RIP Rudy Ray Moore

He was perhaps best known as Dolemite to my generation, by which I mean white kids of the seventies. His obituary gives a lot more background. It will be interesting to see if the Dolemite remake actually happens, and how a contemporary director will mess up what is a great example of a well-meaning bad film.

Tales from the Polls

I waited in line two and a half hours today to cast my vote for Obama and against amendment two. Some interesting things happened to me during my wait, while voting, and afterwards. While waiting in line I met a young VERY soon to be mother. This election is the first time that she’s old enough to vote. She is due on October 26th and stood on her feet for two and a half hours to cast her vote just in case she went into labor and wouldn’t be able to make it to the polls by November 4th. All of us who drive by voting locations and keep on going when we see a long line need to take notes from this young mother who toughed it out because she knows how important this election is.

Also, the entire time I stood in line I didn’t see one person abandon ship. No one was complaining, or seemed frustrated. I thought about when I was little and my mother took me to vote with her. There was never anyone there and if there were even a few people in line there were complaints. It was amazing to see so many people taking time out of their day to make a decision about their future, and to see how many of them were making the right decision.

Once I got inside to vote, the woman sitting next to me looked at me and said “This is full of jazz. I’m not filling out all this paperwork. I’m voting Obama and going home.” It took me a minute to figure out what the hell “full of jazz” means. Even though I wish she would have stayed to vote against amendment two, I was glad that after this long campaign and long wait to vote she at least had it in her to fill in that bubble and shove it on through.

After voting, I went home and ordered delivery from the local Italian joint. I didn’t realize I was wearing my Obama shirt and when I opened the door to the delivery man he smiled. He told me he wasn’t eligible to vote yet because he was still only a resident and actually thanked me for voting for Obama. He said that he was thanking anyone he met who voted for Obama because he felt like it was a vote for him. I felt all warm and fuzzy inside and then stuffed my face.

Anyone who hasn’t voted yet should get on out and do it. Besides making your voice heard, you might find yourself with a great crowd that reminds you that community and civic responsibility are amazing things.

That's certainly how it seems sometimes

see more pwn and owned pictures

Where's Alice?

After watching this fantastic video I found myself wondering: Where’s my beloved Alice? I bit the bullet and went onto the Disney website to find out if she’s included in the “Princess Disney” line. She is not.

Why not? Is it because she’s not actually a princess? Nope. Neither is Mulan and she’s included in the princess line. Mulan is the daughter of a well-respected family and disguises herself as a man to take her ailing father’s place in battle. Wow! That sounds like a fantastic role-model, you might say. Sure, in the beginning, until she’s shamed for what she’s done and, you guessed it, lands herself a handsome warrior. Alice’s exclusion has nothing to do with her not being a princess.

Is the evil Queen she faces not quite evil enough, making her triump less impressive? No way, the Queen of Hearts is running around beheading people. It doesn’t get much more evil than that.

Is it because she goes on a journey of self-discovery and shows curiosity, bravery, resourcefulness, and intellect which is strictly reserved for the male Disney characters, and isn’t rescued by a brave and handsome prince who validates her sense of worth by choosing her, out of alllllllll the other beautiful maidens in the land, to cook his breakfast every morning? You betcha.

It seems that Disney has decided that Alice isn’t as marketable as the rest of the princesses. Curiosity, intellect, and resourcefulness aren’t presented enough to young girls in the form of toys, television shows, and movies. Instead, their given baby dolls and play kitchen sets. Disney is always re-releasing the old princess movies instead of focusing on creating new characters for new generations of young girls. These girls are told that the princess is what they should want to be. Who tells them this? Well, like Sarah Haskins says, all women want to be princesses, right? Just look at the adult Halloween costumes made available at places like Party City.

Aww, I can be the sweet Snow White, or the beautiful and tragic Cinderella . . . you know the one in the Disney movies, not the one in the German folk-tale that watches her stepsisters amputate their toes so they can fit into the slipper.

But, what if I don’t want to be a damsel in distress, swept away by a daring prince. Can’t I be Alice? Of course I can, at the cost of my own sense of decency.(Sorry about the link, wasn’t able to insert the actual picture).

