davidvoegtle.net

I’ve never been one for conspiracy theories. The 9/11 Truth movement? Not credible. Alex Jones from InfoWars? I’m from Austin, TX, and he’s been our town idiot with a cheesy cable access show for as long as I can remember. Nevertheless, there’s something curious going on in California with regards to their ballot initiatives. I don’t mean to suggest fraud, necessarily, but these questions need to be answered by supporters of gay marriage and gay rights if they hope to understand what went wrong.

As I write this, the No on Prop 8 organization has not yet conceded, clinging to the hope that projected turnout will yield additional uncounted ballots.

Unfortunately, I now believe that this is unlikely, given that projected turnout results nationwide were wildly inflated. States from every region are reporting lighter than expected turnout (Arkansas, Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, West Virginia, Wisconsin). With turnout projected at a low end of 130 million (and a high of 140 million), it’s looking more likely that we’ll just surpass 2004’s record turnout of 122 million. (Although it’s worth noting that turnout projections are all over the place right now as final results are certified, including absentee and provisional ballots.)

However, even supposing that turnout only barely increased nationwide (and actually decreased in some states), there are turnout results within California that are difficult to explain. For instance:

Why is it that turnout in San Francisco was barely 50%?

With no other city as invested in the outcome of Prop 8, and no other city in America with as large a gay population, what is the explanation for the fact that turnout fell dramatically there?

In 2000, San Francisco saw turnout of about 66%.

In 2004, San Francisco saw turnout of nearly 75%.

It’s certainly not the case that historically San Franciscans fail to show up at the ballot box.

What about other counties? Los Angeles saw much higher turnout of 65%. Although LA had turnout of around 79% in 2004, why did LA’s turnout decrease by only 14 points, while San Francisco’s decreased by 25?

What about the broader Bay Area? Of the nine county region, only one county (Solano) voted for the proposition. Alameda, the largest (by registration) saw turnout of about 55%. In 2004, turnout was 76% (PDF), a 21 point drop.

Between only San Francisco and Alameda, had they voted at their 2004 turnout levels, somewhere between 250,000 to 300,000 additional Yes votes might have been obtained.

Some might suppose that early returns on the east coast depressed turnout. I’m not convinced that this is the case. Certainly, Prop 8 was such a large and expensive campaign that most Californians knew about the initiative, even beyond the presidential election. Second, if knowing Obama was winning would discourage any voters, surely it should suppress the votes of McCain voters–who are more closely tied with support for Prop 8. (See chart–although it’s not a perfect correlation, generally as Obama’s win percentage goes up, Prop 8’s win percentage goes down.)

The GLBT community and its allies need to figure out what caused this precipitous drop-off in voter participation in this very important election if they’re to effectively mobilize voters in the future. Whatever the reason, these are questions that should be answered to better fight such ballot initiatives.

Technorati Tags: ballot-measures, civil-rights, civil-unions, election-2008, elections, gay-marriage, gay-rights, initiatives, lds, lds-church, marriage, mormons, prop-8, proposition-8, rights, same-sex-marriage, state-initiatives, voting

Just what is up lately with John McCain? One has to wonder if his campaign is sabotaging him on purpose. Surely it can’t be the case that the candidate of a major American political party is completely without access to a basic fact checker?

Even a college-aged intern (with the Google or other basic Internet skills) ought to be able to help a guy out for next to nothing, without putting undue stress on McCain’s budget.

 

First, we had McCain’s confusion over the chronology of the abatement of violence in Iraq. To be sure, the Surge provided needed additional troops on the ground (something some have been asking this administration to do since the beginning of the war). But at least as important, arguably, have been societal changes taking place within Iraq itself. The dramatic ethnic self-sorting taking place in Baghdad along with the Anbar Awakening surely did much to also lessen violence against US troops. McCain wants us to believe that the Surge resulted in the Awakening, when that is manifestly not the case.

Now today we hear from John McCain that President Bush (of all people) is responsible for the recent drop in oil prices:

Republican John McCain on Wednesday credited the recent $10-a-barrel drop in the price of oil to President Bush’s lifting of a presidential ban on offshore drilling, an action he has been advocating in his presidential campaign.

Once again McCain seems to want to credit an event that ooccurred later as the cause of an event that occurred earlier in the chronological order. It’s a completely mystery to me how this could have escaped McCain, except to note that he is admittedly not very well versed on gas prices.

But wait, how can this be? Didn’t gas prices drop immediately after Bush announced he was canceling the executive order against offshore drilling?

Monday, July 14, 2008

WASHINGTON — President Bush lifted an executive ban on offshore oil drilling first imposed under his father’s administration, although new oil exploration on the Outer Continental Shelf will remain off limits until Congress also takes action.

And the next Tuesday we saw this:

Last Updated: July 15, 2008: 4:56 PM EDT

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Oil prices plummeted by the second-largest margin on record Tuesday as investors feared a further decline in U.S. demand after hearing comments from Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke.

Note first of all the stated reason for the drop in prices: fears of reduced US demand for oil, not hopes for increased production. Then, unfortunately for John McCain, oil prices had already begun to drop by the time Bush lifted his executive order. As early as June 6, some analysts in the media were predicting that oil prices would start to fall:

GET READY FOR THE OIL-PRICE DROP

June 6, 2008

THE price of crude oil has jumped as high as $135 lately, up from $87 in early February. The news encouraged some Wall Street analysts to suggest oil might approach $200 before long. In fact, that’s quite impossible: The world economy can’t handle current energy prices, much less a big increase.

Which in turn means that oil prices will fall.

A month later, and the week before president Bush’s action, oil prices were already in decline:

July 8, 2008

NEW YORK — Oil tumbled more than $5 a barrel Tuesday in its second big drop this week, hurling crude back to levels not seen since June 26 as traders wary about the health of the global economy cashed in gains from oil’s recent rally.

So seriously. Seriously. Just what is up with the McCain campaign?

John McCain does have at least one thing going for him: In typical “John McCain’s base” fashion, none of these easily obtainable facts were reported by Tom Raum of the AP. Raum found time in his article to give us how many gallons of oil are in a barrel, but couldn’t be bothered to do a basic fact check on the central assertion made by McCain being reported in the article.

Liberal media bias indeed.

Technorati Tags: anbar-awakening, chronology, gas-prices, george-w-bush, iraq-war, john-mccain, oil, oil-prices, republicans

Several months ago, I ran across a review in MacWorld entitled The real paperless office, a brief explanation of setting up a paperless office. Quoth Wikipedia:

The paperless office is now considered to be a philosophy to work with minimal paper and convert all forms of documentation to a digital form. The ideal is driven by a number of motivators including productivity gains, costs savings, space saving, the need to share information and reduced environmental impact.

Although a paperless office is perhaps most useful within an office (even a small office or home office) environment, going paperless offers obvious benefits even for personal use. Whilst a single user may not benefit from the sharing of digital documents on the network, maintaining documents in digital form does allow the single user to reduce clutter and benefit from vastly improved desktop search tools (e.g. Google Desktop, Apple’s Spotlight, etc.).

