Diving in the shallow end: Thoughts on the Twitter revolution

Three weeks ago, I would have told you that Twitter, the latest craze to sweep the Internet like some sort of digital swine flu, was not only one of the dumber innovations to emerge out of the past decade (right up there with the Snuggie), but also quite possibly a serious threat to civilization. All of this in spite of the fact that I had never written or even read a "tweet" (the 140-character messages with which Twitterers communicate).

Then the Iranian uprising happened, and protesters used social networking tools like Twitter and Facebook to subvert government repression, communicating with each other and sharing gut-wrenching accounts of the brutality on the streets with the rest of the world. Suddenly, it was as if Twitter could serve a purpose other than broadcasting one's egotism and superficiality into the ether.

Admittedly, that purpose is limited. As Fareed Zakaria suggested, Twitter isn't necessarily a "game changer" in Iran -- while it certainly helped draw international attention to the protests, any real change will likely have to come from the top down, and it's not as if the government won't find a way to restrict this new technology as it has the old ones. Furthermore, with the attention span of the media-consuming world dulled by the constant barrage of information coming from the TV and the world wide web, it's easy to forget that the crisis in Iran is still in full swing, as new stories (Mark Sanford's sexy love letters, Michael Jackson's tragic-if-unsurprising death, Bernie Madoff's sentencing and a military coup in Honduras) muscle onto center stage. Still, let us not forget the lessons of Birmingham, Kent State and even Tiananmen Square about the power of the media to help affect political change.

As someone who has now sent a full 18 tweets into the world, I feel qualified to state the obvious -- that Twitter is neither good nor evil in and of itself. It's just a program that let you share a little bit of information with a lot of people very quickly. In the wrong hands, that can be a dangerous proposition, but I fully believe that social networking can also be used to foster intelligent, articulate debate if people simply choose to use it that way. And it's not as if we have much choice -- like it or not, Twitter isn't going away, and we can't shape the future from a cynical distance.

Nailin' Palin

The now-infamous Nailin' Palin, as read by Thandie Newton and Ricky Gervais on The Graham Norton Show. If you haven't seen Oliver Stone's W., this is pretty much exactly how Newton plays Condi Rice, suggesting either that she has tapped into the essence of neo-con femininity, or that she's not an especially versatile actress. You be the judge.

Fixing D.C.'s public schools?

Clay Risen has a great article in the November issue of the Atlantic Monthly profiling Michelle Rhee, the controversial chancellor of Washington, D.C.'s public school system. A graduate of Teach for America and its data-based approach to teaching, Rhee was pegged by newly-elected Mayor Adrian Fenty in 2007 to reform D.C.'s failing school system and immediately sparked controversy by firing 98 central-office employees, including 24 school principals. Of particular concern, both to the teachers' union and to many parents, is her support of merit-based compensation, which would eventually eliminate tenure based on seniority and introduce a pay-scale based on performance.

As someone who grew up in the area, I was pleasantly surprised to hear that the District has become a flashpoint for educational reform. Generally, in D.C., if you can afford to go to private school, you do (I went to the very expensive Georgetown Day School for 14 years), or you move to the suburbs (Montgomery County, Maryland -- which borders D.C. -- has some of the best public schools in the country). The D.C. school system was always a bit of an elephant in the room -- everyone knew that it was a mess, and frequently a violent one, but what could we do?

Regardless of which side of the debate you fall on, it's nice to see people willing to take on the challenges of rebuilding a failing school system. It makes you want to sign up for organizations like Teach For America...

The case for gun control

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/10/27/boy.shoots.himself.ap/index.html

Men in tights

This humdinger comes from Fox News' "Father Jonathan," by way of Real Clear Politics. After illuminating the fundamental differences between Obama and Robin Hood (beside the obvious fact that one is the next president of the United States, and the other is a 500-year old English legend), Father Jonathan goes on to warn against Comrade Obama's rampant socialism, citing a 2001 interview with Chicago Public Radio in which the young state senator extolled the virtues of the "redistribution of wealth." Scandalous. Quoth the good Father:

It is hard to believe the leading United States presidential candidate suggested, just seven years ago, we should be seeking legislative and administrative avenues to effect “redistributive change,” since it is impractical now to get the courts to do it on their own. It’s even harder to believe the leading United States presidential candidate, just seven years ago, was talking about the importance of community organizers “putting together the actual coalitions of power through which you bring about redistributive change.”
But then again, maybe I shouldn’t be surprised. Seven years later, and just one month before Election Day, Senator Obama said to Joe the Plumber, word for word, “I think when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everyone.”

