I work just down the street from the Prudential Building in Newark, NJ, and it’s scary to know that the building’s been targeted by terrorists. If I turn around right now from the computer where I’m typing these words, I can look out my office door, across the corridor, into my boss’s office and through the window, where one side of the Prudential Building fills the entire view.

*turns around*

Yep, still there.

When I walked near the building this morning, the first thing I saw was a TV truck. Then a few more. And someone was being interviewed in front of the building. Oh, and lots of security, too.

The thing is, now that this has been announced, probably nothing will happen. But it’s eerie to think that there have probably been people casing the building — counting pedestrian traffic, testing the security measures, and so forth. I hadn’t thought of New Jersey as containing any attractive terrorist targets, not with Manhattan nearby.

But what can you do? I’m just going to continue on with my daily life. Damn the torpedoes — full speed ahead.

How to be creative. (via kottke)

While national polls show that the presidential race is still close, the Electoral College is what counts, and by that measure, Kerry’s ahead by a large margin, as these two sites suggest. However, these two analyses take into account polls that show that several states are very, very close. If those states shift, it will create huge shifts in the electoral vote.

The Electoral College tends to exaggerate a winner’s victory and a loser’s defeat, as you can tell by comparing the popular and electoral votes of past elections. Nevertheless, that’s the vote that counts, not the nationwide popular vote — as we learned in 2000.

The producers of SNL have invited Bill Clinton to host an episode next season. I hope he says yes (can anyone imagine him not saying yes?) — I’d totally watch that. My friend Mitch and I have talked about this for a long time. One of my favorite politician-hosting-SNL moments was when Rudy Giuliani dressed in drag as an Italian grandmother; I’d love to see Clinton do something similarly ridiculous. I’d also love to see the real Clinton face off against Darrell Hammond playing Clinton. The possibilities delight the mind.

Maybe they could even unearth Elvis as the musical guest.

Good column on how Bush has bungled the war on terror. (Not that this is a unique viewpoint.)

On Saturday night, Matt and I went to the new Target store in Brooklyn. We also went to the nearby Old Navy, where I bought a pair of khaki shorts. They were right there on the front of a random rack of clothes — 31 waist, which is what I generally wear these days. I tried them on. They fit me well. I bought them.

The next day I was at Matt’s place. I got dressed, put on the shorts, and showed them off to Matt.

And he pointed out that the plastic security tag was still attached to them.

I was so annoyed. I’d finally gotten myself to buy a pair of new shorts and now I couldn’t wear them. I tried to detach the security tag myself, but I couldn’t. I’d obviously have to bring them back to an Old Navy store and have it removed.

So today after work I brought them to the Old Navy on 6th Avenue and 18th Street, along with the receipt. I took them out of the shopping bag and explained what had happened. No problem — the clerk detached the security tag, lickety split, and gave the shorts back to me. I put them back in the shopping bag. It was easier than I’d thought.

Then I took the subway down to Matt’s apartment.

After I emerged from the subway, I realized that I’d left the bag and the shorts on the train.

I’m thinking maybe I’m not meant to get a new pair of shorts.

I’ve just realized that today is a milestone. It was exactly five years ago today — August 4, 1999 — that I left Charlottesville, Virginia for good. After four years of college, one year of working at UVA, three years of law school, and a final summer of studying for and then taking the New York Bar Exam, I packed up all my stuff, accidentally dropped a bottle of black shoe polish in the street (thereby splattering black polish all over the asphalt), hopped into my car and drove back up north.

Since then, I’ve come out to my parents; worked in Hopewell, NJ, and then in Newark; lived in Montclair, Princeton, Franklin Park, and Jersey City; started a blog; made new friends; experienced New York City more than ever before; made a few attempts at relationships; and now spent the past 10 months with a wonderful boyfriend.

We arbitrarily divide our lives into stages. I had my growing-up-in-New-Jersey stage, my Japan stage, and my Virginia stage, and now I’m exactly five years into my post-Virginia stage. Sometimes it seems like my New York City stage, but it’s hard not to relate it back to my years at UVA. I wonder if this will ever completely stop feeling like my post-Virginia stage.

At any rate — Happy Five Years, me.

English words of international origin, listed by original language

I really like this quote from a letter published in Salon yesterday:

Humans are inherently spiritual, and archeological evidence supports the assertion that mankind has been aware of this and has sought connection with “the divine” for millennia. It is only relatively recently — within the last 3,000 to 5,000 years — that complex religious systems and their dogmatic codifications of belief and morality have managed to fracture and fragment societies throughout the world.

