Merry Christmas!

How's the weather?

The Oregonian Triages Eugene Area

Looks like the mainstay Oregon newspaper, The Oregonian, is pulling up its roots in Eugene and Springfield, and is to stop delivering dailies in order to save money on printing costs. I first heard about this from Newspaper Deathwatch, the reaper-like website that has been watching the fall of the industry of 'black, white and read all over'. As a journalism-major this is all a little less than reassuring.

The news came from my mother in a phone call.

Had I seen The Oregonian's letter announcing the end of daily delivery? Seems rising newsprint and distribution costs make it too expensive for The Oregonian to bring its papers to home or retail outlets in Eugene-Springfield on a daily basis, apart from Sunday.

My own letter from The Oregonian's circulation director lay in the unopened mail pile. Another busy day of leaving early and getting home late. I'd managed to start off right by reading the Register-Guard and Oregonian before leaving my house at 6:00 a.m., but hadn't opened the mail after rushing home that night.

The letter was kind. A model of strength-based reassurance. The Oregonian knows its decision to stop visiting my house every morning is a loss, for me and for each and every one of the readers. While the newspaper won't be found in retail outlets in Oregon's second largest metropolitan area, it will arrive on Sunday and web content is available 24/7.

Now all I want for Christmas is for The Oregonian to keep landing somewhere in my yard by 6:00 a.m.

http://blog.oregonlive.com/myoregon/2008/12/waking_up_to_a_morning_without.html

Weather Warning

Winter travelers living in the Willamette Valley should rethink any travel plans this week. A severe storm front has resulted a sudden drop in expected temperatures over the next week. Wind and weather warnings have been issued from the National Weather Service and police officials. The Eugene area is expected to stay below freezing through Thursday, with lows of 16F (-10C) on Monday and Tuesday. The Portland area, the Gorge and southern Washington should experience the worst of it though.

Be careful out there, most Oregon drivers aren't experienced with icy conditions. Beware of bridges, and if you live on a hill then it might be a good idea to bunker up and park your car at the bottom of the hill - just in case.

edit: That snow showed up, it sure is pretty.

My dad first let me know about this a couple days ago, thanks dad:

National Weather Services warns that the weather systems headed for Oregon and SW Washington could bring some of the “coldest weather in several years.” A combination of factors, from low pressure systems coming from the Gulf of Alaska to an Arctic air mass moving in from Canada, are forecast to deliver very cold temperatures, snow – particularly in the Cascades and Coast Range, high tides and some coastal flooding, and strong winds both along the coast and inland.


Summary:

* The first system is forecast to arrive late tomorrow morning (Friday, 12/12) with precipitation and winds through Saturday. Snow will be significant in the Cascades, 2-3’ during this time period, and blizzard conditions are likely with the accompanying winds. The Coast Range is likely to have accumulations (7-15 inches) of snow during this time. The valley may have some accumulation of snow, 1-2” above 1,000 feet, and bursts of snow and cold rain showers with little accumulation possibility until Sunday.
* Winds with the first system are expected between 30-40 mph and gusting to 60-70 mph on the coast. The Coast Range may experience winds 30-40 mph and gusting to 65 mph. In the valley winds are forecast at 20-30 mph sustained and 45 mph gusts. Most of this wind event is anticipated to be Friday pm to Saturday am.
* Along the coast high surf from a combination of the highest tides of the year and the windstorm could cause coastal erosion and some flooding.
* Sunday the Arctic air mass will be moving in from Canada and Washington and with it very cold temperatures, from the teens and 20’s at night to highs around freezing during the day. Any precipitation on the ground, rain or snow, could freeze and become icy. As the week progresses, the forecast inland is for dryer and continued very cold weather.


Hazards:

* Transportation – be extremely careful of slippery road surfaces – from precipitation (rain, snow) to leaves and windstorm debris accumulation. If you travel, be sure you and your vehicle are fit for challenging driving conditions, that you have an emergency kit on board at all times http://www.co.benton.or.us/sheriff/ems/documents/travel-kit_brochure.pdf , and that you slow down. Do not hesitate to defer travel if conditions are extreme. Stay abreast of conditions as you consider travel, “know before you go.” www.tripcheck.com or www.weather.gov/portland are two internet resources and dial 5-1-1 for road conditions from your cell phone.
* Supplies – particularly critical supplies such as medications, fuel and food. Prepare now in case road and weather conditions limit safe travel.
* Power outages – related to the wind event, accumulations of ice and snow on tree limbs that break over power lines, accidents. Be prepared for power failure – to keep warm and have light safely. Remember, if you use alternative heating or cooking from a combustion system it must be properly vented according to manufacturer’s recommendation. Never leave an open flame unattended.
* Winds - secure loose property and holiday decorations around your house to prevent damage from strong, gusting winds.
* Frozen pipes – disconnect and drain hoses, cover foundation vents and hose bibs to insulate them. Indoors open cupboards near plumbing to allow warm air to circulate around them. Protect pipes to appliances and utility sinks in garages.
* Domestic pets – take extra precautions to protect even outdoor pets during this sustained cold spate. Consider additional shelter such as a garage or barn.
* Check in – with at least three other people who may not be able to endure a severe weather event, being housebound, or a power outage. These vulnerable populations can be in serious trouble without needed supplies, heat or light and check on them can make all of the difference in the world. If you’re someone who may have a tough time dealing with cold, power outage or being shut-in, reach out and let others know that you’d value a visit, a check-in. You’ll be pleasantly surprised at how many people would love to extend a hand, but may not know how.


The cold weather coming may last longer than one week. Stay abreast of changes as forecasts are updated and extended. Monitor weather on local news and on the internet: National Weather Service, www.weather.gov/portland Oregon Department of Transportation at www.tripcheck.com

Roadway Advisory

I love the cop's attitude in this. His tone when he says "Gah...he's gone" is just so "Nuts, darn it I hate when that happens."

Ears, Open. Eyeballs, Click.

Ears, Open. Eyeballs, Click. Drill Instructor revving up a recruit during beginning pugil stick training:

DI1: Friggin' hand to hand, close fucking combat. No freaking pushing, no little sissy fucking lovetaps. Every throw you throw needs to be like your life friggin' depends on it; because (taps on watch) if you make it, it will. You understand that?
R: Yes, sir!
DI1: All the rage and aggression you have in your body needs to come out on that recruit right there. You don't know him, do you?
R: No, sir.
DI1: So there's no reason to fucking like him is there?
R: No, sir.
DI1: Take out everything you have on that kid right there, you understand?
R: Yes, sir.

[Fight commences. He wins, but hesitates to make killing blow. DI yanks on his helmet and gets in his face.]

DI2: Why did you stop, Why did you stop, WHY did you STOP, WHY DID YOU STOP, Why did you stop, WHY DID YOU STOP!? Answer the fucking question before I rip out your teeth. Why did you stop?
R: (mumbles a reply around the mouth guard)
DI2: No you didn't! You were being a little fag! You didn't want to hurt him, because you're sweet, and nice, and you don't want to friggin' kill! Get the frig away from me right damn now!

DI1: Yeah you listened, huh? I guess you're going home in a body bag. Don't worry someone else will take care a your girl.

Let the Right One In

I just finished watching the beautiful yet haunting, romantic yet unsettling Swedish film Let the Right One In (yes there are subtitles). It tells the tale of two young people who find comfort from their serious inner demons in each other's polar opposite nature.

Oskar, a 12 year-old boy from a broken home, is close to the breaking point after relentless bullying and loneliness. Enter Eli, a mysterious and intriguing child who befriends Oskar and saves him from his own anger, but eventually is forced to reveal her existence as a guilt-ridden vampire.

Beautifully shot and directed by Tomas Alfredson, the film is based on the novel of the same name by John Ajvide Lindqvist, who also wrote the screenplay. The film has swept up European film awards, but has only recently begun showing in the United States. Actress Lina Leandersson delivered a stunning performance of the quite human yet at times truly alien vampire Eli, and may well receive an Oscar nomination for it.

I truly recommend finding and watching this movie. Screenings have remained limited in the States, but Portland, OR has seen some screenings at Cinema 21, and there are some people (myself included) asking for a screening at the Bijou here in Eugene. A must see if it is shown here.

Addendum: It is interesting to compare the US and EU versions of the trailer. I put the international version at the head of the post, because I feel that it does a better job of conveying the feel of the movie. The American version has more of a screamer feel to it, and I'm not sure that it really conveys the movie well. Funnily enough, an English-language remake is being made of Let the Right One In already, and many fear that it will lose much of what made it such a fantastic movie.

