To all the dear friends Jay and I were supposed to reunite with in New York this weekend: We're not coming. Jetblue has grounded us.
We just got home from from Oakland International Airport, where after sitting around for several hours we were told that our full flight was canceled because... wait for it... they couldn't find any flight attendants to work it. The desk agent
announced that the plane was there, the pilot was there, but somehow the flight crew had not managed to make it and there was no way to find anyone else anytime soon. (Did they try Craigslist?)
Among bad airline experiences, this was a new one on me. As we waited in line, l got out my laptop and searched Jetblue.com for the next flight we could get on. This being a holiday weekend, there were no available flights tonight, nothing tomorrow and nothing even on Saturday. I remembered that the last time a flight we were on had been canceled, on America West, we had been rebooked for the next morning on another airline. But when we got to the head of the line, it became clear they had nothing like this even remotely in mind. After deepsixing our vacation through poor planning, all they were willing to give us was a refund or a flight credit, the terms of which they could not explain at the time. We were told that, who knows, the company might change its mind tomorrow, but for now, get your luggage and go back where you came from.
Until now I have been a big fan of Jetblue and its cheap nonstop flights between NYC and the Bay Area. It had never occurred to me to that there were any customer benefits to code-sharing, "alliances" or other partnerships between airlines. Not that I have any idea whether such arrangements would have helped in this case. But if incompetent America West can get us moving 14 hours after a cancellation and Jetblue needs 48 hours to do the same, then maybe there are downsides to the Jetblue model that I haven't appreciated before. If we wanted
to be in New York two and a half days from now, we would have taken Amtrak.
Tufte Alert, motion graphics division: State Machine is a provocative new way of viewing campaign contribution data. Following that time-honored floaty-bouncy Thinkmap style, the visualization represents senators as free-floating balloons (the richer, the bigger) and contributing industries as magnets that attract a senator more or less based on how much $ they've given that senator. Find out if Senator X owes more to retirees or the banking industry... and what happens if unions enter the picture? (Via we make money not art.)
The first thing I did when I got a camera phone was spell a message to
a friend by photographing words on local signs. Now Kastner the genius
Flickrscripter has automated the
process. Kowabunga!
The New York Times is putting more and more of its non-text content online, and this means I have a new hobby. I realize that critically dissecting the daily op-ed illustration has all the broad popular appeal of summarizing Proust. But if I weren't in thrall to my own arbitrary obsessions, well, I wouldn't be a blogger.
I know many of you will call this premature defeatism, but I've been in a funk since about 10:30 last night. I was riding home from my day of volunteer canvassing in the Philly suburbs, having decided at the last minute Sunday to get on ACT's bus and do what I could, lest I regret my inaction for four more years. When we cheered the radio's news that our efforts had won the day in PA, it was one of the few bright spots in what to me has felt like an endless volley of punishment. Every damn one of those bigoted, antigay ballot issues passed. Daschle's done for and that idiot Bunning is going to the Senate. And Bush's margin of 3 million in the popular vote is more than enough to give him an outsized sense of mandate if he wins or to bind us in gridlock if by some
miracle he loses.
Whatever happens in Ohio, here's what I know: A slim but significant majority of Americans are in thrall to easy moral certitudes and a naive, antigovernment economic individualism. They're not inclined to argue about their beliefs and they don't like it when others do. As a result, progressives need incredibly skillful, incredibly imaginative politicians to win, while the Republican leadership can win with politicians who are barely competent to address a national audience. (In fact, skill and imagination are a detriment in today's Republican party, as evidenced by the McCain experience.) We have some decent, strong and intelligent people representing progressive agendas, but depressingly few with true political skill and imagination. Our question for the next four, eight, twenty, whatever it takes years will be to create the culture that creates those new leaders.
Sorry to get all Heloise on ya, but ever since I got married and generously gifted, I've been a bit obsessed with trying to reduce our current volume of possessions to fit our nonexpandable apartment. And now here's a new thing I can do with the old "gently used" stuff: Donate it to a giant tag sale in Central Park to benefit the New York City public schools. As a veteran of many a stoopsale, I have a hard time believing this will really be profitable. But the prospect of seeing all of New York's castoffs in one place (Rumsey Playfield) fills me with creepy curiosity. And anyway: They'll take my stuff off my hands, it's a good local cause and they're not the Salvation Army. So I'm in.
