VOTE NERD
I FELT HE COULD NOT BE MORE WRONG, and said so in my typically longwinded (and atypically UNCAPPED) fashion.
My rant was far more than he could use, and I trust many will disagree with it passionately, for we are on the Internet, and that is our job. BUT HERE IT IS, all the same, for what else is there to say today?
Dear Joel:Whatever you may think of the above, PREPARE TO VOTE.I am not a nerd. I am a geek. The former is a subset of the latter, but don't be concerned if you don't know the difference. You will learn it all when the reeducation begins.
Far more than red vs. blue, or "real America" vs. Massachusetts, geeks vs. jocks is the culture war that defines our times.
Palin's winking attacks on intellect, science, and fruit flies represent pure jockdom: a suspicion of complexity and egg-headedness, a rejection of credentials and education in favor one's own personal gut instinct, and the conviction that, in the last quarter, hard realities may be denied, and a come-from-behind victory may be magically conjured through inspiring cliches.
There is lots to be admired about jockdom: often the best decisions come from the gut; and some of history's worst crimes have been founded on the impersonality of science and pseudoscience.
But I do not believe that people will reject Obama due to his geek signifiers: his gangly frame, goofball ears, and har-dee-har-har insistence that we must live in the world that EXISTS, not in the world we WISH existed (on the left or the right.)
Rather, I think after 8 years of jock-like bluster and "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED" reality-denial, Obama's pragmatism and technician's calm seems extra attractive.
But even if Obama loses, and this may well happen, I believe jockdom, which was rightly the dominant mode of being American back when we used our hands and brawn to fight and farm and build things, is necessarily on the wane.
The world is now driven by knowledge economies. Certainly China and India and Dubai do not make "BIG BANG THEORY" sitcoms marginalizing THEIR geeks and engineers.
(Unless they actually do, in which case: awesome).
And also, if China really does make a version of BIG BANG THEORY, I need to see video ASAP.
That is all.
the latest
latest episodes
Obama won't lose.
The Indian version of Big Bang Theory is way funnier than the USA version of Little Britain.
@Tim: Wish I was as convinced as you. I've been black in this country for a loooong time.
@3 NigelsTwin
-- Chris RockThe enablers of the United States as a cradle of love may just win. Aka Hippies . Youngsters look pretty good to me. Intelligent and involved. Able to discriminate. Not victims of brain suckers. Unless trapped by Repugs. Go beyond labels and soar into the future. Make sunlight out of dung.
My questions is this...if Obama wins, will Chuck Ds head essplode? w00t! Da funky president.
@ NigelsTwin and Zuzu - remember, hope needs faith in order to work.
Prepare to vote - check http://www.votersuppression.net/, make sure you know where you're voting, you have everything you need, and find out what to do/who to call if you run into problems.
@tgjerusalem, You just need to be registered , carry a photo ID and vote at the correct site - right? How could you mess that up?
John Hodgman, I must become your apprentice.
How could you mess that up?
I've been denied voting rights. One year, my registration was lost because of the 'throw away all the non-republican voters' scandal (and, no, that doesn't make me a Democrat so don't go there). Another year, when there was a controversial local initiative, the polling place was moved from the church where it's been for fifty years to the center of a gated condo complex. Just for that one election. There's a lot of sleaze even at the local level.
I wouldn't say nerd is a subset of geek. They are overlapping groups. Some people are one, some the other, some both, some neither.
For that matter, I might suggest that nerdiness and geekiness spectra exist, to which a large portion of the population belongs at one point or another.
For example, suggesting that such spectra exist and that geekiness and nerdiness aren't simple "you are or you aren't" categories would put me in about the middle of the geek spectrum. Realizing that nerd and geek may not be independent variables, but rather require higher math to accurately represent their causal relationships, would get me partially into the nerd spectrum. Actually modeling these functions would put me irrevocably deeper into the nerd spectrum, with further geek spectrum points for providing a spiffy interactive 3D chart.
Realizing that I just had said discussion and realizing the nerdiness and geekiness of this all gives me geek points and loses me nerd points for the well-adjusted-geek trait of geeky-nerdy awareness and acceptance. Noticing the self-referential nature of this puts me deeper into the geek spectrum and not so far into the nerd one. Becoming unnerved that this now taints the original results and quite possibly leads to an x-approaching-infinity series, and hypothesizing at where the limit may lie, puts me permanently into the furthest, most hopeless depths of the nerd spectrum, a point which is rendered moot by the sheer length of this post.
The fact that I realize how lame this whole post is makes me more of a geek than a nerd, though.
I'm hoping I don't have a problem tomorrow. I moved two months ago, and I do have my new voter registration. Unfortunately, my ID is still the one from my previous state. It's supposed to be acceptable, but I have a small, hopefully unfounded, fear that a local election official will think it isn't.
If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal.
:P
Odd that you mentioned that Antinous #11 - my voting place was changed this year - I haven't really thought about why until your post. We've been voting at the same place for decades. Also, I live in an area overwhelming populated by Democrats. Food for thought.
Alex: nice
+1
#9 Tom Hale: And then you discover that your perfectly legal registration has been "purged" because you didn't receive a piece of registered mail or your name is similar to that of a felon. Have you not been paying attention these past eight years?
John, dude, that guy totally doesn't get you. He didn't get that "Big Bang Theory" is the name of a TV show and totally fumbled the ball in a jock-like fashion WHICH NO NERD WOULD EVER HAVE DONE!
MAKE IT SO!!
Do jocks get to maintain their traditional four year tyrannical rule of high school, along with the rich kids?
If so, it turns out four years can go by pretty quickly.