I’ve just finished a great book called Aristotle’s Children, by Richard E. Rubenstein. The book is ostensibly about history and philosophy — namely, the rediscovery of Aristotle’s works during the Middle Ages, and their impact on society. But it also manages to be relevant to the world we live in. Rubenstein writes that the awakenings caused by the rediscovery of Aristotle’s works are not widely known or accepted as part of our “cultural story” today; instead our culture focuses on the Renaissance, on Galileo and Copernicus, on the struggle of science to overcome the strictures of religion — on what he calls the “origin myth” of modern science: “the notion that scientifc research could not emerge as a respected and productive activity until it had liberated itself from the clutches of a dogmatic, authoritarian faith.”

Rubenstein points out that after engaging themselves with the works of Aristotle during medieval times, philosophers and religious figures began the process of reconciling faith and reason. For a couple of centuries, they were able to do so; those who explored the natural world were religious, and those who led the church tried to accommodate science. After all, Aristotle’s world-view itself accepted both faith and reason, although in medieval times this led to a productive tension between the two.

As Rubenstein puts it, this tense relationship between faith and reason eventually led to a divorce, to the point that the modern world sees faith and reason, religion and science, as mutually exclusive. We feel we’ve resolved the tension today by compartmentalizating the two: reason and science should control public policy while faith and religion should remain confined to the private sphere. But this doesn’t work, Rubenstein says, and (interestingly to me) he cites homosexuality, among other public issues:

These disputes are not between faith and reason but between alternative visions of the good person and the good society that have roots in both modes of thought. What makes them potentially destructive… are claims that one party’s views are purely rational and scientific, while the other’s rest on pure faith. Such claims eliminate the possibility of dialogue…

“Homosexuality is genetically determined; religion and ethics have nothing to do with the matter,” say some advocates of gay and lesbian rights. But the argument from genetics (whose scientific validity remains in question) masks an ethical commitment that places a higher value on love between consenting adults than on policies and customs promoting heterosexual behavior. “Homosexuality is condemned by the Bible; that’s all there is to it,” reply some of their “fundamentalist” opponents. But the argument based on biblical literalism (which involves selecting some commands for enforcement, while enforcing others) masks non-biblical concerns for the maintenance of the traditional heterosexual family and the avoidance of promiscuity and disease… Agreement on such matters may not be possible between people holding strong convictions on either side. But a humane dialogue can take place between those committed, as the Aristotelians were, to the search for norms that are both ethical and reasonable.

(I did a double-take when I read the part about promiscuity and disease, until I realized that he was characterizing what some fundamentalists believe.)

Both ethical and reasonable.

I wrote recently that I’m essentially an atheist. I do however, have a personal ethic: make yourself happy, let other people be happy in their own way, and don’t harm others. This ethic had to come from somewhere; not necessarily from a higher power, but from somewhere. It could be genetic, or a Freudian suppression of impulses that would be harmful to society if unleashed, or a subconscious strategic calculation that if I hurt other people, they could hurt me back. But the point is that it’s a sense of ethics, something that is (possibly) separate from reason.

I’m not sure where I’m going with this, but it’s a fascinating subject, and the excerpt above helps point the way toward a resolution (someday) of certain contentious issues in our world.

I really enjoyed this weekend’s profile of U.S. Olympics swimmer Michael Phelps in the New York Times Magazine (not to mention the magazine’s cover photo, which appears with the article). I think this part is so cute:

Phelps is no good on land. He is weirdly hyperflexible, what is sometimes called double-jointed, and therefore not entirely stable. He does not lift weights. He used to run but gave it up because of a tendency to step in holes or trip over nothing. To exert himself on land, even mildly, is to risk orthopedic peril… Wherever he is, water must be made available to him. He craves it like some sea creature who can survive for only so long at the ocean’s edge.

It’s neat how certain human beings are eerily built for certain things, like swimming, or playing the piano, or communicating in sign language (OK, the last one is a gorilla, but close enough). Here’s part of what makes Phelps such a great swimmer:

Phelps’s build — 6 feet 4 inches, 195 pounds, broad shoulders, slim hips — conforms to the classic swimmer’s physique. But he is a type within that type, with a bizarrely long torso and short legs — an inseam of just 32 inches — that help him ride high in the water like a long, thin sailboat. The body below hip level is what tends to sag in the water, creating drag, or resistance, so Phelps, relative to his overall height, has a short lower body to keep afloat. “He has the upper body of a man who is 6-foot-8 but not the legs to go with it,” says Jonty Skinner, USA Swimming’s national team director of technical support. “It’s an advantage.” Another Phelps oddity: unlike most people, for whom height and wingspan are nearly identical, his wingspan is 6-foot-7, 3 inches longer than his height. He is that rare person with short legs but long arms — that is, long levers for pulling water.

