Scott Yates

Fourth of July Duds

OK, I know this is sacrilege, but I just don't get why fireworks are so popular.

When I see that the economy forced the cancellation of a bunch of shows, well, I have trouble getting upset about it.

It's not that I don't like fireworks, it's just that I can't see why everyone else does like them.

I mean, they are kind of cool from the perspective of fire and explosions and pretty colors, etc. And nobody has more love for our country than me of the history of the Declaration of Independence, the patriots at Fort McHenry, and all of the others before that and since.

But after that... meh.

I mean, even the most boring baseball game still has its unknowns, its surprise endings, its character development.

Fireworks have no narrative arc, no plot twists, nothing.

Last evening we went to the fireworks Rockies game, and got discounted tickets because they had an obstructed view of the fireworks. During the singing of the National Anthem, the crews cleverly shot off one firework that exploded just as we all sung "Bombs bursting in air."

That was perfect. I enjoyed the fireworks as a form of punctuation.

So when my son said he wanted to go home after we sang the song about the peanuts and cracker jacks, I said, "You bet, I think we've seen enough fireworks already this evening."

Maybe even Jefferson had a bit too much time on his hands?

I'm a big fan of Jefferson, I enjoy reading the Declaration of Independence every year. It's hard to imagine writing anything that could have such an influence on the world, and still be so easy to read and enjoyable.

But after the US was independent, and after Jefferson became president, I get the feeling that if he had solitaire on his computer, he might have been playing that some.

He didn't, so instead he invented ciphers, one of which didn't get cracked until this week. Amazing.

Be Nice To Reporters

I always try to be helpful to reporters. I used to be one, so there's that. There's also the whole dying-industry thing, which I did NOT bring up when they called.

But I felt a bit useless today with them on the phone. They called to get my reaction to Amendment 50 in Colorado, which passed last November.

I was a leader of the opposition, such as it was. Truth be told it was one other guy and me. We created a blog, and sort of assembled a rag-tag coalition of people that never met but came out against it. The "coalition" was the strangest of bedfellows, as the Boulder County Democrats came out against it, as did Focus on the Family. Nearly a million people voted no, but a bit more than a million voted yes.

So the election was last November, and tomorrow the changes kick into place. I think the reporters were hoping that I'd be organizing some kind of mass sit-in, maybe chaining myself to a slot machine or something.

Truth is I'd mostly forgotten about it. I'm not a big anti-gambling activist. I just thought Amendment 50 went too far, and that it would create little Las Vegas zones in those three mountain towns. I was also worried about the sociological problems associated with the Indian Casinos near Durango, where I lived and worked as a reporter, often detailing very sad stories from the reservations there, the Ute Mountain Utes and the Souther Utes.

But elections have consequences. The Nevada gambling corporations wanted to change the Colorado Constitution, so they spent $7 million to tailor it to their liking. They got what they wanted. I don't like it, but the election is over so now I'll just continue to avoid those towns.

And if any more reporters call, I'll try to come up with some better quotes.

Drudge, Hypochondria, and the President

I'm convinced that Drudge is a total hypochondriac. He's got about 20 stories about the swine flu up right now.

Not that there's anything wrong with that, but he is leaning a bit too far in the panic direction.

On the other side is TechCrunch, which has a story up, saying that "panic" is being spread over the web. 

I disagree. I think these types of flu are a bit scary, and with the federal government now working on it, it's a legitimate news story.

(I bet we find, eventually, that like the last big scare of the bird flu, that this is not just some random thing, that there is a big-picture story that caused this. It turns out the avian flu was caused by chicken farmers in China giving Tamiflu and other antivirals to their chickens. It didn't work, surprise surprise, but what did happen is that they helped create a flu bug that did not get better when you took Tamiflu. This is something I learned about from a doctor because it hurt me directly: I got the flu and couldn't take Tamiflu to get better.)

The thing that worries, me, however, is that Drudge has such animus toward Obama.

I don't know if there's anything to the story that Obama met and shook hands with a man in Mexico City who died the next day from the swine flu, but I do know that if it happened to President Bush that Drudge would have had that story front and center.

Denver's Altitude claims another

Harry Kalas died today, the day after leaving the Mile High City.

For those of you who don't know him, you probably know his voice. He was the announcer for the Phillies forever, and was also the voice behind those great NFL films, the ones that looked so great because they were shot on real film instead of video. They always seemed to show two rows of huge men with steam coming out of their snouts on some frozen turf. The voice just boomed out. I have a few of the choice ones on my iPhone that always make me smile when they come up in the random cue.

I got to meet Kalas, when Denver hosted the All Star game. I went with a pal to the Wynkoop back when Hickenlooper was still just a barkeep, before he went into politics.

Kalas was there on the patio with Hickenlooper, one of the world's biggest Phillies fans, and Hick was just soaking up every moment with this small, chain-smoking man. I didn't know who it was because when he was speaking in the group he just sounded like a regular guy. He was very slight, and was wearing a polyester suit. I figured maybe he was an uncle of Hickenlooper or something, the way he looked at Kalas with such reverence. Then I figured it couldn't be a relative because Hickenlooper must have been a foot or more taller than Kalas.

So I whispered to my buddy, trying to figure out who it was, and then learned it was Harry the K, the original "Outa Here!" guy. He had some amazing stories, very fun to listen to, but he was not at all boastful about any of it, he was just a very polite guy telling funny stories and then trying to deflect as much attention away from himself as he could.

And smoking non stop. 

I wonder how much of his amazingly deep and powerful voice for such a small guy was actually just created by the damage of all that smoke.

Poor guy. Threw out the first pitch a week ago. Flies up to Denver because he's not the kind of guy who takes days off during the baseball season. Has some trouble breathing here but doesn't make a fuss. Goes with the team to the next stop and dies while writing out the lineup for that day's game. 

This very well done story of his death doesn't specifically blame Denver, but it's hard not to make a connection when we've seen it so many times before here. You just need all the lung capacity you can get here.

You will be missed, Harry.

Don Baylor is da man

Look, I just want to be the first to say it. Don Baylor is the man.

Pitching will always be an issue in Denver, but I'm convinced that the reason the ball hasn't been "popping" off the bat the way it did when Baylor was the manager has less to do with the "humidor" than it does with the fact that Don Baylor wasn't around.

Now that he's back, hitters are listening to him and the ball is leaving the yard a lot.

Yes, yes, we are only three games into the season, but the Rockies have not yet played in Denver, and already they are second in the league in hitting and second in homers.

Tulo is on pace to hit 120 home runs this season! Helton hasn't hit one yet, but you know spigot will open up soon enough.

