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November 30, 2004
#*(@&*ing Spammers
Due to an overactive and persistant spammer, I'm closing comments to all but registered users until I get a comment spam solution in place.
Update: I installed a security code script in my comments pages, so now you have to enter a 6-digit code to post. Sorry for the extra hassle, but after getting 400 comments about online Texas Hold'em in 24 hours, I decided it was time for the big stick.
Blog by Dan | Permalink | Comments (4)
November 29, 2004
NaNoWriMo, Complete & Post-Morten
Well, it's a day early, but at 50,029 words, I'm declaring my NaNoWriMo effort complete. I have confirmed my count with the official site, and you can view my profile for a little out-take. I've even downloaded my little "NaNoWriMo Winner" icon and included it in the sidebar.
Read on for a post-mortem, complete with a pair of charts.
Here's a chart of my progress throughout the month.
As you can see, I was behind for most of the month. I started off with a pretty nasty cold, and then there were the big crunch times as work every Thursday and Friday. Fortunately, I was able to pour it on over the Thanskgiving break. I had suspected I would not be able to but this turned out not to be the case.
That chart provided a bit of motivation, but it was purely of the stick variety with no real carrot. All it showed me was that I was behind, but it provided little real feedback on whether or not I was on track to catch up in time. About a week ago, I added a column to my spreadsheet to compute my "moving goal". That is, given how much I've written so far, how many words must I write each day to finish on time?
That turned out to be a very useful and motivating chart. While just having the current value is useful, it was very motivating seeing what the future values would be, i.e. if I stop writing right now, what will tomorrow's moving goal be? Likewise, if I write nothing tomorrow, what will the moving goal be the day after? And after that? And so on. Had I done this on Day 1, it would have ended with a moving goal of writing 50,000 words on Day 30. Thus, any progress I made lowered those future goals visibly. Of course, to make it a bit more readable, I clamped it between 0 and 5000 words. So anyway, here's the chart as it stands at the end of the project.
As you can see, instead of rocketing up at the end, it now dives to zero at the end, since my moving goal for tomorrow is zero. I'm done! The really motivating thing about it was seeing very clearly what I knew intellectually, that every day I beat the moving goal, I forced the purple curve downwards. The message was clear: Work a little longer today, and tomorrow will be easier. You can also see how my cold at the beginning and the two crunch periods at work forced the purple curve up. Those were somewhat unavoidable, so I don't know if having the chart early on would have helped me get in the words.
Since I’m using some of the metric-styles we use at work, I figure I’ll also include the usual post-mortem of what worked and what didn’t.
What Worked:
- Dolly Madison donuts at half-past-midnight.
- The habit of keeping metrics gave me a realistic view of my situation throughout the month.
- Using bracketed notes at the end of the file for ideas for the next scene(s). This would look like:
[dinner w/ Sally, short talk about party, then to the art show, meet other welder, talk about stuff, get ditched by Sally]
That allowed me to have an idea some near-future scene and get it out of my head without losing it. I would also use this to flesh out the rest of a scene if I had to quit in the middle. Then, when I came back later, I was much less likely to face the writer’s block of staring at the blank page, because I had notes on what I was supposed to write next.
- Building a file with names, places, etc. to refer back to. Unfortunately, I tended to only add items to the file after I’d had to go back through the text to look them up once or twice.
- Avoiding contractions. This was accidental, but it did boost my word count. I have some characters who, for valid story reasons, needed to have a very formal, stilted conversational style at times. While everyone else made liberal use of contractions and slang, these folks would avoid them when they needed to speak in that style. After a while, “it is” vs. “it’s” starts adding up.
- Getting in a short session in the morning. When I really started making progress towards the end, I would do a quick session before 9am. I’d only get 200-500 words out of it, but it made a big difference when I would sit down in the evening and know that I’d already taken a bite out of the daily goal.
What Sucked:
- Watching my weight go up with my word count.
- Knowing that I had to make some progress every, single, FUCKING DAY!!
- Not getting to read. One of the big things I gave up this month was my hour of reading before bed.
- Not getting to see MAW. One of the other big things I gave up this month was spending time with MAW in the evenings after putting the kids to bed. Instead, it was right back to the NaNoWriMo mines.
