Howard Dean Makes A Smart Move

WASHINGTON (AP) -- In a historic move, Democratic presidential hopeful Howard Dean announced Saturday he is skipping public financing and the spending limits that come with it, hoping his money-raising power can help win the nomination and unseat President Bush.

The 2004 race is the first time that candidates from both major parties will forgo the Watergate-era public financing system. Bush also is opting out, as he did in the 2000 Republican primaries and raised a record $100-plus million.

Dean made his decision based on a high-tech tally of 600,000 supporters, whom he asked to vote by e-mail, Internet, telephone or regular mail through Friday.

He announced the results at noon EST in Burlington, Vermont. Campaign officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said about 85 percent of the 105,000 supporters who weighed in urged the former Vermont governor to opt out. He becomes the first candidate in Democratic Party history to take such a step.

At least two Democratic rivals -- Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry and retired Gen. Wesley Clark -- also have been considering opting out.

Like Bush in his primaries, Dean now can spend unlimited amounts on his campaign for the nomination and, if successful, through the summer before the general election season starts.

Candidates who accept public dollars in the primaries can get up to $18.7 million in taxpayer money but are limited to about $45 million in spending.

A campaign official said Dean has no plans to limit his spending through the primaries to that threshold, as some campaign finance watchdogs have urged.

[full story]

He's now free to fight Bush on a more-or-less equal footing all the way from now until the election.

Also—

It appears almost certain that two of American's largest labor unions, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and McEntee's American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AMFSCME) will endorse Dean next Wednesday. That should provide a huge boost to his campaign for the nomination.

The Confederate Flag remark may have come off as a blunder, but I think the words were chosen deliberately. As good advertisers and PR flacks know, all PR is good PR. Dean increased his name recognition significantly, and skillfully played both sides of the issue.

Ask not whose vote a politician seeks; they seek every vote they can get.

For those Southerners who really do love the flag, Dean separated himself from the rest of the Democrats. That the other Democratic candidates criticized him so strongly clinched the deal. One of my oldest friends (who proudly calls himself a redneck) decided this week to support Dean based on the comment, and on the stellar rating given to Dean by the National Rifle Association. No kidding. This guy (a registered Democrat) voted for Bush in 2000, because, as he said that fall, "Gore wants to take away our guns." He doesn't like Bush now because of the Patriot Act and because of Bush's comments in favor of a ban on assault weapons.

Dean apologized for the Flag remark on Thursday, denouncing the Confederate flag as a "loathsome symbol" and explaining that what he'd meant was that he wants to reach out to poor Southern white voters (note to Dean: you won't make any friends in the South by referring to your intended supporters as "poor whites;" suggest you use the term "Southern working men and women" instead). Dean's retraction worked beautifully, because intelligent folks pay attention to follow-up comments, while most other folks don't. The intelligent folks were the offended ones, so another smooth move, Dr. Dean.

Posted by Me at 22:32 link

Thank you, Autumn

Good news about my bike. The wheel proved easy to un-warp. The mechanic changed his mind about my having made a bad purchase when he suddenly realized that this bike is a rare collectible (which happens to ride great). Every part is original (except the tires). Everything works perfectly. The Schwinn Deluxe Varsity was the first mass market bike to feature index shifting (index shifting means each shifter position references a specific gear, rather than the previous "sliding scale" system. Indexed gears shift more smoothly, and the chain, sprockets and derailleurs last much longer). The bike even looks good. The only cosmetic flaw is that the "Deluxe Varsity" decal is in bad shape. It might be possible to find a replacement for that, though. Bottom line: I should be able to sell this bike to a serious collector for much more than I paid for it.

The bad news about my bike is that if anything breaks, replacement parts will be expensive and possibly hard to find. Repairs will be difficult. Also bad is that it weighs 35 pounds, which is slightly more than my mountain bike! I rode it about half a mile today and found that it's faster on the downhills than the MTB, but maybe even slower uphill. Tomorrow, I'll install the cycle computer and check out the numbers. Bottom line: I think riding this bike would make me very strong. And humble.

I think I'd rather be fast.

