To Debate or Not to Debate, That Is the Question

Will there be one? Will McCain swoop in at the last moment after heroically and single-handedly saving the bailout legislation? Or will Obama entertain us alone, perhaps with a bit of Shakespearean monologue? There are so many possibilities, and the only thing that could make it even better would be for Palin to show up in McCain's place and wow us all with some foreign policy chops, perhaps invoking vivid images in all our minds of Vladimir Putin with an exceedingly long, retractable neck, which he uses to thrust his head, Fastastic-Four-like, into space.

My morning random listening, alas, offers no clues about the future shape of events.

1. problems, sex pistols
2. i should have known better, she & him
3. loose [take 2], the stooges
4. tell me what you want, the pipettes
5. something changed, pulp
6. baby baby, the vibrators
7. water ban, pernice brothers
8. love song no. 7, clap your hands say yeah
9. trombone dixie, the beach boys
10. the queen is dead (take me back to dear old blighty), the smiths

Your Mustache-Related Interlude

I Would Argue That Mine, Having Been in the Trenches of Finance and Tax Policy, Warned You All About This Crisis First

Yikes. May I Suggest Note Cards?

I got one minute in. I actually feel sorry for her.

So Much for That Debate-Watching Party I Was Thinking of Going To

These dudes are desperate:

McCain supporter Sen. Lindsey Graham tells CNN the McCain campaign is proposing to the Presidential Debate Commission and the Obama camp that if there's no bailout deal by Friday, the first presidential debate should take the place of the VP debate, currently scheduled for next Thursday, October 2 in St. Louis.

More time for cramming! I hereby propose that my teacher put off my next lengthy writing assignment so that I can more fully focus on the reading. And after that, the dog I don't own will eat my homework.

BY WHICH I MEAN TO SAY: Palin's cramming. I understand that they're a wee bit concerned about her readiness for prime time. The really amazing thing to me are the people who are watching this stuff and still supporting McCain.

When I Get All Cranky and Down on the Writing

Remind me that I had a good class last night, okay?

We finally started reading student work in class, and my own smashing postmodern parody of a satire was one of the first ones chosen. The idea on the process is that you get feedback (are people dozing off? do they look rapt?) and also become familiar with each person's style and voice--by the end of the semester, it gets pretty easy to identify people's work.

So after selections of mine were read, and we had to guess the writer, there was a baffled silence. One girl guessed me because, "the best stuff usually comes from the quiet ones in class." Aww. Then, when we were discussing all the works we read and the things that worked in them, two kids sitting next to me piped up to sincerely extoll the virtues about how I handled the details and moved things along. It was, in short, awesomely bolstering of the ego, which you need every now and then in addition to the constructive criticism.

I'm definitely a bigger fish in this pond, which completely mystifies me after my last class and the one I took as an undergrad. So I'm pretty glad I took off the hairshirt and stuck it out for the next round.

Hamlet Wonders If He Should Continue to Exist. Or Not.

Hamlet (facebook newsfeed edition).

Oh My God, Heroes Season Premiere Is Tonight! Squeee!

I had no idea, which tells you how much I've had the tv on. It's been such a long, hard slog since the writer's strike, I barely remember how it ended, although I believe I was distraught over the fate of Nathan. Also, I recall that Peter needed to stop being stupid and that the Irish girl needed to be permanently lost in the future.

Queue it up, people. I'm going to need to hash this out later.

AFTER VIEWING: Whoa. That was awesome x 2.

Since I Already Have a Sinus Headache and Must Conserve What Functioning Brain Cells I Have for Homework

I've avoided thinking about the travesty that is the $700 million, strings-free, oversight-free, reform-free Wall Street bailout. For starters, I can't quite wrap my feeble post-cold mind around that sum: three-quarters of a trillion in taxpayer dollars. And, second, in terms of sheer hubris, it's like they're cranking the outrage meter up to Nigel Tufnel's 11, again, which is starting to do permanent damage to my psyche. I have, however, been wondering how Obama would respond to this proposal, given the almost-universal expert condemnation of it. I am pleased:

As of now, the Bush Administration has only offered a concept with a staggering price tag, not a plan. Even if the U.S. Treasury recovers some or most of its investment over time, this initial outlay of up to $700 billion is sobering. And in return for their support, the American people must be assured that the deal reflects the basic principles of transparency, fairness, and reform.

First, there must be no blank check when American taxpayers are on the hook for this much money.

Second, taxpayers shouldn’t be spending a dime to reward CEOs on Wall Street.

Third, taxpayers should be protected and should be able to recoup this investment.

Fourth, this plan has to help homeowners stay in their homes.

Fifth, this is a global crisis, and the United States must insist that other nations join us in helping secure the financial markets.

Sixth, we need to start putting in place the rules of the road I’ve been calling for for years to prevent this from ever happening again.

And finally, this plan can’t just be a plan for Wall Street, it has to be a plan for Main Street. We have to come together, as Democrats and Republicans, to pass a stimulus plan that will put money in the pockets of working families, save jobs, and prevent painful budget cuts and tax hikes in our states.

Another Thing to Worry About When Considering a Palin Vice Presidency

John McCain hasn't released his medical records. Did you know that? And based on what we know about the melanoma he's already been treated for and what we can reasonably infer from it, we're not left with a reassuring picture of his longer term prospects:

Last week, when I got the letter from Robert Greenwald talking about John McCain's refusal to release his medical records to fair scrutiny, the fact that there are 1,000 pages of them (I create medical records for a living, 1,000 pages is EXTREME), and the news that he has had malignant melanoma, deep primaries with removal of lymph nodes, my immediate thought was "Then he's dying." If he were to be elected, he'd have an almost 2 out of 3 chance of having a recurrence if he doesn't have one already. This is not the kind of cancer you count on escaping from. This is not Stage II, as it has been reported: Stage II by definition does not have lymph node involvement. By definition, it must be either Stage III or Stage IV.

I don't want to speculate more darkly on McCain's motivations here, but this is extremely worrisome. Actuarially speaking, he's already got a one and four chance of dying in his first term based solely on his age. Even assuming he were in perfect health, the transparently political way he chose such an ill-prepared successor as Palin gives us a good look at his though process and priorities. To say the least, it doesn't reflect well on him.

You can sign a petition at the first link.

Ill-Informed, Glib List of Books Not to Read before You Die

Lists are so much fun:

9: Lord of the Rings – J R R Tolkien

The best I can say about this book is that it was a very useful tool at school for helping to choose your friends. Carrying a copy of Tolkien’s monstrous tome was the equivalent of a leper’s bell: ‘Unclean! Unclean!’ I knew I would have nothing in common with anyone who had read it. Their taste in music, clothes, television, everything was predetermined by their devotion to Gandalf. Without a shadow of a doubt, in a few years, these people would be going to Peter Gabriel gigs and reading Dune.

Heh. Of course, I'm fond of LoTR, but I didn't read it in my formative years.

I tell you what made me feel a thousand times better in my fiction-writing class, though: one of my classmates cited The Five People You Meet in Heaven as one of her favorite books.

LATER: And how could I forget, one kid touted Ayn Rand as his favorite author.

Felled Again

Feel free to come do this for me.

Here's an Interesting Tidbit

More people dislike Sarah Palin than like her.

This Is My New Favorite Product of All Time

Until your animal is able to self medicate, might I recommend one of these? Pop a pill in a pouch, put it on top of your kibble, and voila, dinner at 6 with pre-dinner meds, whether you're there or not.

We'll see how long it takes her to jimmy the lid. She's MENSA material, this one. She's still trying to figure out how to smack the alarm clock just so in order to make it go off.

Evidence of the lost flu weekend and the couch we never left.

