The whole thing is worth reading (in PDF here), but let highlight these two resonant parts. You’ll see why I noticed them.

First, on the overall U.S. prospect:

It’s an election year, and candidates can’t stop speaking about our country’s problems (which, of course, only they can solve). As a result of this negative drumbeat, many Americans now believe that their children will not live as well as they themselves do.

That view is dead wrong: The babies being born in America today are the luckiest crop in history.

And he goes on to explain why he thinks so.

Then, the complication:

The productivity gains that I’ve just spelled out – and countless others that have been achieved in America – have delivered awesome benefits to society….

To this thought there are offsets. First, the productivity gains achieved in recent years have largely benefitted the wealthy.

Second, productivity gains frequently cause upheaval: Both capital and labor can pay a terrible price when innovation or new efficiencies upend their worlds. We need shed no tears for the capitalists (whether they be private owners or an army of public shareholders). It’s their job to take care of themselves….

A long-employed worker faces a different equation. When innovation and the market system interact to produce efficiencies, many workers may be rendered unnecessary, their talents obsolete. Some can find decent employment elsewhere; for others, that is not an option….

The answer in such disruptions is not the restraining or outlawing of actions that increase productivity. Americans would not be living nearly as well as we do if we had mandated that 11 million people should forever be employed in farming. The solution, rather, is a variety of safety nets aimed at providing a decent life for those who are willing to work but find their specific talents judged of small value because of market forces. (I personally favor a reformed and expanded Earned Income Tax Credit that would try to make sure America works for those willing to work.) The price of achieving ever-increasing prosperity for the great majority of Americans should not be penury for the unfortunate.

So: the U.S. prospects are better than most people think, and unrecognizably better than “we are doomed!” campaign rhetoric insists. Check! And even a growing economy leaves too many people out—who for moral, political, social, and economic reasons must be brought back in. Check again!

The Buffett-Fallows mind meld is complete. Well, apart from the picking-shrewd-investments part.

And if you don’t trust Warren Buffett on U.S. economic fundamentals? Here’s the 2015 year-end economic outlook from Vanguard  (emphasis in original):

At full employment, the U.S. economy is unlikely to accelerate this year, yet is on course to experience its longest expansion in nearly a century, underscoring our long-held view of its resiliency.

As in past outlooks, we maintain that U.S. long-term (potential) GDP growth is near 2%, versus its historical average of 3.25% since 1950. This lowered projection is based on demographic headwinds and, to a lesser extent, on a more subdued expectation for labor productivity growth. However, we see our 2% U.S. trend growth estimation as neither “new” nor “subpar” relative to pre-crisis levels, if one both accounts for structurally lower population growth and removes the consumer debt-fueled boost to growth between 1980 and the global financial crisis that began in 2007.

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*As promised, here is how  I introduced the contradictions theme in the introduction to China Airborne:

The main surprise of living in China, as opposed to reading or hearing about it, is how much it is a loose assemblage of organizations and aspects and subcultures, an infinity of self- enclosed activities, rather than a “country” in the normal sense. The plainest fact about modern China for most people on the scene often seems the hardest to grasp from afar. That is simply how varied, diverse, contradictory, and quickly changing conditions within the country are.

Any large country is diverse and contradictory, but China’s variations are of a scale demanding special note. What is true in one province is false in the next. What was the exception last week is the rule today. A policy that is applied strictly in Beijing may be ignored or completely unknown in Kunming or Changsha. Millions of Chinese people are now very rich, and hundreds of millions are still very poor. Their country is a success and a failure, an opportunity and a threat, an inspiring model to the world and a nightmarish cautionary example. It is tightly controlled and it is out of control; it is futuristic and it is backward; its system is both robust and shaky. Its leaders are skillful and clumsy, supple and stubborn, visionary and foolishly shortsighted….

Such observations may sound banal—China, land of contrasts!—but I have come to think that really absorbing them is one of the greatest challenges for the outside world in reckon- ing with China and its rise.

2) Berdoo. Over the past year-plus Deb Fallows and I have written frequently about San Bernardino — recently the focus of international attention, but long before that a  community with as challenging a combination of economic and political obstacles as any in the country.

Here are two positive recent stories about the city. One, in the NYT, covers the group Generation Now (which we’ve frequently written about), plus others active in public arts as part of San Bernardino’s civic revival.