Now, I’m not saying that it’s not okay for a woman to want to strip it down a bit for Halloween. It’s all part of the fun. And I’m not saying that there aren’t skimpy versions of some of the other Disney princess costumes either. I’m just saying that costumes like this one are the only ones available in mainstream stores that pride themselves on being Halloween Headquarters like Party City and Spencers. It seems that Alice’s refusal to be a helpless and romantic figure for young girls to idolize has some how made her into a sex toy. In fact, Alice costumes aren’t even available for girls and teens. Alice seems to disappear and resurface as some type of school-girl fantasy outfit for women to squeeze themselves into. There seems to be a statement here that women who are adventurous and intelligent, and don’t allow themselves to be feme covert are necessarily overly-sexual (if there’s even such a thing). I wonder at this. Some might argue that the barely-there costume is a statement of sexual liberation, which is quite in keeping with Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. I disagree. I find the costume anything, but liberating. There’s a difference between being comfortable with your sexuality and seeking to express it, and being sucked in, pushed up, and strapped down. The costume is actually a prison. Women wanting to dress up like Alice are doomed to be put on display, or worse, to the dreaded arts and crafts store to figure out how to make a costume themselves.

My point – Ideally, Disney should scrap the princess line and start over, but that will never happen. Instead, they should come up with a new kind of heroine that encourages young girls, not damns them. As for Alice, perhaps if the same value was placed on her that is placed on the princesses we wouldn’t find her image resurfacing as masturbation fodder. Oh, that would be grand!

Hmmm

Here's a couple of great examples of how the right completely misses the point when it comes to identity politics. Ever since Barack Obama started winning primaries--especially since he started pulling 90+% of the African-American vote in polling--there's been a claim from the right that black voters voting for a black candidate is somehow racist. That claim took on yet another angle this weekend when Colin Powell endorsed Barack Obama for President--Rush Limbaugh couldn't spread the word fast enough.

And yet, Sarah Palin's latest argument for why women should vote for John McCain is based solely on her possession of a vagina.

"Our opponents think that they have the women's vote all locked up which is a little presumptuous since only our side has a woman on the ticket," Palin said to strong applause.

Now I will admit that there was a time when I thought that if a woman was on the ticket, all women would vote for her. And then I turned 16 right around the time Mondale/Ferraro went down to a huge defeat, so I learned.

There are no doubt some African-Americans who are voting for Barack Obama simply because he's black, just as there are no doubt some women motivated by Sarah Palin's gender to support her, but the majority of voters aren't motivated by such simple notions. If they were, we'd have had a woman as President already, since women outnumber men. If they were, African-American Republicans would be able to garner more than 15% of the black vote in statewide elections.

It's just funny to watch the Republican party flail around in this way. It's new to them, the idea that they might have to try to pay attention to anyone other than white men and submissive women, and so they're clumsy in their responses, and they do it badly. The nation is changing, and the Republican party will eventually figure out that they'll have to appeal to both women and people of color in order to stay viable, and that they'll probably have to move away from social issues to do that, and if they figure that out, the country will be a better place for it. And if they don't, they'll remain in the minority, stomping their feet and yelling that the world isn't fair.

They'll always be the Devil Rays to me

It's not that I'm a particular fan of Tampa's baseball team--I couldn't have named a single starter for their team back on April 1 when I predicted a World Series appearance this year, after all--but I do like the name they took upon their inception. I don't know if a Devil Ray is actually bad ass, but it sure sounds like it is.

But you just know that some people are going to correlate the Devil Rays' success this year with their decision to drop the first half of that name. It won't be that the young pitching did better than expected, or that the lineup hit for more power, or that they were successfully aggressive on the base paths, or that Joe Maddon gave a young team a steadying hand down the stretch. No, for some people, the Devil Rays will have enjoyed their success (especially if they win the Series) because they dumped the word "devil" from their name.

Which is why I was nervous about clicking on this article. It started out just as I feared, complete with a quote from a former athlete turned minister:

"I told my wife before the season started, 'Whoever is in that organization made, to me, a very interesting decision,'" said Les Steckel, a former NFL coach and head of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, an evangelical ministry. "Six months later, look what happens."

Factor in that the story was written by the religion writer for the AP, and I just knew it was going to be more of the same.

I was wrong.

It's actually an entertaining piece that talks about the varying levels of success that pro and college teams with Devil in their names have enjoyed over the last couple of decades. My favorite example is the New Jersey Devils, whose jerseys have a red tail in the logo and who have won the Stanley Cup three times.

The last part of the article talks about superstitious fans and their odd behaviors, and let me tell you, there are books that could be written on that. Sports fans are the oddest bunch in the world when it comes to imagining that their behaviors, whether at the game or at home or in a sports bar can affect what's happening on the field. They make live-action gamers seem, well, cool.

Someone explain this to me

Because I don't see how this solves the problem.

WASHINGTON -- Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the Guantánamo Bay prison for suspected terrorists can't be closed unless Congress acts to bar inmates from emigrating to the U.S., a step he said was impossible in an election year.

See, as I understand it, a big part of the reason why people who have been cleared of wrongdoing who are held in Guantanamo haven't been released is because there's nowhere to send them. Their countries either don't want them back, or worse, want them back so they can do bad things to them.

