I was watching two campaign advisors discussing the upcoming debate format on one of the cable news channels last night. One of them was Ralph Reed; the other was some guy from the Kerry campaign. (No disrespect to the unnamed Kerry guy, but I tend to remember Ralph Reed more easily ever since his days at the Christian Coalition -- he always reminded me of Dave Foley for some reason...)

Anyway, the discussion was about debate format and how they thought their respective candidates would fare in the format. It was strange to hear each man arguing so persistently about how the other guy's candidate was a better debater than his own candidate. Of course this is a common practice in the build-up to debates, where each side tries to quell high expectations in hopes that if their candidate manages to make it through the debate without losing his composure or sounding like a complete idiot, he might be perceived as having won the debate. It is a common practice, and a very, very sad one, at that.

In the midst of each man trying to make the other man's candidate seem like the better debater, they were each asked about the debate format itself. On this topic they couldn't agree more; they both touted the debate format we will get to see tonight on national television as one that will provide, without a doubt, the single most substantive and comprehensive tool for evaluating who the next President of the United States should be.

All this, with no consideration given to third-parties and independents -- you know, the fake candidates. Or in the other way of looking at it, the candidates who can actually keep the "real" candidates a little more honest.

As always, this country is being controlled by those who get to frame the debate, and right now, that task is being left in the greedy hands of two parties, both of whom understand that their success is predicated upon keeping everybody else out of the game.

I was pointed to this idea by an Ales Rarus mention of an aggregator being run by the man who maintains a website called Connexions. The aggregator is being dubbed "UnRight Christians."

The idea intrigues me, mostly because I've been fascinated for some time with the way many people like to lump Christians in one narrow portion of the vast political spectrum -- and it's usually somewhere on the far right flank.

Wow - really?

I bookmarked this cartoon a couple days ago, and then I completely forgot about it, but I think it's related to that train of thought from the post above this one. It had something to do with spin, or at least the silly arguments we have to avoid real issues. And it comes from both sides, not just from the Republicans (think of all the Swift Boat/National Guard crap).

"She never read much, but she loved to quote."
-Chagall Guevara

I heard a political observer warning about how the spin that follows the upcoming Presidential debates will be at least as important as what transpires during the actual debates. And I started to wonder, "why?"

I'm not really that naive -- I fully recognize that spin plays a pathetically huge role in the way we choose political leaders. But the question is still a genuine one -- why do we allow barely connected pieces of spin to influence our voting process?

The answer, as best I can figure is that we don't usually observe enough of the actual campaign process or assorted speeches and policy statements to really have even a semi-independent idea of the reality that's being spun, whether from the right or the left.

I heard someone criticize Kerry's style yesterday by saying that he doesn't speak in sound-bites. The tone of the statement left me under the distinct impression that Kerry's tendency to not speak in snappy one-liners was an inherently bad thing. And I suppose that politically it is, given our society's distaste for paying attention to items that take more than seven seconds of our time.

Perhaps if most of us learned to view spin as merely supplemental to reality, we might not be so easily spun ourselves. It occurred to me that political spin is akin to Cliff Notes, but for one small difference: Cliff Notes tend to be much more representative of the items they capsulize, whereas spin tends to rewrite its antecedent's meaning to varying degrees.

In short, spin is the revision of what didn't get said or demonstrated in the way one side or the other would have preferred. It gets rewritten in a snappier, less substantive form -- you know, because we're all too stupid to make up our own minds, so they happily spoon-feed us what we're supposed to think in clever little half-truths.

Keep that in mind whenever you hear John Kerry oversimplify the President's tax policy, or whenever the President attempts to tell you how much of a flip-flopper Kerry has been.

Remember that reality rarely fits into the sound-bites you hear on the nightly news.

(In reading back over this post several hours later, I noticed a few typos that I can't believe slipped by me originally, so if you've read this more than once, you may notice a difference. It's not in your head. The substance is the same, but the typos are, hopefully, gone now.)

"Everybody is Sick of Love" by Linford Detweiler

I like this one because it's short, sweet, and riding the fence between hope and despair; but what do you think?

"If you can't Google your blind date, that doesn't make them a freak."

I think I found it with the Stumble Upon browser bar I can no longer use with the new Firefox (I still like the browser itself, though). Like most sweeping manifestos, it over-generalizes and over-emphasizes the evils of the internet, but I know people who seem to believe everything they read online -- and for them, a visit to my favorite little cautionary site is worth it.

For the record, I agree with the main thrust of what it says, even though my self-imposed website language restrictions keep me from printing the name of the site, I would like to echo the concept of people really thinking and checking facts for themselves. This task, however, has become exponentially more daunting, as many major news organizations have teetered on the brink of being as factually useless as much of what can be found online.

