I apologize for nothing!

Comment war - it's on.

2008-09-10T11:10:00.005-05:00

OK. So. As a blogger, I must admit that I'm a total failure. I haven't posted to this thing in like a year, and before that nobody was reading anyway.

But here's the thing: I am growing increasingly dismayed at way the Presidential race is being covered. The Dems are rarely on message, and all kinds of crazies on both sides pollute the debate with stupidity of all sorts. (Today's "lipstick on a pig" spectacle put me over the edge.)

So I'm trying to be part of the solution. Here's the gist:

The GOP will inevitably be inventing new outrages each day between now and November 4th. My friend Jason over at the Huffington Post has explained to me that this is a strategy of "winning the news cycle", and well, he's a professional so I believe it. Regular Americans need to stay focused on the real issues that matter, and the Democratic party is not doing a great job staying on task.

So whenever I see anything in the media that allows comments - blogs, opinion columns, online stories, newspapers that allow letters to the editor, etc. - I am going to post the same freakin' message. Over and over again. I invite you to copy and paste it as well (assuming you agree with it, of course). Please propose revisions too - this is just a start - and I'll update the post with the best ones.

(Insert whatever the fake issue du jour is where it says [ISSUE X].)

Feel free to reproduce this wherever it makes sense.

We have real, serious issues in this country that demand attention. A struggling economy that limits opportunities to the rich. An endless war on a country that posed no threat to us, making us less able to confront the real dangers posed by terrorism. The most expensive health care in the civilized world. So why are we talking about [ISSUE X]?

This is just the latest campaign non-issue to come out of the Republican camp as they try to distract us from the problems they have caused in the eight years they’ve been in power. John McCain is part of the problem, not the solution – he’s as far inside the Bush machine as you can get. And his pick of Sarah Palin for VP, a fundamentalist he met once for 15 minutes and didn’t vet, shows just the kind of leader he would be – willing to appease the right wing just to get elected and put this country at risk without even the pretense of thinking things through or choosing a candidate based on qualifications for leadership.
This is an insult to the intelligence of every hard-working American. We can do better. We should demand it.

This Just In: Jim Woolsey not as famous as Gore, DiCaprio

2007-08-07T12:55:00.000-05:00

Mike Boyer over at Foreign Policy takes on a reasonable proposition: That the environmental movement just might be a wee bit partisan. You know, he just might be right about that.

His evidence, though, is that environmental web sites cover people like Al Gore and Leonardo DiCaprio over, say, James Woolsey - a legitimate Republican environmentalist, by the looks of it. He's ignoring at least three big things:

Al Gore and Leo DiCaprio are not necessarily famous for being green; they're famous for being advocates for green-ness. I guess it sucks a little that they can be considered hypocrites, but their role in this little drama is popularizing enviromentalism and calling attention to it. It would be hard to do that bicycling from city to city.
Gore and DiCaprio are indisputably "famous people". Woolsey is a former CIA Director - to be sure, an important person, but not exactly on par with Vice President in terms of Q rating. To wit: Who is the current CIA Director? So why should we be surprised they receive more coverage?
That Woolsey himself is an environmentalist doesn't change the fact that his party's policies have contributed significantly to degradation of the environment. It's easy to say "this isn't a partisan issue because there are environmentalist Republicans," but hey, there are Log Cabin Republicans, too. Does that mean that the next Republican presidential candidate will support gay rights? (Hint: No.)

At the risk of sounding like a wild-eyed extremist, I think it's fair at this point in our history to say that in most races, if you vote for a Republican, you simply don't take global warming seriously. That's not to say that the Democrats are paragons of environmental virtue... but at a national level, the choice seems fairly clear.

Indians with WASPy names

2007-07-31T12:07:00.000-05:00

(Apologies for a rant coming on...)

So, I've been on the phone with United for a few hours over the last day or two. I'm trying to use a promotional certificate to take my daughters to meet their great-grandparents in Chicago. As you can guess, the whole thing is a royal clusterf*ck. But here's the thought that occurred to me:

Every single call I've made (between 7 and 10 at this point) has been answered by somebody who is clearly in India. Unlike a lot of people, I don't have a particular problem with that. Many people in India are articulate, well-educated, polite, and good English speakers, and the labor is much cheaper.

