Nuts Over Nutter

Boy, when I said it was gonna be an interesting two weeks, I wasn’t kidding, was I?

Michael Nutter has become the clear front-runner in the mayoral primary. You can read some of Chris Bowers’ thoughts on that over at MyDD; Chris’s ward is one of those endorsing Nutter, so you can get a sense of the logic. Other candidates have clearly set their sights on Nutter – today Pattie and I each got two separate pieces of direct mail from Tom Knox calling Nutter a “typical politician,” and I saw a TV ad with the same theme. I gotta laugh at that. The purer-than-thou campaign might have worked before Knox held a press conference with another member of City Council to support her bid for the Council presidency. Then again, if there is a Throw All the Bums Out mentality in the city, maybe the message will stick. I tend to doubt it.

I’m actually surprised at how ineffectual other candidates have been in trying to take down Nutter. I can certainly understand the concerns over the stop-and-frisk and state-of-emergency elements of his crime plan, and I’d expect city unions and neighborhood groups to be concerned about his tax-cutting enthusiasm. But those messages aren’t getting a huge amount of play, and when someone tries to raise them, they seem to whack themselves in the foot – witness Chaka Fattah’s comments in the last TV debate where he suggested Nutter needed to remind himself he was African-American, a comment many people (including myself, but not everyone) thought was a low blow.

Ah well. They’re dropping off the voting machines on Saturday. Then the fun really begins.

Priority: Pizza

I’m glad to see that Fort Dix apparently employs the same security protocols as my college in the Bronx did:

Fort Dix has heavily guarded checkpoints with serpentine courses leading to guardhouses, gates and metal pop-up strips to stop the traffic.

The post has an X-ray machine that sees through trucks, and it checks the military credentials of the top commanders and police officials.

But it allows pizza delivery drivers with temporary vehicle passes to enter after basic local background checks – at least for now.

Although come to think of it, at Fordham we didn’t even bother with the vehicle passes. You had a pizza box or a brown bag filled with Chinese food, you were good to go.

More on Pluralism

Let me point you to a post on MyDD on the idea of pluralism and how it intersects with American politics right now; I had an interesting back and forth within the comment thread on defining pluralism and what demands it makes from a cultural standpoint – a theme that might be familiar to you if you’ve been reading this blog, but the conversation is worth a look.

Been Down This Road Before

With the news that ABC has announced a planned end date for Lost three years from now, I’ve imagined recurring guest star Mira Furlan holding seminars entitled “What to Do When My Executive Producer Cuts My Steady Gig Short Because His Story Has an Ending.”

Given Furlan’s presence on Lost, I have found it kind of amusing that there hasn’t been much mainstream mention of Babylon 5’s defined five-year structure. Then again, B5 barely scraped by year to year, and Lost is a Top 20 hit. So it’s clearly a much bigger deal for a network to say, “Yeah, we’re gonna end this thing, no matter how popular it is,” and to say it so far in advance.

On Politics and Balance

Interesting AP report on the Web today about Keith Olbermann’s anchoring coverage of the recent Republican presidential candidate debate, shortly after making a Special Comment that criticized Rudy Giuliani. There’s a parallel drawn between the way Republicans view Olbermann and Democrats view Fox News, and a discussion of whether someone who quite openly editorializes on television can also have the neutrality that we tend to associate with “objective” news reporters/anchors.

It’s an interesting question, but I think the article comes close to setting up false dichotomies. It says that “the danger for MSNBC is provoking the same anger among Republicans that Democrats feel toward Fox News Channel.” I find it hard to believe that one person could generate the kind of hostility that Democrats feel toward Fox as an institution. Olbermann is followed by former Republican congressman Joe Scarborough on the air, and preceded by Chris Matthews – who didn’t do much to hide his antipathy toward Bill Clinton – and conservative pundit Tucker Carlson. Liberal bloggers like Atrios have even wondered why MSNBC hasn’t taken note of Olbermann’s ratings performance and tried to develop more shows/personalities to appeal to Olbermann’s audience. The closest I can think of to an analogous Democratic presence on Fox is retired General Wesley Clark’s time there as a military analyst, and from what I understand Sean Hannity’s co-host is supposed to provide some liberal balance. (And I’m deliberately leaving aside here the issue of how the two networks’ anchors cover news, since I’m sure different sides of the partisan divide have very different views.)

As for whether or not Olbermann can be neutral enough, I guess that gets us back to the old question of whether it’s really possible to do what the AP article claims is the historic standard: “maintain strict objectivity.” Is this possible? What does it mean? Does it mean removing all efforts at intelligent analysis? If it does, what’s the use of having a trained journalist ask questions?

It’s also worth noting that many of the reporters who are supposed to have the “objectivity” in their day jobs wind up assuming the roles of pundits on TV news programming, at which point they have to start having a point of view. So why not make that point of view clear? Now, if that point of view starts leading to falsehoods or selective editing of information, then we should start to be concerned. But then again, striving for “objectivity” and “neutrality” has led some journalists to hold information back from the public for fear of seeming to interfere with the political process. So, again, what use is there in pretending to be objective when one isn’t? You can have an opinion and still be even-handed in considering both sides of a question. I wonder if that’s just a skill we’ve lost.

All that said, if Giuliani or any other candidate was concerned that he would not be able to accurately get his message out with Olbermann as an anchor, I wouldn’t blame them from stepping back from the debate. We’re all kind of feeling our way through this right now, and it will be interesting to see how the media comes to define its role and its code of behavior in the years ahead.

