75,000 – Sea of People Seeks Sea Change

CNN's story mentioning Senator Obama's activities in Oregon over the weekend was decidedly understated (see paragraph 18). "Obama made low-key campaign stops this weekend, hitting a street festival in Keizer and stopping for ice cream in Eugene." Oh, and by the way Barack Obama --the black guy shown in the photos below-- also held a quick meet-up with some supporters at Waterfront Park in Portland.


Later CNN, on Campbell Brown's terrible show, used the rally story as a teaser throughout the hour. When they finally covered it, the angle was what a clever bit of stagecraft this was on the part of the Obama campaign. They said the Obama staffers shrewdly created a buzz by getting the word out that this would be the last chance to see the candidate before the Oregon primary (which was vote-by-mail and ended Tuesday, two days after the Sunday rally). Getting the word out -- shrewd. "Then!" said CNN, "Then on Thursday those clever stagecrafters put out the word that Michelle Obama would also be at the rally, potentially capturing some Hillary supporters." -?!? So, according to CNN this wasn't 75,000 people who wanted to show just how committed and excited they were. No, these rubes were being manipulated by a clever bit of Obama staffer stagecraft. Sorry Atlanta, but Keith is right: CNN blows.

Imagine John McCain is having a big, outdoor rally in your town. Would a thousand people go? Two thousand? Actually, it's hard to imagine it would happen at all. When McCain was in Portland a couple of weeks ago there were no free-to-the-public events and a paid ticket would set you back $1,000 to $33,100.

The Portland Obama rally was the largest to-date in the 15-month campaign, dwarfing his previous record crowd of 35,000 (nice try, Philly!). Portland police say we had 60K people inside Waterfront Park plus 15K all around the park perimeter, on the surrounding bridges, and down kayaking in the Willamette River. To Portland's great credit the thing was amazingly well-managed, with waits of about an hour to get in despite the TSA pat-down, and pretty easy traffic. And afterward the place wasn't covered in garbage -- it looked as if it had been vacuumed.

Incidentally, these photos are also useful if you want to picture how many troops we have in Iraq -- just double the size of this crowd. If you want to include the mercenaries, quadruple it.

In other news, I heard that Bill and Chelsea Clinton had breakfast just a few hours before and a half a mile away from the Obama rally at our favorite breakfast spot, Mother's Cafe and Bistro. What a shame the poor man can never order waffles! I hope they had a nice time doing whatever else they did on Sunday.

Let's Play VP Speculation!

How about Virginia's Jim Webb for Vice POTUS? He was Assistant Secretary of Defense, then Secretary of the Navy under Reagan -- Reagan! He's the Republican-turned-Democrat who squeaked past incumbent Republican Senator George "Macaca" Allen in the 2006 election to switch the Senate majority from the Republicans to the Democrats. So he's a crossover guy who slapped down a racist bully and took his job. To me, he symbolizes the message voters tried to send in 2006.

Secretary of the Navy's not enough military credibility for you? OK: he graduated from the Naval Academy and went straight to Viet Nam as a 2nd Lieutenent Marine, where he earned a Navy Cross, a Silver Star, couple of Bronze Stars and two Purple Hearts. Oh, and his son served with the Marines in the occupation of Iraq.

So he's a badass moderate who's held a Cabinet position with the Department of Defense, switched parties during Bush, and represents the will of voters to move away from racist, codeword, phony cowboy guys. Also, he's technically from the south.

To all you NASCAR Dads: He's clearly not afraid to use -- and he knows how to use -- the military.

To all you Soccer Moms: He's got, very literally, skin in the game.

Downside: he has very little Congressional experience so although his resume is very long he, unlike LBJ or (hate to say it) Cheney, probably isn't a master at making deals and pushing legislation through. Joe Biden's your man for that, or Chris Dodd. Even so, I'm saying:

Obama-Webb 2008.

Get. That. Dirt off your shoulder.

Do you know that Jay-Z song, "Dirt Off Your Shoulder"?
















