Cool Barack Obama Poster

Hat tip to Nicholas Jackson at Poll Dancing for calling attention to this Obama poster being sold online by Obey Giant -- "Manufacturing Quality Dissent Since 1989." Terrific poster.

KOOP Back On The Air After Arson Arrest

KOOP 91.7 FM, Autin's community radio station, is back on the air, effective Friday, January 25. The station went off the air on January 6 after its studios were severely damanged in an early morning fire that investigators later ruled was arson.

In other news, Austin police and fire department officials have made an arrest in the arson case. Paul Feinstein turned himself in to Austin Police this morning in connection with their investigations.

Absolute Friends

I read Absolute Friends, John Le Carre's terrific 2004 novel, over the weekend. Did I mention it was terrific? Here's a 2004 radio interview with Le Carre about the book.

I love Le Carre; his "Karla Trilogy" -- Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, The Honourable Schoolboy, and Smiley's People -- are some of my favorite books to read. I usually re-read all three of them every couple years.

Pique Oil

I am slowly working my way through the latest issue of Texas Monthly. The main story is "35 People Who Will Shape Our Future." That's because TM is 35 years old this year. Get it?

Anyway, the issue came out about a week ago. Even though I am a subscriber, I looked up the story online because I wanted to see what it said about me. You can imagine my surprise when I found out I was NOT one of the 35 people who will shape Our Future.

I had coffee with a friend today, and mentioned the story. Her comment? "No one from Texas is shaping the future, except maybe in Texas." She could be right; the state that created groundbreakers like Denton Cooley and Ross Perot and business innovators like Texas Instruments and Dell Computers seems to have lost some of the initiative in recent years.

So far, the most interesting article I've read is "The Gospel According to Matthew," about Houston investment banker Matthew Simmons. Simmons for years has been arguing that we've reached the "peak oil" point, and that the world's oil production will decline in a curve that approximately mirrors the curve by which it rose. I was first introduced to the concept of peak oil in Kevin Phillips' American Theocracy, in which he tries to create a Unified Field Theory of declining energy reserves, rising religious fundamentalism, international finance and global geopolitics.

Anyway, Mimi Swartz's article on Simmons is good reading, and there is a link to an interesting interview about the Shrinking Energy Pie. The sad thing about both articles is that their subjects (Simmons, Nate Hagens of The Oil Drum and Matt Savinar of Life After the Oil Crash) seem pretty blindered about conservation and alternative energy; in their scenarios, oil gets to $200 a barrel and people start shooting at each other. Let's hope there's a middle ground: more serious conservation efforts (and some government leadership on those efforts; Dick Cheney calls conservation "a sign of personal virtue" -- God knows he has few enough of those) and alternative forms of energy (again, with some government leadership thrown in).

City of Digital Immigrants

Eileen Smith, the diabolically hilarious creator of InThePinkTexas, is now working for the MSM as the online editor of Texas Monthly. She has an essay in this month's issue. No, wait, her essay does not appear in the magazine. Her essay is a "web extra," which means they did not want the actual readers to see it.

Anyway, in her essay she distinguishes between "digital natives" and "digital immigrants." It turns out I am an immigrant. Here's her description of the natives:

“Digital natives,” on the other hand, were born around 1985, when personal computers were already ten years old. They have never known a world without the Internet (lucky bastards). They are adept multimedia producers and certified gadgetophiles who create content as much as they consume it, if not more. Avid newspaper readers, they are not. In fact, younger readers view the corporate-owned mainstream media with disgust, if not outright contempt.

Digital immigrants, she sniffs, are "those who grew up in a world where you filled out your college applications on a typewriter." Well, excu-u-u-use me! Anyway, I like to think of myself as one of those immigarnts who's quickly learned the language and norms of the new culture -- although I cannot figure out RSS feeds for the life of me.

Creationists Getting Creative

I've posted a couple times already (here and here) about the folks from the Institute of Creation Science in Dallas who want the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board to allow them to offer an online master's of science education degree. I first heard about the story from the Texas Observer, and then the MSM got a hold of it.

Anyway, the San Antonio Express-News is reporting today that the creationists have asked the Coordinating Board to delay a final decision on its request until April, to "do justice to the concerns (the board) raised." In other words, they do not have the votes to get the program approved. So count on THECB board members getting importuned for the next three months to either approve the program or face eternal damnation in hell.

Denocratic Candidates Debate In Nevada

8:00 p.m. -- Chuck Todd and Keith Olbermann have a long talk about the "truce" between Barack and Hillary -- that they will tamp down efforts to make race an issue in the campaign. Todd speculates that race will come up, even though the candidates want to keep it down. Then Tim Russert starts off by asking a half dozen questions about race. Sheesh.

