The end of the line.

Last night, I took my last Blue Line ride as a regular commuter to and from Downtown LA. It was quiet, uneventful and only just longer than average.

Still, it was a strange trip. I left work - for the last time ever - a bit later than usual. It was dark and the rain that was supposed to arrive earlier in the day was still holding off, though I could smell it coming. I took a moment to soak in the lights of downtown: the secret code of thehigh-rise windows, the swirling spotlights calling the Lakers faithful over to Staples Center, the reflection of all this off of the gathering clouds. I disappeared into the underground station.

The platform was busier than typical, but not crowded. I looked around at the faces of some folks and saw everything you can see: smiles, fatigue, concern, irritation. I wonder what I looked like? Can you see "laid-off" in someone's face? I don't know, but I felt separate. I no longer have a job to scurry to, to fret about, to ground me. I saw a colleague on the other side of the tracks, running for the Red Line. I thought about yelling out to her, but I didn't. I'd said my goodbyes.

When I got on the train - backpack, bags and as yet unnecessary umbrella settled - the first thing that happened never happens to me on transit: I got sucked into some smalltalk. A guy dressed in the standard-issue navy blazer, pants and tie of a building security person eventually asked me what I "did for work". That gave me practice in talking about my job in the past tense. He got off two stops later, thankfully.

It was full night outside and as I looked out the window, it was easier to see the reflection of the inside of the train car than anything outside. I didn't get to see my last regular glimpse of the warehouse district or south central. I could see streetlamps poking holes in the darkness and neon signs for junior markets. A smile hit my face every time I saw a house with Christmas light up already.

I talked to my wife about my day while riding the last bit through Long Beach, but ended the call so I could juggle all my stuff. I got off. Still, no rain.

The bus arrived, I rode, I arrived. Dinner was cooked, a bit of wine consumed. Addie and I celebrated what's coming next.

I can't wait.

Thanks, everyone for reading my Tales from the Blue Line!

Look for a new blog in the near future.

Bloggy updates and a bus story.

So I have only four more trips on the Blue Line before I'm officially done with the process of being laid off my job. Uh... yay?

As I said earlier, I'm going to probably change/move the blog, as I have some free time coming up while I look for a job. (Again... uh... yay?)

My abortion blog post is still incubating. Sorry. But have you ever tried to write something short and pithy about abortion? Not easy.

In the meantime, the universe seems to have realized that I'm not going to be riding transit much longer and is showing me things that I could never have imagined... with you fine readers as the beneficiary.

Had a normal, event-free train ride (except for the 8 hyper-kinetic teens riding down to the movie theater to see Twilight), and then caught my bus. First of all, the driver we had needs remedial work. He pulls into stops really slowly and 20 feet from the actual stop, thus adding time and blocking traffic and crosswalks. But fine, whatever... it was Friday. I was just happy to be close to home.

But something else was slowing things down. An older lady sitting near the front of the bus pulled the cord right after I got on. The bus stopped at the next stop and the lady leans forward but doesn't move. We move on.

A few stops later, she did this again: pulled the cord, the bus stopped, and no one got off.

She does this a third time and people began grumbling out loud. The bus stopped and she didn't move. She finally said something to the bus driver.

"What stop is this?"

He replied: "I don't know. I didn't see the sign." (Again - remedial work please.)

Someone said, pretty loudly, something like, "It's Falcon! And you don't have to stop the bus to see what stop it is! Just ask someone first!"

To which she replied: "Everyone needs to get out of debt and buy a house now, because the apocalypse is coming!"

So... there you go. My stop was two later. Thanks to the driver, I had to get out right in front of a car trying to turn left and walk around it.

Thanks, universe! Can't wait to see what happens on Monday and Tuesday.

Change is coming... and it's not what you think.

Just a quick note to my 3 readers:

I am officially out of a job as of December 1. Laid off. Kaput. Tuesday, November 25th is my last trip on the Blue Line. With unemployment (hopefully for only a short time) on the horizon and a job search ensuing, the likelihood of my continuing this (nominally) Blue Line-themed blog is going the way of the wood-fired steam engine.

I'll let you 3 know when things move or change. I've got a .Mac - sorry; Mobile Me - account that I might use so I can do a few more things aside from the blog. We'll see.

One thing is for sure: if I do continue to blog, there will be less of a self-filtering and more variety in topics.

As an example, my next post will likely be a light romp about abortion. That's just how I roll.

What will I do with my schadenfreude? [Updated]

My good friend Sassy Blonde has taken the high road on the schadenfreude we progressives likely feel as a result of the electoral landslide that Barack Obama pulled off on Tuesday. I get that, and I’ll get there. But do I still have leftover ill-will towards towards the government of the last eight years? Let me put it this way:

Did our government of the last eight years cede the moral high-ground on torture and any number of moral issues?

Did ‘compassionate conservatism’ fail?

Did the our president govern like a king imbued with divine right, stripping rights and invading privacy in a misguided and creepy attempt to ‘protect’ us?

Did they lie to us to get us to get us to buy into the longest, most disastrous war in America’s history?

Did the policies of de-regulation and rampant mergers and grotesque CEO salaries help the free market economy fail? (Have I mentioned yet on this blog that I’m being laid off my job as of the end of this month? I don’t think I have, but it’s true. Thanks (in part), Phil Graham!)

Is the bear that shits in the woods Catholic?

The answer to all of this is, of course, yes. And while my Buddha nature is chiding me for it, and I think that working together is better than not, I need a little more time to grind my progressive boot-heel into the neck of a bankrupt conservatism. Just a little.

Though, by this weekend I hope say goodbye to all that and to have schadenfreude only for LSU fans. Roll Tide!

[Update: Sassy has had enough!]

This was momentous...

I can tell...

...because of the pile of tissues by my chair.

...because of the blissful exhaustion I feel.

...because of the 13 tabs in my browser.

...because of the empty wine bottles.

...because of my easily-worn Buddha smile.

...because 'We are the Champions' is running through my head.

A job well done.

We all worked for this day, people. Drink up.

Yes. We. Did.

I can't figure out where these folks are coming from.

Seen on the Blue line this morning:

A tall skinny emo guy, in a candy-striped shirt and typical skinny, black jeans, sporting an ocean wave of a haircut... and holding a tiny kitten.

The Blue Line of Death. (Not like that this time, thank goodness.)

We got to Florence station this morning and the brakes started seizing up, grabbing after short intervals of forward motion and jerking us around rather spectacularly. When we got into the station and the driver opened the doors, he said:

“I’m having problems with the train so I’m going to turn it off for two minutes. Metro apologizes for the inconvenience.”

Needless to say, I was skeptical. I thought I was in for another long morning. But he turned it off. When the driver doesn’t touch the controls for a bit, the engines and A/C turn off (screensaver) and bit later, the lights and really the rest of the power goes off (sleep or auto-shut-down). He waited through this sequence and let us sit in the dark for about 30 seconds. Then he rebooted the train. It worked.

It’s like he hit “ctrl-alt-delete” or something. But I suppose the actual equivalent would be my favorite PC fix: unplugging the damn thing and starting over.

This is getting ridiculous. Trains in LA are just not safe lately.

I don’t suppose that I’m going to get away without blogging about this. Be warned: this is epic.

One week after the horrific MetroLink crash and a week and a day after this fender-bender, the Blue Line injures thirteen, but fortunately none seriously.

So my morning went like this:

When I got on the train, the accident had already happened, though Metro had not bothered to announce it yet. About halfway through my commute, the driver says, and I quote:

There’s been an accident at Washington & Griffith: Train vs. Bus.

This is an amazing quote for a couple of reasons. One, it sounds like he’s referring to a new version of WWE Smackdown or a new Fox Special or something. Really it almost sounds as if our driver considered the crash situation thusly:

The driver of the Train caught the eye of the driver of the Bus, and they gave each other a squintily apprasing look. Then one of them gave the secret hand signal for “It’s on like Godzilla vs. Mothra” and the other one replied in kind. And then they commenced crashing to see who would rule South Central LA.

(N.B. - the train wins every time. Every time. This is an immutable truth.) All I’m saying that it was a weird phraseology choice our driver made.

The other reason the announcement was amazing was that it caused everyone on the Blue Line to simultaneously whip out their cell phones to call work or home. (I must say that I did it too and thus spared my wife from having to go through the subsequent ordeal.)

We arrived at Washington station. This is where all the trains were turning back south instead of going on to downtown. I can see my building from here (it’s very tall), though I’d never felt quite so far away. We had to get off, but there was a train on the other side that said “Los Angeles”. Well yippee-doo! Maybe this won’t be so bad... We can just change trains and move on. But then the driver had this weird phraseologic choice:

There is a train going on to downtown Los Angeles, and I’m going to try and get you to it.

What?, I’m thinking at this point, just make it wait, idiot! Use the radio! Don’t leave it to chance!

For a minute, I thought he might have done it. But just as our train came to a stop, the other train’s doors closed. We got off. I thought maybe that they’d see their error and open that train up and let us on. Nope. It left for downtown.

And it was almost completely empty.

Stay with me now. There’s 4-500 people on the platform at Washington Station, 96% of whom are going to downtown. I can only ask: why? Why did they not hold it for the five minutes that it would have taken to make the transfer? It was mayhem on the platform. I laughed really loud. Others had a different reaction judging by the number of shouts of ‘hell no’ and ‘this is bullshit’.