So you read it here first: If the Rockies do well this season, Don Baylor deserves a LOT of the credit, and by the way it will be a lot of fun to watch and listen this year.

Gay Marriage, Marijuana, and the march of time...

Several quick odds and ends before my next post, which will be a big and very positive review of The Unlikely Disciple...

• Two excellent posts in a row from the FiveThirtyEight guys, showing how gay marriage and marijuana are on an almost inevitable march toward legalization. Those guys nailed it during the election, and they are still finding their footing now with no election to talk about, but with those two posts I expect to learn a lot from them in the coming years.

• In the marijuana post, it points out -- without comment -- that my generation (X) smoked less pot than either the boomers or the millennials. Doesn't really surprise me... even at NYU in the 80s, I saw very little pot smoking. Maybe I just ran with a nerdier crowd. I'm not advocating for or against legalization here, but I will say that I think smoking pot in general is somewhat narcissistic, which is why it makes so much sense that both the boomers and the millennials toke up. 

• My post from April Fool's Day was, mostly, a joke. I am not crowdsourceing my life. I have to say, however, the idea was posted as a joke but the more I thought about it the more it grew on me. I guess I want it both ways: I don't want to do it right now, but I do want to be thought of as the first person to ever crowdsource his own life. Hmmmmm.

• Baseball is back. Ahhhhhhhhh.

First Person to Crowdsource My Entire Life

I am announcing here that I will become the first human being to crowdsource my life.

That's right: All decisions about my life will be subject to the whims of the Internet. 

I've been reading with interest how excellent crowds have been at designing T-Shirts, fixing the patent system, guessing the weight of a pig and much much more.

Basically there are lots of ways for companies to save money and make money by using the wisdom of the crowds to solve problems, come up with new ideas, and spread the word. That's great for companies, so why can't it be great for a person?

Here are the ground rules: You, the internet, can tell me anything that I will do, as long as it is not against the law. Also, my family is off limits, so if you tell me that I need to go have an affair with Chuck's sister, well, I'm not going to do it, even if she totally does look like Wonder Woman.

So, by this time next year I'll make a full report on what you, the Internet, has told me to do.

Be gentle!

Geronimo!

Sam Cassidy for House District 3 in Colorado

I grew up just about a mile or so from where I live now, and I actually remember our state representative coming to our door, and chatting with him for a while. He was very nice, very engaging, a bit nerdy.

His name was Wayne Knox, and he was the representative there forever, and did a great job.

After he retired Jennifer Veiga was elected. I didn't live in the district while she was there, but she's done well for herself, moving up into the Senate where she is highly regarded. When she was in the House, I was a reporter, and we talked several times about where I grew up. House members always know their neighborhoods very well.

Now we have another representative who is leaving, but doesn't want to wait until her term is up. My hunch is she wants to run for something bigger, and wants to be able to raise money now. Whatever. I'm horribly parochial about these matters, and I'm looking forward to our next representative in the Colorado House.

So, I just about choked on my breakfast cereal when I read one of the names floated to fill in the position: Sam Cassidy. The reporter gave some identification to a few of the other candidates, but just left his name alone in the story.

(Are there no good reporters left? The writer couldn't have somehow spent a few seconds to figure out that the candidate was none other than a former Lt. Governor of Colorado???)

I covered Sam when he lived in Pagosa Springs, down in Southwestern Colorado. We've stayed in touch through the years, and I knew he was a neighbor of mine, having pretty much created the Ethics in Business program at DU, bringing it up to be one of the best in the nation.

But I had no idea he would think about running. Anyway, he is. I hope some members of the vacancy committee read this, and contact me to ask me about him. Be prepared, though, for me to go on and on. 

Sam would instantly turn HD3 into a district that has real influence in Colorado. If you are on that committee, vote for someone who can make the biggest splash in the shortest amount of time.

The Smell of the Press Room

As a former Rocky reporter and book reviewer, I was brokenhearted about the Rocky closing. I haven't been able to blog about it, so sad is the news.

I attended the wake, and the hardest part was talking to people who came up to me, knowing that I've made a living -- more or less -- online for the last half-dozen or so years, and they looked to me for hope that they will be able to do the same. I don't know what my own future holds, so...

They still have their heads held high, though, and they should. They produced an amazing product under the most difficult of circumstances.

And now today comes news of the next domino falling: They are closing the press at the Coloradoan. This is also horrible news.

It won't quiet the voice of the newsroom up there, but the 48 people losing their job were, I'm sure, doing as good of job at their jobs as the 250 or so people who were putting out the Rocky every day. They aren't as familiar to us, but they had respectable jobs doing honest work.

(Old fogey alert!) This saddens me especially because of my first regular journalism job at the Durango Herald. It was an afternoon paper then, and every day I would get to work early, read the official police blotter and turn it into the one we put in the paper and then write up whatever other stories were going on that day. We had to have all the words on the page so it could be pasted up by hand by 11:45 a.m. If we missed that, dozens of paper boys would be delivering the paper after dark, so we never missed it.

After gathering around the front page and the back page of the front section as the layout guy calmly finished his job with all of us yelling about the indignity of an editor moving a comma, or whatever, we reporters would mosey off for lunch. By the time we got back the presses were rolling, and I'd go watch every day, and grab a freshly printed paper and just breathe in the smell of it and flip through the pages.

At first, it was a thrill seeing my story on the front page, but that faded fast.

After that, it was just the joy of seeing something that actually got printed. The guys in the press room cared about the quality of the product, and it was an honor working side-by-side with them. We had different jobs, but we had the same goal every day: making something real.

We don't make much in this country any more. We buy a lot of plastic crap made by underage workers in countries that we just can't understand. Newspapers were one thing that we still physically produced.

We still do, barely. Now it's all done overnight in far away places and the papers are so thin that they can print, for example, the Denver Post, the Boulder Camera and the Fort Collins Coloradoan all on the same night on the same press. 

My son will probably never understand what it means to work someplace where people actually make something. Too bad, because for my couple of years in Durango, I was a part of making something, and I got to see the whole process from reporting the news to seeing it delivered in the course of a day, and it happened every single weekday.

And I loved it so much.

Goodbye, press room. You will be missed.

In These Frugal Times: The Fruugalist

This is going to be huge.

A good friend just started a new email newsletter and site called The Frugalist.

The idea is simple: A daily email to help those who used to have plenty of money with a new resource to help them save some money.

But it's more than that. As it says on the gorgeous site, it's about "Less Spending. More Living." You can tell from the first issue that came out today that the idea is more about helping people deal with this new reality;  not just saving money but figuring life all out without much money.