The other is the opening of a craft brewery in San Bernardino: Brew Rebellion,  which three days ago had its grand opening in what was once the commissary of the former Norton Air Force Base, now San Bernardino International Airport. The San Bernardino Sun wrote all about it here. As the Sun story said:

The “Berdoo” location is small compared to most breweries, but the dedication to quality is an obsession to owner/head brewer, Andy Sutfin.

“We are happy to be here in San Bernardino and other brewers who questioned whether our town is a craft beer town, have found out they were wrong,” Sutfin said.

Congrats San Bernardino! (For why Brew Rebellion’s move is a good sign, see #11 on this list.)

Even so [despite the increased nationwide focus on white-on-black police violence], Ball's shooting death likely would never have hit the national radar were it not for a lethargic, tight-lipped response by city leaders compounded by sloppy handling of the evidence, including the presence of two, seemingly contradictory incident reports that were distributed to separate media.

As a result, what might have been regarded as a tragic incident has become fodder for those who see something sinister in how the case has been handled, casting doubt on the credibility of local officials, and by extension, reflecting poorly on the entire community.

Suddenly, the local/regional story has found a national audience.

***

I offer this not to provide any original information or authoritative insight on the case but rather to note an important development in a community we have highlighted. Also I suggest another look at the final few minutes of this video from Mississippi, in which an influential NAACP and labor-union leader in the region, Lewis O’Dneal, talks about what has changed in the region, and not, during his lifetime from the segregation era onward. He appears starting around time 7:35 of the video below.

When I began business travel about 20 years ago, I would often come back home to San Diego so thankful that I didn't live in the place that I'd just visited. Now, as often as not, I leave a place feeling a little wistful about not getting to live there, or at least to spend more time.

So glad to see something that seems to describe the country I work in rather than the one that shows up on TV.

More of the Loll office in Duluth. The point in the article and the interview is that this resembles something you’d expect to see in San Francisco or Seattle, but it’s in northern Minnesota.

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While I’m at it, here is another look at a great short documentary that the Atlantic’s video team shot in Mississippi:

Looking at 2016, I've read more than a few speeches. I think as people search for why, for example, a Jewish Socialist from Vermont is successful, I don't think it boils down to a message of hope or a promise of material returns.

I think it boils down to being a campaign that as it has developed, is in its structure not framed around a candidate, but around civic engagement. That is, from the "#votetogether", the use of "we" in place of "I" or "me", the "not me, us" or "not him, us" and the calls for "political revolution."

When you look at the populism of the Republican side as currently represented by Trump, it is very much "I", in the sense of 'our country needs a truly great leader.' Beyond that, it's populism is framed much more like that of an army than a civic society.

The 2010 and 2012 campaigns had a lot of "we're going to take this country back" which is not the same thing as working "together." It's very much 'be a member of my army.' Whereas, with the Sanders campaign, when the candidate describes material conditions, it is very much almost like it doesn't have to be him there saying it. What he asks, what he emphasizes, where power is centered in the language of the campaign, is with supporters. So they're not asked to find a solution in "Bernie Sanders" they're asked to find a solution in themselves.

To the extent people are being asked to hope, they are being asked to hope for themselves. I think that appeals to people and lends also to a personal nature of a primary in terms of insults or hurt, because people then are not defending candidates, but themselves.

This is framed differently in the Clinton campaign. The sense of civic responsibility and duty, the societal frame, is still there. The sense of obligation to each other. But the weight of power in the language of the campaign is in a different place. During the concession speech in New Hampshire, Senator Clinton had the following exchange:

“What is the best way to change people’s lives so we can all grow together?” she said. “Who is the best change-maker?”

“You are!” people in the audience shouted.

I think, more than anything, the current divide in the framing of the Democratic campaigns and something people do not appreciate in the nature of the pitch. The Clinton campaign, in its core framing, is about the competence of Secretary Clinton, about the record of Secretary Clinton, about the political capacity of Secretary Clinton as being the best possible person, the strongest candidate, to deliver outcomes in the current political climate.

In the Obama 2008 campaign and in the Sanders campaign, the "you are" would be said by the candidate to the audience. That's the piece of the message they share. That's how they address the core of power, responsibility and leadership, by leaving it not with the candidate, but with the people supporting them, letting them just not the candidate's fitness, but their own. I have many, many friends who are supporters of Secretary Clinton and the friends that are supporters of Senator Sanders would still vote happily for Secretary Clinton.

