Lost In GroVont

Vote!

Hopefully, you don't need another reminder to get out and vote today. Many I know have already voted either absentee or early voting where available. Those of you, like me, who have procrastinated should get out and vote today. Regardless of your political beliefs, it is important that as Americans we take full advantage of our rights to choose our leaders.

Because of my procrastination, however, I will be voting in Wyoming this year. Wyoming allows qualified individuals to register to vote at their polling place which is great. I'll get to register and vote at the same time.

I am slightly disappointed to not be voting in San Francisco this year. I am much more familiar with the city and state politics (plus it's much more interesting - just check out Proposition K), and there is a very important proposition on the California ballot: Proposition 8.

Proposition 8 comes down to discrimination regardless of your beliefs on same-sex marriage. The vote for Proposition 8 is a vote for the right to discriminate against citizens of the United States. We have arrived in the 21st century (even without the flying cars). Our parents, grandparents, and great grandparents still remember the fight for the right of women to vote and civil rights marches. Are we seriously going to regress back to a day where you and I could be walking down the sidewalk side-by-side and not have the same rights? It's an antiquated proposition and just plain ludicrous.

Click here for a real quick run down on Proposition 8. (It's a short article that gets right to the point.)

Not sure where to vote? Election Protection has a wealth of information and a phone number you can call.

Snow Day!

It's October 9th, and it's snowing here in Jackson Hole. Big giant flakes of snow. I was not prepared and had to purchase a toque after breakfast at Bubba's. Here's Daisy experiencing her first taste of snow:

A few more pictures of snow on Flickr.

Who is Sarah Palin?

Interesting news to wake up to this morning. John McCain selects "gun-totting" Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his Vice-President. Over the next two months, we are going to get to know everything and more about Palin. (Her Wikipedia article has already been updated with her status as McCain's running mate.)

My first thought was this McCain's attempt to woo the uncertain Democrats who don't necessarily like Barack Obama. Most of the uncertain democrats are women, some of them are Hillary Clinton supporters. Palin finished her speech with references to former women who pushed at the political glass ceiling: Geraldine Ferraro and Hillary Clinton. (The response to Clinton's mention was both claps and boos.) These mentions cemented the key reason why Palin was selected.

Waiting to see how some of the narrow-minded Republicans respond. This announcement makes the Presidential campaign even more interesting.

March Madness

This recently neglected blog is going to get new life. Over the next month, I will be taking a vacation and traveling and hopefully blogging. I've already ventured from San Francisco to Kansas to visit my folks. On Thursday, my mother and I will fly to New York for a long weekend. Afterwards, I will be flying solo from Newark to Paris for a couple weeks. Pictures and Tweets will be posted to document my travels.

In preparation for our trip to New York City, I've been reading the New Yorker. Today, I finished an excellent article about the MPs who found their morality tested unexpectedly at Abu Ghraib. Exposure by Philip Gourevitch and Errol Morris focuses on Sabrina Harman and her photos and letters detailing the treatment of prisoners. The article was written from interviews done for Morris' documentary, "Standard Operating Procedure".

One of the most interesting aspects of the article were the real stories from the MPs behind some of the pictures we have associated with Abu Ghraib. While the stories don't make the images any less shocking, it was easier to sympathize with the captors who were ordered to degrade the prisoners.

Posted at 9PM Central time.

Surf & Sierra

While I could complain about my sporadic access to hot water this week or the lack of power on my block for twelve hours this weekend, we all know there are more pressing concerns in the world. This week the country's oil issues hit close to home when a 810-foot-long container ship hit the Bay Bridge releasing 58,000 gallons of oil into the bay.

The area has been blanketed in a thick fog for a couple of weeks but this is typical weather here at 8:30 in the morning. No other ships in recent history have rammed into the bridge and investigations into the incident are ongoing. The Coast Guard is blaming the ship's pilot; the pilot is saying that the Guard gave him the okay. We'll probably be hearing about the case for months while it will take volunteers even longer to clean up the area.

The oil spill has already impacted the Bay Area. A triathlon on Treasure Island today became a biathlon as the swimming portion was canceled. The start of the crab season has been delayed and sport fishing has been closed.

