Happy Birthday

Here's a shout out to the first-ever mp3 player:

The first MP3 player celebrates its 10th birthday. Odds are, you take your iPod or Zune for granted. You probably don't think about the crazy technological advancements we've made, but take a 10-year look back at the world's first MP3 player -- the MPMan F10 -- and you'll get a sense of just how far we've come. 

Manufactured by Korea's Saehan Information Systems, the device was launched in March of 1998 at CeBIT, and went on sale in the Summer through Eiger Labs for $250. The player featured 32MB of flash memory (which could be upgraded to 64MB via mail-in scheme), connected to PCs via parallel port, and had a miniscule LCD for playback info -- but it laid the groundwork for the tech we have today. Following the MPMan's release, Rio unleashed its PMP300, which received a warmer reception and all-but eclipsed the F10's status as "first" amongst players, likely due to the company's well-known (and groundbreaking) legal battle against the RIAA. 

Still, first is first, so help keep the MPMan's rich history alive, and celebrate its 10-year anniversary this month with campfire songs and story-telling. Check out the archived read link of the original Eiger Labs site for a wild and wacky trip through time.

Race & Gender Minefields

One of the more fascinating and embarrassing aspects of this primary is watching the fissures within Democratic party, and among liberals in general, get exposed, particularly along racial and gender lines. 

I've already written fairly extensively about the race-baiting that's gone on in the race. (Many charges have appeared since SC that have been such stretches of interpretation that I haven't bothered commenting.)

Well, recently I've been considering a post or three about the fractures within the feminist community about whether voting for Obama is a betrayal of the sisterhood. But, honestly, I've just had too much to work with for this medium (well over 40 articles to reference) and I gave up on the idea. 

Well, never mind that. This week we've got a two-fer. To wit:

Geraldine Ferraro, former representative of NY and the first woman to run on a major party ticket, has managed to step in it recently, getting caught playing both the race card and the sexism card.

First reports came in that she said this:

If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman (of any color) he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept.

Now, leave aside the absurdity of the statement for a sec. I can kind of see what she was getting at. I mean he's an exciting charismatic politician who is also black and stands a real chance at getting elected president. Maybe he wouldn't be enjoying as much press if he were a white guy. 

On the other hand, this is the U.S. Obama is a black man whose name is Barack Hussein Obama. This is lucky? C'mon. What Ferraro fails to see in her frustration is that his "luck" is really an uncanny ability to overcome the huge obstacle of his name and skin color.

Anyway, Obama's camp responded thus: 

"They should be denounced, and she should be censured by the campaign for them," Axelrod said of Ferraro's remarks. If Clinton's campaign does nothing, Axelrod said during a call with reporters, they are reinforcing a politics-as-usual approach.

"They ought to set a tone and do what we've done when people have said things not in keeping with what is the spirit of our campaign," he said, adding, "the bottom line is this when you wink and nod at offensive statemens you really send a signal to your supporters that anything goes."

To which Ferraro responded: 

Right off the bat some fellow bloggers began labeling her a racist, unfairly to my mind. That's a pretty nasty charge to level at someone, especially when they're speaking off the cuff.

Well, it turns out she wasn't speaking off the cuff. She'd made similar comments a week earlier to Fox skeeve, John Gibson, which suggests to me that it was a talking point:

Meantime, the Clinton camp released this down-is-up statement: 

[W]e reject these false, personal and politically calculated attacks on the eve of a primary. This campaign should be about the leadership we need for a better future and these attacks serve only to divide the Democratic Party and the American people.

That's right, Obama's dividing the American people by playing the race card. 

But wait, there's more.

It turns out that Ferraro made virtually the exact same argument back in 1988 about Jesse Jackson's candidacy:

"If Jesse Jackson were not black, he wouldn't be in the race," she said.

Really. The cite is an April 15, 1988 Washington Post story, available only on Nexis. Here's the full context:

Placid of demeanor but pointed in his rhetoric, Jackson struck out repeatedly today against those who suggest his race has been an asset in the campaign. President Reagan suggested Tuesday that people don't ask Jackson tough questions because of his race. And former representative Geraldine A. Ferraro (D-N.Y.) said Wednesday that because of his "radical" views, "if Jesse Jackson were not black, he wouldn't be in the race."