8:05 -- John Edwards talking about growing up in segregated in North Carolina. He looks to young to remember lunch counter sit-ins, Freedom Rides and the like.

8:12 -- Russert STILL asking about race as an issue in the campaign! Get a grip, Tim!

8:18 -- Brian Williams asking about The Tears and The Diss -- Obama's comment that Hillary "is likable enough." Obama govels a little. Maybe we could get to some real issues soon, Brian ...

8:24 -- Russert: Hillary, do you regret saying that you're not sure Barack Obama is ready to lead? FTW!?! Can we talk about any issues now? Or even talk about character, by which I mean something besides what one of the kids said during recess. Yeesh ...

8:35 -- Taking a break in the two-hour debate. Brian Williams promises questions about the economy after the break. That would be good -- 30 minutes and nothing substantive yet.

9:00 -- They're finally talking policy, but the overall questioning and answering is so light and fluffy that I am getting bored. Wait, what's this? "The Office" is starting on TBS? See ya ...

Mitt Romney Is The New Al Checchi

Remember Al Checchi? He ran for Governor of California back in the 1990s. He was smart, good-looking, charismatic and immensely wealthy. He spent a gazillion dollars and lost overwhelmingly to Gray Davis.


Mitt Romney, the venture capitalist-turned-Massachusetts Governor-turned-Olympics CEO, has spent millions of his own money in his quest for the presidency. Like Checchi, the essence of his argument is that he's "the CEO" -- a business executive who can bring his executive savvy and hard-driving leadership to solve the problems of government.


At least, that's the way he packaged himself when he first announced his candidacy. Then he released Romney 2.0, morphing into the Reincarnation of Ronald Reagan, wrapping himself in the Gipper's Girdle of Nostalgic GOP-ism while the party wandered in the desert. For many Republicans, Reagan evokes the Glory Days of a new, radical worldview that was going to reshape a bloated federal government and an American foreign policy that has lost its way in the world.


The problem is, where Reagan gave lip service, Bush gave results, and with catastrophic results -- arrogant and bloody foreign policy, bloated but ineffective governance, and contentious and contemptuous civic strife.


Now, with his political future hanging in the balance in Michigan, Romney is releasing Romney 3.0, focusing on economic issues and a "Washington is Broken" theme over the previous pandering to the Religious Right.


Will it work? It's too early to tell. Early polls give him a slight lead over McCain and Huckabee, but last week two of the state's largest newspapers, the Detroit News and the Detroit Free Press, both endorsed McCain.


Maybe Romney 3.0 will end up being the same as Checchi 1.0.

Michael, Shh. Um, Michael, Cool It. Jeez, Michael, SHUT UP!

If I were Barack Obama, that's what I would have been saying, and eventually screaming, at the TV last night. Michael Eric Dyson appeared on Hardball with Chris Matthews last night as a "Barack Obama supporter" and, in my judgment, hurt his candidate's cause.

First, he referred to the incident where Hillary Clinton choked up a little while talking to voters on Monday as "The Crying Game," explicitly tying it to the 1992 Neil Jordan film. What was THAT supposed to mean?

Then he attributed Obama's loss to the Bradley Effect -- that white voters will tell pollsters they intend to vote for a black candidate but then vote for a different candidate once inside the booth. Of course, the Bradley Effect may or may not explain the gap between the polls showing Obama a lock in New Hampshire and his actual narrow loss to Hillary Clinton. It does not explain why New Hampshire voters actually preferred Clinton over Obama.

So, Dyson had a theory about that: "New Hampshire voters, after seeing Obama's swagger, so to speak, from his confidence because of his Iowa victory, may have rejected him, repudiated him, or at least had second thoughts about pulling the level, so to speak, for a black man."

White people scared of a black man's "swagger?" If I'd have said that, I am sure I'd be criticized, and deservedly so. Dyson went on to say that race was definitely a part of the calculus that people use in deciding to vote, but then fought with fellow panelist Pat Buchanan over whether his race was part of his appeal, for instance, to African Americans. In summary, Dyson was arguing that if people do not like Obama, it's because of race; if they like him, it has nothing to do with race. How does that make sense?

Then, Matthews played the video of Clinton's "verklempt" moment and Dyson was off to the races. Clearly enraged, he fulminated against what he perceived as her race-tinged arrogance:

... now Hillary Clinton, through her noblesse oblige, implying that some people get it right, some people get it wrong -- through her tears, she is really expressing a horrendous viewpoint. That is, that she has a kind of copyright on what the goodness of the country should be and therefore Barack Obama has somehow been excluded. ...

All I'm suggesting is that, even through her tears, the sentiment that was being expressed ... is to suggest that "I am the only person. I'm gonna get it right, he's gonna get it wrong," and there's an implicit racial subtext there. There's a racial subtext there: Don't let a black man run this country. ...

