know about – about it..  I’d like to be cautiously optimistic, but there’s no reason I should be at present.

UPDATE: Also reported in NYT, it looks like the merry-go-round at HP’s top management continues with a hire aimed at… failure?

I’m in favor of government running things where profit maximization should not be the goal – defense, infrastructure, education, and healthcare. To those who disagree, I ask:

1. Why would you want to put $600 billion into shareholders’ pockets at the expense of improving the nation’s overall health and productivity (which can only help GDP)?
2. Why don’t you want to move away from a system with 30% overhead (which doesn’t improve health in any way) to one with 3% overhead?

By reducing administrative overhead and eliminating profits for the payers from the equation, we can then pay doctors more for their services than they currently get from Medicare and Medicaid while likely reducing overall costs of healthcare for people and businesses alike.  I don’t understand (and would like to know) why someone would disagree with this model (unless of course that person was a financial beneficiary of the current one at the expense of millions of Americans’ well-being).

What does that mean in this political climate?  It means that I support what the president has said so far and am waiting for the results of his plans (frankly, it’s too soon to tell).  It means that I’m leery of Congress, who can’t seem to get over themselves and their special interests and get something done to benefit their constituents.  For instance, the stimulus package and the budget process both irritate me — at what point will they actually change from the quid pro quo style of bill-writing that causes so much of the bloat and deficits in the first place?  I know – the president spearheads some of these initiatives and signs off at the end, but the devil’s in the details where Congress does the writing.

What I don’t understand is how intense the hate has become.  The Obama administration has been in place for fewer than five months — have they had time to earn the invective already?  I didn’t like GWB when he was elected, but what he had done in his first five months wouldn’t have warranted the reaction Obama gets.  The Sotomayor nomination alone has brought racism out of the woodwork, while seemingly 0.0000001% of the discussion of her nomination has anything to do with her legal credentials or published judicial history.  I understand if someone doesn’t like her decisions or even things she says in public, but why the leap to racist slurs (albeit bafflingly confused slurs)?

National Review - Sotomayor

Ultimately, I don’t think most Americans have this hatred in them without lots of outside nudging and prodding.  It makes me wonder what would happen if the haters (not to be necessarily confused with committed) on both sides were silenced for a while and allowed people to debate again.  Maybe we’d let the best ideas (not the loudest shouters) win.

The last time I was in London was about a month ago, for a night and a day.  We found out early that our flight would be delayed leaving London for home, so we had a few more hours to spend there before getting on the Tube for Heathrow.  After stopping off in a pub near our Russell Square hotel for some food and something to drink, we headed down Tottenham Court Road (which turns into Charing Cross), down Shaftesbury, and across to Leicester Square to check out the half-price theater options.  The square has at least three such ticket brokers as well as two movie theaters and many imprints of the hands of movie stars.  We got our tickets, had another quick drink, and headed to the show.

The next morning, we were greeted by the rain.  I think part of my enjoyment in London is that although the weather isn’t good, it is better than Chicago’s (especially in winter).  After a good breakfast in the hotel, we headed out toward Oxford Street, stopping off in various Caffe Nero locations to get an espresso and warm up for the next leg.  The first location we stopped in was next to a Starbucks – the Starbucks was empty, while Nero was going strong for a Sunday morning.  We walked down Oxford, doing some window shopping, till we got to Marble Arch.  We then wandered across Hyde Park, watching some pick-up soccer as we went, over to Knightsbridge.  Lunch at Wagamama (which really should be brought to Chicago) preceded some wandering around, both on the street and in Harrod’s.  Finally, we headed back to the hotel, picked up our bags, and went to the airport.

I recognize that nothing I’ve written above is extraordinary or game-changing.  London just feels both comfortable and exciting to me, a mix of old and new.  Even though we’ve been there many times, there’s still more to check out — for us, the East End is still an unknown.  Also, I found a whole street of guitar stores just off Charing Cross in Soho.  We’ll have to check them out next time.

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