Occasionally someone will sugget that I might consider running for office, not knowing my sad history with electoral politics. That being said, running for office has been good experience for writing about politics.

And honestly, even getting involved in a small way in an election campaign (you don’t have to run yourself) is good for everyone, whether it be helping with paperwork or going door-to-door. You get a real appreciation for the process, and a respect for anyone involved - even those you disagree with - should you do so.

How I got a mandate from the People
Or:
Losing three elections isn’t as easy as it might seem

1988: Into the Fray

Though I had long had an interest in politics, it had been pretty much restricted to reading about politics and writing many letters to the editor. But then, one day, as I was working in the parts cage at Mexican Original, a man came up and introduced himself to me.

He told me that he had read many of my letters to the editor, and suggested to me that perhaps it was time for me to evolve. I can’t recall his exact words, but “evolve” seems like a good description for our discussion.

A few days later he introduced me to a friend of his, a man who had led the often lonely fight against Fayetteville’s plan to build a solid waste incinerator. He had managed to galvanize the public and this had led to a public vote, in which a majority of voters said, “No thanks” to the proposition.

We became friends, and he began educating me about the ins and outs of Fayetteville politics. I began accompanying him to meetings and met people whose names I had only encountered in news articles and letters columns.

In August of that year I decided to take the plunge - as long as I was “evolving” - to run for a seat on Fayetteville’s city government. At that time Fayetteville had a City Manager form of government, supported by a Board of Directors, which elected a weak mayor.

I still remember how cocky I was. “Blood will flow,” I told the City Clerk when I picked up my application forms. Too bad I didn’t realize the blood would all be mine.

As luck would have it, I found myself in a four-man race. I don’t think it will spoil your suspense if I tell you now that I came in last. Of course, at that time, ward races were city-wide. After a while, I just gave up trying to get to all parts of the city with my campaign literature.

Still, as learning experiences go, it was a wonderful thing. I hadn’t yet had any experience in front of a camera, so my performances were pretty stiff, and I said some pretty silly stuff, a lot of which I can’t remember, thank God.

I do remember one of the all time worst political radio spots I’ve ever heard, and it was put on by folks who supported our slate of progressive candidates. The film Good Morning Vietnam had just come out, and so imagine, if you will, a voice bellowing out of your radio:

“Good Morning, Fayetteville!”

With no practical political experience, even I thought this ad was a terrible idea. I didn’t say anything at the time, though. I was still the New Kid on the Block.

I also learned that once you announce for office, you are fair game for every group out there that wants to send you a questionnaire - whether it be newspapers, political groups, or fringe outfits.

Abortion and traditional marriage seem to matter an awful lot to some of the groups who send out questions to candidates. In the beginning I filled them all out, but after a while I just started throwing some of them away.

Even though I came in last, I still managed to get enough votes to make me think that this running for office stuff might have some kind of future for me.

1990: The Year I joined the Republican Party- well, sort of

Anyone can lose one election. Even Bill Clinton managed to do it. But 1990 gave me an opportunity to climb on the horse yet again.

Of course, no one makes the decision to run with the intention of losing in mind; it’s just that sometimes you find yourself in a truly unwinnable race. And so it was that year, as I took on Lyell Thompson, a Democrat who had held a seat on the Washington County Quorum Court since the time of Methuselah.

Well, not quite that long. But long enough that he was firmly entrenched in the seat. Not only that, Lyell was (and still is) a very popular man. And, added to that, I was running as a Republican in a firmly Democratic area. What could have been going through my head?

Well, the man who had persuaded me to run for city board had been sitting on the Washington County Quorum Court for the past two years as a Republican. He wasn’t really much of a Republican, but he never got much support from the Democratic Party when he was fighting the incinerator battle several years before. He thought he could do some good as an elected official, so he ran as a Republican

After a couple years, making motions and never getting a second from anyone else on the court was starting to get to him. In the summer of 1990 he came up with what seemed at the time like a cunning plan.

“Come join the Republican party,” he said to several of us. “You can help liberalize it from within. You can make real changes.”

At least two of us fell for that. We paid our filing fees as candidates, and began attending party meetings. The race was on. Only this time, things were a whole lot different. I’m not saying that the new crowd of people we were hanging out with weren’t nice people - most of them were - but we weren’t exactly among friends.

Some things you learned to keep your mouth shut about. Abortion was off-limits. You didn’t talk bad about Ronald Reagan, or George Bush the elder. You sure didn’t praise the governorship of Bill Clinton.

Possibly the oddest moment during the whole campaign came when I attended the governor’s debate between Bill Clinton and GOP opponent Sheffield Nelson and was honor-bound to sit with the GOP side. It just didn’t feel natural.

And the deal was that nobody really accepted the pseudo-Republicans as anything but Klingons in sheep’s clothing. In fact, the Republican Women’s group, which doled out money to candidates, even voted not to give money to some of us.

But the late Leland “Tiny” Hamilton, who was a good man and a good friend, came to our defense and convinced them to write us some checks. Hamilton, who ran several losing campaigns himself, was often dismissed by reporters as a “gadfly,” but he was much more than that.

But that’s a story for another day.

I enjoyed going door-to-door this time around. I enjoyed talking to people, and when someone wasn’t there, I left my flyer. Of the three times I ran, this was the most fun.

Election Night I hung out at the Hilton with other candidates to watch results come in. This is always pretty nerve wracking, even when you are in the lead, which I wasn’t. No matter how tough you are, it’s hard to restrain tears when the results come in, and all your hard work has gone for nothing.

