George Carlin has passed away at the age of 71…

And if you don’t like my title? Fuck off…

So I’ve been watching MSNBC like usual while working on homework and studying and preparing for a presentation tonight, and I saw this interview between Matt Lauer and Luke Russert, and it was just beautifully done… It seems to be a little slow in loading, but I’d imagine because a lot of folks are trying to access it, but wait for it, I think its worth it.

I thought it was worth sharing because its definitely something amazing. I’ve read and heard so many stories in the aftermath of Russert’s untimely passing, and just to see the interview with his son, who’s just barely younger than myself and my peers, I’ll admit that even days later I’m close to a tear or two…

I think I heard the best comment from a viewer e-mail in to Morning Joe: “It’s such a big news story that you expect Joe [Scarborough] to say ‘Coming up after the break, we’ll hear from Tim Russert on this.’”

So true.

More later when I have the time…

I’ve been sitting here for the past forty minutes or so after my prior post and getting an IM from a friend of mine, and just still can’t believe it…

Rest In Peace
Timothy John Russert, Jr.
May 7, 1950 – June 13, 2008

Hell of a news journalist. Irreplaceable.

Well friends, this will be the last time that I think I post about the Democratic Primaries for 2008, mostly because this is the last one. I think its worthwhile to run down a few things. I hope that these posts have made things a bit easier to understand, and I’m going to try to continue to make them, probably after most of the presidential debates with a rundown of each side and the major arguments. But we’ll see…

So, let’s run down some of the biggies…

1) Florida and Michigan - If you missed the DNC committee meeting this weekend, here’s what happened:
All delegates from both states only get a half a vote each. Delegates were allocated as follows (with what their votes are worth in parenthesis)–
Florida: Clinton-105 (52.5), Obama-67 (33.5)
Michigan: Clinton-69 (34.5), Obama-59 (29.5)
Superdelegates in Florida and Michigan get .5 vote each. Michigan was allocated based on a formula from county returns and exit polls, which irritated the Clinton campaign. If they had gone from the popular votes and the actual returns, they would have had 73 delegates, and most statements from the campaign have referred to the delegates as being “stolen.”

2) Where we are today - I’m going to go off of the MSNBC.com counts because they’re the most conservative. This count is from the 9:14AM update of the First Read blog:
Pledged Delegates: Obama-1729, Clinton-1625
Edward’s Pledged Delegates: Obama-16.5, Clinton-0 (Delegates pledged to Edwards who have switched)
Superdelegates: Obama-335.5, Clinton-295
Total Delegates: Obama-2081, Clinton-1920
Delegates Needed for Nomination: Obama-37, Clinton-198
If I’m reading my numbers right (and referencing an older First Read post), there are a total of 194 undeclared superdelegates.

3) Montana, South Dakota, and today’s election news - First off, today in the delegate count, there’s no much happening… There are 16 delegates available in the Montana primary (which closes at 10pm EST tonight) and 15 delegates available in the South Dakota Primary (which closes at 9pm EST tonight). Most of the splits are predicting that Obama will pick up about 17 delegates in both contests combined. The thing to remember is that the delegates are not rewarded in a winner take all format, but done proportionately to the percentage of votes. The Obama campaign is looking for at least 20 superdelegates to make their endorsements today and make their votes known so that tonight they can hopefully declare themselves as the nominee. Today’s just about picking up superdelegates and slowly inching towards the nomination.

That’s pretty much all I have. I started this post around 10am, but I held it till now before posting because of hearing of a news conference coming up on Capitol Hill at 10:30 from Senator Schumer and Senator Boxer, and wanting to hear what was going on with that but to no avail, really…

But I’m glad that I did wait because there’s a new AP wire report out about Clinton acknowledging Obama’s nomination tonight if he collects the delegates. So its all about just waiting today and just letting it play out. Sort of like the other primary days…

I hope these posts have been helpful in understanding what’s going on. I’ve enjoyed writing them for sure…

EDIT 12:04pm: I don’t often edit because I like for things to be final, but what’s really interesting is that the Clinton report that I cite above has been withdrawn and “unconfirmed” now. So its all just interesting to watch. I thought its worthwhile to mention this edit, especially because the unassailable Chuck Todd has said that the only person who knows if this is true or not? Hillary herself, and that she’ll probably change this mindset over the course of the day back and forth for a bit…

Whether you’re a Democrat or not, there’s a lot of respect to be had for Senator Edward Kennedy and all that he’s gone through with finding the cancerous tumor in his brain.

