Scripting News

The Jackie Robinson of Politics

Wed, 04 Jun 2008 03:39:39 GMT

It's hard for a man to compete against a woman. You can see it in the speech that Obama gave tonight, he went right at McCain, in a way he never could have against Hillary Clinton, even though she was incredibly tough on him during the primary campaign.

Political competition between men and women is like everything else between men and women. We defer to women, we are protective of women, and we won't stand for a man attacking a woman, even symbolically. And like everything else in gender relations, the women have better PR, men almost never speak for their gender (I do, but it's rare). It's now finally become a matter for the highest level of political competition, and it's so taboo, you'll see that I will likely be attacked for stating an opinion. I've withheld it this long because I didn't want it to be tied up in the competition between Obama and Clinton, now it's clear that is over (one can hope) and we can see clearly the difference between it and the upcoming one between two men. The two contests will be very different, I think anyone can see that.

Oddly, the awkwardness of compeittion betw men and women disadvantages both, the woman is seen as not being serious, and the man is seen as being weak. Obviously because the man is not taking the woman seriously (by withholding serious competition) and the man is being weak.

Obama will continue to defer to Clinton, they'll maintain the traditional gender roles, but we'll forgive him if he doesn't pay her much attention from this point on. He has a battle to fight, one which more and more of us will want him to win, I predict.

Obama was the perfect candidate to compete with a woman for President, for the same reasons he's a perfect black candidate. His anger is supressed, the same way it was for Jackie Robinson. Obama is the Jackie Robinson of politics. In the same way the first black major leage player had to soak up everyone's rage and express none of his own, no one votes for an angry black man,, at least not yet (we will eventually) and anger expressed by a man for a woman is not tolerated either.

Put a note aside until the next Presidential election where there's a serious woman canddiate, hopefully a visionary woman who understands this issue, and can communicate about it the way Obama was able to communicate about race. Let's create a level playing field, let's not tolerate sexism, in either direction -- and let both candidates be fully competitive. When a husband protests that his wife isn't being well-respected, as Bill Clinton did in this election, let's ask him to stand aside and let his wife fight her own battles. And let's not require one candidate to send flowers to the other, competitors only have to be gracious in defeat or victory, not while the fight is ongoing.

BTW, I have MP3s of each of the three candidates' speeches tonight. Unfortunately the McCain speech was interrupted when the polls closed in South Dakota, putting Obama over the top for the Democratic nomination. All the networks interrupted McCain.

1. McCain's speech.

2. Clinton's speech.

3. Obama's speech.

It's all happening right now

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 16:45:30 GMT

Superdelegates are announcing for Obama.

http://newsjunk.com/

Calif Senator Diane Feinstein says it's time for Clinton to quit. (She's a Clinton supporter.)

AP has a story saying she will do that, but it's being denied by Clinton officials.

I know this sounds like an ad, but it's all there on NewsJunk this morning. I'm watching it unfold as I'm improving the code.

Marc Ambinder: "One very senior Democrat who has not endorsed Obama advises the Clinton campaign to divert the campaign's charter from New York to Minnesota today, to join Sen. Obama on stage."

AP calls it for Obama. "The first black candidate ever to lead his party into a fall campaign for the White House."

Brief editorial.

Bill Clinton's Macaca Moment

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 12:06:08 GMT

Yesterday during the rush of news and the initial rollout of NewsJunk.com a story flew by that Bill Clinton had said some pretty nasty things about Todd Perdum, the author of a Vanity Fair slam piece about him.

This morning, I heard for the first time that:

1. There's audio of his remarks.

2. It was recorded on a rope line after a Bill Clinton campaign event.

3. They didn't allow reporters on the rope lines, to avoid BC getting quoted saying the kind of thing he was quoted saying yesterday (apparently he talks candidly with people on rope lines).

4. The person who recorded his comments was the same person who recorded Barack Obama's controversial comments about poor people in Pennsylvania, a person they identified as a "citizen journalist."

Now, I hope to get the audio (got it, it's part of the Huffington Post report, below), and I found the reporter's name, Mayhill Fowler, but I had to search for it. In the report this morning on MSNBC, they didn't identify her. I kept waiting for them to say her name, but they never did. I think it's not only disrespectful, it's unethical to cite a source without identifying it, unless there was a prior agreement that the source was off the record. As you can see from the report, the reporter clearly wants credit.

