On Kansas Basketball

Why I write

In the past, I’ve been asked by friends how I decided to start writing and I have been wanting to do a piece explaining why. Kansas winning the National Championship last night gives me a great excuse to start the explanation off, so here it is.

There’s definitely value in starting and being a part of conversations with thoughtful people, so putting my ideas into a blog post here on Lawrence.com is something I enjoy for the potential discussions and debates that can come as a result. But in addition to that, the main reason I initially started writing is because I like having archived and time-stamped proof that on a certain day I was thinking and caring about a certain topic. When I blog on politics or current events, informing people about something is always a goal, but in a selfish way, I really just like the idea of documenting my opinion on an issue so that many years later I can point to that and prove I cared and even did something – even if it was just typing up a few sentences. I’ve had friends and family members tell me that some of my writing has led them to really reexamine their own beliefs on an issue and that makes it all worth doing.

I also get a great deal of comfort knowing that I’m leaving a trail of ideas and thoughts and making a historical record of what I thought was important in the world. Keeping track of and elaborating on some of my favorite or most-inspired moments is hopefully something my future children and grandchildren will appreciate reading someday.

That’s getting off the subject at-hand, but with that being said, if my kid ever asks me “What did you think of the game with Mario and the Miracle 3″, I’ll have this post to point them to.

Thoughts on The Game
While there is surely much more informed and analytical coverage of this game out there, I don’t think it’d be possible for me to not chime in and share my thoughts.

Just to explain how I was looking at the game, for me, the North Carolina semi-final game was a bigger deal. Well, that’s not true, at all. But it felt like a bigger deal leading up to the game. Even if we had we lost to Memphis, I would have been able to cope better knowing we had beaten Roy and the Tarheels. And I really like Roy and don’t really dislike or disagree with his decision to leave KU, but the moment Roy left we all started wondering when we’d end up meeting him on the court, so I had been looking forward to this for a long time. Losing to them would have hurt a lot more than losing to a great Memphis team.

How I became a Jayhawk
If you don’t know, I should tell you that I grew up in Lawrence and have always been a Jayhawk. There’s a picture of me somewhere from the day of the parade celebrating the 1988 championship and I’m decked out in Jayhawk attire and have a funny 5-year-old potbelly. The pic is actually in a book of KU basketball history somewhere, as is one of me as a KU freshman posing with the Jayhawk mascot. As a kid in grade school, I remember writing Good Luck and later Congratulation cards to the basketball team when they made it to the tournament. In the summer of ‘92 when my parents decided they wanted to return to their home state of Arkansas, we had some KU basketball players come to our house to help us move our piano and some other heavy furniture. I’m not entirely sure who the players were, but I think it was Steve Woodberry and the Gregs – Gurley and Ostertag. I’m not sure if it was because we had season tickets and were maybe owed a favor by someone in the athletic department or if the players just were wanting to make a little extra money doing odd jobs in the summer, but I’ll always remember that they helped us move and how cool I thought it was that they were in my house. Whomever ‘they’ actually were.

When I was the new kid in Arkansas, I always wore my KU hats and shirts with pride, though when I look back on it, I see that they were probably more of a security blanket of sorts, something to keep me connected to the only other place I’d ever called home. It was only a few days into the school year before a classmate, Adam, came up to tell me that he liked Kansas too. His dad was an alum and he’d grown up being a fan too. I didn’t realize it then, but moments like that, being connected to complete strangers solely because of a shared love of KU, would be something I’d experience throughout my life.

After high school, I decided I needed to return to Lawrence. The Journalism School is great and I had maintained some incredible friendships with childhood friends that would be attending KU. So in 2001, I returned as a college freshman and that is a decision I will always be happy I made, even if I’m still not sure of all the reasons it was the right thing to do.

A Jayhawk Nation
It seems like every time I take a vacation or business trip that I’ll somehow get connected to a fellow KU fan. Whether they are wearing a KU hat or shirt or they notice that I am, I’m no longer surprised to hear a “Hey, Rock Chalk!” from a complete stranger in an airport. I randomly sat next to a KU student the last time I flew to New York and had someone comment on my KU hat the last time I was in San Francisco. My Jayhawk license plate has led to a few “Hey, Go Hawks!” in store parking lots and at least one honk and thumbs-up from a car on the highway.

