Baffling Spam

At work, we have a spam filter on so I don’t have to see much spam. It’s very effective, so every few days I log on to make sure it hasn’t caught a personal email from a friend who for some reason might have sent me an email about Nigeria, Viagra, watches and stock tips. There’s usually nothing there. But lately there have been a lot of emails which have the subject “you look really stupid” or “what a stupid face you have here”. I have to admit, its pretty effective. I am dying to open one of these emails to see what it could possibly be about. So far, I have held off but if the taunting continues, I don’t know how long I will be able to hold out.

Update: Now all the spam is saying "alaiacon is a moron". How galling is that!?

Worth Mentioning

Bush has appointed the first female 4-star general, which I think is interesting. Since I went on a tirade last week about how I don't think it makes a big difference when women are in positions of high authority, I am not going to go all ga-ga, but I do think its worth mentioning as sort of cool.

This is totally unrelated: Has anyone else seen the new Cool Whip in a can commercial? It is virtually indistinguishable from a KY ad. They are straight pitching it as a sex aid. I guess its cool that they are exploiting its full market potential, but it sort of turns my stomach too.

In Case You Are Wondering

It would be rough on my family, with the rigors of the campaign and the possibility of moving to DC, but I am also willing to be Obama's VP, if asked.

Just When You Thought It Was Safe to Venture Near

Sometimes B will call on his way home from work and say, "How are the kids?" and I will say either, "They are great," or "The monkeys are flinging their poo." That makes the kids laugh hysterically and Q will say "poo" over and over again.

But I'm kidding when I say that. My children know better than to use their feces as a projectile. And - we've worked on this - biting isn't allowed either. But its uh-mazing the number of Trustafarian parents who don't teach their children these lessons. So then you have these problems:

BERKELEY — After tree sitters hurled buckets of human excrement at arborists who cut traverse lines and removed wooden platforms Tuesday, the raucous day came to a head when a tree sitter bit an arborist so hard he was sent to the hospital with an arm wound.

The biter goes by the name Millipede. This is unusual. According to experts at Texas A&M:

Millipedes do not bite; but when disturbed they can produce an irritating fluid (using repugnatorial glands opening at the base of the legs). This fluid can irritate eyes, blister the skin, produce an unpleasant odor and cause allergic reactions in venom sensitive people. Some species can squirt their fluids several inches.

That sounds about right. Enjoy lock-up, Millipede.

Summer of Love

I want to commemorate the momentous occasion of legal marriage for all that has arrived in California today by saying that not only does gay marriage not erode my own straight marriage, but it makes it stronger. I far prefer being part of an institution that is equal and non-discriminatory and my marriage is a better one because now more people can share and enjoy its gifts and responsibilities.

And in that vein, I hope y'all caught the Onion-esque article in the Times the other day: Gay Couples Find Marriage Is A Mixed Bag. Talk about articles that write themselves. I hope they follow it up with "Straight Couples Find Marriage Is A Salmagundi."

Some Final Notes on the Campaign, National Edition

Sami asks an intriguing question in a comment below. He asks whether any of these women exist, these women who purportedly will not vote for Obama because he beat Hillary and because of the sexism of the campaign, but will rather vote for McCain. Frank Rich argued in his column yesterday that these women do not exist. Or rather, that the Democrats need not fear that, by November, these women will not have come around. And I think he's right. The women who are fiercely loyal to Clinton are also fiercely loyal to reproductive rights, and feel strongly against the war and for the environment. So at the end of the day, they will vote for Obama or stay home. The stay-at-homes may, in the end, be a small enough part of the liberal base not to affect the election.

However, they are a very vocal minority. Today's example is the "outrage" over Obama hiring Patti Solis Doyle. The WaPo reports Clinton insiders feel "shock" and "a slap in the face" over this move, supposedly intended to signal that he will definitely not be considering Clinton for the veep slot. Last week, the NYT reported that Clinton donors are waiting-and-seeing, for I don't know what. (one commentator pointed out that as soon as the big donors realize that their precious dreamed-of ambassadorships are slipping way if they don't step up, they will get on board).

What do these things mean? It means that there is a group of Hillary supporters who cannot shake their sense of entitlement about Clinton's candidacy, and feel the need to vent it publicly in a way that can only be described, in a sexist way, as a hissy fit. (While the phrase hissy fits is "gendered", I don't think that the act of throwing these public tantrums are the sole terrain of the white women who support Hillary. But I will save my Baby Boomer rant for a separate post).

Let me back up a little here and tell you that last Friday, Mr. Scob and I saw Susan Estrich speak. Estrich is the author of a book The Case for Hillary Clinton (which is discounted at Amazon down to $7.99). Since Estrich herself was pretty indignant that the media had highlighted such petty details as Hillary's voice and style of dress, I won't describe hers, except to say that a) Jackie Mason called, and he wants his schtick back and b) she never met a Marlboro Light she didn't smoke, I think. Anyway. The woman is one of the most accomplished public intellectuals in the country and hinted ever so slightly that she actually has a more nuanced view of gender in America than she let on, BUT I completely disagreed with her on 96% of what she was talking about.

