CNN map shows early voting patterns

A map on CNN shows early voting statistics. I tried to post a screenshot, but it didn't work, so just hit this link and see for yourself. Mouse over a state to see, for example, that about 225,000 more Democrats than Republicans have voted early in Florida.

technorati: election, early voting, map

Vox populi

I was in the break room at work, where a TV was playing CNN. A slip showed Sen. Ted Stevens leaving an office building as Wolf Blitzer narrated, "One day after being convicted on corruption charges, Alaska Senator Ted Stevens says he wants to get back on the campaign trail."

A janitor was sitting there watching. "A crook, and he wants to campaign!" the guy said. "'Look at me, I just got convicted, vote for me.' He's just a big crook!"

I said something about how I guessed he already had his campaign donations in hand so why not get out there and spend them.

"That's all they're there for," the janitor declared. "Crookery!"

technorati: Republicans, Ted Stevens, CNN

Dumbass of the day

Rep. Steve King, warming up a crowd at a Palin rally in Iowa:

Obama is ACORN. ... When I see Obama, I see ACORN branded on his forehead.

What the fuck does that even mean? He sees black people with brands? He thinks that Obama is in thrall to this non-profit community development group? What he meant was: ""When you take a lurch to the left you end up in a totalitarian dictatorship," King said. "There is no freedom to the left. It's always to our side of the aisle."

"Lurch" -- yes.

technorati: Republicans, Steve King, ACORN

Rocky lost

Enraged by reports of finger-pointing and defeatism among senior aides -- including a long NYT Magazine piece that's well worth reading -- McCain yesterday took the stage to the theme from "Rocky," declaring he would fight to the end.

Failing to take into account that Rocky was set up to lose and did, in fact, lose. For some reason Americans find this story reassuring; cf. "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington," the Chicago Cubs, etc. Well-known Republicans continued their predictions of doom.

But even before this development, someone has identified a new neurosis, maverick personality disorder, to describe the McCain-Palin identity.

technorati: McCain, Republicans, maverick

Today's fake: GOP volunteer charged with making false report

Well, that didn't take long: The young McCain volunteer who said she was attacked by a black man who carved a (backwards) "B" on her face has been charged with making a false police report after admitting the story was false.

I mean:

Police suspected all along that Todd might not be telling the truth, starting with the fact that the "B" was backward, Bryant said.

"We have robbers here in Pittsburgh, but they don't generally mutilate someone's face like that," Bryant said. "They just take the money and run."

It's Bad Behavior Thursday™! -- Emergency 911 edition

John McCain's brother was stuck in traffic, so he called 911 to complain. When the dumbfounded operator asked him "Sir, are you calling 911 to complain about traffic?" he yelled "Fuck you!" and hung up. So the operator called him back, got voice mail, and left a message. So he calls 911 again to complain about the operator who left him a message.

Joe McCain: Somebody gave me this riot act about the violation of police.
Operator: Did you just call 911 in reference to this?
Joe McCain: Yeah.
Operator: 911 is to be used for emergencies only, not just because you're sitting in traffic.

Video at the link above. The traffic in question was on the Woodrow Wilson Bridge just south of Alexandria, VA near the nation's capital; amusing that only a few weeks ago the same Joe McCain said the area was "Communist", possibly reaching for the same sentiment a McCain campaign adviser was trying to express earlier this week when she said Northern Virginia was not "the real Virginia."

In other election news, a Politico columnist says the RNCC is running out of fingers and toes to count the dozens of House seats the GOP will lose this time around. And morale among McCain staffers is said to be so low as to resemble the classic formation of a cratering political campaign, the dreaded circular firing squad.

Tra-la!

technorati: police, Joe McCain, 911 tape

As polls suggest big lead, 'Democrats' gloom deepens'

This story is hilarious:

Democrats' gloom deepens

The Democrats are poised on the brink of victory. And they cannot stand it. The news is too good. Something has to go wrong.

On Saturday, Charlie Cook, an independent analyst and author of the Cook Report, wrote: "This election isn't over, but it is looking very bad for Republicans -- and seems to be getting worse."

This plunged the Democrats into a deep gloom. Good news is always bad news for them.

Ha ha ha! It's funny because it's true.

The other funny thing in that article is when the writer suggests that Obama has such a lead in money raised that he could, like Oprah, just buy everybody a Pontiac. No! Make it a green car, built by American workers. Now that's change I can believe in.

technorati: Democrats, politics, polls, campaign

Obama visits NC diner, gets mixed reception but lots of grub

Obama visited a diner in North Carolina and got a generally respectful reception except for one nutbag. Most reports are focusing on her, but note the last graf of the story (emphasis mine):

Obama ordered some food to go for himself and his aides. They ordered chicken, collards, baked beans, slaw and wings. The tab was $13.91.

