whim & vinegar

I live in New Jersey, so as you can imagine, the news was of particular interest to me yesterday. Our governor admitted to an extramarital affair with another man, came out, and resigned from office effective November 15. Naturally, it's all over our local news. The New York Times has a transcript if you're curious about the whole speech.

I used to work in the New Jersey governor's office. It was 8 years and 2 careers ago, but I feel for the people working there today. I called up the constituent relations office just to wish them well, and good luck. They'll be the ones taking the brunt of the phone calls from the public today.

I'll be interested to see what happens with the calls from state Republican leaders for McGreevey to resign immediately. If he resigns prior to September 15, there has to be a special election this year to fill the final year of his term. If he resigns after September 15th, the president of the state Senate, a Democrat named Richard Codey, takes over until New Jersey's regularly scheduled gubernatorial election next year. If New Jersey is in play this year, our 15 electoral votes may be back up for grabs.

(Kudos for the headline for this post go to Himself.)

2:15 pm | path: /Politics | link |

With John Kerry talking about energy independence, it makes me feel even better about my decision to make my next car a hybrid. Hybrids don't completely eliminate the need for oil, but with their great gas mileage, they certainly help a lot. They work on electricity and gasoline, so you don't have to plug them in somewhere, or worry about not being able to get up to speed on the interstate. From everything I've read about how they work, they just work. You get in, turn a key, and go. It may be a while though, as my current car is a '95 Honda Civic with about 110,000 miles, which makes it just barely broken in. In the short term, I'm considering ditching AAA for the Better World Club. AAA's own page about their environmental efforts is underwhelming, and some of the articles I've read (1, 2) are alarming.

2:38 pm | path: /Activism | link |

Before heading for the National Scrabble Tournament, Himself said he would be happy to finish with a record of 10-20. If that doesn't sound ambitious enough, consider that he was the 4th lowest ranked player in his division, playing people with ratings up to 400 points better than his. The best comparison I can think of is imagining a minor league team playing a major league team for 30 games. The minor league team would be pretty psyched to win 10 games. Okay, now that I've built that all up for you, here's how he actually finished.

Yep, that record says 16-14. *6* games better then he hoped to do. Himself is going to get around a 180 point ratings bump from this tournament. He picked up a couple of small cash prizes (one for a high loss, one for a high win) and a new board for winning his last game. He rocked at this tournament, and I'm really proud of him.

12:53 am | path: /Himself | link |

This is a special hint for grandparents. If you know you're coming to the bookstore to shop for your grandchildren, take the time to find something out about them. I understand that you may life hundreds or thousands of miles away and rarely get to see them. Call their parents, ask about the kids' favorite authors and what they're into. Ask what their reading level is. I know, your grandkid is the brightest one ever. Just ask. This saves you from having to frustrate the hell out of your friendly neighborhood bookseller. I can't tell you how many grandparents have asked for my help picking out a book for their grandchild who have absolutely no clue what that child might want. "Well," they say, "what's popular with other 8 year old boys?" Somehow I don't see them springing for the box set of Captain Underpants. If you say "I have a 10 year old granddaughter, she's very girly and reads a little above her grade level, what do you recommend?" I can recommend Madison Finn, or (gritting my teeth as I do so) the Mary Kate and Ashley books.

At its root, I'm basically saying that the parents and grandparents need to work together so that the grandparents have some sort of relationship with their grandkids. They don't have to buy a plane ticket, just have a phone conversation now and then.

12:45 am | path: /Books/ShoppingHints | link |

Himself is currently away in New Orleans playing in the National Scrabble Championship. I'm not there, because New Orleans in the height of summer wasn't my cup of tea. Sorry, Chuck. :) The website for the tournament is incredibly cool. It appears to be built on a giant database, updated frequently, that lets you see how your favorite player is doing after each round. For those unfamiliar with tournament Scrabble, "spread" is the term for how much you won or lost a game by. For instance, if you win a game 300-250, you have a spread of +50, and your opponent has a spread of -50.

The tournament is 30 games over 4 days, which is a hell of a lot of Scrabble. On Thursday, the top two players in the top division play a best of 5 round being taped for ESPN. Grand prize is $25,000. Tournament Scrabble is serious stuff.

