I work two blocks from Ground Zero, plus I have my Five-Year New Yorker commemorative patch and lapel pin, which qualify me as an automatic expert on the topic of the planned and disputed Cordoba House.

Certain parties have made this An Issue in order to foster political debate and division. The thing drips with baiting and phobias of culture and religion. The mass media bleating continues to keep the story above the fold when it should have disappeared weeks ago. But here’s my crack at it. It’s nothing original but I felt like laying it down here.

First, it’s not a mosque. It’s an interfaith community center. Plans for this community center call for a prayer room. They also call for a swimming pool. Calling a community center a mosque is like calling JFK International Airport a church because it has a chapel.

It’s also not at Ground Zero. Its proposed location is two blocks away in an old Burlington Coat Factory. I work in an office building the same distance from Ground Zero. My office building is not called a Ground Zero Office Building.

Love or hate our billionaire mayor, he delivered a speech on this topic earlier this month. It was a very good speech. Here are five of its points:

1. Cordoba House would be located on private property. (I thought this alone would be enough to settle the debate, but no.)
2. Your religion is as valid as some other guy’s religion.
3. Muslims were killed on 9/11.
4. Muslims are a part of our city, melting pot, blah blah blah.
5. New York endures. Political controversies dissolve.

I would add that the public parts of lower Manhattan (or any other public part of the five boroughs) are not hallowed ground. Things change constantly and there’s not enough room for that here. The most hallowed I’ve seen New York is when a bum christened a sidewalk with his own urine, which is the image I’d like to leave you with, should you take issue with the Cordoba House.

August 18, 2010 Update: Via Twitter, Jason Mustian notes: “In fairness, we’ve been building ‘ground zeros’ near Iraqi mosques since March 2003.” Ha ha!

Another August 18, 2010 Update: On a more serious note, check out this CNN debate from last weekend:

CNN anchor Don Lemon: Don’t you think it’s a bit different considering what happened on 9/11? And the people have said there’s a need for it in Lower Manhattan, so that’s why it’s being built there. What about 10, 20 blocks . . . Midtown Manhattan, considering the circumstances behind this? That’s not understandable?

Eboo Patel, Executive Director of the Interfaith Youth Core: In America, we don’t tell people based on their race or religion or ethnicity that they are free in this place, but not in that place --

Lemon: [interrupting] I understand that, but there’s always context, Mr. Patel . . . this is an extraordinary circumstance. You understand that this is very heated. Many people lost their loved ones on 9/11 --

Patel: Including Muslim Americans who lost their loved ones. . . .

Lemon: Consider the context here. That’s what I’m talking about.

Patel: I have to tell you that this seems a little like telling black people 50 years ago: you can sit anywhere on the bus you like - just not in the front.

Lemon: I think that’s apples and oranges - I don’t think that black people were behind a terrorist plot to kill people and drive planes into a building. That’s a completely different circumstance.

Patel: And American Muslims were not behind the terrorist plot either.

Yet another August 18, 2010 Update:

New York voters oppose by a nearly 2-to-1 margin plans to build an Islamic community center and mosque near Ground Zero in Manhattan, according to a new Siena Research Institute poll released Wednesday.

The same voters, however, overwhelmingly say the center’s developers have a constitutional right to build it.

“We are,” says novelist Norman Mailer, speaking, with his customary candor, of the ticket upon which he is presently [1969] running for mayor of New York, “incompetent, innocent, and of unsavory reputation.” But, points out his running mate Jimmy Breslin, a New York journalist, “If you think we’re crazy, look at the other candidates. You wanna die.”

I love it when this happens. I want to collect all of the instances. I think I first noticed a writer running for high office when I read about popular novelist Mario Vargas Llosa running for president of Peru in 1990 against Alberto Fujimori, who won and ruled like a crazy person for the next decade.

And then there’s New York crazy. The Mailer-Breslin ticket drank a lot. They were frequently angry. Many of their sound bites were unprintable, on account of the cursing. Their platform? Satehood for the city. In other words, a New York City secession. (It’s actually an old idea.) Here’s a campaign poster illustrating the theoretical 51st state, a groovy place where each neighborhood would wield town-like power. (Click the image for a bigger view.)

Note the “Free Bikes” icon in Lower Manhattan and the “Clean Air” and “No Smog” promises blowing-in from New Jersey. Mailer-Breslin also promoted ideas that since have been adapted and embraced by our current mayor, a big fan of green space, bicycles and busting-up congestion.

Mailer’s “left-conservative” platform called for a monorail, a ban on private cars in Manhattan, a monthly “Sweet Sunday” on which vehicles would be barred from city streets, rails or air space altogether.

Well, in 1969, nuts to those ideas. Mailer got 5 percent of the vote; Breslin got 11 percent. They returned to writing. Incumbent mayor John Lindsay won his second term.

(first quote via “A Literary Ticket for the 51st State” by Richard Woodley, Life, May 30, 1969; second quote via “Podcast: Remembering Mailer for Mayor” by Sam Roberts, November 11, 2007; poster scan via frumination)

Facts can actually strengthen misinformation, an effect heightened by the information glut.

Most of us like to believe that our opinions have been formed over time by careful, rational consideration of facts and ideas, and that the decisions based on those opinions, therefore, have the ring of soundness and intelligence. In reality, we often base our opinions on our beliefs, which can have an uneasy relationship with facts. And rather than facts driving beliefs, our beliefs can dictate the facts we chose to accept. They can cause us to twist facts so they fit better with our preconceived notions. Worst of all, they can lead us to uncritically accept bad information just because it reinforces our beliefs. This reinforcement makes us more confident we're right, and even less likely to listen to any new information.

Bonus mp3: “Crosseyed and Painless” by The Talking Heads (1980)

July 19, 1944: Missouri Senator Harry S. Truman helps his wife Bess make breakfast by putting bread in the toaster in their kitchen in Washington, D.C. Truman is predicted to be a candidate for Vice President of the United States.

(photo via Bettmann/CORBIS)

Passive voice and weak verbs: a review of Obama’s language from his address on the Gulf of Mexico spill.

Who knows where the time goes but my life sounds even more impressive¹ when weeks worth of greatest hits are edited and compressed into an entry. Have I learned my lesson? Will I resume updating daily? Let’s hope so. Hold on as I whisk you back to that magical month of November 2008.

On Halloween, I bade farewell to Inwood and moved into a new one-bedroom apartment in a mostly Caribbean neighborhood in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. I’m on Eastern Parkway a few blocks from the Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Prospect Park and various peeps. I can see the Empire State Building from my bed and I’m still trying to get Raul the Lazy Super to fucking install my required apartment-to-front-door intercom/buzzer. Otherwise I’d invite you over in a heartbeat.

On Monday, November 3rd, I happened upon a great New York City stand-up storytelling competition staged by a nonprofit group I’d never heard of before, The Moth. Admission is only $6 and I’ll be attending more of these, for sure. A topic is agreed upon beforehand; at the show I attended, in the crowded basement of Union Hall, it was appropriately “sweat&rdquo). Participants independently develop a five-minute routine mentioning the topic or incorporating it as a subject. The night of the show 10 of them are picked at random from the audience to take the stage and perform; some stories are straight-up personal recollections and most are styled like comedy bits. Judges vote on each participant. Great fun.

The next day, some guy was elected President. I had pizza and beer.

On Thursday, November 6th I waited in an around-the-block line to catch a free Comedy Central “Comedy Hour” taping of a Jo Koy standup routine. His ethnic jokes bored me but I enjoyed immensely the pussy and dick jokes that dominated the second half of his set; they made me laugh those cathartic laughs that purge crankiness and worry from my system.