What I've found though is in my friends that support Secretary Clinton, they often are disappointed by the metrics of competence given to the Sanders campaign, and they focus on Sanders the candidate, the ways in which they are lacking and they wonder why other people can't see it, why people assume he'll be able to maneuver around an obstructionist congress. And I think a big thing they miss is the extent to which the Sanders campaign is not framed the same way as the Clinton campaign, not framed as Senator Sanders achieving these things or giving these things to people, but people delivering these results for themselves. It's framed so the question is not 'do you believe in Bernie' but much like the Obama campaign, 'do you believe in us?'

So it's not the candidate, not how they measure up, but how the individuals, these members of the public that share the same concern, how they square up and whether they believe they can participate in the civic experiment of collective action, of democracy, of these changes that are happening in the lives of people all around the country who are building something for themselves and for each other.

I think the biggest thing the Democratic Party will have to reconcile, as it pursues not only the general election, but frankly, the idea of sustained engagement, regardless of the nominee, is these two messages and whether they can be made to co-exist. Everyone in the party ostensibly agrees about our obligation to one another, our desire to build a civic society together. What's happening in this primary is that two things that are not in opposition to each other, leadership and the power and capacity of the public, are artificially placed against each other because of the framing of two respective campaigns in competition. But the Democratic Party cannot do without either, without either the frame of leadership or the frame of public action and engagement….

I also read the wonderful poems and prose Deborah Fallows shared from the high schoolers in Mississippi. Those kids are wonderful and reminded me of my own great experiences and that of my friends in public school programs with teachers who cared deeply for us and had more ambitions for us than we knew to have for ourselves.

Thinking back on the note I sent and the work you're doing, it did make me consider the extent to which President Carter had work to reconcile the two elements of leadership and broad civic engagement. The stories in the malaise speech feel in some ways like before pictures to the stories of recoveries you're writing about now. This is the sort of work it feels like President Carter was speaking to and envisioning, the sort of engine operating outside of and beyond the nightmares that tend to be conjured up in our national politic.

***

Update I see from the Redlands Daily Facts, my first-ever journalistic outlet, that the spot was indeed filmed at Gerrard’s. Phew! Here’s an earlier Facts photo of one corner of The Cave at Gerrard’s:

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Announcing: The View From Your (Airplane) Window.

Loyal readers of Andrew Sullivan’s The Dish, for many years part of our Atlantic online family, know and miss its “The View From Your Window” feature. Here’s a wonderful post by Andrew from ten years ago, when the first few photos were trickling in. During Andrew’s time with the Atlantic, TVFYW became the basis of a very popular contest, which lasted through the remaining years of The Dish.  

Chris Bodenner, now the impresario of our Notes section, was one of the stalwarts of the Dish team during its Atlantic era and afterward. He has proposed an updated “The View From Your Airplane Window” feature, in keeping with the emphasis on “the aerial view” you see quoted above.

Shots from airplane windows were an occasional part of the prior TVFYW feature. We’d like to concentrate on collecting aerial shots only — from small planes and airliners, from helicopters and airplanes, from altitudes high enough to reveal large-scale geographic patterns and low enough to display surprising neighborhood or city-planning details.

Chris will be back next week to explain more about the concept and structure of the feature and the contests. (For instance: do drone shots count? Argument for: they can be very interesting aerial views. Argument against: no window. Which naturally raises the question: are windows really necessary? What about views from wing-suits, or hang-gliders, or balloons? Chris will figure all this out.)

In the meantime, please begin sending him any relevant photos, with identifying info— when, where, how, and what’s interesting about what we’re looking at. You can find Chris at hello@theatlantic.com.

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Furthermore on the aerial-view theme, here’s another look at our upcoming cover, this time in motion, courtesy of the Atlantic’s photo whiz Alan Taylor:

@jameshamblin @AdrienneLaF @TheAtlantic @darhilcrooks @JamesFallows One more attempt - as a gif: pic.twitter.com/S8JXPhTqE1

— The Atlantic Photo (@TheAtlPhoto) February 5, 2016

Last night Craig Scharton put up a long post on Peeve’s Facebook page, saying that conditions had darkened and he flat-out needed more customers if he was to stay open. Here’s the “action” section of his post:

This is an unusual plea to our community of customers. Transparency has been a core value of mine (and therefore Peeve’s Pub). I don’t know if this will work or not, but I know that we don’t have any chance unless we try.