Shopping for the right scanner

The article at MacWorld was interesting, but I didn’t have the equipment or time to devote to the project of moving paperless. One of the most important missing components for such a project was the lack of a scanner with an automated document feeder (ADF). My scanner at that time was a relatively cheap and feature-poor flatbed Canon LiDE 30. Having now had the benefit of a scanner with an ADF, I can confidently state that attempting this project with a typical flatbed scanner would be an exercise in frustration. Flatbed scanners may be very good for certain tasks, but helping you move to a paperless office is not among them.

Fortunately, a few coincident circumstances gave me the kick in the pants I needed to take on this project: First, I finished my degree recently, which gave me a bit of free time while I search for a job. (Anyone hiring? My degree is in Mathematics and Classics. That means I can do arithmetic and string together words into complete sentences.) Second, my Canon scanner decided it didn’t want to turn on for no good reason. The Canon has been accumulating other drawbacks recently, primarily that its driver is TWAIN-like, but not well supported. Third, the (somewhat poor) software that originally shipped with the device was OS 9 software that ran under Classic mode in OS X. After I upgraded to Leopard, even that mixed blessing (at least the scanner always worked with its own software) was a thing of the past. Finally, when the scanner mysteriously decided to stop working at all, I pretty much just threw up my hands in disgust and decided to get a new scanner.

The original article at MacWorld had recommended a Fujitsu ScanSnap scanner. Online reviews for the Fujitsu products have generally been very good, but a near universal negative that is listed for these scanners is that they are expensive. That’s certainly a fair criticism, if price is your only consideration. I managed to find an online retailer selling the S300M for about $50 under MSRP (my price about $250 before S&H). Even still, with multi-function devices that integrate printer, scanner, fax, and copier (many with an ADF) retailing for $50-$100 less than the price I ultimately paid, the premium will need to be evaluated.

To be fair to Fujitsu, similar products from competitors also carry a premium. The main competitor is Visioneer (makers of the PaperPort line, who also develop a line of scanners for Xerox). Unfortunately, the Visioneer scanners do not appear to include Mac-compatible software, so they were not serious contenders for my money.

The criteria that ultimately pushed me to pick the Fujitsu despite the price were fourfold:

• First, I had a space consideration. My “office area” is a small-ish desk in my bedroom. I needed a scanner that I could easily fit on my already crowded desk, and I don?t have the room for a separate printer/scanner stand.
• Second, my experience with all-in-one devices has been that the software bundles are frequently sub-par, and may not work phenomenally well. This is especially true with some companies’ Mac support (I’m looking at you, HP), with Mac bundles often lacking features found in the PC software. Sometimes this can be made up with additional software (either OS X-included software or third-party), but the potential hassle was one thing to consider. The ScanSnap series has been noted for its excellent Mac support and software.
• Third, I already have two printers (an very capable Canon i900D photo printer and a small Samsung laser printer). The thought of purchasing a third printer in the form of a multi-function device when I didn’t want to get rid of either existing printer was not appealing.
• Fourth, while I was sure that the Fujitsu products did exactly what I wanted to do (set up a paperless office), few reviews that I could find of multi-function devices discussed in any detail the capabilities of the ADF on the multi-function devices. Ultimately, I decided to buy something I knew would do what wanted rather than take a risk buying something I thought might work.

The conclusion I reached for my circumstances was that the extra expense was justified by what I was getting in return.

Physical impressions

The scanner itself is marketed as a portable solution for people who need document-scanning services while on the road. It is definitely small enough to include in larger laptop bags when closed. The weight is given at Fujitsu’s site as 3.08 lb. (1.4 kg).

The scanner can be powered in two ways: via an external power adapter with brick or via USB. USB power requires a special cable (included) that does not also serve as the USB communication cable. When powered by USB, you will need two available USB ports; one for the power cable and one for the communication cable. Fujitsu also notes in their documentation that scanning speed while powered over USB may be significantly slower than normal. If using a USB hub, the hub must itself be powered in order to provide power to the scanner. This may be a consideration for people who have a severe limitation of available USB ports (e.g. Macbook Air users).

When opened, the document feeder is sufficient to hold approximately ten sheets of paper of normal thickness. There are adjustable guides that center paper in the scanner; the maximum width is the American Letter standard. There are guide marks for Letter, A4, B5, and A5 paper sizes, but the guides slide smoothly to accommodate any paper size of less than Letter width.

The only button on the scanner is the Scan button, which initiates scanning. There is no power button; the scanner will automatically turn on when the cover is opened, and will automatically turn off with the cover is closed. There is one latch that when depressed will open the scanner so that document jams may be cleared. Otherwise, there are no physical doodads to adjust (or break).

Scanning performance

In my experience, the document feeder worked extremely well. After scanning nearly 2000 pages, I experienced only three paper jams which were easily rectified by reloading the paper. In one instance, I had to load the pages into the feeder in a different order to get the scanner to feed the documents correctly, but this appears to have been a one time quirk of that particular document set.

Although the paper feeder only holds ten sheets at a time, the scanner will prompt you when it finishes scanning whether to continue with the current set (allowing you to load additional sheets) or whether to finish the current set. This enables easy scanning of larger sets of documents despite the relatively small feed tray.

The scanner supports duplexing, meaning that it can scan two sides of the page in one pass of the document through the scanner. Duplexing can be turned off in the scanner software’s settings. I found that it was convenient to do so when I was scanning certain statements from my bank, which included the same disclosure information on the back of every sheet. The extremely small and dense print of the disclosure statements resulted in very slow optical character recognition (OCR; more later), and I didn’t view the information as critical for my uses. Otherwise, the duplexing worked very well.

Scanning speed was very good. Fujitsu’s technical specifications state the scanner can process approximately eight pages per minute in “Normal Mode”. At MacWorld’s recommendation, I was scanning in “Better Mode”, which is rated at six pages per minute. This seems a conservative estimate to me, although the limiting factor appears to be how quickly your computer can process the images. Over longer scanning operations (10+ double-sided sheets) the scanner seemed more likely to pause every few sheets as my three year-old PowerBook G4 1.67 GHz processed sheets that had already been scanned. Operations with only a few sheets seemed to finish about one sheet every five seconds (estimated).

Software

Note that the ScanSnap S300M is a Mac-specific product and ships with Mac-compatible software. PC users should consider the ScanSnap S300, which ships with Fujitsu’s PC-compatible software. Other than the case color and the included software, I believe the two products are virtually identical.

The scanner software includes several auto-detection algorithms that attempt to correctly orient (including correcting for skew) the pages being scanned, whether or not the page is blank, and whether the document is color or black and white. In practice, theses algorithms worked most of the time, with a relatively few number of pages outputting with the incorrect orientation (usually upside down) or with a blank page being scanned in. Zero documents in my tests exhibited skew, even when they fed slightly skewed through the scanner. All of these various options can be adjusted in the settings of the scanner software.