All that self-serving crap about running an educational campaign, and it not mattering whether you win or lose is just that - unadulterated crap.

Still, I garnered over 40 percent of the vote, which was pretty good. My best showing out of three races, actually. But today, looking over my campaign flyer for that race, my eye fell on one paragraph:

“Our environmental integrity must be protected. Twenty-five years ago we began living in what we foolishly called ‘the disposable society.’Today, those mountains of trash are beginning to tower over us. We must seize the initiative and safeguard our children’s future . . .”

No wonder they didn’t trust me.

1992: The Race for City Council

June of that year saw the end of a hard-fought campaign to change the form of government in Fayetteville from City Manager/Board of Directors to Mayor/Council. Many things helped to bring about the change, including the bitter public access war that had taken place over the previous winter and spring, in which public access television itself was almost gone from the screens of Fayetteville viewers.

There were many other criticisms of the city manger form of government, of course, but the main argument in favor of change boiled down to this: the new form of government would be more responsive to the people.

Well, if Fayetteville hasn’t had mayors who have been particularly open to public input and criticism since 1992, at least our various city councils have been. So you’d have to conclude that yes, the people made the right choice, overall, in June of that year.

It was that summer that I decided to make my last - to date - foray into electoral politics. I felt like this might be my year; aldermen didn’t have to campaign city-wide, but only in their own ward, and I was a little better known this time around. At the very least, I had been doing an interview show (On the Air with Richard S. Drake) on Fayetteville Open Channel for over a year, and was writing a column for Grapevine, an alternative newspaper - which I felt gave me some name recognition.

Very little name recognition, as it turned out.

Somehow, once again, I found myself facing multiple opponents. Four, this time around. Please God, don’t let me come in last this time.

So I got my campaign literature ready (and it looked pretty sharp), got ready for my TV debates, and began going door-to-door. But it was different this time around.

My heart just wasn’t in it. Half-way through the election season, I realized that I was bored.

And not just bored the way you are on Sunday afternoon when you are too lazy to leave the house and there’s nothing good on television, and even reading is a chore. I mean really, really bored.

I was bored with the election, bored with the process, and bored with myself as a candidate.

I realized I was becoming one of those politicians, who, like Pavlov’s dogs, begin salivating at the clang of the chime beginning the election season. I had known enough of those candidates, and had written about quite a few of them; now I was becoming one of them.

I still went through the motions; I filled out all the questionnaires (even the insane ones), I participated in television debates, and answered questions for newspapers. There were even issues that I cared very strongly about.

Maybe the last two elections were still too fresh in my mind. Or maybe, as more than a few people pointed out, I was having more of an effect writing about issues, and interviewing people, than I would be as an alderman.

Maybe the voters picked up on that, because I didn’t win that election, either. But I didn’t come in last, which does still count for something. No, I came in next to last.

So I have concentrated on writing about politics, and learning about local government and history, and discovering where the bodies are buried. I interview news makers on my little talk show.

I write books. Life is interesting.

I learned a lot in those three elections. I learned how even tough guys can cry, and how pretentious some people can get. I think that running for office gave me a unique perspective on covering local elections, and I’d recommend it to almost anyone who wants to write about politics.

I learned that ordinary men and women can make a difference, which, while a cliche, really is still true. And win or lose, the sun still comes up after Election Day, and your friends are still your friends. Everybody is your friend if you win, but your real friends are there when you lose.

And I learned that you don’t join the Republican Party in an effort to “liberalize” it from within.

Richard S. Drake is the author of a novel, “Freedom Run,” and a history of Fayetteville, “Ozark Mosaic: Adventures in Arkansas Alternative Journalism, 1990-2002.”

Arkansas Free Press - December 2007

sdrake@cox.net

Congressman Steve Womack, In his ongoing efforts to be seen as the perpetual “good soldier” of the Grand Old Army of the Potomac, has taken up up the battle against America’s college students, opining that the government should not be responsible for funding education after a confrontation with Northwest Arkansas resident Kelly Eubanks, who has had the temerity to pay close attention to Womack’s voting record (something most media outlets up here don’t do), and she told The Scowling One, “The Pell Grant is important to me because it is one of many ways I pay for college. Without it, though, I wouldn’t be able to attend.”

Womack’s response? Other than asking some of his aides to remove her from the microphone - would he have done that to a Tea Party member? - he said that that he “paid” for his education by joining the National Guard.

For more on the story:

http://www.campusprogress.org/articles/representative_lashes_out_at_constituent_over_pell_grant_funding/

Yes, I believe that members of the military have a right to an education, but there is an issue which TSO is ignoring. At a time when the rest of the world is, quite frankly, kicking our butts, maybe the federal government does, indeed, have a role to play in funding education in this country.

An educated America is a strong America. An uneducated America is . . Well, aside from politicians like Steve Womack, who benefits from folks not being terribly well-educated?

Well, certain industries, I suppose, who would benefit from a work force which doesn’t know an awful lot about an awful lot, and the our competitors around the world, of course.

******

Following the example of Kelly Eubanks

It would be a nice fantasy to imagine that media outlets in Northwest Arkansas might drop their sycophantic attitudes towards The Scowling One, and actually pay attention to how he votes, but that ain’t gonna happen.

*****

Put a camera on this man!

Every time The Scowling One makes a public appearance, someone should be there with a camera, so that they can record incidents like the above, and either put them on public access television or YouTube.

Or hell, both.

