Cause and effect

Cause.

Effect.

There you have it. So if Palin visits your town, just put your mail on your mailbox. You just may live to get the reply.

Here's a handy graph to further illuminate the danger we all now face:

It's Debatable?

The Chicago Tribune has an article today about last night's Biden v. Palin smackdown. It's title is "The winner? It's debatable." But look how the article starts out:

They were in the same room Thursday night, but Joe Biden and Sarah Palin often seemed to be participating in separate debates. One debate dealt with issues. The other served as a platform for Palin's unique brand of Alaskan-bred populism and twangy asides.

Uh... Is it just me or is it a sad day in America when "issues" vs. "twangy asides" constitutes a toss-up in the Vice Presidential Debate? FAIL.

What Margaret Mead should have said

Everyone's heard this quote: "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."

She should have said this: "Never doubt that changing the world requires hard work, setback, frustration, and anger. Indeed, those forces applied over too long a time are the only thing that ever has."

Nowhere near as catchy, but she probably could have said it more eloquently.

Seriously though, she didn't mean your drum circle has to visualize world peace, people.

Goodbye George, we'll miss you

This is great. Choice quote: "Not every ejaculation deserves a name."

Bed Stuy, I love you but you're bringing me down

Only the first part of that really applies, but I had to finish the LCD Soundsystem reference. :)

Exhibit A: Bergemann in her birthday girl hat

Phew, back in Denver after a whirlwind tour of the Right Coast. Meetings in Boston followed by hanging w/ the C-Berg in Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, New York. Big ups to Bergemann for showin' a guy a great time, and not even making him sleep in the streets at the end of the day!

Highlights:

1. Getting a citation for drinking beer on Crystal's stoop the first day I get there. Bad. Ass.
2. All the food! We had Mexican, Japanese, Indian, Polish, Cuban, Italian (OK, it was pizza, but it came free with the beer at the Crocodile Lounge, so shut up), Chinese, and cookie dough. Mmm... cookie dough.
3. New York. What a spectacular place. There's 25 things that are unique and great hidden on every city block. Gotta find 'em all!
4. People. Not only did John Harris come down and hang with us a bit (always a good time), but I also got to meet lots of Crystal's New York friends and one of Dan's high school friends. Good peeps to a (wo)man. As if that wasn't enough, Drew and John came down on Friday and made us drink an unintelligent amount. It's our ranch, and it's our home.
5. Crystal. One of the nicest, most fun, most willing to eat cookie dough in raw form girls I know. You rock, Bergemann.

Lowlights:

1. Getting a citation for drinking beer on Crystal's stoop. Which means it's now more problematic to drink beers on Crystal's stoop, which would be the worst tragedy ever to befall New York if 9/11 hadn't, you know, mainly happened there.
2. Not still being there.

Here's to August, a.k.a. the Triumphant Return.

Knocking On People's Doors, Which I Don't Know If I Agree With

A conversation I'm overhearing (and liveblogging) in a coffee shop in Brooklyn between the barista and some customers:

"What did you do this weekend?"
"I went to Philly, did a little campaigning."
"Oh, for the B-Rock?"
"Yeah. I've never done it before."
"What does that entail?"
"Knocking on people's doors, which I don't know if I agree with, personally. It's a bit intrusive."
"Yeah..."
"Because politics is SO sensitive, especially in this race."

We need to change this attitude. I'm willing to bet (nay, guarantee) that it's the dominant one in this country today. Don't get me wrong, it's great that Obama is turning people out to canvass who have never done it before in states they don't even live in. That r0x0rs. Go B-Rock.

BUT! If we're going to take social change to the masses, then regular people need to start feeling comfortable with interacting with other people face-to-face about politics. I think there are two components to this:

1. The annoying salesman problem: Knocking on strangers' doors because you agreed to when asked by someone else to do it (whether for money or altruism or anything in between) immediately evokes the vacuum salesman frame. We should try to shift this to a "meet new people" or "explore and discover new places" frame. White people eat that shit up. "I was back-packing neighborhoods in Philly." Response from all white people in the room: "Wow!" Not that I think minorities wouldn't / couldn't / shouldn't participate. I'm just speaking for my fellow honkies.
2. The religion and politics problem: You know, the only two things you don't bring up in polite company. This one is actually fascinating to me, because one of the things I studied heavily in college was how the evangelical Christianity movement in the U.S. had made Christianity into a totally individualistic religion. It's about whether or not you are saved, how your relationship with Jesus is, etc. It wasn't always like that. So it's ironic that the two "private" topics in this country are religion and politics. Not that that leads to a way out of this frame, I just think it's interesting.

New Orleans

Last week I was in New Orleans for a conference. It was my first time there and I have to say, I was impressed. I'd heard a lot about how great it was, some from people I trust and some from people I don't. Either way, the potential for overhype was great and I was ready for a let down.

Nope. It's sweet.

Remember right after Hurricane Katrina hit and lots of people were saying things like, "They should just pack up and move New Orleans. It's ridiculous to rebuild it." No one who's ever been there would say that. I don't care if we have to build a glass dome over it because global warming makes killer hurricanes run rampant. New Orleans is a national treasure.

Seriously, it's like a white liberal paradise. Culture! Non-threatening minorities! Food! Music! Corner shops, bars, and restaurants where you can find all four! I wanna go back.

Yes, I'm a Philistine

The second opener was better than the headliner and Across the Universe is a great movie if you've loved and lost and had 5 beers.

Fail.

Funny cuz it's...

true.

Hombres Necios

This almost makes me wish I had caucused for Clinton instead of Obama.

