Editor’s Note: the nice folks at MPR asked me for some commentary on the social networking sites of the candidates for senator in Minnesota, you can hear their story here, The part that I am on is a web only feature you can see here or you could just read my bit below-since your here and all.

At one point running for election was a pretty simple concept: you made some speeches, kissed some babies, and that was pretty much it save for the occasional cutting of a ribbon or judging of a pie eating and/or making contest. Then Radio came along and you had to make short, more cohesive speeches and be sober whilst doing it. TV meant that you had to look nice at the same time; that technology also killed the chance of the truly ugly ever achieving public office. Of course in the “all the world is a reality television show, and all the candidates just players in it” world in which we live that means that they need to be in social networking sites too. The last presidential election made it quite clear that if you were a serious candidate you were going to have a page on at-the-time social networking giant Friendster. Of course in 2008 Friendster is as dead as John Kerry’s political clout. Nowadays you’re talking Myspace and Facebook.

For those of you who have just awoken from a coma, Myspace is the dream of the internet fulfilled- where you can place all your life’s details, embarrassing photos and secrets up and at the same time have strangers gawk at them, while getting “friend requests” from bands that you have never heard of nor would ever outside of their invitation to be friends, and of course spam from scantily clad women who think your profile “looks interesting and they’d like to hook up because they are new to your town”.
On the other hand, Facebook is the place where you put up all your life’s details, embarrassing photos and secrets up and at the same time have strangers gawk at them, while taking bad quizzes about 80’s trivia, and turning down invitations to be a zombie, pirate, vampire, slayer or monkey.

Or to put it more succinctly, Myspace is about your media habits: music you like, books, comedy, tv shows etc. Facebook is more about personal interactions, everyday stuff, and marketing towards consumer choices,(your Netflix queue, your Amazon wishlist, shoes that you like from Zappos.com).

They are sort of the salt and pepper of social networking sites; there are a variety of others but they are ore like the cumin and the dill networking sites: a little too fancy for politics. So we get Facebook and Myspace profiles, which let us see the candidate as a person and not just as the policy spouting bobblehead that they are everywhere else.
They have given us the chance to know them a little bit more personally, which, lets face it, is a bit of a frightening concept.

First up in our social networking rodeo: Norm Coleman.
Norm’s Facebook page shows a lovely picture of him in an un-tucked shirt and sunglasses holding a dead fish up by the gills, smiling the smile that one can only have while holding a dead fish up by the gills. If he had a beer in his other hand it would look more like he was running for president of the Babe Winkelman fan club rather than senator. We also find his interests listed as: spending quality time with my family(doesn’t his wife live in California?), history, Abraham Lincoln, his faith and spirituality (which he misspelled as spirtuality), Minnesota sports especially the Wild, Brooklyn Dodgers history(ah yes, what Minnesotan doesn’t love the Brooklyn Dodgers. Norm, little hint here- root for the home team, even if you don’t like them. Heck, I am a Twins fan and I don’t like ‘em lately either).

You also have to love that his quote is from Lubavitcher Rebbe who in turn is paraphrasing Maimonides, and that his favorite movie is The Rock, and he is a fan of Five for Fighting-truly a riddle wrapped in an enigma, with a side of Nicolas Cage. As of this writing he had 1,453 supporters on Facebook, while on Myspace just a mere 104 friends. Oh and in case you were curious he misspelled “spirituality” on his Myspace page as well.

Of course, lame profile aside the Coleman folks do know how to game the system in terms of advertising: on Norm’s Myspace site is what looks like a banner ad for Franken but in fact is a Coleman campaign ad with a medley of fragmented out-of-context quotes from Franken that disagree with each other, an oldie but a goody. The Coleman campaign goes a step further by running ads on Franken’s Myspace site as well; here we find an ad for a Republicans in senatorial races website, an ad directly for Coleman, and an additional two ads for companies that do email spam.

Mike Ciresi opted for just the Facebook profile; I guess he knows he’s the long shot so why have two profiles. His picture looks like a snapshot in somebody’s backyard, where we see the back of an anonymous person’s head and a wind turbine. Sure, it could be a clever statement about his support of alternative energy, or he just couldn’t find a better picture. Not a lot of information here other than his employer and position; with 188 friends, he’s a third in the Facebook race and his position as “future senator” is about as likely as Rudy Giuliani is to be President.

