Living Life Out Loud
January 30, 2010
I was almost asleep…
Zap.
And the brain started churning with the thoughts I had most carefully avoided by reading National Geographic and refusing to allow my conscious brain to wander over into ‘real life’ territory.
By ‘real life’ (and I so want to put that in air quotes) I mean the day-to-day events and people who make my brain swirl as I try to put 2 and 2 together and come up with something resembling “4″ rather than just “ick.”
Things like this tend to float around in my subconscious a long time before they suddenly coalesce into a concrete idea. Then suddenly (like now) I find myself getting out of bed to try and put them into words. Have to get it down before I forget and the morning finds the realizations paler and somewhat muddied.
2009 was a challenging year for me on one particular front — I found myself wondering why basically good people could see bad things being done and not speak out.
I’m not speaking of global atrocities or some great conspiracy. I’m just talking about what happens on the every day, personal, small-scale interactions.
You know what I mean
One guy is dishonest in his dealings with everyone. Good people who have reason to know talk amongst themselves as to how awful his behavior is. But they only talk amongst themselves. Only as members of some bizarre club of people who have been taken in by him or who have narrowly avoided it. They don’t speak out against him publicly. A woman is known to show two faces to everyone with whom she deals. The same people speak amongst themselves as to how she is whomever she thinks her audience wants her to be as long as she thinks it will get her ahead. But when her name comes up in ‘non-insider’ conversation those who talk amongst themselves say nothing to those who would most appreciate the warning. A company is clearly scamming its clients – talking a good game but in the end its nothing but talk. Still the clients are paying money thinking that it must be a good company or surely someone would say something. Again, the basically good people who know? Nary a peep.
It just didn’t jibe with my world view.
Why didn’t those people who I knew to be honest, caring, moral people speak up? Especially when they knew that to stay silent was to imply that the liars, swindlers, and dishonest folks were okay, as they were busy churning through the unwary?
Then I looked around more carefully
I realized that there are some folks I know who do speak up. They live out loud. They put their feet forward and say with passion and certainty what they believe. Whether it’s about a person, a company, or an event that has ignited their passion, they speak up.
I have to say that I don’t always agree with my friend Erin Kotecki Vest (aka @QueenofSpain). But damn how I wish I had her courage. I’ve never seen Erin back down from a fight. You want to know if she thinks someone is good people or bad? Ask her. She’ll tell you outright. Then again, you don’t always have to ask. She’s out there putting it black & white for people to read. She doesn’t hide behind a persona. She is who she is. Trust me – the first time I met her in person it was like just finally sharing oxygen with someone I’d known for a long time.
And Micah Baldwin (@micah)… another one of those people who is about as fearless and open as anyone you could imagine. Moreso, actually. Micah puts things out there that consistently blow me away. His fearlessness when it comes to stating what he experiences and believes publicly and standing behind his words is a little terrifying, to be honest. The first time I met him I rather expected him to growl instead of grinning like he did.
So why then are there folks like these two (and believe me, I could start listing more, but they’re extremely good examples!) but also so many who seem so afraid to speak out?
I didn’t get it
Again – my subconscious went quietly (and sometimes noisily) about working on the puzzle. It started breaking things down a little further. There were folks like Erin and Micah who don’t pull the punches. There were folks who were “in the know” about the men, women, and companies that were dishonest but didn’t say anything while personally avoiding working with them. And then there were folks who knew, but still went along as if they didn’t. Working with, being pleasant to, and even tacitly endorsing those ‘bad eggs.’
Suddenly as I lay in my bed thinking that I needed something more distracting than iPhone games to keep my brain from working on this it clicked.
Mostly because I finally examined my own silence.
You see, I figured out that I fall in the “publicly silent but unwilling to endorse the bad guys by pretending they aren’t” group.
Why? Fear mostly. Fear that is based on past experience.
In the past, when I’ve called someone out for dishonesty, disreputable behavior, and being unethical it’s just proven to be something that was used against me. “Oh, well, Lucretia… you know. She can be a problem.” The problem? That I didn’t go along with the charade. The people I thought might appreciate the warning didn’t. Either they convinced themselves that things would be different for them, or they convinced themselves that the problem really lay with me.
The inevitable “wow, I should’ve listened to you” conversation just hasn’t been worth the personal cost of being someone who spoke out. In fact, altogether too often, I had friends who told me I really ought to quit speaking out.
So if it happens that way with me, why not with those others? Of course it does. They don’t risk it either because they know that the potential negative impact to their own reputation isn’t worth trying to ’save’ those who don’t want to be saved… those who want you to be wrong because it benefits them if you are.