Volunteers can call the Fish Game volunteer line at 800 228-4544 for information on opportunities to help today.

During my sojourn home, I read an interesting article in the New Yorker on Paul Watson who is the man behind the Sea Shepherd Conversation Society.

Raffi Khatchadourian paints Watson as a controversial environmentalist whose extreme tactics are not supported by other major environmental agencies. (Watson was kicked out of Greenpeace.) He and his crew of mostly unpaid volunteers seek out fishing ships in the world's oceans and impair the ships to prevent them from continuing to hunt and fish. This tactic also puts his crews in danger. In seeking out a Japanese whaling fleet, Watson's ailing ship the Farley Mowat set out "to end its days at sea as a battering ram in the service of marine life."

Depending on the interpretation of laws applied to the oceans, specifically the U.N. World Charter for Nature, Watson's activities are illegal.

No country regards ramming, disabling, or scuttling ships to be legal activities, and, except on rare occasions, even naval ships cannot lawfully interfere with foreign vessels on the high seas.

This has caused Watson's ships to be stripped of their flags by countries who did not support his actions. When the Farley lost its flag in Australia, Watson ran a Sea Shepard flag up the line and told his crew that they were "on a pirate ship."

While Watson is fighting the good fight and his concerns about illegal fishing of endangered oceanic animals is admiral, the actions he takes are questionable. Read Khatchadourian's full article online at newyorker.com.

Cocktail Wienies

I just finished reading Anatomy of Deceit which is an awesome study in how citizen journalism is necessary to keep both the government and the easily influenced media in check.

Marcy Wheeler writes about how bloggers scooped the media. The book combines the articles published on various political blogs to paint a vivid picture of what lead to the government leaks that lead to the outing of a covert CIA agent and the personal assassination of Joseph Wilson.

If you have any interest in political corruption, media studies, or, as is my case, anything CIA related, I highly recommend this book. It is a quick read at just over 100 pages with extensive notes and timeline if you are interested in the details.

The book was published shortly before Scooter Libby's trial, but you can continue to read about what is happening at The Next Hurrah.

Buffalo Crossing

Yellowstone Proposal Sets Greater Snowmobile Access - The New York Times:

“People go to Yellowstone one time in their lives with a few hours at Old Faithful,” said Jon Catton, an independent environmentalist who has worked on the issue for eight years. “You can hear the hiss and splash of Old Faithful, the howl of a wolf, or the persistent buzz, whine and roar of snowmobiles.”

As someone who has driven a snowmobile through Yellowstone to visit Old Faithful, I like the idea that the number of gas powered vehicles driven through the park was limited. The previous compromise of limiting the number of snowmobiles to 250 seemed like a good deal that allowed the snowmobile tour businesses to continue while taking into consideration the scarring to the natural landscape that is caused by the mobiles.

In news related to the area, one of my favorite authors, Tim Sandlin, has released his latest book, Jimi Hendrix Turns Eighty. Sandlin lives in Jackson, Wyoming, which is just south of Yellowstone National Park. Many of his books, including the GroVont Trilogy (the namesake of this blog), are set in Jackson Hole.

The good with the bad yet somewhat adorable

I finished reading The Kite Runner today. Khaled Hosseini's story starts with Amir's childhood in Afghanistan before the Taliban destroyed his homeland and chronicles his family's escape to San Francisco. The real heartbreak occurs when Amir faces his demons (literally through a far-fetched coincidence)  when he goes back to Afghanistan as an adult to discover surprising truths and right his and his father's mistakes. Despite many grim scenes, the book ends on a hopeful note and is riveting throughout its nearly 400 pages.

Unfortunately, the book is being made into a movie. The filmmaker's decided other areas are more picturesque than the Fremont where Amir and his father live after moving to the US as scenes were filmed seemingly everywhere in the East Bay except Fremont.

From good to bad...I saw Because I Said So this afternoon. Mandy Moore is adorable but that's about all this movie had in the positive column. Lauren Graham was underused as were all the supporting cast (except Tom Everett Scott who was annoying as one of Moore's suiters). I wonder if there were originally subplots with the supporting cast. Most of these actors we watch weekly deliver on their own television shows, but in this movie, you barely even noticed them. I think Piper Perabo's ass got more screen time than she did.

