Zach's Blog

Chess Tournament

2010-11-16T16:16:00.029-05:00

On Sunday Evening I participated in an invitation-only chess tournament at Montrell's Restaurant in the French Quarter. The event is hosted annually by Jude Acers, a local master best known for holding court outside the French Market in a Red Beret and playing all comers for $5 a game.

There were only eight or so participants, who ran the gamut of playing levels. The highlight of the event for me was certainly my first-round victory over Dr. Albert Franklin, Louisiana State Chess Champion. Dr. Franklin is the highest-rated player I've ever beaten in a tournament. I played two games against Dr. Franklin, one loss & one win, which I present below. If the following sequence of letters and numbers is meaningless to you then you can probably just skip to the last paragraph.

1. e4 c5 2. d4 cxd4 3. c3 dxc3 4. Nxc3 Nc6 5. Nf3 d6 6. Bc4 Nf6 7. 0-0 a6 8. a4 Bg4 9. Qb3 e6 10. Rd1 Na5

A few comments up to this point: I have since learned that one should almost never play a4 to prevent b5 in the this line - the loss of time is not worth it and it weakens b3 and b4 dangerously, as I discover later in this game. Qb3 was also an error on my part. It's not that I didn't see the knight fork; I miscalculated and somehow thought the double threat of Bxf7+ and Qxb7 somehow negate its effectiveness. Of course this is not the case. I was feeling pretty bad about things at this point.

11. Qa2 Nxc4 12. Qxc4 Rc8 13. Qd3 Be7 14. Bf4 e5 15. Bg5 Be6 16. Ne1 o-o 17. Nc2 Bc4 18. Qd2 Bb3 19. Ra3 Bxc2 20. Qxc2 h6 21. Bxf6 Bxf6 22. Qd2 Qb6 23. Nd5 Qd8

What a difference! At this point I was pretty stoked. I thought and still think that white is better in this position. Despite my missing pawn I have a very dominant position, chiefly owing to my powerfully placed knight which cannot be dislodged by anything short of exchange sacrifice, given that black's only remaining minor piece is a dark-square bishop. A few thoughts on the intervening moves.

14. Bf4 has two purposes: it increases the pressure on the d6 pawn (threatening to capture it, in fact), and if black repels the bishop by the obvious 14...e5, he has a permanently weak square on d5. This is precisely the weakness my knight ends up exploiting.

I don't know if my plan of Nf3-e1-c2-b4, reinforcing d5, was correct. It may be too slow for such an open position. In any case the knight never made it past c2 owing to the previously mentioned weaknesses on b3 and b4. But since the knight was exchanged for the light-squared bishop, another piece influencing d5, the trade was probably to my advantage.

My move 19. Ra3 was a serious error, but was fortunately not exploited. Dr. Franklin missed a major opportunity in 19... Nxe4, winning my other central pawn and probably swapping down into a winning endgame right there.

My opponent made two other puzzling moves here. 20...h6 seems pointless to me, given that it compels an exchange I already want to make. After I swap my dark-square bishop for his knight, My knight settles happily on d5. And 22...Qb6 is a waste of a move, since the knight immediately chases the queen back to d8.

24. Rg3 Kh8 25. Qe2 Rc6 26. Qh5 Bg5 27. h4 Bxh4 28. Rh3 Bg5 29. Rdd3 Rc1+ 30. Kh2...

I stopped recording the moves here, as we each had about 30 seconds left on our clocks so I had other priorities. Despite my dominating position, I didn't have time to think of a good plan and from moves 24 on I set off on a doomed kingside attack. Probably this was the best way to go though, hoping to confuse him with mating threats and provoke a mistake. Dr. Franklin won the game in a blitz finish, my clock expiring first.

Game 2:

This time I have the black pieces, moving second.

1.d4 e6 2. Nc3 f5 3. g4 Nf6 4. g5 Ne4 5. Nxe4 fxe4 6. Bf4 d5 7. e3 Bd6 8. Nh3 Bxf4 9. exf4 Bd7 10. f3 exf3 11. Qxf3 12. O-O-O Qe7 13. Bb5 O-O-O

You can already see what this game is going to be about: White has an advantage in space, owing in part to my inability to move my e-pawn and free my position. His bishop enjoys much greater mobility than mine. White's best plan is probably a kingside pawn advance, avoiding a bishop trade.

As for me, I didn't really have a plan at this point. I was mainly trying to avoid being crushed to death. I put off castling for as long as I could so that white wouldn't know where my king was going to end up. By move 13 I realized that it couldn't possibly go anywhere but the queenside; I'm missing my f-pawn, White's Queen and knight dominate the kingside, and he has two pawns bearing down on it as well. In comparison the queenside looks warm and cozy.

14. Rhe1 Rhf8 15. Re3 Rde8 16. Kb1 Qb4 17. Bxc6 Bxc6 18. Qh5 Rh8 19. c3 Qf8 20. Rde1 Bd7 21. b3 h6 22. Kb2 hxg5 23. Qxg5 e5

Wham! This one must have taken the good Doctor by surprise, as he paused for some time before replying. His entire strategy has just fallen apart. He NEEDED to keep my e-pawn pinned down to prevent my bishop coming to life. And I had been unable to move the pawn because he would simply capture it for free if I did so.

But here, by moving it I reveal an attack by my bishop on his knight! The knight is attacked by two pieces and defended by only one. White must move it or defend it, and in either case has no time to capture my e-pawn. Not only have I busted things open, I've won a pawn as well. I'm now winning.

24. Qg2 exf4 25. Rxe8+ Bxe8 26. Rf1 Rh5 27. Ng5...

The next I have written down is 27... Rg4, which is illegal. I don't remember what the actual move was, but I stopped recording after 28. Nf3 for the same reason as before. This time the blitz finish was mine.

Jude had been watching the game intently, and when Dr. Franklin's clock stopped he announced loudly to the whole room, "Ladies and gentlemen, a tremendous upset has occurred!" This ended up being the champ's only loss of the night. I was in contention to win the event for a while but ended up with two losses to Dr. Franklin's one. He won the night, and I contented myself with second.

Hi

2010-06-27T15:02:00.011-04:00

It's been a while since I've posted on here. Recap:

1. I moved to New Orleans, where I worked at the zoo for a while. I saw a gorilla get a physical, and hung out with a baby orangutan.

I played with a jazz band.

I wrote for a music magazine, you can read some here.

I was in a stage show with the Preservation Hall Jazz Band. Here's a teaser for the show.

You can see me at 1:13 and 2:19.

And most recently, the balcony of my apartment was featured in two scenes in episode 9 of "Treme"

Marie

2009-10-14T20:46:00.005-04:00

I meant to write this back in May when I actually took the pictures, but better late than never.

If you were in New York around that time, you probably saw a lot of Marie.

Marie is from the Bronx, and as you can see, she has had about 20 amputations.

Sometimes Marie is very small:

Sometimes Marie is very big:

Anti-smoking campaigns are surely a worthy cause, but this one bothered me. How often does Marie's situation actually occur? To treat a rare worst-case scenario as the inevitable consequence of smoking is a troublesome tactic.

By the time I left New York in August, the 'Marie' campaign had ended. The pictures are from the Union Square subway station, a very big station and one which was nothing but wall-to-wall Marie for a good month. This station was part of my daily commute so I got a good long look at Marie twice a day. If I ever start smoking, I will certainly consider quitting.

Robert Pattinson

2009-06-19T20:35:00.003-04:00

Wednesday and Thursday are my days off from work. I came back today to learn that Robert Pattinson - whom you may remember as the dreamy, angst-ridden vampire in "Twilight" or the dreamy but angst-free wizard in "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" - was in the store yesterday filming "Remember Me." On the way out, he was mobbed by fans and then clipped on the hip by a taxi.

This provides the backdrop for the following phone call, which I received not long ago:

Me: Hello, Strand Books.
Caller (female, sounds about 16): Hi, I heard that Robert Pattinson was in the store yesterday?
Me: Yes he was.
Caller: Is he still there?
(pause)
Me: No.
Caller: Are you sure?
Me: Yes.
Caller: Do you know where he went?
Me: Home, maybe?
Caller: Oh. So he's not there anymore?
Me: That's correct.

She wanted to be absolutely sure he had not camped at the bookstore overnight.

Konrad & Geese

2009-05-17T22:09:00.006-04:00

Konrad Lorenz is a favorite writer of mine. In the early part of the last century he pioneered the field of ethology, the comparative study of animal behavior.

Today I began Lorenz's The Year of the Greylag Goose (which I was given for Christmas and have shamefully failed to read until now). This is a large, illustrated volume on the birds that were the focus of his life's work. The following passage from the book's opening pages caught my attention.

Even after having seen it so many times, I always find it utterly enthralling to witness free-flying birds moving toward me from a long distance away. After all, most poor (or perhaps wicked) souls never see wild animals except from behind! In all the lands of the earth where man has come in contact with wild animals, he is recognized as the most dangerous and merciless predator of all. There is hardly an animal, no matter how big and how strong or how effective its weapons, that will not flee when it sees a human being approach. Only in places where man is unknown will the local animals approach him with complete trust, although usually this is utterly misplaced. One must travel to the Galapagos Islands or Antarctica to find animals that can be approached to within a few feet without being provoked to run or fly away.

Anyone who comes upon a large mammal in a wood will be greeted for a fraction of a second by a terrified animal face. Almost all its surface is taken up by sense organs: large, erect ears, widely staring eyes, and flaring nostrils. An instant later there is usually nothing to see but swaying branches, or at the most a rapidly disappearing view of the animal's rear. Birds, particularly the larger kinds, such as raptors, members of the crow family, and water birds, are if anything even shyer than mammals in the wild. In order to see them close up - and take photographs - one must make use of the cunning techniques of the hunters, either approaching very stealthily or constructing a well-camouflaged hide in a suitable place.

Man regards himself as Lord of the Earth, and so he is, though regrettably so in the sense just indicated, and then only on dry land. I remember quite clearly an occasion when I naively tried to chase off a barracuda, which simply adopted a threat posture and bared its teeth. That gave me the opportunity to find out just how fast one can swim backward with flippers!