Asked about this at a campaign stop in Buffalo, Jackson at first seemed ready to pounce fiercely on his critics. But then he stopped, took a breath, and said quietly, "Millions of Americans have a point of view different from" Ferraro's.

Discussing the same point in Washington, Jackson said, "We campaigned across the South . . . without a single catcall or boo. It was not until we got North to New York that we began to hear this from Koch, President Reagan and then Mrs. Ferraro . . . . Some people are making hysteria while I'm making history."

Wow. 

Still I'm somewhat inclined to give Ferraro a pass because as racist comments go these are pretty tame. I think in her mind she's merely describing the reality on the ground. (Trouble is, of course, the ground has shifted.) And as she mentioned, she has worked against discrimination in her past. 

It seems to me that what we're seeing is a more deeply rooted, almost latent, soft racism that's being flushed out in this campaign (it's happening too with sexism, less latently). One that I think people of an older generation are actually blind to. 

Ultimately, I think that these clashes over racism and sexism are healthy; good things to get out into the open and explore, despite feelings getting hurt. Really, it's absurd to think that most Obama supporters are sexist and that most Clinton supporters are racists. But some of these claims are valid and they shouldn't be dismissed. Because we're all human after all, and we often surprise even ourselves when repellent thoughts or ideas get flushed out in stressful situations. 

Update: Irritated and defensive, Ferraro had this to say: 

"Any time anybody does anything that in any way pulls this campaign down and says let's address reality and the problems we're facing in this world, you're accused of being racist, so you have to shut up," Ferraro said. "Racism works in two different directions. I really think they're attacking me because I'm white. How's that?"

Yeesh.

Update II: Project And Project Again.

She also said she is familiar with Axelrod from his work for minority candidates in New York. "He knows damn well that the best thing to do in a situation like this is to come back and hit with race," Ferraro said, adding that the response is a sign that the Obama campaign is "worried" about the first-term senator's lack of experience.

Update III: My Victimization Is Worse Than Yours.

She also echoed remarks of feminist leaders like Gloria Steinem, who argued in the New York Times that Obama would not have succeeded if he were a woman because gender is "the most restricting force in American life."

"Sexism is a bigger problem," Ferraro argued. "It's OK to be sexist in some people's minds. It's not OK to be racist."

Another Win…

…that doesn't count. Right?

Obama Gets Bent

Watch more DIY videos on 5min.com

Geek Chorus

Maybe I was wrong yesterday when I wrote this about the perils of dehumanizing opponents. Maybe she is evil.* What else could possibly explain this below?

Matt Yglesias might be onto something, though, and it's a scary fucking thought:

Everytime I see something painfully lame done on Clinton's behalf, I think she just might ultimately win this thing. At the end of the day, the United States is a pretty tacky middlebrow kind of country.

* For the record, that's a joke.

Another 3 A.M. Ad?

Snap.

It's 3 a.m. The phone rings. Hillary Rodham Clinton picks it up.

"Yes?"

"Hillary, it's Silda Wall Spitzer.* Sorry to call so late. Eliot's still not home. Based on your experience, what should I do?"

* If by some strange miracle you haven't heard about NY Gov. Eliot Spitzer, here's the story.

He Ear-ned It

Election Myth '08

Here's an interesting little tidbit of counterintuitive information from Chris Bowers at OpenLeft: 

Reductive Thinking About The Nomination Campaign
More people over the age of 60 have voted for Barack Obama than people under 30. More people in Generation X have voted for Barack Obama than people over the age of 60. And more Boomers have voted for Obama than Generation Xers. In other words, Obama has received fewer votes from Generation Y than from any other generation in this nomination campaign.

Fewer than half of Hillary Clinton's votes have come from white women.
Barack Obama has received about 60% more votes from whites than he has from African-Americans.

And there is more, too, including that nearly 40% of pledged delegates from caucuses and conventions have gone to a candidate other than Barack Obama. While I still think it is possible to predict how somehow will vote in the primary with reasonable accuracy once a complete psychographic profile of that person is developed, it is a lot more complex than the simplistic and reductivist "young voters" or "white women" arguments that are being thrown around. There are literally dozens of factors at play, not just age, gender, and race / ethnicity.

