Some Words About Prop 8

Ciao, Tutti!

So, I don't know if you've heard about it, but we're all on the brink of Armageddon.

It's true.

I read about it in the New York Times. Our values, our way of life, our influence in the world, freedom or religion, and everything that we held sacred are, unbeknown to you, currently threatened.

But there is one easy way for all of you to keep the apocalypse from coming. Folks, we can avoid it. And here's how: Vote yes of prop 8 in California.

That's right. The biggest threat to everyone and everything in the United States and the world is the fact that people can marry other people of the same sex in California. And they must be stopped or else everything we've worked so hard to build in this nation's history will crumble. It's even "more important the presidential election", and I quote: "We've picked bad presidents before, and we've survived as a nation... But we will not survive if we lose the institution of marriage."

So, there you have it. Without prop 8 we will all die. End of story.

Okay, by now you have to realize I'm being completely sarcastic. If you're not, welcome new readers! And I swear if any news source quotes my sarcastic ramblings out of context I promise to bring Armageddon straight to its door.

Even though I was being ridiculously sarcastic in the passage above, other people have said the same things without being sarcastic. I really don't understand how. But here's the link to the New York Times (New York Times! The ultra-liberal news source!) that has the quotes referenced above. Buon'appetite, it's pretty depressing.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/27/us/27right.html?_r=1&ref=us&oref=slogin

I am sick of scare tactics. Did you also know Obama's a socialist radical Muslim who's best friends with terrorists? See, that kind of thing is getting on my nerves.

I had the same problem voting on some of the California propositions. Yes, I voted absentee, and I'm proud of it, though I want my "I voted" sticker to prove it. Anyway, I would read the arguments for and against the different props and some would feature language that was meant to be played out of bassy speakers on Halloween. If you vote yes on prop 5 convicted drug dealers will be set free and rape your children. If we don't fund more police officers gang violence will kill everyone in your family.

Yada yada yada. No offense.

Listen up, everyone. These are not arguments. I formally announce that arguments and political discussion are things of the past. These are, to use a cliche, scare tactics. Scare you into voting one way or the other, either by massive distortion of the facts or by amplifying an unfounded possibility.

I don't mean to disregard people's fears. Actually, that's not entirely true, now that I think of it. I'm pleading to you all not to vote by fear ALONE.

This is pretty funny coming from me, who just the other day told everyone to vote Obama because even if you don't like him you sure as hell don't want Sarah Palin anywhere closer to the White House than Alaska. That's a scare tactic, I guess. I bow in humble apology.

The point is that fear should not dictate our actions by itself. Yes, I admit, I am a hope person. But I am also scared shitless, as I have said in previous blogs. The way people argue, the way they perceive arguments, and the way people make arguments all scare me. Scare tactics scare me! It's too easy to just tell a bunch of people that if you vote no on the bill of victim's rights then you're a baby killer. No. That's unfair. But, hey, it wins votes.

So vote yes on proposition 8 or the apocalypse will be your fault.

More short fiction to come, probably sometime after the apocalypse, I mean election.

-Sam goldsmith

P.S. How hard would it be to change the initiative process in California? It needs to happen. It's just too darn easy to get a proposition on the ballot these days. I've only voted a couple of times and I've already seen repeat measures. My favorite (again, new readers, sarcasm here) one is the prop that makes it mandatory for minors to attain parental consent before having an abortion. Yeah, I've already voted no twice and I've only voted in two elections. And no matter how many times it gets voted down, I'm sure I'll keep seeing it on ballots for years to come. Sigh, some things never change.

P.P.S. Holla if you're excited that Ted Stevens got convicted. That's one Alaskan politician down, at least one more to go...

Art Sharing Day

Ciao, Tutti!

I have some things to share with you. Two things, specifically.