- Not getting to blog. Man, but it was hard holding my political tongue during some of the military/political/social events in the last month. Watch out, because as soon as I no longer hate my keyboard, I’ll be coming back with both barrels.
- Going to sleep at 1-2am and getting up at 7am.... for a month.
- Missing Ken on Jeopardy, though that had more to do with work than writing.
What I thought would suck, but didn’t:
- I actually managed to do this without it impacting my work schedule. I thought it would, but it didn’t.
- I also got to spend about the same amount of time with my kids as before. There were a couple of evenings and weekend afternoons that I snuck off for a bit, but very little. Spending time with the kids was actually a pleasant break. Ok... so Sam missed a few baths, but that’s about it.
- I thought I was going to have to sacrifice quality for quantity, and ultimately, I refused to do so. NaNoWriMo was mostly a motivating tool for me to make progress on this novel, and I was more committed to getting the quality story done than to actually reach the 50,000. There’s still some cleanup to do, of course, but by and large, the writing was up to my usual quality. On the other hand, that’s not necessarily saying very much, now is it?
- I thought MAW was going to kill me. She didn’t.
- I thought this long stretch was going to be boring and filled with things irrelevant to the larger plot, but my muse surprised me with some extra characters that are now essential to the plot. Once it’s finished (knock on wood), I’ll ask someone to read it. Then I’ll ask them to imagine it without the characters A, B, and C.
Where Do I Go From Here?
Well, I knew that this novel wasn’t going to be complete at 50,000 words or even it’s real current size of 63,500 counting the pre-existing work. At present, the story is between a third and a half done, so I think I’m looking at about 150,000 words. That translates into about 450 pages in paperback format. That seems a little long, and while I can look at bits of text or dialogue and think that, yes, I could tighten that up some, I also look at areas where I think, my God, that really needs more explanation or just some background color. On the flipside, 450 pages is not uncommon for SF novels these days, and that’s what this is. Actually, for some authors who have moved beyond editing – you know who you are – double that length is the norm.
So, I’m going to plod onwards. I had wanted to finish this novel this calendar year, but that now appears impossible. Even another NaNoWriMo effort would only get me into the final third. Still, I think I might shoot for finishing it by March 1st. That would let me go at a slightly saner pace of 1000 words a day, and I can crank that out in an hour and a half. After that, I don’t know. I’ll want to get a couple of readers to tell me whether or not I’ve made a complete fool of myself, but even after that it just might sit on the shelf. It contains certain elements that may limit its salability, but then again, those very same elements might sell well in today’s cultural climate.
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November 28, 2004
Oooo, Pixar sushi!
In honor of seeing Pixar's The Incredibles:
Tinfoil Beanie by Dan | Permalink | Comments (0)
November 27, 2004
NaNoWriMo, Day 27
Finally, after eight days of steady progress (and no hump-day at work) I'm caught up. With 45,576 words, I'm just a hair ahead of schedule. Still, I'm aiming to finish on Monday lest a crisis on the 30th kill me at the last minute.
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November 25, 2004
NaNoWriMo, day 25
After six straight days of between 2200 and 2500 words each day, I'm getting caught up, now just one and a third days behind with 39396 words. Of course, there are only five days left, but the 2200 word pace will still get me there. The worrisome bit is that while I'm driving hard towards a particular plot point that's about 5000 words away, I'm a little fuzzy on what comes just after, but for now I'm just moving forward and trusting to my muse.
My muse is an interesting lady. I'd call her a bitch, but I don't want to offend her right now. Here's an example of the interesting curve balls she throws at me. For background, I tend to structure stories in such a way where "things get worse" three times before the protagonist ultimately succeeds or fails in his quest. It's a common structure that works well and is documented succintly in Writing to the Point, by Algis Budrys.
The plot point I'm driving towards is one of those "things get worse" moments. The interesting bit is that when I got started moving towards it, I wasn't really satisfied with it as being something sufficiently "worse". I also had the problem that I needed to fill some plot time and pages while various things sorted themselves out on their way to this point of something getting worse.
