Jindal the Believer

If Bobby Jindal runs for president in 2012, he will almost certainly be attacked by the left for his beliefs on abortion, stem cell research and the idea of teaching creationism in public schools. So be it. With 76.9 million Catholics in the U.S. Jindal can easily explain his beliefs as in keeping with his Catholic faith, as not based on religious extremism, as in keeping with the beliefs of the majority of American Christians. He can express these beliefs, but the message should not be that he will attempt to impose them of government policy; remember, a true Republican believes in the sovereignty of the states. Small government is less intrusive government.

I realize that these issues are more complicated than the simple assertion that abortion, for instance, is a state issue. But what Jindal will have to do, through the MSM and the Internet, is keep the message simple and the responses to the left short and consistent: "As a Republican..." and "As a Catholic..."

In defending his beliefs, Governor Jindal will have to embrace not only the right leaning websites such as Townhall, but also the left leaning websites not traditionally courted by Republican candidates. Sites like the Huffington Post will have to be given the highest level of access to the campaign and the candidate. Jindal will have to show that he has nothing to hide and he is not ashamed of his religious beliefs or his philosophy on the role of the federal government.

Jindal: A New Republican

Harry's most recent post containing a clip of a brief interview of Governor Jindal on Fox got me thinking that the Republicans would be fools to run anyone else against Barack Obama in 2012. Jindal is smooth, smart and polished. His appearance, demeanor and age make him the perfect "breath of fresh air" the Republicans now so desperately need.

As far as Jindal's presidential campaign's possible exploitation of new technology is concerned, I think they would be wise to follow the model so effectively used by the Obama campaign. The Jindal people would be smart to start working on their strategy now rather than waiting until the primary season of 2011. If I were part of their team I would have young republicans setting up Facebook accounts, MySpace accounts and Twitter accounts now from college campuses in all fifty states. I would have subtle links on these accounts to "new" republican websites and blogs. These sites and blogs would sell a younger and simpler republican message--a message of boiled down conservatism without the criticism of democrats or liberals. In short, try to make the republicans seem like the cool, new political party of change toward simplified, down-to-earth values.

If I were a strategist for the Jindal for President campaign of 2012 I would focus all messages to potential voters on just a few image enhancing aspects of republican beliefs. I would show the farmers, but I would also show the laptop in the barn that the farmer uses to calculate how to use less pesticide in an effort to save money and do less harm to the environment. I would show the conservative banker investing in small businesses in the inner city in an effort to make money for the bank and the community. I would show good, hard working people from every ethnic group going to work with smiles on their faces. And I would show soldiers, so often associated with the republican party, helping poor people in a far off land unload much needed food and medicine.

With the new republicans, "We All Win."

I'm a Twitterin'

I signed up for Twitter and now have something to look forward to at the end of the day...I can "twitter." In Twitter I can tell people what I'm doing. But does anyone really want to know what a 46 year old man with dark circles under his eyes is doing while sitting at the computer? Does "twittering" sound like the answer most people want to hear? If I tell people that I've been spending too much time at the computer "twittering" are they going to want to know more? Will they want to "twitter" with me?

Alex Jones

A friend of mine, Tom, who moved from East Hartford to Chicago 18 years ago told me that I should check out the website of Alex Jones, a controversial radio talk show host out of Texas.



Radio can be a powerful influence on people.

Fear and Loathing?

I was struck by a line in the Al-Qaida statement embedded in Amanda's most recent post. The line, "heart full of hate," attributed to al-Zawahri in the following quote sounded oddly familiar:

"America has put on a new face, but its heart full of hate, mind drowning in greed, and spirit which spreads evil, murder, repression and despotism continue to be the same as always," the deputy of al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden said.

Could al-Zawahri be a fan of one of our greatest writers?

"Maybe there is no Heaven. Or maybe this is all pure gibberish—a product of the demented imagination of a lazy drunken hillbilly with a heart full of hate who has found a way to live out where the real winds blow—to sleep late, have fun, get wild, drink whisky, and drive fast on empty streets with nothing in mind except falling in love and not getting arrested . . . Res ipsa loquitur. Let the good times roll."—Gonzo Papers, Vol. 2: Generation of Swine: Tales of Shame and Degradation in the '80s, 1988

The author is, of course, Dr. Hunter S. Thompson and the sentiment in the quote represents exactly the values and beliefs Al-Qaida so often attributes to Americans. Could it be that al- Zawahri and his pals have been reading Thompson all along?

Talk Radio

Mr. McEnroe's post to the class blog concerning conservative radio talk show hosts references an article which makes some fairly obvious observations. I was not, for instance, blown away by the revelation that conservative talk show hosts employ the "us vs. them" approach in order to gain and hold their audiences.

