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Daily Blah for... Friday, October 29, 2004
The Littlest Abu Ghraib Prisoner
Hunting for last-minute Halloween costume ideas for the kiddies? Want to be the most topically-dressed on your block? The outfits you need -- from a Florida touch-screen voting machine to Jenna Bush's liver -- are all here.
And if you want to skip Halloween altogether, just tell everyone you're coming to their party as a Florida absentee ballot -- then not show up.
Daily Blah for... Thursday, October 28, 2004
Minority Report
Check out this page. It belongs to a Republican pollster, Tony Fabrizio, who used to work for Bob Dole. Read the second report down, a PDF file called Battleground Ballot. It seems the national polls have not been reflecting the possibility that minorities will turn out in the same numbers for Kerry as they did for Gore. If they do, Kerry gets a 3.5% bonus in battleground states. And if they turn out in greater numbers, that could rise to 5%. As Fabrizio says, that presents a huge problem for Bush.
Is there any reason to believe, given the last four years and the memory of disenfranchisement in Florida, that minority turnout will not be at least what it was for Gore?
Frankenfeline
While we're on the subject of allergies, here's an interesting item of news for all my cat-owning and would-be cat-owning family and friends. You know who you are. (Cat-owning, of course, given feline nature, is a misnomer; perhaps it would be more accurate to say "cat-owned"?) Anyway, here's the deal -- a biotech company down in LA called Allerca is working on a genetically modified cat that won't make me itch or sneeze. The allergy-free kitty should be ready for sale by 2007 and will cost a mere $7,000. (Don't ask me how they do it; maybe at that price, the rental cost of each cat hair is higher than any cat mite can afford; it's the Manhattan of cats.)
You balk at the price? Just think of how much more pleasure of my company you'll be getting. And if that doesn't work, think of how much money you'll be saving in Kleenex. That's a solid long-term investment right there.
Sneezeblogging
My friend Dan is a freelancer on fire -- he just got his second piece in the New York Times today, on the phenomenon of Catblogging. Apparently all the cool bloggers are posting pictures of their cats instead of their regular screeds every Friday. Nice idea, but what about those bloggers who -- like me -- are allergic to the furry critters? Shall I post pictures of me sneezing? Or perhaps pictures of what is actually making me sneeze -- the feces of mites that live in cat fur?
Oh, and see if you can spot the one word Dan was challenged to put in the article. Hint: it's an unlikely pet. Still, knowing my luck, I'm probably allergic to it too.
Daily Blah for... Wednesday, October 27, 2004
Big Words and Bono the Healer
What was it like at the Apple-U2 iPod event yesterday? Quite a rush -- literally, at first. I got bogged down in traffic on the 280, and had to drive like a madman once it cleared up to make it to San Jose by the 10am deadline. This morning rush hour overspill seems to last longer every time I head south. (Do you know the way to San Jose? Yes. Do you know the way to San Jose without pounding on your steering wheel in frustration? Nope.)
Still, I made it to the California Theater at 10am on the dot. The PR reps recognized me as I sprinted in, ushered me to a sole spare seat near the front (as at most Apple events, it was a capacity crowd). I jumped into it, the lights went down and Jobs strode onto the stage. Talk about cutting it close.
Exactly a minute and a half later, my head was spinning. There were words on the gigantic cinema screen behind Jobs, and I was having a hard time reading them. In fact, I thought I was hallucinating. Here was the problem: they were my words. Jobs had cut-and-pasted my praise of the iMac G5 to pump up the success of the machine -- "Quite possibly the coolest personal computer yet created," went the quote. "Apple's latest computer is as cool and sleek as its bestselling music player." Then my name. Being out of breath means not having enough oxygen in your brain -- which makes it a really bad time, I'd found, for anyone to give that brain a sudden ego boost. I felt like the tight-corseted heroine of a Civil War novel, with a case of the vapors. Why, Mr. Jobs, I do declare, you are trying to kill me with your flattery.
What else did I learn? That Bono and the Edge appear nervous and uncomfortable when not playing for a stadium-sized crowd. That Bono gave iPods to his entire family, including his three year old daughter (which was a slight diversion from my question, which was about whether the band all have iPods; maybe he was trying to say the band is family). I learned Bono is shorter than I am -- believe it or not -- and that rumors of his messianic tendencies can be confirmed. After the post-show mini-press conference, he came up to the journalist sitting next to me, a guy from the LA Times, and asked, "did you put your shoulder out?" The surprised hack said yes. "I noticed the way you were moving your arm," said Bono. "I did that myself recently." He proceeded to suggest a myriad of fixes in an earnest, soothing tone. His body language suggested a laying on of hands, a healing from a televangelist. I half expected the journo to rise from his seat, flinging his arms up to heaven: "Glory be! I am healed!"
Daily Blah for... Monday, October 25, 2004
Bush and Kerry: Get. It. On.
As an avowed Sims 2 junkie and political fiend, I had to smirk at Sim Bush and Sim Kerry -- the heartwarming tale of two Sims created to look just like our erstwhile candidates (not to mention Edwards, Cheney, Saddam and Osama Sims in the neighborhood) then left to their own AI-inspired devices. Hilarious, and more than a little twisted. Who said these guys didn't believe in gay marriage?
