Sorry I haven't posted lately, I've been busy. A few notes about San Fran:

-There are more Subways here than there are Starbucks in any other place I've ever been. There are plenty of Starbucks too. My boss told me there are more Subways than any other fast food restaurant on the planet, including McDonald's. Is that true?
-The city grid here could be a little more grid-like. I miss my Philly grid.
-The weather is fantastic.
-This city is expensive.
-I got told today that I know a lot about vegetables. I suppose that's better than eating a lot of vegetables.
-Seafood's good. So is the ethnic food. You'd have a hard time paying me to set foot in the cheesesteak place I passed.
-It's good to see old friends.

I'm in San Francisco for the week, on business. I was going to post a well-written personal essay about my trip out here and my first day, but then Lord Henry called and I still have half a post. Maybe I'll finish it some day. Anyway, San Fran is a nice place; it's one of the few cities I could see myself living. And it's great to see Lord Henry again.

I thought people might be interested in this tax calculator, in which you input some basic information and it spits out an estimate of what would happen to your tax bill under the Obama-Biden plan (and if you'd be getting a cut, compares it to the cut you'd get under McCain's plan). They don't tell you how much better McCain would be if you make over 250,000 dollars a year, but that's because it's on the barackobama.com site. Despite the bias in what gets reported, the numbers seem fairly accurate (good ballparks) to me based on what I know about both tax plans.

Courtesy of an elementary school classmate via Facebook's new StalkerPro 2.0 (or whatever they're calling it now), I present a short video said to explain everything you need to know about Sarah Palin in 4 minutes and 34 seconds. I'm not sure it's everything, but it's definitely a good primer.

My Murals

I've always been a big fan of Philadelphia's Mural Arts Program. For those of you who aren't familiar with it, the Mural Arts Program is a city-wide non-profit project which matches artists and small Philly communities, and together they create a meaningful mural. Enlisting the help of people in neighborhood of all ages, the Mural Arts Program has produced over 2,800 murals all over the city, often with a special meaning to the community that helped paint it (murals depicting neighborhood heroes, for example).

The Mural Arts Program has inspired Philadelphians and visitors, brought communities together, helped overcome racial divides and tensions, given "at-risk youth" and lifelong residents alike a renewed sense of neighborhood pride and connection to a community, and become a national model and a local treasure. That plus a dramatic reduction in graffiti and ongoing art education programs for almost 2,000 at-risk youth.

Recently the New York Times published a story about the project, which one night was even the top front-page headline on their website. I can't think of a more deserving human interest story to spotlight, and I wanted to share it with my readers.

In a broader context, I think the Mural Arts Program is important because it highlights the extraordinary impact local communities and civic pride have on the urban landscape, which is, unfortunately, deteriorating all across America. Problems can't just be solved at the top. The best kind of city leadership is the kind that inspires the citizenry to take action themselves, as happened in Philadelphia under Ed Rendell and is happening again under Michael Nutter. You can't hire a fixer for a city in any election, but the residents themselves can "take back the streets" and reclaim a city. The Mural Arts Program is a wonderful archetype of how to turn weaknesses into strengths, occupants into citizens, urban blight and graffiti into hope and art.

So I was wondering...what would people think about a debate between aspiring First Ladies?

Also, this comes courtesy of Lilly. If I saw one of these, I'd definitely believe that change was coming.

Finally, back to the Jew-theme, I wish an easy fast to those of you atoning out there. Also, the Colbert Report stole my "brethren and sistren" joke almost verbatim when talking about the Jewish High Holidays. Dear Colbert Writer, I'm on to you.

My Response to McCain's Attacks

I understand.

People are criticizing McCain's decision (or his approval of his strategists' decision) to turn the campaign full-tilt negative. They say it's not what the country needs or wants; it will alienate voters; it's the wrong tone given the times; it won't help the country with the current mess, and it might hurt, regardless of who wins. They're right.

But they're also wrong. From a strategic point of view, McCain has to go negative. Here's why: For the first time in the campaign, a candidate is polling above 50% with some consistency. And that candidate is Barack Obama (Gallup has him above 50%, as do Rasmussen and CNN). This means it's no longer enough to win undecideds. If every undecided broke for McCain, he still might lose. They need to bring people over from the Obama camp. And they can't do it just by making McCain look good; the economic situation has seen to that. They have to introduce negatives about Obama, worries about him, to counter the various reasons (mostly economic I suspect) people will cite as cause for their recent decision to vote for him.

