Adam R Brown

Hmm, something isn’t quite right. I taped an interview with Hillary on CNN, and while watching a segment frame-by-frame, I noticed that Hillary’s face completely changed for 1/100 second, then it changed again, and again, for a total of four flash changes. These are the screen captures:

(Want to read the rest of this post? Click here.)

I received a letter today from my parents. The post office canceled the stamp by printing a quotation from John Adams over it: “Let us dare to read, think, speak, and debate.” Below was a link to poweroftheletter.com .

So I went to the site. It’s a promotion for an HBO biopic of the second president. Huh? Hey, if HBO wants to pay some money to keep postage down for the rest of us, I guess that’s okay.

At the site, there was some prose talking about how much we know about John Adams thanks to his letters, implying that we should all write more letters:

In his prolific correspondence, John Adams left us a remarkable first-person account of the birth of our nation, as well as a candid portrait of his life and personal relationships. John and his wife Abigail’s letters offer a window to our past; we can be inspired to revive this tradition, to return to the enduring power of the written word, and leave a legacy for future generations.

The (implied) argument is that we should write more (hard-copy) letters as a gift to future historians. This argument is incorrect, though. True, we know more about Adams and his wife than about most people from that period because of their letters. But these days, it’s easier to know about people if they write blogs and emails instead of letters, since those are so easy to archive, search, and distribute. Today, people who rely on paper correspondence actually make themselves less visible to the world, not more.

My, how things change.

Today I had a telephone call from Scarlett Johansson . Yep. She says “hi.”

Okay, seriously, does anybody actually listen to automated phone calls urging you to vote for so-and-so? (In this case, she was urging me to vote for Obama.) Once I hear the recording start, I just hang up.

Hmm. I guess that’s a testable question. Previous research has shown that calls from nonpartisan turnout advocates don’t work , but I don’t recall anything offhand about partisan appeals like this one.

I sense a research project coming up…

I keep seeing sentences like this in coverage of the Republican primaries (source ):

The Republican race so far has been a muddle, with McCain winning New Hampshire and South Carolina, Romney winning his home state of Michigan and Mike Huckabee winning Iowa.

Now, that gives the impression that McCain is leading. Pop quiz: Which states are missing? Reporters seem to have forgotten that Wyoming and Nevada have also held their primaries. (Actually, a caucus in Nevada, a primary in Wyoming, but whatever.)

This is the correct count so far. Why, then, do reporters talk as though McCain is leading?

• Romney has Michigan, Wyoming, and Nevada–67 delegates total.
• McCain has New Hampshire and South Carolina–38 delegates total.
• Huckabee has Iowa (and is fading fast)–26 delegates total.

I’m neither a Republican nor a Democrat. (In California, independent voters like me can participate in the Democratic primary or not participate at all, so I’ll be participating in the Democratic one.) And even if I were a Republican, Romney isn’t my first pick. (Hint: It’s one of the other two listed above.) So don’t think I’m only bringing this up to support Romney.

I just think it’s weird that reporters keep acting like the mountain west doesn’t exist.