If, For No Other Reason, I'm Going Condo to Get Closer to the Train

I remind myself that I used to do this every day in the halcyon Philadelphia days, but I am over this "being a thirty-minute walk to the train" thing. The three-day downpour and resulting floods have somehow meant that my usual bus route has turned into gridlock for a straight mile and a half for the last two days. So I've been walking to the train in the morning, and walking from the train in the evening.

I have class tonight, and my poor friend with whom I'm taking this class and with whom I usually get a ride home, is coming in although she did not work today and is flu beset. And a part of me is glad! Because, good lord, there's just no way I can drag my sorry ass home like that tonight. I'm tired just thinking about it.

Gooble Gobble, One of Us

While I noodle around the edges of voter motivation and Republican manipulation of same, others contextualize it in its true culture-war narrative. Nixonland, still, Nixonland forever! And they ask the burning questions.

For instance:

Will anyone notice that Palin is simply a debased female version of Bush? Will the fact that she is obviously unqualified to be president mean anything? Will voters be enraged that by picking Palin, McCain has turned American politics into a sitcom, a cheap farce? Or will the culture war still be a winner for the GOP?

It depends on whether eight disastrous years have revived the reality-based community -- or whether the same time-tested right-wing culture-war tactics will work even when the ideas and policies behind them have abjectly failed.

There are some hopeful signs to go along with the torrent of bad news for Democrats. A Newsweek poll that came out late Friday found that 22 percent of people say she makes them less likely to vote for McCain -- the highest percentage of a V.P. pick in recent history. Palin's dreadful performance in her Gibson interviews could be responsible for this. But it's too early to say.

So far, McCain has benefited from the fight that has erupted over Palin, because it is part of the culture war that is insidiously connected to a politics of emotional identification, narcissism and resentment. The Democrats always lose when the battle is fought on this terrain, the terrain of impulse and the id. If they can change the battleground to issues and reality, they can win.

And this is a really good analysis comparing the tribalism cultivated by GOP stoking of white working-class resentment with the demogoguery of Marion Barry and what that wrought for D.C.--D.C. being a microcosm of what happens when we allow our resentments and tribal loyalties outweigh all other considerations:

The thing is, we deserve to know exactly what manner of country we are living in. Are we living in a place where people think claiming to be offended is actually a qualifier for national office? Does our citizenry actually think that Obama is a Muslim, and worse, that being a Muslim is a disqualifier? Do we actually believe that a presidential candidate of a major party would endorse sex ed for Kindergarten? At this critical moment, are these the issues that sway us? In the 1960s, Baldwin warned us of integrating into a burning house. I need to know precisely what manner of house we've entered.

I Need to Extract Myself from Official Election Coverage Before My Head Explodes

When you're waking up in a cold sweat with such thoughts as "Oh my god! The polls are showing a fundamental change in the race!" it is time to vacation in the land of reality TV shows or Law and Order reruns. I haven't felt this stressed about our political climate since the run up to the Iraq war.

I've come to the conclusion that the majority of Americans no longer even know how to evaluate candidates for office in any sort of systematic, substantive way. We're conditioned to follow the prescribed (by Republicans!) short cuts of how said candidate make us feel (that McCain's just so old, he must know what he's doing), what the "brand" stands for (good for the troops!), what the media sound bytes say (flip flopper!), and that's the beginning and end of the thought process for most people.

This morning, for example, I heard a random sampling of New Hampshire voters interviewed on NPR. The Obama supporter cited "change" as his reason. I'll bet if you asked him what, in particular, he found compelling about Obama's policy proposals, he would not have been able to say. And when they interviewed the obligatory "undecided" voter, she declared herself to be without health insurance and most concerned about the economy and health care. I wanted to smack my head against the wall (or her head against a wall). Obviously she'd sought out no information about what these two candidates were offering on her stated preferred issues, because, to put it mildly, the options are pretty stark. You either feel strongly that laissez faire and everyone on their own is the way to go, or you feel a bit of a safety net is in order. Option A or option B.

Similarly, when people declare that they just "don't know" what Obama stands for, it's not as though there's no answer to this question, found at myriad sources. It seems to come down to a short-cut answer that sounds like you're cogitating about it, but you're just repeating something that other people have said.

I don't wonder if this is all tied to the general disdain that Republicans have for logic, reason, empirical knowledge, and general "intellectualness." We're not really encouraged to think for ourselves, so why should we know how? It's all a matter of opinion, anyway. It's how consumers choose inexpensive disposable products (because most of us do a wee bit of research for big-ticket items like cars and at least suss out the features). We're nothing if not a consumer nation.

In other, more local, news, the editorial power struggle continues. I am weary of power vacuums and, as my career coach termed it, "avoidance of hard decisions." Amen, sister. You said it.

This Really Warms My Heart

When I get cynical about our collective stupidity as a country and want to rip my hair out over current polls, I find that reading things like this reminds me that there are people paying attention. Alaskan women demonstrated against Palin:

Never, have I seen anything like it in my 17 and a half years living in Anchorage. The organizers had someone walk the rally with a counter, and they clicked off well over 1400 people (not including the 90 counter-demonstrators). This was the biggest political rally ever, in the history of the state. I was absolutely stunned. The second most amazing thing is how many people honked and gave the thumbs up as they drove by. And even those that didn’t honk looked wide-eyed and awe-struck at the huge crowd that was growing by the minute. This just doesn’t happen here.

Then, the infamous Eddie Burke showed up. He tried to talk to the media, and was instantly surrounded by a group of 20 people who started shouting O-BA-MA so loud he couldn’t be heard. Then passing cars started honking in a rhythmic pattern of 3, like the Obama chant, while the crowd cheered, hooted and waved their signs high.

So, if you’ve been doing the math… Yes. The Alaska Women Reject Palin rally was significantly bigger than Palin’s rally that got all the national media coverage! So take heart, sit back, and enjoy the photo gallery. Feel free to spread the pictures around (links are appreciated) to anyone who needs to know that Sarah Palin most definitely does not speak for all Alaskans. The citizens of Alaska, who know her best, have things to say.

It's worth noting that before Palin was picked for V.P., polls in Alaska were trending in Obama's direction. I think this says something about the public's views on the Republican culture of corruption in this traditionally very red state.

It's a Rainy Day, in Which One Contemplates Leaving the House, if the Rain Ever Lets Up Susbstantially

Meantime, I'm finding it's a fabulous opportunity to crank on what, one hopes, will become a sufficiently ass-kicking parody of this story. Although a parody of a satire is a little bizarre and meta for my tastes, it's really quite a fun idea to play around with; choose the right scenario, and it nearly writes itself.

More important, I'm at an accelerated rate for meeting my page counts, being as I am 2/5's of the way to where I need to be by the end of the semester. Woo!

You Need More Reasons to Fear a McCain Presidency, Right?

Think about health care. What's the conservative view on what's wrong with the current system? Well, we selfish, pampered Americans have too much health care, sillies. If only we were responsible for more costs, we would stop having those extravagant regular check ups, pap smears, and preventive health care.

So, McCain's proposal: Increase taxes on employer-provided health insurance! End result: fewer businesses offering the now-more-expensive health coverage, forcing more people into the individual market, where we rugged individuals can direct our own care. But we'd get a tax credit as we shop for that individual plan, so it's all good:

He wants to replace those benefits with an insufficient tax credit--$2500 for individuals and $5000 for families (the average cost per family for health insurance is $12000).

Just as long as you have no preexisting conditions, expensive chronic diseases, or the like, you should be golden. Oh, wait, he's got an ineffective plan for those people too! I'm sure it won't cost too much to get coverage.

And in case you're of the thought that Sarah Palin, Just Like Us as she is, would be attuned to the tribulations of the regular folk in this case, perish the thought:

The centerpiece of Sen. McCain’s plan to “help” those with chronic conditions to get health insurance is the creation of high risk pools in every state.

