The Trump Bubble

I've held off on posting much about my thoughts post-election.  I've never really tried to hide my political leanings here, but I didn't really seek to make it a focus of this blog.  (Heck, I barely post here anyway!)  But while much of this opinion piece is fairly emotionally charged (and hey, I get it!), I thought this ending passage summed up a big part of my reaction pretty well:

I have plenty of sympathy for typical Trump voters. (I exclude the alt-right and other menaces to the public good, such as Rudy Giuliani.) I have written about cultural dislocation and I understand the corrosive effect of diminished expectations. Clinton talked about the glass ceiling, but too many American workers — or former workers — had to contend with a cement one: jobs that were gone and not coming back. We in the bubble understand. Truly, we do. 

But I will not concede that a greater wisdom exists in what is known as “flyover country.” It has voted for a charlatan, a blinged ignoramus who has promised the past as the future. Trump, who lives in a gilded bubble of his own, cannot reverse automation, replace robots with people or blunt American businesses’ compulsive search for the cheapest workforce. 

[...] What I cannot understand is fellow bubble dwellers who tell me, with an air of impeccable condescension, that a vote for Trump was such proof of their own superior wisdom that it eclipsed all doubts about his qualifications, his temperament, his honesty in business and his veracity in speech. These people live in a bubble of their own. It is one that excludes the lesson of history and the demands of common sense. It will burst.  

- Richard Cohen, 'Real America' is its own bubble

Supreme Court Rules Video Games Covered By First Amendment

Full NY Times Link

“Like the protected books, plays and movies that preceded them, video games communicate ideas — and even social messages — through many familiar literary devices (such as characters, dialogue, plot and music) and through features distinctive to the medium (such as the player’s interaction with the virtual world),” Justice Scalia wrote. “That suffices to confer First Amendment protection.”

Thank you!  (And take that, Jack Thompson!)

Re: Post-Election Iran

Reposted from a friend of mine from the middle east:

If anyone is on Twitter, set your location to Tehran and your time zone to GMT +3.30. Security forces are hunting for bloggers using location/timezone searches. The more people at this location, the more of a logjam it creates for forces trying to shut Iranians' access to the internet down. Cut & paste & pass it on.

I don't have Twitter, but I do have a blog. Done and done. (and yes, this means my time-stamps will be horribly wrong for the near future.)

UPDATE September 2009: I have since reverted to the proper timezone. After this much time has passed, the likelihood of this sort of tactic still helping is minimal at best.

Media and Technology: An Interests Showdown for Obama

Last tuesday, like most people at Syracuse, I watched elatedly as Barack Obama was sworn in as the 44th President of the United States.  It was a historic moment any way you slice it, and all eyes are on Obama now as he attempts to live up to the hope over 66 million of us placed in him last November.

There's been no shortage of news speculation as to how he will handle one pressing issue or another.  However, being me, I've been wondering about another angle.  Perhaps not the most important or pressing, but one which greatly interests me.

Aside from the pomp of the ceremony itself, two things about President Obama's inauguration day struck me. First:  the new website at WhiteHouse.gov, which went live before he had even finished taking the Oath of Office.  Second:  The star-studded "Neighborhood Ball," hosted by ABC, which kicked off the string of events he and Michelle danced at.  These two events stood out to me because they highlight two "interest groups" among which Obama has strong support;  the wired world of the internet, and the glitz and glamor of Hollywood and the entertainment industry.

Barack Obama ran what is widely hailed as the most technology-savvy campaign in history.  With the small but passionate exception of Ron Paul supporters, the "internets" as a whole loved him for it, and looked forward to a presidency that understands and embraces new technology.  So far, signs that Change has come to the members of the executive branch are good.  The new White House website is every bit as fancy as the Obama team's previous online works, and having a weekly video podcast of sorts sounds like a great way to engage the populace.  Later in the week, we heard about the complaints staffers have been voicing over the archaic I.T. infrastructure in the White House - a lament all to familiar to any geek who has found themselves thrust into the bureaucratic technology morass that typifies most established institutions (50 meg mailbox quota for Syracuse students' e-mail, anyone?).  Heck, even the fact that the president fought to keep his Blackberry shows that he's a new breed of president - one who "gets" technology.  Let the Tubes rejoice!

However, the "Neighborhood Ball" I saw tuesday night on ABC demonstrates Obama's clout with another group: the entertainment industry.  During the campaign, one of the first widely-talked-about attack ads from McCain was directed at Obamas "celebrity" appeal.  His life up to this point reads like an Oscar-winning screenplay, and like most Democratic candidates, he had his fair share of supporters among the Hollywood elite.  That ABC would get together with chart-topping recording artists to throw the first of his presidential balls further proves Obama's appeal among the entertainment industry,

Clearly, both groups are looking forward to a plethora of wonderful changes our new President will bring.

One problem though:  These two groups are currently at war.

Media piracy is one of, if not the biggest issue facing the content creators in the film, television, and music businesses.  It is also at the forefront of the freedom-loving culture of the Internet.  Media companies view tech-savvy consumers as criminal scum, and brilliant programmers worldwide take pride in cracking every new protection scheme the entertainment industry can come up with, either out of belief, necessity, or (I suspect most of the time now) out of sheer spite.

In the last decade, this issue has become the defining conflict for both sides, and both no doubt would like to look to Obama as their savior.  I'm very curious as to how he will navigate these waters, not least of which because I often find myself straddling the same fence.

Tina Fey as Sarah Palin on SNL

Pretty spot on, if you ask me.

I know this is all over YouTube, but hey: you can watch it here without worrying about NBC taking it down! Score!

