Author: Ivan Kreilkamp

You can contact me at ivan812 AT gmail.com

Ice Cream Social

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Everyone’s feeling kind of happy and giddy.  Last night we went to an “ice cream social” at Obama headquarters downtown for volunteers.  It was nice.  The building they’ve been in used to house Tortilla Flats, but then (Steve tells me) they sold their liquor license and later lost all their business and gave up.  So the Obama folks took over the building, and now it is going to be destroyed next week.  They had paint and markers and were drawing and writing on the walls.  Celie and Iris really liked that — made a bunch of heart people and flowers, and wrote their names.

We ran into someone we know, a retired prof, who has been volunteering for the campaign since the summer of 2007!  It was cool to reflect that Indiana went blue because of all the people like him.  We found out that a number of other people we knew were also canvassing in Bedford on Tuesday.  Maybe it made a difference.

Let’s see, what else to say.  Iris and Celie were most interested in Obama’s line about Malia and Sasha having “earned that puppy.”  Possibly they are trying to figure out how they too can earn a puppy.  (Focus on earning the two kittens you already have, is my advice.)  I missed this, but apparently Sarah was watching Obama’s acceptance speech on tape with the girls and Iris cried: “because he’s just so good,” she said, overcome by all the emotion.

In a way, thinking about Malia and Sasha in the White House is one of the most surreal things.  So amazing that they will be the first children of the country.  I hope they can manage to enjoy it.

“Wasilla hillbillies looting Neiman Marcus”

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Wow.  Just soaking it all in now.  What a great day.  And an especially nice fillip of frosting on the cake that Indiana went blue!

I’ve seen saying/thinking that some crazy stuff is going to be coming to light about the McCain campaign and Palin in particular.  Here are some choice bits from Newsweek:

NEWSWEEK has also learned that Palin’s shopping spree at high-end department stores was more extensive than previously reported. While publicly supporting Palin, McCain’s top advisers privately fumed at what they regarded as her outrageous profligacy. One senior aide said that Nicolle Wallace had told Palin to buy three suits for the convention and hire a stylist. But instead, the vice presidential nominee began buying for herself and her family—clothes and accessories from top stores such as Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus. According to two knowledgeable sources, a vast majority of the clothes were bought by a wealthy donor, who was shocked when he got the bill. Palin also used low-level staffers to buy some of the clothes on their credit cards. The McCain campaign found out last week when the aides sought reimbursement. One aide estimated that she spent “tens of thousands” more than the reported $150,000, and that $20,000 to $40,000 went to buy clothes for her husband. Some articles of clothing have apparently been lost. An angry aide characterized the shopping spree as “Wasilla hillbillies looting Neiman Marcus from coast to coast,” and said the truth will eventually come out when the Republican Party audits its books.

Sounds like “class warfare” in the Republican camp.

Canvassing for the last time [ed. correction: in 2008!]

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We did one more day of canvassing, this time in Bedford IN.  It was another gorgeous day (we saw a reading of 80 degrees on the way out in the afternoon!?) and Bedford, or the neighborhoods we were in anyway, is a pretty pleasant town.  Very few people were home, so it was mostly just sticking those doorknob flyers on the front doors saying “Vote today!” with information on the polling location.  Many of our first houses already had flyers, so we called back to the base to be sure there hadn’t been an error.  They told us to look more closely and we’d see that we had new flyers: they were exactly the same except ours said “Vote Today!” and the ones that were already there said “Vote Nov 4!”  So, there was obviously a lot of duplication of the effort.

There was one very disturbing incident.  Three dudes were coming out of a house and starting to get into a pickup truck.  One said, “you guys votin’?” in a way that seemed probably mocking.

Me: “yeah, we’re canvassing.”

Dude: “for who?”  Me: “Obama.”  Dude: “Good deal…”

Me: “have you voted yet?”

Dude: “I can’t vote, I’m a convicted felon.”

Then as they got in the truck one of them said the N-word very loudly.  We sort of half froze and muttered to each other, did he say that?