That's the problem with the Uighur situation that's been playing out lately. US law forbids sending prisoners back to countries where there's reason to believe they'd be tortured, no one else is willing to take them in, and the US refuses to allow them to immigrate even though there's a community ready to give them shelter and jobs and help them assimilate. So what exactly does Gates hope to accomplish with this sort of legislation? Does he hope to make an impossible situation even more impossible? I'll be the first to admit I don't always understand how people who in the Bush administration think, but this really has me baffled.

Early voting

Just a couple of images from the early voting yesterday. Our polling place was a library that also serves as an art gallery. The first photo was from when we'd been waiting about 45 minutes. That's the line we could see--it wrapped around a lot once we got inside those doors.



This is the warning sign as we neared the art gallery. I thought the note was a bit ironic considering what we were trying to do.

I don't want to presume, but I think it's safe to say that all of us here at Incertus are sending out good thoughts to Madelyn Payne Dunham, Barack Obama's grandmother, who is ill enough that Obama has canceled campaign events for the next two days so he can fly to Hawaii to be with her.

Edit: per Amy in the comments, I've taken down the post title. I was having trouble coming up with anything else, and I didn't understand the nature of Madelyn Payne Dunham's health when I wrote the post this morning, so I plan on leaving it this way for now.

Boys vs. Girls

Brian pointed out this commercial to me, and it just blows me away:

Touch of Gray (click for the product site with a full-sized Flash embedded version of the TV ad)

The commercial starts with black-and-white images from the 60's: rock and roll and surfing. Then it moves to a fit-looking man coming out of the waves with a surfboard, flashing a peace sign.

"Welcome to the 'summer of life,'" the narrator says, with an edgy "I'm narrating a rock and roll biography" tone of voice.

The product is a men's hair-color product that promises to leave some gray in your hair.

Can you imagine such a product for women?

Yet the appeal of this product (and its ad) is powerful: you aren't some faker trying to look 21, you're more real than that; you don't want to have no gray, you just want to have less gray; you're not some old fogey, you're a boomer, cool and strong and fun and proud. You've accepted that you're over 30 -- you just haven't accepted that you're over 60!

(One of the lines in the ad is "don't trust anyone over 90." Pardon me for conflating that with a newer expression, but, are they trying to say that 90 is the new 30?)

Men, of course, can look older and be regarded as "distinguished," while women who get older in apparent ways (including having gray hair) just seem, well, older.

Notice that the gent sporting his lessened-gray look in the ad is hanging with some fine blonde women: no gray on their heads! Not even just a little bit! (Although one of them is wearing a mini-skirt and swinging a tambourine, which dates her in a very different way...)

I know this is "ad reality," but the presence of those "trying to wrinkle up their faces in the close shots but no way they're over 35" women hanging on the "would have been 4 years old during the summer of love" hair-model's arm is just jarring, for a woman. After all, if that guy's supposed to be a boomer, the women are more likely to be his daughter than his girlfriend.

In short, this is an amazing little ad that should appeal to its target audience but will probably drop the jaw of every woman who sees it. The double-standard for attractiveness is just too stark, and, frankly, cruel (it always hurts to see others granted choices you are denied, or praised for choices you are punished for making) for members of the sex in whom youth is universally valued and age universally mocked and reviled.

Voting: It May Very Well Inconvenience You

We know that long lines on election day scare voters away. That's one of the reasons why early voting is such a good idea. We probably shouldn't even call it "early voting" vs. "election day voting" -- we should probably just open the polls for two weeks and let people vote when they can. It spreads the crowds out over longer periods, and it also makes it so, if you vote on the first day, for example, and have a problem, you can correct it and come back and vote. It increases turnout, makes the experience better, and leaves fewer people shafted by some kind of problem that's "too late now!" to fix.

The polls opened today in Florida, and Brian and I were among the first to go down to the Art Serve Library in Fort Lauderdale. Our experience was very similar to that featured in a Sun-Sentinel story about early voting:

David Hare thought he'd get a jump on Election Day by taking advantage of early voting this morning. He got on line outside the Art Serve library on Sunrise Boulevard in Fort Lauderdale at 10:30 a.m.

Nearly three hours later, he was still waiting.

We were about 30 minutes behind David, but our experience was the same. When we got there, we didn't realize it would take 4 hours to vote. The way the building is laid out and the way the line ran through it, it was impossible to tell how long the wait really was: I estimated 100 people when we got there. In hindsight it was probably 200 or 250. We'd waited half an hour before a poll worker posted a sign near us that said the wait from the door would be 3 hours. We decided to wait the additional 2.5 hours: I left Brian in line, went home, got ready for work. I came back with my laptop and did my class prep in line. I emailed my students and canceled my early office hours. But that additional 2.5 hours ticked past, and we still hadn't voted. Oh sure, we'd gotten a lot closer, but we weren't in the booth.

