Category: Current Affairs

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On and Off the Campaign Trail

[All items from The New York Times]

Reception of the Election News at Mr. Lincoln’s Home.

A letter from Springfield (Ill.) to the Chicago Press and Tribune tells how Mr. Lincoln’s friends received the news of the victories in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Indiana. [Oct. 17. 1860]

The Wide-Awakes were out early in the evening, and went to Mr. Lincoln’s house. Arriving there they gave three cheers for Mr. Lincoln, three for Senator Trumbull, who chanced to be his guest, and three each for Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana. In response to repeated calls Mr. Trumbull made a brief speech, predicting that Illinois would follow up the victory in Indiana with a majority of at least 20,000 for Mr. Lincoln, and then the Wide-Awakes repaired to the wigwam, where addresses were made by Judge Logan and others. During the proceedings an excellent photograph of the cabin in Kentucky in which Mr. Lincoln was born was presented to the Springfield Wide-Awakes on behalf of Mr. Van Meter, of Kentucky. The enthusiasm could not be repressed until a late hour of the night.

***

Movements of Senator Douglas

Jefferson City, Saturday, Oct. 20 [1860]

Judge Douglas’ trip from St. Louis to Jefferson was a continued ovation. He was hailed with shouts of welcome all along the road, and the eager multitudes assembled at the principal station would not let him pass without speaking.

He is now addressing a vast crowd at the state capitol. Immense enthusiasm prevails.

***

Police Reports [October 22, 1860]

… Yesterday morning, about 3 o’clock, a quarrel occurred at the coffee and cake saloon No. 36 Bowery, between John Kelly, residing at No. 54 Mott-street, and a young man named Moses Bunyon, and, as Kelly was making his way out of the place, it is said that Bunyon stepped behind him and cut him severely in the neck with a penknife. He then ran away, but was pursued by Officer Carr, of the Sixth Ward, and yesterday, he was held by Justice Kelly to answer for the assault in $1,000 bail.

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Tiny Alpine

Brainstorming some story ideas for my radio news gig, this is where I go: I started out thinking that it might be fun to call a couple of the less populated counties in the state to talk to the county clerks about election day plans. You know–the quaint voice of outback telling the city slicker about the one polling place in the town bar, or something along those lines. And then:

You know, California is big, about three times the land area of my native Illinois. It’s got about three times the population, too, so off the top of my head the overall population density is probably about the same (according to the Census Bureau, in 2006 California had 217 people per square mile; Illinois 223).

The Prairie State is divided into 102 mostly pocket-sized counties. California is split into 58 relatively large ones. California has nine counties with 1 million or more people, Illinois one (Cook). The Land of Lincoln’s biggest county would rank second here, behind Los Angeles County. The No. 2 county in Illinois, DuPage in Chicago’s western suburbs, would rank 11th in California, right after Fresno County. The third most populous Illinois county, Lake, would be 16th in the Golden State. And so on.

But as you go through the list of counties in the respective states, an impression forms: of extremes in California, of relatively even distribution, outside Chicagoland, in Illinois. My county, Alameda, is 738 square miles and has about 1.5 million people. On the other side of the Sierra Nevada passes is a place called Alpine County. At 739 square miles, it’s one of the smaller counties, but not the smallest (that would be, ahem, San Francisco County, at 47 square miles; Santa Cruz is second at 445-point-something) in the state.

Around the old Examiner newsroom, and it deserves to be called that, we had a fellow editor whose family has a summer home up in Alpine County. Whenever something happened in the county–a fire, generally; conceivably some other natural unpleasantness–the Examiner would describe the place as “tiny Alpine County.” The tininess comes from the population: 1,208 in 2000, an estimated 1,180 now.

That’s 1,180 people spread across 739 mountainy, brushy, stream-crossed square miles. One-and-a-fraction human beings per 640 acres. That’s almost as un-dense as Palin-land. My county has something like 1,300 residents for every resident of tiny Alpine County. That’s a lot more, wouldn’t you say? And the density in the city where I live is part about 7,000 times that of tiny Alpine. Just as a for instance of California realities.

