Month: October 2008

What Obama really said about “my neighbor” (or, context is everything)

I was just listening to NPR this morning, and apparently, McCain is still peddling this line about Obama associations with “terrorist” William Ayers, about how calling this guy “just my neighbor” is a lie, how this speaks to Obama’s character, etc., etc. That darn untrustworthy Obama!

Well, as luck would have it, I found a link via daily kos to this story the other day, and the tab is still open on my browser. The “Ayers is just my neighbor” thing came up originally on an ABC News moderated event between Hillary Clinton (then clawing for life to stay in this thing) and Obama. The hosts were Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos Here’s the transcript from the beginning; and here’s a link to the part of the debate that features the comments in question.

Below the “more” part, I include the whole passage so you can read it yourself, but basically, this comes up during a back and forth about patriotism and a question from someone on the internet about the whole flag lapel pin thing, and Stephanopoulos used this as a chance to turn it back to Ayers. The context here, ironically enough, was a discussion about whether or not Obama was “tough enough” to take on the Republicans when they make attacks like this one. As the full quote/passage makes clear, Obama said much more than “he’s just my neighbor,” and the context/direction of the conversation didn’t exactly lend itself to a full discussion of the Obama/Ayers relationship.

Besides the obvious and rather desperate smear McCain is trying here, a tactic that seems especially ugly given that the world economy appears to be ending, what bothers me personally is the bad freshman writing mistake that McCain is making here. I’ve seen plenty of students who take this tactic, cherry-picking quotes in order to make a point no matter what the evidence they are quoting really says. In other words, if McCain was a first year composition student and he handed in a paper about how Obama is a terrorist with this claim about Ayers, I’d probably circle that line “Obama lied about him just being my neighbor” and write something like “What is the full context of this quote, John? Do you really think that was the intent of your source? Is this the full story? It sounds like you’re twisting the words here.”

Anyway, here’s the whole thing:

Continue reading “What Obama really said about “my neighbor” (or, context is everything)”

If I was really really freakin’ rich…

… then I would want a library like this. This, which I discovered via boing-boing, is the personal library of zillionaire Jay Walker (among other things, he came up with the idea for Priceline.com apparently) as described in this article in Wired. Read all about it. I’d pay an entrance fee just to see what it’s like in person. Un-freakin-real. I’d Who said it isn’t good to be the king?

As it is, I’ll have to settle for my mancave with ikea fiberboard shelves. I do have more snow globes than this guy does at least.

Misc. “town hall” thoughts

I’m watching “the debate” while simultaneously commenting on student essays. A few random thoughs:

  • I think a buzzer or a bell for time expired is in order. Poor Tom Brokaw.
  • McCain seems to be shuffling around on stage quite a bit. I dunno, but he looks really really old to me in this format next to the much younger and vibrant Obama.
  • And McCain keeps saying the same thing over and over again. If he says “my friends” again, I’m gonna throw something.
  • If Obama was a white guy, he’d be 25 points ahead. Easy.
  • Hair transplants? WTF?
  • I don’t think Obama gave a good response to the the genocide question. But there is no good answer to that, really. But stop saying “my friends,” Johnny. Two in one sentence! That’s quite the drinking game….

On the whole, not much happened. No big crashes. I watched this on CNN, and their various tickers/etc. seem to have Obama as the winner, and that was my impression, biased as it is.

Okay, a little more grading….

On keyboards

I came across this via Lifehacker: “The Best Keyboard You’ve Ever Typed On.” One of the winners is the aluminum keyboard that comes with the latest version of the iMac, but for my own tastes and preferences, that one seems a little too thin and quiet and not enough bounce for me. Actually, my problem with keyboards as of late as been a sort of stickiness, perhaps from crud getting caught in there. The keyboard on the computer in my office is particularly annoying, but I have also replaced the keyboard that came with my home machine (an iMac circa 2006, I think) with a generic $30 or so keyboard, and I have to say, I like the old-school clickity-clack.

Perhaps more information on my typing habits than you need, but there you have it.

And thus ends many of my new school year resolutions

I was originally going to write– briefly, since I do have things I need to do– about how I was about to break one of my new school year resolutions and comment on a batch of student essays. But then, when I went back and looked at my new school year resolutions entry at the end of August, I realized I am/I have broken resolutions. In fact, have I kept any?

Let’s see:

  • Take my own damn advice and at least “touch” the book project every work day. Ha! What book project? Okay, it’s not that bad, but I certainly need to reacquaint myself with that project one of these days, hopefully next week after this first wave of papers passes.
  • Do not twist and turn my schedule too much just to attend a meeting, and do not go to my office on Tuesdays and Thursdays for any reason whatsoever. Actually, I’ve done pretty good at this one. I went to one meeting on a Thursday a couple weeks ago under protest, and I have a meeting of sorts on Tuesday. But since the meeting Tuesday is small and not in Pray-Harrold, I am not going to count that one.
  • Get to the gym, get in better shape, lose some weight. Pretty good, up until this weekend. I’ve kind of been a bit more lazy about weights than I should be though.
  • Take these things called “weekends.” I was able to do so until this weekend. But I collected the first essay projects for two sections of English 328, and while I realize that I don’t have a ton of students and these essays aren’t that long, it is taking me a lot longer than I had hoped to read them. And getting a cold and such threw me off on time/schedules/etc. during the week.

So here I am on a Sunday, about to start commenting on student essays. But don’t feel too bad for me. I’m still able to do this while sitting in my backyard on a shockingly beautiful October day.

matoes

This is the sort of email a married couple made up of English professors send each other– specifically, my literary wife to me Wednesday. In this poem/note, “man cave” refers to the basement, which also serves as my sprawling office/headquarters. “Electric guitar” is an item I often add to lists Annette is putting together, inspired by some friends from the past who used to do something similar.

matoes

This is just to say
that I have taken the last
can of tomatoes.

They were sitting,
inexplicably,
atop a pile of paper
on the ping-pong table
in your man cave.

You were perhaps
saving them for dinner tonight,
or reminding yourself
to make a shopping list:

tomatoes,
milk,
electric guitar . . .

And yes, finally, yes
a Costco trip is in order.
Perhaps
this Saturday.

A sort of “opener” for the debate tonight

Lord only knows Joe Biden knows how to say some pretty dumb things, but you have to give Palin credit for so many dumb things in so few interview opportunities. Here’s some greatest hits from Talking Points Memo:

And of course tonight’s VP debate is going to get huge ratings. But I would suggest that most people watching tonight (myself included, at least up to a point) are less interested in seeing how this debate impacts the race since it is still McCain versus Obama. Rather, I think most people will be watching today to wait for/hope for the crash, and the crash from either podium.

After the debate:
The winner was your candidate, though some of the polls posted later on Daily Kos suggest a bit of a win for Biden. To me, it was a tie; it was just cars turning left again and again.

Yes, but where is my flying car?

Not much time to blog or read blogs today, but I did come across this nugget via elearnspace I thought I’d post: on the official Google blog is this post written by Vint Cerf, “The next Internet.” Provocative stuff, some of which strikes me as true, some of which strikes me as scary, and some of which strikes me as, um, goofy. For example:

A box of washing machine soap will become part of a service as Internet-enabled washing machines are managed by Web-based services that can configure and activate your washing machine. Scientific measurements and experimental results will be blogged and automatically entered into common data archives to facilitate the distribution, sharing and reproduction of experimental results. One might even imagine that scientific instruments could generate their own data blogs.

Of course, maybe I’ll have no need for washing my clothes at all in a decade. Yoda says, “Always in motion the future is.” Or something like that.