Some amazing things: people were choosing to wait. Many people on line had reasons why they needed to vote now. They were going on vacation or leaving town. And some of us (points at Brian whose driver's license gives his wrong address, wrong birthdate) had reason to want to try to vote now, in case of a problem, so there would be a second chance. But a lot of people on that line just wanted to vote and wanted to vote now. A lot of people on that line were just eager to get in there do it. And from the looks of it (and the sounds of it -- after a few hours in line with people, you get to know them a bit) everyone there was voting for Obama. 

Now here's the most important thing: Election Day in the United States is not a holiday. And people have jobs. They have to work. But as the Sun-Sentinel says in the same story:

Lines are expected to be even longer on Nov. 4, when 1 million people are expected to vote in Broward and Palm Beach counties.

As I got closer and closer to the actual voting booth, the clock ticked faster and faster. I reached the point at which, if I stayed, I could no longer make it to my class on time -- what would you do, after waiting close to 4 hours? I called work and emailed my students and let them know I was caught: class was canceled. 

If I had it to do over, I would have planned to vote on a day that I had completely off from teaching (and I would have brought my grading with me, because English teachers don't have days off from work): but I was totally unprepared for the length of time I would be required to wait. Election Day is going to be EVEN MORE CROWDED. But voting is important, especially this year. People, get out there and vote early. The lines will only get longer. You have every reason to do it and not a single reason to wait. This is Florida. If there will ever be a state where a single vote will decide an election, this is the place. Make your voice heard, early! 

Vote!

About public financing of elections

When Barack Obama's campaign announced its mammoth $150 million haul for September, my first thought was "I wonder if Republicans will start calling for public financing of elections now?" A big reason for the right's dominance over the last thirty years has been their ability to outraise the left, and with that dominance seemingly diminished, I was wondering if they might seek to limit the left by bringing campaign finance reform back into play.

I wasn't alone, though Publius takes a somewhat different tack to the question than I did. Publius's point, and it's a good one, is that republics succeed when you're able to factionalize them to such an extent that no one faction is able to take complete power. The Republican party is a good example of that right now. The choice of Sarah Palin as running mate was clearly a pander to the social conservatives of the party, the faction that has dominated their electoral politics for a generation now. Fiscal and social moderates were let out in the cold, and may well provide Barack Obama with a landslide victory as opposed to a small one.

So it goes with financing elections--the more donors, the less influence any one donor has. Howard Dean made that point in 2004 (and I have a post in mind that will discuss Dean's part in the Democratic Party resurgence), that with such a large base of donors, no one owned him. The same is true with Obama to a point. There are still powerful people who can raise large sums who will have his ear, but their power is diffused somewhat by the online machine.

But here's where I differ from Publius. What can work on the large scale of presidential politics won't necessarily work on the smaller scale of Congressional or Senatorial politics. The biggest problem I see in the Congress is the incumbency advantage. Name recognition isn't the problem, either--it's something any challenger will have to overcome, and there's no structural way to do so. But how many times have we heard jokes about Congresspeople or Senators being corporate representatives? Joe Biden, who I have gained a lot of respect for in the last couple of months, is seen as a voice for the credit card industry because that industry has a lot of sway in his home state. John Dingell belongs to the auto industry. And the list can go on and on. In Congressional and Senate races, corporations have too much power, and public financing can do a lot to break that power.

Because Congressional districts are smaller, a corporate-backed bundler can have a lot more influence in terms of fundraising than any combination of grassroots organization can hope to compete with. Obama pulled off this amazing feat because he had a huge source to pull from--probably somewhere near 70 million people will vote for him this October and November (as I just did--four hours in line)--and while his campaign has gotten money from well over a million people, that's a small fraction of the people who will cast votes. If you're running in a district that represents 600,000 people, the same options aren't always open (unless you're running against a mouth-breather like Michelle Bachmann). A corporation who can suggest to its executives to dump a couple of grand apiece into a congressional election has a lot more sway in a smaller universe.

So while Madison's point might hold true for national elections, and even state ones where the state is populous enough, it doesn't work in smaller cases, and I think that is enough reason to continue to push for public financing of elections.

The ACORN non-story debunked--again.

It's taken them about a week, but the corporate media is finally getting up to speed on the ACORN non-story. CNN had some reporting on it yesterday, apparently, and this piece today from the AP sets out the parameters pretty well, including debunking the notion that what ACORN has been charged with reaches the level of vote fraud.