One very pleasant surprise was how well the scanner automatically detected the paper size and provided accurate sizes within the PDFs it created. Although the maximum width is Letter, the length of documents can be larger than Letter length. There is also support for scanning, in one set, sheets of different sizes (commonly for me pages where the payment stub had been removed from one sheet). The ScanSnap software correctly adjusted in each case to sheets of greater and lesser length, and the output PDF correctly displayed those pages as a different size.

Once a set has been completed, the software presents the user with four options: Scan to folder, Scan to e-mail, Scan to print, or iPhoto. Each options is relatively straight forward and includes a brief explanation for the user. In most cases for those interested in the paperless office, the first option will be the one selected.

Orientation problems were easily corrected in either Apple’s Preview.app and Adobe Acrobat 7.0. I discovered that documents with heavy creases often resulted in blank pages being scanned. While the included software has a welcome preview window at the document save stage in the Scan to folder screen which lets you view each page that has been scanned, viewing is its only capability. It would be nice if basic 90° rotation and page delete options were included on this screen.

The scan to folder screen allows you to save to a local folder, a network folder, or .Mac (now MobileMe). Although the software gives a default name to the document this can be easily changed from this window. A nice touch at this screen is the Name history feature, which allows you to select from any of the prior ten names chosen. This comes in handy if you are scanning a number of document sets that will have similar names. I highly recommend ordering your documents before you start scanning, so that you can make full use of this feature. Not only will your saved documents have a consistent naming scheme, but you’ll save yourself on typing. (An example are my credit card statements, which I have saved all as yyyymm_bankname_statements.)

Documents are scanned in as PDFs in which each page of the PDF is an image of the page scanned. Although these are PDFs, because the pages are all images and not actually text they are not searchable, text cannot be selected, and the contents of the document cannot be indexed by desktop search applications. This is where OCR software comes in. (Not OCD, although I imagine a touch of OCD is extremely useful for this type of project.) OCR is software that looks at the image of the page and attempts to recognize what letters the image is expressing. OCR has been around for quite a while, and is fairly mature technology. Its ability to accurately recognize characters is quite good, especially for standard fonts with some variation among different manufacturers.

At the settings recommended by MacWorld, scanned documents worked out to between 250k-500k per page, depending on color/b&w, paper size, an amount of text on each page. After scanning about 2000 pages, I used about 600 MB of hard drive space.

Included with the scanner is I.R.I.S. Software’s CardIris software for scanning and extracting contact information from business cards. While CardIris does perform OCR on the scanned cards, it is a very specialized application and cannot be used for character recognition on most documents.

As noted in the MacWorld review from last year, one deficiency with this software package is the lack of included OCR software for general documents. Fortunately, Fujitsu has been running a rebate for most of this year where I.R.I.S. Software’s well-reviewed ReadIris is sent to you on return of the rebate certificate and proof of purchase. Unfortunately, I did not receive my copy before writing this review. However, I was able to perform OCR on my documents using Adobe Acrobat Professional 7.0 (later versions should work, too) along with the AppleScript provided by MacWorld. The AppleScript is a folder action that runs when a document is saved to a specified folder, launches (or switches to) Adobe Acrobat (there is a version for ReadIris, too), and then automagically begins OCR on all pages. Instructions are included with the AppleScript.

After scanning

Managing your documents is key in order to be able to find your data on demand. While some prefer to manually manage their documents via a folder scheme, others prefer to use various search programs to find information. Each has its drawbacks and benefits.

Folders

One advantage to folders is that the analogy is well-understood by just about all computer users. Folders structure navigation is ubiquitous among virtually all computing platforms. The disadvantage is that upkeep and management overhead is typically high. Unless you regularly and consistently keep up with saving your documents according to your scheme, things will quickly get out of control.

Help is, however, available. Hazel is an application that will monitor whatever folder you tell it to and will perform actions on those folders’ contents based on rules you specify. The rules editor is very similar to both Entourage’s and Apple Mail’s e-mail rules, so most users should be able to figure out the process fairly easily. For instance, one could easily set up a rule that said to move any documents in the “OCR This” folder with “Bank1″ in the file name to the “Bank1″ folder in documents.

I use Hazel for other purposes, but haven’t yet set it up to aid me with this project. Ultimately, Hazel is only as good as the rules you set up, so it still would require a bit of planning.

Search

At the other extreme is the search scheme, whereby documents are stored in only a few (or one) folder, and then located by means of a search. This can be done in a desktop search application like Google Desktop Search or Spotlight, which both will index file names, metadata, and file contents for supported file types; or it can be done using various other applications, such as Leap, Yep, or DevonThink.

Leap and Yep are both from Ironic Software. In one sense Leap is a superset application of Yep in that they both do a similar job indexing file contents and tagging files with search terms. They both provide useful browsers that can focus in on one tag or a selection of tags. The main difference between them is that Yep is focused specifically on PDF documents, while Leap is more generally for any file type. Assuming that you’re saving your documents in PDF format, Yep may be sufficient for you paperless office needs.

DevonThink creates a fully searchable database of any folder structure you provide to it. The Pro Office version also integrates an import and OCR function with full support for Fujitsu products.

The advantage to this scheme is that it requires very little planning on your part. Virtually every document can be stored in a few locations (or a single location). The disadvantages are twofold: First, to find a document again requires that you remember some specific, relatively unique data about that document. If you only remember something general about the document, your search might return an absurd number of results. Second, if you can’t remember something relatively unique, searching through your save location(s) which might include hundreds or thousands of documents can be very time consuming.

The middle path

Ultimately, I’ve decided to take a middle path that I think will enable me to take advantage of both approaches. I’ve selected DevonThink Personal to provide the document index and search functions as I already have an OCR program and an acceptably quick workflow with the AppleScripts from MacWorld.

However, I?m also making sure to name my files consistently and with key information that will make browsing for them easier. I also have a few top-level folders in Documents that will break down my scanned documents into broad categories (Banking, Insurance, Medical, etc.). In this way I hope if I have to go digging, at least I?ll have a head start.

Conclusion

The Fujitsu ScanSnap S300M is one of my better computing purchases in the last several years. The software “just works” in the best Macintosh tradition, and the hardware is simple enough to be idiot-proof, but well designed and very competent at what it does.

As stated above, flatbed scanners are very good at certain tasks; if your needs run to those tasks (photo scanning, scanning oddly-shaped objects, scanning documents wider than Letter width, etc.), and not to document scanning, a flatbed scanner might be better for you. But for those of us seeking to get a handle on the various paper statements we receive, it?s difficult to imagine a product that would handle the move to the paperless office as smoothly as the S300M.

There was one casualty in my crusade against paper. My longtime friend, a Fellowes shredder, started spitting out ball bearings near the beginning of this project (hence, the large stack of paper in the first picture). This was despite the fact that I?m very careful about not feeding too many sheets of paper at once (and almost feed less than the rated maximum). Now I have to buy a new shredder. So long, Mr. Fellowes!

