Sunday, November 30, 2008

There. I did it.

The first draft of the third novel is finished. I needed 50,000 words by the end of the month, and I got 60,686. Or thereabouts. I'm not sure if I like it or not, but however sloppily, it has a beginning, a middle, and an end. And thus, I am one of the official winners of National Novel Writing Month.

Some of us from the local NaNo writers group are having our wrap party at Sauced, which is one of OKC's great hangout spots. Most of us have already crossed the line, but Jasmine is laboring along at 41, 696 words. She did start and throw away two previous novels this month. This seems to happen to her every year, but she's a genius and also types really fast, so I have every confidence she will win by midnight.

See y'all with regular posts soon:

Saturday, November 29, 2008

What in the world?

When I catch the news on the radio, it seems that while I am trying to finish this novel the world has been going to hell in the proverbial handbasket.

Truthdig offers a link to this analysis of the situation in Mumbai. Over at thenation.com, Robert Dreyfuss discusses where this situation might lead -- and it doesn't sound good.

Also at thenation.com, Barbara Crossette has the best analysis I've seen of the ongoing political crisis in Thailand, which has heated up once again.

Okay. Enough of the troublesome real world for a moment. I'm going back to the imaginary world that I need to bring some direction and conclusion to in the next one day and nine hours (give or take a few minutes).

Friday, November 21, 2008

Hillary Clinton to head State Department

I'm not thrilled -- nor particularly surprised -- to hear that the Obama Administration seems to be filling up with former members of Bill Clinton's administration.

But when I saw on the NPR web site a headline that said "Hillary Clinton To Head State Department", that seemed like good news to me. Along with his appointment of Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano to head the Department of Homeland Security, it shows a willingness to appoint serious women to serious posts.

Okay. And now I need to get back to work. I need to write 13,578 more words before the end of the month, plus figure out exactly what I'm doing with this novel.

Three views of a Detroit bailout

Automobile manufacturing has been crucial to the US economy. Yet, auto companies have made gas guzzling cars and other mistakes. As the auto industry struggles, is a bailout justified? And what kind of a bailout, if there is one?

One interesting perspective comes from AngryBlackBitch. She decries the greed and stupidity of automakers, but points out how much damage the failure of the auto industry would do to ordinary folks.

Another intriguing viewpoint comes from Michael Moore, interviewed on The Takeaway. Moore suggests that the conditions for government aid should include a requirement that the companies start making trains and other mass transit vehicles.

Finally, I usually like what Dean Baker says about economic issues, and he has an interesting analysis of this one.

By 2025, U.S. Won't Be Top World Power

This morning NPR had this fascinating story about the Global Trends 2025 report just issued by the National Intelligence Council.

Some see the report, released in time for Barack Obama's inauguration as U.S. president, as "frighteningly bleak." I think it's intriguing, and in some ways hopeful.

Says NPR:
The new study, titled "A Transformed World," projects a "multipolar" global landscape, where the United States is merely "one of a number of actors on the world stage" and where the U.S. dollar will only be "first among equals" in a basket of international currencies.

"We're thinking of it as the rise of the rest, rather than as the decline of the United States," said Thomas Fingar, chairman of the National Intelligence Council, as he introduced the report Thursday.


Some troubling trends predicted by the report include a rise in international conflict over food, energy, and other resources. On the other hand, while conflict over energy is likely to increase, a global shift away from fossil fuels will be taking place.

Saturday, November 15, 2008

And words to write before I sleep

Okay. Think I'm closing in on 22,000 words on the rough draft of my novel, and I still don't know where I'm going with it. I thought it was going to be about these women I used to know in another state, but it has turned into an incoherent examination of one or two of my deepest fears. I keep telling myself that the only way to learn how to write novels is to write them. Maybe I'm learning something, but at the moment I'm rather frustrated. I think I can catch up on my word count and make sense of my novel by the end of the month, but I'm not sure of it.

Several times a week the local writers group for NaNoWriMo meets at local cafes in order to work together on our efforts for each of us to write a 50,000 novel by the end of the month. One of our group has finished her first NaNo novel and is starting her second. Another threw out the project she was working on and is 6,203 on the novel she decided to write instead. We are at the Red Cup. We are eating good food and hearing pleasant music.