I stayed calm, and while others pushed and shoved their way to the bus bridge, I waited. Another train arrived a few minute later, full of people. It’s marked Los Angeles! Yay! I was right. So we all get on, and Metro employees and fare inspectors have a grand time cramming us all on like sardines, while the driver said - in all seriousness - things like “Please make room!” and “There’s only a few short stops to go!” and my favorite: “Get to know your neighbor!”

We stood on the train for about 10 minutes before they let us know that they couldn’t go north because of the work that was being done to crashed train.

We get off. I wade through the crowd of cursing commuters and eventually make it out to the street where the Metro sheriffs and others were helping to form a line to wait for the bus bridge. This line turned out to be the Gitmo (pardon the tacky reference) of Disneyland lines, featuring a disgruntled female sheriff shouting at us to “hug the fence” and a large deposit of fecal matter (human or canine? hard to know) covered by a newspaper. I had the bum fortune to get stuck standing near this steaming pile while we waited.

I was the last one on my shuttle bus, which gave me a chance to chat with the driver. I found out a lot of the stuff that was in the LA Times article I linked to above. The guy was in a really good mood. More on that in a minute.

The bus ride was pretty quick. More police were directing traffic away from the scene of the accident. We got to drive right by it, so I saw the giant dent in the bus in person, as well as the contraption that they were using to re-rail the train. I was really relieved to hear at that point from the bus driver that no one was on the bus at the time of the accident.

We went two stops and had to get off and then back on the train. Didn't have to wait long at all. This driver was working this bus-bridge-like train ride all by herself. Like the shuttle-bus driver, she was in a happy mood too: “Everyone going to downtown? Good!” Two more stops and I had arrived. I got to work at 8:30, 1 hour late. All told, that's not bad, but I had pretty much spent my energy for the day right there.

Overall, I’m pretty impressed at the way Metro handled this. I give them a hard time here sometimes, but things went pretty smoothly considering the relative severity of the crash. Other people I’m sure would disagree. The Metro people were pleasant - except for the ‘hug-the-fence’ lady - clearly enjoying themselves. I don’t think they were showing disrespect. I think they were happy to have something to do that was out of the ordinary. Let’s face it: transit driving - bus or train - involves a lot of repetition. They got to do some thing different for a change.

As for the ride home? Nothing to report. And I prefer it that way.

Duck and cover!

Sarah Palin talks about war with Russia. Russia. I'm just going to crawl under my desk right now. How the hell can we afford to go to war with Russia? We don't have the money (see 9 trillion-dollar debt) or the political clout (see the squandering of our country's good will by the Bushies) to do so.

Do we really want to even consider fighting wars on that many fronts? Does anyone else recall the cold war? Nuclear weapons? Rocky IV? Hello?

We cannot elect McCain and Palin... The world will not survive it.

Celebrating 9/11 with a Transit Fender-bender.

I think I’ve mentioned on this blog that working in a tall building in downtown LA on 9/11 is - at the very least - a bit creepy.

(3:01 p.m. “Live Blogging” - That was fun. My train almost hit a car while passing under the 10 freeway between Pico and Grand stations. Now we’re waiting. At least we’re in the shade. I need an iPhone or something so this could be live. Donations accepted.)

But this year, no one at work mentioned it. I avoided reading about it. I was slightly miffed as I left work of the two sets of flags a half mass in our plaza. Not that I don’t honor the memory of the people that lost their lives, but it was just a sigh-inducing moment. Some of us are trying to move on.

(3:10 p.m. - Okay, we did hit that car. But the driver said it’s going to be clear soon. We’ll see. I didn’t feel it, really. Per usual. I’m in the back of the train...)

Maybe it’s the way the Repubs have hijacked (pun intended) 9/11 as their personal emotional scar. Maybe it’s the fact that it’s been 7 years and we still can’t seem to catch a 6-foot-5, Arab billionaire on dialysis. Maybe it’s because it’s a reminder (as if anyone needed one) that John McCain wants to continue the legacy of Bush and Co.

(3:16 - Another train just went around us. This is officially sucking. Why do I bother trying to go home even a little early?)

This is kind of turning into a weird post. Sorry about that. Anyway, it seems that the visceral impact of 9/11 is lessening over time. I’m really noticing it this year. That’s all I’m saying. I’m getting a bit distracted here.

(3:21 - Still sitting. Folks are getting a bit restless. We are apparently waiting for a “supervisor” to come to the scene and clear us to proceed. I suppose no is not the time to let metro know that an elevated or buried train would have been pretty damn helpful.)

(3:28 - We’re moving again! Huzzah! Half hour. I suppose that’s not too bad.)

Uh... 9/11 and stuff. Oh, well. It was a good distraction anyway.

(4:53 p.m. - Got home. That sucked: the bus was late too. So all told, a nearly 2-hour one-way commute. Not the best way to spend time.)

The Conventions, Part 1: The Ratings.

This post may be optimistically titled. This may end up being the only post on the conventions - and more specifically the horror that is McCain-Palin - that I can stomach.

The Neilsen ratings are in. Big numbers for McCain & Palin's speeches, and interesting points in the article. I wonder about the political identity of the people watching. From the racial makeup of each audience, it seems simple. But I think that there is an argument to be made that more Dems watched the Repubs than Repubs watched the Dems. But I think a couple of other things likely boosted the Repub numbers. (Somewhat wild speculation begins here.)

One, people just don't know Palin and there going to want to watch. And some - like me - are also frightened of what she represents: creationism, fundamentalist activism, anti-feminism, etc., that we need to see what were up against and make scathing comments after every sentence and attack they speak. Simple enough.

Two - and let me warn that I can't quantify much this beyond my own personal experience - I would guess that there were fewer Repubs that tuned in to the Dem convention than there were Dems that tuned in to the Repub convention. Again, I base this on my own personal experience. I occasionally read Redstate and the National Review and others, looking for a clue as to why people think that way and to formulate counter arguments. And I find that so many of the right's positions and arguments tend towards the absolute, stemming largely from a religious mindset that predisposes them to acceptance. Why would they need to find another answer or prepare to argue? They have all the answers already, so why tune in to the Dems? They have the answers already. This is of course a generalization. After all, somebody over there on the right has the wherewithal to produce nuanced - if despicable - talking points.

I think that in general, more Dems are going to tune in to watch Repubs than the other way around. Liberals and independents are more accustomed to the taste of something other than their own Kool-Aid, more accustomed to thinking in the cracks.

We won't know which way wins for a couple of months...

Stench.

It’s late August, so all you Blue Line riders know what that means. Yes, that’s right... it’s “stench” season, where even the smelliest of Blue Line denizens go that extra mile to make us gag. Now some of these people are truly down-trodden and deserve sympathy and a leg up in addition to a shower, but a large percentage of them are in fact construction workers that work in the hot sun and then seemingly choose not to shower for three days.

The most skillful offenders always manage to find a way to make sure that their arms are in a position as close to my face as possible by clever use of the overhead handrails.

Maybe the worst thing, though, is getting onto a train at the end/beginning of the line in downtown LA, and finding that there is a lingering stench glurping about the train car. I usually go in and sit down anyway - it’s my only way home, after all. That’s when I start wonder, though, if I was lucky enough to get the seat that the stench just vacated. This is far from a comfortable feeling. It is - in fact - the epitome of first-dregree olfactory assault with a side of creepy, nasty grossiness. Plus, I’ve ofen considred burning the clothes I’m in when this happens, but today, I’m wearing new pants.

Maybe I should rethink my wardrobe until late October.

Free will-y.

This does not refer to the titular whale in that crappy kid’s movie. And it doesn’t refer to that either. Get your mind out of the gutter.

Nope, it refers to this article.

There are several problems with the premise. But all I will say is this (if the following is incoherent, blame infinity):

Reading between the lines in this case as in many others, the way authors of such articles seem to conceptualize the cause-and-effect aspect of determinism is rather provincial. They - and many commenters - seem to be under the impression that we could in some way come close to understanding enough of the causes of a given effect (or in the context of this article, choice) to understand the extent to which we truly have a non-contingent choice about what to do next. This is ridiculous. It’s not that simple. There is not a single cause for a given effect. There are not hundreds of causes for every given effect. There are not thousands or millions... there are, logically speaking, an infinite number of causes for every effect. An infinite number of reasons to be faced with and then make a given choice. Free will - like self - is process, not event. In other words, free will is not the crux of the matter. In the infinitely complex soup that is cause and effect we have what amounts to free will. So... if we can never hope to quantify what is controlling our processes, how can anyone credibly say that we functionally lack free will? You can’t because of the infinite regress. Technically we do not have free will, but we have de facto free will because of that infinite dance that is cause and effect.

Appendix 1 - Think about what goes into a single decision. I have a choice between two different pints of draught beer that someone has thoughtfully placed in front of me in order that I decide which one I like better. Just to decide which one to smell first, there are an infinite number of causes that govern the process, but we’re not interested in that particular patch of infinity. But once the beer is flowing over my tongue, the decision about whether or not I like it begins. Because of set neural pathways that are activated by the receptors in my tongue and olfactory nerves, I get instant feedback, as the brain, programmed by the effects of previous causes to be predisposed to like red beer (with the exception of Killian’s, which is crap) I decide I like that one. Think of all the effects - every neuron, every neuronal pathway... each tiny step in the process subject to the same infinite soup of cause-and-effect as every other. And then there’s the outside effects. Peer pressure, sounds, other smells, memories, and moifnt df sfglnsl...