Which kind of brings up that last group. Those who know, but are still working with, endorsing, and engaging with the ‘bad eggs’ despite their knowledge.
What motivates them? In a word: money
Okay two words. Money *and* pride. That last group thinks they can dance with the Devil, skirt the danger, and come out unscathed with money in their pockets. They think that they’re smarter, savvier, wiser, and somehow will avoid the fate of everyone else who has been burned by the individuals and companies that are no good.
Yes. There’s money to be had if you deal with the crooks, liars, and cheats. But the thing so many of the last group don’t get is that unless you *are* a crook, liar, and cheat? They’ll always get the better of you. You can’t come out unscathed. You can’t take money from a thief and turn it into honest money. You can’t align yourself with a cheat and not end up cheating someone else.
There is no honor among thieves
So then, back to my friends Erin & Micah and others like them. What makes them so fearless? I don’t know. But I intend to find out. Because I’m tired of being the person who is afraid to point out the Emperor’s lack of clothing lest the rest of the court shun me.
I’d rather be genuine.
I’d rather be moral.
I’d rather live my life out loud.
(p.s. you know, there will be people who read my examples above and assume I’m talking about one particular man/woman/company — the funny part is that those people are ‘in the know’ about someone but think I’m just not saying it again. Truth is? Those are generic examples. If you read it and thought of someone or some company in particular? Ask yourself which group you belong in of the 3 above and which you want to belong in. Because it turns out that you are probably one of those ‘basically good people in the know.’)
Taking My Own Advice
January 26, 2010
Yesterday my daughter turned 7. Today, my niece turned 16.
Despite late nights at extended family birthday dinners and emotionally exhausting (despite satisfying) days for everyone in the GeekFamily, the kidlet and I have had a couple of serious heart-to-hearts right before bedtime in an attempt to process some of the more perplexing parts of behavior of other kids.
It seems my daughter comes honestly by the tendency to process the day’s events not as they happen but in one huge data dump right before sleep just like her mother. While GeekDaddy has a tendency to wish the overly-chatty women could not attempt to discuss every nuance of their days moments before unconsciousness, the kidlet and I are often incapable of achieving sleep if events are not processed to a certain point beforehand.
For me, this has resulted in many a late night sitting in coffee shops with a good friend or on the phone with them trying to work through a flow-chart of “what-ifs” and probabilities. It even led to my blogging habits and my initial Twitter forays – as there’s always *someone* to talk to on the Internet.
But when you’re 7 years old and in first grade, you’re sort of stuck hoping that one or the other of your parents is the sort who will work through things with you or relegating yourself to just not sleeping well a lot.
The really cool thing as her Mother though? Sometimes when I’m helping her work through stuff, I realize how parallel our situations are and how much I need to remember the particular lesson I’m trying to help her work through.
One of tonight’s themes was about caring about the opinions of those you respect or love while learning how not to take to heart negative words from those who fall in neither category.
Easier said than done, isn’t it?
So many of us are equipped with the standard, vulnerable and fragile human ego. We learn early that we’re not supposed to care about the cruel words of bullies, strangers, or the spiteful — all the while secretly wondering if perhaps there’s truth to what they say and if we just can’t trust the people we should trust if they don’t agree.
This makes the average person susceptible to those few who actually are trying to make them insecure or hurt out of some misguided sense of power or revenge. And it leads to a LOT of therapy for insecurities and trust issues and neuroses. And a lot of people who could benefit from the therapy but will never go because secretly they’re sure that their worthlessness will be exposed.
I tend to feel more empowered when I remind myself that the weight of 1,000,000 random strangers telling me I’m not ‘worthy’ holds no candle to the weight of just one person whose opinions I respect, and who has truly taken the time to get to know me, saying ‘yes you are.’
Thank Heavens it’s Only Once a Year (opinion)
April 2, 2009
You might have wondered why I didn’t post yesterday. I mean, here I was getting all “caught up” and posting like a mad woman the day before then?
Radio silence.
Yeah, I know. I probably just forgot or got too busy again, right?
Nope. I deliberately didn’t post because of the date. Not because I was afraid that anything I said might be read through the filter of “hey, it’s April 1st – was this a joke?” But because I really, truly, honestly don’t like 99.9% of the stuff I’ve ever seen or heard when it comes to April Fools Day.
I’ve never quite liked it. But this year I spent a lot of time thinking about why. For a long time I thought it was because I just wasn’t clever enough to come up with a really good April Fools Day prank. Then I realized that almost no one comes up with really good pranks. Usually what they come up with is really mean, nasty pranks that play on the gullibility of others, or mock others, and then use the phrase “April Fools!” to excuse it away as if it were funny.
