The Philosophy of Work

For most of us , work is merely the means of earning a living . When we think about it , if at all , it is to dream of ways of getting ahead , to do things quicker and better and with less effort , or how much we hate ( or in some  cases , love ) it . Those of us who have been at it awhile count the days until we can retire and not have to work any more. Few of us think about the meaning of work or its role in our lives . In his captivating book ,The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work ,  Alain de Botton does just that … philosophise about work . Work may not sound like an interesting subject , but it is, it most assuredly is . In de Botton’s  hands it turns into a fascinating topic , full of insights which get us thinking about it in a way we never did before.

In the prologue to the book , de Botton tells us how he hit upon the subject of his book. In Gravesend , he came upon five men standing in the rain watching  freight laden ships steaming down the Thames on their way to distant lands . These ” cargo-ship spotters” were  tracking  the passing ships ,noting down their measurements , their engine sizes ,  their cargoes, their destinations  and their timetables. They did it solely out of interest , without any expectation that their knowledge  would bring them any monetary gain .Warmly clad against the chill , armed only with a thermos of coffee for sustenance , they braved  rain and snow as they pursued their hobby with a dedication  and intensity worthy of museum goers admiring a Renaissance painting . This  led de Botton to ” attempt a hymn to the intelligence , peculiarity , beauty and horror of the modern workplace ” and whether work does  indeed give meaning to Life.

He begins with a visit to a logistics hub , an agglomeration of twenty-five  enormous gray warehouses , where food is flown in from various parts of the world and then trucked to consumers all over Britain. All of us  have wondered , at one time or another , about how food is gathered  from farms and meat packers and fisheries and delivered to the supermarkets . We’ve all seen the refrigerated trailers delivering goods to the supermarket but that is only the last step in the process.I’d never even heard of the term ” logistics hub” though somewhere in the back of my mind I’d postulated something like it .It’s size ( five square kilometers of shelf space !!)and the sheer complexity of its functioning are astounding. For instance , I didn’t  know that strawberries begin to develop mold only  96 hours after they are picked. In that time , they have to make their way from the farm to the dinner table .

In later chapters , de Botton investigates tuna fishing in the Maldives ( and the tuna’s journey via processing plant , airplane , logistics hub and supermarket to the consumer), a biscuit factory , the launch of a French commercial satellite in French Guiana, a career counselor , a landscape painter, a transmission engineer, an accounting firm , an entrepreneur and aviation . It is a nice mix of professions and it gives de Botton an opportunity to ponder the meaning of work in our lives and the way it has evolved over the centuries.His ruminations take some fascinating twists and turns : how work has become less satisfying even as it becomes more specialized ; the difference between the Catholic and Protestant views of work and how some high minded countries have let their citizens starve while rampant consumerism  has enabled other societies to give their members a better standard of living . Occasionally ,  de Botton stumbles a s when he wonders why the most money accrues from the sale of the least meaningful things ( I don’t think that is true) or when he speculates about the fact that children’s books only contain references to a few professions such as farmer , fireman , shopkeeper (that’s hardly to be wondered at . Children understand what these professions do , they don’t understand transmission engineers and accountants) .

 De Botton meets a variety of people during his peregrinations , many of them admirable . There is the landscape painter who has been painting the same oak tree for three years in all sorts of weather while making less money at it than a mediocre plumber , the entrepreneurs who are risking their all on  products that will almost surely fail , the transmission engineer who spends his vacation cataloging transmission towers  and eight year old Sam , a Bristol lad who muses that ” our perpetual killing of fish has left the seas choked with an array of pallid oceanic ghosts who will one day gather together to exact a terrible vengeance on humanity… “.

One of the charms of de Botton’s book is his superlative command of the language . It is a pleasure to see how well he conveys intricate thoughts , always managing to find the exact word to best describe subtle nuances of meaning . Sometimes , however , he gets carried away with his own eloquence. One of his sentences had no less than fifty-eight  words ; there were others almost as long.

“The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work ” is part book , part photo essay , containing as it does dozens of black and white photographs . These are not the usual type of photos since they are the candid camera type with the subjects unaware that they are being photographed. Surprisingly , the very artlessness of the photos ( I thought at first that be Botton had snapped them himself) makes them very effective . They convey only too well the tediousness , the soullessness of most work ,a theme that de Botton returns to again and again in the course of the book. In the last chapter , de Botton stumbles on an airplane graveyard in the Mojave Desert, a place where hulks of obsolete airplanes are stored . It is amazing to read how these planes ,some only  thirty years old, contain so many gadgets and systems that have long been superseded. This causes de Botton to muse about the place of work in our lives , how central it is to who we are and , yet , how  ephemeral our puny efforts are. It is a melancholy thought though he tries to end on a note of hope . Truly , the fortunate are the few among us who love what they do for a living and find meaning in it .