But, McCain has also said that he would ask the nation’s governors how to create these pools (with about 30 states having one today). Since Alaska is one of the states with a high risk pool, it might be interesting to get a sense of how Governor Palin might advise McCain on the creation of these pools.

Based on the high risk pool in her state, Palin’s advice would clearly be to create a high risk pool that: offers very expensive coverage, puts as much burden on individuals as possible, excludes preexisting conditions, and limits benefits as much as possible.

You know, a close friend of a friend of mine recently died. She had no health insurance and suffered from an array of chronic health conditions, for which she was unable to get consistent treatment. This kind of shit isn't theoretical, except to people who think that lettuce pickers make $50 an hour.

But, how silly of me to be off on a fluffy, weightless tangent. Best I should stick to the issues, like how insulting it is to women to use the phrase "lipstick on a pig." (I always preferred the "perfume on a pig" variation, but I'm weird like that).

This Follows on a Conversation We Had on the Family Weekend about Porn Star Names

According to the Sarah Palin baby name generator, if I had had the good fortune to be born to Sarah Palin, my name would be: Hook Tuneup Palin.

Still Home, But Call It Progress

I am so pleased to be sitting upright without nausea! Praise be. When I found myself contemplating the plot turns of my latest writing assignment, I knew it was a good sign.

If, like me, you missed the Palin interview, here's some more frightening food for thought (frightening, that is, if you're not an evangelical Christian who views all current events and political developments and leaders through that lens).

Did she hesitate, Charlie Gibson asked, when McCain asked her to be his running mate, did she wonder whether she had enough experience to be, potentially, commander in chief? Palin said, "I didn't hesitate, no . . . . I answered him yes because I have the confidence in that readiness and knowing that you can't blink, you have to be wired in a way of being so committed to the mission, the mission that we're on, reform of this country and victory in the war, you can't blink. So I didn't blink then even when asked to run as his running mate."

Many evangelicals are talking about Palin being like the biblical Queen Esther, who saved the Jews from the genocidal Haman, and believe that Palin has come, like Esther did, "for a time such as this." (The same narrative built around George W. Bush when he was running.) My charismatic source added, "The beauty queen hidden away until an appointed time. The newscaster training, her rise in service, etc. But I just think her authenticity resonates with believers. They feel like she is real. I believe many feel she has been hidden for this time in accordance with God's plan. At least that is their hope."

Shades of George W. Bush again. Here's a reason why I don't really care if Obama (or any given Democratic nominee, really) is sufficiently left for my tastes. I'm longing for some good old-fashioned competence. Hell, I would even settle for a non-corrupt centrist Republican who actually cared about governing. Quite obviously, these feelings of mine are not universal.

I Dream One Day of Eating Something

I spent time with my family, so naturally I am now sick.

Is It That Time Again? Seems Like Just Yesterday We Were Purging Voter Rolls in Florida

In Macomb County, Michigan, the Republican Party will be using foreclosure records to challenge the eligibility of voters. The targeted voters are, it goes without saying, African Americans.

Back it the day, it was just straight up poll taxes and such, but these days, you have to really apply some ingenuity to suppress the vote. I trust the geniuses who came up with this plan are up-and-comers in the party.

And this isn't really related, but I've thought of this project I want to do. I would take something fuzzy and cuddly--possibly a sock puppet or a stuffed animal, maybe a kitten or a puppy--and set it on a stand, behind which would be a video backdrop looping a sunny, morning-in-America speech by Reagan or similar, the crowd cheering in the background. Or maybe I'd splice the fuzzy directly into the video. I can't quite put my finger on the inspiration, but this may have had something to do with it.


I don't think it can be questioned that this wholesome Puppy-American represents the values of heartland America. Unlike those latte-sipping liberals, she knows what it's like to hunt squirrels and pee on trees. Americans can relate to her, or they want to cuddle her. Either way, she embodies more authenticity than the other guy could dream of having.

Hunting for Evidence to Support the Narrative

Poll shows big shift to McCain among white women!!!!!

Republican presidential candidate John McCain has gained huge support among white women since naming Sarah Palin as his running mate and now leads Democrat Barack Obama among those voters, according to a survey published on Tuesday.

To quantify, a twenty-point shift, in exactly one poll. Can you say outlier? But we know what the real story here has got to be, don't we?

Obama, who would be the first black U.S. president, defeated rival Hillary Clinton in the battle for the Democratic nomination, a long and bitter struggle that left many of the former first lady's supporters disaffected and angry.

Many of her backers were further angered when Obama ignored her in picking a vice president, choosing instead long-time Delaware Sen. Joe Biden. A key question for the Obama campaign has been whether he would be able to maintain the support of Clinton's supporters.

Hell hath no fury like a Clinton voter scorned.

My mother, who's been doing yeoman's work trying to persuade people in her very important swing state to vote for Obama, has passed along this website, which helpfully explains how awful for women a McCain/Palin administration would be. Read it, and spread the word to all your fence-sitting acquaintances and relatives.

Weekend Scenes

The swinging of the tot at the zoo.


Look! His name is Erik, too!

Oh my god, I'm rhyming. I'm Dr. Seuss.

Please Let This Be Ephemeral . . . Please Let This Be Ephemeral

McCain got a big convention bounce in the polls.

I admit, I'm kind of stunned he got this kind of response, being as he is an uncharismatic speaker with nothing to offer in the way of solutions, who apparently chose his running mate--a right-wing, abortion-opposing Christian who touts her foreign policy cred by explaining Alaska's proximity to Russia and her administrative skills by citing her work on the PTA--with all the care and deliberation I might apply to choosing my socks for the day. Or probably less, since I put a lot of thought into my fashion impact, plus I just really like socks.

I want to think we don't have the collective memory and intellectual capacity of goldfish, but perhaps you really can't underestimate people's willingness to be manipulated. We have after all been conditioned for forty years to choose leaders based on whether he or she is a sneech with stars on thars versus being one of those sneeches who are insufficiently patriotic and thus look down their noses at the god-fearing sneeches who wear their stars with pride.

What is incompetence, outlawing of abortion, fiscal meltdown, economic misery, and eight years of mismanagement and corruption and someone who promises you more of the same? The important metric here is whether he was a brave POW. And let's not forget that the other guy is somehow . . . untrustworthy. Up is down, black is white, Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.

I'm going to curl up in a corner somewhere, fetal-like. Later I will possibly scout locations--what did we say, Canada? Australia?--for the family compound.

The Summer 2008 Houseguest Season Draws to a Close

Some of the creative output from the weekend. "Maddie" was drawn by Aunt Laura, with precise direction by the piece's subject. The unidentified figure with the large hands is Aunt Laura. And "Cricket" was done by the artist with assistance on the body by her mom and spelling help by Aunt Laura.

A good time was had by all who participated in the family odyssey to Chicago. We zoo-ed, we shopped, we sloshed through fountains, we ate, we drank, and we generally partook of all that Chicago in the summer has to offer.

Anyway, I'm exhausted and must do homework.

Big Kids Ride Buses!

First day of school, and I rated the pre-bus phone call from my favorite girl munchkin. I forgot to ask her what stylin' outfit she settled on for the occasion. This is why we have skype, right?

Cue Sinister Music

In a mere thirty-five minutes, I begin a creative-writing class, a follow-up to the one I took last summer. Percy Bysshe Shelley (no, not that one, this one) has his reason for being, since I got him too late to really be useful for couch composing/napping.

I'm hoping to get help with structure, because I find it supremely unhelpful to be told that only I know how to tell my story. Hmmm, possibly a nonfiction course would have been a better deal...