Apart from such unwelcome exceptions, man cannot closely approach free-living animals without causing them to take flight. He has been exiled from the paradise of peaceful coexistence with his fellow creatures. That is why, when free-living animals approach me from a long distance away, not because they have failed to notice me but for the very reason that they have seen me and have heard me, it is as if this exile from paradise had been lifted.

This is the type of writing that makes one want to study animals!

An Invitation

2009-03-16T23:02:00.003-04:00

Today I received a letter from my congressman, Charles Rangel, inviting me to Obama's inauguration.

How thoughtful. I think I will invite him to my eighteenth birthday.

Interview

2009-02-18T10:58:00.001-05:00

Here is the interview:

2009-02-17T12:37:00.000-05:00

In January I submitted a composition to the Interactive Ives contest at Wesleyan. The contest was to finish an unfinished song of Charles Ives', entitled 'smoke' - a musical setting of a poem by Henry David Thoreau. At the link, you can look at Ives' sketches for the piece. My song was performed in the 'Vocal Marathon' concert series.

I will interviewed about the concert and contest tomorrow (Wednesday) at 9:15 EST on the Long Island University radio station (WLIU). If you'd like to listen, Their website is here.

Political Memoirs

2008-12-20T22:04:00.030-05:00

Political memoirs have the most boring titles ever. You could randomly switch their titles around and no one would notice. The most high-profile example at the moment would probably be a pair of books by Barack Obama and John McCain:

Setting aside pluralization and preposition choice, the only distinction is between "dreams" and "faith". In the end, America decisively rejected faith in favor of dreams. This most likely marks the end of faith's presidential hopes.

Jim Webb and Wesley Clark apparently disagree about what time it is:

Next we have what seems to be a disagreement over whether to move towards or away from power.

Note that Senator Brownback has called his own life a "remarkable journey of faith and compassion". I have another book I think you should read, Sam:

As a bonus, it may help you find true love.

Bad Titles

2008-12-07T21:01:00.015-05:00

Today I will be giving out the awards for "worst title in a recently published book". All of these are books that I have come across in the course of my daily shelving.

Third place goes to...

There are, of course, many book titles which fall into the category of "fun with a popular idiom or expression", but this one is particularly confusing. What does it mean? That the extra mile is easy to navigate due to low traffic? From the looks of it, the extra mile is a desert-y, off-road situation. Perhaps he is saying that his work on American Idol was dull and cactus-studded?

In Second place:

As you know, the biographical titling act of 1983 mandates that the title of a musician bio MUST contain a veiled reference to one of said musician's songs. Here we have a not at all forced or awkward reference to the Neil Diamond song "I am, I said". This song, incidentally, contains the following lyric:

"I am, I said, to no one there;
and no one heard at all, not even the chair."

This book would easily win the award for most labored play on a song title were it not for our grand prize winner:

There is nothing to be said about this title.

Yes, let us

2008-12-06T20:09:00.003-05:00

Chess books

2008-11-30T22:04:00.012-05:00

I enjoy books about chess. When, while at work, I catch sight of a book with chess pieces on its cover, I tend to stop and examine this book. For this reason, I am mildly peeved when the book turns out to have nothing at all to do with chess.

The least offensive examples are those in which chess is a metaphor for some form of strategic conflict. Books on international conflict or diplomacy fall into this category. Here is a typical example:

They even made the top of the pawn all globey! How nice. Also, take this book:

From the looks of it, Uncle Sam doesn't like chess very much.

Also popular is chess as a metaphor for business management. Look! Chess pieces! Your life is not as boring as you thought!

The books I find truly irksome though are those in which there seems to be no direct or even plausibly metaphorical connection to chess. For example:

From what I've been led to understand, this book is about sexy teenage vampires who smooch a lot. Explain yourself, Stephenie Meyer.

Bookstore Mysticism

2008-10-31T19:55:00.009-04:00

I have had a very unusual customer this evening. I was assigned to the info desk during the 6:30 to 10:30 shift. This means I look up books on the computer, or retrieve books that a customer might have on hold. The gentleman in question looked to be in his late 60s, bespectacled, with thinning wisps of white hair. He wore a powder blue sweater and a matching fanny pack.

He asked me to get some books that were on hold for him; we keep these behind the desk. I retrieved them and he looked them over, commenting briefly on each. Presently he produced from his fanny pack a crumpled plastic bag from which he drew some scraps of paper, perhaps ten in all. Each was quite covered in writing, in every color of ink, as though these notes had been long in gestation. Some looked yellowed with age.

Selecting a sheet, he read off the title of a book, which I looked up for him on the computer. He then read off another title. I looked it up. Then another. Most customers will ask about one or two titles, but this fellow seemed to be settling in for the long haul. The books ranged from new-agey spirituality to economics. One was called "The Wheel of Time" and another was by Gore Vidal. As he leaned over the counter, I noticed that his glasses were missing the right temple*, so that they waved precariously over his nose.

Another customer or two were waiting behind him by now. He chose this moment to remove a leather wallet from his fanny pack, from which he drew a small bundle of string. He unraveled it and I observed a metal washer dangling from a length of brown cord.

"Have you ever seen a pendulum?" he asked. He began to delicately dangle this device over his notes, as though attempting to divine which book he might ask about next. I feel that I must emphasize the utter gravity and lack of irony he displayed during this ritual.

At this point I figured I should get to the people behind him in line. There were only one or two, and by the time I had finished he seemed to have made up his mind. He asked me about another title, and another. And another. Eventually, he began to return to books he had asked me about before, just in case some had come back in stock in the intervening minutes. By and by I noticed that this fellow had been standing at the desk for over twenty minutes. At length he left to seek out his books.

As I write this he is over at one of the book tables, waving his pendulum over the stacks of new releases.

P.S. He has returned to the desk and is reading me quotes from "The Wheel of Time".

* Noun. either of the sidepieces of a pair of eyeglasses extending back above and often around the ears. (I had to look this up)

Chess Championship

2008-10-30T19:00:00.003-04:00

Yesterday, Viswanathan Anand of India won the Chess World championship match against Vladimir Kramnik of Russia. This was very dramatic because Kramnik is the very same player from whom Anand took the title in 2007. Now he confirms his supremacy.

Did you know that in 1995, Anand played a match against Garry Kasparov atop the World Trade Center?

The date? September 11.

(true)

Book review: Alex & Me

2008-10-27T23:17:00.010-04:00

Back in September the world's most famous parrot, an African Grey named Alex, died. Alex had been the subject of one of the longest-running studies in animal cognition ever performed. Irene Pepperberg, the scientist who worked with Alex, demonstrated over the course of several decades that this bird was capable of startling feats of intelligence and reasoning. Alex could distinguish independently between concepts such as color, shape, size, and number. Given a selection of triangles, circles and rectangles of various colors and materials, Alex could answer complex questions such as "what shape is the red wood?" or "how many shapes are blue?" Dr. Pepperberg's work with Alex has become one of the most frequently cited and best-known experiments in animal-human communication.

All of which brings us to Dr. Pepperberg's new book, Alex & Me, a memoir of her thirty-some years working with Alex. This is a charming book. The story is amazing and often touching, and it's hard not to laugh at some of the anecdotes contained within. But it is ultimately marred by a lack of narrative depth.

Even Alex's most impressive moments are sketched out in dull declaratives that barely stimulate the imagination. These scenes have the potential to be so much more than what we see on the page. As it is, Dr. Pepperberg simply lists the various things that occurred, tosses in a cutesy interjection like "That's my Alex!" or "Smart bird!", and moves on. The stories are still great fun to read, though, simply because the events themselves, however presented, are so remarkable.

Pepperberg mentions many times the scientific objections that were raised to her work. Most frequent was the claim that Alex did not understand the reasoning behind his answers, that he simply relied on various verbal or nonverbal cues to pick the correct word. Pepperberg faced this criticism constantly, even when Alex's increasing abilities seemed too great to deny. When you read anecdotally of all the things that Alex accomplished, it seems amazing that these denials still persist.

Yet if this book is at all representative of Pepperberg's style of scientific argument, then I can sympathize at least partially with her critics. She has an unfortunate tendency to make strong statements without presenting any evidence or reasoning; and she will often assign motives or thoughts to her opponents without fully backing them up. She states that her difficulty in joining the faculty at the University of Arizona was due at least in part to "resentment" of Alex's increasing media profile. "Jealousy is corrosive," she notes. This seems rather likely, but it is for that very reason that I wonder why she could not provide even one piece of anecdotal evidence. This is a fairly serious charge to level against her academic colleagues and it would be unfair to do so speculatively.

In a similar vein, she tells of several instances when Alex was being obstinate and giving wrong answers delberately to amuse himself. I do not doubt for a moment that Pepperberg had good reason to believe that this was the case. But if so, I would have liked to hear more about her reasoning. What were those subtle cues, to which she had become so finely attuned, that tipped her off? We are not told, and so we are left noting how convenient it seems that whenever Alex gives a wrong answer, it's intentional.

Let me reemphasize that I am not trying to refute Dr. Pepperberg's studies. I mean simply to say that with a little more attentional to detail, she could have made her story so very much more convincing. I am and have long been an enthusiastic Alex fan, but again it is for this very reason that I wish Alex & Me were a more satisfying memoir. Those who have followed Alex over the years, though, will certainly find this book heartwarming and diverting.

Many hardcovers

2008-10-21T22:49:00.009-04:00

At work, I am currently on the basement level. I was transferred for reasons unknown some three weeks ago. Someone is trying to silence me...

I mostly shelve recently released hardcovers. These include all the latest diet books, all of the recent, hastily penned "exposes" of the presidential candidates and at least one book the cover of which proclaims, apparently with pride, "based on the upcoming videogame."
It also includes an upsetting number of books by this guy.

I can't stand this guy. He does Christian-Themed motivational lectures in a mixture of self-help jargon and poorly retold Bible stories. Like this one, about when the Apostle Peter realized he needed to escape his personal "safe zone".

I can only assume that his other lectures are about when Jesus discovered the power of daily affirmation in reaching his maximum career potential.