And speaking of Sims 2 stories, the in-game movie editor has already inspired the first Sims 2 sitcom, The Strangerhood. The first episode is up right now, and it's a pretty solid start (considering how hard those damned wilful Sims are to direct -- worse than actors).
Thanks, Emily!
Bush the Underdog?
His hometown newspaper in Crawford, Texas came out against him. The country stifled laughter and swallowed horror during his three attempts at debates. Now even Bush's cousins are campaigning against Bush. But could this piling on be counterproductive? It seems there's a portion of the undecided vote that identifies with Bush the black sheep. From this morning's NYT:
"To be honest, I don't know how he ever got to be President," [Kimberly] Parmer [an undecided voter] said. "I am really surprised he has gotten as far as he has in life ... you just kind of feel sorry for him ... he's more of an underdog. He's had a hard go of it in the last four years."
So there you go. Bush is less qualified, therefore he is an underdog. He is floundering, therefore he is sympathetic. This is the kind of mind that will be deciding this election -- a mind raised on movie of the week plotlines. Makes you want to weep, doesn't it?
Supreme Sickie
One amendation to that visualized Kerry victory -- it may not be Rehnquist swearing the President-elect in, since the Chief Justice was hospitalized this afternoon. Which raises an interesting question: if the election gets all tied up and heads for the Supreme Court again, and the court is tied 4-4, who in the hell decides then? The reanimated corpses of the Founding Fathers?
Abolish the electoral college now, before it kills again.
Imagine ...
Winners visualize winning ahead of time. They see themselves on the podium with a medal. By imagining the contours of the future they are trying to bring about, they make it more likely to happen. So say sports psychologists, quantum physicists, eastern mystics and Arnold Schwarzenegger (who, whatever else you may think of him, is most definitely one of life's winners).
That's why it was so heartening to see this Flash animation visualizing a Kerry victory -- and giving us an assist with pictures of his inauguration, his first State of the Union, and of course a Time magazine cover from early next year (if the animator could also visualize my articles for the next three months or so, I'd be even happier).
Thanks, Kathleen!
Daily Blah for... Thursday, October 21, 2004
Steal This Honor
Upset with the Sinclair Bushcasting -- sorry, I mean Broadcasting -- Group's controversial decision to force its TV stations to screen extracts from that rabid piece of anti-Kerry nonsense, Stolen Honor, days before the election? Here are two antidotes: the stirring and the satiric. First there's Going Upriver, the sympathetic and surprisingly moving portrait of Kerry's Vietnam by George Butler (the guy who did Pumping Iron and unleashed Schwarzenegger on an unsuspecting world). Going Upriver is showing in theaters right now; more importantly, it's available for free on the web -- so send the link to all your Sinclair-watching swing-state friends. Or if you prefer a humorous take on Bush propoganda in general, check out The Truth About John Kerry. The makers of these fake ads managed to squeeze every trope in there -- the subtly scary music, the comforting yet threatening voice, and of course the histrionic assertions that a vote for Kerry means the end of civilization as we know it.
Daily Blah for... Wednesday, October 20, 2004
Funny Monkey
The Jon Stewart-Tucker Carlson smackdown on Crossfire (here's the video, and here's the transcript) has already become the stuff of Internet legend. More people have seen it than watch Crossfire, I was told earlier in the week; by now, no doubt, more people have seen it than have ever watched Crossfire. Even I, on vacation on the Oregon coast, could not avoid this rapidly-transmitted meme. I saw it in my rented Westy last Saturday morning in the tiny town of Port Orford, while pulled into the driveway of an oceanside B&B that has wifi. (Yes, wireless Internet is breaking out everywhere. I drove down the road from that B&B when I was done, went past a fish and chips place called the Crazy Norwegian, felt hungry, stopped, went in. And guess what was floating around the air at the Crazy Norwegian, mingling with the scent of battered cod? Yep, free wifi. I ran back to the Westy and grabbed my laptop).
Anyway, Stewart seems to have touched quite the nerve with his outburst. Alessandra Stanley has a good point in today's NYT -- talk shows aren't about unexpected outbursts and uncomfortable confrontations any more. They may ostensibly be spontaneous; in fact, everyone is so primed with talking points, they end up being as scripted as pro-wrestling. Which was exactly Stewart's point. That guy is one smart cookie, not to mention a funny monkey (I can't wait to see the T-shirts: "No, I will not be your monkey.") Awaiting my return from Oregon was his America: The Book, which I've been steadily guffawing my way through ever since -- easily the funniest (and most pointed) tome since The Onion's Our Dumb Century. Jon Stewart is the living embodiment of truth being spoken in jest.
Daily Blah for... Friday, October 08, 2004
Ear and There
I'm afraid you've come to the wrong place for snappy post-debate analysis. Daily Blah will be on a break until October 18th. Its author will be taking a well-earned rest from spaceship launches, political nail-biting and difficult editors by driving up the Oregon coastline in a rented Westphalia with a stack of books and a laptop.