Anyway, wish me luck among the whippersnappers! I only hope the dinner roll I'm toting (stomach upset) and ginger ale (same) don't mark me as a freak--akin to someone who might pull out a pickle and a bottle of ketchup for a snack.

Should We Get a Pool Going?

These guys vetted Palin, so McCain didn't have to, until now, I guess. Better late than never.

My guess is that McCain shares that steely-eyed Bush trait of never admitting a mistake. And the fundamentalist Christian base is so enthralled with Palin, they're finally showing him the cash love. So I expect them to damn the torpedoes.

Gustav

Watching the weather updates and fervently hoping that the Gulf Coast, particularly New Orleans, is left unharmed. I understand that the levees haven't been completely rebuilt since Katrina, that many people are still in FEMA trailers, and that many of the homes that have been built are below sea level. My thoughts are with the people.

Meanwhile, McCain and Palin swung into action by heading to the Gulf in an attempt to appear presidential, or something. He may give his convention acceptance speech from there via satellite. These guys don't miss an opportunity for a photo op on top of a pile of rubble, do they? I had an image of McCain tethered to a tree and screaming into a microphone through gale force winds, but someone else took my joke.

More on Palin

Did I mention she hates polar bears?

She also comes pre-scandaled, in something that looks like using her power in office to settle personal vendettas. Some background:

The details of this investigation read like a trashy novel, and I suspect that the players will soon have newfound celebrity on the national stage. I’ll try to explain for all you non-Alaskans who suddenly have good reason to want to know more about Sarah Palin. For those of you not interested in trashy novels, feel free to skip ahead. Here it is…what we in Alaska call “TrooperGate”.

Sarah Palin’s sister Molly married a guy named Mike Wooten who is an Alaska State Trooper. Mike and Molly had a rocky marriage. When the marriage broke up, there was a bitter custody fight that is still ongoing. During the custody investigation, all sorts of things were brought up about Wooten including the fact that he had illegally shot a moose (yes folks this is Alaska), driven drunk, and used a taser (on the test setting, he reminds us) on his 11-year old stepson, who supposedly had asked to see what it felt like. While Wooten has turned out to be a less than stellar figure, the fact that Palin’s father accompanied him on the infamous moose hunt, and that many of the dozens of charges brought up by the Palin family happened long before they were ever reported smacked of desperate custody fight. Wooten’s story is that he was basically stalked by the family.

After all this, Wooten was investigated and disciplined on two counts and allowed to kept his position with the troopers. Enter Walt Monegan, Palin’s appointed new chief of the Department of Public Safety and head of the troopers. Monegan was beloved by the troopers, did a bang-up job with minimal funding and suddenly got axed. Palin was out of town and Monegan got “offered another job” (aka fired) with no explanation to Alaskans. Pressure was put on the governor to give details, because rumors started to swirl around the fact that the highly respected Monegan was fired because he refused to fire the aforementioned Mike Wooten. Palin vehemently denied ever talking to Monegan or pressuring Monegan in any way to fire Wooten, or that anyone on her staff did. Over the weeks it has come out that not only was pressure applied, there were literally dozens of conversations in which pressure was applied to fire him. Monegan has testified to this fact, spurring an ongoing investigation by the Alaska state legislature. But, before this investigation got underway, Palin sent the Alaska State Attorney General out to do some investigative work of his own so she could find out in advance what the real investigation was going to find. (No, I’m not making this up). The AG interviewed several people, unbeknownst to the actual appointed investigator or the Legislature! Palin’s investigation of herself uncovered a recorded phone call retained by the Alaska State Troopers from Frank Bailey, a Palin underling, putting pressure on a trooper about the Wooten non-firing. Todd Palin (governor’s husband) even talked to Monegan himself in Palin’s office while she was away. Bailey is now on paid administrative leave.

As if this weren’t enough, Monegan’s appointed replacement Chuck Kopp, turns out to have been the center of his own little scandal. He received a letter of reprimand and was reassigned after sexual harrassment allegations by a former coworker who didn’t like all the unwanted kissing and hugging in the office. Was he vetted? Obviously not. When he was questioned about all this, his comment was that no one had asked him and he thought they all knew. Kopp, defiant, still claimed to have done nothing wrong and said to the press that there was no way he was stepping down from his new position. Twenty four hours later, he stepped down. Later it was uncovered that he received a $10,000 severance package for his two weeks on the job from Palin. Monegan got nothing.

McCain Locks in the Crucial Vagina-American Vote

Sure, Palin may be a hard-core conservative who opposes abortion in all cases--including rape, incest, and health of the mother. And she may be opposed to all forms of birth control, including condoms, even for married people (save the blastocytes! overturn Griswold!). It also may be the case that she doesn't support equal pay for women (the silver lining on that being that we'd presumably get a thirty-percent discount on the vice presidential salary).

But all that is nothing to Palin's possession of the all-important girly parts. We women will have no choice but to hop onto McCain's bandwagon! Fiendishly clever! Well played, sir, well played. Now if only he'd shown this much foresight with the vital polar bear constituency.

As a postscript to this, it does appear that perpetuation of stupid media narratives can sometimes have positive effects:

The main reason McCain knuckled under to the religious right by picking Palin is that he actually believes there’s a large army of embittered Hillary loyalists who will vote for a hard-line conservative simply because she’s a woman. That’s what happens when you listen to the TV news echo chamber. Not only is the whole premise ludicrous, but it is every bit as sexist as the crude joke McCain notoriously told about Janet Reno, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton.

I do so love to observe Republicans trying to play identity politics--they're so bad at it. It's like they can't conceive how anyone who isn't a white man could possibly be qualified to do anything. So they see Democrats coming up with various minority candidates, and they say among their white-dude selves: "Wait, they want a black man? Does anyone know a black man? Hey, I hear Alan Keyes has some time on his hands. Why don't we ship him to Illinois to run against this Obama fellow?" One being essentially the same as any other if you're going to throw standards out the window and not pick a white dude, right? No wonder they think Affirmative Action is a scourge.

See? Works for Geraldine Ferraro. Game, set, and match.

Signs of Morning in America

When your boss, always dressed to the nines, comes into work wearing an Obama 2008 t-shirt. And was anyone else weirded out by how all the children of the world were holding hands and singing?

In celebration!
1. freedom hangs like heaven, iron & wine
2. cadillac on 22's, david banner
3. your cheatin heart, hank williams
4. waiting for the universe, pernice brothers
5. seventeen (I'm a lazy sod), sex pistols
6. neat neat neat, the damned
7. where did our love go, diana ross and the supremes
8. quicksand, david bowie
9. the past and pending, the shins
10. jimmy jimmy, the undertones

History!

It has been made.

I thought Obama's was a rousing speech. Bring it on, I say.

I'm Just Narcissistic Enough to Enjoy Talking About Myself . . . Even If I'm Paying by the Hour for It

I had my first session with the career counselor, and I have to say it was actually kind of fun: one part "Wow, what an interesting life story you have!"--the farming always gets people--and one-part drilling down to the Essence of Laura. It was essentially an hour of free-association discussion based on a list I gave her of every job I've ever had, bulleted with likes and dislikes. (I realized later I left off the Dairy Queen and some other stupid job I had for about fifteen minutes, but which I can't recall at the moment. D'oh.) Unfortunately, I had too many jobs to fit into the hour window. We may have to step up the pace.

You want glimmers into the Essence of Laura? Me too. At bare minimum, we seem to have established my way with a bullet point, because she was much amused with my lists. Which is strange, because I wasn't even trying to be funny.

Anyway, I'm now thinking now that her job would be awesome to have. Somewhere around 1997, I considered briefly doing social work because I like that empathetic interaction when you're trying to help people. And it seems the burnout factor on career counseling would be a tad lower than for those jobs where you're dealing with people with real psychological need. Does that sound shallow, like I only want to help people psychologically if it's not too much of a drag?