One would not have to be an especially intelligent or sensible person to realize that Rush Limbaugh, the most popular conservative radio talk show host, does not rely too heavily on facts or journalistic "fairness" in his presentation of the news. This story from the Rush Limbaugh web site is a good example of the mentality behind his radio show:

RUSH: I mentioned mere moments ago, ladies and gentlemen, that President-Select Obama met with Senator McCain and said that they were going to work together. That scares me. It just scares me. We now have, ladies and gentlemen, the actual audio of Senator Obama this afternoon making this... It's not really an announcement. It's sort of a casual comment.

OBAMA: We're going to have a good conversation about how, um, we can do some work together to (bleep) up the country.

RUSH: So they're going to... "We're going to have a good conversation about how to do some work together to (bleep) up the country." Here it is again, ladies and gentlemen, exclusively here on the EIB Network.

OBAMA: We're going to have a good conversation about how, um, we can do some work together to (bleep) up the country.

Mr. Limbaugh can't actually believe that Barack Obama told reporters that he intended to discuss f-ing up the country. It must be a joke. I work with twelve year old kids who are beyond that level of humor.

What Rush is doing with such a joke is akin to what the Daily Show does. A joke is made at the expense of a politician for the benefit of the audience most of whom will find it funny because they see some truth in it. Liberal leaning media sources also seek material which buttresses their views and the views of their audience. What is the difference?

Mr Shelley's article assumes that the conservative viewpoint is only palatable when presented in a dishonest manner. Surely, intelligent people would not agree with conservative viewpoints if they were only presented in a somber and reasonable fashion. Am I now to believe that conservative radio talk show hosts are capable of "fooling" vast numbers of "intelligent" people as Mr. Shelley suggests?

The stereotyped liberal view of the talk radio audience is that it’s a lot of angry, uneducated white men. In fact, the audience is far more diverse. Many are businesspeople, doctors, lawyers, academics, clergy, or soccer moms and dads. Talk show fans are not stupid. They will detect an obvious phony. The best hosts sincerely believe everything they say. Their passion is real. Their arguments have been carefully crafted in a manner they know will be meaningful to the audience, and that validates the views these folks were already thinking.

So, if the listeners are "not stupid" and have views already in agreement with the talk show host, then what, exactly, is the point of the article? If the point is that conservative radio talk show hosts, people who are, "after all...in the entertainment business," should be held accountable for misrepresenting the truth in their broadcasts, then the same standard would have to be applied to any "entertainment" which relies on the political agreement of a particular audience.

60 Minutes...again

I know that Colin addressed the Barack Obama interview on 60 Minutes tonight, but I thought I would include the link for anyone interested in watching it:


Watch CBS Videos Online

With this week's subject in mind , I wondered why Senator Obama would choose 60 Minutes, (wouldn't the Huffinton Post be more hip and edgy?) as his first interview after winning the most important election in more than a generation.

I watched the interview and came away from it with even more respect and admiration for our next president. I felt at ease, as I think Senator Obama did, with the tone and theme of the questions Steve Kroft asked. I sensed a mutual respect. The two men seemed to be enjoying the event without having the interview lose sight of the serious problems now facing the next president. I didn't feel I had to worry about the interview turning ugly or confrontational. And yet, even without the confrontation, the interview was informative and entertaining. Is there a lesson there for other members of the media?

I believe that most people will eventually tire of clearly partisan and combative news coverage now so prevalent on cable news and the Internet. I know it has gotten old for me. I am not even any longer amused by the partisan rantings of people with whom I agree. I want to hear watch and read good news and bad presented clearly and concisely. And the stories deemed to be "news" should at least be interesting. 60 Minutes is at least interesting.

Enquiring Minds

The Huffington Post must have seen a substantial dip in their traffic since the election ended. Imagine reporting on a National Enquirer story about Cindy McCain's recent infidelity! For shame! Then again... it caught my eye.

Katie's Take

Katie Couric offers a nice summation on the Obama campaign's efforts to attract voters by using the Internet. In this clip she suggests that Obama could use his already effective use of technology to promote civic responsibility:



Watch CBS Videos Online

Chasin' Wabbits

One of the ways that Fox News can keep their viewers happy is by trotting out the old tried and true right wing fear mongering tactics of the past. This election season was virtually free of Second Amendment rights talk. It just wasn't considered an issue. Now that Obama has won, however, we can expect Fox and the other right wing news outlets to submit more stories about the fear gun owners now feel. A fear of not being able to buy guns? Fox reveals:

Handguns and rifles are flying off the shelves at Ted Sabate's gun shop in Kensington, Md.
And while it's not uncommon for gun sales to spike when the economy takes a downturn, Sabate says that's not what he's hearing from customers. According to Sabate, gun enthusiasts are stockpiling because they say they're afraid the incoming Democratic administration will impose new gun bans.
"People are afraid that if there's another ban imposed ... they won't be able to buy them at all," Sabate said. "So they want to get something now before they don't think that they can."