Addendum 2: I wanted to mention a couple of plot critiques for those who watch the movie. So don't read the following if you don't want parts of the plot spoiled:

As I mentioned before, the movie is based on the book. But whereas the novel has time to fully explore all the issues it raises, the movie only touches on a couple of rather important plot points - Hakan's relationship with Eli compared to her relationship with Oskar, and Eli's history and transsexuality.

The book is much darker than the movie, and it is clear in the novel that Hakan's relationship with Eli is based on Hakan's pedophilia, and Eli's need of a servant. The two met when Hakan was already old, and Eli has no love for him, whereas she does have love for Oskar. This knowledge changes the ending significantly - the film seems to imply that Oskar is merely the new Hakan, but in the book it is clear that Eli considers Oskar to be "the right one".

Tangentially, the book is also much clearer on Eli's past. She is a 200 year old vampire, who was born a boy but then castrated, heavily abused, bitten and left to die. This is barely touched upon in the film - there is a quick shot of her castrate scars in the bathroom, and Lina Leandersson's voice was dubbed over for a more androgynous one. She says repeatedly "I am not a girl", but the reader can easily interpret that as her admitting that she is a vampire.

In my opinion, these two plot points are significant, yet lazily done. Apparently there was a surreal sequence to better explain them that was cut. While there is some merit to leaving room for the viewer's interpretation, I think that the ambiguity instead leads to confusion as to the director's intent. I would have chopped off (hah) the transexuality angle in lieu of clarifying Eli's feelings about Hakan. Her scars are good at conveying the child's perspective of sex as being mysterious and somewhat sinister, but it adds little to her character as a whole and invokes questions as to why it isn't a larger part of the story.

Laugavegur Trail (Iceland)

I was looking around on Something Awful for threads about backpacking sleeping bags, and came across this amazing thread about backpacking in Iceland. Oh man, I really want to do this now. It's like visiting another world out there. Totally surreal.

Put this Sigur Ros music video on in the background and read this thread to see what I'm talking about. Backpacking Christmas here I come!

Newspaper Industry Hit Hard in 3rd Quarter

Hey all, thought you might be interested in this, Happy Thanksgiving:

Newspaper sales fall 21% in historic rout
Newspaper advertising sales dived by a record 21.1% in the third quarter in a historic, across-the-board rout paced by a nearly 31% plunge in classified revenues.

Barely eking out $9 billion in print sales in the three months ended in September, the industry shed more than $1 billion in revenues from the same period in the prior year, according to statistics published quietly on the afternoon before Thanksgiving by the Newspaper Association of America (continued).

http://newsosaur.blogspot.com/2008/11/newspaper-sales-fall-21-in-historic.html
http://www.naa.org/TrendsandNumbers/Advertising-Expenditures.aspx
http://www.slideshare.net/hblodget/mary-meeker-web-20-presentation-presentation

Death in Gaza

Never Again

This summer I went on a backpacking trip up a mountain about 6 hours away from where I live. We had the best luck all the way up and down that 8,000 ft mountain, only for it all to nearly fall apart at the end.

First we got down, only to realize I couldn't find the keys to my car. 3 hours from cell-phone reception. Miraculously, after a half-hour of searching I found them lodged into my ruck harness - presumably where they had landed when I was quickly packing that morning, despite 6 hours of hiking over rough terrain. That by itself could have turned pretty ugly.

But we got on the road, and drove 3 hours to my friend's hometown, only to eat a bunch of food and burn a bunch of time because we were tired and indecisive. By the time I finally get on the road I've been up 12 hours, hiked down a mountain, and had about 6 hours sleep in the last 48. Alone on the straightest, most boring road you can imagine - and it's getting dark.

After about an hour, I pull off to the side because I'm getting groggy. But with traffic whipping past me I don't want to stop there. In retrospect, I should have slept right then and there. But I don't, I get back on the road and call my friends to see if they want to meet up and drive my car. Only there's nowhere to stop, and I'm barely hanging on at this point.

Eventually we figure out that there's a rest area (the only one for hours in either direction) up ahead that I can pull into and wait in. So now I've got my window open and my radio blasting and I'm drinking water and trying to keep my eyes open. I see the familiar blessed sign - and it informs me that there is a rest area in 9.5 miles. That's like an eternity to me at this point.

Semis are blasting past me on the other side of the two-lane highway with their bright beams disorienting as hell, and their shocking passage is terrifyingly close at this point. I finally see the rest area sign again - 2 miles to go. Dear god, this is brutal.

The cars behind me are getting close as I slow down because I DO NOT WANT TO MISS THIS EXIT. But their beams make me further disoriented, and at this point I figure I have about 5 minutes left before I'll just fall asleep. I've already heard the rumblestrip a couple times, and I figure this is it. I see the familiar blue rest area sign (my vision is so bad at this point it's hard to focus on anything more than that) - 3/4 mile. No shit. I remember being infuriated at this. Who the hell plants so many signs for a damn rest area?

The last 1/2 mile brought me to my limit. I had started the day at the top of a mountain, and now I was about to die like a fucking idiot. I pretty much lost control of my speed at this point, coasting along at 10 under and focusing entirely upon the course and staying awake. I see the final sign up ahead, but to add insult to injury a huge line of semis zooms past me in the other direction. It felt like a gauntlet. In the end I'm barely able to limp off the road and into the rest area parking lot, where I fall asleep almost instantly.

I woke up one hour later with my friend knocking on the window with a concerned smile. She got some coffee and then drove us home. I'm never doing that to myself ever again.

More stories of near death experiences can be found in this thread. There's one about a kayaker on a Class 5 rapid that made me wince, and then want to write my own.

The Monty Python Channel on YouTube

Yeah.

Oh Snap!

I am lost for words, this is awesome.

Armistice Day

It's a bit late to mention it, but today was Armistice Day - the day that the Great War was ended in 1918. It is traditional in Europe to wear red poppies this day in remembrance of the fallen, and here in the States we call it Veteran's Day, which has an awkward competition with Memorial Day (effectively the same holiday.)

10 veterans of that war survive to this day, including one American, and it's amazing to think of the changes they have experienced in the 90 years since then. The embedded link is to one of my favorite episodes of the fantastic BBC4 miniseries The First World War. If you are interested in this kind of thing, I'd definitely suggest watching it.

On a side note, yesterday was the Marine Corps birthday, celebrating the birth of the Marine Corps in the Tun Tavern 233 years ago. The affair is traditionally a jarhead affair all the way around, which resulted in a few Brits getting miffed that 'those damn Yanks' were cutting cakes with swords while generals were doing shots with privates on what was supposed to be a solemn occasion. But it was just a timezone difference.

Apparently this year it also resulted in the acronym USMC getting spray painted across half a US Army base in California.

One Day in the Near Future

President-elect Barack Obama held his first press conference today on the economy. It was actually a little weird to watch him acting so ... presidential. I kept on expecting people to start chanting "Fired up, Ready to Go!" Something different, but in a good way.

In any case, my dear Aunt Jini sent me a chain-mail today. While, as some might know, this is not particularly newsworthy it did seem timely and topical, and I thought that I would like to share:

One sunny day in January, 2009 an old man approached the White House from across Pennsylvania Avenue, where he'd been sitting on a park bench. He spoke to the U.S. Marine standing guard and said, "I would like to go in and meet with President Bush." The Marine looked at the man and said, "Sir, Mr. Bush is no longer president and no longer resides here." The old man said, "Okay", and walked away.

The following day, the same man approached the White House and said to the same Marine, "I would like to go in and meet with President Bush." The Marine again told the man, "Sir, as I said yesterday, Mr. Bush is no longer president and no longer resides here." The man thanked him and, again, just walked away.

The third day, the same man approached the White House and spoke to the very same U.S. Marine, saying "I would like to go in and meet with President Bush." The Marine, understandably agitated at this point, looked at the man and said, "Sir, this is the third day in a row you have been here asking to speak to Mr. Bush. I've told you already that Mr. Bush is no longer the president and no longer resides here. Don't you understand?"

The old man looked at the Marine and said, "Oh, I understand. I just love hearing it."

OBAMA Obama obama obama....

Obama Win Causes Obsessive Supporters To Realize How Empty Their Lives Are

Though I was at first disinclined to post the above news, my new favorite website convinced me that I probably should. Plus, I definitely know more than one person who has found themselves completely at a loss now that the election is over.

Fortunately, Obama's new website, Change.gov, has posted job offers! Want to compete with 30,000 other people to file papers? Check it out!

What Might Have Been

MORE POLITICAL FALLOUT IN THIS HOUSE!:

Fox News has gotten aboard the post-campaign secrets train, releasing information that Palin was about as dumb as a doornail. Apparently she was not only too much of a rogue for the Maverick, but she didn't know that Africa was a continent. And she was almost Vice-President!