Sound like fun? It's not too late for you to start your novel.

Oklahoma City Prop 8 demo

Yeah, sure, marriage is a patriarchal institution. But I'm probably going to go to the protest against California's anti-gay-marriage Proposition 8 down at the Oklahoma City city hall today at 12:30 p.m. The address is 200 N. Walker. Here's a link for the sponsoring organization:

Oklahoma City - Join the Impact

This is part of a nationwide protest.

Okay. I'm way behind on my novel and need to get typing. See y'all later.

Update 7:00 p.m.: It was a nice little demonstration. Heck, I guess it was a pretty big demonstration. I would estimate that there were 150-175 people there. Someone I talked to thought it was more like 250-300. I bet it will be in the news, but I don't have a t.v., and I still have that novel to write, so I probably won't find out. Meanwhile, for an interesting commentary on the relationship of California's Ballot Measure 8, see happening here.

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Anti-free-speech trade agreement?

The so-called Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement is being pushed to a quick ratification with almost no public information or discussion.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has information here. This link also brings up a petition you can sign to ask your senators to request more information from the United States Trade Representative and to hold Senate hearings on the treaty.

WikiLeaks has more information about ACTA here.

Monday, November 10, 2008

Colorado preserves affirmative action

This bit of good news from the recent election is thoughtfully reported by janinsanfran at happening here?

As I procrastinate a bit on my new novel tonight, I'll pass this good news along to you.

A novel experience

I mentioned this a while back, but just as a reminder, posting will be slow around here for a while because I'm participating in National Novel Writing Month. I need to finish 50,000 words by the end of November. So far I'm at 14875 words, so I've got a ways to go.

Would you like to write a novel? It's not too late to start. Is it really possible to write an entire novel in a month? You can at least get a good rough draft, which is usually the most difficult part.

Sunday, November 9, 2008

"Not the Change I Was Expecting "

The Women's Media Center has this commentary by Veronica Arreola about the possible selection of former Lawrence Summers as Barack Obama's Secretary of the Treasury. Summers is currently an economics professor of Harvard, and previously served as president of Harvard and as treasury secretary for the final year and a half of the Clinton administration.

Arreola writes:
I am the president of the Larry Summers fan club. As the director of the Women in Science and Engineering program at the University of Illinois at Chicago, you might find that odd.

After his infamous statement in 2005 that women and girls had an intrinsic handicap towards math, explaining my job was a moot point. Everyone in my circle of friends and around the country knew the importance of running an academic support program for women majoring in science and engineering at a Research I institution. Despite the fact that women are going to college in record numbers and increasingly majoring in sciences, there are still those out in the world who think women just can’t hack it in the end. It also was an easier sell to donors and funders about the importance of the WISE office and our mission. So thank you, Larry for making my case so eloquently.

After his departure from the Harvard presidency he faded from the limelight. This week his name, along with New York Federal Reserve Chairman Timothy Geithner, has been bandied about as secretary of the treasury in the incoming Obama administration (can I just say how amazing it is to say that? The Obama administration!). Could the man who sold America on change seriously be considering appointing a man who suggested that Malia, Sasha and all of our daughters have a genetic disposition from not being able to math? Sadly yes.


Over at Open Left, Matt Stoller discusses some of Summers' shortcomings:
Summers was one of the key proponents of the banking deregulation of 1999 that led to the current financial crisis. In addition, Larry Summers has argued that women are innately less gifted in science than men, that 'Africa is Underpolluted', that child sweatshop work in Asia is sometimes justified, and that job destroying trade agreements are good for America.

People get stuff wrong all the time. That's not bad. But if you got the big stuff wrong, repeatedly, while being warned against it, you shouldn't be rewarded with a promotion.

Open Left has a petition to urge President-elect Obama not to appoint Summers to this critical post. I just signed it. I hope you will consider doing the same.

Update (11/10/08 10:55 p.m.): For a detailed analysis of Summers' failures as an economist, see this post at thenation.com by Mark Ames.

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Good news and bad news

The good news is, after 30 years of right-wing backlash and Republican misrule, Barack Obama and the Democrats have won the presidency and increased majorities in the US House and Senate. (Someone might ask, but what about Bill Clinton? I would agree with those who said that Bill Clinton was the best Republican president we'd had in years.)