I watched all the NCAA Tournament games down here in Arkansas this year and when one of the games wasn’t being shown in our area I rushed to a local sports bar (okay, it was actually a damn Buffalo Wild Wings) and walked in to find 5 or 6 tables of KU fans wearing Crimson and Blue. Yeah, they were all in their sixties or older, but we had a great time drinking beers and eating overpriced chicken.

I don’t know that I can do justice to what that means and I don’t really think it’s that unique to the experience that fans of other schools must have, but it is special. Our school has done incredible things to unite people and make the world a smaller, more inter-connected place. Yeah, that’s a little heady and I don’t mean to make it into a bigger thing than it is, because there are plenty of things that unite people that otherwise wouldn’t have much in common, but looking at all the pictures and video of KU fans watching and celebrating the game in Lawrence, I can’t help but notice the diversity in the faces among the crowds. There aren’t many things that can bring together people from so many different backgrounds and lifestyles like KU basketball does.

I also can’t help but marvel at the crowd that flooded onto Mass Street, not because of the number of people, but because of the lack of destruction and violence. From what I’ve read, the crowd was around 40,000 people and there were only a handful of arrests and no major damage done to property or person*. I don’t think it’s incorrect to speculate that there aren’t many college towns where such a large crowd of boozed up sports fans could come together and not end up in a fog of tear gas and shattered store fronts. The fact that didn’t happen reminds me why I’ve always loved Lawrence.

How do I end this? I could keep adding in little tidbits of thoughts I had over the past week or so about how incredible this team is or how that game was the arguably the best I have ever watched, but that’s all been said already.

One thing that cannot be said enough is how incredible the adversity these kids on our team (and they really are kids, afterall) have shown. If you somehow haven’t heard about the tragedies these players have faced this year, this article sums everything up. It’s amazing that they were able to continue to persevere under those circumstances.

I guess my final thought is this: we already know the talk about what Oklahoma State is going to offer Bill Self to leave and we know it’ll be a lot. And frankly, I’m not convinced that Self shouldn’t take it. Coaching at one’s Alma Mater has to be high up on the list of great honors. And while I think Roy made the right decision the first time, I also think he made the right decision when he left. I can’t decide yet whether Self would be making the wrong or right move by leaving. But, before we get too deep into that debate and allow the shine to rub off this brand new championship, just remember that if Coach Self does decide to leave, it isn’t going to change a single thing about Allen Fieldhouse, Downtown Lawrence or the love people have for KU.

Like our amazing team this year, those things will continue to thrive no matter what they face in the future.

*I’m sad to report that the celebrations weren’t completely void of violence. Misty brings us the news that a nice guy at The Replay was badly beaten and is currently in the hospital. Details here.

See-through Frogs, Wooden Chewies, Watergate, Arabs and Robots (Among Other Things)

Here’s another linky compilation post of things off my Shared Items blog.

Barcode Art


Uncovered : Possible Inspiration For Controversial LeBron James Vogue Cover

Check the link for more on that.

A Short List of What Every American Should Know About the Middle East

A few examples of what’s on the list:

*Arabs are part of an ethnic group, not a religion. Arabs were around long before Islam, and there have been (and still are) Arab Christians and Arab Jews. In general, you’re an Arab if you 1) are of Arab descent (blood), or 2) speak the main Arab language (Arabic).

*Arabs are Semites. We’ve all heard the term anti-Semitism being used — often to describe Arabs. While antisemitism does specifically indicate hatred for Jews, the word “Semite” comes from the Bible and referred originally to anyone who spoke one of the Semitic Languages.

(From Chris Glass via Kottke)

Incredible Transparent Frog


Wood Teethers for Baby

This initially struck me as being a bit too “crunchy granola” for my liking, but the blogger makes a good point that compared to chewing on plastic teething toys, wood makes a lot of sense. It’s not much different than chewing on a toothpick and I think reducing the amount of chemicals one ingests is always a good idea. If I ever have kids, I’ll probably try one of these suckers out.

Conservatives Heart Homosexuality (and Hitler)

If you haven’t seen Conservapedia before, you have to check it out. It’s a ripoff of Wikipedia made for conservatives, because some of them like having their own facts and all that. Check out the most-viewed pages. This doesn’t surprise me one bit, especially when you see this piece from ScienceBlogs. There’s a new study in the Journal of Abnormal Psychology that finds individuals with higher levels of homophobia are more-likely to be turned on by homoeroticism. (NSFW Link via VioletBlue)

Dean Kamen’s “Luke” Arm

“Dean Kamen, inventor of the Segway, has been working on a next-generation prosthetic arm that will blow your mind. A man who lost his arms 26 years ago can now peel a banana without squishing it.”