While it is hard to say whether the as yet anonymously sourced story will turn out to be true, it certainly seems to have made the Republicans look a little foolish. But don't think that this is a sign that the ship is going down for good, this could easily be the RNC throwing her under the bus for its own survival, or even the first play by Republican favorite Mitt Romney for the 2012 election.

In other news, after a grueling race and a two-day count, the Oregonian is now predicting Democrat Jeff Merkley will take the Oregon Senator seat from incumbent Republican Gordon Smith, edging the DNC ever closer to their super-majority. While it is unlikely that Democrats will actually attain all 60 seats, Merkley's success signals an "exponential" increase in their ability to overcome the Republican filibusters that have plagued the Democratic party ever since their takeover of Congress two years ago.

In even more local news, Republican Rick Dancer, formerly a KEZI anchor, is trailing Democrat Kate Brown by 3,000 votes, while the latest results from Lane elections show a slight lead in the Eugene mayoral race between Democratic incumbent Kitty Piercy and conservative rival Jim Torrey. That race should continue on to tomorrow, as the Lane County elections suffered a several hour delay Tuesday after a system failed and they had to restart the count on a redundant system.

And in the closest race of all, liberal Rob Handy holds a nail-biting 113 vote lead over incumbent North Eugene County Commissioner Bobby Green (a margin of .03 percent, state law mandates an automatic recount if the margin is less than .2 percent).

Final results will come in tomorrow morning, and it would not be surprising if this 13,000 vote election comes down to a margin less than the number of write-ins (currently 77), never mind the under votes (people who turned in a ballot without marking a preference in the commissioner race - 3,754).

Good Effort, Good Effort

So ... we win. Obama is president-elect, and should hopefully rule the roost for quite some time. I'm not sure what else to say about it, I was so exhilarated that it kind of settled into a feeling of unreality. Fun.

Anywho, now that the election is all done with, on to bigger and better things. Newsweek is publishing a behind-the-scenes project that is showcasing all the stories we couldn't hear during the campaign season: like, for example, that Palin spent way more on clothing than was revealed; or that both the major Obama and McCain databases were hacked by China or Russia, and huge amounts of data were pulled down for what the FBI and Secret Service termed "[uses] in negotiations with a future administration".

Moving on, Russia's oil economy is so bad that people are talking about revolution due to unemployment doubling. Good thing they announced plans today to put missiles on its Western border.

Good luck Obama! Make us proud!

Election Soundtrack

Peter, Paul and Mary are today's election soundtrack for me, just thought I'd share. They are damned good if you don't recognize the name, but you're sure to know all their music even if you didn't know you did.

Godspeed Obama

Well it is 2300 here in Eugene, Oregon, and it is almost hard to believe that the election is finally here. It has been a long, hard-fought campaign - the most expensive in history. But in only a few short hours voting booths will start to open on the East Coast. I can only hope that in 24 hours we will be able to begin closing this dark chapter in American history that has been the last 8 years under Republican leadership.

To Barack Obama, and all of his many supporters around this nation: Good night, and good luck.

Twitter

I'm not feeling well so I decided to sit down and try and figure out what the deal is with Twitter. After setting up an account and playing with it and reading about it, I've come to a few conclusions.

1. It is basically just the Internet Relay Chat that I played with as a kid, only with more mediums of communication that just an IRC client. So now you don't need to be a nerd to use it. Of course I don't use IRC anymore either.

2. Apparently journalists are losing their minds over it, and the RNC convention rioting was apparently some kind of turning point where people without Twitter were some stone age morons. Of course, considering how poor the coverage of the RNC convention was anyways I don't think that's saying much.

3. It is pretty cool to see a huge channel like http://election.twitter.com/.

Happy Halloween!

Obama Assassination Plot Thwarted

Some unsettling news in the last week of the election:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Law enforcement arrested two men in Tennessee who had plans to rob a gun dealer to shoot Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and "as many non-Caucasians" as possible, an official said on Monday.

An official from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said police found the men in the Jackson, Tennessee area with a number of guns, including a sawed-off shotgun, in their car.

"They wanted to go to a place where they could shoot as many non-Caucasian as they could," the official said, noting that the men first planned to rob a gun dealer. "They also had a plot to assassinate Sen. Obama."

Obama, who would be the first black U.S. president, is leading Republican John McCain in opinion polls ahead of the November 4 election.

If McCain has any self-respect, the first thing he'll do if not elected is to attempt to undo the dangerous character attacks that have characterized his campaign. If Obama were to be injured or killed by an assassin, I believe that much responsibility for that would rest squarely upon McCain's shoulders. His reckless disregard for the truth has endangered Obama, his family and the police and Secret Servicemen who are guarding them.

FOLLOWUP: Looks like it was white supremacists. Link

CNN: Palin is 'going rogue'

I don't even know what to say to this:

ALBUQUERQUE, New Mexico (CNN) -- With 10 days until Election Day, long-brewing tensions between GOP vice presidential candidate Gov. Sarah Palin and key aides to Sen. John McCain have become so intense, they are spilling out in public, sources say.

Several McCain advisers have suggested to CNN that they have become increasingly frustrated with what one aide described as Palin "going rogue."

A Palin associate, however, said the candidate is simply trying to "bust free" of what she believes was a damaging and mismanaged roll-out.

McCain sources say Palin has gone off-message several times, and they privately wonder whether the incidents were deliberate. They cited an instance in which she labeled robocalls -- recorded messages often used to attack a candidate's opponent -- "irritating" even as the campaign defended their use. Also, they pointed to her telling reporters she disagreed with the campaign's decision to pull out of Michigan.

A second McCain source says she appears to be looking out for herself more than the McCain campaign.

"She is a diva. She takes no advice from anyone," said this McCain adviser. "She does not have any relationships of trust with any of us, her family or anyone else.

"Also, she is playing for her own future and sees herself as the next leader of the party. Remember: Divas trust only unto themselves, as they see themselves as the beginning and end of all wisdom."

...

With the presidential race in its final days and polls suggesting that McCain's chances of pulling out a win are growing slim, Palin may be looking after her own future.

"She's no longer playing for 2008; she's playing 2012," Democratic pollster Peter Hart said. "And the difficulty is, when she went on 'Saturday Night Live,' she became a reinforcement of her caricature. She never allowed herself to be vetted, and at the end of the day, voters turned against her both in terms of qualifications and personally."

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/25/palin.tension/

Awesome Russian "Song for Sarah"

This video, featured on BoingBoing.net, is simply a fantastic parody of Sarah Palin's ridiculous assertions that she had foreign policy experience due to the proximity of her state to Russia.

Definitely check it out.

Palin's Wardrobe Stabs RNC Where It Hurts - The Polls

A quick early-morning political blog round-up:

At a time where Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama seems to finally be hitting his stride with voters, GOP rival John McCain's campaign has seemed to have made a critical misstep: The political blogosphere is buzzing about recent findings by The Politico that the RNC has spent more than $150,000 on designer clothing for Sarah Palin and her family.

Author Jeanne Cummings writes:

According to financial disclosure records, the accessorizing began in early September and included bills from Saks Fifth Avenue in St. Louis and New York for a combined $49,425.74.

The records also document a couple of big-time shopping trips to Neiman Marcus in Minneapolis, including one $75,062.63 spree in early September.

After initially refusing to comment on the issue, the Republican campaign eventually issued a response:

"With all of the important issues facing the country right now, it’s remarkable that we’re spending time talking about pantsuits and blouses," said Republican spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt. "It was always the intent that the clothing go to a charitable purpose after the campaign."

Still, while fashion may not be the most serious of issues facing our candidates, it is something that has appeared to strike home with Americans concerned with an economic recession and a real need for fiscal responsibility.

"Something must be terribly wrong with this story which claims that the RNC has spent $150,000 on clothes for Sarah "Real American" Palin. This can't possibly be true, otherwise she'd be like the worst hypocrite ever," writes one blogger.

And it appears that liberals are not the only ones to have already picked up on it. The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder noted on his blog that he has already been e-mailed by many Republican supporters "to share their utter (and not-for-attribution) disgust at the expenditures."

The Boston Globe's Foon Rhee points out the seriousness of these impact that these allegations may have in the last two weeks of the presidential race:

Meanwhile, in a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll that shows Democrat Barack Obama leading McCain 52 to 42 percent among registered voters nationwide, up from 49 to 43 percent two weeks ago, voters also said that Palin's qualifications to be president was their top concern about McCain -- ahead of even continuing President Bush's policies.

Of respondents, 55 percent said she is not qualified to serve as president, and 47 percent have a negative opinion of her, up from 27 percent when she was first picked two months ago.

I Just Voted!

