the Boss endorses Obama; disses Bittergate

Look if Bruce isn't bitter, than neither am I. Click the subject heading for link.

click here if you like pictures of children, cats, birds, and bugs, taken by my friend Chris

that's right, in the title. click there.

a compelling reason to bring the troops home: They're asking us.

Reading this article on Iraq soldier diaries reminded me to visit this blog (especially this post from today), which I used to follow then lost track of. I don't know too many - OK none - people enlisted in the military, and Spc. Freeman writes in a way that makes me feel that this could have been me.

Especially as the U.S. troop death toll reaches 4,000 and key political figures turn the pull-out debate into a navel-gazing excercise, I have to wonder why no one is actually listening to our soldiers. I mean, debating whether we should remain overseas is becoming like political crossword puzzles: the debate passes the time in an interesting way, without any actual progress on the ground.

Of course our soldiers are speaking. We could listen to the Winter Soldier hearings from Washington last week, something I've been meaning to do but still haven't found the time. But that's just it, right? The more time that passes, now five years, the more desensitized we become.

But if we didn't have online diaries, I'd have to depend on the Times, or NPR, or worse our Government for information from the sand. So this is a public Thanks, Spc. Freeman, for keeping us grounded. Oh, and welcome home!

garfield minus garfield

Especially if you follow comic strips, this is pretty damn funny.

via mimi smartypants.

Bloggy McBloggerton volume umpteen

Edie's first multigrain baguette

I. Still not blogging. But my friends are! Especially read Katie and Meghan, with some pithy narratives of late*. All I can muster are baby photos. Lucky for me, those carry currency!

II . If you want to win at Scrabble, join Facebook and play me. I've yet to win a game but love to keep playing. A glutton for punishment I guess.

III. Remember Project 365? Well I ended up taking a photo nearly every day of January and decided to keep doing it. Instead of saying P365 however I'm being more lenient with a vague "picture a day." The difference is that I may or may not have exactly 365 (or even 366) photos by December 31. Still a daily photo journal, so check it out.

IV. Did I ever mention my new years resolutions? I have three, and by accident they all have to do with books. (1) read more feminist lit - I've just ordered these. (2) listen to an audio book (yes just one for now to see what the hubbub is about). (3) do something, anything meaningful with my late father's library of religion and philosophy books circa the early 1970s**.

* Exhibit A: Katie's sociology of the university gym!
** Well that might take some further explanation. But it is what it is. I've got about a half dozen boxes of aging literature. Most of it might be worthless on Amazon, but some of it might be in the category of rare books. I'm just not sure what to do with it, but I've had de facto possession now for more than a decade.

Bloggy McBloggerton Blahs

Ok, so I haven't been posting. Instead, I've been working as a member of two cooperatives (housing and childcare, more later), taking loads of Edie time since Sarah is studying for the bar practically every minute, being sick - again - thanks to the wonderful germs of baby friends, and also playing four simultaneous games of Scrabble on Facebook. Of which I'm losing.

But, since my latest blogpost reads "Interestingness," something that after a week is no longer interesting, I thought I'd put something new up here for a while. Way back on January 5th, a mere two posts ago, I talked about almost accidentally eating Cabell Gathman on the Oregon Trail, also on Facebook. Since that time, she's written an article for the online zine Strange Horizons titled Games on Facebook: Playing "with" Your Friends. And, she features my post! Highly recommended, at least after the part where she pokes a little fun at my expense (no, really, I clicked on the plate and fork on accident).

I haven't done this in a while, but direct links in the post are more pointed than my sidebar-delicious system. You should check out my sister's recent experience of a quirkily racist note on her door. Meghan posts a funny funny photoset on flickr, all self-portraits that she decided *not* to submit for speaking at an upcoming panel on nonviolence. And, this goes back, but I was super impressed by Heather's (her popular music blog is worth reading) NPR interview about the best songs of 2007. Good words about Josh Ritter there. Remember him?

Speaking of music, I've been listening to a lot of Feist lately. She has a terrific 2007 album (which made TLGs top 27 of 2007), but actually we've been listening to her earlier now-classic album, the one with Mushaboom. You can listen to Feist on the Hype Machine. Every one of her songs is unique from her others, and usually lots of fun.

Sort of a meandering post, but that's the point of a McBloggerton.

"Very handy resource, keep up the great work." — Anon.

I'm all for the fundraising efforts of Wikipedia*. I think that Wikipedia is an invaluable research tool, and perhaps the only reason I know what I'm talking about. What's curious, however, is their ongoing quotes on the mainpage. Go there, and keep clicking refresh. All the quotes are anonymous. For example:

"Wikipedia is an invaluable research tool." — Anon.

and

"Wikipedia is the only reason I know what I'm talking about." — Anon.

Surely these are meant in jest. They're so unconvincing, that I just might give!