The butt of these “jokes” usually tries to laugh along with the perpetrator saying “oooh! Good one! Ya got me!” as if to deflect any criticism that s/he is somehow lacking in a sense of humor… but the truth is that no one likes to be played for a fool.
The best reaction I’ve ever seen to well done April Fools pranks or jokes was “Wow. That was amazing. I totally didn’t even catch that…” and sort of an awestruck silence. But usually that’s when the joke doesn’t really make anyone look that foolish because everyone missed it… or because there really wasn’t a victim.
This whole thing was brought home to me again when I picked up my daughter from school. It seems that kindergartners truly get the sense of this tradition better than most. They do mean spirited things to each other – then say “April Fools!” where they’d normally say “Just Kidding!“
And no, before you go there, my darling daughter wasn’t immune from either side – she ran afoul of her own gullibility and was also more than willing to exploit her classmates’ gullibity as well. But she did at least ask me why I hated April Fools Day so much. And she thought about it long and hard when I said “because I think it’s just kind of a way of being mean to each other while making it seem like it should be a lot of fun.”
I do love to look at sites like Google and Thinkgeek.com to see what they’re going to put up. But part of the reason for that is that I’m trying to spot the joke. Then I can laugh because I knew going in that there was a joke. Most April Fools jokes aren’t quite so widely anticipated. And I can’t help but believe there are a few folks who fall prey to the online pranks and “funny lies” who find themselves feeling embarrassed or stupid for not catching it in advance. Hence the fool part. No one likes to feel like a fool, do they?
So why does the “holiday” persist? It’s ritualized bullying in a sense – but where the victim can’t complain or s/he will be thought a poor sport or mocked worse for having ‘no sense of humor.’ And worse? It’s the bullying of the smarter, not the stronger. A successful AFD prank indicates that the person who crafted it was more clever than his target – or it would’ve not needed the “April Fools!” reveal. But what it also indicates is someone who is willing to abuse the trust that the other person has placed in him for the sake of “being witty.”
So I’ve opted out. You might hear me opine sometimes “it would be funny if…” but I gave up pranking long ago. Because even when it’s between 2 good friends? It starts being about one-upping the other guy pretty quickly and saying “but it’s all in good fun!” if anyone complains.
So no more April Fools Day participation from me. Even in blog form. I think it will be my one day off every year from here on out – no matter what other days I do or don’t post. Or maybe I’ll just link this post every year right beforehand… who knows. It’s another 364 days before I have to worry about it again.
That’s me though – what about you?
Do you think I’m over-reacting? Did you pull the “World’s Best April Fools Day Joke” and want to tell me how wrong I am and why it was funny? Or were you on the end of one and wished you could say all of this without looking like a stick in the mud? What do you think about yesterday’s institutionalized “just kidding!” day?
What is Your Time Worth? What’s Worth Your Time?
December 13, 2008
Today, Twitter and parts of the blogosphere are all abuzz with the debate over whether “sponsored” contests & posts are genuine or whether they damage the credibility of the blogger.
This seems to have started when Jeremiah Owyang [@jowyang] a Senior Analyst at Forrester Research tweeted: “Kmart paid Shoemoney $500 resulting in buzz from paid blog post 300+ comments http://snipurl.com/7yi5w “Buying” social media is effective”
From there, the discussion moved to the fact that Chris Brogan [@chrisbrogan] had also been involved in the project and had posted his Kmart contest over at Dadomatic. Then the twitterverse exploded and the blog posts started.
Apparently, when one of the most trusted guys in Social Media is involved, it becomes a big deal if you think that money might be involved in the equation.
Barbara Gibson from ABC wrote an interesting post here that Chris replied to in the comments. Barbara’s post starts from the viewpoint that a blogger taking money is selling his or her integrity. So her analysis from that starting point is inevitable.
Here’s the thing: You can’t sell your integrity. I’ve worked with many people of high integrity. I say “worked with” because they were getting paid for what they did. Integrity isn’t dependent on a vow of poverty. What it really means is that your position can’t be bought. That no amount of money is going to get you to do something that goes against your values, morals and beliefs.
So, with so many weighing in on this, why I am? Because I’m anticipating the next phase of this discussion.
If you take a look at the last post here, you’ll notice it’s a Walmart & Nickelodeon contest for a $500 Walmart gift card. All of the ElevenMoms have a similar contest up. It’s really not all that different than the K-mart contest is it? They have 5 bloggers posting contests for $500 K-mart cards, we have 20-some bloggers posting contests for $500 Walmart cards.