1) I have opened a MySpace page for First Regrets so you can all hear the songs I've been working on here in New York. http://www.myspace.com/firstregrets is where you can find three of the seven songs I have been working on. Trust me, you'll like them. You'll want to take them home with you. Ah, aren't portable personal computers nice? Feel free to listen as much as you want and feel encouraged to pass the word on/brag to your friends on my behalf.

Take that, everyone who said I can't sing! That would probably just be my brother... So take that, my brother! Hm, it doesn't seem to carry so much weight when I say it like that...

2) I have a short fiction to share with you. This is a new thing I'm trying: A fiction blog! I've been writing a lot of short fiction pieces lately. I think I've written six in the past week, actually, although this is the only one that's made it to the second draft. The reason for this treason is that a lot of the stories I've been writing involve characters I didn't make up, so I could get in trouble if they go online. I'll see if I can figure out a way to make them more generic.

And so, without further ado:

Cliche Central

This story is being published in Cool Waters' literature anthology The Torn Page due to come out mid-March, 2012. I have removed the story to avoid copyright conflicts.

I've been writing a lot in first person lately, which is something I generally don't do. Not only that, but when I write in first person the narrator character has always been, well, me. And not me the musician or me the music student at NYU or me the brother or me the person living in New York City whose heart is still in the San Francisco Bay. I've been writing about me the writer. Hence this short piece. Actually, I seem to be caught up in writing about avoiding cliches. I wonder why this is. Perhaps I can figure it out in a dream sequence where I wake up in the middle of the night, sweat pouring down my face and heart beating, only to whisper to myself, "It was only a dream, it was only a dream."

Yeah. That wouldn't be cliche at all. Yeah...

Anyway, let me know what you think. It's only the second draft, so feel free to make whatever editing suggestions you wish. You can send me an email or just comment right on the blog if you want. I'm really open!

I hope you're all doing well.

-Sam goldsmith

Happiness Comes in the Form Of Mix-Ups and Rants

Ciao, Tutti!

Yeah, there's a lot to talk about. It shouldn't be a problem for a talkative guy like me, so if you find one, let me know.

Bad joke. Heh! Please forgive me, I only slept for about four hours last night.

Those pictures I said I'd talk about but never did




I am a member of an themed residency floor called "starving artists," a group of people that like to see art together and not starve together. Those of you who know me know my anti-social tendencies. So when the floor announced a free lunch of dim sum and a trip to Governor's Island, I figured I would go have the dim sum because it's delicious and then I could say I've done something with the floor and not have to deal with any other obligations. I'm such a wonderful person, aren't I? Please, don't answer that. I even brought reading to do, expecting a crowd of people that I could disappear in.

So I was quite surprised and downcast when I was the only resident who showed up at the meeting point. It was me, the RA (Barrie), the faculty affiliate (Chris) who looks younger than me, his wife, and his mother. Crap. There was no escaping conversation this time. I told them all I brought my backpack for my water bottle to sit in. On top of it all, dim sum was so crowded that we couldn't get a table, so we had to go somewhere else. Curse this good weather that brings people out of their houses!

Chris's mother took us to a Japanese restaurant she knew of instead and taught us how to eat there. Yes, I had to be taught. Because this was different than anything I had ever done before, even Korean barbecue. We were served three bowls of broth set on hot electric burners built into the table. We were given small trays loaded with different raw vegetables, noodles, and uncooked meats. I watched Chris's mother to see what the cue was. The idea was to cook the vegetables and proteins in the soup, then remove them with strainers and put them, cooked and saturated with the flavor of the soup, into our bowls. Afterward, she explained, the soups would have absorbed the flavors of everything we cooked inside and we could drink them.

It was delicious.

And fun.

Actually, anything bad I have to say about the trip basically ends there. We would put little fish bits in our strainers to keep them from being lost in the broth, then eat them a minute later, already fully cooked. There was a ton of food and we barely finished, if you could call it that. There was still a lot of food left in the bowls in the end. I was glad I hadn't eaten breakfast that day, originally anticipating a long dim sum and instead being happy I didn't. And to top it all off, a nice, cool red bean milkshake.

