Ropes of Sand

Work, Democrat. Work.

So it looks like I've taken a while to warm up to the whole blog thing, but I'm feeling toastier after 16 months, as I have something to shill for...

My friend and frat brother Thomas Bates has started an organization called Democrats Work. The general idea is to pair avowed Democrats with already-existing service organizations, so as to increase visibility of Democrats doing the things Democrats do anyway (as we are a good and charitable people), as well as to maintain the roots of the grass outside of the election cycle. It has some other objectives, which you can read all about at the website. Long story short, the first round of states they are targeting are Nevada, Colorado, Arkansas and Ohio. (SAS/Ian/Balou, I'm looking at you... more to come, let me know if you are interested in the slightest.)

While Mr. Bates was out here in sunny Denver (where I reside), I tagged along with him to a few Democratic events and discovered that a) if you want to be "into" politics you pretty much have to read political blogs, and b) man, I sure don't read blogs (except for this one, of course). All this talk of my discomfort with blogs is making me feel old. Also, my knees hurt from playing beach volleyball. Yes, Denver.

Literarily (this is a writer-type blog, right?), looks like Orhan Pamuk won the Nobel Prize. The Times points out that this continues a trend of choosing writers who are in opposition to their States, even though they purportedly award the thing based purely on literary merit. Called to mind Joyce Carol Oates' National Book Award acceptance speech, though on re-reading it I think that's more to do with a) faulty powers of association/recollection and b) limited pool of appropriate associations to draw on.

In closing, this is old news, but Bill Moyers did a pretty neato series - "On Faith and Reason" - for his PBS show. You can get it as a podcast, or watch the videos on the site (though I don't see anything when I just tried it). Generally speaking, he's pretty dope. So is the segment with David Grossman on his retelling of the Samson story. Word.

posted by umbilicalkid @ Thursday, October 12, 2006