What’s the difference? Well, it does come down to that ’sponsored’ word. The Izea bloggers received a $500 gift card themselves. We did not. The Izea bloggers went to K-mart, bought things using those cards, blogged about it and then gave the chance to do the same to one of their readers. I didn’t go shopping at Walmart with a $500 gift card, blog about it, and then do the give away – I just posted the opportunity for one of my readers to win.
But in both cases, there’s a lot of work being done. There’s the initial post. There’s sorting thru the hundreds of entries to make sure that invalid ones are thrown out, that there’s no duplicates, that people are following the rules. Then having to choose the winner, get their information, get the card out to them. All this administrative work? I’m doing out of the goodness of my heart so one of my readers will win something cool. If the contest were being held on the companies’ sites? They’d have paid people doing it. I don’t have a staff here, so it’s just me and my time and effort.
Now let’s take the money out of the equation. Blogger X has a company send him/her 2 toasters – one to keep, one to give away to a reader. Or maybe it’s not toasters – maybe it’s a Wii, or an iPhone, or a MacBook Pro, or a fleece jacket (all promotions I’ve actually seen) – and the blogger says “wow! I just got to play with this new item… I love it, so here’s a chance to win it.”
That situation I just described happens every day on hundreds of blogs. I’ve never heard anyone saying “OMG!! I totally don’t trust Blogger X’s opinions of electronics anymore because he had a contest giving away a laptop!”
But now that we’ve added money into the equation there’s a brouhaha.
So let’s add a new dimension to this, shall we? Am I “more trustworthy” because I put in all that work for free? Or are the Izea bloggers “less trustworthy” because they saw their time and effort as valuable and believed they should be compensated for it?
My answer is a resounding NO.
Let’s get down to brass tacks here, shall we? I participate in the Walmart ElevenMoms program because I actually believe in what we’re doing. I shop at Walmart *gasp* regularly. I did before I got involved in the program. I actually like saving money and getting good deals. I love the thought of some reader of mine having an extra $500 to help out with the holidays this year. I know that will go a really long way at Walmart.
Since I’ve gotten involved in the program, I’ve been accused of ‘getting paid as a Walmart shill‘ – and when I revealed that I was not paid accused of ‘setting MommyBloggers everywhere back by setting a poor example and letting companies think they can get free work out of us.‘ I’ve read that I must be getting ’secret kickbacks’ and that there’s ‘no way’ I ever shopped at Walmart. I’ve been called a lot of names. It’s been interesting, to say the least.
But I just keep doing what I’m doing. Because if I didn’t believe in the program, I wouldn’t do it.
If K-mart had come to me and said “would you like to participate in this contest we’re doing with Izea?” I would’ve said yes. Why? Because I shop at K-mart too. *gasp* And again, I would love the idea of giving one of my readers $500 to help out with the holiday and it would go a long way there.
Would I have said “no! My time is worth nothing! Keep the $500 gift card for me, I’ll do it for free!” Hell no. If offered I would’ve said “thank you for recognizing that my time is worth something – please be aware that if you want me to actually review the store in the post, rather than just running a contest for a gift card, I will be giving my honest opinions in the review – positive & negative – and I will be making sure that my readers understand that this is a sponsored post.”
Do I think that the Izea bloggers did exactly that? Yes. I know most of those bloggers. I trust their integrity. They’re not going to be taking money from or running a contest for a company that they don’t believe will benefit their readers. If “Pyramid Scams R Us” came calling, not one of them would’ve done it – no matter how much money or ’sponsorship’ was involved.
You can’t buy integrity. You can’t sell integrity. If you have integrity? Money isn’t relevant. If you don’t? Money is the only relevancy.
Look, the only time I have problems with paying bloggers to post something is when it’s deceptive. There are a number of models out there right now that are paying bloggers to post where the payment part is being glossed over. Sites with high profile bloggers who are definitely being compensated but where that part is as hidden as it can be. If you’re going to get all feisty about paying bloggers? Let’s point the spotlight at people who aren’t the ones saying “SPONSORED POST” all over it.
Now – tell me why I’m wrong.
Are You Smarter Than an Editor?
September 15, 2008
It was irritating enough when Fox Television came out with Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? and it became a hit with people who related to Jeff Foxworthy’s earlier comedy about rednecks… but I sort of expect better from magazine editors. So I was more than a little irked to find Disney’s new magazine “Wondertime” in my mail box with the cover showing a headline “Are You Smarter Than a 1st Grader? take (and fail) our quiz.”
