Sarah Davies

My friend Barry has been having some trouble lately. It seems his spine, which was so straight and strong last November 4th, is bending and crumbling. I think he needs a good old fashioned left-coast pep talk. I keep telling him to come out to Seattle so I can read the definitions of the words “fierce” and “advocate” to him from my Oxford English Dictionary, but apparently he’s a busy man.

So I’ve booked my flight to Washington. I’ve tried repeatedly to make appointments, but his secretary doesn’t realize who I am, so that hasn’t panned out. However, I hear he frequents modern dance performances, so I’ll have to attend those regularly. Posh restaurants might be a good idea too.

I’ll be telecommuting to my day-job, and never fear, I’ll be back to Seattle in the fall. My partner Brian got some dead-end fellowship to work for a scrappy little nonprofit called Public Knowledge, so he’ll be tagging along. And I figured I’d better bring the geekling for cover when I’m attending children’s events on the lookout for Malia and Sasha.

So ping me if you’re in or around DC. I won’t be spending the whole time harassing my backwards elected officials. I do like some of them – like that dreamy Jim McDermott and his fantastic single-payer health care plan. I should bake him some cookies. I will be hopping around the east coast some while I’m out there, and you should be able to find me at local tech or storytelling events (BarCamp, PechaKucha, Ignite, etc.)

Bon Voyage!

Twitscoop scans twitter in real time for words that are suddenly becoming popular. This screenshot was taken 90 minutes after the ruling. I think it tells its own story, but I would like to add my appreciation that the first three readable words in the cloud are “ban bigots bullshit”. A rallying cry if I’ve ever heard one!

Since when has due process been a “legal tradition“? I’m sorry, Mr. Glaberson, but this isn’t like dancing around a Maypole, or saying “trick or treat.” Using a gavel in courtrooms is a tradition. Locking up humans indefinitely without any hope of a trial is a gross violation of the very foundations on which our country has rested for the last 232 years.

If you’re not getting Harper’s Weekly Review in your inbox each Tuesday, you should be. Here are some gems from today’s:

Obama … claimed victory before a crowd of almost 20,000 people in St. Paul, Minnesota, knocking knuckles with his wife, Michelle, in a gesture known as “dap.” “It thrilled a lot of black folks,” said author Ta-Nehisi Coates. “He wears his cultural blackness all over the place. Barack is like Black Folks 2.0.”

After reading that amusing quote, I googled Ta-Nehisi Coates, and it turns out he’s got a pretty funny blog.

And regarding the McCain speech:

Pundits were surprised by McCain’s clumsy rhetoric, by his lack of teleprompter skills, and by the fact that he stood in front of an ugly green backdrop. “Content better than delivery,” said Karl Rove. “John McCain,” said Mort Kondracke of “Roll Call,” “sounded old.” A messenger delivered a handwritten note from McCain to Obama’s Chicago offices inviting the Democratic presidential nominee to a series of Goldwater-Kennedy-style debates. Bill Burton, an aide to Obama, told the messenger, “You know, you could have just emailed this.”

That’s a pretty decent summary of how I feel dealing with old people in the tech field sometimes…

For the third year in a row, the consumption of oranges in Britain declined because people were too busy to peel the rind off the fruit.

Hmm… I’ve felt that way too.

More than two dozen vandals who hosted a party inside Robert Frost’s former home were ordered to take a class on his poetry, taught by Frost’s biographer. “This is where Frost is relevant,” Jay Parini said to the class, speaking about Frost’s poem “The Road Not Taken.” “You come to a path in the woods where you can say, ‘Shall I go to this party and get drunk out of my mind?’ Everything in life is choices.”

It’s like Harper’s is reading my mind!

Haley, an eight-year-old Indiana girl who had emergency surgery after eating more than 10 magnets and 20 steel balls, said she swallowed the pieces because they “looked like candy.” Her parents said they were confused about how she could have done such thing because “she gets A’s and B’s.” Scientists located the part of the brain responsible for understanding sarcasm.

I don’t know about you, but those two pieces of news seem well paired to me.

Also in the realm of comical lefty news reviews, did you know there’s a free podcast of Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me? I’m saving them up on my ipod for long car trips this summer. My six-year-old is going to hate me…

Correction: Said six-year-old would like it to be known that she is six and a half.