He ain't heavy, he's my bike. At previous home in Chicago.
(Yes, I've adjusted the seat since this picture.)

Posted by Me at 22:32 link

Sincerely,

North Carolina

P.S. Please don't send us any more early December ice storms; the one last year really, really sucked. Thanks again....

Stuff I did today

Had a dream in which several friends and I had been captured by armed men (terrorists? guerilla fighters? kidnappers?). They'd locked us in a room and were coming back soon. Everybody else was paralyzed with fear; they just kept saying "What's going to happen to us?" and other useless crap. I figured we could escape through a window, and, with great difficulty, managed to shove a window air conditioner unit out of a window. A couple of passing policemen happened to see it, and came in through the window, guns drawn, just as our captors came back. The police won the shootout.

In waking life, I took the bent rear wheel from my new used bike to the bike shop. The mechanic didn't want to mess with replacing the spoke, but said he could straighten the wheel. He advised me to sell the bike as soon as possible. Turns out it's the "Deluxe Varsity" model, which sounds cooler than a regular one, but actually means it has a bunch of parts that were experimental in 1978, and are obsolete (also expensive to fix) now. I'm hoping there's a collector's market for "Deluxe Varsity" bikes.

I repaired my mom's kitchen faucet, a job the plumber had estimated would cost $100-$250 for him to do. Gold star for me!

Figured out which classes I'll be taking next semester (my final semester!).

Watched the second half of The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly on TV at Mom's.

Music In My Head (warning: it's pretty bad today):

• Chicago — "If You Leave Me Now" ("earworm" resulting from discussion in class)
• Donna Summer — "On the Radio" (earworm from hearing Summer interviewed on NPR's Fresh Air)
• Hugo Montenegro — "The Good, The Bad & The Ugly" (I like this one)
• After The Fire — "Der Kommissar" (I like it but I'm tired of it)
• Pat Benatar — "Heartbreaker" (I still kind of like this one, but I'm currently kind of sick of it)

Withdrawing In Disgust Is Not The Same Thing As Apathy

Just one more comment on not writing about politics lately. I'm not a practicing Buddhist, but I took a values survey recently and the results suggested that, of the world's major religions, Buddhism most closely matches my values. Cool. I signed up for "Daily Buddhist Wisdom" e-mails. Some of them are duds, some of them I just don't quite understand, but quite a few are brilliant:

"The one who wanders independent in the world, free from opinions and viewpoints, does not grasp them and enter into disputations and arguments. As the lotus rises on its stalk unsoiled by the mud and the water, so the wise one speaks of peace and is unstained by the opinions of the world."

-Sutta Nipata
From "Buddha Speaks," edited by Anne Bancroft, 2000. Shambhala Publications, Boston, www.shambhala.com.

Whatever, for good or ill, I've been taking the advice lately.

Yesterday, I "withdrew" for awhile on a 16 mile bike ride in Winston-Salem. I rode the paved Salem Creek Greenway its full length to Salem Lake, then once around the unpaved Salem Lake Trail (really a dirt road) and back. I tried to do this ride back in September, but the creek had spilled its banks then and swallowed up the trail. Yesterday, it was cloudy, but no flooding. Greenway and trail were dry and beautiful. See for yourself:

"The necessary beauty in life is in giving yourself to it completely."

Posted by Me at 22:41 link

Where The Politics Aren't

The short answer is "I don't know."

The long answer is that I still comb through the news every day, and every day I read articles on the Iraq War, on the environmentally-destructive policies of the Bush administration, on the economically-destructive and -divisive policies of the Bush administration, on religious intolerance— and on all the other various threats to our Life, Liberty and Pursuit of Happiness.

I read the articles, but I don't much feel like contributing to the discussion right now. I gave some thought today to why that is, and I think it's because of several experiences I've had since I started writing a blog back in February.

Originally, this was to be the online version of my "trip journal," a chronicle of my forays into the great outdoors. That quickly went by the wayside because

1. I don't get outside as much as I used to, and
2. There are so many things I'd like to change about the world!

But, I've become aware of a few realities since February. Actually, I knew them before, I just needed to be reminded.

