What
· The World
· · Places
· · · America
Texas Politics · If you weren’t watching the livestream (courtesy of The Texas Tribune) you missed an astounding piece of drama. I only caught the last 90 minutes, but wow ...
[6 comments]
[6 comments]
News Fail · So yeah, I sat up till 2AM (Pacific, 5AM in Boston), fascinated by the situation in Cambridge and Watertown. I listened to the police radio online, watched a few live Twitter feeds, and had a couple Google Maps windows zoomed in on streets that I’d never heard of but now know where they are: Hazel, Dexter, Laurel. The professional news media knew less than I (3 timezones away) did, but said more; somewhere between nauseating and just silly ...
[6 comments]
[6 comments]
Explaining the Election · A pretty well full and complete explanation of the US election results may be found in The Right Republican, published in The Economist at the end of 2011 ...
[1 comment]
[1 comment]
Dear America · Congrats on having gotten through another overly-long election. Notes from a spectator looking south from north of 49° ...
[6 comments]
[6 comments]
Inauguration · I’m not an American but I’ve certainly enjoyed the political theatre this last couple of years. Yesterday morning I was walking through a hotel lobby in San Jose at 9AM (noon in Washington) and there on the big TV in the restaurant was the inauguration. The lobby had emptied as the staff crowded in to watch. Then everyone joined in a big round of applause. I was touched, but it was complicated ...
[7 comments]
[7 comments]
Dear America · I must open with heartfelt thanks to all of you for the passion and drama and rhetoric and personality you’ve offered each other and the world, in the political-theatre context, for the last couple of years. Unless the tools of Statistics have suddenly become empty shells, Mr. Obama will be your forty-fourth President; I’ve said my piece on why this is probably a good thing. Here’s some more ...
[13 comments]
[13 comments]
Giving Thanks · This is the day where those of us around the world who are in the US-centric high tech business, but not Americans, give thanks for the fact that our phones are silent and for the certainty that no major high-tech announcements or initiatives will occur. Facetiousness aside, this is, as Dan Gillmor says, America’s best holiday. There’s a lot to be said for a major civic celebration that has nothing to do with theologically-significant births or deaths that happened millennia ago in the Middle East. Here’s a charming, very personal, small-scale narrative about remembering—and, implicitly, giving thanks.