Heh

The Sexies

Dan Savage will be one of the judges for a new award given to sex-positive journalism. Here's his brief description. 

NOW FOR A LITTLE SEX-POSITIVE JOURNALISM: Recently, the sex-negative journalism of Kandiss Crone of WLBT News in Jackson, Mississippi, annoyed me so much that I urged readers to send Crone angry e-mails and, er, used sex toys. Perhaps I went a little overboard. Crone isn't the only "journalist" out there doing idiotic, sex-negative work. Fact is, most of what gets written and published about sex is negative and sensationalistic.

This sad state of affairs inspired the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom, the Center for Sex & Culture, Babeland, and journalist Miriam Axel-Lute to launch the Sex-Positive Journalism Awards. By drawing attention to good, sex-positive reporting, the "Sexies" hope to promote fair, accurate, and nonsensationalized coverage of sexual topics.

"The fact that sex-positive journalism is so rare means we need the help of all of you readers out there to help us turn up those gems of good, objective, sex-positive reporting," says Axel-Lute. "Especially in mainstream sources." I'm proud to have been asked to serve as a judge for the first annual Sex-Positive Journalism Awards. The deadline for submissions for the first annual "Sexies" is March 23, 2008. (The piece must have been published during 2007.) Anyone can submit a piece for consideration at the "Sexies" website: www.sexies.org. 

A Provocative Question

Before I answer, let me consult my chart. :)

Should Scientists Date People Who Believe in Astrology?
While searching for a soulmate on several online dating sites, I caught myself disregarding anyone who professed their belief in astrology.

At roughly the same time, a friend called my attention to this clip from The Big Bang Theory, which thoroughly picks astrological superstition apart. Am I being too hard on my New Age counterparts?

In my book, astrology is a silly shortcut for understanding how the world works, but so is judging people by their spiritual beliefs.

Scientists are sometimes guilty of using ridiculous heuristics too! For example, principal investigators sometimes hire graduate students based on grades and standardized test scores rather than their ability to work well in a laboratory.

Many brilliant people, including Nobel Laureate Kary Mullis, believe rather strange things. One of the chapters in his autobiography, Dancing Naked in the Mind Field, bears the title: I am a Capricorn.

Also, I suspect that if someone took a poll of obsessive compulsive scientists, and there are plenty of those, they would be amazed by how many ridiculous beliefs the otherwise rational scholars secretly harbor.

Well, duh. Anyway, the clip is pretty amusing:

I Think You Know What Time It Is…

It looks like Wednesday night to me.

Ba-Bam!

"I don’t know how somebody who is in second place is offering the Vice Presidency to the person who is in first place. I mean. I am just wondering. I am just wondering. If I was in second place I could understand it, but I am in first place right now."

Feel The Love

This classy quote comes from Clinton surrogate and former veep candidate, Geraldine Ferraro (you remember her, right, the first woman ever on a major party ticket):

If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman (of any color) he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept.

h/t: DailyKos

On Dehumanization

I happened upon a PBS documentary of Marie Antoinette last night. It was fascinating and brought the woman and her era to life in a fascinating and instructive way. Toward the end of Louis XVI's reign, but before the revolution, the press started vilifying Marie in incredibly nasty ways: calling her a harlot, illustrating political cartoons with her as a monstrous beast, etc., etc. The fury these whipped up, combined a host of other historical factors, led to the end of their reign and her death by guillotine. 

I bring this up because much what I saw in the documentary last night reminded me of the highly-emotional attacks on Hillary Clinton that have surfaced—especially recently—many of which are beyond the pale.

Like many liberals, I began this election season feeling that regardless of who won the Democratic nomination, I'd be happy to pull the lever. I had a slight preference for Obama, but could envision voting for Clinton. That has changed dramatically since January, however. I've since become full-throated in my opposition to Clinton and in my support for Obama. In my judgment, many of Clinton's campaign tactics have been unforgivable—especially against another Democrat. She has crossed lines that I just can't accept. Furthermore, I just think she'd be a terrible general election candidate. That said, I've done my best to keep my opposition based on issues, record, and character assessments. 