I didn't know what I was going to put in there, so I just started going. Early into this, a character popped into an elevator as the doors were closing. She added tremendous color to the background world and led us two other characters without whom this story just wouldn't be what it's shaping up to be.
All three of these characters have led me to what is now the thing getting worse, and it's far worse than the thing I had originally planned. Ironically, I'm still going to do that thing, but it's so tame by comparison that it's actually going to be the thing that pulls our hero back from the edge of defeat to push on through the rest of the book.
And all of this because a character I had not yet imagined called out, "Hold the door!"
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Happy Thanksgiving!
Wishing you all a happy Turkey Day. I'll be spending mine with about 20-30 of the Bergstrom clan, which is about half of our current size of 53 (I think). While I can say many wonderful things about Hannah, today I'll just say this: she and her offspring are some serious breeders.
Tinfoil Beanie by Dan | Permalink | Comments (0)
November 22, 2004
"Eagle" Platform
Here's an interesting political platform, the Eagle Platform. While I don't agree with everything on it, it has a few interesting ideas and if nothing else serves as a template for spelling out ones own platform. That might be a decent project for post-NaNoWriMo.
Politics by Dan | Permalink | Comments (1)
Mmmm, pork!
Pretty good advice if you ask me.
Tinfoil Beanie by Dan | Permalink | Comments (0)
November 21, 2004
Mmmm, that's good bacteria
Ever wanted to give someone a flesh-eating disease?
Tinfoil Beanie by Dan | Permalink | Comments (0)
November 20, 2004
NaNoWriMo, Day 20
As you can guess from the chart below, Thursdays and Fridays have not been kind to my NaNoWriMo efforts. Those are the big crunch days at work, and I've been needing to work late a lot. After closing to within two days of being on schedule, I'm back to being over three days behind with only 27,837 words as of tonight.
While this Thursday won't require me to work late, this is the big family feast, so I don't know how much time I'll get late in the week.
On the plus side, when combined with the 13,500 words I had coming in, this is now the longest piece of fiction I've ever written, eclipsing a novella I wrote back in 1987.
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November 19, 2004
Stomach troubles...
This explains the stomach troubles I've been having...
Tinfoil Beanie by Dan | Permalink | Comments (0)
November 17, 2004
Han Shot First!
Not that I'm making a blatant wish-list plug (MAW... hint, hint), but for any self-respecting Lucasaholic (recovering or not), this shirt is a must-have:
Blog by Dan | Permalink | Comments (1)
November 15, 2004
NaNoWriMo, Day 15
In retrospect, it strikes me as particularly cruel and shortsighted for them to place NaNoWriMo in November, packed with a big holiday weekend and right at the start of the winter cold and flu season. I think, instead, it would be much better in January, with the holidays past us, our immunities up, and all of us riding on the commitment buzz of our New Year's resolutions -- plus we'd get an extra day out of it.
Well, the good news is that while I'm still battling this cold, I think I'm turning the corner. After two days of total crappiness combined with some overtime at work, I had fallen as far as three and a half days behind, but I've had three good days since then, including a monster 3000-word day today, bringing me up to 21,013 words. I'm still almost two and half days behind, but I'm getting my energy back, and the words are flowing well.
I just hope I can keep it up, because the style has to change a bit moving forward. I've been chronicling events as they happen since the story has been covering a transitional phase in the character's tale. This works well with my narrative style, which is heavy on dialogue. Now, however, I need to move across larger pieces of time, so not only must I do a different style, but I must switch to it without being too abrupt.
Still, I'm very pleased with how the story is shaping up.
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November 13, 2004
Go Kansas!
Normally, I'd be routing for the Longhorns, but this girl's school spirit has turned me around:
Tinfoil Beanie by Dan | Permalink | Comments (1)
November 11, 2004
Company picnic gets out of hand
HappyTester's tales of MartyrGirl reminded me of this:
Tinfoil Beanie by Dan | Permalink | Comments (0)
November 10, 2004
NaNoWriMo, Day 10
Well, this cold is still kicking my ass, but I'm holding steady at about two days behind. Here's my progress chart so far:
That's 12,875 words as of tonight.