I just voted in one of the most important American elections in the history of the nation. I'm pretty pumped. As a resident of Oregon I am able to use mail-in voting and get my ballot in weeks before they are counted.

I'm dithering about whether or not to go in-depth about the specific issues that I voted on, but I will proudly say that I voted for Barack Obama to become president of the United States of America!

What is Rotten in the State of the Gaming Industry?

Ubisoft, the developers of the new video game Tom Clancy's Endwar have decided to offer their game only on Xbox 360 and PS3 consoles. They defended their decision to do so by saying that computer piracy has destroyed the PC gaming industry.

"At the moment, if you release the PC version, essentially what you’re doing is letting people have a free version that they rip off instead of a purchased version," said Ubisoft Shanghai creative director Michael de Plater. "Piracy’s basically killing PC."

Other critics have pointed out that it is far easier to pirate video games on a computer than a console. PC software pirating is as simple as finding an image of the game and mounting it on an easy to use virtual drive. Console piracy usually requires cracking open the case to modify the system, though after modding a system the piracy just means burning a cd.

But I disagree. It requires more money and technical skills to ensure your computer can play games than it does to buy or pirate them. Either you drop tons of money to regularly buy new computers, or you order new video cards and RAM to upgrade your existing computer. It takes a great deal of technical knowledge to appraise what you are buying, regardless. The effort in doing so makes piracy pale in comparison.

The problem with the PC gaming industry is that it is out of control - it has little to do with piracy. Poorly QA'd systems seem endemic to the platform, with buggy software and limp-wristed hardware being all too common. And there are no reliable metrics to judge what you are buying. Reviews are almost uniformly meaningless, "hardware requirements" are close to lies, and technical support / consumer protection is laughable.

As a result, consumers are relying entirely upon branding. PC gamers buy from Blizzard, or they buy from Will Wright, or they use a service like Steam to pick up vetted games. Console buyers are able to mostly trust that the games they buy will work on their machines, and are partially backed by Microsoft/Sony/Nintendo.

If developers want their PC games to succeed, they need to start optimizing for a broader range of systems, and that means everything from flexible code to scalable art direction. If a coder can't enjoy a game on their parent's computer, they need to ask themselves what their market is.

And industry leaders need to create a trusted source that can give accurate and reliable advice to consumers worried about buying a lemon. It isn't surprising that people are wary of an industry that so regularly fails to deliver on its promises. Hyped up market failures like Crysis, overly technical hardware options, and terrible driver deficiencies in operating systems (like that dud Vista I'm running on) all contribute to a stagnant industry far more than piracy.

http://blogs.pcworld.com/gameon/archives/006522.html

Diamonds in the Rough

I am currently in the process of going through my 100+ Gig photo archive with the intent separating the wheat from the chaff and featuring them on my blog. It is pretty slow going, but I thought I'd present this gem I found at a church near my old house in Springfield.

Biden / Palin Debate

Great Depression Photos

Reuters is featuring a series of 18 famous photos of the Great Depression. Though it is clearly a comment on the recent economic crisis, which has often been compared with the 1930s, it is difficult to say how the editors intend for it to be interpreted. It could be seen as a contrast with the past, or a hint towards the future - probably a bit of both. Check it out.

Bailout

I wrote to my House Representative, Peter DeFazio D-Ore., regarding the recent bailout vote. The $700 billion bailout is designed to insulate the market from years of poor decisions and irresponsible lending. Along with many other Congressional members, Rep. Defazio voted against the bailout plan. The market reacted with the largest point drop in history, and one of the largest percentage drops since the Great Depression.

I understand that http://www.house.gov/ is getting slammed by citizens who are wanting to let their representatives know their opinions, and I thought that I would lend mine as well. Here is the message that I sent the DeFazio administration:

To whom it may concern,

I wanted to register my concern with Rep. DeFazio's no vote on the recent bailout proposal. I think he is a good man, and I am sure he has many reasons for his position, but I urge him to consider supporting the bill.

I do not think that it is the best solution, but I think that it is a necessary evil. The potential risk of allowing the economy to stagnate for another two or three weeks is too great.

The government must display decisive leadership to provide a direction for the markets before they shake themselves apart. Inaction threatens harm that will take a generation to heal.

Thank you for your time,
Tristan Coolen

Spore

I started playing Spore a little while ago, and it is truly a fantastic sandbox. You are charged with creating a species and guiding it from a cellular stage through to a star empire - and hand designing every facet of its development along the way.

These are screenshots of my own little creatures, the Palindrone - pink and poisonous with the ability to brainwash allies - and the Repogig (don't ask), which is a happy little predatory species that looks like a mix between a velociraptor and a Maori warrior. It's awesome.

Definitely check the game out if you have ever been interested in Sims-type games. (It's made by the same developers).

Lawrence Hall Gallery Installation

My roommate Zach Trow was part of an exciting art installation here at the University of Oregon. I wrote an article about the exhibit for the local campus newspaper, the Oregon Daily Emerald:

UO student Michael Williamson enters the white-walled gallery space filled with colorful shapes and forms. He walks the length of the room, examining each piece of art, before returning to the center to gaze at a dark and monstrously large painting dominating the middle of the room.

The graphite forms appear to writhe upon the canvas – their nearly human qualities vying with shapes that are clearly neither man nor woman. They catch the eye for a moment before otherworldly clouds and tendrils grasp the eyes’ attention away.

“I love it,” Williamson said. “I absolutely adore it.”

The painting entitled “Mass-Spore” is part of a larger exhibit in the floor level gallery of Lawrence Hall. Three University of Oregon art installation students are displaying their work. The unusual month-long student-driven exhibition is the result of hundreds of hours of work on the part of the three students.

UO senior Zach Trow, master’s student Lorie Heagle, and master’s graduate Chang-Ae Song joined together to independently fill a gallery usually reserved by professors for course-driven art projects. Entitled “View/Viewed,” the installation is composed of separate installation pieces by each artist.

The unifying theme of the three works is to challenge the viewer’s ideas of perception. And each artist approaches the theme in a different way.
Trow, a sculpture major, created an immersive sculpture installation that draws observers into the artistic space. In an attempt to explore the perception of value, he created a variety of replicas of luxury items that seemed at once realistic and clearly fake.

“I first started playing with the role of logos and how luxury items are found in visual advertisement,” Trow said. He modeled his sculptures after the two dimensional photos of Louis Vuitton products he found online.

His handbags, made out of wood and paint, are sliced in half. The open, un-painted wood is shown to the observer, while the highly realistic other side is reflected in mirrors to give the viewer a different perspective. Similarly, an unassuming black suit and purse stand to one side. It is quite difficult to realize that the suit is completely made of steel, and covered in a thick acetylene ash that looks like paint.

“I’ve always been interested in steel sculpture,” Trow said. “You are very involved with the piece of work.”

Lorie Heagle was similarly involved in her artwork, but in a different way. Heagle created a video installation that incorporated many different layers. Using projectors, she displays a film of herself laying in bed, restless in her sleep.

The artwork was intended to portray the complex thinking and layered experience that occurs at all times, but is particularly noticeable just before falling asleep, Heagle said.

Chang-Ae Song’s large painting summons some of the darker thoughts in those late hours. Her painting is beautiful, but also somehow disturbing. The reason behind this becomes clear when it is understood where the source of the art comes from.

“The original source of the figure drawings I incorporate into landscapes comes from online newspaper photos of the Abu Ghraib detainees.” Song said. “One photograph in particular shocked me. It depicted naked figures climbing on top of one another in a pyramid. It was the most appalling and humiliating photo I’ve ever seen.”

The figures are the direct result of photocopies of the Abu Ghraib photos. As such, the painting contains a strong feeling of unease. The viewer initially sees something of a classic landscape painting, but closer inspection reveals humanistic figures wrapped into contortions.

The installation will remain on display until Oct. 3. Lawrence Hall is the home of the School of Architecture and Applied Arts. Other art and sculpture is on display throughout the building on a rotating schedule during the academic year.

The Why of the Vice-Presidential Pick (Part Two)

This is the second half of my essay analyzing the vice-presidential picks by Barack Obama and John McCain. I'd suggest reading the first part before delving into this one.

According to the Median Voter Theorem, Obama’s decision should have been relatively straightforward. Having clinched his party nomination, Obama should have deliberately moved towards the median, independent voter – effectively following a political Laffer curve. Clinton’s widespread support among moderate women would make her the obvious choice from that game theory model. Whatever votes Obama lost from the contention would be more than made up for by independents and cherry-picked Republican moderates.

But he didn’t pick Clinton. Obama chose Biden.