That weekend, I ate the best jelly donut ever, and you can only get one starting at 8:00 a.m. on weekends at the Trois Pommes patisserie on Fifth Avenue in Park Slope, one of Ed Levine’s possibly top-three bakeries in New York City. They go quickly but while they’re available in a small basket on the counter, they’re still warm and filled with a homemade-tasting raspberry jam. They cost $3 each and they’re worth it. I bit into mine with vigor and blasted powdered sugar all over my hooded sweatshirt.

Later the same morning, Saturday, November 8th, I traveled to Edgewater, New Jersey for the annual bluefin tuna carving ceremony at Mitsuwa Marketplace. The crowd there pressed forward around a team of men armed with extremely sharp knives to buy the fattiest cuts of the 400-pound specimen as soon as they were cut. The fish’s head was planted in an ice-filled red plastic bucket to the side where people posed for photos with it. Later I learned that although bluefin is among the world’s finest and exclusive fish for sushi (I ate some at Mitsuwa from a bluefin carved earlier and it was amazing), it’s an imperiled species and that I shouldn’t have enjoyed myself as much as I did. I made amends on our drive back to New York by stopping at the amazing Philippine Bread House in Jersey City and eating an ensaymada, a traditional Filipino slow-death method via five ounces of donut-like pastry that’s fried, sugared and topped with cheese. So bad, yet so good!

On November 10th, I tracked down the small, great and inexpensive Mexican restaurant I knew was somewhere in my neighborhood, Chavella’s.

I now know this about Tony- and Academy Award-winning playwright/screenwriter Sir Tom Stoppard, who I heard November 11th in an interview onstage with New Yorker editor David Remnick: if I took a whiskey shot for every time Stoppard said “as it were,” I would be drunk. But: despite being wickedly smart and well-read, he’s funny and self-deprecating, uncomfortable talking about himself, a topic that arose often about his new translation of Chekov’s play, The Cherry Orchard. I plan to see it after it opens at the BAM Harvey Theater on January 2nd. Stoppard said he’s striving to make it conversational and incorporate contributions from the actors to improve its familiarity. But amid talk of great Russian authors and the challenges translating them, I was most excited by Stoppard’s lowbrow revelation that he not only contributed uncredited dialogue for Sean Connery’s and Harrison Ford’s characters in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, but that the idea for the “leap of faith” invisible-bridge challenge was his.

On Monday, November 17th, my boss and eight other people in my office got laid off so the company could save money. But I don’t want to detail that here because you never know who reads what on the internet. Which reminds me: my company is swell and I certainly don’t plan on stealing a bunch of office supplies when we move down to 120 Broadway in mid-December.

That night, I saw Iron & Wine in a sold-out show at Terminal 5. I enjoyed Mr. Beam (and his sister, who sang harmony). He’s a funny guy who’s still in some awe that he can draw such a crowd. He playfully chided the crowd for bursting out into applause as soon as he hit a chord, pausing to say something like, “That’s just one chord! You guys don’t know what song it is!” I was happy he played two of my current favorites, “Resurrection Fern” and “Boy With a Coin,” and he encored on the acoustic with “Trapeze Singer.” I enjoyed his acoustic stuff more than I did the full-band jamboree. Also, I was curious to get to the bottom of the point in his web bio that “[i]n conversations with Sam while mixing The Shepherd’s Dog, he confessed to finding spiritual inspiration in Tom Waits’ pièce de résistance, Swordfishtrombones.” That’s one of my favorite Waits albums but I didn’t notice many connections other than the songs-as-stories and a pleasing amount of marimba.

I organized a Brooklyn bowling outing on Saturday, November 22nd at Melody Lanes in Sunset Park². I like this place and not just because the decor can be summed up by the digit 1989: the music is loud and mostly bad. And there was a young boy at the lane next to ours inexplicably dressed as Indiana Jones. Also, I am happy to report that Al, New York City’s Angriest Bartender, remains just that. At least to me. Here’s what happened when I ordered a pitcher of Bud. Al poured it and set four plastic cups on the bar.

Jason

Thanks. But I’m with a group, so I’ll need eight cups.

Al

[testily] I can’t give you eight cups. You’ll have to order another pitcher and I can give you four more.

Jason

[pause] O.K., I’ll take two pitchers.

Al

Or I can give you these eight smaller cups instead of the four large ones.

Jason

O.K., let’s do that.

Al

So, two pitchers of Bud.

Jason

Well, if I get eight cups, I’ll just take the one pitcher for now.

Al

[exasperated] One pitcher, two pitchers! Make up your mind!

Everyone else in the group who made a drink run reported Al was nothing but pleasant. Short and squat, resplendent in his giant ’80s eyeglasses, red suspenders and slicked-back silver hair. But pleasant, so I guess being surly with me was enough. Later, when I returned to him for another flagon of Bud, he claimed he was out of pitchers and that I’d have to bring him back an empty one.

The next night, I caught the seldom-screened and exceptionally low-budget UK punk documentary from 1982, Rough Cut and Ready Dubbed, which I enjoyed, especially the concert-riot sequences, as well as all of the angst and acne in the talking-head segments featuring Q&A with and concert footage from groups including the U.K. Subs, the Cockney Rejects and the Stiff Little Fingers, and the likes of influential BBC Radio 1 DJ John Peel and Factory Records founder Tony Wilson.

On Monday, November 24th, I bought decor and other apartment stuff at the new Ikea in Red Hook, Brooklyn, with a pleasant pit stop at LeNell’s, the best liquor store in the city. LeNell Smothers is a charming Southern woman who poured me several wine samples while a Hank Williams song played. I purchased from her a bottle of Four Roses Kentucky straight bourbon whiskey for purposes of making my own bacon-infused bourbon, plus a pricey jar of genuine marasca cherries from Luxardo for assorted cocktail-development purposes.

I had a deliciously extensive Thanksgiving dinner at Jimi and Will’s newish apartment in Washington Heights. I learned I am not so great at playing Mario Kart Wii. I also made a cranberry relish recipe I clipped from the November 12th issue of The New York Times and it was delicious but next time: less onion.

And the next evening, Friday, November 28th, I finally made it into wunderkind chef David Chang’s reservations-difficult, 14-seat East Village restaurant, Momofuku Ko. Upon review, I see my notes on this disintegrate because I can’t read my handwriting on account of the wine-pairing option, which amounted to often a full glass of expertly complemented wine, champagne or sake served with each course. All 13 of them.

And I don’t believe I understood a word the sommelier said. For example, describing a red amid a string of incomprehensible adjectives and Spanish and maybe Spanish adjectives, I picked up on the keyword Mendoza and said brightly, “That’s in Spain, right?”³ when what I was actually wondering was “Wasn’t that the name of one of the bad guys in Dirty Harry?”⁴

Chang’s fixed-price menu, which isn’t printed publicly, changes often, so every day the courses are conceivably unique. I started with some sort of fancy pork rind; a neat cube of moist, peppered biscuit; and a non-jumbo shrimp with tomato chutney. I’m missing some matter in the descriptions there, and some ingredients, but let’s get to the big stuff. The pinnacle was the daikon soup with chunks of lamb belly, fried lily palm and fried purple mustard greens, paired with a Pinot Noir. The most beautiful dish, a smoked hen egg, its yolk broken and burst onto the plate, came garnished with a generous constellation of caviar, fingerling potato chips and sous vide onions and scallions.

Next: hand-torn pasta, cubes of snail sausage and pecorino cheese. Then: monkfish with uni and mitsuba. And: something with pine nuts and lychees topped with finely shaved foie gras which was of velvet-textured tastiness despite me not remembering what it even was.

