smays.com

I can't look

I fled the living room as the first debate got underway. I hate politics and I hate politicians (I know, I know). I'm going to rely on the two people I trust most to tell me what happened: Barb and Jon Stewart.

The other Steve Mays.

"One bleak day a hoodlum from Anaheim showed up at one of our Christian commune houses dressed in bib overalls and leathers, with a nine millimeter Baretta tucked in his back pocket. He had not bathed in six months and had literally slept in gutters while living as a fugitive from the law. He had not brushed his teeth in two years and, with his neo-barbarian hairstyle, he was a sight to behold. His name was Steve Mays and he was alienated from everybody- from his parents, who had tossed him out of their house years before, to the tough group of outlaw bikers he had been living with. He had been wanted by the FBI for attempted murder and draft dodging. There was also a contract out on his life."

If I were not so lazy.

FreewayBlogger.com

To dumb to vote

Even when I was a pup, I found myself agreeing with Andy Rooney: "I'd be willing to bet that it's the dumbest people among us who are least likely to vote too, and that's fine with me. I don't want anyone dumber than I am voting."

A9 is A-1.

I haven't needed to save browser "Favorites" or "Bookmarks" much since Google came along. But I have a few. And a few more on my Thinkpad. And a few more on my home PC. And it's too much trouble to try to keep them all sync'd up. But a new service from Amazon has made the problem go away. It's called A9 (I have no idea) and it's pretty slick.

"A9.com is a search engine, using web search and image search results enhanced by Google, movies results from IMDb, and more. A9.com remembers your information so you dont have to. You can keep your own notes about any web page and search them; it is a new way to store and organize your bookmarks." [More]

Any links I save in the future will be on my A9 page. My thumb is up on A9.

And all the King's men.

This Dan Rather coffee mug sat on one of the desks in the Missourinet newsroom for a long time. The owner said he was taking it to his car, to send to his mother, and dropped it. He didn't say why he kept the broken pieces.

Slick Pix.

Long-time friend and Slick Ballinger groupie Viretta Sexton shares photos from the Sunflower Music Festival in Clarksdale, MS and the latest appearance at Kennett's End Zone (with Blind Mississippi Morris).

Basement People.

This is one of my favorite pages from The Basement Diaries. I don't often visit the site these days. It's not well done from a design standpoint and I think I might be tempted to "fix" it.

Feels Like Home.

I bought a Norah Jones CD last week. I never buy CDs and don't know why I bought this one. A good impulse buy. Did any singer ever sound more like she looks? You can sample some of the tracks on her website. Listening to her sing, I kept thinking how nice a duet with Sheryl Crow might sound. Or maybe Janis Ian?

What are the choices again?

A new study for the Online Publishers Association asked: If you could choose only two media, what would they be? The Internet ranked No. 1, chosen as first (45.6 percent) or second (32.1 percent) by 77.7 percent of those surveyed. Television ranked No. 2, with 52.4 percent making it a first or second choice, trailed by books (18.5) and radio (12.9). Only 9.2 percent would choose newspapers in that media mix, and only 3.2 percent made newspapers a first choice.[E-Media Tidbits]

Try to remember.

The annual Fall Festival Parade will kick off the Delta Fair on Monday. The parade is a rich part of the history of my family. In 1951 my father rode through the streets of Kennett in a wheelbarrow, pushed by a man wearing a skunk costume. I can claim no such honor but on several occasions I co-anchored broadcasts of the parade. Gigantic, expensive farm implements. The Adelphian Club float. The Hayti Marching Band. The Poplar Bluff Shriners on their tiny motorcycles. It taxed my humble talents to even begin to describe the spectacle.

I broadcast many parades during my dozen years at KBOA. The Senath Christmas Parade. The Hornversville Watermelon Festival Parade. I was there for them all, droning on... mustering up more excitement than these sad little caravans deserved. You'd have thought I was in prime-time at the Rose Parade. My first Delta Fair Parade was in 1972 and I interviewed Jack McDaniel and Bill Walsh, the two Kennett businessmen responsible for organizing the event. I called my friend John last night and he said Jack and Bill are still in charge of the parade. Sweet Jesus, is there anything I care about that much?

What she said.

In case we forget how we got here, Halley reminds us:

"If I got pregnant and could not have another child, it would be my choice and my partner's choice, nobody else's, to decide what to do. My business, not someone else's. Just as it's not my choice to tell someone who is against abortion that they shouldn't be against abortion. It's none of my business. That's why we live here. That's why we can jump in the car and go see Plymouth Rock today. We can just go there. Nobody can tell us not to go there."

