Kryptonite to Democrats

BoingBoing (yes, again, I know) has an interesting post on political video messaging, especially targeted video messaging, that I highly recommend.

What's important is that our 6 readers (heh) see the video that cshirky uses as an exemplar. He writes:

Dear Mr. Obama was a trifecta. For the base, a muscular but polite attack on the very issue that brought Obama into the spotlight. For the undecided, the emotional charge is much likelier to sway them than argumentation. And for the Dems -- nothing. The video might as well not have existed for all it was seen in Democratic circles. Since the video's sole speaker can't be criticized without making the criticizer look churlish at best, almost no Dems forwarded it, linked to it, talked about it.

Earlier, Shirky says you'll see similar messages again in 2010 and they'll be plastered all over in 2012.

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Prescient

The Onion, January, 2001.

Bush swore to do "everything in [his] power" to undo the damage wrought by Clinton's two terms in office, including selling off the national parks to developers, going into massive debt to develop expensive and impractical weapons technologies, and passing sweeping budget cuts that drive the mentally ill out of hospitals and onto the street.

During the 40-minute speech, Bush also promised to bring an end to the severe war drought that plagued the nation under Clinton, assuring citizens that the U.S. will engage in at least one Gulf War-level armed conflict in the next four years.

I'd laugh if I could quit crying.

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Local Traditions Mean Jack To The Bottom Line

Cartoonist Brian Duffy among the staff let go by The Des Moines Register.

Duffy’s departure could mean the end of a tradition at the paper of front-page editorial cartoons dating back to 1906. The paper has won numerous Pulitzers for its editorial cartoons, including work by Jay Norwood Darling and the legendary Frank Miller. The Register is currently the only paper in the country that still runs a cartoon on its front page.

I've never thought of Duffy as a great cartoonist, but that's cold. More on the current Register layoffs. 4 months ago in August, Gannett laid off 1000 other newspaper staff nationally, including 26 positions at the DMR including Jane Norman, the only person making up the Register's so called Washington Bureau.

The Gannett Company, owner of the Register, as well as USA Today and god-knows how many other papers, and the original McPaper institution, is laying off somewhere between 10-20% of it's payrolls. The Gannett Blog is tracking everything if you want the full skinny.

And the foamy whipped cream topping? CNN canned it's entire Science & Technology reporting unit.

Update: It's even worse. Political columnisthack David Yepsen, Iowa's version of David Broder, has been loudly seeking a job in Illinois as the head of the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute. They also have cut the Sunday Opinion section from 6 to 4 pages, dumped all the book reviews (which were canned anyway), and re-sized the physical paper layout and stock to cut costs.

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Choice

If I was to talk about Radio Lab, most of you would say, "What?" Which is a shame, because Radio Lab, at least on my podcast list, is one of the smartest programs on any media as well as the most creative. And I say that as a die hard This American Life listener. My inner Ira Glass is right now trying to subtly remind me that its not a competition, but we all know better.

A few weeks back, hosts Robert Krulwich & Jad Abumrad, put forth a great program on Choice, which was late in some respects because the election was 12 days before it aired. The choice of the year, guys!

I can hear Krulwich now - "But Id, why did we need to say a thing about the election?" Well, Robert, bear with me . . all shall become apparent.

Jonah Lehrer helps us understand why by introducing us to George Miller's classic paper "The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two", which explains the ability of the average human to hold about seven pieces of discreet information in working memory at any given time.

Classic is almost an understatement - we all interact everyday, some of us every hour, with the most famous application of the paper: the telephone call routing system. Miller found that the average normal human can handle or juggle about 7 pieces of discrete data at once in foreground memory, plus or minus 2 in variance. Its because of Miller that my phone number is (515)557-1785 (it's really not) - we not only give our number in in local terms as 7 digits, and then also in two or three chunks. You can also see derivation on Miller's work in the Web address system - this chunking also applies to single words or other simple datums.

Robert X. Cringely, a technology journalist, wrote about Miller's work in Accidental Empires, postulating that the people whom could hold more data in RAM (so to speak), more than 7-9 numbers, were likely to be gifted individuals.

It is the 0.15 percent . . we're interested in - the 3 out of 2,000 people who can remember more than nine numbers. There are approximately 375,000 such people living in the United States, and most of them would make terrific computer programmers, if only if we could find them.

It's more than about computer programming, of course, because being able to hold transitory information in short-term memory at the very least could be a great asset at parties, much less in board rooms or even the White House.

So if seven, with a little fudging, is the magic number, what happens when we give someone more than 7 pieces of data and expect them to make a serious decision?