Been putting off that gun purchase, have you? I wouldn't wait too long...Democrats a' comin'!

The Fox story then rightly finishes up with the strange predictions of the head of the N.R.A., Wayne LaPierre:

The head of the National Rifle Association, Wayne LaPierre, foresees a split in the Democratic party.
"What you're going to see is a real struggle between the elite wing of the party -- the Manhattan, Georgetown cocktail party circuit, the Los Angeles -- versus the union, rank-and-file members ... the members that are going to (say) wait a minute, my district likes to hunt, my district respects the Second Amendment," LaPierre said.

Can't people be both partiers and happy gun lovers? I think the two compliment each other. That's good, old fashioned, small town values right there--get drunk and shoot stuff.

Fox will have no trouble entertaining their audience now that the election is over. They're going to watch President Obama's every move. Like the tenacious Mr Fud, Fox will continue to play their old, tired game no matter how pitiful or ridiculous the endeavor.

Andy Again

I like Andy Rooney. I think Andy is probably the best spokesman for his generation. I trust him and find his writing entertaining and enjoyable. His reflection on the election of Barack Obama for President on 60 Minutes sums up my feelings on the event.


Watch CBS Videos Online

Historic Headline

The Washington Post announced Thursday that it would be printing 350,000 new copies of the election edition of their newspaper. Why? Because some people like to collect things and because the election of Barack Obama for President is so historically enormous that folks want something to hold and look at in the future.

People who stayed up late, bleary-eyed from television or online page clicking, woke up needing something to touch. They sought physical proof that it wasn't all just a dream from a computer monitor's blue glow.

I know that I haven't really yet grasped the enormity of the election. Watching the returns on Tuesday night I knew that when the polls closed on the West coast that Obama would be declared the winner. It was obvious by 10:30 that the networks and the cable news outlets were trying to kill time until 11:00. They all waited. The suspense was painful. And then...it's over. I felt numb. Would a copy of a newspaper declaring Obama the President Elect make the event more real for me? Probably not.

Patriotic Journalism

Is it the job of journalists to help a president?

The Mandelbrot Set

Within the idea of media bias is the idea of memes and the influence of information. Each of us, for instance, had to have heard of each of the presidential candidates from some source of information. Let's assume, for the sake of simplicity, that we learned about each of the candidates from a media source. We can also assume that every media source is biased to some degree and seeks to spread one or more memes in relation to the candidates. Thus, we have learned of the candidates, we have been infected with one or more memes, and we now have our preference.

Polls are a measure of the success or failure of one or more memes gaining influence on our preference for president in the upcoming election. Polls taken over the course of the presidential campaign show the patterns of our attitudes over time. Therefore, it must be possible to predict with certainty who will win the election. For even if we factor in possible last minute information, at this point in the process, "new" information does not have enough time to change the outcome of the election because the pattern of the polls cannot change. Why? For the same reason a "healthy" or "normal" elm tree cannot suddenly shoot a new branch straight down to the ground. There is a pattern to which the tree must abide. The tree, like voters and the memes they carry, follow a simple and elegant formula: the Mandelbrot set.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s Benoit Mandelbrot, the inventor of fractal geometry, and several others were using simple iterative equations to explore the behavior of numbers on the complex plane. [Read an interview with Mandelbrot.] A very simple way to view the operation of an iterative equation is as follows:

changing number+fixed number=result

Start with one of the numbers on the complex plane and put its value in the "Fixed Number" slot of the equation. In the "Changing Number" slot put zero. Now calculate the equation, take the "Result," and slip it into the "Changing Number" slot. Repeat the whole operation again (in other words, recalculate and "iterate" the equation) and watch what happens to the "Result." Does it hover around a fixed value, does it spiral toward infinity quickly, or does it stagger upward by a slower expansion?

Simple enough, right? Polls contain the numbers representing attitudes and voting intentions. Fortunately, like the elm tree, the presidential election is a finite process; that is, the process will end as the elm tree eventually stops growing and thus ends the pattern it has adhered to. This brings us to the "strange attractor":

Applying zoom-ins and different iterative prisms to the numbers in the boundary area of the Mandelbrot set has revealed that this region is a mathematical strange attractor. The "strange attractor" name here applies to the set because it is self-similar at many scales, is infinitely detailed, and attracts points (numbers) to certain recurrent behavior. Scientists study the set for insights into the nonlinear (chaotic) dynamics of real systems. For example, the wildly different behavior exhibited when two numbers with almost the same starting value and lying next to each other in the set's boundary are iterated is similar to the behavior of systems like the weather undergoing dynamic flux because of its "sensitive dependence on initial conditions."

Therefore, no amount of positive or negative, biased or unbiased, reporting by the media can change the eventual result of the election. The media, because it is simply a collection of people, intuitively knows that there is a pattern and that the pattern has, certainly by this point in the election, been established to the point of conclusion. Obama wins.