Good Morning Lowcountry

Goose update

The backyard Canada geese who are tending a nest have gotten jumpy. When she leaves to go take a bath in the lake or get something to eat, he squawks and chases her and bites her on the neck. She ignores him. Is this beginning to sound familiar?

(This is the female, I guess, sitting on the nest by the cypress tree. The fuzzy stuff is down she has pulled from her breast to blanket the eggs.)

Hey, it might be the other way around. Canada geese look exactly alike so I can't tell if it's the male or female who is sitting on the nest or if they trade places. It's been almost a month since she laid and I wish the eggs would hatch already so I can reclaim the yard and maybe pick up some sticks that have come down in storms and mow ... etc. I read online that as soon as the goslings hatch they take to the water. BUT Canada geese apparently mate for life and come back to the same nest so I guess they'll be back next winter/spring.

(Here she is again.)

Wood ducklings have already hatched out. They're paddling around on their mother's tail. I've seen two clutches -- one with four or five, one with 12 or 14.

Here's the male standing, or rather sitting guard nearby.

Here are a couple of pictures of Backyard GMLc:

The "bitter" end ...

OK, I'll put in my 2 cents worth on the Obama remark about "bitter" underpaid Americans turning to (well, "clinging" to) cultural issues like guns and religion as a basis on which to vote.

New York Times blogger Dan Schnur argues today that questioning working-class voters' vote against their own economic interests amounts to liberal elitism and that Democrats just don't get it about the importance of values.

He makes a good point that non-economic matters
drive the cultural-values voting behavior of both poor conservative
people and rich liberal people. But Schnur says there's a double standard -- in questioning those cultural-issues-based-voting by poor, working class people, and not questioning cultural-issues-based voting by those in Martha's Vinyard or Beverly Hills.

Rich liberal people aren't voting their economic interests when
they are voting on "cultural issues" that require money and taxes. But rich people have far more latitude to vote against their own economic  interests... call it noblesse oblige in honor of the Titanic anniversary ... because they can afford to. So I do not see it as  wrong to question the motivations of those who against their own economic interests who CAN'T really afford to do so. It becomes more crucial and more interesting. Questioning that voting behavior is observation, not an "insult" to the underclass of America, or the blue-collar worker just trying to get by.

Obama said they vote on softer issues because they're bitter, or hopeless, about money, and why shouldn't they be? What president has done ANYTHING for them lately? Or for me, the middle class wage-earner, for that matter? If underclass and middle class voters had any sense, we'd all vote for the candidate who best supports unions, higher wages and better working conditions.

The argument becomes circular. Poor conservative people are hopeless and bitter, so they vote on issues other than pay, and then those cultural issues become prominent and nobody does anything for them economically because economics is not what got those votes. Guns and abortion and opposition to gay marriage got them those votes. So politicians have carte-blanche to continue to blather about guns and abortion and gay people and do nothing economically for the people who elected them ... their base, as it were.

I think the circle breaks down if, say, the liberal rich Democrat votes against his or her pocketbook and for, say, initiatives on global warming. If those initiatives rise to the forefront, are they going to complain about their taxes being raised? Probably, yes. But they don't have to. They can afford the higher taxes. Cultural issues are gravy.

I haven't put this very well. But suffice it to say that when candidates talk about voting behavior they are following social science. They're not trying to insult anyone. Obama calling this electorate 'bitter' is hardly revolutionary with the president having only 28 percent approval and the country having long rejected the still ongoing, and seemingly endless, Iraq war.

The NYT editorial page sums up the whole silliness of Democrats talking about duck blinds, shots of whiskey and God. That's Republican territory. How'd they get there?

Maybe what we need to do is redefine cultural values, and value-based issues. Values aren't just what one pundit ... or American political party ... decides they are. Yes, values include marriage, the constitutional right to bear arms, the constitutional right to practice the religion of your choice. Values also include inclusion, equal opportunity, tolerance and peace.

Media matters

A note: The GMLc Blog banner is in a stage of deconstruction and reconstruction.

Geoff pointed out this take by journalism prof and columnist Bill Thompson posted on the BBC:

Net gains and pains for journalism

Meanwhile, GMLc the other day had a few words to say about The Webbys. Although I wrote that I'd give up my newspaper when they pry it from my cold, dead fingers, I do way more newspaper reading online than in hand.

The Guardian in the U.K. won't be the last newspaper to have a great Web site and oh-by-the-way also a dead trees edition. The New York Times comes to mind. I love my Sunday Times, the fat, $5, dead trees edition with the Dell computer ad supplement that falls out and dirty ink that gets all over your hands. This week, the Times online, however, posted this very funny and telling profile of MSNBC's Chris Matthews in advance of Sunday magazine publication. Why'd they post it so early?  Because parts of it were leaking out anyway -- might as well. See the comments on the story.