But forget that guy. While shelving these books, I have noticed that there seems to be a very uniform method of naming action/suspense/thriller novels. Here is an example, which I recently shelved:

You have probably seen many of titles of this type in airport newsstands. They generally take the following form:

1. Firstly, a spooky proper noun. This will generally be a sinister-sounding surname or some sort of mythical creature. It will occupy an adjectival role in the completed title.

2. Secondly, a noun that is (pick several):
- mysterious
- meaningless
- long
- possibly some sort of double entendre

3. Thirdly, add "The" at the front. This is very important.

For comparison, here are some others of which I have spotted recently:

- The Dracula Dossier
- The Mephisto Club
- The Orpheus Deception (some words are quite popular)
- The Oedipus Pendulum - I made this one up because I lost my notes

As far as I can tell, this trend in novel-naming was initiated by the late Robert Ludlum. If not, then he certainly took the practice to its greatest heights; in his honor I have decided to call them "Ludlums". Ludlum's own Ludlums were breathtaking not just in number, but in variety. For your enjoyment, I list some of the best here:

- The Scarlatti Inheritance
- The Holcroft Covenant
- The Parsifal Mosaic
- The Gemini Contenders
- The Icarus Agenda

Note the great consistency of rhythm and syllable number. Ludlum clearly felt that the best titles have as many three-syllable words as possible. Who could argue with this?

As I'm sure you can tell, the imitators are no match for the master. Nonetheless, every once in a while you will see a Ludlum worthy of the man himself. Of all those I have spotted so far, this one is, I think, the most faithful to Mr. Ludlum's original vision:

Note that word one is NOT a proper noun (at least not until you read the plot summary on the jacket and discover that it's the designation of a secret government organization). As in any craft, never be dogmatic with the rules. The spirit of the law is more important than the letter.

P.S. It occurs to me that perhaps publishers insist on these titles because studies have shown them to be effective in selling this particular type of book. Similar is the way that non-fiction publishers often insist on a lengthy subtitle, so that passing shoppers will not have to actually pick up the book to ascertain its contents.

Hitler

2008-10-05T02:10:00.009-04:00

So the other day I was alphabetizing the German history section at the store and I noticed that one particular episode in this country's history seems to be greatly over-represented in the literature:

I decided to keep a running tally of the books as I worked, dividing them into two categories.

First, the "Hitler" category, which included all books specifically about one or more of the following: Adolf Hitler, the Nazis, the Third Reich in general, World War II, etc.

Second, the "Not Hitler" category, which included everything else.

These were the final tallies:

Hitler: 366 titles, with 283 duplicates
Not Hitler: 159 titles, with 62 duplicates

Of the "Not Hitler" books, 24 might reasonably have been placed in the "Hitler" category, had I not been so conservative in my tallying. These books had titles like "Recent German Military History" or "Recovering from the War": tangentially related but not about Hitler per se.

This is why I am slightly embarrassed whenever German tourists ask me to direct them to the German history section. They would perhaps be right in thinking that Americans do not get the most "balanced" view of their country's history.

Whoo

2008-10-02T11:32:00.010-04:00

Perhaps my prediction of two weeks ago was not really "going out on a limb," but it has still come true more fully than anyone could have guessed. I put together a diagram of the polls in some of the closest swing states. The yellow lines indicate Monday, September 15: the day of the market crash.

Red and blue lines taken from realclearpolitics.com, which averages all major polls together.

Review: "Game Over: Kasparov and the Machine"

2008-09-23T02:02:00.007-04:00

Game Over: Kasparov and the Machine examines the infamous 1997 rematch between then world-champion Garry Kasparov and IBM's chess supercomputer, Deep Blue. Kasparov had defeated an earlier incarnation of Deep Blue the previous year, but in 1997 the new and improved computer defeated him in a six-game match: two wins to one with three draws.

Speculation was rampant that IBM had rigged the match by allowing a human player to override the computer on certain key moves. As evidence, conspiracy theorists pointed to moves wherein Kasparov offered the sacrifice of a pawn, and the computer turned it down. Pawn sacrifices, which strong players often use to garner positional advantages or to gain initiative, were long considered too abstract for a computer to understand. A machine, many argued, could not possibly see far enough ahead to truly appreciate the subtle positional edge that a good sacrifice can provide. Therefore, a human must have been helping the computer out. Who could expect a human player, even one as brilliant as Kasparov, to defeat the combination of human and computer?

The film makes frequent reference to "The Turk", a chess-playing automaton that was famous in the 18th century. Travelling around Europe, it impressed monarchs and noblemen with its astonishing ability. The Turk was a hoax; a human player, concealed beneath the machine, operated the arms and made the moves himself. Dramatizations of the historical episode, borrowed from black and white films, appear frequently throughout Game Over (in fact they constitute something of a thematic refrain). The analogy is obvious, and certainly compelling. Could Deep Blue have been a modern day Turk, an elaborate fraud perpetrated by IBM to garner publicity? It's hard not to be intrigued by the question, but unfortunately, the intrigue ends there. "Game Over" does not present a single shred of evidence to support its hypothesis. Instead, it relies esclusively (and I do mean exclusively) on innuendo.

Over and over, a shaky camera presents us with blurred visuals while a hushed voice wonders aloud about the supposedly "un-computer-like" moves that Deep Blue made during the match. One interviewee after another questions the machine's strangely profound understanding of the game. The film ends with a gradual interior tracking shot of the warehouse in which the de-commisioned supercomputer now resides (it's hard not think of the final shot from Raiders of the Lost Ark), while the narrator laments that the truth may never be known. All this is very mysterious, yes, but it's also utterly unconvincing.

It wasn't so long ago that otherwise rational people proclaimed with certainty that no computer would ever beat a human world champion. Chess, they said, is too full of pattern-recognition, of strategy and subtlety, for a computer to grasp in full. How could any person with even a basic knowledge of chess and computer science have legitimately believed this? While the number of possible positions in chess is astronomical, it is still finite, and a sufficiently powerful computer should, in theory, be able to "solve" the game (that is, determine the ideal move for every position). Even today, no computer is capable of this. But as processors grew more and more powerful, it was inevitable that they would come close enough to their lofty goal that they would surpass the limits of human chess ability. From then on, the world champion would never again be a human.

Should it really surprise us that an exceptionally powerful computer (which, at the time, Deep Blue was) would be able to look far enough ahead to see that a small material gain now would cost it dearly later on? "Game Over" sustains itself on nothing more than baseless insinuations about the IBM programming team. What is most offensive about this is the way that the programmers are demonized for crushing humanity's hopes of perpetual chess supremacy. Should it not be viewed as an equally great triumph of human ingenuity that a team of computer scientists was able to create a machine more skilled even than Kasparov, a genius who had devoted his life to the study of chess?

Compounding the absurdity is the fact that a year before this film was released, world champion Vladimir Kramnik drew an eight-game match against the chess program Fritz, which can be purchased for a small sum at your local Best Buy and installed on your home computer. One wonders if the producers of Game Over were aware of this.

Dow drops 500 points

2008-09-15T23:59:00.003-04:00

This is the moment that will swing the election in Obama's favor. The country's economic problems now seem less abstract and more real than ever. From now to november, the debate will be about little else. Unfortunately for John McCain, economic policy is the one place where he is least able to claim any significant policy changes in his platform. Everything is suddenly lining up against him. The news media have remembered that they're supposed to tell us when a politician lies. Multiple prominent persons have made fairly damning statements about his campaign: Karl Rove says his political attacks have gone too far, and Alan Greenspan says that America can't afford his tax plan. It would be hard for the Republicans to dismiss either of these two without looking very foolish. Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly of all, he needed this election to be about Iraq. He needed it to be about national security and terrorism and radical Islam. But as poor Rudy Giuliani found out the hard way earlier this year, 9/11 ain't what it used to be.

A hypothetical campaign

2008-09-12T23:46:00.003-04:00

This week The Daily Show seems to have finally abandoned all pretense of non-partisanship in their election coverage. There is not necessarily a problem with this, in fact they've done some pretty brilliant segments in the last few days.

This one is especially remarkable, although not for being particularly clever (I could take it or leave it):

While watching this it occurred to me that this is exactly what the campaign against John McCain would look like if he were a democrat. To break it down:

1. Destroy his war-hero image by digging up some other Vietnam naval vets who will agree to pubicly question his competence as a soldier, making sure to frequently mention the number of planes he crashed and how much they cost.

2. Run another ad contrasting McCain's positions of four years ago with his positions today, in much the same way The Daily Show does here. The "straight-talker" becomes a John Kerry-style flip-flopper.

3. Make (if you'll pardon my word choice) liberal use of the clip from 2000 in which John McCain, gesticulating wildly, leans over the podium and repeatedly intones:

"I endorse Governor Bush!"

Allow me a slight digression, if you will. In 2004, the republicans ran a very effective (if upsettingly dishonest) ad in which a voice-over stated, one at a time, various provisions of a military spending bill. "Combat armor for our troops," she would say, or "new weapons and vehicles." After each item on the list, we heard the words "Mr. Kerry: no."

But when we heard the words "Mr. Kerry", we did not hear the voice-over actress. We heard an actual recording of Kerry's name, taken from a senate roll-call vote. The austere authenticity of this voice lent the whole scene an aura of weighty foreboding. I'm pretty sure there was also an ominous chord.

The McCain version should be obvious: just replace "Mr. Kerry: no" with "I endorse Governor Bush! I endorse Governor Bush!" and the military spending items with various policy categories:

Voice-over: On the economy?

McCain: I endorse Governor Bush! I endorse Governor Bush!

Voice-over: On alternative energy?

McCain: I endorse Governor Bush! I endorse Governor Bush!

Voice-over: On Iraq?

... and so forth.

The clip is perfect for this type of attack ad. Firstly, it drills home, with mechanical insistence, the central theme of the Democratic argument against McCain: his supposed connection to George Bush. Secondly, it erodes McCain's other great strength: his perceived "independent streak". But even better, it has a grating, maddening quality not dissimilar to the "Dean Scream" of january 2004. If Howard Dean had been the Democratic nominee that year, you can bet the scream (more of a yell, really) would have been used in exactly the manner lined out above (with other alterations to the script, of course).

