It's rough; I'm the lone authentic drunk person. Wish I could do more.

The above was written last night. This and below in the aftermath.

Learning the lessons of Friday night, I engaged myself with strong drink early, and at a retail price. I'd played host and East Village guide to my friend Jessica -- a rich tradtion that I pass on with relish from my Aunt's first welcoming me to New York. Jess is engaged to my friend Dave. Sometime in October they'll cease to be living in sin. We ate a great meal at Acme and ended up at a newish Jazz joint somewhere in alphabet city where they charged around $10 for a glass of whisky, which is what they're allowed to do now I suppose.

The city is changing. There are lots of new building around, most quite ugly and out of place. There are police barriers around the Astor Place Cube. The trajectory was clear when I left, but the arc has continued high and long.

Learning the lessons of Friday night I braced myself with a few large bottles of Pabst to go with my Greenpoint Chinese food, and purchased a half-pint of Beam en route to the bar; guzzled brown-bag style on the walk and finished off seruptitously in a back booth. It was my friend Kristi's birthday, so the crowd was good and friendly. People I'd not seen who I pestered with whisky quesitons and oogled on the sly. I oogle now. It's another thing I've picked up.

And when I got bored I called good old Julia who was a few blocks away at a Lawerly apartment party. I came a-calling and spent too long talking to some girl before going up on the roof to get some air, where I somehow spilled my party cup of wine all over my white thermal shirt, which sort of put an end to that conversation. Destroyed my credibilty I believe. It was a frustrating affair anyway. Better time talking with Henning in any case; I attempted to give a piggyback ride on the way to the L-train and collapsed, skinning my knee and bruising my left eye a bit.

The subway and walk home are a bit of a blur, but I'm confident it included Palace Fried Chicken because I can still pick it out of my teeth now. And I now know for a fact that there's a leak in my Thermarest.

What have we learned? That the patterns of behavior you remember still exist, but are potentially more expensive. That people you know are in medical school or getting married or working real jobs. That your friends may or may not still be in touch all that much over the years. That the feeling you had of wanting to grow up a bit when you left was held pretty much in common and everyone still wants to change their lives. That it hasn't happened yet and that it doesn't feel like it's in a hurry to.

If you are sad and lonely, and have no place to go
call me up, sweet baby, and bring along some dough
and we'll go honky tonkin'...

It's rough; I'm the lone authentic drunk person. Wish I could do more.

The above was written last night. This and below in the aftermath.

Learning the lessons of Friday night, I engaged myself with strong drink early, and at a retail price. I'd played host and East Village guide to my friend Jessica -- a rich tradtion that I pass on with relish from my Aunt's first welcoming me to New York. Jess is engaged to my friend Dave. Sometime in October they'll cease to be living in sin. We ate a great meal at Acme and ended up at a newish Jazz joint somewhere in alphabet city where they charged around $10 for a glass of whisky, which is what they're allowed to do now I suppose.

The city is changing. There are lots of new building around, most quite ugly and out of place. There are police barriers around the Astor Place Cube. The trajectory was clear when I left, but the arc has continued high and long.

Learning the lessons of Friday night I braced myself with a few large bottles of Pabst to go with my Greenpoint Chinese food, and purchased a half-pint of Beam en route to the bar; guzzled brown-bag style on the walk and finished off seruptitously in a back booth. It was my friend Kristi's birthday, so the crowd was good and friendly. People I'd not seen who I pestered with whisky quesitons and oogled on the sly. I oogle now. It's another thing I've picked up.

And when I got bored I called good old Julia who was a few blocks away at a Lawerly apartment party. I came a-calling and spent too long talking to some girl before going up on the roof to get some air, where I somehow spilled my party cup of wine all over my white thermal shirt, which sort of put an end to that conversation. Destroyed my credibilty I believe. It was a frustrating affair anyway. Better time talking with Henning in any case; I attempted to give a piggyback ride on the way to the L-train and collapsed, skinning my knee and bruising my left eye a bit.

The subway and walk home are a bit of a blur, but I'm confident it included Palace Fried Chicken because I can still pick it out of my teeth now. And I now know for a fact that there's a leak in my Thermarest.

What have we learned? That the patterns of behavior you remember still exist, but are potentially more expensive. That people you know are in medical school or getting married or working real jobs. That your friends may or may not still be in touch all that much over the years. That the feeling you had of wanting to grow up a bit when you left was held pretty much in common and everyone still wants to change their lives. That it hasn't happened yet and that it doesn't feel like it's in a hurry to.

If you are sad and lonely, and have no place to go
call me up, sweet baby, and bring along some dough
and we'll go honky tonkin'...

As I've written before, I've been mightily impressed by the "Dark, Sexy, Political Sci-Fi Show" that is the modern remake of BattleStar Galactica. Now I'm mightily impressed by the people in charge of marketing it.

I've already watched all the episodes, but for anyone deterred by the complexities of bittorrent, the Sci-Fi channel has put the first episode online, commercial free.