Unsuscribe Me From Your Internet. Mine Gets Full All The Time!

I love this letter. I can’t read it without thinking of all the sweet old ladies I’ve known in my life.

(Link via Neatorama)

How Would Watergate Be Reported Today?

And finally, following-up on a thought I shared in my previous blog about how today’s media would report on Martin Luther King Jr.’s work, I liked this piece from Art Brodsky asking how Watergate would be reported today. It’s worth a read.

Forty Years Ago Today

Forty years ago today, Martin Luther King Jr. was killed. The speech Robert Kennedy made announcing the tragic news to a crowd in Indianapolis has always affected me. The audio of that moment is just incredible. From the beginning when you hear Kennedy asking someone if the crowd already knows about what happened, to the gasp from the crowd when they hear the news, to the beautiful speech Kennedy gives – presumably on-the-fly – in an effort to comfort the crowd and put the tragedy in a broader context, the moment is hard to describe, especially when one knows that just a few months following this speech, Robert Kennedy is himself gunned down.

If you haven’t heard it, or it’s been a while, here it is:

Today also makes me think back on something I’ve put a lot of thought into over the past year, I guess.

I’ve had this picture bookmarked for months and occasionally look at it and think of how this image would play in today’s media if someone, say Barack Obama, were to appear somewhere with an entourage like this:

If you don’t recognize it, that’s MLK Jr. giving his “I Have a Dream” speech. There are times when I think we’ve come incredibly far, and for the most part I do think we have, but every now and again I’m stunned to see how far we still have to go.

Update: AmericaBlog posted this clip of King’s final speech.

More on email forwards…

Recently, I wrote about the danger of email forwards, the chain-style that are often false.

My argument was that by passing on emails that are false and partisan – emails that were likely written with the intention of misinforming people or sparking hatred for those with opposing political beliefs – or even simply tolerating others passing them on by not calling them out when an email is easily proven to be false, that our society would suffer because the lies would spread and the respect for truth would be diminished.

If people think it is okay to forward an email that attacks their political rivals even though it is based on lies, then they do not have respect for Truth. In their eyes, Truth is not as important as Partisanship.

The LA Times has a piece out today illustrating how false email forwards can manipulate the intelligence of seemingly very intelligent people.

The Director of National Intelligence, Mike McConnell, was giving a speech recently and opened up with an interesting story about Navy ships having some tense exchange with what they thought was an oncoming ship.

He even prefaced the story by saying, “”Now this is… true. I was in the signals intelligence business where you listen to the people talk and so on. This is true. It’s an actual recording.”

You can read the story at the link above, but the point is, it turns out the story isn’t true. It was an urban legend. Here is a link to the Snopes.com page that debunks the story.

Now, this example is not as insidious as those that deal with our elections and politicians. I think those are worse because they aim to manipulate the understanding of citizens, thereby influencing who they may or may not eventually vote for.

But this does illustrate how easy it can be to be fooled by these false emails. If the Director of National Intelligence for the United States can be so easily convinced that something so easily debunked is true, well, that isn’t good.

Do what you can to debunk these stories when they arrive in your email. Our country and the world might just be better off.

Where are KS pols on new GI Bill?

Craig Newmark, of craigslist.org fame, blogs (surprise!) and in this post points to the list of politicians supporting the new GI Bill.

Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, who are spearheading this effort, say this about the new bill:

“IAVA supports a modernized WWII-style GI bill that fully covers the cost of an education at any public school or equivalently-priced private school. Benefits for Reserve/National Guard servicemembers should be based on the cumulative length of their deployments and not on their single longest deployment. Tuition costs should be paid up front and directly to the college, allowing veterans access to education without forcing them to rely on loans.”

Speaking of the list of supporters, Craig notes, “The name most conspicuous by its absence is McCain.”

That is true and definitely something folks should be asking him about. As someone that uses his military experience as much as he does to further his own career, McCain should have no excuse for not supporting this effort to help educate our troops. It will also help strengthen our military by encouraging enlistment.

However, also missing from the list are all Kansas politicians.

None of Kansas’ four members of the House or either of our two Senators are listed as being supporters of this effort.

What gives?

