David Grenier’s Blog

So as yinz’ve noticed, I don’t really blog anymore. If I actually think of something to blog about, it invariably turns out that by the time I sit down to write, the subject has been covered elsewhere in greater detail. So I’ve discovered the joys of Facebook where I can easily just link to other blogs and articles, as well as play Word Challenge over and over again.

I’m not going to say I’ll never post here again, but most of my action is going on over there. Yes, after years of resisting “social networking” I’ve finally been sucked in. If you want to keep up with me, my profile (I think) is here.

Inspired by this, I created my own randomized Sarah Palin Debate Bingo card generator. Every time you refresh you get a new card, so you and a room full of friends can play against each other.

Here’s the deal. If email forwards, online polls, and digg.com mattered, Ron Paul would be the Republican nominee.

Okay folks, I’m up in New Hampshire again volunteering for the Obama campaign. I’d love to see yinz up here with me (or volunteering in whatever battleground state is closest to you) - but if you can’t volunteer you should sponsor me.

http://my.barackobama.com/page/outreach/view/main/davidgrenier

That’s right, for $10 a day you can sponsor me to do all of the phone banking and door knocking and data entry that you don’t want to do. That’s a dollar an hour - we’re talking Chinese prison labor prices!

http://my.barackobama.com/page/outreach/view/main/davidgrenier

Together we can win this thing, but only if we treat the election like a participatory movement and not like a spectator sport. So get involved with your time or your dollars, but get involved.

Barack Obama is known for his abilities as an orator, and grown men are known to tingle, tremble, and weep at his speeches.

I thought tonight’s speech was good. Maybe not as good as his Iowa victory speech or his explanation of how he became a Christian, but still good. I managed to get through the whole thing without being overcome or breaking down or whatever.

And then, when it was all over and Joe Biden came up to join Barack and Michelle, for some reason a corny line from a corny movie popped into my head:

“We really shook the pillars of heaven, didn’t we Wang?”

And that’s when I lost it.

Ever notice you never see these two in the same room at the same time?

I was saying Boo-ush!

So……

Are there any dudes left in the Party?

Sorry everybody for the lack of blogging lately. I should probably tell you all now since you’ll know sometime later today, but Barack Obama has selected me to be his running mate. That’s why I’ve been so busy.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go personally text message two million supporters. One at a time.

I hope that government health insurance covers carpal tunnel.

I absolutely hate reality televisions, but I’m still going to watch this, even though I know its probably going to suck.

My guess is that it will be way too much about the people and their petty drama, and not enough about the dogs and their awesomeness.

The problem with the intersection of politics and the blogosphere is that - like the 24 hour news channels - there’s too much time to fill and not enough real news or insight to fill it. So bloggers jump on whatever tiny piece of nothing is floating around and try to pump it up into the MOST IMPORTANT THING EVER. They try to turn every tiny offhand comment into a HUGE GAFFE, they make mountains out of molehills, and they generally act in a way that would make chicken little seem calm, reasoned, and rational.

Bloggers live in an echo chamber to begin with, where particular types of crazy that exist only on the internet seem sane and normal. Issues that the majority of the country doesn’t care about - especially regarding technology - seem of paramount importance to them and they honestly believe something like support for net neutrality would decide an election. Add the partisanship of politics on top of that, where everything my guy does is great and everything your guy does proves how evil he is, and you have a recipe for sheer fucking stupidity in a teacup.

There’ve already been so many examples of this, but the latest is libloggers insistance that somehow John McCain referring to himself as “computer illiterate” disqualifies him from the job of being President.

This argument is EXACTLY THE SAME as saying that Obama can’t be commander in cheif because he never served in the military.

But lets take it further. Neither McCain nor Obama (nor Clinton, Edwards, or Kucinich for that matter) are doctors. Does that mean they can’t have any kind of health care policy?

None of them are engineers and I’ll bet none have either designed, built, or installed a windmill. Nor have they developed enzymes that can break switchgrass down into cellulosic ethanol. Can they not have an energy strategy?

None of these guys have ever worked a manufacturing job in their life. Does that mean none of them should do anything to try to help bring our manufacturing jobs back from China?

The fact is that even most folks who use computers regularly are not tuned into the issues tech geeks and bloggers obsess over (net neutrality, drm, etc). The fact is also that Presidents rely on advisers for most of their work. They’re the people who need to be the experts. The President just has to have good judgement and good leadership abilities. But mostly, the fact is that no liberal would decide to vote for McCain if Obama said he let Michelle and the kids handle all the computer stuff. Which makes this a non-issue being hyped simply because it gives our side an excuse to talk down to the other side.