With the plating of the most pedestrian course—roasted chicken with Brussels sprouts and mushrooms;—I was very, very full (also: drunk; in retrospect, the stop at Decibel for sake and shochu beforehand was unnecessary). But I had one more entrée to go. It would have top-ranked had I not perceived our corpulence to be approaching that of Henry VIII’s: large shavings of beef cheeks that had been braised for 36 hours, mitake mushrooms and charred jalapeños.

Done? Not yet: two dessert courses arrived with glasses of Muscat champagne and sherry, respectively: mandarin orange sorbet with juniper and segments of bitter orange (mouth-wateringly sweet and sour) and pretzel ice cream (is that correct? or even possible?) with a yogurt-Granny Smith sauce and tiny spheres of deep-fried cheddar cheese. The pleasurable and unusual dining experience flew by and I was at Ko more than two hours; in fact, I literally closed the place.

A few days later I realized the Asian guy behind the counter the whole time whom I’d assumed was David Chang was, in fact, David Chang, which made me wonder whether I should have engaged him in conversation deeper than discussion of Mitchell, one of his chefs, and how he tried to break into the restroom while I was in there.

Update, 3:40 p.m. Hold up: the guy I thought was David Chang may have been Peter Serpico, shown here. We may never know.

Also: David Chang likes Bob Dylan. The restaurant’s soundtrack is supplied by his personal iPod and I counted no fewer than five Dylan songs amid the shuffle of Joy Division, Public Enemy, Elton John, The Flaming Lips, Neil Young, Jurassic 5, Cake’s cover of “I Will Survive,” and a song named “We Here” from some group from Singapore.

And that’s not even all I did on my Summer Vacation, I mean, November. But that’s all I’m writing about. Because I don’t tell all. Also, I’m tired. Could I have a more exciting month? Oh, probably. Bring it, December.

Trois Pommes

• 260 Fifth Ave. (near Garfield Place), Brooklyn
• (718) 230-3119
• Meal 45 of 52: a jelly donut ($3) and a coffee ($2).

Chavella’s

• 732 Classon Ave. (between Park Place and Prospect Place), Brooklyn
• (718) 622-3100
• Meal 46 of 52: quesadilla flor de calapaza (cactus flower) ($4.50), a giant bowl of rice pudding ($4.25) and two Pacificos ($4.00 each).

Momofuku Ko

• 163 First Ave. (between 10th and 11th Streets)
• (212) 500-0831
• Meal 47 of 52: a bunch of mind-blowing food and drink ($150)

¹ I know! I didn’t think it was possible, either! [back]
² I am not forgetting my Manhattan-based brethren and will plan an outing with y’all soon. My life is torn; a children’s book written about me would be a tender tale entitled Jason Has Two Boroughs. [back]
³ No. [back]
⁴ No. [back]

Well, that passed quickly into history. I consumed election coverage, flipped between the funerary Fox and the excitable MSNBC, until the wee hours this morning. Walking home down Washington Avenue in Brooklyn, every car had its windows down, the driver honking the horn, the passengers leaning out and shouting "Obama!" Strangers at crosswalks talked excitedly and high-fived each other. There were fireworks. Bars and parties spilled into the streets. Lights stayed lit in most every apartment. Some guy passed me on the sidewalk while blasting away on a trumpet. Most poignant, people stood still amid the din, their cell phones open, raised and faced out. Listen to this, they said, before transmitting a city's exuberance to those in the sparser parts of the world.

Am I allowed to say McCain was "feisty" during tonight's final presidential debate or is that ageism? Because if I can't say that I'd like instead to say his head resembles a thumb. An angry thumb.

He was on the offensive tonight and easily jabbed Obama three times more than Obama jabbed him, although that sapped precious time from McCain telling me why exactly I should vote for him. Other than repeating the so-good-it-helped-Bush-Senior-get-elected Republican chestnut that the Democrat Candidate Will Surely Raise Taxes, McCain's jabs were, I think, over mostly petty stuff, like specific Senate votes from years ago, the bullshit over ACORN, the now-infamous $3 million "projector" and the fact that Ayers is apparently living in Obama's guesthouse. Stuff like the latter is ridiculous to me. Which association impacts Americans more: Obama's passing association with a hippie who blew up some stuff when Obama was eight or that McCain appears to be in the pocket of the American petrochemical lobby? I'm not sure, but I wonder if all those little half-truth (or no-truth) chips at Obama's character could spider out into greater damage, especially among that very special bloc of voters already wary about an apparent Negro running for president.

I relished in hearing the candidates' stumble-through answers on some of the questions I don't think they were fully prepared to expect: about how great their veep's would be as president, the whole Abortion Issue and the negative campaigning (ironically, the discussion for which became a series of attack ads).

Maybe I'm a saphead, but I tend to lean towards Obama because he's better spoken, better composed and seemingly more idealistic than McCain. These factors alone do not make him more qualified but would make him the better leader. (Don't even get me started on things like how McCain has mightier foreign policy experience because he's traveled to foreign countries and often drops the name of General Petraeus.) I tried to think: if the candidates' messages stayed exactly the same, but their styles, mannerisms or even looks were swapped, would I find myself favoring McCain? And I don't think I would.

For the final question, after gently pointing out that our education system has produced the stupidest people in the world, moderator Bob Schieffer of CBS pointed out "the implications of this are clearly obvious." Yes, I thought: wait until election day.

Notes on the Biden-Palin Vice Presidential Debate:

In the hour beforehand, we warmed-up by watching Hole in the Wall, otherwise known as So You Think You Can Fit Through This Hole? or American Hole (A-Hole, to its fans). It occurred to me later that I, like most of America, watched this game-show for the same reason as the debate: to see someone make an ass of herself on national television.

• Which I don’t think happened, necessarily. (In the debate, at least. There was plenty of Fail during Hole in the Wall. Also, a catfight.) In the sense that Palin clearly had been sent to Debate Boot Camp, sharpened her memorization skills and came armed with a bandolier of 100 4x6 college-ruled index cards full of comebacks and sound bites.
• Biden said “fundamental” (in various forms) eleven times.
• Biden shouldn’t refer to himself in the third person. Bob Dole knows where that got Bob Dole: hawking Viagra.
• Palin catchphrases: “surge,” “maverick,” “energy,” “Alaska” and “family.”
• Both oversaid: “troops.” Also “Wall Street”—everyone loves an easy villain.
• Both love: Jews (of voting age). And, via Palin, “...we both love Israel.”
• What wasn’t mentioned that surprised me: terrorism (within America) or religion (although God was invoked to thank, give blessing and forbid).
• Palin’s so cute, the way she drops the g’s from her present participle verbs (“bringin’,” “cravin’,” etc.) She’s America’s li’l dumplin’.
• We also appreciated her potential double-entendres, including but not limited to “surge,” “early withdrawal,” “drill,” “hungry,” “raping,” “cravin’” and “Bush administration.”
• I bet Vincent $5 that Palin wouldn’t say “hockey mom.” She did, within the first 15 minutes of the debate. As well as “soccer game” and “Joe Six-Pack.”
• I liked this Palin commentary from two ladies among our viewing group:
  

  Megan: She’s, like, coming on to America.
  Kelly: [faux girlish glee] She got highlights!

• We played Palin Bingo. Andie won, but I challenge the first of her two bingos. Suggested by my notes and confirmed by the transcript, Palin never said “job creation.” She did say “so that jobs can be created here,” “create jobs” and “fewer jobs being created.”

Who do I think “won” the debate? Although still weak in substance and (at times) coherence, Palin came off as charming, folksy and more prepared than during her interviews with Katie Couric, which will appeal to certain voters (hockey moms and Joe Six-Packs?). Everyone loves a comeback. (I don’t know if it was chance or Rovian machinations to have an ill-prepared Palin agree to those interviews, but because of them, the media’s been ignoring Biden to deluge Palin with coverage and commentary.)