After that we bade farewell to Chris's mother and took off for Governor's Island on the free ferry. Not sleeping had caught up to me and I took a power nap, but I did not miss the view of each of the four Manhattan Waterfalls on their last day in operation. I think I've got some pictures of those, too... Yeah, I do, but you have to look carefully. There are three in this picture. The fourth is at the top of this section.



Anyhoo, Barrie and I rented bikes and rode around the island and I forgot how to break by pedaling backwards. We didn't have very much time on the island because of our long lunch, but there were some pretty views. Unfortunately I couldn't get a good picture of the Statue of Liberty because of where the sun was in the sky. We returned on Manhattan and went to the ice cream factory in Chinatown, so just when my stomach stopped feeling numb I was shoving more food down.

So it was worth it in the end. And beginning. I'm just a grumpy person, but if you push me the right way things work out in the end.

Last Friday I bumped into Barrie again just as she was about to take the floor out to a deli for dinner, so I decided to forgo dining hall food and follow. For some reason these excursions don't get much of a following. Could it be that everyone else on the floor is as anti-social as I am? Either way, I got to repeat the tradition of eating too much, this case being about a pound of meat shoved between two slivers of bread eaten under a sign pointing out where Harry met Sally. We talked about people getting arrested for graffiti as I watched my clock to make sure I wasn't late for my roommate's concert.

So, there you have it. That's what those pictures are about. Do I get to talk about what pisses me off yet?

Happiness Chronicles

This title should be taken sarcastically. I am really thinking of three things that are really pissing me off right now, and none of them are about the election! Wow, fancy that! Obama's lead must be getting to me.

1) Laundry at 2nd Street Residence. You all don't want to hear about this, but I have to say something about NYU nickle and diming us like they're an airline company or something. I am fine with paying $1.75 a load, 3.50 total, assuming you do colors and whites together. That is honest highway robbery (actually I've heard that price isn't so bad). But we also have to buy these strange cards in order to use the machines, and, guess what, the cards won't let you buy an amount divisible by 1.75. So no matter what we will be paying more than we will actually be using.

Why they can't just let us use quarters is beyond me. Actually, it's not. They make more money this way. And it pisses me off.

Let me tell you how much NYU needs the extra money. We received an email at the beginning of the year saying that NYU had the goal of raising a million dollars each day for the past seven years - and they surpassed it! We've got the highest tuition and are located in the highest cost of living in just about anywhere in the world. I don't have the numbers to prove it, but I don't really need them. Meanwhile Ivy League schools are giving full rides to students whose families make less than $100,000 in a year. NYU instead insists of raising tuition and cutting merit scholarships, a policy they announced last year while I was in Florence. No one else seems to get mad about this. They're all used to it.

Seriously, why does NYU need this money so much? For my $350 per night hotel room in New Orleans? For John Sexton's yacht? Obviously it's not going to a better jazz building with anything resembling soundproofing or enough practice rooms for all of us that are open 24 hours each day.

Anyway, the point is that if they want to take my money they shouldn't resort to dirty little tricks like stealing my laundry money.

2) University of California Press. I was reading Paul Farmer's book, "Pathologies of Power," for my class, only to discover that pages 155-202 had been left out and pages 203-250 had been printed twice. Unfortunately for me, this meant that the introduction to the analysis portion of the book was left out, and I was left to read the end without anything contextualizing to help me out. very frustrating.

After class the professor and another student with my issue went to the bookstore to replace the texts, which was surprisingly easily done, but I had to leave my copy of the book with all my notes so that the school could send it to the publisher and demand their money back. So now I am left fifty pages behind in the reading and without notes. Oh, and the first draft of the paper is due Tuesday.

Now, please, a moment of silence for my notes.

3) I still can't sleep very well. I won't complain too much because I feel fine and because if I complain too much people will start to worry, or, even worse, start to offer advice. It's just annoying how I could wake up at 5:45 every day last summer no sweat and now I have to drag myself out of bed at 9:00. Something's wrong with this picture.

