"Undermining my electoral viability since 2001."

Outlandish Josh

Published on Fri, 2006-11-24 15:26

Bought Something Day

For the first time in my young life, I have participated in Black Friday, the day-after-thanksgiving consumer orgy during which many retail businesses go from losing to making money for the year (from red to black, natch). Or, to put it another way, I broke with my traditional observance of Buy Nothing Day.

I don't really feel any moral qualms. I need a new laptop for my job, and I have a one-day chance to get the one I want (one of Apple's new MacBooks) for $100 less than normal. I'm high-rollin' enough to buy a new laptop, yeah, but not enough that I can sneer at a hundo discount, let alone pay Apple's "black tax" for the darker cased model.

It's a matter of public record that I detest the consumption-oriented nature of our culture and economy. I believe it trivializes and perverts the human spirit while simultaneously bringing ruination to the natural world and a sentence of servitude to millions (perhaps billions) of would-be Galileos. We must find a better way.

That being said, I don't think not buying something on a given day -- even if it were done by a statistically significant portion of the population -- is all that great a tactic. Economically, it's as impactful as the Don't Buy Gas For One Day urban legend. If you want to break out of the consumer cycle and trap, it's got to be a buy less life, not just a day that averages out over the year.

Now, I recognize that part of the value of Buy Nothing Day is as sort of personal act of observance, a keeping of the faith, but I don't need that. I don't need to go to Church to feel spiritually and morally whole either.

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Published on Thu, 2006-11-23 14:12

Dean Campaign Memoirs: An Epilogue

I've got an opportunity (Allah Akbar!) to do a little retrospective writing about my days on the Dean campaign, the whole DeanSpace thing in particular, and perhaps maybe get it published as part of an anthology style book. So I'm going to be writing about this.

My style is to write what I feel, and some of what I'm doing is good, I think, but off-topic. Hence, this post.

Epilogue
For a minute it seemed like we might be branching out of the mean zero-sum game of traditional politics, like we could break the old muscle game, the turf wars, the whole 51% shuffle, everyone fighting over the same endorsements, the same TV show slots, the same pool of "likely voters." It felt like we really might grow our way to victory, take the prize simply by doing the right thing and widening the circle of participation.

Implicit in this vision was that if we went all the way, this is how the Dean Administration would be run as well. It represented the idea of a complete recapitulation of the Bush/Cheney gestalt -- not just a reversal on policy, but on the means and modes of governance as well. We dreamed of building an inclusive and transparent movement that could not only win elections, but also support a true national consensus; of the re-emergence of that classic standard of democracy, the Public Interest.

It was happening, and I believed -- still believe -- it would have kept happening if we'd made it past Iowa.

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Published on Wed, 2006-11-22 20:16

Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up To Me

My mood has been vacillating back and forth a lot over the past week. Things are in flux, but the momentum is good. I think what's happening is that there are a lot of possibilities, a lot of change, and it's putting me in unfamiliar emotional territory. I go up and down and up and down, and after being static for a while I freak out from time to time. Must. Learn. To. Retain. Perspective.

It's good to be back home. The more I do it, the less I love sleeping on couches. It was a hard weekend in San Francisco. After the extensive (and expensive) partying for The Girth, Esq. I didn't really get back on the ball until Tuesday, and the schedule was full and heavy. Not a good time to be off your game.

I also had a purely platonic dinner with an old girlfriend that left me wobbly -- prompting the previous post about a lonesome crisis of meaning... "see how he selectively supplies context, the bastard?" -- and searching for purchase. It was one of those moments where you really really want to do or say something, but you're observing the world through thick bulletproof glass, listening to the muffled sound of yourself prattling on about something else, peripheral, dancing around it, wondering why you can't look this person in the eye.

So I posted that blog entry and emailed my #1 romantic adviser, Julia "Solid Gold Pussy" Henning. Writing helps me process, and Julia came back with some quality perspective. I feel better about the whole thing now, grateful even to have my dumplin' jumpin' for a change, but in that moment I felt positively 17 again. Whooof.

Thankfully the coming dawn and advice and a couple good working days reminded me that, yeah, everything will be ok. My direction is positive. Life is good, tomorrow another day, happy happy joy joy. You know the drill.

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Published on Tue, 2006-11-21 13:02

The Kevin Murphy Show

Oh man. This should be AWESOME.

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Authentic Experience

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Nerding Out

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