And this morning, I heard that he was going in for surgery. So I kept updating and updating and updating MSNBC.com on my cell phone to see the results.

When I heard that he got out alright, I was exuberant. But, when I read his first statement, the man became my newest hero:

“I feel like a million bucks. I think I’ll do that again tomorrow.”

What I find interesting is the modern era we live in with everything around us. We talk about the 24-hour news channel, and a lot of the commentators when things aren’t going their way with some little political call outs always blame it on the 24-hour news channel.

Though, when you think about it, a lot of these 24-hour news channel with endless weather reports every hour can be useful sometimes in a local aspect. And then, the big networks? Do they dissect and look at too many small things? Maybe. Just maybe.

The truth of the fact is, whether you have cable or not, if you’re reading this, you have your very own 24-hour news channel with the internet. You can choose any blog you’d like, to read at any time, however you’d like. And if you don’t like the words you read? You can just flip over to another blog and find something that sits right with you.

Sorta like if you don’t like Fox, you can watch NBC.

Even a few days after the fact, I really don’t want to be thinking about this, but I prefaced myself on Sunday, and I’m ready to jump at it…

Assassination
noun
1. an attack intended to ruin someone’s reputation
2. murder of a public figure by surprise attack
Source: Dictionary.com

On May 23, 2008, Hillary Clinton was in a meeting with the Argus Editorial Board and when asked about staying in the race, she replied: “My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California.” And then after those two sentences? The shit hit the fan and the pundits went wild.

That’s where we need to stop and look at everything rationally and see why this was such a big deal and an erroneous statement that was made. Or even if it WAS something to make a big deal about it.

1992 - Bill Clinton’s first presidential campaign. I was attempting to find the information online about this, however the only source that I can find is Wikipedia. And I honestly hate using it for final sourcing, until I found this neat little site that someone compiled. As you can see, the situation at hand was a sweep by Clinton in the majority of the primaries after what’s called “Super Tuesday” when the majority of states vote. The thing to note is that the first “Super Tuesday” of 1992 was on March 10th. In our current primary cycle? February 5th. A whole month worth of difference. That calendar shows an earlier clinch by Clinton, which him primarily campaigning to keep himself running. And also, with a primary cycle that started later than the current one, to be “going into June” meant a something a bit different.

1968 - Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated. There’s no mistaking the fact. But with a completely different primary schedule and calendar, its hardly a comparable race. Add to that the fact that when RFK was assassinated, the person who was running in second behind him was the one who got the nomination. Just because the front runner was no longer in the race, the party wasn’t thrown into complete shambles or disarray. Of course, you could say that they were, seeing 1968’s DNC established the current system of superdelegates and 50-state primary/caucus system for selecting the candidate.

And finally, the politics of assassination aren’t to be taken lightly. Gandhi, JFK, MLK, Lincoln, and Lennon to name a few, are names that when you hear them, you think of the brutal violence associated with them. You think of the movements they stood for and the way they’re idolized for their beliefs. You think of how in the prime of their speech as they stood tall in the face of all oppression, they didn’t falter, they didn’t waver.

Here we stand in 2008 with Barack Obama–representing a living breathing ideal of hope and change–and Hillary Clinton–representing women’s rights, empowerment, and strength. If either of these candidates were to fall, if either of them were to be assassinated, it would be the same tragedy as RFK, who stood for the youth and a return to the politics of his brother. And if either of these candidates were to fall, the other one would undoubtedly take their place as the Democratic nominee, carrying the banner of the other along with their own.

Hillary Clinton’s remarks were off color and uncalled for in those three regards with different measures to be used, and for the pundits and press to jump on her for a recall of her comments?

It was justifiable.

When you’re going to make any sort of historical reference in anything you do, you need to have citations for it: be it a paper or speaking. You need to know what the basic implications behind your words and what will be interpreted from what you say and the words that are said. You need to be careful what you’re inciting, whether you mean it or not.

We live in a world where anything we say can and could be used against us in a court of law. We can be held liable for these words, and we need to ensure that what we say is understood in the way we mean for it to be understood, and we do so by watching our words, understanding what we say, how we say it, and how it might be understood.

And that is why Senator Clinton shouldn’t have said what she said. I’m not going to harangue her any more than that because its not my place to say it. Its just plain and simple: when you’re under the spotlight and a microscope of scrutiny? You need to watch what you say because its under that same spotlight and microscope of scrutiny. Its as simple as that.

