Seriously?

President Obama is quoted in the New York Times today as saying that the first couple is ''not that far removed from what most Americans are going through'' in terms of being affected by the economic crisis.

Seriously?

He makes roughly half a million dollars a year, not to mention free rent, gym membership, meals, etc. Now, he's the president, so I don't have a problem with him getting all that. But we also know that he and the first lady pulled over a million dollars last year, according to their publically available tax records. So that officially makes them millionaires.

Millionaires are pretty far removed from what most Americans are going through.

Cornel West, the well-known Princeton professor, public intellectual, and erstwhile rap artist, says in the film "Examined Life" (I recommend it; saw it the other day) that to read philosophy is to come alive, that thinking deeply about things helps to make us more alive. Agreed. But then he does the unthinkable in the film: he points to a random assortment of pedestrians on a New York street and proclaims that they are not really living, that they are simply going through the motions.

Seriously?

Does he know those people personally?

What about people who don't have access to philosophy, like the poor of the world? Isn't it elitist to say that "really living" requires the luxuries of time and means available to the likes of an Ivy League academic?

U.S. Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee said recently that it was great how the two countries of North and South Vietnam were getting along so splendidly, even though we may not always like what North Vietnam is doing (see video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XK3rTUgoQD4)

Seriously?

Geography is a neglected study in this country. If I were a millionaire president or a public intellectual cum-professor-rapper seeking to help people live deeply and suck out all the marrow of life, I would require all elementary school students to play Risk regularly, which is where I got my first bearings about world geography.

Seriously.