And as Jeff Fecke points out, this Democratic victory owes a lot to the tireless work of Hillary Clinton.

In more good news, RH Reality Check reports that anti-choice ballot measures on the ballot in several states all went down to defeat.

Now for the bad news. Autumn Sandeen at Pam's House Blend reports that anti-gay initiatives are passing in Arizona, Arkansas, and Florida. She also reports that the  anti-gay marriage Proposition 8 appears to be narrowly passing in California, though not all of the votes have been counted as of Friday morning. Also at Pam's House blend, Pam Spaulding writes that Ballot initiatives provide a wake up call to the LGBT community about race.

I still remain cautiously optimistic that 30 years of right-wing backlash are drawing to a close in this country. But we do have a lot of work left to do.

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Obama speaking

I have even fewer words for this.

I find myself  having a great deal of respect for the calm, composed young man who talks about rebuilding the United States. A man who promises to tell us the truth and listen to us, especially when he disagrees with us.

He says America can change, that this is the genius of America.

Is it okay for me to admit that I still am not sure that America is, or has a genius?

He's talking about a woman in Atlanta who voted today, a woman who is 106, a woman whose name is Ann Nixon Cooper. Who could not vote as a young adult for two reasons, because she is a woman and because she is black.

I tend to resist euphoria.

A woman behind me is saying, "now the work begins."

I can't sort it out now, but this is a very good moment.

I'm writing this while I'm watching McCain concede

Barack Obama will be the 44th president of the United States. It is still not clear how big the margin of victory will be, but it is starting to look like a landslide.

I am sure that I don't have words adequate to the occasion, but here are some.

We can hope that 30 years of right-wing backlash are coming to an end in the United States.

John McCain is giving a gracious concession speech, noting the historic occasion of the election of the country's first African-American president, and urging the country to unite behind him.

Oklahoma is not doing so well. The embarrassing James Inhofe will continue to represent us in the US Senate. McCain carried Oklahoma.

The world is going to be a better place, but we'll have to fight for Oklahoma.

But I'm sitting in the middle of a room of happy lesbians, and nothing can be better than that.

Inheriting the Earth...

Thanks to Pat Reaves for this reminder of the herstoric Katherine Bradley Sparrow Society. (Did I get that right, Pat?)..



Looks like it's time for the meek to get ready again. I am cautiously optimistic about the results of the election. Get out and vote if you haven't already.

Sunday, November 2, 2008

Early voting in Oklahoma County


On Saturday I headed down to the Oklahoma County Election Board for early voting. Early voting took place on Friday and Saturday and will continue on Monday from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.

I didn't know what I was getting in for. I thought I might get in and out in a few minutes. Instead, I found myself in a line that stretched out for at least half a mile. I arrived about ten in the morning, and about four hours later I had voted. The elections worker I asked had no idea how many people came in on Saturday, but said she thought it was more than on Friday, when 5,000 people voted.

The crowd of early voters that assembled on Saturday was predominately African American. There may have been a few McCain voters in the group, but they were probably feeling pretty lonely. Pat Reaves, who kindly provided the photos displayed in this post, said that she felt it was remarkable that people were willing to stand in line for three or four hours to vote when it was almost certain that Oklahoma's electoral votes will all go to McCain.

I found myself thinking of women like Susan B. Anthony, who worked and waited for more than sixty years without ever having the opportunity to cast a legal vote. I thought of civil rights workers in the South who risked their lives securing the right for African Americans to vote. Compared to all that, standing in line for four hours didn't seem like much trouble. There was a great sense of camaraderie among those of us waiting to vote, and I think also a sense of being part of history.
Early voting will continue tomorrow, Monday, across Oklahoma. For more information, contact your county election board or the Oklahoma State Election Board.

Saturday, November 1, 2008

The sordid history of the Electoral College (final part of a three-part series)

(You may also want to read Part I and Part II of this series.)

I'm going to tell two competing stories about the history of the US Electoral College. One of these stories was written in 1992 by William C. Kimberling, who was then the deputy director of the Federal Election Commission's Office of Election Administration. The other story was written by brothers Akhil Reed Amar and Vikram David Amar for the FindLaw web site.

