That’s right, even with their weird bloated-shut eyes and fuzzy lint-ball bodies, baby cardinals are still cute. We noticed the nest last Friday during a particularly ribald round of Yahtzee! on the porch (sorry, no details). It’s tucked behind a grape-vine trellis just outside one of the screened windows.

The mama came out and squeaked for a while but I squawked back and she left us alone. When I went over to inspect (it is, after all, my house, not theirs), I found a little mound of speckled eggs. Looked more like pebbles, actually.

This morning on my way out the door I glanced over and saw one lone orange beak, no bigger than your pinky fingernail, pointing straight up. Wide open. In my head I could just hear it saying ‘Mommy…throw up some more food into my mouth.’ And then I kind of felt disgusted but in a warm, sunshiny way.

As I got closer two more beaks popped up, and then I saw the dad glaring at me from beneath the rubharb patch. Man, he was a good looking dude. With that pompadour and his feathers red as embers. If he were a few feet taller, I’d have been a little intimidated.

I’ll post some pictures if I get a chance this evening. Maybe I can even catch them feeding the babies. Now who wouldn’t want to see that?

Yahtzeee!!

BusinessWeek starts a blog by writing a news article that looks like a blog post about blogging. Well, at least they got the self-referencial part.

Fortunately, they got the tone right, too:

Go ahead and bellyache about blogs. But you cannot afford to close your eyes to them, because they’re simply the most explosive outbreak in the information world since the Internet itself. And they’re going to shake up just about every business — including yours. It doesn’t matter whether you’re shipping paper clips, pork bellies, or videos of Britney in a bikini, blogs are a phenomenon that you cannot ignore, postpone, or delegate. Given the changes barreling down upon us, blogs are not a business elective. They’re a prerequisite.

Note the first person.

A related (although much more in depth) read is Tom Coates’ essay on the mass amateurization of everything:

…flexibility of publishing creates a fluid and living form of self-representation, the ‘homepage (as a place)’ has become the ‘weblog (as a person)’ that can articulate a voice. And when there are a multiplicity of voices in space, then the possibility arises of conversations. And where there is conversation there is the sharing of information. And conversation about what? Well everything from music and movies and animation and medical information. Weblogs are becoming the bridge between the individual and the community in cyberspace …

For PR, that means a serious shift in voice is coming, because PR should be the bridge between the business and the community. And the community is starting to filter out messages that don’t sound how people talk:

Translation From PR-Speak to English of Selected Portions of Adobe’s ‘FAQ’ Regarding Their Acquisition of Macromedia

[QUESTION] Do you anticipate a reduction in force as a result of this transaction?

[ADOBE] When two successful growing companies join together, the result is a combined organization that creates new and exciting opportunities. The combination will lead to powerful new areas of innovation, new products and solutions, and an acceleration of our respective growth agendas. At the same time, there will be some duplication of employee functions between the two companies, and upon the close of the transaction, we anticipate some level of reduction in force. While we anticipate the integration team will identify opportunities for cost savings, the primary motivation for this acquisition is to continue to expand and grow our businesses into new markets.

[TRANSLATION] Yes.

via John Gruber at Daring Fireball

Obviously, a large merger presents some challenges for the PR professional, especially when it comes to talking about job losses. But what if you have an audience that doesn’t want to hear you obfuscate? And what if they react somewhat sarcastically (like John did, or worse) when you do?

It places a much higher burden on the communicator – you have to speak clearly, personally, and honestly or risk offending an audience that has the power to make itself heard (look at who’s linking to John’s PR send-up.)

Ugh. I wish I could write something enjoyable about this. My hosting company, Bloghosts, which has served me well for almost a year, is shutting down in January.

That means I have to move lots of files and databases to a new server. So posting may be light for a few days while I get everything sorted out.

I’m sorry to see them go.

Remember that middle-school geography question about how many colors it takes to fill in a map of the United States so that no state borders another of the same color?

My question is, how many colors does it take to fill in the map so that each state borders only others of the same color?

One would seem to be the obvious answer. But it looks like we’re getting pretty close using two.

I love when headlines aren’t quite sure of themselves:

via Newsdesigner

Sadly, I can’t muster the concentration required for a cogent post this evening. I could set the alarm an hour earlier for tomorrow, but unless I stumble upon some really interesting election coverage, let’s face it, you’re not going to be interested.

Besides the election (which happily seems to be floating along quite non-violently), nothing I could write would have a chance of getting much attention this post-election day. There is something about a new puppy; soggy piles of leaves in the back yard; The Lion King. Any of these would make a perfect sacrifice to the election news cycle. But so would a blank page. Even better would be a post about not writing a post, which is what this thing appears to be turning into.

