And so another week begins. I've got to get back into the autobio practice (what this is trying to return to) so I'll recap my weekend. I want to be a little careful and intentional here, as I'm trying to walk a couple of lines:

• No a secret diary -- the original genesis of this whole thing was to open up my life a bit more and to lift up my conduct and being all around, not to have a place where I write things instead of saying them. It's a easy slip to have this be a substitute for more immediate expression, rather than the poetical mass-communication and aspiration I want it to be.
• Don't burn people -- I've gone over the general concept of what stories are mine to tell and what aren't, usually in the context of "kissing and blogging," but trying to get back into autobiographical writing means being careful about what I say about other people. I've already done things like remove old posts about friends who've become lawyers and have questionable google results because of something i wrote in 2002.
• Keep it interesting -- while I've got a certain confidence in the palatability of the reality-TV equivalent of blogging, I don't want to tumble down some hallway of self-obsession and inward-looking myopia. Intriguing introspection is the ideal; don't want to run off my little readership with a bunch of pathetic navel-gazing.

Anyway, enough disclaimer. This is an evolution. Let's get started. 1500+ words after the jump.

In my continual hope that we don't end up with a stupid perpetual war, this polling is a bit unnerving. It is from FoxNews, and uses whatever stats-screen they have to zero in on "Likely Voters," but it is s a real poll. The major indications are likely correct.

30. Do you agree or disagree with the view that the military action being taken overseas in Iraq is necessary to protect Americans from having to fight radical Muslim terrorists on U.S. soil?

31. How likely do you think it is that within the next 20 years the United States will be involved in an all-out war with radical Muslim extremists that will affect our families and way of life?

But here's a ray of sunshine: about 3/4 of people (including a majority of Republicans) say it's time to start bringing our troops home from Iraq. I agree.

Washington, Washington... 6-foot-20, fucking kiling for fun:

Here come's George, in control
Women love his snuff and his gallant stroll
Ate opponents brains
And invented cocaine
He's coming / He's coming
He's coming / He's coming

And as an extra bonus, something my old colleague Jeremy Rosen made which strikes me as an excelent little production. Seems like something I would do with Frank if the times were different.

Conversations with Fiona Apple:

Finally, one for real politics. This is possibly the best "go vote" ad I've ever seen. It's intelligent, it's sophisticated, and it's humorous without being self-depricating. It's Women's Voices Women's Vote:

If there's any one thing that could get the progressive bandwaggon (health care! health care!) going in this country, it would be if younger/single women started voting in greater numbers.

My gang will get you:

This is hardcore:

A little context: those are from back in 2002 when we were all living in The Meek, a rowhouse we took over apartment by apartment on Meeker Avenue in Greenpoint. It was across the street from the BQE and it was all ours. Good days.

Tresler points me to Joi Ito talking about Six Apart's new joint, Vox. It's a good name for a good product, and a nice logical next step between typepad and livejournal (which they bought).

But I like the name "Rebel Unicorn" better.

Basically my take is that the future is not in having some magic technology that lets you run a huge site that everyone uses. That's why the myspace and youtube buys don't seem like good moves to me: the functionality can and will be replicated 100 times over, so all you're buying is the community. Google may have a chance at holding that, but Fox is almost guaranteed to fuck it up over the next five years.

Not that myspace will evaporate, but it will cease to be the phenomena that it is, and just become a national "scene" site for emo kids. You might as well have bought makeoutclub.com, Rupert.

Where the future is at is in running a more modest site (or if you're not modest, a site that lets people run sites) which actually serves a real community, but which can interoperate. The future is in enabling a network of social websites, not in running some kind of monolith.

I'll write about this and how it wiil happen on my work blog soon.

I haven't written too much about Laura and Frank's wedding last weekend, mainly because I've been running flat-out since and haven't composed thoughts yet. Anyway, I found some of my friends had posted about it:

Tresler!:

I ran all over creation assembling the 'costume' part. Someday I'll find that invitation to get the exact wording, but both Julie and I perused it and it was something to the effect of 'Come dressed in something you wouldn't wear everyday, Surprise your friends, change your haircolor'. Julie at first thought it was a joke so I verified with Frank and Laura that a modest 'costume' would be okay. They said it would be great.

