Visiting Beantown

As possibly the biggest nerds ever, Adam and I went to Boston this weekend to see Greg Graffin of Bad Religion receive the Lifetime Achievement Award in Cultural Humanism from the Harvard Humanist Chaplaincy (Watch it here; Listen here.). I kid you not.

Up until now I pretty much had a love-hate-but-mostly-hate relationship with Boston mostly informed by my early college years in Western Mass. People were rude, the punk scene was violent, and we could never find any place we were trying to go. Perhaps it's maturity or the fact that I currently live in the densest city in the US or an outgrowing of views I co-opted from friends but Boston was pretty darn good this weekend.

Planning this trip was unnecessarily stressful considering it's 2 day/1 night duration due to the outrageous (and currently beyond budget) price of hotels, the need for a dog-sitter, fear of dying on the chinatown bus but being too cheap to pay double for greyhound, and a general procrastination. Despite all that, it turned out well.

We showed up in Chinatown at the Fung Wah bus stop only to miss the 1pm bus. Fortunately, they run buses every half hour on weekends and as the first in line for the next bus, we got decent seats. Since we (shocker) left far later than planned (Adam and I, not the bus), we arrived in Cambridge with not much time before the event. I had purchased some pick 'n mix chapters from Lonely Planet's Boston guide book and was looking forward to trying one of the local restaurants - too bad everyone else had that idea too. We ended up eating at Lee's Sandwich Shop on Church St., a block or so down from Harvard. It was a fine, greasy diner kind of meal.

After finding the - get this - church(!) where the presentation was to take place ("oh right, it's that big huge steeple over there"), we waited outside with the rest of the motley crew. The crowd seemed to be mostly punk rock kids, the occasional parent, and a few middle age adults. Eventually, they let everyone in and we took our seats in the pews. The whole event was the highlight of the weekend but more on that in another post.

Exhausted, we skipped the waiting for an autograph and headed to the T. We found a relatively cheap Motel 6 ($100/night although it originally was advertised for $75) in Braintree which was conveniently located at the last stop on the Red Line (same line as Harvard/Cambridge). The hotel got some bad reviews on tripadvisor but we found it to be quite adequate. It's no Hilton but it was convenient and possessed the bare minimum (bed, bathroom). Also, it was clearly recently remodeled and there was a Chilli's, Burger King, and Dunkin Donuts (and apparently Dominos delivered) within walking distance in case you didn't eat before heading there. If we were to go again, I may try some of the hostels listed on hostelworld as cheaper, more centrally located alternatives but we might also stay here again.


The next morning we woke up, sleepy and ate a disappointing breakfast from Burger King (McDonald's has , by-far, the best egg food product out there). We then headed to the JFK Presidential Library which was even more disappointing than my Burger King breakfast. While externally grand, the set up inside was awkward and the exhibits kissed butt at best and glossed over reality at worst (Cuban Missle Crisis anyone?). Ah well, at least we saw it.

Next we headed over to Boston Common to walk the Freedom Trail. We followed the red brick strip around Boston common, up to the North End to see Paul Revere's house , and on the Charlestown to see the Bunker Hill Monument (question: How many phallic monuments can one city have?). You can actually walk up all 249 steps to the top of the Bunker Hill Monument but we, having gotten there at the very end up our day, got to step 50 when our legs and knees threw a temper tantrum so we turned back. I bet it's really cool though. The park around it is peaceful and surrounded by lovely brownstones.




Utterly beat, we walked back over the Charlestown bridge to eat in the North End, aka Boston's 'Little Italy.' Again, Lonely Planet steered us to what was likely the best restaurants but also the most crowded. At 4:30pm there was already a line around the corner for Pizzeria Regina so we headed down to Salem St and had some decent (and still better than New York's) pizza at PushCart.

Our stomachs duly satisfied, we set off to catch the bus home. Thinking we would surely miss the 6pm bus, I headed to the bathroom where there was the inevitable line. Fortunately, the bus was not full and after running across the terminal, we ended up getting on the 6pm bus. For whatever reason, bus #2 was less spacious and not as comfortable as bus #1 - plus Adam and I were sitting across the aisle from each other which always leads to the awkward 'trying to get comfortable while not touching the stranger next to you' dance. I watched Juno on my iPod (ps - I always thought this would kind of suck on the First Gen iPod Video but I was sadly mistaken. The video was sharp and I was duly amused for a couple hours. Go Apple.) and then rocked out to The Klopecs.