So I leave you to ponder Dan Rather’s incoherencies. My favorite was when he said something about how Missouri would “swing count Bassie.” Just try to imagine what it’s like inside his head. Must be like standing on the half-line of a dodge ball game that’s being played with wet kittens.

See you tomorrow.

Today’s the big day. The presidential election. It warms my heart to think of the millions of other people writing about it at this very moment. People from all across the country; all across the globe. Maybe in the distant future we will be neighbors on the pages of a history book.

My real-life neighbors have stopped giving me free bread, soup and pastries – as they used to do – because their grandson no longer works at the bakery from where the goods came. But they brought me a lawn sign of their preferred political persuasion. They are old-school democrats, by which I mean they are old people who are democrats. He flew combat missions over Berlin in the Second World War. Got hit in the eye with shrapnel.

Once, when I asked him if he thinks about the war much, he said, “I’m pretty much over thinking about it. Got too many other things to think about.”

Doesn’t everybody. Like me, I have squirrels living above the porch. The squirrels are not political, though, so at least there’s that.

But I’m sure they, like everybody else, will feel a great sense of relief when this thing is over. In March I joked about the “grueling race” that was coming between Bush and Kerry. I should have joked more. It was worse than we thought it’d be.

And yet, it wasn’t all that bad. People are still speaking to each other. Some lawn signs have been defaced, true, but the things that hold us together are still holding. The tabloids are still more interested in Mary-Kate’s emotional state than the state of the union. And I’m guessing no matter who wins today (or sometime this month), they will continue to be.

So it’s not our democracy I’m worried about. It’s our children. They’re always the biggest losers on election day. Why? Because we let them vote. Or at least, we let them pretend to vote. Schools everywhere today will be holding mock elections, letting 7 and 8-year-olds fake-choose our next commander-in-chief. This is not a new thing. I did it when I was in grade school; in 1988, Brimhall Elementary was a landslide, a crushing and decisive win for Dukakis.

When I went home that day I thought, “OK, that was nice, what’s next?” We’d elected the president, we’d made the tough choices and picked our man. Let’s move on. Bigger things.

So I was a little surprised that night when the evening news came on. It seemed word of the Massachusetts governor’s victory had not spread rapidly. By the next day, it was clear the rest of the country had vetoed our vote. Or invalidated it. Perhaps we had mispunched?

The mood at school was glum. The whole experience was meant to help us learn about democracy, but the only thing we were learning was that it didn’t work. We picked Dukakis, not Bush. Period. What kind of democracy is this?

Which is not to say that we shouldn’t allow kids to vote. It’s a good introduction to the democratic process. It’s just that we shouldn’t let them vote for the losers.

On the other hand, picking the losing side is a good way of proving to yourself that the world doesn’t end if your man (woman?) doesn’t win. It happened to me in ’88, and then again in 2000 and 2002. In my entire voting history I’ve never been on the winning side. Or maybe it’s that the winner has never been on my side. But that builds character.

And it’s never diminished my enthusiasm for voting. Today after work my girlfriend and I are going to walk down there hand-in-hand, like two school-kids, hoping the vote tally comes down on our side. And after that exercise of civic duty we’re going to go exercise it a little more.

At The Gap. It’s the first Tuesday of the month; 10% off.

My mom never handed out Halloween candy. It was against her principles. Or something. Not a religious thing; she just hated Halloween. She hated everything about it; the dressing up, the skulls, the witches.

In her mind, Halloween was a celebration of evil and death (and of evil death). It was not something she’d grown up with in Argentina. Young people don’t do anything resembling Halloween there (except, perhaps, mugging people for money/candy, but that’s not the same spirit).

To hear my parents tell it, most holidays in Argentina involve military parades. That pretty much explains why they don’t do Halloween. Even if you could find that many costumes, it’d be pretty terrifying to see 10,000 soldiers dressed as grim reapers marching down the main avenue in town. Sort of faux-apocalyptic. Or real-apocalyptic, depending on your disposition.

So throughout my youth, my mom’s October thirty-firsts were pronouncedly uneventful. They began with her helping my sister and I find costumes. For me, that meant opening a bottle of wine, burning the end of the cork, and smudging my face with hot soot. Then I’d throw on some nylons, wrap a silk handkerchief around my head, and declare myself a pirate.

Once the costumes were finalized, we’d take them off, put on six or seven layers of sweaters and long underwear, and then put them on again. Things changed over the years; I grew, made new friends, lost old ones. But no matter what happened, come the end of October my costume was the same: chubby, swordless pirate.

Honestly though, it never bothered me. Somehow it was fitting. Maybe it still is.