Just like when you were growing up and your mother told you to think about what you were going to say instead of just running your mouth…

So for this week’s Sunday Share, well, I’m going to provide a preface for something that I’m going to write out on Tuesday…

I saw this on Friday night on Countdown and I think its worth thinking about and discussing, but I think that there’s a bit that might be over the top…

So, enjoy the politics of it, and we’ll catch you on the flip-side. Have a great Memorial Day, friends…

With today being the day that Obama will probably have reached the presumptive nominee status on the electoral vote majority, I’m going to shift from primary writing to about the race as a whole. And if you’re interested in the primary coverage, I’d recommend the First Read blog over on MSNBC.com. Very well done and indepth, and one of the best political team coverages that I’ve seen… And let’s get into this…

MSNBC.com Video: Rachel Maddow and Geraldine Ferraro on Today

I kept seeing that clip on MSNBC this morning, dissecting the section about the Jay-Z gesture of “brush your shoulders off” and the Clinton “iron my shirt” sign. And in truth, I think that this race brought race and -isms to the forefront in a completely new light.

In the past, its fairly safe to say that it was old white guy versus old white guy in the nominations. Sure, Elizabeth Dole ran once, and JFK was our youngest president, and Alan Keyes and Jesse Jackson ran a time or two. The “script” has been broken in the past, but what makes it different is that its not us talking about someone who tried and dropped out after a state or two: we’re talking about two candidates that are strong choices for the Democratic party.

In some cases, anytime anything is said racially, there’s a jump to say that its racist against Obama… And now, as Clinton’s chances dwindle and the only math that works is Rove’s? The back-burner conversation has changed. No longer are we talking about racism, but about the dwindling chances of the first female president. I read more articles that sadden me daily about senior citizens that are out at rallies and are shedding solid tears because they see their chance for the first female president in their lifetime–their first honest to goodness solid chance with a strong candidate–dwindling.

Since day one, I’ve admitted to being an Obama supporter, but that’s not to say that I don’t respect Clinton. I have nothing but respect for her and the race she’s run at most points. I haven’t liked the attacks by either candidates against each other, and its gotten damn dirty, but that’s Obama choosing to change the rhetoric of running in this race.

The problem is, and its an interesting discussion at hand, we’re changing history. We’re living at the brink of something historic and we’re not talking about gender and race. Clinton is looking to break the highest glass ceiling in our country, and the inherent possibility that a black man will quite possibly make that move before her.

We make any vague reference, and its a race card, and we look to see who’s playing it. We dissect language for the smallest words to see any clues that might be at hand: Edwards saying “‘em” and it being interpreted as “him” about endorsing Obama on May 9th on Morning Joe; Obama brushing his shoulders off and talking about “Annie Oakley”. We look for the extraneous meaning to these, trying to point fingers at people for the “boo boos” of identity, rather than the actual messages. Why? Because we’re so used to calling people out for being racist or sexist that we feel the need to “be better” than those who we interpret as choosing to say these things. To quote an old story that Reagan told that Clinton’s told too: a young boy is shoveling manure out of a room and when asked why he’s shoveling away, he replies “with all of this horse shit, there’s gotta be a pony in there somewhere.”

We need to stop looking for the pony and start looking at ourselves. This is a dialogue that needs to be had. We need to be discussing race and gender and discrimination. Its a sad truth that we’re at this point in our society and we’re not ready for it. We can’t look past skin and gender with this difference… We can’t accept them for being American.

Melting pot, indeed.

Well, I feel like that. Its one of those moments that I’m sitting here, and I feel like there’s so much going on, but I don’t have the words or directions at the moment to really want to sit down and sort through it.

Although, I have been following politics in the wake of last night and all of that fun stuffs, and I found this little article fairly interesting. Its a neat little read about the other senators and if they’d be interested in the VP nomination from either candidate. There are some funny responses in there and some interesting other replies too. Edward Kennedy’s is worth a read. Good laugh right there. And some of them, well, when you know who’s saying it, there’s a lot more weight to what’s not said than to what is said.

And soon, I feel like I should talk more about delegates, because there’s an interesting change of a pledged delegate from Clinton to Obama. The whole “shift of pledged delegates” was an idea that Clinton floated a while back, but to hear the reality of it sounds so absurd.

All in all, well, I feel like today I’ve got nothing. Everything is such a blurry haze that I don’t want to sort through it.