In the meantime I leave you with the comforting thought that Kerry is ahead in the electoral college, and that Bush may well have been wearing a radio-transmitting earpiece during the first debate. It's little beyond speculation for now, backed up by a photograph and some weird behavior -- why did he say "let me finish" when neither Lehrer, Kerry nor the green light were interrupting him? -- but my dream is that the story will be blown wide open by the time I return. I leave that in your capable hands: call your local newspaper editor and demand to know. Let the earpiece speak.
Daily Blah for... Tuesday, October 05, 2004
No artistic ability?
Want to pretend you have some? Want your doodles to turn into DaVincis before your eyes? Then try The Scribbler. It really works!
Thanks, Emily!
Daily Blah for... Saturday, October 02, 2004
Crazy Like Fox
This is unbelievable. Yesterday Foxnews.com posted a story on its "Trail Tales" roundup page, containing some quotes that were purportedly from a Kerry stump speech:
"Didn't my nails and cuticles look great? What a good debate!" Kerry said Friday.
and
"It's about the Supreme Court. Women should like me! I do manicures," Kerry said.
and
"I'm metrosexual — he's a cowboy," the Democratic candidate said of himself and his opponent.
The fabrication was exposed on the blog Talkingpointsmemo.com. Today, there's a brief apology on the same page:
Earlier Friday, FOXNews.com posted an item purporting to contain quotations from Kerry. The item was based on a reporter’s partial script that had been written in jest and should not have been posted or broadcast. We regret the error, which occurred because of fatigue and bad judgment, not malice.
All well and good, right? Not exactly. Today there's a bizarre Foxnews.com story from reporter Jane Roh, "Some Voters Still Flip-Flop After Debate." And when I say "bizarre", I mean "utterly misleading." Here's a snippet:
Of course, there were some Kerry supporters in attendance who had no doubts whatever about their candidate.
"We're trying to get Comrade Kerry elected and get that capitalist enabler George Bush out of office," said 17-year-old Komoselutes Rob of Communists for Kerry.
"Even though he, too, is a capitalist, he supports my socialist values more than President Bush," Rob said, before assuring FOXNews.com that his organization was not a parody group.
But of course, that's exactly what Communists for Kerry is -- a crude, not particularly funny parody website. If Roh had told the rest of the story in a wry, jokey tone, I could understand this quote. But it's inserted into a straight-faced debate reaction story in such a way that readers could believe there actually is such an organization. "It is unclear whether the Kerry campaign has welcomed the Communists' endorsement," Roh adds.
This is how low Murdoch's quasi-journalists have sunk, it seems. When all else fails, when the Democratic challenger starts to look good, it's time to dust off the most Neanderthal political tactic of the 20th century -- Red baiting.
Daily Blah for... Friday, October 01, 2004
I Feel Good (Didn't Know That I Would)
What did I tell you? It's Kerry's James Brown moment. He cast off the towel and sang from the soul again. If Republicans want a liberal conspiracy theory, they could reasonably argue that Kerry has been hiding his (limited) light under a bushel all these months deliberately, lowering expectations as far down as he could get before the debates. But I don't think that's going to help them. That, after all, is exactly the tactic Bush used in 2000.
Gosh, but it was a cathartic experience watching Kerry kick ass tonight. I was in a short story class in Palo Alto at the time; below our teacher's office was a bar showing the debate. Sometimes we couldn't hear ourselves talk for the cheers. These were cheers of relief that someone was, at last, telling truth directly to power -- even though the rules forbade them from talking to each other, Kerry managed to make his message loud and clear and put a petulant President on the defensive. Then I came back home, watched it on TiVo while simultaneously checking reaction on the web, and cheered heartily myself. They were cheers of relief that even the deepest red of the red meat conservative bloggers were unable to spin this one; they had to reluctantly call the debate for Kerry. Daily Kos has the best summary of conservative blog reactions, with links.
Can the GOP do it? Can they possibly spin their way out of this one? Can they focus attention on Kerry's mistake in saying "Treblinka Square" when he meant "Lubyanka"? Could they make the heartland think Kerry doesn't care about the victims of Treblinka? No, not even the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth could make that one stick. Will they simply do an anti-spin, arguing that it doesn't matter, that it's too early in the debate season? Will they focus attention elsewhere? Would this be a good time to launch an attack on Fallujah? Or will Karl Rove pull off the most daring spin of all -- that Kerry won, that he's the better debater, and that Bush has absolutely no chance of stringing together a coherent sentence in the next two debates?
All I know is, I feel a heck of a lot better now than I did at the start of the day. This was the one; Kerry's last chance to turn around the electoral college math, to win back security moms. Too early to say yet, of course, but it passes the gut test, the alpha male test. He looked stronger, sounded more confident. For the first time I feel people will vote for Kerry rather than against Bush. I get a good feeling, one I never had after the Gore-Bush debates, or Bush-Dukakis. I think this one is going to filter down to the swing voters, assuming enough of them were watching in the first place.
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