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November 09, 2004
Please, think of the kittens
Tinfoil Beanie by Dan | Permalink | Comments (0)
NaNoWriMo, day 8
I'm battling this cold far more than I am writer's block -- so much for catching up over the weekend. I went into it on Friday about 2 days behind, and I'm still about two days behind at 9528 as of last night.
At least when I'm getting the time, it's flowing fairly well.
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November 07, 2004
#@^$%! Cowboys...
I just want to know how many times Keyshawn Johnson has to fumble the ball, blow the route, or make a stupid penalty before Parcells reaches the same conclusion Jon Gruden did and just tell Keyshawn to go home. How many?
So far, the highlight of this game was when one of the announcers engaged mouth before brain and said, "Boy, there sure are a lot of Johnson's out there today."
Blog by Dan | Permalink | Comments (2)
X-Prize gets paid
It's official, the X-Prize check of $10 million was handed over to Burt Rutan. Considering that it cost of $20 million of Paul Allen's venture capital to get there, it's a small consolation. On the other hand, over 7,000 people have shown interest in taking a ride at $200,000 a pop. Do the math, folks. That's $1.4 billion -- yes, billion with a B.
Personally, I'm holding out for someone to win the new American Space Prize, which will require achieving actual orbit. Well, that and a slightly lower price.
Blog by Dan | Permalink | Comments (0)
November 06, 2004
NaNoWriMo, Day 6
6371 words so far, though I should have hit 10,000 today, so I'm about two days behind. Between work and this cold, the end of the week just didn't work out.
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Magic-Eye
Wow, I finally saw the hidden image in one of those magic-eye images. See if you can:
Tinfoil Beanie by Dan | Permalink | Comments (1)
November 05, 2004
Friday Five: Room 101
This week's question comes from Rob:
I've been thinking about films for a while and those films that have left an impression on me. many of them involve a character being tortured in some way or other in an attempt to get them to spill their guts. Name five tortures that would have you screaming like Winston Smith.
This is actually pretty hard for me. It's not that I can't think of any good tortures (trust me -- my alter-ego Evil Overlord is just itching to get at the keyboard) but rather that I don't think I would succumb to torture. My rationale is that any information I might divulge falls into two categories: 1) something that it's not worth going through torture to protect, and 2) something I would die to protect. I don't envision a lot of middle ground. Thus, just the viable threat of any torture beyond the "comfy chair" would get me disclose things in #1 without even beginning the torture, but items in #2 would be forever inaccessible.
I mean, if you're willing to die to protect the information, then when the torture begins, you may as well assume that the end result will be your death and that nothing will change that fact. So, just spit your teeth out with a grin and spout off something arrogant, memorable, and/or patriotic. Of course, it's easy to say that. Winston Smith pretty much said the same thing, that as long as he didn't betray Julia in his heart, they wouldn't have broken him. But in the end, he did betray her. Hopefully I'll never find out how I'd hold up.
However, there is one torture that would completely break me, and I first encountered it in a nightmare. It's the first one in the list, and the only serious entry today. Fortunately, that torture is presently impossible, and I hope it forever will be. Somewhere in my head I've got a narrative kicking around for it, but that will have to wait until after NaNoWriMo.
- To be forced to inflict the worst pain and torture upon those you love, over and over, listening to their cries for mercy, unable to stop yourself, even as you deperately want to... forever.
If there is a Hell, this is what waits for me.
- Any choice of amputation, bisection, castration, disembowelment, eye-puncture, finger-breaking, gutting, hair-removal, impalement, jellyfish bath, kicking, laxatives, maggots, nostril torture (pepper spray, etc.), olives (don't ask), penis shredding, quicksand, rape, shocks (electric), tickling, uvular stimulation, vivisection, water torture (Chinese variety), xylophagous insects in my bowels, yucca plant mattress, or zombification.
- Gigli 24/7.
- Being forever stuck on number four in a Friday Five entry.
- Combining NaNoWriMo with overtime and catching my kids' cold. What do you want to know?
Meme by Dan | Permalink | Comments (1)
November 04, 2004
Dad's cancer, a minor update
You know, for someone who said bloggin would be light, I've been going at a record pace the last few days.