By legal definition, to commit voter fraud means a person would have to present some kind of documentation at the polls — a driver's license, a phone bill or another form of ID — that bears the name of Mickey Mouse, for example. To do so risks a fine and imprisonment under state laws.

Submitting fake registration cards is another matter. Local law enforcement agencies in about a dozen states are investigating fake registrations submitted by ACORN workers. Late last week, The Associated Press reported the FBI will be reviewing those cases.

That sums it up pretty neatly. They also mention that "Many states require that all registrations be submitted to local voting officials so that election directors are in charge of vetting problem ballots, not the groups collecting them," which is further evidence that what ACORN was doing adhered to the letter of the law, as opposed to breaking it.

Voter registration fraud does happen, however. In 2004, a guy named Nathan Sproul was hired by the RNC to do voter registration. His group was found to betricking Democrats into registering as Republicans, surreptitiously re-registering Democrats and Independents as Republicans, and shredding Democratic registration forms in several Western states. And in a story published today, "the head of a voter registration group hired by the California Republican Party was arrested over the weekend for allegedly lying about his address in the state in order to vote illegally, the office of California's secretary of state announced Sunday."

This has become the modus operandi of the Republican party since the early 1990's. Whatever you're guilty of, point and scream at the opposition and accuse them. It happened with extra-marital affairs, it happened with accusations about not wanting full recounts in Florida 2000, and it's happening now. Republicans are engaging and have engaged in voter registration fraud, so they're attacking ACORN. At least for now, it seems the corporate media is pointing out the facts of the case.

One More Sports Post

And then I'll go back to ignoring the subject. Congratulations to the Tampa Bay Devil Rays for their first trip to the World Series. I would like to point out that I predicted the Devil Rays would make the Series way back in early April. Very early April, as a matter of fact. The first day of April, as it happens. But of course, I was serious at the time. I swear.

Football Fans for Obama!

Miami Dolphins Owner Wayne Huizenga (not the most popular man in south Florida) may have just gift-wrapped the state for Barack Obama, saying he'll sell his stake in the Dolphins If Obama is elected.

Okay, that's not quite accurate. Huizenga is actually selling his stake because he believes Obama will be elected, and that Obama's tax policies will be less favorable to billionaires who sell their businesses. I expect he's right on that, and the other side of that is that McCain's policies would presumably be favorable to billionaires who sell their businesses. No shock there either.

Sports fans in south Florida haven't been fond of Huizenga for a while now, though. The Dolphins have been mediocre for a while, and when he owned the Marlins, he got a World Series out of the deal and then sold off the players while raising ticket prices. I don't know too many sports fans who would be sad to see Huizenga take a hike from the Florida sports world permanently.

So here's a new commercial idea for south Florida. Dolphins Fans--want to get rid of Huizenga once and for all? Vote Obama/Biden.

In all seriousness, early voting starts tomorrow. I'm volunteering for the Hillary Clinton event tomorrow morning and will take pictures if I get the chance.

Good News on Amendment 2

This will actually deal with more than that, but I wanted to get the tentatively good news out there. Right now, we're winnng on Amendment 2. It's far from a done deal, and the haters out there are not only starting a church tour today, they're spending a ton of money on ads trying to make up the ground they need to pass this thing, and they could easily pull it off. But the latest poll says we're on the good side of the numbers.

An effort to rewrite the Florida Constitution to prohibit gay marriage is falling short of the numbers needed for victory in the Nov. 4 election, a Sun Sentinel and Florida Times-Union poll shows.

The poll of 600 likely voters shows support for Amendment 2 at 53 percent, less than the 60 percent approval rate required to change the constitution.

Somewhere else--can't find it just now--the numbers are 53-42 with 5% undecided. So we're not outside the margin of error, but the supporters of Amerndment 2 have a lot more ground to make up than we do. That's great news. Early voting begins Monday, and the more votes we can bank to kill this thing, the better.

As to the rest of the amendments. I can't say I've looked deeply into them, so I'm tending to rely on others, and in this case, I'm looking at Michael Mayo. He gives what seem to me to be solid reasons to vote yes on everything but 2, although he admits that Amendment 4 is a little tricky, and depends on the legislature doing the right thing, which is never something you want to rely on, but it might be worth the risk. Take a look at his article for the details.

If you look up blowhard in the dictionary

I think you'll find a photo of Richard E. J. Driskill. Who's he? He's the toolbag who claims to be responsible for the sign that so embarrassed Broward Republican Party Chairman Chip LaMarca yesterday.

Richard E. J. Driskill, Toolbag, wrote the Sun-Sentinel yesterday to complain about the treatment his sign has received. They've posted the entire thing, and it's really a piece of work in that it's a brilliant example of how attempting to sound erudite can have the opposite effect. In this case, it leaves Driskill sounding like south Florida's real-life Cliff Clavin.