There are real policy differences between Obama and McCain, and real reasons to support Obama. But jumping on every tiny piece of nonsense to demonize McCain makes libloggers look at best like incredibly petty zealots, and at worst like disingenuous assholes.

Not to mention the fact that the facebook and twitter crowd is probably about 2% of the voting population, and they’re essentially calling the rest of us stupid - which isn’t the best strategy I’ve ever heard of.

George Carlin wasn’t that funny. At least not in my teenage or adult lifetime. I mean, the guy’s been trading on routines he did when I was an infant for decades, but I never saw those. All I ever saw what a bitter, hateful, unfunny man who was not a little bit misogynistic.

I also felt he was fairly conservative, but like many “hip” conservatives took enough potshots at the most puffed up religious moralists to pretend that he was a freethinking rebel.

Last night I went to see the Neutral Nation reunion (there’s another one Sunday at The Living Room if you missed it). I’m sitting there thinking, “The Celtics just won a championship, Buddy Cianci just got out of jail, Unemployment is 7.2% in the state, and I’m at a Neutral Nation show at The Rocket. It’s like the late 80s all over again.”

From the ProJo: Recession report: R.I. jobless rate soars to 7.2%, the highest rate in 14 years

Meanwhile, Massachusetts yesterday reported payroll jobs last month grew by 3,900 but the unemployment rate rose to 4.9 percent. In Connecticut, jobs were up by 2,900 and the unemployment rate was 5.4 percent.

The national unemployment rate in May was 5.5 percent.

Rhode Island’s lack of any strong engine of job growth, coupled with fallout from the housing market and the state’s budget crisis mean that the state has “three major problems where most states only have one,” the housing market, said Andres Carbacho-Burgos, an economist at Moody’s Economy.com.

Here’s a pretty good article that compares the top potential running mates for Barack Obama.

So I just checked Google News and I see several articles with titles like “Teachers defend shock tactics in DWI program.” The gist of the story is that school officials (read: administrators) and the California Highway Patrol (read: Ponch and John) basically staged a hoax where they told students that several of their classmates had been killed in drunk driving accidents over the weekend.

Students were justifiably upset, and the very fact that this move needs to be “defended” shows that obviously students and parents think this was a boneheaded stunt at best.

But here’s what annoys me. The teachers had nothing to do with this. The only mention of a teacher in the entire story was that a teacher admitted to the kids that the whole thing was a hoax. This is one of those ridiculous ideas that can only be dreamed up by managers and consultants, but is being layed at the feet of the teachers who have to follow orders and go along with this sort of nonsense.

Teachers didn’t implement this plan, and teachers aren’t defending it. Administrators, guidance counselors, and the police are the ones behind this nonsense.

I think its an important distinction, because I know that teachers can easily become everyone’s favorite political punching bag.

Given that their party is on the wrong side of pretty much every issue - thinking tax cuts for rich people are the solution to every economic problem; being against higher fuel mileage standards that would have kept the price of gas down, protected our environment, and preserved thousands of good-paying union jobs; wanting to stay in Iraq forever; wanting to start even more wars in Iran and Syria; opposing extending unemployment benefits to help workers after a record jump in unemployment; opposing a G.I. Bill that would help todays war veterans go to college just like their parents and grandparents did - its unsurprising that their party and its mouthpieces have given up on trying to win this election on the issues and are resorting to character assassination, mudslinging, smear campaigns, and pretty much flat-out lying.

Generally they can’t even dig up that much on Barack Obama, so they resort to taking out-of-context quotes from everyone who’s ever met the guy and using their talk-radio and cable-news “pundits” to create the illusion of some sort of mass outrage. One of their current smears is that Michelle Obama is unpatriotic. So you see otherwise intelligent people who obviously know better spouting this nonsense on every cable news show that will have them, using the Himmleresque axiom that if you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes the truth, regardless of the facts.

As usual the “experts” on the show - whether journalists or often spineless democrats - fail to do their job and actually correct the record, either because they’re too incompetent or too scared of confrontation. So as usual, it falls to all of us to do the highly paid hacks jobs for them.

