Nathaniel Salzman

The most recent, last-ditch tactic of the McCain campaign is trying to paint Obama as a socialist. Phrases such as “Obama is the most liberal senator in congress” and “he favors the redistribution of wealth” are at the forefront of the latest fear mongering attempt by the campaign. Sadly, it’s also being vehemently repeated by the unfortunate souls buying into this line of horse shit rhetoric.

“Most liberal.” What does that even mean? Is he especially pro-choice? The “redistribution of wealth” argument first showed up on my radar in the final presidential debate where McCain cited Obama’s conversation with the now infamous Joe the Plumber as proof positive of Obama’s socialist, wealth sharing agenda. In the last few days, the actual word “socialism” has been added. McCain’s socialism tack is actually pretty ironic given that the current Republican administration has just literally socialized the majority of our banking system — a piece of legislation that McCain himself voted for and defends as necessary government intervention. Additionally, Obama has a long list of Republican endorsements. If he’s so liberal or so obviously a socialist, why does he have such a strong conservative following? Yet the McCain campaign continues to insist that we essentially trust them on this — “Obama is a socialist! Just look what he told Joe!”

With all the coverage that Joe’s gotten (ironically having now given more press conferences than Sarah Palin), what I missed was the actual conversation between Joe and Barack Obama. I’m kicking myself for not looking this up sooner. Here’s the conversation — a far cry from the socialist manifesto it’s been made out to be.

This to me is pretty much proof positive that the “trust us, he’s bad” point of view of the McCain campaign doesn’t hold a drop of water. Obama’s use of the phrase “spread the wealth” is obviously colloquialism, not socialist agenda. This is a great example of what we find when we listen to the source, not the feed.

With “socialist”, “terrorist”, and “Muslim” used up, the only asinine accusation left in the McCain fear arsenal would be that Obama is a closeted homosexual. I suppose there’s still time.

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I bought my first scooter not quite a year ago. It was a 1979 Vespa P200E. I loved that scooter, at least until I started riding it regularly. After a winter of working on it, looking at it, falling in love with the lines and its aircraft heritage and italian sensibility, I finally rode the thing for a couple months. Love and hate. Loved the look, and the handling wasn’t bad. Hated having to shift gears while learning to ride on two wheels, and soon learned that the brakes were mostly for show. I remember one particular ride in late March where I realized that if I were on a twist-and-go scooter, I’d be having worlds more fun.

A week later, I sold the Vespa and bought a Genuine Blur 150 on the recommendation of David Harrington and local ModernBuddy.com buddy, EP_scoot, who both have one in their garage. At first, I loved the Blur. It was so smooth, the brakes were magnificent, and the power was about the same as my P200E. The riding experience was a huge improvement over the P200E and I fell in love with scooting past the point of no return. But over time, what I thought I could live with in terms of imperfect ergonomics got to be, literally, a pain in my ass. As much as I loved the way the Blur sounded, handled, and usually sped away from traffic, after about half an hour my arse usually started hurting.
 

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My hat is all the way off to Keith Olbermann and the most spectacular string of on-air editorial I’ve ever seen or heard. I see here the kind of outrage that should be all over our media coverage right now. It’s a tremendous example of an informed journalist holding a politician truly responsible for what they say. What’s more, though the Right would surely color it as slant, this diatribe is fiery righteous indignation. That’s what I imagine those in the Right would have us miss. The press is “out to get them” because they haven’t swallowed their lies hook, line, and sinker. Rather, the media is at times getting in the way of their propaganda machine, and thank God for it.

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Minnesota Public Radio is easily the best NPR affiliate I’ve ever listened to. Not only is their schedule of NPR, PRI, BBC, CBC and in-studio programming superb, they offer three distinct listening options — MPR News, MPR Classical, and The Current. This avoids the trap so many NPR stations fall into where they schedule 3-4 hours of news or discussion during the day and fill the rest with classical music or jazz. I also have to give MPR credit for having one of the least annoying pledge drives in all of public broadcasting. Rather than harp on and on about specific numbers, they’ve learned that people are going to give what they give. So instead of asking for specific pledge amounts, Minnesota Public Radio does a member drive. They set goals on the number of contributing members they’ll add to their ranks at each drive, regardless of what each member gives. This drive, they’ll be adding me. Not that NPR doesn’t already deserve my financial support, but this app is above and beyond.

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