Digging in the Dirt

Spent most of today on some long-delayed gardening-type projects in the front of our house. We have a very small dirt hill next to our front walk/front steps, and a very thin strip of dirt between our driveway and the neighbor’s driveway. Last year we had our retaining wall replaced with a new brick wall, and we were very happy with the results. But we never got around to actually doing anything to the small dirt areas inside the wall. So today we went out and bought some garden soil and some flowers and set out to try and neaten things up. We still want to get some small garden stones for some of the areas, rather than plant there.

I truly have no idea how people with larger houses maintain large lawns and gardens. I appreciate the aesthetic appeal, but it is such a time sink. Then again, several years ago my brother was talking about the type of house he’d one day like to have, and mentioned that he probably had different goals than me. “I mean, not everyone needs a lot of land. What’s Dave gonna do with land, anyway?” There was absolutely no malice there, just a recognition that, yeah, Dave isn’t much of an outdoors type.

Still, it was nice to add some color to the front of the house. Now let’s set the clock running and see how long it’ll take for the neighborhood rabbits to come and make off with the flowers. If it weren’t for them, I probably would’ve just set up an herb garden and been done with it.

A Man of Impeccable Taste

So Pete Yorn, having previously opened for R.E.M. and collaborated with the Dixie Chicks, will be doing some shows opening for the reformed Crowded House in August, including a show in Philly. One of these days I really ought to go see Yorn headline a show, but if he keeps opening for groups I’m going to see anyway, he’s going to make it hard.

Reaction on Yorn’s message board is sparse and mixed. Some people like the idea, but at least one person is wondering at the wisdom of opening for a band that, truthfully, many people outside the adult album alternative market will write off as an exercise in 80s nostalgia. (Never mind that for me, Crowded House is a 90s nostalgia band, given how much I love Together Alone.) I can see the point. On the other hand, the AAA market seems like it’s the one place that’s still really supporting Yorn. So it probably doesn’t hurt to get a little additional exposure in that market while he’s between tours.

And hey, it’d be great if more acts would pay attention to what I want to see anyway. 🙂

Look at the Pretty Colors

As I was sitting here trying to think of a topic to blog about that won’t fry my exam-week-addled brain, I’ve been keeping tabs on the Giants-Phillies game in San Francisco via Major League Baseball’s site. Now, watching a game over an Internet play-tracking system can’t give you the excitement of watching a play unfold. But it’s amazing how much data you have at your disposal – you can see what the whole lineup has been doing. Every pitch’s location and result is tracked. Charts for each batter’s previous at-bats are right there. It’s pretty cool.

Pat Burrell flying out to end the inning with men on first and second stinks on the TV or on the Internet, though.

More Than The Extra Mile

For the past several months, I’ve been trying to be more consistent about the whole physical activity thing. Although I like to tell myself that it’s primarily about setting a good example for Alex and being proactive about my health and disease prevention, I do admit that it’s, at least to some degree, about how my jeans fit. I may not get my blood pressure taken everyday but I do look in a full-length mirror fairly often.

First, I was all about walking. It’s relatively easy to do, low-impact, and hey, I mastered the basics of it shortly before my first birthday. Over time, to build up my lung capacity, my endurance, and my ability to catch a five-year old making a bee-line towards the sugary cereals in the grocery store, I switched to running. I’m no IronWoman but I can do a 5K on the treadmill if I set my mind to it and I average about two and half miles per day, four to five days a week. Not setting any world records, but I’m pretty proud of it, given that I only started running this past winter.

The hardest part is staying motivated. Some days I simply feel too tired (or like today, too sick) to strap on the Nikes and get my butt in gear.

Recently, while thumbing through an issue of Wired magazine, I found an article about a man who will likely serve as my motivation for my many “tired” days to come. His name is Dean Karnazes, and he’s been called “the fittest man in the world”(Men’s Fitness), “America’s greatest runner” (Outside magazine), and “just plain crazy” by the coworker reading the story over my shoulder in my office lunchroom.

Karnazes is an ultramarathoner. What’s an ultramarathon? Well, think of it as a race for people who think of the traditional length of a marathon, 26.2 miles, as just a warm up. Ultramarathons can vary in length from 50 miles on a given day to several hundred miles over several days and can take place over rocky, unforgiving terrain and in extreme conditions. According to his web site, Karnazes has run through Death Valley in 120-degree heat, as a solo runner against teams in a 200-mile relay, and in a marathon to the South Pole. Most recently, he ran 50 marathons on 50 consecutive days – one in each of the 50 states.

Certainly impresive stuff. Especially when you consider that the guy averages only four hours of sleep per night, according to the Wired interview. But even with all that, what really inspires me about Karnazes is his work to motivate children to be more active, and to create more situations where these children can enjoy physical activities outdoors. His organization, Karno Kids, has raised money for The Conservation Fund, Girls on the Run, an organzation promotes running to middle-school aged girls in order to cultivate good self esteem, and Kids on Trails, a California-based charity that links physical activity with the exploration of important historical outdoor sites.

At a time where nearly one-quarter of school-aged children in this country are obese, Karnazes is a formidible spokesperson for active living and he’s putting his money where his mouth is in a lot of ways. You have to admire that. He certainly makes me want to spend less time on the sofa and more time seeing if I can literally go an extra mile.