It's a logical tactical decision, but very conventional (perhaps not what is needed). Once someone has made up their mind, especially after delaying doing so for so long, you can't just be better, the other guy has to be worse. So McCain needs to pin his hopes on fear and aversion, the notion that Obama is too risky a choice. So we get attack ads and scare tactics, a last ditch attempt to coerce an electorate that is in the process of making up its mind. More than ever in my lifetime, America wants a change, and McCain is out of new ideas--for the campaign, and for the country.

My Blog's First Award

No, I didn't win one. I'm giving one. I've noticed that blogs give awards sometimes, as do columnists and other people with too much time on their hand and an inflated sense of their opinion's value to society. Well, I'm in Harrisburg (former? check) and I've had and overheard one too many conversations with people in the hotel bar (latter? check)...and since I have a blog, I fit the bill.

This award goes to Artemis, a new character in my list of anonymous friends, many of whom are not imaginary. Artemis is a dear friend of mine from middle and high school. I'd say she's like a sister to me, but we don't talk or see each other enough for that, so she's kind of like that weird quirky cousin you don't know what to make of but always look forward to seeing at weddings and bar mitzvahs.

And since she is the first recipient of this award, which, by the way, will be awarded whenever I feel like it, the award shall thusly be named for her, in recognition of her surpassing extremism in the attribute her namesake web-award recognizes. In this case, the Artemisy shall be awarded for great and entertaining hypocrisy. I shall now present the award:

The winner of this first Artemisy is a high school history teacher, more a case of destiny than choice as this didactic heroine has been propelled by twin forces of fate, her 8th Grade History Prize and her aspirations for a small and manageable position as a minor dictator.

The following two sentences were typed to me by this winner a scant 54 seconds apart, when lamenting her inevitable departure for greener pastures. And by greener I mean full of grading papers of what I gathered must be less than interesting prose:
"High school kids need to right more interesting essays."
And then less than a minute later:
"I take off for spelling."

The winner of this week's/month's/year's/decade's Artemisy Award is...

The eponymous Artemis! Congratulations, mazal tov, and welcome to the blog. I hope this writing was interesting enough for you (I threw in a few big words just for your enjoyment). Enjoy the papers.

My Fellow (sort of) Blogger

I just found out that McCain's 23-year old daughter has a blog about the campaign. I checked it out. Three things jumped out at me, all of which are probably connected. (1) Her blog is much more popular than mine; (2) she's much more attractive than I am; and (3) after 15 minutes of searching I couldn't find ANYTHING of substance on the entire blog. No opinions, no analysis, nothing but photo ops, letters, and anecdotes. If you took out the photos and blurred out the names, you wouldn't even be able to tell which candidate she supports. But I guess when you're that cute, you don't need to know or say anything to get people to vote for your dad.

That said, from a political perspective, the campaign seems to be using her well. I'm just glad I'm not in that position. I don't think I'd be able to take a nation-wide tour of grip-and-grin without saying anything other than canned sound bites, and without saying what I think and trying to convince people, change minds, and make my case.

That said, Meghan and I are both socially liberal (according to the Philadelphia Inquirer, I couldn't figure that out from the blog) but otherwise conservative political bloggers of the same age...I wonder if she'd go out with me. I am from one of the three most important swing states.

[If anyone is up for a contest among readers, try to find her most substantive post and post a link in the comments...you can find her blog at www.mccainblogette.com.]

Sarah Palin winked at me. Twice. During the debate.

Words fail me.

Some loose ends I've been meaning to post:

I know at least a few of my readers will enjoy this comic. Especially if you have some historical awareness.

For the Mac users.

For people who remember playing Worms. Like all those nights we should have been studying for exams instead.

Also, I don't know how to broach this topic sensitively, but let me say that the following observation is the result of pure capitalism. I was driving through North Philly this week, and it jumped out at me that the area has a LOT more fried chicken distributors (KFC, Church's, Crown, etc.) per square foot of real estate than anywhere I've ever spent a lot of time. What's up with that?

Finally, a belated Happy New Year to my Chosen Readers.