We'll see how the process ends up. I think it will be worthwhile.

Still Baffled.

I get these Clinton dead-enders, who are either crazy or Republican plants trying to stir up trouble.

The ones I don't get, though, are the usually sane and politically intelligent people whose largish blogs I read from time to time and who happened to support Clinton and who, um, are still supporting Clinton (like, as of today) and are arguing with "Obama supporters" about each candidate's merits and demerits. It's like they're still shopping around, aren't enthralled by Obama, and don't want to be pressured by pushy and threatening Obama partisans ("McCain will appoint Supreme Court justices who will destroy Roe!").

This would be well and good if it were March. But given that the race is over (I mean, really over, as of about an hour ago), it has the surreal feeling of arguing with your best friend about who would be the most awesome celebrity boyfriend. If you're a Democrat or at least subscribe to what they generally stand for, the choice has been made for you. You may not be pleased about the choice made (Dean 2004! Bradley 2000! Gore 1992! You see what I record I have for picking winners), but that's the way it works.

There are two options on the table, your Democratic flavor, and your Republican flavor. Pick one, pick the other, sit it out, vote third party, but if you care for the issues supported by the Democratic party, suck it up and vote for the guy representing them. If the Clintons can do it (the Big Dog is doing it right now), so can you.

I Think We've Found His Secret Agenda

To bring in the soul. Not quite disco, but it's a sign of good things to come:

Barack Obama, claiming a prize never held by a black American, swept to the Democratic presidential nomination on Wednesday as thousands of national convention delegates stood and cheered his improbable triumph.

Former rival Hillary Rodham Clinton asked the convention delegates to make it unanimous "in the spirit of unity, with the goal of victory." And they did, with a roar.

Competing chants of "Obama" and "Yes we can" floated up from the convention floor as Obama's victory was sealed. [...]

Clinton's call for Obama to be approved by acclamation -- midway through the traditional roll call of the states -- was the culmination of a painstaking agreement worked out between the two camps to present a unified front.

The band played "Love Train" as the delegates celebrated.

The best part, though, was Chuck Schumer's "Woooooo!"--amplified by Clinton's microphone--during the crowd cheer.



5 MINUTES LATER: Oh my lord, is Harry Reid dull.

Convention Observations

1. Who the hell is programming the music for this thing? You've got your disco, you've got your Deval Patrick coming out to Santana's "Smooth." What does it mean??

2. Could David Brooks be a bigger dipwad? Seriously, following Lilly Ledbedder's very good speech about gender-pay inequality, Jim Lehrer (this is on PBS) waxed nostalgic about his early news days and how his newsroom discovered that the women reporters made half what the men did. Brooks, in self-important fashion and implying that Lehrer's experience was a relic of another era with no relevance for today, blabbered about how Ledbedder was "one testimony" and something about how he works with many women editors and writers. Cool! I find that so reassuring, and I will make certain to hop in that time machine to tell my past self that that pay disparity between me and the dudes who hired on after me at the law firm? Sooooo, last century, don't worry about it. Bobo says it's so, and he would know, being a paid white-guy Republican flack. Idiot.

3. Michelle Obama is all kinds of awesome. They just featured an interview with her (again on PBS). I must go view her speech now. It's really ridiculous that she has to prove she doesn't hate America.

4. Oh, god. The PBS historian panel. Save me. I want to see Clinton's speech, but not badly enough to listen to these gasbags. I think I need to mute and crank up the music.

5. Doesn't it seem like it would be somewhat of a bummer to be a delegate and have to sit through all of these speeches? Don't they go on all day long? And aren't you supposed to be all energetic and cheering, yay team, and that sort of thing?

6. I think a drinking game should commence from how many times we (meaning the media) mention the "split" in the Democratic party and Obama's need to "woo" the Clinton supporters.

7. Honestly, I may not have supported her for various reasons, but I really do like Hillary Clinton. Hey! She just pointed out that today marks the anniversary of the passage of the nineteenth amendment. Woo! She's tearing the house down.

How Many Days Until These Asses Are Out of Office?

They're busy little bees in the meantime. I think I've noted before that the Bush Administration is trying to blur the line between "abortion" and birth control. In furtherance of this goal, the Department of Health and Human Services is proposing a rule change to allow a broadly defined range of health care professionals to opt out of delivering services that make them feel queasy or squirmy--potentially including hormonal birth control.

If you're like me (and how can you not be, given you are all my family and friends?), you might wish to register your opinion on the latest Bush Administration attempts to limit access to reproductive options.

If He Brings That Back, He Might Really Be the Messiah

Your Moment of Respite

Reached your Olympics saturation point? Inundated by phone calls pleading with you to knock on doors for Obama? Weary of the breathless Clinton/Obama Discord '08 Democratic Convention Watch? Hunkering down in your swing state in anticipation of the really ugly ad onslaught? Eyeballing your dead or dying lawn flora and saying to hell with it all?

Some unrelated levity, in the form of various appalling, funny, or ridiculous cakes.

I Could Be a Bigger Geek, If I Tried a Little Harder, I Guess

My weekend was made in the following manner. Faced with an impending salon visit (color! thirty minutes' processing time!), I found myself digging through dusty piles of books I've either read, have no interest in reading, or couldn't finish when I tried to read them the first time. So I went to the library and browsed fiction until I had found an armload of novels that I'd never heard of but that may, eh, be good, we'll see. It's always a crapshoot when you go in without a list or a plan, isn't it? At checkout, the dude behind the counter told me something I had requested a while ago had come in. Indeed, my eight-hundred-page book on the impact and legacy of Richard Nixon arrived! Woooo!

Why, yes, I may tell you about it. Not having experienced the sixties and having been but a tiny tyke during the seventies, I have absolutely no frame of reference for how people experienced all the social upheaval that happened during that time. And of course, understanding Nixon and how he (and Republicans evermore after him) manipulated the backlash helps to put the current state of politics into a larger context.

And do you know that experience where several things you're reading at a time or a spate of movies you watch in a sequence coincidentally have echoing themes, characters, or strange details? I just watched this Andy Griffith film, which was very good--an unexpectedly dark look at human nature, the impacts of fame, and the manipulative ends to which some can put "wholesomeness" and a "just folks" persona. It seemed eerily prescient to me of Nixon-style politics, given that it was released in 1957. Ah, but I learn from this book that the film was in fact inspired by Nixon's "Checkers" speech.

Hmmmmmm, Biden

Good on foreign policy, sometimes says stupid things. He will not rally the Clintonistas, he will not bring a swing state, but I think he's overall solid, if unexciting.

A dude I used to know a gazillion years ago worked for him, so he must be pleased and wondering if he can get on this crazy train to world power.

LATER: I really like to hear stuff like this:

But what has impressed me most, for years, is [Biden's] staff. He knows how to pick ‘em, and that’s no small thing. Brilliant people come and go in DC, but rarely do they also have the ability to pick quality staff the way Biden does. His folks always are among the brightest from a policy standpoint, but also possess a sophisticated political acumen. It’s a rare but valuable combination.

Looks like Biden and Obama share a certain philosophy about the way they assemble their teams and tackle problems. I like the long-term thinking that this shows on Obama's part. Instead of going with someone who could theoretically help him with an electoral boost (or not. Is there solid proof that this actually works?), he chooses someone who can govern thoughtfully and competently.

Plus, I'm hoping he slaps McCain down in this manner:

On Pins and Needles, Waiting for the VP Announcement!

I only hope that McCain chooses Mittens.