Give your elected officials a ring and see if you can help talk some sense into them.

Sen. Brownback
(202) 224-6521

Sen. Roberts
(202) 224-4774

You can reach the main switchboard for The House at (202) 224-3121 Just ask to be connected to your Congressperson.

Jerry Moran; Kansas, 1st
Nancy Boyda; Kansas, 2nd
Dennis Moore; Kansas, 3rd
Todd Tiahrt; Kansas, 4th

PS: Both of my Senators from Arkansas, Sen. Blanche Lincoln and Sen. Mark Pryor, are supporters, however my Congressmen aren’t listed yet, so they need a call too.

Marion Berry; Arkansas, 1st
Vic Snyder; Arkansas, 2nd
John Boozman; Arkansas, 3rd
Mike Ross; Arkansas, 4th

Hillary in Da House!

How can you not support Hillary after seeing this?

The only way this could be funnier is if it was a bunch of old people rapping(?) for John McCain.

Three Things

Three things you should be following or at least generally aware of.

ONE: Pay heed to the Winter Soldiers:

From The Nation:

From tomorrow through Saturday the Winter Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan hearings in Washington, DC will feature testimony from US veterans detailing what’s really happening on the ground in these occupations.
They’ll present photographs and videos, recorded with mobile phones and digital cameras, to back up their allegations of brutality, torture and murder.

…

Winter Soldiers, according to Thomas Paine, are patriots who stand up for the soul of their country, even in its darkest hours. With this spirit in mind, the current generation of Winter Soldiers are standing up to make their experiences available to all who are concerned about the direction of our country.

You can watch or listen online. You can also donate to their campaign on their site and if you’re so inclined, they have tips to help you host a viewing party. There is also a short film about three of new winter soldiers on youtube. Alternet also has a good article on the Winter Soldiers.

TWO: Fallon Has Fallen

A clever sub-title, perhaps, but with it may come tragic consequence. Yesterday, the most-powerful opponent to attacks on Iran in our military, Centcom commander Adm. William Fallon, resigned and questions loom as to whether he was forced out and what impact this could have on our actions towards Iran.

Jon Taplin looks into possible reasons for Fallon’s departure here, including this suggestion by Middle East expert Juan Cole:

“Having such a big dissenter as CENTCOM commander is inconvenient for the Republican Party at a time when John McCain is admitting that if he fails to convince the American people that the surge is succeeding, he will lose the presidency. That is, Fallon may have run afoul not of Cheney on Iran but McCain on Iraq. This may be Bush’s first favor to the Republican nominee, who after all had a career as a naval officer himself.”

Fallon, who opposed the so-called ’surge’ in Iraq and has privately vowed that “an attack on Iran would not happen” on his watch, was the subject of a recent article in Esquire magazine, that said “it will come as no surprise if Fallon is relieved of his command before his time is up next spring, maybe as early as this summer, in favor of a commander the White House considers to be more pliable” with regards to attacks on Iran.

It didn’t even take till Spring.

Today, Senator Clinton called on the Armed services Committee to investigate whether or not Fallon was forced out.

On the same topic, Larisa Alexandrovna points to an article from the Columbia Journalism Review looking into how press let the White House manipulate the narrative with regard to Iran’s nuclear program.

This may not mean anything, but it does appear to be worth keeping an eye on.

THREE: Election Math and the Limbaugh Effect

From what I gather (see: here, here, here, here), it is now the accepted consensus among the experts that Barack Obama will almost certainly be ahead in popular vote, delegates and states won. That’s the good news, if you’re an Obama supporter. So, as Andrew Sullivan put it here, the Obama supporters should all chill out. Clinton could still get the nomination by the power of the superdelegates, but that too seems to be at least a little bit more unlikely than it might have seemed a week or two ago.

Chilling is a good idea for a few reasons. First, as I mentioned in my previous post, Democrats, liberals and progressives, plus those Republicans that want to see either Clinton or Obama elected, need to be aware of the serious potential that either Clinton or Obama could wind up badly damaged politically due to the continued in-fighting.

You would think the logic of preventing that kind of damage would be enough to convince the Clinton camp from attacking Obama like they did the past few weeks, but if that isn’t reason enough, the growing influence of the Limbaugh Effect should be.

The Limbaugh Effect is bad news, for Obama supporters, especially, but also for both Democrats and democrats, in general. I mentioned the Limbaugh effect in my previous post, but it is also nicely summed up in this piece by The Jed Report. (This is my first time seeing The Jed Report, but whoever is writing it seems to have a clue.)