I've mentioned my Dad's cancer before, and this second round of chemo has been going well, with very few side effects and the pain actually diminishing. Well, it looks like the trends is reversing. From my mother:
We saw the oncologist yesterday, and Bill asked him straight out just what kind of prognosis he had. The doctor was quite straightforward and told Bill that even in a otherwise healthy much younger man, the prognosis for someone with Bill's type cancer is 12 months. We've already had about 18. He told us that since the cancer has returned, they cannot talk "cure", only keeping it from spreading too much more. Bill will be scheduled for another CT-Scan soon; the doctor has ordered one, but we have not heard from the scheduling person just when it will be. Then we'll have a better idea just how well this current chemo is working. Bill has been having some chest-area discomfort, and this prompted his asking more of the doctor.
I'm not quite sure how to interpret the math -- perhaps he's actually been dead for six months and the weekly phone calls are done via my psychic butt -- either way, it doesn't look good. He'll still be coming for Thanksgiving and now Christmas, but next year is doubtful.
Blog by Dan | Permalink | Comments (0)
The karmic wheel turns like a broken wristwatch
Some of you may remember some recent experiences I've had with my wristwatch. As a reminder, here's a couple of bits from my trip to SIGGraph this year:
I lost my watch. I've been having an unusual relationship with my watch lately. It keeps dying on the weekends or when I'm on vacation only to start working again Monday mornings. My Amazing Wife tells me that this is my watch's way of telling me I need to relax and not worry about the time. If this is just part of the same trend, I expect it to show up as I'm heading for the airport.
And then...
Oh, you're going to love this. I made one last stop by the convention's lost and found on my way out. My watch had been turned in an hour beforehand. This is moving beyond mere coincidence and moving towards the realm of sentient artifacts.
Well, it eventually died again in a fairly convincing fashion. I had the battery replaced, but that didn't help. I took it to a watch repair shop, but after four weeks they said they couldn't find the necessary parts. Alas, it seemed like my only hope was to mail it to Timex in hopes that they could salvage this 10-year old relic.
Well, during all of this I had gone out shopping trying to just replace the thing, but I couldn't find a replacement. Apparently, this type of watch has gone out of style -- another subject for another entry -- and all I can find is clunky monstronsities that hang so heavily on my wrist that I feel like I've raided Mr. T's jewelry chest.
Well, with hope in my heart, I decided I really should just send the thing to Timex for repair, so over the weekend I picked it up from the shop along with the appropriate mailer for sending to Timex. It was a terrible contrast, seeing this slim, lightweight (but dead) watch next to the anchor that had taken its rightful place on my wrist. I thought about making a blog entry comparing the two and lamenting the loss of this earlier style. So, instead of sending it in immediately, I set it aside with the mailer, thinking I'd get some photos and measurements before I sent it away, perhaps forever.
So just now I was cleaning up my office while waiting for a long software compilation. I ran across the bag that held the mailer and the watch and figured that I'd just send it in now -- to hell with a whiny blog entry about watch styles.
It's working again.
Blog by Dan | Permalink | Comments (2)
Incredible Buzz for The Incredibles
I've been seeing a lot of good buzz for the coming Pixar release of "The Incredibles", but then I saw a news snippet that briefly worried me a bit.
It may seem odd, if not incredible, that Pixar entrusted the film, its first centered on human characters and tailored for adults as well as children, to a director who has made just one movie -- a commercial misfire loved by the critics.
Ok, while I do like some of these critical sleepers, the general description of "commercial misfire loved by the critics" is often a euphamism for a stinker loved only by NYU film students. The article didn't say what that misfire had been (another sign of a stinker, the assumption that I would not have even heard of it), so I decided to look up this director, Brad Bird.
Well, he hasn't directed anything in five years -- man, can it get any worse? -- and here it is, that commercial "misfire":
The Iron Giant, one of my favorite animated films of all time.
Ok, now I'm not worried. I'm all jittery with excitment.
Reviews by Dan | Permalink | Comments (1)
November 03, 2004
NaNoWriMo, day 3
I'm falling behind at 3563 so far. I should be at 5000, but work and the last of my political blogging ate into my writing time. I can catch up on the weekends, I suppose, but I need to build up a buffer for when my folks arrive for Thanksgiving.