Internet Week in New York is a festival I'd like to go to. It's a week of events surrounding New York's Internet industry "and the many talented companies, organizations and innovators creating the future of online media!" as they say on the site. Internet Week New York is produced by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences in cooperation with the City of New York and the Mayor's Office of Film, Theatre & Broadcasting. It's June 3-10 which is smack-dab in the middle of our own Old World Festival ...
Spoleto.

Last fall, journalist Ken Doctor asked if locial (local plus social) is the Next Wave in online journalism.

A note on politics: I'm not a fan of the gotcha political maneuvers that plague such a long, long campaign process. I can't keep up with 'em for one thing, and I really just don't care for another. I assume that campaigns are lying, manipulation (words and images), false advertising and so forth. As comedian Lewis Black says, "I'm used to my government lying to me. I've gotten comfortable with that." But if you want to check on the accuracy of the mud being slung, don't forget about FactCheck.org.

Memories ...

I found some old pictures that I took. Really sort of old. From trips to Europe and various places. I will share just for fun:

Paris, 1975

Spain 1975
Near Rondo

 

Peep show

Did you see The Washington Post's Peeps Diorama Contest entries on Sunday?
Wow, great Peeps:

The gender speech Hillary could give ...

I quote from the excellent post at SLATE called "And Speaking of Perfect Unions …What if Hillary Clinton gave a speech about gender? (And why she won't.)" by Melinda Henneberger and Dahlia Lithwick.

Here's the speech Hillary COULD give, the authors write:

"1) I am proud to be a woman and a mother and the first serious female contender for the presidency, but my gender is only a part of who I am, and it doesn't define or constrain me.

2) I am part of a generation that faced and still faces all sorts of gender slights and slurs, and I honor the women who came before me for their commitment to achieving equal rights for women in the face of that.

3) But I would ask the women of this country to stop engaging in petty warfare over who has suffered more—women or blacks, women or men—as it is corrosive and fruitless. This country was founded on the promise that you can become the best thing you can dream for yourself; you are not trapped by the worst thing that's ever happened to you.

4) Things have improved for women in America in the last decades. They are not perfect; there is still much to be done. But women have made enormous strides in a few short decades, and to suggest otherwise is to devalue the life's work of too many heroes of the women's movement.

5) It is possible, indeed it is probable, that just as women have faced barriers and obstacles and derision, so have Hispanics, so have blacks, and so have men. No one in America can corner the market on suffering. Who the hell wants to spend their life in a corner, anyhow?

6)     Men. What are they thinking? (Pause for applause.)

7)     But seriously, if we in this country are ever going to move beyond Hooters, beyond date rape, beyond the wage gap and the glass ceiling, beyond Girls Gone Wild, and bulimic 12-year-olds, we need to start working together. We need to work with men on the gender signals called out by the media and with business about the value of women workers. We need to talk to one another respectfully and listen to one another's complaints.

8) Men, we understand and honor that many of you are taking paternity leave and folding the laundry and eating takeout because we forgot to turn on the crockpot. We get that everything has changed very, very quickly, and it's hard to come home to a wife who's coming home at the same time. You are doing more than your dads ever did around the house, and we still get mad when you forget to clean out the lint filter. It's nuts. But it's getting better. Stay with us.

9) Married guys, don't fool around with hookers. Don't fool around with staffers. Don't fool around with interns or Supreme Court justices. It's insulting to us and to you and to them. Marriage has to mean something. Gov. Spitzer. Bill, darling. I can respect the heck out of your political achievements even as I berate you for demeaning marriage. Life is complicated that way. Deal, buddies.

10) People of America, I understand why some of you are anxious at the prospect of a woman president. Sometimes I am nervous, too. But it's time. Also, I am sorry about that whole cookie comment."

stuff white people like ...

Stuff white people like, the blog, is mildly amusing and fairly dumb. As a white person, I found it to be a kind of fun exercise in silliness and making fun of one's own group. And, like just about everybody, I like the pictures of puppies.

Gary Dauphin at The Root has posted a rather long screed on why he doesn't like Stuff White People Like.

To which I'd say: Lighten up. I don't think the guy behind Stuff White People Like meant it as any power manifesto on the special privileges of a ruling class.

I agree that most of the categories are too broad to apply to anybody except EVERYBODY, like "dinner parties" and "graduate school" ... but it seems this blogger is just trying to make fun of the goofiness of his group ... for the sake of fun. I don't resent the guy getting a book contract. Stupider stuff has been published and FAR stupider stuff is on the Internet.

Maybe I am wrong and just haven't read SWPL thoroughly enough ... it doesn't seem to be worth the time ... but comedians far better than this blogger have made entire careers on stuff black people like ... Chris Rock, for example ... and stuff rednecks like, and stuff women like, and stuff gay citizens like.

As long as the comedians are members of the group they are making fun of, everybody seems to think it is OK, and funny. The humor lies in the generalities themselves ... for example, Chris Rock's bit on Mama gets the respect but Daddy's paying the bills. All Daddy gets is the big piece of chicken. Well, certainly not in every black family. Daddy might be having sushi, and Mama might be paying the bills. But nobody believes Chris Rock is speaking for all black citizens. The familiarity for black citizens of what he is talking about is what is so funny and so real.