****

Quote of the Day

Silence, if deliberate, is artificial and irritating; but silence that is unconscious gives human companionship without human boredom. - Stephen Leacock

sdrake@cox.net

However muted its present appearance may be, sexual dominion obtains nevertheless as perhaps the most pervasive ideology of our culture and provides its most fundamental concept of power. - Kate Millet, Sexual Politics”

As the Men with Bad Haircuts continue their their unabated onslaught against the women of this country, it has occurred to many that standing up for the rights of women is very much a working class issue.

We live in a time when Americans are pitted against fellow Americans, when one just has to pick up the daily paper and read letters from folks jeering at union workers, public employees or the poor. It is as though our political life has become like a reality show, with all of the shallowness attached to it.

One by one, segments of society are picked off for ridicule and broken off. Racial and religious minorities have always felt the sting of this particular game. Women, long the target of unfair employment practices, have become a special target of late.

It approaches almost open contempt at times.

Stephen Colbert said “I’m half woman, on my mother’s side,” and that holds true for all of us, even the Men with Bad Haircuts. Yet so many of us seem willing to sit on the sidelines and watch passively as the rights of working class women are stripped away in this country.

Consider this:

the attacks on Planned Parenthood might be considered a class warfare issue, in that PP serves women (and men, as well) of modest means. While the ultra-sound bills affect all women, the defunding of organizations which help members of the working class, or at the poverty level is an attack on the most economically defenseless in this country.

Women have long been punished for for simply being women, as though their very sexuality itself were some sort of sin to be punished, and now those who have always been afraid of the sexuality of women are out in full force, claiming that they are somehow “empowering” them, by forcing them into humiliating medical procedures. In Oklahoma, the legislature is concerned that “girls” are not “tricked” into having an abortion.

The ultra-sound procedures are government’s way of sexually humiliating women who insist on their legal rights to a medical procedure. It is cruel, vicious and unnecessary. But it serves the purpose of men who don’t have much use for these women.

In Georgia, Republican state representative Terry England said this about a bill which would make it illegal to have an abortion after 20 weeks, even if the woman is known to be carrying a stillborn fetus, or or the baby is not expected to not make it to delivery.

“Life gives us many experiences . . . I’ve had the experience of delivering calves, dead and alive. Delivering pigs, dead or alive. It breaks our hearts to see those animals not make it.”

Calves.

Pigs.

It just breaks his heart.

The news networks are like Magpies, attracted to bright shiny objects for a short time, and then abandoning them for another. How long has it been since since we have heard anyone talk about income disparity since it was brought up several weeks ago?

The working class are all too aware of it, even if the shallow talking heads at the cable channels have moved on.

Even the issue about mothers who stay at home centered around the wife of a billionaire. Not too many factory-working mothers made it onto the nightly news.

As a member of the working class, I cringe whenever I hear comments by others (especially by members of the working class) which demean women. I think that we all need to realize that all of our interests our tied in together, and that an attack (or even a crude remark) upon one really is aimed at all of us.

This is how they win.

******

Quote of the Day

Let us read and let us dance - two amusements that will never do any harm to the world. - Voltaire

sdrake@cox.net

I value public transportation, as well.

I sure would have liked it if Elk City valued it, as well.

A guy in a wheelchair, stuck in the suicide lane, just trying to get to the other side of the street.

Back to him in a moment. The 17 or so committed readers of this blog know that my wife and I have spent a few weeks in Elk City, Oklahoma, a city which puts your strength and moral fiber to the test every walking moment.

And it isn’t just that I don’t like being trapped in a small town, though that is bad enough. What is truly worthy of discussion are the differences on finds upon coming from Fayetteville to this tiny hamlet.

It isn’t just the missing Comedy Central; I can understand why that would be deemed more dangerous to a certain mind set than MTV, particularly if you take into account Jon Stewart and Robert Colbert.

Think about the things you really like about your community. For myself, I like living in a city that has public access, sidewalk ordinances and elected officials who are concerned with what the public thinks.

Oh, and I like recycling, too.

Elk City is one of those towns which surely must have heard of the above, but just decided that they weren’t for them.

In Northwest Arkansas, it has been a long time since an elected official has dared to dismiss the concerns of citizens - such as a county commissioner here did about increased truck traffic along their roads - because “ . . . you can’t stop progress.”

Citizen involvement in civic affairs? Not here, not now.

And crosswalks, or pedestrian lights? Sidewalks in residential areas?

Crosswalks are a sort of sign of advanced civilization, bowing to the concept that some people might actually need to cross the street at some point.

Elk City is Social Darwinism at its finest, a lost island living in the 21st Century. Think of a sort of Spartan Brigadoon, but without the atmosphere and songs. No doubt an Elk Citian, should they suddenly find themselves in Fayetteville, might find it overwhelming.

It might be either everything they have ever feared happening to their town, or a dream come true.

Which brings us once more to the guy in the wheelchair.

He looked to be in his 40s or 50s, and his chair was equipped with an American flag, leading one to suppose that he may have been a veteran.

Attempting to get from one side of the street to another, trapped in what is popularly known as the suicide lane, it looked as though he was there for the duration.

Because there were no crosswalks or pedestrian lights to enable him to get across, he was stuck there, and that was one of the last images we have of Elk City as we left on our journey back to Arkansas and the New York City of the Ozarks.

One guy in a wheelchair, stuck in a place he shouldn’t be, because there was no other way to cross the street.

******

Appreciating Fayetteville all the more and yet . . .

If you think that little trip into the Forbidden Zone was enough to stop me from ever being critical about anything in Fayetteville and Northwest Arkansas again, well, we didn’t stay all that long.