We got home exhausted and mildly crippled (my left knee still cries in pain when I sit down and stand up) but pleased with our weekend.

ps - I *swear* I saw Anne Hathaway walking her dog by Park St. Church across from Boston common on Sunday. She was wearing sun glasses and walking a dog along with a friend also walking a dog. I really didn't think much of the duo until I heard her voice - she called to one of the dogs named Esmeralda. Being the loser-lover-of-tween-movies that I am (namely the Princess Diaries), I turned instantly and the woman did look just like Anne Hathaway. To prove my hunch, I did a bit of googling and low and behold, Anne Hathaway does have a dog named Esmeralda. Am I a stalker or what?

I'm obsessed #1782.3

So I've become obsessed with Google Reader. It's like blogs! All in one place! Yay!

Seriously though, I've really resisted the reading things online movement (I'm not an early-adopter as they say). Reading on the screen just seemed so bright and uncomfortable - all that scrolling and clicking - ugh. I would occasionally bookmark blogs I'd heard of and check them occasionally for a while and then forget about them. Sure there were feed burners out there but I never really had the impetus to figure it out and investigate.

But then I decided I would try blogging - mostly because I'm on a writing kick. Writing a book is, after all, on my list of things to do in life. Since I couldn't motivate myself to just sit down and write regularly (or ever), I thought blogging might be a good way to get into writing and help me find my way. Of course, being the OCD person that I am, I actually started 4 blogs with mixed success in the writing-regularly department.

Anyway, some how I ended up on Google Reader and it all spiraled from there. I have my feminist blogs (yes, I'm finally reading Feministing) and political blogs and music blogs and tech blogs. Yeah! I feel very informed.

Anyway, that it - Yay Google Reader! :)

Hillary didn't win; she just didn't lose ...

Last night, CNN was covered with talk of 'Hilary Won!' and peppered with 'Why did Hilary win?' and 'Why did Obama lose?'

Here's the thing: Hilary did not "win" any votes yesterday. In fact, she lost many.

Prior to election day, Obama was polling at around 20% in Texas and Ohio. (Now we could go into a diatribe about how polling is bullshit but I'll hold off). Which means that, since Obama got around 45% of the vote , he won 25% of Hilary's voters or, put in another way, Hilary lost 25% of her voters.

Now I'm no Obama lover, but my hatred for simplistic media coverage trumps all political affiliations.


One guest on CNN finally got it right around midnight: The media (and perhaps the country) is treating this election like a general election, in other words, we are treating it like it is 'winner take all.' It's not. The delegate difference remains virtually unchanged.

Frankly, that delegate difference is the real issue and could result in another riot like the one in 1968 (i.e. if the super delegates don't vote for the popularly elected canidate or Hilary fights for Michigan and Florida's votes to count even though no one else campaigned or was even on the ballots there.)

Dashboard Politik: Gun Control.

I shot a gun for the first time in my life this year. It was loud and it hurt. It was also kinda cool when I figured out how to actually hit the targets.

On the long car ride from upstate to NYC, I got into a debate about politics with people I didn't know that well ... which is so the kind of thing I'd do. Obviously, the topic of gun control came up.

My biggest beef with the topic? Everyone says "It's a constitutional right! End of Story." This pisses me off for various reasons.

Firstly, the Supreme Court has consistently upheld for the last 80 or so years that the right of an individual to own a gun is NOT constitutionally protected. Now that doesn't mean we can't have a debate about it; what is means is that there are really two debates: The first is whether you believe the Supreme Court wrongly interpreted the sentence "A well-regulated militia, being necessary to a free state, the right to bear arms shall not be infringed." The second is, if the constitution doesn't protect an individual's right to own a weapon (which, currently, it doesn't), how much, if at all, should we limit an individual owning weapons.

Let's tackle the first "debate" first. Since I'm not a constitutional lawyer, I, truthfully, don't entirely understand the nuances of the Supreme Courts decision but the gist is this: When the constitution was penned, the term "to bear arms" commonly referred to military service. Taking into consideration the beginning of the amendment ("A well-regulated militia ..."), the Supreme Court has interpreted the amendment to protect the right of individuals to form militias. Well-regulated militias ... which are necessary for a free state. Arguably, the Illinois National Guard would fall under this definition. Note that Crazy Joe with his machine gun in Alabama does not constitute a well-regulated militia.

