Procrastination Nation |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Things that Robert is thinking about that keep him from accomplishing anything.
Email Me
Terror Alert Level by Land's End
Other Projects The Slant Funny Links Young Manhattanite HomeStarRunner Neal Pollack Sports Pickle HIFINY Lasagna Farm Honor Among Slackers Baseball Links Rob Neyer Baseball Musings OBM (Giants) BB Encyc Aaron's Baseball Interesting Links Air America Radio Lisa de Moraes Marginal Revolution Archives 
|
Thursday, December 30, 2004
Mr. Tony's Back While I was back in Maryland, I discovered that Tony Kornheiser is back on the air with a local show on WTEM (SportsTalk 980) airing 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. ET. Before you get too excited though, it's only a 2 hr show immediately rebroadcast at 11:00 a.m., so plan your day (and phone calls and emails) accordingly. You'll need to register with them to get the audio. New Pub I forgot to post my most recent academic article. Scintillating reading. No sign of my Nashville Parent article yet, but I'll keep you updated. Wednesday, December 29, 2004
Back in Town I'm back in the 'ville. Should resume posting this week. I keep hoping my next article will come out online before January, but c'est la vie, I guess. Monday, December 20, 2004
"I Like My Meats Processed" This is a quote from an improv show at ImprovBoston that has stuck with me for about four years. A fun scene. Now, I get to pay homage to winter's favorite processed meat, the summer sausage, in this article for the Tennessean. Wednesday, December 15, 2004
Weird Dream, Weird Idea I had bizarre series of dreams last night, all running together, but when I awoke at a 4:00 a.m. I had this idea to fix the NBA: what if the referees officiated the game more like water polo? The idea would be to call incidental infractions (e.g., pushing, hand-checking) with a short-whistle. This would pause the clock, force players to reset a bit, but everyone would continue play instantaneously without (1) stopping play completely for a foul, (2) cut the number of ticky-tack fouls called and putting players on the bench in foul trouble, and (3) keep the game from becoming an interminable foul shooting contest. (I'd like to include some other classes of fouls like when two players roughly equally positioned collide going for a loose ball--instead of calling a foul, have the ref assign possession and move on--but pushing and hand-checking are a decent start.) Refs could still call fouls for these infractions (and others like "over the back") using a double-whistle (beep-beep). You wouldn't have "ejection"/man-advantage situations like in water polo, but water polo's basic rules of "too hard" of a foul or a run of mini-fouls that excessively interrupt play would earn the type of foul we're accustomed to seeing in the NBA. And refs would still get to call I think the additional benefit of this rule is that it encourages the refs to get over their fear of blowing the whistle. It keeps them active, keeps them engaged in the game, but it may diminish their fear that they will disrupt the flow of the game by calling a foul or that they will harm a star player by calling him for illegal plays. This is not a perfect system. It would take a while for players and refs to get accustomed to the technique (though it could certainly be tested in a summer league). And teams may adopt a mini-foul strategy that perpetually interrupts the team's offense by committing mini-fouls. I think the extent to which this is a problem would also require some testing in a summer league. There's no reason to think this is all that different from "Hack-a-Shaq" or Riley-era Knicks-style defense--at least the game wouldn't stop for 30 seconds at a time for the same fouls repeatedly. Also, although you would think this would let players play physical without getting too physical (a sort of valve release), it is not inconceivable to think that players might flip-out in frustration. Again, testing would help gauge the magnitude of the problem. And finally, the accumulated pauses may make the games longer, depending on how many mini-fouls occur, how many full fouls in the game are removed, and how quickly the clock operators adapt to pausing/unpausing the clock (a slow hand, a slower game). The last is a learnable skill, and the former two can be tested in practice. Tuesday, December 14, 2004
Truth Will Out...When the Stakes Are High Enough I was talking with a friend last night about all this crap coming out regarding Kerik, the would-have-been Secretary of Homeland Security. What I wonder is, "What is the calculus that determines whether prior actions become important enough to stop somebody from obtaining a job?" Several of these accusations and problems date to his time in NYC, yet none of them stopped his appointment to go Iraq. Some predate his time working for Giuliani, yet none stopped his rise to police commissioner. To come from the other side, people knew about Clinton's dalliances and marijuana before he ran for president, yet it never stopped him from becoming governor of Arkansas. Yet suddenly because he was a candidate for president, it was important. I understand why the people appointing him would want to look past these things. I don't understand why people who might oppose him or the press corps wouldn't do more to track down info on appointees themselves. I mean, isn't that part of what reporting is? How hard would it be to get an intern to spend $50 to run a background check on appointees, even lots of appointees? Certainly something about the stakes of the appointment make sense. Perhaps it is too daunting to track down every single appointee at every level of government, and so institutions like the press or government agencies invest only effort commensurate to the level of appointment. On the other hand, maybe people who oppose a candidate reserve charges for when they will be maximumly damaging. It's just curious is all I'm saying. Monday, December 13, 2004
Connections I caught a Seinfeld rerun last night, and it was the one where Elaine is so irritated by her braless, childhood friend from Baltimore, Sue-Ellen Mishkie, that she gives her a bra for a birthday present, which leads to Kramer and Jerry having a car accident. I recognized Sue-Ellen though as Brenda Strong, the dearly departed Mary Alice Young from Desperate Housewives. I need to figure how to get all the guest actors from Seinfeld and link them to actors on other shows/movies and compare it to other "guest role" nirvanas like Cheers. Sunday, December 12, 2004
Back on Track Hola! I realized I hadn't given a weight update in a while. Today I made it down to 191, 62 lbs. total. I took off the weight I gained on Thanksgiving by the end of that weekend, but I've been hovering in the 194-197 range for the past few weeks. So, I decided to make a concerted effort to get under 190 before getting home for Xmas. I'd say I have a reasonable shot at it. Also, again I'm ahead of the curve. It took Ferecito (Fred Armisen) to call out Bono (Colin Ferrell) on SNL last night on the Vertigo counting problem. Someday I'll be on the damned show. In the meantime, you can look forward to a few more freelance writings. I have a holiday food article coming out 12/20 in the Tennessean and an article in the January 2005 issue of Nashville Parent. I'll post the article links when they're available. Friday, December 10, 2004
The Real Tragedy The Chattanooga Times Free-Press, which is actually a nicely laid out, decently written newspaper, is catching some flak for helping the guardsman grill Rumsfeld in Kuwait regarding dumpster-diving for equipment. USAToday is helping stamp out the firestorm by downplaying the importance of the issue with articles like this. The real tragedy is that the only way to ask these questions of America's leaders is by getting soldiers to stand-in for reporters. The reporter, Edward Lee Pitts, should get a medal. Wednesday, December 08, 2004
Blue States, Red Blood For some reason I started thinking about where in the U.S. casualties were from, to get a sense of the impact of the war. Where would you think the casualties are from? It depends on how you would code the person's "residence," right? Your map would look different if you recorded the address for where the person was posted within the U.S. versus where the person was recruited from, right? Let's assume the address they use is where the person enlisted from. Where would you expect more pins on the map? This site plots the "home of record" for US casualties thru 11/15/2004 (I'm checking on how this is defined). It turns out the casualties seem pretty heavily clustered in blue states, with heavy clustering in the east from MD, NJ, PA, and NY and out west in LA and SD. If the "home of record" is where the person's regiment is headquartered, well this is a map that shows how America's military bases are distributed across the country. My guess is that it's probably the person's "hometown" before they joined the military since so many dots appear where there are no bases (though these could be reservists). The other thing to keep in mind is that these areas have higher population densities, so it's natural to expect them to have greater numbers of "dots" than elsewhere. And the states are smaller, so the dots look proportionately bigger. It's tempting to conclude that it's the blue state folks whose kids are dying in a war supported by the red states. And that seems to be the case in terms of aggregate numbers of casualties. But, their main site has more details that slice-and-dice the data other ways. I combined the deaths by state with Census figures for population as of 7/1/2003. These are the casualty rates per 1,000,000 population:
A somewhat different picture here, as NY and NJ move down to the bottom 20% (lowest 10 states). CA and PA hang in the middle of the pack. It's probably not surprising to see the smallest population states at the top of the list because with such small aggregate populations, it doesn't take too many casualties to get a high score: Vermont, for example, has 10 casualties, yet its rate is 16 per 1m; Wyoming has 5, with about 10 per 1m. And, it's probably not too surprising to have the reverse happen: Alaska has 1 casualty, so its rate is very low even with a small aggregate population. The lesson isn't that statistics lie and we should chuck the whole thing. The lesson is to know what question you're asking, what your data represent, and whether the questions match the data you have. Forgive me, but I'm practicing being professorial as I plan to teach an undergraduate research methods class next semester. This struck me as a useful pedagogical tool. Anybody who can help me figure out how to get rid of the huge space between the text and the table in Blogger would be my hero. (I don't see any HTML code that is forcing the extra space to be added.) Updates: Jed is my hero. He figured out that Blogger was inserting a BR command with each return in the table. That is kind of obnoxious, but at least it's fixable by running all the rows and cells together in one long string. Also, I heard back from the casualty mappers: the "home of record" is the place where the person enlisted. Sunday, December 05, 2004
Key to the City I've lived in Nashville for over 12 years now, and last night was one of the best uniquely Nashville nights I've ever had. Apparently the key to getting the most out of a city is to know the right people. My friend, Bill, called me last night about 8:00 and asked if I wanted to go to a writer's night at The Bluebird Cafe. His musical hero, Big Al Anderson (another site), one of Musician magazine's top 100 guitar players and a former member of NRBQ, was part of a round hosted by Bob DiPiero (Brooks & Dunn's "You Can't Take the Honky Tonk Out of the Girl") and which included Leslie Satcher (LeAnn Womack's "A Man With 18 Wheels") and Tony Mullins (Kenny Chesney's "How Forever Feels"). Even if you're not a country music fan, you'll recognize their hits. We were treated to about 3 hours of music and funny insider stories, including DiPiero's new Christmas Song about quarrel between Rudolph and Santa about dragging Santa's fat ass around the world. You can catch DiPiero on "Live at The Bluebird" on Turner South with another writing giant Gary Burr on 12/29 at 11:00p ET. Also, be on the lookout for Tia Sillers (LeAnn Womack's "I Hope You Dance") on 12/22 at 11:00, too. I got to sit in on an interview with her in a songwriting class, and she's really super. A-run-del High! Congratulations go out to Mr. Denny Neagle (Class of '86) for having the foresight to avert a DUI charge by hiring a prostitute to blow him in his moving vehicle. This suggests an important question for the greater Gambrills, Md. area: will his mug shot go up on the wall at Kaufmann's, too? Thursday, December 02, 2004
Holiday Shopping Will Be All Kinds of Fun! This is what I have to look forward to at my hometown mall. As if being run into by SUV-sized strollers isn't fun enough, I can now look forward to having them stop in front of me and their drivers breaking into calisthenics. This should cause absolutely no disruption as I wander from store to Orange Julius to store. Tuesday, November 30, 2004
The Real Problem Flipping through USAToday online and saw this report on a Title IX case from Birmingham: a women's high school sports coach complained about unequal access to athletic facilities and was fired; he sued under Title IX; at issue is whether he, as somebody who's not part of the protected class (in this case women), can sue to recover damages. An interesting case on its own, but it's the passage towards the end of the article that got me to post: "Litigation against school boards represents a diversion of scarce resources and a distraction from their mission of academic achievement that the nation's schools can ill afford," the National School Boards Association writes in its friend-of-the-court filing. Ok, it's the fault of people who bring lawsuits to remedy discrimination that the school board can't devote resources to academic resources. If you were devoting the resources in the first place, you wouldn't be getting sued. Let's play the game:
It's a very clever piece of rhetoric. It looks like a cross between the: I just love these kinds of word games. The art of the sophists still lives in law and political campaigns! Monday, November 29, 2004
Getting Ahead of the Curve TalkingPointsMemo had this post over Thanksgiving weekend about legislative transparency that echos my suggestion. TPM posts some responses from Hill staffers. Tuesday, November 23, 2004
Yak in the Box Kudos to the folks at Jack in the Box for springing for health insurance for (some of) its hourly employees. Perhaps now its employees will be covered after they eat meals there. Seriously, though, it is good to see an employer taking a risk on behalf of its employees for a change. We don't know how much of a risk--JitB hasn't said what portion of the premium it will pick up--but it's a start. Also, the benefit only goes to employees with 12 months of tenure, so it's not clear how many people this truly affects. It's a nice perq for people who already have tenure, and a great incentive for people in their 10th or 11th month. There are times I wish I were a labor economist because this would be a sweet evaluation opportunity. Monday, November 22, 2004
Technological Virtue The lame duck Congress finally got around to passing some of its main outstanding authorization bills, and so now, only after it has passed and is assured a presidential signautre, has anyone taken the time to read it. Tuesday's Post reports on Congress' new power to snoop in income tax returns, and there is this change overriding state laws to make legal abortions still more difficult to obtain (hat tip to TalkingPointsMemo). My question is this: why is it not possible to post drafts of legislation to a web server and make them publicly viewable before they become law? If the 535 members of Congress cannot bother to read the legislation (and in fairness to them, it is a shitload to read and probably not physically possible to read), then let 280 million pairs of eyes read it and share in the responsibility? I realize there is some level at which this may contribute to tyranny of the agrieved and vocal minority faction or even full-scale ochlocracy (mob rule). Just think of the work of the Christian Coalition in late '80s and early '90s. So, perhaps there may be a period during which the people paid to do the work should have first crack at reading it. But, you know what, it's better to find out what the hell is in the bills before they're passed than after they're signed into law. Look at the havoc created by the changes to overtime regulations this summer. (Of course, I can't find a damned thing on Google right this second, but...) The other thing this accomplishes is that it countes (to a degree) the power of lobbyists to control legislation by controlling specific legislators. Including the citizenry in the effort means the public has a voice in the debate when the outcome is still (at least nominally) in doubt. If ordinary folks--ordinary in the sense that they're just citizens, not that they're a random sample of the populace--that, assuredly, is not the case--can stop Dan Rather from making charges against President Bush stick, imagine what similarly motivated people can do for legislation. This would also give these grass roots groups, left and right, something to do in the time between elections. Is this not a legitimate form of participatory democracy? The open source version of law making. Update: I neglected to talk about two other key virtues last night, mostly because it was late, but also because I can't seem to keep multiple thoughts in my head at the same time and type and edit. Those virtues would be:
This is not to say that these systems can't be compromised (e.g., stealing someone's password to post edits, bribing someone to post edits), but such things can be tracked and dealt with as they occur. At least we will have someplace to start when investigating who and how something was added. And in South Carolina John Feinstein recommended on NPR this morning that Clemson and South Carolina refuse their bowl invitations for their brawl Saturday, which is ostensibly blamed on the NBA fight of the preceding night. News Flash: Al-Qaeda blames 9/11 on overpaid NBA players! There's no bleeping way they will do it. Too much money, and no university president will punish its alumni. What I wonder though is what punishment they will mete out on the players, who they have little interest in protecting. My guess is that some of them will be barred from the game and have their scholarships revoked starting next semester. Update: Well, I guess I was wrong for a change: both withdrew from bowl consideration. I'm still curious to see what happens to the players. And, I'm especially curious to see what that means for some of the smaller schools/non-money conferences, whether they'll suddenly get to go to some better bowls. Can We Blame This on Overpaid Pro Athletes, Too? I'm sure there's got to be a way to blame this hunting incident on pro sports, the ole post hoc ergo propter hoc. Or, maybe we should blame it on literarture. Saturday, November 20, 2004
Sports Is Porn I haven't seen a full tape of the Indiana-Detroit melee. I saw from the foul through the first fight in the stands on the local sports last night. It's nice to know that we will never run out of things to moralize about in the sportsworld, especially sports talk radio. The one silver lining in all this for Ron Artest is that it looks like he'll get his time off to promote his album. As people griped about who was to blame, why fans have become willing to attack athletes (and vice versa) on the field (e.g., White Sox fans, Cubs fans), near the field (e.g., Yankees bullpen and Red Sox ground crew), and off (e.g., David Wells, Charles Barkley), and people spouted theories about resentment towards players for their salaries, it dawned on me the essential problem is that professional sports is essentially pornography. Socially acceptable porn, but porn nonetheless.