The insidious genius of Republican presidential campaigns seems to be that they bypass the opponent's weaknesses (for the most part) and go straight for his greatest strengths. In 2004, they successfully dismantled John Kerry's war record, reducing him to a rich, whiny hippie who hates our troops. This year, they are claiming Obama's very popularity, the apparently monumental nature of his candidacy, as a reason to reject him outright.*

But like it or not, you will never see this strategy employed; for the Democrats will not use it. The Republicans, in all likelyhood, would. It worked very well four years ago. The hope this year lies in the fact that Obama is infinitely more appealling as a person than Kerry was, and that this will be enough.

*Taken to its logical conclusion, this seems to be an argument against electoral democracy in general, but such a suggestion would require a bolder blogger than I.

Deference?

2008-09-12T07:17:00.005-04:00

Amazing: Rick Davis says that the McCain campaign will continue to restrict press access to Sarah Palin until the media show her more "deference".

Some synonyms for deference, according to thesaurus.com: agreement. favor. fealty. groveling. homage. humility. obedience. worship. yielding. submission. obeisance. allegiance. capitulation. In other words, don't ask her uncomfortable questions and don't call her on it when she lies. They should ask her more appropriate questions, like "Ms. Palin, is it tough to be such a maverick?" or "have you picked a color scheme for your office in Washington yet?"

How low has American journalism sunk that this is even a strategy worth considering? Are the media so cowed by fear of losing "access" that they will accept any demands the candidates make to gain a ratings/circulation advantage over their competitors?

I think it is going to backfire big time, though. The campaign is so thrilled by the post-announcement excitement that they don't seem to realize that, after the dust clears in a week or two, they are going to have to let her be interviewed, and not just by "deferential" reporters. It would have been much smarter to use the smokescreen of the current chaos and excitement to answer everyone's questions satisfactorily, letting them fade into the background by the time the fall season has really gotten underway. In not too long, it's going to start to seem troubling that the republicans don't even consider her qualified to talk with Tom Brokaw, let alone Vladimir Putin. Or at least I hope so.

New job!

2008-08-29T12:48:00.002-04:00

I went in for an interview on thursday and was hired to work at Strand books in the East Village. They are the biggest used bookstore in New York and are also super awesome. I will starting in the fiction section. This is where they start new people. Is fiction is easier to sell? I do not know.

Website

Democracy

2008-08-29T11:59:00.004-04:00

A man just called in to C-span talking about how bad gas prices have been ever since "the democrats won that last election, and marched into the white house, and been the majority in the white house, with the representatives in there." This man will probably vote.

Sarah Palin

2008-08-29T10:49:00.005-04:00

"Sources" are now saying that Alaska Governor Sarah Palin will be McCain's running mate. I think it's going to be announced in a few minutes. Assuming this is true, I have to give the McCain campaign a lot of credit for keeping this secret so long. In recent weeks, the only names that the news media have seriously discussed are Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty, Joe Lieberman, Tom Ridge, Bobby Jindal, and one or two others whose names escape me but who are not Sarah Palin.

The Palin pick will probably scare a lot of democrats, mainly because it has the potential to steal their "historic ticket" thunder. Prediction: we will see Geraldine Ferraro dragged out in the coming days or weeks, to subtly remind us, "hey everybody, democrats nominated a woman for the vice presidency first. So, yeah."

This seems like a rather shallow attempt by McCain to appeal to the 'Hillary Democrats' - shallow in the sense that the similarities between the two are only gender-deep. Clinton's appeal with these people was not due to their infatuation with the idea of a female president. It was more because of their close affinity for her as a person, as someone whom they had been familiar with for sixteen years and associated closely with pleasant memories of the perceived prosperity of the nineties. Clinton's supporters didn't want to gamble on a new face when they had such a qualified and familiar candidate already at their disposal.

French Fries

2008-08-27T14:48:00.005-04:00

I bought some frozen french fries at the grocery store today. I decided to go with a brand that, should the need arise, has the experience to lead America.

Joe Biden

2008-08-23T15:41:00.006-04:00

Watching Biden's Vice Presidential "acceptance" speech (which was great), the true wisdom of the Biden pick dawned on me; Obama now has real potential to successfully become a "working-class hero" candidate.

In the abstract, there was never anything to stop this from happening. Obama was born into poverty and a broken family. When people talk of how a humble upbringing increases a candidate's "values" or "character", what they usually mean is that having to fight for everything you ever got gives you a strong work ethic and a sense of what life is like for average working people. This theme is certainly there in Obama's life story.

But the archetypical "self-made man" in American folklore is one born to a mill worker out in the country, one whose daddy came home every night caked in sweat and grime but did his best to teach his boy good Christian values. Growing up in a black neighborhood in Chicago to a mother on welfare is no less challenging an environment, and it is no less remarkable that Obama has gotten to where he is. But many people, especially working-class white people, still seem to view his story as somehow antithetical to their own.

Enter Joe Biden. He completes the picture. I think that the very people whom Obama most needs to reach - people who are made nervous by some aspect of Obama's life story - will identify with Joe Biden. It will then be an easy step for them see Obama in a new light, as simply a different but equally important version of the same American story.

If McCain now caves to party pressure and selects Mitt Romney, he will have walked into a very dangerous trap. Nothing will be easier for the Democrats than to position Obama/Biden as the working-class answer to a McCain/Romney "silver-spoon" ticket.

Oh, Ted Stevens

2008-08-23T11:48:00.004-04:00

From the Boston Herald:

Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), who was indicted last month on charges he failed to disclose some $250,000 in gifts and home repairs from a local oil services company, has asked the Senate Ethics Committee to allow him to set up a legal defense fund.

Under Senate rules - if the Ethics Committee gives its OK - individuals and political action committees can contribute up to $10,000 to the defense fund. And given that Alaska’s own king of pork has done a lot of favors for a lot of folks over the years, he might reasonably expect those checks to come flowing in.

The fact that that’s what got him into trouble in the first place seems not to bother him at all.

He used to seem so cute...

Review: The Onion Movie

2008-08-19T16:34:00.013-04:00

This movie was apparently shot in 2003 and then shelved after poor test-screenings. This was a good decision. The sketches are poorly written. The acting is tolerable at best. The film as a whole is comedically tone-deaf to a degree seldom reached by even the worst articles from the print edition. Not even fans of the Onion should watch this movie; to the contrary, if you're used to the usually high quality of the articles and internet videos then you will find "The Onion Movie" to be one of the most painful viewing experiences of your entire life.

Firstly, the movie doesn't seem to know what it is. It begins in the form of an evening news broadcast, but soon evolves into a series of unrelated sketches. The two formats transition between one another laboriously and pointlessly. Every joke fizzles. Every punchline is either entirely without comedic merit or so poorly delivered that it falls painfully and awkwardly flat.

The Onion works best when it parodies the news media. If they had gone all in with the news-broadcast-parody theme, they could have had something. But as the anchor rattles off headlines in rapidfire succession, frequently interrupted by tangential segments featuring Steven Seagal, any potentially funny similarities to television news disappear.

Avoid this film at all costs. I did not laugh once.

Celebrity, pt. 3

2008-08-01T17:20:00.003-04:00

Okay, this is getting plain weird. The McCain campaign seems to have devolved entirely into mocking Obama for his "messianic" popularity:

Celebrity, pt. 2

2008-08-01T15:59:00.004-04:00

Apparently Republicans think they have a winner in the aforementioned "celebrity" ad. The party has launched a new website, entitled "Who Said It? Celebrity Edition".
In this captivating online game, Obama is ridiculed for, among other things, eating arugala, using the phrase "I got game" four years ago, and not knowing what a hitch-ball cover is. (by the way, what's a "hitch-ball cover"?)
I assume the party plans to defend this line of attack by mentioning moveon.org's Bush-McCain Challenge. The format is the same: visitors are given an unidentified quote and asked to decide if the quote is from Bush or McCain. The difference, of course, is that the moveon version focuses on past lapses in policy judgment and surprising platform positions to convince people to reconsider their assumptions about the candidate. The GOP site makes fun of Obama for being girly and shopping at Whole Foods.
The most interesting thing about the site, though, is the quotes it takes not from Obama, but from the celebrities.
Consider this one, from Johnny Depp:
"I am an American. I love my country and have great hopes for it. It is for this reason that I speak candidly and sometimes critically about it. I have benefited greatly from the freedom that exists in my country and for this I am eternally grateful."
What point are they trying to make here? Are they pointing out that since Obama has used this type of language in the past, that he is therefore affiliated with Johnny Depp? Or is the message "hey look, Johnny Depp loves his country, but all Obama cares about is arugala and being a homosexual"?

Celebrity

2008-07-30T13:22:00.007-04:00

The McCain campaign has a new ad ridiculing Obama's celebrity status:

The premise: Obama is an international celebrity. Britney Spears and Paris Hilton are international celebrities. Britney and Paris are generally thought to be empty-headed and shallow. Therefore Obama is empty-headed and shallow. I suppose we can expect a forthcoming attack ad against the Dalai Lama. Or maybe Jesus. He's dead, but he's VERY popular overseas.

Special bonus tip for those many McCain workers who I'm sure read this blog: when you're trying to diminish your opponent in an ad, don't show throngs of thousands cheering wildly for him.

2008-07-25T16:46:00.003-04:00

I overheard a couple talking downtown today. They were discussing the subject of child-star salaries. The husband mentioned Raven, the eponymous protagonist of the Disney Channel's "That's So Raven". His wife replied, "yeah, she got stupid bread."

New York

2008-07-09T00:23:00.003-04:00

I am living in Hamilton Heights, north of Harlem, for the summer. On Monday night, a block from my apartment, someone was shot. This is not a rare occurance in the area, but for someone like me who grew up in a very safe neighborhood that was pretty much devoid of poor people, it's a very new and very jarring experience to come home at night and see police tape so close to my place of residence.

A new low

2008-07-05T23:30:00.002-04:00

I just received a spam email with the following subject:

"Obama found dead in shock accident"

Wow. Tell me someone has DIED in hopes that I will open your email in horror. These people have absolutely no shame.

P.S. Shouldn't it be "Obama KILLED in shock accident"? Doesn't the current version imply that it was the discovery of his death, not the death itself, that was the accident?