What I do have a problem with is the fact that names of the people I've spoken with, at least the times I've been able to hear them clearly, have been:

Jean Johnson
Jennifer Jones
Peter Jones

This is just incredibly insulting. The tone of the conversation is set: United has no qualms whatsoever about lying to you, and they think you're a stupid enough person to be upset that the person you're talking to isn't an American. Even though that really couldn't be more obvious. (I mean, they're so polite!)

Now, I suppose there's another possibility: That these people have legally changed their names to get the job. In that case, the big cities of India must be teeming with freshly minted Ashleys and Stevens. Of all the things that America has spread through globalization, I never thought it would be our lame-ass names. Ugh.

Staying 'fired up' for 18 months

2007-06-20T13:27:00.000-05:00

So Bloomberg is leaving the GOP to, you know, totally NOT run for President. Just like Thompson isn't and McCain wasn't. (On the other hand, I may be the only one, but for some reason I totally believe Al Gore when he says he isn't. He just seems so happy these days...)

Anyway, the question that comes to mind is not whether it's a good idea for Bloomberg to go all Perot on the country. Sure it is. The question is: Is he way too early? By starting the signaling now, he'll likely be a bona fide candidate by October or so. Think about the breathless hype back in January about Obama and Edwards and Giuliani... and look at them now. Old news. Boring.

Honestly, if you didn't have to win a primary, why would you bother getting involved and being a target before January 2008? For that matter, why would you visit New Hampshire? According to this article in the Post:

"But he has refused to rule out a run for the presidency, even discussing the possibility privately with close advisers and beginning to travel around the country, including a trip to the home of the nation's first primary, New Hampshire."

Sure, they have an early primary, but... um... is there some "independent candidate primary" that I'm not aware of? Or is he just dead set on getting those four electoral votes squared away?

ReverbNation - finally, a credible MySpace killer

2007-06-18T01:09:00.000-05:00

MySpace's popularity has always been a bit baffling to most geeks I know. It pointedly breaks just about every rule of a good online application: It's unreliable, crashes often, is horribly designed, allows most users very limited customization (the customization that is available is really just hacking)... but it's always had the power of numbers and momentum behind it.

I tried getting away once by starting a band site on Tagworld, but it never took off - all the fancy widgets and customizations were too slow and, well, geeky. And its reliability was also pretty iffy.

This weekend, though, I set up some space on ReverbNation, and it looks like we have a winner. In a nutshell, there are two reasons why it looks like it will become the site of choice for bands:

It just works. Music uploaded there plays brilliantly with little to no startup delay. It knows the names of venues and finishes them, and fills in the addresses. It automatically gives you a choice of ways to scale your pictures. The features are thoughtful and laid out well. and,
It allows you to take its pieces and use them everywhere.

This latter point is important. The people behind it have basically admitted that they're not going to just pull people away from myspace or facebook or friendster... so, you bring your ReverbNation tools to those spots and let 'em rip. For example, here are three working widgets (and by the way, feel free to use them to listen or sign up while you're here):

These pop into your MySpace profile, your blog, etc... and all stay updated if you make changes back at the mother ship. In other words, it's going to beat MySpace by taking advantage of the one thing MySpace does well - maintain scale. Bravo.

New blog

2007-06-16T15:12:00.000-05:00

My history as a blogger has been a bit uneven, and I can't promise that's going to end. However, I am pretty excited about my new venture... you'll notice the redesign here. I've started a new blog devoted to creativity in business and other theoretically stuffed-shirt, white-collar worlds, called creativiste. As of Monday, you can find it at www.creativiste.com, but for now you can check out creativiste.wordpress.com where it's being hosted.

Of course, you can still find quasi-political, George Constanza-style rants here, and bite-sized links and cell phone pics over at my Tumble blog (iafn.tumblr.com). Shoot me a message and let me know what you think.

Thanks!

Perfect for Ambushes!

2007-06-03T21:09:00.000-05:00

So, in Geneva last week, I walked by a gun shop near my hotel. Few Americans realize this, but the Swiss really like their guns. Every man is supposed to own one by law, in case the country gets invaded and their... um... neutrality is threatened, I guess. They must defend their right to not pick a side.