"Rolling the dice," "playing loose and fast" -- I am suggesting that those are code words that black people are used to when people are trying to suggest to somebody that they're not quite able to step up to the plate.

Watch the Hardball segment here and see what you think.

Here's my point: One of the reasons Obama has been as successful as he has been -- think of it: the first African American presidential candidate who has a real shot at the nomination and even the Presidency -- has been the "post-racial" quality of his candidacy. He has asserted his heritage as a proud part of his identity, but not suggested it should entitle him to any different treatment.

Now we see surrogates -- Dyson and Congressman Jesse Jackson in a bizarre interview with Norah O'Donnell -- suggesting that voting for Obama, or against Hillary, ought to be ALL ABOUT RACE. I don't think this is good for the presidential race, and I certainly don't think it is wise for the Obama campaign.

Creationism In Higher Education, Part Duh

Ralph K.M. Haurwitz has a story in today's Austin American-Statesman about the controversy over the Dallas-based Institute for Creation Research's effort to certify a master's degree program in science education -- by which they mean teaching creationism. I've already written about an interesting Texas Observer post about the internal Coordinating Board politics of the issue.

According to the article, the school's bylaws

show that students and faculty members are required to believe that humans did not evolve from animals but were created in fully human form from the start, that God created all physical and living things in the universe in six days, and that anyone who rejects Jesus Christ will be consigned to "everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels."

If people want to believe that, that is fine. If you want to teach it to your children, that is fine. But let's not call it science.

There's another quote in the story that bothers me. Attempting to justify the Institute's program, its science education department chair Patricia Nason said, according to Haurwitz, "that most students wind up teaching at Christian schools but that they learn about evolution and are qualified to teach in public schools."

Wait a minute. I went to Christian (Catholic) schools. I always thought that, although private schools are not subsidized by the state, they have to be accredited in order to offer diplomas. Does TEA (which may not be the accrediting agency, but which decides which diplomas will be recognized) actually allow children to graduate from high school in Texas who've been taught that the world was created in six 24-hour days and evolution is a Satanic hoax?

I guess I've assumed that, public or private, eleemysonary (fancy word for K-12) schools in Texas had to offer a relatively standardized curriculum. 2+2=4, not 5, and all that. They can additionally offer religious instruction (which I received), but when it comes to readin', writin' and 'rithmetic, they gotta keep it in the middle of the fairway.

Don't Take New Hampshire For Granite

Hillary Clinton's victory in the New Hampshire Democratic primary was a surprise to everyone, including, apparently, Hillary Clinton. Tim Russert said last night on MSNBC that the Clinton people had told him that morning that they had internal polling showing her between 9 and 11 points down. Their hope for the day was that they could keep their loss to Obama within single digits.

Instead, she won a tight race, garnering 39% over Obama's 37% and Edwards's 17%. It truly is a startling turnaround for the Clinton campaign, which was in a tailspin after their unexpected loss to Obama in Iowa last week. By yesterday morning, there was open talk about bringing in new (or, better put, old) blood like James Carville and Paul Begala -- although both Carville and Begala have denied it. (Begala quoted something he says to his four boys: "NHD -- not happening, dude.")

I am not naive enough to think they're not going back to the campaign just because they said so, but certainly the urgency of a shakeup is diminished this morning. Mark Penn, the campaign manager who was widely criticized (including by Bill Clinton) for his "Obama: Where's The Bounce?" memo just last weekend, is probably smiling today.

The question on everyone's mind is, how did the polls and the pundits get it so wrong? What happened between the time the pollsters hung up their phones and the voters pulled their levers? Remember, even the Clintons' internal polls showed her losing.

The most colorful theory I've heard yet comes from Pam Spaulding over at Pandagon, who has postulated the Tweety Effect -- "where the misogyny of a talking head in the MSM so enrages a demographic that they go out and vote in a manner that will put egg on the face of the talking head." The Tweety Effect is named for MSNBC "Hardball" anchor Chris Matthews.

It'll be interesting to see the post-mortems over the next week or so on why the media got it so wrong. By the way, there was an interesting exchange last night between Matthews and NBS eminence grise Tom Brokaw where Brokaw implicitly scolded Matthews for this "Tweety-ness." Or maybe explicitly. Read for yourself (and thanks to Digby at Hullabaloo for the transcript):

BROKAW: You know what I think we’re going to have to do?

MATTHEWS: Yes, sir?

BROKAW: Wait for the voters to make their judgment.

MATTHEWS: Well what do we do then in the days before the ballot? We must stay home, I guess.

BROKAW: No, no, we don’t stay home. There are reasons to analyze what they’re saying. We know from how the people voted today, what moved them to vote. You can take a look at that. There are a lot of issues that have not been fully explored during all this.