And for many of its evils, the internet does one good thing (at least so far); it allows us to sample information from different sources, lest we should only be subject to that which is handed down from for-profit news organizations. And it's communication benefits are fairly useful, as long as we don't completely forget there are worthwhile people who don't go by names like "chunkylover5120@aol.com" (there are some pretty fascinating and useful people who don't even have computers). But gaining perspective from different people in different places and situations, that can be as educational as any formal schooling.

So here's my little disclaimer for readers of the smedley log:

I don't purport to be a viable news source -- except when I'm telling stories about my own life (-most of that's the truth, I promise). What I do here is share thoughts, mostly in the realm of opinion. Though it would be mighty flattering if everyone followed me around and did everything I suggested, I'm not sure the world would be that much better for it.

So now that that's all been said, I'll just leave the link below for anyone wishing to visit the site at which I've been hinting.

Visit my favorite cautionary internet site.

I came across a BBC News article last night, and while I don't have much commentary to add at the moment, it resonated with me, at least partially.

The quoted phrase that serves as a title above this post is from the article, and the sentiment reflected by the speaker of that comment is something I've been struggling to articulate (-I even made a feeble run at it in a recent post), The closing comments from that one interviewee came very close to what I think of the President's very public spirituality. I'm not critical of his spirituality, but of the limited version he seems to embrace, one which sometimes seems more obsessed with grand gestures and proclamations than with humble practice.

I don't know where this piece of storytelling fits in, but I observed the following scene on the way to work today, and it has stayed with me since.

I was sitting in traffic on a local roadway, with traffic being a little more congested than normal. As my fellow travelers and I waited in line at an intersection, I heard a siren's wail, followed shortly thereafter by a local police SUV passing us on the median strip just to our left. As we started moving again, I prepared to make my right turn at the intersection, which is when I saw it.

There were two cars juxtaposed in the right lane of the road onto which I was turning. Both cars were compact to sub-compact. One was a late model Chevy Cavalier, which had come to rest up against a concrete wall lining a roadside embankment. The other car was a Hyundai Accent (with the markings of a local auto parts delivery warehouse) sitting right in the middle of the lane. Both cars had significant front-end damage (which is to say neither car had much of its front-end left) and apparent airbag deployment.

As I was waiting to be waved around the scene by an officer, I then noticed a man lying on the ground next to the Hyundai. He was an older man (appearing to be in his sixties), and he was surrounded by two paramedics who appeared to be administering CPR.

I was thinking about this scene as I waited in traffic. The auto parts company that had its markings on the car was located less than a quarter mile up the road, and these companies are known to employ retirees. As I saw the man lying on the ground, receiving CPR, I wondered if, as he had left his home that day to go to work, this scene was even a possibility in his mind. If he had pulled out of the warehouse parking lot with even a hint that this could be in his immediate future.

How many people would even think about that possibility? Not me, at least not until I caught this scene as I waited in traffic.

The policeman waved me on after a couple minutes, and I said a short prayer as the car started rolling again -- just thinking of that man on the ground, any loved ones he might have, anyone else who'd been injured in the collision, and all of us who meander through our daily lives unaware and unappreciative of the grace that shields us from these tragedies.

I downloaded the new Firefox 1.0 Preview browser a day or so ago, and it seems quite pleasing so far. The changes aren't drastic, barely noticeable in fact, except for a couple things.

One, they've managed to integrate an RSS reader of sorts into the browser itself. It doesn't pick up all of my favorite feeds yet, and I don't know if that's to be blamed on the feeds or the Firefox reader, but I'm looking forward to a time when all my regular feeds can be read by it. It lists items in the bookmarks menu, which gives me pretty fast access to new item info.

The other notable difference kind of leans negative, though I sincerely expect to see it remedied in the near future. This one problem I have with the new version is the absence of the Quicknote extension, which I have come to know and depend on. If you have used the Quicknote tool as I have, you may want to wait until they come up with a way to make it compatible again, because I'm really starting to miss it.

(It also left my Stumble Upon toolbar in the dust of 0.9.)

But this is just the quick test drive review, and there may be other features that surface in the coming days as I use it more. So far it's nothing (compared to the last version) that I couldn't live without, but it's here, in case any of my fellow Mozilla junkies out there didn't know.

If you're not already a Firefox user, and (God forbid) you're still using IE, take my word for it (or read the O'REILLY review), it's light years better than anything Microsoft has ever produced.

"Nothing turns a conservative into a liberal faster than being arrested."
-?

I pulled the above line from a letter to the editor in yesterday's Philadelphia Daily News. I know I've heard it elsewhere, but I can't seem to establish the definitive source, if there is one.