Skip Because I Said So and see Catch and Release if you need to see a chickflick this weekend.

File Under: Gov't is run by idiots

:: the redhead papers :: » “Security” doesn’t really apply to your office computer, dude..

This moron was not only trolling for underaged girls, he was trolling for them FROM HIS GOVERNMENT OFFICE. You know, the place where they tap phones and record calls and, oh, I don’t know, MONITOR INTERNET USAGE. Look, if the government’s going to try and monitor the internet usage at public libraries, then I’m fairly certain they’re going to do the same thing AT YOUR DESK, you smugly smiling toolbox.

Save the Baby Seals!

brooklynvegan: Stream the new Morrissey | Seal Hunts Suck.

We will not include any Canadian dates on our world tour to promote our new album. This is in protest against the barbaric slaughter of over 325,000 baby seals which is now underway.

globeandmail.com : Observers banned from watching seal hunt.

The quota for this year's Gulf hunt is 91,000 seals. Another 234,000 can be taken in a second hunt that begins in April off the north coast of Newfoundland and Labrador.

Following the trend...

Seed: The Anatomy of a Hit Song.

Sociologists at Columbia University set out to test this theory by dividing 14,000 music-loving teenagers into two groups. They then allowed them to pick out their favorite songs by unknown bands. The experimental setup, carried out over the Internet, offered one group of listeners access to other people's opinions before they chose their preferred tracks, while other listeners chose their favorites without any outside input. According to Mathew Salganik, the graduate student who organized the experiment, the group acting under social influence couldn't get their peer's favorites out of their heads.

You can participate in the experiment too. (Although all the songs available were far too similar and mediocre.)

Update: Science Magazine has an article also.

Noise Pop 2006

Last year, I saw Ted Leo and the Velvet Teen, discovered the Golden Republic, and was reminded why I didn't like Nada Surf.

San Francisco's Noise Pop 2006, as usual, proclaims itself better than ever and now with self-cleaning action! The website has finally appeared but is still skimpy on information.

Shows I'm likely to go to between March 28th and April 2nd:

• Thursday, 30 March 2006: The National at The Independent
• Friday, 31 March 2006: Jason Collett at Cafe du Nord
  

Shows I might go to:

• Tuesday, 28 March 2006: Feist at Bimbo's 365
• Saturday, 01 April 2006: the Velvet Teen at Great American Music Hall

Tickets to most of the shows go on sale Sunday at 10AM. However, the schedule is still quite bare. A lot of the shows do not have more than an act listed at a venue per night. I hate to buy tickets to one show when something more appealing might appear later.

Asshole walks into a bar...

CBS4 Boston: Manhunt Continues For New Bedford Shooting Suspect.

An 18-year-old is wanted for a brutal hate crime at a gay bar in New Bedford overnight.

The asshole asked if it was gay bar then started swinging a hatchet. Personally, I choose to avoid people who I don't like as opposed to seeking them out to kill them. I prefer freedom to jail but I'm not an idiot.

Pants On Fire

The Globe and Mail: U.S. forces fire on Canadian vehicle in Iraq.

A vehicle carrying four members of a Canadian diplomatic mission in Iraq was fired on by U.S. forces inside Baghdad's Green Zone on Tuesday. No one was injured in the incident.

While watching the State of the Union tonight, I boo-ed during talk of renewing the Patriot Act, agreed with his alternative energy plans, thought his educational ideas were optimistic but non-inclusive of art programs, and ignored the rest. I was knitting a scarf.

Tegan and Sara Update

What are Tegan and Sara up to these days...

The other night in New York after the show At the Hammerstein Ballroom I played some of our new songs that we have Recorded for an assortment of people that work for us and hang out with us. Everyone thought that I might be drunk because we don’t usually do that sort Of thing, but no, I wasn’t.

Hopefully, Tegan's journal entry is a prelude to a break from touring to work on a new album. It is about that time. In the past every two years they've taken four months or so in the beginning of the year to produce a record for a fall release.

There is also an interesting article on NCTimes.com: Tegan and Sara share more than music.

Who said it first?