There are virtues in sports and competition. People can play for reasons other than those virtues: the love of the game; for fun; to earn approval or praise from others. However, the business of professional sports has divorced the virtues from the act in favor of what matters most: making money. Friday, November 19, 2004
Suppose I Should Mention There's a new Slant out this week. Check it out. I wrote the Tom Hanks article. Wednesday, November 17, 2004
It's Just This Easy! USAToday reports on a study that essentially confirms my diet and exercise regimen. Of course, it helps to be single, live alone, have no children or pets, and a job with flexible hours and good pay. Because I'm sure most people have time in their day to walk 4 miles. Actually, people probably have the time but don't realize it or are too frazzled by day-to-day life to make it available. I've been on my little productivity kick--which I'm sure annoys people even more than hearing about their latest diet or their latest tale of romance (or romance lost)--and it is amazing how much time you can reclaim...and still make time to blog. Tuesday, November 16, 2004
Three More Options? Revealing my mid-Atlantic biases, I wonder about three other potential successors:
Sunday, November 14, 2004
Your Nostradamus Blogger It seems either folks at the LA Times and the New America Foundation are reading my blog, or I'm just truly in tune with the nation's Zeitgeist. This op/ed from today's LA Times calls for an exchange student program in the U.S., eerily similar to what I posted last week. I need to start keeping tallies on this sort of thing. Also, read this month's article in Esquire on Bill Murray. (It's not available online, but you can see him on the cover for the Dec. 2004 Genius issue.) The man is a comedic genius, and it provides a wonderful counterpoint to the impression one might have of him after reading this year's profile of Harold Ramis (whom I also enjoy immensely for different reasons) in The New Yorker. Saturday, November 13, 2004
Curses, Foiled Again Vice-President Dick Cheney once again disappointed Democrats by surviving a mystery illness that required him to be hospitalized. When ABC interrupted its college football coverage today with report of Cheney's hospitalization for what is now described as "shortness of breath," Democrats thought their prayers for his sudden death had been answered. Apparently the president intervened by praying for Cheney's speedy recovery. This does raise an interesting question: what happens if the Veep dies before Dec. 13, the date electors cast their ballots and re-elect Bush and Cheney as president and vice-president? The short answer is: the electors can do whatever they want. Some states require their electors to vote for whom they're slated, but it's not clear whether they'd be required to vote for a dead man. One option is to posthumously re-elect Cheney, and then appoint a new vice-president. The other option is for the Republicans to put forward a nominee before Dec. 13 and encourage the electors to vote for this man. This is where things get interesting, and it poses a significant test of the Republicans' unity: who the Hell would they pick? And would they try to wait or get it done early? I'll take the latter question first. It's likely they'd try to wait because (a) they'd probably want to "honor" Cheney by re-electing him and (b) they'd need to buy time to find the right candidate. However, the longer they wait, the more potential for dissension and politicking for the job threatens to tear the party apart. So, the best case scenario is they have someone in mind who meets their ideological standards, won't piss off the party, and won't mind waiting until Jan. 20 to be appointed and confirmed. So, we come back to the first question: who would be that person? Jeb is out because of post-JFK anti-nepotism laws. Presumably that rules out daddy, too. Would he go for some Reds from the Blue States? Does Giuliani's 9/11 associations trump his socially liberal background? He probably plays better nationally than he does to the Far Right. Does Pataki get to be the Nelson Rockefeller of his generation? Can the executive branch afford to have two lightweights at the top of the management pyramid? An obvious choice is Sen. Bill Frist, the Senate majority leader. He's on the short list for '08 for sole reason that he's the beloved of W. However, Tennessee has a Democratic governor and presumably he'd pick a Democrat to replace Frist. Would the Republicans trade a Senate seat to get Frist into the VP slot? Probably, but not necessarily. If they would, it'd be funny if Gov. Bredesen selected one Albert Gore, and almost as funny if he picked Rep. Jim Cooper, who lost to Frist for this same Senate seat in 1994. I think we can count Gore out, but you never know. Cooper would be the favorite, but it might be interesting to see Rep. Harold Ford get the leg up as he may have planned a run for Frist's seat in '06. If they wouldn't, or if found Frist to be more valuable as majority leader, who else is there? Ashcroft needs a job. Or maybe Zell Miller. (Ever the comedian.) McCain leaps to mind, and Democrats would love to push him for the spot. But he has the same Democratic governor problem, and it's not clear the Far Right would support him. Neither is he "on board" with the neo-Con agenda. I'd say he's probably out. Powell has the stature, but probably wouldn't be considered or consider it if offered for similar reasons. Would he try to make history and appoint Condi? Imagine a black woman a heartbeat away from the presidency: would the South go for it? Apart from her disappointing foreign policy analytic skills and national security mismanagement, you would think her lack of domestic policy experience would be a drawback, too. I am skipping over some obvious names like Hastert and DeLay becasue they seem to have too much baggage and are too valuable running roughshod over the House. I suppose Frist is the most likely choice and the Republicans can afford the seat. Second best bet is Rice. I'll have to think some more on who else to consider. Friday, November 12, 2004
Thursday, November 11, 2004
What Now? Krugman's latest op-ed piece in the Times says Democrats can't succumb to defeatism or parrotting the Repbulicans' family values schtick. In particular, he suggests the following: Yes, Democrats need to make it clear that they support personal virtue, that they value fidelity, responsibility, honesty and faith. This shouldn't be a hard case to make: Democrats are as likely as Republicans to be faithful spouses and good parents, and Republicans are as likely as Democrats to be adulterers, gamblers or drug abusers. Massachusetts has the lowest divorce rate in the country; blue states, on average, have lower rates of out-of-wedlock births than red states. I wonder if perhaps there needs to be an equivalent of a foreign exchange program within the nation. Instead of sending our kids to live with a family in Belgium and taking in a teenager from Switzerland, we should swap kids between Kansas and Vermont. Given the popularity of all these family-member swapping programs, there seems to at least be cultural interest in it, though that may be driven by the fact that it's other people doing it for our own entertainment. Still, it would be interesting to start a cultural exchange program among high school students (maybe 10th graders?). Maybe it's a just a semester. Maybe you pair kids between families so the two kids experience each others' hometowns. And sure, you could turn it into a t.v. show if necessary. Wednesday, November 10, 2004
Missed Opportunities If you look at the electoral map by county (e.g., this week's Newsweek, this page from the LATimes), you will see that most of the blue areas in the South run along the lower (and upper) Mississippi River and the Ohio. While these may reflect racial patterns, I doubt it explains all the support. I maintain, as I have argued previously, that Kerry and the DNC missed a chance by not fighting in these areas. If Kerry wins Arkansas (6 electoral votes) and Louisiana (9), it's a 30-point swing, making it Bush 271, Kerry 267. That's spitting distance, without even considering Missouri. I guess the question is, could he still have won the Great Lakes states while working the lower Mississippi into his campaign? I'd wager that he could have, but it's too late to worry about now. Tuesday, November 09, 2004
