Thursday, March 23, 2006

I post, therefore I exist

What I've been up to:

Reading up about the late 19th century and the changes that occured then in both industrial organization and electoral politics. Its an interesting era that I don't think takes up much space in our popular consciousness. After all, it often seems that history begins in 1950, so far as Pop Culture and Political rhetoric is concerned. I wonder is that's because of the trauma of world war II, or because televison has become our primary technology of memory. Anyway, all this stuff goes down from 1865-1900 in which modern consumption and production patterns are established, the democrats and republicans establish themselves as the only two valid options in electoral politics, and the groundwork for modern cultural ideals is set out. It's pretty cool stuff, especially since the concerns of the era: a changing economic base, rising economic inequality, political corruption, have a certain contemporary resonance.

Spending far too much time on Myspace. Clicking around and looking at people's profiles is a shockingly addicting past-time, for reasons that are not immediately clear.

Reading my usual political blogs. I think its pretty cool that Feingold is at nearly 50% in the latest dKos straw poll. Sadly, as this salon article outlines, the chances of anyone stopping the Hillary machine are pretty slim. Even more sadly, I think the guy with the best chance of being a Hillary-slayer is probably Mark "I have a penis and I'm from the South and I'm basically a Republican" Warner. In that contest, count me among the Clintonistas. Meanwhile, the 2006 congressional election coverage, which should be getting rolling, has been noticably absent. 'Cause ya know, here in 'merica only the president matters.

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