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Sunday, January 18, 2004
Wag the human 
| | Dogs don't make a distinction between work and play. Everything is fun to them, and every situation is a new one, full of infinite possibilities for joy and connection. We humans surely would be more successful in our jobs if we approached our work with the enthusiasm. |
Characterization Nation
| | I make my living off the evening news
Just give me something-something I can use
People love it when you lose,
They love dirty laundry
Well, I coulda been an actor, but I wound up here
I just have to look good, I don¹t have to be clear
Come and whisper in my ear
Give us dirty laundry
Kick 'em when they're up
Kick 'em when they¹re down
Kick 'em when they're up
Kick 'em when they¹re down
Kick 'em when they're up
Kick 'em when they're down
Kick 'em when they're up
Kick 'em all around
We got the bubble-headed-bleach-blonde who
Comes on at five
She can tell you 'bout the plane crash with a gleam
In her eye
It's interesting when people die-
Give us dirty laundry
Can we film the operation?
Is the head dead yet?
You know, the boys in the newsroom got a
Running bet
Get the widow on the set!
We need dirty laundry
You don¹t really need to find out what's going on
You don¹t really want to know just how far it's gone
Just leave well enough alone
Eat your dirty laundry
Kick 'em when they¹re up
Kick 'em when they¹re down
Kick 'em when they¹re up
Kick ¹em when they¹re down
Kick 'em when they're up
Kick 'em when they're down
Kick 'em when they're stiff
Kick 'em all around
Dirty little secrets
Dirty little lies
We got our dirty little fingers in everybody¹s pie
We love to cut you down to size
We love dirty laundry
We can do the innuendo
We can dance and sing
When it¹s said and done we haven¹t told you a thing
We all know that crap is king
Give us dirty laundry! |
| | In fact, this is what horse race coverage is largely about. More to a point almost nobody makes, it's what story itself is about. I've written about this before here and here. |
| | See, stories have exactly three elements: |
| | - Character
- Conflict
- Movement toward resolution
|
| | Subtract any one and you don't have a story any more. Your best stories, in fact, are ones in which characters are formed or proven through conflict as they move toward resolution. |
| | As a character, Howard Dean has gone through two stories so far in this campaign season. The first was Underdog Takes the Lead. The second — going on right now — is Leader falls back while others gain. Character-building stuff, no? |
| | I'm not saying Dean has no influence on his position in the polls. Obviously he does. I am saying the newsmillers began grinding anti-Dean flour as soon as the race looked like a Dean runaway. And if Kerry, or Edwards or Clark achieves a commanding lead a few furlongs down the track, you can betcha they'll be getting the same treatment. |
| | When I was flying up here on JetBlue, I spent the whole time doing what, from what I coud see, nearly everybody else on the plane was doing at the same time: surfing through the 25 DirecTV channels shimmering on a screen less than two feet from our noses, like a feed bag hanging from the ears of a mule. |
| | Somewhere over Connecticut I paused on MSNBC, where some "journalist" (that's what they call these folks, although there's hardly a journal involved) asked (former California governor and Oakland mayor) Jerry Brown to help explain why Howard Dean sucked. No he didn't say that, exactly, but I think that's a fair characterization. Strangely, I found myself nodding along. Taking the drug. Receiving the transmitted wisdom. Yeah.... I... dunno... maybe... he... really... does... suck... Brown snapped me out of it. Ol' Jerry, being his BS-immune self, wasn't cooperating. He said, pointedly, that Dean continued to survive a relentless pummeling by the media. Also that it was dumb to dismiss Dean's success at raising grassroots support. |
| | I don't blame The Media, really. Stories are the base format of human interest. We can't help liking them. And metaphors frame everything we understand in the world — meaning we can't help understanding everything in terms of something else. Just as money makes sense of time (we "save," "waste," "spend," "gain" and "lose" it), sports and war metaphors make sense of politics. What matters isn't that we use them; just that we realize what powerful unconscious tools they are: how much they limit as well as create our understandings. In a political season like this, it's impossible not to understand "the war," "the battle" and "the race" in exactly those terms. But we also need to realize how much happens outside the frames those terms impose on a much larger scene. |