"Not Alex"

2008-06-17T14:35:00.006-04:00

Here is the ad which, this morning, finally convinced me to unsubscribe myself from Moveon.org.

This is substance-free, emotional manipulation of the worst kind. Plus their emails are just annoying in general.

Old but brilliant Stephen Colbert

2008-06-17T01:55:00.002-04:00

June 4, 2003

"Wille Horton" ad-maker is back

2008-06-11T19:24:00.005-04:00

The charming fellow who ran the Willie Horton ad back in '88 is now pushing the "Obama is a muslim" angle in a new ad.

The most offensive thing about this ad is the way it pretends it's not anti-muslim, claiming instead to take issue with Obama's honesty. The text of the Willie Horton ad containted no explicit racism. It simply explained that he committed a violent crime while on weekend prison leave. But it made damn sure to include a mugshot so that everyone would know he was black. Leaving out the picture would not have impacted the stated message at all. But it would have destroyed the true message, which was that you should base your vote on fear of black people. This year, you should base it on fear of imaginary muslims.

It's coming true...

"Historic"

2008-06-07T16:33:00.005-04:00

From Obama today:

Zachary --

Hillary Clinton announced her support for our campaign today.

Senator Clinton made history over the past 16 months...

From Clinton, also today:

Dear Friend,

We hope you had a chance to see Hillary's historic speech today.

I tend to think of the word "historic" as referring to events of the at least semi-distant past. The Revolutionary war was historic. The passage of the nineteenth ammendment was historic. The fall of the Berlin Wall was historic. I could certainly understand why someone might consider even very recent events (of significant import) to be "historic".

But when did this practice begin, of candidates dubbing today's headlines - which just so happen to be positive ones about Democrats - "historic"? What is so "historic" about today? I don't deny the import of the news, but hasn't it been pretty much accepted that Obama was the nominee for some time now? I guess I can't really blame the Democrats for wanting to set up the narrative this way. Their candidate, the shining knight of hope, vanquishes one of the most powerful forces in politics to capture the nomination against all odds! He's an outsider, riding into Washington on a veritable tidal wave of change to finally get things done!

It will probably work and Obama will probably be the next president. But everyone's expectations will be a bit too high.

A gay Antichrist?

2008-06-03T22:29:00.004-04:00

Pastor John Hagee is now saying that the Antichrist will be a gay jew.

Modern religious scholars have posited that the Antichrist will come from the worlds of business or politics. But if Hagee is right, perhaps the world of musical theater is more likely.

Polls

2008-05-30T16:56:00.005-04:00

Clinton has been making quite a fuss about the national polls showing her faring better than Obama against McCain. Bill even went so far as to suggest that the media are "covering up" this reality (because as we all know, the media have been against the Clintons from the beginning). Here's how their latest campaign email begins:

Have you seen the general election polls lately? They consistently show that we'll beat John McCain in November. In a national head-to-head match and in the critical swing states, the numbers show I'm the best candidate to take back the White House for Democrats.

First off, it is so maddening that Clinton thinks the nomination should be decided not by the primary elections occurring right now, but by a hypothetical election that has not yet occurred. If these national polls were trending the other way, you know exactly what she'd be saying: "the pundits want the polls to decide this race. But we know better, because I'm a fighter. I never give up. Giving up is not what I do, in fact, I prefer to fight, etc etc."

Secondly, if polls six months out were accurate, wouldn't Hillary be winning the primaries overwhelmingly? The reason she fares better in national polls against McCain is that she's been a household name for fifteen years. Much of America will be getting their first real introduction to Obama when he speaks at the Democratic convention in August. I feel confident that this will give him a much bigger-than-usual post-convention bump. He's a far better speaker than either of his opponents.

Obama is a communist!

2008-05-27T22:26:00.004-04:00

At a Memorial Day campaign stop, Obama mentioned how his uncle liberated Jews from the Auschwitz concentration camp during WWII. Unfortunately, Auschwitz was liberated by the Soviets - turns out Obama meant Buchenwald, not Auschwitz. Now, if you're thinking "hey, who cares WHICH jews the guy freed?" then you clearly don't work at the RNC. They fired off a press release:

“unless his uncle was serving in the Red Army, there’s no way Obama’s statement yesterday can be true. Obama’s frequent exaggerations and outright distortions raise questions about his judgment and his readiness to lead as commander in chief.”

Note the veiled attempt to associate Obama with the Soviet army. Hooray for democracy!

"Who's the real appeaser?"

2008-05-19T15:21:00.003-04:00

Fareed Zakaria has an excellent article in Newsweek about "appeasement". My favorite bit:

It's not just Hizbullah. In dealing with many such groups—Hamas, the Taliban—the Bush administration has adopted a macho, exclusively military approach. All three of these groups have a political base in their societies that is deep and enduring. Denouncing them as evil and promising to destroy them will not change that; in fact, doing so only adds to their mystique of resistance and struggle. What we need is a political strategy to combat, contest and weaken the appeal of these groups or to marginalize their violent factions. Such a policy would naturally involve some contact with their leaders, but as part of a much broader effort to engage all groups in these societies politically.

2013

2008-05-15T16:22:00.002-04:00

I just got an email from the McCain campaign. It describes the magical world of 2013 after a McCain presidency. Here are some of its fantastical features:

By January 2013, at the end of my first term as president, America has welcomed home most of the servicemen and women who have sacrificed terribly so that America might be secure in her freedom. The Iraq War has been won and Iraq is a functioning democracy.

The United States has experienced several years of robust economic growth

Public education in the United States is much improved

The United States is well on the way to independence from foreign sources of oil

Voluntary national service has grown in popularity in part because of the educational benefits used as incentives, as well as frequent appeals from the bully pulpit of the White House, but mostly because the young Americans understand that true happiness is much greater than the pursuit of pleasure, and can only be found by serving causes greater than self-interest.

Wow, if we elect John McCain, young people will abandon selfishness! Sign me up.

Oh goody

2008-05-10T10:29:00.004-04:00

In his recent interview on the Daily Show, John McCain states more or less explicitly that he thinks the terrorists want Obama to become president.

Please please please, Mr McCain, don't make us relive the 2004 campaign. On the other hand, I think this type of tactic leaves the Democrats a big opening. Imagine Obama delivering this line at a rally:

"Ever since this war began we've been told by the president that only by electing Republicans can we hope to defeat terror. Five years later Al Qaeda's recruitment numbers are higher than ever. John McCain says that the terrorists want you to vote for me. Are we going to fall for that again?"

I'm sure his speechwriters could come up with something better. This is the major problem McCain faces if he uses any tactics that smack of Karl Rove.

P.S. in the same interview, McCain names Dwight Schrute (a character from "The Office") as a potential running mate. This joke is really weird and makes no sense in this context. Here's how I imagine its genesis:

Strategist: The Daily Show's audience is primarily college-aged. To appeal to them I think you should reference a subversively cool, currently popular sitcom character.

McCain: Like the Fonz!

Strategist: ...

Sadness

2008-05-08T12:31:00.004-04:00

The emails from the Clinton campaign are getting sadder and sadder. "Let's keep winning together" says today's, odd given how many net delegates her opponent scored this week. Her language seems to be geared towards eliminating doubt about her determination to stay in the race, but as increasingly influential Democrats call for her to drop out, will she really stick to that message? Her own campaign chair has stated that the race will be over by early June. She has had to loan her campaign $6.5 million in addition to a previous $5 million, meaning that she's really on financial life support at this point.

However, no matter how sad things are for Clinton they are sadder for Ralph Nader. His recent emails have taken to asking for "gas money" so he can continue to campaign.

Jimmy Giuffre (1921-2008)

2008-05-08T01:38:00.006-04:00

I just discovered that Jimmy Giuffre died on the 24th of last month. Giuffre was a clarinetist/multi-reedist and has been one of my very favorite musicians since I first heard his music in January of last year. Giuffre's album Free Fall (from 1962) illustrates the really sublime heights to which music can be lifted through free improvisation in the hands of a skilled performer.

Here are a few good obituaries:

http://www.jazzpolice.com/content/view/7693/79/

http://jazztimes.com/columns_and_features/news/detail.cfm?article=11423

Upsetting things

2008-05-06T16:54:00.005-04:00

According to the Huffington Post, The Clinton and her supporters are going to use their majority on the Democrats' Rules and Bylaws Committee later in the month to push through a rules change that would force seating the Florida and Michigan delegations, presumably in a manner favorable to her campaign.

This was the Clinton campaign's message to the Post after they ran a story on the above possibility:

"There is no secret plan.... The Clinton campaign has been vocal in stating that the votes of 2.5 million people must be respected. Hardly a day goes by when a Clinton official doesn't publicly declare that the votes of Michigan and Florida count and that the delegations from those states should be seated."

...downplaying the shocking implications of such a move- all in the interest of democracy, of course.

Douglas(s)

2008-04-30T23:20:00.002-04:00

You may have seen this already, but anyway: during a recent segment on Hillary Clinton's calls for a "Lincoln/Douglas" style debate, Fox News showed side-by-side photos of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass.

The litmus tests

2008-04-29T00:12:00.006-04:00

Slate has a good article about the kind of insightful commentary that makes Peggy Noonan such a valued contributor at the Wall Street Journal. My favorite bit:

But I digress. Of [American History], Noonan continues:

"John McCain carries it in his bones. Mr. McCain learned it in school, in the Naval Academy, and, literally, at grandpa's knee. Mrs. Clinton learned at least its importance in her long slog through Arkansas, circa 1977-92."

Please note the presumption that it is impossible to acquire affection for the history of the United States in the states of Illinois, Massachusetts, or Connecticut, where Hillary Clinton lived before she lived in Arkansas. Conservatives long ago managed to establish as unchallengeable fact that the real America cannot be found in the places where a majority of its population resides.

The really upsetting thing about Noonan's commentary is the implication that Barack Obama, as a consequence of his "differentness", has a duty to prove his patriotism to us that Clinton and McCain do not have. All three of these people have devoted their lives to this country and made great sacrifices in its service; shouldn't that be proof enough?

Limited time only!

