viva obama

better than the obama girl. luchando!

80's child

does this description of hillary clinton at thursday's debate:

Mrs. Clinton looked like the Jennifer Grey character struggling to show up her favored brother in “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.”

feel dated to you? i thought it was perfect, but i saw the movie in the theaters. some have suggested that a more modern comparison would be appropriate. is bueller too old to be relevant anymore?

here is the article from alessandra stanley

things never change

a lot of talk about water boarding and torture recently. it might seem new and exciting, but apparently nothing ever changes in our dear country. a country which each one of us, including michelle obama and cindy mccain, is very proud of. new yorker article about "the water cure" and its use by american soldiers in the philippines at the turn of the 20th century.

debates moments to warm your heart

quayle v. bensen 1988 "SENATOR YOU ARE NO JACK KENNEDY"


carter v. reagan 1980 "THERE YOU GO AGAIN"


nixon v. kennedy 1960 "FIRST TELEVISED DEBATE"

debates thoughts

i woke up this morning a little giddy about the debate tonight. hoping that one of those moments that the older people talk about, reagan's amazing debate performance in '84 or JFK against Nixon in the 60's, might again occur. but, of course, it doesn't. the best debate moment i can think of in my lifetime was the soap opera make up al gore debate in 2000. otherwise, they have usually been pretty boring. well, cheney and edwards in 2004 was quite entertaining, but for all the wrong reasons. that was the night i realized that cheney really was too smart for his own good and could do incredible damage. maybe i should have realized that in the previous 4 years of the madness he and bush wrought on the country, but i didn't until i saw him look into edwards eyes and just tear him apart. but here tonight, once again, was a rather boring debate. a few good lines by hillary, the xerox one in particular, but overall it seemed like obama stood up and although i am severely biased, i think he looks better as each debate goes on: more presidential.

returning to the cheney/edwards debate in 2004, the format of that debate is something that I haven't seen this year. that old scary white man and the coifed lawyer were sitting across from each other, looking at each other when they desired or at the audience. clinton and obama, however, are always seated next to each other, and can't truly look face to face. many times tonight obama sat quietly looking down and taking notes as hillary spoke. it would be awkward, and possibly inappropriate to look down if the person across the table was making eye contact. i wonder if hillary would be able to say the combative lines she tried tonight if sitting across the table from a person she claims to respect?

it is like talking to somebody in the car, versus discussing something at dinner. a friend of mine once told me that the best conversations she had with her boyfriend occurred on long car drives. he, it seems, felt more comfortable talking about his feelings when he could look straight onto the road instead of into her eyes. for a while i thought that it might be a good idea to hop in the car anytime a serious conversation arose. that would waste a lot of gas. i believe there is a saying that if you can't say something directly to somebody, then you shouldn't say anything.

i don't want to get hit by a bus

as some of you might know, we, being the US armed services, shot down a useless satellite that was plummeting towards earth. gail collins from the nytimes had some thoughts about the sattelite which was the size of a bus and contained thousands of gallons of toxic fuel. here here here

people

obama is damn close to knocking off hillary. if you want to help a little bit donate $25 to his campaign. almost one million people have donated, and most of the donations are small amounts. this is a movement by people. mccain wants obama to take public financing, but he wouldn't be saying anything if a million people gave him $25.
barackobama.com

best obama website

courtesy of tar art rat
barackobamaisyournewbicycle

Hip Hil

reaching out to college students.

i guess it is hard to look hip when you are running against the hippest presidential candidate since herbert hoover.

just passing time by calling 911

a hayward man was arrested today for making 27,000 calls to 911. he would call and make grunts and beeps, occasionally talking in a disguised voice. the reason, "because it was free." story here

no matter how boring wife swap gets exploiting christian parents, random people will always provide plenty of entertainment.

offal

while reading a story in the nytimes about the romantic implications of dietary restrictions a couple was mentioned. she couldn't eat wheat and found a chef companion that found it a challenge. she, in turn, broadened her horizons to include foie gras and offal. i had no clue what offal was, however.

