I actually have a new story on Wired News today: “Space Race Focuses on Money.” It’s the problem that has beset the new space companies for years: So far, few in the investment world are wild about the prospect of space tourism or backing companies that are pushing speculative technology (of course, when the speculation involved dumping hundreds of millions into an online grocery story or pet supply store, the venture capitalists and investment bankers were lined up around the block to get a taste).
The Tour vs. Lance
This sounds familiar: The Tour de France organization has unveiled a route for next year’s race that’s designed to make sure Lance Armstrong has a tough time defending his title. When the Tour unveiled the 2004 route, marked by extremely challenging mountain stages, including a time trial up l’Alpe d’Huez. The route would make it more challenging for Lance, who looked vulnerable in 2003’s mountain stages, to grab his sixth consecutive TdF championship. He responded with one of his most dominating Tours.
The Tour organizers’ apparent strategy this year is different: Go easy on the killer climbs and cut the length of the time trials. That way, Lance’s greatest strengths will be minimized. The organizers have an interest in keeping the race competitive, though the biggest factor in next year’s outcome — whether Lance will compete in the TdF in 2005 — is beyond their control. Still, last year’s route ought to have made a couple of things plain: Make the race tougher for one, and you make it tougher for all. And for the cyclists at the very top of the sport, the result is about preparation (and to a much smaller degree, luck; I’m thinking of Alexander Vinokourov here, who rode a beautiful race in 2003, then crashed before the Tour and couldn’t start in 2004). All of the other riders who were expected to threaten Lance last year cracked, partly because the route was brutal for all of them, partly because none was so prepared for it as the defending champion.
My President Wears a Helmet
OK, this is by way of a press release. But it’s still interesting. Some Europeans, apparently including Mathias Rust (read about him here, here, and here), the German teenager and perhaps crazy guy who made headlines back in the late 1980s by flying a Cessna from Hamburg to Moscow’s Red Square, have launched a site called Leader of the Free World for anyone, anywhere to choose a candidate in our election next Tuesday.
Yes, it’s frivolous. But it’s also a little sharper than a simple online poll. Voters are asked to agree or disagree to 10 statements. For instance: “Gross human rights violations are a sufficient justification for a country to bring down a tyranny by military force even when there is no consensus within the international community.” Your answer falls on a continuum from complete agreement to complete disagreement with the proposition; you can also vote neutral. After you’ve done that, your responses are tabulated against a list of 65 candidates who appear on ballots somewhere in the United States.
So here’s what I found interesting: I went through the process, and got my list of candidates. So, Number 65 on my list was George W. Bush. That’s reassuring — I really am voting against him. Kerry was Number 40-something. Nader was Number 5. And my Number 1 candidate, the one with whom these 10 statements show I have the greatest affinity, is Jackson Kirk Grimes, whose party is abbreviated on the ballot as “Fasc.” That turns out to be short for “United Fascist Union.”
Grimes’s background includes a stint in the Army (’68-’72), experience as a stockbroker and as an actor in “Shakespearan off-Broadway productions.” He is or has been a member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the Eagles of Lackawanna County, and the Screen Actors Guild. His earliest listed political experience is from 1967, when he served as a storm trooper for the “Facist [sic] Freedom Front.” He wants to legalize drugs, repeal limits on gun ownership, guarantee the right to abortion, do away with affirmative action, and spend a lot more money on the military and education while canceling spending for homeland security. Also, he likes to wear what looks like a Roman centurion’s helmet with the plume turned sideways (see above). A real maverick.
It’s also interesting to me that of all the Democratic candidates, the one who was listed first on my candidates list was Kerry. Everyone else, whether it was closet Republican Joe Lieberman or ultralib Al Sharpton, ranked between Kerry and Bush on the bottom end of the ballot. Of course, I haven’t really looked into how the rankings are derived.
Those Multinational Sox Fans
Just one little complaint about something the Fox network did during the coverage of the Red Sox’s clinching game tonight. They kept cutting away to an American military base in Iraq. Fine — the boys (mostly) stayed up all night to watch the ball game; they deserve their fun, too; though I think mixing that into the coverage is a not-so-subtle way of expressing support for the way. But the caption (font or CG, in TV jargon) that Fox displayed when the boys were on the screen said “Multi-National Force Iraq.” What, were there some Iraqis and Brits and Bulgarians watching the game on camera, too? Beyond the idea of “multi-national force” being an absurd fiction — another attempt to blur the reality this is our national project — the decision not to say these guys in fatigues cheering and applauding were Americans was just kind of nutty.
Red Sox Moon
The Red Sox completed their World Series sweep as a lunar eclipse unfolded in our eastern sky. I think the Boston guys were up 3-0 already when the eclipse started, and the moon got most of my attention after that. So, the Red Sox win. Can the Cubs be more than a decade or two behind?