Meanwhile, it looks like I'm not cheating so badly after all...
From the Q&A section of NaNoWriMo:
Q: Zak Nelson, like lots of other NaNO participants, you’ll be “cheating” at NaNoWriMo this year, and working on a book that’s already in progress. Why sign up for NaNoWriMo if you’re not going to follow the letter of the law? Do you consider yourself a cheater?
A: I AM a cheater. For National Novel Writing Month, I am planning to work on a novel that already has about 20,000 words completed, rather than starting a novel from scratch. However, I do plan to write 50,000 words in the month of November, and will submit what I write at the end of the month to the website. I did start and finish a 50,000-word novel for last year’s NaNoWriMo, and accomplishing that made my decision to cheat this year much easier. This novel has been sitting on the back burner for oh, maybe six years. The problem is my pilot light was out all this time.
Why did I sign up for NaNoWriMo again this year, if I knew I was going to cheat? First of all, it’s legal. I risk no lawsuits or police raids. At least, not for this. Secondly, I plan to actually write the minimum 50,000 words, rather than do something insidious, like submitting the same word copied 50,000 times, or plagiarizing the Bible. Besides, NaNoWriMo offers a wonderful bunch of volunteer Municipal Liaisons who coordinate write-ins and give encouragement and support during this month. It’s much easier to finish a novel when everyone else is doing it too. As my dad always used to say, “If everyone jumped off the Empire State Building, eventually it wouldn’t hurt.”
Really, the only tangible thing NaNoWriMo offers is a T-shirt. Other than that, what you have is an amazing little social agreement: everyone who signs up at least pays lips service to finishing the 50,000 word mark in a month, and the intensity of that—and the communities that sprout up in cities all over the country (or world? Is this thing international yet? Why hasn’t the name been changed to InternaNoWriMo?)—serves a disciplinary function that you can’t get during the rest of the year. Noveling has always been called a solitary art, but now there’s a method for those of us who aren’t completely antisocial, self-disciplinarian, wealthy people of leisure.
I not only feel justified in cheating, I recommend to folks who would otherwise shy away from participating that they pick up that unfinished novel or short story or random scrap of free-writing from their community college creative writing class five years ago, and give it a go. NaNoWriMo is truly a marvel, and will earn a place in the acknowledgments section of my novel once it’s published.
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Parting shot...
This will be my last political entry for a while, even humorous ones. I'll be getting back to NaNoWriMo with earnest.
However, I did want to pass on one last political joke image that I've been saving since 2000.
It's over-the-top partisan gloating, and given how classy Kerry was in his concession, I was tempted to not post it at all. But then again, I thought it was pretty damn funny.
Still, angry Democrats should probably just skip it.
Politics /Tinfoil Beanie by Dan | Permalink | Comments (0)
Bush Wins, Apparently, Again. What does this mean?
Well, it’s over. Here’s my piecemeal analysis of the impact.
The Presidency: It does, in fact, look like Bush has won reelection. Kerry has the most motivation to play up the odds of reversal in Ohio, but as I write, he is giving his concession speech. Bush has also won a majority of the popular vote, not just a plurality. It's the first time that’s happened since 1988. He also did it on record voter turnout, so arguments of depressing the turnout are suspect in face of the numbers. So he has, at a minimum, a legitimacy that is difficult to deny, but with a narrow margin of only 3.5% of the popular vote, he doesn’t have much of a real mandate. It’s something, but nothing like Reagan in 84 or Eisenhower in 56.
Congress: It looks like the House has shifted to a few more Republican seats. I don’t read much into that because redistricting has made these races less competitive, and thus, less of an accurate read on the mood of the country. However, it appears that the Senate has shifted to the right by 2 to 4 seats. Notably, minority leader Tom Daschle has lost re-election in South Dakota. This matters most in the judiciary – see below. Fortunately, states are hard to gerrymander, so many of the senate seats remain competitive and do signal something of a conservative shift in the nation.
