The role of political reporters

Glenn Greenwald takes another look at what’s wrong with the boys and girls on the bus:

But I’m not focusing on the accuracy of horse-race predictions here, but instead, the on the fact that the traveling press corps endlessly imposes its own narrative on the election, thereby completely excluding from all coverage plainly credible candidates they dislike (such as Edwards) while breathlessly touting the prospects of the candidates with whom they are enamored. Their predictions (i.e., preferences and love affairs) so plainly drive their press coverage — the candidates they love are lauded as likely winners while the ones they hate are ignored or depicted as collapsing — which in turn influences the election in the direction they want it, making their predictions become self-fulfilling prophecies.

It’s just all a completely inappropriate role for political reporters to play, yet it composes virtually the entirety of their election coverage.

Best line of the day, so far

“Still, my faith in the Internet’s information democracy wilted with I once suggested to a friend facing eviction that we Google ‘renter’s rights’ to learn his options, and watched him type in ‘rinters kicked out.'”

Joe Bageant in Deer Hunting with Jesus: Dispatches from America’s Class War.

NewMexiKen is three-quarters through Bageant’s book, which I first mentioned here last week. It’s readable, revealing and important, a good compliment to Barbara Ehrenreich’s classic Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America.

Bageant returned to his hometown of Winchester, Virginia, after being away for 30 years. There he learned that his family and friends — the people he grew up with, went to school with, hunted with — are fast becoming a permanent American underclass. He writes of these people with honesty and disdain, but mostly with respect, humor and love — and a lot of important insight.

If Your Hard Drive Could Testify

From an article in The New York Times:

The search was not unusual: the government contends that it is perfectly free to inspect every laptop that enters the country, whether or not there is anything suspicious about the computer or its owner. Rummaging through a computer’s hard drive, the government says, is no different than looking through a suitcase.

One federal appeals court has agreed, and a second seems ready to follow suit.

Verrrry Interesting

From a more detailed discussion at Group News Blog:

Executive = Declarations: bring forth, generate something new, lead.
Manager = Requests: please do x by time y with condition of satisfaction z.
Worker = Promises: deliver competent performance in a domain, over and over.

And never the twain shall meet.

Let’s walk it back to our Presidential candidates.

One speaks in declarations, inspires, leads.
The second requests you elect him to fix problems, lobbies for a change so he can fix the system.
The third talks of her competence and experience, promises she will do what she’s always done, and has the policy plans and papers to prove it.

Leader. Manager. Worker.

Link via Discourse.net (Michael Froomkin)

Sled Town U.S.A.

SILVERTON — Snow-covered vehicles sit neglected on a minus-2-degree morning as Becky Joyce glides past gazebo-size downtown snowbanks and parks her sled outside the Avalanche coffee shop. Five more just like it sit nearby.

“This is such a kick, and it’s so efficient. We rarely drive our cars,” the part-time nurse says as she hops off and joins other sled commuters already inside sipping steamy drinks.

While Coloradans elsewhere might curse the inconvenience of snow-slicked roads, here in what could be called Sled Town U.S.A., hardy residents look forward to the Thanksgiving-to-mid-March snowpacked streets.

Folks glide to work, to the grocery store, to school, to the taverns and to the ice rink, turning this remote San Juan Mountains community into a throwback to a simpler era and a counterpoint to the chic, SUV-clogged resort towns.

The Denver Post

Annual Silverton snowfall: 12½ feet.

He Can’t Vote

Jill, official oldest daughter of NewMexiKen, reports that somehow, Guiliani has gotten to the four year olds.

I was watching the video of Obama’s victory speech [Thursday] night and I got a little misty. Aidan came in and wanted to know what was up. I explained that pretty soon Georgie Bush wouldn’t be president anymore, and other people were trying to be president, including this guy, Obama. I said that I like him because he believes we need to help people and change things in the USA.

Aidan cocked his head and asked, “Will he keep us safe?”