I guess I just expect more of print editors than I do television producers. I mean “Are You Better Educated Than a 5th Grader?” isn’t going to draw the standard Fox prime time audience, now is it? Nor I suspect would “What Did You Forget Between 5th Grade and Now?”
But if you’re sending me a free, unsolicited magazine in the hopes that I’ll consider it a good enough source for parenting advice to later subscribe to it? You had better hire both writers and editors who understand that there’s a difference between “smarter than” and being able to recall facts that you learned by rote memorization when you were eleven (or six in the case of the 1st graders.)
Honestly. It’s bad enough that Fox has managed to convince such a large portion of the population that intelligence is directly correlated to what ‘factoids’ you remember from your elementary education years (yes, Jeopardy! did a good enough job of that for years without a misnomer) but they weren’t trying to sell me something. Yeah, I didn’t give their show sponsors high marks for choosing to advertise during that show either.
Personally, I know that I’m smarter than many a 5th grader – and 1st grader for that matter – but I also know that Stephen Hawking and Albert Einstein were both that age once and their heirs are probably out there learning math right now. Hopefully, they are intelligent enough to be able to realize that a good education is priceless, but so is a good editor. Wondertime ought to consider hiring one.
Possibly the Most Important Thing I’ve Read This Week
July 9, 2008
The Blog Post I’m Referring To Can Be Found Here
I’ve been waiting for this to round out a little bit today before linking it… but I think it’s an important matter to bring up.
Aaron Brazell [@technosailor] at Technosailor.com has posted about an on-going issue with Congress and the current attempt to keep their members from using Social Media tools like Twitter and Qik.
Congressman John Culberson (R-TX) [@johnculberson] has weighed in on the issue making it as simple to understand as can be… something that he would not be allowed to do if the Democrat side of the house has their way on this one. There are congressmen & senators using the internet right now just like you and I do. That needs to continue without censorship in my book.
But rather than recreating the wheel – just go read Aaron’s amazing post on it.
Not Short, Not Sweet, but to the Point…
May 12, 2008
I’m not a professional blogger. No one pays me to do this. (Which is good at the moment, or they’d want to know why I haven’t been showing up to work lately!)
I’m not a reporter. No one comes here first to find out anything other than what my preschooler has been up to lately.
I’m not a Public Relations person. Nope, I get the field of PR, but I’ve never worked in it professionally.
I guess when it comes to the construct that is made up of those with news, those relaying the news, and those reading/listening to the news, I fall in that last category. We’ll just call me a consumer – because pretty much everyone gets that idea.
The Information Flow Model 101 – Company to Consumer
Most folks probably already know this, but for those busy focusing on other things, here’s a quick down & dirty about the cycle and where people fit in.
So you’ve got these companies who want to get the news out about their latest product/service/what-have-you. They hire PR folks. Sometimes it’s an internal position, sometimes they outsource it to a PR firm. Basically, it’s a matter of “we’ve got the world’s greatest widget – how do we let everyone know??”
PR folks – in theory – make a living knowing how to get the information to the people. They don’t carry the information to the consumers themselves. What they do is build relationships with people who *do* carry the information to the consumers. In days of old, this meant a 2 prong approach – advertising and getting reporters to cover/write about/talk about/demonstrate your product. In the new media world, it’s a 3-prong approach – advertising, reporters and now, bloggers/internet sites.
Reporters/Bloggers… I use the hyphen because one camp says that the second group is a subset of the first – and the other camp says that they are most decidedly not. Let’s just put it this way – both find out about new products, services, information and cover it so their audiences get exposure to it. They’re both disseminators of information that have built up a certain level of trust with a group of consumers.
Consumers – that being what most of us are, even if you are also in one of the other categories as well – choose who to listen to and who to trust with regard to new data. In the end, we’re the people the companies are trying to reach.
Annnd My Point Is?
Unbeknown to the average Joe Consumer, there’s been some static building up between PR people and Bloggers over the past – oh, forever – and it kind of hit a boiling point over the weekend when one prominent editor (Gina Tripani) of an information site (Lifehacker) Twittered about her “PR Blacklist” – which was apparently a list of domains that she blocks all email from now.
The reasoning behind this was that someone (or many folks) from each of these domains had abused her personal email address to send broad-spectrum ‘pitches’ to her in the hopes that the site she edits would cover their client’s ‘big news’.
This caused a bit of fury in PR circles because responsible PR folk (who would never dream of doing something that stupid) were being tarred & feathered along with a few guilty imbeciles.