Now that's value. And that's the white diner -- the one for black folks was down the block.

technorati: Obama, North Carolina, economy

Strippers are the cowboys of the 21st century

It came to me while I was viewing this comic strip (which has a great joke in the last panel, but -- warning to A. -- contains "the Z word"): strippers are the cowboys of today.

In the last century, the cowboy in his many guises -- sheriff, outlaw, drunk, cowhand, bandido, gaucho, cattle baron, oil baron, redneck -- was the blank slate on which politicians, artists, real estate developers and an infinite number of children drew their dreams, anxieties, pieties, and truisms. The object of, and receptacle for, nostalgia for all we imagined we had lost in the transition to mechanized, bounded society, the cowboy represented manliness, rebellion, independence, self-reliance, and strength. Ronald Reagan (an actor) and George W. Bush (scion of a rich east coast family) self-identified with this figure, and by applying the "maverick" label to himself, Republican presidential candidate John McCain attempts to do the same.

In the last ten years we've been seeing stripper culture saturate society -- as in the Bratz dolls, movies like Showgirls, weird institutions like strippers at birthday parties, and so on. It seems like everybody knows what a lap dance is, and -- in San Francisco, at least -- it seems like everybody knows somebody who has been or is a stripper, is dating a stripper, or at least fantasizes about being one.

The comic strip convinced me. Until now it has been: police versus the zombies, doctors versus the zombies, ordinary people versus the zombies; now strippers versus the zombies. Now this is the transitional moment. Instead of going on with the zombie meme, which I think has been completely played out (and yes, there has just been a movie about zombie strippers), from now on everything's going to be about strippers. Stripper lawyers, stripper crime-fighters, stripper real estate mavens, stripper executives, etc. They may not be actual strippers, just as the sheriff in a western film wasn't actually a cowboy; he merely embodied what were supposed to be cowboy values. The "stripper politician," say, might not really take her clothes off for pay, but she is going to embody stripper values.

And what are stripper values? In a way, a little like what were supposed to be cowboy values: independence, horniness, toughness, panache, daring; being sort of an outlaw even if you are, say, a cop (cf. Dirty Harry, Serpico, the Die Hard films, etc.) Substitute over-amped femininity for being macho, and voilá:

Sorry -- I guess that was even scarier than zombies.

technorati: sex work, strippers, zeitgeist

The Astyk Award: first winner

The NYT has an article about people who victimize their families in the name of environmentalism: a mother "couldn't find a (Little League baseball) league that wasn't a long drive," so her 6-year-old is stuck playing catch with her in the yard; in the winter they heat with a wood stove and the average indoor temp is 52 degrees. A man is collecting every bit of waste his family generates, including the recyclables, and blogging about it. And so forth.

Perhaps we need a companion to the Stolpa Award, which recognizes people who fit into the "Too stupid to live" category but manage to menace their whole family in the bargain. All right, let's name it after, and give the first award to, the mother who can't be bothered to live in the 20th (much less the 21st) century: The Astyk Award. (Although the article itself contains another phrase which is wonderfully evocative: dark green.)

I mean, really -- you want to reduce your carbon footprint? Don't have kids. She has four.

technorati: waste, recycling, green

Bad behavior extra: foamer's comments lead to avalanche of donations -- for opponent

On Friday, arch-conservative nutbag Michele Bachmann, a first-term US Representative from Minnesota, suggested the media investigate members of Congress to determine whether they hold "un-American" views:

By today, disgusted contributors from across the country had donated nearly $500,000 to her opponent, one El Tinklenberg, a former Methodist minister, mayor of Blaine, Minn., and state transportation commissioner.

I just sent him $50.

technorati: Republicans, Bachmann

It's Bad Behavior Saturday™! -- scare tactics edition

A firm hired by the GOP to register voters is under investigation in three states for duping voters into registering as Republicans when they thought they were only signing a petition. In southern California the firm, Young Political Majors (YPM), set up a table outside a supermarket and told voters they were signing a petition to increase penalties for child molesters.

There are so many ways this is fucked up. Primarily the hoax, of course, but also the use of a cliched red flag -- child molestation -- as a ruse, as if "penalties for child molesters" was some sort of magic incantation similar to "three strikes and you're out" or "no child left behind."

