As an American, I am proud of the democratic system we have in place, which despite its flaws does a reasonably good job of preserving basic rights. As a Lebanese friend of mine (born there, now a U.S. resident) has said, “American democracy is flawed, but compared with the rest of the world, it’s the best we’ve got.” I’m a bit too jaded and disinterested in glad-handing to get too closely involved in politics, but I follow it regularly as a concerned citizen. I am a registered independent who did not vote in the primaries.
I read with interest Geraldine Ferraro’s op-ed in Monday’s New York Times, “Got a Problem? Ask the Super.” In it, Ferraro takes up the issue of superdelegates in the Democratic party. She explains the reasons for their creation and notes that she was part of the team that created them.
Ferraro goes on and, in one fell swoop, completely dismisses the primary process and its voters.
Her argument for superdelegates is sensible enough: “Superdelegates were created to lead, not to follow. They were, and are, expected to determine what is best for our party and best for the country. I would hope that is why many superdelegates have already chosen a candidate to support.”
All well and good, until the next paragraph.
“Besides,” Ferraro writes, “the delegate totals from primaries and caucuses do not necessarily reflect the will of rank-and-file Democrats. Most Democrats have not been heard from at the polls. We have all been impressed by the turnout for this year’s primaries — clearly both candidates have excited and engaged the party’s membership — but, even so, turnout for primaries and caucuses is notoriously low.” [Emphasis added.]
Two days after I first read this I’m still taken aback. Geraldine Ferraro, former Vice Presidential candidate and long-time Democratic Party bastion, doesn’t think the Democratic primaries mean anything! This from a woman who ran the organization that determined the winners of primary contests.
The essay proceeds to defend this position from multiple angles: low voter turnout, independent voters allowed to cast votes in select primaries, etc. But Ferraro’s theories just blow my mind.
“I am watching, with great disappointment, people whom I respect in the Congress who endorsed Hillary Clinton — I assume because she was the leader they felt could best represent the party and lead the country — now switching to Barack Obama with the excuse that their constituents have spoken.” [Emphasis added.]
Democrats in good standing would do well to dissociate themselves from these thoughts, lest their party come to resemble the leave-me-alone-while-I-run-our-country attitude of the GOP.
Category: Observed (Page 11 of 24)
Scene: a crowded N train, just before Christmas. A panhandler enters the car–old, dirty, hunched. As the doors close he breaks into song to encourage handouts. “Chestnuts roasting on an open fire….”
He finishes before the train reaches its next stop, and surveying the situation, he continues. “Sing it with me now.
“If you want my body and you think I’m sexy….”
I got spam today from something claiming to be the Alzheimer’s Organization.
My first thought, unfiltered: “I don’t remember signing up for an Alzheimer’s email….”
Scene: Thanksgiving dinner, in between courses. Seven-year-old Noah is roughhousing with his cousins on the floor. At one point he takes a hard hit on his thumb and cries out in pain.
“Fuck!”
Noah’s mother, sitting nearby, scowls. “Noah! Don’t say that.”
“Shit, then!”
One of the pleasures of my week of offline leisure is that I’m watching “The Price Is Right” every day. (Honest! It’s like I’m a sixth grader with the flu. Awesome.) And now that I’m old enough to pay attention to the products, I got a real wake-up call with the items “up for bids” this week.
Twice in the past three days the show has asked the four folks on Contestant Row to bid on “a pair of iPhones.” Out come two models, each carrying an iPhone, pressing the home button and not the touch-screen to demonstrate the functionality.
None of the contestants was particularly wowed by the iPhone. And none of them knew the price.
In the circles I, and probably you, inhabit, Apple is a topic of conversation, and the iPhone’s pricing structure has been a particularly hot topic. Go ahead, try it: what’s an iPhone cost right now? Right, $399, down from $499-599 at the time of introduction.
Easy, right? Then how come no one on TPIR knew it offhand? Two iPhones, $798, bingo bango, and a $100 bonus for getting the exact retail price. Obvious to me, to you, but not to middle-class, game-show-contestant America.
Which, of course, is why Apple is so excited: the market opportunity for mobile telecom devices is vast, and they’ve only just started.
Speaking of “The Price Is Right,” some other things have caught my eye. New host Drew Carey is still finding his comfort zone and comments on the crowd too much, although he does a great job poking fun at the awkward product-placement juxtapositions. (“Get this right and you’re off to Greece! …with a bunch of pens in your pocket.”) Also, the show reuses prizes frequently–I’ve seen the iPhones, a Corvette, and a candy-apple-red washer/dryer twice each–but the games have yet to repeat. The populist bent and combination of things you know and things you don’t makes it fun to watch at any age. Although the yodeling mountain climber game might not amuse me as much as it did in ’85.
Me, commenting on the GM/UAW strike, Tuesday: “Won’t a short strike help GM in one respect by reducing existing inventory? Obviously not long-term, and the PR is bad, but ignoring the variables, there’s a bottom-line opportunity here”.
The Economist, Thursday: “From GM’s point of view the short strike may even have been a blessing: the halt in production gave it a chance to reduce its stockpile of unsold vehicles.”
As a longtime Internet veteran and as someone with a keen interest in privacy protection, I have a unique password for almost every site that requires a login.
After 12 years of spending 50 hours a week online, I probably have hundreds of accounts floating around.
Of them, I know the password to startlingly few.
I do not have a central password file.
When I had a handwritten day planner, I used to jot down half a dozen or so of my most vital and easily forgotten accounts, but I haven’t put any of that data on my iPhone, so I only have access to the passwords my memory can hold onto.
My memory, like yours, does not excel at remembering passwords.
I use the “remember me” checkbox on many websites, but when I’m at work, for example, or guesting on an unknown computer, chances are I’m going to get stalled at the firewall.
I am eternally grateful for passsword-recovery options that email me the curious alphanumeric strings that I initially thought were hooky and clever.
Despite my lack of ability to remember the memorable passwords I devise, I am nonetheless irked when a website sends me a reset password link rather than a reminder or, more preferably, the password itself.
The convenience and security of having information mailed to me pleases me every time it works.
The two words I click on most on the Internet are, “Forgot password?”
Mom: “She reads haftorah like nobody’s business.”
—
Amy: do you know how freaky our friends are? their year-old son has an email address!!
Me: hey Amy? our dog has an email address
Amy: my friend emailed me that she was just kidding
Me: Charley has two, actually
(Names omitted to protect the innocent. Charley, on the other hand: guilty as charged.)
PLAYERS: Seated from left, wife, advertising producer, pop-culture aficionado; mother; and sister-in-law, Love and Sex editor for a major media website.
SCENE: Mom and Dad’s fortieth anniversary dinner at Provence in Soho. “Josie” is playing on the house stereo.
SISTER-IN-LAW: This song is called “Josie!” It’s a Steely Dan song about a prostitute.
WIFE: So I just found out what a Steely Dan is!
MOTHER: Yeah? What is it?
WIFE pauses, considers, then explains: It’s—a vibrator. Or a dildo.
MOTHER turns, points at SISTER-IN-LAW. That’s something you’re supposed to know!
(see also)
I walk into the Banana Republic Men on 17th and 5th and notice my shoe is untied. I stop near the entrance and lean over to tie it. Elapsed time in store: five seconds.
As I am bent over, a sales clerk swiftly approaches me, and asks: “Are you finding everything okay?”