All Politics Is Local?

There's an interesting on-line discussion this week on several sites about a race for a state representative seat in Kansas. Sean Tevis, an IT guy from Olathe, Kansas, is running for the 15th District seat in the Kansas House.

He's a Democrat challenging a several-term incumbent Republican and he's making a strong on-line pitch that includes an xkcd-style infographic about his reasons for running and his fund-raising approach. Told he needs to raise $26,000 for the run and that the traditional approach is to find 52 people to donate $500 each, he has decided to try instead to get 3,000 people to donate at least $8.34 each. And his web site is set up to do just that.

This approach has attracted notice on several web sites nationally, including on metafilter, where Tevis has been a member for many years. He didn't post the link himself, but he has joined in the discussion and seems to be listening to criticism and suggestions from the many commenters. There's a lively discussion which is generating some contributions and is helping Tevis refine his thinking on some issues.

My interest increased when I looked at the District map and realized that Tevis is running to represent the downtown portion of a town that my great-great grandfather helped found, where my grandfather was born, and where I still have some distant cousins.

As of this morning, he's almost half-way to his goal of 3,000 contributors and he's now known to a wider, and growing, group of politically interested voters. Not all of them, however, are local.

I have Succumbed

When we rolled-over our family of cell-phones this summer, Karen and I decided to get unlimited texting. Colleen, being a teen, seems to have lost the ability to talk on a telephone and communicates entirely by SMS text message. So it made sense for us to become texters ourselves.

Even though we are old.

As a result, I have decided to finally look into twitter. I never thought twitter would be a format that worked for me as a browser-based writer. Twitter is designed to allow users to send short-form updates -- "tweets" -- limited to 160 characters. I have never been "short form."

Still, I don't like to post on Mike's Musings from my machine at work. Sometimes I think of things I'd like to post during the day, but don't feel that I should. So I have signed up for twitter and added a "Random Thoughts" box at left that I can populate from my phone.

God forbid you should ever have to be without my, um, thinking.

So Long, Ollie, and Thanks for All the Memories

Olive Riley passed away this week-end. She was 108 years old and had been, for the last few years, "the world's oldest blogger."

As I write this, all links to her blog are failing; my guess is her site is getting hit with too much traffic as news of her passing spreads. With luck, things will settle down soon and the site will be accessible.

It's something of a stretch to call Olive Riley a "blogger." She was visited regularly in her retirement home by a punk kid of 70-something who interviewed her and transcribed the interviews to a blog site. But her site was a rich mine of memories and history as seen from the eyes of a normal woman, leading a life in Australia for all of the Twentieth Century.

Her blog was one of the great treasures I've found on-line. I'll miss her, but I was glad I had a chance to get to know her. Rest in peace, Ollie.

Seen From a Train

I took the train to Albany, New York, this afternoon for a two-day USGS-sponsored meeting of State GIS coordinators. The train was no more expensive than flying and it was easier and more comfortable to take the train from Wilmington than to drive to BWI or Philly and deal with the full airport drill.

The second part of the trip was a ride up the east side of the Hudson River. It was late afternoon and I had a nice view of the river and the many bridges that cross it between New York City and Albany.

Despite the dirtiness of the window I was next to, I decided to spend the trip grabbing what photos I could. There was a series of bridges, there were boats, a castle, and views of the river.

It was a very pleasant few hours.

Fourth of July, Bethany Beach

We were in Bethany Beach for the Fourth of July parade on Friday. We were with my folks, three siblings and their spouses, and a clutch of nephews. It was great fun.

The Bethany parade is always a long, loose, sometimes casual affair. It features a healthy dose of politicians, small bands, decorated cars, family floats, loads of beauty queens, and masses of kids on decorated bikes.

We were treated to Senator Tom Carper (D), Congressman Mike Castle (R), and some local leaders. Sussex County Councilman George Cole and Dewey Beach Mayor Dell Tush rode together.

Both of the Democrats vying for election as Delaware's next Governor came by. Jack Markell was walking and shaking hands, including mine. John Carney was riding and waving. I caught his attention and Lt. Gov. Carney gave me a wave and a smile. "I wave and smile on command," he said (or something like that). Both gents looked like they were having a fine time.

Neither of the Republican candidates were in the parade.

Miss Delaware was among the several pageant queens on hand. They ranged from a very young Little Miss ... Somewhere to a more grown-up Mrs. Delaware.

I came across Miss Delaware's blog recently. She was crowned in June and started blogging a bit later. I took advantage of the opportunity of the parade to remind her not to let her blog get too stale. I have to give her credit; I didn't throw her. She knew what I was on about.

I was standing with a group of my nephews ranging in age from about 6 up to 15. I found myself wondering whether they were more interested in the beauty pageanteers or in the cars they were riding on. I was amused to read Miss D's blog entry from today about her several parade appearances:

After reflecting back on the day, I realized that Donald's car (a 1965 convertible, red corvette) had gotten as many comments/compliments as I had! The quote of the day: "Nice car!!" I guess that's what happens when you have such an eye-catching ride!

Indeed.

What Are You Looking For?

I have a few different ways to track visitors to this site. I'm not too obsessive about it, but I enjoy knowing what's brought people here.

Over the long term, I find I get a steady stream of people looking for information on getting rid of a blood clot. Installing satellite radio in a Prius is also popular as are Delaware's boundary monuments.

And I see seasonal patterns as well.