In that vein, I got this email this morning:

Steven Hayes, senior writer with “The Weekly Standard,” said on “Race for the White House with David Gregory” on MSNBC tonight the following about Michelle Obama:  this is an exact quote of what he said:

 “she said that she wasn’t proud of her country until her husband was  essentially close to the  nomination.”

NO ONE corrected him.  The other members of the panel were Rachel Maddow, Eugene Robinson and Michael Smerconish.  Here are the facts. Please blast David Gregory and his bosses. I also have Eugene’s email address.  I’m tired of this urban legend.  Send them this report from The New York Times of what she really said and WHEN she said it.  Note: the video no longer works but it doesn’t matter- her whole speech is all over you tube and The New York Times is a good enough “reference” for the truth.

First of all she made this remark on February 18th, far from Barack having the nomination.   And another thing they are so careful to play anything McCain says in context and in full- like his Today show comments this morning that were replayed all day in their entirety – why doesn’t Michelle Obama get the same treatment???

MSNBC all day made SURE to play McCain’s explosive comments in FULL CONTEXT to protect him! If you missed it: http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/06/11/1132092.aspx

Here’s the truth on Michelle: http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/19/blogtalk-michelle-obama-under-fire/

---

The Caucus
The New York Times
February 19, 2008,  5:40 pm
Blogtalk: Michelle Obama Under Fire
By Ariel Alexovich
Michelle Obama has been criticized in the past for being too frank, like when she divulged that her husband, Barack Obama, unchivalrously leaves his laundry on the floor and sports terrible morning breath.But never have her words sparked such an outcry in the blogosphere and among commentators here on The Caucus.Needling her husband is one thing, but some folks are interpreting her remarks yesterday as a direct slam on America and calling them unpatriotic. They came back into the forefront today when Senator John McCain’s wife Cindy took an indirect swipe by saying she had always been proud of America.

To step back, let’s put Mrs. Obama’s comments in context. She made this statement during a speech in Milwaukee on Monday:

“What we have learned over this year is that hope is making a comeback. It is making a comeback. And let me tell you something — for the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country. And not just because Barack has done well, but because I think people are hungry for change. And I have been desperate to see our country moving in that direction and just not feeling so alone in my frustration and disappointment. I’ve seen people who are hungry to be unified around some basic common issues, and it’s made me proud.”

---

david.gregory@nbcuni.com  and race08@msnbc.com
The Bosses:  steve.capus@nbc.com and phil.griffin@nbc.com
Also, eugenerobinson@washpost.com

Lets face it, this “unpatriotic” smear is just a load of hypocritical horseshit. Conservatives who spent all of the 90s riding around with “I love my country but I hate my government” bumper stickers now want to claim that any criticism of the U.S. Government is unpatriotic. Conservatives who complain endlessly about secular values and liberal media and the like have no right to feign outrage when someone else says that American society and culture is not perfect.

And clearly, what Michelle Obama said on Februrary 18th is in line with how most Americans feel. We’ve lived through decades of partisan bickering, petty poltics, polarization, and putting party before people. We’ve all been sick of it, but felt powerless to do anything about it. Now, finally, the American people are saying, “enough is enough”. We’re getting involved, demanding change, and people in both parties have nominated decent folks who they think would make good presidents, not just the guy with the best zingers or the one they think is the least of all evils.

And yes, that does make us proud. Admitting that the way politicians have conducted themselves for the last few decades gives us little to be proud of does not make one unpatriotic. It makes one honest.

“What we have learned over this year is that hope is making a comeback. It is making a comeback. And let me tell you something — for the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country. And not just because Barack has done well, but because I think people are hungry for change. And I have been desperate to see our country moving in that direction and just not feeling so alone in my frustration and disappointment. I’ve seen people who are hungry to be unified around some basic common issues, and it’s made me proud.”

Here’s what she didn’t say:

I’m unpatriotic and I hate America. And whitey.

The Obama campaign has launched a new website: Fight the Smears. It seems like an update of the old factcheck.barackobama.com. But next time your idiot uncle forwards you one of those “Barack Obama is a secret muslim” or “Michelle Obama hates America” emails, you can respond quickly with the truth.

It’s like snopes.com for the Presidential race.

See this puppy here? She’s very sad.

Why is she sad?

Because you haven’t donated to Barack Obama through my fundraising page.

Why do you want to make this puppy sad? Is it because you hate puppies?

Don’t be a Romney - be nice to puppies. Donate today.