*Sidenote for Sarah's benefit: Doesn't the WikiMedia Fundraising logo look very similar to the One With the Earth logo? It really is taking over the world!

maybe i should use more syllabical words in my postology

via sozlog

I guess I'll be voting for a white man in the primaries

Meghan found this Presidential Matchup at the ABC website, matching your answers to political issue questions with the candidates running in the primaries. Looks like Kucinich is my man, who I voted for in 04 over the Deaniac buzz. But the other two are the ones that get me. I've heard little about Mike Gavel from Alaska - so little that I somehow thought he was on the Republican ticket. And Joe Biden?! Is he running? I'd choose Dukakis over him any day.

If I were to vote my conscious and not for who I think will win (don't we all do that?), then I'd go for Kucinich first, and probably Edwards second. Barack just isn't convincing me, and Hillary - well (my sentiments exactly). But Gavel I might have to check out. When I do, I'll check out Bill Richardson a bit too.

Do you hear the enthusiasm? Let's just say I'll be happy to get rid of Bush, but I'm not so sure if it'll be much of a regime change.

trying and failing to outsource blogposting to delicious

Wow, two days and no post. I'm trying to accomplish what Eszter does by getting del.icio.us to post semi-daily link updates*. Apparently there's some compatability problem with Blogger, though. Until then, see the more conspicuous sidebar widget if you want to see what I've been marking lately.

*Not that my bookmarks are remotely as interesting. Still, something is better than nothing.

Look Mom, I'm on the Internets! (UPDATED!)

I just found out yesterday that Second Life, as seen on The Office (where Dwight flies), is an actual Internet phenomenon! I decided to not to pursue this, save a quick search for the above link. Facebook, MySpace, and Blogger are second life-ish enough.

What I do have, however, are quickie animated online personas. South Park has been around for a while, Simpsonizing comes with the movie (how was that, by the way?), and now the New York public animal exhibit system has a Wild Self dealie that's been going around. So it's with great pleasure that I present to you my alter-Internet-egos:


UPDATE!
Check out sociology buddies Katie and Meghan, who now posted their Wild South Simpson Selves. Also I never mentioned the original circuit I found the Wild Self thing: see Chris, Anomie, Why Li, and Warner. Also take a peek at Sarah and Edie's wild selves, below. Edie's the baldie - too cute!

food prep a la wiki -or- To the Pumpkin Patch!

Thanks to Bourgeois Bee (good link for food porn), or actually a comment by Katie, I bought a spaghetti squash this week. Sarah made bell peppers over the weekend, and we bought pumpkins too, photo shoot above. It's official, fall is here! Time for harvest food.

Problem is, I haven't cooked a spaghetti squash since last fall and forget the technique. All I remember is that attempting to open up the squash with a chainsaw is not the way to go. In a quick Google search for the item, guess who has the process? Wikipedia! And even though the article disclaims it contains no references or sources, I'm pretty sure they got it right.

What are you eating this fall?

file transfer complete!

Although I border on either being a nerd or flat out boring according to Wicked Anomie, I aspire to Geek-dom by writing here often about my new MacBook. Probably we should generate a hipster identity marker chart as well to be sure that I'm not hip either, but all this Mac talk begins to make me feel (thank you Carly) like a poser.

Nevertheless, I transferred my files from a crashed PC to my new Mac! All it took was four hours at the school computer service center, where I waited for nearly three hours during a slow and painful file transfer of a mere 1.3 gigs from my PC hard drive to their internal network. Then in one and half minutes, they drag-and-dropped two folders from network to MacBook, completing the transfer. I have to say, it's a little surreal to see my entire academic career* transferred like that, now sitting on my desktop behind two folders. I guess it's the content of the folders that count, not the megabyte count.

In other news, I love exposé as a solution to alt-tabbing, but also I discovered that alt-tilde on MacBook functions exactly like the old alt-tab that I know and love. Solution? I use both, with a preference to exposé, which I only typed out a second time so that I could use the accent letters function again - which also I love. Stay tuned for more Mac updates!

(hat tip: Meghan's photobooth)

* plus every picture I've taken since May and all of our Alaska vacation photos, which admittedly take up the vast majority of that gig.

a very special day

Happy Birthday to Dennis Kucinich!

(what, you thought i was going to say something else?)

When did OpEds become like Blog Entries?

I'm used to seeing hyperlinks in the New York Times. They usually take you to stock profiles or other NYT stories. But today browsing through the OpEds I notice a slew of hyperlinks - 29 to be exact - in the Frank Rich blog-post-I-mean-editorial. These links take you to news items, blogs, online zines, political satire sites, it's like an uber-entry, worth about 10 Daily Kos posts.

Should we consider adding the Times to our blogrolls?

Are African nations more American than us?

Via Jim Gibbon, according to the recently released Pew Global Attitudes Survey citizens of Turkey hold strongly unfavorable views about the United States. In fact, only nine percent of the Turks hold favorable views of us, in general, as a nation. This meshes fairly well with the overall conclusion that Muslim nations and much of the Middle East hold the least favorable views, compared to overwhelmingly favorable views held by African nations -- and outlier Israel.