I've been honored to volunteer helping the amazing site designer Evelyn Wilder get her idea for this thing going, along with the ever-talented Kathy Yates and "the other" Scott.

If there was ever a right time and a right place for something, it's The Fruugalist right now.

Sign up now so you can tell people that you were one of the first to be on the list when Oprah is talking about it and there are zillions of subscribers.

Nobody Messes with Joe?

President Obama made it clear that he has great trust that the recovery money will be spent wisely, and he believes that because he has his vice president watching over the money. "Nobody messes with Joe," he says.

And then Joe himself goes on the tee vee the next morning and makes it totally clear that he has an iron grip on the details of what's going on.

"Do you know the website number?" he asks.

OK, so basically nobody messes with Joe, unless they happen to know the website number when he doesn't.

Suuuuuuuper. Just great. Awesome. I feel so safe now.

Screaming for a Joke

Sometimes you trip over a story, and it just screams out to get a joke written about it.

Like this one:

Prehistoric fish pioneered sex

Sex has been a fact of life for at least 380 million years, longer than previously thought. Internal fertilization was widespread among prehistoric fish living on ancient tropical coral reefs in the Devonian period, research published in the journal Nature on Wednesday showed.

So, if I was Conan O'Lenoman, I think I might use this:

Scientists today announced that all jawed vertebrates had sex much earlier than previously believed. That's right, it was 380 million years ago that animals with mouths were having sex. They found the key piece of evidence in the back of Larry King's dressing room.

DPS Has Been Driving Me Crazy for Decades and Still Is!

The DPS board waited an eternity to do two things it should have done long, long ago.

First, the board finally dropped the racist symbol of South High School, the Rebels. I suppose given that the Klan essentially ran Denver in the early 1900s, it shouldn't be a surprise that the school board back then would ever allow the not-at-all subtle mascot of a soldier fighting to protect slavery -- but it's shocking how long it took to get rid of it.

As a student there in the latter half of the last century, I remember that we had petitions, discussion, requests and official letters written to try to dump the mascot. In further proof that the students really have no say over what happens in the school, the effort went nowhere.

Well, a new group of students has come along and asked for a change. Good for them. And now that the administration is made up of people, well, around my age, those students actually got somewhere.

The new superintendent said he could hear this dog whistle. "I grew up on the Mason-Dixon Line," he said. "I understand the power and the meaning of these symbols."

(Those of us who grew up far from the Mason-Dixon Line understood it, too, but it was still good of him to recognize it for what it is.)

I wonder what the administration is denying now that will be granted decades from now.

DPS Calendar

The second thing that the board waited until way too late to approve was next year's school calendar. Admittedly this is a much more parochial concern, but many summer camps require deposits and a commitment in January, but the board waited until February 19th to decide on the first day of school for next year.  

And the proposed calendars were different by a huge swing; there was three weeks difference in the first day of school!

Well, at least I can do something about my other, related, complaint: The undecipherable format they publish the DPS calendar in. I went and made one for myself, and then -- using technology that is just not that hard -- made the calendar available to all.

Here you are: the Denver Public Schools (DPS) Calendar in several handy formats. Enjoy.

Back on the Tee Vee

Well, the interview is done, and now it is on the air, so you can see this story about me and Mark Cuban here. (Unfortunately I can't embed it here, but click the link. It's short.

It was a fine story, and I'm probably the only one who will look at it and say, "Gee, why does he move his head around so much????"

By the way, the Second Saturday Science idea is getting some traction, and we'll have more about that here soon. I was interviewed by a national newspaper today, I'll have a link to that when it comes out.

So, I was feeling rotten about my interview, well, I was until I watched this:

Mark and Me

I created the category of "Fantasy Business League" so that I could comment about big business decisions in the way that others like to talk about sports. That is, I could comment and dable in the world that I follow, but not have any real interaction with those who actually play in the big leagues.

Well, today the fantasy business league got to go into the dugout for a visit.

I’ve followed Mark Cuban’s blog for years. This is a guy who is in the big leagues for sure. He started Broadcast.com and sold it to Yahoo back when that was a good thing. He’s gone on to other huge successes, including buying the Dallas Mavericks and appearing as himself on the Simpsons. It doesn’t get much better than that, unless he buys the Cubs, which would be just fine with me.

So today he decided in what is his classic style to get into the whole “stimulus” thing by trying a completely open source method of soliciting business ideas and then giving the criteria to fund them. The ideas were to be submitted right on his blog.

Many people reacted, as so often happens, with fear, saying that they didn’t want their precious idea to be distributed to the public. I’ve been there, but then I learned the reality is that there are plenty of great ideas out there, and unless it involves some kind of hard science, it is exceedingly rare that the idea on it’s own is worth 10 cents. Actually doing the work -- usually called “executing” in today’s parlance -- is the only way to succeed.

So I took an idea that I’ve had for more than a year and posted it. I worked hard to follow the rules that he put out there, something that very few of the others did.

And he responded. In length. Twice. So far.

His response to my idea (Second Saturday Science is what it’s called, more on that in another post) was so genuine, so engaged, and so, well, out there, that a reporter was inspired to do a story.

The stories about the crappy economy have moved way past depressing and are now downright annoying. It is, however, the biggest story going on right now, so this reporter, Craig Civale, to his credit wanted to do a story about a stimulus plan that might actually pay off, you know, this year.

His station, WFAA, is in Cuban’s town of Dallas, so it was a natural for him to do the story. He called me, and I actually answered the phone -- something that doesn’t seem to happen much these days. He asked a few questions, and then called back a few minutes later and asked if I’d go down to the ABC station in Denver to tape an interview.

No problem! If Second Saturday Science is going to take off, it’s going to need some publicity, so I hustled my arse down there and answered some questions. I understand it’s already been on the air in Dallas, and should be on the interwebs soon enough.

So, will this be my new “job”? I don’t know. If Cuban signs on to be a part of it, than for sure yes. He will be able to help me draw attention to it and open doors in ways few others could.

If not, well... stay tuned!

I'm baaaaaack

I consider myself a data-driven person. If something is working, do more of that. If not, then stop.

I was not having luck finding a job, and I was blogging a lot.

I had an inkling that my blog posts were a part of me not finding a job. I knew the economy had a lot more to do with it, but I couldn't control the economy. I could control my blog, so I basically just stopped.

And then, well, I STILL didn't get a job.

So I was going to, this month, switch over to a different blogging platform, Wordpress, which I used in my volunteer fight against the expansion of gambling in Colorado. I liked it a lot, so I thought I would switch before I started blogging again.

But as Rick says, destiny has taken a hand.