In the next segment Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor of The Nation, argued with passion that HRC lost, at least in part, because of sexism. I thought this was an incredible contrast. Where is the respect? Just because someone isn't a credentialed member of the press corps, she must remain nameless? Why didn't KVH tune into this (Fowler is a woman, in addition to being an amateur reporter).

Mayhill Fowler's report on Huffington.

They talked earlier, on the Morning Joe show, how Bill Clinton is old school and hasn't learned how things have changed since his last campaign in 1996. KVH asked if everyone remembered Macaca? I do, of course, it's how Jim Webb came to be the Senator from Virginia. Did we ever hear the name of the reporter who videotaped it? I don't recall that I ever did. He not only shot the video, but he was the focus of the story, he was the one who George Allen called Macaca.

This should be a lesson to all handlers and would-be political leaders. You're basically always on the record, unless you're talking with one or two people who have agreed in advance that you're not, and even then you have to be careful. I've learned this in the blogosphere, it's why industry parties are uncomfortable for me. I don't think of myself as a public figure, but every conversation is subject to reporting. I've even had conversations with people who were, without disclosing it, streaming video and audio of it, live to viewers on the net. It first happened when I visited the office of a competitor in the late 90s, believe it or not.

I don't like it, but this is the world we live in. But parts of it I do like. I think we should get behind the facade presented by the comfortable relationship betw Washington reporters and the political leaders they cover. There's too much control of the political process by the press, and that's too easily manipulated by the candidates. We'll see that play out in the fall as two favorites of the press, Obama and McCain, compete.

Update: A report on the MSNBC's website by Mark Murray begins: "The same Huffington Post reporter who broke the Obama 'bitter' story got a new scoop yesterday..." Mayhill Fowler's name does not appear in the 8-paragraph report, though they take a swipe at her ethics ("she didn't identify herself as a reporter and said she disliked the article when asking for his reaction").

Update: Cross-posted at Huffington.

NewsJunk.com

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 19:42:56 GMT

My next big project is NewsJunk.com.

The name comes from the people it is designed to serve, news junkies.

So we've gone beyond mere users, now we're making tools for serious users.

This is turning out to be a broad project that will involve lots of people, and I will have much more to write about it over the coming weeks. But the news is happening so fast now, and we're bringing tools on as fast as we can, so I'll have to wait for the philosophy.

For now there are five main ways to consume the flow:

1. Refresh the home page periodically.

2. Subscribe to the RSS feed.

3. Follow it on Twitter.

4. Befriend it on FriendFeed.

5. Watch for developments on the weblog.

There will be more ways, for sure, soooon!

Still diggin!

Update: Nicco's post on NewsJunk.

Owen Thomas speaks in Berkeley

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 19:21:57 GMT

Just got an email from Sylvia...

Why does Silicon Valley need its own gossip rag? Come find out Wednesday, June 18, from noon to 1:30 at the Berkeley Rep on Addison between Shattuck and Milvia in Berkeley. It's $12 at the door for a delicious meal and a chance to hear Valleywag editor in chief and founder Owen Thomas dish it out on the dubiously fact-checked doings of our digerati. Thomas will be taking questions, so feel free to ask away.

RSVP to whoisylvia at aol dot com.

NASDAQ goes real-time

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 17:39:17 GMT

As if on command, this press release dropped this morning.

We're getting real-time stock quotes.

Great. Now think about it -- how much like Twitter is that?

I wrote about this yesterday. If NASDAQ and other rich companies like Google, CNBC, etc are willing to take the risk on their technology it must be pretty reliable? Otherwise, imagine the lawsuits that would ensue.

As I wrote yesterday, I bet you can license the technology to run Twitter much more cheaply than you can to build it yourself.

Bill Clinton's Nixon moment?

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 16:56:44 GMT

Bill Clinton: "I want to say also that this may be the last day I'm ever involved in a campaign of this kind. I thought I was out of politics, 'til Hillary decided to run. But it has been, one of the greatest honors of my life to go around and campaign for her for president."

Richard Nixon: "For 16 years, ever since the Hiss case, you've had a lot of -- a lot of fun -- that you've had an opportunity to attack me and I think I've given as good as I've taken. But as I leave you I want you to know -- just think how much you're going to be missing. You won't have Nixon to kick around anymore, because, gentlemen, this is my last press conference."

Update: I think Marla Erwin nailed it. This means WJC won't be campaigning for Obama.