12:56 am | path: /Himself | link |

I saw Garrison Keillor on C-Span the other day, and the host read a quote from his new book, Homegrown Democrat. I had to share part of it with you.

I am a liberal and liberalism is the politics of kindness. Liberals stand for tolerance, magnanimity, community spirit, the defense of the weak against the powerful, love of learning, freedom of belief, art and poetry, city life, the very things that make America worth dying for.

Yes. Liberalism says "I may not agree with your choice, but I will defend with all my might your right to have a choice. You are different from me, and that scares me a little, but I'm working hard on not letting that affect how I treat you, because I know that I'm the one that needs to change, not you. I understand that you're going through a tough time right now, and I want to help you out because it's the right thing to do."

12:05 am | path: /Politics | link |

Like the rest of you, I was riveted by Barack Obama's speech the other night. There are some saying that he stands a chance of being the first black president of the United States, and I don't think they're crazy, or speaking too soon. I can see it. If you missed his speech, you need to read it or at least watch it.

I'll take this opportunity to quote a different bit of the speech than most have been:

I thought of families I had met who were struggling to get by without a loved one's full income, or whose loved ones had returned with a limb missing or with nerves shattered, but who still lacked long-term health benefits because they were reservists. When we send our young men and women into harm's way, we have a solemn obligation not to fudge the numbers or shade the truth about why they're going, to care for their families while they're gone, to tend to the soldiers upon their return, and to never ever go to war without enough troops to win the war, secure the peace, and earn the respect of the world.

Amen. Patriotism is not supporting a war. Patriotism is supporting the soldiers so much that you realize that using them is a *last* resort. When you are sending soldiers to die for politics and not in a just cause, it makes you the worst sort of traitor.

1:22 pm | path: /Politics | link |

I am a big fan of a company providing a creative user experience. I'm also a big fan of the Fish Philosophy and companies that put it into practice, whether deliberately (they read the Fish! book) or innately (they figured this out on their own). I suppose a creative experience is a natural result of following Fish. Imagine my glee to visit a place that not only embodied creativity and Fish, but served ice cream as well. Damn good ice cream, too. Yes, I've had my first experience with Cold Stone Creamery.

There's an interesting article about the company comparing them to Starbucks. They both took basic commodities, ice cream and coffee, and turned them into luxuries, inspiring people to pay more and enjoy them outside the house. They are so-called "destination stores". You leave your house intending to head to these places, for the sole purpose of heading to these places. That wasn't my intention, but I did skip dessert at the restaurant where I had dinner so I could experience Cold Stone Creamery. It had come recommended by my sister for the ice cream, and I knew they did blend-ins, so I figured I had an idea of what to expect.

I waited in line, overwhelmed by choices and trying to figure out what to have. I told the clerk when I got to the front that I had never been here before, and was a bit taken aback. "What an experience!", I believe I said. I got a Mud Pie Mojo in size Gotta Have it (their sizes are Like It, Love It and Gotta Have It) and got cinnamon ice cream blended with Oreos for Himself. It was yummy. It was while I was waiting, though, that the really cool thing happened. Someone dropped some money in the tip jar, and the closest employee called out "We got a tip!" and everyone behind the counter broke out into a tip song. I saw this happen several times, and heard at least 3 or 4 different songs. They didn't last long, maybe 10-15 seconds, but it galvanized my attention while waiting in line and amused the heck out of me. Didn't seem to slow them down any, either. I can hardly wait to go back.

1:29 am | path: /Food/Dessert | link |

With all the social networking sites out there (Friendster, Orkut and the like), I wondered whatever became of Six Degrees, the first of the social networking sites. It shut down at the end of 2000, presumably because it had never managed to find a way to turn a profit. I was curious what had happened to it, so I went to the website. There used to be a message there saying that the domain was unavailable. That's been replaced with a message saying "We will be relaunching soon. Stay tuned." and the logo. That should be interesting.

More research turns up this message about the sale of the Six Degrees patent in September of last year. Ironically, the patent was granted in January of 2001, a few weeks after Six Degrees closed their virtual doors. I'll bu curious to see if they actually come back and how they compete now that they won't have the marketplace to themselves.