El día de Reyes

La celebración en la cual los niños reciben los juguetes no es sino hasta el 6 de enero, “el día de Reyes” o Los Reyes Magos. Fueron los Reyes Magos quienes le llevaron los regalos al Niño Jesús, por consiguiente, son ellos quienes traen los regalos a los niños y a las niñas que se han portado bien. Los niños ponen sus zapatos cerca de la ventana para que los Reyes Magos le pongan el regalo en su zapato. Si el regalo es más grande que el zapato, entonces lo ponen al lado. Varios niños reciben un par de zapatos (calzado) nuevo como regalo.

El día Reyes se celebra con una merienda que consiste de chocolate caliente y la Rosca de Reyes La merienda se lleva a cabo entre las 5 y las 7 de la tarde y no es una comida pesada, sino algo así como lo equivalente al “High Tea”.

La Rosca de Reyes es un pan en forma de guirnalda que está hecha con muchos huevos y es muy grande, está cubierta con frutas cristalizadas y azúcar encima, pero adentro hay una figurita de cerámica que representa al Niño Jesús. La persona a la que le toque la pieza del pan con la figurita, tiene que ser el Padrino o la Madrina del Niño Jesus en el Día de la Candelaria, el dos de Febrero.

Mexican Traditions for Christmas

More info here.

Today is the wedding anniversary

… of George and Martha Washington, married on this date in 1759.

… of George and Barbara Bush, married on this date in 1945.

George and Martha had no children (she had two surviving children from her previous marriage).

Alas, George and Barbara did have children.

Epiphany

Today is the Epiphany, one of the three major Christian celebrations along with Christmas and Easter. The Epiphany is celebrated by most Christians on January 6 to commemorate the presentation of the infant Jesus to the Magi or three wise men.

The celebration of the Epiphany began in the Eastern Church and included Christ’s birth. However, by the 4th century, the various calendar reforms had moved the birth of Christ to December 25, and the church in Rome began celebrating January 6 as Epiphany.

Epiphany is derived from the Greek epiphaneia and means manifestation or to appear. In a religious context, the term describes the appearance of a divine being in a visible or revelatory manifestation.

In Latin America, today is Día de los Santos Reyes, the day to exchange Christmas presents to coincide with the arrival of the three gift-bearing kings or wisemen.

Adoration of the Magi

Fra Angelico and Filippo Lippi
The Adoration of the Magi, c. 1445
Samuel H. Kress Collection
National Gallery of Art

MVP

Tom Brady has been elected the NFL’s most valuable player for the 2007 season. He received 49 of 50 votes.

Some cheesehead voted for Brett Favre.

Heroes

First posted here two years ago today:

Mack, official oldest grandchild of NewMexiKen, watched much of the Rose Bowl with his mother Wednesday night. Here’s the story as told by his mother, Jill:

The honorary marshal came onto the field, before the game, to flip the coin. I saw that it was Sandra Day O’Connor.

I said, “Oh, Mack, that is one of my heroes.”

“Why?”

I referenced conversations we’ve had in the past, “You know how we’ve talked about how, for thousands of years, men got to be in charge of everything and women didn’t get to do lots of things?” (Mack has a fairly solid background knowledge in this stuff, at least for a five-year-old boy.)

“Yes, like how they couldn’t vote or have a house or do lots of jobs?”

“Right. Well one job they didn’t get to do was be a judge. A judge gets to decide the laws for all the people to follow. It’s a really important job. Well, that lady was the first woman who got to be a judge. So she is one of Mommy’s heroes.” (Not strictly accurate, I know.)

Mack looked at me for a minute, then said, “Then she is one of my heroes, too.”

My heart melted. I put my arms out for a hug, so proud of my brilliant, sensitive child.

He continued, “Yes. Also Batman.”

