It's Heating Up

The 2020 Democrats' Principles Project is picking up steam. It's a gradual build (as you'd expect it to be), but the web team has been creating shaolin-style java widgets, and the outreach people logging long hours in the clinches to get the word out on the wire. I zipped in to make some comments on the 2nd draft, and day later going back I'm one of 17 comments in most cases. That's heartening to see.

If you've got a stake in progressive politics going forward, I suggest you log on in and drop a comment. Who knows; maybe you'll underwrite the next great slogan of the Left. Lord knows it can't hurt to take a few more shots at it.

Online gamers engage in virtual civil disobedience in the realm of Worlds of Warcraft. I don't play, but i find the phenomena fascinating. Also, check the warning text from the admins:

Attention: Gathering on a realm with intent to hinder gameplay is considered griefing and will not be tolerated. If you are here for the Warrior protest, please log off and return to playing on your usual realm.

Minus the game-speak, this sounds exactly like what you hear cops say when people lie down in traffic to protest a war.

Online gamers engage in virtual civil disobedience in the realm of Worlds of Warcraft. I don't play, but i find the phenomena fascinating. Also, check the warning text from the admins:

Attention: Gathering on a realm with intent to hinder gameplay is considered griefing and will not be tolerated. If you are here for the Warrior protest, please log off and return to playing on your usual realm.

Minus the game-speak, this sounds exactly like what you hear cops say when people lie down in traffic to protest a war.

The buzz around the water cooler is that Howard Dean has basically locked up the Chair of the Democratic Party. That's cool. I would have preferred him to be president, but given how things went down this is a good thing. It means, at the very least, that the Ass party is going to re-orient itself, hopefully significantly. My hope with Dean is that he's got the wherewithal to restructure the party, and to not make doing so an occasion to consolidate his own power. That's not a faint hope either; I actually believe he will do it, but I don't know any more than you about what he actually plans on doing.

One thing that occurs to me now is that the kids from Gen Dean might be ripe to drive a revitalization of the Young Dems. We need some action for the youth. The kids voted well, but there are ominous winds blowing in many parts of the country.

You know what's good? The new BattleStar Galactica. I snagged some of it online (no cable or TV for the Koenig) as I've been looking for entertainment and Zephyr mentioned she liked it. It's pretty decent. I have a giant soft spot for good sci-fi but most everything I've seen coming out lately has been dreck. This is the best stuff since Star Trek w/Patrick Stewart (which is the current high water mark for televised sci-fi content).

I also have the benefit of no commercials, watching a rip off SkyOne (UK TV), but I think the cutting may have removed a few scenes. Either that, or the producers are playing with the form of a serial television series by inserting information into the "previously on BattleStar Galactica" bits that wasn't actually in the previous episode. I actually kind of hope it's that, because it works as long as you roll with it, and it would be a novel use of the form, which I'm all about.

UPDATE: Mike comments in from the offices of the Hearst corporation with this resource for anyone looking to catch up, a television without pity recap. It does appear they pull some content from the miniseries into (which I'm also downloading now), but it's also clear after watching four episodes that they're also playing with the dimension of time in telling the story. In particular, the opening introduction always features a fast-cut montage of images from the episode to come, and there are also other elements of foreshadowing that let the viewer in on certain plot elements the characters themselves are ignorant of. Quite interesting.

It's my kind of show; heavy on character, psychology, metaphysical and philosphical themes -- the true value of science fiction -- and the production and acting are mostly above average. Edward James Olmos is approching old master status, and it's nice to see him get a chance to play a leading role that doesn't revolve around him being Latino. The rest are up-and-comers. This Katee Sackhoff (from Oregon) stands out w/sass and unconventional good looks, but the whole ensemble seems to know what they're doing.

I never saw the old shows or movie, just a memory of the faded '70s video box at the rental place from when I was a kid, but this seems to be a worthy ressurection.

Asshole bastard motherfucker net-vandals have decyphered how to spam trackbacks, wanting to advertize poker. Or maybe that's a front; seems an awful lot of trouble to get people to play your version of Texas Hold'em online. Well, it is the new American obsession. On the other hand, it could be an identity theft scam.

Other than that, people are milling about El Rio after dollar drink night, so I won't get to sleep yet. It's a weekly ritual to overhear 10 to 50 boozy conversations on Mondays.

For my part, I'm feeling pretty good. Joe's giving me a little padding time in the apartment so I can pack and plan in a more leisurely fashion.

I'm starting to think things might work out yet. I'm starting to feel my cultural sense returning; the tingling tickle of creativity on the rise. I've got plenty of stabs to make. Hunter didn't get on the trail of the Hells Angels until he was 27 -- and then it was another year before anything Really Big was published. There's time.

You see, in this country we creative types are conditioned a bit to expect (or shoot for) some kind of great success pretty early on. It can feel like a dissapointment when you're 25 and you feel you haven't "made it." Of course, that's just our great cult of youth at work. In reality, very few people amount to much at a tender age, and many of those who do are warped by their success. My own ambition is far to weak and diffused to give me anything more than the occasional throb of worry over missing some kind of boat. Truth is, I don't see anyone doing something Big that I feel I could have done, so I'm not really worried about it. My day will come, or else I'll just be happy and productive. Either way, I'm on a decient trajectory.

I've been following this story with some interest, and this worries me:

An Arabic television channel aired a videotape Monday purporting to show insurgents firing a missile that downed a British transport plane in Iraq, and London said 10 people were missing, believed dead.

