BY DAN
KENNEDY
Notes and observations on
the press, politics, culture, technology, and more. To sign up for
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For bio, published work, and links to other blogs, visit
www.dankennedy.net.
For information on Dan Kennedy's book, Little People: Learning to
See the World Through My Daughter's Eyes (Rodale, October 2003),
click
here.
Monday, November 01, 2004
A STRONG CANDIDATE. On
Friday, Michael
Bérubé had
some interesting things to say about the Kerry-Haters
for Kerry crowd - a group
that seems to encompass just about every liberal pundit who's backing
Kerry. Including, Bérubé notes, the editors
of Slate.
Bérubé's lament is
that while conservatives love Republican candidates, liberals only
hesitatingly embrace the Democratic standard-bearer, and even then with plenty of disdain. If Kerry wins - and it increasingly
seems as though he might
- it's going to be hell for him to govern, since there will be no one
reliably in his corner. Bush, on the other hand, has had Fox News,
Rush, and other conservative media from day one.
Kerry can drive me nuts sometimes.
But can we on the near left please admit the obvious? Kerry is a good
candidate. His only real shortcoming is his inadequacy as a
communicator. He's a solid liberal, somewhat to the left of Bill
Clinton while close enough to the center so as not to alienate
moderates, except those who choose to believe Republican distortions.
He's smart, serious, and experienced.
How strong a candidate is he? Ask
yourself where Howard Dean would be right now. The country is too
evenly divided for Dean to be putting up McGovern-type numbers, but
I'd be shocked if he were running more than 43 or 44 percent. Kerry,
on the other hand, is in a position to win despite the Republican
Attack Machine's unparalleled sliming.
BETTER LINKS. iFilm has the
uncensored versions of both Public Enemy's "Son of a Bush" and
Eminem's "Mosh." "Son of a Bush" is here,
and "Mosh" is linked from the home
page.
SPLIT PERSONALITY. Pat
Purcell's Boston Herald endorsed George W. Bush a few weeks
ago. Yesterday, Purcell's MetroWest
Daily News endorsed
John Kerry.
SELDOM SCENE. A magazine
called Scene
Missing interviewed me
by e-mail over the weekend. It was a bit weird. There had been some
talk that I might be paired with one of the other Dan Kennedys
- the guy who wrote Loser
Goes First - but it
didn't work out. At least not yet. Anyway, you can see the results
here.
As best as I can tell, the magazine
is much hipper than I am. (Of course, it's generally safe for me to
start with that premise.) I hope I didn't make too big a fool of
myself.
posted at 1:48 PM |
2 comments
|
link
2 Comments:
The VoteMaster at Electoral-Vote.com un-cloaked today.
It turns out the uber-geek behind Electoral-Vote.com is one of the all-time greats of computer science education, Prof. Andrew S. Tanenbaum, an American academic expatriate. Which may explain inflexibly letting the data oscilate instead of using damping techniques or data qualification, as a statistician might have. And does explain preferring tenured professors as mirror sites.
Andy's "Minix" pedagogic operating system kernel was Linus Torvald's inspiration & launching pad for Linux. (Cambridge's own R.M.S. was of course progenitor of the other input, Gnu.)
Andy's textbooks were early classics, and he's kept them current over 20+ years.
The WikiPedia entry is already updated with the EV.C story.
He's also credited as author of the aphorism:
The nice thing about standards
is that there are so many of them
to choose from.
-- Andrew S. Tanenbaum
Cheers, Bill R.
Re: the interview
Hey Dan -- If you were a real elitist schmuck, you wouldn't be listening to that goddawful fusion; you'd be listening to the classic quintet or sextet (as an alto player, I'm partial to Cannonball Adderley).
My wife and I read your book - just teriffic. It's been on constant loan to our cheapo relatives/friends since we bought it (sorry about the lost royalties).
Your friend Bob from Peabody
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Dan Kennedy is senior writer and media critic for the Boston Phoenix.