It was written in reference to Rush Limbaugh, who, among other things, has received significant support from the ACLU in his efforts to keep his medical records from the prying eyes of prosecutors in his little drug fiasco. Which reminds me of another related thought about another typical conservative target, trial lawyers. It seems like some of the most conservative people in the world forget how much they hate trial attorneys until they get arrested, have a reason to sue someone (frivolous or not), or perhaps when a disputed election hangs in the balance?

Okay, that last one really doesn't sound like me, as I really detest all the whining about four-year-old election results -- there's really nothing that can be done about it now, at least in the judicial sense. But I have found it strange that the President has such a dislike for trial lawyers (as evidenced in campaign criticism of both members of the democratic ticket, with their ties to the trial lawyer lobby), especially considering how much trial attorneys have done for him and his party.

Oh, and as long as I'm mentioning Rush Limbaugh during football season again, it appears Rush's favorite overrated quarterback is off to a pretty impressive start -- which keeps us Philly sports fans happy, for now...

"Easy reading is damned hard writing."
-Nathaniel West

Okay, so I was sifting through Google keywords used to access my little blog here, and I saw "the smedley log" among the keywords used, a regular thing, really, and there's no reason someone wouldn't use the title of a blog to find it on Google. But this time I decided to Google "the smedley log", as some visitors had done, just to see what the results of that search actually are.

Another unsurprising result is that several of the results are linked to this blog, but I came across a blog I didn't even know had linked to me. It's called hardscrabble, and it's written by a Computer Sciences graduate student in Chicago named Azzari Jarrett. Not only had she linked to me in one of her posts, but it was three months ago! Even more interesting is the fact that she was referencing a tsl entry from ten months ago, so I wondered if she had found it by virtue of reading this blog on any kind of regular basis, or if she had googled her subject in order to find me. (The Subject of her post and mine was the possible relationship between reality TV and blogging.) I may never know, but this brings me, in my usual winding way, to another observation.

I seem to have gotten a lot of feedback, and sometimes blog mention, from bloggers who are grad students. When I say a lot, I don't mean in the thousands, or even the hundreds, but safely in the dozens. And I want to say that I find that both flattering and intimidating. Actually, the mere thought of my brother-in-law (a graduated grad student himself) reading this sometimes frightens me, not only because I think he knows a lot more than I do about many things, but also because he's in a position to call me on the carpet for my mistakes in a way that most readers will never be. And I think, not knowing all their educational backgrounds, that most of my responsive readers are a pretty clever bunch of people. Therefore I tend to think that most of them will see the holes in my ideas and arguments.

And, to be clear, I don't talk about grad students here because I think they are inherently smarter than others, like myself, who aren't, and maybe never will be, at that academic level. I've met enough "uneducated" folk to know much better than that. Although I would like to think the "grad student observation" I'm making underscores the intelligence level of my average reader, and, quite possibly at the same time, reveals my general elitist attitude. (But hopefully not that last part.)

And speaking of the relative intelligence of my readers, a readability report I got from Readability.info showed that my readability scores were fairly high, meaning the education level required to make sense of my writing is fairly high by conventional standards; something about sentences being long (me? long sentences?) and syllables per word, I think... but apparently you should pat yourself on the back if you get past the first two or three sentences of most of these entries. Incidentally, I'm aware that reading difficulty often reflects more negatively on the writer than on the reader, as good writers usually strive to be understood (see lead-in quote).

The other part of this is that I've noticed a ton of blogs by graduate students. One of the more obvious examples from my list of links is my inquisitive Catholic friend at Ales Rarus , and there are many others out there, including some who are law students -- which I honestly don't get.

I mean grad school is hard enough, but as someone who has spent time mulling the prospect of law school, I've heard some pretty gruesome stories about how little time is left for leisure. I recently went back to school myself and I'm nowhere near that level of difficulty, and if pecking away on a computer wasn't one of my favorite methods of winding down before bed, I don't think I could do much, if any, blogging at all.

Upon skimming Azzari's sidebar, I came across PhD Weblogs, a "non-profit initiative to bring together PhD students' weblogs from all around the world." I'm trying not to get too jealous -- some people just have a gift, I guess.

I have recently switched from dial-up to DSL (at least for the promotional period of the offer), and as a result, I now see I can no longer upload posts directly from Blog (my chosen weblogging tool) to the AT&T server that I have been using as a (now former) AT&T dial-up customer.

I wanted to use AT&T DSL service, which would have allowed me to practice my blogging rituals as I normally had, but upon trying to sign up for it, I was told my line didn't actually qualify. This confused me, because I was previously told I was qualified for DSL, and I have, in fact, qualified (and now am using) Verizon DSL (ten dollars cheaper, by the way). Some tech guy at work told me it wasn't that simple, though I don't understand why.

