Tuesday, April 29, 2008

HEADLINE: SACHS HAS UPDATED HIS BLOG

SEE here.

AND tell him to update more frequently. ESPECIALLY WHEN I SEE HIM IN CALIFORNIA THIS WEEKEND.

MEANWHILE, BM continues to do a good job updating his blog regularly and finding bits of spooky coral.

That is all.

RYAN MCSHOWOFF WANTS TO KNOW IF I UPDATED MY BLOG TODAY

DID HE update his blog?

That is all.

Monday, April 28, 2008

DRIVE GERVAIS

SPEAKING OF INCREDIBLY FAT AND BALD, I presume you all know about this, yes?

That is all.

THAT'S NOT MY HAIR

IT'S A TIME HELMET. Come on, Matt Tobey. Get it right.

That is all.

Sunday, April 27, 2008

HERE IS THE TRUE STORY

RYAN unveils the horrid truth, from a time long ago (2001), before I was fat and balding.

PS: Thank you, CC Insider and ANGRY Jesse Thorn, for defending me. OR AT LEAST MY HAIR.

That is all.

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

THANK YOU ALL

WHILE EVERYONE, including Xeni, had proposed able solutions, I found Chris's suggestion of cutting and pasting within the "Edit HTML" pane to do the trick.

THAT IS: if it works.

THANK YOU, in any case.

That is all.

TRYING AGAIN



I AM SEEING THIS. Are you?

That is all.

I DON'T GET IT

I CAN SEE THE VIDEO when I check Blogger's "Preview" mode.

BUT NO ONE CAN SEE IT once it gets published.

XENI--can you help?

That is all.

SOMEONE TO HOLD ON

MY LATEST ATTEMPT to embed the brilliance of bOINGbOING.tv



"SPAM THEATER."

That is all.

Sunday, April 20, 2008

MIRMAN? MOREMAN!!!!

WATCH THIS, SHELLEY--I'm going to blog this right now.


That is all.

Thursday, April 17, 2008

MORE FROM DETROIT OCTANE



Minimal blog activity due to television.

See you tomorrow.

That is all.

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

NPR and TRAUMA

LISTENING TO NPR this morning (imagine that) re: a panel of PA women voters speaking on the state of the primary election, I had exactly two faults.

1. The listener who is concerned she has not heard enough about how the White House will specifically be different under either Democratic administration.

2. I think we're all traumatized by the Republican attack machine. YES, they will "pounce," come the general election. But we're already seeing them pounce. And we're already seeing (one) candidate effectively fight back against those right wing attacks. But there seems to be this idea all the same that, when they REALLY REALLY pounce, we're history, no matter how powerful our ideas, how sophisticated our election organization, how strong we are on counter attack, and no matter how weak their candidate.

WE REALLY NEED TO GET OVER THIS. McCain is a weak candidate. In my mind, the only thing that would really make him a strong candidate is having Clinton as a rival. But even if you don't agree, you must agree to the truth: DEMOCRATIC REGISTRATION IS UP, REPUBLICAN REGISTRATION IS DOWN, THE BUSH WHITE HOUSE IS INCREDIBLY UNPOPULAR, MCCAIN HAS TERRIBLE LIABILITIES,

...and the non-issue of both the Wright- and Bittter-gate controversy among the actual voters (most polls remain unchanged) suggest that among actual voters (if not the media) the "attack politics" that so frightened us away from core principles in 2004 really aren't as effective as we fear they are.

THAT IS ALL.

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

ASTONISHING

THIS PIECE from the Atlanta Journal Constitution about Michelle Obama's old Princeton roommate is astonishing. 

FOR THOSE ON TV who like to believe that THEY know what's going through the minds of people in the South or North, whites or blacks, liberals or conservatives, gays or straights, here's evidence that it's all so much more beautifully complex. 

IN THIS ONE FAMILY, all these worlds blend together, learn from each other, and change one another. And I don't think this family is the only one either. 

That is all. 


SENATOR ASSCRACK

JOHN WARNER mercilessly reveals the fundamental problem with Senator Asscrack's candidacy.

NARRATOR: (In voice-over.) Confused? Lost? Wanting to take a tire iron to these two? Don't they remind you a lot of Senator Asscrack—pretentious and sort of French? Do you really want a president who hates America? That doesn't make sense, and neither does voting for Herman Asscrack.


DRAWING THESE KINDS OF important contrasts is perfectly fair, and not AN IDIOTIC, CONDESCENDING, DISTRACTING, REDUCTIVE, AND SELF-DEBASING ATTACK at all.

That is all.

PS: John Warner is NOT a Senator, but a very good writer of books. PROOF EXISTS HERE.

See, he's one of us. NOT ONE OF THOSE WASHINGTON FAT CATS.

PERHAPS BECAUSE HE IS CANADIAN

I FIND PAUL TOUGH calming.