Oops. Infinity broke my brain.

So. Free will: technically hogwash. Functionally, I choose to go to bed without watching the Olympics.

Unpleasant flashback to merry-go-rounds.

We bloggers are so on top of things, so I'm sure you're hearing it here first: SoCal had an earthquake.

It was a surprise to be sure, but it was over before I could do much more than utter a "what tha...?"

I'm stuck home with a tweaked back, so I didn't have to live through the wildly swaying building (I work on the 45th floor of a downtown highrise), so that's nice.  Even here in Long Beach closer to the ground, it did its darnedest to make me ill and loopy in the head for about 6-7 minutes.  It's a fairly bizarre sensation.  Kinda like the tire swing on three chains or the merry-go-round from days of yore, and much like those times, I wanted to get off before vomiting.  But it's hard to get off the earth - you guys from NASA know of what I speak.  Apparently there's been a earthquakian dry spell for the last decade or so in LA...  Hopefully this is not a sign of things to come.  People in LA are loopy enough as it is.

Be it old-school or new-school, the LBPD gets its man.

Addie shared this with me the other day and it deserves to passed along.

She was driving home from work, passing through the club district in downtown Long Beach. She says she saw a homeless guy with a shopping cart stopped by 4 of LBPD's finest.

Get this: the homeless guy had a huge mattress on the cart, and the cops? Two were riding Segways and the other two were on horses. What kind of schizophrenic PD do we have around here? And how am I supposed to decide whether this is overkill or ridiculous?

But I know that this is both.

Did I just hear that right?

The scene: 7:28 am. Grand Ave. Station. Two Blue Line trains going in opposite directions. I’m on the Northbound train (of course).

Heard on the outside loudspeakers, so all the world can enjoy it:

My driver (female) “Oooh, you so luckyyyy!”

The other train driver (male): “That’s not luck, baby. That’s skill.”

I have no idea what they were talking about, and I think I’m glad.

Why do I even try sometimes?

I’m not at all superstitious. I don’t really believe in karma. Or in curses. But I have to say that it's hard not to have a bit of a complex about trying to leave work early on a Friday afternoon when I’ve a Monday - or in this case a Monday and Tuesday - off. When I try to do this, something happens to the Blue Line. Every time. Sometimes it’s extra slow for mechanical problems. Sometimes there’s an accident. Sometimes they have emergency track maintenance. It’s always something. It's always slow and crowded. And it happened again. I promise that I have not found religion... though I may start planning for train suckiness in these situations in the future.

Roundup:

Seen on the Blue Line recently: a baby duck. It’s a zoo on here.

Overheard yesterday on the Blue Line:

Young Latino skateboarder number 1 (after a long, long silence): “I think I’m going to be a Navy Seal.”

Young Latino skateboarder number 2 (without blinking or looking up): “My ass.”

Silence again.

Seen today on Long Beach Transit, Line 111: a middle-aged, skinny gay dude, with no teeth, black fingernail polish, a Laguna Beach tee-shirt from the 1980s, all topped off with a beautifully embroidered ivory-white yarmulke. We get all kinds in the LBC.

Are we sure it's over? I think we are.

This is hard to describe. I - like many others I’m sure - feel like I’ve singlehandedly willed Obama to victory in the primary. Hoping against hope. Railing against the status quo. Parsing every speech. Wondering when we would be able get out of the Bush-induced quagmire. I’m wrung out.

Let’s look at tonight:

The speeches didn’t compare. Obama killed. Just fucking killed. Right now, you’re either happy beyond measure that he’s the nominee, or you wish your candidate were anywhere near as inspiring and on top of things as he is.

McCain’s speech was a disaster. Uninspiring, devoid of new ideas or real change. It was painful to watch. He looked like a ventriloquist’s dummy. That green screen? Not good. Abysmal.

HRC was better. In fact, she was much better than McCain. Much better. She could beat him going away. But she’s crazy. She confirmed this - in case we didn’t already know - by embracing that non-real reality for all the world to see. And she’s trying to use her supporters to leverage a high-level spot in an Obama government. This none-too-hidden beggary for the VP slot is pathetic and unworthy of someone who would call herself President or Vice-President.

Obama sounded like himself, sounded like the man that could lead the nation out of the dark forest, the man with the plan. Only he’s refined his words and sentiments to a razor-sharp precision unseen since the 1800s. He has mastered that balance between soaring, inspiring rhetoric and biting, substantial policy that can make a speech spear itself into your mind and punch its way into your gut. He’s ready for the general. He can taste the work. He’s eager to kick ass and take McCain’s name. Only one name? No problem.

Some are worried about Democratic part unity. P’shaw. We’re not trying to unify something old, to make some kind of frankenstein monster - that might lose - out of the pieces of the old politics. We’re trying to create something new. Unification will happen naturally with a new coalition, a new electoral energy. The contrast with McCain... well, I already went there.

I am floored; I am moved. I am excited; I am hopeful. If I feel these things this strongly now, how am I going to feel in November, when Obama becomes the President of the United States America?

Pride and drunkenness. It's all good.

Okay. I’m not anywhere near the Blue Line. But the it’s the Pride Festival this weekend in Long Beach and craziness has ensued. Addie and I live right near the parade route... as well as an assload of bars frequented by gays. Right now they are yelling. A lot. They are more excited than usual. I’m assuming it’s the California Supreme Court marriage ruling - bless their logical, scientifically-based even-handedness.

I can hardly blame my homosexual neighbors for going overboard. No worries - I can put in earplugs tonight. Carry on with all zeal.

Legally and otherwise, a little more state-acknowledged love in the world can’t be a bad thing right? Right. Parking around here is murder on the best of days though, and that - not really ironically, but metaphorically - is a killer. Okay. I’m willing to sacrifice. Metaphorically.

I knew some homosexuals in my undergraduate in Alabama. It cost them a lot just to be themselves. Now, two of my work colleagues are gay and they are wonderful, vibrant, normal people. I live in a neighborhood that is mostly gay. Two doors down from us, lives a guy ran that for city council here in Long Beach. I voted for him. He lost. He’s an environmental scientist who has a partner (male, of course) and two kids, one black and one white. We walk by and the kids are... kids. They have skateboards and scooters and they are normal. Fucking normal I tell you. It is beautiful. Let them be married, I say. Them them all be married.

It’s about time, after all.

Namaste, my homosexual brothers and sisters. Thank you for being yourselves and bringing more love into the world. Drink up. You deserve it.

How not to get a Cadillac. (Dirty words ahoy!)

It's been awhile. There are lots of reasons and some of them are even good.

Book writing, book reading, video games, baseball season, the Lakers, Dancing with the Stars... I said some of them were good.

The big one that stemmed the blogging was easing up on the primary-watch. As there haven't really been any in a month, I've tried to stop watching the race go by in real time. I've been only partially successful. I still know exactly what's going on. I do think that we're nearing the end. The signs that HRC has more than peaked are appearing more frequently. Obama keeps closing the gap in PA, and is close in IN and way up in NC. 99% of all the superdelegate announcements go for Obama. Some want to support him so much that they break state party rules. Oh, yeah... there was that little speech on race that he gave too. Not bad (read: insanely historic).

Enough about that stuff. Yesterday, the Blue Line had a hiccup - what they like to call 'mechanical problems'. When I tried to go home for work I had to wait on the platform at 7th/Metro Station with 500 of my closest Blue Line buddies. After a 20 minute wait we got on. It was standing room only, so I was lucky enough to get the seat I wanted. There was no way I was going to be able to use my laptop though, so I read a book. A large black lady in a security guard outfit ended up standing over me with her jacket on one arm such that it was in my face. I moved it a little, and she apologized.

So we're finally moving and I'm reading and then we're out of the tunnel right by the Staples Center and the lady, like many people do when cell reception comes back, got out her phone and called someone. I was really into my book, so I was trying not to listen to her, but it got really difficult. I won't give you the blow-by-blow - here are the highlights.

She was talking to someone about her sister. I think. I believe the quote was (beg pardon for the coarse language): “She done fucked every motherfucker in the hood! Ain't fuckin' nobody on 104th street she ain't fucked!” Apparently her sister was charging for these... services because she managed to buy a Cadillac with her hard-won proceeds. I know they were hard-won because the woman also mentioned that her sister's “fuckin' pussy ain't worth no motherfucking $20.” I hope the Cadillac was used. Side note - I now realize that it's next to impossible to use 'fuck' as an adverb (she danced fuckily across the floor? - doesn't work) or the woman would have done so.

She finally got off that call and commented out loud to nobody in particular the train was “movin' kinda slow and I'm late for work.” Another guy told us that there had been an accident down in Long Beach. They went back and forth. She uttered not a single profanity. Not one. And as you can imagine, no one would have been surprised to hear them, since everyone on the car heard the earlier conversation. I thought, Now she's polite? Know your audience, I guess. Then she got back on her cell phone, and things returned to normal - almost fuckily so.

How's the book going you ask? Well...