Anyway. This particular gun shop is close to the hotels I stay in normally when I go there, and I've walked by it before. But this time, I noticed that they were selling several "A47" model assault rifles (obviously knockoffs of the infamous AK-47), which are in my limited knowledge illegal in the US. And these guns were in printed cardboard boxes with helpful marketing information and specifications on the outside, just like the boxes in which you'd buy DVD players or Cuisinarts or whatever other household object or assault weapon you can find at your typical Macy's.

On the boxes, there was a quote in French that I didn't quite understand, except for one word. It read:

"blah blah blah AMBUSH!"

I imagine it said something like, "Great for AMBUSH!" or "Now you can avoid AMBUSH!" Switzerland may seem like a safe country, but you really never know when you're going to need your assault rifle to either execute or fend off an ambush. In the meantime, I'd recommend not invading the country, as they are neutral and clearly aim to stay that way.

Even a cavemen could... ahh, forget it.

2007-03-08T17:06:00.000-05:00

It sure must be hard being a TV executive, having to sift through mountains of shit just to get to that one can't-miss gold nugget of an idea... and, you know, sucking at it.

Wadham's World

2006-10-05T07:59:00.000-05:00

So it's been a long time since I've posted, granted. Children have been conceived, jobs have been changed, CDs have gotten done, and many other things have happened. What, or who, could get me back in the saddle?

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Dick Wadhams.

Wadhams is George Allen's campaign manager, and has turned the "art" of spin into a blunt instrument with which to beat the truth until blood comes out of its ears. Dick Wadhams is impervious to the attacks of, say, the Daily Show, because his work is so outrageous and ridiculous as to transcend sarcasm. I get better laughs scouring the Post for his quotes in the morning than I do watching Stewart and Colbert have at their victims.

This morning's examples are typical. There are three Allen-Webb articles today. (Although to be honest, the most depressing is the one that doesn't mention Wadhams, where Susan Allen relates the deep, dark, horrible story of her husband coming clean about his past. Is he a murderer? Child molester? No, she learns, it's about pop-pop, his maternal grandfather. Was he a Nazi? A collaborator? No, he was Jewish! Dear God, the shame...)

The two money quotes from Wadhams: On Webb's sudden fundraising surge:

"Liberal special-interest groups are rallying around the Hollywood movie producer and fiction novelist."

And on a mini-scandal, involving somebody who got fired from Al Weed's campaign for a southwestern Virginia House District who referred to Allen as "George 'Macacawitz' Allen":

"[The email] fits a pattern of anti-Semitic behavior [by the Democrats]."

Oh, where to start. First, the code-words. Webb is a Hollywood movie producer! And a fiction novelist! Well then, he's practically gay and Jewish! Except that, oh, I seem to remember something about the candidate who's actually from Southern California being at a huge advantage in terms of Hollywood fundraising. And that Allen's most recent fundraising report shows tons of money from groups that Wadhams doesn't think of as special interests... like the PAC of Allen's law firm (his single biggest donor), energy companies (Dallas was his fourth most lucrative metro area), and financial companies.

As for the second quote... well, it didn't take him long to switch sides of THAT fence, did it?! Just last week we were cracking jokes about pork chops, and now we're carrying the mantle for Jewish Americans? Please.

Let's put aside the question about whether Allen is a racist (short answer: well, duh), whether Webb is a chauvinist (short answer: well, do they let women box against men or play football? not yet, and certainly not in 1979). The real question is: What is going to happen to Dick Wadhams' soul when he dies?

(Man... I made it all the way through without making a Dickwad joke. Must control impulse... just a little longer... dammit. Oh well.)

More Djorkaeff

2006-07-06T22:30:00.000-05:00

But wait, there's more (from the Post):

Former France international star Youri Djorkaeff, who left the MLS's
New York Red Bulls last week ostensibly for a family emergency, was
arrested during a weekend visit to the World Cup... The [Rheinpfalz] newspaper reported Djorkaeff's detention was related to accusations
he left the scene of an accident after his car scraped another vehicle
in Kaiserslautern in late 2001.