| | I'm still betting on Dean to win the Iowa caucuses. Admittedly, I'm influenced by sitting in the midst of the most connectedly conversational political machine the world has ever known. For a sense of what I'm talking about, check out Jim Moore's math here in his theoretical note on why blogs matter. (Context: I'm in the midst of a terrific conversation with Jim right now, so maybe I'm getting carried away. Conversations do that.) Still, as Chris Lydon says here, |
| | The volunteers canvassing the streets are Dean's, looking glum but still numerous, bewildered at how a candidate that makes so much sense to them could make so little to the people that, for this political moment, matter. But they are still here, and we suspect that will make the difference... |
| | The web has shown that the candidate's ability to sell himself matters less than his supporters ability to sell the candidate. Dean supporters are very persuasive and will not allow all those war rationalizations to stand. When confronted directly with an accusatory speech from a fellow and Dean-trained Midwesterner on who was there for you when it counted, will the Kerry/Edwards surge meet its match? |
The infinite eleven
| | Interesting to see 10 Open Source Tools for eActivism at Designing for Civil Society. Sitting here at Dean Campaign Headquarters, it seems to me that the top tools are the ones just beyond any Top Ten list. I'm talking about tools eActivists can find (among the above list or elsewhere) and customize, or that volunteers — including independent developers (commercial and noncommercial) — bring in. |
| | Do what works seems to be overriding imperative. |
Best camcorder for the money
| | I see Sony's DCR-PC110 is selling in the $600 range at eBay. Except for the missing (and useless) bluetooth, the PC110 is the equal of the newer PC-120, which was recently discontinued and is selling for twice as much, and has a much better UI than the current DCR-PC330, which is 3x the price, but does feature a higher-res still camera with better color. Still, for candid stills and a fabulous camcorder, you can't beat the PC110. Sample shots here, here and here (the last is from a 120, but it's the same camera). |
Sex at altitude
| | This morning over breakfast Britt compared something-or-other to refeuling an SR-71, which he called "the sexiest plane ever made." This was precisely his view, from a KC-135 (the military name for a Boeing 707), of one of the very SR-71s he refeueled as a pilot in the Air Force. |
| | [Later...] Britt just said, "And you'll notice that the SR-71's refueing port is open and ready to welcome the KC-135's manly implement." Still talking pilot jive, I see. |
Hopemore
| | I'm sitting here in the motel room at 9:07 in the morning, scanning up and down the radio dial, doing what I did last night before I crashed: marveling at the quality of the radio here. The feeling I get is the exact opposite of the hopelessness that vexes me when I do the same in most of the locations I stay — including my home in Santa Barbara (which has a good local college station and a commercial classical station, but not much more). |
| | Right now I'm listening to WRUV, from the University of Vermont here in Burlington. Outstanding Sunday morning headphone jazz by the very laid-back L.J Palardy on "L.J.'s Dream." |
| | I'm extremely impressed by North Country Public Radio, which covers far upstate New York (right across Lake Champlain from here with seven stations and twelve translators that appear to do an excellent job of serving the whole area, in spite of the mountainous terrain. I've been hanging with WXLU from Peru, which is right across tha lake. Unlike most stations, they implement RDS, which activates a display on my radio that identifies the network (or station, or song, depending). It even sets the radio's clock. RDS is ubiquitous in Europe, but still optional for stations here in the U.S. You'd think, with RDS activated on most new car radios, that more stations would use it. |
| | WCVT/101.7 from Stowe is that rarity: at a full-time classical station. WCVT is part of the small chain that also includes WLVB/93.9 and WDEV 550/96.1, a regional institution profiled last year in a New Yorker article. |
| | On this side of the lake, Vermont Public Radio has the usual NPR lineup, plus a strong emphasis on classical music. The service has five stations, including one giant: WVPS on 107.9, with 49,000 watts radiating from atop one of the highest mountains in the Northeast. But the one I like best (so far) is WWPV from St. Michael's College in Colchester, VPR's "World Channel." Right now there's a BBC interview with the new prime minister of Georgia. Very interesting stuff. |
| | WNCS (The Point) on 104.7 reminds me of KPIG. |
| | WLFE in St. Albans, VT carries a traditional country & bluegrass lineup that keeps me there for a song or two when I hit the SCAN button. |
| | I could go on, but it's time for breakfast now, then back to more interviews at the Dean Campaign. |
| | [Later...] More here from Lou Josephs. I'll try to listen to the rest of the stations he lists tomorrow morning before I split. |
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