Biden came off as polished and presented more facts about what his party’s presidency would bring to the table.

And both candidates left unanswered questions or shoehorned in points they wanted to make no matter what was asked of them. These debates are about soundbites and image; by those criteria, it was a tie.

Liveblogging the first presidential debate!

9:00 p.m. Unboxing the pizza!
9:02 p.m. I'm at Andie and Eric's with them, Allan and Stuart.
9:03 p.m. Recap: McCain, done with rectifying the financial crisis, is ready to debate.
9:04 p.m. Moderator: Jim Lehrer.
9:04 p.m. Go, Jim! You're on.
9:05 p.m. McCain vs. Obama.
9:05 p.m. Do we get to see the coin toss? (No.)
9:06 p.m. Jim: No cheers, no applause, no noise of any kind.
9:06 p.m. "We must achieve both security and solvency."
9:07 p.m. Jim: Where do you stand on the financial recovery plan?
9:07 p.m. Obama: We people on Main Street have been struggling for awhile. ... We have to move swiftly and wisely.
9:08 p.m. Obama: 1.) Oversight over process; 2.) ensure taxpayers can get their money back and/or gains; 3.) money shouldn't pad CEO pockets; 4.) need to resolve foreclosure crisis.
9:08 p.m. Obama: First mention of W.: "It hasn't worked."
9:09 p.m. McCain: Sen. Kennedy is in the hospital.
9:09 p.m. McCain: McCain is feelin' a little better tonight, and he'll tell us why:
9:10 p.m. McCain: Dems and Republicans are working together on the financial crisis.
9:10 p.m. McCain: The point is: we've seen Dems and Repubs working together. A package with a number of...essential elements.
9:11 p.m. McCain sounds nervous. Or angry. Or has a cold. Or it's just Andie's TV.
9:11 p.m. McCain: This is the end of the beginning if we come out with a package that will keep these institutions stable.
9:12 p.m. Obama: "Optimistic." How did we get into this situation in the first place? "I told you so" about the subprime mortgage crisis.
9:13 p.m. McCain: "Sure," he'll vote for the plan. And he, too, warned about Freddie and Fannie and those other guys.
9:13 p.m. McCain: Scripted moment about Roosevelt or someone.
9:14 p.m. McCain: "We got to start also holding people accountable."
9:14 p.m. McCain: "People are going to be held accountable in my administration."
9:14 p.m. Obama: For years, it's been what's good for Wall Street, not Main Street.
9:15 p.m. Chuckly moment. Jim's gettin' persnickety that the candidates aren't talkin' to each other.
9:16 p.m. McCain: "Look: we gotta fix this system." "We have a long way to go." Agencies "weren't doing their job." But he believes in the American worker!
9:17 p.m. Stuart: "He's strokin'." Eric: "He's gonna explode."
9:17 p.m. Jim: Are there differences in your approaches to get us out of this financial crisis?
9:18 p.m. McCain: It's outta control. "Gateway drug" to out-of-control spending and corruption.
9:18 p.m. <McCain: He's got a pen and he's not afraid to VETO with it.
9:19 p.m. McCain: Pork barrel spending! By Obama!
9:19 p.m. Obama: Earmarks process has indeed been abused. McCain also right that special interests are involved. McCain is proposing $300B in tax cuts to some of the wealthiest corps and individuals in the country.
9:20 p.m. Obama: Under McCain, CEOs would get reduced taxes, average Americans would get fucked.
9:20 p.m. Obama: A lil' extra money for Americans: a better recipe for economic growth.
9:21 p.m. McCain: Sen. Obama this and that. Now it's gettin' juicy.
9:21 p.m. McCain: "I was called sheriff." [Bush-style laugh.]
9:22 p.m. McCain: I wanna cut spending. I wanna keep taxes low.
9:22 p.m. Obama: Cuts loopholes & tax breaks. Ensure health care system provides basic coverage.
9:23 p.m. McCain: The business tax: second highest in the world. I wanna cut that, keep businesses in the U.S. and create jobs.
9:24 p.m. McCain: [A bunch of numbers.] I want tax cuts, every family a tax credit, double the dividend for every independent child in America.
9:25 p.m. Obama: [In-depth explanation of what happens to the average American under the tax cuts.]
9:27 p.m. McCain: "Walkin' the walk and talkin' the talk." "Festooned with Christmas tree ornaments." I've fought against wasteful spending and for a fundamentally fair tax system.
9:28 p.m. Obama: Oil companies would get tons of tax breaks under your plan, John.
9:29 p.m. Jim: What are we going to have to give up to pay for financial rescue plan?
9:30 p.m. Obama: We have to have energy independence from Middle Eastern oil in 10 years. Fix the healthcare system. And we have to ensure we're competing in education. Need to fix our infrastructure: new electrical grid.
9:32 p.m. McCain: "We've got to cut spending."
9:32 p.m. [How about on the war?]
9:32 p.m. McCain: Ethanol subsidies. [Uh...]
9:32 p.m. McCain: We have to do away with cost-plus contracts with defense contractors. [There we go.]
9:33 p.m. Jim: Neither of you are suggesting any changes.
9:34 p.m. Obama: Repeats energy/foreign oil dependence point.
9:34 p.m. Obama: Gotta make cuts. Agrees with McCain on that.
9:35 p.m. Obama: Mentions Bush (his "wrongheaded policies") again.
9:35 p.m. Jim: Financial crisis. How will it impact your presidency?
9:36 p.m. Obama: Using a hatchet when you should be using a scalpel, McCain.
9:36 p.m. McCain: Sending lots of $ overseas to countries we don't like much. We need offshore drilling and nuclear power.
9:37 p.m. McCain: Nuclear power fixes our dependence on foreign oil.
9:37 p.m. Jim: Getting cranky about his financial crisis question. Jesus.
9:38 p.m. Obama: It will affect our budget. Mentions Roosevelt.
9:39 p.m. McCain: Obama's healthcare plan will hand the system over to the Federal Government.
9:39 p.m. McCain: Obama has $800B in spending for new programs.
9:40 p.m. McCain: We owe China $500B.
9:40 p.m. McCain: I fight against unnecessary spending.
9:41 p.m. Obama: But... "your president" -> an "orgy of spending."
9:41 p.m. McCain: "It's well known that I have not been elected Ms. Congeniality within the U.S. Senate."
9:42 p.m. McCain: I am MAVERICK OF THE SENATE. (Palin: ALSO A MAVERICK.)
9:43 p.m. McCain: "We are winning in Iraq."
9:44 p.m. Obama: Should have we gone into the war in the first place. I opposed it when it was politically risky to do so.
9:44 p.m. Obama: Have spent almost a $1 trillion and 4,000 lives in the war. (Also, mentions Bush again.)
9:45 p.m. Obama: "We took our eye off the ball," re:war spending.
9:45 p.m. Obama: "I...will keep the American people safe."
9:46 p.m. McCain: Next POTUS will have to decide how, when we leave and what we leave behind.
9:46 p.m. McCain: Obama took forever to visit Iraq, never attended a hearing, etc.
9:47 p.m. Obama: Mentions Biden. "John, you like to pretend like the war started in 2007." It started in 2003 and you said it'd be easy, we'd be greeted as liberators, etc.: you were wrong.
9:48 p.m. McCain: [tries to interrupt; fails]
9:48 p.m. McCain: Rolls out prepared "I went to Baghdad" anecdote. Honored to visit troops. Etc. Obama refuses to acknowledge we're winning in Iraq.
9:49 p.m. Obama: That's not true.
9:49 p.m. McCain: [keeps going]
9:50 p.m. Obama: [tries to interrupt; fails]
9:50 p.m. Obama: We both support more troops. We need more troops and resources in Afghanistan.
9:51 p.m. Obama: We have to end this war responsibly, in phases. And "capture and kill Bin Laden and crush Al Qaeda."
9:52 p.m. McCain and Obama: [arguing at same time]
9:52 p.m. McCain: Wider war and more complicated if we follow Obama's plan.
9:53 p.m. Jim: Obama, do you think more U.S. troops should be sent to Afghanistan, how many and when?
9:53 p.m. Obama: Yes. ASAP. It's getting worse.
9:55 p.m. Obama: We have to press the Afghan government to ensure they're working for their people. Deal with the poppy problem. We've got to deal with Pakistan. Under Bush, we've been giving them money.
9:56 p.m. McCain: Regrets washing hands of Afghanistan. Not prepared to cut off aid to Pakistan. Chiding: "You don't do that. You don't say that out loud."
9:57 p.m. McCain: Not just more troops: we need a new strategy.
9:58 p.m. McCain: We've got a lot of work to do in Afghanistan. Mentions Gen. Petraeus for like the fifth time.
9:59 p.m. Obama: [History lesson about Pakistan.]
10:00 p.m. McCain: [Waxes nostalgic about Reagan.]
10:02 p.m. McCain: I have a record of national security issues.
10:02 p.m. McCain: Shopworn anecdote about the slain soldier and his fucking bracelet.
10:03 p.m. Obama: "I've got a bracelet, too."
10:03 p.m. I would like my own slain-soldier bracelet.
10:04 p.m. Obama: We took our eye off of Afghanistan and those 9/11 guys. McCain, you haven't been consistently concerned about what we're doing in Afghanistan. You "muddled through" it.
10:05 p.m. McCain: I visited Afghanistan. Unlike Obama. We will win in Afghanistan. Possibly because I visited.
10:05 p.m. McCain: Petraeus.
10:06 p.m. Jim: Good news: You are even on time. Bad news: "All my little five-minute things have run over."
10:06 p.m. Jim: What about...IRAN?
10:06 p.m. McCain: "An existential threat to the state of Israel."
10:07 p.m. McCain: "We cannot allow a second holocaust."
10:07 p.m. McCain: I shall create a League of Superhero Nations! France! UK! Germany! We can "affect Iranian behavior."
10:08 p.m. I grow drowsy.
10:09 p.m. Obama: The republican guard of Iran is a terrorist organization. Did he just say "Iran-ically"?
10:09 p.m. Obama: We cannot tolerate a nuclear Iran, as McCain says.
10:10 p.m. Obama: We need tougher sanctions. We need cooperation with Russia and China re:trade. We need to engage in tough diplomacy with Iran. Unlike McCain, who believes not talking to someone implies punishment.
10:11 p.m. McCain: Ahmadinejad? Ahmadinejad!
10:12 p.m. McCain: Brief history lesson re:diplomacy. There's gotta be preconditions. No face-to-face meeting with Ahmadinejad.
10:13 p.m. Obama: I reserve the right to meet with whomever I want if I think it's gonna keep America safe.
10:13 p.m. Audience snickers at Obama's "invite them to tea" comment despite Jim's pre-debate STFU warning.
10:16 p.m. McCain: What Obama doesn't understand is sitting down with someone without precondition: that's dangerous.
10:16 p.m. McCain: The N. Koreans have broken every agreement they've entered into.
10:17 p.m. Obama: "We do not expect to solve every problem before we initiate talks."
10:18 p.m. McCain: Goes on about something and his friend Kissinger. Obama tries to interject.
10:19 p.m. Jim: [Some question about Russia.]
10:19 p.m. Obama: We need to follow-through on our six-point ceasefire.
10:20 p.m. "Six-Point Ceasefire" would be a good band name.
10:20 p.m. Obama: We can't return to a Cold War stature with Russia.
10:21 p.m. McCain: "A little bit of naiveté" re:Obama's comments on Georgia vs. Russia.
10:21 p.m. McCain: "I looked into Mr. Putin's eyes and I saw three letters: a "K," a "G," and a "B.""
10:23 p.m. McCain: Another comment about his world travel.
10:24 p.m. McCain: Oh, yes; and I've been to Georgia, too, and I saw a big ol' Putin poster.
10:24 p.m. Obama: We agree for the most part on these issues.
10:26 p.m. Obama: "Russia is in part resurgent and Putin is feeling powerful..."
10:26 p.m. Obama: Rogue states.
10:27 p.m. Obama: McCain voting against alternative energy. We've gotta walk the walk not just talk the talk when it comes to energy independence.
10:28 p.m. McCain: Offshore drilling is very important. Need to "exploit those reserves."
10:28 p.m. Obama: "John?" We have to store nuclear waste... blah blah... big ol' interruptions.
10:29 p.m. Jim: Another 9/11?
10:29 p.m. McCain: "We have a safer nation but we're a long way from safe."
10:30 p.m. McCain: "I think America is safer today than it was on 9/11."
10:31 p.m. McCain: Still a long way to go.
10:31 p.m. Obama: We're safer in some ways. We still have a long way to go. Haven't done enough re:transit and ports.
10:32 p.m. Obama: Al Qaeda! Needs focus and more cooperation with allies.
10:33 p.m. Obama: Will restore America's standing in the world.
10:33 p.m. McCain: Mentions Reagan again.
10:34 p.m. McCain: Obama doesn't get it: if we fail in Iraq, it encourages Al Qaeda.
10:34 p.m. McCain: Petraeus.
10:35 p.m. Obama: Bin Laden still out there. We're China's bitch. Because we've been focused on Iraq, "this single lens." $10B or more/month spent on war. Can't spend on healthcare, science, etc.
10:37 p.m. McCain: Obama doesn't have the knowledge or experience.
10:38 p.m. McCain: I love them and I'll take care of them.
10:38 p.m. McCain: Reform, prosperity and peace. I don't need on-the-job training. I'm ready to take the job now.
10:39 p.m. Obama: Talks about his Kenyan Dad.
10:40 p.m. McCain: Drags out the POW/MIA chestnut. "I know how to heal the wounds of war."
10:40 p.m. The end.