2008-04-28T09:27:00.008-04:00

This seems more than a little tacky:

The "Ownership Society"

2008-04-24T18:11:00.003-04:00

Maybe you remember back in Bush's first term, when there was an unexpected surge in home sales. The president decided to pretend that this had been his brilliant plan all along; he coined the term "ownership society", and used it at every opportunity. He went on and on about how his new "ownership society" was allowing people to realize the American dream.

Well, New home sales have dropped quite a bit. Of course lots of economic indicators are taking turns for the worse at the moment, but this one is special because it reminded me about how we haven't heard the president's little catchphrase in a while. Apparently these things are only important if they're going well; otherwise he tends not to mention them.

The ever-changing definition of victory

2008-04-24T13:59:00.002-04:00

Here's a fun article from Slate about the constantly changing metrics by which Hillary Clinton claims to measure success in the primaries. When Obama moved ahead of her in pledged delegates, she stressed the importance of her lead in superdelegates - until they too starting moving to Obama's side. So she started stressing the importance of the popular vote, but she's now losing that as well, by some half a million votes. So she's come up with a convoluted series of arguments about how she's won states that are more important to the democrats come November. Doesn't she realize how condescending this sounds to the people in Obama states? As I mentioned a while back, her campaign labeled every state that voted for Obama instead of her as "latte-sipping" elitists. Ironically, this ended up giving the superdelegates from those states the justification they needed to switch their support to Obama. The story of the campaign up to this point is one in which the Clinton campaign is forced to invent increasingly "imaginative" explanations of why they're actually winning despite being behind in pledged delegates and popular support and campaign contributions. It's very likely that within the next few weeks the tide will have shifted to the point that Obama even has more superdelegates, meaning that every concrete metric possible will be in his favor. It's particularly entertaining how she clings to her victory in Michigan, as though winning when you're the only name on the ballot is much of an accomplishment.

Clinton = Rocky?

2008-04-22T21:12:00.002-04:00

Hillary has compared herself to Rocky a number of times during the lead-up to the Pennsylvania primary. For example, she recently noted that "when it comes to finishing the fight, Rocky and I have a lot in common. I never quit."

The part of the story she seems to have wrong is that at the beginning of the movie, Rocky is not the heavily favored presumptive champion with massive financial resources and powerful connections in the boxing community.

Also, doesn't Rocky lose at the end?

Clinton's new ad

2008-04-22T09:45:00.004-04:00

Hillary Clinton's transformation into a Republican is complete. She is now running an ad that consists of nothing but a montage of scary images (including one of Bin Laden) followed by a rhetorical question: "who do you think has what it takes?"

Clinton is still perpetuating the baseless but widely held belief that she is more experienced than Obama just because she's been in the public eye longer - even though that experience is largely made up of things like serving on the board at Wal-Mart and trading cattle futures.

Americans in general are still squeamish about black politicians, and Hillary is taking full and despicable advantage of that here. This is exactly the tack that Republicans will be taking in the fall.

Bob Woodward

2008-04-21T09:57:00.000-04:00

These old videos are only getting more disturbing:

Increasingly Hilarious Country Songs, pt. 2

2008-04-19T10:02:00.001-04:00

Today's hilarious country song is "Have You Forgotten?" by Darryl Worley. My favorite thing about this song is that its message is "Hey, remember that visceral, mindless rage you felt on 9/11? let's base our long-term foreign policy on that."

I hear people saying we don't need this war
I say there's some things worth fighting for
What about our freedom and this piece of ground?
We didn't get to keep 'em by backing down
They say we don't realize the mess we're getting in
Before you start preaching
Let me ask you this my friend

Have you forgotten how it felt that day
To see your homeland under fire
And her people blown away?
Have you forgotten when those towers fell?
We had neighbors still inside
Going through a living hell
And you say we shouldn't worry 'bout Bin Laden
Have you forgotten?

They took all the footage off my T.V.
Said it's too disturbing for you and me
It'll just breed anger that's what the experts say
If it was up to me I'd show it every day
Some say this country's just out looking for a fight
After 9/11 man I'd have to say that's right

Have you forgotten how it felt that day
To see your homeland under fire
And her people blown away?
Have you forgotten when those towers fell?
We had neighbors still inside
Going through a living hell
And you say we shouldn't worry 'bout Bin Laden
Have you forgotten?

I've been there with the soldiers
Who've gone away to war
And you can bet they remember
Just what they're fighting for

Have you forgotten all the people killed?
Some went down like heroes in that Pennsylvania field
Have you forgotten about our Pentagon?
All the loved ones that we lost
And those left to carry on
Don't you tell me not to worry about Bin Laden
Have you forgotten?

Have you forgotten?
Have you forgotten?

Clinton and guns

2008-04-15T15:17:00.004-04:00

A reporter asked Hillary Clinton when she last fired a gun. This was a fair question given how much she's been talking up her 2nd amendment street-cred these days. Her response was "We can answer that some other time."

OH MY GOD stop using this answer! What does it matter if we "can" answer it some other time? You were ASKED it now! In the time it took you to dodge that question, you could have answered it! People are a little savvier about these things nowadays, Hillary. When you avoid a question like that we all know it's because you're embarrassed about the answer.

A thesis

2008-04-15T11:55:00.001-04:00

I wrote a thesis! It is about music and I loved writing it but I am very glad that I never have to look at it again.

Here it is

Jack Chick

2008-04-12T00:00:00.006-04:00

If you're not familiar with the above name, he's a web evangelist who publishes fundamentalist "bible tracts" (comics about how evil gay people are).

Anyway, this new one is the most convoluted parable I've ever seen. Seriously, you won't know what the hell is happening until the end, when he explains his incredibly labored metaphor. Also, notice how "Satan" is the only 'ethnic' character.

P.S. please please PLEASE don't ask me why I read this website.

P.P.S. Here is the story of Clarice, an aborted baby. This raises some very interesting questions. Foremost among them: who names a fetus they're planning to abort?

Also, if there is a heaven, I REALLY hope God says "Surprise, everybody!" when you get there.

A draconian post

2008-04-10T15:19:00.002-04:00

Robert Novak, when he's not busy being a full-time stupidface, writes political columns. In this one, he uses the word "draconian" to describe Washington DC's gun ownership law. It occured to me that this word is used pretty indiscriminately and I don't even know precisely what it means, other than excessive and bad.

According to scholarly sources (wikipedia), Draco was an ancient Athenian legislator. The legal code he created was not notable for being unusually restrictive; it was notable for the fact that even minor offenses were punishable by death.

Thus, an excessively restrictive gun law is not "draconian" unless the punishment for owning a gun is death (or something similarly inappropriate in its severity). I expect the massive readership of this blog (which by some counts now numbers in the single digits) to spread the word.

Randi Rhodes calls clinton a whore

2008-04-08T12:35:00.003-04:00

Air America host Randi Rhodes has had a wonderful insight about Hillary Clinton.

Randi Rhodes is a left-wing Rush Limbaugh: a self-important blowhard with nothing substantive or original to contribute to the world who thus has to eke a career out of making pointless, inflammatory statements.

"A Silver Lining In the Blue Battle"

2008-04-06T20:01:00.002-04:00

Markos Moulitsas has a Newsweek article about the benefits of the extended primary battle.

...the frenzied organizing around the country has proved a catalyst for dramatic party building in states that had been Democratically dormant. State after state has reported record turnout, and thousands of new Democrats are registering in advance of each contest. In upcoming Pennsylvania, Democrats have gained a net 200,000 registered voters over Republicans this year; that number is 105,000 in North Carolina.

The party can now take advantage of the infrastructure both campaigns leave behind. The unprecedented level of participation and organization not only reinforces Blue states, it improves Democratic odds in traditional swing states. In fact, the tide threatens to make GOP stalwarts like Texas up for grabs this fall.

I guess I hadn't considered the fact that a primary with an uncertain outcome is always a more effective recruiting and organizing tool than one without. Only with a long, close campaign like this one can the Democrats take advantage of this.

Increasingly Hilarious Country Songs, pt. 1

2008-04-06T11:31:00.009-04:00

Here is the first in what will hopefully be a many-part series. Today's installment: "Iraq And Roll" by Clint Black, from 2003.

*EDIT* my god, this song has the least imaginative melodic writing EVER.

You can wave your signs and protest
against America takin' stands,
the stands America's takin'
are the reason that you can.
If everyone would go for peace
there'd be no need for war.
But we can't ignore the devil,
he'll keep coming back for more.

Some see this in black and white,
others only gray.
We're not begging for a fight,
no matter what they say.
We have the resolution
that should put 'em all to shame.
It's a different kind of deadline
when I'm called in the game.

Iraq, I rack 'em up and I roll,
I'm back and I'm a hi-tech GI Joe.
I pray for peace, prepare for war
and I never will forget ~
there's no price too high for freedom
so be careful where you tread.

This terror isn't man to man,
they can be no more than cowards.
If they won't show us their weapons
we might have to show them ours.
Now it might be a smart bomb,
they find stupid people too.
If you stand with the likes of Saddam,
well, one just might find you.

Iraq, I rack 'em up and I roll,
I'm back and I'm a hi-tech GI Joe.
I got infrared, I got GPS,
I got that good old-fashioned lead.
There's no price too high for freedom,
so be careful where you tread.

Now you can come along
or you can stay behind
or you can get out of the way.
But our troops take out the garbage
for the good old USA.
Iraq, I rack 'em up and I roll.
in the USA.
Iraq, I rack 'em up and I roll.
Talkin' 'bout the USA.

Holy shit

2008-04-05T09:33:00.003-04:00

This video, from August 2002, contains a clip of Rumsfeld talking to a reporter. Here is a verbatim transcript:

Reporter: What do you make of the statement made by the Iraqi government, stated by the Iraqi government yesterday, that Iraq has no weapons of mass destruction and is not developing them?

Rumsfeld: They’re lying. Next?

Ah, it was a simpler time, when anyone who questioned the government was as terrorist dupe.

Mozart

2008-04-02T16:21:00.007-04:00

I stumbled across this article while searching for free sheet music to Mozart's Ein Musikalischer Spass (which I found, thank you for asking). It is old but infuriating nonetheless. To criticize Mozart for not being dissonant enough is like criticizing Michaelangelo for not using enough abstract pointillism in the Sistine Chapel. Sentence after sentence, Mr. Lebrecht reveals nothing other than how little he knows about music.