Specifically, she is still aggrieved by the fact that there are only a few Fortune 500 CEOs who are women, and that women are still a minority in the partnerships of major law firms, and there are only 12 female senators, and that worst of all, we still need to wait for a woman POTUS. This is all predicated on a belief that the world would be a more just, kinder, better run and more equitable place if women were in charge. I happen to not agree with that underlying assumption but putting it aside, since neither of us have been able to test our hypothesis, she is basically saying this: If only all of the people in charge had certain physical attributes, the world would be a better place. Sorry to be so dramatic, but how is this different from eugenics, or Nazi anti-semitism or any other racist system? I don't support the status quo, but I also don't see how gender characteristics alone will change society.

Of course, I am not sure that Susan Estrich or Hillary Clinton want to dramatically change society. They want to change the social order - so that women will have the power. But they don't want particularly to upend the hierarchical model. Estrich said something particularly telling (imagine this shouted through gravel): "Well, sure, it's all equal at the bottom!" Actually, its not. Its an intense pecking order "at the bottom", where everyone is trying to reassure themselves that they are not, in fact, at the bottom, by shitting on other people. Racism, sexism, xenophobia, homophobia, are much more pronounced "at the bottom". It's "at the bottom" where you really feel what it means to make 63 female cents on the male-earned dollar.

And so yeah, Sam, I do think there are women who exist who think that somehow its more in their interest to either vote with the political elite or withhold their own power in protest against interests of others. Five months is a long time, of course, and by November these folks will remember what their broader values are, but they won't like it. This was supposed to be their election and now it isn't and they are going to pout.

The Water Shortage Has Not Hit This House

While East Bay MUD is talking water rationing, my kids have been on a bathing tear in all this heat. I am not sure why higher temperatures also necessitate wiping themselves all over with dirt and over-ripe fruit, but it does, and so they bathe.




And then there's the other one, who can't even make into the tub before he needs to get wet.

Good Reading

I present this without comment. Actually, no, I have to say "WOW."

Also in my wheelhouse tonight. Spot on.

My New BPN

I haven't really been keeping up on my scorn of Berkeley Parents Network lately, and I'm sorry for that. I haven't been reading the newsletters lately, plus, how many times can I read about whether its normal for 7-year-olds to be clairvoyant, babies to cry and husbands to secretly look at porn? Been there, done that.

My new Berkeley-esque guilty pleasure is Freecycle. With Freecycle, you give stuff away instead of throwing it in the trash. Logical, right? And for the most part (based on three days of membership) it involves IKEA lamps, packing peanuts and humidifiers. That is, people want to give those away or get them. But here's why I know I will like it. Today, one post was:

TAKEN: 80s R&B Cassettes
Bag full of cassettes, mostly 80s R&B like Bell Biv Devoe, New Edition, Boyz II Men, etc. Please send phone # to arrange pickup.

In other words, someone offered cassettes of BBD, New Edition, and Boyz II Men (yes, they are separate groups) for free, and someone else took them. Voila! How lovely is that!?

Time to Put Your Obama Pants On

I can't let all this spare energy go to waste. So some of you have probably already received a fundraising email from me for the Obama campaign. I promise I will only bug the shit out of you a little bit about this. The best way to silence my incessant nagging is to just go ahead and donate, and then I will leave the nagging to the Obama campaign. If you didn't get my email, visit my fundraising webpage, and donate, please.

There's something about the closure of the primary season that makes it feel like the election's over and Obama's our President. But that ain't the case, so get a good night sleep, and get back in the game. That's my plan.

THANKS.

And yes, I will occasionally try to return to my pithy, cynical non-political posts one of these days.

They Like Me, They Really Really . . .

My vote count is up to 5684. I don't know, I think that's cool. I am 600 votes behind the lowest vote-getting winner, and about 1300 votes above the next person behind me. So why am I clustered near the winners but the next person is so far behind? It raises questions about the value of endorsements and the effort those who endorse you put into your election. I got more endorsements than Janet Flint (the person next in order), and among a couple groups that did GOTV efforts. On the other hand, I got an endorsement from a group that did a mailer only, and while Janet didn't get that endorsement (due to somewhat confusing rules about when your questionnaire had to be turned in), I don't think the mailers had much to do with me getting more votes. Because our slate, of which Janet was a part, did a mailer to nearly 30,000 voters, plus we distributed another 8,000 by hand. All this elliptical thinking (which I am doing in my head and not in this post) suggest a couple campaign truisms:

1. Going door to door to door is the best way to win votes. This trumps mailers and endorsements, which (see below) reinforce the voter contact.
2. Otherwise, people need to see your name seven times to remember it well enough to vote for you.

Its all very interesting to me. Among other questions it raises, I wonder, how do political scientists dare call them scientists? There's basically no way to do a peer reviewed, double-blind election.

