Three's A Crowd
Now Playing: "Friend of the Devil," The Grateful Dead
I don't get HBO at my house, so I don't get to watch Real Time With Bill Maher, but apparently last Friday was Controversial Liberal Day, featuring Michael Moore and Ralph Nader. In a glorious moment liberals everywhere should learn from, Maher and Moore dropped to their knees and begged the candidate for whom both of them voted in 2000 to drop out of this year's race.

(Side note: Call me paranoid, but I would be worried about having both of these figures on my show simultaneously. Both have been the subjects of so much ire that if you told me a political figure was going to be assassinated by the end of the year I would bet on one of these two. I fear for Moore's safety at the hands of the loopiest right-wingers, and for Nader's at the hands of the most desperate Bush-haters.)

There's no question in anyone's mind (except, possibly, Nader's) that without the Green Party crusader thrown into the mix, Al Gore would be running for reelection this year. Will John Kerry be his next victim?

Maher doesn't think so, but he isn't willing to risk it. In a February interview with Chris Matthews, Maher predicted little to no Nader effect in '04. "I think the people who vote for Nader this time are not the ones who would in any way vote for the Democrat.? I think it`s just a bunch of crackpots who are going to vote for him because we all feel differently this time."

He may be right. After all, both Moore and he have wised up since 2000, and doubtless many non-celeb ex-Naderites have as well. I know several But if this is the case, why is Maher imploring Nader not to run? Perhaps Moore, who on "Charlie Rose" cited Nader as "something the Kerry people should be very worried about," has persuaded him that any Nader impact, however small, is worth combating.

As we learned in Florida, every vote counts in swing states. Nader must realize that if he hijacks few votes from the Dems, he even takes fewer from the GOP. Secondly, despite his distaste for Kerry and the two-party system, Nader has admitted on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart that "anyone is better than Bush." So why doesn't he put two and two together? Perhaps, though Nader has denied it, it's a simple matter of ego. Smitten with the image of himself as a crusader for the little guy, Nader has blinded himself to the big picture. But I think it's more than that. Nader believes that the long-term benefits of a multiparty system outweigh the short-term dangers of another Bush presidency. He feels like it's not about him, it's about breaking down the corporate two-party machine, and it is his critics, not he, who are short-sighted.

That's all well and good, but as Arianna Huffington said, "When your house is on fire, it's not time to talk about remodeling." Ralph Nader has been a hero for environmentalism and consumer advocacy for decades. His motives may be good and his 2000 run forgivable, but if he repeats that showing and hands the election to the GOP again this year he will irrevocably tarnish a long and admirable career.

Maher made another comment on Hardball that should give potential Nader voters pause before casting their ballots: "I have to say, I feel like a spoiled brat with that vote last time.? It just showed me, people do not have the indulgence in most places in the world to vote for the lesser of two evils." Indeed.

-T.

The Impatient Nerd Fumes Idly On
Mood:  irritated
Now Playing: "You Never Give Me Your Money," The Beatles
I'm really annoyed with my college course catalog. It hasn't come in the mail yet, and I'm worried that I might have had to request it back in May or something. The info for the fall courses is online, but what I really want to see are the spring courses. See, if I want to major in Archaeology I have to take one of these two classes. The fall class, Archaeometallurgy, requires a year of chemistry. There's no available info on the spring class other than it's course number, so I have no idea if chemistry is required. I know I have plenty of time to sort this out, but I want to know asap if I'm going to have to take chem. GAAA! I guess I should explain that I really don't enjoy chem, and it really says something about my love of archeology that I'm willing to put up with a year of chem if it comes to that.

I would not, however, be willing to take even one semester of calculus for any major. Not even Tolkien Studies, were there such an option.

-T.

Freud Strikes Again
Mood:  incredulous
So last night on Fox News Watch, host Eric Burns was reading viewer letters to his guests and audience and made a comment that forced me to do a double take. One man had sent a letter pasted with pictures of the guests: Jim Pinkerton, Cal Thomas, Neal Gabler, and Jane Hall. Oddly, there were three large pictures of Jane Hall and one small picture of each of the men. The writer said this was because Hall was "The Halle Berry for the 45-and-older set."

Everyone laughed, and in the background one of the men (I think it was Thomas) mock-whined about how small his picture was. Burns said, as the camera turned to focus on him, "You don't even have a set!"

Um, what?

Did he just say that?

It wasn't just me. Both my parents were watching and had the same initial response: Eric Burns just told Jane Hall she wasn't "well-endowed" enough to be the Halle Berry for the over-45 crowd. Astonishing. I know it's Fox, but this is ridiculous.