I’m told I’m fickle

And I guess I am. I preferred Bill Richardson for the Democratic nomination. He is the strongest anti-war candidate and I still believe he is the most experienced, if experience matters. But his campaigning has been ineffective, downright embarrassing at moments, the opposite of what a candidate running on experience needed to demonstrate.

Then I wasn’t sure about Obama or Edwards. I was influenced considerably by Paul Krugman’s negative take on Obama, that the Senator is too conciliatory, that he is, for pete’s sake, using Republican talking points at times. I thought this post at Corrente was valid. But I had liked Obama’s The Audacity of Hope very much.

Edwards clearly is the strongest on domestic issues, and arguably has pushed his fellow Democrats in the correct directions — universal health insurance, for example. But Edwards just can’t seem to get real traction.

I admire Hillary Clinton. Perhaps she should have been running for office all along instead of Bill. But I don’t want another Clinton. The 90s are over; I don’t care for the country to relive them.

So my loyalties have been changing; I have been fickle. I may continue to be fickle. But today …

January 5th

Robert Duvall was born in San Diego 77 years ago today. Duvall won the best actor Oscar for his portrayl of Mac Sledge in Tender Mercies in 1983. Among other characters he has portrayed are Boo Radley, Frank Burns, Tom Hagen, Lt. Col. William ‘Bill’ Kilgore, Bull Meechum and the unforgettable Augustus McCrae.

Umberto Eco is 76 today.

Eco had never written any fiction, but the idea intrigued him, so he told the publisher that he would work on something. He got the idea of a murder mystery set in the Middle Ages, and he wrote about a Franciscan friar who stumbles upon a series of interrelated deaths in the Italian abbey he is visiting. He filled the book with the history of the 14th century, as well as philosophy and theology. He also used every trick he’d ever learned from studying detective novels and spy movies to create his protagonist, William of Baskerville.

When Eco finished the novel, titled The Name of the Rose, he thought that his publishers were being way too optimistic when they ordered 30,000 copies to be printed. But when it came out in 1980, The Name of the Rose sold 2 million copies.

The Writer’s Almanac from American Public Media

Charlie Rose is 66 today.

Diane Keaton was born in Los Angeles 62 years ago today. Keaton won the best actress Oscar for her portrayal of Annie Hall in 1977. She has had three other Oscar nominations. She has never married but has adopted two children. Her real name is Diane Hall; she changed to Keaton, her mother’s maiden name, because there was already a Diane Hall in the Actor’s Guild.

Marilyn Manson is 39.

On the twelfth day of Christmas

Though advertisers and merchants would have us believe that the Christmas season begins at Thanksgiving (or possibly Halloween), liturgically it begins on Christmas Eve and extends until Twelfth Night, the eve of the Epiphany.

The Twelve Days of Christmas are Christmas through January 5th. Tonight is Twelfth night.

The $5 day

As The New York Times reported on this date in 1914:

Henry Ford, head of the Ford Motor Company, announced…one of the most remarkable business moves of his entire remarkable career. In brief it is:

To give to the employees of the company $10,000,000 of the profits of the 1914 business, the payments to be made semi-monthly and added to the pay checks.

To run the factory continuously instead of only eighteen hours a day, giving employment to several thousand more men by employing three shifts of eight hours each, instead of only two nine-hour shifts, as at present.

To establish a minimum wage scale of $5 per day. Even the boy who sweeps up the floors will get that much.

Before any man in any department of the company who does not seem to be doing good work shall be discharged, an opportunity will be given to him to try to make good in every other department. No man shall be discharged except for proved unfaithfulness or irremediable inefficiency.

Read the complete Times article.

What’s the rush?

President Harry S. Truman, 59 years ago today in his State of the Union Address:

We must spare no effort to raise the general level of health in this country. In a nation as rich as ours, it is a shocking fact that tens of millions lack adequate medical care. We are short of doctors, hospitals, nurses. We must remedy these shortages. Moreover, we need–and we must have without further delay–a system of prepaid medical insurance which will enable every American to afford good medical care.