Commentary:
I thought Obama was polished, eloquent and informed, and a formally excellent debater. And that's kind of his problem, isn't it? Have you traveled widely in this great country of ours? The overwhelming majority of it is not polished, eloquent and informed. And people like to hang out with people similar to them. How do you think it was our current president got elected? (Twice.)

McCain snapped back with a lot more direct/personal attacks on Obama (all of them prepared, many only tangentially related to the moderator's question at hand) and he had a ton more mini-anecdotes which come across to me as clumsy. But someone out there must find them personable and endearing, right? I think Obama needs to tough it out with some more direct attacks on McCain. Maybe attend the next debate shirtless.

My goal in watching John McCain’s presidential nomination acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention tonight was to spot a spelling error on a hand-lettered sign in the crowd. Sure enough, I caught one with “Mavrick” that at least one other person noticed. Mission accomplished.

Wonder what Barack Obama and John McCain might have on their iPods? Wonder no more, as Blender.com asked the two for their top-10 tracks.

I imagine these to be extremely careful choices, vetted and massaged by no fewer than a half-dozen campaign staffers.

And it amuses me to envision McCain rocking out to “Dancing Queen.”

According to Kyle Scribner today, “More than 92% of 141 books published in the U.S. between 1972 and 2005 that were deemed ‘environmentally skeptical’—those that deny the authenticity of environmental problems—are linked to conservative think tanks.”

That is all.

It’d be convenient if there were websites or even software that could help me file my taxes. Or what if there existed a person or people I could pay to do my taxes for me? That’d be awesome.