*****

Quote of the Day

"You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them." ~ Ray Bradbury

sdrake@cox.net

I have already written about Elk City’s Curious Case of the Missing Comedy Central, but I have also immersed myself in the two daily newspapers as well as The Oklahoman, a state-wide paper available in so many stands and stores here.

On the road again

Well, this little trip to the Dark Heart of America is almost over, and I’ll be returning to the New York City of the Ozarks this week, to catch up on unpaid bills and unread newspapers and magazines.

****

Quote of the Day

As children, we are made to feel we will only be loved if we are good (in the parents’ terms). As soon as we begin to affirm our real selves, parents begin to reject us. We grow up with the idea that if we are ourselves we will be rejected. So, as artists, in our work we express our real self. But we keep the fear of not not being loved for this this real self. And timidity and shyness are the symptoms. A timidity we can overcome with those who understand and accept us. -
Anaïs Nin

rsdrake@cox.net

I should have realized when we stopped at a La Quinta on the way here, and saw that the only news channel available was Fox was a portent of things to come - especially when this particular motel previously had a great cable offering for guests.

Being as we finally have some time to spend getting Tray’s late mother’s house ready to sell, we set up cable here in Elk City, Oklahoma, since we will be making trips between the New York City of the Ozarks and the Dark Heart of America to get all of this done once and for all.

We have cable with all the bells and whistles in Fayetteville, various movie channels and the high def service. Here in Elk City, we have basic.

Even so, don’t be looking for the Sundance Channel or BBC America on the Cable One offerings here; we counted ourselves lucky to get MSNBC. Still, we aren’t here to watch TV - well, not all the time. I do love the Demon Box.

Looking to relax a few nights ago, we turned to Comedy Central to catch The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. Instead, we got static and a graphic which read, “No signal.”

Okay, that’s screwy, especially as it is offered on the brochure they gave us.

The next day, my wife called the local office and they told her it would be $45 to have someone come out and fix the problem.

“What?” she said, with a note of indignation. “$45 to fix his screw up? We only got this set up yesterday!”

After a few moments of silence, the functionary at the other end of the line offered to teach my wife how to “reprogram” the cable box.

In disgust, she hung up. Later, I tried to reprogram the damn thing, but still no joy.

I then called the ever helpful 1-800 number the next day and asked about this, and the very nice person on the other end expressed surprise at the problem. Looking through her records, she told me that no one from Elk City had “complained” about not having Comedy Central, and that I could reprogram the box myself, if I just followed the instructions provided in the book that came with our materials.

So we are sitting there, thinking perhaps that this TV we have rented for a week has some sort of glitch - until, that is, we talk to several other folks, who tell us that they, too, do not have Comedy Central.

“But they said we did,” I bleated like a lamb who hasn’t quite gotten to full picture yet.

“They lied,” laughed one woman.

Well, at least they show clips on various news shows (mainly on MSNBC) but I want my Jon Stewart!

It’s just one more thing that makes returning to Fayetteville that much sweeter.

******

So about those nonexistent complaints

I wonder if the local Cable One office has passed on our complaint to Cable One Command?

Along the line of complaints, it sort of makes me wonder if local Elk Citers may have complained to the local office about Comedy Central, and someone quietly pulled the plug.

*****

Oh, Louisiana, you make me dream of the 1960s - and in a real ugly way

Reading the local paper yesterday, my eye fell upon (don’t you love it when when your eye does that? Almost like it has a mind of its own) a piece entitled. “Bad dog to get new life as La. prison guard.”

It seems that a wolf/dog hybrid by the name of Chief, who had been ordered destroyed for aggressive behavior, has had his sentence revoked.

This bad boy will now - thanks to District Judge James Best - find a meaningful life working at the Louisiana State Prison - Angola.

Some may find this story heart-warming, but images of the 1960s went through my mind, when police dogs were turned on civil rights marchers.

But this is a silly thing for me to think about. And I am sure, that the inmate population - 76 percent of which is black - will welcome Chief with loving arms.

*****

Quote of the Day

You don’t have to suffer to be a poet. Adolescence is enough suffering for anyone. - John Ciardi

rsdrake@cox.net

Still stalking the streets of the community which would cure anyone's desire to live in Small Town America, 1950s edition, but now Tracy and I once again are traveling the Magic Highways of the Internet. As such, I am always happy to make new friends who contact me via email.

Yes, some whoppers get by me - especially in yesterday's caffeine driven blog - but I'm not trying to empty your wallet or invade your computer.

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******

Yes, I often listen to the TV without watching it, thank you very much

Yeah, I should have written NPR instead of PBS in my blog yesterday.

Sue me. Or better yet, make a pelage in my name.

******

quote of the Day

Those who have much are often greedy; those who have little always share. - Oscar Wilde

****

And you can't let May Day go buy without a quote from this lovely woman

If I can't dance I don't want to be part of your revolution.

rsdrake@cox.net

Tracy and I have been taking care o in western Oklahoma this past week, but for a variety reasons, have not had cable/Internet hookup until today.

Said hookup will be in place until the whole situation is resolved, but the past few ays have given me much to consider.

True,I am an occasional traveler in the Land of the Holier-Than-Thou crowd of those who sneer at those get most of t their news from TV or radio. And whaler I agree that most TV news is covered by Sturgeon's Law (90% of everything is crap) there are some real gems out there.

Spending a few days in a town where USA Today would be the closest thing one might find to a New York Times (if you could even find one) I have come come to appreciate the real quality that TV has to offer.