Speaking of U.S. Olympic athletes, I have a big crush on gymnast Paul Hamm. Totally cute and only 5’6″.

Is it too late for me to become a gymnast? I totally have the height for it.

Here are all the U.S. Olympic gymnast bios.

Anyway, the opening ceremonies will be on NBC this Friday night. I wanna watch. (Hope you don’t mind.)

New York is shaping up as a shitty place to be during the Republican National Convention at the end the month. I don’t know what thought makes me the most uncomfortable: the thousands of Republican delegates wearing their Bush/Cheney paraphernalia all over Manhattan, the 36,000 police officers, the thousands of expected protesters, or the fear of a terrorist attack.

Anyway, this article makes me want to stay as far away from the protests as possible. According to the article, 250,000 protesters are expected. I don’t know where that number comes from, but… yikes.

At the 2000 Democratic convention in Los Angeles, “the police fired tear gas and rubber bullets into crowds of demonstrators, injuring protesters and journalists alike.” In April 2003, at an antiwar protest in Oakland, “police opened fire on the peaceful crowd with wooden pellets.”

Something similar happened in November, when some 10,000 union members and retirees demonstrated at a free-trade summit in Miami. They were met by 2,500 cops brandishing new crowd-control weaponry… Videos taken at the scene show nonviolent protesters being beaten with wooden clubs, shocked with Taser guns, shot in the back with rubber bullets and pepper-sprayed in the face…

“Stark brutality can paralyze people with fear,” says Moran. “Miami hangs like a black cloud.”

So does the Chicago Democratic National Convention of 1968, where Mayor Richard Daley took a hard line against demonstrations and the cops clashed with protesters on the streets around the convention center. Few doubt that the police, if provoked enough, will respond with equal force this year.

And one of the organizers, Jamie Moran of RNCNotWelcome, doesn’t seem to mind. “I think people will fight back if they’re provoked… Usually a riot is an explosion of energy and anger at a situation. The cops create a situation where peoples’ desires are completely foiled, so they lash out. I don’t think that’s unhealthy.”

Come on. I loathe the Bush administration as much as the next guy, but what do the protesters hope to accomplish? It’s easy to go to a rally or wear a t-shirt, but what does that do? The Bush Administration doesn’t care about protests, and I agree with the commenter in the article who says, “The wilder and more disreputable the demonstrators look, the better for the Republicans.”

“At the height of the antiwar movement, Nixon specifically directed his motorcade to go through the middle of an antiwar riot in California in order to have people throw rocks at him or shout obscenities so that the TV would pose the question that night to the American public: ‘Whom do you prefer, President Nixon, or a dope-smoking hippie communist rock thrower?’ And the country had no doubt. This was just genius on his part. If Bush ends up winning the election, it will be because of this kind of tactic.”

The only possible benefit I could see is that anti-Bush people will watch the protests on TV and it will inspire them to greater acts of activism.

But you can’t just have something to protest against. You have to be for something.

Me, I’m for staying away from midtown Manhattan during the last week of August.

Here are some letters in response to the Salon.com article about protesters I linked to yesterday. I pretty much agree with them.

My governor, James McGreevey, is holding an emergency press conference at 4:00 this afternoon. The rumor is that a former aide is filing a lawsuit against him alleging same-sex sexual harrassment. The word is that Governor McGreevey, a Democrat, is either going to not seek re-election next year, or is going to resign.

Stay tuned.

So, my governor just came out of the closet, he admitted to cheating on his wife with a man, and he’s resigning effective November 15. I’m a New Jersey state employee, and a bunch of us started hearing the rumors around 3:00. Our office was all abuzz and we watched the speech on TV at around 4:30.

“My truth is that I am a gay American,” he said. (And great headline there — “N.J. governor is outta closet, and job.”)

(Here’s the speech text.)

As a gay man in New Jersey, I can tell you that there have long been rumors about McGreevey’s orientation, since well before he was governor, and I’d heard rumors about the relationship as well. The other man’s name is Golan Cipel, he’s an Israeli citizen, he’s a McGreevey aide, and among other things, McGreevey unsuccessfully tried to get a him a position with the state Homeland Security agency. I think the relationship started before he became an aide of the governor, though.

Some points:

1) Why resign? There seems to be more going on here under the surface — probably some not-very-good details. One rumor is that there was blackmail involved.