This is rather unprecidented and strikes me as really smart. In addition to putting a whole episode up, there's extensive documentary material online as well. It would seem that the television industry is showing more signs of innovation than the film business. I'm just happy that someone is finally pushing the envelope.

It's a hot question these days.

All I can add is that from my experience on campaign 2004, people who blogged are generally more ego-driven, more likely to enjoy hearing themselves talk about politics. I'm not excerpted from that (I often epitomize it). For whatever reason, Women in America seem to do that less.

On the other hand, I saw more women managing yahoo groups, moderating discussion forums, and keeping up actual organizational connections. I won't speculate on why this is, but I will note that these activities often produced much more political and social value than blogging did.

Without wading too deeply into pseudo-sociology, I think there's potentially something gendered about the attention-centric ethos of pure personal publishing (read me! read me!) vs. the outcome-centric ethos of organizing (lets get something accomplished). There's also something potentially gendered in the difference, for instance, between "outward facing" web publishing (e.g. the man-heavy blogosphere) and more "inward facing" ventures (e.g. livejournal, which has a lot more prominant female participants).

My gut and recent experience suggests that women online seem more driven by connections and conversations; men by recognition and reputation. That could be an insightful view into the heart of the American Equation, or it could be a temporary blip in the development of online culture. Or I could be totally wrong.

While I'm back east (from now until sometime in mid May), I'm intinerant. I'm a bum. A computer consultant bum. Accordingly, here are digimatized photos of the places I've slept:

Frank's New Spot:

Me 'n' Frank's Bikes:

Tressler's Vacant Pad:

I think this is potentially interesting, so I'll keep it up.

Final vote time over at the principles project. Next weekend there will be a real-life conference here in NYC to take the next steps. It looks like I may be heading up future web initiatives for a while. Tally ho!

I like the lively debate that's going on here. It's really gratifying to spark comments.

Part of my wide and hazy ambition for the future is to construct an alternative media empire which can potentially turn you and me into 21st-Century folk heroes.

Who's with me?

Picking up on my last post:

You do what you do because you like doing it. Because you like doing it you do it well. Because you do it well, it's valuable to other people.

In a clinical analysis, there's no real need for thankless labor anymore, though with our industreal-era habit of massive over-consumption quite a bit of it still exists. As a society we're trapped in a dead-end way of thinking, but the current People In Charge are deadly afraid of allowing different ideas to be taken seriously. Such an undertaking, while perhaps getting closer to the truth, might jeopardize their position.

An example: in my previous post on health care, my friend A-Stock (also named Alex, but another friend named Alex already commented) wonders how a better system might come into being. My other friend Nick responds in girthly fashion and is, I think, essentially correct. But I want to kind of elaborate on what's going on here.

First of all, the question of paradigm. In response to the observation that Americans spent more than twice per-citizen on health care as any other nation in the world, yet still manage to have middling life expectancy and close to 50 million citizens with no coverage, Alex asks "How do you pay for [health care for more people]?"

The answer is we're already paying for it. In fact, we're paying double. The question is not how does one pay to get quality health care for all citizens. The question is who do you pay.

Now, what do I suggest? I suggest we not be shy about picking up a good idea and implement a standard single-payer system for all general coverage: preventative care, dental, and anything you need to stay alive at a minimum. We can haggle over "quality of life" costs (hip replacement, viagra, etc) all day long, but covering the basics is a no-brainer and there's no reason not to do it.

I suggest we call health insurence what it is: a trickle-up system of extracting wealth from working/middle-class families and seniors. Insurance companies are out to make money, and the market doesn't have any problem using human suffering and weakness to drive profits. Remember the market doesn't give a shit about people or society. Is it right for health insurance profits to skyrocket as medical coverage declines?

I suggest we remove inefficient and corrupt profit-taking beureaucracies from health care administration as well. Medicare runs about 3% in administrative overhead. HMOs are somewhere between 4 to 15 times as wasteful. Why are we tolerating this drain on our economy?

I also suggest we allow collective bargaining with pharmaceutical companies on drug prices. To make up for any lost profits, we can prohibit marketing and doctor-lobbying for prescription medications. Free speech is not a right to advertise, and prescription medications should be recommended by doctors, not hyped directly to consumers. The US and New Zeland are the only countries that allow this practice; maybe we should rethink it. Cutting the ad budget will remove about $2.5B in costs for the pharmaceutical industry, which should provide a healthy boost to their bottom line.

To sum up, I suggest we give businesses an effective tax break and provide workers with a bigger paycheck and more peace of mind by making health care efficient and decoupling it from employment. Our immigrant population won't wreck the single-payer equation. This problem can be solved. Even if we're not as efficient as the Germans or Japanese, we can still give workers and businesses a boost to their bottom line while simultaniously providing coverage to the millions of uninsured.

In today's political environment, this is a somewhat radical ideas, but it shouldn't be. It's just the truth.