Jim Cohen, who I had never heard of till I wrote this, has by far the most professional looking Facebook site. It’s a professional photo that makes him look sensitive but sincere. Of course it also makes him look like someone from the IT department, but this is Facebook after all. His “about me” is lacking to say the least; we get a title “Jim Cohen On The Issues: The Vision of A Pragmatic Progressive” and a 56 word statement, the first five words of which are a reworking of the title. There was more but it just stated he was optimistic and progressive, oh and that he wanted to be senator. Oh, and he lists his activities as swimming: with Facebook supporters at 59, treading water might be his actual activities. Heck I have 150 friends on Facebook and I am not running for anything.

You have to love that we live in a state where we have more than one politician that you can play Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon with, which of course brings us to Al Franken. His Facebook photo is a tasteful picture of him and the wife and his interests listed as: Representing MN, biking, establishing universal healthcare, hanging out with friends, renewable energy, the Twins. He had the common sense to name check the home town team, and you know that whole think about representing MN: Yeah boy Represent…sorry, I was channeling Flavor Flav there for a second.

Franken states on the page that he has other people manning it, while all the other candidates have the illusion going that the candidate checks his own email. My only complaint with his Facebook profile is that he lists only one band in the music section: the Grateful Dead. Seriously, the Dead? You’re a politician; shouldn’t there at least be some pretense that you didn’t smoke pot in college? At least on Myspace he name checks Paul Simon and REM, but hey its Minnesota, where are Prince and the Replacements? Even Kid Johnny Lang would work. At 2,572 supporters in Facebook and 930 in the Myspace camp its safe to say he is leading the social networking vote.

Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer’s Facebook site greets us with a picture of him and his whole family: 4 women.
Here we also find that his interests are running for US Senate and that he is a fan of the Dixie Chicks and that his favorite books are his own, and then he refers you to his Wikipedia page (which he doesn’t link to anywhere). Other than his own books he likes the Grapes of Wrath and mysteries. For a guy who has written 11 books he really doesn’t say a lot, and other than listing his political views as liberal you really find out nothing about him as a candidate. Clocking in at 160 supporters, he is not in the lowest numbers, but he is far from in the running.

Last up is Michael Cavlan, who comes in with a lone Myspace page, a solitary picture that says less “senatorial candidate” and more “drivers’ license”. The information here is very minimal, which is the polite way of saying it’s blank. Nothing, save for friends–of which he has 227 and of those a little less then half seem to be local bands that “friend” anything to boost their numbers–and two blog entries: one from June 14, 2006, and the other from September 24, 2006. so yeah… um… you might want to update that. Just a thought.

The thing about all these profiles is that they really don’t tell you anything about the candidates, at least not overtly; nothing declarative where they say what they believe in or why they believe in it. They give us little bits of fluff about their hobbies and what they listen to, so you can visualize Norm Coleman as a guy who liked Gladiator rather then a guy who wants to… well, wants to do what, I can’t rightly say since they don’t tell us, not here at least.

Every candidate’s profile urges the reader to get involved but never explains how or why, and that’s the real problem here. It’s less about issues and beliefs than about whom you can imagine yourself having a beer and a plate of nachos with. That might not be the best criteria on which to elect somebody. It seems that with social networking the candidates hope to get the youth vote out and get in touch with the kids, but if you’re not really saying anything can you really expect them to listen?

There are a lot of Minnesota’s: The Garrison Keillor Minnesota with Uff Da’s aplenty, lots of pie and coffee, Sven and Ole, Lutefisk and Lefsa, astute literary references and a romanticized notion about the past. There is the Cohen Brothers Minnesota as embodies in the movie Fargo, with Uff Da’s aplenty, lots of pie and coffee…Um ok I guess the Cohen brothers version and the Keillor version are a pretty similar, well save for the whole bloodthirsty wood chipper thing.

There is the Prince Minnesota, which is a much funkier one then the aforementioned, with its God meets Sex bass lines, it’s Doves crying and its Purple Rains, this is not to be confused with the Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis Minnesota, which is a different kind of funky one that made us a destination spot for the diva of the moment, a reason for the celebrity sighting. Well out side of those here for the Hazelton Minnesota- that’s the one of temperance, and soulful understanding a place for mediation and repair.