Naturally we were the only cowboy and 'hussie'(her word not mine) there.

Ms. Rose!:

The whole event kind of redeemed weddings in my eyes. I've been resistant to the idea of a wedding for me and Jen lately, mainly because it makes me feel stupid to think of spending thousands and thousands of dollars on an event that is merely for show, not resulting in any increased protection for our union, and our family. But I saw on Saturday, that if your wedding is about who you really are, then its alot more than that - it really is an event that brings your union before your family and friends and says, hey, we're doing this, please honor and celebrate that and help us, today and through the rest of our lives.

And both of those folks have blogs worth reading, I might add... speaking of which, I need to get my blogroll back in action, GD-it.

This is good shit. You can't beat combining the delivery of car-talk with a sharp populist/progressive message:

Hot on the heels of N. Korea's nuke test, South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-Moon is set to assume the leadership of the one world government United Nations.

Many observers with more knowledge than I about Korea have suggested these two events are not unrelated. The UN remains without its own nuclear stockpile. Will MAD prevail? Only time can tell.

In seriousness, this probably won't really mean a whole lot. The UN is in need of much more serious overhaul than Mr. Moon can bring. It will take a lot more than a new Sec. General to get us back on the road to global consensus.

We've been cleaining house up here in Westhaven. Kelly made the call and put in new living room carpet while I was in NYC. It was old and the house used to be more filt-oriented than it is now, so the replacement was much needed. The new stuff is cheap (5-year plan calls for hardwood) but it's clean and springy, and even more importantly it meant removing all the stuff that was in there and then not putting all of it back. Space is nice. It's a very zen place now: fresh paint job, one couch, Franklin stove, area rug, turntables/sterio and a TV. All grown up, it feels.

Last night I did a final unpack and clean of my room -- been living with boxes from Brooklyn for too long. For the first time since 2003 I don't have a storage locker or a bunch of stuff stashed with friends. It's a nice feeling, having a solid home base.

So in addition to cleaning and getting rid of boxes, I hung up stuff on the walls, did a little closet organizing, started a bookshelf. My next big move is building a bed. Right now I'm sleeping on a full mattress on top of a queen box, which looks a little funny and isn't the most comfortable. My feet hang off the edge a bit and there's no under-bed storage.

The plan is to loft something up and do it all custom like I had back in High School. I'm looking forward to it.

I suspect the building of the bed will be a psychological milestone of sorts (obvious implications, you pervs), as it will be a strong foot-plant and a permanent mark on the purple room where I live. We'll see how it all pans out, but at a minimum I'll enjoy having something bespoke to sleep on.

Two of the things I love about this medium, especially as it relates to politics, is that it infuses humanity and personality into the process, and that it is a decidedly literary form. This means there's a pretty low bar for entry, lots of room for expression, and the things you say stick around. It's a good blend.

On those notes, two links. First, a lovely bit of flash-powered parody:

War of the Words is the story of the so-called "warbloggers":

Theirs is a story of courage, determination, and above all, typing. They are the conservative bloggers, pundits, and commentators whose loud and prolific support of Republican foreign policy goals helped change the course of American history in ways that will be felt for many years to come.

They are the men and women--mostly men--who have come to be known as the 101st Fighting Keyboarders. And now, at last, their story can be told.

It's humorous faux-Ken Burns stylings belies the fact that what's going on here is quite unprecidented: shameless propagandists, shills, and plain old idiots with megaphones (that's you, Jarvis) are being held accountable for the things they said at a historically important time. This isn't talk radio or your Sons of the South underground newsletter, and so much the better.

Secondly, a recent scientific study showed the civilian death toll in Iraq as a result of the war to be over half a million. Of course this caused the warbloggers to collapse and begin speaking in tongues. Lindsay Byerstein has a delightful takedown of the responses. My fave:

8. Sure the study's methodology is standard for public health resesarch. But don't forget that public health is a leftwing plot.