To kick this off, I need to cover some basic ground rules.

1. Everyone's opinions are valid and welcome in the comments.
2. The only way to get your comments deleted or banned is to be an insensitive @$& jerk.
3. These scores represent my (Miles) opinions, and not my much more conservative wife.
4. I'm hanging myself out there on touchy topics, so please don't let this reduce your opinion of me without discussing your issues with me in more depth elsewhere.

Secondly, in the interest of full disclosure, to find sources, I started with wikipedia and followed the endnote links from the articles to the sources referenced, and then supplemented these with google searches. For the structure of the report card, I gleaned a set of issues that were meaningful to me as I came across them in my searches.

In regard to format, I'll start off each post with a blurb about my take on the candidate, followed by a few points of interest, then any interesting links I found, and finally the real report card after the "continue reading" cut.

May the comments flow like water!

Hillary Rodham Clinton: The Intangibles

I had to really work hard to overcome a general distaste of Hillary Clinton so I could be as neutral as possible when considering her presidential resume, and I think the reason for this distaste was that my first knowledge of her, during Bill's first term, corresponded with my high school years, a time when my ideas about the world were immature, for lack of a better word.

Really, I don't see any real black spot on Hillary's political record that justifies the harsh reaction I have toward her. Her consistant and tireless work on behalf of disadvantaged, special needs, and abused children throughout the years is actually quite impressive, and I'm not sure why she doesn't do more to make this a main part of her image/campaign. 

But one thing that does bother me, that I'm not sure if I can get past, is that she sold out when she didn't make a stronger statement on behalf of women during the Lewinski fiasco. In the article I've linked to below, Hillary is cited as using the dedication of her thesis to make a feminist jab, writing, "Although I have no ‘loving wife’ to thank for keeping the children away while I wrote, I do have many friends and teachers who have contributed...." However, she allowed Bill to make her that wife, keeping the journalists away while he finished out his presidency. She was at once greatly deserving of empathy and maddeningly unwilling to stand up for women who are taken advantage of by unfaithful husbands.

Why does this matter? Because is exposes the side of Hillary that her enemies love to exaggerate--her nack for pairing cold ambition with her overwhelming pagmatism.

Things you never knew about Hillary:

1. president of the College Republicans at Wellesley
2. once worked in a fish processing cannery in Valdez, AK (?)
3. member of the Nixon impeachment inquiry staff
4. failed the District of Columbia bar exam
5. Arkansas Mother of the Year in 1984
6. first First Lady to hold a post-graduate degree
7. first First Lady to take up an office in the West Wing
8. member of The Fellowship (?)
9. covergirl of Vogue magazine in 1998

The most interesting link I found: "Reading Hillary Rodham's Hidden Thesis"

Bonus points: amazing record of children's advocacy.

Minus points: weak stand for women when it was inconvenient to her.

This morning I was quite sad to see the news that Starlu will be closing its doors. From Starlu's website:

To our friends and guests,

The anatomy of goodbye is complicated by emotion. First, there is the news that you are going away; then the explanation and the questions about why; and lastly there is the departure and all its inherent finality.

It is with great sadness that I share with you all that December 22 will be our last day to serve you....

Brooklynne and I only made it out to Starlu once (it was expensive for us, even if it was certainly worth the price), but our experience was the best. Chef Sam came to our table personally to see to see that we were enjoying our meal and to chat briefly about the what we thought about it. He was friendly and down to earth and seemed to think our judgement was as valid as any of his peers, verifying what everyone else had already  said about him.

While the food was exceptional, the location was not. Still, a restaurant's quality can be judged on factors that transcend its booths and lighting, or even its cusine, and Sam's business is a leading example of positive community engagement. Also from the Starlu website:

In conjunction with our melancholy, we'd like to share with you the joy of remembering our successes. In our 3+ years in business we:

• helped raise over $43,000 for charity through our Bottles of Change program,
• bought holiday gifts for children living under the auspices of Children's Home Society,
• raised awareness of dozens of great organizations doing wonderful work in Durham and beyond,
• received numerous accolades generated by our diners attesting to their appreciation of what we do,
• and had the pleasure of getting to know so many wonderful people.

Durham will miss Starlu and I can only hope that Sam finds a way to give it another shot sooner rather than later. If you have the chance to take a special evening between now and the 22nd, you should consider visiting this one-of-a-kind venue before it goes, and if Sam stops by your table, wish him the best.

