politics

Wicked cool.

This SaysMeTV site is potentially a hugely game-changing service. Letting normal people advertise (and having community funding around it) could have a radically democratizing effect on the media space, because you can drive a top-notch 21st century marketing campaign from your basement now.

Update: excellent response from Obama. Political Judo, even. If he’s able to consistently push back like this, they should have no problems.

So right in line with my post on anti-Obama smear emails below, a new high-profile advert from the McCain campaign:

Paris and Britney. What did I tell you, Whipple?

The real hammer-points here, of course, are Taxes and Oil. I don’t think the tax argument will really affect many swing voters (there are some who were already convinced, but most realize that people making a couple hundred K can afford to pony up for America), but Obama and the Dems in general need a coherent answer to this drilling nonsense. It’s working, from what I can see, even though it’s bogus and people know it. They’ve turned it into a battle for leadership: even if it’s not going to do any good, the Republicans are doing something and the Democrats are against doing something, etc.

At a certain point here, I’m going to have to get myself into the fray. As I’ve been relating to most of my political cohort, I’m not “sold” on Obama, in the sense that I’m not a true believer. However, I think he’d be a hell of a president, and I want him to win, and I can give you some pretty good reasons why.

Via Atrios (the coolest dude in the ‘sphere), we discover that the good satirists over at Sadly, No! have the latest Obama smear email. It’s a doozy, digging into Vince Foster territory; the death list.

The themes here are somewhat predictable: black nationalism, drug ties, FBI informants, radical Islam (9/11, event) and, of course, the ultimate threat of an African Calligula ruling the roost, seducing our milky-skinned virginal lasses with his carribean reefer and dark-continent jazz guitar:

The following is a partial list of deaths of persons connected to Barack HUSSEIN Obama during his time inside the United States. Read the list and judge for yourself…

…

MERCEDES HUGLEY, one of Obama’s many white, female conquests while at Harvard. Filed sexual assault charges against Obama for date rape in 1990. Because “date rape” was not considered a crime like it is today, she ended up dropping the charges. Two years later, she was found dead of an apparent cocaine overdose.

Just in case anyone’s confused, this is, naturally, bullshit.

However, it’s another example of why this election is going to be so awesome. It’s going to be like that clay you put on a bee sting to pull out the toxins. It will be hilarious, tragic, and ultimately (hopefully) very healing.

But seriously, “Mercedes Hugely?” You’d think they’d at least make up a name that was a bit more believably WASP-y, like, say Keelin Isabelle Nelson.

That’s right, Whipple: Barack HUSSEIN Obama’s already been there. Walking Eagle, the natives call him. Think about it.

Things are churning here. The Netroots Nation scene continues to evolve. It’s a younger crowd every year it seems, though still wonky and sometimes a bit paranoid (the cute blond girl I chatted with complained of accusations of being a Republican plant), but overall everyone looks good. People have lost weight and look healthy; they know they’re winning, even if the win is questionable and the progress seems too slow.

A great find has been hanging w/the coolkids behind Music For Democracy, which is shockingly familiar, and fun. I also got to play Phil Donahue — microphone man — in a nice little “Dean to Obama” session. You might have seen my somewhat poofy hair on C-Span there.

It all makes me consider my own future. This world is one I’ve grown ever more distant from over the past four years, and a world in which I feel like I’ve let a lot of people down, or at least not realized the great expectations that I and others helped to engender. For instance, we evangelized Drupal as a platform technology which helped break up the DC tech oligarchy and drive “the .org boom,” but ultimately that promise remains unfulfilled, and our personal interests become diffused, focused on other things. The technology is better than ever, but our crucial human energy is missing, and so the value remains undelivered.

As I said before, it feels like my immediate first-degree network is coming up in the world, starting families, careers, etc. As I said before, it’s a wonderful thing, but I feel the spread, the phenomena of “continental drift” as my Pa used to say.

I realize the impossibility of holding on to the past. In truth there are more people I love and cherish that could ever be knit together directly. I just worry that in the midst of everything everyone will just slip slide away, that I’ll say stuck where I am and the distances will continue to grow.

It’s been an interesting couple years. It’ll be interesting times ahead I’m sure. What’s next is unclear beyond the frenzy of the moment, but looking out over the hot Texas plains lit up with ghosts of past and future, my feet itch to move again.

And that’s the rub. I can’t ramble forever, and there are more people hitched to my waggon than ever before. I’ve done a lot of things, but I’ve yet to sense that anything’s really been accomplished. In some dark, low, hungover moments it feels like failure, but in better times it feels like mountains beyond mountains. Not to compare myself to Paul Farmer, but the capital-t Truth is that there’s always work to be done, and songs to be finished (and it keeps coming until the day it stops).

Anyway, existential ennui aside, good BBQ is a blessing, and even though there are lame-ass hipsters who stand around cross-armed at the late-night psychedelic pop show (though they get physically confrontational in defense of their posture, which is interesting and I back down), Austin is an awesome city. I wish I could spend a week or two here.

There’s a new group — backed by unions and fronted by Elizabeth Edwards — to put big pressure on Congress to actually for real do something about healthcare. I agreed to be spammed.

They’ve been talking about a big grassroots campaign push as well. That’ll be somewhat important during the election, and very important should the election go well. I’ll be keeping tabs in addition to getting spammed. Maybe you should too?

Joe Felice is blowin’ up bigtime. This was on the frontpage of youtube.com, and is smart and clever to boot. Go Joe!

Tom Jefferson ten days before the 50th 4th, and his own death, too sick to join the party:

I should, indeed, with peculiar delight, have met and exchanged there congratulations personally with the small band, the remnant of that host of worthies, who joined with us on that day, in the bold and doubtful election we were to make for our country, between submission or the sword; and to have enjoyed with them the consolatory fact, that our fellow citizens, after half a century of experience and prosperity, continue to approve the choice we made.

May it be to the world, what I believe it will be, (to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all,) the Signal of arousing men to burst the chains, under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings & security of self-government. That form which we have substituted, restores the free right to the unbounded exercise of reason and freedom of opinion. All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man.

The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of god. These are grounds of hope for others. For ourselves, let the annual return of this day forever refresh our recollections of these rights, and an undiminished devotion to them.

I added paragraphs and capitalized sentences for readability. Nice sentiment.

I’m my own quest for self-governance, I’ve gotten spread too thin again. The muscles on the lower half of my right eye socket are now twitching off and on — a few weeks ago it was the other side — which I take to be a bad sign. But there’s light at the end of this tunnel, and a baseball game this evening.

Better days ahead.

Funny!

This election is going to be kind of kick-ass.

The partisan jab; way ahead of it’s time.

And holy shit, looking for a good url to link my mom’s name to, I found this old gem:

Whether it’s a pitcher of beer, smoking a bowl or compulsively shopping, many people have felt the effects of unbreakable habits. One New York University theater group travels the country provoking discussions about addictive behaviors.

Quick Fix, a reality-based theater group, will hold performances at 7 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday in the EMU Ballroom. Free tickets for students are available at the EMU Ticket Office.

During the 1999-00 school year, Quick Fix began as a project at the New York University Tisch School of the Arts, said Josh Koenig, an actor with the group. He said the year-long project started when a theater class at the New York University conducted more than 100 interviews with students, faculty, lawyers, advertising executives, tobacco executives and people on the street. Then, they put those interviews into a performance piece.

Man, you gotta click through to see our old B&W publicity photo though. That was some excellent stuff. I paid my rent from acting with that!