Random selection of music from the ipod to mark this Friday:
1. still doin' time, george jones
2. the skin of my yellow country teeth, clap your hands say yeah
3. let me dream if i want to (amphetamine blues), mink deville
4. good to your earhole, funkadelic
5. goodbye service, sons & daughters
6. tender, blur
7. i wanna live, the ramones
8. subject drop, pernice brothers (one of those songs I meant to purge)
9. away from the numbers, the jam
10. split lips, sons & daughters

And if, like me and John McCain, you need a little assistance with the math on how many houses he owns, Feist helps you out:



LATER: This just gets better and better. Robin Leach (he of champagne wishes and caviar dreams) calls on his expertise in lavish homes to defend McCain:

In an early morning phone call Friday from his fabulous crib in Las Vegas, Leach told The Times that he isn’t really surprised at McCain's odd memory lapse given the complex lives that the super-rich lead.

"He probably was confused as to which homes are in his name, his wife's name, or corporate names," Leach explained in his familiar, deep British baritone. "In his attempt to be honest, he put his foot in his mouth."

Signs You Should Give Up on Salvaging Your Day and Should Just Go to Bed

After you've done one or more of the following:

1. Come within a foot of being hit by a car turning a corner at high speed
2. Smashed a wine glass in your spare bedroom (slash office), spraying the bedspread and your keyboard and--after sweeping up and cleaning up what you think are all pieces, but of course you can never get all the pieces--creating a nice minefield of invisible glass shards you can spend the rest of the evening walking on and getting stuck on your feet (and no doubt in future, the cat's feet)
3. Deselected the entire contents of your music library, necessitating a painstaking song-by-song review to recreate the preferences it took months to set and exclude the songs you don't want to hear on shuffle
4. Wrapped all this up by smacking you bare toes, full force, into the dining-table leaves leaning against the wall

It irks me that almost all of this can be chalked up to clumsiness.

I Can't Take Three More Months of Handwringing about Obama's Poll Troubles

Obama maintains a consistent, but small, lead in the polls, and it's good news for . . . McCain. Because despite the fact that the electorate is split and despite elections these days boiling down to fights on the margins for the undecideds, Obama is supposed to be up by ten points or something--I'm not sure what the arbitrary measure of appropriate benchmarking is for a black man with the middle name of Hussein running for president. When did Indiana last go blue? Was I alive then? I can't remember. Anyway, I'm sure I don't need to tell you that Obama's being tied there, rather than ahead as he was in June, is cause for major concern. And, jesus, the fact that he's three points down among his strongest demographic, the older folk in Florida, is definitely worrisome.

So, friends, things are really really bad for Obama when McCain is up by five points in one poll. Obviously, only Hillary can save things. Because the 60 people at the PUMA convention really need to be brought back into the fold to unify the fractured party!

Shoot me now.

Just So

Possibly This Illustrates the Need

I'm absolutely paralyzed with indecision over the options available for career counseling. Multiple sessions of three-hour tests! Group phone meetings! Fashioning mission statements and basically projecting the can-do-spirit of it all! It all seems so depersonalized and Job Industry Inc./PBS infomercial.

The first woman I spoke to is actually seeming more reasonable. Her one-hour sessions were at least geared toward talking to me, and the supporting measures and evaluations were in addition to the counseling. The phone format doesn't look out of spec for the services, and now that I think of it, it would be more discreet to hide for a lunch hour once a week. And she also will do things like help gear the resume and help with the interview skills.

Hmm. Perhaps I will call her back tomorrow.

A Mini-Theme in My Netflix Queue: Six Degrees of Kurt Cobain

Obviously, I was talking to someone or digging out ideas from something I read (I can never remember what I put in my queue or why) because I've been hitting a recent run of music documentaries and biopics.

Control was great from a purely dramatic standpoint, and you don't have to know a thing about Joy Division (or their music) to appreciate it.

Some music hipster somewhere is going to have to explain to me, however, the draw of Daniel Johnston and why people consider him a musical genius. Is it the simplicity of his lyrics? The raw emotion he puts into it? That Kurt Cobain once wore a t-shirt? After watching this movie, I came away feeling sorry for him, appalled at what a life as a manic-depressive can do to a person, and also baffled for not being able to see what others were seeing in his music and art.

I know I read somewhere about this documentary, about an early nineties punk band from Seattle that was on the eve of signing a major recording contract when their very talented and charismatic female lead singer was brutally murdered. The documentary traces the band's beginnings and rise in local popularity, featuring electric concert footage (she really was an amazing performer and was probably going somewhere no matter what style of music she was singing) and interviews with friends, fans, family, and band members. It's a sad portrait of lost talent.

Next up, some Andy Griffith! Seriously.

Continuing my Martha-Stewart-Style Binge

One of my dining-room chairs, with new seat cover. The impressive aspects of this are:

1. The previous seat cover was the nadir of home-decor, being made of vinyl with a faux-wood pattern. I tried to take a picture of it for a before-and-after demonstration, but the vinyl kept reflecting the camera's flash, impeding a clear look at it. So you'll have to take my word for it that it was really ugly.

2. I found the upholstery fabric in the fifty-percent-off remnants bin ($8/yard), and it was another fifty percent off that. So I got two yards for $8.

Also, it's very satisfying to use a staple gun.

This Is Beyond Depressing

My 4-year-old niece could buy property in Detroit:

One dollar can get you a large soda at McDonald's, a used VHS movie at 7-Eleven or a house in Detroit.

The fact that a home on the city's east side was listed for $1 recently shows how depressed the real estate market has become in one of America's poorest big cities.

And it still took 19 days to find a buyer.

The sale price of the home may be an anomaly, but illustrates both the depths of the foreclosure crisis in Detroit and the rapid scuttling of vacant homes in some of the city's impoverished neighborhoods.

The home, at 8111 Traverse Street, a few blocks from Detroit City Airport, was the nicest house on the block when it sold for $65,000 in November 2006, said neighbor Carl Upshaw. But the home was foreclosed last summer, and it wasn't long until "the vultures closed in," Upshaw said. "The siding was the first to go. Then they took the fence. Then they broke in and took everything else."

The company hired to manage the home and sell it, the Bearing Group, boarded up the home only to find the boards stolen and used to board up another abandoned home nearby.

I feel sorry for the buyer, though, because she's got her work cut out for her:

The buyer, a local woman, considers the home to be an investment property and will not live there, Colpaert said, though exactly how soon the buyer can expect to recoup her four-quarter investment is questionable. Replacing the guts of the house will costs tens of thousands of dollars, and the owner will have trouble keeping scrappers from stealing the improvements as quickly as they're installed. Home demolition costs about $5,000, Colpaert said.

Meanwhile, the new owner will owe $3,900 in property taxes in 2009 on her dollar purchase unless she challenges the tax assessment.

It's Been One of Those Weeks

See how long my hair is getting? See how I've lost my winter pallor?

I believe my editor is going crazy and may self-destruct upon contemplating another typo. Meanwhile, I had a preliminary meeting with a career counselor. Yay, me! Is it bad, do you suppose, that she wants to conduct everything by telephone? For $100/hour, I'm kind of hoping for verification that she's not doing the crossword on the other end.

Nonetheless, tomorrow is happy hour. Color me pleased about that.

Gahhhhhh!

Supernanny, you are my secret addiction. You consistently deliver me schadenfreude, drama, and feel-good moments. I don't, for a second, believe that every single family you help is happy and perfect on follow-up, but damnit, I choose to believe.

This week, though, my god!! Family with seven kids; mom didn't want any kids but agreed to large family to please her hubby. In addition to which, mom is an emotional wreck because her dad came out as gay and left her family when she was a teenager. However, because hubby disapproves of homosexuality, mom is not allowed to have a relationship with her dad. Hubby is a prize, in other words.

Man, I want to arrange an intervention for this woman.