Let us not forget the punk rock Minnesota the Replacements one, of course there is the Hüsker Dü one (ones a little harder, ones a little drunker- I’ll leave it to you to decide which is which) There is the Minnesota that’s National Public Radio, and the one that is NASCAR, and the one that is Rhyme Sayers. All states have more then on identity, but Minnesota seems to be more profoundly schizophrenic. It is one that gave the world Guy Noir and Mac Lethal. F Scott Fitzgerald and Jessie the Body.

Which brings us to one of the truly odd things about my home state- Christmas Decorations. Before you get all PC on me (which by the way would be a very Minnesota reaction) this really is about decoration for Christmas, when was the last time you saw a really tacky Chanukah display? Christmas is the holiday when otherwise sober Lutherans, deck their snow-covered lawns with enough lights to make the Vegas strip seem dim and inflatable snow globes with licensed characters cavorting about. It’s a season that makes wearing a fur-trimmed cap not only socially acceptable, but encouraged.

Do realize oh dear and gentle reader, that I am rather fond of this seasonal decorative disorder; when my neighbors’ homes light up their dull facades and bring forth their inner Liberace. It is these kind of acts that give me hope, seriously how messed up can the world be if the guy next door has the word “peace” light up like an airport runway in his yard, It certainly is a better thought then the sign it replaced which consisted of “These Colors Don’t Run over a an American Flag Motif”. So it’s a change of heart or an irony he hasn’t picked up on.

I spent my Christmases as a kid in Hibbing MN, which is really known for two things 1) being the worlds largest open pit mine-essentially the worlds biggest hole and 2) being the childhood home of Bob Dylan. However what Hibbing always brings to mind is the wonder of Christmas decoration, as a kid living in the suburbs, I thought that Hibbing was much cooler then where we lived. They had a downtown, with a movie theater and a joke shop. It was right out of the Andy Griffith show…well minus the Hillbillies.

Downtown Hibbing got decorated with shiny tinsel decorations in the shape of candles and snowflakes, the kind of decorations that they stopped making in 1965 but keep putting up now matter how much disrepair they are in. All the trees on the boulevard were lit up with fairy lights, and all the windows had the greetings of the season.

As for the neighborhoods, many of the houses had giant painted Christmas Cards lit up in the front yard, and most of the houses had bags with candles in them that lit up the sidewalks, which lit the path for the neighbors to visit. In our neighborhood of Fridley the neighbors coming by meant something was wrong, but here it was a big party.

My parents resented being there, they kept making jokes about small towns and nothing to do, but had we been home we would just be watching TV, and at least in Hibbing they had cable. Sure I had no idea who all the people visiting the house were, but they all seemed pretty happy to see me, and thee all brought candy, which as a chubby eight year old is always on the plus side.

As I got older I saw my Grandparents work wit their neighbors throughout the fall, to coordinate with the neighbors for the holiday season, making sure that the neighborhood followed a theme. I think of this every year when my south Minneapolis neighborhood can never pull together any kind of gathering for National Night Out, or that none of the kids from the neighborhood trick or treat there, they all caravan out to “the Mall” where shopping and mini Snickers bars dance their unholy dance.

Yes I am a sentimentalist dear reader, but if you can’t be sentimental at Christmas time when can you. My Christmas has nothing to do with Jesus, or Churches, it’s the peanuts Christmas Special, and Frank Capra movies, it’s a remembrance of days that have passed, and dreams of what is to come. Its the moment to remember what wonder is like.

Happy Holidays Everybody!

Blogging, I just sort of hate the word, it’s just not pretty. Blog it rhymes with bog- where you don’t want to be, it rhymes with cog who you don’t want to be… well where I don’t want to be for all I know you might enjoy it. In which case I’ll try not to judge…much. I don’t consider myself a blogger in part because what I write tends to fall out of the popular definitions of what a blog is. I don’t write tech news or reviews, I am not waxing rhapsodic on politics or celebrity gossip; lets be honest here celebrity gossip is to Politics what porn is to erotica.