But now that I’ve settled here in New York, my taxes aren’t tough to do myself. After locking myself in my office's conference room after work today with a stack of paper, pen and calculator, it took me only about 1.5 hours. I must be making more money now because I owe both the federal and city/state governments much more money than usual, possibly because I never bothered to adjust my deduction or whatever you call it.

After a half-day of jury duty, spent sitting in the clerk’s room during which my name was (again) never called, I was sent home (or in my case, back to work) with a handsome certificate indicating I’d served my duty in the largely uneventful criminal justice system of New York City and cannot be called to serve again for six years. For dinner, I caught up with Vincent and Megan at Los Dos Molinos, a dark, packed and cozy Mexican restaurant where the margaritas are literally something like $12 apiece.

Los Dos Molinos

• 119 18th St. (between Irving Place and Park Avenue)
• (212) 505-1574
• Meal 19 of 52: a black-bean enchilada or something, with expensive margaritas.

I could postpone no more and reported for jury duty this morning. For this round, I was at 100 Centre Street, across the way from Walter, the “snowy-haired clerk of jury room 1121.” Instead a guy named Lenny was my clerk, curt but funny and with the requisite accent for having been at this job for 20+ years.

My duty involved a lot of sitting, mostly in a courtroom as prospective jurors were called at random from my group, seated in the jury box and vetted by attorneys from both sides and the judge.

The case centered around attempted first degree murder of several New York City cops, so the same question the lawyers managed to ask a dozen different ways was, “Can you, prospective juror, recognize that even a cop can lie, forget or deliver inaccurate testimony?”

There was bickering. The judge kept interrupting the attorneys. Philosophical arguments flew forth. Those prospective jurors plainly dissatisfied they’d been chosen were eventually dismissed and replacements called forth. My name was never called, so I sat in the back of the courtroom on a hard churchlike bench from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., with an hour break for lunch (soup dumplings, cheap and piping hot, from New Green Bo), and listened to the same questions and arguments over and over again.

I was juiced about jury duty this morning because I was hoping I’d get Walter, the “snowy-haired clerk of jury room 1121,” whom I’d read so much about in John Hodgman’s blog last year and I did get him (I think maybe he lives in 1121) and he’s just as funny and well-spoken as Mr. Hodgman had opined. Also, Your Turn, the low-budget, 18-minute “so you’ve got jury duty” video we were subjected to, is as great as I’d imagined; narrated by Ed Bradley and Diane Sawyer, it illustrates at one point trial by ordeal with the sinking of an accused witch, conjuring Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

However—and I chalk this up to never before having served on a jury—I was unaware, as Walter put it, that criminal trials take an average of a week and we were required to commit fully to that possibility. Because I didn’t want to gamble with my flight home on Thursday for my Dad’s 60th birthday party, I retreated down Centre Street to the New York County Supreme Court building and got another postponement, this one for April.

Someday, Walter. Someday.

Don’t jump on me: I’m registered to vote but I’m not affiliated with any party. I’m not big on groups, political or otherwise. I nearly forgot that, because of lone-ranger stance, I couldn’t vote in the city’s primary election today.

Although I do have two observations: nearly none of my city-dwelling coworkers were even aware there was an election today, which the unnervingly prolific New York Times writer Sewell Chan has been driving home in a series of snarkily titled blog entries (e.g. see “Election? What Election? Oh, That Election” and “The 2007 New York City Election. Really.”). In fact, Chan’s notes were among the few I could turn up when researching the election online.

Which leads me to point two: if I had been allowed to vote in this election, how was I expected to get information on any of the candidates? I’d think in this age of everything-in-the-world-on-the-Internet there’d at least be a nonpartisan page with links to the candidates or even a list of their bios.

Maybe it’s out there and I missed it. The city does have a poorly designed website from which I scrutinized an exhaustive PDF list of all of the city’s candidates. But the only information it includes is what seat they’re running for and their address. Party-registered voters in my district, for instance, had the opportunity today to select seven out of 21 candidates for “Delegate to Judicial Convention.” What’s that, first off? And what’s all these people’s stories? They all live in my neighborhood and one even lives on my street; maybe I’m expected to stop by and talk with them about it. I’m certainly not going to make my decision based on the flyers and postcards people have been thrusting at me outside the subway station for the past two weeks.

If you were to ask a child what she would like to do with her life, she is not going to say “I wanna be a politician.” Which is curious because so much of being a politician is playing dress-up and pretend, as children do. I’m referring here to when politicos look to rustle up some votes in the blue-collar bits of the country. They’ll button up the light-blue denim-ish shirt, maybe get photographed down at the floundering auto parts plant wearing a hard hat. You’ll recall our president dressed up like Tom Cruise in Top Gun and declared victory atop an aircraft carrier.

I was thinking about this brand of playacting when I read about the congresspeople (including Rep. Tim Ryan from my home state of Ohio) taking part in the Food Stamp Challenge by subsiding on $21 worth of groceries for one week, to show that, yes, it is difficult to a.) eat and b.) eat healthily on an allowance so meager (never mind that food stamps are meant only to defray the cost of food).

And when the week is up, the lawmakers will revert to their big-muffin breakfasts and special-interest catered hotel dinners while the poor will remain stuck in a neverending Food Stamp Challenge, among others. The Food Stamp Challenge participants have received a lot of press for their efforts, though I don’t believe they’re raising awareness of an issue; they’re raising awareness of themselves. I’d rather have my politicians well-fed so they’re alert enough to draft legislation or whatever it is they do when they’re not fretting over the price of a box of spaghetti.

Best Known As

• Gerald Ford: “oldest former president”
• James Brown: “the Godfather of Soul” and “the hardest working man in show business”
• Advantage: Brown

Legacy

• Ford: replaced Nixon
• Brown: “I Feel Good” and many other fine songs, including a #1 R&B hit about hot pants
• Advantage: too close to call

Low Moments

• Ford: pardoned Nixon; “Ford to City: Drop Dead”
• Brown: domestic violence charge, subsequent hideous mug shot; “Living in America”
• Advantage: ?

Hobbies

• Ford: golf; falling down
• Brown: sweating; feelin’ like a sex machine
• Advantage: Brown

Saturday Night Live Impersonator

• Ford: Chevy Chase
• Brown: Eddie Murphy
• Advantage: draw

Provided Own Voice on The Simpsons?

• Ford: no, twice
• Brown: yes
• Advantage: Brown

Mourning Public

• Ford: will be allowed to file by coffin in the Capitol Rotunda
• Brown: will be allowed to file by coffin at the Apollo Theater
• Advantage: Brown

Funeral Tunes

• Ford: military music
• Brown: “Soul Power”
• Advantage: Brown

Funerary Attitude (according to New York Times coverage)

• Ford: “less pageantry than the funeral of former President Ronald Reagan”
• Brown: “pomp, circumstance, chants and song”
• Advantage: Brown

Coffin

• Ford: flag-covered
• Brown: 24-karat-gold
• Advantage: Brown

And the winner after 10 rounds is Brown.

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: September 20, 2006

Filed at 1:45 p.m. ET

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez took his verbal battle with the United States to the floor of the U.N. General Assembly on Wednesday, calling President Bush “the devil.”

Jojo: Love the Vulcan ears, too.
Jason: Those are *devil* ears. You can tell by the lobes. Plus, Vulcan ears smell like lavender. Devil ears smell like Ball Park Franks.
Jojo: You are truly a twisted individual.

When the Senate voted today to add 370 miles of fencing to the U.S./Mexico border, the presenter of the amendment, Senator Jeff Sessions, explained that “Good fences make good neighbors.” Apparently as clarification, he added, “Fences don’t make bad neighbors.”