After we were dressed, we armed ourselves with pillowcases (not spares, mind you; our everyday, functioning pillowcases) and went out into the candy-y night. The minute we stepped out the door, every light in the house went off. She must have had them on a timer or something.

From the street you could barely tell the house was there. For my sister and I, it was like walking away from a black hole. But unlike that miracle of physics, our house was meant to repel, not attract. My mom’s stated objective was to make children (or their parents) believe that this place was not only unlikely to have any nice or sweet things to give away, but was also very probably unsuitable for living creatures.

And yet, some kids always ventured. Why is it kids insist on going where they are clearly not intended to go? If a house is completely dark and displays no Halloween paraphernalia most people will conclude these people either aren’t home or don’t want visitors. But not kids. For them, a dark house is a challenge.

It’s like they think someone’s trying to fool them out of candy they rightfully deserve. _Oh, I see, they turned the lights out so we won’t get their candy, those jokers. Well, we’ll show them!_

But they didn’t show anyone. If my mom even bothered to come to the door, she came bearing a frown and nothing more. She had no candy. I remember her going through the house the week before Halloween just to make sure there was nothing around that could possibly be misconstrued as candy.

Oftentimes, though, she’d just stay in bed. She’d put on headphones and listen to _I Pagliacci_ so loud the frantic knocking of sugar-crazed children was no louder than the ticking of her bedside clock.

Meanwhile, her children (that’s me) would be out in the neighborhood, greedily collecting from anyone who dared crack open their door. We were ruthless, I tell you. Completely without mercy. _Out of candy? TOO BAD! Get out your wallet or something cause we’re not leaving without out at least six more ounces in the bag._

_Fine. In the pillowcase. Whatever. Make with the Lincolns._

I’m sure I must have felt bad about taking candy from all these people when I knew my mom was refusing to give candy to their kids. But that feeling was hidden deep inside, in a place obscured by partially digested Milk Way bars and un-chewed Sour Patch Kids.

But in a way, it didn’t matter. Because those kids had normal parents who carved pumpkins and hung dried corncobs on their front doors. When they got home, their moms and dads would probably check their candy for razor blades; mine would simply advise us to empty out the pillowcase before going to bed. Not as comfortable, you know?

And then, even before we started eating it, my sister and I would carefully search for a hiding place for our candy. This was because my dad would have no qualms about throwing it in the garbage the next day. One night of this strange American tradition he could withstand; after that, back to normal. Things with artificial flavors and Yellow #5 might as well have been labeled “Radioactive”. Candy bars lived on the lam in our house, always seconds away from a cruel and heartless demise in the depths of the trashcan.

All of which explains why, now that I have my own house, I’m so eager to participate in the Halloween tradition. Last night we set out those little lunch-bag jack-o-lantern lights, put pumpkins on the front porch, and strung up little orange pumpkin lights. The house was practically singing, “We want to give you candy!”

But no one came. Scratch that: seven kids came. And three of them were suspiciously teenaged-looking.

The first two girls were dressed as princesses or queens, but they wouldn’t speak. They just looked at me doe-eyed and felt around in the candy bowl. Trying to avoid the trick-or-treat pencils, I presume.

After them came the teens, who clearly weren’t even taking themselves seriously. You’re too old to trick-or-treat if you were born in the same decade as the person handing out the candy. Rule of thumb.

At the end of the night, when it became clear there weren’t going to be any more kids, I turned out the pumpkin lights and closed up shop. There was barely a dent in the huge mound of candy in the bowl. A disappointing turnout, but then, fewer kids at the door means more Kit-Kats in my belly.

And more chocolate in my pillowcase. Just in case my dad stops by.

Just links today… hmmm, where to start?

Well, it is, as you know, Halloween weekend, which, judging by the elevated hype and hysteria, has been promoted to national holiday status. If that’s the case, you might as well have some good Halloween music to go along with it. And a candy corn flag.

Somehow it seems fitting that the White House is haunted. Can you imagine the number of people who have been killed in that place? Why, some!

And if you don’t just want to _see_ dead people, but _make_ some_, you’re going to have to train yourself to use some kind of weapon. I suggest playing cards. Aim for these spots.

And now for some weird robots: a drummer, for when your bandmate stays out too late drinking, an excellent Mario Brothers player, for when your roommates pass out from video-game exhaustion (believe me, I’ve seen it happen), and a hungry president, to replace those gaunt-looking candidates (oh, wait, that’s not a robot).

Finally, if your Halloween plans are scant, you can always amuse yourself other ways. Use this private library kit to put circulation cards in your books so your friends won’t steal them (they still will, though). Or, tie a digital camera to a kite and take pictures from above. Of course, this would be much more fun if you tied the camera to yourself, and then tied yourself to the kite, but then who’d hold the string?