I write stories and not short ones, at least not by Internet standards where 300 words are thoughtful and detailed, my stories tend to log in at the 1000 word mark. You can’t read one in a commercial break, ideally after you read it takes a minute or two to digest, which is not the diversion needed by your average cube farmer. Hence why icanhascheezburger.com is popular, though I have to admit, it feels like America’s Funniest Home Videos for the tech minded. Now I do get time wasters, I did co-author the much-lauded Alliedchemical.com site, considered by experts as a fine way to waste time.

This is a different sort of entertainment, not better or worse mind you-just different. Very different for the net too, the thing about the blogsphere is that it’s lacking atmosphere. It’s not always about creating things as reacting to them. Book reviews, record reviews, Tech reviews, Political commentary and armchair spin. Which is awesome, it’s all these little glimpses into peoples lives, or their perceived lives; by day a average temp but at night he become a diabolical flamer, and protector of the American right, or left, or a Swedish exchange student with a thing for Garter belts. The point is a lot of the wonder of the blog age is a chorus of me too’s, yet another person giving their 2 degrees of difference spin on the most tread territory on the Huffington Post.

All the various and sundry social bookmarking sites aren’t aimed for anything outside of tech, politics, or celebrities, which given the vastness of the Internet is kinda small. Think about it: the ‘net is essentially a great library of all known human accomplishment, fact and fiction. And it’s all supposed to fit into: World & Business, Technology, Science, Entertainment, Gaming, Sports, Offbeat News, Comedy Videos, where is: Zen Insight, clever musings, sardonic prose, historical essay, hell what about lifestyle? Or religion though truth be told they have sort have merged as of late.

Not to get all Mcluhan on your ass, but the medium does definitely have an effect on the message, take for example T-9 text messaging. Which for the Luddites in the audience is a format that picks words for you when you text from your phone, based on the likeliness of it being the proper word. So you don’t have to continually hit the same key to get the appropriate letter. In T-9 if you want to say “Cool” the word that comes up is “Book” do they change the word, no. Instead book becomes a synonym for cool. Likewise in T-9 there is no question mark, nor is there a direct and easy access to it, in fact on my phone to type a question mark in text I have to go 3 sub levels down. People are lazy –so what do they do stop asking questions instead it all becomes statements. Yeah like that won’t have any negative repercussions down the road.

Another strange concept is the same one that politically minded tend to fall into; the idea that talking about something is the same as doing something. It’s not, you can spread awareness all you like but until someone takes action based on that awareness you have accomplished nothing. It’s the liberal trap that I see happen all the time, friends who are CNN addicts, read the NY Times every day (even if they live in Indiana), They destroy parties playing armchair politico, and see themselves as insider. The problem is if it stops there they might as well be discussing Star Wars, substitute Darth Vader for Bush and the Palpatine for Cheney and the story still holds, of course that does make Condoleezza Rice- Jar Jar Binks. At the end of the day it’s the actions that matter, words are great but what’s preached needs to be practiced too.

I labor under the notion that an atmosphere that can support everyone will appear, so I sit in my far too cold basement, listening to records, typing on keyboards, staring into screens, writing words to fill the vacuum. Dancing the dances all the cool social networking kids do. I practice my preaching, and give generously to causes that tow my personal line. Even in a vacuum there is work to be done.

Editor’s note: Hello oh dear and gentle reader, presented for your consideration:”It’s Raining in Warroad”, a break from our more traditional pithy fare. This is a Prose piece written for the Future Perfect Series we did at the Bryant Lake Bowl. This might be my favorite from that whole run of stuff, sadly the documentation for it sucks so its lost to the ages.