This series of posters was my sole idea, my creation, and I printed them all on my home printer within a period of about 24 hours a few days ago. I believe I did a very good job on all of them, as it is my forte to only produce quality in everything I do. The severe angle of the photographed poster does not do it justice; it is as though it is a photograph taken in a forbidden area on the sly. Did the photographer get permission to acquire my illustration from a position on private property? Did you get a signed release for my art work? I never gave anyone permission to reproduce any of them without my consent.

So, I hope we are now clear on where they all came from and who they belong to. I will now address how they came to hang on the wall of the facility in question. But I believe you are only interested in the one that you find to be inflammatory. I consider it to be informative....

It is I who should have been afforded the ability to directly address your concerns. After all, it is the message you take offense to; not that this is an opportunity to attack the Republican Party, correct? I am the messenger, approach me. Alas, I am also disappointed that party personnel incorrectly responded in a politically correct fashion, rather than discerning the facts, determining it was I who had created and placed the posters, and discuss it with me, wherein I then would directly discuss it with you. The exact response given did nothing but fuel the false fire presented. By the way, your use of the word "mock" utilizes incorrect nomenclature. I did not mock Senator Obama's call for change (like an image of a few coins in your hand); rather I was shocked at the entire statement as it appeared and responded to that level of shock (to -change- the greatest country on the face of the Earth) with my informative association of other like-minded individuals.

Go read the whole thing. If it weren't apparently sincere, I'd consider it a piece of performance art.

Joe Biden Roars

I blogged yesterday about Sarah Palin's comments about loving the "Pro-America" parts of the country. Now it would be easy to simply dismiss her comments as stupid and leave them at that, but in a country where we're seeing more and more violence being threatened against or committed against Obama supporters by out of control McCain/Palin supporters, it's the kind of thing that can't go unanswered.

Which is why I was glad to see Joe Biden respond the way he did:

"I hope it was just a slip on her part and she doesn't really mean it. But she said, it was reported she said, that she likes to visit, 'pro-American' parts of the country," he said to loud boos.

"It doesn't matter where you live, we all love this country, and I hope it gets through. We all love this country," he said. "We are one nation, under God, indivisible. We are all patriotic. We all love our country in every part of this nation! And I'm tired. I am tired, tired, tired, tired of the implications about patriotism."

I'm tired of it too, Joe. We're all pretty tired of it, I think.

The Chupacabra Hunter

A few days ago, Amy introduced us to the Chupacabra Hunter. Here are episodes 1 and 2 for your viewing pleasure. If you enjoy it, please go to YouTube and rate it up. And subscribe--there are at least 3 more episodes yet to come.

Episode 1


Episode 2

Well, Senator?

Let's see if we can find an equivalent to this at one of Obama's rallies, shall we?



Via Balloon Juice, that's a picture of Todd Palin aka the First Dude with Minnesota Senator Norm Coleman, and yes, he's holding a sign that says "Charles Manson was a Community Organizer," an obvious swipe at Barack Obama. I think a couple of Senators have some questions to answer--both Senator Coleman and Senator McCain. Do either of you subscribe to this comparison? Is Charles Manson a legitimate comparison to Barack Obama? It's fair to say that Todd Palin thinks so, seeing as he's holding the sign. Norm Coleman is applauding, so I guess he's down with it.

Update: Looking closer at the picture, it seems Palin probably isn't holding it--it's just the way the picture was framed that makes it look that way at first glance. My apologies. However, it is still an indication of the kind of thinking that's going on at Republican rallies, and that has spilled over into non-Presidential gatherings.

What about it, Senator McCain? That's the husband of your running mate, after all, and he's inserted himself into this fracas, going so far as to say "I’m just glad to be a part of the McCain/Palin ticket and help out wherever I can." Is Todd Palin part of the ticket? Does he speak for you?

John Cole posted that along with another example of cause and effect--excite that kind of emotion, and you should expect that kind of reaction. For another lesson, here's Pam posting Greensboro reporter Joe Killian's experiences at a McCain/Palin rally in North Carolina today.

The man began to say something about how of course I was interviewing the Obama people when suddenly, from behind us, the sound of a pro-Obama rap song came blaring out of the windows of a dorm building. We all turned our heads to see Obama signs in the windows.

This was met with curses, screams and chants of “U.S.A” by McCain-Palin folks who crowded under the windows trying to drown it out and yell at the person playing the stereo.

It was a moment of levity in an otherwise very tense situation and so I let out a gentle chuckle and shook my head.

”Oh, you think that’s funny?!” the large bearded man said. His face was turning red. “Yeah, that’s real funny…” he said.

And then he kicked the back of my leg, buckling my right knee and sending me sprawling onto the ground.

