A Child Of Atom

They just don't get it do they? In the debate over the stimulus package today John McCain was quoted as saying "$50 million in funding for the National Endowment for the Arts - all of us are for the arts, but tell me how that creates any significant number of jobs?"

The arts community immediately mobilized and began sending him messages via his website. Here is mine:

Senator,
How does funding the arts create any significant number of jobs? Let me just give you one small example. I am a scenic designer who frequently works for a small children's theatre in Manhattan. The theatre produces 7 shows each year, mostly during the school season. Each show employs 4 Designers, a stage manager, a director, a technical director, two carpenters, a stage manager, 5 office assistants, 8 to 12 actors, a music director, a choreographer, two box office assistants... in other words nearly 30 people per show.

This doesn't even begin to account for the people who work for the lighting rental houses, the fabric stores, the paint stores, the costume rental houses, the printers, the lumber suppliers, the hardware store, and dry cleaners who receive funds from each of our shows.

We pay royalties for book rights, to the playwrights, and the musicians. We hire accountants and use ticketing firms.

We are a SMALL theatre company and in all each of our shows pours 30 or $40,000 back into the local economy, and that is simply what we ourselves generate. That doesn't account for sales at nearby stores or restaurants, sales at book and toy stores because the children want the book our show was based on, taxis, subways, babysitters, strollers... the bottom line is that art IS business. Please stop treating art like a luxury that the country can live without. Art drives the economy just as surely as manufacturing or service, and it is time that that was recognized and "stimulated" along with everything else.

While this is a bit... overkill... I am happy that our national nightmare ends tomorrow. I just hope the next dream comes true...

(via boingboing)

I promise I'll get off the politics soon, but the New York Times has some really rather fascinating features on their coverage map of the election. On of the things they have is a slider that allows you to see the voting shift over the last four elections. You can look at the US map broken down by county and as you move the slider you can see the relative shift of voters loyalties comparing this election to the previous four. Here is a screen grab of the four maps:

Look how much more Republican we seem as a nation when we compare yesterday and 1992, (that first map up there) the first Clinton election. But then look at how much more of a Democratic nation we seem than 4 years ago. Arkansas, Tennessee, and Oklahoma are the only real areas that increased their Republican votes compared to last time.

I've been living with KF too long... he's turning me into a stats geek...

All I can hear is car horns and people screaming. My whole neighborhood is in the street dancing, and I mean that very literally.

Congratulations America.

An hour and 15 minutes in line. 3 minutes in the booth (mostly spent trying to decipher the Prop we had to vote on). I witnessed one arrest (a man who tried to get into a booth after he had been told that he wasn't registered and knocked down an older lady in order to do it.) I saw one woman pass out while in line. When I arrived there were maybe 200 people in line, across the school auditorium and onto the street. When I left the line was a block and a half long outside the building. Now I get to sit back and watch what the rest of you yahoos do all day... (please do the right thing.... please?)

About this time in 2000 I was attending Armstrong Atlantic State in Savannah, GA, working on my second undergrad degree and watching that historic election very closely. At the time I was taking an American History class, and after having stayed up all night watching election returns, watching the networks first declare Gore the winner, then Bush, then announcing that Florida was still in play, and had fewer than 2000 votes separating the candidates. My American history teacher spoke to us at length during every class while the recount was going on, talking about how important this election was, how historic the events we were witnessing were going to be, how in the years to come this election would be marked as a turning point for the country in one way or another. She of course didn't know how prophetic she was being. At the time the only things that seemed to be at stake in the election were the standard issues and the standard lines of liberalism, versus conservatism. In hindsight we know just how much was at stake, and how different our world might have been if those handful of votes had gone a different way, or had been counted a different way.

4 years ago I was in New York, but my residence was Connecticut. It was the only Presidential election that was held while I was in that state. With 4 years of Bush in power we had a much clearer picture of what was at stake, and what was happening to the country, but perhaps still not clear enough. I can at least sympathize with those who couldn't "switch horses mid-stream" or still couldn't see the bigger picture of where we were headed. That election I had three choices, New York, Connecticut, or, through a quirk of law, I was still eligible to vote absentee in Georgia, which was the choice I made. New York and Connecticut weren't in play that year, they were going Democratic and all I could do was throw my vote in to help make the mandate clearer. Georgia on the other hand was a place where my vote might make a difference, so I obtained an absentee ballot and voted. I'm happy to say that Chatham county, were my vote was counted went blue that year, though the rest of the state didn't follow suit. Again in 2004 that election had the feeling of being enormously important, maybe even more so than in 2000 since some of the reasons for that importance were readily obvious. And after Florida the feeling that every single vote really does matter was stronger than ever.