Anyway, as I now access the internet through a non-AT&T connection, I thought I could switch to that five dollar plan from AT&T that lets me keep all my AT&T email and web space (and still save five bucks off of AT&T's DSL price). Apparently though, I can no longer access AT&T FTP servers with a non-secure FTP client, which is what Blog has built into it. I have since taken to publishing these files to my own computer, then uploading them via my other FTP client which has security features.

And that's why I seem to be having trouble posting as often; it's not all about school work this time. I'm really starting to miss one-click publishing, so depending on whether I keep this DSL service past 30 days, I may have to either relocate my website or change my blogging tool. That is, unless I decide I just like dial-up that much better.

So I guess this is just a long and winding FYI -- in case I haven't used enough acronyms in this post. Have a nice day.

I read Omni's post about art yesterday, and I found it interesting, as I usually do when reading her thoughts. She offers some ideas about art and its definition, with her own definitions sprinkled in. I think it's interesting as much for her ideas as it is for the chance to observe how different people define art.

Geez, I really need to write real post again someday...

This is a link I almost tripped on after checking out the above-mentioned essay from Paul Graham. It's a chart from Political Compass showing where 7 of the current White House candidates land on a graph where the x-axis is Left-Right, and the y-axis is Authoritarian-Libertarian.

I like this model, mostly because it recognizes the incomplete scope of the way we define politics in this country (almost exclusively in terms of Left and Right).

There is also a test you can take to find out where you fit on their graph, and then you can compare your results to results based on various political figures. I scored a little to the Left (-3.25), as well as a little Libertarian (-2.95).

Perhaps we can all now just take the test and vote for whichever candidate we fall closest to? I didn't think so, but it does sound like an interesting idea...

"Who cares about symbolism in Dickens? Dickens himself would be more interested in an essay about color or baseball."
-Paul Graham

I just stumbled across an essay on Paul Graham's site. It's called The Age of the Essay. I found it completely fascinating, mostly because he has (as with most of his essay topics) totally de-constructed the concept of essay writing, including the reasons and methods behind traditional essays. I had, prior to reading this piece, harbored similar sentiments about essay-writing, but never could I have opined on the subject so clearly.

If you've never read Paul Graham's site, or his essays, I encourage a trip over there to check him out. It's not a quick read, but it's worthwhile.

Well, I was happy to receive a couple thoughts on my re-worked logo, even the unpleasant feedback was useful. I has started with a logo that was rounded on the right side, but I amended it after Funky Dung shared his thoughts on it. I wasn't that attached to the idea anyway, so I just altered the right side of it -- it still gets the job done.

Best of luck, by the way, to my brother-in-law and nephew who will running in a couple races down in Virginia over the next few days.

"The Poet" by Sharon Brogan

This edition of Poetry Friday features an online poet by the name of Sharon Brogan. This poem appears on her site, Oratory, along with many others. Many kind thanks to Sharon for allowing me to reprint her work below.

The Poet

For the poet, every hello contains
its goodbye; every sunlit rose
its shadow; and death stalks
everything. Always the heron
watching the silvery fish. Always
the hawk. Even in that moment
she holds her lover's heaviness
in the palm of her hand, feels
herself liquify – even then,
she knows it will end.

I usually leave poems to speak for themselves on Fridays (as well as other days), but I wanted to share a little about why I like this poem.
I think the above verse speaks to a common trait of people who try to express themselves artistically: the idea that most things we appreciate are finite or delicate in nature, and that is part of what makes them noteworthy, at least in my

I don't know if any great poetry scholars share my thoughts on this, though I'm sure my thoughts are completely unoriginal. I tend to believe one of the domains of poetry (and art in general) to highlight things we should appreciate, whether they be feelings, people, events or other random things. So often, we as people overlook the gifts we have, the beauty that's all around us, the people we love -- we tend to take so much for granted.

I can say, from my own experience, that the desire to write things down, particularly in verse, is almost always joined at the hip with memories of things I've taken for granted but wish I hadn't. I guess that could be considered a melancholy motivation, but it benefits me in that I tend to see things as more finite, more fleeting, than I did when I was younger. In some ways it's an unnatural paradigm; most people would rather not dwell on the temporal nature of things they treasure, but in avoiding this notion , it seems many folks forget how special these things really are.

And there are probably more than a couple people out there who find it depressing to be reminded of the temporal nature of their cherished things, but I would disagree. I think it can be completely invigorating to remain aware of life's fleeting nature and always remember to live appreciatively. I have no real idea if that's what Sharon Brogan was reaching for with "The Poet", but it's what struck me almost immediately after reading it.