Certainly Mozart's back catalog has been exploited to its maximum potential by a starving classical recording industry, who take every chance they can get to crank out 30+ disc box sets filled with undistinguished performances to dupe aspiring musical sophisticates out of large sums of money. This, however, is not Mozart's fault.

Stephen Colbert & Tom Delay

2008-03-29T15:16:00.001-04:00

From a few years ago. The interview at around 2:40 is fantastic.

One night only!

2008-03-25T14:20:00.008-04:00

So I just opened up my inbox to find an email from Hillary Clinton entitled "You, me, and Elton John." It contained this charming entreaty:

I would have liked to be in on the strategy session that resulted in THIS decision.

Strategist: Okay, Mrs. Clinton. Your biggest weakness against Obama is that young people feel he understands them better than you do. Your biggest weakness against McCain is that social conservatives trust him more than you. SO here's the plan: we're going to hitch our wagon to a flamboyant British pop star who hasn't been cool since the Nixon administration.

Clinton: Of course!

Clinton versus imaginary snipers

2008-03-25T01:21:00.007-04:00

Hillary Clinton claims she "misspoke" about a trip to Bosnia as first lady in 1996.

Hmmm. Apparently, what happened was that due to reports of snipers nearby, she had to cut her tarmac photo-op with the local kids a little short. The way she described it, though, she landed "under sniper fire" and everyone "ran with [their] heads down" to get into the hangar as secret service agents dropped like flies around her in the torrential barrage of bullets.

Okay I added the last bit. But Mrs. Clinton's reasoning that she "says a lot of things" and that this was just a "minor blip" sounds a lot like rationalizing a deliberate exaggeration of the truth after the fact. When George Bush said in his 2003 State of the Union address that Iraq had definitely sought uranium from Africa, he later played down the patently untrue statement by saying that it was just one sentence in a very long speech. The flaw in this excuse is the assumption that all sentences are of equal importance. That statement was the crux of a whole series of insinuations about Iraq's WMD programs and was crucial in building support for the invasion. For Clinton, little anecdotes like this are crucial in solidifying her image as the "candidate of experience." Which is fine, unless they happen to be complete fabrications.

"I went to 80 countries, you know," says Clinton. An army secretary who accompanied her on the trip was unsurprised "that there could be confusion" in recalling a trip from over a decade ago. But let's get serious here. If the truth were that this harrowing experience had taken place in, say, Croatia instead of Bosnia, that would be one thing. You could hardly blame her for confusing the details of two different trips. But the whole thing never happened at all. So where did that memory come from? If she had bragged about wrestling Saddam Hussein on the wing of Air Force One back in '93, would we all just chalk it up to the haziness of memory?

P.S. Clinton claims that she says "millions of words a day." If we put that number, conservatively, at three million, and assume eight hours of sleep, that works out to fifty-two words a second from the moment she gets up to the moment she goes to bed.

Jeremiah Wright, Cont.

2008-03-23T14:34:00.009-04:00

The Wright saga raises a lot of troubling questions. Much of the furor over Wright is surely of sign of how uncomfortable most white people still are with certain aspects of black culture in America - especially those which relate to the pulpit. White rage directed at black congregations - even today - leads to the occasional church burning in the south. Most whites, though, harbor more subconscious discomfort with the outspoken railings of preachers like Wright. And so when a video surfaces of him yelling "God damn America," it gives everyone license to pretend that their discomfort is actually due to Wright's supposed Anti-Americanism, rather than the upsetting resonance of his message. If you read more about Wright's sermons, it's clear that the man doesn't hate America. But he is angry at America over the racial injustice that he still sees all around him. You can quibble for hours (and the TV pundits certainly do) over whether he's too angry or too vitriolic or whether he hates his country. But I think people would do well to remember that white America has a long and rich tradition of using McCarthy-esque accusations of un-americanism in order to discount the often valid cultural criticisms leveled by prominent black leaders and intellectuals.

Martin Luther King is a perfect example of this phenomenon. In the sixties, politicians made feverish attempts to link him to the communist party. The FBI tapped his phones and bugged his hotel rooms from 1961 up until his death in 1968. Surveillance of his wife, the recently deceased Coretta Scott, did not end until many years after his death. Yet today, politicians of every stripe try to embrace the legacy of Martin Luther King while ignoring his diatribes against American policy and culture. In the 90's (and still today, to a certain extent), it was very much in vogue for conservative politicians to co-opt Martin Luther King as a symbol of their own party, taking his general pronouncements about judging people on 'the content of their character' out of context as proof that he would have - just to pick one example - opposed affirmative action. This is fairly absurd, given the kinds of statements King made about reparations in general:

"Within common law, we have ample precedents for special compensatory programs. ... America adopted a policy of special treatment for her millions of veterans...They could negotiate loans from banks to launch businesses. They could receive special points to place them ahead in competition for civil service jobs...There was no appreciable resentment of the preferential treatment being given to the special group."

"Whenever the issue of compensatory treatment for the Negro is raised, some of our friends recoil in horror. The Negro should be granted equality, they agree, but he should ask nothing more. On the surface, this appears reasonable, but it is not realistic."

And perhaps most tellingly:

"A society that has done something special against the Negro for hundreds of years must now do something special for the Negro..."

This article discusses some of these points in more depth, noting that even Fredrick Douglass was an outspoken critic of many aspects of American life. The people who write our history, unfortunately, have a great motivation to "tidy up" famous blacks so that they fit into the "official" narrative of race relations in America.

Tact

2008-03-22T17:44:00.000-04:00

James Carville, on Bill Richardson endorsing Obama:

“Mr. Richardson’s endorsement came right around the anniversary of the day when Judas sold out for 30 pieces of silver, so I think the timing is appropriate, if ironic.”

Classy guy. Because as the Bush presidency has taught us, valuing loyalty over good judgment is always a good idea!

Obama's race speech

2008-03-21T00:53:00.006-04:00

By now you've probably seen Barack Obama's big speech (video is below if you haven't). If you're like me, then you were swooning in uncritical adulation throughout the whole thing. Perhaps then you should read this LA Times column, which makes some fair criticims of the speech's shortcomings.

I think, though, that the flaw in the argument that America needs to "get past racial thinking" is the assumption that the majority of Americans are even capable of doing so in 2008. Thinking in 'non-racial' terms is only an option for a few of our most culturally enlightened citizens (and those who grew up in idyllic pan-racial utopias). Most of us, however, grew up in more segregated environments and so have developed distinct sets of racial prejudices. This will not be easy to overcome for most Americans, even if Barack Obama asks them nicely. And if our thinking is inevitably racial in nature, then our speech had better reflect that. Getting uppity whenever someone talks explicitly about race is not a good way to deal with the problem.

EDIT:
Here is an astute commentary on the barrage of attempts to link Obama to Jeremiah Wright's worldview.

Music

2008-03-18T00:15:00.002-04:00

This is a piece I wrote for my thesis. It's called 'Music for 4' (instruments are not specified). Basically, everything is specified except the notes themselves. The dynamics, the rhythms, the melodic contour, etc. This recording features me playing four clarinets.

Prostitute music

2008-03-15T16:59:00.000-04:00

When you heard about the Eliot Spitzer story, I'm sure your first thought was "gosh, I wish I could listen to Spitzer's favorite high-class prostitute sing terrible pop songs." Well, now you can:

http://amiestreet.com/ashleyalexandradupre

Peanut Butter

2008-03-15T09:58:00.004-04:00

Imagine a parallel universe in which a popular peanut butter brand, let's say Skippy, hatches a new marketing strategy. They begin adding trace amounts of an addictive chemical to their products. While otherwise harmless, this substance, over time, promotes an irrepressible craving for Skippy (tm) brand peanut butter. Time passes, and through various corporate channels the higher ups at Peter Pan and Jif get wind of this little marketing tactic. Not to be outdone, they make similar changes to their own formulas... and slowly this practice becomes the norm in the peanut butter industry. Long-time consumers begin to develop a chemical dependency on peanut butter.

Decades pass. A highly specialized market has grown up around the newfound peanut butter habits that so many Americans have developed. Each company has reacted to the need to 'tailor' a consumer's addiction to their particular brand, resulting in increasingly abstract marketing tactics. Ads that once consisted mostly of pictures of peanut butter accompanied by the word BUY now feature finely-muscled surfers skateboarding over flaming monster trucks while making out with hot chicks. One brand calls itself, without a trace of irony, a "smooth, sensual peanut butter - for the woman who knows what she wants." Each brand stakes out its own share of the lucrative PB biz (as they will call it) and defends it vigorously against all intruders. Medical researchers occasionally express concern about the long-term effects of compulsive daily peanut butter use, but the stuff has become such a widespread cultural institution that no one pays them much mind.

But suddenly, oh no! Some scientists are alleging that benzatrene Z-60, which the industry of course assures everyone is a harmless preservative, may be addictive. Congressional hearings are held. Denials are made. Gradually, the facts come to light and it's clear that something unsavory has been going on. Emissaries of the vast, shadowy financial empire that is the modern peanut butter industry assure the public that they had 'no idea' their product might be addictive. Companies run feverish ad campaigns to reassure the public of their all-encompassing benevolence. But Americans, justifiably, are outraged. Any person has the right to ingest unhealthy things if they want to - but to chemically enslave the consumer - especially to an otherwise superfluous product like peanut butter - is going to far.

Fifty years later the industry of course exists in more or less the same form but it's okay because the companies, alongside their ads urging you to buy peanut butter, occasionally run ads urging you NOT to buy peanut butter.

Press Secretary

2008-03-14T00:02:00.003-04:00

John Stewart just had on the white house press secretary. He asked her if she had ever been asked by the higher-ups to avoid broaching certain topics with the press corps. She replied that she had not. Hmmm... he then asked her if there were ever times when she thought to herself "I am not being honest." She said there were not. Assuming she believes those statements, they are quite telling about the state of mind a person can get into in a job like that.

*UPDATE* here's the video:

2008-03-12T06:53:00.001-04:00

Here's a fun email from the Clintons professing great outrage over the Obama advisor's use of the word "Monster". The irony here of course is that this email - and not the statement it is claiming outrage over - is actually one of the best examples of attack politics we've seen from Clintons in a while.