Crow for Harkin

Iowa Senator Tom Harkin's annual steak fry featured Sheryl Crow and comedian Tom Arnold. Crow performed for over half an hour, playing hits like "A Change Will Do You Good." Between songs, Crow told the crowd she "feels like four more years of Bush is dangerous." [Audio of performance 47 min]

World Peace Conference

A Hollywood director with a reputation for making violent, bizarre films is headlining what's billed as a world peace conference in southeast Iowa this weekend. Known for movies like "Mulholland Drive," "Blue Velvet" and the T-V series "Twin Peaks," David Lynch is also on the board of directors at Maharishi University in Fairfield. He says perpetual world peace will result by assembling eight-thousand people to continuously practice transcendental meditation. Lynch says "It brings peace, real peace, and peace is not just the absence of war. This real peace, being enlivened, drives negativity away like light drives darkness away." [Story and 7 min audio interview]

The Rule of Four.

This novel by Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason is not a gripping story but I like the characters and the way the speak.

* A son is the promise that time makes to a man, the guarantee every father receives that whatever he holds dear will someday be considered foolish, and that the person he loves best in the world will misunderstand him. [Prologue]

* To count a hundred million stars, at the rate of one per second, sounds like a job that no one could possisbly complete in a lifetime. In reality, it would take only three years. The key is focus, a willingness not to be distracted. [Pg 7]

* We made a friendship out of nothing, because nothing was the the heart of what we shared. [Pg 48]

* The generational clock ground out another revolution, and time turned friends to strangers. [Pg 71]

* The only things people can ever know about you are the ones you let them see. [Pg 97]

* My mind is a flock of pigeons, fluttering away. All my thoughts are shit and feathers. [Pg 130]

Most Tivo'd

for the week ending 09/19/04:

1. The Apprentice [No]
2. CSI: Crime Scene Investigation [Yes]
3. The Sopranos [Yes]
4. Joey [No]
5. Survivor: Vanuatu, Islands of Fire [No]
6. The West Wing [No]
7. Six Feet Under [Yes]
8. ER [No]
9. CSI: Miami [Yes]
10. Will & Grace [No]

Rinse.

Do you want your dentist and his staff to have this much fun? Yes, I think I do.

Gulf Coast Damage

Mark Bremer points us to more images of the aftermath of Hurricane Ivan. Damage along Highway 30-A; Destin; more Destin; Pensacola Beach; Orange Beach; Perdido Key; more Perdido. Bummer.

Five ass-related words

Merlin thinks he uses "ass" a lot:

1. metric assload (n.) - a lot
2. asshat (n.) - willfully ignorant person
3. assy (adj.) - unacceptably low-quality
4. big-ass (adj.) - large
5. asstacular (adj.) - really bad

Destin beaches

The soft, sugar-white sand dunes of Destin, Florida, now look more like the Bonneville Salt Flats. Thanks to Mark Bremer for these photos (1-2-3), taken from what's left of the walk-over between Gulfside Cottages and the beach. Mark appears to be about here (pre-Ivan)

Shudder.

Wonderful, disturbing images from Barnaby Whitfield, a pastel artist in New York City. [via BoingBoing]

Jefferson City had a

Jefferson City had a little "Art in the Park" thing today. I thought it much better than these things usually turn out. I especially liked the Statue of Liberty piece and the giant eggs.

Declare Yourself.

I find the web endlessly entertaining, informative and educational. Where would we have found something like this pre-web?

Bullet dodged

Early reports from Destin are all good. Sounds like only very minor damage to Gulfside Cottages (pre-hurricane photo)and Amberjack Landing esacaped with a little water damage (2nd floor door blew open). Sounds like there might even be some beach left. The red dot in this image is approximate location of our cottage. This one shows a little more precisely. Barb spoke with one of the guys from the property management place and he said there are people arriving today for their scheduled vacations. That is pretty hard-core.

A world away.

My brother and his family live in Indonesia and are always visiting exotic places ("where no white man has been before"). If I'm lucky my brother will send me a brief email and if I'm very lucky, I'll get a few photos. This year the two boys went to camp where, it appears, Spencer is a hit with the ladies.

Not a real boy

I couldn't stop watching this.

5:30 p.m. Sunday.

O. Kay Henderson's exclusive interview with the First Lady continues to generate interest by other media outlets. She's scheduled to appear on C-SPAN's "Road to the White House" (a weekly look at the candidates, issues & events shaping the 2004 Presidential race). The program airs Sundays on C-SPAN at 6:30pm ET & 9:30pm ET.

Journalism, Big Media, Objectivity, etc.

There was an interesting email exchange between between a couple of our reporters this week. David Brazeal's comments seemed...sponge-worthy.

I think more likely we're seeing is a gradual destruction of the great farce of 20th Century elite journalism--that we can do our jobs objectively. Dan Rather thinks he's objective and Fox News is not. Fox News thinks it's objective, and Dan Rather is not. The fact is, neither of them is objective. We might very well try to be objective, but it's impossible for anyone with an opinion.