Originally posted at my blog, http://davidvoegtle.net/blog.

Technorati Tags: acrobat, adobe, devonthink, fujitsu, hardware, ocr, readiris, reviews, s300m, scanners, scanning, scansnap, technology

An argument that the Hillary Clinton campaign occasionally floats for reporters is that Hillary’s wins among the “big states” and among states that Democrats traditionally win make her the stronger candidate against John McCain in November. As the argument goes, Hillary has proven she can win California, New York, Michigan, Florida, New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts, all states that Democrats “must” carry in order to win the presidency. By contrast, Obama has won states in the south, Great Plains, and mountain regions of the country where Democrats haven’t won in recent years. Therefore, Obama will lose the election. Ed Rendell, governor of Pennsylvania and a Clinton supporter, made this argument on March 9, 2008 on Meet the Press with Tim Russert:

Tim, you and I have been doing this for a long time, as Tom has, and we know the big four in any presidential election recently are Pennsylvania, Ohio, Florida and Michigan. […] She’s clearly the strongest candidate in the states that Democrats must win to have a chance. Look, it’s great that Barack Obama is doing wonderfully well in Wyoming and Utah and, and places like that, but there’s no chance we’re going to carry those states. Whether he gets 44 percent as opposed to 39 percent doesn’t matter, but we’re not going to carry those states. We do have a chance to carry the big four. We’ve got to in three of the big four. Hillary Clinton’s the strongest candidate to do that. That’s been proven by the voters in the–those states and hopefully by Pennsylvania as well.

But does this argument make sense? I’m going to explore four reasons why Democrats and other voters might want to treat this argument as suspect. It may be the case that Obama loses states in November which Clinton carried in the primaries, but the correlation looking at both historical data and current polling does not support this conclusion. In addition to the data I present, I argue that Democrats shouldn’t accept this argument, even were it true, for other political reasons.

The four problems:

1. Democrats cannot continue to ignore the rest of the country.
   Are all these states really necessary for Democrats, even assuming the premise is true? Also, what implication might voters not in “the chosen” states make with regards to this argument, and how might that affect the Democrats’ chances? If one of the two major candidate’s campaigns has just said that your state doesn’t “matter”, are you more or less likely to vote for that party at any level?
2. It’s not all about the presidency.
   Related to the above, it’s time that the campaigns remembered they aren’t the only ones running in November. Coat-tails are perhaps less important than they were a few generations ago, but the presidential candidates surely have to recognize that it’s to their advantage to help members from their party win election to Congress and state offices.
3. There is no definite correlation between losing a state in the primary and losing it in the general.
   Does a loss in the primary mean that the candidate can’t carry the state in the general election (or even suggest it’s likely)? I first addressed this issue in an article by Cliff Potter (that appears to be deleted). However, comparing primary and general election maps for the last several cycles fails to back this claim up.
4. Obama is winning or holding his own in the “true” Democratic strongholds: urban areas.
   Is it really true that Hillary is winning the Democratic strongholds? What are the Democratic stongholds? Are they states or are they really something else, like counties?

The rest of the country matters, too

…Or “Fly over me, will you? Let me get my SAM battery.”

One common criticism of Bill Clinton’s DNC in the ’90s is that he and Terry McAuliffe strangled the state parties, neglected states they had written off as “unwinnable”, and generally allowed Republicans free reign throughout the middle part of the country. To be fair, genuine demographic challenges partially informed this strategy, and the Democrats through most of the last several election cycles have been at a distinct disadvantage in fundraising. Unfortunately, the “triangulation” strategy of winning the coasts, the industrial midwest, and some combination of a small number of “swing” states was always a risky proposition. Bill Clinton won in ‘92 thanks to the fluke of a strong third party challenger and in ‘96 on the strengths of incumbency, a relatively quiescent global situation, and a good economy. In the face of riskier economic times, a more uncertain global political situation, and no incumbency, Democrats have faced poorly in presidential elections. While they haven’t faced blowouts like the elections of the ’80s, the brass ring has been held just out reach.

Thankfully, this is beginning to change. The DNC’s 50-state strategy, under the leadership of Howard Dean and a new generation of Democratic leaders, has re-energized state parties from Alaska to Texas and from Montana to North Carolina. Dividends were recognized in ‘06 by the sweep of Democrats into (narrow) majorities in both houses of Congress. Additionally, fundraising this cycle for both the House and Senate campaign committees is strong.

Democrats have a real shot at expanding their electoral map to states that haven’t been in play for a while. Colorado, Kansas, and Virginia are attractive targets this cycle. Colorado (9 electoral votes) and Virginia (13 electoral votes) would best a loss in Ohio (20 electoral votes). Thus, deficits from one or more of the “big four” that Rendell notes above could be more than offset by gains in other states. If the cards are played correctly, populations such as African and Latino Americans who normally undervote their demographics could turn out in big numbers and help make states like Texas, South Carolina, and Mississippi competitive. More on this later, but David Sirota notes there’s no particular reason to assume that the stalemate maps of the last two cycles are written in stone for the coming one:

The first assumption relates to the topography of the national electoral map. In talking about states that are “significant” and “insignificant” based on how they voted in previous elections, the Clinton campaign is assuming the basic map of the last 16 years automatically has to stay the same, and that there cannot be a map-changing candidate. This argument comes despite periodic elections in our history that have seen such shifts.

Regardless, it should be obvious that Democrats cannot continue to write off the middle of the country. If Democrats want to win the White House consistently, they have to learn to win more than 20 states. How many presidential elections are they willing to lose in order to learn this lesson?

We have a president, not a king

…Or “Everybody needs a little help sometimes.”

This may come as a surprise to some national correspondents and pundits, but the presidential race is not the only race that matters this cycle. Republicans would like to recapture one or both houses of Congress, and Democrats would love to increase their majorities. How nice it would be not to be beholden to Lieberman for a Senate majority come November!

Even beyond national politics, there are many down-ticket races that could hinge on who best turns out their voters. Texas Democrats have a shot at capturing one or more Texas Supreme Court seats for the first time in a decade, and with Texas likely to become one of the next sites for the creationism vs. evolution debate, those seats might matter in the national debate.

State legislatures could switch hands, and state legislatures are a traditional source for the next generation of party leaders. Again in Texas, Democrats have a real shot at taking the state house. Democrats would also love to hang on to recent gains at the state legislature level in other western and mountain states.

When a presidential candidate neglects “hopeless” states, he or she essentially creates a self-fulfilling and self-perpetuating prophecy (or a vicious cycle). Without national attention, the people in those states are more likely to feel in an adversarial relationship with the party in question. Without credible state party leaders, a party is not able to communicate its message as well to the state’s population. A healthy state party can be part of a virtuous cycle, sending competent leaders to compete at the national level and fundraising for national candidates and parties.