it turns out that offal is the generic term for mammal organs. everything from liver to brains to intestines. the wikipedia entry has a wonderful breakdown of the different uses of offal throughout the world.

the wikipedia entry concludes with a useful warning:
The liver of the polar bear is unsafe to eat because it is very high in vitamin A and can cause hypervitaminosis A, a dangerous disorder. This has been recognized since at least 1597 when Gerrit de Veer wrote in his diary that, while taking refuge in the winter in Nova Zembla, he and his men became gravely ill after eating polar-bear liver

Father of The Bride II thought of the day

this is the 90's, people aren't growing old like they used to.

continued props to kittyhell

apparently many people that read kittyhell are angry that the host doesn't disclose where to find such treasures as the hello kitty converse high tops or the hello kitty boxing shorts. in response it appears that many people send him angry e-mails. he received enough of these messages to justify writing a response to the whiners:

It appears that there is a group of Hello Kitty fanatics that don’t like me because I don’t tell readers where to find the Hello Kitty items on my site. They write me emails (and sometimes leave comments) telling me what a horribly awful person I am. For example, here is the last email I received from one of them this weekend (which, scarily enough, is pretty typical of the ones I receive):

"What’s your problem not telling us where you get the Hello Kitty stuff on your site. It will only take you a minute to tell us, but you have to be a complete a**hole about it. I don’t know how your wife can put up with you. I think it’s utterly disgusting and you’re not fit to live on earth the way you treat us. You’re the worst person ever."

I’m going to find where those sneakers are whether you tell me or not, so you might as well. All you’re doing is being a pig about it. It’s no wonder you’re in hell, that is exactly where you deserve to be. I hope your wife makes your life even more hell. I’m surprised she hasn’t left you being as awful as you are.

You should stop blogging because it doesn’t help anyone because you’re too selfish to help anyone find the things on your blog. When I find those shoes, I’m going to email you to show you that I got them so you know that your being an idiot didn’t work. Do us all a favor and die.

Now, it may be just me, but usually when you find someone “utterly disgusting and not fit to live on this earth,” and you want them to do you the favor of just dieing, you usually stop visiting their blog. That way each day of your life isn’t ruined and you don’t feel compelled to write yet another email explaining how evil I am. Obviously this is not the case since I seem to get these repeatedly from several people.

Blog of the Month

of course it wouldn't be my blog, because i have a readership of about 3. the problem might be that i don't have an angle, a focus to my blog. something specific to write about such as pocket styles on high end jeans, might lead the weary to my truly interesting posts about the lack of leather in basketball shoes or and 1992 videos of SWV.

while in grade school i had a brief moment of obssession with kerokerokeroppi. for those unfamiliar, he is the frog in the sanrio family. i'm not sure if it was just his name, which i found quite enchanting in 6th grade, or the fact that there were some brief moments in life when sanrio trinkets just made me happy. although i believe sanrio markets almost exclusively to girls, i really enjoyed the small trinkets and big headed soft toys.

i can imagine that as an adult, however, that having a partner who is still obsessed with sanrio, hello kitty and leads an entire existence dependent on everything being "kittified," would be horrible. not surprisingly, there is a poor fellow who keeps a blog about his life in kittyhell. read it here. tenfootman blog of the month february 2008. the picture above is a hello kitty hard boiled egg mold.

Maybe 100... Say What

McCain for President! Vote Republican! Bomb, Bomb, Bomb, Bomb Iran!

progressive nebraska

nebraska was the last state to hold onto the electric chair as its sole method of execution. it was a strange, because with all the problems with the various methods of execution employed in this country, nobody was discussing the electric chair. that was because everyone knows that the electric chair is a horrible and unpredictable way to kill people. that is why every other execution state has switched over to lethal injection as its primary method. however, there are still 9 states which maintain electric chairs as secondary methods of execution.