MSNBC's Countdown - For Free on iTunes

These days, I get most of my actual news from the front page of NYTimes.com, or sometimes Reuters (mostly for Oddly Enough).  For television news and political commentary, I generally fall to the Stewart-Colbert dream team, or Countdown, Keith Olbermann's show on MSNBC.  (Hey, if republicans can sit while their eyes glaze over from Fox News, I think I'm entitled to a little of my own preaching-to-the-choir punditry!  Besides... Keith's wittier than Bill O'Reilly.)

Of course, I don't exactly mark my calendar to make sure I catch Countdown on TV.  To be honest, I don't even know its timeslot off the top of my head.  Which I was pleasantly astonished to find it in the podcast section of the iTunes Store.

Not just clips, or sound bites.  Video.  Of the whole show.

It's not perfect of course.  Mainly because each episode eats up about 220 meg on my hard drive.  My laptop hard drive with 20 gig free.  So, uh... don't think I'll exactly be archiving these things.  But it is impressive that they did this, if not entirely surprising.  Olbermann has long tried to stay on top of the "internets."

Of course, as always with these things, while I'm impressed and grateful to get this so conveniently (and so free!) I'm still a little confused as to the long-term business model of giving non-ad-laden stuff away on the internet for free.  Nice publicity stunt, but how far can you go with it?  Hmm.

As a side note:  MSNBC didn't exactly pick the most flattering picture of Keith there, did they?

We don't need tighter gun control laws. We just need to ENFORCE the ones we have...

I've seen talk around the 'net saying the Viginia Tech shootings clearly demonstrate the need for tighter gun control laws in this country, since Cho was able to walk into a store and purchase the gun he used to kill 32 people. Now, I am by no means an NRA "More guns = less crime because we can shoot the bastards!" sort of guy, but I've never been for banning the ownership of firearms by private citizens either.

I found this article in the NY Times: U.S. Rules Made Killer Ineligible to Purchase Gun

Yeah, he bought the gun. But that shouldn't have happened. If the proper checks were made at the federal level, that purchase would have been denied. Sure, he could try to get one on the black market, but that's possible even if a ban is put in place. (Banning guns will get them off the streets? Sure! It's worked so well for drugs, underage alcohol, not-yet-released Hollywood films...)

We don't need tighter gun control laws. We just need to properly enforce the ones we have!

Bush + Blair Love Song

It's so true...



The really funny part? I first saw this on Al Jazeera... Yes Timmy, they have "viral video of the week" in Qatar too.

Wait- I'm up at this ungodly hour watching the (horrible quality) online stream of Al Jazeera English, and laughing at satire about how the leaders of the U.S. and U.K. are attached at the hip? Yeah... must be nearing the due date for my Communications & Society paper on global coverage of the "British sailors held in Iran" incident!

Political Musings Around Deus Ex

Before I say anything, let me point out that this is just my random musing over an idea I thought up about 5 minutes ago. It isn't a well-constructed or complete argument, nor do I intend it to be - just me spitting out what I'm thinking about.

I don't know how many of my friends actually played through a significant part of Deus Ex, (most found it too slow) but I finished it last year and really enjoyed it. One thing I found interesting about it was the way it depicted the near-future of our world. The world of Deus Ex is filled with fear and terrorism. Some leaders (political and otherwise) use this fear to further thair own adgendas. Of course, being a video game, their adgendas mainly center around variants of "take over the world," but I still found it to be an interesting parallel to our own world. (Here is where all my conservative friends just opened their mouths and started shaking their heads - bear with me!) The fact that the game came out before 9/11 made it seems all the more prophetic. The fact that leaders exploiting fears over terrorism played prominently gave me the impression that this was a "liberal-friendly/sympathizing" game.

I recently found a review of the game from when it was new (2000) in which the author laments the fact that the game's designers took up "ultra-right fantasies" for much of the games plot. He said "a plot which fingers the UN as the chief agency seeking world domination is only heading one way politically", and noted "a wimpy liberal isn’t going to find much attractive about their final choices."

Wait - I'm a liberal, I loved this game, and it's plot most of all! I guess my point is that politics aren't static. What was considered a "right" game under Clinton can now be considered a "left" game under Bush. I guess that would just make it an "anti-government" game, although newspaper clippings and e-mails tend to paint a favorable picture of the fictional President Mead, who opposes the the increased powers of UNATCO.

Actually, I guess I don't really have too much of a point, just throwing my observations out there. I just found the difference between my impression of the game and this review's.

Thoughts, anyone?

OMG! I Agree With Fox News?

I've kept this blog fairly non-political for a while now, but I just can't leave this one alone.

Alright, so I was against the current war when it was proposed (and still believe it was a mistake, but that we're far enough in now that a rapid pull-out now would do much more harm than good). But like many others, that in no way diminishes my deep respect, admiration, and gratefulness towards our troops abroad.

Some people have always been (and still are) staunch supporters of the war. I disagree with these people, but I respect their opinions.

Others want us to pull out of Iraq immediately. I also disagree with these people, but still respect their opinions.

Then there are people like Michael Crook. Actually, that may be a misstatement, as I'm unsure as to whether I would go so far as to classify Mr. Crook as a person. Anyway, he got quite the bashing on Fox News (as pointed out by Tim of CtrlAltDel), and I found myself, for the first time I can remember, wholeheartedly agreeing with the "Evil Network".

The website in question, forsakethetroops.info, has thankfully been shut down, although parts of it are archived at the Internet Wayback Machine. Many suspect the site may have been a hoax/prank/joke, but I think everyone who could possibly read this blog will agree that it goes several miles beyond the "in poor taste" marker. I mean, "The U.S. soldier is a poster-child for retroactive abortion."? That's not funny, it's appalling! (don't believe me? Go ahead, check the video)


The Bad news: apparently the guy lives in Syracuse, NY, where I will be going in about a month and a half.
The Good news: This may give me an opportunity to punch him in the face.