If you'd like to comment on what you think of the poem, feel free to click the title/author link to visit Sharon's site and leave you thoughts with her. (If you just want to tell me how crazy the last several paragraphs sound to you, you can leave that comment right here.)

I can no longer tolerate hearing about polls from serious polling organizations asking respondents questions like "which candidate would you rather sit down and chug a beer with?"

I just don't get it. At all. I do understand that we have this collective mental problem that deludes us into thinking we'd rather have someone just like us in the White House; you know, someone we can relate to. The problem with this mindset is multi-faceted, though I'll only bother to mention two facets right now.

One, it would be much smarter to want someone smarter than us to run the world's sole remaining superpower; I mean, wouldn't that be a much better idea than electing someone just because he seems like a "regular guy"?

The other facet that strikes me like a baseball bat right now is this: does anyone really believe that either of the major candidates for President of the United States would really be just a regular guy anyway? Did either one of these guys really grow up middle class? Did either of them really have to start at the bottom at any point in their lives?

Just by being a several term U.S. Senator, John Kerry is statistically unlikely to be anything but rich, with or without a familial head start or a ketchup mogul for a wife. And George W. Bush? Well, that's where these survey results really confuse me. Here's a guy who's had pretty much everything handed to him, and yet many people seem to think "hey! He's just like me!"

I'm not saying being born with a silver spoon in your mouth makes you a bad President, but it certainly doesn't give you the socio-economic perspective of a typical American.

I lamented twelve years ago that many people seemed drawn to Bill Clinton because of his folksy charm, and I didn't vote for him in either of his Presidential runs -- though I suppose he had a better chance of understanding how typical Americans had to live. Now looking back, I wonder if 1996 will have been the last time I'll get a chance to see two major party rivals in the same election who have both come from modest to humble beginnings.

I guess I'd personally feel like I had more in common with someone that I know has had to start with fewer advantages and has still found a way to the top, in which case, I sense the two major party VP candidates know more about living like the rest of us than Kerry or Bush ever will.

Not that I'm sure that would mean much; in fact, I don't at all believe humble beginnings are necessary to being a decent president. It's really just a thought about the changes to the national political playing field, and the way we sometimes mistake charm for commonality.

I have just finished (I think) with a few more design changes on the drafts section; I ran into a few errors (due to my haste), but have tried to ensure that no glaring deficiencies remain.

As per some readers' suggestions, I have lightened it up a bit and given each page a right sidebar that will allow people to navigate freely between all pages on the smedley drafts. Now the only page from which you can't directly navigate to any other page is this one, but I hope some of you will wander over to the drafts and check out the new style anyway.

I didn't expect to be deterred from the log for almost three days, but here I am, having slacked off this whole time...

Actually, I had my first two papers due over this past weekend, and I was a little behind on starting them, thanks to Labor Day and all the festivities. I swore to myself that I wouldn't let blogging get in the way of schoolwork, and that oath may keep me from posting as often as I normally would, but I'll still be here quite often.

As for the last post, I'm appreciative of the flow of ideas from a small handful of readers, through both email and comments. I was reminded of (if not introduced to) a few ideas I wouldn't have thought of on my own regarding terrorism, so it's good to not be stranded on this island alone.

Of course, I didn't set out to provoke too much thought with Saturday's memorial post, but now I'm thinking of expanding on some of those things I purposely neglected to mention on Saturday -- it's become apparent that I wouldn't be alone in some of my thoughts. But it remains to be seen if I'll have the ambition write that expansion post.

-had many clever thoughts to share, but then it occurred to me it's just better to keep it simple.

A few weeks back I visited the Camden County (NJ) Victims of Terrorism Memorial on the bank of the Cooper River. It commemorates the lost lives of U.S. citizens in various terror attacks from the Marine barracks attack in Lebanon in 1983 to the September 11 attacks three years ago.

It moved me more than I thought it would, and now I realize I have nothing more sufficiently profound to say about it.

I must've seen a hundred bloggers posting about Gmail invites in the past few months -- well, maybe not a hundred, but I have seen a lot.

I've got an idea, since I'm now starting to realize that no matter how many invites I distribute, they just keep giving me more; at least that's how it seems to be working.

So, I've got an idea:

I'd be perfectly willing to exchange invites to readers who offer links to poems that I might use in future installments of Poetry Friday. Either email or comment with a link to a good poem I haven't yet used, or offer something original (for the poets out there). If I decide your suggestion is one I'd like to use, I'll send you an invite. If I don't send you an invite, it either means I don't like your idea, or I've simply run out of invites (as improbably as that may seem), though I will attempt to respond, even in such cases.