Later today I'll be blogging about me and Mark Cuban. Yes, that Mark Cuban.

 

Drudge Report let's me down... Again

The whole story of the Drudge Report is such a great American story. Here's a guy who was a night manager at a convenience store, and in his spare time he starts a site that is crude even by the standards of the 1990s.

And the site has a huge part to play in the impeachment of a president.

Ever since then I have gotten slightly itchy if I go more than about eight hours without checking Drudge. He just seems to have a nose for the stories that are going to have legs, and he always gets them first. I don't know how he did it so well for so long.

I love that site so much that a friend and I created the Drudge Widget, which you can see on the right side of my site if you are looking at the http and not the rss.

Earlier this year, Drudge let me down in an understandable way, getting the wrong name for Obama's VP.

Then Drudge spent a bunch of time trying to make it seem like McCain has a shot of winning, and anyone who's watched the race closely knows that just isn't true. The most reliable site for polling has had to spend a post nearly every day debunking Drudge.

Here's the problem with a huge ideological bias in breaking news: It's boring. I have to say I now go for days without reading Drudge, and then I don't find much new when I get there. Maybe it's because I'm using my RSS reader (NetNewsWire) so efficiently either on my machine or on my iPhone, but I don't think that's it.

I think it's just that Drudge has lost his edge, and seems to be flailing a bit. I'm hoping that after the election he'll get back to normal.

And maybe by next year he'll stop putting the wrong year in his title tag, and maybe he'll finally getting around to making a favicon (the little icon in the URL window of the browser). If I can make one, Drudge can certainly make one.

Come back, Drudge! We need you!

This game may last forever!

We are in day three of what might just be the last baseball game of the year.

I just did a blog search, and I can't believe I'm the first person to make this connection: This game might go on for months, just like that great game in the Iowa Baseball Confederacy. 

In that book, the game went on for 2,000 innings.

This game between the amazing Rays and the Phillies may not go on for that long, but it's so delicious that there's a game that seems to be saying to the world that we don't quite want summer to be over.

It certainly feels that way here in Denver right now, it's been one of the most amazing falls ever, with blue skies and warm temps every day. Just like baseball, it's the summer that nobody wants to end.

I'm glad it will end, though, and that we'll have winter. It sharpens the senses, makes us feel our fragility.

Of course, the other great thing about this crazy World Series game is the great writing about it. There have been plenty of great columns, but for me this one stands out.

Pulling on their last World Series breath, watching their brilliant season circle the dugout drain with expectorated sunflower shells and Skoal drool, and falling obediently to postseason force Cole Hamels, the Tampa Bay Rays had a single hope:

Havoc.

Skies had to open. Gods had to roar. Pitching staffs had to be blown into confusion. Third base had to become lake-front property.

The Philadelphia Phillies had to be knocked off what had been a downhill run since the series moved north. And not just the Phillies. The whole series.

Something, you know, apocalyptic.

Then Evan Longoria and Carlos Pena got hits in the same inning.

And that wasn’t even it.

It rolled in on winds cold and sure. It rose up over Citizens Bank Park, over the neon Liberty Bell, over giddy, expectant fans covered in red hoodies and trash bags.

Dressed in swirling curtains of rain, cloaked in a howling northwest breeze, it stopped the World Series at 80 minutes before midnight, the middle of the sixth inning, Game 5.

Havoc.

Ahhhhh. Love it.

McCain in Durango. Uh-Oh.

Many people have their equivalent of Paris in the '20s. I actually have two: New York in the '80s and Durango in the '90s.

Durango was my first real journalism job. The pay was rotten, but I made a bunch of great, lifelong friends and did some outstanding journalism for a paper with a circulation under 10,000.

I was there during the '92 campaign, Clinton-Gore vs. Bush-Quayle. Dan Quayle himself made an appearance in Durango at the airport, and then got in a motorcade and drove down to Farmington, N.M. Both states were in play, much like this year.

Through a combination of dogged pursuit and dumb luck, I was able to get an exclusive interview with the sitting vice-president of the United States while he drove from Durango to Farmington. It was a lot of fun, and he was a gracious host in the back of his limo for more than half an hour.

But it was clear in his eyes and in his tone that he knew that if he was spending time in towns like Durango and Farmington, the effort to stay in office must be in trouble. It was.

So here we are in 2008 and McCain himself made a campaign stop in Durango before heading to New Mexico.

Uh-oh.

Well, I hope the people in Durango enjoyed it. People in Durango seem to enjoy just about everything, so I bet they did.

Obamacon watch does not include President Bush

I've been writing about and telling friends about the Obamacons for months, those conservatives who support Senator Obama.

I haven't written about it lately because, well, it's not even interesting any more there are so many. It was shameful that Christopher Buckley got fired from the magazine his dad started.

But when I saw this story, "Bush Not an Obamacon!" I had to pause.

Somehow "Obamacon" has become so popular of a word that it's losing it's original meaning. The "con" part is for "conservative."

I'm not one of those who takes part in the whole Bush Hatred, but I take exception to the notion that President Bush is somehow conservative. I'm not sure what word history will assign to his particular style of governing, but it for sure won't be "conservative."

EBA - That's me!

I've been having a lot of lunches and coffees lately, trying to figure out the next adventure in my professional life. Typically at some point the person on the other side of the coffee cup will say, "So, what is it that you do?"

I hate that question, and generally mumble something about having started as a writer/reporter/editor and that morphed into an entrepreneur/consultant/strategist and then the person looks for a waiter and begs for more coffee. Who can blame them?

Well today I'm sitting there over a bowl of cereal and I read in black and white what it is that I do!

"But the most active opponents of (Colorado Amendment) 50 may be Denver lawyer Jon Anderson and entrepreneur-blogger-activist Scott Yates."

Even though I used to write for the papers, seeing myself described in that way was a little jarring, but it grew on me pretty quickly.

Maybe I'll have business cards made up: Scott Yates, EBA.

Maybe I'll start an EBA club on a social network. I mean, there's one of those for everything else, right?

Or maybe I'll just clip Blake's column and send it to a certain third-grade teacher who once told me that my unchecked narcissism and smug self-righteousness would never get me anywhere. IN YOUR FACE, SISTER MARGARET!

Anyway, thanks to Peter Blake I now know who I am. All the people I'm having coffee with will appreciate this very much.

More Sco.tt on tee vee right here in Denver, Colorado

Here's another clip of me exercising my democratic privilege.

Ahhhh. Exercise.

I would just put this on the Colorado Amendment 50 site, but that is on a free-hosted site because that campaign has no money, and the free site doesn't let me embed videos. 

