It’s late, I’m tired, and I’m feeling really good. There’s a big difference between anticipating victory and savoring the real thing. Sharing it with friends made it even better.
Now comes the hard part.
Nov 042008
Nov 032008
I’m probably going to be too preoccupied tomorrow to do much blogging. But since a bazillion other bloggers are posting their electoral prognostications, I might as well do the same:
- Obama will win the Electoral College 338-200. Virginia will be called for Obama soon after the polls close, setting the tone for the evening. Florida and Ohio will follow suit, as will Colorado and Nevada. McCain will eke it out in Missouri and North Carolina.
- Obama will win the popular vote by 6%.
- Dems will control 59 Senate seats. In Minnesota, Franken will pull out a win on the strength of Obama’s coattails.
- The Dems will pick up 22 House seats. In Minnesota, Madia will win in the 3rd. I’d love to see Bachmann go down, but the 6th is probably the friendliest territory in the state for her brand of fringe conservatism.
- In state races, Dems will get a veto-proof majority in the House. The constitutional amendment to raise the sales tax less than one percent to fund the arts and outdoors will narrowly pass.
Of course, my readers reserve the right to mock me if my predictions prove wrong, but I feel pretty good about them.
I sense that most of my readers share my political sympathies, but please do inform yourself and vote, even if it’s not for my guy. This election is too important and too historical to sit out.
Nov 022008
The producers at 60 Minutes must be reading my blog. They ran a story about brain-computer interfaces and their potential applications for people with disabilities. The piece shows people using neural interfaces to operate computers and wheelchairs, as well as video of that monkey controlling a robotic arm. The complete video should be available on the 60 Minutes website sometime Monday. Bob Simon was a little breathless in his narration, but he provided a good overview of the technology’s promise.
In the future, I expect the media to pay me a consultant’s fee when they crib my material.
Nov 022008
How’s this for environmentally-induced cognitive dissonance: it was almost seventy degrees and dark by six in the evening. It’s like I was magically transported to some bizarro version of Minnesota.
Nov 012008
Here’s another blog you should add to your feed list: Schuyler’s Monster. Schuyler is a lovely 8-year-old girl who has bilateral perisylvian polymicrogyria, a rare neurological condition that renders her unable to speak but able to comprehend the speech of others. Her father, Robert Rummel-Hudson, blogs about his fears and hopes for his daughter, which are also expressed in his recently published book of the same name. Whether he’s decrying the injustice of his daughter’s forced silence or sharing his joy when Schuyler brings home a good report card, Robert comes across as both a strong advocate and loving father. And through him, we get to know Schuyler, who strikes me as a very cool little girl.
Oct 312008
For Halloween, I dressed up as a lawyer–complete in suit and tie–and sponsored my sister’s admission to the Minnesota bar. Over 600 hundred attorneys were sworn in at today’s ceremony. Having four law schools in the Twin Cities ensures that the supply of freshly minted lawyers always exceeds demand. I had friends who were still waiting tables after they passed the bar, and this was in the halcyon days of the late nineties. The job market confronting most of today’s new attorneys is much grimmer.
But I have more immediate concerns, like wondering whether the dry cleaners can get the sacrificial goat’s blood out of my tie. Those arterial sprays are messy.
Oct 302008
Senator McCain’s proposed health care “reform” centers around a proposal to give everyone a $5,000 tax credit that they can use to purchase insurance on the private market. But that five grand isn’t going to stretch as far if you’re a woman. As the chart below illustrates, women already pay significantly more than men for individual health care coverage:
Insurers justify this sex-based discrimination by arguing that women are more likely to receive check-ups and take prescription medications. In other words, ladies, it’s your own fault. If you could just learn to buck up and stoically ignore your medical issues like us manly dudes, you wouldn’t be facing this problem.
The private insurance market is one of the few sectors in the American economy that is allowed to employ naked bias as a tool for profit. Let’s hope that changes soon.
Oct 292008
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:
Oct 282008
The UK newspaper The Observer recently published the results of its Sex Poll, which included this question: Have you ever had sex with someone with a physical disability?
The results were as follows:
– 70% said No, and I don’t think I would.
– 26% said No, but I would not rule it out.
– 4% said Yes
Those numbers don’t surprise me and I suppose I could use them as a justification for throwing my hands in the air (er, figuratively) and settling in for a life of celibate bachelorhood. But I’m not really interested in trying to earn the affection of that 70%. Those are probably the same 70% that refuse to try sushi or watch a movie with subtitles; the boring and the conformist. I’m more interested in seeking out members of the other 30%. Those are the interesting people. They’re not easy to spot and it takes more than a little time and luck to find them, but they’re out there.
These statistics simply reaffirm that disability, in the abstract, is not attractive to most people. But individually, we gimps are not abstractions.
Oct 272008
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.