So much for trying to calm the crowds, huh? Senator McCain's hyperbolic statements about Obama and ACORN and William Ayers are bearing fruit, and for all the claims that he's heard similar stuff at Obama rallies, he has yet to come up with a single instance approaching this level of garbage.

We still have just over two weeks to go, Senator. That's how long you have to distance yourself from this kind of crap.

Pulling Back the Curtain

I took Andrew Romano to task the first time I linked to him, but the update to his latest piece is really great, because it gives a glimpse into the workings of modern media.

Romano's piece starts off with an interesting premise--comparing the John McCain of the debate and the robo-calls since then with the John McCain who apparently killed at the Catholic charity event and later on Letterman. It's a pretty standard blog post--an attempt to predict what McCain will do in the closing days of the campaign--will we see more of the Letterman McCain or the robo-call McCain? I don't know, Romano doesn't know, and I suspect McCain doesn't either.

But the editors of MSNBC seem to, based on their choice of headline for Romano's piece. They linked to the front page of MSNBC with the teaser "Is the Old McCain Back?" That's not what Romano was asking, and he must have gotten an earful from readers, because he decided to respond.

For the record, I don't have anything to do with MSNBC's editorial decisions, and if you read the piece, you'll see that I never actually pose that question....

FYI, I wrote earlier this week about how the media is itching to create a McCain comeback narrative--even though the polls provide no evidence of a bounce. Funny how I've now been drafted to help with that effort.

Now I already knew that reporters almost never write their headlines--I worked as the editor of the Op-Ed page of my undergraduate paper for a year and wrote my share of them--but a lot of people don't, I suspect, and this sort of public pushback against a misleading headline is the sort of thing that can help inform the public about how this stuff works.

See, the myth of the liberal media is premised on polls that show journalists are generally center-left on social issues. Eric Alterman, in his amazing book What Liberal Media?, points out in great detail what Romano has just illustrated, namely that journalists have precious little control over what stories they pursue and more importantly, what light those stories are cast in once they leave the reporter's hands. Editors and publishers have far more control over the message than any journalist can have. (Season 5 of The Wire, which was unfairly maligned by many, in my opinion, illustrates this phenomenon wonderfully as well.)

So Romano, in some small way, is saying to the public, read what I wrote, not what someone else paraphrased it as, and don't take it out on me if my bosses argued something I didn't. And he's absolutely right.

I'm voting for a Republican

I'm about as partisan as they come, but not stupidly so. I look at candidates and make up my mind based on that, and in an admittedly rare case of ticket splitting, I've decided that when I go to early voting on Monday, I'm voting for one Republican.

That Republican is Sheriff Al Lamberti. I'll admit, it's not a high-profile race for me. I liked Wiley Thompson in the primary, but when he didn't win the Democratic nomination, I didn't really think about it much afterward. The Sun-Sentinel is recommending Al Lamberti for the job, but it was this part of the endorsement that really swayed me.

Steve Israel, who was a registered Republican before switching parties to run for sheriff after being passed over by Crist for the appointment, is a good candidate.

I figure that if my choices are between a Republican who stuck by his guns and a Republican who figured he couldn't beat his opponent, I'll go with the more stable one. There are other issues as well, but in the end, that's the main one.

I'm open to being swayed. So local readers, if you have good reasons why I should reconsider, let me know in comments.

I think this is a great idea

Via Bilerico, the Stonewall Legal Alliance, a gay group at the FIU College of Law, is sponsoring a debate on Amendment 2 down at FIU. Stonewall invited members of the state coalition supporting the amendment to attend, but they wouldn't, so Stonewall went one better.

They invited members of Westboro Baptist Church.

If you're unaware of Fred Phelps and Westboro, they're the anti-gay equivalent of the Ku Klux Klan, but lacking the Klan's social skills. Now, the Southern Poverty Law Center is upset because they think this gives Westboro some legitimacy. I guess I can see that point of view, but frankly, I don't think an invitation to testify before Congress would confer legitimacy on the "God Hates Fags" crowd.

But the people who are really upset are the douchenozzles who are in favor of Amendment 2:

On the other side of the Amendment fight, Naugle-loving Fundie Janet Folger of Faith2Action is miffed as well:

That's the most heinous thing I've ever heard. They go to the most radical group. It's a deliberate attempt to make the pro-marriage people appear to be something they're not.

To which I say, you had your chance to debate and you turned it down Now you get to be represented by clown shoes.

But this, I think, really puts it into perspective. This is Law professor Jose Gabilondo who will be arguing the side opposing the amendment:

I think it's a mistake to distinguish between respectable homophobia and unacceptable homophobia.