That's right, while I may look good on TV (OK, even that is a stretch), the entire campaign consists of a lawyer working pro-bono, a free-bee blog, my volunteer time and the truth. We are up against $7 million, lots of slick advertising, and some of the best in political consultants and lobbyists in the state.

I don't know what our odds are; I'm not the gambling type. 

That said, I do like being an underdog. While I didn't run guns to Ethiopia, and I didn't fight with the Loyalists, I think of myself as having a bit of Rick in me. While it's true that the other side pays much better, I'm enjoying my time, meeting a lot of great people, and if I can do anything to stop the expansion of government into the regressive taxation of gambling, then it will all be for the good.

Cure Cancer with the Internet

OK, now that the election is essentially over we can get back to using the Internet for worthwhile stuff, like trying to cure cancer.

I'm not joking. Right now there's a guy who has perhaps hours to live and there's a drug that may help him, but the company that makes the drug isn't releasing it for use on that one person.

I first read about it here, and the letter from the guy's son is here, complete with ways that you can send a note and help.

(OK, the whole election isn't over, it's just boring. Except if you are one of those who want to "Say Yes On 50"  Yech. I hope not!)

Drudge let's me down a second time

The first time Drudge let me down, I figured he just had a bad source. He announced to the world that Evan Bayh would be Obama's Veep.

This time, though, he's really shooting himself in the foot.

Through headlines and pictures, he's trying to create the illusion that McCain is making a big comeback. He's not. 

(And remember, I like Drudge. With a friend, I invented the Drudge Widget!)

There's also some noise that he may or may not come out with a big new plan to help the economy.

The problem is that McCain is in a trap that Obama has laid down. He did this with the Clintons, which was masterful. Now he's done it with McCain without even breaking a sweat.

The trap? He's made the case that McCain is "erratic." So, now if McCain sticks to his same (losing) strategy he'll lose, and if he tries to make a big change, well, he'll just be more erratic. McCain really may never know what hit him.

I'm certainly glad to see, by the way, that McCain has started in small ways to tamp down some of the anger out there. I've been banned from talking on this blog about anything that could be perceived as a threat by anyone against any potential new president. I'm not allowed to talk about it, but let's just say that I'm really really glad that McCain is saying that Obama is a good, decent, family man and a citizen.

Hey, speaking of family man, I think all those people that are so afraid of Obama are mostly older, and they have a lot of fear about the economy, and just change in general. Change is scary! All of those who are scared should look to none other than the heartthrob of Wasilla, Levi Johnston. There's a guy who should be scared. He's a high school drop-out with a pregnant girlfriend, and a mother-in-law-to-be who is a lifelong NRA member and has a lot of guns and may, in fact, be crazy. (She certainly is delusional.)

But is he afraid? Doesn't sound like it to me:

"We're up for it. I'm excited to have my first kid. It's going to be a lot of hard work but we can handle it."...

What about Johnston's politics?

The young man said he wasn't an expert on politics by any stretch. Asked about Barack Obama, he replied: "I don't know anything about him. He seems like a good guy. I like him."

Sure, he says he will be voting for the Republicans. I would be to, if I was him; having the Palins several thousand miles away probably sounds like a good idea!

What happened to Palin's hand?

Just Askin'

Palin's Hand

Fat Lady is warming up

I've been telling conservative friends of mine since about June that they need to mentally prepare themselves for the fact that we are going to have a Democrat as president in January.

Most of them have been in some form of denial about this, and a few still are.

I knew back during the crazy days of the summer that it was over for one reason: Anyone who can beat the Clinton's is unstoppable. The way that he won that race will be studied for decades. The way that Obama will beat McCain is unremarkable, and will go down in history as a repeating of what's happened several times in the past: throwing out a war-time president's party.

A true conservative might have had a chance. Someone who didn't start off a debate, as McCain did last night, by promising a new program so immense and liberal that even solidly conservative journalists called it "insane."

So, McCain is not a conservative, and is really just not that good of a guy. This bit of reporting for me seems to ring awfully true. This is part of a story about McCain quoting one of McCain's fellow POWs, and recounts a story from after the war:

On the grounds between the two brick colleges, the chitchat between the scion of four-star admirals and the son of a prizefighter turns to their academic travels; both colleges sponsor a trip abroad for young officers to network with military and political leaders in a distant corner of the globe.

"I'm going to the Middle East," Dramesi says. "Turkey, Kuwait, Lebanon, Iran."

"Why are you going to the Middle East?" McCain asks, dismissively.

"It's a place we're probably going to have some problems," Dramesi says.

"Why? Where are you going to, John?"

"Oh, I'm going to Rio."

"What the hell are you going to Rio for?"

McCain, a married father of three, shrugs.

"I got a better chance of getting laid."

Dramesi, who went on to serve as chief war planner for U.S. Air Forces in Europe and commander of a wing of the Strategic Air Command, was not surprised. "McCain says his life changed while he was in Vietnam, and he is now a different man," Dramesi says today. "But he's still the undisciplined, spoiled brat that he was when he went in."

For me, the final nail in the coffin about McCain was this exchange of letters between Obama and McCain from before either of them announced for president.

I won't even try to quote from them, you have to read the three of them to get the idea. I've gotten some similarly bizarre, mean and counter-productive letters in my life, and I wish I'd had the grace that Obama had in responding.

So, now in my mind the presidential race is boring. It's over. The best analysis of polls is actually now wondering if it's possible for Obama to get any higher in the polls. So, now there are two questions, one big and one smaller but still important. The first big question is starting to get talked about more loudly, for instance here: What will conservatism do now.

This is something Sullivan has been exploring a lot out loud, and the rest of the pundits on the right will be catching up soon enough.

The second question for me is less well known. Will Colorado Amendment 50 die the horrible death it deserves?

I don't have answers for either, but I'll enjoy agitating against Amendment 50 for the next couple of weeks, and for true conservatism in the months and years to come. Can't wait!

Centurians

Somehow I really thought the Cubs would pull off the once-a-century championship only because I live in Denver.

Wait, how does that make sense?

You see, Denver hosted the DNC this year for the first time in 100 years, so I figured it was one of those century things. The big events from 1908 would get repeated here in 2008.

Well, Manny Ramirez ruined things for Denver back in 2007, so I guess he figured he might as well ruin it for Chicago in 2008.

It will be really interesting to see if he ruins it for the Red Sox in the World Series, especially since it is the 'Sox that are still paying his salary.

That's got to hurt.

Is the media fair to Sarah Palin?