After the Storm
Had a pretty good storm in Berkeley last night. Didn’t last all that long, but at one point, maybe 2:30 in the morning or so, the rain was pounding down hard enough that it woke me up (I found a couple local weather stations that recorded rain comiing down briefly at the rate of 4 inches an hour). Today was clear except for towering cumulus off in the distance. This big bank of clouds rose up to the east, beyond the hills, late in the afternoon. I just missed the most dramatic moment, but here’s how it looked from the corner just up the street from us.
And Now, a Word from God
The New York Times published a special election section today. It’s 10 pages, with two ads. On the back page, there’s what looks like an interesting though endless essay from a number of Korean-American groups. The ad starts by describing Korea’s history since World War II, but it’s really a plea for a peaceful solution to the tensions with North Korea, and, at the very end, criticizes a new law (passed last month, signed by Bush earlier this month) called the North Korean Human Rights Act of 2004. The law is an attempt to tie U.S. humanitarian assistance to North Korea to improvements in human rights there; it also provides money for refugee and humanitarian aid, tries to force China to play ball with the U.N. in dealing with North Korean refugees who show up there, and makes it easier for North Korean refugees and defectors to relocate to the United States. Among other things. Kim Jong-Il doesn’t like the law. Also, South Korea apparently lobbied against it because of concerns that encouraging people to leave the North will flood the South with refugees.
But that’s not the ad I wanted to talk about. On page 3 of the special section, there’s a full page of text titled, “Revelation from God/War or Peace?” The ad features God speaking in the first person to Doris Orme of Bonita Springs, Florida (medium for “God Tells New Things to Doris“). God has some hopeful things to say. For instance, He’s getting ready to take some serious action to make the world a better place:
“Do you think that for one moment that I cannot fulfill My mandate to bring you into perfection and into My Image and Likeness and become One with Me? This is the hour when that will be fulfilled, on the foundation of all those who have given unselfishly to bring this hour which is now here with you. … The hour will come very shortly when you will see My hand move. It will be like a mighty thunder … and will be like a thief in the night, but a good thief, ready to fill your heart with joy!”
Maybe most interesting is that God is not a Bush Supporter, and that God holds a Holy Grudge over the Hanging Chads of 2000, and that God has His Holy Dander up over the war in Iraq. As God told Doris on July 24, 2003:
“I asked you to listen to My words very seriously after Mr. Bush became in a leading position here in America. I hesitate to even say he became President, because in My eyes he has never been the President of the United States. He has been a thief. I told you this before — you have a thief in the White House — Barabbas the murderer, and blood would flow in America and around the world, because of this deed. You know, as well as I know, that the election was not an election that was honest. There were many things that went wrong, deliberately went wrong, because people interfered with the rules, in Florida and caused the election to go the way it went.
“… And I told you again that those who live by the sword shall die by the sword. Those who lived in Baghdad had no where to hide, no where to go. I wonder if, the people who decided that, would like to experience that in this nation of America. I am sure they would not. ”
Well, you get the idea. God also discloses that our founding fathers are discussing the situation with Him in the spirit world, that the Bush administration “is leading America down into the pit,” and that salvation for Bush. Tony Blair, and the rest of us lies only in coming clean about our Iraq lies. It’s unhinged and humorous in a way. But also heartrending. And it goes on and on and on.
What’s On Now
The other morning, we were talking about the election, and our son Tom brought up the testimony of Richard Clarke, the former anti-terrorism czar (why not tsar, by the way?), before the 9/11 Commission. Specifically, he mentioned how Clarke had testified that during the Clinton administration, he had a direct line to the national security advisor (Sandy Berger) and other senior officials; under Bush, he said, his communications were put in a channel through subordinates that often meant it took months for him to get a meeting with the national security chief (Condoleeza Rice) on urgent matters. So, of course I like the fact Tom, who’s a senior in high school and getting more and more engaged with the world, has the specifics of Clare’s testimony at hand. It’s interesting where he got it. The 9/11 Commission hearings are offered free on Apple’s iTunes; Tom downloaded the Clarke testimony because he likes to listen to “spoken-word stuff” when he goes to bed. Interesting. When we were kids, we listened to stuff on records and the radio when we went to bed, too; but not so much “spoken-word stuff,” and not anything like the 9/11 Commission hearings (I guess the equivalent for us would have been a recording of Daniel Ellsberg reading The Pentagon Papers.
(And while I’m talking about iTunes, just let me comment on one of their TV ads. Bono, from U2, is on screen, and he counts off the start of a song in Spanish. “Uno, dos, tres, catorce.” Yeah, that’s “one, two, three, fourteen.” Nice. Listeners have picked up on this and are discussing what it means online. One forum I found includes theories that this is a reference to a character on the old ABC series “Three’s Company”; another is that this refers to passages in the New Testament. )
Local Politics
Tonight, a lot of the people in the neighborhood got together for what has become a pre-election ritual: We met at Jill and Piero Martinucci’s house, across the street from us, to go through the local and state ballots and talk about the issues.