General Housekeeping... Stuff

I figured you'd all appreciate a blog about something other than the election. Here are a few grab bag items I would like to mention:

1) In general music has slowed down for me, but I have started a band with my friends from Florence Megan and Jordan (I have mentioned this before) and it is really coming along. Megan and I are contributing a lot of music and we each play basically all the instruments we need as well as sing. That's right, folks, I can sing, and I can sing a lot better than I sang LCD Soundsystem's "New York I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down" at my show last month. And I even know how to write lyrics, too! Keep an eye out for us because I'm about to prove all this as soon as we get the chance.

2) Nanowrimo, short for National Novel Writing Month, is coming up this November. In short, it is like a game where people try to write 50,000 words of fiction during the space of one month. This boils down to about 1667 words per day, which is about 5 and a half pages double spaced. For me, this takes about an hour each day. I succeeded easily two years ago and failed last year when my computer crashed and I lost 30,000 words.

As you probably already know, last January I started writing a trilogy, the first book of which I just finished the first draft to (476 pages, 145,000 words). My plan is to continue this novelling spree come November, but until then I am left with nothing to do but edit and write short fiction.

What does this all mean? First of all, when we get to November I will probably not post many blogs. My writing mind will be elsewhere. If you see a blog it means I have either given up or, much more likely, am far ahead of the game. Secondly, I have started writing short fiction again in my excited anticipation of November. So you can expect a couple blogs in the near future to be stories I've written. Just to vary things up a little bit for you guys.

3) Vote. Please.

4) The High School Law Institute, the organization I teach Constitutional law in, has been going rather well. One of my team teachers is the head of the ConLaw curriculum, and between him and the other law student who went to Teach for America, we have a pretty formidable team. I am getting better on being able to tell where I fit in the discussions, especially when there is something historical to bring up.

I do have the one problem of the kid who is much better than me at this. I come into class last Saturday and he asks me what I thought of the ruling in Ohio over the weekend. I told him I hadn't seen it, what was it? It had something to do with voter fraud and ACORN (by the way, speaking of ACORN, my Power and Poverty professor just spent a great deal of time praising their research on poverty and race issues in America), and we launched into a discussion before class about why registering Mickey Mouse did not mean that Mickey Mouse was actually going to go to the polls and vote. Voter fraud from ACORN's shenanigans: 0. But this kid knew his stuff. He's probably more qualified to teach the class than I am.

Okay, time for a nap.

-Sam goldsmith

On Education Reform and Unlabeled Photos

Ciao, Tutti!

I’m sorry that I have to keep writing so often. For those of you who haven’t seen, I just posted yesterday evening about the debate and a series of releases, mainly having to do with motion pictures. Please go ahead and read why I think Obama kicked major butt in the debate yesterday. If you want. No pressure.

I do want to revisit one aspect of the debate today, that of the education platforms of the candidates. I don’t really want to talk about vouchers (and, come on, the voucher system in Washington D.C. is not doing a great job, guys), but I want to talk about a very important statistic that John McCain mentioned. In defense of his argument against Obama’s big spending plans, he said that the United States puts more money into our schools than any other country in the world, yet our schools are ranked among the worst among developed nations. McCain went on to say (and repeat a few times) that we can’t afford to throw money at the problem and that the best course of action is reform. Obama asserted that he would do both, reform and fund, saying his catch phrase about No Child Left Behind leaving the money behind.

As much as I hate to say it, McCain nailed it on the head.

However, identifying a problem is only half the fruit pie. I’m not thrilled about the solution to our education system’s woes being a voucher system based off a Washington D.C. experiment. Here is what will happen if the voucher system is implemented and people have the free-market choices McCain claims they will have: people will choose the best schools if possible, and the worse schools will decline even further. In other words, the gap between the rich and poor, the good and the bad, will widen between schools. In the aggregate we may see an overall per capita increase in the achievements of our nation’s students, but a lot will be, how should I put this, left behind.