Conspiracy Theory 101 If your liberal friends haven't sent you this link already, feel free to link yourself. I don't know how true this is, but I wouldn't put it past them. I do know that Karl Rove (subscription required) appears to be a graduate of the Donald Segretti school of campaign sabotage. For those who haven't read the Rove article and can't get the subscription, it basically describes how in several Alabama contests he used whisper campaigns against opponents and even self-sabotaged campaigns to give his candidates martyr status in their races. I'll bring the article in this week and post some excerpts. Monday, November 08, 2004
Thanks for Playing Michael Phelps can kiss any chances of winning SI's Sportsman of the Year goodbye. Follow the Leader I'm just back from a few days in Atlanta and then a few days in Birmingham. On the election: As much as I hate the outcome, I take significant solace in being right about the election's outcome. The highlight of the post-election orgasm in the Red States? I'd say it is this message left on my windshield in a Greater Birmingham parking lot, presumably inspired by my Kerry-Edwards bumper sticker: HA: Karry LostAll mangled language and syntax is in the original. I'm especially fond of the superfluous apostrophe. And there's nothing like delirium-induced dyslexia. I'd say this pretty much sums up the Bush experience: the ignorant showboating about their ignorance. America has officially become the fifth grade. Monday, November 01, 2004
Prediction Time Sadly, I'm standing by my pessimism and picking Bush with about 300-310 electoral votes. I just think all these fence-sitters are going to jump on Bush. The difference between this election and previous elections where the undecided break for the challenger is that I imgaine they're all peacetime votes. I just find it hard to believe the American public can separate its loyalty to the troops from its loyalty to the particular man who is Commander-in-Chief, no matter how poor a job he's doing. On the other hand, there is a part of me that really looks forward to Kerry winning the electoral vote and Bush losing the popular vote. And even if Kerry wins outright, I long to see Republican flag-wavers rally behind President Kerry with the same patriotic enthusiasm for President Bush. God, that'll be fucking fun! And I'll take some incredible dare if I'm wrong and the flag-wavers truly rally behind President Kerry. But, as I said above, I think the senator will lose. Sunday, October 31, 2004
Weird Dream I almost forgot to mention that I dreamed I was checking into a hotel in some big city (maybe my upcoming Atlanta trip?) and John Kerry was there greeting people getting on the elevators. He was dressed kind of dissheveled, looked like he'd been up campaigning for a long damn time with his coat off, shirt a little wrinkled and untucked. I shook hands with him and said something encouraging, and he asked where are you from, and I said Nashville...and it just totally threw him. It was like he didn't know how to respond or make small talk about my being from Nashville. I hope that's not enough to keep him from winning, but I wonder if that will spell his doom Tue. Like I've said before, his losing may spare him a shitload of grief because, seriously, who really wants to take responsibility for cleaning up this mess? 61 Well, I finally crossed the magical 60 lb. barrier yesterday. Down to 192.2 from 253+. Again, it's probably measurement error after exercising yesterday since I had crossed back under this a.m., but we take enjoyment even in flukes, especially when they're headed in the right direction. Even my size 34 pants are starting to feel loose. If I get under 190, I will officially be at my skinniest (or more precisely lightest) since Aug. 1992, perhaps Feb. 1992 since I started creeping up after my college swimming career, such as it was, ended. Thursday, October 28, 2004
Race is Tightening... No, not the presidential race. The race for Sports Illustrated's Sportsman of the Year. If I were handicapping, Pat Tillman would be the leading candidate, and I'd say Curt Schilling has overtaken Lance Armstrong for 2nd place. Michael Phelps is probably 4th, maybe 3rd. If it were my vote, I'd go Schilling, Phelps, Tillman, Armstrong. I can't seem to find any actual odds on the Internet. One note on Phelps: I didn't realize this, but apparently he was a volunteer coach at Loyola College (Md.), my alma mater, for the '03-'04 season. But, I believe he's off to Ann Arbor this year. Monday, October 25, 2004
Count Along with Bono Perhaps Bono spent too much time visiting the Bush administration over African debt relief. You've no doubt seen the iTunes ads featuring U2's newest single, Vertigo. Listen to Bono's countdown though: "Uno, dos, tres, catorce!" For the Spanish-impaired, that's: "1, 2, 3, 14!" Perhaps there's a MENSA puzzle that rationalizes this series. Now I Get It In the past week the Bush administration's Iraq/War on Terror has made sense to me. It took the unique phrasing of W's speeches--e.g., "Where does the senator think [al-Zarqawi]'d be? Opening a small business?"--for me to finally get it. By attacking Iraq, the administration is fusing anti-American and pro-Islamic sentiment in such a way as to draw Al-Qaeda to into Iraq in order to divert Al-Qaeda's resources from planning against the United States. It doesn't matter whether Al-Qaeda ever had connections with Iraq, the U.S. was going to force Al-Qaeda to make a strategic decision: to focus solely on attacking the U.S. in the U.S., or attack American forces in the Middle East to thwart a democratic Iraqi regime. If they focus solely on the U.S., other Islamic interests in the Middle East suffer, including the disrespect of having the infidels on their holy lands; if they defend Iraq, then they divert resources from direct attacks on the U.S. At one level, this is a pretty clever plan. Essentially, the U.S. uses its military as a decoy, drawing fire from the enemy so that everyone else back home can go along shopping and blogging without fearing a huge attack. If Iraq ends up democratic, great. But, it doesn't matter because the war uses up resources at Al-Qaeda's disposal, which may be diminishing through other global efforts (e.g., freezing accounts, anti-money laundering operations). It is a war of attrition, modeled after the Cold War--as the administration has been outlining--in which we count on our economic superiority and "will to win" to outlast the terrorists. The flaw in the logic is that it assumes Al-Qaeda cannot (a) engage us in Iraq and within our borders simultaneously and (b) continue to raise sufficient funds to meet its objectives. That Al-Qaeda has not attacked within our borders since 9/11 is not evidence that they cannot attack again. It was 8 years between the first WTC bombing and 9/11. Globally, it was about 5 years between the first WTC and the embassy bombings in Africa; a year later they hit the USS Cole. They are patient and opportunistic, and it is unlikely that Operation Iraqi Freedom will make them impatient and less opportunistic. And with oil in the $50+ price range, plentiful poppy fields, antipathy toward America, and sufficient black market experience, it'll be a while before Al-Qaeda runs short of funds. Finally, it is a less than honest or effective way to use our military, to treat them as RPG-fodder so we can shop online in peace. Sunday, October 24, 2004
Weighting Game No news on the weight front in terms of poundage. Still hovering at about 196. However, in other ways, I've noticed changes:
Hmm...I guess that's it. But, going from about size 38 and XXL to 33 and L isn't too shabby. I figure if I can get into the mid-180s, I'll be set. Saturday, October 23, 2004
Plurality Rules I was just thinking about the election and the chances that Bush wins again with less than a majority of the popular vote: That would mark the fourth consecutive presidential election (Clinton '92/'96 and Bush '00/'04) without a majority of the popular vote. Freaky. I also have been thinking on the red state-blue state division. It occurs to me that the nation may become more red state in the coming two decades because of decisions to have children. Specifically, if red states are more "family-oriented" and express that by having larger families on average, could this cement their majorities? Could red state people in blue states (e.g., rural New England) nudge things to the red side? To the extent that the blue states are more urban and urbane, I would expect them to have lower birth rates and smaller family sizes, limiting their capacity to shape statewide elections. The only remaining hope for the blue states is immigration (new immigrants tend to have larger families and be more Democratic leaning) and migration of the blue-thinking people from red states. The problem is red states can expand their size more quickly. On the other hand, it's not a lock that every child will share their parents' political leanings, but I would bet it's correlated enough to lock us into a red state future. Thursday, October 21, 2004