In Game Theory class, this decision was rationalized using Prospect Theory. That is, that Obama knew that picking Clinton would improve his chances of winning the election, but the utility of probably winning the Presidency with Clinton as VP was lower than potentially winning the election without the worry of an administration at odds with itself – essentially that he was too emotionally biased against Clinton to make the right call. This model is supported by the largely adversarial primary campaign, and Obama’s statement towards the end of the contest that he was not considering Clinton as a candidate for vice-president.

However, I disagree with this understanding. For all the idealism displayed in the campaign – the grandiose speeches and calls for “Hope” and “Change,” Obama is fundamentally an American pragmatist. In his books, The Audacity of Hope and Dreams from My Father, as well as many of his speeches, Obama displays a considered attitude conscious of the difficulty of the road ahead. He appears driven by a desire to effect policy, and willing to compromise in order to do so. It seems uncharacteristic of the man to jeopardize the prospects of the entire liberal movement in order to spite Clinton.

For me at least, this model appears insufficient. In game theory, we are taught that a model is only correct if it serves a purpose. While perhaps this is merely confirmation bias, I don’t think that a model predicated upon the irrationality of Obama and his campaign advisors is particularly serving the purpose of explaining Obama’s decision. These are people who created a juggernaught campaign, raised unheard of amounts of money, and shoved aside a shoe-in candidate at the 10-yard line – it does not seem likely that they would bench Clinton for a Hail Mary pass rather than kiss and make up.

Therefore, I drop the prospect theory explanation, and return to the discussion of Obama’s choice between focusing on independent voters and depressing conservative turn out.

The Median Voter Theorem is predicated upon the existence of the uninformed voter. That is the purpose of appealing to the median voter – to convince the uninformed that their opinions are moderately liberal or moderately conservative. Converting the decided voter is far more of a crapshoot. But in an election that has seen record advertising and discussion, truly uninformed voters are rare at this point. Most people have already decided if they are liberal or conservative, and are unlikely to cross all the way over the aisle.

From this perspective, Obama and McCain were engaged in an infinitely serial Prisoner’s Dilemma with imperfect information: they were effectively cooperating with each other by striving for moderate voters and increasing their base for this election and those in the future. Each party benefited from the contest, because it pulls in donations and marginalizes the third parties. But at some point each campaign needed to stop going after the increasingly marginal number of undecided voters, call that a 50 / 50 game, and work on shoring up their base in battleground states like Florida, Ohio, Michigan and Iowa.

In this model, it can be expected that the two parties will follow the Trigger Strategy (as opposed to Tit For Tat in the primaries or between like-minded parties,) meaning they will cooperate until “Nature” provides a triggering event that will cause one player to defect, followed by the other, for the remainder of the game.

That is exactly what seems to have happened.

Biden is a liberal who will help to bolster turnout in Democratic blue-collar areas. His credentials are unlikely to actually convert those leaning towards McCain, but rather to allay concerns that might keep moderate liberals home or induce disaffected Republican voters to voting against Obama. Whereas picking Clinton would have rallied a limp conservative flag.

McCain seems to have recognized this signal for what it was. Rather than picking Joe Lieberman to drive home McCain’s maverick image, or even Mitt Romney or Tim Pawlenty to gain the median voters ignored by the Democratic pick, McCain chose little known Sarah Palin. The little-known Alaskan governor has proved to be a hit with social conservatives and small government traditionalists, but has struck out with moderates and all but the most ardent PUMAs.

While the McCain / Palin ticket has seen such rocky roads out of the starting gate that they haven’t really been able to get on the offensive, I predict that Republicans will begin fielding attacks aimed at depressing Democratic turnout as the official campaign kicks into full gear. Though neither campaign will totally abandon rhetoric aimed at convincing undecided voters, particularly in battleground states, I think that the candidates are going to focus on raising the percentages of their base, rather than increasing the size of the base as a whole. I’d also anticipate aggressive tactics by the DNC and RNC to gain the full support of the Green Party and Libertarian Party respectively.

I have one final point to make supporting this model, which lies with Hillary Clinton and Mitt Romney. If Prospect Theory was correct, and Obama spited Clinton while McCain retaliated against his party preventing him from choosing Lieberman, then Clinton’s and Romney’s involvement with their respective campaigns would be very limited. Instead, both Clintons have maintained their stumping around the Mid-West, while Romney is revving up for an offensive after Republicans throw off the Palin controversies, while being touted as the Republican candidate for 2012 or 2016.

Surely the prospect of allowing those two to recover by retaining them as stump speakers would be little different from having to deal with them as vice-presidents. And the Republicans are certainly no idealists. The Prospect Theory model just doesn’t explain the picks.

The Why of the Vice-Presidential Pick

I am finally getting over my primary fatigue that has plagued me for the last few months. After the Obama nomination was self-apparent, I pretty much turned my attention to other things. The war in Georgia and the state of the national economy took up much of my discussion time, and summer consumed the rest.

Still, I have been writing, photographing and attending summer classes, and I plan to start posting some of the things I've found interesting over the last couple months. I thought I'd start by sharing an essay I just wrote analyzing the vice-presidential picks. I spent a great deal of time thinking about the issue, and I think that it is something worth reading. Enjoy:

The American presidential election provides a wealth of opportunities for exploration by political scientists. The infighting between the parties and the candidates and the large variety of goals and interested parties makes for a complex and fascinating contest, which makes delving into it all the more rewarding. Game theory appears to excel at parsing the process, which is why I chose to explore the election for this course essay – specifically I wanted to analyze the surprising selection of the vice-presidential candidates by Democratic nominee Barack Obama and Republican contender John McCain.

While many, including myself, were surprised by the choices by the candidates that appear to contradict the game theory expectation that each candidate would moderate their ticket, I think that the decisions can be rationally understood and supported using game theory.

Prior to the early morning announcement on Aug. 23, that Delaware senator Joe Biden would carry the Democratic vice-presidential title, the Obama campaign was remarkably tight-lipped about their selection from the field of contenders. In lieu of concrete information, journalists camped out in front of the houses of the three leading candidates, as well as tailed Obama and his surrogates. The McCain campaign was similarly close-mouthed before their choice a week later of Alaskan governor Sarah Palin as their VP pick.

This degree of secrecy is abnormal for American elections, where a hungry and well-connected media tends to receive tip offs well in advance of formal announcements. It was a change of pace for the news outlets, which were so on edge that a pizza delivery prank to Joe Biden’s house in Wilmington received live national television coverage in the hope that it was some kind of political symbolism. Only a flurry of 11th hour Wikipedia updates and a careful monitoring of unscheduled flight plans tipped the hand of either campaign.

With all this in mind, it is clear that the campaign advisors were operating in a climate of incomplete information. Not only did they not know the intended pick for VP by the other party, but each pick represented a different strategy for their respective campaigns. The inability to predict their opponent prevented either campaign from making a response for fear of reacting to the wrong strategies and utilities.

In game theory terms, the selection of the vice-presidential candidate was the paradigm-changing “costly signal” that indicated the campaign course to both supporters and opponents. The classic example of the “costly signal” in game theory is the wedding band, which is offered to a potential fiancé to indicate the seriousness of one’s intentions. The ring accomplishes two things: it signals long-term investment in the relationship, and it also overtly promotes an intended course of action.

Game theory predicts that each of the players in this situation will sit on their hands until a third player, “Nature,” makes an action that unveils the preferences of each party. And so the campaigns did since the end of the primary season (though political fatigue was also a part of that) – but the advent of party nominating conventions was the third player that would determine the future strategies.

As the Democratic Party convention was scheduled earlier than the Republican Party convention, Obama was forced to make a decision with less information than his opponent – a disadvantage that he attempted to mitigate with the above-mentioned uncharacteristic party discipline that gave Republicans little time to react.

Obama effectively had three significant candidates going into the Democratic convention: Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, and Bill Richardson. Each choice had broad implications for the last leg of the election campaign.

Biden would bring a wealth of experience to the campaign and a Catholic working-family background that would help to defuse the Republican narrative against Obama, but his long, liberal Senate history would be unlikely to win over many Republicans, nor particularly excite independents. While popular in his state, Delaware has a negligible number of electoral votes.

Clinton’s more moderate politics would nominally bring in many fence-sitters, especially women. However, her selection would also serve to invigorate part of the conservative base more interested in voting against her than voting for McCain. It would also create ongoing turmoil within the Democratic Party still sore after the primaries, though there were already a number of discontents (such as the PUMAs, or Party Unity My Ass, that had exploded onto the blogosphere with their intention to punish the Obama campaign’s treatment of Clinton by voting for McCain) that promised complications regardless of the pick.