This is all assuming that everyone has access to perfect information and the capacity to make a choice indiscriminately. Of course a middle class family would choose a better school over a worse school. But some families simply don’t have the information to determine which schools are better than others and some families don’t have the option (or don’t want to have the option) of choosing a school far away from home, no matter its superior quality. According to Mike Davis, the main choices made by the poor are due to location and people sacrifice quality of living for a central location close to work. This would logically apply to choices regarding schools as well.

So it would seem McCain’s plan, a very neo-liberal, free market approach at schooling, would help some people, yes, but end up making poor people even more worse off. However, I do think he is right that we can improve our education system without pouring more money into it. I am probably going to be ridiculed forever for saying that. But McCain’s fact – yes, folks, a fact and not an exaggeration – shows very clearly that other countries know something about investing money that we don’t. We’re not using our money in the most effective way.

Let me demonstrate what I mean with an analogy. Yay, analogies!

Today the New York Times released an article today (“Infant Deaths Drop in U.S., But Rates Are Still High,” by Gardiner Harris) wondering why the infant mortality rate in the United States is so high compared to other countries in the world; we rank 29th in the world with an infant mortality rate of 6.72 out of 1000, I believe (just so you know, the top three countries are, in order, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Japan with around 3.5 per 1000 infant deaths). However, we put more money into our medical system than most other developed countries. Somehow I think this article relates to what I was just talking about.

The article goes on to interviews with doctors and other medical experts, bemoaning the failure of the medical system. Some use it as a rallying cry for more centralized control of the system, others for more privatization. However, the consensus was that the problem is caused by a failing health care system. The article cites the fact that African American women birth the most infants that die before age 1, even if they have access to high-quality health care.

There are a couple of other ways to look at this problem that may make it easier to invest our money in the best places. First of all, the pure statistic “infant mortality rate” lumps the United States with countries much smaller than itself, like Singapore, Hong Kong, and Japan. Our larger population is completely ignored by this statistic (Joel would like this). Whether or not the size of our population actually has a bearing on our infant mortality rates is up to someone who feels like researching it, but I would guess the answer is yes, as we shall see in a second.

Secondly, the article makes the assumption that everyone in America has access to health care. It seems absurd, but the article never considers the infant mortality rates of people who don’t have access to quality health care. It could possibly be the case that the U.S.’s high infant mortality rate is the result of more people within this country lacking access to health care than while people in Singapore have much better access to health care in general. This is where the population aspect resurfaces. The U.S. probably has a fairly large proportion of people with access to proper health care, but the percentage who don’t still make up a larger physical number than those of other countries.

As the health expert I am, I think the problem of our high infant mortality rates may be more due to people not having access to the health care system, not the operation of the health care system itself with respect to its patients. This means, you guessed it, that we should be looking into issues of poverty in order to solve the infant mortality problem, since those are the people who are least likely to have access to the system.

Actually, I’m not a health expert, but I do think we’ve got to approach these sorts of problems from multiple angles. It’s worth looking into. It would be a lot better than throwing money at a problem.

So how this all relates to the education system seems obvious, but it would take a lot of studies to really identify education’s unique problems. Both Obama and McCain call for reform, but neither do much specifying what kinds of reforms they want, always phrasing their positions based on No Child Left Behind, my least favorite piece of legislation other than the Patriot Act. We do need reform for the education system, but we need the right reform, and I don’t think anyone knows quite what that is. I certainly don’t. To solve a problem where we are throwing an exorbitant amount of money at something that isn’t working as well as it should, we should keep the health care article in mind. We must investigate how our statistics on education mislead us and cloud our perceptions of reality when we compare ourselves to other countries. We must also avoid at all costs the simple explanation that the education system is failing simply on its own merit or because it lacks the funds. We need to think like Billy Bean, using what we have to get the most we can by using science and statistics correctly (the “Moneyball” analogy doesn’t work so well this year seeing how poorly the A’s did. But when you look at the expensive Tigers and Yankees who basically bombed despite their high budgets it becomes obvious that success in no way hinges on money.).