Now during this dashboard politik as I'm calling it (which now that I'm looking it up on Wikipedia doesn't really make sense but it's catchy so I'm keeping it), someone brought up an argument that I'd never heard before and couldn't immediately refute. The argument I have come to learn is termed the "Insurrectionist Theory." It goes as follows: The founder fathers ensured the right to bear arms so that individuals could have comparable weapons to the government which they then could use to overthrow the government. It's an interesting idea. I do believe that the founder fathers crafted our government to ensure that citizens could freely oppose the government. However, for me, it seems somewhat of an illogical argument. If you were plotting to overthrow the government, why would you respect its laws? Doesn't respecting its laws, forbidding you, for instance, from obtaining an assault weapon, inherently give those laws validity?

Let's say, however, you think it is logical. It did, definitely, give me pause. So I did a little research. Apparently, The Insurrection Theory of the Second Amendment, is actually a relatively new theory and is hotly debated by legal scholars. Something to note is that it's primarily supported by selective quotes from the founding fathers ... most of whom were Anti-Federalists. In case you missed it in history class, the Federalists won (twice, actually, if you count the Civil War.)

So let's move on, with the assumption that the Supreme Court has, for the last 80 years, correctly interpreted the constitution and an individual's right to own a weapon is not constitutionally protected. Now defining something as not constitutionally protected really tells us nothing - it tells us that we, as citizens of a democracy, have a right to make laws that prohibit, limit, require gun ownership or don't say anything at all. Obviously, every state, has some sort of Gun Control laws.

One of the questions I often ask is why does any individual need a hand gun? What purpose does it serve other than to kill people? It's not good for hunting so why do you need it? Here are some arguments and my opinionated refutation:

• Protection: You need a hand gun to protect yourself. Statistically speaking, if you have a hand gun in the house, it is more likely to be used against you than you are to use it against an intruder. The argument was made that that was a skewed statistic because people with unregistered hand guns wouldn't take them out for fear of punishment for having an unregistered hand gun. But if that's the case then you aren't using that hand gun to defend yourself. Furthermore, I think this argument perpetuates the atmosphere of fear we have in this country - don't move, you might get killed! Aaah!
• Sport/Recreation: Going to a shooting range is fun and recreational; shooting is a sport. Firstly, there is no sport in which people shoot hand guns. Secondly, is the fact that someone considers something "fun" or recreational really a good litmus test for its legality? I've read that Southerns considered lynching blacks quite the recreational activity. Does that make it OK? What about drugs or drive-by shootings or gang rape?
• Everything is Dangerous: Driving in a car is dangerous too. That's true. I could get hit by a bus walking across the street looking both ways. However, a car's main purpose is transportation. A gun's main purpose - the reason it was created (regardless of how fun it is to shoot at targets) - is to kill stuff. Danger is the point not the unhappy side effect.

Here's a shocker: I don't actually think all guns should be outlawed. Mostly, because I think by making something illegal, you take it out of your control. Also, because I think it's great that Joe-Shmoe gets his meat from hunting (as opposed to the evil factory farms our government supports). I do think you should need a permit and a background check to own a gun - any gun - and I think that, for guns that aren't intended for hunting, you should have a decent reason. Most importantly, I do not think it should be legal to carrying a concealed weapon. Period. Ever. Cops don't, why should you?

My real point, though, is this: Let's all wake up and read a history book. An individual's right to own a gun is not constitutionally protected so let's have a real discussion about gun control. I don't care if you agree with me but can we please talk about it without the conversation being cut off immediately by "It's in the constitution!" because it's not. Please?

The primary system is failing us!!

I just found out that Edwards is dropping out of the presidential race. This right after Kucinich - by far the best progressive candidate and the only politician i know with the balls to risk his career to do what's right - dropped out due to a fierce re-election campaign.

I'm heartbroken and I blame the primary system. Here's why:

• Having primaries on different days in different states gives more weight to those states that come first. Super Tuesday hasn't happen yet. Four states - count them four - have voted. (Well technically 6 states have voted but since the democratic party has used its corrupted weight to disenfranchise Michigan and Floridian democrats and not count their votes, I won't either). Only 8% of the country has weighed in on primary candidates and already 4 candidates (Kucinich, Edwards, Dodd, andBiden) have dropped - one of them (Edwards) even had a real shot. Moreover, none of the states that have voted are states significant enough to swing an election. Plus I don't want Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina to make voting decisions for me. Do you?
  