The first part of Sessions’ statement is of course from Robert Frost’s poem “Mending Wall,” the misinterpretation of which I’ve written about before. See, the narrator of that poem is quoting his next-door neighbor, who insists on rebuilding the mortarless stone wall between their properties each spring, when the thaw knocks rocks out of place. Why is the wall necessary? Why do fences make good neighbors, and what the hell does that even mean, the narrator wonders, adding:

Before I built a wall I’d ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.

I question the effectiveness of extending physical barriers to crack down on illegal immigration. And although it’s clear what we want to wall out, perhaps we need to look more closely at what we may be walling in. At any rate, I’d like our elected officials to keep the argument Frost-free, unless they mean to suggest America is isolationist, driven by habit like an “old-stone savage” that “moves in darkness,” and not one to wonder why borders and boundaries were ever necessary to begin with.

President Bush told two high-ranking Palestinian officials that he had been told by God to invade Afghanistan and Iraq and then create a Palestinian state to bring peace to the Middle East, they recall during a documentary on Middle East peace that airs next week in Britain.

“President Bush said to all of us: ‘I’m driven with a mission from God,’” said Nabil Shaath, who was the Palestinian foreign minister at the time of a top-level meeting with Bush in June 2003. [....]

“God would tell me, ‘George, go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan.’ And I did, and then God would tell me, ‘George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq ...’ And I did. And now, again, I feel God’s words coming to me, ‘Go get the Palestinians their state and get the Israelis their security, and get peace in the Middle East.’ And by God I’m gonna do it,” Shaath quotes the president as saying [...].

From an article by Matthew Kalman in today’s San Francisco Chronicle (emphasis added)

The city is rife with teaser billboards and ads proclaiming, “This Fall a woman will be President.” (On an unrelated note, shouldn’t there be a comma in there?) This throws me for a loop because I keep thinking of Condoleezza Rice.

Remember your high-school political science? According to the Order of Presidential Succession, Condi would be prez following the death/incapacitation, in order, of George, Dick, Speaker of the House J. Dennis Hastert, and President Pro Tempore, a.k.a. the senior member of Senate, Ted Stevens (he’s from Alaska, which is why you’ve never heard of him).

But the ads are referring to Geena Davis, as they’re for Commander-in-Chief, the drama in which she’s starring, premiering Sep. 27 on ABC.

I suppose I should be relieved.

So here’s what Bill Clinton would have on his iPod, if he has/had one and happened to publicize its contents. It’s the recently announced tracklist from The Bill Clinton Collection: Selections from the Clinton Music Room, the first in a series of CDs to be sold at the Clinton Museum Store near the Clinton Library. The store operator reports than when Clinton stopped by earlier this month and picked up a demo copy of the CD, “by the time he got to the golf course, all the windows of the SUV were down and he was blasting it.” (Song title links launch 30-second audio samples in the iTunes Music Store, if iTunes is installed on your computer.)

As for Bush, we already know some of what’s on his iPod thanks to numerous stories earlier this summer (my sources: reports from the BBC, ABC News and Editor & Publisher). These are some of the songs he listens to while he’s mountain biking.

Compare and contrast! In the heady days pre-playlists, I remember when the press would furiously analyize Presidential campaign theme songs for any scrap of hidden meaning. Now the press has whole segments of the presidential iPod to investigate and psychoanalyze, dedicating column inches to ponder whether “Running down the length of my thighs, Sharona” is an appropriately Presidential lyric.

The funny thing is, sidestepping the fun-and-obvious cracks that can be made about specific song choices, I really can imagine each of these guys listening to these songs. Clinton’s selections are established classics from gospel and sax-heavy jazz, with a wild-haired song from the sixties by Judy Collins tossed in for good measure. Bush’s selections are predominantly upbeat country, with “classic rock” favorites and goofy ’80s pop tunes blended in.

So President Bush is stoking the coals on Intelligent Design. From the front page of yesterday’s Washington Post (“Bush Remarks On ‘Intelligent Design’ Theory Fuel Debate,” by Peter Baker and Peter Slevin):

President Bush invigorated proponents of teaching alternatives to evolution in public schools with remarks saying that schoolchildren should be taught about ‘intelligent design,’ a view of creation that challenges established scientific thinking and promotes the idea that an unseen force is behind the development of humanity.

Here’s my take: Intelligent Design is a belief, inherently unprovable. Evolution is theoretically provable, a scientific theory. “Theory,” by the way, doesn’t mean that it’s a whimsical guess. As Fred Spilhaus, executive director of the American Geophysical Union, puts it: “Scientific theories, like evolution, relativity and plate tectonics, are based on hypotheses that have survived extensive testing and repeated verification.”

In the Post article, Bush says Intelligent Design ought to be taught because, “Part of education is to expose people to different schools of thought. . . .You’re asking me whether or not people ought to be exposed to different ideas, and the answer is yes.”

President Bush, I agree with you. You want to give Intelligent Design some floor time in your country’s public schools? Then suggest that school districts add a paragraph on it to a comparative religion class or a philosophy class where it belongs. But keep it out of the science classes, please.

Otherwise we would have to make time in them for the multitude of other creation beliefs, not only from the Judeo-Christian and Islamic side, but from those of American Indians, Hindus, Buddhists and the growing number of Flying Spaghetti Monster faithful. All that chatter would cut into valuable lab time and millions of students would miss out on their opportunity to dissect a fetal pig, causing them to slip further behind in world rankings for science and math, and then where will we be? Weeping, weeping for our future.

But seriously, read “15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense,” a Scientific American article from 2002. The original from Scientific American’s website requires you to cough up a few bucks, but you can read a free copy of it here. More recently, H. Allen Orr wrote about the topic for The New Yorker in an article called “Why Intelligent Design Isn’t.”

I read with interest an article in today’s Wall Street Journal, “How Bush Camp Won Ohio,” by Jeanne Cummings, that was reportedly based on analysis of employment and voting stats, Election Day interviews and exit polling.

According to the article, Ohio voters ranked jobs and the economy as the most important factors in their vote. (“Moral values” and the war on terrorism ranked a close third and fourth, and Bush scored double-digit advantages over Kerry on both.) As for jobs/economy, despite Ohio’s status of having one of the largest single-state job losses in the US, 43% of Ohio voters said they trusted Bush to manage a recovery, compared with 38% who trusted Kerry.

Even within the 14 Ohio counties posting the largest number of jobs lost during Bush’s first term (as high as -29.7% in Meigs and as low as -10.4% in Crawford), “...[m]any voters accepted the president’s argument that forces outside his control contributed to their problems,” writes Cummings. “...Mr. Bush’s strategy of mixing cultural, security and economic messages resonated more strongly with Ohio voters than Mr. Kerry’s message, which was largely focused on the economy.”

If the Kerry camp can still be proud about anything Ohio-related, it’s that Kerry beat Bush by 217,000 votes in Cleveland—49,000 better than Gore did in 2000. But in the end, only one county that voted for Bush in 2000 voted against him this year (Stark). Can Ohio really still be considered a “swing state”?

The larger the mob, the harder the test. In small areas, before small electorates, a first-rate man occasionally fights his way through, carrying even the mob with him by force of his personality. But when the field is nationwide, and the fight must be waged chiefly at second and third hand, and the force of personality cannot so readily make itself felt, then all the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre—the man who can most easily adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum.

The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.

H. L. Mencken, “Bayard vs. Lionheart,” Baltimore Evening Sun, July 26, 1920

As the New York Times points out on today’s op-ed page:

...America’s 18- to 29-year-olds didn’t turn out to be as decisive as predicted. While they did turn out in record numbers, so did everyone else—so that America’s youngest voters made up about the same percentage of the overall vote this year as in 2000.