We need about 2,500 extra customer visits in the next month or two. That means people who haven’t tried us yet, come on down. We need occasional customers to make one extra visit, or maybe people who had a bad experience to give us another try. Or it means bringing a friend or two with you or ordering boxed lunches for your next office meeting.

If one-fifth of the people who like us on Facebook do this, I think we’ll survive.

I have no connection to Scharton except as a recent friend, nor to Peeve’s except as a customer. But if I were in Fresno, I’d be voting with my dollars to help it survive. People of Fresno, over to you!

Update Here’s an informative account of menu and beer changes at Peeve’s, by Bethany Clough in the Fresno Bee.

***

Around the same time Deb and I arrived in Ajo to see the center and the town, a young couple from the northeast, Emily Raine and Stuart Siegel, were also getting their first look at the area. Initially this was for them just one more “hmm, it could be interesting” stop on a see-America wanderjahr they were calling their Big-Ass American Adventure.  You can see Stuart's Tumblr chronicle of their travels, and Emily’s essay on 10 Things to Love About Ajo after they had been there for a while. Here is a picture taken when they drove us to the airport in Gila Bend.

Although this had seemed merely an interesting possibility when we first met them, Emily and Stuart ended up signing on as at-least-for-now residents of Ajo and directors of the new conference center. And earlier this month, they were married right there. You can see one photo above, and many more at a flickr collection by their friend Margaret Collins. More than 100 friends and family made the trek from the rest of the country, and Emily and Stuart marshaled extensive support from local friends in Ajo, including the high school band. As Emily wrote after the ceremony,

The phenomenal food by the local postal worker and police dispatcher who moonlight as caterers...that gorgeous bouquet and boutonniere by the local flower shop/funeral home...the retirees that drove us to and from the ceremony in their classic cars...the saguaro cactus chuppah that the deputy sheriff who does woodworking helped us make...the dozen or so Ajoites who led activities for guests on Saturday morning (yoga! gardening! beer tasting! meditation! historic walking tour! hiking!)...the AJO HIGH SCHOOL BAND playing at the ceremony...it was a pretty amazing small-town desert wedding!

(In case you’re wondering: No, Ajo has not been a traditional center of Jewish weddings or Jewish life in southern Arizona. During its mining heyday, the working population was a mixture of Anglo, Latino, and Tohono O’odham and other tribal families, and the main religions were Catholic, various Protestant denominations, Mormon, etc. This ceremony was one more aspect of Ajo’s renaissance.)

Here is how Stuart and Emily looked earlier this year, as the conference center was still undergoing renovations and they were still making wedding plans:

We were delighted to hear of the wedding and sorry not to be there ourselves. We send the bride and groom — and their community — our heartiest congratulations. We’ll look forward to congratulating them in person. If you’re looking for a place to stay in the southwest, consider the Sonoran Desert Conference Center — and say hello to the directors for us. People like them, deciding to give their best to a new place, often against the odds, have made us feel better, when there is a lot to feel bad about.

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Bride and groom, amid local flora:

His comments about the Jones Act are particularly misleading as cabotage laws of this nature have been used by countries around the globe for hundreds of years. [Cabotage laws restrict transportation activity within a country to that country’s own carriers.] Essentially the merchant marine is no more or less regulated than virtually all other industries in which graduates from the other colleges ranked highly by the Brookings Institute [the survey in which MMA got a top-tier score] pursue their careers.

His comments about the union are also incorrect as there is no union requirement that I’m aware of stipulating that a member must be a graduate of a maritime academy.  Indeed, there are a number of union members who achieve their merchant mariners licenses through the so-called “hawse pipe” via which a mariner works his or her way up through the ranks based on time at sea and the development of the necessary skills required by the United States Coast Guard.  He also implies that all graduates of these academies enter a union; however, Maine Maritime Academy’s placement data refutes that statement.  Of our principal marine license track graduates over the past three years, less than one third joined a union.

And finally, the experience with unmotivated students the individual refers to does not reflect the experience at Maine Maritime Academy.  Of all the public institutions of higher learning in the State of Maine, we have the highest persistence rate, the highest retention rate, the highest graduation rate and our average GPA of current seniors who will receive an unlimited license in marine engineering is 3.21.  In my experience, these students are focused and driven to succeed.  Our job at the Maine Maritime Academy is to help our students become successful here so that they can be successful in their careers and hopefully in their lives.   

Dr. William J. Brennan
President
Maine Maritime Academy