A president will rapidly find that his or her agenda is frustrated if he or she doesn’t have people in the Congress and in the states with which he can work to pass and carry out his or her legislations. A president seeking to enact national policies affecting health, security, and climate change will surely want to have lots of allies throughout the entire country, not just the few strongholds needed to gain an electoral college majority. So while it should be obvious, down-ticket races deserve the attention of the party and nominee.

Primaries elect nominees, not presidents

…Or “Primary problems don’t promise presidential privation.”

It’s somewhat difficult to analyze whether problems in primary elections results in problems in the general. One reason is that over the last several cycles, since primary reforms in the ’70s and ’80s, the normal course of events has been for one candidate to gain an early lead and then “sweep the board”. This rapid consolidation means that underlying problems that might have surfaced, don’t. However, a few cycles deserve mention.

In 2004, John Kerry lost the New Hampshire primary, but carried the state in the general election.

In 2000, George Bush famously lost NH to John McCain, but carried it in November.

In 1996, Bob Dole lost Alaska to Pat Buchanan, but carried it later.

In 1992, Bill Clinton lost Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Delaware, Maryland, Iowa and Colorado, all of which he ended up winning in November. In 1992, the last heavily contested Democratic primary which didn’t have an early sweep, we can see how many states a candidate can lose at the primary or caucus level and not lose to the other party in the general election. (You would think the Clintons would remember this lesson particularly well.)

Thus, it doesn’t seem to be correct that losing in the primary season means a loss in the general election.

Democratic “strongholds” are not rural counties

…Or “Who’s really winning the traditional Democratic areas?”

Perhaps the oddest component of the argument is that Clinton’s view of who is winning Democratic “strongholds” is contradicted (or at least made less clear) if one looks at the counties within each state. Democrats do well on the coasts, in the northeast, and in many of the major metropolitan areas. The county-by-county maps of 2000 and 2004 are remarkably similar to a broad degree.

If we accept Clinton’s argument, that the candidate will need to win Democratic areas in order to be competitive in November, why aren’t we actually looking at the areas themselves instead of state-wide (which has less predictive power)?

So who is winning in the areas which Gore and Kerry carried? A state like Missouri is instructive. It’s no secret that the way Democrats carry Missouri at the state-wide level is by winning big in St. Louis, its surrounding counties, Jefferson City, and Kansas City. This was the forumla for victory by Mel Carnanhan and Claire McCaskill, two recent winning senators from the state. It was also the main strategy of both Gore and Kerry, although both narrowly lost the state. It turns out that these are the very areas that Obama carried, allowing him to eke out a state-wide popular vote victory over Clinton. Why doesn’t it worry Clinton that she “can’t carry” the Democratic areas of a battleground like Missouri?

Similar to Missouri, Democrats have remained competitive in Ohio by winning the urban areas with large enough margins to offset losses in the rest of the state. And just like Missouri, Obama won in the biggest urban centers: Cincinnati, Columbus, Cleveland.

Another potential battleground to look at is New Jersey, but by now the theme should be familiar. Democrats need to do well in a band running through the center of the state, most importantly in Essex, Hudson, Mercer, and Camden counties. Obama did, in fact, win a band of counties through the center of the state and won two of the four “must win” counties (Essex and Mercer).

Much has been written about Obama’s loss in Massachusetts despite endorsements by the state’s leading Democratic party members. But no Democrat can win Massachusetts without Boston, and here Obama won as well.

Of major concern surely must be California, where Clinton carried the state. It’s no secret that California, however, is a virtual lock for the Democrats come November, but in the interest of humoring the premise, let’s look at those counties Democrats won in 2000 and 2004. In 2000, by my count, Al Gore won 21 counties, mostly along the Pacific coast. Kerry carried a similar number in 2004, again mostly concentrated at the coast. For the sake of argument, let’s look at those coastal and near-coastal counties (by my count 17: Humboldt, Mendocino, Sonoma, Lake, Napa, Yolo, Solano, Marin, Contra Costa, Alameda, San Mateo, San Francisco, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, Monterrey, Santa Barbara, Los Angeles) that Democrats are likely to carry by big margins to secure a victory in the state. Obama won eight of these, so Clinton and Obama actually split the Democratic areas.

If it’s true that Democrats have a narrow chance in November in my state of Texas, then surely to do that the candidate will need to win the big cities by large margins: Austin, San Antonio, Dallas, Houston, Ft. Worth, and El Paso. Obama won four of these six.

Ultimately, this is a very strange argument. Clinton claims she’s in a better position to win in November because Obama wins in places like Utah and Wyoming. But (again, assuming the premise has merit) does a Democrat who loses in Boston and San Francisco, Austin and Philadelphia, Chicago and St. Louis really hold as strong a position as she claims?

Conclusion

It’s also worth noting that I’m not the only one to note problems with this argument. Writing for the Columbia Journalism Review, Zachary Roth notes another issue:

It’s hard to tell how the term “major battleground states” is being defined here. But the inclusion of solidly Democratic Illinois makes clear that-despite the final point about Ohio and Florida-we’re not talking about general-election swing states. It seems to mean “states with a large number of delegates at stake.” How many? Healy counts Minnesota and Wisconsin, both of which had eighty-eight delegates at stake, as “major battleground states.” So let’s say that, to qualify as a battleground, a state must have at least that many delegates. 

By that definition, the charge doesn’t begin to add up. So far, there have been fourteen contests that have offered eighty-eight or more delegates. Clinton has won six of these (California, New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, Ohio, and Texas). Obama has won eight (Georgia, Illinois, Minnesota, Missouri, Washington, Maryland, Virginia, and Wisconsin.) Even if we throw in Michigan and Florida, where neither candidate campaigned (in Michigan, Obama wasn’t even on the ballot), Clinton has won no more “major battleground states” than has Obama.

Finally, recent state-by-state polling by SurveyUSA seems to suggest that Obama will do just fine, regardless of splitting primaries with Clinton. In a straight assignment to either Obama or McCain, based on polling results, Obama wins with a small margin. Pollster.com, analyzing these results further, concludes that Obama is no worse off than Clinton, and carries more upside advantage should he ultimately do well. (It’s worth noting that these polls were done before the recent controversy hitting the Obama campaign, and that such early polling is virtually meaningless as regards what the situation will be in November.)

The conclusion based on the balance of the historical and current evidence surely must be that the Clinton campaign argument is specious. At the very least, it hasn’t been convincingly demonstrated. Clinton might be the better candidate, but she needs a better argument to make the Democratic super-delegates for why she’s more electable than Barack Obama.

 

Technorati Tags: barack-obama, hillary-clinton, bill-clinton, democrats, dnc

I like analogies. I like them a lot. Those of you who have seen me comment around the ‘Vine over the last couple years have probably seen me make my own fair share of analogies when discussing complex issues. A well-crafted analogy is a way to increase the contrast on the image, to pick out the edges that might otherwise be hidden in subtle shadows.