Not that you couldn’t find similar extremes if you picked the right patches of Illinois. Cook County has about 5,500 people per square mile, and the city of Chicago is in the neighborhood of 13,000. Statewide, the least populous county is Pope County, at the state’s southeastern tip, with about 4,100 people. Those 4,100 fit somehow into 370 square miles–about 12 people per square mile; I’m guessing that’s the lowest county density in the state. (The second-smallest county population-wise is also the No. 1 smallest area-wise: Hardin County, bordering Pope County on the east. Hardin has 4,600 mosquito-bitten souls–about 27 per square mile.) Those are lonely places judged by the standards of Wrigleyville (or at least Wrigleyville before a Dodgers’ sweep), but they are downright crowded by tiny Alpine County standards.

And that’s where I’m calling, along with Modoc County, maybe, to see how the election preparations are going.

(The point of the foregoing. As I said: Where I go when I start thinking on something. ‘Night. )

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FiveThirtyEight

Maybe this is a secret the rest of the world is in on already–the coverage on Google News would seem to confirm that–but through my friend Pete I just checked out FiveThirtyEight.com for the first time. What is it? An ambitious attempt to not only aggregate major poll results from all 50 states, but to analyze them as well. The information is deep and incredibly absorbing. And for bonus points, the guy who started it is a baseball statistician from Chicago, Nate Silver. (Newsweek wrote about him and the site back in June–well after he had become a sensation. Where I was at the time I can’t tell you.)

One example of the site’s excellent work: a look at Sarah Palin’s “real America”–a thorough breakdown of the racial makeup of the towns and cities she’s visiting compared to the ones in which Obama is appearing.

And while you consider what that analysis means, here’s a look at some of Palin’s real Americans in full cry:

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Today’s Right-Wing Ship-Jumper

Well, yesterday’s actually: It’s Christopher Hitchens. And even though he goes out of his way to tell us all the ways in which he doesn’t want to be the friend of any flower-waving liberals, he’s devastating in his indictment nonetheless:

“The most insulting thing that a politician can do is to compel you to ask yourself: ‘What does he take me for?’ Precisely this question is provoked by the selection of Gov. Sarah Palin. I wrote not long ago that it was not right to condescend to her just because of her provincial roots or her piety, let alone her slight flirtatiousness, but really her conduct since then has been a national disgrace. It turns out that none of her early claims to political courage was founded in fact, and it further turns out that some of the untested rumors about her—her vindictiveness in local quarrels, her bizarre religious and political affiliations—were very well-founded, indeed. Moreover, given the nasty and lowly task of stirring up the whack-job fringe of the party’s right wing and of recycling patent falsehoods about Obama’s position on Afghanistan, she has drawn upon the only talent that she apparently possesses.

“It therefore seems to me that the Republican Party has invited not just defeat but discredit this year, and that both its nominees for the highest offices in the land should be decisively repudiated, along with any senators, congressmen, and governors who endorse them.”

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God’s Little Acre, Revisited

Hair101308

One of the local news shows did a bit tonight on a new recommendation from the American Academy of Pediatrics that doubles the recommended daily dose of Vitamin D for children. Apparently, the only guy they could find to talk about it was the lad pictured above, Dr. William B. Grant, Ph.D., of Sunarc–an organization devoted to spreading the word about the benefits of Vitamin D and sunlight. Never mind that Grant in his moments on the tube called for radically higher doses of Vitamin D than the pediatrics group is calling for, putting his expertise a bit at odds with that of the mainstream medicos. What got us when we watched was the hair. Check out the style: a smattering of carefully cultivated strands arranged to suggest full-maned glory. I’m sorry. Speaking as one who has laughed in the mocking face of baldness on many a bleak morning, midday and midnight, the guy’s do impeaches his testimony, whatever he says. Or maybe Vitamin D is convincing him he really looks like, well, this guy. In which case he needs to consider a different therapy.

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Sunday Matinee

I heard the other day that the Druid Theatre, from the city of Galway on Ireland’s west coast, was in Berkeley presenting “The Playboy of the Western World.” This morning, Kate and I talked about going. Tickets were $75, and even as I like a good play and love Irish storytelling, that seemed steep. I took a look at the website of the outfit presenting the play, Cal Performances at UC-Berkeley. There was a mention of discounts. Students–and I have a current ID–could get in for half. Good deal. Then I noticed a mention of “rush tickets.” If seats are still available, the box office will tell you two hours before curtain, and you can purchase them at a steep discount beginning an hour before the show. It turned out rush tickets were available, and I wound up sitting front row center, close enough to wonder whether the four actor balanced on a flimsy-looking wooden table might topple over into the audience.