As to why to run it today, that has to do with Thanksgiving, several years after 9-11, and nowhere near its anniversary’s it seemed worth looking at. I am thankful not to have to live that day again, I will be more thankful when my countries government gets out of a war against people who had nothing to do with it.
PS: the Mick Fleetwood thing is a true story
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It’s Raining in Warroad
I think the thing that I haven’t gotten used to yet is the plane flying overhead. Even as we speak somewhere up above f-16 with their stinger missiles armed and at the ready are there protecting us… or watching us depending on whose column you read. Me I don’t subscribe to either side… it just spooks me

The whole plane thing was different but the plane stopping was the weirdest. Not because I fly a lot. But I live not far from the airport not close enough to be soundproofed but close enough that the takeoffs can rattle the windows at 5:00 AM, their noise is the back ground soundtrack of my day. I hear it often and always, and then it wasn’t there. Hours upon hours of relative silence, the kind of thing referred to in bad mystery novels as eerie silence. Broken only by the occasional thunder like whoosh of a jet, a jet that you wish was carrying smiling grandparents back from Florida, the sound of military jets, and life becomes a lot like an after-school special about the apocalypse the kind they made you watch during the 70’s.

And there I sat…shaking at the sound of silence… in a constant din of CNN. There’s this idea that we seem to have as a society, like having a lot of facts about something will sometimes help you cope, but it’s a lie, just another one of the list, the idea of being informed as a positive action in a situation that your ignorance would provide the same results. And all you can do is…

The Morning of Sept 11 my phone rang …now I know we all have a “where were you when the towers got hit story” it’s our generations” where were you when Kennedy was shot”. But this is my story, so I’ll tell it like I know it. Because that’s the only way you can tell a story. The phone rang at 8:10 am and as far as I can tell a phone call before 9 AM is almost never good news. No one ever rings you up in the early morning to tell you they are bringing donuts to your front door. I answered in horror to hear the least serious person I know tell me with a graven voice usually reserved to tell little children that there Puppy had went to the sky to live with Grandma.

At first I thought it was a joke. Of course one view of the TV screen that just a few hours earlier had comforted me with the Happy images of James Garner as a wacky Texas Oil man was now changing how my life, everyone’s life would change. But no one got that yet.

When I was kid I was home, sick on January 28 1986, the Day the Space Shuttle Challenger blew up. I wish that I had felt emotionally destroyed… I wasn’t, it really didn’t effect me, I saw it happen Live in front of me but I didn’t get it. I mean I felt bad that people had died but that’s about where it stopped. I just wanted cartoons to come back on.

Sept 11, 2001 at 8:15 AM Central Standard Time I got it,

The giant sense of loss hit me not just this horrifying act but all the horrifying acts ever, the challenger explosion the idea of battles in world war one, where 4000 people would die and the realization that the last 1000 to die in that battle had to walk over the bodies of the previous 3000…they had to know… and I had to think that must have gone into battle knowing , and I think, no I know that would have driven me insane. How could it not 1000 insane soldiers marching over their brothers to die.

I thought about a castle in England that I had been to where they let you into this pit or dungeon I guess they put prisoners in but they wouldn’t give you any light because the proprietors said it was too gruesome you could see the marks the inmates made in the wall to mark there time. Me I had my own flash light …bad idea they weren’t lying …I really wish they had been.

The Spanish inquisition became very real. Indian massacres, I remembered the Alamo. .. It all made me sick. Not the nausea of Sartre, I know that one well enough, no this was a whole other kind of sick. I got the cruelty of nicknaming the buck-toothed guy named Jim: bucky beaver in the second grade. I got it all

I stare in disbelief clutching my wife, as I watch the second plane, wondering if anyone saw the first plane hit in that building and thought, not that much of it and kept working, I sat sad eyed and slack-jawed calling everyone I knew in New York, to receive nothing but busy signals… sure they live in Brooklyn and never find themselves near the twin towers, but best to be safe. I guess when the plane hit the pentagon it was a little different, although I remember My High School social studies teacher had said that it was really impossible for that to happen, so many missiles, and soldiers watching the skies, and I …well I believed him. It’s that thing we all have that belief. Someone tells us it’s ok so we take them at there word. Even though common sense tells us otherwise. It’s what allows people to smoke, they know it will shorten their life but they do it anyway. It the little lies we tell to make ourselves feel comfortable in our skin.

Meanwhile people are dying and there soot everywhere. Peter Jennings is theorizing that the heat must have been so intense as just to evaporate people. All this tragedy, Manhattan a sea of soot and ash, and that everyone there is breathing dead people, and I start to imagine that smell…

I read once, that in every breath we take that there is at least one molecule that’s been breathed in ad out by every person and thing that’s ever lived. Jesus, Hitler, Buddha, J Edgar Hoover and Sammy Davis jr. and now add to that the ashes of a couple thousand people who died because they went to work.