Watching this clip, that question comes to mind:

I mean, when you ask one person if they disagree with any SCOTUS opinions and that person tells you about the law that he wrote that got overturned, well, it's just not fair to expect the same level of response from someone who's only been a governor.

On the other hand, even I, who am not an elected official -- even if I do play like one on TV -- can think of a few opinions that I disagree with. I've even blogged about one in which I thought the court should have taken a stronger stand for freedom of speech. Sitting there with the pressure on, would I have remembered the name of the case? (Probably not, but I would have remembered the "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" sign that sparked the case.) 

But would I have remembered any case? Even one? I'd like to think that I would have, and I sure like to think that in my preparations for interviews I would have gone over a couple just so that I could speak about it in ways that don't inspire people to make a video comparing me to the pride of South Carolina.

But is it a fair question? Yes, it is. This is not gotcha journalism, this is journalism. At this point anyone saying that Palin isn't getting a fair shake is just grasping at straws.

Behind the scenes video from Treasury of how they came up with $700 billion

You think I'm kidding, right?

In fact, some of the most basic details, including the $700 billion figure Treasury would use to buy up bad debt, are fuzzy.

"It's not based on any particular data point," a Treasury spokeswoman told Forbes.com Tuesday. "We just wanted to choose a really large number." - Forbes.com

I think this is a slightly different take on the old saying. In this case, the first time was comedy, the second is tragedy.

Sco.tt TV is On The Air

For those of you who just can't get enough sco.tt goodness on this blog, there are now some ways to catch up on the Tee-Vee.

As Chief Strategist for the Vote No On Amendment 50, I've taped a few interviews and discussions about why Amendment 50 would be such a bad idea for Colorado. Starting tonight, September 25, at 9 p.m. MDT on Comcast channel 25 or on DirectTV channel 681, the Altitude network will be airing a series on all the ballot initiatives. I don't know what order they will do them in, I'm hoping it's just numeric so that we will be on earlier. That show should be rebroadcast a couple of times.

Then on Monday, September 29, I'll be on Channel 12, the PBS station, at 8:30 p.m. MDT. That one may be on the internet after, and if so it will be posted on the Amendment 50 blog.

I've also been interviewed by the local Fox outlet, and have one set with the Channel 7, but I don't yet know when those will be on the air. If you see it, let me know how bad my hair looks. There have also been some great print interviews, and the Denver Post just endorsed the idea of Colorado saying No to Amendment 50, so with barely a week of volunteering for the side of truth and justice, I'm feeling pretty good about our progress!

OK, the self promotion is getting a little thick around here...

Road to the White House

I don't know if it makes me happy or sad that the Road to the White House is through David Letterman.

But it clearly is.

I got this email today

I can never tell if these are legitimate. This one seems like it might be real.

Dear American:

I need to ask you to support an urgent secret business relationship with a
transfer of funds of great magnitude.
I am Ministry of the Treasury of the Republic of America. My country has had
crisis that has caused the need for large transfer of funds of 800 billion
dollars US. If you would assist me in this transfer, it would be most
profitable to you.
I am working with Mr. Phil Gram, lobbyist for UBS, who will be my
replacement as Ministry of the Treasury in January. As a Senator, you may
know him as the leader of the American banking deregulation movement in the
1990s. This transactin is 100% safe.
This is a matter of great urgency. We need a blank check. We need the funds
as quickly as possible. We cannot directly transfer these funds in the names
of our close friends because we are constantly under surveillance. My family
lawyer advised me that I should look for a reliable and trustworthy person
who will act as a next of kin so the funds can be transferred.
Please reply with all of your bank account, IRA and college fund account
numbers and those of your children and grandchildren to
wallstreetbailout@treasury.gov so that we may transfer your commission for
this transaction. After I receive that information, I will respond with
detailed information about safeguards that will be used to protect the
funds.
Yours Faithfully Minister of Treasury Paulson

On The Road

Like any political junky, I've been watching the polls. My new favorite poll watching site is put together by a couple of baseball stat freaks who have turned into political stat freaks. (They are liberal, and want Obama to be elected but they treat politics like baseball in that they have favorite teams, but they really just love the game and the stats.)

They do lots of great analysis of all the polls, having recently helped debunk the whole myth of the Bradley Effect. I love a blog that's not afraid to use terms like "regression analysis."

One of the writers has started doing something that big newspapers used to do back when they had decent size reporting staffs and travel budgets. He's hit the road.

In true blogger style, he's doing it while quoting Jack Kerouac plenty. I read yesterday that he was going to be in Denver, so after doing some politicking of my own last night (more on that later) I went over to the bar where Kerouac would go to celebrate stealing cars with Neal Cassady, My Brother's Bar. 

(You know, I never thought about this, but the bar is called My Brother's Bar and it was Cassady's brother who was a bartender there. Did the bar have the same name then? I better head back there and ask!)

So I figured that if the 538 guy is in Denver, and he's a Kerouac fan, he's gotta be there, right? Well, if he was, I missed him. I did run into an old friend I hadn't seen in years, though, so that made it a great night. 

Photo credit: Phil Roman

Autumnal Equinox

I love the start of fall, and the start of spring, for plenty of reasons, but one fun astronomical reason especially.

The northern hemisphere tilts toward the sun in the summer, and away in the winter. That's why VP candidates and penguins have such long days in the summer, and such long nights in the winter.

But what's interesting to me are the Equinoxes. Think about it, the equator is pointing straight at the sun, so the whole world has essentially the same length of day. Billions of people, hundreds of countries, all kinds of different climates, and yet for a couple of days we all have a day and a night that is just about the same with equal parts day and night.

I don't have any moral to this story, I just think that's cool.

An unfunny post about our unfunny candidates.

As a fan of humor and politics, I had high hopes for a McCain-Obama matchup. Both seem naturally funny, even if McCain had a bit of a hard edge to his humor, like the time he told a high school student who asked about McCain's age: "Thanks for the question, you little jerk. You’re drafted."

But it hasn't really worked out to be a funny race, as evidenced by these totally humor-free clips:



My old boss and the smartest guy I've ever known personally, Kurt Andersen, had much the same complaint.
Then two things happened that gave me some hope. 

First was Obama responding to the notion that his fifth-grade daughter might find out some about boys in her new class:"What!" Obama exclaimed in mock horror, as the audience laughed. "Hold on a sec. Maybe that home-schooling is all right. One reason I have to win here is so that I've got Secret Service around my girls at all times. They carry guns."

Then McCain gave us the biggest possible injection of humor, Sarah Palin. She may be asking people to pray for pipelines, but I was praying for humor, and now we have it. Thanks, God!

