October 2008 Archives

I had heard about people complaining about their votes for Obama going to McCain, so I can't say I was totally surprised about this, but seeing it in this demonstration is truly stomach turning.

A reporter from the Uptake gets a McCain worker very upset when she interviews multiple minority "volunteers" for the McCain campaign who all admit they're getting paid to work for the campaign. I love the YouTube.

This clip will have no bearing on the election. Unlike certain SNL skits that do much to reinforce a "heightened reality" as Lorne Michaels put it to Sarah Palin during her appearance.

http://view.break.com/592648

The older I get, the more I appreciate R.E.M. songs. I also cringe sometimes, though because every day it seems like we fall back further to the insanity of when those lyrics were originally penned.

The most recent example happened last night, when I watched Michele Bachmann, she of the Republican party and also a congresswoman from Minnesota who decided to question the pro-American loyalties of large swaths of the country, as well as others in congress, as she attempted to denigrate Barack and Michelle Obama.

There's a great lyric from R.E.M.'s "Exhuming McCarthy" that resonated with me as it relates to this whole exchange:

Enemy sighted, enemy met, I'm addressing the realpolitik
Look who bought the myth, by jingo, buy America

Then, a direct quote from Sen. McCarthy himself appears in the song.

"Let us not assassinate this man further Senator, You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?"

In this campaign, more than any other I've ever followed, a sense of decency is sorely lacking. The fact that I'm quoting McCarthy ahead of that last point is making my head spin.

I missed a chance to see Jason Fried from 37signals this week, but I took solace in the fact that I got a lot out of his appearance at the Web 2.0 Expo last month, so I re-read (and spellchecked) the notes I took that day. I have cross-posted them here from their original location here:

Momentum - with out it you are going to trend toward mediocrity

Typically, people eventually lose interest and just want to finish it

Ideal situation is the bursting sound wave

We try to break all of our big projects into as many small projects as possible. Don't like to work on projects longer than 2 weeks.

NO Roadmaps Specifications or Projections "The problem with roadmaps is you're setting your future in stone."

Specification docs are basically a collection of Yeses, and there's little penalty for adding to it.

Get rid of abstractions - "What are we working on right now? That's the most important"

Decisions are temporary. "You should be optimizing for now."

Red Flag Words - We do a lot of collaboration by typing. The more we collaborate the more we use certain words.

Need - Instead, how "Might we try this?"
Can't - "The truth is you probably can."
Easy - A word you use to describe other people's jobs
Everyone & Nobody - "People use these words to justify decisions. You're really exaggerating and blurring the point."

Interruption is the Enemy of Productivity - "The closer you are with somebody, the less work you actually get done."

Taps on the shoulder
Required meetings
Calling someone's name
"Hey check this out"
Phones & Blackberries

That's why most people get work done in the morning and late at night

I have done a lot of talking to people, and reading people's opinions about, the upcoming election between Barak Obama and John McCain. I have heard a lot of explanations about who people plan to vote for and why. These include people in New Hampshire when I recently went canvassing there, people from the Midwest, people from other countries and people in and around my current hometown of Quincy, Mass.

I have heard a lot of people say they are voting based on character. I can respect that. I sometimes wished I had asked certain people what they define as character.

I like the definition that goes "Character is what you do when no one is looking."

So it is that I came across these two stories within a couple minutes of each other while surfing the web, twittering, and playing on Facebook.

The first one, by Rolling Stone, offers a pretty damning look at what makes up the character of Sen. John McCain. The excerpt below details a 1974 conversation between McCain and John Dramesi, an Air Force lieutenant colonel who like McCain was imprisoned and tortured in Vietnam.

On the grounds between the two brick colleges, the chitchat between the scion of four-star admirals (McCain) and the son of a prizefighter (Dramesi) turns to their academic travels; both colleges sponsor a trip abroad for young officers to network with military and political leaders in a distant corner of the globe.

"I'm going to the Middle East," Dramesi says. "Turkey, Kuwait, Lebanon, Iran."

"Why are you going to the Middle East?" McCain asks, dismissively.

"It's a place we're probably going to have some problems," Dramesi says.

"Why? Where are you going to, John?"

"Oh, I'm going to Rio."

"What the hell are you going to Rio for?"

McCain, a married father of three, shrugs.

"I got a better chance of getting laid."

In a story that originally appeared in the Norwegian magazine VG, American English-speaking Oslo blogger Leisha translated a story about Barak Obama that occurred 14 years after McCain's party plans.

A newlywed 31-year-old was waiting at the gate at the Miami Airport awaiting a reunion with her husband in Norway. She had no money, and carefully packed up all of the possessions she was going to take with her to start a new life.

She had no money, and just found out she would need 103 dollars to take the possessions with her.

In tears, she heard a voice from behind her, offering to pay the fee. That person (duh) was Barak Obama.

"He was my knight in shining armor," she said.

I believe these stories, say a lot about who we're choosing between in just about a month. While neither nugget has anything to do with specific policy, tax code, numbers of houses one owns or what their preacher might say in a sermon, I believe they do much to illustrate the guiding principles that each candidate will use when making difficult decisions that will affect both us and future generations of Americans.

I just deleted a few sentences that explained why, but in re-reading both of the excerpts above, it occurred to me that it's already pretty obvious.

A co-worker had never seen this old SNL clip, so I thought I'd bring it back for others to enjoy.

Change is coming!

So I was watching Meet the Press on Sunday, and I couldn't get over the sound of Steve Schmidt's voice. It sounded so familiar. And it wasn't just the sound of his actual voice. It was also the lack of understanding of how finance works that made me think more and more that I had heard someone like this before.



Then it hit me. Kevin!



Please resume your previous pre-debate planning activities.