And for those of you out there who already have Gmail accounts, perhaps you'd like to offer poetic suggestions out of the kindness of your hearts? Or perhaps there's something else I could offer -- though I'm not sure what.

But I would appreciate decent suggestions, and I'm willing to pay with invites...

"The Tiger" by William Blake

I came across this poem early in my education in poetry, probably more than twenty years ago -- I can't quite recall. I was reminded of it a year or so ago when I saw a film called The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys, in which this particular Blake rhyme was referenced. I know that those with serious exposure to poetry (and some without) are fairly familiar with this verse, but I didn't want to assume everyone has read it. Or perhaps, as in my case, other readers might simply be reminded of it.

In a parallel mention, I have discovered a new weblog for good original poetry; it's called Watermark. Well at least it's new to me. I may even add it to the eclectics eventually. There's a related site called Oratory, but it's in the moving process right about now, so the link will not (as of yet) deliver you to any poetry -- apparently that will be remedied within a week or so.

In response to a couple comments about yesterday's post expanding on the demystification process, I want to further clarify one thing:

I didn't mean that I just want people to vote, though it may have come out that way. When I speak of more people getting involved in the process, I am referring to people actually becoming more involved, not just by registering or pulling random levers in November, but also by becoming aware of issues and how those issues affect the voting public. Education was kind of key, but for the most part, I guess it was only implied.

So now I'm coming right out and saying it, that we need to become more involved as an electorate, not just in the voting part of the process, but in understanding why and how we vote.

I'm fairly sure Steve wasn't really confused about that, but just in case anyone else was...

In other random thoughts, I really wanted to post something on "third rail"-type issues, how they matter immensely, and how most American politicians are so afraid to touch them that they fail to seriously address solutions. But that may be a little too ambitious, and even a stripped-down version is a little ways from being ready to post.

In sifting through some of the search engine key words used to lure people to this site, I've noticed quite a few incarnations of the name "Jayy Mannon."

First, let me apologize and explain that Jayy Mannon causes this page to show up in Google searches because of the list of links to what I consider to be under-appreciated musicians I added a couple weeks ago. I hadn't previously mentioned Jayy in the text of a blog entry, until now.

I first met Jayy about eight years ago. We worked together for a few years, then I transferred to a different part of the company's operation, but in the time we worked together, I became familiar with his music, and that of his band. At the time I first discovered them, they played under the name "Bonehead", which was mostly a cover band, but would occasionally sneak in a few of their growing list of original songs.

As a cover band, they were excellent (in the musical sense), the money was good, as they were highly coveted in the Philadelphia area bar circuit, but the group's core, including Jayy, eventually decided they wanted to be a music act in their own right. They made one EP (1997)and one full-length album (Fade, 1999) under the name "Bonehead," after which they were offered a contract with MCA in 2000. With MCA they ended up changing their name to "Familiar 48" and released one album entitled Wonderful Nothing (2002), soon after which they disbanded.

In 2003, Jayy Mannon and his main songwriting partner/lead guitarist from Bonehead/Familiar 48, Kevin Hugg, struck out alone under Jayy's name, and they appear to be on the verge of an independent release called Broken and Glued this fall. In the meantime, the old band seems to have regrouped, solely for the purpose of performing live, though, without having been to the new Bonehead shows, I can't say whether they're focusing on covers again, or sticking with the original music they recorded as a group.

In the few years I worked with Jayy (and with the help of many conversations about life and music), I came to the conclusion that while much of the music his band cranked out was more-or-less rock and roll, he was an decidedly non-rockstar type of guy. Even in the dim light of local celebrity and screaming 21-year-old's, Jayy never seemed too fazed or impressed by the whole scene -- probably one of the reasons, aside from pretty decent songwriting, that I've always been rooting for him to make it in the business. But we're young yet, so I suppose there's still time to hit it big.

Anyway, for folks interested in learning more about Jayy's music, visit his site, which can also be found way down the sidebar, for those of you who read down that far -- there are some free samples available in MP3 format on the site, and if you're like me, you probably like free music. Don't be afraid to check out the other artists listed down there either. Enjoy.

"A citizen of America will cross the ocean to fight for democracy,
but won't cross the street to vote in a national election."
-Bill Vaughan

I wrote a post called The Demystification Process last month. It was a primer of sorts on how a politically uninvolved, citizen might get more involved in the election process, along with a brief argument for getting involved. One thing I may not have included in that post is a link for unregistered voters to register for the upcoming election, so here's one.

Readers of this blog will know that I have not made any outright endorsement of any of the candidates for President this year. I would much prefer people use their own best judgment; that's essential to my beliefs about democracy. It's important to get involved, even if you're not a die-hard political junkie (as I sometimes am).