How many times have we stood in a shopping aisle and muttered that our brain hurt?

In my case, I've stewed for weeks on certain decisions or purchases, wanting to assess all the variables and correctly identify all the needs or wants I want to fulfill. This plotting and planning sometimes takes on a senseless life of it own as my brain chases its tail around and around. Some of that is information overload.

A very devious guy, Baba Shiv, at Stanford put together a little experiment based off of those numbers. He showed that if you give someone a data set like a phone number with the implied intention for said person to reguritate it a little later, and then interrupting that person, you can bend their judgment away from good to worse choices.

How often have we stood in a voting booth and muttered about down-ballot candidate races?

Now remove that decision-making process one step further. How does someone, whom isn't a politics and news junkie like the fair readers of this blog, whom doesn't commit talking points and positions to long-term memory, and whom doesn't watch the election cycle for months on end, come to a decision? Whom on average, has only five to nine slots available to stick the datum of the moment.

Yeah. Scares me too.

The marketers, advertisers and their close relatives in political communications know this very well. In certain respects, they want to overwhelm the low-information voter and bend the decision-making process with less-than-noble talking points and appeals. In the age of 24/7 news and the Information SuperFirehose, it's then pathetically easy to blow away a person's judgment.

That flood of information can lead to avoidance and anxiety, and even to people refusing to make any choice whatsoever - and not ultimately voting.

Coincidentally, the next program to come off my randomized playlist was TAL's Ground Game episode. In Act One, it featured the Democrats for McCain stumping door-to-door in Scranton, PA. Listening to it, and the Radio Lab just previously, made you really think about how we form choices - and rationalize the ones that we feel so strongly about that we sacrifice our time and money for.

That's the story you didn't go for, Robert.

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Open Thread

Ya. It is an open thread, what of it?!

I still have pneumonia. I finally cooked my bird on Sunday and had a few people over. I way overdid it, so now I am back to couch living and trying to get well.

Thank gawd that kiddo and husband are back to work and school though, 'cause I was going to kill them. Boss wants and needs a project done, that is why my computer is on.

All you're getting from me is an open thread...

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From the Mouths of Babes

I have often heard that you can tell a lot about people, by observing their children. Seeing how someone's children approach the world tells us a lot about the person, not just their parenting, but that parent's worldview.

At the end of this Barbara Walters interview, a story is told about Malia Obama.

To paraphrase:

Malia, when touring the Whitehouse, saw the Lincoln bedroom and the desk that holds a copy of the Gettysburg Address. Malia told her father, 'daddy, when I have a paper that is hard for me to write, a big paper due at school, I am going to go into that bedroom and sit at that desk where President Lincoln wrote that speech and signed that paper because I think that will inspire big thoughts.' Obama responded to her, 'well, you have really thought this through, haven't you.'

What a nice story, this morning. So much nicer than the other crap on the teevee and in the news.

I believe that the example that the Obama's set as parents and as spouses will be good for this country to see.

ABC won't give me the code, but you can watch the interview section here.

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Happy Thanksgiving

Part 1


Part 2

"If ya wanna end war and stuff, ya gotta sing loud." - Arlo Guthrie


Every Thanksgiving for as long as I can remember, at 12 noon, KZOK (our local classic rock station) has played "Alice's Restaurant." No matter what we are doing everything stops so that we can listen; for 18 minutes and 20 seconds.

Having had the ability and honor of seeing Arlo live a couple of years ago, and hearing him sing it live, has increased my appreciation for the genius of Arlo Guthrie, Woody Guthrie and the entire Guthrie family.

The prior Arlo quote - "If ya wanna end war and stuff, ya gotta sing loud," is one of my all-time favorite sayings. I believe it, in all of its incarnations. It is true no matter how I look at it...if we want to change the world we cannot be meek. Silent bitching in the privacy of my own home makes no difference. It is only in putting myself out there and participating in ways that I am not always comfortable - it is only in taking that risk that I can make a difference - that we can make a difference.

I tried to find some of the best versions of "Alice's Restaurant" - but they are all good. For those interested, here are the links to the scenes from the movie:

Dump Closed

Draft scene 1

Draft scene 2

Have a great Thanksgiving everyone!! I hope that today is filled with much love and happiness for all of you.

We were to have a small party tomorrow, with the turkey and all of that, but, I am too sick to do it. We have postponed until Sunday. I am on an antibiotic, so hopefully my immune system will not be as screwey as it has been and the antibiotic will fix me fast. I hope so. I am really pissed that my [way too expensive, free range, organic] turkey is waiting. I would like to eat it now.

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