Miserable Sad Changing your life is incredibly difficult, especially when the change involves somebody you love and care about. So now I find myself having to adapt to my new commitment to graduation and focusing on my life in Nashville without the most important part of my life there to support, encourage, and guide me. And it's all my fault because I chose to pursue this path. It's damned hard not to pick up the phone and call, not to reflexively make mental notes of things to tell her later tonight, not to wonder how her day is going. So, I still do the latter two things and fight the urge to call or email. The immediate future looks long and sad. In "silver lining" news , I started my area paper (a prelude to my dissertation proposal and dissertation). I have a new "2 hours or 2 pages" rule: I have to write at least 2 hours or until I add 2 pages of text to the area paper. Two days in, I've got 4 pages written. I've also set aside a 30 min block to type in or download citations to my bibliography. These are not huge amounts of time obviously, but lately I've been working on the Grand Canyon theory of accomplishment (i.e., epochal erosion yields natural wonder). Friday, October 15, 2004
Crazy Year Today I turn 34. In the past year, I've:
Have I done enough this year? Here's to hoping that all this change and productivity bear fruit this year. P.S. I'm still pessimistic about Kerry's chances. Maybe this year's change will be: "be less pessimistic about things." Thursday, October 07, 2004
Visionary Stern I was listening to the local sports talk radio here, and they mentioned that NBC will institute a 5-second delay on NASCAR races starting this week. This got me thinking about Howard Stern's move to Sirius. I wonder what will be left of broadcast t.v. and radio in 10 years. If I were NBC (or one of the other networks), I might try expanding into the premium cable or satellite t.v./radio markets. First, the network can use it to develop experimental shows relatively free from "taste" issues regarding nudity, swearing, etc. Second, people who are interested in realistic or adult-focused programming are willing to pay to avoid the PAX-ification of primetime and sports lineups. The network can recoup its development costs through subscriber fees. Third, the nets can use these shows as a source of content for the flagship station (e.g., sanitize a show from the satellite world and rebroadcast for the masses a la Queer Eye's treatment with its Bravo purchase), or use the satellite as an outlet for repurposing shows from the flagship (e.g., air "Joey" thousands of times until enough people have been exposed). Wednesday, October 06, 2004
Weight Update I haven't posted any weight news in a while because I haven't been exercising and haven't been seeing huge drops in weight. I stopped treadmillng for the past 3 weeks because I have some sort of tendinitis in my knee. However, I noticed that I am still losing a little weight. I'm down to 195.2 lbs, which is 58 lbs overall. The secret? I think it's that I am awake for an extra 2 hrs per day now. The stress of the job situation made it to wear I would wake up at 5:00 a.m. and not get back to sleep, so I just started getting up and doing stuff, mostly cleaning my apartment or throwing stuff away or whatever. Well, let's say I normally get 8 hrs of sleep per night. That means 16 hrs awake. Now, take 2 hrs of sleep away per night. I've increased my regular daily energy requirements by 12.5%. And the fact that I am doing something beyond sitting in front of the t.v. or computer screen, the increase may be greater. Veepstakes I'd have to say last night was fairly even in terms of effectiveness of each candidate. Accuracy is another matter, but if you look at the 90 minutes they were together, each had his own positive and negative moments. Some random observations:
Veepstakes I'd have to say last night was fairly even in terms of effectiveness of each candidate. Accuracy is another matter, but if you look at the 90 minutes they were together, each had his own positive and negative moments. Some random observations:
Friday, October 01, 2004
A War Worth Winning? No, not Iraq--the presidency. While I thought Kerry summarily trounced the president (not that he was perfect, just immeasurably superior), it occurred to me: why in god's name does he want to stick himself with this cluster fuck in Iraq? Unless he can get the rest of the world to participate and deliver on all the things that need to happen to succeed over ther--which looks fairly impossible no matter who wins the election--all that can happen is for Kerry and the Democrats to get the blame for everything wrong: It may be impossible to win even if he gets all the support of the world, so he looks inept as a leader for not winning; if he can't get everyone together and we lose Iraq, he didn't deliver on his promise to bring in the world, etc. Now, maybe they could out-Rove the Republicans in the coming year (i.e., blame it on the predecessor), but I doubt they could make it work. Maybe Bush needs to win so that things get even worse over there to improve the Democrats' chances in 2008. A rather tarnished silver lining in a Bush victory. Thursday, September 30, 2004
Decision '04 Alright, the perseverating is over: I've decided to stay in Nashville and pass up the job in NYC. I decided finishing the Ph.D. is too important not to do. Even a chronic procrastinator has to finish eventually, right? A procrastinator who doesn't finish is just a loser, and I don't need that. While I will be staying, it will mean a whole bunch of changes here to reorganize my life around getting finished. We'll see where blogging ends up in the sorting process, but for now, it's still o.k. because I haven't made my lists yet. So, onto that other campaign...I think the best I can hope for is that Kerry's performance over the past few weeks has been so uniformly awful that by being even marginally better than he has been the perception will be that he has done tremendously, giving him a boost in the buzz factor. If I get greedy, maybe he will have actually improved his speaking style and clarity. Sadly, I think we're likely to see a reinforcement of everyone's perceptions. Sigh. Monday, September 27, 2004
Back for More Hey, I'm back for a bit. Kind of overloaded with "what am I doing with my life" questions over whether to take this job in NY. Leaning towards going, but not 100% committed. On the bright side, some new freelance stuff may be in the offing come January. On the campaign, I have the following suggestion for the Kerry-Edwards ad team. Try the slogan, "This is Success?" in t.v. ads, with an avalanche of negative images of the past 4 years (sans 9/11), including Abu Ghraib, snapshots from the beheadings (pre-beheading), newspaper headlines with "no WMD" and job layoffs and deficit rising, GAO reports about the secret energy meetings, the Medicare Rx boondoggle, etc. Then cut to, "I can't think of any mistakes I've made" from that press conference. Then some happy music showing Kerry-Edwards, a brief v.o. of how they will lead America forward (blah-blah), and the slogan, "This is SUCCESS!" Thursday, September 16, 2004
Wish I'd Thought of It Some people think of great ideas, some people have money, some people do both. An investment banker bought blocks of tickets for the Dodgers-Giants game and is reselling them with a stipulation that he gets Bonds' 700th home run ball (if it's hit there) and he gets to resell the ball and split the proceeds 50-50. At $10 a ticket he only has to sell about 2260 of the 6458 seats to make back his purchase. Willkommen, Herr Jefferson The U.S. Mint continues its currency makeover with new nickels unveiled yesterday. Instead of Jefferson's profile, the Mint substituted a publicity still from his starring role in a Colonial production of Cabaret. For the back of the nickel, which currently features Jefferson's home, Monticello, the Mint chose two alternate images, a buffalo and scene of the Pacific Ocean. The images will remind Americans of the natural beauty buried under the nation's Super Wal-Marts and strip malls. Wednesday, September 15, 2004