The Ed Show onMSNBC (oh, one can hear the audible CLICK of minds being turned off already), which is the only major program on the Tube dealing with working-class issues.

Documentaries - and no, not those silly-ass "reality" shows" or shows where witless folks chase Bigfoot through trailer parks.

The Daily Show. Those who conduct interviews on "regular" interview shows could learn a lot rom him, especially the eternally sycophantic Wolf Blitzer.

Rachel Maddow, who inspires so much zndring ire from people who claim to have watched her show, but but the the Crayola-scrawled talking poin they all raise seem torn from the same notebook.

Television is no substitute for newspaper/magazine reading, but it should never be disregarded out-of-hand by anyone, especially a snob who wants to tell me that everything I need to learn I can get from PBS.

And if you are lucky enough to live in a city which has a public access television station (or you watch one online) you have access - pun, weak as it is is, intended - featuring the work of citizen activists who document life in the community they care about. you are lucky indeed.

Throw it all in the big blender, baby. From all different sources.

******

Quote of the Day

A truly great book should be read in youth, again in maturity and once again in old age, as a fine building should be seen by morning light, at noon and by moonlight. - Robertson Davies

rsdrake@cox.net

This week we’ll be traveling to the Dark Heart of America, a town in western Oklahoma I have written about before, so that we can work on my wife’s mother’s estate.

It’s an odd little town, which had a certain charm while my mother-in-law was alive, but has a certain Heart of Darkness feel about it these days. This being an election year, the differences between Fayetteville and our destination will never be more starkly apparent.

Having cable/Internet hooked up at the house in 2008, all the cable guy could talk about was how “hot” Sarah Palin was - echoing so many men that year. Election material covered the city, including flyers from a man running for the state legislature who vowed to protect Oklahoma’s “borders” - meaning, I suppose, any Razorback fans who might lose their way on a Saturday night.

The city is in an area of the state which has bad roads, not terribly good schools, and yet takes a perverse pride in voting down bond issues, almost as if the voters can’t make the connection between the two.

There are two daily newspapers, which have a modicum of news, and the editorials, written in with a hint of conservatism, are designed to offend almost no one, nor are they likely to inspire anyone to leap into a career in journalism anytime soon. Neither offered a space for letters from the public.

Well, that was several years ago. Who knows if either paper survives today.

The book stand at Walmart was the town’s main bookstore.

An Indian stands on a billboard over a car lot, his hand in the traditional movie greeting.

The few liberals in town (and they describe themselves as liberal, not “progressive”) keep their views to themselves, almost like an ineffectual secret identity.

I’m not sure how much I’ll be writing over the next few weeks, but I’ll certainly give you a full report when I get back, if I don’t have time to write.

******

Everything Bad is Good for You? Just as we’ve always hoped

This book is the perfect antidote for the next time some dried-up intellectual prig sits next to you and starts whining about how television and video games are destroying the youth of America. And after you hit them over the head with it, read aloud a few passages from this short but excellent book.

Everything Bad is Good for You: How Today’s Popular Culture is Actually Making Us Smarter, by Steven Johnson, is the perfect answer for those who sneer at young (and not-so-young) people playing video games, or who get caught up in their favorite television series.

Maybe, just maybe, it’s not such soul-destroying garbage after all.

I think we are all aware of the comments about video games, typified by this quote from a recent edition of Dr. Spock’s guide to raising children: “ The best that can be said of them is that they may help promote hand-eye coordination in children.”

What are these people thinking, that all video games are good for is turning kids into fighter pilots?

I guess if that is all you see - using your eyes - then you might possibly be forgiven for such an asinine attitude. But there is a lot more to the world of video gaming than the non-gamer might realize - including worlds of incredible complexity.

And that complexity is what Johnson (who is also a contributing editor to Wired magazine) deals with in this book. For the first time we have a writer who is comfortable with writing about these technological issues, explaining the subject for a larger audience.

Ah, you may scoff, how is playing “Doom” or watching 24 or Prison Break or The West Wing going to make me smarter? Get thee behind me, Satan!

Well, you would be wrong. Aside from the complexity of the video games, Johnson writes about how television shows (well some, at any rate) demand more from their audience than at any time in the past. Things move at a faster pace, and situations in episodes depend upon events which may have happened last month, or last season.

And not just a few minutes out of each show - almost every other scene seems to require this attention from the viewer.

Not to worry- Johnson also praises literature. He is hardly making the argument that we should all burn our books and become couch potatoes.

But he does raise some interesting points about modern culture, and how smart young people really are. And along the way, he forces the reader to examine their own prejudices about these forms of entertainment.

*****

Quote of the Day: Hello, John Boehner?

Sentimentality, the ostentatious parading of excessive and spurious emotion, is the mark of dishonesty, the inability to feel; the wet eyes of the sentimentalist betray his aversion to experience, his fear of life, his arid heart; and it is always, therefore, the signal of secret and violent inhumanity, the mask of cruelty. - James Baldwin

sdrake@cox.net

The Scowling One, Congressman Steve Womack, has hit upon what must have seemed to his staff as a winning formula for reaching out to the mysterious “Independent Voter” stalking America’s voting booths, bookstores, coffee shops and supermarkets.

In his latest message to voters, under his ever strong-hearted “From the Front” with the heading:

Do You Believe...:

I DON’T believe America’s best days are behind us. In fact, I believe our country and its people have all the potential in the world moving ahead, but there’s no doubt that the decisions being made now will affect generations to come – for better or worse. Let’s take the stand together and make America that “shining city upon a hill” once again.