2) We’re not sure why his resignation isn’t effective until November. We think it’s because if he resigns before then, there’s a special gubernatorial election (ordinarily it wouldn’t happen until November 2005), but if he waits, the leader of the State Senate, a fellow Democrat, Richard Codey, will get to take over the position.

3) I really liked the governor’s speech. It was incredibly personal, and he talked about feeling different ever since he was a kid, and so on. He said that he was resigning because of the affair itself, but I wish he’d been more explicit that it was not because of being gay per se. At any rate, after all the rumors, it was so strange — and so nice — to hear him actually come out.

There are updates at this New Jersey weblog.

There’s an article posted on The Advocate.

ABC News says Cipel “is filing a sexual misconduct lawsuit against the governor in a New Jersey court this afternoon.”

More blog reaction (and blog links) at Boi From Troy.

Metafilter thread.

Choire at Gawker: “We don’t care about anything else today. All over Manhattan, the boys are busy fantasizing that they’re Jim McGreevey’s gay fucktoy.” and “finally, someone from Jersey that I’d totally do.”

I’m just gonna post every article from today’s Star-Ledger, New Jersey’s main newspaper, on the McGreevey thing.

News

McGREEVEY QUITS, ADMITS GAY AFFAIR

Gov. James E. McGreevey announced yesterday that he will resign, citing an adulterous affair with a male lover and declaring, “I am a gay American.”

Exit upends political landscape

Another political bombshell, another politician stepping aside, and suddenly New Jersey’s political world is in tumult like never before.

After a calm morning, a thunderbolt

The day New Jersey’s governor quit and revealed he is gay started like most Thursdays in August. Vacations had emptied many offices. The stuffy, hurricane-driven weather was the top news. It looked to be a boring day.

The man who toppled a governor

The seeds for Gov. James E. McGreevey’s stunning announcement yesterday that he is gay and that he will resign in November were planted four years ago at an elegant political reception in Israel.

Charge can end a career even it if can’t be proved

Sexual harassment is a charge often hard to prove, yet critically damaging by its very nature.

Right place, right time — again

Once again, the dust has settled, and Richard Codey is standing on top.

Dramatic admission rekindles memories

Yesterday, Gov. James E. McGreevey came out like few others, standing under the gold dome of the Statehouse, in front of scores of reporters and carried live on a national television news bulletin.

90-day delay avoids chaos, focuses power

Gov. James E. McGreevey’s decision to time his resignation to take effect in mid-November keeps the governor’s office in Democratic hands at least until January 2006 and gives extraordinary power to his successor, Senate President Richard Codey.

A Jersey guy who seemed so real

For as long as he was in public office — and that was 14 years — everyone who met James E. McGreevey thought they were seeing everything there was to know.

Compassion , scorn dot party lines

Compassion from fellow Democrats.

Still welcome in Woodbridge

From the Formica counter at the Reo Diner in Woodbridge, where Gov. James E. McGreevey greeted so many coffee-drinkers, to the treadmills of the Club at Woodbridge, where the former mayor jogged so many miles, his hometown stood by their former mayor after he proclaimed himself a gay American and resigned.

On street, the news rates three or more ‘Wows’

At Antones Tap Room in Union County, the news silenced the jukebox.

At first surprise and then support

People’s hearts bled for her.

Editorial

McGreevey falls short of the full truth

Gov. James E. McGreevey chose a curious construction yesterday in the wording of his stunning announcement that he is a homosexual and will resign his office on Nov. 15. “My truth,” he said, “is that I am a gay American.” Not the truth, but “my truth.”

Opinion

Three line headline

It was a well-written speech, and the delivery was inspired. James E. McGreevey — his wife, Dina, at his side, his parents standing behind him — was by turns wistful, eloquent and insightful as he spoke of the mysteries of sexual desire, his confusion as a troubled youth and his determination to play it the straight way.

Smashing the wrong facade

As I was getting ready to drive over to Trenton for the governor’s press conference yesterday, I rummaged through my bureau to find a T- shirt to throw into the car. I needed it because I like to go for a run on the way home after work. A nice, long run followed by a few cold beers relaxes me.

Following up on my post the other day about Frank Wildhorn and “Dracula,” The New York Times has a very perceptive article this weekend on why Wildhorn’s shows suck.

I’ve watched more TV in the last three days than I’ve watched in a long, long time. I’ve been avidly following the Olympics: on Friday night, Matt and I watched the opening ceremonies, and over the last two nights I’ve watched several hours of swimming and gymnastics and even a little weightlifting. All these amazing feats of physicality have turned me into a slothful couch potato.

