Oh what a beautiful morning

This morning I got up while it was still dark out and stumbled to the el to meet a friend from school and go to a Chicago Council on Global Affairs event featuring Thomas Friedman. Fridman is the Foreign Affairs columnist at the NY Times and I highly suggest reading his column.I have read one of his books, The World is Flat and enjoy his perspective on the world. This time the discussion centered around his new book coauthored with Michael Mandelbaum called That Used to be Us. The premise of the book is that American through its immigration policy, open policy and general we can do it attitude used to be one of the greatest countries, but that we need to make some strong changes in order to continue to be great. He pointed out that in his previous book he stated we lived in a connected world, but now we live in a hyper linked world and that means that we need to be smart and innovative. He interviewed bosses who were hiring and asked what they were looking for and across the board they all wanted an employee who could not only do the job, but who could invent and reinvent the job. His critique of politics was spot on (well, at least according to me). He said that we need a plan that is as epic in scope as the problems we are now facing. He stated that he feels Obama failed because initially when he was running for election he said he would like to be a great one term president rather then a poor two term president and unfortunately he has not delivered. His September 20th column gives an interesting suggestion to our current dilemma. I have an appointment downtown later in the afternoon and so I decided to stay downtown and study and I ended up at the Harold Washington LIbrary. I have a table to myself with these massive windows and the sun is streaming in. I also finally got a library card. How could I not have a library card? Seriously. With that said I am going to go do my homework. You may notice some changes to the blog. I hope you like the upgrade. I have also enabled mobile viewing so those of you with your fancy phones (you know who I am talking about) can catch me on your morning commute.