Basically, we don’t exactly know what’s wrong with the education system, and it would be foolish to jump to haphazard conclusions about where the real problem lies. From the approach of access to quality being the problem, McCain’s vouchers seem like a good plan at first, but in reality it would not increase everyone’s access to higher quality like he hopes; the poor would be even more displaced than they are now. If we want to improve education across the board, vouchers are not the way.

To say anything else with any meaning would only be possible if I was some sort of expert on education policy.

Whew, that took a long time to write. I think I’ll explain the unlabeled photos from yesterday’s blog some other time.

-Sam goldsmith

Release

Ciao, Tutti!

I write just before the debates begin. I figure you all deserve a happier me for the beginning of the blog at least. Needless to say, I am not anticipating a very... civil debate, and I expect to be doing more of my recently patented cursing out windows afterward.

But there is no need to be depressed, because there have been major releases in my life lately! Yipee! Here are some of them:

I am literally less than a chapter away from finishing book one in my trilogy of novels that I have been working on since January. I have written about 470 pages, so this is pretty exciting. Only two more books to go! Ah, well, now it's time to start editing, which usually takes me about an hour per page per draft, which there will probably be about five... sigh!

Crap, the dabate's starting.

The Debate



Wow. I mean, wow.

"Joe the plumber, Sen. Obama want to spread the wealth! He want to redistribute the wealth! He wants socialism! Oh, crap, did I really just say that out loud? Mrs. Palin told me to say that, I swear!"

So the gloves came off, just like I thought they finally would (even though George Stephanopolis says this was a civil debate, which it was). There is so much to talk about in this debate, namely the fact that I was actually laughing during it rather than scared out of my mind (let's see what happens when the analysts come on). Looking at McCain's expressions throughout, I could not help but think that Jon Stewart is going to have some fun with video editing tonight.

First, and unimportantly, I have never seen John McCain so flustered. He ended up settling down as the debate goes on, but in the beginning he almost seemed like Sarah Palin in his random regurgitation of key words and phrases. His face was rigid and unrelaxed. It was actually sort of funny to watch him, sort of like watching a basketball team fight to win the sixth game to send it to a do or die. However, as I watch the analysts right now, the popular view seems to be that McCain had his best performance yet. I would disagree.

The part of the debate that made the biggest impression on me was for the question about the ugliness of the campaigns, and this was why I felt Obama won, though I suppose some people I know could view it the other way. Obama wanted to talk about the issues, McCain wanted to go on the attack. Obama was much less interested in attacking McCain as a person, at least until the mention of ACORN and Ayers. There was a long back and forth on this question, and Barack Obama spent more time insisting on a discussion about the debates. This could be viewed as a weakness, an unwillingness to fight back, or trying to downplay his scandals, but I have been hoping for a campaign on the issues for SO LONG and it was refreshing to hear it. According to the New York Times, two thirds of Americans agree with me.

It actually seems to me that Obama has stuck to the issues more, though this is of course debatable. Let me explain. First of all, it is seriously easy to make fun of Sarah Palin, which I have talked about in previous blogs. The question was asked about the Vice Presidential candidates gave Obama a softball possibility to crush a Palin homerun, but Obama did the right thing and refused to question her qualifications. He doesn't need to, and his campaign has by and large laid off since the Couric interviews, though he has picked up criticism again since the terrifying comments made at some of Palin's rallies. The point is that Obama did not attack on personal issues, save for the siting of the NY Times fact I quoted earlier and the accusation that Ayers has become McCain's main campaign issue. Obama was trying to bring the debate back to the questions and the issues, as one analyst said, "rope a doping," taking the attacks and returning to the main subject of debate. So. Obama did a very good job of defending himself in the face of John McCain's consistent regurgitation of already disproved facts.

