Over the summer I read The Partly Cloudy Patriot by Sarah Vowell. Many of her essays talk about being a nerd and one article proposes that nerds need to be self-deprecating in order to be accepted. She claims that all of her nerdy peers are skilled at mocking their own intelligence when they start spewing forth on a topic. This makes them less intimidating to their friends and colleagues. She speculates that the absence of this skill resulted in Gore, Dukakis and other intellectuals loosing key elections.

I found this intriguing. Perhaps she's right but as a nerd from a slightly older generation than hers, I failed to adopt self-mockery as a way of gaining approval. When talking about a book, film, documentary, etc. I get into the subject matter and forget about how I'm being perceived. I don’t think of myself as knowing more than the next person, I’m just eager to share with others what I’ve learned and see if they have anything to add. Does this make people uncomfortable or think me arrogant? Perhaps sometimes it does.

I’ve thought about Vowell’s self-deprecation theory more than anything else that I read in what was a topical and light-hearted book. On the one hand, I totally agree that Gore’s intelligence alienated the populace but should he really have made fun of himself? Society is currently besieged with right-wing fanatics with little or no edification making bold statements of misfact and never backing down. Their bravado seems to be the only thing that carries the day because they are so unstudied. If the nerds of the world added bravado to their aptitude, maybe they could accomplish something.

Nerds might not be loosing political battles because they intimidate people, they might be loosing because they fail to intimidate. Returning to the author’s hypothesis for nerd effectiveness, however, I’ll submit by saying that I’d love for Vowell or anyone else to give me a counter argument that shows why I’m wrong.

"While I was in Iraq, I might as well have been circling the earth from a space capsule... Home was far away, a distant place that gobbled up whatever I sent back, ignorant and happy but touchingly hungry to know."

I recently read Dexter Filkins' book The Forever War. While I'm a pretty avid news gatherer and have followed the war closely, the book gave me a different level of understanding of what has transpired. Here we sit in the U.S. occasionally taking time to learn about the latest suicide bomber, or the troops that were lost in the last month, the state of Al Qaeda's forces, the ongoing conflict between Sunni and Shiite, the growing strength of Iran. We gather a vague picture of what things might be like in the middle east and then quickly move on to our sheltered lives (and I do mean sheltered, even with the economy in the state it's in.) All the while, the journalists that bring us these stories are living amidst non-stop turmoil, desperately trying to sort things out and deliver information to tell us what's really going on.

I was completely against the war before it started, afraid that we would do more damage than good. I've watched Frontline and other documentaries that have dealt with the harsh realities of the situation. So, I've long been aware that things are messed up but Filkins' book took my understanding to a different level. It is jammed packed with short anecdotes that describe his direct experiences. It doesn't contain much opinion, just multitudes of descriptions of situations that Filkins experienced first hand—most of them dangerous, many of them nearly life-ending, all of them unlike life in the states.

Reading page after page of Filkins' stories—he's embedded with troops, surrounded by snipers; he's meeting with the head of a Sunni insurgent group; he's walking into neighborhoods prohibited to Americans to enjoy some kebab; he's trying to hunt down the kidnappers of a fellow colleague; the list of fantastic situations is vast and astounding—I felt as if I were reading Tolkien or something. We just don't see this kind of wild adventure in real life.

But unlike Tolkien, as I read I knew the situations were real. Peoples lives were so deeply scarred, they would never recover and more scarring was going on at a rapid pace. Also haunting the pages was my concern for the author and our troops, an understanding that witnessing such utter chaos inevitably takes a bitter toll on one's life. I've long heard the sociologists and returning soldiers talk about the difficulty of assimilating back into civilian life but again this book gave me a deeper insight.

Several years ago, I first saw Michael Ware, now a CNN war correspondent, being interviewed on TV. Like Filkins, he was in Afghanistan after 9/11 but switched over to Iraq when the war started. I always appreciated his reports. He was sharp and articulate and seemed to embed himself in situations where few dared to venture. He dished up a viewpoint that was from the man on the street only it was more like the terrified fanatic on the bombed-out boulevard.

Sometime in the last year, I was watching CNN and there was Ware, seemingly drunk on the air. CNN aired Ware's report twice that night and I watched both times because I wanted to analyze if he was actually drunk—not just tired. Of course, my assessment could be wrong but I think he was definitely under the influence and it saddened me to see him like that. He fell off the pedestal on which I had placed him that night, or at least stood on a significantly lower platform. Now, after reading Filkins book, I regret passing any such judgment on Ware.

We are so very lucky that there are people on this earth willing to seek out every angle of a story even when their pursuits constantly put them in harms way. I don't want to underrate the sacrifice of our troops but some of the war correspondents, the ones that stay in for years like Ware and Filkins, are perhaps more courageous. These guys can leave at any time but choose to stay. They don't carry weapons and are often unprotected. Like our soldiers they also witness an untold number of horrors. They become sleepless and disturbed and entrenched in their missions.

I can't thank them enough for doing what they do and feel we owe them an immeasurable debt.

The auto industry and our governor are asking congress for $25 billion in loans to keep them from going under. I’ve read the governor’s case for making such an investment and it does seem compelling. Living in Michigan, with relatives that work for the car companies, I am deeply worried about the turn the economy might take if the big three are forced into bankruptcy. However, I haven’t heard what I need to in order to support such an investment.

First of all, the guys that have run these companies into the ground need to be gone. They’re infected with the short-term windfall virus. If they’re good and experienced at anything, it’s maximizing profits in the coming quarter. They’ve shown extremely poor performance when it comes to long-term viability, achieving energy independence and selling the American public on sustainable and conscientious modes of transportation. Unless they’re out of the picture, I am opposed to any handouts.

Secondly, I’ve heard many claims about the number of jobs that would be lost, the number of people that would be uninsured, and so on, if Ford/Chrysler/GM were to go under. This is indeed very worrisome and keeps me up at night. But surely, some of the operations would resurface somewhere. When companies go bankrupt, their assets don’t simply disappear. Much is absorbed by competitors or other industries. I haven’t heard a realistic analysis of what might occur on that front. Only the worst case scenario is presented. I’ve had more than my fill of fear-mongering from the current administration. If the governor, media and others can’t present a realistic analysis, I must withhold my support.

Finally, if I’m to support these loans, I want to know there’s a comprehensive plan in place that will do more than delay the big three’s ultimate demise. Why can’t the car companies treat the taxpayers and congress like investors? Give us an executive summary that tells us: who’s going to run the show and what their qualifications are; how operations are going to change to ensure long-term sustainability; how the big three will become competitive again with foreign automakers; and, what our return on investment will be and over what time-period. If they can’t do that, like any half-way competent banker, venture capitalist, angel investor or fund-manager, we should act wisely and direct our funds at programs that yield well-defined gains.