11:13 pm | path: /Internet | link |

From Dictionary.com, a definition of liberal:

liberal
adj.

Not limited to or by established, traditional, orthodox, or authoritarian attitudes, views, or dogmas; free from bigotry.

Favoring proposals for reform, open to new ideas for progress, and tolerant of the ideas and behavior of others; broad-minded.

Of, relating to, or characteristic of liberalism.

Liberal Of, designating, or characteristic of a political party founded on or associated with principles of social and political liberalism, especially in Great Britain, Canada, and the United States.

Tending to give freely; generous: a liberal benefactor.

Generous in amount; ample: a liberal serving of potatoes.

Not strict or literal; loose or approximate: a liberal translation.

Of, relating to, or based on the traditional arts and sciences of a college or university curriculum: a liberal education.

Archaic. Permissible or appropriate for a person of free birth; befitting a lady or gentleman.

Obsolete. Morally unrestrained; licentious.

I am not limited by authoritarian attitudes.
I am free from bigotry (or try to be).
I am open to new ideas for progress.
I am tolerant of the ideas and behavior of others (or try to be).
I am generous.
I am certainly ample. :)

I am not ashamed about any of these characteristics.

Thanks, Chuck, for pointing me to the inspiration.

12:30 am | path: /Politics | link |

Chuck comments (go down a bit; it's the "The decline of reading" entry) on a recent New York Times article about, well, the decline of reading. A particularly interesting bit:

Take special note of the last sentence of the Times article:
The one category of book to rise markedly was that of religious texts, with total sales of $337.9 million, 36.8 percent over the previous year. I can't help but wonder if in "religious texts" they're including those stupid, God-awful "Left Behind" apocalyptica books (I hesitate to elevate their worth by calling them "novels"). They sell very, very well, apparently to people who can't recognize extremely bad writing when they read it.

Yes, Chuck, they are. I'm more anal about the industry than your average front-line retail employee, and so I subscribe to Publishers Weekly and try to keep up with bookstore trends. Religious bookstores and religious books are a large market segment and it's getting bigger. It's not just the Left Behind series, either. Mentioned just as frequently as that series is The Purpose Driven Life which has inspired book clubs to form at churches just to study the book. Search for the author, Rick Warren, at Amazon, and you'll find an entire line of books 'n' stuff inspired by the original book. It's a crossover book, too, meaning that it's showing up on regular best-seller lists, not just the ones from religious bookstores, or the top sellers from the religious sections of chain bookstores.

A note from my own store, as well. We recently reorganized our religion section, and it seems to have been geared towards bringing in the religious book buyer. There is now a section that is labelled "Christian Fiction", and it's more than just the Left Behind series. That series, by the way, has also branched out to the kids' section with a 25+ book paperback series geared towards young adults. Our music area has a Christian Contemporary section in it. I'm telling ya, it's a growing market, and considering the slump that bookstores are in (have you heard? people aren't reading.) it's going to continue to be treated seriously for as long as it drives sales. We had a signing and mini-concert by a Christian Contemporary band (Avalon) and 1200 people showed up and the local Christian radio station did a live remote.

UPDATE: Just checked my email, and in the email newsletter from the Publishers Weekly folk, there's a quoted commentary from Little, Brown editor-in-chief Geoff Shandler. I won't quote it all, but here's a good bit:

Dana Gioia seems to be a very decent guy, who obviously is deeply shaken by the data his organization gathered. But to issue this report without attempting to correlate the decline to policy decisions made during the past 20 years seems a waste. Perhaps he had no choice. After all, he works for a president who has publicly boasted that he doesn't read the newspaper, who has done nothing to help alleviate the funding crisis plaguing American libraries, and whose conception of government includes little in the way of outreach to those who need help most. Indeed, one conclusion easily drawn from the NEA report is that if our political elites wanted to do something about the situation they could--but they don't. Which further suggests that our political elites much prefer a passive citizenry that prefers arguments about program schedules to a reading public that engages in policy debates.

And boy doesn't THAT ring true given some of the current political debate, particularly about the usefulness to the Republicans about having a less informed public.

11:47 pm | path: /Books | link |