And that's really what this is all about. That's why I chose the Klan comparison above. Racism and homophobia are pretty much the same thing, just with different targets.

Consider: racist comments carry far greater social consequences than homophobic ones, and discrimination based on race is illegal but discrimination based on sexual orientation is, in many places, not. Our society still allows people to hate gays because the haters cloak their hatred in religious respectability, but if a church claimed openly that it was God's will that white people discriminate against (or enslave) people of color (which they did in the not so distant past), they'd be ostracized from polite company. It's Christian conservatives who are leading the charge against equality for LGBT citizens, and they're paying little to no social price for it. Tying them, as they deserve, to Phelps, may just cost them a bit.

It also might wake up some of those members of these groups who are wavering a bit, because the Phelps people are freaking nutjobs, and no one likes being connected to them. Maybe some of these people supporting Amendment 2 will think to themselves, "if those freaks support this, maybe I should rethink my position." I hope enough do to kill this Amendment.

And if you can spare a few bucks, hep SayNo2 runs some ads for the cause.

Can we get a transcript?

Look, anyone who reads this blog knows that I'm all about mocking stupid things that Republicans say, especially if they're near the top of the ticket, but I'd really like to see exactly what Sarah Palin said that got paraphrased as this:

Palin also made a point of mentioning that she loved to visit the "pro-America" areas of the country, of which North Carolina is one. No word on which states she views as unpatriotic.

I don't mind the snarky commentary--it's a campaign diary, not a hard story, after all. It's more that I'm trying to preempt any complaining from the right wing about Palin being taken out of context.

Plus, if it's as bad as it sounds, I'd really like to use it as the quote of the day.

Florida Republicans--Keeping it Classy

As seen in the McCain/Palin campaign office in Pompano Beach.



Glad to know where we stand. I think it's fair to say that Republicans don't get to complain about anything Moveon has ever done again.

Via Balloon Juice

Sound Economic Advice and the Random Ten

So there's this guy who writes a column twice a week, and he's got some economic advice for the next President. Now, I don't know a lot about economics myself, but I think this fellow might--he just won some big prize.

In other words, there’s not much Ben Bernanke can do for the economy. He can and should cut interest rates even more — but nobody expects this to do more than provide a slight economic boost.

On the other hand, there’s a lot the federal government can do for the economy. It can provide extended benefits to the unemployed, which will both help distressed families cope and put money in the hands of people likely to spend it. It can provide emergency aid to state and local governments, so that they aren’t forced into steep spending cuts that both degrade public services and destroy jobs. It can buy up mortgages (but not at face value, as John McCain has proposed) and restructure the terms to help families stay in their homes.

And this is also a good time to engage in some serious infrastructure spending, which the country badly needs in any case. The usual argument against public works as economic stimulus is that they take too long: by the time you get around to repairing that bridge and upgrading that rail line, the slump is over and the stimulus isn’t needed. Well, that argument has no force now, since the chances that this slump will be over anytime soon are virtually nil. So let’s get those projects rolling.

It's Krugman, of course, and seeing as he's been right about the danger this economy has been facing for the last 8 years, I'd say he deserves the benefit of the doubt here.

I'd like to see some infrastructure spending tied into some green jobs. Down here in Florida, we could use a little help in upgrading our public transportation system, and a high speed rail network that would connect the major cities would do a lot for our local economy. Orlando sits right in the middle and could serve as a hub for trains going to either coast, and coastal lines could make a trip from Miami to Jacksonville, with stops along the way, a real breeze. Maybe we could even take a look at rebuilding the Overseas Railroad--tourism to the Keys would go through the roof. And the best part for locals would be that we could use it to commute and relieve some of the stress on an overburdened interstate system. It's coming in the long run anyway--urban sprawl is already too wasteful when it comes to natural resources, from petroleum to water, not to mention the crazy carbon emissions we produce. That would be a proactive move for everyone involved.

Here's the Random Ten; put the iTunes on party shuffle and post the next ten songs to pop up. No skipping songs that reveal your innermost thoughts. We already know you stand in the bathroom singing "At This Moment" into your hairbrush; nothing on your list will embarrass you worse than that. Here we go.

1. Roll Off Me--Talib Kweli
2. Female of the Species--Space
3. Welcome Back--Young Jeezy
4. Punk Rock Girl--Dead Milkmen
5. Crime Spree--MC Frontalot
6. Milkcow's Calf Blues---Robert Johnson
7. Der Kommissar--Falco
8. 400 Bucks--Reverend Horton Heat
9. Le Souk--Dave Brubeck
10. Jive at Five--Count Basie

Wow. That is, ummm, far-ranging. Leave your lists in comments, or tell me what project you'd like to see the government get into in order to stimulate the economy.