I'm sure that all 4 of you readers are dying to know how Departmental is going, so here we go...

I'm almost though the read-through/note-taking. After that I'm going just go ahead and finish the thing straight through to the end. There's more to go than I thought - my deadline of late June is looking tight. After that it's on to the rewrites.

It's an interesting experience going back to a book that's been dormant for a couple of years. I feel like I've returned - prodigally - to a garden I planted out on the back forty acres and then forgot about. Now confronted with a nasty tangle of weeds and flowers, onions and potatoes, I whip out my hoe. But then I realize that all the plants are trying to eat each other and me. Mass chaos.

I think it feels like this because I don't feel and think the same way that I did when I started this thing. Whatever it was going to be, it's now going to be something different. It's still going to be the same song, just a different arrangement.

This morning I found some chapters that I had discarded or replaced. I'm glad I did. There some space in the story for them after all.

All in all, it's going well. I have yet to write anything new, but I'm getting excited (and terrified) as I get closer to doing so.

[Tools of the trade - I use Scrivener as my WP and Curio for brainstorming.]

[Liveblogging: There is a very cute little girl in a stroller near me. She's really enjoying/wearing her Funyuns. And... there goes the bag. Now I'm wearing some Funyun, too. Weak.]

Snakes on a Train.

I wish I were kidding, but I'm not. Both my wife and I have seen snakes on the Blue Line. She recently, and me a while back. The two sitings have a few of things in common:

1. Neither snake was caged.
2. They both involved a lot of ohhing and ahhing from the other passengers. Addie and I talked it over. We were not impressed.
3. Both people wore their snakes as clothing. The one I saw was worn as a belt. The one Addie saw was worn as a scarf. Even for fashion-trendy LA, this seems dangerous.

I have also seen hamsters, dogs, cats and a box turtle - all were properly contained. And none were worn as clothing - though a box turtle might make a good broach.

[Unrelated - I discovered this morning that a typical ride from Willow Station to the end of the line at 7th/Metro Center is almost precisely one Glen Gould performance of Bach's Goldberg Variations long.]

And now, some 'liveblogging':

[Related to 'Unrelated' - Someone is blaring soul music on a boom box this afternoon. I'm blocking it out with a kick-ass recording of Brahms' 4th. Take that, generic crooner!]

[Unrelated to either the previous 'Unrelated' or the 'Related to the Unrelated' - Some late-forties white dude is mining for green gold for all he's worth. Get me off this train.]

Fortunately, metaphors are cheap.

So the economy is tanking, and today Wall Street reacted by jamming its collective fingers in their collective ears, singing 'lalalala' and buying and selling at random. But this is normal. What's different from normal is that the economic punditry - Henny Pennys all - acknowledged that it was happening.

I work in a building almost entirely dedicated to banking. The elevators are equipped with televisions - usually glued to CNBC. Today, after the collective Bear Sterns groan, the powers-that-be changed the channel to ESPN, tore the knob off and watched blissfully as Dick Vitale popped a vein. And I was glad. Watching the Dow plummet, whilst riding down from the 45th floor makes for too strong a picture for me.

Fortunately, I personally won't have to cut back on anything. Due to school debt, I'm already doing it.

[Related - Pedro the one-eyed homeless guy is here. He's changed up his schtick. He's actually going out of his way to make folks who can't give him change feel better because of the economy. He even sounds like he means it. Now that's knowing your market.]

Does this sound familiar to anyone else? (Yikes.)

Back to physics. I ran across this dreck on the blog Cosmic Variance, which is spearheaded largely by (relatively) famous physicist - and popularizer thereof - Sean Carroll. It's a post about the recent Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe results. Non sequiturs abound, but here's the best quote:

The WMAP folks have produced an elaborate cosmological parameters table that runs the numbers for different sets of assumptions (with and without spatial curvature, running spectral index, etc), and for different sets of data (not just WMAP but also supernovae, lensing, etc). Everything is basically consistent with a flat universe comprised of 72% vacuum energy, 23% dark matter, and 5% ordinary matter.

Emphasis mine. The universe is flat? How can physicists say on the one had that spacetime (odious concept) is curved (also ridiculous) on the one hand, and then turn around and try and convince us that the universe is flat? It sounds familiar... Hmm... Christopher Columbus anyone?

Your cell awaits. One can hope.

Okay. Isn't waterboarding assault... at the very least? Should someone be pressing charges for something this disgusting?

Hating HRC.

It's been an ugly few days to say the least. The last set of primaries proved that negativity and fear still work. I was hoping that Obama would stay above the fray and stick to his message of hope and change, but alas, he was forced to defend himself and did so (somewhat) in kind.

In the meantime, HRC has said that McCain is better than Obama. An Obama surrogate called HRC a 'monster' and then resigned.

People are seriously pissed and despondent. And after Obama managed to energize a new generation of voters and reinvigorate some older ones, HRC is going to kill it for the sake of a personal power grab. She's going to fragment the Democratic party the way Bush fragmented the GOP. And she doesn't seem to care. Why are the party leaders allowing this? She's killing the party in the year that should be a slam dunk.

I can't vote for John McCain or any other Repub. I thought I could vote for HRC if it came down to that, and for the sake of the future of the Judiciary I might still have to somehow bring myself to do so. But it's getting harder and harder as she stoops lower and lower. I hope (see? - I still have some) that Obama can regroup his message and his people and get back to doing what he's best at: inspiring and uniting. But I also know that he's got to defend himself.

(Paging John Edwards! Please endorse Obama at your earliest convenience...)

Pepto Primary: The Hangover.

So people are still voting for HRC. More Pepto please.

Her speech was great... if you want her to be president. And as it turns out, I don't. Obama's speech was much better; I liked his bit about "the world is watching" - our standing in the world needs a defibrillator in a hurry, and contrary to what some might have you believe, this is only getting more important as the world shrinks.

I have to admit - I was hoping that Obama could do something spectacular, but still - it's really a wash. Obama is going to have nearly the same delegate lead. Whatever crazy spin HRC and co. come up with, that lead will make liars out of them. Let's see what happens in the next couple of days when Obama announces his new superdelegate friends and his $50 million+ donation haul in February.

Gotta keep my optimism, no?

Well. Color me surprised.

McCain wins the nomination. Almost everyone saw this coming.

The only downside? No more of this virtuosity.

I was right. It's the Pepto Primary.

I'm watching CNN again. The Silver-bearded Bastard calls the night "fascinating." I'd prefer a landslide or two. But hey... at least the math doesn't work for HRC.

Counting out time.

Time flies when you're having fun. When you're not, it doesn't. As humans get older, a day seems like an hour, and hour a minute and a minute an eye-blink. But what if you're older and not having any fun? Right on time, I suppose. Maybe this is the real reason that so many old people stay cranky. They're just slowing things down, holding off the approach of the big D.

I must be getting older. I'm always having the feeling during the workweek that I'm not sure if it's already Wednesday or only Wednesday. I'd prefer to think that this is due to an intrinsic property of Wednesday, but I'm guessing that the universe doesn't give that much of a crap about our 'Wednesday' designation. Alternatively, I could anthropomorphize a bit and call it Wednesday's evil plan to fuck with us. After all, it makes sense for a grown up Wednesday's Child. But more likely, I'm just cranky, too. Fortunately, it's only Tuesday, and though I have no idea what that does to the calculations, I do know that somewhere in the world... it's half-price margarita night.

All aboard!

As crazies go on the Blue Line, some are easier to take than others. Nobody likes the speaking in tongues lady. But the 'All-aboard' guy is a different story. He was on the train recently. He always brings a little old-time flavor to our modern light rail. He's this harmless near-deaf guy that gleefully yells 'all aboard' at every stop just as the doors close. As weirdos on the Blue Line go, I'll take him every time.

Grab your Pepto, it's the TX, OH, RI, VT Primary!

It's been tough watching the negative rhetoric ratchet up in the Dem primary while McCain seemingly gets a free pass. It's also unfortunate that the Democratic party electorate seems to be just as much divided as the general electorate's Red-Blue divide.  I'd be less concerned if the debate was at all healthy (ahem, HRC blathering at length about a health-care plan that doesn't have a chance at passing doesn't count.)

With Obama showing surprising strength in Wisconsin, HRC had no choice to turn to what amounts to negative, vacuous character aspersions. That Obama had to respond in kind to defend himself is also unfortunate. One of the strongest things he had going for himself was his reticence to go negative. He's proved he can do it, but HRC has proved that using the politics of the lowest common denominator, she can stop the bleeding.

I should know better than to drool over every poll that comes out, but I've been unable to stop looking. (I even got emotionally involved in this near-banality, refreshing like a mad-man.  FYI - I voted no.) If the Dems are bitter and worn out, and the electorate is bitter and worn out, that doesn't bode well for the general election season. I hope they can regroup.

It's going to be interesting to see if either candidate can affect any meaningful movement in the pledged delegate count. If it's a wash, it's ostensibly a win for Obama. If HRC can narrow the gap at all, the spin is going to be... dizzying.

The way this primary has been shaping up, there's bound to be a surprise or two in store. Hopefully the shine hasn't plum warn off of m' boy Obama.

Leap for joy! A short rumination on an extra day.

The presidential election. The Olympics. Leap-year certainly needs the extra day. The only thing I care about is that my monthly, $70 regional bus/train pass is less of a per-day rip-off than it usually is in February.