Novel Insults

A child at my son's preschool said to him today, in a taunting tone, "Your dad's name is Jeffrey and your mom's name is Benjamin." And than added, "FOKEY Benjamin!"

My vote tally has risen to 5324, although my position in the race is undisturbed.

Let the Changing Begin

In my fog about my own election (now Hillary can be my best girlfriend: "we lost elections together!"), I failed to properly acknowledge how incredible it is that Obama clinched the nomination. It matters.
One way it matters is that it has thrilled the Black and international communities, and already begun the process of racial healing that Obama talked about in his speech. These are, respectively, cultural and foreign policy shifts.

Today, Obama has caused a huge procedural shift as well. The New York Times has reported that, "the D.N.C. will no longer accept contributions from federal lobbyists or political action committees, which follows the rules he established for his own campaign last year." This is a dramatic change, and hopefully will spur other candidates to make the same rule change. Then the strings attached to political money will be voters' strings. I know that corporations and wealthy donors will still have the thicker strings, so to speak, but this is a good first step, and shows the ways that Obama understands how this tangled web works.

The Concession Post

Having noted below that there really isn't a forum for a concession, I realized I could just designate this as my forum and go ahead and concede, even though my opponents don't read my blog. Anyway, I am disappointed, and I didn't realize how disappointed until the day wore on.

First of all, as an effort of the Grassroots Progressives slate, the outcome was phenomenal. Karen Weinstein was re-elected with an unstoppable lead, and Ces Rosales and Edie Irons unseated two incumbents. Two of the other incumbents who were re-elected promised to work to increase the committee's activities in a slate platform that was very similar to ours. Now there is a set of priorities they can be held to in the next election, which hasn't happened before. The final committee member who was re-elected has been on the committee close to one million years, and she came in fourth, rather than first. Other great outcomes: we all know more about political campaigns than we ever did before, and we met great people, including each other.

For me, I didn't come in last, or even second from last. I feel like I got a respectable number of votes. I got 4527 votes. Just for comparison, Jody London, who won the school board seat from our district, got 5707 votes to win. Granted, its a smaller area she was running in, but I still got a lot of votes. Tony Thurmond, who was endorsed for the Assembly by every major paper in the Bay Area got 4345 votes, and Nancy Skinner, who won that race, got 10904 votes. That's just more than twice what I got. So we ran a competitive race and did a good job, and we will all do better in our future races.

That's my silver lining speech.

On the personal note, I had a terrible hearing today. It was the third day of this public hearing on a single job classification. It has been long, boring and contentious. Today one of the commissioners recused himself after yelling at the employer's witness. He was furious at what he perceived to be her mismanagement and disrespectful attitude towards the people in his region. He was right. I was very sorry to lose him from the process and it set in motion a huge set of hassles that were demonstrative of the backasswardedness of the public sector. Truly Kafkaesque. Then the employer's attorney made a veiled threat about actions that might be taken against a witness, and I sort of lost my shit. Fortunately, we weren't in the presence of the commissioners, but wow, it shook me up. I was really upset and angry for the mercifully short rest of the day.

Where am I going with this? Well, what I realized on my way home from the hearing was just how disappointed I was not to have been elected. I was looking forward to all the new opportunities for change in this system, and in my own life. I guess I could be thankful that I am being spared from another bureaucratic nightmare (as I understand the Central Committee occasionally can be). But I loved running for office and fantasizing about all the interesting ways that the local party could be better, and its a let-down to not even have those to conjure. The stupidity of this hearing made me want to do more and feel sad that I won't have this opportunity this time.

Check Yourself

If you go to the Alameda County Registrar of Voters website, you can watch results yourself. Its the Central Committee race for the 14th Assembly District.

Update #53 or whatever

Turns out that there is not a forum for a concession speech in the race for Alameda County Democratic Central Committee, which is sort of bummy. There aren't any new results buit its late and I have a hearing tomorrow. I will post a link for the results when I can.

Update - what? #6?

58 percent reporting and no movement. My slate mates (the 3 who are winning) are trying to be reassuring but I doubt I am going to leapfrog 3 other candidates including two of my slate people. "People of the Slate". Does that sound like a modern "Clan of the Cave Bear"?

There is a political consultant talking about about one of the assembly candidates and he said, "the guy couldn't put the odd in his back pocket." funny.ish. The candidate had a pager, not a cell phone. That wasn't the only example of his oddity, just the only I think I can tell.

Nothing new

But some observations:
1. the precincts we walked haven't reported.
2. Hanging out with political addicts is way cooler than watching results come in alone, because you can speculate wildly over dozens of races instead of just one or 2.
3. When you say you don't take it personally, you can't take it personally.

Update #4

22% reporting and I haven't budged from my spot. Quell annoying.

Update #3

9 precincts reporting and the positions haven't changed. I am 400 votes from being a contender. I feel like Joe Lieberman in New Hampshire in 2003.