We've all heard those polls that say Obama beats McCain in the general but McCain and Clinton are tied, right? According to this article, the lion's share of that difference is men. They'll vote for Obama for President, but as soon as you swap him out for Hillary Clinton, they vote for McCain. WTF? Not shocking, but annoying as hell.

You'll also notice in the article that there is no corresponding shift among women voters between Clinton and Obama in the general election. A voting bloc that makes up 51% of the population who has never had a member of their group in the White House supports both candidates about equally. God forbid we cede our 200+ year political winning streak to these subversives.

I'd like to take this opportunity to, once again, apologize for the stupidity of my gender.

Three Way

Not long ago in a bar not very far away, a funny thing happened. You see, I was chillaxing with a couple of charming ladies whom I think are approximately 14x cooler than me. So far so good, right? Well, one of them, let's call her "Elana," was intrigued that I had one of these "blog" things. After I explained things a bit, her keen intellect grasped the opportunity before her. Before I knew it, she had offered to triple my revenue by joining forces and guest blogging on the Toaster. The other girl, we'll call her "Meshawn," agreed to be in on the action. Meanwhile I'm multiplying zero times three in my head.

So, ladies, I've sent you your invitations. Let's see what you've got. Elana & Meshawn, time to pony up. I think my entire fanbase would agree that the world is awaiting your debuts in the blogosphere with baited breath.

Caucusing instead

Tonight I caucased for Obama and said goodbye to a girl I'm a big fan of. I spent more time with Obama. He better not fuck me on this. Right now I'm drinking at Precinct 533's favorite bar, Gabor's. So here's to bad timing and may it leave me be.

Screwed by Bad Timing

Sunday Blues again. Tonight I'm worrying that I don't invest myself enough in my friends. Like maybe they think I'm kinda "meh" about them sometimes. Hopefully some of them know that's not the case, I'm just good at being my dad (biodad). So I've been reading all of their blogs and re-realizing how cool they all are. I'm thinking about something else too, but not yet ready to blog about it.

Anyway, here are some shout-outs to some of my friends who might read this (in no particular order):

• Dan: I miss you buddy. You've only been gone for the weekend, but I've been wishing you'd been here the whole time. Everything's less fun when you're not around.
• Crystal: I hope you move to Denver. I feel like you and I are kinda similar in that we make people work at getting under our thick skins. I'll show you mine if you show me yours. ;)
• Drew: You should also move to Denver, though I feel like that's a more remote possibility, so I'll content myself w/ regular visits. My favorite thing about you is that you're less afraid to wear your fears on your sleeve than I am. I'm jealous of that.
• Will: I like that we've reached a point in our friendship where we can cuss each other out in a totally joking manner, but still reveal just enough biting truth that it keeps us from getting too full of ourselves. I hope you know that I respect and admire your opinion. I'm not always good at making that apparent in the moment.
• Mari: I think you and I have a funny friendship where we make subtle gestures to remind each other that we're BFF but otherwise play it cool. So here, I'm making it official: You're one of my favorite people ever and I love you like a sister.
• Shelley: I sometimes worry that you don't realize how smart and kick-ass you are. Srsly. Both personally and professionally, you have your shit so together it makes me feel like a huge slacker sometimes.

Perhaps obviously, I could post one of these for each of my friends (and family, for that matter). But I think that's the bulk of my readership on here (thanks for sticking w/ me through the dry spells). If you run across this post and feel sad because you're not mentioned above, let me know and I'll add yours to the list.

Political Journalism an oxymoron?

Here is a very interesting article on political journalism and why it sucks so badly. "Yawn," you may be thinking, "I've read that one before. Several times." You're potentially right, but give this one a go.

The point, once it gets there, is that political journalism shouldn't focus on who is going to win, but on who should win. An excerpt from the end of the article:

"[T]he job of the campaign press is not to preempt the voters' decision by asking endlessly, and predicting constantly, who's going to win. The job is to make certain that what needs to be discussed will be discussed in time to make a difference - and then report on that."

Damn skippy. The article starts out by claiming that the media is a mindless beast that does horse race political coverage because that's what everyone else does. It then starts to make the case that "expertise" in this field (namely, predicting political outcomes determined by voters) is dubious at best. This dovetails interestingly with a book I read recently called Super Crunchers that pretty much debunks all form of human "expertise" where it concerns analyzing data and making predictions based on that (and instead claims that machines can make much more accurate predictions, so we should let them do the predicting while we spend our brain cells on more creative, humany things like imagining what else we could have machines predict for us).

Combining these two perspectives, one could make the case that not only is horse race political journalism bad for democracy (in the sense that it pretends to predict outcomes but actually ends up unduly influencing them), but it's also a job much better left to number crunchers than so-called political "experts" who are terrible at it anyway. How many points was Obama supposed to win NH by, again? That would then free up real journalists to cover real issues and where candidates stand on them. Imagine that.

Morey Middle School is a Drug-Free Zone

1,000 words, indeed.

uncov = douche

I recently put uncov into my feed reader at the suggestion of some friends. I found it mildly humorous at times. But seriously, homeboy is a douchebag that mostly pisses me off. So I'm calling it: uncov = fail.

Apparently at uncov it's a rant-worthy occurrence when a woman blogs about programming but not über-geekily enough for Ted's liking. Lame post here.

Keep churning out those oh-so-clever "LOLZ!!!1! FALE!!!!one!!" Photoshop abortions, gang!

Possible Explanation for Clinton's Victory in New Hampshire?

Apparently in counties where hand-counting was used, Obama won. Guess what brand of voting machines the other counties use? More info available here:
http://politics.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/01/10/1635225