In fairness, his agent (who happens to be his brother) does say that the family-emergency story is true; their mother is in the hospital. Obviously, going to Germany to watch a World Cup game and get arrested are what she wants out of her son...

I'm not the Youri you're looking for

2006-07-03T13:46:00.000-05:00

So former France national team midfielder Youri Djorkaeff was spotted by cameras on the sideline of the France-Brazil match on Friday, which makes sense - he was a member of the French team that won the Cup in '98, and it has been an inspirational time for French fans everywhere. That's cool.

Well, that is, unless you happen to be one of the unfortunate few who cheers or plays for the New York Red Bulls. It seems that while Djorkaeff has retired from international soccer, he is in fact still getting paid by New York's sorry MLS franchise to show up on the occasional Saturday and take a few free kicks. And he asked for a little vacation time last week to attend to an "urgent family matter". I suppose it's not totally insane to think that he wouldn't be seen in the stands of a World Cup match by anybody related to the Red Bulls - I mean, soccer's an unpopular sport here, right? - but, please. If you're going to skip out on your job, at least do it with some balls. Tell them, "I'm going to watch France play, and if you want to dock my pay or fire me or whatever, then go ahead and do it."

It's not like the guy is lacking in ego. Check this out from the Post a few months ago:

In the 15th minute, the 38-year-old Djorkaeff lifted a 32-yard
effort over the defensive wall and just beyond goalkeeper Troy
Perkins's reach. Asked how he accomplished it, the former French
national team star smiled and said, "Because I'm Youri Djorkaeff."

So Youri, a better question might be: Why did you think you'd get away with leaving your job as a soccer player with a sorry-ass sick-grandmother excuse to attend an internationally-televised soccer game? Did you think Maradona would swing by and take up all the camera time?

Pathetic

2006-06-28T09:15:00.000-05:00

This article in yesterday's Post by Dana Milbank - who would be played in his own life story by John Travolta, obviously - was funny, and then it was tragic, but finally it made me realize this: The flag-burning "debate" is perhaps the best example of dereliction of duty that has been thrown around by our Senators. In fact, I'll go one step further: Any Senator that showed up to this debate instead of doing real work, and made a statement that wasn't the equivalent of "this is ridiculous", should be fired. Fired. They are not doing their job.

Milbank points out that there was one scheduled day of debate for each incident of flag-burning that had happened this year. But given his position as a "real" journalist, he can't come out and say what we all know: This is fucking insane. If anybody else in a position of even remote authority spent this much time on idiotic symbolic issues when so many massive, pressing issues are demanding intelligent, well-considered solutions, he would obviously be relieved of his duties.

Every Republican should be fired because they're the ones in charge, setting the agenda, and they clearly can't set their priorities without making a joke of the whole endeavor. Are their supporters really stupid enough to think that Bill Frist telling stories about his fucking time in the fucking boy scouts is effective governing? They certainly seem to think so.

And the Democrats who showed up and gave this idiotic topic the time of day, not to mention the ones who voted for it, should be fired for bothering to engage this issue. Sure, Dick Durbin and Chris Dodd had witty comebacks - but the only appropriate response to this "issue" is, to paraphrase, "Sorry, but I have to be in my office working with my staff to do serious legislative work on real problems like the illegal immigration rate, entitlement program solvency, and net neutrality - not to mention keeping your party from doing more damage to our country by pursuing disastrous foreign policies, rewarding multi-billionnaire heirs with an estate tax repeal, and selling our environment off. Call me when you people pull your heads out of your asses."

Sorry this isn't more entertaining reading. Hopefully you're as pissed off as I am. Everybody involved in the upper house should be ashamed of themselves. Those of you who know me know that I actually have a great deal of faith in our system of government - I'm hardly a cynic - so reading about the cavalier attitude these people seem to have toward their responsibilities infuriates me. I hope very few incumbents survive in November, in either party.

