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 to politics. Now I’m exhausted mentally, and I’m having trouble bringing myself to watch Senator McCain’s acceptance speech.

In addition to the media overload, I think part of the problem was watching Governor Palin’s speech, which went beyond working to present herself as an experienced, trustworthy candidate and went into clearly misrepresenting her past and Obama’s record. But the single thing that has made me want to throw up my hands and walk out of the room and cry until the world changed was one simple line: “I guess a small-town mayor is kind of like a community organizer, except that you have actual responsibilities.” The shameless hubris that it takes to say something like this, to ridicule the people who have chosen to work protecting our nation’s most vulnerable people, and then to hear that get the largest cheers and applause of the night, makes me so angry and so sad that I just can’t bear to hear if McCain did something similar.

It’s been a not-well-hidden theme of the Republican convention this year that military service and running for office as a Republican are selfless acts of putting others first, while actually working with poor people or running for office for any other party is a self-promoting life-journey-step-in-the-road. But to come right out and say that working in a community through non-political means is pointless and laughable, and not have a single member of the Christian Right say, “excuse me, but that’s what churches do - they are religious community organizers,” is just more than I can take.

I don’t think I’m alone in mourning what has become of the Republican Party. I want a strong conservative party that upholds traditional values like thrift and self-reliance and prudence, is wary of centralized power and opposes corruption, and that is willing to eliminate useless government programs. But the GOP is not that party by any of these measures. I know some people will vote Republican this fall just because of abortion (even though until January of this year McCain opposed overturning Roe v. Wade), or because they earn over $250,000 and don’t want to see their taxes revert to 2000 levels, or some other reason they think is especially significant. But the corruption, the arrogance, the lack of ideas, the inability to balance a budget, the war-mongering and sabre-rattling that continues to infuse the GOP (at least at the national level) make it impossible for me to be a well-informed citizen without my brain exploding.

So there you have it - you need to personally put the GOP on the right course or Tim’s head will explode. I lay this on you.

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 is hard to see, obscured by the tear gas.

Minnesota Public Radio’s Bob Collins includes this quote with the image:

“Inviting as many as 20,000 guests to Minneapolis and St. Paul for the convention will have an incredible economic impact. People will stay in hotels. Go out to dinner. Spend money. Shop. And return home with wonderful stories to tell about Minneapolis-St. Paul.“ 

Jeremy Hansen, spokesman for Mayor R.T. Rybak
September 28, 2006
After the Twin Cities were awarded the convention

(h/t Kevin)

A good overview of the arrests is here (h/t Kevin). It’s not clear what the basis for the arrests were. It’s plausible that the people wanted to disrupt the convention (which is legal) but no clear evidence has been put forward that the intended to riot or cause violence or harm police officers (which are illegal, obviously). When a family who live in a bus get pulled over by twelve police cars because they say they want to demonstrate how to resolve conflicts peacefully and have a low impact on the environment.

We can fell the sadness and worry all the way in Connecticut.

Of course, they don’t call it “classic rock.” They call it alternative or progressive or something like that. But when a station plays “Lump” and “Vaseline” and “The Sweater Song” in their regular rotation, you know something’s up. That’s what happened with the new format for 104.1 out of Hartford. As I type, their most recently played songs are by Bush, All-American Rejects, Nirvana, M.I.A., Beastie Boys, Coldplay, Chevelle, (old) Radiohead, Soul Coughing, Stone Temple Pilots, The Killers, and Live. So yeah, they mix in some new stuff by Spoon or Plain White T’s, but they are clearly targeting people my age with the music we grew up with. (Wait a second, does that imply a grew up?) So I guess their target demographic are the people who look back with nostalgia on “Runaway Train” and “No Rain” the way that people older than me looked back on “Two Tickets to Paradise” and “Benny and the Jets.”

So this is what it feels like to be old.

The basic advantages of Twitter:

1. Items you want to share that don’t seem worth a full blog post (an interesting interview you heard, a quick observation) are perfect to share on Twitter. 
2. It’s quick. If you’ve never started a blog because it seems like to much commitment or if you find you don’t update because you don’t have the time, Twitter is for you.
3. It’s easy to follow. Chances are you’ve either you’ve bookmarked your friends’ webpages to see when they update (very time consuming) or you use an RSS feed that has way to many feeds for you to possibly read so you find out things too late. And you know what? They’ve probably done the same for you. So save everyone the hassle and follow them and let them follow you on Twitter.