The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work. Alain de Botton . Pantheon Books , New York ( 2009) $ 26.

Read Full Post »

The Genius of Iron Chef Morimoto

The other day I was watching an episode of Iron Chef America which pitted a N.Y. challenger , Chef Amanda Cohen , against Iron Chef Masaharu Morimoto. Chef Cohen helms a vegetarian restaurant ( or as she prefers to say , a vegetable restaurant) and this was an all vegetarian challenge , the first of its kind that I can remember. No meat , no poultry and no seafood were allowed . This placed Iron Chef Morimoto at a distinct disadvantage since he is used to cooking with animal protein . It must have been  like getting into a boxing match with one hand tied behind your back . No problem .

 Even though Amanda Cohen is a good chef with a very winning personality , Chef  Morimoto is in a class of his own . The secret ingredient that day was Broccoli and it was very interesting to see the different ways in which the two chefs treated the vegetable as they, particularly Iron Chef Morimoto,  made some fantastic dishes. He won the Broccoli Battle ,going away , by the lopsided score of 56 to 45. He won in every category … Taste , Plating and Originality. The score really doesn’t do justice to the one-sidedness of the contest ; it was obvious , as the contest unfolded , that Morimoto was going to win handily.

This is not to take anything away from Amanda Cohen who acquitted herself creditably ; it’s just that Morimoto is so darn good. Not even the other Iron Chefs, Bobby Flay , Mario Batali , Cat Cora , Michael Symon , or Jose Garces are in the same league as Iron Chef Morimoto. His whole approach to cooking and  his understanding of the ingredients are unparalleled. It is , however, his plating and his originality that places him so far ahead of anyone else. His plates are so beautiful ,so jewel – like that they are a delight for the senses. I’ve had the good fortune to eat at his restaurant in New York and the excellence of his presentation and the sheer novelty of his dishes just blew me away.

I haven’t always felt that way about him . When I first saw him on the original Iron Chef , I wasn’t much taken with his eclectic style as he tried to marry American ingredients with Japanese cuisine . At the time I felt that Iron Chef Chinese , Chen Kenichi , and the two earlier Iron Chefs Japanese, Roksaburo Michibata and Hiroyuki Sakai , were better than him . Not anymore. Now , I feel he stands all alone on the pinnacle . No one else is close.

 

Read Full Post »

Why do People Want to Hear Bad News ?

I don’t usually watch TV news but sometimes I can’t avoid it . Yesterday  morning , I was at the gym walking on the treadmill when I looked at  the ceiling TV monitor right in front of me . Usually it’s tuned to ESPN but yesterday it had been  switched to ABC . As I watched , the news anchor came on , said “Good morning. This is ____”  and immediately launched into the story of a late night shooting in which one person was killed and two others wounded.This was followed by a lengthy report from Kansas City about a cute little baby girl who has been missing for a couple of weeks . It went downhill from there and I couldn’t help wondering why we humans love to hear about bad things happening elsewhere in the world.

It’s easy to blame the media for focusing on bad news but they would not do so unless there was a market for it , unless they felt that this is what the public wanted to see and hear . I’ve seen plenty of articles about the fact that bad news sells , but not why it sells . This is a different question than ” Which would you rather hear first , the good news or the bad news ? “. Most people respond to that by saying that they would rather hear the bad news first , because they feel that once they are have weathered that, the worst will be over and things can only get better .

So, ” Why do people want to hear bad news ? “. So let me take a stab at it . Here goes :

First and foremost , I don’t feel it’s because they actually revel in bad things happening to other people. It’s true there are plenty of mean people  out there but I hope the majority of us are not like them. Rather , I think it’s that when people hear about bad things happening elsewhere to someone else , they feel good that it didn’t happen to them and that , no matter how bad their own situation , at least they are better off than someone else.” I may not be doing so hot but at least I’m doing better than that poor schmuck .”