Here’s a question: swimmers or gymnasts? The swimmers wear less clothing, of course, and they have great chests and backs. And they’re fun to watch as they warm up; because they’re so tall, their long arms get all floppy when they shake them out. It’s cute. Tall, floppy-armed, broad-chested swimmers.

As for me, though, I prefer the gymnasts. They have those nice, built, compact bodies and the clean-cut haircuts, and anyway, I just love watching gymnastics in general, male or female. I’m in awe of what they do. It’s interesting that the men and the women perform on different equipment: the pommel horse for the men vs. the balance beam for the women, the high bar for the men vs. the uneven parallel bars for the women. And the men have the rings, of course. Mmmm… I love watching the men on the rings.

I’ve also seen certain commercials (or, rather, fast-forwarded through them on TiVo) more times than I can count. There’s the one where the strange woman walks down the street, passing out open bottles of Coke to random people while singing. (Matt told me to beware those types of people on the street.) Then there’s the Michael Phelps cellphone commercial (where exactly is he pulling that cellphone from?). And there are a couple of funny Expedia commercials, including the one in which the wife suggests to the husband that they try to see “Magique” while in New York and the husband gets nightmares about it in his head.

It’s so unlike me to (1) watch so much TV and (2) be so interested in athletics. I guess the Olympics draw me in in a way that other, more “masculine” sports, such as football and basketball, don’t. I’ve never felt I belonged to the cult of straight American manhood, but anyone’s allowed to watch the Olympics.

Even me.

[Addendum: And the divers. How could I forget the divers?]

Okay, whose bright idea was it to hold one of the presidential debates on a Friday night? That’s not a very good way to get younger voters interested in the political process.

At least all the elderly folks will be paying attention.

Today I achieved a long-desired goal.

I bought new dishes.

I know, it’s not rocket science. But I’ve wanted new dishes for a long time. For several years I’ve been using my parents’ yellow-and-green 1970s dinnerware with flowers on them, the dishes we used for our dairy meals when I was a little kid, and I’ve been sick of them. I kept wanting to buy new ones, but I never got around to it. So today I finally did it.

I’m taking the week off from work — I needed to take a break, but I had nowhere to go, so I decided I’d just take a week off and do whatever I feel like — so this afternoon I went to Bed Bath & Beyond and bought new dinnerware. I wanted plain white dishes, so I bought some from the Fun Factory White collection: two dinner plates, two salad plates, two cereal bowls, and two mugs. I also bought two wine glasses, because I didn’t own any until now (!). I decided to buy only two of everything instead of four because I’ve never needed to serve more than two people at a time at my apartment. I don’t even have a kitchen table. I eat my meals while sitting on the couch in front of the TV.

I also got rid of a bunch of old clothes by dropping them off at a clothing dumpster near the Bed Bath & Beyond.

Later this week, I’m going to check out the new Target that recently opened in Jersey City. (What’s up with these new Targets all over the place?) And I might see a matinee on Wednesday afternoon.

Plus watch the Olympics, do some reading, and hang out with the boyfriend.

It should be a nice week.

The bad thing about the Olympics TV coverage being on tape delay is that I keep accidentally finding out the results of high-profile events before I get to watch them. I regularly check the New York Times site for ordinary news updates, but they keep posting particularly high-profile results in highly visible locations at the top of the page. And I keep forgetting this whenever I go to check the site, so the suspense keeps getting ruined for me.

Damn you, New York Times website.

Here’s a little treat: a gay Olympic blog, by OutSports. Notes on the Athens Olympics from a gay point of view, including a continually updated sidebar of photo links. Some are yum. One of the comments: “U.S. gymnast Paul Hamm has muscles on top of his muscles, but in a post-match interview he sounded like a Munchkin.” I agree. His voice surprised me.

Plus, here’s a list of openly-gay athletes at these Olympics. There are only eight. Also, Openly gay and lesbian athletes remain rare at Olympics.

Things I bought today:

1) A new pair of sneakers. I don’t love ’em, but a) there weren’t too many choices in size 7 sneakers, b) they were only 40 bucks, and c) I hadn’t bought a new pair of sneakers in five years.

2) One of those non-slide mats that you put under an area rug so it doesn’t slide around. I’ve had the rug for almost three years and have just now gotten around to buying a mat for it.

3) A poster frame with which to frame a poster by Kyle Cummings that Matt got me last winter. I love the poster — it’s so reminiscent of this web site, and, by extension, of me. And now the poster is finally hanging on my bedroom wall.

Here’s more of Kyle’s artwork.