Countries Where You Could Make the National Team, Part I

2006-06-07T08:34:00.000-05:00

My brother and his wife are staying with us for a few weeks this summer, and the other night he and I got into one of our usual late-night random conversations; this one starting on the outsized influence of Iceland's music scene relative to its small population. This got us onto the topic of very small countries, and eventually to one of our all-time favorite topics, inspired by an article on the Faroe Islands in an old World Cup program: If you wanted to play in a World Cup qualifier, what would be the best country to try and become a nationalized citizen of?

The Faroe Islands is a good starter: With a population of around 47,000 and about 16,000 men between the ages of 15 and 64, they play in European group qualifying. Their leading scorer was a professional carpenter, and they play home games in Denmark because there isn't any grass on the Faroe Islands. I think one or two players play in low-level European leagues, and the others are weekend warriors. But still, 16,000 guys is a lot of competition.

For simple odds of making the team - indeed, for sheer improbability of a place existing - you can't beat the Pitcairn Islands. Not technically an independent country - it's a territory of the UK, and it's extremely remote even by South Pacific standards - the Pitcairns have got to be the coolest small place in the world. Consider:

The total land area of the islands is about a third the size of Washington, DC - across four islands scattered across a 500-mile span of ocean southeast of Tahiti
The total population - all on the main island - is 45 people
According to the CIA World Factbook, the island's sole ethnic group is "descendants of the Bounty mutineers and their Tahitian wives" (seriously); the language, Pitcairnese, is a "mixture of an 18th century English dialect and a Tahitian dialect"; and the only religion on the island is Seventh-Day Adventist.
The total labor force, again in the Factbook's exact words, is "15 able-bodied men". In 2004 there was a major economic crisis, when a quarter of the labor force was arrested. Kinda makes you wonder what percentage of the labor force works in the police department...
The economy is based primarily on - I am not making this up - selling postage stamps to stamp collectors. Why you would need to mail something on an island of 45 people is a bit beyond me... but apparently if your country is small enough, there is enough money to be made from the world's stamp collectors (!) to sustain an economy. (Note that apparently producing stamps is a job that requires able-bodied men...)

So if you're like me, you're looking at these factoids and thinking, "now there's a country where I could totally make the national team." I mean, 15 able bodied men? I might even be able to crack the starting 11! And as a bonus, they might even have functional public policy.

But even running a small country is difficult, and the Pitcairns have their share of problems. There is a significant under-investment in infrastructure: namely, there is only one phone line and 17 individual telephones, and there is no port, per se (that is to say, you have to anchor your ship and transport stuff in and out by rowboat). Despite a healthy $750,000 in revenue a year (which makes for a reasonably high per capita income of around $17,000), they spend about $1 million a year. Even with 45 people and the UK providing defense, it's hard to balance a budget! Finally, they're struggling with deforestation as Big Log-Home-Building has cleared what was once at least several acres of beautiful undisturbed wilderness.

So, while the Pitcairns might look like a good bet for soccer-based emigration at first blush, the discerning national-team player wannabe should probably look elsewhere. Having no port and only one phone would probably get old, and my Pitcairnese is a bit rusty. (Next time, I'll try to find something outside Oceania: Montserrat, maybe?)

Don't Tread.

2006-06-01T21:09:00.000-05:00

If this doesn't get you in the mood for the World Cup, nothing will...

Two Rights, Because They Were Wrong

2006-05-21T14:15:00.000-05:00

Friends of mine are fond of talking about the 'straw men' that stand in for liberals (usually) in debates in the media (and no, I'm not just talking about Alan Colmes). While losing my lunch this afternoon reading George Will's column in the Post, I realize that the problem may be worse than we thought. Now "liberals" like Peter Beinart of TNR and "conservatives" like Will are ganging up on their newest straw man: "Progressives!"

In a role-reversed reprise of the typical John McCain passion play, Will lovingly quotes from Beinart's new book: "whatever its failings, the right at least knows that America's enemies need to be fought." He also cozies up to Beinart's characterization of these terrifying progressive straw voters in 2004, which envisions them liking Kerry not for his Vietnam service, but for his acceptability to hawkish voters. (Beinart evidently thinks progressives are not only wrong, but also profoundly poor strategists.)