What Twitter did for Scripting News

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 17:30:58 GMT

We spend a lot of time talking about the technology of Twitter here, because tech is the root of Scripting News, it's how the blog got its start in 1997. But it's been largely a male thing, where DaveNet, its predecessor, was closer to gender-balance. The new connection with Twitter has helped bring us more women readers our way, which is appreciated. It isn't much of a party without em. And I might add, it's given us a bit of racial balance too, although I think the all-but-certain Democratic candidate for President had something to do with that as well.

We're angry, uneducated and unhealthy. Now what?

Sun, 01 Jun 2008 17:45:13 GMT

Jeff Jarvis said something that got my fur up: Only Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan had an irrefutable point. 'We've got a totally irrational system of nominating our president,' he said.

It's refutable. Obama looked at how the nominating process was laid out and then built an organization and strategy to win on the terms of the system, rather than close his eyes and try to hit the target and then blame the game for his loss as Clinton and her supporters are doing.

Which kind of President would you rather have -- one who accepts the world as it is and then maps out a way to win, or one that grouses at how irrational it is.

Yeah it's irrational that all the oil is in the Middle East. Now what?

Yeah it's irrational that Bush started a crazy war and that the country's education and health care systems are inadequate to compete in a global economy. Now what?

Our infrastructure is crumbling, our products aren't competitive, we're uneducated, unhealthy, angry and to make matters worse our houses aren't worth shit. Now what?

I want a President who welcomes the chaos and then figures out how we can be smart about the hand we've been dealt. Not one that whines and complains about how irrational the world is.

I can't wait until the Clinton Democrats accept that their time has passed and the world their way worked in has passed too, and let's get on with it.

Update: This piece, cross-posted at Huffington.

Cousin Mikey is taking an interest in Twitter

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 00:22:19 GMT

Mike Arringtoh wrote a post yesterday about architecture issues in Twitter which was mostly pretty good, though his last question is very lawyerly and off the wall, no way one person is responsible for the problems with Twitter, and if there were one person, it would be the CEO not a programmer.

I sent an email to Mike and even tried to call him, but he's not answering, so I'll just get him the info here on Scripting. If you know Mike and he reads your email, please send him a pointer to this piece and say hi for me!

Here's the message: It's pretty likely you can buy or license off-the-shelf software that does more or less what Twitter does. (Probably more.) The problem of reliably sending massive numbers of notifications quickly was solved a long time ago in the financial services industry, apparently. Think about it -- the stock markets and banks have to do this, and if they drop out like Twitter does, billions of dollars would be lost, maybe the whole economy! There would be a lot of good reasons to throw lots of money at this problem.

The pointers came up during an extensive discussion about decentralizing Twitter's architecture here in January.

It made sense to me -- I encountered these kinds of people when I worked in NYC as a programmer after graduating college in the mid-70s. That the software has been commodified since then is not surprising.

I've tried to suggest to the Twitter management that they take this route, but haven't gotten through.

Maybe someone should look into the idea of just adapting technology the enterprise guys are using?

Just a thought.

NewsJunk podcast with Joe Trippi

Sat, 31 May 2008 19:16:09 GMT

We just did a podcast with Democratic consultant Joe Trippi about today's Democratic Rules Committee meeting, and the next steps in the nominating process.

http://newsjunk.com/mp3/nj080531.mp3

Then we switch gears and talk about the new venture I'm starting with Nicco Mele. We're still just covering the edges of the vision, but it's about news, politics and technology, three things close to my heart.

BTW, this is the first NewsJunk podcast. You can subscribe, for now, through the scripting.com RSS feed.

IRC for Democratic Rules Committee Meeting

Sat, 31 May 2008 15:19:24 GMT

Fascinating stuff coming up during testimony at Democratic Party Rules and Bylaws Committee today in Washington.

Since we had IRC for each of the major primaries this year, I thought we'd try the same for this event.

irc://irc.freenode.net/#dncMay31

Hope you can join us!

More Twitter humor

Sat, 31 May 2008 01:59:48 GMT

Comment thread on Flickr.

Photos of downtown Oakland

Fri, 30 May 2008 01:48:40 GMT

Here's a set of photos I took yesterday in Oakland.

Overlooked in the McClellan coverage

Thu, 29 May 2008 13:26:06 GMT

The coverage of the McClellan tell-all book has focused on the White House spin, which amid all the bluster about surprise and how this isn't the Scott they all knew (come on, why should voters care that you're surprised), they aren't really contesting the assertions, or if they are, they're doing it weakly.