Like many members of the GOP, TSO is wants us to know that he doesn’t believe that that our best days are behind us. As with other GOP members, though, he is just a little vague on exactly who out there is spreading these rumors that our best days are behind us.

Ah well, maybe next time he’ll name names.

Oh, and by the way, the reference that everybody since the Reaganolithic era has been misquoting from John Winthrop? It refers to “ . . . the city on the hill . . .” not the shining city on the hill. Dropping this line into your political pep talks doesn’t make you look smart.

It just makes you look slightly illiterate. That’s okay, though, There’s lots of programs out there to battle this particular malady - until the budget harvesters have their happy way, that is. Oh, wait - you're one of them.

Ironically enough, though, Winthrop actually had a lot in common with the modern-day Republican party, in that he seemed to despise the very notion of democracy:

"If we should change from a mixed aristocracy to mere democracy, first we should have no warrant in scripture for it: for there was no such government in Israel ... A democracy is, amongst civil nations, accounted the meanest and worst of all forms of government. [To allow it would be] a manifest breach of the 5th Commandment." - R.C. Winthrop, Life and Letters of John Winthrop (Boston, 1869), vol. ii, p. 430.

Now, there was a man who could get behind voter suppression laws.

*****

The Great State of Tennessee: where kissing and hand-holding are “gateway sexual activities”

I have written a fair amount of humour in my time, but never anything as good as this. Too bad it is all true.

The Great State of Tennessee has passed SB 3310, which is a bill to designed update the state’s abstinence-based sex education curriculum to define holding hands and kissing as “gateway sexual activities.”

This is no laughing matter, Undulating Reader, since the Great State of Tennessee is above the national average for those high schoolers who indulge in having sex, so as far as the Barney Fife’s in the legislature are concerned, it is time to “Nip it!”

Now, instructors in what laughably be termed sex education in the Great State of Tennessee’s high schools may not actually demonstrate “gateway” sexual activity (I am not writing this with a straight face) and if if those pesky “educators” even think of going beyond the Cotton Matherish curriculum, the bill states:

“The parent or legal guardian shall have a cause of action against the instructor or organization for actual damages.”

It makes one just want to defy the law, doesn’t it? A Monkey Trial for the 21st Century, only I’m afraid of what draconian punishments the legislators may come up with for anyone who allows any young person in their class to caress the flesh of another young person, either knowingly or unknowingly.

Hell, they’d probably put the kids on the Sex Offender Registry.

*****

The War on America declared by the Men with Dorky Haircuts

I’d hate to spend even a week in the America envisioned by the sponsors of such bills.

****

Quote of the Day

I am learning all the time. The tombstone will be my diploma. - Eartha Kitt

sdrake@cox.net

The Bobby Petrino Affair.

No. It just sort of sits there in the sentence, all flat and boring, kind of like the entire mundane fiasco. It lacks the eternal strength of something like the Dreyfus affair (which most Americans probably don’t even know about anymore). At least we aren’t getting the prattle from TV and magazine talking heads about “powerful men and sex” this time around.

The Petrino mess has been a godsend to those who despise former president Bill Clinton. The letters section in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette has already been filled with the missives from folks who had grabbed their Crayolas and sent in letters protesting the decision of the Little Rock Municipal Airport Commission’s move to change the name of the Little Rock National Airport to "Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport."

All the old rage, all the old anger, all the old resentments about a couple who are all-too-human has been pouring out of the holier-than-thous among us who would deny that Bill or Hillary Clinton have accomplished anything at all of value in their lives, and certainly have done nothing at all to make folks in Arkansas proud of them.

It’s sort of like the “Obama has no accomplishments” crowd; you start listing their achievements, but they are in areas their detractors have no familiarity with, and thus no use for.

But now Bobby Petrino comes along and smashes up his reputation.

This is an early Christmas for those who still despise Clinton, and letters have begun appearing, wondering why, if Petrino had to go, why Clinton never had to leave office - after all, didn’t he do the same thing?

I eagerly await the eventual column by one of the ADG’s columnists on the subject.

******

What do Justin Harris and Blanche Lambert Lincoln have in common?

About once a week I leave a message on Arkansas State Representative (District 81) Justin Harris’s Facebook page:

The offered dates for our AGREED UPON interview have passed. Still ready to do an on-air interview, all you have to do is let us know when you are ready.

I have been leaving it on his Facebook page on a regular basis, where he can ignore it to his heart’s delight, but if you read the page, it turns out he has a tendency to ignore lots of things, especially questions he doesn’t want to answer.

But if you want to engage in political sycophancy, or trade cliches back and forth, he’s there for you, baby.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Justin-Harris-Re-Election-Campaign/186113031413884

Anyway, on with the sad tale of yet another pathetic quest to land another fish who got away. A few years ago, Senator Blanche Lambert Lincoln’s office had pretty much confirmed that the good senator would appear on my show when she was in the Fayetteville area - too bad I was too dim to realize that they were blowing smoke in my direction.

After I wrote a blog about our dance together - “Desperately Seeking Blanche” - communications got a little better, but the whole thing was still pretty much a scam on their part.

Anyway, last year I communicated with the Republican from West Fork who has been receiving state funds for his little school, Growing God's Kingdom, and asked him to appear on my little interview show. Harris readily accepted.

We then set up some dates we could work around.

There’s the deal:

He agreed to the interview. I’m not gonna sit here in the wee hours of the morning and bash his religious beliefs, but, when you say you are gonna do an interview, well . . .