The Jed Report reports:

“Now that John McCain has won the GOP nomination, Republicans are voting in the Democratic primary in increasing numbers, hoping to pick their opponent for the November election, or at least cause more turmoil in our already divisive nomination battle.

Their choice? Hillary Clinton.”

John McCain has secured the nomination for the Republican party, so the remaining primaries and caucuses are of no real consequence for the Republican Party. Because of that, a large number of Republican voters, motivated in part by Rush Limbaugh, are changing their registration and crossing over to vote in the Democratic contests.

You can hear Rush Limbaugh describing the plan here:

Is it working? Well, yesterday, 24% of Clinton’s votes in Mississippi came from Republicans.

So, I’d say so.

The Jed Report asks why is this a problem?

In the abstract, there’s nothing wrong with receiving votes from Republicans in the Democratic primary — as long as those votes come from Republicans who are truly committed to a Democratic candidate. That appears to be the case with Barack Obama, who consistently does well among Republicans and independents in public opinion surveys.

Hillary Clinton’s support from Republicans, on the other hand, is coming from Republicans who will not support her in the general election. They are simply wreaking havoc in the Democratic primary, hoping to further divide an already divided party, and perhaps even help Hillary Clinton win the nomination.

Obama still dominated the contest by more than 20%, but this effort cost Obama an estimated 10 delegates and undoubtedly played a role in the media narrative, if you presume that a larger Obama win would have resulted in a different, perhaps only slightly, media narrative.

This is now the third state that the Limbaugh Effect has had a statistically significant impact on the outcome.

I agree with the Jed Report in that:

“The bottom-line as far as I’m concerned is that this new trend is symbolic of a Democratic primary that has gone completely haywire.
…

Effectively, this emerging pattern calls into question the validity of any voting from here on out, even in closed primaries. There’s just so much lead time before the next contests that Republicans have plenty of time to register as Democrats and monkey with our primary.

Imagine just how effin’ hard it will be to make sure revotes in Florida and Michigan don’t end becoming a huge clusterf**k.“

Read all of The Jed Report’s article for the detailed math and his thoughts on how the superdelegates could help bring the ongoing fight to an end.

About last week…

I couldn’t help but notice some pungent bullshit flying around recently, but before I get to that, I should clarify something just to make sure we’re all on the same page.

As I alluded to in my post from last week, Obama actually won Texas, despite what the Clinton camp or media folks had to say. Plus, last week, which was supposedly the week Clinton turned things around, Obama ended up earning a net gain of 15 delegates. Kos of Dailykos can explan.

See what I meant when I wrote that all Clinton really won was some good press?

That leads us to the bullshit.

At the end of my post from last week, I included the clip of Clinton touting her and John McCain’s experience, while slamming Obama as only having given a speech. Go watch that first if you haven’t already.

In addition, you’ve likely already seen the 3AM ad, which is also a part of this meme that she is somehow ready to go on Day One, while Obama is not.

Yet, the Clintons are — without any subtlety — pushing the idea of a Clinton/Obama ticket.

This, my friends, is a perfect example of bullshit*.

Obama responds perfectly to these contradictory statements from the Clintons here:

From the “This Cartoon Sums Up My Entire Post” department comes this piece from the Oregonian:

“It’s just politics”is how Bill Clinton explained these contradictory statements.

True as that may be, I don’t think that has to be the case. They don’t have to be playing this type of politics. They could be doing things much differently, but they aren’t.

And it is a damn shame that the way they are acting is making some fair-minded folk, like myself, actually wonder whether or not the Clinton’s have designs on 2012 if they can’t get this thing to shake out the way they want before August.

LesserEvil Land

For the record, let me say something here. If it comes down to Clinton versus McCain, I will do whatever I can to make sure Clinton wins. That being said, this entire situation, with the Clinton’s attacking Obama, is difficult because it presents a dilemma in that one is tempted to strike back with anti-Clinton bullshit, which would damage Clinton, as the Clinton’s are trying to damage Obama. But that is exactly what Republicans want.

Clinton is making attacks on Obama, which is saving McCain time, money and energy. Every week that goes by with more intra-party feuding, is one more week that the Democrats aren’t putting all of their energy into beating McCain.