Secondly , bad news is more dramatic and interesting …as long as it happens to someone else , that is . I suppose there is a ghoulish fascination in seeing how badly things can go wrong and how people in these situations cope with their misfortune . If it is a crime story , there are two additional points of interest : trying to figure out what happened and who the guilty party is (i.e it’s  a real life mystery novel )  and thinking how to avoid ever being in that same situation oneself. If it’s a natural disaster , it’s re-assurance that it  ( a landslide in California, a sinkhole in Florida) can’t happen to us . If it is something that could happen in our particular area, we think about how we can reduce our vulnerability.

These thoughts may occur on a subconscious or subliminal level ; we may not even be aware that we are harboring them . Well , those are my explanations ; can you come up with something  better ?

Read Full Post »

A Quick ” Faux Peruvian ” Roast Chicken Meal

I love Peruvian Roast Chicken and usually get my fix at Planet Chicken in Dunellen , NJ. When it’s cold and rainy outside , there is nothing better to make you feel that all is right with the world !! ( See my post of April 4, 2007). However , Planet Chicken is half  an hour away and the last time we went there the chicken was burnt and not as good as I remembered it . My wife and I therefore started casting about for a way to replicate the experience  at home .

Most recipes for Peruvian roast chicken call for the chicken to be brined, then marinated in a paste of vinegar , oil , lots of garlic , cumin powder, chile powder, paprika , soy sauce and sugar. The aji verde or green sauce that accompanies the chicken is a mixture of cotija cheese , cilantro , olive oil , chillies , red wine vinegar , kosher salt, cilantro  and garlic. Some recipes even call for mayonnaise , sour cream , green onions , aji amarillo , lime juice , salt and pepper. 

Just reading the recipes and looking at the accompanying photos had me salivating  and one day I will try out the authentic recipe . What follows however is a ” Faux Peruvian ” meal with a minimum of cooking . It is not the ” real” thing and ,yes , I know it uses non -Peruvian ingredients but it fits the bill for those times when you don’t want to cook  too much . Besides , it is quick and it is cheap.

I have long thought that one of the greatest bargains at Costco is the rotisserie chicken . At $ 4.99 for a whole bird, it is a real steal and  remains hot for an hour or two after you bring it home . What we do is prepare the aji verde ( green sauce )ahead of time . Rather than tinker too much with the Costco chicken , we add extra garlic and vinegar when making the aji verde . We also prep the potatoes and finish them off as soon as we come home  so that we can sit down to our ” Faux Peruvian”  meal within half an hour of getting home . Here is a step by step description of the process:

I.  Make the aji verde .  In a little oil, fry the following ingredients : 3 chopped jalapenos ( deseeded *)  , three  scallions chopped ( green parts included) and half a small red onion , chopped . Saute’ till the rawness disappears  and, towards the end of the frying process, add 3-4 tablespoons chopped cilantro , stems and all. In a food processor , blend together 1/2 cup mayonnaise , 1/4 cup sour cream ,and the fried garlic / jalapeno/ scallion / cilantro mixture adding lime juice , salt and pepper to taste. Careful with the lime juice.

2. Potatoes .  Parboil three large potatoes  . Drain and set aside before you go to Costco.

3. Go to Costco and buy the roast chicken .

4. On your return, peel the potatoes and cut into “large fingers ” like  steak fries . Dust with salt and pepper , drizzle with oil and cook, covered,  in a frying pan over medium heat . Sprinkle a little water on the potatoes as necessary to keep from burning and turn over them from time to time . Cook to the desired doneness. 

5. As the potatoes are cooking , prepare a mixture of dry – roasted cumin powder and paprika ( or red chilly powder) to sprinkle over the roast chicken .

The chicken will still be hot when you sit down to your Faux Peruvian meal of Roast chicken with Green Sauce with a side of Pan fried  potatoes.

 Note: * If you like it hot , you can leave in some or all  of the seeds in the jalapenos.

Read Full Post »

Baseball : Contracts, Performance and Opt-Out Clauses

In the wake of the Yankees early exit from the playoffs , there has been a lot of fingerpointing . Alex Rodriguez , Mark Teixeira and Nick Swisher are being excoriated for their collective swoon , which seems to have become an annual affair, manager Joe Girardi is accused by many fans as an unimaginative and uninspiring leader and GM Brian Cashman is being criticized for overpaying stars and for bringing in the underperforming A.J. Burnett. Yes , Yankee fans are not happy and they want changes , big changes.