In an assessment of how amazing it was that Obama refrained from attacking McCain's misleading statements or contradictory policies, I was yelling at the television the most since the Pistons lost to the Celtics. Here's an example. McCain was talking about choosing a judge who was qualified. That was the most important characteristic of a judge, he repeated. I shouted out, "Yeah, picking qualified people is something you're really good at, John." My roommate knew I was talking about Sarah Palin. But Obama knew he had no need to bring the debate to such a low. I hope he has that attitude throughout the rest of the campaign.

I was also impressed with Obama when McCain had his apparently shining moment (according to the analysts), when he said, "I am not George Bush. If you wanted to run against George Bush, you should have run four years ago." Taken out of context, this seems like a strong statement, something McCain should have been saying all along from the beginning (yeah, he probably should). Then he proceeded not to explain how his economic policy differed from Bush's in the slightest, emphasizing difference in energy policy, education, health care, and other things. Obama had just compared McCain to Bush, but was clear to say so only in the context of economics, first taking the time to commend McCain for his odd-ball positions of the past. Obama then reasserted that McCain's economic policy was a continuation of the past four years. Obama did a very good job here. Too bad we're going to keep hearing that quote out of context for a few days, because otherwise I don't think there was anything in that debate for McCain to be proud of.

I take that back. I did like how McCain hammered Obama on the subject of public finance, something I'm pretty upset at Obama for. Obama didn't really have a response for that, dodging it like the other attacks, and I could see at that moment why Obama's defensive stance might not work so well on other voters, especially the undecideds. However, despite John McCain's assertiveness (I saw it more as nervous energy), I thought Obama simply answered the questions better. He stuck to the questions more than I've ever seen from him, in comparison to the last debate (people said afterward that he won, for some reason) where he was muddled, confusing, and uncoordinated. Here he was focused, clear, and succinct, and he answered the questions with facts (not all correct, like the 100% negative TV ads comment) and refuted McCain's strong statements with compelling facts. One example: McCain challenged Obama, asking him to name a time when he had stood up to party leadership. Obama retorted that the first bill he ever voted on the Senate floor was against the party leadership, and he named a few more after that. McCain came back at him, saying his argument was unconvincing, though not really saying why. Obama knew he didn't have to say anything else about it.

Some analysts were wondering why McCain did not attack Obama on the experience factor again, something that seems to poll well for McCain. It seemed pretty obvious to me. Obama has, throughout the debates, presented himself as more than capable of becoming the next president in terms of qualifications. McCain can attack his innexperience all he wants, but we have seen a calm and composed Obama so many times now that the undecideds are getting the image of a capable leader in Obama. This is not to say they are leaning in his direction per se, but McCain's attacks on Obama's experience would only have worked if he had maintained it up until this point, which he hasn't. Now when we see Obama the inexperience is not something we think about. McCain would much rather have us think about how he's raising taxes, talking without precondition to unfriendly foreign leaders (McCain brought this up in the debate in a totally off-topic way. Wasn't this settled in the first debate when Obama explained what a precondition was?), and friends with Ayers and ACORN. This is how McCain wants to portray Obama. The image of the inexperienced young senator is no longer important in this campaign.

The last thing to talk about is Joe the plumber, our favorite American who has everyone's misconception about Obama's health and tax plans. Obama has to explain again and again that his policy won't tax people like (sigh) Joe the plumber, but poor old Joe has been misled by the McCain advertisements and thinks his health insurance costs and taxes will go up under Obama. Honestly, the two candidates were fighting for his vote like guys fighting to carry a cheerleader's books. This time McCain took a new approach to the tax policy: why would you raise taxes on anyone at all? Immediately my mind went to the second debate when the question, "What sacrifices would you ask the American people to make?" was asked. Asking wealthy companies to help share the burden (rather than dumping $700 billion and then another $250 billion and more to come in their laps) seems more than logical to me. And this is when McCain started his jargon about "sharing the wealth, you damn commie, I mean, good friend." The message was clear. McCain wanted to portray Obama as taking money from the rich and giving it to the poor.