Republicans know Obama is a harder candidate to beat. And they know that Clinton as the Democratic nominee would be a huge boon to the Republican Party, by energizing anti-Clinton folks and helping raise money, so they are doing whatever they can to keep Clinton in the race.

In fact, it seems Rush Limbaugh was successful in his attempts to get Republicans from Texas and Ohio to crossover and vote for Clinton in the primaries and caucuses there. And if you really want a mindf*ck, realize that Bill Clinton actually went on Rush Limbaugh’s show the day of the Texas vote! If there’s one thing you can never say about the Clinton’s it is that they really want to win. But damn, how low can they go to do it?

The Wall Street Journal looks into how Limbaugh voters impacted the result in Texas (which really only minimized Obama’s victory there) and Jon Taplin writes about the Limbaugh effect in Texas and Ohio.

Two Final thoughts

1. Remember how a few inches above where you are reading now I wrote about how Clinton was saying all Obama has done is give a speech in 2002? Well, take a minute to read the speech. It’s pretty damn great.

2. A site I’ve been enjoying lately is Scholars and Rogues. This is an Open Letter to Progressives from one of their contributers discussing the importance for progressives to stop attacking one another and focus on beating McCain, and as with everything else linked here, I think it’s worth a read.

** I recently read Harry Frankfurt’s great essay’s entitled On Bullshit and On Truth and highly-recommend them. In fact, if there were a way for me to implant the logic held within On Truth into the mind of every person I know, I would gladly do so. It covers the philosophical questions that surround the idea of ‘truth’ and whether or not absolute truths can exist and why truth matters to the survival of our societies.

About last night…

A couple of things are worth-noting this morning.

First, despite whatever the Clinton camp says today following their wins in Ohio, Texas and Rhode Island last night, even under the best-case scenarios moving forward, it is virtually impossible for Clinton to go into Denver with more delegates than Obama. Marc Ambinder from The Atlantic explains why.

Second, I think the spin of these wins being a rebuke of Obama or a huge momentum swing for Clinton are overstated. She was favored in each of those states, if I’m not mistaken, and by huge margins just a few weeks ago. If you’re looking at who is on an upward swing, I still think it is Obama.

Last week, Jon Taplin graphed the swing I speak of:

Now, all that isn’t to say that last night wasn’t a huge win for Clinton. However, it wasn’t a win of delegates. She may have only won 2 out of the 1000+ needed to win the nomination and Obama might have even won more last night. What she won was good PR and whatever additional donations she’ll be able to solicit from donors wanting to help push this perceived momentum even further. (Though, Obama will most-certainly get a wave of new donations today and throughout this week, as well). So, really, all it comes down to is a media win. She’s won the right to claim victory, talk about momentum, hold off the pressure to drop out and stick around for a few more weeks.

I’m torn on whether I think that’s a good thing or not. It has to be said that this is democracy at work and that alone makes the process exciting. But as many people suspect, the longer this fight rages on between Obama and Clinton, the easier a win for McCain will be. That, of course, wouldn’t be the case if the Clinton’s weren’t fighting dirty.

Check out these stories about some of her tactics from the last few days.

Did the Clinton Campaign Doctor Obama Footage to Make Him ‘Blacker’?

Latest Clinton tactic: Fake news reports

‘Did I say Osama? I meant Obama!’ says Clintonite

People are tired of this kind of politics. I know I am.

And one last thing…this: is one of the dumbest things I have heard her say.

At the end of my Quick and Linky case for Obama post, I included a video by Lawrence Lessig, in which he laid out his reasons for supporting Obama. One of those was that her campaign strategy against Obama – “35 years of experience, etc.” – would be completely useless against McCain in the general election, because, after all, he has more experience than her. This ridiculous statement in the video above is a godsend for McCain. Don’t think that that is the last you’ll see of that clip. If she wins the Democratic nomination, I guarantee that will be in a McCain commercial. If the debate is about experience, McCain wins without question. I cannot believe she said that.

Viva Obama! and other campaign songs

Texas is seeing massive turnout today. That seems to bode well for Obama, but turnout has been high for Democrats in every primary and caucus, so that alone isn’t much.

If Obama does well with Hispanics, I don’t think you can overlook the role songs like these played.

BTW, if you haven’t seen videos from The Real News network out of Canada, I highly-recommend them. Here’s one asking Texas taxi drivers to share their thoughts on the election. But they have loads more on all sorts of topics.