Well that, and I don’t want to read all that I have to read for class AND sort through it. I mean, why else would I have been watching American Gladiators this morning instead of 2 hours of MSNBC…

I saw this segment on Countdown with Keith Olbermann last week and I thought it was an nice little piece to share. So while everyone’s enjoying Mother’s Day out there, I thought that I’d give something that might pique the male interest. Behold, new Yankee stadium through the eyes of Keith Olbermann:

A cool little video of the new stadium, as seen by a private tour that he took…

So for anyone who might have read my post yesterday about politics, I figured I’d follow it up with another one for people who are wondering what’s what.

First of all, let’s start at the beginning there.

Indiana - Clinton wins by 2% of the popular vote, roughly 20k votes
North Carolina - Obama wins by 14% of the popular vote, roughly 260k votes

So what does this mean? The key is this comes in a few things:

Popular Vote - Clinton has used this as a key argument. If you look at yesterday alone, she is down 240k votes from last night alone. Clinton has introduced the argument of including Florida and Michigan’s popular votes. The problem comes in with the fact that the caucus delegates don’t have a popular vote tied to them, so that would have to be projected and guessed. And caucuses are a discussion for another time.
Electoral Vote - As I didn’t mention yesterday, Obama was the presumptive front-runner. Depending on which news source you go to for your counts, the superdelegates electoral count shows Clinton in the lead by about 15 or so and the pledged delegates are in Obama’s favor by about 160. When you add all of that together, Obama’s about 145ish or so in the lead and at a point where he’s just under 200 delegates from the nomination point. Clinton is under 400 back from that point.
States Won - By my rough count, Obama’s won 29 states to Clinton’s 16. If I’m off, don’t shoot me. I didn’t include Guam, Virgin Islands, Americans Abroad, and other such votes, but the key to this metric is the concept of “what are states worth.” Clinton has the argument that some of the states that Obama has won are historically not Democrat won states in the election and that she won the “important states” (Texas, NY, California, etc). Then there’s talk of swing states, small states, Florida and Michigan, and it sounds like 2000 all over again.
Florida and Michigan - Just see my comment on that yesterday.

So what does that mean today? Today, there are a lot of news items to listen for.

1) “50 State Plan” - While it might seem that because Obama has this lead in electoral delegates and popular vote and states won, it would seem that superdelegates would just start flocking to him. I heard Massachusetts Democratic Party Supervisor Deborah Kozikowski talking about this point this morning. The key to this is that most superdelegates will be waiting till after all states have cast their vote and the FL/MI ordeal has been resolved. So June 4th, as I said yesterday.

2) Clinton’s Self Loan - Apparently in April, Clinton gave herself $6.4 million for her campaign. Add this to the $5 million from the other month and that’s a total of $11.4 million (hooray basic math!). That being the case, the money trail goes to Bill’s book tours and speaking engagements. Last time this was the case that she loaned herself money, donors paid her back because of all of her victories. Howard Wolfson, a chief communication officer/strategist for Clinton, has said that she’ll loan herself more money as necessary. Watch her money and you’ll see what the future will hold for her campaign.

3) Defecting Big-Wigs - While I link specifically the McGovern unendorsement of Clinton and reendorsement of Obama, because of the results from last night, he might not be the only person with a big name you hear moving one way or another. I say it like that to be non-discriminatory, but you’ll hear more of them leaving Clinton and heading to Obama. In this case, McGovern isn’t a superdelegate, but you might hear the same with some of the superdelegates, which of course will change the electoral vote counts slightly.

4) Pundits Calling It - Last night begun this, and it’ll continue on. From the ones that I’ve heard of, Tim Russert was one of the first people to declare Obama the presumptive candidate. Others that I’ve seen on the list have included union leaders too. So just start listening to what is said by who. While the remaining states are probably pretty set in their voting ways in the way they look, well if there’s a shift in the way they’re “expected,” who knows.

5) The Convention Committees - I mentioned this yesterday, but we’re just going to have to wait. If there’s some issue with the May 31st meeting, there’s another meeting scheduled for June sometime for the FL/MI votes. This is just something to keep in mind and see what happens.

And I think that about sums up everything from last night. Its one of those things that we’re sort of “right back to where we started,” but because of the margin of victories, well, it makes it a bit clearer for Obama. The key, though, is whether its Obama or Clinton? In my mind, it just needs to be a Democrat in the White House. But my anti-McCain rant is for another time…

While watching the news this morning (my usual MSNBC), this pops up as a story. Seriously. Have we run out of news that there’s nothing to talk about? Its like over the weekend when they were dissecting Obama’s scratching hand gesture, the commentators on MSNBC noted that they had run out of things to talk about that they were blowing up the stupidest smallest things. Hence why I linked FoxNews.