Hey, She Was Just Sticking Up for the Common Folk, You Know, Those of Us in Flyover Country

Poor Cokie gets smacked down by the good people of Hawaii:

"She's a bit of a fool that's the only thing you can say," said Rep. Neil Abercrombie. " Don't forget Cokie Roberts and the whole Washington crowd live in a kind of an incestuous relationship to one another, they talk to one another, they see one another, they know nothing about ordinary people."

In a statement, Senator Daniel Akaka said calling Hawaii "foreign" does a disservice to the hardworking patriotic Americans who call Hawaii home.

Meow.

I'll Bet I Know Where They Picked Up Some Management Tips

It's way too late to matter, yet you can't help pondering, wondering, and finally reading about what went wrong with the Clinton campaign. And by you, I mean me. Seriously, the office minion in me can't resist this kind of teaser:

How did things look on the inside, as they unraveled?

To find out, I approached a number of current and former Clinton staffers and outside consultants and asked them to share memos, e-mails, meeting minutes, diaries—anything that would offer a contemporaneous account. The result demonstrates that paranoid dysfunction breeds the impulse to hoard. Everything from major strategic plans to bitchy staff e-mail feuds was handed over. (See for yourself: much of it is posted online at www.theatlantic.com/clinton.)

I don't doubt. I'm guessing they fought over the office fridge too, and grudges were held about who threw whose salad away before lunch. Which is why my inner office minion finds this revelation about the source of the dysfunction less than revelatory:

Above all, this irony emerges: Clinton ran on the basis of managerial competence—on her capacity, as she liked to put it, to “do the job from Day One.” In fact, she never behaved like a chief executive, and her own staff proved to be her Achilles’ heel. What is clear from the internal documents is that Clinton’s loss derived not from any specific decision she made but rather from the preponderance of the many she did not make. Her hesitancy and habit of avoiding hard choices exacted a price that eventually sank her chances at the presidency.

And of course we always knew this guy, apparently more courtier than adviser, was an overpaid hack doing Clinton no favors . . .

[Mark] Penn’s memo is also notable for its tone: it reinforces rather than confronts the Clintons’ biases. “The biggest problem we have is the troika that has been set up to tear Hillary down,” he wrote.

It is a vast right and left wing conspiracy. Listening to Brit Hume say that Obama is surging while Hillary failed to do X is almost comical and certainly transparent. The right knows Obama is unelectable except perhaps against Attila the Hun, and a third party would come in then anyway.

By contrast, top consultants like Karl Rove usually aim to temper their clients’ biases with a cold dose of realism. I suspect the damaging persecution complex that both Clintons displayed drew much of its sustenance from memos like this one.

. . . in addition to being a cynical ass:

Penn also left no doubt about where he stood on the question of a positive versus negative strategy. He made the rather astonishing suggestion to target Obama’s “lack of American roots”:

All of these articles about his boyhood in Indonesia and his life in Hawaii are geared towards showing his background is diverse, multicultural and putting that in a new light.
Save it for 2050.
It also exposes a very strong weakness for him—his roots to basic American values and culture are at best limited. I cannot imagine America electing a president during a time of war who is not at his center fundamentally American in his thinking and in his values. He told the people of NH yesterday he has a Kansas accent because his mother was from there. His mother lived in many states as far as we can tell—but this is an example of the nonsense he uses to cover this up.
How we could give some life to this contrast without turning negative:
Every speech should contain the line you were born in the middle of America to the middle class in the middle of the last century. And talk about the basic bargain as about the deeply American values you grew up with, learned as a child and that drive you today. Values of fairness, compassion, responsibility, giving back.
Let’s explicitly own ‘American’ in our programs, the speeches and the values. He doesn’t. Make this a new American Century, the American Strategic Energy Fund. Let’s use our logo to make some flags we can give out. Let’s add flag symbols to the backgrounds.

Finally, this is a really perceptive and thought-provoking take on Clinton's failed candidacy.

Speaking of Jobs That Monkeys Apparently Can Do, So Sign Me Up

More top-notch election coverage from our favorite news "analyst," Cokie Roberts:

Roberts also criticized Obama during the August 10 edition of ABC's This Week, acknowledging that "Hawaii is a state" but stating that Obama's vacation there "has the look of him going off to some sort of foreign, exotic place."

Sure, it's a state, but it's a foreign state.

I Guess I Should Have Seen That Coming

The only thing better than a power vacuum is when your director undermines you, again, in order to placate the dude who's unambiguously beyond his responsibility, authority, etc.! That will be so helpful in asserting control in future.

I had hopes, but there doesn't seem to be positive change on the horizon for this place. Proper management is obviously a foreign concept (in contrast to all the editing experts, there seems to be a real dearth of folks with the management skillz). Sanity dictates that the job search--always ongoing but with more or less effort depending on my promotion opportunities--be put in high gear. Send me your tips.

While My Plants Languish in that Twilight Before Death, I Turn My Efforts Indoors

Wine rack: Eh, I'm not thrilled with it. I may have to do more to it. I wish I'd gone with the martini-glass-themed black paper.

Dining room chair, now a shade I call "like hell, that's 'sage green.'" It has a nice faux-finish thing going for it, with the primer showing through one coat of paint. I rather like it, so I may leave it.

Dining-room table. Less of a faux finish going on here. Sigh.

The de-fur-minator, flashing her nipples and showing that thinning hair needn't be accompanied by shame or loss of self-esteem.

Small Movie Note

I am reminded, since a Joy Division song just came on the iPod, that this movie is quite good. It's filmed in black and white and is about the short short life of Ian Curtis, Joy Division's lead singer. It also, I think, presents the musical context of Joy Division's inception in a subtle way, through small cues and details. The director is a photographer (often in black and white) and a director of music videos, so it makes sense; and his approach is well suited to the film's subject. The film is based on a book by Curtis's wife that appears to be surprisingly sympathetic and clear-eyed about all the people involved. The film is, in any event.

Awwww.

Just got lovely flowers from the Lollapalooza contingent.

I tell you, these kids, they're going to turn out all right.

I Think I Just Popped a Vein

The thing about working in publishing on the nuts and bolts of turning out finished products is that you deal fairly frequently with people who envision themselves master prose stylists. People get very defensive when you question their phrasing or suggest that there isn't actually an edict against split infinitives engraved in granite somewhere in Proper Grammar Headquarters.

This leads me to one of my current academic editors, which is to say he's responsible for acquiring papers that we can then publish. But he's not much interested in actually shaking the trees for papers to publish; it seems he would much rather be tweaking the details of authors' word choice. I'll give you a bit of a view into the publishing production process: this kind of thing is an exercise in futility, because the copyeditor will come along and change everything in accordance with her knowledge of X Style Book or whatever you happen to be following. In addition to which, these particular weeds are the unenviable province of production people everywhere. Trust me when I say that you can never--as a normal person--be thinking about hyphens or commas in quite the systematic manner they are.

I have given many speeches to this particular academic editor about his role, mine, that of the poor beleaguered copyeditor, to no avail. He argues about his pet style conventions, I send him style book links. I wax authoritative about my area of responsibility, and he nods soberly, then proceeds as before.

So, on his eternal mission to put his stamp on every comma, he asked to see edited manuscripts, so that he could see what the "copyeditor was doing." I declined, on the theory that it would not placate him to be in the loop on the eye-glazing process but would only give him ammunition for more intervention. Alas, my director, who isn't knowledgeable about publishing, didn't have the same nuanced view I did, and initially acquiesced to him before talking to me. He took the opportunity of her tacit approval.

So he just sent me an e-mail about wanting a sit-down to talk about the copyeditor's work, as represented on article X. After my rebuff, he had sneakily worked with the author--one of his protegee's--to see. He apparently is much, much concerned that the work doesn't meet "our" standards.

The joys of a power vacuum, friends, are multi-faceted. There are layers. And he's lucky that I'm such a laid-back kind of person.