A discussion sprang up between some notable bloggers & PR folk who frequent Twitter, Friend-Feed and many of the blogs that started discussing the issue. On one side, there were the PR people – tired of feeling trod upon and badmouthed, angry at the audacity of posting a blacklist of entire agencies. On the other side, there were prominent bloggers – tired of flooded inboxes containing blanket PR pitches that weren’t relevant to them and wasted their time. It didn’t take long until PR people started making their own “Blogger Blacklists” in response and the whole thing morphed into an ‘issue.’
It’s gotten rather heated, actually. It’s hard to tell if you aren’t used to reading some of these folk regularly, but if you are, you can hear the underlying frustration. They’re all just too darned professional to let it get the better of them though, so it’s usually a polite-but-intense discussion.
But they seem to be getting nowhere at the moment. Because, as everyone keeps acknowledging, the ‘guilty’ parties aren’t part of the discussion nor are they likely to be.
The lazy, inept PR wannabes causing the problems for the bloggers? They’re not going to stop blanket-spamming any time soon.
The responsible, professional, creditable PR folks trying to fix the issues? They’re not part of the problem.
Is There a Resolution?
Of course. But no one is going to like it. Because that’s how these things go. The PR folks want the bloggers to just ignore/delete/cope with the inbox-violators. The bloggers want the PR folks to either cope with the blacklisting or police their own industry. Neither is going to happen independently. Because realistically? Neither of those solves the problem for both sides.
So a compromise is in order – and NO ONE likes a compromise.
Put yourself in the shoes of the PR person. Let’s say you suddenly found that you couldn’t email your Aunt Edna pictures of her favorite nephew because some jerk on your ISP had spammed someone in a position to block them on her ISP… wouldn’t you be pissed? Of course.
But at whom? Her ISP for blocking everything coming from yours? Your ISP for allowing a spammer to make things bad for everyone? The spammer?
Yep. All of the above.
And the solution lies with all of the above, just like it does with PR & Bloggers.
If you’re a blogger – the solution is to show a little grace. Not a ‘first strike you’re out’ policy – or a ‘you’ll never get off this list’ policy. Maybe instead a policy of ‘first time, a warning goes to the agency in question’ (dear Agency, receiving untargeted pitch spam from John Doe – if this continues – will block your domain until such time as you retrain your PR agents) followed by a block – with the ability to redeem oneself or one’s agency. You can’t expect the dog to learn to behave if there’s no reason for it to reform.
If you’re a PR person – the solution is to work with the bloggers to root out the bad apples. Your agency domain is blocked? Why? Go to the top and find out who is making your job impossible and what their reasoning is. You receive an email from a blogger with a warning? Fix the issue or remove that blogger from your list of contacts.
As a consumer, I know that you are both part of the chain… but dammit, I want my information. I want to know what those companies want to tell me. I don’t want you guys playing games where you don’t talk to each other – because that’s not your job. Your job is to get that information from the companies to the consumers… because if you guys won’t? Trust me, eventually, somebody else will.
Neither side is the “bad guy” but there are “bad practices” on both sides at present and the only people that can fix that have to work together to do it.
So suck it up, get used to the other side using hyperbole to describe the sins of the few on your side (all PR people don’t get it… all bloggers are prima donnas) and get down to fixing the issue. Because otherwise, I don’t get to know about the latest widget. And I need that widget. Right?
Thanks.
Josephine A. Consumer
Why, Yes, Actually – Girls Can Do Math.
May 8, 2008
The Disclaimer
Okay, before I start this, let me preface it by saying that I’ve deliberated about this post quite a bit before ultimately deciding that I was going to write it simply because it would make me happier to get it out. I’m still uncommitted when it comes to who will get my vote for President next November. Yep – I’m one of those “I keep researching it, but I probably won’t be sure until faced with the actual ballot” people that drive others nuts.
In this election, I’m actually less disturbed than I’ve been for the past 5. It’s only the 2nd presidential election I’ve voted in where I didn’t feel like I had to vote against a candidate. That’s probably why I’m less inclined to post politically-natured blogs than many of my friends.
What I’m about to write will surely enrage some of those friends – at least, some of the more zealous Obama supporters.
The Situation
After this week’s primaries – I saw a slew of comments about how Hillary Clinton’s decision not to withdraw from the Democratic race was “proof that girls can’t do math.” Some people were saying it tongue-in-cheek, but out of a sense of outrage that the candidate opposing the one they supported wasn’t doing what they wanted her to do – drop out. I suspect that a few of the more misogynistic folks saying it meant it – but I give my friends the benefit of the doubt on that.