First, people don't spend much time considering viewpoints which contradict their own. Even when we do, we rarely change their minds. As I learned in symbolic logic, flaws in thinking seldom arise from faulty logic, but usually from bad "givens," those facts one accepts as true at the beginning. In other words, if you take as a given that the Earth is stationary, it's perfectly logical to believe the Sun revolves around the Earth. Likewise, if you started off believing that the threat from terrorism is so great that terrorism must be defeated at any cost, and believing that Saddam Hussein actively supported terrorism, then it followed logically that invading Iraq was a good thing to do.

I'm not likely to change anyone's mind on that issue unless they're willing to re-examine their givens. People don't do that very often, because it's hard for us to admit we're wrong, and besides, if we go around questioning all the things we firmly believe, then we're liable to become extremely insecure and unconfident. Which is not sexy at all.

People get their "given" beliefs from those they love. It's part of the whole cognitive dissonance thing. If you love person A, and they hold belief X, then the consistent thing is for you to hold belief X, too. If you reject belief X, then you are, to some degree, rejecting person A. To love person A but reject belief X causes a feeling of discomfort — cognitive dissonance. We hate cognitive dissonance, and will usually either ditch person A, or else will play ball and accept belief X. Starts with our parents, moves on to our peers, stays true all through life.

So it's tough to change people's minds. Therefore, it's tough to change the world. Sometimes, it's just too tough.

Right now, though, a number of people are busily trying to change the world, or at least trying to influence politics in the countries where they live. In the US, unfortunately, about half the people are pulling, while the other half are pushing. Working against each other. About equally hard. With about equal disgregard and disdain for opposition points of view.

It's an unhealthy situation, with our two-party political system and a highly-polarized electorate. On any contentious issue, we're pretty much forced to choose between two opposite positions. Subtle, reality-based positions which might permit compromise and consensus-building are rejected in favor of oversimple positions that clearly delineate "Us" from "Them."

Hooray for Our Side!

So when the two sides meet, very little discussion takes place. Instead, the two sides tend to shout at each other without listening. "Debate," circa 2003, seems to be more about who can shout the loudest and the longest, rather than about who's actually right. Again, it's got everything to do with our starting beliefs, the bedrock of our thinking. We don't want to question those beliefs. So we demonize those who disagree with us, fail to understand the truth in their beliefs and avoid them whenever possible.

Instead, we hang with those we agree with. Nowhere is this truer than in the blog-o-sphere. After a while, political blogging starts to feel like "preaching to the choir" (do people use this expression outside the South?), which starts to feel like a very bad allocation of that most limited of resources, time.

Here's the thing, though: it is useful to share ideas, even with those we agree with, because you know stuff I don't know, and you find out stuff I'd like to find out about. If you don't tell me, I might not learn.

Then, there's the reality of politics, which is that politicians always have their fingers in the political wind. The cynical view is that money is the only vote which matters, but politicians do like votes. They know that only a small minority care enough even to pay attention, and that the number of people who can be bothered to take action is even smaller. Politicians know, too, that the people who do take action are naturally leaders. If people like these leaders, those people will tend to adopt those leaders' beliefs. When a person sends an e-mail to a Senator, that e-mail is really speaking for 10 or more people who can't be bothered — but who might care enough to vote on election day.

Anyway, activism does make a difference. I have to keep reminding myself that this is true, because, as we all know, it doesn't always make all the difference. But our e-mails, and petitions, and letters and telephone calls can — and do — sway votes.

Maybe instead of preaching to the choir, what we're doing is spreading the word. Amongst ourselves. When I do get back to politics, what I'll probably most want to do is to provide "take action" links. I'll try to start doing that again soon. Let me know if you think I'm on the right track, or not.

For now, here's the ultimate 80's pop song lyrics quiz. It's totally awesome!

I got this from Sya's friend Shawn, who got it from Chewie.

For the record, the 80s haven't been my life since at least the early 90s. Though I did completely kick ass on this quiz! Bitchin!