Not patriotic enough? You must be joking.

I'm still trying to figure out how someone can run for president and be called unpatriotic.

I mean, come on... How can anyone - conservative, liberal, socialist or green - subject themselves to the sleep-depriving rigors and privacy-destroying humiliations of a presidential run and still be accused of not loving the country enough? What a stupid hitjob.

That crazy Latin lady just came by: An experiment in live blogging.

[I decided to leave in the typos. More authentic that way.]

So there's this lady who like to speak in tongues on the Blue Line. In one respect, I can't say I blame her. If there's one place that folks can find religion, it's on the Blue Line. She's a Spanish speaker, but it's still easy to tell she's speaking in tongues. It's kind of crazy.

Everybody knows her and she just sat down next to an older black lady who's not taking any crap. She tells her to get lost.

The crazy lady calls her a criminal and is now calling the train operator. I just heard her speak english, but she's speaking in toongues at the driver!

It donesn't work. “Ma'am? You're talking crazy.” He doesn't say any more. Crazy LAdy is talking to herself now and going to the back of the train.

The black lady says she doesn't mind people praying, but that people shouldn't pray like that. Then she adds this gem: “If she wants to be blessed, I'll bless her.”

And... scene. Good times.

How about a little fun?

Chris Moore explores government cars, and the cartoon that every blogger will eventually post.

The Cheesehead/Luau Hangover is cheesy/piggy. Or something.

Two more primaries, two more landslides. Obama took another huge bite out of HRC's base, continuing the trend from Virginia and Maryland. I feel really bad for the voters of Texas and Ohio - they're going to see so many commercials, direct mailers and TV interviews in the next two weeks... I'm just glad I've already voted in this primary.

Another thing we're going to see is all of HRC bring the noise. Look out for the new 527s and generalized dirty pool - she's not going down without a fight. The fact that she has to have such huge margins in Texas and Ohio to make it a race again isn't going to help either - that means she's going to have to turn the volume all the way up. It'll be interesting to see if HRC can knock Obama off message.

Speaking of his message, Obama's victory speech was epic, coming in at nearly 50 minutes. People wanted substance to go with the rhetoric? No problem. I didn't listen to all of it. To say I've firmly made up my mind about who should be president is to say that commuting on the Blue Line in the rain is only a tad annoying. (I'm doing that right now (7:13 am) and I have to mention that rain really exacerbates this phenomenon. The train also smells like vomit-garnished wet dog.) I know what it is I disagree with him on. I know what I like. Point is, he's proved that he can get wonky with the best of them.

I think a big story is going to be how much damage the DNC is going to let HRC inflict on the Dems prospects in the general before they say enough is enough. If she has to go too much more negative, John McCain won't have much to do. Maybe that's a straw man, though; the Dems are outdrawing folks to the poll by about 2.5 to 1 or more. I'm trying to see a Repub electorate getting excited for McCain in the face of Obama, though, and I can't do it even if I squint real hard.

Is Obama's clear momentum and growing pledged delegate lead (almost 150 by some counts) going to nudge out some major endorsements? Just unions. High-level individuals? I don't think so. There's still no upside for Al Gore to endorse now that he's a respected man throughout the world. And a John Edwards endorsement is getting problematic. White men that were for John Edwards (white men in general, according to the exit polls) are going to Obama more and more. And Obama is getting the unions on his own. So an Edwards endorsement of Obama might be redundant and Edwards doesn't want to be - and should not be - redundant. On the other hand, if he decided to endorse HRC, all hell might break loose. But that's not likely.

Well... here's to two weeks of nail-biting tedium. Hopefully this thing will wrap itself up on March 4.

That's about enough of that - part 2.

This is gotcha crap has got to stop. Michelle Obama should not have said that, but not because the statement itself is distasteful - I happen to agree with her; I know exactly what she means and how she feels. She shouldn't have said it because she should have known that Obama opponents would swoop in and turn it into flap. But let's identify this bogus rhetorical technique: it's the same when pro-war folks accuse anti-war folks of "not supporting the troops" when we say that we're against the war. It's the same damn argument and should be worth the same. It's nonsense.

I haven't been proud of our county since Bush 43 was elected. This administration's embrace of scientific ignorance, war-mongering, bungling of domestic disasters, beggaring the middle-class and squandering our place in the world by isolating us ideologically... what's to be proud of for a rational person?

Cheesehead/Luau Primary!

The Wisconsin polls close in about 25 minutes and I'm almost finished with my first Diet Coke with Splenda. I should be wired up and ready to go. If Obama is going to win, he's going to do it in Clinton's key demographics: white women, blue-collar workers and the less educated. This would mirror his trends in Virginia and to a lesser extent Maryland. And if he can do that, she's in deep cheese fon-doo-doo going into the Ohio primary in a couple of weeks. If HRC wins Obama's home state of Hawai'i, then color me flabbergasted.

Yes, we can!

Update: I forgot about Washington. Sorry, Washington, but you had your shot with those caucuses way back. Nobody's interested in your third nipple of a primary.

Oh, the places you haven't been... But your new computer has.

Okay. I've been to Signal Hill and, of course, Long Beach. But not the others.

That's about enough of that.

I told myself that I wasn't going to blog about politics for a least a few days, but this kind of bogus attack is starting to piss me off. The 'gotcha rhetoric' of Taylor Marsh's 'article' makes me want to break things.

My support for Barack Obama is emotional, yes. But that emotion is driven by a firmly rational look at his abilities, platforms and capacity to break - pragmatically - from the destructive political paradigms of recent years. The fact that he encompass the kinds of qualities I'm rationally looking for in candidate gets me a bit emotional. I'm not - nor do I consider myself to be - a member of a cult or mindless movement. It's not Lisztomania*, for crying out loud. I look at all his attributes as a man and a political force, and I get excited. It's as simple as that.

HRC had a chance to fill this emotional role, but she chose to run as the incumbent, pigeonholing herself as 'status quo' when people are asking for something different. So, yeah, I get a little emotional when people think that HRC is the better candidate for the U.S.A. and the world at this time. There so much that is wrong with a potential HRC presidency... Her tendency towards political expediency is the biggest problem. It lacks authenticity. And for my generation (and younger, I'd wager), nothing quite gets under our skins as someone who is inauthentic, be they politician or our next-door neighbor. In mincing her 2002 vote on the war, she's really missed the boat. Instead of coming out and saying “I did what I thought was needed at the time for this reason, but now I'm against the war” she engaged in double-speak and evasion.

I don't need my candidate to be perfect; in fact I really need my candidate to humanize himself by admitting that there might be problems and setbacks. That's authentic. Reality-based. So don't accuse me of going along with a crowd of delusional automatons. I've done my homework on this. I've even founded my decisions on logic.

On the other hand, this is really just an internecine net battle. Most of the people that are going to read Marsh's piece have done their homework.

*The term "Lisztomania" was coined by the German romantic literary figure Heinrich Heine to describe the massive public response to Liszt's virtuosic piano performances. There were screaming women and concerts were often standing room only. In short - temporary, batshit insanity.

Stop... Novel time. (Cue the music.)

The new computer is way fun, but I need to start doing what I got it for. Man, it's hard. There are still so many distracting things about the darned thing, I could just play with it for hours without performing one single action that could be construed as productive. I keep finding myself going “Oooh, that's neat” and getting really sidetracked for about 30 minutes. For example - I transferred all of the pictures from the digital camera. I'd been hoarding them until I got this machine (plus I can't figure out how to erase the memory card). Now I have about 1800 pics to label and organize. That's going to take some time. Fortunately I've got this thingimabob to keep me on task.

What I really need to be doing if finishing one of these damn books that I've started. I've got 4-5 in process and that's kind of useless. I've decided to finish the one that I estimate is the furthest along. It's a chaotic little romp I'm calling Departmental. My Big Hairy Audacious Goal - or B-HAG, if you will - is to get it done, edited by me and a committee of interested parties and self-published through Amazon's CreateSpace by the end of June. That's right... I said June. [NB - Someone on the train smells like the Platonic idea of unwashed ass right now. My eyes are going to start watering. I hope my new MacBook doesn't melt. That would piss me right off.] I'll have to get that big writer's book and start looking for agents/publishers. Sound good? Thought so. (BTW - my first step in getting back into the noveling business is creating likeness of my characters with my Nintendo Wii.)

This means the blog might get spotty. I say 'might' only because since I started this year on such a blogging tear, I now think in blog form, and I don't know if I can stop myself. This blog thing has been liberating. Maybe I could just write all the time. That's probably a better idea.

I should take this moment to shill for the sweet web-service Netvibes. I wouldn't be able to keep up with the primary news without it. I really love it. I also like that they name their releases after spices. The current public release is called Coriander, which I like to put in my guacamole. I was lucky enough to nose into a small private beta test for the upcoming release - Ginger. This is another favorite spice. I could eat barrels of pickled ginger. Anyway, check it out.

Well, I've got to get my 4 gigs of new RAM installed. Good times.

What's the weird, fishy smell? Ah, yes... Crabcake Hangover.

My new computer distracted the hell out of me, so I'm glad that there was little to no mystery or drama in the Crabcake Primary.

