I’ll be liveblogging the election coverage from 5-6pm EST / 2-3 PST at PBS’ mediashift.org, which is PBS’s site covering how the media is shifting. Mark Glaser has a great line up from 11am-9pm PST 1-midnight EST including all these people who know a whole lot about the Net and democratizing things: Micah Sifry, JD Lasica, Dan Gillmor, Henry Jenkins and purplestates.tv. Probably the most bullshit free election commentary you’ll find today.

Email me or twitter me (@heathr) with your election + media experiences today.

I’m always curious about why stuff happens and why we are the way we are….regardless of whether or not I agree with outcomes or behaviours or judgements. Here’s a recently blogged McCain anger story about McCain losing it at a craps table. At risk of it sounding condescending for me to guess, it sounds like McCain has some kind of PTSD.
(more…)

Mini Hockey Rink, originally uploaded by Paul Nicholson.

“Everybody says that / hell’s the hippest way to go / I don’t think so…”

I listened to Joni Mitchell at 6:30 on the phone line this morning and was immediately back in Toronto in gray days and the sharpening smell of fall. I was about to be part of a discussion on CBC radio about the US and Canadian elections, a conversation that only Canadians would have.

I felt myself move to a different place inside as I listened to Joni, a place that was cold and spacious and smelled of ice. Early mornings in Canada are rink times. And yes, in the rink, the ice-not just the locker room-has a smell.

All of this transpired in seconds and then I was in a cordial conversation with 4 infinitely reasonable and thoughtful people. One of the players, Jerry, went to the RNC and he compared the experience to a hockey arena. He acknowledged both how electric and exciting it was to be there when the new American “hockey mom” came in and how it didn’t play well on television.

Immediately I felt the election itself as hockey game. “Drill baby drill” the crowd’s chant when the team was breaking out into an offense rush. The back and forth of the candidates we’ve been sucked into as they’ve dropped their gloves and now try to pull each others shirts over their heads.

Yes the Republicans have some scrappy fighters. I’m not sure if they can win that way like the “Broad Street Bullies” who also had all kinds of heart, playing skill and phenomenal goaltending.

I just know from playing over the years that the fights are not the game. I did lead my team in penalty minutes at one time and found out the meaning of the cliche “you can’t score from the box.” The penalties came from frustration, and then they caused me more frustration. And when you act out of frustration, your not scoring or playmaking which is what is the most fun.

I’m hoping, like I said in the interview, that Obama plays his game and scores more goals, even if he can’t brawl.

And I’m wishing even more, after my enjoyable conversation which included a Canadian conservative, that Americans would pick up a little Canadian tradition and play more hockey.

Canucks don’t just watch hockey. They play. Often all their lives. With people who vote like them and with those who don’t. Go play. If there are fights that come up, have em. But leave em in the rink.

I just watched the trailer for Gus Van Sant’s Harvey Milk film for the first time and was surprised to find myself crying.

Crying because I never got to see Harvey Milk in person, though I’ve seen him on film, and somehow I felt some of his magic.
Crying because of the power and beauty of a moment when he and other gay people stopped cowering and owned their lives in public.
Crying because he’s not here now and in a little less than two months California will vote on whether or not the State Constitution should be changed so that I and “my kind” cannot be married and I am not sure enough straight people will know and care enough save my marriage.
Crying because a “tough and masculine” and certainly straight actor Sean Penn is playing Harvey with such dignity and so beautifully and that I am living to see and American straight man publicly not cower from an act that could “threaten” the defensive-ness we call masculinity.
Crying because I’m just so damn grateful that Robin WIlliams did not, as was once promised, play Harvey.

On November 4th, have the guts to live in hope. Vote no on Proposition 8.

Donate
The Mormon church is spending its money and time trying to pass Prop 8. and hard-knuckling its members for cash as a test of faith rather than on helping its members with defaulting mortgages, gas prices, bankruptcies and many other pressing, real problems for LDS members)

Posted by email from heathergold’s posterous

I was watching a bit of Sarah Palin’s speech tonight and thought, “Wow. This chick is as uninformed as W. but way, way tougher and hungrier. And smarter. Those old dudes might think they can ride her the way they rode him but they are fooling themselves.”

The Republicans have been using their new Christianist base without delivering much that’s really, really important to them. They’ve been all about the ends justifying the means. But what if they have to actually make core decisions as the Christianist base demands?