The only one who hasn't gotten the memo, apparently, is Joe Biden, who seems to want to be humorless to the end, even when he's trying to be funny. "There's a gigantic difference" between him and Palin, he says. "She's good looking."

SFX: Crickets.

Wait, isn't that the same thing he said about Obama back when he was running against him? That he was "good looking"? Please, someone get Biden a joke writer!

Sarah Palin is Dan Quayle with legs

You heard it here first, Sarah Palin is Dan Quayle with better legs. Though, to be fair, Quayle decided not to do Dancing with the Stars, so we may never know for sure.

Biden our time

Drudge did me wrong. So many times I've learned things first from Drudge, and I know why he went with the story he went with, but anyway it turned out to be wrong, and that's OK with me. That guy's hair really is weird, and I'd never be able to get the IM handle BayhCurious out of my head.

Biden is a slightly better pick than Bayh, but he's so tone-deaf on racial issues. Remember, Biden came closer than any of the other candidates to calling him "boy." He didn't, but it felt awfully close to me.

And then there was this:

All of which makes me wonder if that's part of why Obama picked him. Obama wanted someone who is still essentially in the old patrician model of race relations to help assuage voters who are still stuck in the old ways of thinking about race. He brought the guy along that -- of the real contenders -- probably needs the most work on entering a post-racial world. Obama wants to use him first to get elected, and then to help bring him, and so many of those in his generation, into the new world.

I'm reading Dreams from my Father now. Obama's personal story really is remarkable, and does give me hope that we are moving into a really post-racial society, but the pick of Biden essentially to me means that election of Obama would be a big -- but not huge -- step forward.

There's traffic. And then there's traffic. And then there's TRAFFIC.

My first startup -- the late, great MyTrafficNews, (now part of the NavTeq/Nokia/Traffic.com empire) -- had to do with, you guessed it, traffic. 

I fancied myself an expert on traffic even before I started that company, and then quickly learned how little I knew. I thought it would be somewhat predictable, and some aspects of it are, but many are not. The main thing I learned, however, is that it is a very emotional issue. People really will add 20 minutes or more to a drive to avoid the chance of a slowdown that may add at most 10 minutes of slow driving.

Traffic is in the news some in these Dog Days because of what looks like a great new book, and of course a slew of interesting blog posts about the book, including this great one from the incomparable Ben Casnocha.

Left Turn

I won't go into my traffic theories, but I do want to tie in a couple of other memes: Traffic and the Google. I wrote recently about Google's new thing called Knol, reporting on the prediction that the big money in Knols would be for those who write about popular topics, say Obama and McCain. I predicted it would actually be in more stuff where there were quick bucks to be made.

I said I'd check back in six months, but it didn't take that long to prove my point. 

If you do a Knol search for traffic, the results, as of August 12, are all about Internet Traffic, and how to get more people to visit a site. Most people, I think, asking about traffic are looking for information about the road-clogging stuff, not getting a bunch of clicks. But the Knol results don't have that because they have so many people clamoring to be an expert on getting "eyeballs on pages" (yewwww) that they are trying to be the Knol expert. In other words, they are trying to game the system for some easy money. 

My new prediction: Google will figure this out soon enough, and you'll see the results improve, or the project will be killed.

One last thing: When I first wrote about Knol, I compared Google to the National Enquirer. I even put up a picture of some outrageous claims from last year about John Edwards. Then a candidate, Edwards denied it, but it sure seemed likely to me, which is why I posted it. Turns out the Enquirer did have the story right. 

Does this prove that Google's Knol is a good idea? In a funny way, yes it does. It proves that sometimes it does actually make sense to pay for something rather than try to get it all for free. Checkbook journalism has it's drawbacks, but it got that story nine months before any of the more ethical journalists. 

I'm not spending any of my money at the Supermarket to pay for it, though. No Dilbert.

Eureka!

One of the worst parts about the loss of Tim Russert is that I just couldn't imagine someone else taking over the seat on Sunday mornings.

Well, finally I can imagine someone. Check this out:

A long time ago Bob Costas had a show on after Letterman when Letterman was after Johnny Carson, and then after Conan O'Brien. The show was SO good. He sat down and talked to one person for a half hour. It was late night, so there weren't a lot of politicians, but Costas' preparation was amazing. The people interviewed seemed just delighted by questions that they really had never heard before.

What was great about Russert, and does Costas have those traits? 

Fair? Check.

Does great research? Check.

The right combination of gravitas and lack of self-seriousness? Check.

An ability to question the Conventional Wisdom? Check.

I like the idea, so it probably won't happen. Maybe Costas couldn't take the pay cut, or maybe Sports wouldn't let him go, but he could still take the time off to work the Olympics.

Look, a guy can dream...

Family Man

I'm a little different than the guy in this song, I always wanted to be a family man. But I still found this touching...

"Family Man" from Trevor Little on Vimeo.

Wall St. Journal Imitates the Onion

Over on the right of this page there is a link to my contributions to James Taranto's "Best of the Web Today" column from the Wall St. Journal.

I haven't made as many lately, I've just been busy, but one of his best ongoing jokes is "Life Imitates The Onion." It's when the Onion is funniest, when actual headlines prove prescient, such as this pairing:

"Estate Sale Proves Everything Man Worked For in Life Worth $5,235.78"--headline, Onion, May 17, 2006

"Man Auctions Life, but Disappointed at Bid Price"--headline, Associated Press, June 30, 2008

Normally I might clip this article about Barack Obama being too skinny to be president and send it to Taranto urging that he put it in his column paired with the video below, but because the article was actually in the Wall St. Journal, I'm guessing that just isn't going to happen.

As Obese Population Rises, More Candidates Courting The Fat Vote 

Blond Ambition

Way back when the Clintons were still technically in the race, they tried to turn Hillary's lack of big crowds into some kind of positive. She openly mocked Obama for giving great speeches and having lots of people show up to hear them.

Now McCain seems to be doing essentially the same thing.

Even those that like McCain describe ads like this as "Childish."

The McCain campaign needs to somehow convince independent voters only vaguely paying attention that they should vote for a guy. How are they going to do that with an ad that spends about 20 seconds of a 30-second spot showing the other guy in flattering pictures with crowds chanting his name? To those just kinda-sorta paying attention, it's going to look a lot like an Obama ad.

Left Turn

Maybe Obama should just edit that ad a little and use it. It would be better than the ads he is running.

The question in this post hit me like a brick: "Close your eyes, jog your memory, and try to recall a single Obama ad from the campaign thus far. Can you do it? I can’t."

Now, before you say something about that "Yes we can" video or the "1984" spot, remember that those were not from the campaign.