So Comrade Harris has the dates, and something always seems to come up.

Finally, I don’t hear from the young fellow and I call him at his school, and speak to a flustered young woman, who explains that Comrade Harris is talking on the phone to lawyers from “out-of-state” and that he’ll get back to me.

I’m still waiting, hoss.

I thought about calling him on his cell phone, but what would be the fun in that? He would just see my name on the damn thing.

You know, I’m emotionally pretty secure; I don’t fall to pieces when people decide they don’t want to be on my show. I just don’t like it when people are too snotty to return phone calls or emails.

Well, I learned a long time ago that it is the guests you do land that are the important thing. Nobody ever sees the interviews you don’t do.

*****

April 28: (NWA) Unite Against the War on Women March and Rally

Even though FOX News and their political thugs would try to convince you that there is no “War on Women” - while taking the side of humanity in the Wars on Christmas, Easter, Halloween and ladies Night. You and I know differently.

On April 28, (NWA) Unite Against the War on Women is holding a March and Rally in Fayetteville, from 11am to 1pm. It will begin in front of the Walton Arts Center, move up Block Street and up to the Square. For more information:

http://www.facebook.com/#!/events/119793044814696/

The following is a YouTube link to an interview with Kelly Hampton Eubanks, one of the organizers of the day’s events.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bu7SbnGApdo

****
Quote of the Day

A book should serve as the ax for the frozen sea within us. - Franz Kafka

sdrake@cox.net

Acquiring a dog may be the only opportunity a human ever has to choose a relative. - Mordecai Siegal

It is difficult enough to acknowledge the aging process when it comes to myself, but when it comes to my dogs, I have steadfastly refused to even admit the possibility. In my mind, they have always been the same young animals we rescued from various abusive homes so many years ago.

In the last few months, though, reality has set in, and I have noticed the signs of aging, that they have lived life along with myself and my wife, but won’t be along with us for the long haul.

We have had to put a number of dogs to sleep over the past few years, including my late mother-law’s dogs, and my late sister-in-law’s beautiful Labrador, who was felled by skin cancer.

But the original trio - the Three Stooges - we put together when we got together as a couple are now showing their age, even the fabled Action Dog, and sometimes you have to wonder how long it might be before . . .

They are all well over ten years old, but still in fairly good shape for their ages, but there is the gray hair, and the slower gait (even Action Dog is a little slower with the Frisbee these days) and they aren’t quite so interested in attacking what they know in their hearts are dogs 12 feet tall on the other side of the wooden fence. A few barks, but they are all-too-willing to head to the house when I call them in.

They sleep a lot more than they used to.

It’s quite possible that I m projecting here, given the minor health issues Tracy and I have had recently, but still, sometimes they want nothing more than to sit at our feet when we are watching TV, or working at the computer.

Which is emotionally satisfying all on its own, actually, for all concerned.

This doesn’t mean that they are perpetually lethargic. If someone dares ring a doorbell on TV it can, as ever, bring out their watchdog instincts, and they are ready to let any of the contractors working on the house know that they might, if need be, turn into formidable forces to be reckoned with.

When I begin making dinner for them, you would think they hadn’t been fed in months.

Just a few months ago Dublin, the terrier, brought a rabbit head in and left it on Tracy’s pillow as a present for her. Watching Those Calloways last year - from the era when Disney still made movies adults could watch without turning off their brains - he seemed fascinated by the geese flying on the screen, as if thinking , “I’ve got your geese sanctuary right here, boys.”

Shalaundra, our Labrador who as a puppy thought that chasing down a horse in Devil’s Den State Park was the greatest idea in the world, has trouble getting up on the couch, but she can still run like mad across the yard.

Action Dog - she who answers to several names - is slower these days, but won’t admit for the world.

Like dogs, our bodies age but in our minds we are still in our 20s and 30s, and the refusal of our bodies to perform as well as they once did is a minor annoyance at best. We’ll do better the next time.

We just need a little more rest . . . maybe some vitamins.

And so I watch my dogs as they sleep and wonder when we won’t enjoy each other’s company any longer. Though I’ll mourn that day, and for many days afterwards, I don’t feel any particular sadness now.

We still have this journey to go on now, hobbling occasionally together as we go, and that sustains me.

******

Quote of the Day

To study foreign affairs without putting ourselves into other’s shoes is to deal in illusion and to prepare students for a lifelong misunderstanding of our place in the world. - Paul Gagnon

sdrake@cox.net

“ . . . to true believers, those who believe in other faiths are a much greater threat than mere unbelievers. Unbelievers, after all, are just sinful people who refuse to hear the word of God. But the adherents of other faiths claim they have heard the word of God! They claim they have heard it saying different things, laying down different rules, dictating different holy books . . .” - Chris Beckett, “The Holy Machine”

Sitting before me on my desk is a one million dollar bill with the smiling likeness of Barack Obama on it. It also reminds me, just in case I wanted to rush down to Hobby Lobby and spend it, that “This note is not legal tender for all debts, public and private.”

Good thing I read that, before I went in somewhere and made a complete jackass of myself.

How did I come to be in possession of such funny money, which also reminds me that “Abortion stops a human heart?”

Well, it all started on a morning walk along one of Fayetteville’s walking/biking trails.

While I am glad that we have the trails, I don’t care all that much for them myself. If I have a problem to work out, or am trying to work something out in my head, the solitude on the trails drives me insane. I much prefer the presence of people, cars, the music from restaurants I may pass by (or even from cars that pass me by) to stomping along a path whose sameness after a time would drive all the creativity from me. It’s also why I like to ride buses, so I can listen to and watch other people.