• Caucus's are bullshit. The caucus system (used in Iowa and I think Nevada), just like th electoral college, are fucking us time and time again. They are complex and time-consuming - we can't even get people to come out and pull a lever, let alone show up at a specific time to play musical chairs. Moreover, it gives a skewed perception of people's votes. If my candidate doesn't get enough people standing in the corner, then I have to more all my voting power to another candidate that I don't want. It makes it an all or nothing race and convinces people that a) certain policies are more popular than they are and b) that they can never vote for a long shot candidate because they'll have to pick the mainstream choice anyway. I do understand the motivation behind caucusing - it gives some semblance of a second choice. However, there are better options out there - like Instant Run-Off which allows you to rank candidates giving the politicians and the media and you a better picture of what Americans really want.
• The god damn media. Something needs to be done about the FCC and it's total unresponsiveness to the American people. (Don't believe me? The FCC recently ruled to open up media companies to even more conglomeration despite holding hearings across the country in which citizens overwhelmingly said NO to this proposal.) The media has talked about 2, maybe 3, democratic candidates - Clinton, Obama, and somtimes Edwards. And what do they talk about? Clinton's tear; whether race or gender will cause one or the other to win. It's ridiculous. Maybe, for once, CNN could mention some of their policies?
  
• Debates not being debates. This plays into the above topic. Kucinich - despite meeting their set criteria - was not allowed in multiple televised debates. Remember when we had fair access laws? Think we still do? Thanks to Reagan the media can favor a single candidate - even in a debate - for no reason what so ever. The American public - we included - tends to think that debates are run by the government or some non-partisan organization. Not so. Debates are run by the Democratic party and the Republican party period. So what you might say? So this means that they are not going to include third parties or even their own candidates if they seek to create change.

Ahh. I'm so fucking pissed about this. Now who am I going to vote for? Mrs. Corporate interests or Mr. I talk the talk but never show up for Senate votes?

Why Computers Don't Work and Touchscreen Voting Machines are BAD FOR DEMOCRACY ...

Over Thanksgiving, Adam and I visited an old friend and his new girlfriend. The conversation, predictably, turned to politics. Adam or I somehow or another, predictably, brought up Greg Palast and his investigations into systematic voter disenfranchisement by the republican party in 2000 & 2004 in FL, NM, and OH. Don't know what I'm talking about? Read about it on GregPalast.com and/or buy his book, Armed Madhouse.

Girlfriend commented that we are less sophisticated with voting that Honduras (or some Central American country) because they use touch-screen voting machines.

I was instantly transported back to my Computer Science professor's office after the 2004 elections and our, admittedly random, conversation on the horrors of touchscreen voting.

That's right: Two people with advanced degrees in Computer Science think touch screen voting machines are a bad idea. Bad bad BAD.

I think this surprises many people who equate technological advancement with 'better.' But let me ask you this: Has your computer ever crashed and lost ALL of your life's files? Has your computer ever crashed when you had a serious deadline in, like, 10 minutes? Have you ever read through a manual for a new gadget or software? Have you ever understood said manual? Have you ever had to wait days or weeks for someone to come fix your internet connection? Have you ever had to leave your computer for days or weeks to have it repaired?

Of course you have. Why? Because computers don't work.

Nah, I jest ... sort of. The truth of the matter is that computers are insanely complex. There are whole areas of theoretical computer science devoted to proving that software and computers do what they say that they can do. Most commercial software and hardware are never put to these tests - they tend to live in the minds and papers of disheveled professors and disgruntled students. The point is that a computer cannot be guaranteed to work when you need it, where you need it, and how you expect it to. And this isn't even taking security into account.

And touch screen voting machines are simply computers with fancy screens. Now it is true that there are computers systems out there (banking anyone?) that guarantee that their computers work exactly correctly and are rarely down. It takes a lot of money, planning, and techy people to make this happen.

Does every county in the state have a super tech on hand to immediately fix issues with touch screens? Do they have the money to pay for a redundant system and high security measures? Have they put in the time and effort to train the election volunteers on how to use, fix, and troubleshoot the machines?

Hell no.

In a disturbing turn of events, the Department of Justice has settled their lawsuit with the New York State Board of Elections by forcing NY State to comply with disabled-access provision in the Help Americans Vote Act of 2002. Now I am all for ensuring the voters can vote, no matter the circumstance. Who isn't? (Besides Bush, Cheney, and the Republican party) The problem with this settlement is that is defines both Paper Ballot Optical Scan Systems (PBOS) AND touch screen electronic voting systems (DRE) as acceptable disabled-access ballot marking devices.