Finally, Richardson, as a Latino and governor of New Mexico, would bring his own assortment of pros and cons to the ticket. He would help with a battleground state, and bring in a Latino population wary of Obama during the primaries, but he would also rile a conservative population already uncomfortable with a young, Black president.

In short, Obama was faced with the prospect of choosing to increase his own support by going after independent voters, or attempting to depress McCain’s conservative base that appeared to have lackluster support for their candidate.

(Part two to follow)

Star Wars According to a 3 Year Old.

Ever make a home movie that was then seen 8.4 million times? Apparently that is now possible with a few clicks of a button.

This 1:30 minute video was posted in late February, and has now collected an astounding 40,900 ratings, 17,600 comments, and more than 20 video responses.

Home videos of kids are very popular on YouTube, and though this degree of appeal is uncommon, it is by no means unique.

Tiffany Mills Dance Company

I wrote the following article for the Oregon Daily Emerald. Tiffany Mills is a distinguished graduate of the University of Oregon, and I attended her lecture on Monday. I'm not sure I communicated the extent of her success, but I figure that most people who are interested in the dance industry will understand my meaning:

Lithe figures writhe around each other in a chaotic jumble onstage, each being lifted high by the others before being pulled back into the group. The six artists are clothed in layers of tattered clothing and remind the viewer more of struggling survivors than the professional New York dancers that they are.

However, in time an order begins to take hold. The frenzy slows to a controlled movement. A lone woman emerges, balancing carefully upon the backs of the others. The men and women form a human chain, slowly guiding their cargo offstage.

Applause. But this isn't a live performance, the video, part of a larger piece entitled "Landfall," is part of a presentation by UO honors graduate alumnus Tiffany Mills. She visited the university campus on Monday, Aug. 4, to talk about her experience founding a successful New York dance company.

Mills spoke at the UO Robert D. Clark Honors College to a room of more than 15 faculty and guests, several of whom had taught Mills during years at UO.

"She's doing really cutting edge work," said Theresa Picado, the honors college communications coordinator. "It's really quite exciting."

Mills’ presentation comes at the end of a month-long visit to the Northwest with her husband, Andrew. She says she regularly returns to the West Coast during the summer to visit family and to teach.

This year she spent a week teaching at Conduit Dance in Portland, and three weeks at the Velocity Dance Center in Seattle, where she created a new piece.

“My language is movement,” Mills said.

In her presentation to the honors college, Mills said she is a Eugene native whose interest in dance began in her early years with tap lessons and gymnastics, and eventually involvement with musical theatre and the Eugene Ballet.

After graduating from the University in 1992, she received a Master's in dance from Ohio State and moved to New York in 1995 to work as a dancer and choreographer. Five years later, she had started the Tiffany Mills Company, a nonprofit dance studio.

Mills says she wants to use the company to diversify interest in dance as a medium for communication. To expand beyond the "same people at the same concerts," and to grapple with broader issues that affect a wider audience.

"'Modern' dance is a problem word," Mills said. "We're neither modern nor post-modern. We are contemporary but that's not the right word. We are creative moving beings. We need a title."

Following that creative vein, Mills' work in progress is entitled "Tomorrow's Legs," which incorporates movement and speaking to explore real stories in the dancers' lives.

Produced in collaboration with British theatre artist Peter Petralia, Mills used a Skype-equipped laptop to allow Petralia to work with the company from his home in England. "Tomorrow's Legs" will premiere in February at the St. Mark's Church in the East Village, New York.

To prospective dancers and choreographers who want to make their living in the industry, Mills has both words of warning and encouragement.

"Cultivate lots of skills," Mills said. Competition is forcing many professional dancers to work at several dance companies at once. Dance companies like hers, with a dedicated cast, are a dying breed, while "pick-up companies" with one-time dancers are becoming more popular.

"Gotta love what you do," Mills said. "That carries you on."

The Tiffany Mills Company offers internships to university students interested in the dance industry. More information can be found at http://www.tiffanymillscompany.org/.

Seattle Critical Mass Incident

A quick mention of an incident last Friday up in Seattle that is beginning to hit the national wires.

Seattle, Wash. - A group of Seattle Critical Mass riders were involved in the assault of a driver that put the man in the hospital and caused $1,500 in damage to the vehicle.

The incident on Capitol Hill has led to a reopening of the car versus bicycle debate, with some - including one of the nation's largest bicycling clubs - calling for the contentious Seattle Critical Mass program to be disbanded.

Two of the riders have been charged in the attack, and police are searching for a third man who is alleged to have struck the victim in the head with a bike lock.

While it will take some time for the issue to fully develop and play out, online forums and blogs are already deeply embroiled in the debate.

Some supporters of the Critical Mass dispute the police version of the events, saying that the driver initiated the attack. Their opponents contend that this is evidence that Critical Mass is mere hooliganism.

Link to more media coverage

Flesh and Blood Defense

Washington Monthly recently published a fascinating article written by Kevin Carey, the research and policy manager of Education Sector, an independent think tank in Washington, DC.

"Too Weird for The Wire," the article is titled, "How black Baltimore drug dealers are using white supremacist legal theories to confound the Feds."

Upon finding it I quickly found myself engrossed in the extensive article, but when I tried to tell people about the article, it was difficult to relay my fascination. Detailing the history of a legal defense, it reads less like a documentary and more like a mystery novel.

"I am not a defendant,” Mitchell declared. “I do not have attorneys.” The court “lacks territorial jurisdiction over me,” he argued, to the amazement of his lawyers. To support these contentions, he cited decades-old acts of Congress involving the abandonment of the gold standard and the creation of the Federal Reserve. Judge Davis, a Baltimore-born African American in his late fifties, tried to interrupt. “I object,” Mitchell repeated robotically. Shelly Martin and Shelton Harris followed Mitchell to the microphone, giving the same speech verbatim. Their attorneys tried to intervene, but when Harris’s lawyer leaned over to speak to him, Harris shoved him away.

Judge Davis ordered the three defendants to be removed from the court, and turned to Gardner, who had, until then, remained quiet. But Gardner, too, intoned the same strange speech. “I am Shawn Earl Gardner, live man, flesh and blood,” he proclaimed. Every time the judge referred to him as “the defendant” or “Mr. Gardner,” Gardner automatically interrupted: “My name is Shawn Earl Gardner, sir.” Davis tried to explain to Gardner that his behavior was putting his chances of acquittal or leniency at risk. “Don’t throw your life away,” Davis pleaded. But Gardner wouldn’t stop. Judge Davis concluded the hearing, determined to find out what was going on.

Link via The Washington Monthly

Jesse Helms Epitaph

While my 28.8k dial-up AOL childhood scars usually make me shun America Online like the Black Death, this AOL News feature obituary made my heart sing a little.

The controversial Senator Jesse Helms died this Fourth of July, and blogger Ken Layne wrote an amazing obit piece. I have practiced writing them in college, but the examples never read like this:

Jesse Helms died today, 25 years too late, but the stench of his rotten career will always linger in the Senate, and over the South.

He was a hero to bigots and the cigarette corporations, a menace to the poor and downtrodden, and a mean little troll whose heart was so wrecked by wickedness that doctors had to patch it up with coronary valves from a pig.

It was a far better summary of the man's life than I heard on NPR, which featured an infuriating apologist in lieu of worthy journalism.

Oregon Electric Station

I was recently published as a freelance photographer, again for the Oregon Daily Emerald, the campus newspaper for the University of Oregon. This time I was shooting a local posh restaurant and bar, the Oregon Electric Station, in downtown Eugene.

It was a good assignment, though I did find myself hurting for a good flash that was nowhere to be found. Oh well.

My only real complaint was that one of the photos was published incorrectly, because it was highly pixelated (probably a mistake in the re-sizing of the photo).

Eugene City Brewery

It's been about a week or so since I've posted, mainly because I've been busy either working or watching the West Wing, but I did have time to get hired on as a freelancer at the Oregon Daily Emerald, the college newspaper of the University of Oregon.

The Olympic Trials are going on here in town right now, and I wrote an article published 30 JUN 08 that was about a local brewery owned by Rogue Ales that is going all out to support the Trials.

This is the original form of the article, as the published version had some editing:

Many of the bars and restaurants around Eugene have become Track Town-flavored during the two weeks of the Olympic Trials here at Hayward Field. Posters of track and field stars and televisions tuned to sports channels seem commonplace.

But the downtown Rogue Ales Eugene City Brewery is pulling out all the stops in its support of the event. Apart from a $10,000 donation to the Olympic Trials, the brewery kicked off the Trials with a Eugene celebration at all of the Rogue pubs.

“Track Town is about a town, not just Hayward Field,” said Jack Joyce, a founder of the Rogue River Brewing Co. He said he has supported track since he was a student at the University of Oregon in 1960, and the Track Town events at the brewery a way of showing that support.