Thank the powers that be for Tivo. After watching it about five times, we concluded that Burns (a) was actually talking to the male guest, not Jane, and (b) he meant "set" in the sense of "45-and-older set." But jeez. It was pretty ambiguous.

-T.

Ginger's Roots
The word gingerly seems to bear no etymological relation to the word ginger. The noun derives from a Sanskrit word meaning "horned body," due to the antlerlike shape of the root. The adverb "gingerly" most likely comes from Old French.

Donkeys in Arms
I suppose I missed the boat (naval pun not intended) in terms of covering the Democratic National Convention, so I'll just summarize the event. First of all, I'm appalled that the TV networks only broadcast an hour of the convention per night -- and on Tuesday, which I thought was chock-full of powerful speeches, nothing at all. Bill Maher writes a to-the-point opinion piece on this in Friday's L.A. Times. I was watching C-SPAN, which spared its audience (such as it was) no moment of the drawn-out formalities and buildup that take up much of the convention. As such, I got to watch speeches in their entirety without the droning of Wolf Blitzer, the full-spin-cycle of Fox, or the relentless unpleasantness of Chris Matthews.  Convention bashers are half-right in their assesment of the event as pure pagentry and preaching to the choir, but for undecided voters, every night of this convention had something to offer. Monday, of course, Bill Clinton delivered a much-anticipated speech, rife with "us vs. them" rhetoric but with a smile instead of venom. I can't believe the ridiculous insistence by some Republicans that the Clintons are hoping for a Bush victory to pave the way for Hillary's candidacy in '08. Clinton might have lost some sincerity points during his last term, but his belief in John Kerry rang true. Tuesday night, supossedly the "weak" night that networks ignored, was actually one of my favorites. We had Ted Kennedy, whose address was good if not stellar, and Howard Dean, who still holds a place in my heart and received a long, rousing opening cheer. Most of the night's hype surrounded the keynote speaker, Illinois State Senator Barack Obama, who was truly inspiring in his call to unite the United States. I was disappointed in how little attention was given to Teresa Heinz Kerry, who came across as witty, wordly, and warm. Everyone knows John Edwards is either a "smooth talker" or a "gifted speaker," depending on their political leanings. His Wednesday speech was strong, but he sounded tired, and there was very little new ground broken. But he and his family, who introduced him, are just so likeable. How can you not love and trust a guy with the charm and brains of Clinton minus the scandals? "Hope is on the way" indeed. And then there was Kerry. People say that the Democrats hate Bush, but nobody loves Kerry. Well, I'm nobody, but I love this man. He's not a comedian, but he's a thoughtful, heroic, determined intellectual, and he's even kind of cute in an Entish way. Anyway, he needed to nail the speech to convince voters he was, in fact, neither mineral nor vegetable, and he did. It was evident to me that the previous speakers (Al Sharpton not withstanding) had deliberately kept their Bushwhacking to a minimum to let Kerry do the heavy hitting. He delivered at a pleasantly quick pace lines such as "I will be a commander in chief who will never mislead us into war. I will have a vice president who will not conduct secret meetings with polluters to rewrite our environmental laws. I will have a secretary of Defense who will listen to the best advice of our military leaders. And I will appoint an attorney general who actually upholds the Constitution of the United States." Whoa there! Kerry was introduced by his articulate and personable daughters, a seamless biographical film, a host of veterans, and finally Max Cleland, whose touching and firey intro packed a true emotional whallop. Congratulations to the Dems for a job well done. Here are the Golden Donkey Awards for 2004: -Best Speaker: Barack Obama -Best Speech: John Kerry -Best Comeback from Unfair Press: Teresa Heinz Kerry: "My only hope is that one day soon, women, who have all earned the right to have their opinions, instead of being labeled opinionated, will be called smart or well-informed, just as men are." -Sportsmanship Award: (Tie) Al Gore and Howard Dean -Most in Need of Volume Control: Al Sharpton -Most Overused Rhetoric: Naval puns. -T.

Now come the days of the Blog.
And Trailhobbit said: Let there be Blog -- and lo! there was Blog. And Trailhobbit saw that it was good.

Mission (...quest...thing...) statement
Why does a 19-year-old, liberal, Tolkien-loving, nature-worshipping anthropology student need a blog? I am not especially well-informed or interesting. Nor am I particularly humorous, at least not intentionally. Nobody will learn anything from reading this blog. Actually, nobody will probably read this blog.

But I digress. I love writing, and my New Year's resolution was to write every day. This seems like a way to ensure that I write on a regular basis, even if what I'm writing seems incredibly irrelevant. We'll see how long it lasts.

- T.