But we don’t have to get in the business of making judgments before the polls have closed. And trying to stampede in effect the process.

Look, I’m not just picking on us, it’s part of the culture in which we live these days. I think that the people out there are going to begin to make judgments about us if we don’t begin to temper that temptation to constantly try to get ahead of what the voters are deciding, in many cases, as we learned in New Hampshire when they went into the polling booth today or in the last three days. They were making decisions very late.

Here's their colloquy:

In any case, we apparently still have an actual contest for the Democratic nomination, which is good for the party and for the nation. Lots of entertainment value, too!

Creationism In Higher Education, Too?

Forrest Wilder over at The Texas Observer has published an excellent post about how officials at the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board put their thumb on the scale in asking for an "independent" review of the Institute for Creation Research's effort to accredit a master's in science education program. In essence, they asked the review team to ignore the absence of scientific merit in deciding whether to approve a master's program in, that's right, science education.

Wilder's post is well-written and terrifying, raising the prospect that THECB staff will allow the ludicrous and counter-productive debate over evolution, which has plagued the Texas Education Agency for years (and still does), into the ivy towers of academe as well. This, as Daffy Duck would say, is a revolting development.

KOOP Fire Is Suspected Arson

News 8 Austin and other outlets are reporting that unnamed Austin Fire Department are saying that the fire that damaged KOOP's studios this weekend was caused by arson. KOOP leaders have cautioned that AFD has not given them any official ruling, and encouraged people to wait for a final determination. Whatever the fire's cause, the station remains off the air indefinitely.

KOOP (pronounced co-op) is Austin community radio station. Its mission is to provide an alternative voice for underserved elements of the community. It's a non-profit organization largely run by volunteers. It has been on the air for thirteen years.

Two years ago, a pair of fires destroyed KOOP's studios on Fifth Street. The station was back on the air quickly, broadcasting from the KMFA studios on Lamar for a while before settling in at their new digs on Airport Boulevard in late 2006.

The non-commercial station is dependent on its volunteers and on community support. Stay tuned for more on the station's rebuilding efforts.

KOOP Burns -- Again

KOOP is the community radio station here in Austin. (Trivia: actually, because of issues with obscure FCC rules, KOOP is identified as being from "Hornsby," a small community outside Austin.) KOOP has been in business for thirteen years, pretty much as an all-volunteer operation. Although there's a small paid staff, most of the programmers, technicians, fundraisers, etc. are volunteers. I signed up as a volunteer this fall, partly to support their work and partly to get my own radio show. As anyone who knows me is aware, I have a face made for radio.

In early 2006, KOOP had damaged by two fires at its downtown Austin location. The first occurred in the studios on January 6 (two years ago today) and knocked the station off the air for five days. The second occurred in early February, starting at a nightclub next door and destroying three buildings, including the one in which KOOP was housed.

After an uncertain period during which it broadcast from the KMFA studios on North Lamar (near McBride's Gun Shop and the conveniently next-door funeral home), KOOP moved to a new location on Airport Boulevard about a year ago. They built a new, state-of-the-art broadcasting studio, and were working on a second studio where shows and actualities could be produced. They also were rebuilding their music collection.

Today comes the bad news that a fire this morning seriously damaged the new location, knocking out the broadcast studio indefinitely. I am sure KOOP will recover from this, but it may take some time.

Weak

Al Edwards, who was a mediocre, if colorful, member of the Texas House of Representatives for too long, wants his old job back. Edwards represented a predominantly African American district in central Houston for 26 years, and was defeated in the 2006 Democratic primary by businessman Borris Miles.

Edwards sent out an email laying out the case for his candidacy. His case? In short: he wants to keep his district from going to the Republicans (after all, the district only gave Maria Luisa Alarado 67% of the vote against David Dewhurst in 2006), he invented Juneteenth, and he wants to protect the people of his district from eminent domain. Seriously. Check out his website for more of his salutary accomplishments. My favorite part: his bio calls him "Former Texas Honorable Al Edwards." Former?

Oddly enough, he neglects to mention his critical role in protecting Texans from sexy cheerleading, which he identified as the cause of the most of the state's ills, including "the herpes" and AIDS. His efforts were covered by the national media, including this memorable segment from The Daily Show With Jon Stewart:



He also neglected to mention that he was a Craddick D. I wonder if he'll bring that up in his campaign?

Happy New Year 2008!

As I have for the last several years, I spent New Year's Eve out in Marathon, Texas, hanging out with a great group of friends and ringing in the new year with fellowship, food, drink and music. Base camp, as usual, was at Ty and Kate Fain's wonderful home in SoMar (South Marathon).

It was cold out there. How cold was it? Check out the fountain in the courtyard of Ty and Kate's home.