McGreevey Effect Kerry seems to be fulfilling my McGreevey Prophecy. Newsweek said in this week's issue that NJ is back in play, as Kerry's double-digit lead tumbles to single digits. The LATimes' poll synthesis concurs. It is interesting though to see the discrepancies between the maps, particularly all the "no recent poll" information in the LAT. Life After Seinfeld I was at least as annoyed about all the Father of the Pride promos on NBC during the Olympics. However, I gave the show a shot based on reviews about how funny Siegfried and Roy were, even though they aren't the stars. The reviews are correct about them, and the show is good enough to keep you around until S&R reappear. I noticed during the intro credits that Peter Mehlman wrote the episode. Mehlman was a Seinfeld writer, who put together the Virgin episode (starring a pre-Frasier Jane Leeves and JFK, Jr.), the Implants (starring the pre-Superman Teri Hatcher), and the Yada Yada episode (a pre-Will & Grace Debra Messing...also a post-Ned & Stacy Debra Messing). That alone should be sufficient incentive for you to give the show a shot. Thursday, September 09, 2004
When I'm the All-Being, Master of Time, Space and Dimension*... I will do away with GEICO advertisements. The sheer volume of ads, on both t.v. and radio, is obnoxious enough; but, to have such a variety of shitty ads is overwhelming. I wonder if this is a Tennessee thing, because in addition to GEICO, the next most common set of ads is for 1-800-Safe-Auto, followed by Direct Insurance. I know Tennessee only recently mandated universal car insurance, but sheesh...it's like televised spam. Rapidly rising the charts of advertising annoyance, however, is the Tennessee Lotto's new Cash 5 game, featuring Elvis impersonators singing an Elvis-inspired lottery jingle. Happy for the jingle industry, but ready to decapitate myself to spare myself from further exposure. * Courtesy: Mr. Steve Martin. Wednesday, September 08, 2004
Ready...Set...Panic!!! Well, it looks like I will get the offer in NYC. Now I have to decide whether I really want to move to NYC and figure out how to find someplace cheap (o.k., affordable) to live. Craziness. Feel free to email ideas and leads. The job is on the Upper East Side (90's). Tuesday, September 07, 2004
Retail Nation As you know from your occasional visits to this site, I am facing the prospect of a possible move from Nashville to New York City. Whether I go or not, I am taking the opportunity to clear out a bunch of crap from my apartment. For example, I gave away about 40 t-shirts and dress shirts to Goodwill. Yes, I have a lot of crap. It has also been an opportunity for me to learn the magic of online retailing. I set up my PayPal eBay account, but haven't listed anything there yet. I also set some books out for sale at Amazon.com:
Thursday, September 02, 2004
It's Over I looked at the electoral map in this week's Newsweek, and it's official: Kerry's fucked! (Scroll down in the link to the map. You can safely Donna Brazile's associated advice column, not simply because she led the terrible Gore2000 campaign, but because she offers no real insights...but read it if you must.) With the exception of New Mexico, Kerry will have successfully marginalized himself and the party, restricting his electoral votes to the North Atlantic and Pacific coasts and parts of the Great Lakes. Great work, guys! (I shouldn't blog this early in the morning...I'm awfully cranky!...And prone to using exclamation points!) Don't You See? It Was Consensual Because I Consented Good Lord! After reading Kobe's statement after his case was dismissed, it's a good thing Kobe has terrific lawyers. Could you imagine if he had to use a public defender and ended up testifying? Is this not tantamount to an admission of guilt? This should give new hope to rapists and date rapists across America. "Gee, your honor, I sure thought it was consensual. I guess I misinterpreted her muffled cries from beneath the gag and her sluggishness from the gallon of vodka she drank, and the Rohypnol I gave her before I knew how drunk she'd get, as signs she was getting into it." Congratulations, Kobe! Tuesday, August 31, 2004
That Depends on What the Meaning of "Win" Is Who's the flip-flopper in this campaign? When a Republican, say, the president corrects a statement, he is simply clarifying his statement's meaning. Democrats never misspeak; when they edit their statements, they're flip-floppers. Didn't anybody teach you this in political science or Bible school class? Monday, August 30, 2004
A Standup Guy For those who like to point to Iverson as the walking symbol of Team USA's failings in Greece, I point you to Gene Wojnarowski's excellent defense of Iverson's performance. Many of you will dismiss it as "loser talk," but I found Larry Brown's constant carping about his team to more clearly embody a loser's mentality. Were it not for this past season's NBA championship, Brown might have been the fall guy. This is not to say that USA Basketball doesn't deserve the majority of the blame for its selections, leaving off the handful of basketball players who can shoot above 40% from the outside. But, once you've picked your team, you have to make the best you can of what you have rather than bitch about the state of basketball in this country or the failings of your players. Opening Second Front Against Drunk Driving I've seen some recent reports about declines in drunk driving, and Tennessee has a huge drunk driving campaign that emphasizes revocation of your driver's license and significant jail time. However, I'm not sure it's the driving that is a big of a problem as the drinking. Suppose instead (or more usefully, additionally) we issued a new driver's license that includes a code (or some sort of marking whether a Scarlet Letter-esque graphic or just a letter) that says, "I may not purchase alcohol" for some length of time (60 days, 180 days, 2 years, 5 years, whatever). Stores and servers already inspect licenses for age, now they'd have to check for this code. In bars, it might be a bit more complicated (e.g., could bars refuse access to the facility entirely?), but there are workarounds for most problems. I know this wouldn't be 100% effective any more than restricting sales to 21 year olds has stopped under aged drinking. However, it seems like a relatively low cost effort for states to cut down on drinking (as well as drinking and driving) and raises the cost of drinking to the person convicted of DUI (e.g., they have to bargain with friends to get them alcohol, they have to get fake IDs). Also, the risk of not being able to purchase alcohol at all for some period of time might deter those at the margin from drinking over the threshold of legal intoxication and encourage them to use cabs or other alternatives: you might not take that extra drink if it means you can't (easily) drink again for another year). I think the restriction might be an extra inducement to help friends exert peer pressure against the offender to stop his/her drinking because they can no longer say, "It's their choice. I can't stop them from buying alcohol." Now, they would have the power to say no. Also, regardless of its effectiveness, I think it provides a powerfully symbolic policy against excessive drinking. Just an idea. Friday, August 27, 2004
You Can't Describe How You Feel? How Shocking! I can't complain too much about the Olympics coverage, mostly because I haven't watched a whole lot of it. Having a job, vacationing in a disaster area, and not having cable have interfered with my t.v. quota. The one thing I have gotten tired of is post-race interviews which ask, "How does it feel to have (won/lost/finaled/finished/lost your limb)?" and other variations thereon, to which the response is always: "You know, I just can't really describe it." Why should we expect people that make their living doing something physical to demonstrate a similar verbal dexterity about their emotional state? Maybe someday we'll just be able to run them through a brain scanner and look at what emotional centers are activated. Then we'll know what they're feeling! Or, at least, where and how they are feeling it. Can we replace them with trained psychologists at least? Olympic interviewers are no worse than the other journalistic disasters (e.g., local t.v. reporters, sports sideline reporters, me), but it's time we or the networks develop a penalty system, fining reporters who ask such ridiculously stupid, open-ended questions. Or make a drinking game out of it, whichever is easier. New Article Here's an article I wrote for the Tennessean previewing the new Cottage Living magazine. For comparison purposes, here is USAToday's version. Wednesday, August 25, 2004