Posted by Me at 22:21 link

I Didn't Know Anything About Tough

Sir Ranulph Fiennes and Dr. Michael Stroud ran seven marathons in seven days, a feat of toughness I'd have thought unparalleled.

Then Gael pointed out that Tommy Joyce, a former professional boxer from Mexborough, Yorkshire, UK ran twenty marathons in twenty days! Not content with that, this Thursday he aims to break the treadmill endurance record. His goal: over 150 miles in 48 hours. For charity, of course.

Why do I find feats like this so compelling?

Partly, I'm fascinated by them because they redefine the limits of human ability.

Maybe also, I'm fascinated because neither my parents nor my extended family considered athletic ability particularly interesting or valuable, so that when I discovered the world of sports, it was all the more amazing because it was mine.

I've always found distance running especially fascinating. Again, childhood experience explains it nicely. I took up running around age 10, after becoming frustrated with my lack of playing time in school sports. I found a run in the morning before school cleared my head and filled me with energy, in addition to keeping me off the bench in basketball.

My parents only realized what I was doing after I'd been doing it for a couple of months. My dad saw me running down the sidewalk back to the house; he asked what I was running from. When I "confessed" I'd taken up running, he was amazed when I told him I'd run an entire mile without stopping. He didn't really believe me, and insisted on following me in the car the next day. I've never forgotten how impressed he was. One mile. Probably took me ten or twelve minutes. Still, I felt like Rocky!

For the rest of his life, Dad always described me to people as "an athlete." This couldn't have been much farther from reality, as I was, at best, a second-stringer on every team I ever played for. Still, I kept going out for team sports all the way through university, where I was a B-sider on the rugby club.

It wasn't until I took up individual, non-competitive sports, though, that I found the true value of sport. I'd long enjoyed solo running and bicycling, but I'd always considered them part of "training" for team sports. I don't have much nice to say about drugs now, but if I'd never smoked pot, I'd probably never have realized how much I loved running and cycling for their own sakes. It may seem really odd and incongruous, but for a number of years, get-high-and-exercise was my (very effective) fitness plan.

In the early 1990's, I rediscovered my love of hiking, and realized even more how the simple act of moving in a beautiful place can instill serenity and confidence, if one's mind is in the right place. I was actually a little surprised to discover that the mindstate isn't at all drugs-dependent! (As a matter of fact, drugs detract from it).

Snowshoeing seems to lend itself best to the trance-like state that, for all I know, really is a gateway to a higher plane of existence. Probably, it's just the endorphins, and the feeling of being fully enclosed within a world of snow, but still I recommend the experience. The spell seems to depend upon moving, for the sake of moving, through a beautiful place for a long time.

For me, the spell breaks after a few hours, when my muscles start to ache, when my joints start to hurt, when blisters begin to form. Of course, I've pushed past this point many, many times, and often I've looked back and felt deep satisfaction that I had the strength to keep going when stopping was all I wanted to do.

Which is probably why I find people like Roald Amundsen, and Reinhold Messner, and Ranulph Fiennes — and now Tommy Joyce — so amazing.

Could I ever do anything as incredible as these people have done? I don't know. But I'd like to know.

Posted by Me at 22:56 link

Seven Marathons In Seven Days!

"It's the best thing possible," Sir Ranulph said at the finishing line. "It was good fun. We thought it would be and it was."

He joked that Dr Stroud, his 49-year-old running partner of 15 years, was a "bit geriatric" but commended him for "pushing" all the way to the end.

....

[59-year-old] Sir Ranulph has fought back from a heart attack and a double heart bypass operation to carry out his latest test of endurance.

He had already promised to take on the challenge before he collapsed on an aircraft in June and had to undergo surgery.

The pair have also been running with a defibrillator to safeguard Sir Ranulph's health.

All money raised from the Land Rover 7x7x7 Challenge will be given to the British Heart Foundation. They hope to raise a six-figure sum.

[full story]

And Me, You Ask?

Uh, I bicycled over seven miles today. Yeah, that's right — I'm tough.

Actually, I'm sore. Statesville has too many hills....

Posted by Me at 22:42 link