The suits at MTV finally realized it might be worthwhile to stick all of those old music videos on the web. Titled simply MTV Music, the site contains almost 20,000 videos and more are being added each day. Sure, many of these can be found on YouTube, but the quality of the MTV-hosted videos seems uniformly good. Here’s Bjork’s “All Is Full of Love”, for no other reason than I think it’s a cool video:

Thanks to a meeting I had in downtown Minneapolis this morning, I was able to make a quick stop at the Government Center to vote early. So, for me, this election is now over.

I’ve been talking to friends with similar political views and many of them are still nervous about the outcome on November 4th. After getting burned in both 2000 and 2004, they can’t quite bring themselves to believe that the Democrats are on offense now. We certainly can’t afford to be cocky or complacent in this final week, but I don’t think I’m casting a jinx when I say that an Obama defeat is extremely unlikely. A friend of mine recently observed that the candidate who runs the better campaign usually wins. McCain’s first mistake was to abandon his carefully constructed image as a moderate to solidify his support among a shrill and forlorn base; a base already feeling neglected and betrayed by the current president. That fatal decision led to tactics that might have had currency in 1984, but don’t resonate in 2008.

McCain wanted so much for the social conservatives to love him, but he knew that he really wasn’t one of them. Which led him to Palin. Palin was supposed energize the evangelicals who were wary of McCain, but instead she only fanned the flames of discontent and fear. Sure, she attracted crowds. But under her spell, those crowds became mobs.

Meanwhile, Obama has run a campaign that is groundbreaking ($150 million in one month!) while being remarkably conservative in tone. Against all expectations, he maneuvered himself to be viewed as the safe, sensible choice. To put in pop culture terms, Obama is Atticus Finch to a lot of voters. Reassuring, calm, deliberate.

What I’m trying to say is this: Obama will probably win because the narrative of this race works strongly in his favor. And while I wouldn’t recommend swagger at this point, a little strut is certainly permissible.

A few odds and ends that I’ve been meaning to post:

• I blogged a few years ago about Nick Dupree, a disability activist living in Alabama who battled the state to keep his nursing coverage after he turned 21. Nick recently moved to a rehabilitation hospital in New York and he’s blogging about his experiences in his newly adopted city here.  
• Matt Eddy is on a trek across the country in his vent-equipped wheelchair to raise money to build accessible housing for people with severe physical disabilities. Matt is blogging about his ambitious road trip and, in his most recent entry, he was approaching the California coast.
• Mark Udall, the Democratic Senate candidate in New Mexico,  is running this ad featuring an Iraq War veteran who is quadriplegic as a result of a combat injury:

• Matt Eddy is on a journey across the countrymin

A California ballot initiative–Proposition 8–seeks to ban same-sex marriages through an amendment to the state constitution. If this initiative passes, it would effectively dissolve thousands of couples’ marriages. A few weeks ago, polls showed Prop 8 heading for an easy defeat, but then conservative groups cranked up the fear-based rhetoric and the polls have tightened.

Prop 8 is nothing more than a shameless effort to codify discrimination. The intent is spelled out right in the title: “Eliminates Right of Same-Sex Couples to Marry”. It deserves defeat, but it’s going to take money to make that happen. You can contribute here to show your support for the countless couples, present and future, who seek nothing more than equal status under the law.

My local cable company just boosted its broadband speeds for most customers in the Twin Cities, while holding the line on price. Those of us who had been on the 6Mbps tier have been bumped up to 12Mbps. Normally, this news would have me smiling; anything that will give me faster access to videos of chimps riding Segways has to be a good thing. Unfortunately, my own Internet connection seems to have caught a cold in the last few days. I’m averaging about 800Kbps, not much better than dial-up. A lengthy call to tech support didn’t solve the problem, so I’ll be roughing it until the tech pays a visit on Friday. Keep me in your thoughts during this time of hardship.