Kind of creepy on a deserted street, especially in the context of the convicted felon comment.

Otherwise, though, Bedford was lovely, no complaints…!

Can’t believe this is almost over!!

p.s.  From what I understand, convicted felons can in fact vote in Indiana, so he was just making excuses.

Canvassing in Southern Indiana: college towns are for wimps

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My mantra this weekend was “college towns are for wimps.”  Steve and I were going canvassing in Bedford, about 20 minutes south of Bloomington.  When we got to the home base 15 minutes late, though, all the downtown Bedford packets were gone, so it was either semi-rural Bedford, with a lot of driving in between stops (and possibly scary dogs on the loose, that went through my mind, anyway), or the downtown of another town a bit further south, so we chose the latter.

This place felt very economically depressed.  It was Sunday, so that may have been part of it, but it also felt semi-abandoned, with a lot of empty houses.  We were amazed to discover, when we started to get hungry for lunch, that there seemed to be no restaurants of any sort in town — when we asked someone where to go, he mentioned a McDonald’s and Arby’s on the highway and a Subway several miles back towards Bloomington.  (We ended up getting Fishwiches at McD’s at 1:45 or so — they tasted really good by then.)

Steve and I canvass according to whiffleball rules: you keep batting until you make contact, i.e. speak to a human being.  There were a LOT of not-homes or, in some cases, a quickly raised blind and then not a peep.  So you could sometimes ring the bell for 6 houses in a row before you finally got your contact with an actual voter.  We decided that part of the reason the information in our packets often seemed to be way out of date was likely that no one may have canvassed for a Presidential candidate here for decades.

Best line of the day was at one of the first houses.  A lady in her 80s was chatting by her front door with a younger man.  When we asked for the name on our list, she cheerfully informed us, “oh, she’s probably in jail — she’s a felon.”  She went on to explain, “she married my grandson a long time ago.  The whole family loathed and despised her.  When they got divorced, our hearts rejoiced.  You know why she’s on your list?   Every time she goes to a dentist or something, she puts down THIS address right here.  I’m sure she’s in jail.”

When we’d first approached and asked if she were an Obama supporter, she said “that dirty old man?” which we found really confusing.   She did turn out to be for Obama.

Most disheartening exchange of the day was a guy who said “I am voting, but not in the Presidential race.”  He said “if that’s the best America has to offer, we’re in trouble” and went on to explain, “I’ve heard a lot of things, like that Obama’s a Muslim and that he might put the country under Muslim law.  Now, it may not be true, but….”   I felt I had to say, “you know, that really is not true, he’s not a Muslim, that’s just an invention people are spreading to raise suspicions about him” (even if in saying that I felt as if I was at some level buying into his logic that Muslim= bad; didn’t feel I had the luxury of making a more nuanced point).  He kind of nodded and said something like, “maybe so, but there’s a lot of it out there.”

Difficult to know how to interpret this.  Was he really saying, “yes, it may be lies, but hey, it’s out there?”  Perhaps he meant to be saying something more like, “well, you say it’s lies, but I’m not sure.”  Anyway, it was depressing, though I chose to take an optimistic view that this guy would have been a sure Republican vote in any other year.

There were actually more Obama signs and enthusiastic Obama supporters than I expected.  More Obama than McCain signs for sure.

We’re going to Bedford itself on Tuesday for one final shift.  Really would like to help (in our tiny way) to push Indiana blue.

Zombie Parade

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Sorry I missed this one.

Kirkwood Avenue and Walnut Street are hubs of nightlife entertainment for college students, but this Thursday the streets entertained a different crowd: the undead.

About 100 people dressed up as zombies took over the streets for about an hour, walking straight-legged and blank-eyed, bringing traffic to a halt, jumping on cars that honked at them and slapping up against windows of businesses…..

The parade came to a somewhat abrupt end, though, as police cars pulled up behind the crowd with their lights flashing.

Although at first this did not deter the crowd and many zombies surrounded the police car, yelling, the party dissipated as even more squad cars arrived and one man was handcuffed and put inside one of the cars.