Few areas are as ripe for analogies, as in need of clear contrasts, as those involving complex choices: like partisan politics. Is there any question that lends itself to such glib answers in the face of such profound realities? Given the vast number of areas over which the president has direct or indirect influence, how, exactly, is a voter reasonably to make an informed choice?

Enter the analogy.

But analogies only take one so far, and not all analogies are applied correctly. Some analogies are definitely better than others. But I think one class of analogies definitely applies well to partisan political politics, and that is: technology.

If you’ve been on Newsvine for a substantial amount of time, you’ve probably stumbled across at least one major argument involving technology partisans here. The epitome of the class, of course, is the Apple vs. PC discussion. There are others to be sure: Canon vs. Nikon SLRs, the console “wars”, and (until recently) the format battle between Sony’s Blu-Ray and Toshiba HD DVD.

I’m certainly not the first one to analogize battles over technology to battles over the leader of the free world. There have been many over the past few months. Some of my favorite are this analogy to Apple using the classic “1984″ Macintosh ad and this analogy to the console wars. Heck, I’m not even the first one to analogize Hillary to HD-DVD.

The parallels are interesting, and fun to make, but ultimately are meaningless. Just the same, is it perhaps possible that Hillary Clinton is the HD DVD of this election?

HD DVD and Blu Ray both had their advantages. Where HD DVD held an early lead in studio support (as the content makers, maybe some of the super-delegates of the entertainment world), Blu-Ray held an early advantage among hardware makers (the nuts & bolts party organization people).

HD DVD with its cheaper production costs for players held more down-market appeal, while Blu-Ray held a higher financial barrier to entry. Hillary Clinton has done well largely among the lower financial tiers while Obama’s support picks up steam above the $50,000 income level.

As the campaign wore on, cumulative HD DVD sales began to fall behind those of Blu-Ray. Hillary Clinton holds a deficit in states won, delegates won, and the popular vote.

In the face of consumer demand figures, Warner Bros. defected from a neutral party to throw its support fully behind Blu-Ray. This happened after the 2007 holiday season failed to ignite demand for HD DVD, despite heavy markdowns to players. In the face of early electoral success and the shattering of the (perhaps overblown) inevitably of the Clinton campaign, Obama secured the endorsement of a Democratic Party heavyweight: Teddy Kennedy. Neither endorsement alone ended the campaign, however.

But the switch of Warner Bros. did result in a cascade of switches and new support for Blu-Ray. Additionally, the examination of Warner’s stated reason, the 2007 holiday season (maybe Super Tuesday for the entertainment industry?) convinced other industry players to make the move. Obama’s growing support among super-delegates surely received a boost from such an establishment player’s endorsement and his performance in the Super Tuesday contests. He’s increased his number of super-delegate endorsements since Super Tuesday by an order of magnitude over Clinton.

Mid-way through the format war, some seemed happy with both formats. Samsung and LG even came out with dual-format players so consumers wouldn’t have to decide between them. Would that we could do this in presidential politics.

After the disappointing holiday season, those in the industry closest to the consumer, the retailers and rental services, seem to have made a decision to force an end to the format war to spur consumer demand. Sales would suffer as long as there was uncertainty about who would win. No one wanted to get stuck with a modern day Betamax player. Democrats are now afraid of the effects of a candidate who ultimately wins the nomination, but is so bloodied as to lose the general election in November. (It doesn’t matter if you’re choice is technically superior if companies stop making movies for the device.)

To this end, Blockbuster reiterated their support for Blu-Ray, and Netflix announced they would support only Blu-Ray going forward. Best Buy announced they would push Blu-Ray over HD DVD players (while still carrying both), and Wal-Mart and Target finally weighed in on the side of Blu-Ray. Some major players continued to hang back, however (e.g. Amazon.com). Ultimately, Toshiba recognized the writing was on the wall, and dropped out.

That’s not to say this analogy is perfect. Blu-Ray was the first in the race, and perhaps the odds-on favorite for most of the time the format war went on. HD DVD, by contrast, was the insurgent. Where HD DVD had a stable standard early, Blu-Ray’s standards have undergone multiple revisions. The changeability of Clinton’s campaign messaging has been much satirized.

So what does that make the Richardson endorsement of Obama?

I think Richardson would like to be the Wal-Mart of this election cycle. As I see it, once Wal-Mart decided on Blu-Ray, there was too little retail support for HD DVD to really remain viable. Richardson has indicated that his eventual endorsement was also motivated to see this thing resolved, a sentiment shared by a growing number of Democrats.

Unfortunately, I don’t think Richardson is this year’s Wal-Mart. At best, he’s Best Buy or Netflix: important to note which way the tide is flowing, but not a game-ender himself.

Maureen Dowd of The NY Times recently wrote that there are three potentially game-ending endorsements left among the Democrats: John Edwards, Al Gore, and Nancy Pelosi. Unfortunately, none of these three seem inclined to endorse either candidate in time for it to really matter. Each have made noises about remaining neutral. While any of the three could become the Wal-Mart of this campaign, all three seem determined to remain Amazon.com.

Of course, if this analogy holds, then John McCain could be only one thing: VHS.

Technorati Tags:
hillary-clinton, blu-ray, hd-dvd, barack-obama

This is a little late, since the festival was a month ago this weekend. However, I’m testing out a version of MarsEdit, and I would like to start blogging more. This is a re-post of an article I wrote for Newsvine the weekend of the festival.

Another Austin City Limits Music Festival has come and gone.

Like almost every year, in spite of buying a three day pass at outrageous prices, I rarely show up early for a full festival day (about half the years I haven’t even gone every day). My philosophy on events like this is that I’m there to enjoy them, which means no schedules, no pressure. So I missed a lot of the acts. If you want a good recap of each of the day’s events, head over to Mel Coulter’s column, where she’s been providing officially sanctioned (press pass and everything!) coverage for the event. Congrats to Mel, and I’ve liked the articles she’s published so far. Rather than try to duplicate her coverage, I’m going to focus on the acts which impressed me the most.

Challenges, roadblocks, and an explosion!

This years festival will be noted for its inauspicious beginnings, as several eagerly expected acts pulled out, either several weeks ago (Amy Winehouse) and even barely a week before the festival gates opened (Rodrigo y Gabriela, The White Stripes). The first day of the festival also saw a small tragedy, as a propane tank explosion at a food service area behind the main stage injured four

festival workers, two seriously (see story).

Despite the setbacks, this festival was fortunate in a number of other ways, with large, friendly crowds excited to see the acts and cooler weather than had been seen in ‘05 (with Saturday at a record 108 degrees) and ‘06. The festival promoters have also worked closely with Austin Parks and Recreation staff to ensure that a repeat of the infamous “dust bowl” festival of ‘05 didn’t repeat itself, seeding the grounds of Zilker Park in early summer with a particularly hardy variety of grass. All in all, this festival may have been the smoothest run ever, with staff settling into routine efficiency.