You know what The West Wing needs? Besides a kick in the pants? A Reality-Track. Like a laugh track, that ubiquitous background gurgle of the sitcoms. But instead of coming in at the punch lines, it would appear at those perfect moments when the show mutilates reality like a street mime playing Hamlet.

When those moments came (and they seem to be coming more frequently this season), the tape would kick in with sounds of amused laughter and sporadic vomiting. Seriously. It would make the show so much more bearable.

Not that it isn’t bearable. I mean, it isn’t. It never really has been, for me. It’s always given me the urge to throw a wet towel at the screen. But at the same time it’s highly addictive. The cheesy schmaltzy dreck (funny, Word knows schmaltzy but chokes on dreck; where _is_ my Yiddish word-processor) has traditionally been relieved by snappy, fast-paced dialogue that makes me think, “Yeah! Go White House! Gooooooooo!”

And for that reason I’ve always considered myself a fan (to the same extent that I’m a Twins fan; it like them when they’re good). Martin Sheen, for all his extra-terrestrially saintly qualities, makes the presidency look cool, like being the captain of the football team. Or the lead singer for a good band.

But even when Aaron ‘Maybe I Shouldn’t Have Written “Isaac and Ishmael”‘ Sorkin (no really, see for yourself) was writing, the show suffered from frequent and overwhelming bouts of histrionitis: the irrational belief that everything would somehow just work out if only actors were in charge.

I watched tonight’s episode with my girlfriend and our friend Alex, who is a disturbingly committed West Wing fan. Besides having a mad (but repressed) crush on Josiah Bartlett, her birthday happens to coincide with Mr. Isaac and Ishmael’s, which she takes as Proof From God she was meant to be on the show. She loves Allison Janey, and somehow procured a disposable coffee cup C.J. used during a press conference on the show.

“This was _on_ The West Wing!” she said, repeatedly, after she got it. “That means I was _on_ the show!”

Well, you know how some people are. You’re not friends with them because of their devotion to rational behavior. In fact, in Alex’s case, probably just the opposite. Plus I’m sure she’d put up with any strange things I did, if I did them, which I don’t.

Back to Josiah, though.

On last night’s show the Reality-Track was in full effect. To begin with, the show’s writers would have us believe that a top U.S. general could be killed in a terrorist car bombing and we wouldn’t reflexively blow the snot out of something, somewhere. Then they expect us to accept that another passenger riding in the car (which exploded and flipped over) would somehow survive. Why? Because she’s blonde, and cute.

Those things have saved me from car bombs countless times. But still.

The focus of the episode was on talks the president was holding at Camp David between the Israelis and the Palestinians. I could overlook the _so-five-years-ago_ nature of this plot line. But when Friday night came and the opposing factions stopped negotiations to observe their respective Sabbaths, I gagged so hard my pants ripped.

For 16 minutes (or something) we had to watch a God-awful montage alternating between the Jews and the Muslims doing their holy stuff. “See…they’re so similar,” the show practically shouted as it faded (for the eighth time) between the Israeli prime minister and the Palestinian chairman glowing in spiritual trances.

And then, as if the montage hadn’t been condescending enough, when it ended one of the president’s staff just went ahead and said it, “They’re so similar, the Jews and the Palestinians. Throughout history no one has ever wanted either of them.” (Quoting from memory here.)

Uh… I’ll accept that Jews and Muslims are very similar. But what’s this about history not wanting Jews? What about the Jewish Autonomous Oblast, a nice piece of snowy land in Siberia given to us by Lenin in 1928? That’s resort country, folks, in case you don’t know, right up there next to Khabarovsk Krai, the Aspen of the East.

Anyway, why does The West Wing have to coat everything in an impenetrable layer of syrupy sentimentalism? It’s a political show written by people who should be writing for Oprah.

Sorry Alex, but it’s true. Martin Sheen and the Big O would make a great team, either politically or on a talk show. “Should we bomb the Kumaris, Mr. President?,” asks the bomb-surviving coma-overcoming hotty with a good heart.

“I’m not sure, let’s ask the V.P. What do you think Op’?”

“I think someone’s got a special gift waiting for them under their seat!”

“Oh, oh, oh! Oh, you didn’t! A new Pontiac! OhmygodIcan’tbelieveit!”

And then the real twist: new Pontiacs for everyone at Camp David. The Israelis, the Palestinians, even the Secret Service agents.

Then they’d all go on a little caravan through the countryside, bumpin’ some crazy tunes in their new convertibles.

God, I wish the real world were more like The West Wing, then maybe we wouldn’t be having all this terrorism and stuff. People just want to get along, y’know? And drive Pontiacs.

Man, Vice President Oprah is the best.