The whole thing raised a few questions for me, like "why is a Fox News 'Religion Contributor' writing editorials about issues that have nothing to do with religion?" and "Where exactly does this strange comparison of Barack Obama to Robin Hood come from?" More importantly, though, how does taxing the richest 5% of Americans -- the people who can most afford it -- qualify as "beating down some to lift up others?" And why is that worse than beating down EVERYBODY with a costly war based on false premises and deregulation policies that severely destabilized the economy?

Father John is right -- Barack Obama isn't Robin Hood. He's the future president of the United States. And dumbing down the discourse with analogies to fairy tales doesn't make the right any less wrong.

Personality Disorder

Robert Draper's cover story from this weekend's New York Times Magazine, "The Making (And Remaking) of McCain," details the transformations that the McCain narrative has undergone in the last year. Given such an in-depth look at the abrupt shifts in policy and values that McCain and his advisers have hazarded in the run-up to the November 4th election, one gets a better sense for why his campaign has devolved into such a spectacular mess. Whereas George W. Bush won two elections largely on the strength of his conviction (no matter how wrong-minded or absurd it might have been), McCain has often seemed a candidate in search of an identity, caught between the rebellious instincts that once defined him as a "maverick" in the House and Senate, and the demands of a Republican base that spurned him in 2000. The result has been a palpable discomfort -- with his message, with his supporters (this lady, for instance) and, no doubt, with a last-minute, gimmicky vice-presidential choice who will likely prove to be the albatross that costs him the election.

The truth is, though, that with or without the disaster that is Sarah Palin (who is apparently already campaigning for 2012 -- how delusional can you be?!), John McCain -- or, at least, 2008 John McCain -- is simply the wrong candidate for this moment in history. The Obama campaign has been revolutionary not only in the way that it has raised money (shunning big donations from special interest groups in favor of smaller donations from individuals, what an idea!), but also in the way that it has branded its candidate with hip, iconic logos that make as much of a fashion statement as a political one. Hell, the guy even has his own presidential seal! And while that may seem blasphemous to traditionalists, it is perfectly tailored to an open-source culture that values nothing so much as appropriation (take, for example, Girl Talk, a musical artist whose songs consist entirely of samples, and who has found considerable success despite being virtually untouchable for mainstream radio). Obama speaks to our generation in much the same way that Bobby Kennedy spoke to his, and he has the following to prove it.

Still, it's hard not to wonder whether the John McCain of eight years ago -- the campaign finance-reformer who had an open and easy rapport with the press and younger voters -- would have fared differently in this election. Perhaps Obama's success in adopting the mantle of reform would have forced McCain to retreat from the middle ground no matter what, like an army withdrawing to the safety of fortress walls, albeit under a somewhat unfamiliar flag.

In any event, the McCain narrative is ultimately a tragic one. Even if he somehow miraculously wins the election (and I literally just knocked on my wooden bed frame in hopes that he doesn't), the victory will have come at a severe cost, not only to his ideals and party, but also to the country as a whole. This election, coupled with eight years of the Bush White House and its with-us-or-against-us rhetoric, has brought out the worst in people (see Michelle Bachmann) and opened up some very deep social divisions -- the last thing we need is someone trying to forge a new identity for this country who can't even get a handle on his own.

Note: For a fascinating portrait of the John McCain we used to know and love, I highly recommend Robert Timberg's The Nightingale's Song.

I defy you to watch this video and not get chills

This guy is a fucking rock star.

http://media.gatewayva.com/photos/rtd/slideshows/20081023rally/index.html

Source: Richmond, Virginia [Andrew Sullivan's Daily Dish]