Kate and I were discussing when this tradition started; we moved into the neighborhood in 1988; I remember for sure meeting in 1992 — one of the notable events of the evening was that Jill’s brother Cliff, a Republican, declared he’d be voting for Clinton — and I don’t believe that was the first time we went over the ballot together. I believe that the meeting has been held at the Martinuccis every election but one, when we had people over to our house; we generally gather the Sunday immediately preceding the vote; we met a week earlier this year because Halloween is next Sunday. By this time, our neighborhood confabulation has come to have sort of a ritual aspect to it: Jill and Piero get pizzas and make salad, we and a couple other neighbors bring extra chairs, there’s plenty of wine, beer and soft drinks to get us through a three-hour or so discussion, and everybody chips in for the food.
The ballot this year is very long. We have 12 city issues (mostly tax measures to fund services hurting because of the state’s fiscal crisis; but there’s one, Measure Q, that would direct the police to ease enforcement of anti-prostitution laws; that one got a big “no” from our crowd tonight), three county measures, and another 16 statewide propositions (everything from how the budget should be structured to approving a new stem-cell research establishment in the state). Then you’ve got your candidates — no City Council elections in our district this year, but we have to pick a couple of school board candidates, members of the rent stabilization board, and board members for the local transit and community college districts. All that in addition to a representative to the state Assembly, a state senator, congressperson, U.S. senator, and POTUS. By my count, that’s 41 decisions to make.
By consensus, we don’t take up issues like the presidential race and other top-of-the-ballot elections that people have probably made up their minds about already (although if someone really insists on talking about one of these, they generally can). So the focus is mostly on the numbered and lettered items on the ballot. Jill is an aide to one of the members of the City Council, and she lays out most of the local issues; our neighbor Doug is a retired teacher and longtime teachers’ union activist and usually has something specific to say about the people on the ballot for school board and school-funding measures when they’re on the ballot. Others might have particular interests — Piero is a small businessman and usually has something to say about the impact of all the tax and bond issues we’re looking at; Doug’s wife, Kay, is an accountant and also looks at the money measures pretty closely. For the rest, we all have our moments to speak up. OK, yes, I usually find something to sound off on at length.
Tonight, I think the most prolonged discussion centered on similar state constitutional amendments either would or would not lock in the share of tax funds the state allocates to cities and other local governments. The measures are confusing: It’s tempting to lock things in to make sure the share the locals get doesn’t decrease; on the other hand, locking things in has a way of setting both a ceiling and a floor for funding. What we came to after talking it through was first, it’s not wise to write any more firm funding allocations into the state Constitution and second, we really want the governor and Legislature to do what they’re being paid to do, which is handle the money responsibly instead of throwing up their hands and running to the voters three or four times every couple years to decide how the state’s finances should be run.
The other measure that got a lot of talk was an initiative that would write an amendment into the Constitution requiring a small phone surcharge to provide $500 million a year for emergency medical services. The argument against: that it’s foolish to make this a constitutional amendment and that it does nothing to fix the root problems of the health-care systems (both arguments are pretty persuasive). The argument for: Emergency medical services are being overrun throughout the state, we’re in the middle of a bad fiscal crisis with only uncertain light at the end of the tunnel, and we have to do something to ease the situation, even if it’s not the ideal solution (I come down on that side of the issue).
We got through our dozens of measures in two or two and a half hours. People took their kids home early, because it’s a school night. A few of us lingered to talk about a problem that’s not on the ballot — the apparently homeless guy who parks his decrepit RV all around the neighborhood and what can be done about him (more about that later). Kate and I brought our chairs home. Her comment afterward: “Looking around that table, I realized, boy, we’re getting old. We’ve been doing this for a long time.”
And for a long time to come, I hope.
(Pictures: Top: Getting ready for pizza and politics. Middle: Piero, sporting his brand-new November 2 button. Bottom: Our much beloved state voter guide.)
Blog Maintenance
Got an email from Radio Userland today — the service I used when I first started blogging last November. Just wanted to remind me that I have a month to renew my subscription and pay another whatever it was — forty or fifty bucks — to enjoy their buggy, user-unfriendly system. So that prompted me to figure out once and for all whether I could export my posts from Radio into Typepad. I had come across advice in Typepad’s help section that it was possible using a little utility that someone had written just to help people extricate their material from Radio when they switch to something else (the app is here, but you have to figure out how to use it your own self because no instruction come with it). I gave it a try — and after several false starts, made it work. So I was able to import 160-some posts into Typepad. However, they’re not formatted perfectly at all, and I need to go through everything that’s there and clean stuff up, decide which of my immortal observations may not be that immortal after all, and see if I can restore pictures where those have been lost.
Anyway, so that’s what happened Saturday when I could have been making a new round of immortal observations.