Parade participants were divided about the arrest.

Senior Luke Bapple, who believed the arrest happened because the arrestee had touched one of the police cars, said the arrested “zombie” should have known better.

“I mean, I’ll jump on a civilian car,” he said. “We’re dead, not stupid.”

But senior Samantha Miller applauded the arrestee.

“He was a martyr zombie,” she said.

30 Rock Hates Graduate Students

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Season premiere of 30 Rock, which I like a lot though sometimes find just a bit too antic & pleased with itself, this week.  A funny one overall; there was one line that somewhat mystified me, as Liz and Jack discuss the ethical dubiousness of their treatment of the inspector from the adoption agency:

Jack: “We may not be the best people.”

Liz: “But we’re not the worst.”

Both, in unison: “Graduate students are the worst.”

OK, I did find this kind of funny, but graduate students??  Why?  I think I may be so sheltered within my academic/college-town bubble that it’s difficult for me even to figure out what this reference means to most of America.  Is this, like, a Harvard B.A. writer’s joke about annoying T.As, and if so, isn’t that a little inside baseball? Anyone want to enlighten me?

Speaking of academia, The Office had an inconsistent but partly great episode all about Business Ethics that must represent the all-time apex of discussions of Ethics as a philosophical topic on a primetime sitcom.  High points included Michael and Holly (Amy Ryan from the Wire!) introducing a mandatory office meeting wearing headbands and singing, “Let’s get ethical!  Ethical!” a la Olivia Newton-John.  Also the doofus Ed Helms character’s comment:

“I’ll drop an ethics bomb on you: Would you steal bread to feed your family? Boom! . . . Yeah, I took Intro to Philosophy — twice.”

Remorseless Eatin’ Machine

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According to the Chronicle of Higher Education,

Obese diners at all-you-can-eat Chinese restaurants were more likely than other customers to sit closer to the buffet, face the food bar, use forks rather than chopsticks, use larger plates, and serve themselves immediately rather than first browsing the food, according to a study reported in the August issue of the journal Obesity. Brian Wansink, a professor of marketing at Cornell University, and his co-author Collin R. Payne, compared the behaviors and body-mass indexes of 213 restaurant patrons for their paper, “Eating Behavior and Obesity at Chinese Buffets.” Leaner patrons were more likely to sit at booths than tables, leave food on their plates, and place their napkins on their laps, the researchers reported.

It’s kind of shooting (Chinese steamed, with ginger) fish in a barrel to poke fun at this, but it’s hilarious to consider the context in which this research project was developed.  Since it was conducted by marketing professors, are they pointing out that obese patrons are bad for business?  Yes I realize that obesity as a health problem is not funny, but behaviors at all-you-can-eat buffets are inherently amusing.  There’s something transgressive about the whole concept, encapsulated in the paradoxical promise of the name.  It makes me think of that classic Simpsons episode in which Homer is sued by The Frying Dutchman, an all-you-can-eat seafood buffet, for eating too much.  The line I remember is the owner saying of Homer, “‘Tis no man, ’tis a remorseless eatin’ machine!”

OK I admit I just looked this up to get it right.  Amazing that in 10 seconds I was able to access the entire script of this episode, which was written by Conan O’Brien as it happens.

The Owls and the Pussycat

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I recommend this article by Jane Mayer in the current New Yorker on how Palin was chosen to be VP.  It reveals that she was chosen more or less because a small boatful (literally) of conservative Beltway policy-wonk nerds thought, on the basis of one lunch, that she was charismatic and hot.  It all reminds me of that Edward Lear poem: the Owls and the Pussycat, at sea with a honey and plenty of money, of course.  In this Lear drawing, imagine William Kristol as the owl.

