mn senate challenged ballots

democracy in all its bizaare wonderfulness. a few examples. just fascinating...

Ballot #1: The Arrow

The Coleman campaign challenged this ballot in Anoka county, arguing the voter drew an arrow pointing at Coleman's name after filling in the bubble next to Franken's name. (MPR Photo/Curtis Gilbert)

Ballot #6: The Checkmark

This Olmsted County voter placed a checkmark next to Al Franken's name and also circled one of the guide marks for the optical scanner. The Coleman campaign challenged the voter's intent. (MPR Photo/Sea Stachura)

security

i'm fascinated by the sheer amount of security given to presidential candidates. few things demonstrate the importance of these people more than the secret service operation around them.

i think a lot of people fear for barack's safety and more than once (including this night) did the thought cross my mind that someone might try to kill him and what that would mean for the country.

i liked this photo because it seemed to symbolize that his security often does take precedence over everyone's hopes about what he'll be able to do in office.

top chef

loving this season. i'm not sure if any season will top the one with marcel, elia, sam, and ilan but i'm very pumped about this one. i love the diversity of this crew. i'm confident the europeans will mix things up nicely and i just love the fact that they're in nyc and that the city is like an extra character.

my early fave: daniel- the long island guy with weird facial hair. he has spunk and seems very attached to ny which makes him more interesting.

i love that eugene's name is eugene.

jeff is absurdly attractive. he'll stay on for a while. as long as he frantically races around the kitchen from time to time, i hope he's one of the finalists.

ariana should be gone.

can't wait until they start doing some team competitions and start having some really hard challenges (ala, make a food based around a color or cook breakfast on a beach).

yay for next week's ep with the foo fighters. can't wait.

awesome headline: obama surprises biden with cupcakes

From AP

WASHINGTON — What does an accomplished man of the world get for his 66th birthday?

Well, President-elect Barack Obama already gave Joe Biden the vice presidency. So, for his birthday, Obama gave Biden two ball caps and a rendition of the birthday song.

Biden's birthday is Thursday, but Obama surprised his No. 2 after their weekly lunch Wednesday at the transition office in Chicago. According to staff, Obama presented Biden _ a Delaware senator with decades of foreign policy experience _ with a dozen cupcakes decorated with candles and teased, "You're 12 years old!"

Staff reported that Biden, ever astute in the art of politics, laughed at the his boss's joke. He responded: "Maybe in dog years!"

Obama led the rest of the staff in song, then handed over some Chicago-themed gifts: a White Sox cap, a Bears cap and a bucket of Garrett's popcorn, a hometown favorite.

cream of lead-based anti freeze

oh I love Stephen Colbert. Just so clever and silly and witty and satirical on so many levels. Love him...

I.O.U.S.A

Pretty interesting movie on the national debt.

dancing with the stars predictions

Just started watching this show the last two weeks. I think Lance and Brooke will make it to the finals and that Lance will ultimately win the "shiniest trophy of the year"- I'm new to this show, like I said, but what on earth? How shiny is this trophy?

obama

I still find it hard to put into words what the election of Obama means to me. I had the opportunity to work on his election in my home state and work with one of the groups that helped turn Virginia blue for the first time in 44 years. My job description was basically "cover the labor movement's involvement in this election." I got to interview dozens and dozens of labor leaders and union members, some politicians, record some of the best speeches I've ever heard, go to a few great events and was basically given the chance to feel incredibly close to the process. Now I'm still trying to process it all.

I've read and watched a ton of stuff from others who are trying to make sense of this election. It seems most are trying to divide up the country into demos that clearly were united in their support of Barack Obama.

I'm too young to remember any of the Kennedys but their mythology formed a fundamental piece of my political ideals. Max Kennedy's speech (below) and the footage of RFK along side footage of Obama cements the connection between the two legacies that many see.



I think the speech also gives credence to all the people who were involved in this election. The media is trying to undermine that by focusing on the campaigns that each candidate ran in the media. The Obama campaign, of course, was remarkable. But I think Obama got it right in his convention speech, "something is stirring in America." Obama's campaign was able to bring in those millions of people who were stirring and starving to take ownership of their country and feel like they could get involved to create change.

a few thoughts on blackberrys*:

1) *is the plural for blackberry- blackberries? or blackberrys?

2) in a sick way, one of the things I miss most about the crazy election season is the near constant blinking from the red indicator light notifying me of calls and emails I had missed.

3) in a sick way, i felt a bizarre connection to president-elect obama (can we decide to abbreviate that as peo?) I just did...anyways, so in one of the obama videos they show him with his blackberry and he has an older model (like mine) with a trackwheel rather than the newer pearl model (like everyone else I met) that has a trackball. i'm not ashamed to say, i was pretty pumped when I saw that.

4) Interesting article about Obama perhaps having to give up his blackberry all together once he transitions from peo to potusbo. (not sure if that abbreviation will hold).

5) So is the blackberry storm all that and a bag of chips?

quote city: palin edition

From Dick Cavett's NYT piece "The Wild Wordsmith of Wasilla"

I read this article a few days ago and found it a bit mean spirited. Not that Sarah "Obama pals around with terrorists" Palin doesn't deserve it, she does. But we won. And we won handily. Not sure if it's worthwhile to continue to wonder what her fervent supporters see in her. They are obviously few and far between. Pointing out this gem from Sarah, however, was worthwhile,

My concern has been the atrocities there in Darfur and the relevance to me with that issue as we spoke about Africa and some of the countries there that were kind of the people succumbing to the dictators and the corruption of some collapsed governments on the continent, the relevance was Alaska’s investment in Darfur with some of our permanent fund dollars.

in the know

Also In The Know: The Washington Post magazine profiled The Onion this week.

why

I decided to start this blog simply because there are a lot of times when I just want to write. And what better outlet for such activity than a blog. I've spent the last 4 months blogging and writing as part of my job but because it was a job with a specific purpose, I was constrained in terms of what I wrote.

Also, I was inspired by my friend Sean who started a blog. And my friend Michele who uses her blog to supply her mom and dad with a steady stream of photos of their grandchildren.

So yeah, I'm going to see how this goes.