Still, the phrase has rankled since it started popping up on Tuesday night.
For 2 reasons, actually – one, it kind of implies that there are no men working on Hillary’s campaign. Seriously, do you think she’s the only one ‘doing the math’? More than one strategist working on that campaign has done the numbers I’m about to show you – and their gender had nothing to do with it.
Two – anyone who thinks that ‘there is no chance at this point that Hillary will win the needed delegates’ is the one not ‘doing the math.’
So let’s do the math, shall we?
By the Numbers
In the Democratic primary race, there are a total of 4,049 delegates up for grabs, including the super-delegates, which means a candidate needs 2,025 or more delegates to get the majority and win. (source)
Currently, Obama has 1,846 of those delegates – 1,588 pledged and 258 super-delegates who have declared for him. Clinton has 1,685 – 1,419 pledged and 266 super-delegates.
That’s a difference of 156 in Obama’s favor.
Only 217 pledged delegates are up for grabs in the remaining six contests: West Virginia, Kentucky, Oregon, Puerto Rico, Montana and South Dakota. (source).
Those saying Hillary can’t do math are saying that it’s obvious that she can’t win, because Obama only needs 179 of those to meet the 2,025 threshhold… whereas Clinton needs 340 to meet the threshhold – which is 123 more than she could get if she somehow won all those delegates.
But that’s where the ability to math actually comes in. You see let’s work through this:
Obama – 1846 current
Clinton – 1685 current
Primaries – 217 left
—————-
Total 3,748
Okay, so we started with a total of 4,049 delegates possible. If you subtract the 3,748 that will be committed after the primaries – that leaves 301 uncommitted super-delegates.
So between the 217 from the remaining primaries and the 301 uncommitted supers we have:
518 remaining, as yet uncommitted delegates.
Obama -> 2,025 – 1,846 = 179 needed to win nomination
Clinton -> 2,025 – 1,685 = 340 needed to win nomination
out of 518 remaining…
Can Hillary still win the nomination? Sure. Can Obama? Sure.
In fact, it comes down to 1 vote. If Obama gets 179, Hillary’s short by 1 – if Hillary gets 340, Obama’s short by 1.
That’s the math folks.
Now, if Obama manages to win 179 of the remaining 217 delegates from West Virginia, Kentucky, Oregon, Puerto Rico, Montana and South Dakota? (which means getting better than 82% of the vote in those areas – a margin he hasn’t had yet…) Then Hillary is done for. But until then? Don’t expect her to bow out.
As for me – I’ll be undecided until long after those delegates are committed – but I’ll keep doing the math. Because I can.
Edit to Add:
Because someone already misunderstood this…
Obama needs > 80% of the remaining state delegates to put Hillary out w/o super-delegates.
Clinton needs < 20% of the remaining state delegates if she gets ALL of the remaining undeclared super-delegates to win. (301 supers + 39 states = 340)
Warning – there be Politickin’ and Opinin’ Below…
February 26, 2008
Disclaimer – I don’t usually write publicly about this sort of thing… and I don’t intend on letting this turn into a politically oriented blog. But I wrote what follows and it’s my blog, so I’m publishing it. If you’d prefer to skip something that might offend your own sensibilities on the subject, feel free not to read on. I’m sure there’s something fascinating over on the front page of Digg right now that will provide more amusement and evoke less passionate responses for most people. But if you read on, be warned that this is my opinion… if you want to air your own, feel free to post it in your own blog and link back telling people how outrageous and off-base I am, but I reserve the right to edit/delete comments on this one.
I’ve been keeping quiet about this to a point… but when I find a piece of journalism that so vividly reflects my own viewpoint – I’m hard-pressed to keep being silent… even when I know it’s going to royally piss off a few people I like and respect.I have a few close friends who know this, but it will come as a surprise to pretty much anyone reading this to know that Obama scares the crap out of me. I know I should probably be drawn to his stated political positions as they’re sort of close to my own… but every time I see him on television, or someone starts raving on about him, my skin crawls and I can’t help but wanting to scream “shut up!!”Why, you ask?Because the only phrase I’ve had to describe his followers and his campaign is one that sends shivers down my spine.
Cult of Personality.
If you don’t know what it means – think Jim Jones… think David Koresh… think Mao Tse-Tung… think Mussolini… Hell, think Hitler. Or look it up on wikipedia or something.
Every time I see the media waxing lyric about the Senator from Illinois – I get the song by In Living Colour stuck in my head. Not so much because I think he’s fostering it – but because it just is.
