This is why I always have my little Casio with me. This maple tree is on a street I drive everyday. Yesterday the fall color was perfect. Probably not today. More images here.
Author Archives: Steve Mays
If McPalin wins on Tuesday
Hockey Mama for Obama
30th Wedding Anniversary
Thirty years ago I was roaming nervously throughout Dr. Miltenberger’s home. Waiting for Rev. Harlan to show up and make an honest man of me. Combo Halloween Party/Reception followed (photo). Barb is still my best friend and I’m counting on another 30 years with her.
“This is not really an Obama area.”
Reply
I grew up in Kennett, Missouri, the county seat of Dunklin County. So when I heard the St. Louis Post-Dispatch had a front-page story (by Todd C. Frankel) about Bootheel politics, I headed for the paper’s website to check it out.
I wasn’t really surprised to learn than Dunklin County was Obama’s worst showing in the primary. Just 18 percent.
But then I was heartened to learn that the Obama campaign has two office in the county and that Sheryl Crow’s momma and daddy volunteer for O.
They have a Republican campaign HQ but if I read the story right it’s a first for Dunklin County.
The story quotes Ronnie Johnson who’s “voting for McCain. Or rather, against Obama.”
“He is reluctant to explain this at first — “You don’t want to know why,” he says.”
“The others on the porch goad him. And Johnson, a lanky 20-year-old white man who works as a meatcutter at a grocery store, starts to talk about an issue that has persisted throughout the campaign: race.”
“It is not just that Obama is black, Johnson says. He has heard that Obama is Muslim. (Obama is Christian.) He also has heard rumors that Obama refuses to salute the American flag, and that Obama has promised that black men will have more rights than white men. (Independent fact-checking groups say these rumors
are false.)”“He’s white,” Johnson says.
The story concludes with a couple of demographics:
“Dunklin is one of the poorest counties in Missouri. The unemployment rate hovers near 9 percent. More than a quarter of the population lives in poverty.”
Not sure we’ll see this clipping on the Chamber of Commerce bulletin board.
Hunt For Bin Laden Moves To Twitter – Podcasting News
A draft US Army intelligence report looks at ways Twitter, social media and other new technologies could be used by terrorists. The report bases its concerns on the fact that Twitter has ”become a social activism tool for socialists, human rights groups, communists, vegetarians, anarchists, religious communities, atheists, political enthusiasts, hacktivists and others to communicate with each other and to send messages to broader audiences.”
Hunt For Bin Laden Moves To Twitter
Henry’s blog as book
Some months ago I mentioned to Henry that he could have his blog printed as a book. He checked out a few services, pulled out some of his favorite posts and had them crank out a hard-cover book. I think they even have a name for this, “vanity press.”
I was impressed by the quality of the paper, binding, etc. The only thing that prevents me from doing one of these is having to select the posts. I’m all about digital and online and all that but I do love the smell and feel of books and it would be fun to have one on the shelf that I wrote.
Go-Go Girls of the Apocalypse
From Victor Gischler’s Go-Go Girls of the Apocalypse:
“No single thing had doomed (the) planet. Rather it had been a confluence of disasters. Some dramatic and sudden, others a slow, silent decay.
The worldwide flu epidemic had come and gone with fewer deaths than predicted. Humanity emerged from that long winter and smiled nervously at one another. A sigh of relief, a bullet dodged.
That April the big one hit.
So long feared, it finally happened. The earth awoke, humped up its spine along the San Andreas. The destruction from L.A. to San Francisco defied comprehension. The earthquake sent rumbles across the Pacific, tsunamis pounding Asia. F.E.M.A immediately declared its inadequacy and turned over operations to the military. The death toll numbered in the millions, and nothing –not food nor fuel– made it through West Coast seaports. The shortages were rapidly felt across the Midwest. Supermarkets emptied, and no trucks arrived to resupply them.
Wall Street panicked.
Nine days later a Saudi terrorist detonated a nuclear bomb in a large tote bag on the steps of the Capitol building. Both houses of Congress were in session. The president and vice president and most of the cabinet were obliterated.
The secretary of the interior was found and sworn in. This didn’t sit well with a four-star general who had other ideas. Civil war.
Economic spasms reached the European and Asian markets.
Israel dropped nukes on Cairo, Tehran and targets in Syria.
Pakistan and India went at it.
China and Russia went at it.
The world went at it.
It was pretty much all downhill from there.”
Putting Ana Marie back on the plane
Ana Marie Cox was covering the McCain campaign for Radar Magazine until it shut it’s doors on Friday. AMC tweeted us to her blog for the story:
“It will cost about $1500 to cover just the last day of the campaign, and over $1000 a day for each day leading up to it. While I still blog for TIME’s “Swampland” * — and I will for as long as they let me! — I am without a source for travel funds. So, you know, anyone interested in sponsoring a foul-mouthed blogger, slightly used?”
Like a public radio fund drive, she offered premiums for different levels of giving.
“Over $100: My instant message screen name, regular personal updates via email and/or instant messages on election night.”
I kicked in$150 because I’m a fan and liked the idea of helping a blogger. Seems like I wasn’t alone.
“At the moment, donations come to about $2500 — a thousand past my goal of simply seeing the McCain campaign off into the gentle night come Nov. 4 (literally! sort of!), and just about enough to cover spending election eve out on the trail as well.”
Ana Marie is hardly the first blogger to ask her readers to support her work. But I think I would have been willing to pay $5 or $10 a month for a year to fund her efforts. Is this some kind of model for the future?
Update: 10/28/08
Too busy to post
Spent most of Saturday morning at the Coffee Zone with George, Tom and assorted pals, while George migrated files from the old Mac Book to the new one. There are Windows utils that will copy a lot of your stuff from one PC to another, but then you have to go back and reinstall all the apps, one at at time. Yes, I know there are ways to avoid this but not for Joe the Dumbass (me).
My my first hands-on impressions of the new Mac Book Pro are extremely positive. Too soon for me to try to share much here but once I stop stroking the case, I noticed the new multi-touch pad is amazing. WAY better than even the most tricked out mouse. I’ll show you when I know enough to do so.
And the new NVIDIA graphic cards make everything damned fast and beautiful.
From the Coffee Zone it was out to the Prairie Garden Trust to work with Henry on a little video project. We’ll post it here when it’s done (assuming it doesn’t suck, in which case you’ll never hear another word about it). We had a beautiful fall day for.
So no post on Saturday. A rarity. Sometimes life just gets in the way of blogging.