If you want more info, here's the link.

...not as a presidential candidate, but as a presidential campaign blogger. I'm admittedly unexcited about all of the candidates, and while I enjoy a good natured political conversation, I deeply identify with Jenny when she blogged recently about slipping into a world of gray, where answers don't come as easily, every statement is someone else's mantra, and while opinions are harder to formulate, they are all the while invested with more and more significance.

So... we have 5 weeks until the first real primaries in Iowa, and I'm going start from the highest fundraisers and give a TWJ report card to two candidates a week (1 Dem and 1 Pub) for the next 5 weeks. Note that the fundraising standings may change when the fourth quarter results are reported, especially near the bottom, so if your favorite baby-kisser isn't in the top 5 for either mainline party, let me know and I will publish your guest-written report card for quixotic hopefuls or third party candidates.

As of today, the 10 candidates up for review are:

Dems-

Hillary Clinton ($50,463,013 3rd quarter cash on hand), Barack Obama ($36,087,190), John Edwards ($12,397,048), Bill Richardson ($5,821,587), Christopher Dodd ($3,874,874).

Pubs-

Rudy Giuliani ($16,649,825), Mitt Romney ($9,216,517), Fred Thompson ($7,121,744), Ron Paul ($5,443,667), John McCain ($3,488,627).

What would I do with my life?

This video turned up on 2 Stroke Buzz recently. Now where's my Christmas list? It needs updating.

Happy Thanksgiving!

A couple thoughts on this Thanksgiving....

First, things I'm thankful for:

Secondly, I just came across The Superest blog, which started with the Unopposinator and then follows a series of super heroes, who each have a special power that trumps the previous hero. Very funny.

But this brings me back to what I'm thankful for. Mostly, I'm thankful for the Lord who is the superest of all. Isn't it wonderful that He makes a special place for each of us in His house, no matter how super or unsuper we are?

Yesterday, Brooklynne, Halleigh, and I flew to Colorado to visit Brooklynne's family for Thanksgiving. Let me just say that I'm glad my little girl is a good traveler. Although "infant-in-arms" really means 6 hours of toddler wrestling, it could be much worse. Halleigh never cries on planes (this is her 8th flight to the western states) and her only travel vice is her squirmishness, which can be buffered from the surrounding passengers easily enough.

the weather here is nice... for now. But the temperature is supposed to drop dramatically today and we're even supposed to get some snow, which Brooklynne is very excited about.

I have changed the theme of TWJ for a day of mourning for the Heels. I think I ended my football boycott prematurely, since the Heels will finish the year AGAIN without a quality win. At one point I thought that all the close losses were a sign that we were really close to turning a corner, but at some point you have to consider that maybe the problem is that we just play to the level of the competition--and I would rather just be bad.

I thought about reinstating the boycott before the Dook game, but I've decided I'm going to watch (or listen). If we win big, maybe I'll feel better about the team. If we win a close one or lose, it will be penitence for the sin of not holding Carolina to a higher standard. Kind of like self-flagellation.

I think the air went out of my sails when we failed to get in the endzone from the one-yard line in the first quarter. I watched the replays of the run where Elzy (I think) got denied, and I was convinced that he just didn't hhave the hunger to push the ball through. He turned his shoulder, just took the hit, and folded. I wouldn't care nearly as much that he didn't get in if he had just shown some desire--but it was the first quarter, so who should expect a team to be hungry at that time of the game? ARRRGH!!!

If we don't beat Dook in a convincing fashion, I feel like the boycott should be reapplied, but I need to make it more dramatic--equal to the passion with which I want the football players to play. Perhaps a boycott of the basketball season instead? I'll think about it....

I had been resisting facebook for a long time, until Brooklynne recently pushed me to "get on the grid." Honestly, I've only logged on once since my profile was created about a month or two ago. However, there's something about facebook that I don't like, but that I haven't been able to articulate. Its the same feeling of invasion that I felt when I gave in and got a cell phone. I could no longer be unavailable. With facebook I can no longer be lost. But I'm a flexible guy, so I adapt to changing norms and try to find some way to make the new framework work for me.

But then I started reading about facebook's business plan, and how they plan to make millions by massaging the gray areas of privacy--and I got scared again. David Weinberger has a good article that explains some of my discomfort with FB.