In San Bernardino County, two men were sentenced to four years in prison for robbing a paraplegic man in his home. And in Florida, a prostitute was arrested after she robbed a man who died while she was having sex with him in his car.

Actress Maureen McCormick, who played Marcia in "The Brady Bunch," was a drug-addicted mess who traded sex for drugs as a teenager and "led an off-screen life of nonstop debauchery." That makes it sound much more fun to read about than it probably is, in her just-released tell-all.

Las Vegas police, the DEA and the FBI are investigating reports that a six-year-old boy was kidnapped by a Mexican meth gang in retaliation after the child's grandfather failed to pay them for millions of dollars worth of drugs. The grandfather -- a 51-year-old handyman with three mortgages on his home who also seems to have ties to the recording industry -- has not been seen for months. Update: Oops: Grampa has been arrested in California, the Amber Alert for the lad has been canceled, though further update: police were still looking for the kid as of 3 pm.

A program in Australia to snitch on neighbors you suspect of welfare fraud garnered more than 100,000 tips in a year. That news story introduced me for the first time to the expression "to dob in" which seems to mean to inform on someone.

Today's fake: Stephen Hoch, whose inflated resume got him a $300K job as Washington State University Provost. Amazingly, Hoch is not only complaining that the Provost job did not give him enough power, but is being permitted to return to his previous post with the U. as a professor, at $245K.

Finally, two examples of people whose collapse has been more spectacular than the slight fame they achieved. A former Milwaukee alderman, already convicted of bribery and other charges, may have falsified records in order to get a new driver's license after being convicted of DUI. And an actor who appeared in a small part on several episodes of "The Sopranos," Lillo Brancato, will be tried for murder later this month in a case where a cop was killed during a 2005 burglary. Brancato attempted suicide in Rikers in 2006 when the gravity of his situation hit him; he's been there ever since. By the way, Brancato appeared with fellow Sopranos actor Drea DiMatteo in a 2001 film by director Abel Ferrera, 'R Xmas, which "follows them through a nightmarish Christmas Eve in which the husband is kidnapped and beaten up by a corrupt policeman (Ice-T) and two accomplices, and the wife dashes around accumulating the king's ransom necessary to set him free."

technorati: Republicans, voter fraud

Reporter visits New Life Church, manages not to mention Ted Haggard

On Huffington Post, a reporter visits Colorado Springs, and writes 1600 words about New Life Church without mentioning its disgraced founder Ted Haggard. How impressively fair.

Strangest thing in the story is her description of "a half-used tray of communion wine, its thimbles of juice with frayed pull-tops." They have little bitty juice containers with pull-tops for communion? Now that's déclassé.

technorati: New Life Church, Colorado Springs, Ted Haggard

It's Bad Behavior Friday™! -- getting around pretty well edition

A Kentucky high school student who wrote a story about a high school overrun by zombies was arrested for making a "terroristic threat" involving a school. Worst of all: his grandparents turned him in after reading the story in his journal.

In order to convince a court he had followed its order to return his illegally-imported pet monkey to Mexico, a man staged a picture showing the monkey with a Mexican newspaper and red and green decorations in the background. The judge was not swayed. ¡Ai carumba, dude! Maybe you should have included a Tecate Light.

Speaking of advertising: In the L.A. subway, you can't even stare out the window without seeing an ad. An electronic system shows commercials on the insides on train windows (right). Click the link for a larger version of the photo as well as a video showing a man startled by an ad. And (courtesy Jackson West) Kerouac's "On the Road" is now being used to sell cars in a European commercial. The ad shows an actor not only performing a dramatic reading of a famous passage from the book but shows the cover of the book itself, in case viewers were having trouble connecting Jack Kerouac with the cars being sold -- BMWs. (I just realized that entry from West's blog is ancient. Oh well, the commercial is still outrageous.)

"Mad Men" actress Christina Hendricks, who plays the formidable office manager Joan, says any suggestions her breasts are not real are "absolutely mean." Somewhat deflating this comment, elsewhere in the interview she says that when "Mad Men" won an Emmy, "I remember feeling high, like after an operation or something."

In New York, a 58-year-old real estate broker said to "have anger-management issues" hit his business partner with an ice bucket during a meeting. The victim was 11 years younger, but had recently had surgery on the parts of his body, the right shoulder and hand, that his assailant chose to whack him with the bucket.

