There is a similar phenomenon with TiVo, where instead of waiting to see how the plot unfolds, you rewind the same scene over and over and over again, absorbing its magnificence.

Last night, I had a TiVo moment watching a scene from Grey's Anatomy. It was poignant and tender and totally hot -- a reminder that at its best, television is a machine for transmitting raw emotion. Due to the miracle of YouTube, you can see the scene too.

I had another TiVo moment with Pushing Daisies last fall. This short clip is just so treacle, and wacky and wonderful. It pretty much sums up the whole show.

Finally, here's a clip from the the season finale of Mad Men (don't worry, it doesn't spoil anything) that reminds me that a few words, carefully chosen and softly spoken, can be more powerful than anything else we can imagine.

Watching students run around in their gowns with families in tow (I've never seen so many cowboy hats and sportscoats this side of a wedding) brought back regrets about my own Commencement at Stanford five years ago.

I didn't attend. I told my family they were welcome to go, but that I wouldn't be there. I remember walking by the quad, where the ceremony was being held, to pick up the last of my mail, hoping to god I didn't see anyone I knew and wondering what the fuck I was going to do with the rest of my life. I saw my roommate from freshman year, whom I hated for no other reason than because he was there (and perhaps because he was overly fond of Crosby, Nash, Stills & Young). We didn't say hello, or even nod in the awkward way that two shy people sometimes do. It was the perfect bookend to four awful years.

I still cringe when I think of the time, money, brain cells, and (especially) opportunity I lost at Stanford. But, five years after I left, I think maybe I've gained the perspective and self-awareness needed to not fuck it up again.

So look out world, I'm still here.

As a 27 year-old Hillary supporter (especially now that Edwards is definitely dropping out), I find it pretty interesting.

What is it about people in that range that makes them less likely to support Obama and more sympathetic to Clinton?

My opinion: the 25-29 cohort came of political age during the Clinton impeachment and the Bush v. Gore era. (These were certainly the defining moments of my political life). We learned early on that 1) the Republicans could and would subscribe to a total war political philosophy and that 2) the media is only too happy to play along. Because of this, I think we are less likely to buy Obama's "new kind of politics" schtick -- because if one side brings Kumbaya (see, e.g. Joe Lieberman) and the other brings a machine gun, it's pretty easy to guess who's going to win. We also, I think, tend to feel that the Clintons did not get a fair shake the first time around and therefore might deserve a second chance.

Compare this to the older cohort -- they were politically aware in Bill Clinton's first term, and thus remember all of his missteps: don't ask, don't tell, universal healthcare, Somalia. Their sense is less that the Clintons didn't get a fair shake, but that rather that they screwed up royally. It seems to me that these folks would be more likely to support Obama because Obama has similar policies to Hillary Clinton (for the most part) but is not Hillary Clinton.

The younger cohort came of age during the build up to the Iraq war and thus saw most of the Democratic establishment kowtow to Bush on almost everything. Their impression of the Clintons is as weak, pathetic figures who couldn't stand up on the most important issue of the time. It's no wonder they're susceptible to a "change, or bust" argument. (Although, honestly, I don't understand why kids these days buy into the bipartisan argument -- all the big mistakes of the last 8 years have been bipartisan in nature. The lesson, to me, would be that we need more partisanship, not less, but, again, I grew up in the Clinton impeachment.)

It's also worth noting that I have not observed an excess of Hillary support in my own friends and acquaintances -- they all seem to be supporting Obama. I should probably ask them why, but I suspect I won't like the answers. (I heard someone say, un-ironically, that they were going to vote for Obama because "he's for hope.") Gaaaah. Count me squarely in the donut-hole.

I really like this, because it gives me something to do in the days leading up to a funeral and because it gives everyone something structured to do and talk about during during the reception. There's something very comforting and hypnotic about seeing the person go from very young to very old in the photos. It's also good for people my age to see them as they were before we knew them.

Here are the two sets I have made so far, one for my mother's mother, Ethel Langworthy Devine Chase who died in 2006, and one for my father's father, Barring Hesse Coughlin, who died on 2 January 2008.

]]> 236@http://www.hwaethwugu.com/blog/ 2008-01-12T13:40:00-07:00 http://www.hwaethwugu.com/feeder/?FeederAction=clicked&feed=hwaethwugu+%28RSS+2.0%29&seed=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.hwaethwugu.com%2Fblog%2Farchives%2F2008%2F01%2F05%2Fmy_problems_with_obama&seed_title=My+Problems+with+Obama He's bad on Universal Healthcare

Obama is afraid to push true universal healthcare because he's worried that the Republicans won't go along with it -- that they'll run ads saying "The Democrats want to force you to get healthcare" -- and that this will doom a universal healthcare plan. He's so worried about this that he's runnning around saying "Edwards and Hillary want to force you to get healthcare."