Emotions are high, of course, and things get said in the heat of the moment that are regretted later. But still, it's incumbent upon us to not dehumanize our opponents, regardless of how vociferously we disagree with them. (Yes, DeLay, Rumsfeld, and Cheney, et al., make this difficult, but we're strong, we can do it.)

Just my two cents. 

Perspective

Well, it turns out that Obama's worst week since voting began in January—his week from hell, as some have dubbed it—wasn't all that bad a week after all. Despite Ohio's poor judgment (he actually won more delegates in TX so I give him that victory despite what the MSM says), he ended the week with 7 more delegates than Clinton. I'll let Kos explain:

Obama's "Bad" Week

So CW is that last week was the "week from hell" for Obama, and given that he could've closed this thing out and didn't, we can stipulate that it could've been better. But let's see just how horrible the week was:

Per Obama's count (if Clinton had a similar count, I'll happily link to it), Obama started last week with 1,203 delegates, Clinton with 1,043. Since then:

      Obama  Clinton
OH   66         75
RI     8          13
VT    9          6
TX    99        94
WY   7          5

Total 189      193

So that's a four-delegate gain for Clinton.

But that wasn't all. Obama also picked up three more super delegates last Tuesday -- Texas Democratic Party Vice Chair Roy Laverne Brooks, DNC member Mary Long of Georgia and South Carolina Democratic Party Chair Carol Fowler.

That pegs things at 192-193 for the week.

And then on Saturday, Obama provided material help in Bill Foster's dramatic upset victory in IL-14, filming an ad and sending hundreds of volunteers into the district. The Republicans had John McCain campaign for the Republican candidate, yet still lost proving that Obama 1) is more focused on party building and down-ballot races than the Clinton campaign (where was she?), 2) that he could out-battle McCain in the first proxy battle of the season, and 3) that he's got some serious coattails.

Oh, and Bill Foster is now a super delegate and repaid Obama's largesse by promising him his vote.

So yes, Obama has some serious message issues to deal with and a shaken campaign to right. But where it matters -- in the delegate race -- Obama ended his week from hell TIED with Clinton. […]

As Clinton gears up her efforts for coup by super delegate, threatening civil war within the party, it bears noting that in her best week of the campaign since her New Hampshire victory, she actually lost ground in the race.

Update: It was even better for Obama last week. The final certified vote in California swung four votes Obama's direction. So officially, Obama gained four delegates last week, unofficially (including that Wyoming unpledged delegate), it was five.

Update II: And there were two new super delegate endorsements for Obama on Saturday — NV State Party Vice Chairwoman Teresa Benitez-Thompson and Rep. Nick Rahall (D-WV).

That makes it a +6 delegate week for Obama officially, +7 unofficially.

Update III: And another super delegates signed up last Tuesday as well—Georgia Democratic Party chairwoman Jane Kidd.

So make that +7 officially, +8 unofficially.

Well, I'll take February's outright wins over last week any day. But if that was his hell week, then even a couple more of those couldn't hurt. Still fired up.

Poem Of The Day

"The walls between art and engineering exist only in our minds." 

This is very, very cool. Pete, I think you'll dig it the most.

Click here for more.

h/t: Daily Dish

Poem Of The Day

EVERYTHING IS WAITING FOR YOU
Your great mistake is to act the drama 

as if you were alone. 

As if life were a progressive and cunning crime
with no witness to the tiny hidden transgressions. 

To feel abandoned is to deny the intimacy 

of your surroundings. 

Surely, even you, at times, have felt the grand array;
the swelling presence, and the chorus, 

crowding out your solo voice. 

You must note the way the soap dish enables you,
or the window latch grants you freedom.
Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity.
The stairs are your mentor of things to come, 

the doors have always been there
to frighten you and invite you,
and the tiny speaker in the phone
is your dream-ladder to divinity.

Put down the weight of your aloneness 

and ease into the conversation. 

The kettle is singing even as it pours you a drink, 

the cooking pots have left their arrogant aloofness 

and seen the good in you at last. 

All the birds and creatures of the world are 

unutterably themselves. 

Everything, 

everything, 

everything is waiting for you.

—David Whyte

Maher Gets Grease Out Of Our Way

Bill makes the oily Terry McAuliffe squirm, only to have Terry bolt after mysterious technical difficulties.

Icky Thump

Why don't you kick yourself out? / You're an immigrant, too.