But please, let's limit the four year thing to high school for a while, huh?
I am 43 days too young to vote.
Everyone else out there; get yourselves out to the polls. No excuses.
I am 43 days too young to vote.
You can always be of use. You could have gone door-to-door 'helping' old people fill out their absentee ballots. And killing wounded sardaukar.
aye, time you quenched your crysknife.
Damn you and your powers of referring to the obscure! As a huge Sci FI fan, I should have known what a sardaukar is without googling.
Then you'll understand when I say that this is my tahaddi al-burhan.
Duh! - everyone knows what a tahaddi al-burhan is. Yeah, that's it - Common knowledge, heh heh.
@13:
In most states, you can bring a bank statement or utility bill with your name and address on it to prove residency even if your photo ID shows a different address. Go through that pile of bills on your desk (or print out a copy of a statement from your bank online) and bring it with you just in case. Check your local board of elections or county auditor or equivalent website for the rules.
And if all else fails, most places will let you fill out a provisional ballot so that you can prove your registration later.
If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal.
FTW
I'm not a nerd or a geek or a jock or anything else. I've always been outside of every subgroup that thinks it contains me.
"If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal."
A lot of paranoia around these days. It isn't true of course and one should resist the temptation to turn fear into conspiracy thinking.
If you really want to keep track of the election go to Five Thirty Eight. Probably the most geeky election site there is. They are currently giving Obama a 98.1% chance to win over McCain at 1.9% and 346.5 electoral votes for Obama (how we actually elect presidents) over 191.5 for McCain.
Indeed. Wednesday morning will bring much wailing and gnashing of teeth along with ashes and sack cloth. Plan on bringing extra popcorn.
@ noen, No, do what I'm doing - slowly convincing myself that the president is just a puppet of the extremely wealthy - talking Old money here, not Gates and his peers.
This way, if my side loses, I'll already have a good third acceptance of the election results. That is, Whoever wins, it doesn't matter the uber wealthy are really the ones in charge.
If my side happens to win, I'll slowly let the third choice slip away into my subconscious mind. See, I've got it all figured out.
I used to believe that the system had so much inertia built into it that no President could make much of a difference. The last eight years have proven me wrong. It appears that there's not much to stop the Executive branch from seizing new, extra-Constitutional powers.
I don't know Antinous - an ex coworker I've mentioned before who's husband told her about several things that really scared her - First He described to how our president is just a puppet of the super rich, then Neo Cons, then the Lou Dobbs discussions and reports about the North American Union and then the Illuminati. Of course she thinks Bush is evil incarnate, but she's more worried about the NAU and the Illuminati. I plan on latching onto one of these if my side loses.
I'm in tight with the ROs, so I'm not worried.
the past eight years was the ABSENCE of a president. George Dumbya was an utter vacuum where normally residual integrity would have formed a check against total takeover of power by the unaccountable. The ideal empty vessel.
I'm pretty sure nerds vs. jocks defined the 80s, not now. And the nerds won.
Then the rich people laughed, realizing that no matter what they were the only fraternity that mattered, at least on planet earth.
The former commenter #29, TRS NLSN HYDN: what part of "throw the book at you" in the moderation guidelines did you not understand?
...
The first district to finish up and report its voting totals was, as usual, Dixville Notch, NH. The first report of it on the internet is here (and yes, that is Making Light beating out CNN by five minutes). The results:
Obama 15
McCain 6
...
Nigelstwin @3, this might be a really good year. What I fear is the backlash from that old demographic segment that's neither slaves nor plantation owners. Obama getting elected violates some ancient unspoken agreements.
The lot of you, 22-26: Er, um. I didn't need to look up a single syllable of it. Skiffy geeks r us.
Tom Hale @33: would a former CFR employee do?
Oh, damn. AHN beat us by two minutes.
Groveling worked for McNastey. Groveling probably won't work for me. Tits up may work. Mothers milk mucho better from humans. Still feel comfortable being weaned. Maybe. Madonna trashes my goodness. Help me, Help me' giggle
It's tragic irony that the US has been invading other countries to bring democracy to the populace when the US electoral system seems so corrupted. Ironic and hypocritical.
In Canada, you just need to show up at your local polling station with a piece of picture ID proving you're a Canadian citizen and they'll register you right there on the spot. We use paper ballots that are hand-counted in front of scrutinizers who are representatives of all the political parties (including the Marxists/Lennonists if they send someone!). They watch to ensure everything is kept on the up-and-up.
A "game-changer" event they call it now.
Ever read Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq?Anyway, I'm off to vote for Kodos...
Keppoch, I think you meant Leninism, unless you're talking about the people who write in Yoko for PM.
Here's an outside: FOX calls it for McCain tonight based on close exit polls. Final tallies come in with a landslide for Obama at the end of the week, with the early voters and absentees flipping a number of key states.
Honestly, I think Obama is just going to take it in a landslide today.
I hope the GA numbers start looking better. I showed up at 7:30 am at the voting station two blocks from my house this morning only to be redirected a couple miles away (apparently I'm in the system living at my old residence). Still eventually got my vote counted, though.
There's a lot of support for Obama among my network of friends, but Georgia is a red, red state.
It requires constant retranslation as a 'leftist' Britisher watching your elections, when our decades-old gut response to a map turning from red to blue is one of horror.
Bloody 'ornery' americans and your contrary colour-code.
But GOOD LUCK AMERICA! I hope your map turns blue all over! (even while I hope to see blue expunged from my own electoral map)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/cartoon/2008/nov/05/uselections2008-georgebush
w0000t!!
=D
it's done :)
anyone else wanna hug Jesse Jackson?