Probably some of them want to have jobs in the future, and lying right now wouldn't help them in the careers. Further I think almost everyone who has been paying attention knows that what McClellan says is true. Why didn't he speak out earlier? Why didn't a lot of people? Also consider the possibility that other people in the White House got scooped, the ones trashing McClellan and are jealous that his tell-all book got out before theirs, and others are likely to be tried and perhaps go to jail for their actions. In other words, they all have axes to grind here.

The other point being overlooked, and this is a real problem, is that he says that the press was complicit. This is the more important allegation, and unsurprisingly, it's being swept aside by the press. Had they done their job, and pressed for the truth, it would have been easier for insiders to tell them the truth. But corporate-owned media isn't interested in helping us make decisions as a country, they're only interested in ad revenue. That's why it's so important that we're creating new media that isn't so conflicted, and why the question of whether bloggers run ads or not is far from a trivial issue.

In court, if you have a conflict of interest, you're supposed to disclose it, and if it's serious enough, it disqualifies you. I've recommended many times that professional news media should have relationships with less conflicted bloggers for circumstances like this, so when they become the story, the public can have a discussion about them using the channels they own. They don't have much of a choice here, because the channels are going to develop with them or without them. We could all save a bunch of time if they didn't fight it, and welcomed amateurs into their midst.

Jury Duty, day 2

Thu, 29 May 2008 12:53:32 GMT

I have another day of jury duty. I haven't been selected, but the voir dire is going into a second day because we started so late yesterday. I am not allowed to talk about the specifics of the case as long as I might potentially be a juror, however I can say that I think it's not likely that I will be selected. And I can say is that it is, again, an inspiring process. A few comments follow.

Until I moved to the East Bay in 2006, I had never ridden on BART. It doesn't go down the peninsula to where I used to live, but it's a fixture of life on this side of the bay and in San Francisco. I like riding BART not only because it's usually faster than driving, but also because I get to see my fellow citizens without their cars. It's fascinating to see who my neighbors are. In NY and Boston, where public transit is much more a part of daily life, you get that experience all the time. Not so much on the west coast.

Well, jury duty is like riding BART, only more so. It's as if you were riding on BART, but each passenger, in turn, tells you what they do for a living, who they live with, where they came from, in some cases why they can't serve (always dramatic). What the judge says about jury duty is true, it's what makes America work. There are no professional jurors, just BART people. You just have to be registered to vote or have a driver's license for them to find you.

Which leads to a curious inexplicable fact. First, judging from the jury, the Bay Area is a remarkably diverse place. But if you went by the jury alone, you'd conclude that there are no blacks in Alameda County. The only black person of the 100 or so potential jurors was an African immigrant. However, if you go outside the courthouse in downtown Oakland, or ride BART, you'd see that there are lots of blacks. What happened? Maybe they don't vote or drive? I honestly don't know. It seems very improbable that a random drawing would be so skewed.

I was riveted listening to the stories people told. It was fascinating. I also had opinions of the lawyers, and the parties. But I can't talk about that yet. What I can say and will is that I was struck by the nobility of my fellow citizens. When asked to serve, they all rise to the occasion. People who doubt that there is cause for hope should sign up for jury duty and go through the process. It is something to behold.

From the Mind of Hugh

Thu, 29 May 2008 01:26:49 GMT

An open source Twitter client?

Wed, 28 May 2008 19:19:49 GMT

There have been a lot of back-channel conversations about the future of Twitter, and one subject that keeps coming up (I keep bringing it up actually) is the need for a Twitter client that isn't aligned with any commercial interest. One that, by design, is meant to serve users and users only. I think it's time to start a public discussion about this, not sure if there's interest among developers -- this isn't something I'd write myself. The only way to find out is to ask.

Jury duty

Wed, 28 May 2008 16:34:47 GMT

I got called for jury duty in Oakland.

They have wifi here but it's $5.95 per day.

Can you imagine, here we are doing our civic duty, taxpayers all of us, and they want us to pay to get online. It's a crime I tell you! Put me on a jury to decide this and I'll vote to convict.

I served on a jury in 1996 and wrote up the experience.

Update at 10AM: They called the first group, I was not in it. Is this good news or bad? (I'd rather not serve this time.)

Update at 10:30AM: I'm in the second group. Here we go. But we don't have to be here until 1PM. So now what? Oy.

Update at 10:45AM: All the group 3 people were excused. Envy.

Spewage update

Tue, 27 May 2008 19:19:55 GMT

Update: JR suggests adding a column to the Twitter spew report that shows the percent of total spew each person is responsible for. Good idea! Done.