My closest personal attachment to the war at the moment is my friend JD from high school. He flys as a Loadmaster on a C-130. He's supposedly on his last tour in the Middle East (number 7 if you can believe it) before being re-stationed stateside to do training. I hope those orders hold up. If the latest scuttlebutt about how they're dealing with troop shortages holds any water it looks like my man might get a reprieve from the front lines -- someone will need to train those desk-jockeys -- and by the looks of it not a minute too soon.

So this doesn't bode well for my friend, and it doesn't bode well for the rest of our people over there either. Whatever else you might call them, the Insurgents aren't stupid. They've been attacking suplly lines since day one, and from what I can gather, the air link -- largely supplied by C-130s -- has grown in importance as there are no truly safe truck routes in many areas. If the Insurgents have found access to a steady supply of SAMs, things are going to get much tighter over there. Here's hoping it doesn't.

Doing good out here. Things are in motion. I have transit arrangements from Oakland to NYC on the 15th (arriving butt-ass early on the 16th) and from Boston back on the 19th of May. I may bounce back between now and then, but the only certainty is to see my sister graduate from college, then return to this coast to load up for the road.

On that front, Luke got a truck. Off e-bay. Oh yeah. He's flying to Phoenix, AZ next weekend to pick it up and drive it back. The weekend of the 12th/13th we'll drive it up to Westhaven where it will be stored until May.

Things are shaping up. I spent the night in the Sunset with Carrie -- watched Eddie Izzard and had some ice cream -- and today instead of rushing home to work as I'd planned I took off through Golden Gate park on what turned out to be a nice three-hour ride through the swankier parts of SF.

In spite of my obvious hunger to leave, I'll miss this place; looking forward to a nice long goodbye.

The vote in Iraq seems to have gone as good as anyone could have expected, and better than pessimists predicted. That's cool. You can't knock democracy, even in its protoplasmic form. Chris Albriton has his observations from the street.

I'm inclined to point out that in spite of a fair amount of polling day violence ("a few dozen deaths" the wires report), the actual machenery of balloting seems to work better in the middle of a warzone than in fucking Ohio:

The predicted low turnout in Anbar, a hotspot of Sunni resistance to the American occupation, was exceeded to such an extent that extra voting materials had to be rushed to outlying villages, where long lines were formed at polling stations, Mr. Ayar said.

What a novel idea! When long lines form, extra voting materials are rushed to the spot of trouble. Polls close on time, no one walks away. In Ohio this year, people waited until 4 in the goddamn morning to vote.

Not to get off on a tangent, but Kenneth Blackwell should go to prison. I'm deadly serious. He should be put in a public stockade and grade school children should be bussed in from far and wide to pummel him with rotten fruit as a lesson in civics. However, since his tactic helped put his bosses over the top, he's more likely to get heavy backing in his run for Governor 2006, shades of his predicessor Katherine Harris.

Anyway, bully for Iraq on having a relatively orderly election. The question is whether the government elected will be able to siginificantly improve things. I think progress is going to continue to be slow, and hinges on whether or not the Sunni population will consider this government legitimate. If so, then there's hope. If not, then I don't see much light at the end of the tunnel.

As for us and our Troops; we'll keep spending billions and loosing thousands every year for a while yet, I think. The major question here is whether or not the Insurgents momentum is dulled by the elections, and whether or not they are able to secure access to more powerful arms. The weakness of the US Occupation is its supply lines, and if they are able to find a way to bring down our air transports -- e.g. if this starts happening with any regularity -- we'll be in serious trouble.

Chris Albriton has been an independent reporter in and out of Iraq for almost two years now. His is a set of opinions I have come to trust. With elections there tomorrow, I take his predictions with some stock. Why? Because he writes it as he sees it:

BAGHDAD—Tomorrow Iraqis will go to the polls and, inshallah, get a better government that they have right now... Eventually. But first they will have to vote, and that's an activity fraught with peril.

The security situation is unreal. No cars tomorrow—except those with special passes, which includes media, cops, political guys, etc. in short, if you're an insurgent and you hit a car tomorrow, you're bound to get someone vaguely important. Only five polling stations in Baghdad will allow cameras or other electronic gear, so bear that in mind when you look at photographs of the election.

I'll be out in the thick of it for a while at least... Out with my photographer and seeing what goes on. Not sure if I'll be driving or walking. That will depend on my security guys. This is a free election? Insurgent pamphlets are being distributed that anyone walking to a polling center is a target. Several centers have already been blown up. The fear is thick enough to cut with a knife. The Iraqi security forces—with their American patrons—have tanks at the end of my street. Old Soviet T-55s, but tanks, nonetheless.

No one knows what's going to happen, whether it's the level of violence, the level of turnout or who will win. The Sistani-blessed United Iraqi Alliance (UIA) list is expected to do well, but I would be shocked if it got an absolute majority. My predictions for the elections...

Like I said, he writes it as he sees it. As Mike pointed out, he works for Time also. I know this. The only restrictions on his blog are that he can't scoop himself. For instance, when he interviewed Allawi, he didn't blog about it until after the relevant issue of Time came out, at which point he posted a much more lengthy transcrip than was published on paper. The whole point of what he's doing has been to provide better "context" and, since he started working as part of the regular reporter pool, to talk about the State of Journalism in a war zone.