Some times I feel old and other times I feel like I'm just acting old. Usually when I feel like I've been acting old, I have an intense desire to reconnect with a lifestyle that I associate with being young. I had one of these moments last night.

Brooklynne and I had gone to a reception at Wilson Library put on by the Friends of the Library, and we had left Halleigh with my folks. The program ran late, so our plans to have a date at the Carolina Brewery or Top of the Hill kind of went out the window, and we rushed home to get Halleigh in bed. While Brooklynne got Halleigh bathed and in her PJs, I ran over to Jimmy John's to get a couple of sandwiches for a late dinner. Maybe it was the incredibly "old" series of activities that night, or maybe the act of driving around ninth street alone at night conjures my high school days, but for some reason I felt a strong desire to play a loud CD while I drove.

(In an aside, I don't remember the last time I played a CD in the car, much less bought one. I gave up buying CDs in college when I realized I would never be able to satisfy my desire to be cool by trying to maintain a knowledge of the music scene. Almost all of my CDs are high school hold-overs)

But in a supreme example of unbelievable serendipity, I found a Man or Astro-man CD in the player! What the heck?!!

So I blasted Man or Astro-man all the way to Jimmy John's and back. It made me really hunger for having more fun, being more spontaneous, finding friends who call us up and want to get out and do stuff, make something happen.

I was so energized I think I forgot to turn the radio off (or down) when I got out of the car. Needless to say, Brooklynne is in for a big surprise....

I haven't had much time to post lately. I hate when that happens because I'm constantly thinking, "wow. That would be a great thing to blog about...." But he who hesitates is lost, and many of those ideas go unblogged.

One funny thing happened yesterday though. I was having a conversation with a lady about digital history and she recommended that I check into this thing called blogging to see what people are doing in the way of blogs. Boy am I behind the times.

While working on sources for my dissertation, I stumbled across this interesting book and picture series on Cuba, which is currently featured at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University. I really liked the pictures looking out at Cuba from the back of old cars. I've put a couple samples after the "continue reading" cut. The author of this project will be a Nasher Museum next Friday for a reception and book signing.

The CDS has several other projects that I would recommend as well, so you should check them out when you get a chance.

By the way, did any one else catch the reports last week that the UN passed a resolution calling for the US to end its embargo against Cuba? Apparently, it was the 16th year in a row that the UN passed such a measure, and the resolution passed 184 to 4, with one state abstaining (3 of the 192 members must not have voted or abstained?). Ever wonder what issue could get more than 95 percent of world's governments to agree?

I have a problem when I paint. It takes too long.

This is due to several issues. First, no matter how I try to paint, I always get more and more sucked into the details of the picture, which causes me angst because I don't have the skills to paint with strict realism, and it slows me down.

Secondly, I start putting paint on the canvass, and then I realize I want to paint another color over the first, so I wait for the paint to dry.

So I have decided to try a new experiment. I am going to set up four canvasses and place a stopwatch nearby. Then I'm going to paint on the first picture for exactly 5 minutes. Then I'll move to the next, and paint for excactly 5 minutes. I'll repeat this until I get the last one and then I'll go back to the first.

5 minutes of painting, 15 minutes of drying.

I'm also going to limit myself to exactly 2 hours total.

4 canvasses, 6 5-minute sessions on each to produce 4 half-hour paintings.

My goal will be to capture only the bare essentials of what I'm painting, and the 2 hour time limit will force me to dispense with the details.

I plan to try this some time in the next two weeks.

These maybe ugly. I might encounter new problems. But if you want one of these you can claim one for the price of the canvass and paint.

Lately a couple readers have reported getting a virus warning when they come to our website. I never had the problem, so I thought it might be a simple glitch. But today I actually took some time to see what the problem is and I think I have narrowed it down to people who enter this blog through the redirect at the old address.

If this applies to you, THEN UPDATE YOUR BOOKMARKS/LINKS!!!!!

I don't really think it is a virus on the server. Actually, the first reports from my readers corresponded with the implementation of a new tranfer tool the folks over at that crappy web host ipowerweb have offered people to use to move all their files off their old, broken-down servers. So... I don't think you're doomed if you continue to come through the redirect--but I'm not 100 percent sure--so why tempt fate? Just click the bookmark icon in you browser and don't go to the old site anymore.

Also, please, if you have a blog or page that links to mine, please confirm that your link points here, and not to the old site. Thanks!!!