In an effort to become Track Town Central for locals as well as the many visitors here for the trials, the pub house has opened up its doors round the clock and offered a breakfast menu including duck eggs.

The Eugene City Brewery has also started a shuttle service to Hayward Field, as well as pizza and beer delivery service and has put all of their award-winning Track Town Ales on draft.

People seem to appreciate the service. Though the first days were slower than expected, by early evening Saturday the building is filled with patrons parched by the hot day. Servers push past with trays laden with food and drink, while customers at tables talk and laugh together.

In one area of the brew house, an Adidas representative has set up a Wii console and a man and woman excitedly play the Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games videogame.

At a table outside, a group of people visiting for the Trials sit and enjoy the evening. Tom and Faith Miller, of Pittsburg, Penn., are the parents of Fawn “Deloma” Miller, a high-school sophomore pole-vaulter competing in the Olympic Trials. They are accompanied by her high-school coach Grey Slatcoff, and her NCAA coach Mark Hannay.

This is the second time they have come to the Eugene City Brewery, after finding out about the place from a pamphlet at their hotel, and all seem to be enjoying themselves.

“We’re doing just fine,” Faith Miller said. They are all fans of Northwest microbrews. The four had ordered tasters of some of the 34 varieties of beer on draft, and they were picking out favorites. Hannay called the large number of choices “kind of overwhelming.”

The Raspberry Mead was Faith’s favorite, while her husband liked the Hazelnut Brown Nectar. The Track Town Triple Jump pale ale was also well liked.

“There has not been one beer that I haven’t enjoyed,” Tom Miller said.

There was one beer that was a point of contention. The Oregon Golden wheat ale seemed to strike the wrong chord with Slatcoff.

“You can quote me on this,” Slatcoff said with a grin, “this is the worst beer I’ve ever had in my whole life.”

To each their own.

Marx, Weber and Foucault (Part Two)

I just finished working on two essays for my Modernist Political Theory class with Prof. James Ingram at the University of Oregon. This is the second half of the second essay, which explores the writings of Marx, Weber and Foucault in the critique of freedom and equality. The first half of the essay is here, while the previous essay parts can be found here and here.

So how do they all agree?

To show the point, look towards Marx’s arguments. In his most well-known work, Capital, Marx makes his case against capitalism in the name of the down-trodden proletariat injured by the elite classes. He rails against the injustices committed by the system.

“We suffer not only from the development of capitalist production, but also from the incompleteness of that development. Alongside the modern evils, we are oppressed by a whole series of inherited evils, arising from the passive survival of archaic and outmoded modes of production, with their accompanying train of anachronistic social and political relations. We suffer not only from the living, but from the dead. Le mort saisit le vif!” (Marx, 218)

However, also note that he is not arguing against the idea of democracy, the form of political government, but rather against capitalism, an economic system based upon the ideal of democratic freedom. He does not want to subvert the rule of law, but rather expects capitalism to slide naturally and democratically into socialism. And he is not arguing against freedom, per se, but rather for equality.

His revolution is a bloodless one, and supported by the people. This distinction is an important one to make, and mirrored in the critiques of the other authors, because it serves to show how similar their underlying values are.

In analyzing Weber’s The Vocation Lectures, one sees an extensive argument in favor of two things: the role of science and religion in society, and increased legitimacy of political leaders. In doing so, Weber argues for a bureaucratization of politics, as seen in science and academia, and a offers a justification for elites as often existing due to inherent qualities such as competence and charisma, though he acknowledges systemic reasons as well.

“We can hear from that beautiful song of the Edomite watchman … in the book of Isaiah. “One calleth to me out of Seir, Watchman, what of the night? what of the night? [sic] The watchman said, Even if the morning cometh [sic], it is still night: if ye inquire already, ye will come again and inquire once more.” … From it we should draw the moral that longing and waiting is not enough and that we must act differently. We must go about our work and meet “the challenges of the day” –both in our human relations and our vocation. But that moral is simple and straightforward if each person finds and obeys the daemon that holds the threads of his life.” (Weber, 31)

In the above passage, Weber cites a biblical passage to his students in order to promote his idea of science and politics as being vocational in nature. And although the end result of this line of thought allows the divide between the common and the elite, it stems from a belief in freedom and fulfillment, rather than some advocacy of inequality or injustice. The bureaucracy is engendered in order to protect individual freedoms from a demagogue or tyrant, not limit them for the benefit of the leaders. Like Marx, Weber only hopes to use democracy to give the public more freedom and equality, but he is similarly caught up in the difficult relationship between the two ideas acting in on a broad scale.

Finally, in his previously-mentioned works Discipline and Punish and The Birth of the Prison, Foucault seems to attempt to avoid the problems experienced by Marx and Weber, and he tries to limit the focus of his book to those who have historically lacked both freedom and equality: the criminal, the soldier and the student.

Foucault describes the historical relationship between the criminal and the state, and clearly contrasts the brutality of early times with the relative humanity of contemporary forms of punishment and incarceration. He uses the example of the prison Panopticon as a jumping off point to explore a system that promotes that impersonal equality and blind justice that was so lacking in prisons, but also in schools and military barracks.

“The panoptic modality of power – at the elementary, technical, merely physical level at which it is situated – is not under the immediate dependence or a direct extension of the great juridico-political structures of a society.” (Foucault, 221)

“There is no risk, therefore, that the increase of power created by the panoptic machine may degenerate into tyranny; the disciplinary mechanism will be democratically controlled, since it will be constantly accessible ‘to the great tribunal committee of the world’.” (Foucault, 207)

Once again, it can be seen that this author really is a proponent of democracy, though he spends much of his book outlining plans to close the fist of control around the society. His plan is centered around leveraging the democratic society at large in order to prevent abuses and mini-tyrannies. From this perspective, the Panopticon concept is an equalizer: it restricts everyone in the same manner, to prevent a small number from being especially molested.

Now that each author has been examined, it is clear that their opinions can be seen as complementary, even if they seem to be in tension and opposition at first glance. For though they disagree in the details, in doing so they also affirm the broad principles that govern a democracy: the sovereign will of the people, the rule of law, the importance of individual freedoms and collective equalities.

While they would likely never agree on their separate concerns with modern democracy, it is safe to say that their disagreements have nothing to do with the idea of democracy itself, but rather with its symptoms.

Marx, Weber and Foucault (Part One)

I just finished working on two essays for my Modernist Political Theory class with Prof. James Ingram at the University of Oregon. This is the first half of the second essay, which explores the writings of Marx, Weber and Foucault in the critique of freedom and equality. The previous essay parts can be found here and here.

“If these lines ever reach America, I am certain of two things: first, that all readers will raise their voice to condemn me; second, that many of them will absolve me in the depths of their conscience.”

- Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

Prompt four: Marx, Weber, and Foucault argue that, despite its undeniable advantages, modern liberal democracy fails to deliver on its promise of freedom and equality. Compare their accounts of why this is, paying special attention to their comments on democracy and the rule of law. Do you think their accounts are complementary, or are they in tension?

Freedom and equality - two concepts most often considered by political scientists and philosophers (whether they are renowned authorities or argumentative students). They are simultaneously synonymous and dichotomous. With freedom must come equality, but promoting one often dampers the other. Modern liberal democracy promises an abundance of both, but the details often seem to get lost in the fine print. As such, it is often the target of critics who fault democracy as being unable to provide a desired level of either quality. And although few would return to the dictatorial style of government of old, there is certainly a wide range of proposals for change.

If my previous essay compared the method and aim of modern political criticism, then this essay is an examination of that criticism itself. All of the authors read for this term (Friedrich Nietzsche and all the rest) have explored democratic freedoms and equalities in their own way, and from very different perspectives. J.S. Mill and Alexis de Tocqueville write from the beginning of the 19^th century, when kings and emperors still ruled the world, while Michel Foucault wrote until the waning years of the Soviet Union. It comes to no one’s surprise that these authors take different perspectives on these considerations. But there is a common strain throughout their works: a certain admiration for the idea of democracy and the rule of law.

Karl Marx, Max Weber and Michel Foucault focus upon different aspects of Western democracy, but despite some tensions, their conclusions as to the future of that democracy are largely complementary. Though they take issue with certain parts of democracy, they, collectively and individually, affirm the principles for which it stands.

So how do a revolutionary, a scientist-bureaucrat and a disciplinarian come together to agree on a system that they spend so much time haranguing? It sounds like something of a bad joke. Marx, the well-known socialist, wants to up-end the system and institute a new order that promotes equality above all else; Weber counters this proposal by legitimating the hierarchy between the common and the elite; Foucault seems to take the mid-line between these two, by wanting everyone to be imprisoned equally.