This is strange, because I know a lot of progressives, and they all seem to like America. None of them are, to my knowledge, cheering for Al Qaeda. So let me be clear (and Peter and George, I hope you're listening): I have never met a person, to my recollection, that didn't think we should take military action in Afghanistan after 9/11. Many bemoaned the fact that we had let conditions get as bad as they were - arguing we should have/could have prevented the attacks - but once they were done, nobody thought we shouldn't own up to it and take care of business. Unlike CCB, many of them even thought that we should put a priority on, oh, I don't know, catching the fucking people responsible.

This is an irritating strain of the public discourse: Beinart - who, like Will, has recently issued a massive recantation explaining that "he made a mistake in supporting the Iraq War" - conflates not supporting the war in Iraq (or, as I prefer to phrase it, "being 100% correct!") with being a pacifist who is against military action. In his calculation, being right at the time meant you didn't have the right outlook and were anti-American, but being against it now just means you made an understandable logical error; it's OK to be against the war now, but it isn't OK to have been against it then. Having been against it means that you don't have the will to fight America's real enemies. His dismissal of "Deaniacs" shows as much - Dean's own position was for intervening in Afghanistan, and against intervening in Iraq. Like I said, 100% correct.

Will and Beinart's arguments both amount to little more than name-calling and beating the straw progressive they've constructed. (I mean, hell, just about the only thing I liked about Kerry was the "heroism with a conscience" streak that he showed by courageously fighting in Vietnam, and then courageously opposing the war; and I don't mean "liked" as in, "thought it made him more electable", I mean that I actually admired him for his actions.) In my experience, the "progressives" that they demonize have generally spent much more of their time and energy in service to this country than either of these blowhards. They can define liberal, conservative, and progressive however they want - but the simple truth is that they were still both wrong, and they both continue to resent the people who were right.

Finally, a Fair and Balanced White House.

2006-05-19T09:48:00.000-05:00

If you haven't read this quote (via Froomkin) from Tony Snow a few days ago yet, it's worth a laugh, and a cry (emphasis mine):

Chuck Hagel, as you may recall, made a fair amount of news over the weekend when he first said that -- let's see -- 'Well, I want to listen to the details and I want to listen to the President,' said Senator Hagel -- he said this on 'This Week' on a competing network.

Couldn't have said it better myself...

Stop Acting So Southern.

2006-05-18T21:44:00.000-05:00

Every year, around September or so, we see a remarkable phenomenon among Democrats. Normally well-adjusted, well-spoken, and well-groomed politicians suddenly start to act strange. They suddenly start to really like hunting and NASCAR; they pepper their speeches with y'alls and start to talk about ephemeral concepts like "real values"; and sometimes they'll wear camo, or cowboy boots, or both.

One could charitably call this "playing to" Southerners. One could also call it pandering. Whatever you call it, there finally seems to be a set of Dems calling bullshit, and for all the right reasons. These two writers - writing about the religious right's political power, and on the media's coverage of the electoral power of the South - both come to the same conclusion:

Stop it.

Stop pretending.

You're not fooling anybody, you're not winning new votes, and you're just alienating those people that might be interested if you weren't such a goddamn panderer. (Hell, even George Will is onto this meme, after a weekend of watching Hillary and McCain both embarrass themselves in the name of attracting "values voters".)

The basic argument in all of these cases is that the (ahem) "values voter" - or, if you will, the evangelical Christian conservative who probably lives in the South - is not going to vote for you, Mr. Democrat. Not ever. But the good news is that, as powerful as that voting bloc may be, they're still a minority, even in their own states. There are plenty of moderates and liberals, even in states dominated by conservatives. When you posture for the right, you lose your credibility with the people who will vote for you, and turn off those who might because you look like an opportunistic publicity hound.

Those evangelicals are wrong about a great many things. You know it. I know it. And it will pain them to hear you say it - which is exactly why you should. But you will win votes everywhere if you say it to them in person, and preferably on camera.

Maybe the Cylons can help.

2006-05-18T08:01:00.000-05:00

Oh, John Conyers. I'm impressed with the senior-statesman act, too.

But wouldn't it feel better to just come out and say what the real problem is? I mean, look who would take over.

We can't just impeach people until we get to the Secretary of Education, can we?