But, back to the bear. At this point, I’d like to bring in the expert commentary of my old roommate, Rob Somers. I sent him a text message with the above picture and said something similar to MSNBC running out of news.

And his reply?
Its Tickles the Bear! good to see him out for a light jog around town again. lol

And on that note? I’m done with my finals. Two weeks of vacation from school till I have to worry about classes again…

This morning, I’ve been finishing off some of my lovely lectures for my International Business class and waiting on my latest ad-adventure to go through so I can maybe make a few more bucks from these random entries that you folks seem to enjoy so much.

And while I’m waiting with my Gmail Inbox open? I see I get a new e-mail. Its from my wife about carriage tours for our upcoming vacation. Soooo, I open it to see if there’s anything else important in it. Its just a link. Cool.

But then when I reload the Inbox? The ad up top changes to baby carriages. Why? Because it saw the word “carriage” in my latest e-mail.

You know, I sometimes laugh at the ads that Google pulls for my site. I mean, right now, I’m seeing this: College Music Degree, Score Songs, Score Music CD, Music Player, Seriously? The keywords that its pulling are amusing.

Ah well, money is money is money and if a few extra words on my site will earn me a few bucks, well, why wouldn’t I do it.

But my e-mail relating a horse and carriage as a baby carriage? Yeah. I don’t think so.

Oh, and for my friends looking for a comment from me about Obama’s last night upset? All I can say is that Fark said it best: Hillary sees her shadow in Pennsylvania. We can expect six more weeks of tired, pathetic campaigning

Dear Mr. Young,

I have to admit that I’ve never really thought much of you and have never really been a fan. Yet, recently, I was a bit disturbed to read an article on MSNBC.com. In it, you claimed that music has long since lost its power to change the world. Upon reading this, any chance of me ever being a fan were washed away. Sir, I wonder what world you’re living in if that’s truely the case and why you are still making music.

I recognize that you have written some phenomenal music and have had some amazing concepts. Most recently, your album Living With War drew a lot of acclaim for its raw unabashed nature. Your classic songs like “Rockin’ In The Free World” and “Heart of Gold” are covered and acknowledged by musicians everywhere. And your nature as an outspoken individual of opinion and integrity has been upheld by all. But again, why does music no longer change the world?

Back in the late 1960s when your early career was starting I know a lot of forces were at work in the world between JFK’s assassination, Vietnam, and The Beatles, but to say that their music changed the world and what’s around now doesn’t is absurd. Back in those times, the music influenced many minds to live and create and act on what they heard. They were anthems for standing up and taking action. John Lennon’s “Imagine” was a call for peace, Hendrix’s version of “The Star Spangled Banner” cried out for freedom, and Stephen Stills–your own bandmate–called for awareness in Buffalo Springfield’s “For What It’s Worth.”

You’ve also got tons of other examples progressing from there. You have Dylan dancing with civil liberties in “Hurricane” and Nancy Sinatra calling for women’s “Boots Are Made For Walking.” The Bee Gees wanted people to just be “Stayin’ Alive” and KISS wanted to “Rock and Roll All Nite.” Lynyrd Skynyrd called for people to remember the south and “Sweet Home Alabama” and Stevie Ray Vaughan revived the “Texas Flood.”

Music, sir, has been what has flowed through so many veins. Sometimes, people had to write the songs because it wasn’t written and other times they found the solace in someone else’s words. And today, has that changed?

Not in the slightest.

If that was the case, why did you release your album Living With War? Oh that’s right, it wasn’t to make a statement, it was to make money.

And then, you have Will.I.Am’s “Yes We Can” song, which definitely has affected change. And that’s one of many examples. Each and every day, people wake up and pop on a song to start their day and to get their lives on the right foot. Because what they hear moves them.

Just like you’re moved to write music too, sir.

Music still is a force for change. And if you don’t believe that? Maybe you’re not writing a song that means anything to anyone other than yourself.

---

EDIT–23 April 2008, 9:47pm: Greetings to all whom might stumble upon this from ThrashersWheat.org. I appreciate the link-back. I know that this was something that actually appeared back in February, but I had written upon it back then and saved it as a draft until I could complete my thoughts. Even still, I feel like I haven’t completed my thoughts. But, I do appreciate you taking the time to read, and I openly welcome discussion if you’d like. And stick around if you see fit. The more the merrier, I say…