What a night! What margins! Landslide! Pledged delegate lead and overall delegate lead! Obama really is doing all the things that juggernauts do. HRC is going to have a hard time coming back — especially if she's going to use the highly reliable Guliani method for campaigning non-success. Hopefully Texas and Ohio think enough of themselves that they are not going to want a month-long loser for the Dem nomination. For its part, Ohio has failed in recent years - see the narrow Kerry defeat in Ohio circa November 2004.

It's hard to see how HRC can turn this around. If she's forced to go negative (she has) or lose more campaign staff (that too), that might give her campaign a bad flavor. Like crab, maybe (I'm not really a fan). This late in the game, it's going to be hard for her turn the Titanic around, especially if she's miles away from the battle, using her well-honed bureaucratic skills to rearrange the deck chairs on the Hindenburg with that perfect feng shui touch. And if you followed that metaphor, I'll be really surprised.

Obama looks like a winner, sounds like a winner and, I suspect given the circumstantial evidence of looking and sounding like a winner, that he smells like a winner as well (i.e., crabcakes). McCain is not bothering to attack HRC, that's for sure. He and Obama are sparring like it's late October.

On another note, my early protestations that I had nothing personal against HRC are looking to be suspect at this point. My criticisms haven't been subtle. I think I should go on record as noting plainly: I just can't like her anymore. If she hadn't run as a quasi-, de facto-incumbent, it might have been different. But her distasteful assumption of entitlement turned me off and now it's killing her campaign.

Alright. No primaries until next Tuesday.

Uh-oh. New computer is here.

I'll be in the frightening forest of file transfers and compatibility issues. Going from oldie-but-goody to state-of-the-art is fraught with peril and the path is far from clear. So I'm going to pack my bread crumbs along with backup hard drive. Upshot: the Potomac Hangover may be late.

Disenfranchisement in LA County.

This is not good for democracy. Please click, read and sign the petition to get all votes counted. And I'm talking to all three of my readers. Don't shirk.

Juggernaut?

If I weren't such a skeptic at heart, I'd say that Obama is now as unstoppable as Gen. William T. Sherman's march to primo beach-front property in Savannah, GA. But despite the rah-rah tone of this blog lately, I am a skeptic at heart; never more so than when my team is up 17 with a buck-thirty left to go in the fourth quarter. Next metaphor, please.

So he swept all the weekend contests by surprising margins. So he's getting his message across more and more effectively. So HRC's campaign seems to be going through some pain, both in money and leadership. So people are beginning to understand that Obama is not only style, but substance. So what? Napoleon's Achilles heel: Waterloo. Obama's might be working-class folks of Texas, Ohio and Pennsylvania. Might.

Tomorrow's contests in D. C., Virginia and Maryland all favor Obama. No one expects an upset by HRC here despite her heavy campaigning in Virginia. And judging by the comparative joy of their supporters and the Jackson-Jefferson event the other night, HRC is certainly in big trouble in the short-term. I guess the real question is whether or not she can regain any momentum before those big March contests.

Most of the punditocracy and the number crunchers think that HRC is going to have a hard time overcoming the BHO-mentum, but as they say: that's why they play the games. [What is with me and these crappy metaphors, BTW? It's like I've been taken over by a pre-adolescent Dennis Miller or something.]

I think that time heals all wounds so to speak, and time has been Obama's friend. The more time passes, the more people get to know him, the more they see him as a viable alternative to HRC, 'the name they know'. It helps that his policies are logical and well-founded and pragmatic. My generation, at least, finds pragmatism very appealing - especially in the face of political gridlock.

Let's bring on a few more crushing defeats, if we can though. That's what a juggernaut would do...

(PS - Yes, we can.)

Lunch Links: Rush to the rescue?

Not for McCain. Not for the now-departed Romney. A fundraiser for HRC. What have I been saying? Repubs want HRC. They can beat her.

Dirty, dirty money. Only it's clean.

My wife and I just did something I never thought we'd do: we gave money to Obama. I figure we'll help him win the money race and put the Clintons in the poor house. That's efficient.

Super Tuesday? Super Hangover. (Everything is relative.)

Oy. Where to start?

The Dem race goes on and after everything, I'm still optimistic. By some counts, Obama is within a few delegates, even including the (disgustingly oligarchical) Super-delegates. Now, for Feb. 12, he'll have to shine as he did in Iowa, S. C. and the other early states. He kicks butt when he gets to introduce himself to the locals over a period. It allows people to see not only his truly inspirational persona, but that he has the substance on issues that many HRC voters seem to think he lacks. (Really - do they think Obama's running for POTUS with no well-thought out plan in mind? They must think he spends his time spinning in circles, laughing and saying “Gee, a substantive plan on policy? [smacks side of head] Why didn't I think of that”? Come on - even Ron Paul has policy answers for everything - crazy and potentially amoral as they might be.)

I learned something about myself as I watched the crazy national returns come in: as fun as it's been to get behind a great candidate and blog about it, I don't have the stomach for this politics stuff long-term. When Dem voters failed to meet my own (admittedly outrageous) expectations for them (i.e., they didn't vote more heavily for Obama), I headed to the kitchen to do the dishes. FYI and FWIW and BTW - I friggin' hate doing dishes. But on the bright side, since the dishes are now done, I'll have more time for video games and other important matters. What was I saying? Oh, yeah. I think over the long hall, I'd rather use this blog to talk about philosophy and scientific philosophy. And of course those pithy anecdotes about life on the Blue Line; like yesterday, when a homeless guy refused food because he said he didn't eat meat. Never again let it be said that beggars can't be choosers. See? That was better than politics, right?

Anyway. This morning, on NPR, they were running some interviews with Dem voters in the hotly contested state of Missouri. The bad logic and willful ignorance on display was breathtaking. This is where I heard a woman - I think she was a scientist or lawyer - voting for HRC because she wanted to see a woman in the White House. This is a terrible reason to vote for a candidate for POTUS. I didn't vote for Barack because he's a black man. I didn't vote for him in spite of his being a black man. I'm voting for him because I believe that he'll be transformative and substantive both here and abroad. I'm not a single-issue voter, but neither do I expect or require him to hit all my buttons. That's not possible (because of infinity, but that's another blog). Another man - union - basically said that HRC was the more experienced candidate. I think he said that that 'old lady' had been around forever and had experience. So did Bush. For me, the experience argument fails to play. McCain is old and has a bunch of experience, but I don't want him to be POTUS. Within reason, it's a bad criteria. Obama has plenty of experience and the mental faculties to delegate properly and inspire his designees to great heights of achievement. Name recognition is a terrible criteria, too.

I get that most people are looking for the easy way out when they vote. That doesn't mean it's not irritating for those of us who put in the time.

Wow. I think I've rambled enough. I'll try and locate my coherency later.

Whaaaa...?

Now I really don't know what to say. The Hangover is going to take some time to develop. I have to figure out what the hell is going on...

Help... me...

I drank some Airborne, and I'm feeling a lot better now - except that my little brain is getting crushed by all the info that's being vomited into my apartment by my TV.

I ended up choosing CNN. Wolf's way too busy to be annoying. I'm not sure what to say, yet. Early on, things look good for Obama. Where he's losing, he's losing reasonably close. That momentum he had seems to be helping. But I'm betting that we won't really see any surprises tonight...

Stupor Tuesday.

I know a lot of you have written in, wondering if I'm okay. I know I haven't blogged about the primaries recently, but life's been busy. Here we are though: I'm home from work, just voted for Barack (and voted 'No' on a crapload of Ballot Props), I feel like I'm getting a cold and I have one important decision to make - MSNBC or CNN? Chris 'Barack Hussein Obama' Matthews or Wolf 'Silver-Haired Bastard' Blitzer? Not my most important vote of the day...

I'll post on and off tonight. Right after I order a new computer!

The most important endorsement of all.

One of our generation's greatest authors makes his heart-felt choice.

The Clumping of the Morons: An Informal Study in Non-strategic Thinking.

I type up a lot of stuff on the train. Blogs, essays, the book I'm working on, so I've developed a carefully vetted strategy to get the seats that are conducive to using a laptop. I won't bore you with the details. So you might think that the following might be unfair, but I don't care. The Blue Line tried its best to kill me recently, and naturally, I'm still bitter.

A Blue Line train is comprised of three cars with four evenly-spaced doors apiece. The platforms are pretty long and at most stations, they can only be entered at the ends. This causes an annoying phenomenon I like to call “The Clumping of the Morons.” See for some reason, some people - more than enough of them to make this post necessary - can't be bothered to move to the middle of the platform to get into the comparatively empty middle car. They walk onto the platform, and, apparently worn out from the effort, stand there, unable to proceed to an area of the platform that will enable them to get a seat. They then act surprised when they get on an end car and find that there are no seats. Even controlling for the 2-5 people per stop that run hard to catch the train and are forced to enter the first door they get to, that's a lot of morons that may or may not be lazy as well.

So now there are clumps of people just inside every door of the end cars, slowing everything down because people can't get their asses (a high percentage of which are spectacularly enormous) on and off the train fast enough. Some of the drivers get irritated and remind people that there are in fact 12 total doors on the train and would they mind using them all, pretty please? That just causes the people on the outside to push a bit harder to get in. I'd probably be less irritated if they'd also deign to stop bumping my laptop and reading over my shoulder. Morons.

Lunch link.