Well, this was brilliant. Yesterday was the day after the uber-craptacular ABC Clinton v Obama "debate" in Philadelphia where substance reigned a dream and trifling pettiness -- infantile bullshit about nothing, nothing, nothing of any importance -- was trotted out and "debated." Instead of coming out the next day and whining about it, Obama literally brushed it off.















Classy, right? But if you're a member of the 18-35 demographic (or if you're plagued, as I am, with arrested development) you're also likely to recognize this as a distinct nod to your society -- a society you may not have believed anybody knew about outside the shaking windows of your pimped out gangsta Honda CRV. Now, I know that "brush it off" is a well-known turn of phrase, and that's probably why most of the audience responded so well to it. That Jay-Z song, though, turned brushing dirt off your shoulder into a dance move, and anybody who knows the video (and that's a lot of voters) would be tempted to get up and dance with Barack when he did this. You think I'm kidding, don't you. I can tell you think this whole post is about boosting my shtreet cred. Maybe so. But let's take another look at that slo-mo:

















To put this in perspective for people my age who actually act like it, Obama's bit of youth pandering was similar to Reagan's failed effort to connect to pop culture by invoking Springsteen's "Born In The USA," except Obama got the context right.

The point of the song is that one should stay cool under pressure. The point of Obama's gesture is that he's smoove like that.

Now, here's another piece of video sponsored by Schoolhouse ROC and the letter O:

Gotcha!

At Safeway this morning I'm confronted with this little gem: if my cashier fails to ask me for a donation to Easter Seals -- a handout -- then I win **free water**. As if being asked to give money is a customer service. "Don't worry, folks! Our team of checkers will definitely put you in an uncomfortable position during your visit. We guarantee* it."

*Guarantee backed by the planet's most plentiful resource.

So I put my iPod earbuds in as I go through the line and I avoid any eye contact with my cashier. I have my music up so loud that others can hear it bzipping out of the little earbuds. I try to look angry. Sure enough, my cashier fails to ask me for a donation. I pull out the earbuds and I say, "You didn't ask me to donate! I get free water!" She gives me the look I deserve, I suppose, and she hands me a warm bottle of water.

She says, "Would you like to donate to Easter Seals?"

"No," I answer, opening my water bottle.

FlapScrap Makes its Endorsement

Morning Plagiarism

Statistics are meaningless. If they were at all true, both shoelaces would break at the same time.

I've got to get these scat photos organized or I'll go crazy

Ever turned off the "moderate filtering" setting on Google images? It's a time-passer, I'll say. While arguing with my boss about the economy and taxes yesterday, I was looking for a chart showing the national debt since Reagan. I Googled some pretty innocent phrases like "trickle down" and found that pretty much anything you enter returns at least some porn.

In particular, the FX sector of the porn industry (Feces and eXcrement) seems to be exploding. Talk about supply side economics! Talk about your derivatives! Talk about a bubble that's certain to burst! And don't get me started on asset allocation and bell curves!

I know some people who could really get in on the ground floor just providing product to the FX sector of the dirty movie (now, don't get me started!) business.

Anyways. We're Googling away and, splat! "Did you see that? Did -- did you see that?" A naked lady making a doo-doo. What's that about? I mean, I'm not shocked, I'm not delicate, but I have to admit I'm dismayed. I just want to say, "Hey sexyturd.com, why are you so into the scatology? Why so literal? You're so into it that you've got your own website about it and -- I'm sorry to say -- you kind of hit people over the head with it. Over on the left you've got a list of recommended links to other poop sites. Are there any you rejected, or do you just accept whatever comes down the chute?"

Or maybe it's not an obsessive fetish, but just some guy (we know it's a guy, right?) who had a whole pile of photos of poop-covered gals scattered around the den and he just wanted to get them all into a relational table structure or searchable archive. Maybe he just thought, "Well, it's an enormous heap of snapshots. I can't just shit-can them." Hell, I looked twice at them, right? I'm the first to say I took a look. When I happened upon them. Unawares. In hindsight, I'm pleased to say I'm not in the targeted demographic for this material. And that my boss and I pinched off the taxation conversation and turned instead to social conservatism.