Other folks like the trails, though, so I am all for them.

But this is the happy occurrence when walking along the trails provided me inspiration for a blog.

I was on my way to see my doctor a few weeks ago, and decided to take a short cut via one of the handy trails. On my way I passed a couple, a youngish looking black woman and a white man perhaps in his 40s with a shaved head, who were walking in the opposite direction.

Now, like a certain song might say, I don’t know much about geography, but I do know they were going in the opposite direction that I was taking.

I ambled on my way, thinking about nothing in particular and doing it very well. A few minutes later this same couple comes power-walking behind me, bids me “good morning,” and I mumble a reply, when the man whips around (I’ve always wanted to use that phrase, ever since I read it in so many times in the old Doc Savage novels) and hands me this small pamphlet.

“I wonder if I can give you this, sir?”

I already knew what they were up to, but since my philosophy of life is that almost every experience is worth a few hundred words, I accepted the slim book. They then commenced their power-walk down the trail.

The small booklet, “Why Christianity? Solving Life’s Most Important Question” is authored by Ray Comfort, who co-hosts a TV program with Kirk Cameron, who has been linked to Christian Reconstructionism, which can best be described as Sharia Law on steroids.

The first page of the booklet begins:

The Choice

So you can pick only one. Which would you choose? Before you decide, here’s some information that will help you make the wisest choice: You have to jump 10,000 feet out of an airplane.

So yes, you see this one coming. The choices offered symbolize Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam and Christianity.

Yeah, I think you can see where it’s all gonna come down, and which religion is the parachute.

So I was targeted by these Kirk Cameron/Ray Comfort devotees, who doubled back just so that they could save my soul and meet their spiritual quota for the day. I was also told by my doctor that a contractor working on his house passed his wife the very same booklet.

I began to wonder if there are teams working the trails in Fayetteville, spotting cranky looking older men such as myself obviously ripe for salvation. I thought that maybe I would hang out on the trails for a while, and try to spot these two, or others like them. I could just sort of skulk around . . .

Oh.

Yeah, realizing Fayetteville’s Finest might not accept my explanation of why I am sneaking around the trails, and invite me down to the jail, where I might enjoy a strip search, thanks to our Supreme Court, I ditched that plan.

Two things annoy me about this. One, obviously, is the fact that tag teams of religious fanatics might be working the trail system in Fayetteville, looking for souls to save. And the second is the fact that this isn’t the first time this has happened to me. In the 1970s members of the Word Over the Word group thought I’d be a dandy recruit to their little cult.

What is there about me that says, this is a man whose soul is in jeopardy? Or do they recognize a kindred spirit in me?

*****

Mitt Romney and the Mark of the Beast

In Fiesta Square there sit the remains of an abandoned hot dog shop (right across from the movie theater) I liked quite a bit. The place always seemed to have quite a few customers, yet it shut down. Compare that with the B-B-Que place which rarely seems to have customers in when I walk by, yet seems to be still going strong.

Anyway, outside the hoit dog eaterie the tables remain where customers could eat their dogs in the sunshine, only now the tables are covered in green pollen dust. In a savage bit of whimsy last week I wrote on one:

Romney
666

Yes, I am a Person of Questionable Characteristics; keep your sons and dauighers away from me. I just couldn’t help myself.

As of yesterday, it was still there.

If you happen to be that way and see it, let me know.

*****

Quote of the Day

The wise man reads both books and life itself. - Lin Yutang

sdrake@cox.net

While I enjoyed a great deal about James Cameron’s Titanic (outside of Vlad the Impaler, never has one man been so intent on having his name attached to much human misery), there are also huge swaths of it that I disliked quite a lot.

But rather like a beloved small town high school football coach, it is almost impossible for any of us to criticize Titanic without hordes of people covering their ears and crying, “Heretic!”

So I’ll confine my criticism of Titanic to the one scene that really stuck in my craw, the one scene which made me sit up on my couch and say, “Oh, what the hell is this? Give me a break!”

I did, really.

Imagine the horror of the ship sinking, the panic and the terror of the passengers, and the emotional angst provided to us via the love story of the young lovers. Like movies about the Alamo, we all know how this story is going to end, and yet we stick wit it.

And then . . .

Cal Hockley (played by Billy Zane, an actor I like quite a lot) is running around the ship firing off a gun?

Huh?

Far from ramping up the tension, this just adds a certain comic relief to the movie. I mean, really, Trembling Reader, wasn’t the sinking of the Titanic itself providing enough tension? It is the most needless scene in the movie.

Well, it could have been worse, I suppose. We might have gotten a glimpse of Arnold Schwarzenegger, in the guise of a Terminator, seeking an ancestor of Sarah Connor, who just happened to be on the Titanic. I have it on good authority that they can, after all, travel through time.

Well, it’s a small quibble, I guess. The ship still sinks, we all shed a tear or two, and we eagerly await the eventual paranormal show in which ship-bound ghost hunters will attempt to make contact with the spirits of those who died when the ship went down.

Must See TV, as NBC used to proclaim.

******

A movie that can sink Cameron’s Titanic

The 1958 film A Night to Remember is superior to Cameron’s effort in almost every aspect, save special effects. Shown every so often on Turner Classic Movies - the only channel I’d have if I were on a desert island - it should be seen by anyone who enjoys not only films about that harrowing voyage into hell, but good drama, besides.

*****

Quote of the Day

Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much. - Oscar Wilde

sdrake@cox.net