Posts by matt

I’ve gone back and read through eight of the major speeches from the past two weeks (Joe Biden | Bill Clinton | Hillary Clinton | Barack Obama | Rudy Giuliani | Mitt Romney | Sarah Palin | John McCain). Among the two sets of familiar and predictable elephant-and-donkey-tinged themes expressed, all the speakers paint one surprisingly consistent portrait of America. I find that portrait significant and a bit sad for how much of America it excludes. This is nothing new, of course, but it stands out for me after two straight weeks of this stuff.

You are eligible for positive mention in a convention speech if you are a member of the middle class. Fortunately, “middle class” is a vague enough term that it might characterize as much as 73 percent of the American population. Still, with John Edwards in exile, it’s striking how infrequently the poor are mentioned, given how much poverty is a part of America. Convention-watchers may also be surprised to discover that several Americans are quite rich.

You may also merit positive mention if you labor in one of the following professions: steel working, the clergy, farming, loading dock operation, military service, politics, small business entrepreneurship or pre-secondary education. Employees of the service or retail industries, information technology companies, the media, higher education, science, medicine or law — to name a few examples — are unfortunately invisible.

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Random Twitterer is right, yo. Sarah Palin’s suit is the surprise hit of the night. I’m the guy that has long hated coverage of female candidates that insisted on mentioning their clothing choices, but seriously, I want that suit. Even my potential appearance in Steve Schmidt’s talking points about male blogger misogyny cannot prevent me from complimenting that fierce piece of gun-metal grey hottness.

If you haven’t already, definitely check out Josh Marshall’s recently [re?]posted interview with Joe Biden from summer ’04. Fascinating. A snippet, from when Biden describes meeting Qaddafi shortly after the announcement of the dismantlement deal:

I said, “Yeah, why, why the change of heart?” And he says, “The real question is” — through an interpreter — “The real question is, why did we get off this way, why did you sanction me in the first place?”

I looked at him and said, “That’s easy. You’re a terrorist.” I didn’t mince, I said, “You are a terrorist.” I said, you know I leaned to him and said, “You’ve engaged in supporting terrorists. Matter of fact, you blew up 35 of the kids who went to my alma mater along with another hundred or so people. You’re a terrorist, that’s why.”

He sits there and he goes like this, he goes, “That’s logical.” (laughs) I mean the guy was great! And I said, “So, Okay. Tell me why.” And he went, Well — I’m paraphrasing — “Nuclear weapons didn’t help you very much in Vietnam, they didn’t help you in Iraq and if I ever used them you’d blow me away.”

The Believer interviews Matt Bai. (Oh, and speaking of the NYT Magazine, I highly recommend David Leonhardt’s cover story on Obamanomics if you haven’t read it.)

Richard Just’s lengthy explanation of why Darfur is still engulfed in genocide five years after it caught the world’s attention is the most spellbinding, heartrending thing I’ve read in quite a bit. A surprising brew of circumstances have paralyzed us from stopping this tragedy, departing from the Problem from Hell template in a few key particulars. Do take a look.

… and it’s good. (Don’t miss the running tally of good reads in the sidebar.) Keep it up, Mr. Kuntz.

The Walker Art Center recently concluded a spectacular exhibit called “Worlds Away: New Suburban Landscapes” (they’ve helpfully catalogued the whole exhibit in a wiki; oh Walker, how I love you). Among the highlights of the exhibit was this photo collection by Paho Mann, images of former Circle K convenience stores that have been transformed into other types of businesses — tattoo parlors, Mexican restaurants, tuxedo rental places — all taken from the same distance in similar light, all bearing the Circle K’s suprisingly distinct form. (Also available as a Google Maps mashup, natch.)

I mentioned this to an architect friend, and he pointed me to the delightful NotFoolingAnybody.com: “a chronicle of bad conversions and storefronts past” — photos of former chain restaurants lightly altered to house new businesses. (Such as “China Hut,” the bastard offspring of — what else? — Pizza Hut.)

OMG I love the Web sometimes.

A MeFi commenter describes sex talk:

Q: You like sex? You are a person who likes the sex acts that we are currently engaged in?

A: Yes! I am! I like sex!

Q: You like sex! In fact, you are a person who likes sex as much as a prostitute likes sex!

A: YES I LIKE SEXY SEX AS IF IT WERE MY PROFESSION!! TELL ME MORE ABOUT IT

Q: YOU ENJOY THIS ACT YOU SEXY SEX PERSON etc.

(Via this awesome thread. See also: “I am never really going to close the dork tag.”)

MPR’s Midmorning show today was about politicians flip-flopping. A tired subject, and nothing non-trite can be said about it. Still, I had to let this out:

What the news media often neglect in their coverage of the candidates is attention to their underlying governing philosophies. I think these provide a much more accurate guide to their behavior in office than their tendency to make shifts on small-bore, particular issues.

For all the media hullabaloo around “flip-flopping” in the Bush/Kerry election, we would have had a much keener idea of President Bush’s flavor of governance had the media focused our attention on the core philosophies animating his team of advisers. Bush’s reliance on and deference to those advisers, their belief in the unitary executive, their dogged insistence on loyalty

One of the reasons I love Ask MetaFilter is that I often come across questions that I’m very curious about, but would never have thought to articulate. This question is one of those:

When I think of / remember something embarrassing from my life, I compulsively make some kind of noise. It seems to happen unconsciously, before my censor can catch it and stop myself (it even happens when I am in a quiet or inappropriate place). It’s not especially loud, in fact it’s often under my breath. The sound is usually just a quiet grunt, or a word/syllable or two. … It usually only happens when I’m remembering something palpably embarrassing or humiliating from my life — not for mild everyday kind of stuff. … So what is this, do I have some kind of low-grade tourette’s syndrome? Is there a name for this phenomenon? Does it happen to others or is it unique to me?

This happens to me sporadically, and from the dozens of responses on Ask MeFi, it’s not uncommon.