Take an out-of-context statement by one of your opponent's subordinates (notice that the extent of their quotation from the Obama advisor is a single word) and pretend that it's emblematic of something more insidious within his campaign. I especially enjoy the bit about "rehashing the old negative attacks of the 90s". In this way of looking at things, Obama is actually the establishment candidate, a surrogate of shadowy Washington insiders conspiring to bring down the Clintons - just like in the 90s! As if to erase any doubt about the talking points at her latest campaign strategy session, her spokesman recently compared the Obama campaign to Kenn Starr. This is in essence the "swift boat attack" in that it takes Obama's greatest strength (his public image as someone who transcends petty politics) and turns it into a negative. Four years ago, John Kerry's campaign was trumpeting his military heroism at every opportunity. And why not? His risked enemy fire to save a shipmate who had gone overboard. How could THAT work against you? Karl Rove's strategy hinged on the idea that Kerry was unpatriotic and weak on defense, but every time people looked at him they thought "war hero". And, far-away, deep in the caverns of the misty mountain, Republicans realized that if they could add an asterisk to those two words their magical power would vanish. They ran the swift boat ads, and suddenly every time Kerry talked about his military service, unpleasant thoughts reared up in our heads and tainted his supposed heroism. Whether or not you believed the ads, they eroded your faith in his character. This was one of the most sublimely despicable tactics in recent political history. The draft-dodger became the man of character while the war hero became completely suspect.

The difference, though, was that in john Kerry's case the shoe fit - at least with respect to his public image. People basically thought of Kerry as an out-of-touch, wealthy, Massachusetts liberal elitist. He certainly looked and acted the part. Only the facts about his military service made them think otherwise. Cast doubt on those facts, and people revert to their instinctive perception of Kerry because the muddying of the historical picture gives them mental permission to do so. Thinking of him as a patrician liberal becomes the norm once again because doing so now represents the path of least resistance. And (to bring it on home) that is why I think that, for Clinton, swift-boating Obama will not work: people want to like him. How can you not? Even Clinton supporters acknowledge his appeal, citing experience and tested-ness as their main reasons for supporting her over Obama. He is publicly perceived as the shining embodiment of hope - and I don't think adding an asterisk to that word will work.

Back to Vermont

2008-03-12T05:48:00.010-04:00

“Obama has won the small caucus states with the latte-sipping crowd,” said a Clinton aide over the weekend. The latte is often used to suggest upper-class elitism. I don't quite understand this, as lattes are not very expensive anymore. Anyway, it reminds me of my hands-down favorite political ad ever.

How much do I love this ad? Let me count the ways. First there's the fact that it consists, literally, of nothing more than a series of rapid-fire liberal stereotypes. Imagine the outrage there would be if someone made an ad decrying the "beer-swilling, bible-thumping, deer-massacring" republicans.

Second, the ad's faux spontaneity is a wonder to behold. There's the confused back-and-forth glances as Mr. and Mrs. red-blooded American notice the camera. Then there's the playful shrug and frown as the husband begins his rant, a sure indicator that it's coming right off the top of his head.

But then, oh no! Wifey has dared to interrupt him! He's just about to teach her a lesson about speaking when spoken to when he realizes that she's got some good points as well. Body-piercings? Hollywood? Terrific stuff, wifey. Extra carrots for you tonight.

Florida and Michigan

2008-03-08T13:41:00.000-05:00

here's an astute commentary on the continuing saga of Michigan and Florida:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-florida-michigan-chapman-column,1,2718543.column

These two states accepted a political gambit, trading their delegates at the convention for the increased influence of earlier primaries. The irony, of course, is that if they had left their primaries until now they would have been two of the most influential states of all. Sorry guys - you breaks the rules, you takes your chances.

Campaign emails

2008-03-06T20:31:00.002-05:00

A few weeks ago, (on or before 2/20, judging by my email history) I signed up for the Obama and Clinton email newsletters. I was curious about how their campaigns were using the medium (which I figure is still pretty new to politics). Today I got an email from the Obama campaign. It was fairly generic, trumpeting his delegate lead and trying to set himself up as the national candidate. Here's how it started...

"Zachary --
I want to add some more news to David's note about the state of the race.
As you know, we've won 27 of 41 contests blah blah blah etc."

...It suddenly hit me that this email is absolutely trying to imitate a dashed off note from a friend, exactly the kind we all get on a daily basis now that email messages have, for the average person, largely shed the formalities they inherited from "real" letters. Now that I look back, it seems his emails have always had this style (at least as long as I've been getting them, save a few with big "DONATE" logos). They have no graphics, a sharp contrast to the full color banner and tasteful border that accompany each of Clinton's emails. They have no formal salutation, just my first name (gosh, we're on a first name basis!) - what's more, Barack's "signature" is typed, unlike Clinton's, which is always a fancy graphic (which she presumably would have had to scan onto her computer and upload into her email, not something your friends typically do when they're checking if you're still on for lunch). Another thing your friends and family don't typically do in their daily emails is attach an inspiringly well-lit close-up of their face. I have noticed that Barack does not do this. I have noticed that Hillary does. I think this is a very real example of how a campaign with younger employees, people who are immersed in these newer aspects of culture, can gain a serious advantage over one that continues to insist on employing "the guys that worked last time". I bet someone on Obama's staff got promoted for this.

Bush in 2005

2008-03-02T10:32:00.006-05:00

Comedy Central recently posted a huge number of old Daily Show clips to their website, dating all the way back to the day John Stewart took over as host. The archive is a treasure trove of hilarious old clips of the president. Fact: if something the President says is funny at the time, it can only be funnier three years later. Take the bit about two minutes in to this video:

A reporter asks the president why he nominated Paul Wolfowitz, the architect of "one of the most unpopular wars in our history" to head the world bank. The president laughs, in that inexplicable little way he often does when someone asks him an uncomfortable question.

Think about how ridiculous this looks, and then think about the fact that that was less than three years ago. Now imagine that it is fifty years from now, and the Iraq war is just another regrettable, long-ago foreign policy disaster. Imagine what that video will look like then. In other words:

Reporter: Mister President: your hastily-conceived invasion of Cuba now seems to have served only to rapidly deteriorate our relations with the new government in that country...

Kennedy: (laughs)

Plagiarism double-standard

2008-02-22T10:33:00.001-05:00

I assume you guys watched the debate the other night, perhaps you remember Clinton's painfully rehearsed-sounding quip in which she called Obama's borrowing of lines from a Deval Patrick speech "change you can xerox". She has been making an awfully big deal about this particular bit of plagiarism even though Obama has acknowledged that he should have credited the lines and Patrick has defended him.

Anyway, Clinton's mailing list (yes, I subscribe to her mailing list) sent out this video early this morning:

http://www.hillaryclinton.com/video/134.aspx

She is evidently quite proud of that line about how "the hits I've taken in life are nothing compared to what goes on every single day in the lives of people across our country".

Unfortunately for her, some bloggers discovered that that line is lifted almost verbatim from a speech by her husband in 1992: "The hits that I took in this election are nothing compared to the hits the people of this state and this country have been taking for a long time."

Not that such a minor homage is really a big deal, but it certainly does not reflect well on her given the amount of time she's spent harping on Obama's similar mistake. I like Clinton less and less as this campaign continues and that seems to be the general trend around the country as well. And I think It's short-sighted, exploitative political maneuvering like this that really seems to be putting people off.

Review: James Sinclair and the Orchestra New England perform Charles Ives

2007-12-06T16:21:00.005-05:00

I recently met James Sinclair when he attended an Ives concert put on by one of my professors. Mr. Sinclair is perhaps the world's foremost Ives scholar and has conducted several fine recordings of the composer's music. Thus was I inspired to write this review of one of his records.

The group on this album is a chamber orchestra, but that should not deter you. In fact, the smaller ensemble seems very appropriate on pieces such as the "Country Band March", in which Ives pays tribute to the enthusiastic amateurism of small-town marching bands. The piece cycles through a number of popular songs, with the occasional over-excited instrumentalist tossing in a favorite tune of his own. It builds to a climax in which the speed and energy of the music outpace the abilities of the ensemble and the whole thing seems on the verge of collapse as it roars toward the finish line. A lone saxophone is caught off-guard by the sudden finale and lets out a few solitary notes before falling into embarrassed silence. This must be a challenging piece to conduct, for the ensemble has to imitate the undisciplined, rambunctious energy of an amateur marching band while faithfully performing a carefully notated score. The ONE pulls it off though, balancing both the comic and abstract elements of the music.

The pieces that follow are mostly sketches of various aspects of Ives' years at Yale. Most entertaining is "Yale-Princeton Football Game", in which the trumpet imitates the zig-zagging 55-yard run by the Yale quarterback while the piccolo trills the referee's whistle. Ives' "Four Ragtime Dances", according to the liner notes, were begun in the late 1890's, when "the national ragtime craze swept the campus". As a college student in 2007, I am highly entertained by the idea of a 'ragtime craze' sweeping the campus.

Ives himself had mixed feelings about his chamber orchestra arrangement of "Three Places in New England", calling the piano a "poor substitute" for the bassoons of the original version. Yet the New Englanders are able to bring a convincingly intimate quality to the piece. This works well during the first movement, "The Saint-Gaudens in Boston Common", inspired by a bas-relief honoring the first black regiment in the Union army. Sinclair creates a very convincing portrait of the rag-tag infantry that contrasts the creeping dread of imminent battle with the elation and hope of the soldiers in the 54th. The second movement, "Putnam's Camp, Redding, Connecticut", again calls on the performers to do their best marching band impression, and in these passages the ONE shines as well.

The final movement, "The Housatonic at Stockbridge", is based on Ives' fond memory of a riverside walk with Mrs. Ives, the summer of their marriage. A mist hung over the water and hymns from a distant church could just be heard. This is one of Ives' most beautiful compositions. The subtle dissonance of the strings and piano make the whole thing seem like a distant, foggy memory. Yet while listening, I can't help but miss the hushed intensity that a full orchestra brings to the score. That aside, this is a very good survey of Ives that will not disappoint.