One could argue that White People's blogger, Christian Lander (how white a name is that?), isn't funny, or is smug and a poseur, as Dauphin argues, but it strains the point to say he's arguing for some kind of racial or classist supremacy. And he's really no more a hustler and opportunist than people far more talented than he -- like 1st class satirists Rock and Dave Chappelle. Problem is, this guy Lander only goes skin deep (forgive the pun), while Rock and Chappelle are chroniclers of their time.

I, like Dauphin, look forward to a grey society ... when white no longer is a synonym for middle class- nerd-with-no-soul and black is no longer a synonym for disadvantaged-youth-with-a-rap-sheet, in the broad and stereotpyical view of many shallow thinkers and uninformed people in the country.

Stuff White People Like or something like it (hopefully better) might on some level serve to remind us all what we have in common.

This just in ...

A new poll agrees with my last post:

Man Up!A new poll suggests Clinton's gender is a larger issue for voters than Obama's race is.

Only in Nottinghamshire ... and thoughts on sexism

Thank you to BoingBoing for this fabulous post about ...

: "A British businessman fed up with being targeted by vandals has installed a 30-foot Roman-style catapult on the premises to hurl bucket loads of chicken manure at culprits attacking his rural offices." A 30ft Roman catapult, loaded with chicken droppings from a nearby farm is primed each evening. And a cannon, which Mr Weston-Webb once used to shoot his wife across the River Avon, will fire a railway sleeper if triggered by an intruder.

Mr Weston-Webb was yesterday erecting a sign outside his business, which stands at the end of a farm track in the lower valley of the River Soar in Nottinghamshire — a place known locally as Soar Bottom. It reads: “Warning: These premises are protected by smart-poo and railway sleeper projectiles.”

That's the best use of a catapult I've seen since "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" used it to hurl dead cows and sheep.

Also, check out this New York Times article: So You Want To Be A Blogging Star. It's got the usual "rules" of the game we all know, but some helpful advice to writers who hesitate to push the button, or spend too long revising and editing their posts.

I have been notably slack at GMLc Blog in the past couple of months, posting only every couple of weeks. I have no excuse except that I'm overwhelmed by events (who ELSE is sick of the Democratic primary? raise your hand) and pollen and too much reading. So one more reading recommendation ... The $3 Trillion War ... and then I will get into my thought of the day.

Barack Obama's speech on race was honest, non-pandering, blunt and inspiring. All in all, brilliant. What is wrong to this writer with Rev. Jeremiah Wright condemning Hillary Clinton for not understanding what it means to be a black man in America and never having been called names is that it's a statement of the obvious. Neither has Rev. Wright been left out of conversations, dismissed or ignored in business meetings, whistled at, been groped, been date-raped, been the subject of late-night anonymous phone calls, had sexual innuendo thrown his way at every turn, been the subject of an industry built on sexually explicit images of his body type, humiliated, or had to listen to men endlessly discuss and legislate female body issues and posit that prostitution is a "victimless" crime.

Prostitution

The Myth of the Victimless Crime
from The New York Times

Unknown Hinson

For those of you who need some levity today, check out "Venus Bound" by Unknown Hinson. I don't know old it is. I just found out about this guy although he has been around at least 10 years. He has played here. He's The King of Country Western Troubadors!

Soulja Boy instruction video

This is all the rage in Mount Pleasant (and everywhere else in the world) middle schools.

Cell phone hell

Today's MSNBC piece on Gotcha Capitalism is about the particular jail that cell phone companies put you in. Read it here.

I have been locked (sorry for all the prison metaphors) in a running battle with my cell phone provider over, oh, let's see, creeping hidden fees, their attempting to change my plan without my knowledge, their misunderstanding what plan I actually wanted, dropped calls, lousy 411 service, lousy service in general and their threats to cut off my service while I got all this straight.

During one discussion with the company, I asked them to please, please drop me so I could go with one or another of the other bad cell phone companies in the U.S. 

I also maintain that there is no binding contract that requires paying a disconnection fee to leave a company. That, to me, is ridiculous. It would be like a grocery store charging you to walk out without buying anything. I maintain that fee is illegal. I don't recall signing anything that bound me to pay it. In the conversation,  I invited them to sue me for it.

What is Southern?

Trust Edna Lewis to know ... even from beyond the grave. The celebrated chef from Virginia spent most of her life in New York, but she was consultant-in-residence at Middleton Place here in Charleston and developed a number of recipes there that you can still eat. Somewhere in GMLC Blog archives is a link to her obituary in The New York Times. She died at age 89 in 2006. Anyway, I see in Gourmet magazine that an unpublished essay of hers has been found. The topic: What is Southern? As far as GMLc is concerned, she nails it, even if we in Charleston DO use field peas instead of black-eyed peas for our Hoppin' John.