And I look at my wife, Now if you don’t have that certain someone, who really is that certain someone, and it’s ok if you don’t cause most people seem to miss that train. In favor of more convenient ones, you won’t know what I am talking about; I thought about losing her I held her so tight it hurt and we sat there a collapsing building flickering on our TV half a continent away from where it happened.

I was shocked about how selfish it made me feel. Not that this would happen here in America, that was just time, rather how different everything would be… I was right within a month thousands of layoffs and a new sense of patriotism and paranoia.

That’s sort of the funny thing isn’t it everything is different …kind of as much as exactly it is the same … it’s always amazing what you can adjust to in time, I think that explains people who live in abusive relationships, they just get used to it and once your used to it you can deal with just about anything…

When I was 16, I was in my first bomb threat, I was 16 and in London on a high school trip, I was the only guy, me and 13 girls, not the bliss that my adolescent brain thought that it would be. I spent a lot of time just on my own, and being 16 I had to hit all the cultural highlights like the worlds largest department store ” Harrods” Terribly unhip in retrospect but what are you going to do, and as I was walking through the men’s gloves and umbrellas when I heard a loud alarm bell, followed by lots of swat looking police officers with dogs and shields and guns storming in, as I stared wondering if was going to die amongst a sea of Burberry.

I locked eyes with a late 50’s bushy bearded giant , that looked not unlike some sort of Tolkien creature, in that moment I saw on his face what I have to imagine was the same look on mine: panic, fear, and a strange sort of acceptance. This was just a new reality to be dealt with just like the introduction of a new umbrella into an otherwise rainy English landscape. It was only as I joined the throng heading towards the exit that I realized my bearded man was Mick Fleetwood, you know the guy from Fleetwood Mac. The funny thing is I hated Fleetwood Mac.

4000 people dead maybe, man that sucks… I know I should have something more profound, something that underlies the senseless brutality of it all, but what the hell can I say that 10,000 guys who write for the New York Times have said before. It sucks and not because it was Americans.

Mass death anywhere sucks, hell one death sucks, even if you didn’t like them very much. That’s why I would make a rotten god, because I hate loss, anyone anywhere.

I become obsessive about trying to stay in touch with old friends, because I don’t want to lose them …that part of myself… its those selfish motivations again. I go back to my old neighborhoods ones that I haven’t lived in for ages just to visit the convince store clerks… for some reason they always remember me. And it’s the little things they remember not my name, or what I do. It’s that I drink Coke and not Pepsi, that I prefer the cheap novelty candy to the more standard chocolate bars. They say the genius is in the details; the say the devil is in the details too…. Just who are they anyway, cause that’s pretty damn confusing. But I do think they matter because it really is the little things that we sort of…look foreword to at the end of the day, your more likely to reflect on dinner then on the profundity of your paper work.

See nothing is permanent, nothing it all changes eventually. In school they tell us the world will eventually lose it’s life in like 30 billion years. It still makes me sad, that in 30 billion years no one will be around to know what coke tasted like in green glass bottles. What cherry blossom trees look like in full bloom, they won’t know how beautiful my wife’s face looks in the morning before the make up and hair. And that kills me inside. It doesn’t matter that by that time the Moorlocks, or apes will overrun mankind or what have you.

The great pyramids, the redwoods of California, Chicago they are all just temporary. All our monuments and memorials will be lost in time like whether or not the guy who cleaned the floors of the 53 floor of the east tower of the world trade center preferred danish or donuts in the morning

I wish that I had something great to leave you with some parting shot of hope and light, but I have to return to that day… The day, after hours of Peter Jennings telling me that he just didn’t know, and the squawking voice of the radio offering only the familiarity of weather reports of distant but close places as a source of comfort. I had to leave and go outside, I am by nature not a nature boy. Nothing against the great outdoors I just prefer concrete to dirt… I just needed to walk, and I noticed that the trees didn’t know what was going on, and the squirrels were just doing what they do… gathering nuts for winter … life just did what it does, and I walked to a dairy queen and eat an Ice cream cone, because sometimes that’s all you really can do.