Just a bit ago, on Nightline, they were airing the first television report I’ve seen that implies that maybe Mr. Obama isn’t as squeaky clean as his fanatical followers would like to believe. I turned to my husband and said “huh, they’re starting this a little early, aren’t they? I thought they would’ve waited until the general election.”
Because I expected that the media’s love affair with O was going to last a little bit longer at least. I figured it would wait until the Republicans were ready to start dismantling the image.
I was wrong.
Terry Moran managed an interesting report – not that I can quote it all to you, it’s not in my DVR buffer any more and it’s television – no transcript to copy & paste. I’m sure the video will be available on-line soon enough. But the Rezko affair was brought up again… as was the fact that Obama’s association with Rezko seems to have netted him a sweet deal on his home in Illinois – to the tune of $300k less than the asking price of the house. Sure, there were as many “he’s a great guy!” testaments as there were “um, not so much…” statements in the report. But it’s the first non-rah-rah piece I’ve seen in prime time news since the Dem race narrowed down to just O and Hill.
But it’s not really the television story that prompted me to write this – or, not in so direct a manner, that is. I had gone to the ABC/Nightline website to see if they had the Moran report up yet – but came across a story labeled “Obama’s Personality Cult.” How could I not click through on that? Of course the ILC tune was already going through my head as I read phrases like:
Sen. Barack Obama’s “true believers” respond as though they’ve spent their whole lives out in the cold, at rally after rally, a few people literally faint at the sight of him. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” said Los Angeles Times reporter Joel Stein. “People are crying, rending their garments. It’s a cult. But it’s a fun cult.”
A fun cult? Politics isn’t a cult to me. Government should never be a cult. You want to separate church and state? Then get your ‘faith’ and ‘hope’ and ’sermons from the mount’ out of your politics and start asking the tough questions. Quit telling me “he’ll get us out of Iraq!” ask “How does he plan on getting us out of Iraq?” Quit telling me “he’s for change!” ask “what kind of change? How will he implement it? How does a President make those things happen rather than the Legislature?” Quit telling me “he’s a great speaker!” and start listening to see if there’s substance in the pretty words and stirring speech. Ronald Reagan was a great speaker – did that mean you didn’t have to listen to what he was saying? No.
Drop the idol-worship. If the guy is going to be a good president? Great… but quit pushing him as a Messiah. He isn’t.
Why we won’t be “voting” tomorrow on Super Tuesday
February 4, 2008
This is a moderate household – both GeekDaddy and I are fiscally conservative and socially liberal – we agree on most issues. But in the end, he leans just a tad more to the left and I to the right. So I’m the registered Republican while he’s the registered Democrat of the household.
It works for us.
That said, tomorrow is Super Tuesday and it’s the first time that Colorado has been in on the process this early. Along with 24 other states, we are trying to decide which candidate will represent our party – or at least get our delegates votes when the official party Convention happens.
Here’s the thing – rather than “voting” – both Colorado’s Republicans and Democrats have opted to go the precinct caucus route. That means, in briefest of terms, that neighbors get together and cast their votes. For the Republicans, it’s a one-person, one ‘preference’ vote thing. Show up, sign in, wait for a bunch of hoop jumping, cast your vote, and leave. For the Democrats, it’s unfortunately a bit more involved and multiple votes can be taken as well as delegates being named.
This, of course, takes place a 7 p.m. in two very separate locations.
So – our options become to try and get a last minute babysitter (ain’t gonna happen) – who of course isn’t someone of voting age themselves – so that we can each participate, or to decide which one is “more important” so that one of us can go and the other can stay home with our child. Honestly? We don’t believe that either one of us has “more important” beliefs than the other.
This is ridiculous. But more than that, it’s probably not all that uncommon. Even in cases where the parents are both in the same party – limiting this decision-making process to a specific time & place causes people to have to face the decision of who gets to go participate in the decision and who gets left out of the process.
There’s a reason that polls are left open all day long on the day of normal voting – it’s so that we can find a way to get there and be heard. This archaic form of precinct caucuses is a relic from a time when men voted and women didn’t. And it’s high time that our politics started reflecting the modern world.
Instead – we’ll just have to hope that our “neighbors” find a way to resolve this issue in their own households… or that those without children do a good job of deciding for us.
Still, I’m generally disgusted with the stupidity of the party representatives on both sides who saw fit to make the participation of their “neighbors” so complicated as to make it unlikely for most.
Makes you wonder if they can’t get it right for the average citizen at this level, how are they expected to get it right at higher levels…
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