"I Invented That, But Then I Found Out They Had It Already" The immortal words of Bill Blazejowski (Michael Keaton) in Night Shift have been the story of my creative life. Everytime I come up with the idea for something, within a few days or months I find out that thing already exists. The examples are too numerous to name, but this week presented two examples. Exhibit A from this week is the idea of a postage-paid postcards. I know the post office sells them, but they're very generic. But, suppose when you bought a postcard your postage was already included on the card? That's always the biggest nuisance in buying a card in the first place. The only handicaps are that postage rates increase (which can be handled by better inventory management by suppliers and shops) and international rates will be higher and vary by location (which can be handled by making foreign-postage versions and tinkering with pricing strategies). In fact, I thought this would be an ideal ebusiness for somebody, especially for holidays and stuff as a substitute for greeting cards and such. Turns out that the post office is already in this business. Exhibit B comes from the world of animation. I always thought it was surprising that as realistic as Pixar and Dreamworks draw characters that it would not be far-fetched to see somebody use Flash animation to make their own animated porn movies. I know such movies have existed in the past (Fritz the Cat, for example), and I figured there's probably a niche for this already, though I don't run in those circles. It's obviously only a small step from strip poker video games, not to mention characters like Jessica Rabbit, and video broads like Lara Croft. On top of that, it's disease-free and avoids diffident or drugged out starlets and stars. Heck, I could imagine there would be a time where actors/models would license their images to video game makers so that you could, as Dennis Miller used to say, fuck Claudia Schiffer in your barcalounger for $19.95. Well, apparently Playboy is beating a path down this road with a new spread featuring animated characters from video games. It's not hard to imagine a sort of sexual Dungeons & Dragons emerging where you could design women on your computer, a la Weird Science, and play interactive "games" with your creations. Yes, I'm procrastinating. Tuesday, August 24, 2004
Comeback Kid I know I've been gone a while. I caught the aftermath of Hurricane Charley from Tampa over to Daytona. I'll fill you in on that when I get a chance. Quick observation on Orlando though: when did it become a territory of the British Empire? I heard more varieties of British accents than Henry Higgins. On the Olympic gymnastics controversies, my question is this: how can there be disagreement or uncertainty about start values? In diving, the diver writes out the list of dives with the degree of difficulty, signs it, and submits it to the officials, who review it and put it on the board. The dive announced is the dive written on the sheet and that's the dive you perform. You do a different dive, it's a failed dive. Now, given the complexity of combinations, gymnasts need some flexibility (ha-ha) in terms of move choices (e.g., you know after your round off back handspring you won't be able to add the full twist to your double-back). That's fine, but they obviously have some process for determining a start value--it can't be that hard to submit the list correctly and get the start value posted correctly. Do they even post/display/announce the start values in the gym like they do in diving? Seriously, do we have to waith for Al Trautwig--a definite improvement over John Tesh--to ask Tim Daggett about the start value after the routine? Why is this not part of the information about the person's name and country of origin? If it's posted incorrectly, that might be the time to raise hell, although it should really happen at the time the list is submitted: you hand in your routine with your presented start value, the official signs off on the start value or if you disagree, you figure out a start value that both can sign to (all of which is done x minutes before the start of competition for that day). This is not the most complicated thing in the world, and it is not unreasonable to expect the least subjective element of the gymnastics scoring process to be error free. I'm not sure what you can do to fix the scoring biases. It seems inherent to any rating system, like the BCS in college football. The judges already have the deduction scales for each deficiency (just as in diving--in fact, in diving you could theoretically get a negative score with all the deductions). Reputational effects abound in most of these instances (favorite divers, favorite college football teams/conferences, favorite gymnasts, calling balls and strikes, calling pass interference) with each judge having her/his own tastes. However, one option might be to review judges' ratings over time to identify patterns of variability in ratings. You should be able to identify judges who consistently score (one or two standard deviations) above the average, below the average, or above/below final scores for particular gymnasts or teams, and penalize judges who show problems. You could also work out models for trend effects within competitions (the tendency for later performers to be scored higher than later ones, or early performer to be judged more harshly than later ones--I think there's literature on these kinds of effects). Now, this does little to address all problems like upward bias ("grade inflation") in scores (you can reduce variance at the top of the scale by scoring people closer to 10.o, or 6.o for skating) and this might penalize judges who preserve standards (e.g., most judges inflate somebody to 9.90 but you hold firm to the 9.70 they deserved and get penalized for being outside the norm), but I think there are workable solutions to all of this. The data certainly exist to evaluate these patterns, and based on the patterns we should be able to determine incentive structures that fix the problems. Friday, August 13, 2004
That's How It Works... I thought Comments were something you had to pay extra for, but I took a few moments to procrastinate and found where to turn them on. So now I can read all the insightful criticism from the lost souls who wander into this site. It's Something Well, I finally heard a rationale for delaying his resignation until November: to avoid a special election. So, I guess the timing makes more sense than it at first appeared. Nevertheless, I still think it bodes ill for the K-E campaign: there's still an election, and voters will still want to make someone pay. A sort of, "Vengance is mine, sayeth the voter." Thursday, August 12, 2004
Men! Call me a pessimist, but I believe we can now call New Jersey "in play" for 2004 (and all the borderline southern states to boot), with Bush now likely to take it, and I believe Gov. McGreevey has assured us a second Bush term, barring some counter-revelation. I just think anti-gay bias in New Jersey--not to mention anti-over-sexed-politician and anti-sex-for-job-favoritism bias (where was McGreevey during the Clinton administration?)--will become anti-Democrat bias, which will all carry over onto the Kerry-Edwards ticket. (I'd be curious if there were any polls are in the field at the time of the announcement, and if they can split pre-post announcement results.) Also, I expect the Republicans will be able to turn this into a Willie Horton ad. And having his resignation for Nov. 15? Is he trying to fuck them up? If you're going to take a hit, get out fast for god's sake. At least get out before the convention. Maybe I'm just over-reacting in the heat of the moment, but, then again, that's what blogging is for. Also, after seeing my first Bush ads in New York City, I have to give them props for production values and effectiveness of the message. Hell, if you didn't have an opinion on the guy beforehand, it'd sure push you his way. Sunday, August 08, 2004
Escape to New York I survived my journey to the center of the universe. It's amazing how long it took to get here. I flew Southwest out of Nashville, went to the airport about 8 a.m. flew to BWI, 1 hr layover, then onto Islip, Long Island, then 30 min waiting to ride over to the LIRR, then another 75 min into Penn Station, then a 25 min walk through Times Square to my hotel. Deep breath. Finally arrived at 4:45. That's about 9 hours, plus the time getting up in the morning, going to the office to print my borading pass (2 hrs early and still on 25th). I could drive to Baltimore in that time. Some thoughts on the trip:
Tomorrow I'll explore a bit of Central Park, the Upper East Side (for my job interview), and maybe drop by to see President Clinton in Harlem, before he heads over to tape The Daily Show. Christ, this is fun. I need to get a wireless, high speed Internet in my house. I think it might drive me sane to get this random crap out of my head. Or, maybe I just need to travel more so I have better material to draw from. Oh yeah, with a weight loss commercial on t.v. now...I was down to 198.4 as of Saturday afternoon. Just shy of 55 lbs. We'll see how I do diet-wise while I'm gone. Maybe I'll sample the exercise room in the hotel Monday a.m. Thursday, August 05, 2004