So goes a true Jewish curse, according to the bad old joke. And so you have Williamsburg Hasidim praying against the artists. I'll say one thing for them: this is the rare band of culture warriors whose fanatical prudery is in perfect alignment with their economic interests. In the 'burg, artistic ferment really does menace the g-dly--or at least, their once-low rents. (via harpers.org)
I've been wary of the lovefest around Wesley Clark, but I'm gratified and even inspired to see that he's become the first presidential candidate to propose a major new initiative for civilian national service. I'm a big fan of having civilian service options as well as military ones (I might even support a civilian+military draft for the sake of national cohesiveness), but I've always doubted that the feds could make a civilian program work at a scale any larger than Americorps--it seemed likely to founder under the weight of its bureaucracy. But Clark's proposal for a Civilian Reserve sounds more feasible than others I've heard. Modelled on the military reserves, it has people indicating their skills, registering for a five year period and serving if called for six months at a time. If it existed today, I'd join up. Something tells me, though, that this isn't a new idea, and maybe it's proved unworkable in the past. Anyone know?
Here's a visual effect we've seen a lot: election return maps, like the official one for the California recall, that make the election look like a landslide because the winner took the largest-landmass precincts. On style.org, Jonathan Corum digs deeper into the county-by-county data to produce an alternate set of maps that reflect population densities and the decisiveness of each county, producing both a more complex picture of the way Californians voted and a nifty information design tutorial. Not that it matters to most Californians at this point, but it's worth keeping these principles in mind now that the "red state/blue state" dichotomy presented by traditional election maps has become the pundit shorthand of the moment.
Wasn't there an Ishbadiddle advisory about not posting new topics in the comments? If there was, I disregarded it, and now I'll put it right. After prolonged final status negotiations, Jay and I have decided to get married next summer, joining with the Owlanphys in turning next year into one big Gilbert & Sullivan finale. Here's the whole story.
p.s. Unlike Chris and Emily, we waited a very long time to do this (due to exhaustive pondering of Ennis's question), but we still consider them our cohort and we couldn't have asked for a better one!
In her column yesterday, normally steely White House press corps veteran Helen Thomas drops her guard and salutes the departing Ari Fleischer, saying he's been "no slouch as a slugger in defense of Dubya." Say that phrase to yourself a couple of times. It has a lovely music to it, and the music I hear is hiphop. Rap from the mouths of establishment figures has been both a comedy warhorse and a CNN marketing directive, but isn't it great when it just happens?
| Hip-Hop | Rap
...and now you, too, can be one of them. You may ask, what's the point? Even if I knew, I would not be at liberty to say...
| Flash Mobs | New York City
The 3-2 decision (along party lines) by the Republican-led FCC to relax media ownership restrictions was apparently a foregone conclusion, but now that it's a official, it should raise a new question for all Americans. Namely, what would it take for the agency that regulates our all-pervasive mediasphere to actually start acting in the public interest? Over half a million e-mails and postcards in support of media pluralism? La, la, la, we're not listening. Piles of editorials predicting bigger and less public-minded media conglomerates and less debate? Nope, not a factor. I'm left wondering if structural reform of the executive branch is our only hope for responsive government in complex, not soundbite-friendly areas like media policy. Anyone?
| Media
There's been lots of indignation here on Ish lately, and I say, let's celebrate it! Assisting me on audio will be this clever ITP project, a sound toy for nattering nabobs like me. You can even add to the onslaught yourself.
This has made me as suspicious as I've been lately of being hoaxed by a major news organization. (This morning's election returns don't count, since I only wish those were a hoax.) This is really, like, a stealth marketing campaign for a dating website, right? I mean, has anyone out there in NYCBlogLand ever seen this woman at a bar? Paging Lynn Harris...
| New York City | Superheroes
Mike and Colin's posts in praise of Halloween culture got me thinking about how some of my favorite songs ever are actually pretty Halloween-appropriate. Call me a closet goth or something, but I'm a sucker for tales of occult figures, satanic carnage, mayhem and intimations of doom with catchy hooks built in.