Think that HRC doesn't really, truly piss off the Repubs? Think again.

Sometimes linking is enough.

I think I've made my feelings (political feelings I must say, not personal) about the Clintons darned clear. The liberal netroots is getting it pretty good now. Take it away Bob Cesca.

That could have hurt. A lot.

I was pretty bleary this morning as I drove to Willow Station to catch the train. KCRW's pledge drive didn't even have the power to annoy me. Something did manage to wake me up, though. Nearly getting killed turns that trick nicely. And it all happened pretty fast.

So I get to the intersection of Pacific Ave. and 8th St. This is one of the places where the Blue Line makes a right turn. I stopped since the light was red. That's what you're supposed to do. The train was to my left also stopped, obeying it's very own set of traffic lights. My light turned green - the train's didn't. I tapped the accelerator. But... so did the fucking train driver.

Now, fully awake and choking out choice obscenities, I slammed on my brakes. Fortunately, so did the train. It would have hit me right on the driver-side door of our newish car. My reflexes are good, though, as were the train driver's, thank goodness, so no harm done. But he had actually pulled it out far enough that I had to swerve around it. I did manage to give the driver a dirty look as I pulled away, while my heart jumped like a moon-bounce at an eight-year-old's birthday party. Now I wish that the trains had those "How am I driving?" stickers.

This could be bad.

Today I saw a headline on Huffpo that had pics (not pictured anymore) of JFK, RFK and Obama (BHO), on the occasion of Teddy Kennedy's endorsement of Barack Obama. I, for one, don't like the comparison. Why not put Lincoln up there too? Obama is just the kind of politician that gets shot. No one is saying this. Sorry to bring it up. Can we double his secret service people, please?

Oh, boy. The dominoes are falling now.

First one Kennedy and now another?

UPDATE: I've seen some commentary here and there about Ted's endorsement of Obama. Some seem to think that it hurts the Obama brand to have one of the powerful liberal 'old guard' endorse him. But I like to think that some in the 'old guard' are just getting a clue.

A short list of good points here.

S. C. Hangover, Part Deux. Becasue one Hangover isn't enough for this rout.

It's actually the next day - when hangovers typically happen. I don't have a true hangover, though I did pour and down a little something-something in honor of Obama's win. Now... how about a bit more condor on that.

I'm still affected by that astounding speech. It made my hair stand on end and brought tears to my eyes. It's doing it right now as I type this, blurring the screen and making life difficult - for no other reason than I'm a cynic, politically speaking, and don't fall for this kind of clap-trap. I typically take the vote-for-the-best-of-the-worst approach when picking a candidate. I was trying desperately to be cautious last night. After Iowa and N. H., I didn't want to be susceptible - again - to Obama's kind of rah-rah, right? I learned my lesson, right? So I thought.

In 2004 I voted for Kerry-Edwards, but that didn't exactly have me whistling a happy tune all the way to the polling station. There were so many problems with that ticket. Rove destroyed them, for one. Easily. And given the current Dem race, the Kerry-Edwards ticket seems so blindingly white and ineffectually male now, n'est pas? This is a little bit of an unfair comparison, but they now remind me now of what I see when I catch a logic-bending, nausea-inducing, hate-filled (yes, I typed it) Repub debate. Old white dudes. But I missed the Dean train (young white dude), and he derailed it with that doofus scream anyway, and after N. H., Kerry-Edwards became as inevitable as HRC thought she was just last week. Kerry-Edwards was my choice in '04, and I voted for them. I wasn't optimistic - I hoped like hell for the best, but I wasn't truly optimistic. I was desperate. But Bush had the inevitability of fear and divisiveness and the people went for it, small margin or not.

But now, nothing seems inevitable - particularly not fear and divisiveness - though the Clintons would have you believe otherwise. Last night, even before Obama made his speech, HRC was in Tennessee and Bill was in Missouri. Both gave a shockingly quick congrats to Obama and then moved on like it never happened, stumping away. That may be the proper response, but it's still just a lengthy river in Egypt. The Clintons have a problem. Obama's message of unity and hope is working! And because of the last seven years I have to be surprised - surprised! - that touting optimism and group problem-solving and creating a new face for the world to see is appealing to Americans. It's just a touch sad, don't you think?

But I am moved. I almost sent money I don't have to Obama last night, but then I found out that they were averaging a staggering $500,000 per hour after the speech last night, so I figured he'd be okay. And I don't care if I'm setting myself up for a fall. If someone other than Obama gets elected this year, especially a Repub, Obama will be back in 2012. But I'm optimistic - I hope - that this is the year that America gets it.

Yes we can!

Points that had to be made.

Marc Ambinder on the craziness that is the S. C. primary.

The first comment is nauseating. Don't say I didn't warn you. [Update: they - rightly - took down the comment accusing Obama of raping white women. Ugly.]

Fake Steve on S. C.

His biting take.

Oh, snap!

CNN just interrupted HRC to go to commercial. Oh, how the mightily annoying have fallen.

Speech, speech!

Obama's 'victory dance' was awesome. The best one I've seen yet. It was moving. It was topical. It was issue-driven. It put the Clintons in their place in the loveliest way. When I find the link, I'll post it. [Update: the awesomeness.]

In other news, Caroline Kennedy has endorsed a candidate. Guess who?

S. C. Hangover.

This is big. Like, totally hugely, bigly, gigantically enormous. Obama is going to pick up a truckload of delegates. Turnout was big, too. I'm going to try not to give into the same exuberance that I did after Iowa, but it's going to be hard. Obama was supposed to win big - needed to win big to fulfill the punditocracy's vision for him - and he did. Flabbergastingly so.

The exit polling is interesting. CNN says that he won all age groups (except 65+) for the first time in a primary. Late deciders went for him. Young voters again went for him in huge numbers. (Young whites have black friends. Real ones. Don't tell the old white people.) Whites - and these are Southern whites, mind you - made up 20% of his voters. HRC got 34% in her pie chart. But Obama is going to have way more voters, more than double in fact. His 20% is likely a bigger number of actual voters than HRC's 34%. So race was not as divisive as feared. Obama is building a coalition that can win. HRC can't say that. Obama will. Repeatedly.

And then there's this. Bill Bennett - Reagan's second-term Education Secretary, who is now a conservative pundit on CNN - said “White people all over America are interested in voting for Barack Obama.“ That's telling. And that's me.

This was a rout of epic proportions. The Clintons got hammered.

So now it's on to Super Tuesday. Feb. 5 is going to cause my biggest Hangover yet - one way or another.

That's almost right.

John King on CNN - "...Bill Clinton is an asset..."

At least he nailed the 'ass' part.

(Gee, Mike, how do you really feel? Hangover soon.)

Unconstitutional?

I've read a few bits here and there on the constitutionality of a former president gaining the kind of unprecedented and uncontrolled access to the POTUS that Bill Clinton would have if HRC is elected. Here's an NYT op-ed on a plural presidency. It's a worrying proposition.

Stranger in a strange land.

I work for a major arts non-profit in the financial district of Downtown L.A. It's always interesting when I need to do some banking.

Everywhere I look it's men with their Dior in navy or Armani in deep charcoal. There are power suits on women that are so powerful, that you can't look directly at them. These people are found in line in front of me, wearing Bluetooth headsets so naturally, that if they suddenly transformed into robots bent on subjugating humanity through clever ninja banking, I'd barely blink.

These people always spend so much time at the window, too. I suspect that they're doing complex transactions involving large sums of money and Geneva or Dubai or Kuala Lumpur.

It makes me feel inadequate - yet somehow amused - to approach the counter in my casual-plus dress and backpack. Especially when I ask for a roll of quarters so I can do laundry.

Divisive campaigning a reality. Pass the vomit bag.

I ran across this longish article about the gender/race splits that are appearing in the Dem primary process. So much for bringing the country together. It's disheartening to say the least.

And from the department of disenfranchisement and dirty caucusing, there is this nausea-inducing anecdote. And this all-too-common theme among centrist Dems and independents. [Apologies for continually going parasitic on Andrew Sullivan's blog, but he has a huge demographic cross-section that write in. And I'm nobody's go-to guy on this stuff, so I get no email! [Update: all apologies to the reader that wrote in. You know who you are.]]

The Clintons are going to win the nomination and lose the general election. This is a real forest-for-the-trees moment for the Democratic party. In general, I can do without political parties - especially the two we have. But I'm committed. I cannot vote Repub. Cannot. If I have to, I'll choke down my loathing, and vote for HRC in the fall, likely gagging all the way. I have to believe that HRC is lesser of two evils against a Republican. But just barely.

My only hope? Positions and perceptions in this race have been changing fast. If HRC gets inevitable again, there will be a backlash. Fingers crossed.

Nevada Hangover. (Yes, I know it's early for that. Don't hassle me.)

HRC wins the popular vote 51% to 45%. Obama wins the delegate count 13 to 12 [Update: I've read 14-14 too and other tallies. Nobody gets the delegate part of this crappy process]. Who wins, really?

It may not matter, ultimately. The Clinton machine is working. If she eeks out narrow win after narrow win, she's a winner, narrow or not.

Despite this eye-widening early poll that I noted previously, the hispanics in Nevada broke hard for HRC. She crushed Obama in that demographic. As someone who rides through South Central LA on a daily basis, it easy to see the racial tensions between blacks and hispanics. It's palpable. So I can understand the hispanic community's instinctive distrust of a black candidate.