The good news is that your precinct has a choice. The bad news is that many people, like Girlfriend, think that touch screen voting machines - machines that have been proven to be unreliable and easily tampered with - are better. Remember kids - shiny and pretty aren't better! Never forget the Ford Pinto.

Alright, now for some facts. I am totally stealing these talking points from the NY Chapter of Progressive Democrats for America:

OPTICAL SCAN TECHNOLOGY (PBOS) IS BETTER THAN TOUCH-SCREEN VOTING MACHINES (DRE’s)
TOUCH-SCREEN VOTING MACHINES HAVE A TRACK RECORD OF FAILURE

One Example: AccuVote-TSX machines (Diebold) in Cuyahoga County, Ohio
May 2006.

• The poll workers were baffled on how to work the machines and the manuals from Diebold were useless.
• 143 machines broke down. Dozens of other machines had printer jams or mysteriously powered down.
• More than 200 voter-card encoders (which create the cards that let voters vote) went missing
• One audit of the election discovered that in 72.5 percent of the audited machines, the paper trail did not match the digital tally on the memory cards.

TOUCH-SCREEN VOTING MACHINES ARE BEING REJECTED BY
ELECTION OFFICIALS AND LEGISLATORS ACROSS THE COUNTRY

• Spring 2006: Florida decides to get rid of their electronic voting machines.
• July 2007: California decertifies every electronic voting machine in the state after a Top-To-Bottom Review.
  
• December 2007: Colorado decertifies about half of its touch-screen devices.
• December 2007: Ohio secretary of State Jennifer Brunner releases a report that states touch-screens “may jeopardize the integrity of the voting process.” Brunner is now ordering Cuyahoga County, Ohio to scrap its touch-screen machines and go back to paper-based voting before the Ohio primary, scheduled for March 4th 2008.
• December 2007 Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL) and Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) sponsor a bill (S.2295) that would ban the use of touch screen machines across the country by 2012.

THE BEST CHOICE IS “OPTICAL SCAN” TECHNOLOGY

• The voter marks her votes on a paper ballot, filling in bubbles to indicate which candidates she prefers. Voters with disabilities or non-English languages directly mark and verify their ballot by using an accessible ballotmarking-device (BMD).
• The vote is immediately tangible to the voters; they see it with their own eyes, because they personally record it.
• The tallying is done rapidly, because the ballots are fed into a computerized scanner. There are no delays for voters because one scanner can countthousands of ballots a day (3500). With DREs you may have to stand in line because it takes twice as long to vote on a DRE as on a lever machine or paper ballot. You need at least two DREs to replace each lever machine. If a DRE breaks down, you are stuck, but if the scanner breaks down, you can keep on voting on paper ballots.
• If there’s a recount, the elections officials can simply take out the paper ballots and count the votes by hand.
• The voter-marked paper ballots prevent endless fighting over tight election results.
• Optical scanning is used in what many elections experts regard as the “perfect elections” of Leon County, FL where the error rate — how often his system miscounts a ballot — is three-quarters of a percent at its highest, and has dipped as low as three-thousandths of a percent.
• PBOS systems are MORE COST EFFICIENT to acquire, maintain, and use PBOS machines cost about one third what DREs cost. One DRE serves 200-300 voters, while one optical scanner and one accessible ballotmarking-device serves 2000-3000 voters, so far less equipment is needed. The cost efficiency of PBOS over DRE’s has been acknowledged by New York County Elections Commissioner Douglas Kellner.

myspace message from adam entitled "My Mind Has Just Been Fucking Blown"

"An analysis of the National Election Study exit poll data by Harvard political scientist Barry Burden showed that only 9% of the people who thought Nader was the best candidate actually voted for him. If people had not voted strategically, but instead voted for their favorite candidate, Nader would have had over 30 million votes instead of 2.9 million and might have won the election"

The full Barry Burden study is on line(PDF), but it's 23 pages long, and written by a political scientist at Harvard....so it's very fucking boring. I took this from the Draft Nader Page. I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

Oh, and a reminder, that's 30 million votes for a guy who spent about 80 million less than the other two candidates and wasn't in the debates. Which leads to think....maybe he should have run as a Democrat.

my mind has similarly been blown ... like, to pieces.