Sounds to me like Obama needs to make a Robin Hood campaign shirt.

Obama's equivalent to McCain's shining moment was when he told (sigh) Joe that he would be fined "zero" because small businesses are exempt from those fines in Obama's plan. That actually stopped McCain from reasserting what was false, just as Obama stopped associating McCain with Bush earlier in the debate. It was a powerful moment for Obama in the debate, sort of like saying, "How many times do I have to say this? How much more clearly can I say this?"

So, yeah, I thought Obama came out on top. By quite a lot. However, this is in the campaign style I wanted to see. People who are worried about Obama's credibility and his social connections (Wright, Ayers, ACORN) might see his defensive stance as a retreat. It all depends on whether people re voting on the issues or on perception. Obama won on the issues debate, I thought. I also thought he won on the appearance side, but this is so up to interpretation that I can't begin to think of how the effects of this debate will play out over the next three weeks.

Either way, it was the debate performance I had been hoping for from Obama since he announced his candidacy.

Back to Where I Was



So, um, where was I?

Oh, yes. Releases.

Mid term season just ended. I wanted to write a blog before then, but I had papers due and tests to study for, so I just didn't. I wanted to write one for Yom Kipur, but that never happened. Anyhoo, I am just glad not to have to think about any big tests or papers coming up for a while, which is actually more like a week. It takes a load off my chest.

I hope I did well.

I am also very interested in some movie releases. This, from the guy who doesn't even like movies!

1) 11/14/2008 Quantum of Solace (007) Yeah, it was about time another one of these came out. It should be super sweet! Anyone in Michigan want to see it with me when I'm out there for Thanksgiving? There's about no way I'm seeing it here in New York. I just don't see movies in New York. I don't even know if I could find a good theater.

2) 2009 - a live action Akira will come out from Warner Brothers. This was an animated classic about 20 years ago. I didn't really like it very much, but it's nice that it's being remade into live action.

3) 2009 - Speaking of anime being turned into live action (I think maybe one - maybe - will care about this), Steven Spielberg is directing a movie adaptation of the anime series Ghost in the Shell. Someone tell Joel about this for me, though I don't know how much he'll care. This is supposedly made to compete with Akira. If I would have to guess, I don't have high hopes for either, since Akira has a lousy plot and Ghost in the Shell has a director who'll probably ruin it.

4) Sometime - Watchmen. When is this going to come out already? I've been hearing about it forever! Please! Just come out already!

5) 7/2/2010 - Are you sick of hearing about this? The Last Airbender's first movie now has a release date. Now I can count the days down... such a dork! I suppose this means it's actually going to be made, then, so that's good, I hope... Keep the spirits up! It's going to be a great movie! Please!

Another release would be that of my high school and college friend Julian Pollack's new CD with singer Grace (some last name). Their CD release party will be on October 23rd, 2008. I don't have to wait two freaking years for this.

My roommate's band is featured prominently in a romantic comedy with Katherine Zeta Jones slated to come out in March, 2009. Keep your ears out for "Love Pass It On" when you're watching. He's seen the pre-release and he says it's pretty innovative for a romantic comedy, and also quite comedic. Anyway, I might need to see that.

Also, a move I think called "Rachel's Getting Married" is featuring Tunde Adebimpe, one of the lead singers from TV on the Radio, as the male lead. I have to see it for that purpose alone, even it that takes me to my romantic comedy limit. I don't quite know when that's coming out. I could just look it up while I'm here on the computer. I could do that. Heh!

Well, I need to sleep. Nightmares of McCain's angry expressions dancing through my head. Nevermind. No sleep tonight.

Yeah, my conclusions have been different from the mainstream media's every time, so I dread to see what's in the papers tomorrow.

Now, seriously, I'm done.

-Sam goldsmith

P.S. If you're scared as well, please feel free to write. I don't bite, but sometimes I respond. You have been forewarned!