I found this via Bill HD on Facebook: Yes We Carve, the Obama pumpkin carving contest/web site. This weekend is when we’ll probably get getting pumpkins– Will and I have a very traditional process for this–so maybe we’ll have to give one of these stencils a try.
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.
A bailout I do understand
I don’t want to dwell too much on the $700 billion bailout/buy-in/rescue package to save the markets and the economies of the world, mainly because there are plenty of other places to read all about it. But I will say this:
- I think this is an excellent example of poor explanation, communication, and/or rhetoric. I consider myself to be a reasonably smart guy who keeps up with the news, though I will freely admit that money and economics are not exactly my strong suit. But as far as I can tell, no one has really explained just what the hell this money is for, why this is necessary, why it would work, and why spending $700 billion (or so– as best I can tell from what I’ve heard, this number is essentially made up) on banks would be a better way to help the economy than spending $700 billion on nearly anything else. But I am planning on listening to This American Life this weekend because they are going to do a show that attempts to actually do what the politicians should be doing: explaining this to constituents.
- What we’re seeing here, IMO, is what happens after we forced through the Patriot Act without debating/thinking about it, and after the White House flat-out lied to get us into Iraq, the most disastrous war in our history, and after Paulson, Bush, etc. are now saying “the sky is falling” when just a few months ago they were saying everything was hunky-dory. Every American toddler knows the story of Chicken Little and the boy who cried wolf; why the current administration doesn’t understand that is a mystery to me.
- The only bailout I have understood lately is Charles Bernstein’s proposed poetry bailout. Bernstein writes:
As we know, lax composition practices since the advent of modernism led to irresponsible poets and irresponsible readers. Simply put, too many poets composed works they could not justify. We are seeing the impact on poetry, with a massive loss of confidence on the part of readers. What began as a subprime poetry problem on essentially unregulated poetry websites has spread to other, more stable, literary magazines and presses and contributed to excess poetry inventories that have pushed down the value of responsible poems.
Though I think going all the way back to 1904 to clear out the glut of poems might be a few years too far.
This might be the way I spend this weekend…
The original plan for this weekend was camping at the Pinery Park in Ontario, a really beautiful and very tent-friendly campground and park about three or so hours northwest of here. We (meaning us and Jim and Rachel and fam) arranged this trip months ago, and– of course– the weather is not cooperating. We’ve had stunning weather this week and next week looks acceptable, but of course it has to rain this weekend.
Anyway, I am thinking I might interact with a whole different kind of “nature” this weekend, Spore. I’ve seen various commercials and such, but I have to say that Will Richardson’s post about playing the game has kind of sold me. Here’s a quote:
It arrived yesterday, and I’ve spend a total of about 90 minutes playing so far, and I’m pretty much blown away. I have little or no idea what I’m doing, I’m sure, but my herbivore (you didn’t really think my spore would eat meat, did you?) paramecium has now evolved into a two-legged, funky-eyed, green, fruit-eating creature who’s growing a family and trying to figure out how to survive in a world with equally funky looking creatures who might be friend or foe. And while getting past the cell stage was pretty easy, this creature stage is already proving to be much more challenging. Just a few minutes ago, I was killed by some purple dudes who ganged up on me and seemed to chew my head off. Luckily, rebirth is almost instantaneous.
Interestingly enough, Will posted this a couple days ago, and he hasn’t posted since. Perhaps a bit too much Sporing?
Christmas comes early
I found this via Henry Jenkins’ blog:
Actually, this is the winner of a contest, the Total Recut “Video Remix Challenge.” Some very cool stuff there, and some interesting ideas for video in both English 328 and (potentially) in English 516.
Why not enjoy some Scream ice cream?
I would post something interesting or relevant, but a) I’ve been pretty busy with the beginning of the Fall term, and b) I haven’t thought of much lately that would be all that interesting or relevant. So in the meantime, why not enjoy this Scream ice cream, an image my friend Chris sent me quite a while ago?
Daily Show pegs the hypocrisy issue
After Pallin spoke last night, I switched over to The Daily Show, which was absolutely brilliant. Boing-boing agreed and posted this fantastic segment:
This was followed up with a chat with that night’s guest, Newt Gingrich, and the whole thing with Palin’s pregnant daughter came up. Stewart pointed out that Palin said that keeping the baby was her daughter’s choice, which, hypocritically enough, would not be a choice at all if Palin had her way. After all, she supports the most extreme of anti-choice positions where women couldn’t get an abortion under any circumstances– rape, incest, endangering the life of the mother, nothing. If Palin’s view of the world was the way things were, there’d be no choice on the matter at all.
McCain presses along in a drowsy manner. Some protesters were removed early on. His education policy sounds a lot like the failed “No Child Left Behind” to me. Everyone got very excited about “drill now,” which might have some unintended connotations.
As I brace myself for Sarah Palin….
I am typing this just as Sarah “the Moose Hunter” Palin is taking the stage at the RNC. I have braced myself for the affair with a cocktail.
I’m not going to bother any live blogging– perhaps there will be a little reflection afterwords depending on how it goes. But I thought I would instead share a few videos I came across. First, there is this one, which I came across via Daily Kos but which is a straight-up mainstream media report on Palin:
It’s been pretty interesting seeing the mainstream media going after McCain lately, especially on Palin, and which is especially ironic since McCain and the media have had quite the lovefest over the last couple years. This has been reported in a couple of places, but McCain has apparently pulled out of a few interviews with CNN over this interview by Campbell “cute as a button” Brown with McCain spokesperson Tucker Bound. Here’s some entertaining video on that:
And then there’s this funny and “not safe for work”/filled with potty-mouth parody that might be a little too true about how the Palin choice really came to pass:
You got to watch it through to the end where Palin yells out “who wants to go polar bear hunting?”
Anyway, her speech so far has been kinda boring, at least to me. I am sure she is still exciting the base, but I doubt she’s changing minds out there in undecided-land, and there seems a lot of people in St. Paul who don’t look that excited either.
Escaped dog poo art creates haveoc
A little light web browsing this morning/this lunchtime, and I came across this at Wooster Collective: “Paul McCarthy’s Dog Poo Creates Havok In Berne.” It’s not real poo; just a giant inflatable dog turd. Here’s a quote: “The art work, titled “Complex Shit”, is the size of a house. The wind carried it 200 metres (yards) from the Paul Klee Centre in Berne before it fell back to Earth in the grounds of a children’s home, said museum director Juri Steiner.”
Who says that art isn’t both fun and dangerous?