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It’s another petition.

September 13th, 2005 by Oskar Kennedy

Sign a petition urging Congress to establish an independent investigation into the Katrina response.
http://www.political.moveon.org/katrinacommission/

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└ Tags: congress, disaster, FEMA, Hurricane Katrina, investigation, politics

Congress Threatens Funding For Public Broadcasting

June 8th, 2006 by Oskar Kennedy

House Republicans are moving again to eliminate funding for NPR and PBS, starting with a 23% cut in funding this year, and ending with a complete end to government support in two years. We need to stop this. Please click on the link below to sign a MoveOn.org petition to SAVE PUBLIC BROADCASTING!

http://civic.moveon.org/publicbroadcasting/?id=7965-6036916-3S8NPsTSntUGsObr0_ONLg&t=2

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└ Tags: angry, congress, NPR, PBS, politics

The Inner Lives of Nerds

May 6th, 2007 by Oskar Kennedy

Recently, I spotted a “Nutter For Mayor” campaign sign on the side of a VW van, and I experienced a small explosion of nerditry. First, my inner Anglophile had a chuckle; Philadelphia’s current mayor is widely appraised as batshit insane, so it would be a natural transition if the office goes to a man whose name is “Nutter.”

After I was finished (mentally) giggling like… well, like a nutter, I started thinking about the vehicle itself. When you read the words “VW van,” chances are you picture something shaped vaguely like a loaf of bread on wheels, with an interior featuring shag carpet, a pungent patchouli reek and a cloud of marijuana smoke so dense that it shows up on weather radar. Alas, the van in question wasn’t the iconic hippie mystery machine featured in countless American movies and TV shows. It was the modern version, the EuroVan, that VW made until 2003. It more closely resembles an aluminum baking pan and if it has a typical smell, it’s likely fast-food wrappers and middle-aged resignation.

I went off on a weird internal tangent about how much more information and context would have been transmitted if the sign had been hanging on the side of an original VW van. Given Nutter’s popularity among the University City crowd, it would have been easy to picture affluent white kids in Che Guevara t-shirts, passing around a joint and pretending to be anarchists, or grey-haired hippie grandparents with fringed vests and ponytails, passing around a joint and pretending it’s medicinal. But there’s just no cultural information transmitted by a EuroVan. Can you picture the “typical” EuroVan driver? I get a vague notion of “pale and balding,” but that may just be residue from the momentary glimpse I got of the driver. I just can’t dredge up a satisfying mental picture.

Usually, I’m all for individuality, and I consider stereotypes the worst kind of slothful thinking. Still, in this context, I feel like the message is somehow diluted. If I’d seen an original VW van sporting the “Nutter For Mayor” sign, I’d have some notion, however vague (or wildly incorrect), about the person making the endorsement. In the absence of any other argument – candidate credentials, plans for the office, criticism of other candidates, tabloid scandal – I’d at least have an idea of who else is supporting Nutter’s candidacy. With the EuroVan version, I’m left with nothing but an anonymous exhortation, like somebody ran up behind me on the street, yelled “Vote for Nutter!” and then darted into an alley before I could shout “Why should I?”

The luscious fruit topping on this layer cake of nerdiness is that, since I’m a non-party-affiliated voter I can’t even vote in the upcoming primary. This also means that I’m effectively shut out of the mayoral election, since the Republican has a trailer-in-a-tornado’s chance of being elected. So all of this musing about campaign signs and arguments and information transmission is just for my own amusement.

This is why the Internet is my closest friend.

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└ Tags: culture, nerd, Philly, politics, semiotics

Snark Is Relaxing

August 17th, 2007 by Oskar Kennedy

Dear Little Bald Bastard,
Do you ever get tired of being sarcastic all the time?
- Wondering

Dear Wondering,
Are you kidding? I live in a world where thousands of Americans are dying in an occupied foreign country, which was invaded partly on the advice of a Vice President who doesn’t believe he’s part of the Executive branch of government. I’m pretty sure I sneer in my sleep.

[x-posted from Ask The Little Bald Bastard]

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└ Tags: Ask LBB, politics, sarcasm

Consistency Is A Measure Of Thickness

August 24th, 2007 by Oskar Kennedy

Dear Little Bald Bastard,
Have you ever thought about politics?
- Will Vote For Food

Dear Will Vote For Food,
I burn a lot of brain cells fuming about how modern political discourse sounds like an elementary school playground. Contentious issues are debated in a more verbose version of “nuh uh!” “yuh huh!” and there’s a remarkable amount of noise that carries very little information.

However, I suspect that the thrust of your question is whether or not I’ve ever considered running for office. I have considered it, and pretty much ruled it out. I’m appalled by the the money-driven campaigning process. I find the personalities and people who are attracted to politics irksome. I can’t stomach the necessary pandering to every group and interest that it takes to get elected. Finally, there’s enough questionable conduct in my misspent past that I doubt I’d survive the public vivisection that awaits a candidate for any office higher than dogcatcher.

But the thing that turns me off most about American politics is the way that anyone who has the temerity to allow their opinions to be influenced by actual events is labeled a “flip-flopper.” Seriously? The whole of scientific and intellectual pursuit is grounded in the proposition that you have to be willing to scrutinize your beliefs. You base your opinions on the best available evidence, but if new evidence undermines those beliefs, you have to be willing to abandon them, no matter how compelling or comfortable they are.

That’s why science is inherently progressive. You can believe as hard as you want that the Universe revolves around the Earth, until somebody points out that the other planets move in a way that only be explained if they and the Earth are all orbiting the sun. At that point, I want the people in charge of my country* to have the intellectual fortitude to not jam their heads in the sand and insist that the Universe is heliocentric.

If, to use a purely hypothetical example, you support a military action due in part to evidence that the target is trying to build a nuclear weapon, and later it turns out that the nuclear weapon bits were incorrect, withdrawing your support for that military action wouldn’t make you indecisive. It would make you a person who values truth over slavish devotion to an erroneous idea.

And yet, for some unfathomable reason, the American voting public relates to its elected officials like a four-year-old to its father. Daddy knows everything; he can answer every question you pose, and he’s never wrong. Why would he ever need to change his mind?

All of that is a long way of saying that I don’t think I could get elected to political office. I don’t believe I have a soul to sell, but I do value what’s left of my brain, and I pride myself on a modicum of ability to think critically. Until being a successful politician doesn’t necessitate coating one’s brain in intellectual cement to block out new information, I’ll have to stay on the “despondent voter” side of the political equation.

* For purposes of America, assume these people are old, rich white men.

[x-posted from Ask The Little Bald Bastard]

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└ Tags: Ask LBB, debate, politics, science

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