Update: Collin suggests I could me more clear here. My point is this: it is very easy to describe what to do for a command-line interface (e.g., you could talk a complete newbie through deleting a file with rm much more easily than talking them through navigating to that file in Windows and dragging it to the recycling bin) but just knowing the magical incantation doesn't mean you understand it. It is also very hard for even an experienced scissors-user to describe to someone exactly how to use a pair of scissors, but that doesn't mean they don't understand the scissors' interface. I'd go even further and say that the best user interfaces are the ones that don't afford description -- you don't talk about them, you just use them.

The only candidate I've given money to is Dodd, but should the caucuses in Colorado on Feb. 25th come to matter, I'll be facing a choice between Edwards and Clinton. I've all but decided for Clinton because, even though I agree with Edwards on almost everything, I want a candidate with the resources and political experience to win in the general election.

A la carte pricing seems like a no-brainer for consumers -- the benefits would be reduced prices and a wider selection. Your mythical geek wouldn't have to pay for ESPN and the Speed Channel while the sports nut could subscribe to ESPN1-56 and The Middle School Softball Channel. Ditching the one-size-fits-all model would be especially great for people with niche interests -- anime, sci-fi, curling, etc.

But I find it useful in evaluating whether to support regulatory reform to look at the players pushing for it. One the side of increased regulation we have the FCC (or, at least, parts of it), consumer groups, and the Parent's Television Council. The PTC, as you may remember, is the group of nutjobs concerned mainly with keeping depictions of witchcraft off of your TV -- for the children, you see. Opposing the new regulation we have . . . the cable companies.

The fact that the PTC is so adamantly in favor of a la carte pricing makes me think there must be a major downside to it. And there is. The problem is that the decision-makers (that is, the people paying for the service) are not always the same as the users (the people actually watching television). This always leads to inefficiencies (see, e.g. corporate IT) and makes me think that people will get much less use out of their televisions on an a la carte plan. The PTC is obviously behind this because it allows families to protect their children from joining sex-based cults inspired by CSI; but this really means that Daddy gets to pick the channels (The Chuck Norris Channel!) leaving Little Gay Johnny without access to Queer Eye and forcing Mommy to watch ChristianHomemakerTV. Daddy's happy, but everyone else is stuck in TV hell, lowering the usefulness of TV and ultimately making cable less valuable.

So the question is whether the decreased cost and improved options made possible by a la carte pricing outweigh the decreased efficiency and the costs to society incurred by conservative parents who won't let their gay kids learn about fashion.

Ten years ago, I think the answer would have been no: television was our window on the world and putting bars and blinds on it would have a very real effect. But today we have the internet, where Little Gay Johnny can talk to other gay kids his age, and Mommy can read Orcinus and Pandagon and dream about maybe someday breaking free. So if the Parent's Television Council succeeds in locking down cable, maybe it doesn't matter. In fifteen years we'll all be getting our TV on the internet anyway. And then the Parent's Internet Council will start all over again.

I've long wondered what would have happened if we hadn't invaded Iraq. Would the goodwill we had in the world community allow us to effectively occupy Afghanistan, or would we be in exactly the same position we're in now, with just the place-names changed?

It's a shibboleth among we progressives that Afghanistan was a good war and Iraq a bad one -- only true nut jobs protested invading Afghanistan. But if Afghanistan is unwinnable, maybe we're the crazy ones? It's now painfully clear that those who advocated invading Iraq (including me) were horribly off-base about the viability of occupation as a projection of American military power. Were we also wrong about Afghanistan?

My favorite Hopper at the exhibit was Captain Upton's House. Apparently it's owned by Steve Martin.]]> 225@http://www.hwaethwugu.com/blog/ 2007-11-21T13:14:27-07:00 http://www.hwaethwugu.com/feeder/?FeederAction=clicked&feed=hwaethwugu+%28RSS+2.0%29&seed=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.hwaethwugu.com%2Fblog%2Farchives%2F2007%2F11%2F20%2Fwwii_memorial&seed_title=WWII+Memorial I visited the World War II Memorial on the National Mall yesterday. I hadn't had a chance to see it the last couple of times I've been in DC.

Photo by Richard Latoff.

I was particularly impressed with the use of 56 separate pillars, one for each state and territory, to represent national unity in a time of war.

Her disappointment in Campbell Brown was just devastating.