That is all.

Monday, April 14, 2008

BLOGGING!

SO THIS is what it's like.

HERE IS A WEB SITE THAT I VISITED and liked. I will "web log" it.

FROM JOSH MARSHALL...

With the Wright business and now with this, the more nuanced version of the Clinton line has been that what 'we' think is not really the point. It's what Republicans will do with it in the fall. And that's a real concern that I definitely have. I won't deny it. I've never thought Obama was a perfect candidate. But as we get deeper into the primary calendar, increasingly so, this 'what the Republicans will do' line has become more of a simulacrum, or a license, if you will, to do what Republicans actually do do. That is to say, to grab for political advantage by peddling stereotypes about Democrats and liberals that are really no less offensive than the ones we're talking about about Americans from small town and rural America.


That is all

A READER NAMED HILLARY W. SENT THIS IN LONG AGO


...BUT APPARENTLY, this was a "picross" puzzle.

WHATEVER "PICROSS" is, or "puzzle," or "this."

THAT IS ALL

BOOZE CLUES

PAULINE AND DAVE'S pub quiz "Booze Clues" moves to the Echoplex starting tomorrow night, TUESDAY, at 7PM in Los Angeles.

I BELIEVE I AM TECHNICALLY STILL A MEMBER OF TEAM NEAL POLLACK. Perhaps you can go and ask him for me.

That is all.

Sunday, April 13, 2008

BITTER STICKER=PURPLE HEART BAND-AID


YOU KNOW, I probably just should have twittered it.

That is all.


PHOTO and background courtesy: CNN

Saturday, April 12, 2008

FROM TURNERS FALLS, MA

THIS, THE GREAT SARAH REID, believes:

I started waitressing when I was 16 years old. I would get up at 4 am to be at the diner by 5 and I would watch the sunrise from my bike as I rode down the nearly empty highway. My customers were mostly regulars- truckers- and what they didn’t give me in cash tips, they gave me in genuine and warm compliments, camaraderie and jokes. One very drunk college student one night didn’t have tip money, so he wrote me a check for a million dollars. I still have it in my desk, waiting till I see his name someday in Forbes magazine or something.

As I grew older I returned to waitressing a couple times. I was good at it. Eventually, I opened my own café, the only one in my tiny town. We didn’t have waiters, just bar help. But we had a big glass tip jar on the counter. My small staff and I always noticed who tipped well and who didn’t – did you know that, that we talk about you behind your back if you don’t leave a tip, even at a counter or a bar?

READ ON
, or perish.

OBVIOUSLY I AGREE WITH SARAH, and not merely because I wrote great chunks of BOOKS ONE AND TWO in her and her "husband's" good company at the Bookmill and the cafe they used to own there.

(AND I HOPE TO GOD I TIPPED ENOUGH)

SARAH AND MATTHEW don't own the cafe anymore, but maybe you can go and buy them a drink at the Rendezvous some time. It is Turners Falls's only Space Shuttle themed bar, and it's hard for me to recommend a finer place to tip heavily in.

Meanwhile, AS I AM SURE YOU KNOW, you can find more "THIS I BELIEVE" essays and contribute your own HERE.

UNLESS YOU BELIEVE IN NOTHING. In which case, go HERE. (That is one wacky picture of the Kremlin).

That is all.

Friday, April 11, 2008

WHAT AN ELITIST

DUMB PHRASING IN SF, I think. But I'm not talking for 20 hours a day.

BUT OBAMA'S RESPONSE to the hamfisted attacks from his rivals is kind of beautiful--as rhetoric, as incredibly deft politicking, and most of all, as truth, rough and simple. The kind his rivals don't seem eager to tell.



I THINK this moment will either lose him or win him the Penn. and Indiana for good.

That is all.

STOLE IT FROM BOING BOING, BUT:

HOW CAN I NOT POST my hero: http://kcet.org/explore-ca/web-stories/graphic_novels/jaime.php

That is all.

A BEGINNING IS A VERY DELICATE TIME

BOTH KAKI KING AND I LEARNED THE HARD WAY this week that not every single person in the crowd has read or seen DUNE.

BUT SHE IS STILL incredible.



That is all.

Wednesday, April 09, 2008

MERLIN MANN REMINDS ME THAT YOU LOOK NICE TODAY

MERLIN MANN alerts me to EPISODE 3A of the sterling podcast he produces with his friends Scott Simpson and lonelysandwich: "YOU LOOK NICE TODAY."

YOU SHOULD LISTEN AND JUDGE FOR YOURSELF.

MEANWHILE, I trust I am the last person on the internet to arrive at this party, but is not Merlin Mann one of the finest names ever? It is great enough that he is actually named MERLIN, but then the name just comes back and hits you with a classic oxymoron

It is almost like being named WIZARD NONWIZARD.