I Can Read Map, I Just Can't Add I don't know what I was thinking, but I think I did enough math to get Kerry to 220, not 270. O.k., so he's got even more work to do than I said, but it only emphasizes that he really needs to try to compete in the OV-LMV states of Tennessee, Arkansas, West Virginia, and Kentucky, as well as Iowa, Missouri, and Ohio. It's interesting that although Kerry trails by a lot in Indiana, there's a huge undecided group there. It might be worth adding side visits to Gary, Ind. when in Chicago or dropping in on Indianapolis and some of the college towns. Also, Edwards made a forray into Memphis this week (registration required). While tooling around their site, I found a link to research that rates cities in terms of reading, with Memphis far down the ratings. Other Options? I just saw this article about abstinence-only textbooks in Texas. I wonder if there's not an alternative strategy to reach teens though. Suppose private foundations sent junk-mail (e.g., Dear Resident postcards with condom messages instead of missing children) to teenagers' homes in Texas. There is no "do not junk mail" list residents can sign up for. A lot of it would end up in the trash, but not all of it. Of course, the reactions of conservatives in Texas to the distribution of sex-related materials might create the impetus for a "do not junk mail" list. That alone might be worthwhile. I wonder also about PSAs and getting billboards near schools, though to some degree those probably already happen. 6o Minutes did a story on undercover marketing in which firms paid actors to use a product around others to promote buzz. I wonder if you could plant fake students in high schools or teens at the mall or tanning salons or in the kitchen at restaurants and have them talk up safe sex. Or maybe form groups/clubs in the same way Christian teens promote their "true love waits" stuff. Maybe t-shirts with messages like, "If you want to get in my pants...you need one of these" with a picture of a condom. Or, "Laid, not played" (with pictures of a happy dude with his chick (or several chicks) next to the same guy with the girls and each has a baby). Alright, so I'm no marketing genius. But, you get the idea. Tuesday, August 03, 2004
Running Behind A hectic weekend. First, here is the Darrell Hammond link I promised. When it expires, I'll post the original version that corrects some odd editorial tweaks that were made. Second, I eventually made it to Wrigley Field in order to see Maddux's first attempt at 300. After the two home runs, Maddux really settled into a great groove. Unfortunately, the Cubs managed to put their rally together an inning too late. Even more unfortunate, Sosa butchered an easy single to right into an unearned run which led to Maddux's exit after 6 innings. It's insane that he can make some decent diving and sliding catches yet has problems picking up the ball. I'm sure he was thinking too far ahead worrying about the throw to the plate than getting the ball. Just sickening to watch it happen. Almost as sickening as if I were a Phillies fan watching the team waste 6 great innings from Wolf and Bowa let Wolf implode in the 7th. (Lee Smith led the 7th Inning Stretch.) Apparently I missed the real post-game excitement: three hours after the game, a 25-year-old guy fell onto the tracks at the Addison L stop and electrocuted himself. A power outage of some type on the Orange line marred the trip into Chicago. CTA, to its credit, got us all on buses to a stop further up the line where we could resume the trip. The irksome thing is CTA announced the problem after we left the station and before the first (and now last) stop of the run. If I had known of the problem, I would have gotten off and trudge back through the garage to get a cab. The bad thing about those weird outer southwest suburb stops is that they're not exactly overrun with taxis. So, I rode the bus, finished the Orange line, went to transfer to the Red Line when I got irritated and finally decided to cab it the rest of the way since I was now looking at 60 minutes to game time and faced another Red Line trip up to Addison. I made it in time to see the first pitch, but I missed Rollins' home run on the second pitch as I found my seat. The game was still memorable as the first with Nomar. The crowd stood and cheered for each at-bat, even after starting off 0-3, including a leadoff GIDP. I guess RBI singles after you're ahead 5-3 still count. In addition to updates on the job search and a recap of my comedy adventures at The Second City and ImprovOlympic, I'll post a review of the new Millenium Park in the coming days, too. Next up on the travels: NYC and a visit to the UCBTheatre. Friday, July 30, 2004
"I Can Read a Map" To quote Gen. Patton in Patton. The L.A. Times has an interactive electoral map linked to the latest polling data for each state. If their allocations of states are correct, then it looks like Kerry will win with the following combination of unclaimed states: Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, New Mexico, and either Iowa or Oregon. In all of those states except Iowa, Kerry leads, and they all voted for Gore (and Clinton). Slim, but enough. Still, though Kerry ignored my advice, I hold to my Ohio Valley-Lower Mississippi Valley theory. He obviously will make plays in Missouri and Iowa, but he should not write off Tennessee or Arkansas completely. Or, more specifically, he should deploy Edwards frequently, especially in east Tennessee, which was the difference for Tennessee's Gov. Bredesen in his campaign in '02 when Democrats were trounced throughout the nation. A Little too Memorable? Looks like I've bought a ticket to more than just Maddux's attempt for his 300th win. Naturally, I'm in the upper deck (first base side, I think). F-f-f-foolin'! I watched Kerry on tape last night, so I missed the Morgan Freeman-narrated video and other preliminary speeches. I don't see why pundits or Democrats are jazzed about his speech last night. It's only real virtue was its relative brevity, at 46 minutes. If I have an unusual amount of typos, forgive my copy editing as the glare from Kerry's chin sweat burned my retinas. Is there not a corner man to come over and wipe him down? Or a nurse? He looked like Ted Striker trying to land a plane. His oratorical limitations are substantial, but I see it as the job of the speech writer to place the words in his mouth in such a way as to compensate for them. First, he crams too many words into each breath. (I'm going to go through and count some samples from tape tonight.) Second, the sentences are too long. As I've complained before, he needs to remove conjunctions (I'll check that, too), but removing excessive clauses will help substantially. Perhaps the clauses were an attempt by the speech writers to force some pauses and breaths. The excessive wordiness and pace make even the slightly memorable images still more slight. Will anyone remember this speech in a week? Is a "family values, valuing families" turn of phrase the best they can do? I fear this speech is a "success" in the same way pundits regarded Dukakis' speech in '88 as a successful speech at the time. Appealing to the American ideal of immigration, connecting his personal story to his policy. He had a 17 point lead and everything. Yeah, quite memorable: "Because this election isn’t about ideology. It’s about competence." We see where that got him. I suppose, ultimately, the success of a speech is not in the speech but in the candidate. I don't believe Kerry will carry this off. On the plus side, though, I have to give a thumbs up to using Bruce Springsteen's "No Surrender" for an intro song, not so much because it's evocative, but because I'm a Springsteen fan. At least they didn't fall for the ironically titled "Glory Days." And, even if it was from the Van Hagar era, "Dreams" is a definite improvement from Fleetwood Mac and "Don't Stop" for listenting purposes. Unfortunately, I'm not sure '80s nostalgia is to a point where it will connect to enough voters. I'll take your votes by email for '80s songs they should have used. They have to fit the message and be recognizable to enough people. If you have RNC song suggestions, send those, too. Thursday, July 29, 2004
I'm Going Down... Finally broke under 200 lbs. a.m. 199.6 to be precise. I can fit in size 34 pants, but more impressively, I can wear a XL t-shirt (instead of XXL or XXXL) without looking ridiculous. More t.v. thoughts:
And one of my Hammond previews is available online now. |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||