Once Again Piping Soothing Tunes Through the Computer Speakers

It's the little things. Like, spending a successful day troubleshooting iTunes on Hal so as to allow iPod tunes to flow freely. I am pleased.

1. drivin', the kinks
2. smells like teen spirit, nirvana
3. outro with bees, neko case
4. cynical days, xtc
5. silently, blonde redhead
6. danger signs, penetration
7. you are invited, dismemberment plan
8. newtown, the slits
9. nails, stanley ross
10. grow grow grom, p. j. harvey

Next challenge, ensuring the random music isn't such a snoozing representation of my collection circa 2006.

I'm Working on a Distinctive Guffaw

Possibly you'll hear me on NPR Saturday morning, as I'm off tonight to be in the audience for the taping of this show.

LATER: Oooooh, my favorite panelists! Paula Poundstone is a hoot.

Oooooh, Classy

I hate to say it, but I'm starting to feel really sorry for Cindy McCain. She has millions and no doubt is the sole reason for John McCain's political career, yet this is the type of thing she has to put up with:

ABC News' Gregory Wallace and Sara Just Report: Sen. John McCain, R-Az., perhaps unknowingly, volunteered his wife for a beauty pageant on Monday that often features contestants topless -- and, occasionally, without any decency -- at the Sturgis, South Dakota, motorcycle rally.

"I was looking at the Sturgis schedule, and noticed that you had a beauty pageant, so I encouraged Cindy to compete," McCain told an audience at the rally. "I told her [that] with a little luck, she could be the only woman to serve as both the First Lady and Miss Buffalo Chip."

The is was followed by whoops and hollers of approval from the drunk biker dudes in attendance. Hah hah hah! Good clean fun, humiliating your 56-year-old wife! When I put it together with stuff like this, I really sense a bit of hostility here. Call me old-fashioned, but anyone--let alone my husband--who called me the c-word in any context would cease to be someone I know at all.

I'm Thinking of Ordering This for the Library Collection

Freedom Songs: Building America's Empowerment Agenda.

Nobody speaks to the lives of today's youth quite like Teddy Roosevelt, wouldn't you say? After experiencing the album art alone, I'm absolutely dying to hear the wealth of creativity no doubt represented in the music itself (opus???). And they say Democrats have the corner on the creative capital.

As someone who does some typesetting, though, I do have to admire this bit of type design in the liner notes:

These are people who are not afraid of a little bit of text effect. It's like the Fourth of July.

"I Don't Know How the Meatballs Showed Up"

This isn't precisely what M's bridesmaid dress looked like.
Hers had a pink ribbon.

Whenever you think you've got it bad, it's helpful to talk to people who have it worse. To wit, I was talking to my friend M, who, through no fault of her own, leads an especially zany life. (It may be occasionally exasperating for her, but it's endlessly entertaining for the rest of us.) While I was experiencing the protective, parental-ish side of Lollapolooza this weekend, she was doing her most recent turn as a bridesmaid.

I'm kind of a connoisseur of weddings. I've experienced a Taiwanese/Jewish wedding, a Wiccan wedding during which the attendants performed a circular-type dance as a part of the ceremony, and a more standard-issue wedding, after which the groom--whom I was meeting for the first time and who was standing next to his beaming bride and my beau at the time--hugged me, squeezed my ass, and observed that I appeared to work out. (To which my response was, inexplicably, "Awww, thanks! I've got this exercise video. . . ."). And for sheer tackiness, I cherish the wedding I attended once that featured the bride's extended family stuffing food from the buffet into their purses. The thing is, I generally love how weddings reveal and encapsulate so much about the people planning them, as well as their most horrifying relations. Everybody has those, of course: the great aunt who, in a stage whisper, inquires whether that woman is the one cheating on her husband; the cousin who gets drunk and makes embarrassing speeches; the uncle who hits on all the bridesmaids.

It was perhaps a sign of some sort that the wedding M was to attend was at a mall, and the reception was at a pizza place. The scheduled wedding-party appointment for acrylic nails was also foreboding. I expected her to have stories. But the spectacle of M's weekend makes any of my prior experiences look classy and tame by comparison.

It started with the bride's dress, which had fit her a week earlier but suddenly didn't on the day of the wedding. A panicked bridal party rushed through the mall prior to the ceremony in order to locate appropriate undergarments. It didn't help that the bride was a larger size than is customarily available off the rack, but somehow, they found something that they could make work. Then, the groom's mother showed up for the wedding in a t-shirt and cut-off shorts, and one of the groomsmen didn't show at all. During the ceremony itself, the bride's sister threatened the groom in front of the minister and the congregation (perhaps wisely, the minister omitted the part about "if anyone here knows any reason..."). Finally, the reception hit a snag, because, as it turned out, the groom forgot to order the food (about which M observed, "Someone pulled together some iceberg lettuce, and I don't know how the meatballs showed up.").

In short, M has participated in the ultimate wedding horror show. No one, not Jerry Springer, not Hollywood, could possibly compete with that travesty. I only hope--probably against all reason and logic--that it isn't an omen of things to come for the couple.

Gah, Thunderstorms! Tornados!

I realized that I have no candles that aren't burned down to nubs, no matches, no flashlights, no batteries. I'm ill-prepared for an emergency.

In spirit, I'm with the cat under the bed.

Lollapolooza Has Come and Gone

For another year, as they say. And after a heroic three-day bacchanal (though with no underage drinking, just hedonistic communion with the music), the cousin and her entourage should, at this very moment, be motoring back home.

I merely observed the aftermath, and I'm exhausted. I'm drinking a cup of coffee the size of a Big Gulp.

Forget About Who You Want to Have a Beer With

Let's talk about who makes you feel fat and dumpy. This is some hard-hitting journalism:

The candidate has been criticized by opponents for appearing elitist or out of touch with average Americans. A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll conducted in July shows Sen. Obama still lags behind Republican John McCain among white men and suburban women who say they can't relate to his background or perceived values.

"He's too new ... and he needs to put some meat on his bones," says Diana Koenig, 42, a housewife in Corpus Christi, Texas, who says she voted for Sen. Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary.

"I won't vote for any beanpole guy," another Clinton supporter wrote last week on a Yahoo politics message board.

It's come to this. Open-season bigotry against beanpoles. I think this my favorite part, though:

Sen. Obama's chief message strategist Robert Gibbs served as Sen. Kerry's press secretary during the cheesesteak debacle. A few days later at the Iowa State Fair, famous for its deep-fried Twinkies and beer booths, Mr. Gibbs noticed Sen. Kerry buying a $4 strawberry smoothie. He made a frantic call to campaign staffers: "Somebody get a f-ing corn dog in his hand -- now!"

Finally, as we muse over these crucial aspects of how Not Like Us, Obama is, I do want to point out something here:

Sen. Obama drew cringes on a campaign stop in Adel, Iowa, in July 2007, when he asked a crowd of farmers: "Anybody gone into a Whole Foods lately and seen what they charge for arugula?" The upscale supermarket specializing in organic food doesn't have a single store in Iowa.

Here's the thing: He was speaking to arugula farmers.

I wish someone would hire me as a hack. It seems like I could make so much more money for so much less work.

Iggy's Bored, I'm Tired

Happy Lollapalooza, munchkins. I'm not going, but for my cousin and her entourage, it will be like Woodstock.

1. take it back, she & him
2. for lovers only, southern culture on the skids
3. dashboard, modest mouse
4. auf achse, franz ferdinand
5. pisshole in the snow, pernice brothers
6. in the time of the machine, the redwalls
7. johnny thunder, the kinks
8. i'm bored, iggy pop
9. slide--(slidin' the blues) (take 1), the stooges
10. the prayer, bloc party