The one exception might be “the festival crap” store, which ran out of most styles of ACL Fest shirts by early Saturday. Happily I bought mine Friday, but the poor guys who had only Sunday day passes probably weren’t too happy. (Admittedly, all the styles will likely be on sale on-line at the festival website in the near future.) Surprisingly, among the first to go were the “green” shirts made of bamboo fiber which were $15 more than the “regular” shirts from American Apparel.

Not unlike ACL Fest itself, I faced my own set of technical glitches. Apparently, I forgot to charge my Li-ion AA batteries for my Canon digital camera, and I didn’t have replacements with me. Rather than pay festival prices for standard AA batteries that my camera was just going to eat, I didn’t get any pictures on Friday. On Saturday, particularly after the sun went down, I found out that my aging 4 MP camera just wasn’t going to cut it. I made out with barely a half dozen acceptable shots. Before heading to the festival on Saturday, suspecting I might be disappointed with the Canon, I picked up a new 8 MP Nikon Coolpix S51 point-and-shoot. I had to let the battery pack charge, but everything was set on Sunday, when I was finally able to score some decent photos. It’s no digital SLR, but it is small, thin, light, and idiot proof (the last most important of all).

Friday

I had wanted to see LCD Soundsystem on Friday, but events conspired against me, keeping me from the festival until around 7:30. However, my reporter on the ground told me both Peter Bjorn and John and M.I.A. put on great shows. Near the end of her set, M.I.A. invited the crowd up on stage, which crowd, being the helpful sort, dutifully obeyed. This resulted in the predictable security freak-out by the festival organizers (”Not on our liability policy, M.I.A.”) and her mic was cut. From my reporter’s perspective, seven card studpoker caribe portalreglas pokerstrip poker gamereglas texas holdemjoker pokerjuego al instante portales internet,juego al instante,juego al instante onlinejuego al instante portales webstrep poker onlinestrip pokeronline poker gamejuego omaha poker en lineacaribbean poker paginas webcaribbean poker portales webpoker downloadjuegos de cartas de pokerpoker flash gamepoker de 5 cartasjuego al instante portal webbonus pokerfichas pokerjuegos de poker en espa?oljuegos online gratis pokerjuego de poker en lineapoker en linea gratispoker pc gamepoker descarga gratisjuegos on line pokerstrep poker on linepoker de dadosjuego del poker en lineatexas holdem descargajuegos de polly pokerpai gow poker onlinetexas holdem onlineholdem poker reglasdescarga gratis de pokerjuego omaha poker gratispai gow poker lineajuego al instante paginas internetjugar poker sin dineropoquer de dadosplay poker omaha freepoquer online gratisjugar a poquerjugar poker gratis,aprende a jugar poker,jugar pokerpoker on line espa?olganar dinero pagina internetapuesta webpremios dinero paginas web however, it was pretty hilarious.

I walked into the festival soon after Kaiser Chiefs began their set. A round of text-messaging with Chasing completed, I met up with him and caught up on the day’s events. I also filled him in on the news reports about the propane tank explosion (apparently news at the actual festival was scarce). Our group trekked up to a spot for The Killers and caught a half dozen songs (eh) before walking across the park to watch the rest of Björk’s set.

As I told Tommy, I’m really more of a fan of Björk’s older material. But as Tommy told me, Björk isn’t getting any younger (or saner), and who knows when we’ll get a chance to see her again. Easily convinced by this line of (il)logic, we made our way down to watch Björk’s unique brand of performance (complete with an all-female horn section dressed up as…well something vaguely fairy-like).

Saturday

After a late lunch with the roommate and a detour to Best Buy where I picked up the aforementioned Nikon camera, I again got to the festival grounds late. Luckily, due to the White Stripes cancellation, Muse had been bumped down to the closing set for Saturday, and there weren’t many other big-names I had to see Saturday.

Another round of texting with Chasing, and we met up for the finishing bits of the Arctic Monkeys’ set. Chasing’s brother Skip then wanted to see Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, who were surprisingly good (my first exposure), but perhaps not suited for the size of the venue. I can imagine them rocking one of the smaller stages, though.

Here we split ways with Skip, who wanted to see The Arcade Fire, while we wanted to see Muse. Having seen Arcade Fire in ‘05 at ACL Fest, and being a little underwhelmed by their latest CD Neon Bible, I’ve got to say that those of you who caught Arcade Fire missed out (in my opinion) on the best show of the festival. Muse was nothing short of a revelation, putting on a high energy, loud, raucous show. If Radiohead and Slayer had a bastard child and made Meatloaf its godfather, you might end up with a band like Muse. Good stuff, and I bought one of their four CDs at the festival store (the rest were completely sold out!).

Muse may have been filming a concert DVD, or so I heard. Of note was that the video feeding the “jumbotron” stage monitors on either side of the stage, unlike almost every act, was processed with special effects in real time. If a DVD does in fact come out, I plan to get it. You should, too. (And it’s not just the contact high from the copious amounts of pot smoke taking place around me talking.)

Also of note, the set involved an intermission of sorts during which a portion of a speech by John F. Kennedy was read (probably this one). The crowd ate it up, and a part that I remember being read follows:

It is the unprecedented nature of this challenge that also gives rise to your second obligation–an obligation which I share. And that is our obligation to inform and alert the American people–to make certain that they possess all the facts that they need, and understand them as well–the perils, the prospects, the purposes of our program and the choices that we face.

No President should fear public scrutiny of his program. For from that scrutiny comes understanding; and from that understanding comes support or opposition. And both are necessary. I am not asking your newspapers to support the Administration, but I am asking your help in the tremendous task of informing and alerting the American people. For I have complete confidence in the response and dedication of our citizens whenever they are fully informed.

I not only could not stifle controversy among your readers–I welcome it. This Administration intends to be candid about its errors; for as a wise man once said: “An error does not become a mistake until you refuse to correct it.” We intend to accept full responsibility for our errors; and we expect you to point them out when we miss them.

Without debate, without criticism, no Administration and no country can succeed–and no republic can survive. That is why the Athenian lawmaker Solon decreed it a crime for any citizen to shrink from controversy. And that is why our press was protected by the First Amendment– the only business in America specifically protected by the Constitution- -not primarily to amuse and entertain, not to emphasize the trivial and the sentimental, not to simply “give the public what it wants”–but to inform, to arouse, to reflect, to state our dangers and our opportunities, to indicate our crises and our choices, to lead, mold, educate and sometimes even anger public opinion.

Chasing noted that there is probably a bit of unappreciated irony in this speech, but I don’t think it matters too much for the point Muse was trying to make.

Sunday

Another late lunch (what can I say, on weekends I sleep in), but I did get to the festival grounds around 4:30. A bit of criss-crossing the grounds to locate Chasing, and we made it over to meet his brother for the Bloc Party set.