Agree with Obama or not, any professional politician will tell you that Obama has run an amazing campaign, executing flawlessly on difficult operational issues like the Iowa caucus system, fundraising or the delegate rules. The advertising, however has, been a flop. All that money he's collecting is largely going to put boring, ineffective ads on the tee-vee. 

Obama is a big-government guy. I have to hope that he demands more in efficacy from government programs than he does from his advertising!

Do you know knols?

I wrote about the new effort by Google to create a Wikipedia killer when I first heard about it late last year.

At the time I compared the effort to the National Enquirer. Most major media refuse to pay for actual news, but the Enquirer does. 

The difference between Google's new thing "Knol" and Wikipedia is that it pays for content. As I wrote then, I don't see anything wrong with that. If someone wants to write something and get paid for writing it, then I know why they are writing it. If they spend a bunch of time on a Wiki article, well, are they just doing it for their 15 minutes of fame, or what?

Well, Google has been working on this for at least six months, and it just came out.

First impressions? It's amazing how few articles they have, and how much they pay attention to health. Is the doctor business really so bad that they can write articles to go on the Internet in hopes of making 10 bucks for some clickthrus?

That said, where most journalists, even really good ones, are predicting that the best way to make money in Knol is to write articles about popular topics, say Obama and McCain. That's what TechCrunch wrote. But I would actually predict that the field that will get flooded first is the articles about health, especially those conditions that can either be treated with a fancy pharmaceutical or that some lawyer can sue someone for. I read once that "mesothelioma" is the highest possible Cost-per-click word you could use because people type that looking for lawyers to sue in the junk science cases against asbestos manufacturers.

In spite of the people out there willing to sell their vote on ebay, I don't think a lot of people are following a lot of text ads for candidates. They do follow links for stuff they think will make them healthy or rich without having to work. I'll try to check back in another six months and see if my prediction comes true.

Fun we can believe in

There have been a bunch of stories about turmoil in the McCain camp. I think McCain should fire all his top-level operatives and put in charge whomever it was that created something funny We Can Believe In.

George W. Bush, I think, probably agrees with most people on this...

The polls are clear that President Bush has very low approval ratings, down around 30 percent or something. 

To me what's important to remember there is that there are still 30 percent who support him. That is, if you go into a restaurant, just look around; if there are 100 people in the restaurant, 30 of them would tell you that they support George W. Bush.

However, if you asked those 30 people if they think he should be able to have a third term, I think then the numbers go way down.

In fact, if George W. Bush was one of those people, he himself would say that he's really ready for some time off. He'd probably like to go back to Texas, where he can wipe his nose with his hand and say, "Yo, Harper, you ever meet..." without the "Harper" being the leader of a country, and without video of that gesture making it on the news around the world.

Can't say as I blame him.

Easy

It's easy, here in the summer, to make mountains out of dung heaps. There's just not enough news in the land, so when one general makes a boneheaded remark about John McCain, it can seem like a really big deal.

Future trivia answer Wes Clark should not have said what he said about McCain's being a decorated veteran as not qualifying him to be president. His worst error, I think, was that he said it with such a tin ear.

The gold standard, by the way, for talking about military service comes from John F. Kennedy. He's the one who made a point similar to what Clark was trying to say so badly. A student asked him how he became a war hero. "It was absolutely involuntary" Kennedy replied, "they sank my boat."

Luckily McCain responded in the way that honorable men reply, by saying essentially that Clark in essence was correct, that his service should not automatically make him qualified to be president. Elections are about the future, McCain knows that, which is why after the requisite needling of Clark, he tried to drag the conversation back to what people care about. Good for him.

The only thing Obama has to fear, is... Liberals

Looking at the presidential race as of today, it's clearly Obama's to lose.

The one thing that might go wrong? The haughty liberals sensing the victory, and gloating too early. They think that because Obama is doing well in the polls it proves to them that most people agree with them.

They are just wrong.

Consider this video. You really only have to watch the first 15 seconds to get the (lame) joke (which then repeats over and over, getting less funny each time), and to understand how the liberals could shoot themselves in the foot.

I get it that they don't like to shop at Wal-Mart, but if they are not among the 84 percent of Americans who have shopped at Wal-Mart in the last year.

Somehow these bozos think they can win an election with the 16 percent of people who are just like them.

The medium is the... oh look, a free MP3!

I found an excellent article about how the 'net is changing the way we think, and devoured every word of it while sitting in my library chair.

Yeah, right.

Truth is I found a link to it on a blog, and pretty much got his point after a few paragraphs. I then sent it on to a couple of friends because it tied into something that was a meme for them, and would have never finished but for one point.

His thesis is that the instant access to information is actually rewiring our brains. Here's the nut graf:

As the media theorist Marshall McLuhan pointed out in the 1960s, media are not just passive channels of information. They supply the stuff of thought, but they also shape the process of thought. And what the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation. My mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles. Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski.

I pretty much grokked his point after that nut graf and stopped reading, which either proves his point or makes a different one that I don't know if the writer wants to admit: In this environment there is a brutal Darwinism of ideas going on. If an idea isn't significantly new and also compelling, you are going to lose people after a few paragraphs.

The reason I went back and read the whole story was to make sure he didn't make that point. Indeed, he writes about Nietzsche, Turing, Frederick Winslow Taylor, Plato, Gutenberg, and even "Italian humanist Hieronimo Squarciafico" but no Darwin to be found.

The demise of the book is well known. I still love books, but I find time for fewer of them, but maybe that's OK. The books I do find, and enjoy, have survived the thinning of the herd.

Best recent book, by the way: The Principled Politician: The Ralph Carr Story.

Lies, Damn Lies, and Realtors®

So, we were talking to a Realtor® about a house, and we asked if the owners would consider selling with a contingent contract, that is, we wouldn't buy that house unless our house sold.

The Realtor® asked about our home, and how confident we were that it would sell. We told him that we'd talked to three Realtors®, and all of them said given the quality of the home, and the fantastic location location location, that it would sell quickly.

So, the Realtor® said, "You know, a lot of Realtors® are really hurting for business, so they will tell you that just to get you to list with them."

Wait.

"Are you saying," I said in my head, but not out loud to this poor chump, "that Realtors® will LIE just to make money in violation of Article 12 of the Realtors® Code of Ethics?!? If that's true, then you might be telling a lie right now. You might be, or you might not be. My whole real estate world was based on a foundation that Realtors® are as honest as the day is long!"

Anyway, now we are selling our house. If you, or someone you know, is interested, please direct them to this Great Wash Park Home.

We are, you may be shocked to learn, selling it ourselves.