Increased Cost of Commuting

I finished writing this enterprise article today. I've been meaning to write about rising gas prices since the beginning of the term, but it wasn't until the end of the year that I found an opportunity to do so. This article was submitted to my Reporting II class with Prof. Mark Furman, and I also sent it over to Gini Davis at the Creswell Chronicle, where it hopefully will be published next week. Let me know what you think!

Commuting Costs on the Rise

A daily commute to work, a child athlete, and errands in town. What do these three things have in common? They are driving commuters to the fuel pump, which is up a third in price since last year.

“We’re on the road a lot,” said Christopher Presley, a Creswell resident who works in Eugene at Hynix Semiconductor.

Presley has been following the same 30 minute commute in for the last four years, and he estimates that with his wife’s Honda Accord he spends $170 per month in fuel for the commute alone, never mind his three sport athlete son, Garrett.

“I would like to ride a bike,” Presley said. But Creswell is 10 miles south of Eugene on the freeway so biking that distance isn’t viable, and he calls the bus service “really inconvenient.”

Presley said that he is thinking about buying a scooter to help mitigate fuel costs, though he does have concerns about safety. When asked if he might try out his son’s efficient homebuilt motorized bike, he replied, “Oh hell no.”

Rising gas prices are forcing drivers to be more frugal in their fuel consumption, and to consider cheaper ways of getting to work. Public transportation, carpooling and smaller vehicles can be good ways to drive down costs, but safety and convenience can be real concerns.

For many people, like Richard Milne of Eugene, conflicting schedules make it difficult to use public transportation or set up a carpool with co-workers.

“It’s not really an option,” Milne said. As a coach and teacher at Creswell Middle School, most of his colleagues have left by the time his athletes go home.

And while more and more people are using the bus system, the Lane Transit District saw an increase in ridership of 16 percent over the last year, LTD Service Planning and Marketing Manager Andy Vobora says that funding concerns make it harder to make it more convenient for people like Milne and Presley.

“There’s a couple of tough years coming up,” Vobora said. He said budget cuts and a slow economy have mixed with rising oil prices that “couldn’t come at a worse time.”

80 percent of LTD payroll funding comes from taxes, and recession worries are making the service look for other sources of funding. Vobora expects a five to ten percent decrease in bus service next year.

But there is hope for Creswell. The Creswell / Cottage Grove bus route is the highest utilized of the rural communities around Eugene, with busses serving the community 10 times each day. While expansion is unlikely, the service probably will not be cut down.

“Don’t expect any changes to that route,” Vobora said.

So if bus service isn’t expanding, how can people save money on gas?

Companies are beginning to take notice of the commuter’s dilemma. LTD is working with them to provide vanpools to help employees, where vans are rented by LTD, fueled by the company and driven by employees to provide a cheaper and more accessible solution.

Van-pools can also be set up by the drivers themselves via the LTD website. The vans are centered around Eugene, but there are van pools that run all the way down from Corvallis.

Hynix spokesperson Bobby Lee said Eugene Hynix recently began offering the service, as well as on site bus service, and that biking and traditional car-pooling are also very popular.

Despite these options, high gas prices remain frustrating for drivers.

“The number one talk is gas prices,” Presley said. Narrowing down that cause is difficult, and will probably play a large role in election politics and national policies to come.

Presley says that he and his wife are leaning towards Barack Obama in the upcoming Presidential election, in part due to Obama’s fuel policy.

“It’s affecting our voting,” Presley said.

But Milne doesn’t think that prices at the pump will impact who he will vote for.

“I don’t spend that much time thinking about it,” Milne said. He compares the fuel crisis to similar worries in previous eras.“It’s a new wave of change that’s going to happen in my lifetime.

“It’s futures in Wall Street,” Presley counters. “It’s people in Wall Street, it’s Americans getting rich on Americans.”

Nietzsche v Foucault (Part Two)

Here is the follow-up to the previously posted essay written for my Political Theory class.

Now that the terms have been established, we continue to the heart of the discussion.

The titles of the authors’ works do well to describe their contents: Nietzsche’s Genealogy of Morals is relatively self-explanatory, and while Foucault’s Discipline and Punish and Birth of the Prison only tell the reader of the content of the discussion, rather than the form, his genealogy quickly becomes apparent from his historical focus and regular citation of Nietzschean language. And it is clear that along with mirroring each other’s method, the authors also share similar aims in their works: that is, to guide the reader towards a conclusion by contextualizing the debate. It is an all-encompassing style of argument, wherein the author seeks to offer the totality of societal understanding of the issue, believing that the knowledge of such will prompt the reader to hold opinions similar to the author. In this way, the aim genealogy is to provide a perspective argument where the author wins the reader by shaping their viewpoint, rather than directly changing their beliefs.

Friedrich Nietzsche, whose writings predate that of Foucault’s by some 50 years, first popularized this genealogical argument in his work. Due to this prima nature, his style is at once original and reflective of the analytical argument. At the beginning of his work he sets off with the standard mode of argument wherein you first establish the aim of the work – “We need a critique of moral values, the value of these values themselves must first be called into question.” (Nietzsche, 20) – and then conclude with a congratulatory self-pat on the back reminding the reader what the author has done.

But after doing so in the introduction, he then launches into a historical narrative which examines morality in the light of previous philosophers, the traditional struggle between the aristocrat and the plebe, and then an etymological examination of the words “good” and “bad.” It is a remarkable form of argument, which nonetheless remains persuasive at the end of the work (as the legions of youthful nihilists can attest).

“Now it is plain to me, first of all, that in this theory the source of the concept “good” has been sought and established in the wrong place: the judgment “good” did not originate with those to whom “goodness” was shown! Rather it was “the good” themselves, that is to say, the noble, powerful, high-stationed and high-minded, who felt and established themselves and their actions as good, that is, of the first rank, in contradistinction to all the low, low-minded, common and plebeian. It was out of this pathos of distance that they first seized the right to create values and to coin names for values.” (Nietzsche, 26)

By exploring the meaning behind the meaning and the context of the debate, Nietzsche achieved a cohesive argument that would be quite difficult to attain in the traditional style. ‘Proving’ nihilism to a critical audience in a debate format would be a difficult task, because it is an attack upon the basic fundaments of their character. A Grecian argument cum Plato would force the reader to question and dismiss his or her own sense of morality, a rather untenable position. But by providing that genealogy of morals, Nietzsche can contextualize his perspective and convince the reader of their similarity of viewpoint.

Michel Foucault wrote his works in the light of Nietzsche’s success, and his style of argument was strongly affected by Nietzsche’s work. But the interval had given time for Nietzsche’s acolytes to refine the perspective, which left Foucault’s Discipline and Punish and his Birth of the Prison somewhat derivative in nature, but also more strongly removed from classical argument than that of Nietzsche himself. Foucault makes no real attempt to convince the reader of any overriding thesis – other than extending this mode of thinking to the school and barracks – he only outlines his genealogy of punishment and control.

Foucault explores the history of penal reform, the slow progression from the tortuous punishment of the autocrat, to the idealistic reform and attempted rehabilitation advocated by Enlightenment philosophers, and finally to the modern system of his contemporaries, which attempted a shallower yet more over-arching form of impersonal control and punishment for the population at large. While he is less proscriptive than Nietzsche, he nonetheless clearly lays out his chosen perspective solution.

“It was not so much, or not only, the privileges of justice, its arbitrariness, its archaic arrogance, its uncontrolled rights that were criticized; but rather the mixture of its weaknesses and excesses, its exaggerations and its loopholes, and above all the very principle of this mixture, the ‘super-power’ of the monarch. The true objective of the reform movement, even in its most general formulations, was not so much to establish a new right to punish based on more equitable principles, as to set up a new ‘economy’ of the power to punish, to assure its better distribution, so that it should be neither too concentrated at certain privileged points, nor too divided between opposing authorities; so that it should be distributed in homogenous circuits capable of operating everywhere, in a continuous way, down to the finest grain of the social body.” (Foucault, 80)

The genealogy is the common link between Foucault and Nietzsche, and it serves to differentiate the two from the majority of other political scientist authors. And the system was borne out by both of them; both authors used it successfully to promote their arguments. Nietzsche’s critique of morality has been embraced by potent socio-political movements (nihilism, atheism, reformism, Nazism) since his heralded first publishing of Genealogy of Morals. Foucault’s impersonal yet hyper-vigilant system of order and punishment has been embraced by Western law enforcement throughout the world.

While it would be imprudent to lay entirety of their success at the feet of their books, it is clear that the genealogical style of argument can be powerfully persuasive, even if it is not as widely practiced as the classical confrontational style used by many other political scientist authors.