OR MORE ACCURATELY: WIZARD NONWIZARDD.

That is all.

CONCERN TROLL

I'VE NOT DISCUSSED THIS BEFORE, but I have some actual writing to do today, and I've found no other way to procrastinate yet.

CLINTON SUPPORTER LANNY DAVIS'S OP-ED in the Wall Street Journal, discussing Obama's relationship with Jeremiah Wright, suggests "This issue is not going away."

WELL, IT CERTAINLY IS NOT. At least, not so long as Lanny Davis continues to write Op-Eds about it.*

BUT DAVIS'S FURTHER POINT--that Obama's history with Wright will be brought up in the general election should he be the nominee--is true.

IN FACT, it is so true as to be self-evident, and hardly necessary to point out, unless you want to spread fear, uncertainty, and doubt among certain voting blocs right before a big primary. In this regard, Lanny Davis is the definition of a concern troll.

BUT TO BRIEFLY FEED THE TROLL, I will take Davis's concern seriously for a moment. Let's ask: should Obama become the Democratic nominee, will the Republicans attack him over his relationship with Wright?

YES, OF COURSE... just as they will happily attack Hillary Clinton over her relationship with Bill Clinton should SHE become the nominee.

BUT HODGMAN, you ask, DO THE TWO LIABILITIES REALLY CANCEL EACH OTHER OUT?

No, the candidates' guilt-by-association problems are NOT equal.

FOR ALAS, Clinton's is worse.

Not because Bill Clinton is somehow more "guilty" than Wright (I'll leave that for the angels to debate), but because the association is closer, and because Clinton has never had to defend against these kinds of attacks in this election.

DEMOCRATS are not trying to tie Hillary Clinton to the Bill Clinton scandals, for obvious reasons. And I'm not even talking about what you think I'm talking about. Indeed, I can think of two attacks against Bill Clinton that are not stupid and disgusting and that I actually find substantive and troubling, though I will not air them here.

BECAUSE NOT EVERY DEMOCRAT LIKES TO USE RIGHT WING TALKING POINTS AGAINST FELLOW DEMOCRATS.

AND REPUBLICANS have not really deployed this line of attack yet either. I'm not sure why. It's either because they have had a complete change of heart about Bill Clinton in the past 8 years, or they have been biding their time until there's a nominee.

WHAT'S YOUR GUESS?

BUT IT WOULD BE HOPELESSLY NAIVE to believe that these attacks are not coming. And we really haven't seen how Clinton will handle them. Whereas I would argue we have seen how Obama intends to handle the Wright smears, which is to say: PRETTY EFFECTIVELY.

SO I WILL DO MY OWN BIT OF CONCERN TROLLING HERE AND SAY: yes, Obama's relationship with Wright may undermine his appeal to certain white voters, and will certainly lose him the racist vote. But he's shown he can take the punch and shake it off in the polls.

BUT WILL NOT HILLARY CLINTON'S RELATIONSHIP WITH BILL CLINTON energize a currently disinterested Republican base? And won't constant attacks on this front undermine her support among Independents?

And wouldn't you like at least some preview as to what her strategy will be for fending off these attacks?

I, FOR ONE, AM VERY CONCERNED AND TROLLISH.

That is all.


* (Although most polls suggest that for Democrats at least, the issue has indeed gone away. And double indeed, there is reasonable debate as to whether it deserves the word "issue" at all, as opposed to a simple character smear--except among those within the Clinton campaign who wish it to BE an issue.)

Tuesday, April 08, 2008

IT'S LIKE A MINI-RAVE

THIS IS YOUR MAN Dave Hill: still doing it, only Jedi style.



THAT IS ALL

Friday, April 04, 2008

EVERYONE WATCH BATTLESTAR GALACTICA TONIGHT OR ELSE

SORRY TO BE PUSHY. But it is important, because it is good. And good is in short supply.

WOULD HAVE BLOGGED earlier, but failed due to book-work and no more talk English style exhaustion.

That is all.

Wednesday, April 02, 2008

MADDOW TO BLOCK

(POST TITLE UPDATED to reflect the strange, Hollywood Squares-ish format of the new David Gregory political game show).

HERE IS MY FEELING: if bees had knees, RACHEL MADDOW would be those knees.



That is all.

PS: Actually, it looks a little more PRESS MY LUCK than H'wood Squares, now that I think of it.

MORE FROM THE BIG BM

MORE FROM BRETT MARTIN, on Durian.

I HAD DURIAN PUDDING once, and it was fine. It was better than the scotty dog pudding.

SORRY I MISSED FOOL'S DAY. I wan't paying attention.

AT LEAST I'M POSTING faster than Sachs. Would you do me a favor and bombard his comments with demands for NEW MATERIAL, and not the same old mountain shots?

That is all.