In general, though, I'm still stuck on why HRC is even remotely appealing to the Dems. The Clintons piss off Repubs like no other public figures in the past 25 years. If she gets the nomination, and then if she's elected, we are going to see a replay of 1994. After two years of Bill Clinton in the White House, the country decided go with Newt Gingrich's “Contract with America” to sabotage the Clinton's 'liberal' agenda. So in effect, Bill Clinton handed the House of Representatives to the Repubs by reaching for too much. This will happen again. If she's elected, HRC will (potentially) hand the Congress back to the Repubs in a couple of years, and the detestable political gridlock will begin anew. She has that divisive effect on right-wingers. Obama, on the other hand, might be able to stave that off. He is a liberal, but he's a pragmatic one. He's not going to bite off more than he can chew agenda-wise. He's not going to scare anybody into changing Congress. Repubs in Congress might not love Barack either, but he's not going to immediately set off the anger and bitterness that HRC can if gets the nomination. What good is it to nominate and elect a candidate with this kind of personal and political liability?

Why would anyone want this? We've been down that road, and it sucked for the Dems and (I dare say) the country. As a liberal I want the country to change direction. A lot. But I'm willing to take it piecemeal in the short term in order to have the opportunity for long-term impact. I don't think that HRC can do this, but we'll see.

CNN needs therapy.

CNN projects HRC wins Nevada. I wish CNN would stop projecting their problems onto me.

(I'll have a hangover later. Here, here and here are my previous hangovers.)

Introverts unite!

I just realized something about caucusing: it disenfranchises shy people. That's not good.

They need an advocate, but - not surprisingly - find themselves unable to ask for one.

Sometimes they try too hard.

The Jehovah's Witnesses dropped by again today. I did my usual thing of not answering the door despite my lights being on and the TV going. It always amazes me that they come through our heavily gay-populated neighborhood. I can't believe that there are many gay JWs.

Note to self: get a sticker for the front door that says, “No Solicitation. This includes the ideological kind. Takeout menus okay.”

Romney wins Nevada. Mormons help. A lot.

Bill Schneider - the only CNN political analyst that I can stand, cuz he's all about the numbers - had a lovely pie chart showing Romney's Nevada Mormon support at 94%. Who saw that coming? (Besides the Tabernacle Choir and anyone with a pulse, I mean.)

Mormons, who make up just 12% of the Nevada overall population, turned out in droves for Romney. Just hand him Utah now.

Limerick for Lunch.

I wonder what's wrong with a nation

that goes in for pander-ization?

Maybe we're lazy,

and a little bit crazy,

from Fox News's bullshitifcation.

Inspired by this post.

I, crackpot? Not compared to this.

I'm sure all three of my readers are terribly bored by my political rantings of late, so I'm going try ranting in a different direction here. And I mean ranting.

It's due to this mind-blowing article in the New York Times. (I was tipped by this clear-thinking blog. Seconded by a sensible neuro-scientist.) I'll wait while you read it. Try not to let incredulity overwhelm you. And don't let your eyes glaze over. That will only cheat you out of the full wonky experience.

Okay. How was it for you? Did you follow it? Understand it? Believe it? Probably not and good for you.

Unfortunately, this is a fine example of the state of theoretical physics. (If I didn't know that they were dead serious, I'd cry “Sokal hoax!”) And people call me a crackpot for thinking that this and this are better answers. Really, based on that article, I think that the gatekeepers of high-level physics are now fully prepared to don their Voodoo headdresses and drop a LSD tab for old-time sake. I say that merely to be funny. I have nothing against these folks personally. I'm sure they are accomplished thinkers and are merely attempting to build 11-dimensional houses of cards on top of the worst possible logical and epistemological foundations. This stuff is ridiculous. Needless indeterminism abounds. When is enough enough for these people? When are they going stop and say, “Hmm... that's a bit far-fetched - maybe we should rethink this”? After reading about possibly being a random protuberance and/or a disembodied brain, I'm thinking it's past time for re-examination of cosmology in its current cosmogonic guise.

Not only do we all need to yell 'shenanigans' on this, we need to get them to follow the trail back through string theory, 11 dimensions, spacetime foam, all the way to Einstein's Special (more than one three-dimensional space? No!) and General (space bends? Not!) Relativity. That's where this whole thing got off got off on the wrong foot. That's when theoretical physics became the piquant wackadoo nutjobbery that we all get to enjoy today.

More on this later. I'll let you all recover first.

Mee-shee-gan! (The Hangovers Continue.)

I've been busy the last few days, but nothing like a primary to bring me back to the blog.

HRC - running nominally unopposed - did not fare as well as she probably should have against 'Uncommitted' in Michigan last night. She still can't win youth, African-American or independent votes. If she makes it that far, the general election is going to be a veritable hell for those of us looking for anything besides a Repub. (Interesting note: Wolf Blitzer told everyone watching that the Democratic side of the primary didn't matter due to the fact that Michigan was stripped of its delegates for breaking party rules. Then that grinning, silver-bearded bastard and his team of demonic chatterboxes proceeded to analyze beejezus out of the situation anyway. Like me. But I'm just trying to keep irony alive, whereas they're patently evil.)

And speaking of Repubs... Are they going to manage to pick a nominee before their convention? It doesn't seem like they're terribly interested in doing so. The media keeps saying 'three states, three winners' but they keep forgetting about Romney's win in Wyoming. How dare they!? Four states, three winners. This doesn't make Romney the frontrunner (though he is far and away the leader in delegates), but I hope the Repubs rally around him. It would make any Democrat's way clearer in November, since it would be like running against Bush again.

It looks like the economy is going to loom large in the year with recession rearing its ugly head. My 401(k) is in agony. Will the 99% of us that don't benefit from Bush's tax cuts for the rich notice this and vote in our own best interests? Or will the so-called 'values voters' be convinced to shoot themselves in the wallet again because they are [ALERT: hyperbolic sweeping generalization for effect coming right up!] undereducated, bigoted, anti-choice homophobes who are getting Rapture Ready? If I had the money, I'd bet on all that.

Oops. My cynicism is showing. Politics. Too many narcissistic power-mongers trying to make the world in their own poll-tested image. I'd try and refrain from commenting on it, but it's too much fun.

Strike? This isn't exactly "Norma Rae," you know...

[Full disclosure: As a former member in good standing of the United Federation of Musicians, I am in favor of Labor Unions and their right to collectively bargain. But, as a TV owner, I'm also in favor of The Office and Pushing Daisies, so...]

Last night, I had a chance to watch a couple of Tivoed episodes of The Daily Show (sorry, it's a A Daily Show right now) and The Colbert Report. They were okay. Stewart and Colbert are excellent improv guys - especially Colbert - and good interviewers. But there were some awkward moments on these shows where there are usually none. That's fine, but it's going to take some getting used to. And these guys are going to be exhausted by the end of one week of this. I'm still trying to figure out the fine line between making something up on the spot and writing. If you're a writer, how is making something up on the spot not writing? Especially when some of the bits seemed reasonably planned. I'm still working that one out. I imagine that the strikers are too.

In general, I'm having a hard time getting a clear picture about what the producers are holding back on. As an expert on A Daily Show pointed out, it seems to be a small step from DVD residuals to Internet Download residuals. That's right - the expert didn't get it. And even if the new tech is evolving, write the contract to acknowledge the possibility of unknowns. But no matter how you slice it, these negotiations are trouble: nothing but acrimony. Back to the table everyone! But who'll be first?

I just got cable in September. I was looking forward to new shows for the first time in several years. Instead, I get to watch TV suck more and more. Now it's reality shows and reruns. Or really bad midseason entries.

What exactly are they trying to do? Make people watch network news and sports? (The original reality TV.) Or cable news? (Maybe that's why the electorate seems so motivated. It seems to me that the Repubs have a vested interest in getting fictional TV back on - particularly the ever-torturous - in every sense - 24.)

Or is their plan - ironically - to drive people back to literature? Is that what they want!? Wait, wait... As an aspiring novelist, that's exactly what I want! Go writers! Keep trying to get your buck-oh-five... You're playing right into my hands.

“Hey, come look! It's on fire!”

I really wanted to blog about this event as soon as it happened, but that didn't work out very well.

We were watching TV and generally enjoying the evening (with the notable exception of the N. H. Primary results), when the power started flickering weirdly. Then, the power went out, but only in half the apartment. We looked at each other with bewilderment, and Addie took it upon herself to go over to the kitchen window to see if she could see anything. She could.

“Hey, come look! It's on fire!”

And as a matter of fact it was 'on fire'. A tiny little blaze had flared up on a power line near the nightclub we live next door to. As we watched, it burned through the wire and fell down - fortunately - on the sidewalk. The power on our block went out completely. Addie went outside to check the situation. Upon her return, she noted to me that our apartment complex already smelled very much like fruity department store candles. Cherry Blossom Lavender Glee and Apple Pine Ocean Breeze. Or something.

Of course, standing there in the dark, my first instinct was to blog about it. I cursed my lack of a iPhone and poured a Scotch to comfort myself. Addie lit some candles. And so it came to pass that we spent the rest of the evening living (irritatingly enough) in the year 1790.