The Bloc Party crowd was one of the more enthusiastic of the festival, and Kele Okereke made sure they got their money’s worth. At one point he jumped from the stage, mic in hand, and ran the length of the fence separating him from the crowds several times, undoubtedly making a good number of fans very happy.

Chasing had wanted to see Regina Spektor, but we made a detour through the festival arts & crap area. A very talented artist by the name of Collin Welsch sucked us in with her wonderful Dia De Los Muertos images , and we all left with something. I myself picked up three images of the Tree of Life. A bit of t-shirt shopping also complete, we only caught the last five minutes of Regina Spektor.

A little disappointed, hot, and somewhat tired, we took a break in front of the “second main” stage for Wilco. Afternoon was well on its way to turning into evening, so shade was blessedly plentiful. The guys in Wilco were their regular wonderful selves, although I was admittedly not paying much attention, instead recharging myself with a quick rest before the sprint to the end.

Chasing’s sister and I made a detour to grab some grub, and then we met up again for Ghostland Observatory, a local band that has seen a lot of exposure over the last year, including ‘06 ACL Fest and ‘07 Lollapalooza. This was another band that put on a fantastic show, and the crowds proved it. Another CD purchased at the festival store. Playing opposite Ghostland in this timeslot were The Decemberists, but I think most people were at my end of the park.

…Or maybe not. After Ghostland Observatory finished up, we moseyed over to watch Bob Dylan. Chasing and I both hold a certain amount of respect for Dylan, but we’re not fans. Tommy and Chasing’s sister, however, ditched us early on and pushed for the front. Luckily, the closing set of ACL Fest is always scheduled alone, and the main stage is built at a spot where the terrain acts as a natural amphitheater. Bob could be heard throughout most of the park, so Chasing and I held back and just relaxed.

Dylan went a little over his scheduled time (city noise ordinances proscribe festivals from playing past 10 PM), but it wasn’t too much after this that it was all over. Tired, dirty, sneezing, but happy, satisfied, and full of new ideas for music purchases, we headed back for our cars through the greenbelt. In all, this was another successful festival, and despite ever-increasing ticket prices, I’m sure I’ll go again next year.

Technorati Tags:
music, arts, austin, texas, acl-fest, austin-city-limits, spiffie

Or “Why I Know I Am Truly a Moron.”

We have just finished reading Book 9 of the Odyssey in my ancient Greek class. I rather like mythology, so it’s been a real treat. However, we’ve been reading fast enough (~100 lines/night) that it’s been a little stressful.

Herein, then, lies the story of my own mini-Odyssey, whereupon having conquered Homer far away at school over many hours throughout the day, I, attempting to return to my home, am thwarted from my goal by means of cruel misfortune and my own idiocy.

(In Greek the preceding would be about a dozen words; bow down to inflected languages.)

Tuesday night, I decided to relax a little by going for a walk. Because it is July in Texas, I changed into some clothing in which I would not mind sweating, even though it was 9 PM by the time I got home from work.

Since my roommate was getting ready to leave for Chicago the next morning, in case he needed to run out at the last minute, I took my house key off my keychain to bring with me. I then went on a nice hourlong walk around the ‘hood.

You see where this is going, don’t you? But it gets even better.

As I was in the final stretch toward the house, I thought to myself, “Now, I better remember to take my house key and put it back on my keychain.” With the roommate gone out-of-state, there would be no one who could let me into the house.

Now normally I ride to school in the mornings with my roommate, because he works on campus. It is convenient because it gets me to school about thirty minutes early every day, and I have time to get some coffee and review my homework from the night before. Also, normally I would, after class, take the bus home.

Keep in mind that I frequently go through life completely lost in my own little world, oblivious, and so I am very much a creature of routine and habit.

However, since my roommate was flying out Wednesday morning to Chicago, remember, and having gotten up too late to catch the bus, I drove myself to school that day, and I parked in the parking garage, putting my parking ticket in my pocket.

Then, after class, I took the bus home.

Nice.

Walking up my driveway (remember that I am oblivious) I did not notice then that my car was gone. I was, though, aware enough of my own idiocy to think to myself (often I am in the habit of recalling important details just before they become important enough to affect my reality negatively), “You know, self, I bet you left your house key in your walking shorts, and now you are locked out of the house.”

And I was right.

Luckily, you don’t get to be almost 30 years old without learning a few things about yourself. One of the things I know is that I am really pretty dumb, and so often I leave myself ways to save myself from myself. In this instance, I had left a window in the kitchen unlocked. Grabbing a metal folding chair, conveniently (maybe presciently) left in the yard, I removed the screen, opened the window, and (clambering in a very ungainly way) let myself into the house.

Now, overly pleased with myself, I proceeded to get ready for work, cleaning up and changing clothes. Changing clothes involved changing pants, the previous of which I had emptied the pockets. Remember, still, that I am an idiot and mostly oblivious much of the time.

Then, I went out to go to work, and discovered my driveway empty… “Oh yes, my car is still at school, parked in a parking garage.”

“Crap.”

One of the reasons I don’t ride the bus to school in the summer is that Capital Metro combines two UT shuttle routes from back-and-forth routes into circular routes, where possible. I happen to live nearest a stop that is at the beginning of the loop. This means that it takes my 10 minutes by bus to get home from campus (normally it takes 10 minutes each way, during the long semesters).

But it takes 40 minutes to get from home to campus along the entire loop. “Sigh.”

I catch a bus, and ride back along the entire route to campus. By this point, I’m ready to get the hell out of there so I can get to work. I get in my car, and reach into my pocket to get my parking ticket.

Yes, into the pockets that I had emptied at home while getting ready for work. Guess where the parking ticket is.

Thwarted a third time, I fast-talked my way to a normal day-long parking fee instead of a lost-ticket fee (3x). Finally, I was on my way from school, with all my keys intact, to work, where I would complete my labors, and then be able to go home.

That night, I blew off most of my homework, and went to bed early. Clearly 5 hours of sleep a night is not cutting it.

There’s almost nothing I love so much as book shopping. Every year UT Press has a book sale where they sell some of the titles and also have a large clearance sale on “hurt” books. I’ve gone almost every year for a while (I didn’t make it out last year).

Anyway, here is this year’s haul:

The first is a group of books that are part of series for which I already own four volumes: The Legendary Past Series. I already have the volumes discussing Roman, Greek, Russian, and Hindu myths. Today I picked up the following:

• Inca Myths by Gary Urton
• Celtic Myths by Miranda Jane Green
• Norse Myths by R. I. Page
• Persian Myths by Vesta Sarkhosh Curtis
• Chinese Myths by Anne Birrell
• Egyptian Myths by George Hart
• Aztec & Maya Myths by Karl Taube
• Mesopotamian Myths by Henrietta McCall

Next is one of the two “full” sale price books I bought (the others I bought $3/ea. since they were “hurt”): The Gay Place by Billy Lee Brammer. It should be interesting, I’m hoping. Read the excerpts from the contemporary reviews at the link.

The second “full” sale price book is