Looking at the chart, however, I'm struck more by the top part of the graph than the bottom. The Ivory Coast loves the U.S., with 88% of its citizenry reporting favorable views. Next up, Kenya at 87%. Ghana and the U.S. are tie, with 80% of citizens holding us in high esteem. But wait! 18% of Americans report unfavorable views of the U.S., while only 11% of Ghanaians disapprove of us. That pushes Ghana above the U.S., placing us fourth among the 41 nations polled.

This sure raises a question about nationalism*. I mean, who's more American here? Further, this makes me wonder, How do citizens of the Ivory Coast, Kenya, or Ghana feel about their own nations? Hopefully they report over 88 percent favorability.

*not to mention colonialism but we can leave that alone for the moment

Paying for bad icons, and the MySpace Facebook divide

I know that Cabell brought this up long ago, but today I joined the Facebook community* and finally discovered it for myself. See these pictures above? They cost a dollar each. A dollar!! I can upload the html from my flickr** account for about a dollar less than that. In fact, for free I just posted the first 28 pictures on this blog - that saved me 27*** dollars just now. MySpace never charges for this sort of thing, but that brings up an interesting point:

Danah Boyd wrote a now-widely circulated exploratory piece about the class divisions as seen through Facebook and MySpace. While press releases say that the teenage world is flocking from MySpace to Facebook, Boyd finds a different reality. She identifies two sorts of teens, the "subaltern teens" and the "hegemonic teens," which could be classified as less or more priveleged teenagers. Subalterns, the less priveleged, stick to MySpace:

MySpace is still home for Latino/Hispanic teens, immigrant teens, "burnouts," "alternative kids," "art fags," punks, emos, goths, gangstas, queer kids, and other kids who didn't play into the dominant high school popularity paradigm.

Hegemonic, or more priveleged teens, switch to Facebook:

The goodie two shoes, jocks, athletes, or other "good" kids are now going to Facebook. These kids tend to come from families who emphasize education and going to college. They are part of what we'd call hegemonic society. They are primarily white, but not exclusively. They are in honors classes, looking forward to the prom, and live in a world dictated by after school activities.

Not only that, but they know about each other and classify the opposing group:

While teens on Facebook all know about MySpace, not all MySpace users have heard of Facebook. In particular, subaltern teens who go to school exclusively with other subaltern teens are not likely to have heard of it. Subaltern teens who go to more mixed-class schools see Facebook as "what the good kids do" or "what the preps do." They have various labels for these hegemonic teens but they know the division, even if they don't have words for it. Likewise, in these types of schools, the hegemonic teens see MySpace as "where the bad kids go." "Good" and "bad" seem to be the dominant language used to divide hegemonic and subaltern teens in mixed-class environments. At the same time, most schools aren't actually that mixed.

And I must admit, like the preppy Facebookers that Boyd speaks of, I too thought that Facebook was much more "clean" and more rational to use than MySpace. First of all, there are way less advertisements on Facebook. But that could explain why they charge money for silly icons.

*Ok ok, First, Facebook is now for everyone not just undergrads - didn't you know? Second, I had like four or five outstanding friend requests, even though I don't actually have a profile. I think I logged in one time to see what it was about, thought I deleted myself but my name and school still registered. Today I received a friend request from a long lost comrade. Also (Third) my brother has a lively facebook page and I like being in touch with him.
**Being able to use two Internet lingo terms like that right in a row really makes me feel like I've reached for and finally grasped the future.
***That's one free picture plus one dollar for each additional picture.

probably given posts titled "baby baby baby" and "first father's day" this should be of no surprise

via BWW

distraction: let's think about the not-so-newborn for a bit

In other words, props to the old!



From this related article in today's Times, which states:

... the Zimmers, a vast rock group formed of elderly retirees and overseen by Mike Hedges, the U2 producer. The band releases its first album, “My Generation,” on Monday, but its first music video — a performance of the Who’s “My Generation” with Pete Townshend — was uploaded to YouTube last month.

Watch for both Pink Floyd and Beetles references, complete with handwritten signs and crosswalk, respectively.

Great moments from Wikipedia: Jerry Falwell edition

Less important is why Sarah and I sit around at 11pm and discuss the Supreme Court. More apropos is the clip I just found, in bold.

Oh, and how about that Fred Phelps?! Read all about it at Pandagon or Dan Savage's blog.

Here's the Wiki entry:

The Appointment of Sandra Day O'Connor

On July 7 1981, President Reagan, who had pledged during the 1980 presidential campaign to appoint the first woman to the Supreme Court, nominated her as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, replacing the retiring Potter Stewart. (One of the more memorable moments from O'Connor's nomination process came when conservative televangelist Jerry Falwell said, "Every good Christian should oppose the nomination of Sandra Day O'Connor to the Supreme Court;" O'Connor's fellow Arizona Republican, Barry Goldwater, retorted, "Every good Christian should line up and kick Jerry Falwell's ass.") O'Connor was confirmed by the Senate 99–0 on September 21 and took her seat September 25. In her first year on the Court, O'Connor received over sixty thousand letters from the public, more than any other justice in history. O'Connor was unprepared for the scrutiny that came with being the first woman on the Court, and was relieved when Ruth Bader Ginsburg joined her in 1993.