Update: J-Chow (Gotta Drop A Blog), the voice of reason:

yes, something needs to be done, but the solution is not simple because it involves a large number of people giving up power, perks, control, and money. it also involves people (the general population) becoming less apathetic and focused on others (instead of our own selves). this will be the hardest part of the process.

I too don't think the solution is simple. I think there are ways to innovate. For instance, why not have single-payer coverage for general health care with private coverage (maybe even "Health Savings Accounts") for elective and quality-of-life costs. Couple that with a redoubled investment in R&D, total transparency in accounting, and a system of oversight and governence that doesn't put CEOs, bureaucrats (corporate or government), politicians or union bosses in the drivers seat, and that's getting to sound pretty sweet. I'd settle in the short term for not having health care tied to a job, bringing down costs so give small businesses a break, and covering people who are really in pretty desperate need.

Picking up on my last post:

You do what you do because you like doing it. Because you like doing it you do it well. Because you do it well, it's valuable to other people.

In a clinical analysis, there's no real need for thankless labor anymore, though with our industreal-era habit of massive over-consumption quite a bit of it still exists. As a society we're trapped in a dead-end way of thinking, but the current People In Charge are deadly afraid of allowing different ideas to be taken seriously. Such an undertaking, while perhaps getting closer to the truth, might jeopardize their position.

An example: in my previous post on health care, my friend A-Stock (also named Alex, but another friend named Alex already commented) wonders how a better system might come into being. My other friend Nick responds in girthly fashion and is, I think, essentially correct. But I want to kind of elaborate on what's going on here.

First of all, the question of paradigm. In response to the observation that Americans spent more than twice per-citizen on health care as any other nation in the world, yet still manage to have middling life expectancy and close to 50 million citizens with no coverage, Alex asks "How do you pay for [health care for more people]?"

The answer is we're already paying for it. In fact, we're paying double. The question is not how does one pay to get quality health care for all citizens. The question is who do you pay.

Now, what do I suggest? I suggest we not be shy about picking up a good idea and implement a standard single-payer system for all general coverage: preventative care, dental, and anything you need to stay alive at a minimum. We can haggle over "quality of life" costs (hip replacement, viagra, etc) all day long, but covering the basics is a no-brainer and there's no reason not to do it.

I suggest we call health insurence what it is: a trickle-up system of extracting wealth from working/middle-class families and seniors. Insurance companies are out to make money, and the market doesn't have any problem using human suffering and weakness to drive profits. Remember the market doesn't give a shit about people or society. Is it right for health insurance profits to skyrocket as medical coverage declines?

I suggest we remove inefficient and corrupt profit-taking beureaucracies from health care administration as well. Medicare runs about 3% in administrative overhead. HMOs are somewhere between 4 to 15 times as wasteful. Why are we tolerating this drain on our economy?

I also suggest we allow collective bargaining with pharmaceutical companies on drug prices. To make up for any lost profits, we can prohibit marketing and doctor-lobbying for prescription medications. Free speech is not a right to advertise, and prescription medications should be recommended by doctors, not hyped directly to consumers. The US and New Zeland are the only countries that allow this practice; maybe we should rethink it. Cutting the ad budget will remove about $2.5B in costs for the pharmaceutical industry, which should provide a healthy boost to their bottom line.

To sum up, I suggest we give businesses an effective tax break and provide workers with a bigger paycheck and more peace of mind by making health care efficient and decoupling it from employment. Our immigrant population won't wreck the single-payer equation. This problem can be solved. Even if we're not as efficient as the Germans or Japanese, we can still give workers and businesses a boost to their bottom line while simultaniously providing coverage to the millions of uninsured.

In today's political environment, this is a somewhat radical ideas, but it shouldn't be. It's just the truth.

Update: J-Chow (Gotta Drop A Blog), the voice of reason:

yes, something needs to be done, but the solution is not simple because it involves a large number of people giving up power, perks, control, and money. it also involves people (the general population) becoming less apathetic and focused on others (instead of our own selves). this will be the hardest part of the process.

I too don't think the solution is simple. I think there are ways to innovate. For instance, why not have single-payer coverage for general health care with private coverage (maybe even "Health Savings Accounts") for elective and quality-of-life costs. Couple that with a redoubled investment in R&D, total transparency in accounting, and a system of oversight and governence that doesn't put CEOs, bureaucrats (corporate or government), politicians or union bosses in the drivers seat, and that's getting to sound pretty sweet. I'd settle in the short term for not having health care tied to a job, bringing down costs so give small businesses a break, and covering people who are really in pretty desperate need.

Shorter Atrios:

It's not about your ego. It's about getting something accomplished. Do it for the love of the game.

Which is why I much prefer his and Markos' style to that of Anna Marie "I write so people will pay attention to me" Cox (aka Wonkette); it's more generous, not to mention more substantive.

I believe in a world of Quality and Generosity: you do what you do because you like to do it; because you like to do it you do it well; because you do it well it's probably helpful for other people. Someone's still got to take out the trash, but there are people who enjoy cleaning too.