The New York Daily News and the N.Y. Post are busy as usual stoking the fires. Both had scathing headlines after the Yankees loss to Detroit and the objects of their ire were A. Rod ( all of a sudden he’s become  not A. Rod  but A-Roid ) and Mark Teixeira . C.C Sabathia has come in for his share of criticism because , after not living up to expectations , he seems to be about to exercise the opt out clause in his contract . Indeed the News had a poll in which readers were asked to play GM and vote whether they would dump OR keep each of the Yankee players. Respondents would , it seems , like to get rid of A.Rod , Teixeira, Swisher , A.J. Burnett , Bartolo Colon , Jorge Posada, Andruw Jones, Joba Chamberlain , and Luis Ayala among others. In the case of two others , the vote was 50-50. Yessir , the natives are restless in the Bronx.

The Daily News poll helps fans to vent their ire but , in other respects , it is useless. With the exception of Jorge Posada who was in the last year of his contract, , these players have been signed to inflated , long-term contracts . The Yankees are stuck with them for the duration since these players  are virtually untradeable because of their huge salaries. This is a legacy of the Steinbrenner era when George would outbid every other team in his drive to bring another world championship to New York . It worked splendidly in the late nineties and early 2000’s when the Yankees won four championships and made it to the finals two other times. Since then the Yankees have won only one other title ( in 2009)  and their fans who had come to expect a championship banner every year feel hard done by . Worse , the Yankees who have the highest payroll  in major league baseball , by far , are stuck with players on the downside of their careers and with  little wiggle room to make major changes.

Should a player who is paid like a superstar be expected to come through in the clutch every time ? In the past , I would have replied with a resounding ” NO”.  This is,  after all, a game and it is unreasonable to expect that A.Rod or Teixeira , will hit a Grand Slam every time they come to the plate with the bases loaded. However , when someone is a superstar , isn’t it reasonable to expect that he will not flop year after year in the playoffs ?  This has been true of A.Rod and Teixeira and Swisher for more years than I care to remember.What is the use of their regular season heroics when they go into a swoon come October ? There are some players who actually raise the level of their game in October ( Robinson Cano , Mariano Rivera and Derek Jeter are some of the names that come to mind ) and the contrast makes these failures all the more glaring. I guess that Jeter , Rivera and Cano are clutch players and we will just have to accept that these others are not .

Which brings me to the issue of opt-out clauses in player contracts ? C.C Sabathia ,who signed for  $ 160 million three years ago,  has a clause in his contract that allows him to opt out of his contact in the off-season and seek to sign for more money either with the Yankees or any other team that wants him . CC, who has four years for $ 92 million  still remaining under this contract , may just choose to do so. I hope the Yankees have the cojones to let him walk. He has been a good, but not great ,  pitcher these past three years and his girth is alarming . I don’t see that he can pitch effectively for four or more years and even , in today’s inflated BB  market place , I think he’s vastly overpaid . I say , let him walk.Time to cut the strings or we might have another A.Rod fiasco .

Three or four years ago , A.Rod opted out of his contract which was already the richest in baseball. The Yankee GM , Brian Cashman , wanted to let him go but was over-ruled by Hank Steinbrenner. As a result the Yankees are stuck with A.Rod until age 42. This year , there seemed to be a marked decline in his play even as his injuries mounted . There is some doubt now whether he will ever regain his past form and stay healthy long enough to break the HR record. Which brings me to the point I want to make … these opt-out clauses are one-sided and patently unfair. No matter how poorly a player performs , his contract is fully guaranteed. Yet , if he does well , he can exercise his option and try get more money . Doesn’t seem right to me . Of course , the fault lies with the owners and GMs who , in their desperation to sign these stars , agree  to such ridiculous terms . I can’t feel too sorry for them .

Read Full Post »

MLB Playoff Surprises : No Phillies , No Yanks

Right from the beginning of the season , the Phillies were considered the favorites to win the whole shebang.  And the Yankees , while their pitching was suspect , were strong contenders to make it to the World Series. What a surprise then to find that neither team has made it to the Championship round .

I was happy that the Phillies didn’t get past the Cards. Part of the reason  is that I have somehow built up a dislike for all the Philly teams. As a New York Giant fan , I hate the Eagles and ,as a long-suffering Ranger supporter , I dislike the Flyers . In my mind , both those teams play dirty though that could just be my prejudice speaking .I have no such issues against the Phillies ; I just doesn’t seem right  that one team could somehow have stockpiled so many top notch pitchers . It seems quite unfair. I couldn’t believe it when the Cards nipped them in a classic pitching duel between Cris Carpenter and Matt Halliday.What a terrific game and what an advertisement for baseball !! Normally . I prefer a bit more scoring ( a 3-2 score to my mind is ideal) but this was a treat to watch with moments of high drama scattered throughout the nine innings . And to think that the Cardinals were lucky to make the playoffs at all !