In Kimberling's rather quaint version of the story, we have a much smaller nation than today--just 4 million people, spread out along the Atlantic seaboard, residing in "thirteen large and small States jealous of their own rights and suspicious of any central government" They believed that "political parties were mischievous if not downright evil," and "felt that gentlemen should not campaign for public office."

The framers of the Constitution considered having Congress choose the president, but rejected that idea because it would break down the separation of powers between the executive and legislative branches of government. They considered having state legislatures select the president, but feared that this would erode federal authority.

Having a direct popular election of the president was also rejected. Writes Kimberling:
Direct election was rejected not because the Framers of the Constitution doubted public intelligence but rather because they feared that without sufficient information about candidat es from outside their State, people would naturally vote for a "favorite son" from their own State or region. At worst, no president would emerge with a popular majority sufficient to govern the whole country. At best, the choice of president would always be decided by the largest, most populous States with little regard for the smaller ones.
In contrast, the Electoral College would be made up of "the most knowledgeable and informed individuals from each State to select the president based solely on merit and without regard to State of origin or political party."

According to the Amar brothers, the real motivation behind this scheme was much less noble:
The biggest flaw in standard civics accounts of the electoral college is that they never mention the real demon dooming direct national election in 1787 and 1803: slavery.

At the Philadelphia convention, the visionary Pennsylvanian James Wilson proposed direct national election of the President. But in a key speech on July 19, the savvy Virginian James Madison suggested that such a system would prove unacceptable to the South: "The right of suffrage was much more diffusive in the Northern than the Southern States; and the latter could have no influence in the election on the score of Negroes."

In other words, in a direct election system, the North would outnumber the South, whose many slaves (more than half a million in all) of course could not vote. But the electoral college-a prototype of which Madison proposed in this same speech-instead let each southern state count its slaves, albeit with a two-fifths discount, in computing its share of the overall electoral college.

The Amars add that the electoral college system also discouraged states from granting women the right to vote. Under a system of direct popular elections, the more voters a state had, the more its citizens would influence national elections. With the electoral college, what mattered was how many people lived in each state, not how many of those people could vote.

Kimberling and the Amar brothers agree that the method of conducting presidential elections outlined in the original constitution was transformed by the Twelfth Amendment . Originally, each elector cast two votes for president. The man with the most votes became president, and the runner-up became vice president. When there were no political parties, this system was workable.

But in the election of 1800, two rudimentary political parties--the Federalists led by John Adams and the Democratic-Republicans led by Thomas--squared off against each other. The Democratic-Republicans came out on top. As the Amar brothers note, "without the extra electoral college votes generated by slavery, the mostly southern states that supported Jefferson would not have sufficed to give him a majority...Thomas Jefferson metaphorically rode into the executive mansion on the backs of slaves."

But there was at least one serious glitch in the process. Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr, both representing the Democratic-Republicans, came out with the same number of electoral votes. Kimberling points out that "The tie was resolved by the House of Representatives in Jefferson's favor -- but only after 36 tries and some serious political dealings which were considered unseemly at the time."

The Twelfth Amendment was written to keep such a thing from happening again. It left the South's unfair electoral advantage in place. But it accommodated political parties by changing the system so that electors each cast one vote for president and one vote for vice president.

With the establishment of nationwide political parties, presidential candidates began to run nationwide campaigns for direct voter approval. Given this situation, the Amar brothers say,
Americans must ask themselves whether we want to maintain this peculiar institution in the twenty-first century.

After all, most millennial Americans no longer believe in slavery or sexism. We do not believe that voters lack proper information about national candidates. We do not believe that a national figure claiming a national mandate is unacceptably dangerous. What we do believe is that each American is an equal citizen. We celebrate the idea of one person, one vote-an idea undermined by the electoral college.
Well, maybe not quite everyone celebrates the idea of one person, one vote. Republican operatives are prone to using a variety of shady tactics to suppress voter turnout. Over at Truthdig, Bill Boyarsky argues that efforts to intimidate voters, challenge their eligibility, and subject them to long lines might prove decisive if the election is close. It seems to me that such tactics would be less effective if they had to be applied nationwide, in every precinct, rather than in a few swing states.

The Amar brothers provide more reasons for abolishing the Electoral College and a practical plan for making it happen. As someone who would like to promote democracy and resist the rule of manipulative elites, moving toward direct popular election of the president seems like a good step to take.