I felt it was a good idea to rehash last month's post about Demystification, especially considering that voters not yet registered, but wishing to take part in this November's election, have less than a month left to register (in most cases). If you aren't registered already, please do so. If you don't care about politics, please start to. And if you don't know who to support this year, please don't ask me to tell you who to vote for. If this last dilemma is familiar to you, please consider using some of the resource links at the bottom of the previously-mentioned post to familiarize yourself with the candidates, their stated positions and other important voter information. You may not agree with my politics (or what you can glean of my politics from these ramblings), but it is vitally important to get as many people involved in the democratic process as possible.

"...and you wanna ask God about things like cancer,
but you don't think that you'll get much of an answer."
-Bill Mallonee

I recently came across what I consider to be a great compliment in a post from Cziltang, whose weblog played a part in inspiring my blog beginnings:

"...The Smedley Log is one of the few bastions of civilized discourse I've found on the web. The author seems like a genuinely nice guy. I disagree with a significant chunk of his political commentary, but I read him regularly because his opinions are grounded in his real-world experience, he asks questions that I don't always have easy answers to, he is brave enough to offer suggestions as to what might be done (rather than just whine about what "they" are doing wrong), and it is all done without name-calling, mud-slinging or any significant rancor..."

There is something strangely gratifying about being appreciated by readers who don't necessarily agree with you. I was a little slow to post the above text, because I generally don't like to come off as patting myself on the back, but there is a point to this mention; it's about a train of thought that really got going in my head when I was directed (by Ales Rarus) to a post entitled "Everything you wanted to know about blogging but were afraid to ask."

Apparently according to Simon (or maybe I should hope he's being facetious), being reasonable isn't a great way to get noticed in the blogosphere, nor is being polite. Among his list of blogging tips are the following:

"36. Logic and reason are for the weak. Knee-jerk and off-the-cuff reactions are for the blogger.
30. Just like in life, extremism beats moderation and emotion beats logic. If you want reasoned discourse prepare to dwell in oblivion. If you want invective and ill-considered responses, watch the hits come in."

I have, as usual in my life, ambled down the road less traveled, and in so doing, I suppose I may have mired myself in blog oblivion.

And do you know what? I like it that way.

Call me a niche blogger. I don't want to be right all the time, nor do I want to be the most controversial voice on the internet. All I can hope for is to write something (once in a while at least) that makes somebody think a little. I've no desire to play the part of one of those pundits on cable news shows who engage in nightly talking points duels. To steal a thought from Steven Den Beste's "unintentional manifesto", I'd rather readers know why they agree or disagree with me than to just have readers agree with me. And sometimes, I'd like to leave a few folks scratching their heads a little. It's good once in while to struggle with the more difficult questions in life, ones where the answers don't seem so readily available.

Those are the types of the blogs that spawned in me the initial urge to to start burdening the blogosphere with my many opinions, and so, whether or not my strategy results in legions of loyal fans, I think I've held fairly close to my original ideal -- and that fills me with a certain sense of satisfaction.

It's either that, or somewhere deep inside I really believe that logic and reason will eventually overcome emotion and extremism. Yes, I can hear the snickering already.

I'll be away for a day or so, trying to take advantage of the long weekend. There'll be no more posting until Monday... hope everyone enjoys Labor Day.

I really expected much more from Zell Miller the other night, and I have to say I was a bit disappointed by some of the rhetoric in his keynote speech.

The first thing that stuck out was his stated anger at anyone who would refer to American troops as occupiers rather than liberators; which brought me to a(n apparently imagined) memory of the President musing how he understood the displeasure of the Iraqi people, saying that he wouldn't like being occupied either.

Then I thought a bit about Miller's condemnation of Kerry's votes to cut weapons funding, during which he cited some specific weapons that Kerry voted against funding for; it was almost as if the Secretary of Defense who had proposed several of his mentioned weapons cuts wasn't on the same ticket that Miller was supporting. I wouldn't think so much of it, except this argument was a cornerstone of Miller's contention that Kerry is unfit for duty as Commander-in-Chief.

In short, I actually thought I'd hear a more reasoned, less hysterical appeal from the Republicans' key Democratic defector. And then to see his onstage performance followed by some fairly inexplicable words to correspondents from two different news networks, first on CNN, followed by what appeared to be some wistful thinking about challenging Chris Matthews to a duel... I'm not sure I understand where all that was coming from.

Oh well, first Arnold, then Zell Miller; they somehow both managed to let me down this week. Andrew Sullivan has an angle on Miller's speech at his site, where he also critiques several other convention speeches. After reading several more conservative voices than my own talk about Miller's speech, I'm convinced that Miller's brand of Democratic politics is more fiery and conservative than most Republicans will ever be.