Shortly after taking office, Palin received two memos from Paulette Simpson, the Alaska Federation of Republican Women leader, noting that two prominent conservative magazines—The Weekly Standard, owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, and National Review, founded by William F. Buckley, Jr.—were planning luxury cruises to Alaska in the summer of 2007, which would make stops in Juneau. Writers and editors from these publications had been enlisted to deliver lectures to politically minded vacationers. “The Governor was more than happy to meet these guys,” Joe Balash, a special staff assistant to Palin, recalled.

On June 18, 2007, the first group disembarked in Juneau from the Holland America Line’s M.S. Oosterdam, and went to the governor’s mansion, a white wooden Colonial house with six two-story columns, for lunch. The contingent featured three of The Weekly Standard ’s top writers: William Kristol, the magazine’s Washington-based editor, who is also an Op-Ed columnist for the Times and a regular commentator on “Fox News Sunday”; Fred Barnes, the magazine’s executive editor and the co-host of “The Beltway Boys,” a political talk show on Fox News; and Michael Gerson, the former chief speechwriter for President Bush and a Washington Post columnist.

…Fred Barnes recalled being “struck by how smart Palin was, and how unusually confident. Maybe because she had been a beauty queen, and a star athlete, and succeeded at almost everything she had done.” It didn’t escape his notice, too, that she was “exceptionally pretty.”… Barnes was dazzled by Palin’s handling of the hundred or so mineworkers who gathered to meet the group. “She clearly was not intimidated by crowds—or men!” he said. “She’s got real star quality.”  By the time the Weekly Standard pundits returned to the cruise ship, Paulette Simpson said, “they were very enamored of her.” In July, 2007, Barnes wrote the first major national article spotlighting Palin, titled “The Most Popular Governor,” for The Weekly Standard. Simpson said, “That first article was the result of having lunch.”

…The other journalists who met Palin offered similarly effusive praise: Michael Gerson called her “a mix between Annie Oakley and Joan of Arc.” The most ardent promoter, however, was Kristol, and his enthusiasm became the talk of Alaska’s political circles…. The next day, however, Kristol was still talking about Palin on Fox. “She could be both an effective Vice-Presidential candidate and an effective President,” he said. “She’s young, energetic.” … On July 22nd, again on Fox, Kristol referred to Palin as “my heartthrob.” He declared, “I don’t know if I can make it through the next three months without her on the ticket.”

Soon after, a second boat of wonks showed up in Juneau for a taste of Alaskan hospitality.

On August 1, 2007, a few weeks after the Weekly Standard cruise departed from Juneau, Palin hosted a second boatload of pundits, this time from a cruise featuring associates of National Review….Hanson, the historian, recalled Palin in high heels, “walking around this big Victorian house with rough Alaska floors, saying, ‘Hi, I’m Sarah.’ ” She was “striking,” he said. “She has that aura that Clinton, Reagan, and Jack Kennedy had—magnetism that comes through much more strongly when you’re in the same room.”… Jay Nordlinger, a senior editor at National Review, had a more elemental response. In an online column, he described Palin as “a former beauty-pageant contestant, and a real honey, too. Am I allowed to say that? Probably not, but too bad.”

It’s just kind of amazing how evident these nerds’ sexual attraction to Palin is — it’s more text than subtext.  So bizarre and shocking how little was known about her beyond her “charisma” and impeccable conservative ideology.

Andrew Sullivan has a good post today:

My view is that after the McCain peeps had made that crazy decision and realized after the fact what they had on their hands, they put their best face on it. They knew that the normal rules for a veep – a press conference, full media accessibility, airing of all the biographical details – would have required the candidate to quit before November. So they tried to shield her from actual democracy – a dangerous decision for the rest of us, but a rational, cynical decision for a campaign running a delusional liar as the potential next president of the US. Palin of course, lives in her own little, somewhat nutty, world and now believes her manifest destiny has been thwarted.

It’s a massive, unmissable clusterfuck and has been for two months. They just can’t hide it any longer. And the pick is a devastating one – because it basically destroys John McCain’s credibility as a presidential decision-maker. His first major decision as a future president is one of the worst in American political history. That alone should be enough to seal his fate next Tuesday. You need nothing else.