Palin may be the first to really do this. I sense a spectacular 3rd act for her. She will go all the way. Whether that means following through on legislating Christian evangelism and thereby walking that walk, or finding she enjoys the taste of the life of “cosmopolitan elites” that it will be in her interests to mock (until it’s not), whomever thought they could use this woman for their own purposes has another thing coming.

Eve Harrington: I will regard this great honor not so much as an award for what I have achieved, but a standard to hold against what I have yet to accomplish.

Lloyd Richards: I shall never understand the weird process by which a body with a voice suddenly fancies itself as a mind. Just when exactly does an actress decide they’re HER words she’s speaking and HER thoughts she’s expressing?
Margo Channing: Usually at the point where she has to rewrite and rethink them, to keep the audience from leaving the theatre!

Eve Harrington: I’ll never forget this night as long as I live, and I’ll never forget you for making it possible.
Karen Richards: A part in a play. You’d do all that just for a part in a play?
Eve Harrington: I’d do much more for a part that good.

All About Eve – Joseph L. Mankiewicz

Even though it is sad and a tad ridiculous to me that Michelle Obama had to give the “Look, I don’t have horns” presentation to the nation, nothing in this video is meant to belittle the fact that it is moving to feel:

• we could have an emotionally functional first family
• the joy of a possible first lady whose peace comes from within and not over the counter
• an African-American family take its place on our national stage of power and hold its ground. Finally.
• America begin to realize how much of its bountiful human resource it has been ignoring.

Nice letter Clarinda.

One of the main things that frustrated those I know who support Hillary, is the idea that Obama is somehow purer and not going to shift his positions to suit the electorate. I did and still do support Obama but am not as hurt as you Clarinda, Maybe that’s only because I stayed somewhat cynical. I like all the positive things you eloquently noted and hoped he’d be better than what Hillary (and the past administration has been).

But it seems to me that Obama is just as focussed as winning no matter what as Hillary was/is. He will take the chance that the disappointment you and others feel as he becomes less obviously pure as he has to take more positions and actions will not stop our voting for him.

I’ve seen him do a number of things that indicate
(more…)

Where this came from:

The anger of the many female Hillary voters (of which I am not one) and the press following Hillary’s loss led me to a thought. Hillary is almost the only public representation we have of a woman with power in the public sphere. Not sexual power. Not power based upon making men comfortable. Even with her marriage to Bill Clinton much of her power now is her own and it is not presented as trophy wife power.

I issued a challenge on twitter yesterday and I repeat and will track it here:

Name me 10 other women over 30 you see who aren’t about sexually or emotionally supporting men in popular media.

Here’s what I’ve got so far:

Brad King condi rice, albright, 70 current representatives and 14 current senators.

Ok Brad, quick name 8 of those reps by name. And we’re talking *famous* here.

Nick Douglas: B’bra Walters, Anna Wintour, Arianna Huff’ton, Oprah, Tyra, Condi Rice, Nancy Pelosi, Marissa Mayer, Anne Coulter, Ruth Ginsberg?

Nick agreed to remove Tyra (fame by sexual appeal) and I am disqualifying (though he disputes my call) Ann Coulter for the same reasons. She used that strongly to start her national visibility.

Nick also notes “Of course the time it took me to think up that list speaks to the still terrible dearth of well-known powerful female figures.”

MulegirlPut up Arianna too. (While haters say Hillary only has power because of Bill, I don’t hear them saying Arianna only has power cause she was willing to be a beard for a green card. Personally I can’t wait to meet Arianna to find out when she knew Michael is gay and when and how her political change of heart happened and if it was done so she could grow her audience).

Here’s the challenge. See if you can do it off the top of your head in under a minute. Double points if you can do it while drinking. Challenge your friends. Send me the videos.

 

 

Moments from the celebrations on the day when the Supreme Court of California handed down it’s decision that all Californians can marry, and that any discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is unconstitutional.

Listen to the full discussion about genetics, weaving, software development, democracy, risk management, and a process that encourages the inclusion of multiple points of views when making a decision. With Denise Caruso, Jesse Simons, Travis Meinolf and other guests.

The Heather Gold Show: Process Over Outcome, May 12, 2008 (mp3 file, 34 MB)

(Subscribe to the audio feed)