"An Argument" by Thomas Moore

This is one I wouldn't have normally thought to choose, except that a member of the online community of Stumblers chose to suggest it to me. I am not averse, by the way, to taking suggestions from others as it pertains to my Poetry Friday links, including if any readers have original rhymes to suggest. Thank you to the Strangest Guy for suggesting this week's choice.

To temper the politically flavored posts a little, and because I found this particular news item humorous, I wanted to link to the story of a Pennsylvania cashier who accepted a $200 bill (with the current President's picture on it) and actually gave over a hundred dollars in change to the customer. I have to wonder if the customer's effort to pass a $200 bill was initially a joke, and if it was just too hard to pass up getting $200 in merchandise/cash for the phony note. Or, considering that the cashier was not even aware of the counterfeit nature of the bill, perhaps it was not a joke at all and the customer actually believed she was passing a genuine bill.

Incidentally, as I was unaware, this is a pretty widespread ruse, as I might have known had I been a regular at The Smoking Gun.

I'd been skimming Talking Points Memo when I stumbled across a Slate link this morning; it's a rundown of some pretty strange comments about George Soros from House Speaker Denny Hastert.

I usually find Josh Marshall a little strong on lefty bias, but I like getting that perspective in a relatively civil, well-written fashion, so it's become an occasional internet check point for me lately. This story, which I originally heard in a cable news blurb a few days ago, is one that I thought I should have heard a little more about -- and I can't figure out why such scandalous comments from such a prominent politician haven't garnered more attention from mainstream news sources.

Well, the summer is pretty much done with now. It's September 1, and that means the fall semester is beginning. Time to blaze new academic trails in my continuing quest to take advantage of employer-funded tuition reimbursement.

I'm actually trying something a little new this time around. Since I thought I might be able to handle it, and, at the same time, ease my scheduling conflicts a little bit, I decided to sign up for distance learning classes only this time out. I have taken one such class previously, but I'm not exactly sure how it's going to play out with almost no actual classroom time this fall. I'm a little nervous about going pretty much unsupervised.

This may or may not effect my compulsion to blog, as I'm not yet sure how many school-related essays I may be able to adapt for online use. Hey, it's worked in the past...

I have been blessed with a Gmail invite, ostensibly because I commented on a Keeme post about Gmail invites, and I am grateful.

I think it's somewhat cool that when you get an invite, you apparently also get six more invites to distribute to other people. I haven't decided whether or not I'm interested in auctioning off any of my invites, as there is a short list of folks to whom I wanted to give first consideration, but if you think you think you may belong on that short list, you can email me with your thoughts.

I swear I never (in a million years) saw myself dangling Gmail invites like this, not that there's anything wrong with that. Actually, I think the whole Pay it Forward thing is pretty cool.

It has been my unwritten policy, for just two weeks all summer, to avoid any sort of critical commentary regarding ongoing convention fare, so please forgive me if this comes off as anything but humorous. Because really, I do like Arnold Schwarzenegger, but one particular stretch of his address to the Republican National Convention last night had me scratching my head a little. (By the way, I linked to the speech text here.)

It was the part of the speech where he launched into a litany of "if...then" statements about how to tell if you're a Republican. About halfway through his speech, I realized something: I'm a Republican! I agreed with almost every single ideal he was setting forth. How could I have missed my obvious party affiliation for so long?

Come to think of it, pretty much everyone I know is also a Republican (I'm not sure, but I could verify it with a little survey based on the text of Arnold's speech, right?). Everyone I know -- even the people who swear they're voting for Kerry in November. All Republicans! Hmmm...

I guess the President must be having a little trouble with his base these days, what with so many of them leaning towards Kerry at this point.

In light of this, I wonder how they snuck that old Patriot Act through a couple years ago? It couldn't have been a Republican president, because even Arnold knows that all Republicans believe government should be accountable to the people and not the other way around. Somebody must have forged the President's signature on that one -- pretty sneaky.

Come to think of it, I think John Kerry (also a Republican by most of Schwarzenegger's criteria) voted for that legislation too. Wait, something doesn't sound right here.

Okay, okay, I know we're not all Republicans, but it was too obvious, listening to the Governator's speech that we are supposed to infer only Republicans embrace the good, decent, democratic principles; thus everyone else must not believe in mom, baseball and apple pie.

Of course, all is fair in love and war... and political conventions. We saw just as much overly simplistic rambling a few weeks ago in Boston; it just didn't seem quite as hilarious to me as Arnold's speech last night. Still, I watch intently.

I know everyone else goes for the movie stars, but I'm still waiting to hear the Zell Miller speech tonight.