This was going to be a canon/compilation project a la Trip's Camaro Rock or our household Winter Solstice comp tape, but these tunes are a small, elite group and they don't really fit together on one mix. Diverse though they may be, I'd recommend them all to anyone who appreciates the bloody-minded irony of, say, the Simpsons Halloween specials, or who's just done the Monster Mash too many times already.
Six(66) Songs for an All Hallow's Reprieve (The Phantom Liner Notes):
1) Daniel Johnston, "Casper the Friendly Ghost"
Now it can be told! Johnston's home-recorded, Casio-accompanied song recasts Casper as a lonely soul who fell down a well and came back to find the love he'd been denied. "Nobody treated him nice when he was alive... but everyone respects the dead." There's a lesson in that somewhere.
2) The Lord Weird Slough Feg, "High Season III"
Metal bombast has never been so loveable as in the moment near the end when the lead singer proclaims, "Now the time has ARRIVED!/For you to meet your DEMISE!/ The emptiness plagued mortal men/Upon which you FEAST and you THRIVE!!!" This is part of a multisong cycle that's sort of an inversion of Paradise Lost, and would make a great Broadway show.
3) Barbara Manning, "Someone Wants You Dead"
Singer/songwriter Manning has the creepiest ballad in this lot, told from the perspective of someone investigating the scene of an unsolveable murder: "She didn't have a Doberman/She didn't have a phone/It was not the kind of place/You'd want to live alone." Sounds like a latter-day sequel to all those crime-story folksongs that Harry Smith used to collect.
4) Goodie Mob, "Cell Therapy"
I'm amazed at how many conspiracy theories the Goodie Mob rappers manage to pack into one cut. Or maybe it's just one, big theory with government surveillance at its center. The chorus goes, "Who's that peekin' in my window/POW!/Nobody, now." Could this be the answer record to Rockwell's "Somebody's Watching Me"?
5) Slayer, "Raining Blood"
Yeah, you could point out that most metal bands live in Halloween Town, but the classic riff that leads this one off and the over-the-top guitar solo make this the anthem for teens to headbang to in their rooms while their freaked-out parents dial Tipper. As Jay points out, both this and the Slough Feg track feature Satan soliloquizing about what will happen when he rises and takes over the Earth--just like that song in the South Park movie!
6) Jad Fair, "Frankenstein Must Die"
Long and regrettably out of print, this is the best of the many monster songs of Jad Fair and his band Half Japanese (For an introduction, rent the excellent documentary flick The Band that Would Be King.) The climax is when, after a long, hilarious setup, Jad stands up to the monster, intoning, "Oh Mr. Frankenstein you must die!" And he triumphs, after a fashion.
| Mixes | Scary
You know all those times I complained about the proliferation of login screens in my life? How I can't always keep straight which one's my ATM PIN, which is my Blogger password and which is the combo on my luggage lock? Well forget I said any of it. Passwords are a wonderful solution to all manner of personal and corporate security needs! I adore them! I'll go now and memorize them some more. Just, please, step away from the forearm and keep that syringe where I can see it. Let's not be hasty, OK?
| Identity | Scary
This November, many of us will have to decide whether politicians' past mistakes should keep them out of office in the future. But consider the quandary for Montana third-party voters: they can pick the Green guy or the blue guy. Ask all you want about his views on the regulation of health products; just don't call him a Meanie. (Thanks to Jay for the link.)
| Montana | Side Effects
When I first read a journalist recalling "the crash of the Internet bubble," I assumed it was a typo. But it turns out that the phrase is enjoying a certain currency among tech business hindseers, and the copygeek in me is getting a little concerned that it may prove truly sticky...
--"Gran'ma, tell me again about the crash of the Internet bubble!"
--"Ah, yes, son. That was when the New Economy pulled the plug out from under a sinking tide of mixed metaphors."
| Language