Even though I’m a longtime Yankee fan , I can’t say that I was particularly surprised or upset at their quick exit.  What was surprising is that it was their batting , rather than their suspect pitching , that let them down. The pitchers , in fact , did all that could be asked of them. Even , A.J. Burnett , he of the fragile ego and the  82 million dollar contract , came through in the clutch and pitched six strong innings in the Yankees fourth game victory .  Ivan Nova,too, pitched well in the series though he did give up two home runs early in the fifth and deciding game . Who would have thought that it would be the Yankee bats , so dominant in the first game , that would be the Yankees Achilles heel. ? Robinson Cano and Curtis Granderson were great , Jeter and Posada were OK but the big guns A-Rod , Miguel Teixera and Nick Swisher didn’t come through when the game was on the line . You can’t load the bases , not once but twice , and fail to knock in runs. ( More about that in my next post). Detroit deserved to win and I wish them the best going forward.

As for who is going to make it to the World Series , the field seems wide open . Texas has won the first game but that was at home and I don’t read too much into it . Milwaukee showed a lot of fight back in the way they took the opener against St. Louis and they have had a most impressive second half of the season . I didn’t watch the Brewers at all during the regular season and am still getting familiar with their roster . If  I had my ruthers I’d be happy to see St. Louis win since they put in an amazing effort just to make it into the playoffs. Next to the Yankees , the Cardinals are one of the most storied franchises in baseball and back in the sixties and seventies , when I was a NL fan , I used to root for them . Those were the days when Bob Gibson and Steve Carlton used to be their star pitchers ; Ted Simmons was the catcher and Curt Flood , Lou Brock and Joe Torre were some of the other big names . Yes , it would be nice to see the Cards hoist the World Series banner once again . It has been a long time since they did it .

Read Full Post »

America’s Game , Betting Pools and ‘ The Survivor’

Baseball used to be America’s Game and it is easy understand why . Summer afternoons at the ballpark with the family , the green playing field , the crisp white uniforms , young boys scarfing their hot dogs as they dream of one day making it to the big leagues, Cracker Jack , the seventh inning stretch , the sharp crack of the bat  as the ball flies out of the ballpark and the crowd erupts in a roar … it does reminds one of a Norman Rockwell painting , doesn’t it ?

Baseball used to be America’s game  but .. it no longer is . For the past twenty-five or thirty years , football – pro football , that is – has gained in popularity by leaps and bounds and it has supplanted baseball as Number One in the minds of the public. In a way , this is a reflection on our changing society. The rhythms of the two games are startlingly different .

Baseball is slow-paced , its leisurely progress punctuated by brief outbursts of excitement  when a player gets on base , or when the batter faces the  pitcher a full count or when he slams a home run . It reflects the way America used to be .

Football, however , is always balanced on the knife-edge of excitement . Any  play can be a gamebreaker , can produce a touchdown , an interception , a fumble or a sack .   Each game is fast paced , violent, unpredictable  and more like the society of today. Is it any wonder that it is Number One ?

Football has much to recommend it . To the uninitiated , it may look like mayhem but once you begin to understand the rules and become familiar with the players and the teams , there is nothing like it.It is violent and skilled at the same time . At the line of scrimmage , in the trenches so to say, gargantuan  300 lb. offensive linemen slam into each other as they struggle to open holes for the runners or to buy time for the quarterback to pass the ball. Equally large defenders  try to deny them the space or the time. Fleet running backs try to knife through holes in the line or burst into the open field around the ends . And then there are those moments of rare beauty when a receiver catches a pass in full stride and evades the clutching hands of desperate corner backs as he high steps into the end zone .The object of the game may be simple ( to get the ball into the other team’s end zone ) but  the maneuvering is complex and often becomes apparent in slow motion replays . As someone once explained to me , it’s like a giant chess game using real people for chess pieces . Sooner or later , other sports pale into insignificance . No wonder the game has spawned the term ” football widows ”  to describe wives whose husbands are glued to the TV set during the football season.