I went alone since my would-be matinee companion decided other business pressed too hard to give up the entire afternoon to a gaggle of very thick Irish accents. After buying my ticket, we walked through downtown Berkeley running an errand or two before the show started. And that gave me the chance to hear a young guy selling a demo recording say to passersby, “Free CDs … free CDs. I’m trying to expose myself.”

The play? It was great to the point I hated to leave the theater afterward and stood watching the stage crew begin cleaning things up. (I had once wistfully thought of going to Ireland to see this company do the play after reading they were visiting the town in County Mayo that Synge visited before writing it. It was worth waiting for.) The production goes to Los Angeles now, and then to the Kennedy Center in Washington and the University of North Carolina. If it shows up in your town, go.

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‘William F. Buckley’s Son Says He Is Pro-Obama’

Christopher Buckley wrote his own headline. He also wrote why he cannot support McCain and feels he must support Obama. It’s a bright ray after the dark bleakness I felt after reading about this–the radically ugly turn the McCain-Palin rallies have taken. Talk about reaping the whirlwind.

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Debate

With yet another close election in the offing, the media are starting to focus on undecided voters. After last night’s joint candidate appearance, BBC America talked to two young Yanks in London who said they remained undecided. Ditto on NPR this morning, which had a feature on some persistent undecideds in New Mexico. How it’s possible to remain undecided, I don’t know; if you’ve been paying attention even occasionally you know more about the candidates than you do about most members of your own family.

The fact is, though, that the “debates,” as we persist in calling them, aren’t about changing minds. They’re about playing things safe, sticking to scripts, and hoping that the other candidate will be struck dumb or collapse into a heap a la “there is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe.” OK, sure, there’s more to it: The hopefuls want to look good, too. The consensus among brilliant political minds is that the debates are about avoiding changing people’s minds in a negative way–about not doing anything that would turn an undecided against you. That way, you keep them in play. Then nature takes its course. You get as many of those votes on election day as you lose, and plenty of the people who can’t make up their minds never do and join the one-third of the eligible electorate that never votes at all. Who’s to argue with the work of smart and richly compensated strategists?

Leave it to the rest of us, exposed to the realities of an economy, a government, and political system that appear to be unraveling, to show some unguarded concern about it. When I say us, I mean the host of friends and relatives who are for the first time volunteering for campaigns, sending out alarmed emails about our situation, or who like my friend Pete, up in Oregon, or Ron, in Texas, or “blog friends” Marie, in Illinois, and Rob, in Louisiana, are provoking discussions about the race. Or former TV colleague Steve, who posted a link recently to perhaps the most clear-sighted rant all year on what’s wrong with the election and the electorate.

Somehow, I feel like I’m getting a more focused sense of what this campaign is about and should be about from the people I know than from the candidate I support. Somehow, I wish my candidate would drop the script for just a few minutes and let me know he gets the depth of concern–hell, despair–that so many people are feeling out here. I don’t expect him to, though, and certainly not during the next “debate.”

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At Night

Earthnight100708

By way of an Open Salon blog: a recent composite view of the Earth at night, courtesy of NASA (click for bigger images). There’s lots to reflect on here. For example: Look at the Korean peninsula, and check out the difference between South and North (for more on night-time lighting in North Korea, see this).

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Taking Care of Them

John McCain, tonight: “I know the veterans. I know them well. And I know that they know that I’ll take care of them. And I’ve been proud of their support and their recognition of my service to the veterans. And I love them. And I’ll take care of them. And they know that I’ll take care of them. And that’s going to be my job.”

Andrew J. Bacevich, last month: “Yeah. Well, my son was killed in Iraq. And I don’t want to talk about that, because it’s very personal. But it has long stuck in my craw, this posturing of supporting the troops. I don’t want to insult people.

“There are many people who say they support the troops, and they really mean it. But when it comes, really, down to understanding what does it mean to support the troops? It needs to mean more than putting a sticker on the back of your car.

“I don’t think we actually support the troops. We the people. What we the people do is we contract out the business of national security to approximately 0.5 percent of the population. About a million and a half people that are on active duty.

“And then we really turn away. We don’t want to look when they go back for two or three or four or five combat tours. That’s not supporting the troops. That’s an abdication of civic responsibility. And I do think it – there’s something fundamentally immoral about that.

“Again, as I tried to say, I think the global war on terror, as a framework of thinking about policy, is deeply defective. But if one believes in the global war on terror, then why isn’t the country actually supporting it? In a meaningful substantive sense?

“Where is the country?”

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