Yesterday at .: chromewaves.net v6.0:

It can't be any surprise that the ease with which people can constantly access and download new music without any real effort has devalued, at least for many, music. If something doesn't cost you anything, be it money or energy, why should you ascribe any real value to it?

The post is full of links to articles by journalists (pro and faux) and musicians who offer their take on the evolution of music distribution in the digital age.

You can not avoid the cliche

The Dears have released details on their new album. From the email newsletter:

Lots of strummy, dirty, riffy guitars. Ridiculous drumming and inventive bass-ing. Tons of creative  synthesising. It couldn't be a Dears record without that. There are no strings (thank heaven) and the only brass on the record is Chris from Stars with his F horn on songs like Ballad/Battle of Humankindness. My dad also plays tenor saxophone on a track called Last Breath; he's like seventy-something and apparently still has some chops.

Murray also mentions that he sounds less like Morrissey on the record. Is that good?

Watched Heights and Wedding Crashers recently and this article from Fametracker makes much more sense. Both films are good. Heights is a dark, family drama with good acting and dialogue. Wedding Crashers isn't laugh out loud funny, but if it had been billed as the romantic comedy it is, I would have been less hesitant to view it.

No more boundary-less ant farm to observe. Most of the ants have moved out of my kitchen. I left the house last night to go get drinks, and when I returned, the ants had dispersed.

As if I need another reason to hate MySpace...

Get out of MySpace, bloggers rage at Murdoch

The 38 million subscribers to MySpace, which News Corp bought for $629m (£355m) last July, discovered that when they wrote to each other about rival video-swapping site YouTube, the words were automatically deleted, and attempts to download video images from YouTube led to blank screens.

Wartime certainty

A few weeks ago, I posted about soldiers blogging from Iraq. According to this Newsday article the blogs that are not "completely patriotic and innocuous" are being shut down.

More and more, though, U.S. military commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan are clamping down on these military Web logs, known as milblogs.

After all, digital photos of blown-up tanks and gritty comments on urban warfare don't just interest mom and dad.

The enemy, too, has a laptop and satellite link.

Nowadays, milbloggers "get shut down almost as fast as they're set up," said New York Army National Guard Spc. Jason Christopher Hartley, 31, of upstate New Paltz, who believes something is lost as the grunt's-eye take on Tikrit or Kabul is silenced or sanitized.

...

One of Hartley's Web entries on April 24, 2004, carried a photograph of an Iraqi man's partially burned corpse clothed in a bloodied white tunic. Hartley's photo caption was a take on the "I [heart] New York City" slogan. His version: "I [heart] Dead Civilians."

In response, a visitor wrote: "Is this a joke or what? This whole blog gives a bad taste in the mouth."

Hartley replied, "It leaves a bad taste in your mouth? That's sorta the point."

Another blog reader, with the moniker Alberto, defended the shock-blog: "The point of being so graphic it's to see what a war really is. Good blog, keep it up!"

Neptune Karaoke

On Beverly Hills, 90210, we were given the Peach Pit After Dark. On Buffy, it was the Bronze. (What is the name of the place Seth "works" on The O.C.?) Veronica Mars is giving us coffeehouse karaoke. Courtney Taylor-Taylor, from the Dandy Warhols, grabbed the mic in the third episode this season, "Cheatty Cheatty Bang Bang", and it is being officially reported that Spoon's Britt Daniel is going to be making an appearance on my favorite television show.

What kind of stunt musical guest casting is this? Spoon is one of my favorite bands and I love Britt Daniel's voice, but what purpose is he going to serve on Veronica Mars? Taylor-Taylor's rendition of "Love Hurts" was horrible and it disrupted the flow of the episode's story. Is a 30 second appearance by Britt going to bring the legions of Spoon fans (only 10 of which own tvs) to Neptune? I doubt it.

The New Pornographers are going to be opening for Belle & Sebastian on their North America tour? Where are they going to fit everyone? That is going to be a long caravan. No word yet on where they are playing in the Bay Area.

Pre-orders are available for all three formats of the first single off of Belle & Sebastian's The Life Pursuit. Why three formats for Funny Little Frog? I do not know. However, the band realizes the ridiculousness of it all and is offering a reasonable rate for all three with bonus tracks and videos and such. Offer only available overseas so be warned of higher shipping costs.