My college friends Rob and Sam have put together a little film called “Conservative Eye for the Liberal Guy.” It’s about eight minutes long, and it’s pretty cute.

I’ve just finished one of the best articles I’ve read in the New Yorker in a long time: Adam Gopnik on the First World War.

Lyndon B. Johnson orders pants from Joe Haggar. From White House tapes. Surreal, but… real.

Someone on ask.metafilter.com asks: “How do you decide what to do with your life?”

Last week went by in a blur. I took the week off from work and did practically nothing. I’d wake up in the morning in Matt’s bed (he would have already left for another day of RA training). I’d check my e-mail, and then just hang out in Matt’s apartment and read. At some point I’d go out to get some lunch, bring it back and eat it while watching some TV. Around this time, Matt might come back up for a little while and do some computer work. In the late afternoon, I’d head back to my apartment to pick up my New York Times and a new change of clothes, maybe walk to the nearby mall and buy a few things, then go back to Manhattan and perhaps hit a bookstore for a new book. In the evening, I’d get some dinner. At night, Matt would come back, and we’d veg out in front of the TV, watching the Olympics or “Sex and the City,” while I’d also make my way slowly through the newspaper, including the crossword. Eventually we’d go to bed.

It was an unexciting week, but that’s what I wanted. I got a little shopping done, I hung out with Matt, I did lots of reading.

As for that reading — wow. I was on a philosophical kick and read the nerdiest books: Descartes’s Discourse on Method and Meditations on First Philosophy, Hobbes’s Leviathan, and Hume’s Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. Next I want to read Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, although it’s apparently a bear of a book.

For the last few summers I’ve been getting into the so-called “Great Books.” I’ve always loved to read, and I’ve always preferred “juicy” books — books that I could get something out of. I remember telling a friend of mine several years ago that I wished I could find that one book that would change my life. She told me that she didn’t think there was just one book. Finally, in the summer of 2001, I picked up How to Read a Book and The New Lifetime Reading Plan; the former contains a long list of recommended books, and the latter is essentially one list itself. I use these whenever I feel like diving back into the “Great Books.”

I don’t know why this happens to me mostly during the summer; perhaps it’s a throwback to college and law school, when the summer was a respite from required education and I could just follow my inclinations wherever they led me.

Anyway — and I have a feeling I’ve linked to some of these before — here are some more book lists:

The syllabus for St. John’s College, whose curriculum consists entirely of “Great Books.”

Various “Great Books” lists.

Access the Great Books — links to many works online.

Literary Critic — scroll down to find a bunch of other book lists, including several devoted to the 20th century.

According to my site referral stats, I’ve been getting a whole lot of hits from people wanting to know whether Paul Hamm is gay (or “Miss Paul Hamm,” as Matt calls him). Look at those stats! Scroll down and there are even more permutations. My site comes up on the first page of Google search results. There are apparently lots of wishful thinkers out there.

Yeah, me too.

Last week the New Yorker ran an article about Errol Morris’s new ads for MoveOn.org highlighting former Bush voters who are planning to vote for Kerry this year. (Kind of like the Apple “Switch” campaign, the article points out.) You can view many of the ads here.

Gothamist links to special coverage of the Republican convention from publications like New York Magazine and the Village Voice.

Is a TV show’s title important to the show’s success?

Alan Sepinwall writes:

I’ve been thinking about names a lot. Specifically, the names of TV shows — and more specifically, the names of NBC’s new shows.

Once the Olympics finish, NBC will unveil the following new series:

– A sitcom about Joey from “Friends” called… “Joey”;

– A drama set in the LAX airport called… “LAX”;

– A drama set in Hawaii called… “Hawaii”;

and

– A drama about medical investigation called… (wait for it)… “Medical Investigation.”

Not leaving anything to chance with those titles, are they?

…

So here’s the question: is a simplistic title more likely to help a new show succeed than something esoteric? If “Friends” had debuted with its original title, “Six of One,” would it still have exploded onto the national stage, or would David Schwimmer be a yoga instructor today?

This is a fun article, filled with lots of examples of TV show titles past and present.

But I’m surprised someone could write on this topic without mentioning “Buffy, the Vampire Slayer.”

Tomorrow, according to my sidebar, George W. Bush will be 90 percent of the way through his presidency.

Or 45 percent, if next week’s protests get out of control.

The New York Times interviews The Daily Show’s Stephen Colbert. Who knew his office was a shrine to “The Lord of the Rings”?

I’m so depressed about the election today. I see a candidate who has no clear strategy for dealing with a smear campaign he should have known about for months, a smear campaign that, amazingly, nearly half the population gullibly believes has some merit, even though it’s a pack of lies. I see a guy who is thrown softballs on “The Daily Show” and can’t seem to string his responses into coherent sentences — even though they’re responses he’s had plenty of time to think about.