Damn kids. Try voting next time! And stay off my lawn!

Bring on the armchair quarterbacking. I’ve digested quite a few articles since Election Day about why Bush won/why Kerry lost the election; these are two of the best ones that I also happen to agree with.

Slate’s William Saletan posted an excellent report yesterday (subtitled “Why you keep losing to this idiot.”) about how the simplicity of George W. Bush and his campaign message won him the election, while today, prominent blogger Jason Kottke (left-leaning and NYC-based) issued a post along similar lines, about how Bush won with a more centralized, tightly focused campaign.

USA Today, meanwhile, reveals the urban vs. rural aspect of the election by sidestepping an overly simplistic solid-red vs. solid-blue voting map in favor of a voting map subdivided by county.

This cheeky little article summary on the front page of today’s Wall Street Journal amused me:

Did You Vote Today?
And then once you did, did you go back to your office and get any actual work done—or are you spending all your time checking election results?

When the real news echos news from The Onion, we’re all in trouble.

From today’s New York Times (“Ohio Court Battles Flare Over Challenges to Voters,” by James Dao and Ford Fessenden):

There were also complaints about possible dirty tricks in some precincts. In Pennsylvania’s Allegheny County, which includes Pittsburgh, the police and the district attorney’s office were investigating a letter telling voters that the state had extended voting to Wednesday, Nov. 3.

The letter, written on fake Republican Party letterhead, instructed Republicans to vote on Tuesday and Democrats on Wednesday.

Contrast the Times excerpt with one from this Wednesday’s The Onion:

Republicans Urge Minorities To Get Out And Vote On Nov. 3

MIAMI, FL-With the knowledge that the minority vote will be crucial in the upcoming presidential election, Republican Party officials are urging blacks, Hispanics, and other minorities to make their presence felt at the polls on Wednesday, Nov. 3.

“Minority voters should make their unique voices heard, especially the African-American voting bloc, which is always a major factor in every election,” said Florida Republican Party voter-drive organizer Mark Monreal, as he handed out flyers at a community center in the mostly black Miami neighborhood of South Farms. “That’s why we put up hundreds of brightly colored banners featuring Martin Luther King Jr. and the ‘Vote November 3’ reminder. We needed to make sure they know when we want them at polling places.”

Bam! The vice-presidential debate! Like the first presidential debate, I don’t think this one is going to swing anyone. If you liked Cheney or Edwards before, you still like him.

• As MSNBC put it, “impressive, but misleading, remarks.”
• Edwards looked young. Too young. And acted young, too, with his eyebrow wag at the beginning of the debate and his whole “Did you figure out you were wrong?” exchange with Gwen at the end. He needs start channeling some of that patented Clintonesque suaveness everyone can appreciate. No one likes the mannerisms of a smarmy lawyer.
• Cheney stayed calm and rational but had some difficulty suppressing that Cheshire smirk that makes you want to smack him upside the head. And maybe a two-by-four would help with that lolling posture. Also, I can’t decide if it was wise of him to waive those follow-up answers.
• Best unanswered question: What will your administration do to remedy current poverty and jobless rates? Cheney: the No Child Left Behind Act! Edwards: look at all those jobs lost under the Bush administration! If I’m poor and/or jobless, I’m having trouble seeing how either answer does me a lick of good.
• Runner-up best unanswered question: Kerry/Edwards support internationalizing the US effort to exit Iraq, but France and Germany have already committed to not supply any troops; isn’t that naive? Edwards: talks about what the US itself will do to exit Iraq.
• You’re voting for Bush/Cheney because you’ll be safer from terror? You’re an idiot. Do yourself a favor and read Gene Weingarten’s excellent Washington Post article about learning to live in the new age of terrorism. Your president can’t do a damn thing about it....except institute color-coded terror alerts. For that matter, read security technologist Bruce Schneier’s recent article about the “dangerous game” the current administration has played with such alerts.
• Although I wasn’t as fired up as some of the flaming Republicans who called-in after the debate to deride Edwards (“How dare he!”) for mentioning Cheney’s lesbian daughter, I really don’t know why it was brought up to begin with. It was a bad bit of free-association on Edwards’ part: it was like he heard “constitutional ban on same-sex unions” and thought, hey, Cheney’s daughter is gay, I’ll mention that. Oh, the humanity.
• And as for Cheney supporting such an amendment: please stop threatening to fuck with the Constitution. Remember when flag burning was the hot-button Republican issue for a Constitutional amendment? Yeah, neither do I.
• Finally, I was happy to see that, unlike in the first presidential debate, Edwards’ and Cheney’s water receptacles seemed identical, although they were blue coffee mugs for some reason. Maybe it’s a Cleveland thing.

I made sure I was drinking plenty of alcohol while watching the first presidential debate tonight to put myself in the mindset of those Americans who decide on who to vote for based on the debates. I also made a point to not pay too much attention to what was being said (or not said, as was more likely the case), since debates are about perception, not content. As such, I can offer the following observations, posted directly after the debate at 10:33 p.m., before the reaction and spin:

• Maybe it was just our nasty television or C-SPAN’s feed, but Kerry looked ashen/pasty while Bush appeared better lit and rosy. Hopefully it wasn’t as bad as the whole Nixon/Kennedy debate. Plus, it looked like Kerry had lightly rouged his cheeks. Bush still looks like a monkey.
• Bush seemed intent on breaking the rules of the debate with follow-up statements he wasn’t entitled to. Kerry should have started barging in like that instead of meekly raising his hand to Jim that one time like he was in second grade and had to use the lavatory.
• Kerry rarely looked directly into the camera when answering (except during his closing statement), as opposed to Bush, who did it constantly. You’re making eye contact with the American people, Kerry; learn it, use it, love it.
• Nice switcheroo with the whole language thing! The previously loquacious Kerry gets direct and concise (and less likely to be the sort of guy that uses words like “loquacious” and “concise”): “I’ll never take my eye off that ball,” “hunt and kill the terrorists,” etc. Meanwhile, Bush manages to sneak in “denigrate” and “vociferously” to his usual folksiness, and actually uses them correctly.
• Whose idea was this one? (I’m looking at you, Kerry’s handlers.) Kerry: “this president.” Bush: “my opponent.”
• Bush used the phrase “the American people” about 101 times. Unfortunately, so should have Kerry. Also: “I can make America safer.”
• Bush drank way too much water; too many nachos in the green room? And wasn’t it weird (or not, considering) how Bush’s water glass was shaped like a scotch glass, whereas Kerry’s was more like a stubby white wine glass. (Someone who knows glassware, help me out on this wording. I’m looking at you, Andrew.) Was this supposed to be symbolic of what type of man each candidate is? Is it a conspiracy? Do I need to go out and get some air?
• Kerry did a fairly good job at reining in that eerily toothy grin of his. But his closed mouth smile isn’t much better.
• Bush’s little anecdote about meeting the family of the killed soldier or whatever, where he dropped the name of the Mom, replete with requisite Enhanced Vocal Emotion and Head Semi-Lowered In Sadness. Please. Cut it out.
• Kerry should have had some more specific barbs directed at Bush, who certainly had plenty for Kerry, particularly the whole “The only thing consistent about my opponent’s position is that he’s inconsistent” and “mixed messages” thing. American voter: “I’m voting for Bush because Kerry is a flip-flopper.” American voter, you’re a fuckwit. All politicians sway the way the wind blows. Try picking up a newspaper and reading it. No, the front page, not Marmaduke.
• Jim Lehrer, you’re a weak little shill. Try upholding the debate’s rules next time. And try getting the guys to actually answer the questions.

Time for more alcohol.