I had a tropical depression once, it was in Key West, I cured it by getting drunk at strip clubs…. of course that might not work in this case.

So

No Chenney
No Bush at least not in person,
Surprisingly little McCain

A lot of journalists with an overly tapped story,
A lot of protestors looking for something to protest.

You did get Fred Thompson, which was nice; He’s my favorite actor/ politician now that guy who played Gopher on the Love Boat is no longer in the game

And somewhere Sarah Palin is drooling of a map of the Alaskan oil preserve while a campaign worker cobbles away at her wikkipedia entry

Meanwhile the news media keeps talking about “Anarchists” and their secret cabal, and all their organizations, aren’t anarchists by definition going to have a problem with. You know organizing….

Since when did we fear anarchists anyway, it’s been at least 100 years since anarchists held any sort of serious social status, I always figure modern day anarchy to be like socialism was in the 80’s You did it for a week or two till you moved onto the next youth trend for me it was “Frankie Goes to Hollywood”.

Maybe if the called them aging hippies, and punk kids who work at Co-op’s they wouldn’t be so frightening, or then again maybe they would.

Thing is the anarchists are scared: they think their world is going to hell and they need to do something about it. So they make signs and chant, and some of them get out of hand and do something stupid

The cops are scared they think their world is going to hell and they need to do something about it so they work proactively to keep the peace and some of them get out of hand and do something stupid

The city is scared they think their world is going look bad on TV and they need to do something about it so they work extra hard to maintain order and some of them get out of hand and do something stupid

Joe public is scared they think their world is going to hell because they see anarchist antics, and   police fierceness and they don’t need to do anything about it because it will just work itself out so they watch “CSI Somethingorother” until the whole stupid thing is over.

It’s seems to me that fear is a lousy method of making choices.
It is all very divisive, but isn’t that the point. It’s hard to win when you have no one to be against.

Of course in life you can’t  “win” anything, the reward comes in the playing.

Sort of like slot machines, where statistically you’re guaranteed to lose 15%, yet people keep playing, absolutely convinced they are winning.

Guess it’s a matter of perspective.

Given that we live on a globe, left, eventually becomes right and vice-versa, perspective can be hard to attain or for that matter maintain.

Anyway I should go, CSI is starting in a minute,

Xo

c

Republicans, Democrats, Elks, Shriners, Dentists, a convention is a convention- a gathering for a large group to discuss their ideas, build strategies, and of course have sex with hookers, and generally make an ass of themselves.  The question I have to ask: is it news? If this was just a really big gathering of knights of Columbus would some 14,000 journalists be on our doorstep?

Think about it what is really getting accomplished here? At least in the “big story sense”, is the rousing speech from the head of the Idaho delegation, shouting his support for the candidate really news? Who is that going to surprise? I am sure newsworthy stories happen at both conventions- we just don’t hear about them till years after their prison sentences and pardons when they write the tell all biography for a high six figure deal from Random House.

People talk about conventions like they change the world, but no one has ever explained how. They whoop and holler in the most expensive pep rally in the world.  Sure it brings in tens of millions for the local economy and that’s great, but what if instead of using it as the prize in a financial lottery we used it to say…help wipe out Aids in Africa, or use it so subsidize wind fueled power generators. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good party, it just seems like we could do something better then hiring Sammy Hagar to sing loudly that ”he can’t drive 55”

The argument is that all the various party elite can get together to discuss things, but they have a place to do that already, it’s called congress. If they can’t get it together there does anyone really think that talking it over a piece of pie at Mickey’s will foster a better dialogue?

At the end of the day it seems Shakespeare said it best,”: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.”

My name is Chris Strouth, I am a citizen of these United States, and I approve this message.

Episode 2

Episode 3

Episode 4

For the duration of the RNC i will be blogging out of UnConvention.tv This is the program I have ben working on most of August , dealing with all the various and sundry  of the Unconvention.
its a pretty gool program, but it’s the unfun side of the world, I keep reading about various indy types going to parties and having a lot of fun- ,e been in a basement fotr about 2 days trying to make a deadline.

The shows are  going to be on MTN in Mpls, SPNN in St. Paul, viewed in Peavy Plazza Sunday, MOnday and Tuesday at 9.  Please watch- no  one enjoys media in a vacuum!