Don't Be Evil

2006-05-17T08:30:00.000-05:00

I'm a Google fiend. I use Gmail, Google Talk, Google's RSS reader, Google Desktop, a Google personalized homepage, Google Maps, and probably several other products that I can't think of offhand. UPDATE: Oh, right. Blogger. Duh.

The inherent creepiness of Gmail has generally worn off on me. I actually find it kind of entertaining when the search engine badly mismatches my interests, and generally I feel protected by the anonymity of relative insignificance. But the new NSA scandal has me reconsidering Gmail. Suddenly, a little gentle data mining for ad relevance doesn't seem so gentle.

I mean, let's say my band plays a show somewhere in Pentagon City, and I happen to mention to a friend via Gmail or chat that we just "bombed". Come on... that has got to be showing up on an NSA computer somewhere, whether Google likes it or not.

Although on the other hand... it would be fun to see what kind of ads pop up next to that message...

A Jackson in Neverland

2006-05-16T22:30:00.000-05:00

Help me with this: In all of the coverage of HUD secretary Alphonso Jackson's ~~anecdote~~ ~~anecdotal story~~ lie to a group of would-be contractors in Dallas, the press seems to be missing a serious issue. His story was a thriller: In a nutshell, he said that "The way you make me feel is simple: Look the wrong way at my President, and you better beat it. It doesn't matter if you're black or white." He's bad.

Now, as you'd imagine, this is illegal; but Jackson is a smooth criminal. He simply claimed that, after looking at the man in the mirror, he realized that his story wasn't true. Ostensibly, this would mean that he wasn't guilty, in this particular instance, of a serious criminal offense. Good enough for Commander Cuckoo Bananas (thanks Jason!), and good enough to distract the press.

But lost in the minutae of this story has been the fact that, true or false, the obvious intent of Jackson's tall tale was to dissuade these contractors from expressing and, perhaps, holding these low opinions of the administration. Judge for yourself:

"He didn't get the contract," Jackson told the group, according to the
newspaper. "Why should I reward someone who doesn't like the president,
so they can use funds to try to campaign against the president? Logic
says they don't get the contract. That's the way I believe."

I'm not a lawyer, but that seems pretty sketchy to me. I have read at least a half dozen articles on this from the mainstream press, and haven't seen a word about that - they all simply focus on whether the story was true or not. Why?

The origins of otis...

2006-05-16T10:13:00.000-05:00

Teh internets, as you know, are all-powerful. Here is a demonstration.

As you are undoubtedly aware if you're reading this, I was in a band called "otis wants bread" once upon a time.

A few days ago, I received this fascinating message:

On a slow work day, googling "Otis Wants Bread" revealed your http://mp3.washingtonpost.com/bands/paul_kamran.shtml
site.

I graduated UVA in 1984 and am pleased to see someone picked up the OWB phenomenon.

Do you know the origin of the grafitti?
I would assume so, but if not, would you like to?

I knew Otis.

Naturally, I said, "yes". Here is the full story I got:

"Otis" was a Zete a couple of years ahead of me. Nicknamed "Otis"
because of an awkward resemblance to the Town Drunk on "Andy Griffith"

An unassuming guy, never caused a whole lot of trouble (unlike the rest of us).

One night at dinner, he went back to the house cook, Thomas, and asked for some toast.
Thomas
said we were out of bread, and for some reason, the normally
mild-mannered "Otis" went off on a rant, about how all he wanted was
some bread . . . sort of like Suicidal Tendencies "All I Wanted was a
Pepsi"

Everybody in the dining room started chanting "Otis wants bread! Otis wants bread!"

Somebody (I will try to find out who) wrote it on a desk the next day in Old Cabell and the phenomenon began.

I've personally written it in bar bathrooms in Amsterdam, London, Nice, Madrid, and Singapore, among others, I'm sure.

Not the most exciting story, but . . . there you have it.

Good luck with your life.

A little confusing, maybe. (As my former bandmate AJ pointed out, "I still don't understand how it became a 'phenomenon'"...)... but it's fair to say that what was blissfully unknown to us since we pulled our band name off a bathroom wall in Rouss Hall 13 years ago suddenly became known, through no effort of our own. All hail teh internets...