Has Kerry given any thought to actually winning the election?

One ray of hope is that the campaign has replaced some people in top staff positions with two former Clinton guys:

…at the peak of the Swiftee frenzy, the campaign finally added two old Clinton pros to help out. Former White House Press Secretary Joe Lockhart will now serve as the traveling press secretary, while ex-Clinton adviser Joel Johnson will run the campaign’s war room, a position aides say had never been clearly defined. After the toughest stretch of the campaign thus far, the news was greeted like a breath of fresh air at Kerry headquarters. “It’s like the adults are coming in to babysit the kids,” says one staffer. “I’ve been in meetings where I think, ‘What the fuck experience do any of us have with this stuff?’ These guys are adults.”

I’m so frustrated with Kerry, and I don’t even know if he’ll be a good president if he wins. Unfortunately, one of the realities of modern American presidential politics, whether you’re running for the White House or actually in it, is that an excellent media operation is essential. Bush has an excellent media operation; Kerry doesn’t. Bush’s people get it. Kerry’s people don’t.

I don’t even know what the point of the Democratic Party is anymore, except to oppose the Republicans. You know what? If not for the neocons and the social conservatives, I might not hate the Republican Party so much. If there were a Northeastern Republican Party, I might even vote for it. Maybe the northeast can secede. Come on, who’s with me?

I wonder what qualities my ideal president would have. He’d be an excellent thinker and an excellent communicator. He’d have policies based on an empirical view of the world around him, and…

Well, okay. Let me ask myself this. What’s the biggest concern to me on the national or world stage right now? I’m a smart guy with an advanced degree and a decent job. If the economy continues to be the way it is, it won’t affect me too much. Furthermore, I don’t think a president has much control over the day-to-day economy. Except that if you’re going to cut taxes and create huge spending increases (see: new Medicare program, the costs of which were intentionally hidden), you’re going to increase the deficit, which means that someday all that debt will have to be paid off. I don’t completely understand how national debt works — who do we borrow the money from? when do we have to pay it back? I don’t know — but I’m pretty sure we owe all that money to some entity or entities. That money’s going to come from us.

The passive-aggressive part of me wants to say, fine — just let them keep doing what they’re doing. At least that way, we’ll be proven right. Except that it will probably take a few decades for that to happen.

That’s not my biggest concern, though.

There’s gay rights. I want same-sex couples to be able to get the same legal rights and protections for their relationships that opposite-sex couples can get.

That’s a really big concern for me, but not the biggest.

Honestly? My biggest concern right now is that I don’t want to get killed in a terrorist attack. Or hurt in one. Or see my favorite places become inhabitable due to one.

What are the best ways to make a terrorist attack unlikely?

Have an excellent intelligence structure (which we don’t have).

This doesn’t seem that hard to me. It’s certainly not something a president does by himself. But given that Bush opposed the Commission and a Department of Homeland Security, I fail to see how we should trust him more than Kerry on this.

Capture the people who have already attacked us (which we haven’t done).

How hard should this be? It’s not necessarily easy, but given that Bush and his team have ignored reality for the last three years (Saddam had no connection to 9/11, so why did we make him a priority?), they’ve made it a lot harder. All a president has to do is hire the right people, people who know about military strategy. After all, are we to believe that Bush himself is a grand military strategist who told the military what caves in Afghanistan to search? No. He’s a guy who drove an oil company into the ground. All Kerry needs to do is set the tone and hire the right people, people who don’t have blinders on. (I’m worried about him being able to set the tone. But who knows.)

Try to bring stability to those parts of the world that breed terrorism (which we haven’t done).

Bush sucks on this. Since routing the Taliban, the Bush people have let Afghanistan slide back into chaos. And Iraq isn’t any more stable than it used to be. It’s less stable, in fact. We need a “more sensible war on terror,” as Kerry says; instead, the past three years have been nonsensical.

I’m not sure about this last one, but:

Show potential terrorists the high costs of attacking us. Show that we’re not afraid to kick your ass and your country’s ass if you do something to us.

Bush has done this, although, uh, groups clearly are still planning to attack us, so I don’t see how the bluster has helped. Perhaps this one works better with nations, such as the USSR (mutually assured destruction). At any rate, it’s not as important as the first three points.

And of course there are some things that have nothing to do with who’s president. Who stopped the shoe-bomber? Not the president or anyone in his administration, but a bunch of passengers on an airplane who noticed what was going on.