The problem for big-time journalism outlets is that people have figured this out. Most people don't fault Dan Rather for being a liberal; they fault him for acting like he's not. And the more these big institutions cling to this faade of true objectivity, the more obvious it will become to more people. As consumers get more sophisticated, they're going to demand more source material, more first-person accounts, more access to opposing viewpoints. And they're going to want it without the filter we're used to providing. The question is whether we figure out a way to give it to them, or we go down with the ship.

How do you build web traffic?

1. You can buy ads in the Super Bowl. You can rent billboards on the Interstate. You can trade links with a thousand websites nobody gives a shit about.

2. Or you can create unique, compelling, relevent content. People interested in that content will tell other people interested in that content and on and on.

If you can't do #2, it doesn't matter if you can do #1. And the music comes out here.

If you watched any TV news (CNN, CBS, NBC, ABC, Fox) during the past 24 hours you might have seen the story about Laura Bush commenting on The Memos. The audio was from an interview the First Lady did with Kay Henderson, the news director of Radio Iowa, our statewide radio news network headquartered in Des Moines. Apparantly, this was the first comment by someone in the Bush camp on "the documents." Just about every news organization in the country picked up Kay's piece. And she had the savvy to send them all to RadioIowa.com.

And a dozen wallet size

Thanks to Mary Anne for taking my new Favorite Picture of Barb and Me at this summer's family get-together in Destin. I find my Elmore Leonard wardrobe works equally well for beach or formal occasions. Speaking of Destin, here's a nice shot of Gulfside Cottages. No fewer than three of the Miltenberger clan have volunteered to drive into The Perfect Storm to board up Amberjack Landing. The fact that all three are either retired or out of work in no way detracts from their courageous and generous offer.

White girls with big asses, man.

"There goes another one, a J. Crew cardigan riding up atop a buttock so big, so out of place, it makes you wonder if Serena Williams woke up this morning wondering where her ass went." Sloane Crosley (a woman) talks about her ass.

Thanks to Ben Krech

Thanks to Ben Krech (an employee of XM) for this "actual traffic sign in Detroit."

Stats.

According to my Blogger Profile, I've written 72,770 words since I started this journal in August, 2001.

Great line: As Good As It Gets

"You don't look sick. Just tired and bitter." -- As Good As It Gets

Inspiration and creativity.

Hugh Macleod says don't worry about finding inspiration. It comes eventually. "If you have something to say, then say it. If not, enjoy the silence while it lasts. The noise will return soon enough."

I am right, you are wrong.

Ed Cone's guide to modern political speech. "...a bipartisan, multimedia template that works for any point of view on the partisan spectrum, in any venue."

It's come to this.

I can't believe I'm quoting Pat Buchanan [from The American Conservative]:

"Empire requires an unshakeable belief in the superiority of ones own race, religion, and civilization and an iron resolve to fight to impose that faith and civilization upon other peoples.

We are not that kind of people. Never have been. Americans, who preach the equality of all races, creeds, and cultures, are, de facto, poor imperialists. When we attempt an imperial role as in the Philippines or Iraq, we invariably fall into squabbling over whether a republic should be imposing its ideology on another nation. A crusade for democracy is a contradiction in terms.

While it would be nice if Brazil, Bangladesh, and Burundi all embraced democracy, why should we fight them if they dont, and why should our soldiers die to restore democracy should they lose it? Why is that our problem, if they are not threatening us?

If attacked, Americans fight ferociously. Unwise nations discover that. Threatened, as in the Cold War, we will persevere. But if our vital interests are not threatened, or our honor is not impugned, most of us are for staying out of wars."

MSN Music Store.

I just purchased my first song online. I downloaded a few songs back in the early days of Napster and KaZaA but never really got into it and --later-- hated the way KaZaA scewed with your system. While I love the look of the iPod, I don't have one and probably won't buy one, again, just because I'm not into walking around with ear-buds. While the new MSN Music Store might be inferior in every way to iTunes, I found it very easy to use. My Net Passport info was already on file so it took about 15 seconds to agree to let them bill me for music downloads (which will play on just about any device). Jackson Browne's Stay was my choice for first legal download. MS made this pretty easy and I suspect I'll buy more music online than I ever have (or would) at the music store.

Put this on a pack of cigarettes.

Dave Winer remembers the hours leading up to by-pass surgery. "If you haven't had your chest ripped open you can't imagine what it feels like, not just physically, but psychologically."

I'm there

As a general rule, you couldn't get me to a baby shower at gun-point. But I'm thinking Helen's (at the Kennett's Jones Park Pavilian) might have been fun. Photo by Special Correspondent Terry McVey.

Flip-flop.

Zell Miller, introducing John Kerry, at the Democratic Party of Georgia's Jefferson-Jackson Dinner, March 1, 2001 [Joho]