In the last two weeks, for example, there has been interest in the Fourth of July in Bethany Beach. Since June 22, fifty-eight of Mike's Musings visits were generated by web searches for some combination of Bethany Beach, Fourth of July, fireworks, and parade. That's 23.6 percent of all searches that led to the blog. ("Bethany Beach Fireworks" is the champ.)

There has also been a steady stream of visitors looking for information about the Tyler Place, in Vermont. I've posted reports from there the last several summers, and they are being found by folks researching their own trips, it seems.

We've stopped visiting the Tyler Place, but not because we don't love it. After nine summers, Colleen has aged-out of the Tyler kids' programs. It was time to make room for these other folks. I hope our reports and pictures help them get ready. But we do miss it terribly.

Half a Year of Reading

We're at the end of June, the (more or less) halfway point of the year. This seems a good time to look back over my 2008 Reading Log for a bit of literatural accounting. I read 31 books in the 181 days between January 1 and June 29. That's an average of one book each 5.8 days. (Yes, I know it sounds like bragging, but I'm being anal about this stuff this year.)

Most of the books I read, 27 of them, were from the Lewes Library. Only four were books I own; most of those were gifts. I like my small-town library.

Twenty-eight were fiction. Two were standard non-fiction and one was a book of essays. I enjoy the escape of diving into a fictional landscape. I have always read more of fiction than any other category.

Seventeen were set in the United States and nine were set in the United Kingdom. One was set partially in India and one in Roman Britain.

I read two books set around the US Civil War. Two were mysteries. And two were fantasy. Fourteen were historical fiction.

Delaware Candidates' Web Sites In Focus

The politics-watching blog Political Realm takes a look this week at the campaign web sites of Delaware Senator Joe Biden and his republican challenger, Christine O'Donnell.

The entry is part of the site's "Web Grades" series, which has been looking at campaign sites since spring of 2007 when they reviewed the sites of the many contenders in the presidential primaries. Interestingly, those reviews, more than a year ago, gave top marks to the web sites of John McCain on the republican side and John Edwards and Barack Obama on the democratic side. Maybe there's something to this internet thing after all?

When I started reading this entry I found myself worried that Ms. O'Donnell, demonstrably younger and therefore potentially more hip than Senator Biden, would take the prize for best campaign web site. But I was pleased to find that the Biden site took the prize with a grade of B to Ms. O'Donnell's D-minus.

Neither site includes a campaign blog, which the Political Realm folks called a disappointment. Both had multimedia content, though Sen. Biden's site was considered stronger and more complete. The Biden site also outshone the O'Donnell site in social-network features.

One might question the objectivity of the Political Realm reviewers; they do not claim to be a non-partisan site. However, despite the fact that I am proudly-partisan myself, I do think they take an even-handed approach to reviewing political web sites. They are reviewing the sites themselves and not the candidates. And the criteria do appear to have more to do with communication and interaction than with policy or position.

These Birds Have Flown

The mourning dove who nested this spring in one of our hanging plants has left for the summer, taking her chick with her.

The dove appeared in the hanging basket back in May. She was well-hidden while the flowers were alive. When the flowers died -- I didn't want to water them with the nest in there -- she lost her camouflage. At that point, we could see that she had two eggs to hatch.

In the last week or so, a chick appeared and started to put on weight. We watched it carefully. It didn't take long before it was ready to head out. Now our birds are gone.

We found the second egg, unhatched, in the nest. We're not sure why this egg didn't make it. Maybe it wasn't properly fertilized? An unfortunate mutation? Whatever it is, we have to assume that nature knows what it is doing.

This is Just Sad

The Washington Post has a story this morning on the increase in hate-group and white-power activity in response to the candidacy of Barack Obama. In Hate Groups' Newest Target, the Post reports that hate and white supremacist web sites are seeing more traffic and are giving the credit to Sen. Obama.

"I haven't seen this much anger in a long, long time," said Billy Roper, a 36-year-old who runs a group called White Revolution in Russellville, Ark. "Nothing has awakened normally complacent white Americans more than the prospect of America having an overtly nonwhite president."

I'd like to pause here, if I may, and marvel at the idea that someone can be "overtly non-white." Should he be more covert about his racial background? Would it be okay if Barack Obama tried to "pass" for white? I shake my head in disgust, but I have to admit I'm fascinated by the lengths folks will go to, and the pretzilization of the language that they will employ, to try to make a hateful point without seeming hateful.

The story notes the many hate-filled smears that have been floated on-line about Sen. Obama. There's no need to catalog them here, though I should note that they do turn up in the Delaware blogosphere from time to time.

On a positive note (though the term feels wrong in this context), the Post story does point out that the hate groups are also angry with John McCain "for his moderate views on immigration and his willingness to stick with the Iraq war."

And, the Post reports, they have a slight hope for a President Obama because, they feel, that could galvanize the hate groups into action and help them elect a president of their own (like David Duke, who ran for president in 1988 and got less than 1% of the vote). Or, they say, an Obama victory could be the final blow.

"Maybe people see him in office, and it's like: 'That's it. It's just too late. Look at what's happened now. We've endured all these defeats, and we've still got a multicultural society.' And then there's just no future for our viewpoint."

I think the white-supremacist movement is behind the times by a generation or two, frankly. The United States is already, and has long been, a multicultural society. It is what makes us strong. A President Obama would not be the end of "white-power," it would be the period at the end of the sentence that summarizes the historical footnote that was the white-power movement.