Inessentials: The Blog

I voted.
I thought I had researched all the referendums and local elections that would be on my ballot, so I froze up when I saw “Registrar of Voters” listed among the elections. There were at least four or five names listed. How did I not know this would be on there? Who were these people? [...]

[Read more →]

I realized today that I feel very sad for people who want to vote for the first African-American candidate for President but are not voting for Obama.
I don’t feel any sympathy for the bigots who won’t vote for someone with darker skin then them, or the idiots who believe he is a secret Muslim or [...]

[Read more →]

Here are a list of politics-related things that get talked about far too much for their worth. They are things that I really don’t care about. I almost hate to repeat them, since they’re already too talked about, but I’m hoping it helps to say that we should turn our attention to other things.

How much [...]

[Read more →]

I’m not sure if I can do it.
I’ve been following the political conventions fairly closely these last couple weeks. I’ve watched the speeches. I’ve read analyses. I’ve tried to figure out what was truth, what was spin, and what was flat-out lying. That’s meant I’ve given a lot of my attention and mental energy over [...]

[Read more →]

I can’t begin to describe how affecting this image is:

That’s the historic Mickey’s Diner in downtown St. Paul, MN – an icon so beloved and so representative of Minnesota’s vision of itself that it was the setting for the closing scene in Robert Altman’s Prairie Home Companion, written by hometown hero Garrison Keillor. The diner [...]

[Read more →]

In what might turn into a recurring series, I thought I would mention a couple myths about the current election. These myths are ones I’ve heard reported from various news sources or editorials, but simply aren’t true. Repeated often, but not true.
Myth #1: Obama has a problem with Latino voters, an area where McCain is [...]

[Read more →]

How did I not hear about this sooner?
Apparently, some states have passed laws allocating their electoral college delegates based on the national popular vote. According to the consensus reading of the U.S. Constitution, states can decide how to allocate the people who really vote the president: the members of the electoral college. Most states give [...]

[Read more →]

I’ve been interested for a while in the support that Barack Obama has been garnering from many conservative thinkers. (E.g., conservative blogger Andrew Sullivan, those discussed in this “Obamacon” article.) While the vast majority of conservatives will either vote for McCain, vote third-party, or not vote at all this November, a number of prominent conservatives [...]

[Read more →]

Today I was supposed to go for jury duty. I received a notice in the mail a couple months ago. And since I am in between teaching duties, I had no good excuse not to go. Plus, it seemed kind of exciting. I was interested to see how things work on the inside. I even [...]

[Read more →]

The issue about the on-going Democratic primary that gets the most attention is whether the dragged-out primary is destroying the Democratic Party. I have no strong feeling on that matter. It has up-sides and down. I do think, however, the McCain campaign is doing a really, really smart thing in the meanwhile.
First, McCain gives a [...]

[Read more →]