The Judiciary: Justice Rehnquist’s recent bout with cancer has underscored an aging Supreme Court and is a reminder of an increasingly vacant Circuit Court bench. Daschle was the architect of the procedural hurdles that blocked several Bush nominees who actually had overwhelming majority support in the full Senate. If they had gotten an actual vote, it appears that they would have been easily confirmed, but Daschle kept the party in line with his filibuster threat. Thume made that a significant issue in his Senate campaign, and it looks like Daschle paid the price for it.
But fifty-five senators will not break a filibuster, so the Democrats can still wield that club. The question is, will they? This issue was used in a number of close races, and it has hurt them. I’m really hoping that they will realize this and guarantee each nominee an actual hearing in the judicial committee as well as an up-or-down vote in the full Senate. You can argue that Bush’s nominees were Neanderthal’s, but the truth is that they had respected histories in the lower courts already. This was just an escalation of what the Republican’s (who did hold the majority) did to Clinton.
This is an issue that must be addressed, both for the health of the courts as well as the civility of the Senate. I don’t want to see the courts packed with right-wing ideologues, but Bush isn’t yanking these nominees from a Klan rally either. I have some hope that he’ll toss in some liberal judges too, both for their scholarly work and to mollify the Democrats in the Senate. IMO, this is going to be one of the hottest domestic issues in the coming term.
The Electoral College: Without another mismatch between the popular vote and the EC result, the urge for reform may dwindle. Still, there may be some hope. While the current setup favors Republicans (two elections in a row), I’m sure they salivate over getting parts of California and New York. Democrats, meanwhile, may be willing to cede the ground there in hopes of a reform that could eventually help them in the central states.
Gay Marriage: Regrettably, it looks like about a dozen states have passed a ban on gay marriage. While I would have liked to have seen these soundly defeated, I do see a silver lining. I have always felt that this was more of a generational issue rather than a Republican vs. Democrat issue. I don’t have the polls to back this up, but I do note the following:
- Most prominent Democrats oppose gay marriage, just not to the point of a Constitutional Amendment.
- California, a Democrat stronghold and flash-point for gay rights, was one of the first to pass a state ban on gay marriage.
- When I’ve spoken about this to Republicans of my generation, they overwhelmingly support gay marriage.
So, I think this one is just going to take time. Like civil-rights, the battle was not won overnight. It just took time for an older, close-minded generation to simply die. (As an aside, Medicare expansions aren’t helping with this. <g>) The main goal should be keeping this at a state level where it is easier to manage and eventually repeal, and that means keeping it out of the Constitution and leaving it at the state level.
The silver lining is that these new state bans give weight to those who say it should just be left to the states. After all, the states seem to be standing up for this older generation already, and the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) offers “protection” for those states banning it from those who embrace it. Thus, the impetus for a Constitutional ban will dwindle as long as the federal courts stay out of it. While I’d have preferred a victory here (i.e. state bans losing), I’ll settle for a truce (i.e. no Constitutional ban) while we wait for our generation to come to power.
Iraq: Between the Presidential result and the Republican gains in Congress, I see this as a signal, if not a mandate, that we will stay the course, not cut-and-run. While Kerry promised to finish the job, he was also pretty clear on bringing the troops out within a year. Now we’re saying that we’ll be in for another four years if need be.
Ironically, I expect this to make things much worse in the short term. The assaults on Fallujah and Ramadi will start within days. If Kerry had won, I would have expected the terrorists and insurgents to do their best to fade away and then just keep up a low-level harassment until Kerry kept his promise of pulling out the troops. Then they would have been free to wreak havoc on the Iraqi government without the aid of American troops. But now facing a Bush victory and the inherent staying power it implies, it’s now do-or-die for these guys. They must focus on irrevocably disrupting Iraq before the January elections, and that’s going to make for a bloody winter. In the long term, I think things will be better, because I believe they will expend themselves on a superior force and be destroyed.
North Korea: I don’t expect much progress here until China gets tough on North Korea, but I do now expect them to come back to the table. I suspect they had been waiting for the election results to see just who they would be dealing with. Kerry had hinted that he would accept unilateral talks here with a hint of concessions. Now that promise is gone, so they’ll need to come back and face what options are remaining.