 However , it must be acknowledged that a  big reason for football’s popularity is that it is ideally suited for wagering , far more so than any other American sport .Unlike baseball , where the season lasts for a whopping 162 games , pro football has only 16 games a season . Every game is important in the march to the playoffs and , once the playoffs start ,it’s win or go home . No best of seven’s here. Under the circumstances, no team is going to slack off or take it easy on any given weekend. Coupled with that great equalizer , the ” Point Spread”, it means that you can bet on any team and have a reasonable chance at winning . As if this were not enough , Fantasy Football has taken the betting frenzy to even greater heights as , in effect , you can be a General Manager and form your own team . With the advent of Fantasy Football , business at sports bars has boomed as fans get obsessed ( even more obsessed, that is ) with player statistics and injuries as they try to select ” their ” teams .

The old-fashioned office betting pool is still popular but there are ever newer forms of betting and the money at stake has risen exponentially. One of these new fangled pools is called  ” The Survivor ” . In it , bettors try to pick the winner of one game each weekend. If they pick correctly , they ” survive” to pick again ; if they lose they are eliminated. One other thing : In the course of a season , they can only pick any team only once.If they win in the first week with , say ,the Packers ,then they cannot go with the Packers for the rest of the season .  This ensures that they will not be able to stick with one of the prohibitive favorites each week. Those who make it to the end of the season get , or share , the entire pot which can run into the thousands..

I have also heard  that on Wall Street there is even a pool where players ante up $ 100,00o each to have a crack at a first prize of a million dollars. I would have thought that bankers wouldn’t need to make any more risks  other than those they face  every day in these troubled times.

Read Full Post »

Can a Fat Man be President of the U.S ?

This morning’s TV news had an item about NJ Governor Chris Christie considering a run for the White House . Looking at the TV footage of Gov. Christie , I wonder whether he has any realistic chance of becoming  President . My doubts arise because of his weight more than because of his politics . We Americans like our Presidents to look …um … Presidential and I don’t know that Gov. Christie fits the bill.

I remember reading a long time ago that the President of the U.S has two functions . In addition to carrying out his official duties , he has to look every inch the leader. Our first President , George Washington , fulfilled both roles admirably. His exemplary performance as President does not need to be repeated here but his looks are less well-known . Not at all like  the stiff portrait we see on the dollar bill , George Washington was in fact very regal looking . He is  described as being ” as straight as an Indian ,six feet two inches in his stockings, and weighing 175 pounds when he took his seat in the House of Burgesses in 1759. His frame is padded with well-developed muscles, indicating great strength. His bones and joints are large, as are his feet and hands. He is wide shouldered, neat waisted,  broad across the hips, and with rather long legs and arms. His head is well-shaped though not large, and  is gracefully poised on a superb neck. A large , straight rather than prominent nose; blue-gray penetrating eyes, which are widely separated and overhung by a heavy brow. His face is long rather than broad, with high round cheek bones, and terminates in a good firm chin. He has a clear though rather a colorless pale skin, which burns with the sun. A pleasing, benevolent, though a commanding countenance, dark brown hair, which he wears in a cue. His mouth is large and generally firmly closed . His features are regular and placid,though flexible and expressive of deep feeling when moved by emotion. In conversation he looks you full in the face, is deliberate, deferential and engaging. His voice is agreeable rather than strong. His demeanor at all times calm and dignified . His movements and gestures are graceful, his walk majestic .” In modern parlance , he would be described as a “hunk “or a “hottie”.

That was our first President ,and his successors , though not in his class , have generally been impressive looking specimens . To be sure , there have been some anomalies like the corpulent William Howard Taft , who weighed in excess of 300 lbs. In the modern era , every President beginning with Eisenhower has been tall and relatively slim . In fact, a height of 6 ft or more seems to be an absolute requisite. When Michael Dukakis ran for President , his campaign was undone when he posed for photos in a U.S army tank. At 5′-9″ he was not exactly a shrimp but he did not exactly inspire confidence . I know it is unfair but it does seem as if we judge our presidential candidates , at least partly , on the basis of their looks. An appreciable number of  women voters , I suppose , want their President  to be attractive while the men want him to look strong.

Governor Christie is certainly tall enough , but a hunk he is not . I am not sure if he weighs as much as President Taft did  but he is definitely very heavy. This should not matter at all to the electorate . As the New York Times critic , Frank Rich  said , what matters are a candidate’s politics , not his looks . I myself will not be voting for Christie , not because he is obese but because I don’t think he has done anything remarkable as Governor . I didn’t vote for him as Governor and I certainly don’t want to see him as President.

Read Full Post »