I may be speaking from political bias, but this year I just can't see how anyone doesn't see clearly where we are, and what we need to do. My candidate didn't make it out of the primaries, (though I am actually thankful for that since I was backing John Edwards, and his affair would have ended his campaign VERY poorly), but I am still happy and proud to have the choice that I have. The historical importance of this campaign has grown even past the previous two and it is impossible not to feel the weight of history, and the eyes of future generations bearing on us as we prepare to vote. 8 years of a party whose deep fear of science and reason has left us enormously vulnerable, and possibly well past the point of saving our planet and our selves. 8 years of a party whose fear of change, and hatred for any culture not their own has led us not only to wars with outside influences, but to a cultural war within our own borders. 8 years of disdain for the fact that there are other people on this planet, and that our actions have considerable impact on them too. 8 years of ignoring the international laws that we helped put in place to prevent exactly the types of acts that we ourselves are perpetrating. 8 years of distrust. 8 years of rule bending and breaking and convincing us that it is in our best interest. 8 years of allowing corporate ideals to be put ahead of... well... everything. 8 years of lies. 8 years of breaking the spirit of the American public and teaching us that it is okay that we are being surveilled and recorded and watched from every lamp post and street corner. 8 years of dwindling American freedoms. 8 years of us blindly accepting all of that.

THIS is the most important election that I have ever voted in, and I can't wait to actually do it.

Dear god... Sarah Palin wears the same glasses as me. Or at least from the same designer (Kazuo Kawasaki), since hers seem to be a bit... pointier at the corners of the lenses. Ugh...

Of course, I am naturally horrified that this photo of me has been published without the proper retouching and airbrushing. I mean, really... look how dark the circles under my eyes are, and you can see my pores! This is a clear slap in the face.

Get your here.

Oh, that was my respect whizzing past.

Ben Stein, who spent a long time positioning himself as the smartest man in America is now touting for Intelligent Design (it irks me that I even have to capitalize that) and in an interview today said that "science leads you to killing people." (Read about it here, if you want to see the actual interview there's a link at that page, it was on TBN.) He was being interviewed to promote his new movie Expelled which is supposed to be a documentary about how scientists who study Intelligent Design are being persecuted. (There's a great debunking of basically every word in the movie here.) He was talking of course about the Nazis and their scientists, and the atrocities they committed. So by Godwin's Law the IDers have now officially lost the argument.

Science doesn't lead you to killing Ben. Lack of compassion leads you to killing.

But a lack of science leads you to superstition, and superstition often leads you to killing.

Like the 5 guys in Benin, Africa who were beaten to death for using sorcery to steal other men's penises. (Read this about the deaths and this about a current, new outbreak of the panic in Congo, if you don't believe me.) They'll tell you all about what superstition gets you.

Remember the wizard's duel from Sword In The Stone? Neil Gaiman wrote one for Sandman's first story arc as well, much more literary of course, and with grander imagery. Someone has taken the dialog from his wizard's duel, originally between the Sandman and a demon, and made a political statement with it. Check it out!


(You'll probably have to click it to get the animation to work, for some reason Blogger doesn't like animated GIFs.)

I haven't posted a lot here about my personal political views but I am so enraged this morning that I can't stop myself.

Our esteemed President gave a speech this morning (actually is STILL giving at this point) regarding his new choice for the Supreme Court, New Orleans, and the Patriot Act.

Three things that he has been DEAD WRONG about.

The place where his true colors shone through the clearest though was the section of his speech dealing with the gas shortages, and high prices following Katrina. His solution to keep gas prices lower in the future and to aid us in any future crisis? MORE REFINERIES. We need to build more refineries so that if a handful of them are affected by something catastrophic in the future it won't impact the country so directly.

More refineries. Not a mandate to pursue hydrogen fuels, not tax rebates for people who buy hybrids, not even a simple call for further research into alternatives, but more refineries.

Is it clear to everyone yet?