today, finally, in 2008, the nebraska supreme court found the chair violative of the 8th amendment. now the question is which uncruel and usual punishment they will adopt? the picture on the right is from an execution in florida in 1999. the florida supreme court ruled that lee allen davis, the executed man, suffered no pain before his death. hopefully, progressive nebraska will lead the way for other states to remove the electric chair as even a back up method. story here

arts channel

i occasionally find myself watching the arts channel on tv. i'm not sure that it even exists in san francisco anymore, but it used to be in the 20s and would feature everything from dueling harmonicas to opera. it was like mtv for old people. but old mtv with just music videos. a few years back i happened upon a black and white classical piece, which propelled me into learning more about franz schubert. the formal title of this performance is Piano Trio In B-Flat Major, Op.99, D 898: Allegro moderato. a few years back the numbers op.99 and d.898 were explained to me, but i have no idea today what they mean.

people's records detroit

last night there was a fire in the forest arms apartments on second and cass in detroit. a wonderful old apartment building built in 1905. most important to me, considering i had no friends who lived there, the basement of the forest arms was home to people's records, undeniably detroit's best record store and where i cut my teeth digging. the owner of people's, brad, said that the store was a complete loss, as thousands of gallons of water made their way into the basement and vinyl and water don't mix. brad plans to continue operating, building the business again from nothing.

thousands of records are lost. hundreds are homeless and the hippie chick who ran the corner coffee shop won't be smiling today. a lawyer who died in the blaze apparently started the fire in his 4th floor apartment.

people get ready

vote please

the cover of time states "why young voters care again." my question is "when did young voters care?" never in my lifetime did the youth care much, but then again all i could ever vote for was a bush or a clinton. so the excuse was either that the vote didn't matter because we were still in the haze of the wonderful clinton years, or kerry just wasn't inspiring enough.

what i love about the time article is the picture of the republican kid at berkeley that tops the story about the youth voting tidal wave. i think he has a fanny pack on. and is it just me, or do republicans like to stick out their chests more than democrats? or maybe it is just this kid, who looks like such a republican ass.

so the kids name is alexander marlow. i googled him and it turns out that he writes for the conservative paper at berkeley and also apparently hates danny glover. read a wonderful article by this young conservative who probably evokes reagan's name at every meal. here.

si se puede

you know when scarlett johansen, JOHN LEGEND and kareem support obama that something is right. just perfectly right. yes we can.

what happened to leather

i bought basketball shoes last week. it was my first purchase of shoes for a specific sport since my tennis shoe purchase during the summer of '06. as a great fan of chauncey billups and with little direction about what i wanted, except a desire to stay at or below one hundred dollars, i bought mr. billups' signature series adidas shoes. what surprised me was that the shoes were made out of plastic. now, i am no expert on the current selection of basketball shoes, but during my short search for a pair i noticed a sad lack of leather. i thought that shoes should be made out of leather, at least shoes that aren't "breathable" or made out of something else for a better reason. but plastic that looks like leather? i thought that was for, well, cheaper shoes. i remember that basketball shoes used to be made of leather, but maybe i just didn't know any better. it was the mid 90s that i was buying basketball shoes and i think i cared more about who was wearing the shoes than what they were made of. i guess the only change now is that i care about who is wearing them, but i also want them made out of leather.
but nevertheless, i paid a hundred dollars for a pair of shoes that were made out of plastic. i'm thinking of returning them after i used them today and got a blister. but then again, i guess if all star 3 time champion chauncey wears them, they should work for me. i wonder if adidas makes his out of leather, and then sells the rest of us plastic.

TenFootMan Endorses Obama

After a vote of one to zero for who to endorse in the democratic presidential nomination race, Barak Obama has won the important endorsement of TenFootMan. Senator Obama has consistently shown that he is a real person with two hands and one brain which he controls himself. Additionally, he has a fairly steady jumpshot and he's a lefty. Senator Clinton, however, has never proven herself to be a real person with an actual beating heart. Her laugh is frightening and she can't make a layup. Vote Obama on Tuesday!