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?

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
………………………………………………………….

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.

America has a weird relationship with its veterans, well let me clarify it with veterans of wars other than World Wars one and two, or as they seem to be thought of “the good wars”. These are the wars that they make glowing documentaries about, the ones glamorized in a million movies, TV shows and every other kind of fiction imaginable. We fought the Nazis, liberated Europe, kicked Japans ass, and got the girl. With a minor obligatory nod to the people we fought along side, which of course was most of the world minus the Axis powers. Since there aren’t a lot of WWI vets roaming about, World War 2 is the clear cut noble war to talk about, at least as it’s presented in our history books, and the veterans of that are considered are greatest generation. They have become the basis of our modern mythology.

Not to take anything away from them, because lets face it they were pretty great. They were the shoulders that built the latter half of the 20th century. But lets look at the war itself. One of the reasons we can feel good about WW2, is that from the 21st century perspective it seems pretty clear-cut; we were attacked by Japan, who were at the time Hitler’s evil little buddy. Hitler was a bad man who killed a lot of people because of race and religion. Which is a pretty good reason to dislike someone. From today’s perspective it seems pretty black and white: Hitler was bad so we had to fight him.

Thing is, it really wasn’t that black and white at the time. Hitler had been working the genocide machine for close to ten years in Germany prior to the US involvement. Ten years of going yeah maybe we should do something, (Darfur anybody?) When we did get involved was when we were surprise attacked at Pearl Harbor, except now we know that the government was aware that Pearl Harbor was a very likely place of attack. Then the rumors abound that this was used by FDR as a setup to go to war. Before I get too far down conspiracy lane the point of the matter is that war is never a clear-cut simple thing. It has a multitude of purpose, civilized nations don’t go to war over just principles, and they go for principles and gain.

We talk a lot about freedom in Iraq, but freedom doesn’t seem to be a big motivator for action in Darfur, or Burma, or anywhere else that doesn’t have a lot of resources to offer.

When it comes to veterans of the not so easy wars, like Korea, Vietnam, the myriad of South American scuffles that made up the 80’s, and Gulf wars I& II, we tend to confuse the singer and the song. Some Vietnam vets found themselves booed when they got off the plane, we have progressed a long way since then, now we just ignore it. Your average US citizen is really unencumbered by the war, sure gas prices are higher but most folks see no relation between the two events. Citizens aren’t saving grease droppings like WW2, there is no rationing, in fact it’s the opposite, like it’s our patriotic duty to shop. What is the price of freedom? $12.99 at Wal-Mart (regularly 15.99, a $3.00 savings!).

Our current vets come home to lost jobs and indifference, and fighting in abstract war I suppose that it’s fitting, but it is hardly fair. We do have a tendency to confuse the soldier with the war, lets face it the Iraq war isn’t exactly popular amongst the masses. It’s a war, much like Vietnam, that we don’t want people to go to. Honestly, what war would we want to go to? No one outside of the members of the military and politicians really want war, and even a good chunk of them don’t like war but they understand it as a necessary evil.

Our vets are like a friend who we owe money to and don’t want to pay back; sure we owe them but for whatever reason can’t give it back. So we avoid them, don’t acknowledge them because we don’t know what to say. We return their bravery with cowardice.

Just the act of being of being a solider is brave, whether you’re on the front lines or in an accounting division, because you have to give up free will. Joining the army is like signing a contact to do as you’re told. They say jump into the abyss, and you jump regardless of the consequence. It’s a trait that I truly admire to have such faith in an entity that it will see you through. To have faith in your country without question, to follow an ideal even if you disagree with the administration or their execution of duty.

It’s a different job ethic from those of us who live in cubes, and feel gypped if there is not a cake for our birthday in the conference room. So for our current soldiers we put magnetic ribbon on our cars and every once in a while there is a news story about a plucky third grade teacher who gets a letter writer drive where anonymous citizens write letters to anonymous soldiers thanking them. What do we do to show for the troops that are back? Well they do that half off thing at the Sizzler.

*Well to be specific it’s only Veterans Day in America, and Canada, everywhere else it’s just a standard issue Monday.