The other day, I heard Mike Huckabee say it was not true that Obama’s campaign was mostly funded from small contributions, and I wondered where he got that.
Huckabee spoke the truth: an AP story reports today that “the nonpartisan Campaign Finance Institute found that Obama collected about 26 percent of his total haul from people who gave less than $200
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Sweet Mashup
This won an award, and rightly so: http://www.ilive.at/Public/LocInfo.aspx And it’s written in .NET
Ya Want a Hankie With That, Fella?
Someone recently speculated that American males are becoming more feminized, proof being that the voices of male anchor persons are higher than in past generations.
Compare and contrast Charlie Gibson’s squeak with Walter Cronkite stentorian tones, for example.
I’d suggest that the tenor of today’s anchor voices is less indicative of diminishing manliness in public personae than their lack of judgment and character.
Can you imagine Chet Huntley or David Brinkley crying and babbling about a thrill going up their legs while listening to a political candidate?
Not to mention the piling on of Hillary Clinton and then Sarah Palin: it was unmanly and unseemly, and I would guess that it would have disgusted Edward R. Murrow, Eric Sevareid and any other classy journalist whom the world is poorer without.
Must be the water.
An Apology
Parents sometimes do shitty things to their kids that only come back to haunt them years later.
I’m not talking about starvation, torture, imprisonment or other forms of mayhem.
Rather, it’s small moments of thoughtlessness that can deeply wound.
Glad I Walked (First Marblehead)
No great secret, my hatred for financial services companies has been abundantly vindicated in recent months. I only fear that everyone else who needs to work for a living hasn’t caught on yet.
Years ago, I was “invited” to a recruitment activity at First Marblehead, a servicer of student loans to those who’d exhausted the less expensive, government-backed programs.
The career fair, or whatever deceptively positive descriptor they came up with for this exercise in sadism, took place in several rooms that were populated with terrified-looking applicants and steely-eyed, scowling First Marblehead employees.
I didn’t stay, of course, and read today that even the Wall Street Journal is so revolted by First Marblehead’s CEO, Daniel Meyers, that they tarred and feathered him in print:
Meyers earned nearly $100 million, almost all of it in the sale of company stock; together with other Marblehead insiders, $660 million was taken.
The Journal notes that Meyers used $10.3 million of his fortune to buy an ocean-front property in Rhode Island.
Leaves
James and I did some yardwork yesterday at 20 Dixon.
We (Peter, the kids and I) completed leaf cleanup at 11 Edgewater in 5 hours today – a record.
This was remarkable because the weather was simply frightful: rain alternating with freezing rain, so cold that we could see the vapor rising from the compost piles at the Transfer Station.
It felt like leaf cleanup was late this year: the last day of November. It’s not just us, there were a lot of other insane people dropping off leaves today, and at least 3 of my neighbors did their cleanup this weekend as well.
Gratitude
Having written earlier that I couldn’t find reasons to be thankful, I finally came up with a great one:
NO HOLIDAY OFFICE PARTY THIS YEAR!!!
Those of you wage slaves who must attend these dismal, thankless, unwelcome affairs have my deepest, hearfelt sympathy.
Heh.
Once Upon a Mattress
When I bought the guest room trundle bed some years ago, the bottom came with a 5 inch thick foam rubber mattress, the kind you’d put on a cot.
I never liked this mattress much and neither did the kids: when they were little, there would be fights about who got the “big” bed.
Did Gandhi Really Say This?
First they ignore you…
then they laugh at you…
then they fight you…
then you win.
~ Mahatma Gandhi
For Martin
I am not doing handsprings about the possibility of yet another Democratic being elected to the Senate, but if Jim Martin defeats Saxby Chambliss in next Tuesday’s run-off in Georgia, it’ll be a good excuse for a celebration.