Advanced Twitter use:

1. Those who do a lot of text messaging on their phones (not me) will like the ability to quickly relay information to people through Twitter or get updates from their friends this way.
2. There’s no consensus on what makes for a good Twitterer. Some people like to find out what you are doing every moment of the day (eating baloney sandwich, washing the dishes); others hate those. Some people only tweet when they’re trying to make someone laugh; others never do. You’ll find your sweet spot after a while.
3. Twitter has spawned a whole industry of people posting under assumed identities, sometimes (but not always) with some very funny results (e.g., Darth Vader, Cobra Commander, fakejohnmccain). By writing the mundane thoughts of fictional characters, you get a whole different take on life.
4. If you use a Mac, I recommend Twitterific. It’s design is simple and it’s easy to track your friends as they tweet.

I’m sure there’s more, but you get the idea. So go get started and follow me.

The summer did end with a bang … or at least a bark. Wednesday night we went to Elm Shakespeare Company’s production of The Matchmaker by Thornton Wilder. We got there just before the show started, but we realized that we had forgotten (okay, I had forgotten) the lawn chairs, so I drove back home to get them. I got there after the show had started, but I really needed to pee. So I walk to the portapotty, and hurry back. By now, I’ve missed at least 20 minutes of the show. On my way back from the little blue cubicle of stench, I walked a little close to a woman with two very large very unhappy dogs, one of which lunged at me. It took hold of my left hamstring. The woman was able to call her dog off after a couple seconds, but it came as a bit of a shock. I hadn’t touched the dog or stepped over it or anything. I was at a public park with hundreds of other people, including a family with some very young kids right in front of us. Fortunately, I had some heavy jeans on, which didn’t tear, so the urgent care doctor felt comfortable not giving me a rabies shot since the dog’s saliva didn’t come into contact with my skin. Even without puncturing my jeans, though, the dog left a noticeable hole in the back of my left thigh, about 1/4″ round.

Too bad my guard dog wasn’t there to protect me.

The next day, we laze around, I do some small projects around the house, we each take showers. After running some errands (gosh, we had an empty fridge), we get back to notice that the small water stain in the ceiling below the upstairs bathroom had become a steady drip-drip-drip, every 10 seconds or so. We couldn’t get a plumber out that day, so at 7:00am our plumber came, made some loud bangs, and finally fixed the leak. It ended up being something that I could possibly have fixed, which made me wonder if I should have tried. I had assumed the leak was behind the shower in the pipes, so I never tried to fix it myself. Perhaps I could have done it, given that the problem was mostly one of tightening and caulking. I’ve never done any plumbing work, so that is one of the home repairs I always turn over to the professionals, but now I’m wondering if I couldn’t have done this myself and saved a couple hundred dollars.

I’m generally torn in home repair things, between trying to do things myself and having a professional do it. I see the advantages of each (cost and growing expertise vs. quality and existing expertise), but it’s hard to know when one side is more valuable than the other. For instance, Nicole and I have been talking for a while about renovating our kitchen and bathrooms. How much of the can I do? Demo? Constructing cabinets? Installing cabinets? Installing sinks? I’m not sure, which is part of why we haven’t done it yet.

The problem with not having experience in these things is not having developed the judgment to know when it’s time to hand over the reins to someone else.

On Friday the Fourth, we surprised my parents in Wisconsin. Luckily, they were meeting my grandparents for dinner that evening, so we got to see them as well. Saturday we drove up to the Twin Cities, where we have been seeing friends over dinner, coffee, drinks, Wii, walking to parks, and every other imaginable manner (warning: exaggeration alert).

We are almost to the point of making the long journey back. It’ll be the standard bittersweetness of travel: glad to be home in one’s own bed and comfortable surroundings but sad to be leaving friends and family and places we love. David Sedaris and Sarah Vowell and Ira Glass make the drive quite nice, even through the boring states. (I’m looking at you, Indiana.)

Then we’ll be doing the regular routine for a few days before starting the travel process all over.

Myth #1: Obama has a problem with Latino voters, an area where McCain is making inroads.

Actually, Latinos are polling for Obama at 62% and for McCain at 28%. By contrast, the sitting president captured over 40% of the Hispanic vote in 2004.

Myth #2: Obama has a problem with support from white women. Female supporters of Hillary Clinton are flocking to McCain.

Actually, despite a few public announcements by white women who were campaigning for Clinton, women are overwhelmingly supporting Obama, 51% to 38%, and white women support Obama by 6 points. By contrast, Kerry’s final lead among women was only 3%.

Myth #3: McCain flip-flopped on off-shore drilling.

Actually, there’s no reason to assume that McCain changed his policy position for political reasons (what I think is meant by “flip-flopping”). It’s perfectly consistent to have the position, “no off-shore drilling except when demand is so high that it pushes gas to over $4 per gallon.” McCain deserves the benefit of the doubt here.