Disproving what coaches always tell you -- "Come on, the ball won't kill you!" -- an 11-year-old Oregon boy was killed by a football to the chest as he blocked a punt during a game at recess.

technorati: Bad Behavior, football, Mad Men

Small-town high school renames yoga after 'concerned citizens' object

After a group of "concerned citizens" objected that offering yoga might amount to a promotion of Hinduism, a small town New York high school has renamed the exercise "Raider relaxation" after the school's mascot. But the best paragraph from the story was this one:

The debate around Massena's yoga program is not unprecedented. In 2002 in Aspen, Colo., a group of Baptists objected to a proposed yoga program in the public school district, citing separation of church and state as well. In the end, all of the Sanskrit terms were dropped -- "meditation" became "time in" and "yogic panting" became "bunny breathing." The only term that remained was yoga.

technorati: yoga

Woman convicted in Clear Lake quadruple murder case

The fucked-up suburb where I lived and went to high school is in the news again today. Last time it was because it got the shit knocked out of it by Hurricane Ike. The infrastructure having sufficiently recovered to stage a murder trial, a jury yesterday convicted a graduate of said Clear Lake High School in the quadruple murder in 2003 of several other youths, some of them her classmates, in a disastrous home-invasion robbery.

The so-called Clear Lake Area, a suburb of Houston, had a real run of infamy around that time, starting with the day in 2001 Andrea Yates killed all her children, following up with the day a year later when Clara Harris ran over her husband in the parking lot of the same Hilton hotel that all the weather reporters stay in when hurricanes hit. I prophetically set several of my short stories in the suburb, stories written a few years before these incidents, in which I proposed that the Clear Lake Area is actually a pit of violence and horror just waiting to erupt. Clearly I was correct.

technorati: Clear Lake City, Clear Lake High School, murder, Christine Paolilla, suburbs, Houston

On Open Salon: far right sees likely Obama win as an opportunity

On Open Salon, I blogged:

Just as the ruling by the California Supreme Court created a fabulous opportunity for conservatives to raise funds and solidify the base through the usual fear-mongering, the prospect of a black man with a funny name being elected president could be the greatest thing for far-right conservatives since Hillary Clinton.

More at the whole post.

Hospital notes

Cris just spent a few days in a hospital getting orthopedic surgery. She came home today and she's doing well. But while she was there this week, I spent a lot of time up there over four days, and I discovered two things.

One, the day nurses were invariably awesome; the night nurses were mostly mediocre. Makes sense: the day shift is more desirable, so the best nurses choose it. The main distinction between the great nurses and the mediocre ones was that the latter are more inflexible and tend to cite rules and policies when you ask them a question, while the good ones actually answer your question and know the science behind whatever you're talking about.

Two: due to the much worse condition of the other patient in the room, I now can say with some experience just what TV programs brain-damaged people like to watch:

Jerry Springer

Nancy Grace

Glenn Beck

Und so weiter. Poor thing, it wasn't her fault some drunk ran into her car. Now she's stuck watching Nancy Grace.

Clusterfuck in the wake of Hurricane Ike

Hurricane Ike happened three weeks ago, making landfall at Galveston on September 13. Today the almost-always-useless local paper went against type and ran an actual news article, reporting about angry residents of a condo complex called The Landing who have been booted out of their buildings because more than two-thirds of the complex is deemed unlivable.

I was struck by the article because I lived in The Landing in 1970, when it was an apartment complex. (It was the first place my family lived in Texas, at a time when my father wasn't sure he was going to be transferred permanently to the Shell refinery there. We lived there about 10 months.) It is located [satellite map] right on the shore of Clear Lake, and even back then the parking lots would flood during a bad storm because it was so close to sea level. At some point in the 1980s, on one of my trips back for Christmas, I drove by and noticed that the ground around the complex had been built up somewhat, raising it a few feet. Not enough in the case of a major hurricane, and in any case there must have been extensive wind damage, as the eye of the hurricane passed just a few miles to the east.

As I've written many times, I've no love for that area, which I consider a mistake and the worst example of suburban sprawl. It isn't a town and never was; it's just a collection of subdivisions plunked down between two towns, Webster and Seabrook, that were barely more than rural hamlets before LBJ got NASA to locate its headquarters there. As I wrote previously, the area has "no center, no landmarks, no history, no culture, and no taste." I have no reason to go back there anymore, as my mother moved out of the state following my father's death.

It's too bad for the people who were tricked into buying as condos these small apartments which were kind of nice in 1970 but were located in a flood-prone area. But if you choose to live in that area, it's hard to feel sorry for you, because it was a disaster before the hurricane, and the hurricane just made it more obvious.

technorati: Ike, Hurricane Ike, Seabrook, The Landing, FEMA, El Lago

Unfortunate name of the month

If you change your name to Jesus Jihad, no good is likely to come of you.