Basically, fighting terrorism doesn’t seem all that hard.

Now, how did this all come up again? Oh, yeah. I was talking about the most important point thing to me in this election. It’s terrorism, and I don’t see what’s wrong with giving Kerry a chance to fight it.

But he’s still a sucky communicator and campaigner, so I’m still depressed about the election.

Although I have previously been skeptical of the protesters, there’s a great letter in today’s New York Times that, along with the other letters on the topic, made me think.

Perhaps you are correct that the protesters have had their day in court and are not entitled to have an organized rally on the Great Lawn in Central Park. But the tone of your editorial has an eerie feeling about it.

The rights of assembly, free speech and the inherent right to protest were never meant to have a comfortable and polite feel about them. When New York City invited the Republican National Convention into the heart of Manhattan, it also invited in all of the attendant protests that the presence of government officials and politics attracts.

Why are the protesters to be dispersed into small groups? The convention will congregate in Madison Square Garden and receive free televised coverage. It is obvious that large crowds have greater impact than do smaller groups dispersed here and there.

City officials want peace, as do New Yorkers in general. But when it comes to the business of the country, we shouldn’t want to be too comfortable. The Constitution reflects the uncomfortable nature of democracy and the right to protest.

Bea Arthur got stopped at an airport for having a pocketknife in her handbag.

The “Golden Girls” star, now 81, was flagged by a Transportation Security Administration agent, who discovered the knife – a strict no-no following 9/11.

“She started yelling that it wasn’t hers and said ‘The terrorists put it there,’ ” a fellow passenger said. “She kept yelling about the ‘terrorists, the terrorists, the terrorists.’ ”

After the blade was confiscated, Arthur took a keyring from her bag and told the agent it belonged to the “terrorists,” before throwing it at them.

As she boarded the plane, she told the TSA employees, “We’re all doomed.”

God’ll get you for that, Dorothy.

[via MetaFilter]

I have no clear political convictions.

I’m not good at political debate, because I almost always see some good points in the opposing view. For that reason, I hate getting into political arguments. I’m too easily swayed. If I give up ground too easily, I’m afraid it makes me seem like a more attractive target for conversion. But if I hold firm, I feel like I’m just being stubborn and close-minded.

A butterfly flaps its wings in China and the consequences are unpredictable. How can anyone have firm convictions in such a world?

There is nothing firm in this world. There is not even a God. Thou shalt not kill — unless you’re waging war or administering the death penalty. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s goods — unless you’re trying to make money.

(Thou shalt not commit adultery — unless you’re a politician. Thou shalt not steal — unless you’re in the energy business. Thou shalt not bear false witness — unless you’re claiming to be a Swift Boat veteran.)

Having political convictions is like holding a scientific hypothesis. We like to infer rules based on what we see around us.

But at least in science experiments, there are controls and a variable; you can test your hypothesis. In the real world, there are no controls — only variables. There are so many variables that it’s impossible to conduct a truly scientific test of a political belief.

I have no clear political convictions. Sometimes I wish I did. But if I did, I’d be wrong. And I hate losing.

Mike of Satan’s Landromat got arrested for taking photos of the bicycle protest yesterday.

And here’s video of the creator of Bikes for Bush getting arrested due to “vandalism.”

This pisses me off.

My boyfriend turns 30 in 10 days. He’s not making as big of deal of his 30th as I did of mine, but here’s his Amazon wishlist.

Matt and I went to Jere’s birthday gathering last night in midtown. We took the A train up to 8th and 50th and walked from there to 9th and 53rd.

There were at least two cops at every intersection. Eighth and Ninth Avenues each contained two endless rows of bright orange traffic cones, extending north and south, block after block, as far as I could see. As we crossed 8th, I looked south and saw, 20 blocks away, the covered pedestrian bridge for journalists that connects Madison Square Garden to the Farley Post Office Building. It was strange to think that the national news media was focused, at that moment, on a place just 20 blocks south of us.

After drinks with Jere, Matt and I had dinner nearby at Vynl, a restaurant we like. By that time, it was dark outside, and every few minutes, through the restaurant window, I could see another police car or unmarked black car zoom by with lights flashing. It was eerie.

It’s only just now, as I’m writing this, that I realize it made me think of the morning of September 11, when I saw vehicle after vehicle zooming up Sixth Avenue, many of them covered with World Trade Center debris.

I guess the city has come full circle this week. It’s poetic, in a twisted sort of way.

I love this.

Only Arnold Schwarzenegger could get away with praising Richard Nixon at a convention where the Republicans are trying to appeal to the masses.