Israel/Palestine/Iran: I lump these in here together and say that the election will have little effect. Arafat’s health is the wildcard here. Israel will not negotiate as long as he’s the official leader, and the Palestinians won’t select a new leader (through civil process or civil war) while he draws breath. Iran, meanwhile, continues to develop the nuclear bomb – or not. It continues to be a democracy – but not really. It continues to repress its people – and fear them. It can do this successfully as long as it can distract them. While Iraqi turmoil and Arafat’s Intifada continue, they can get away with this.
France/Germany/etc.: Again, like North Korea, they have been waiting in hopes of a change in America’s leadership. They didn’t get one. I doubt that they were really willing to send troops in support of Kerry, since they publicly stated they wouldn’t, and I doubt they will now. They were probably willing to improve relations anyway, but they were unwilling to give Bush that advantage prior to the elections. Afterwards, they probably still want to improve those relations with America, and they’ll settle for doing it with Bush rather than Kerry. Bush, meanwhile, will remember that they snubbed him but will take whatever he can get.
Bipartisanship: As divided as the election was, Kerry’s great gift has been to not fight this in a protracted legal battle. Perhaps this is just a sign of recognizing the futility of it, but as he said, “let the healing begin.” Social Security and judicial appointments are going to be the real tests here, and we’ll know what we’re in for one those pretty soon.
The Republican Party: They got a scare, but not enough. They will continue in confidence on the issues where they are right, and they will continue in blindness on the issues where they are wrong. Whether or not they can fix that remains to be seen.
The Democratic Party: After ten years as the Congressional minority party and two Presidential losses, they have some soul searching to do. I believe there is enough ground for them to regain their majority status, but I suspect that to do so, they will have to divorce themselves from their older standard bearers and sacred cows. I might put more of this in a future essay, but I’d guess this means embracing reform in Social Security, education, and health care (in terms of simplicity, not guaranteed access). They have a natural edge with younger voters, but instead of just counting on that, they should look to embrace the issues of younger voters and ride them into another generational majority, perhaps not in 2008 but in 2016 through 2040. I don’t know if they can do that.
The Academy Awards: In a fit of rage, Hollywood will give “Fahrenheit 9/11” the Best Picture over “The Passion”.
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Almost there...
Well, it's not over yet, but it looks close.
It looks like Ohio has gone to Bush, some networks say yes, some no, and that would make it 269-242 EV's. So... it's probably going to be Bush, but we just don't know. We'll have to see what happens with the Ohio provisional ballots and the rest of the pending states, though most of those states are favored for Bush.
But, it could still happen. If enough of the Ohio provisional ballots are valid, AND if 90%+ of them are for Kerry, maybe.... OR, if all the rest of the states go to Kerry, AND the electors all vote as allotted (giving a 269-269 EV tie), AND he beats the odds and is chosen by a Republican House, then yeah, Kerry could still win. At this point, I'll give that a 20% probability, though I think that's generous.
Plus, for what it's worth, Bush has a clear lead in the popular vote.
Originally, I had two joke images to run, depending on the outcome. For now, I'll give Kerry the benefit of the doubt and run the one for his victory.
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November 02, 2004
NaNoWriMo, Day 2
2997 words, so I'm a little behind the curve now. I had to do some actual work-work tonight, so that ate up a lot of my time and, more importantly, my energy.
Also, I can't help but be thinking about the election, even though I've made a conscious effort not to follow any of the news today. I just hope it's over in the morning.
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An Election Endorsement
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NaNoWriMo, Day 1, 2221 words
I actually started on NaNoWriMo and got up to 2221 words, or about 4.5% of the way there. I'm doing a little better than 600 words per hour, which is on the low side for me. In previous times when I've written regularly, I've hit as high as double that when I was in stride. Still, it was 600, and not 60.
The worst part came when two characters started talking about going out to dinner, and for important plot and character reasons, one of them really wanted pizza. And then I had the worst pizza craving I've had in a long, long time... at 10:45pm.
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November 01, 2004
Mmmm... chad-filled goodness
A bit over the top, but well done.
And once again, here's hoping it's all over by midnight tomorrow.
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