Petulance and the Prize

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by Garrison Keillor writing for the New York Times.

Evidently some people were disappointed that Dick Cheney didn't receive the Nobel Peace Prize, and believe me, I sympathize — I thought Philip Roth should’ve gotten the literature prize instead of that grumpy Romanian lady with the severe hair — but it was Mr. Obama whom the Norwegians wanted to come visit Oslo in December and stand on the balcony of the Grand Hotel and wave to the crowd along Karl Johans Gate, and, face it, Mr. Obama is going to draw a bigger crowd than Mr. Cheney would have. When a man has shot somebody in the face with a shotgun, people are going to be reluctant to line up en masse in his presence lest he get excited again.

Going to Oslo in December and sitting through a black-tie banquet with a bunch of wooden-faced Norwegians and eating herring and delivering a speech larded with bromides about international cooperation and no jokes is not what I’d consider a whee of a good time, frankly. Oslo is rather dark and murky in December. The sun rises during the first coffee break and sets right after lunch and this does not make for a festive mood. Bell-bottoms were not invented in Norway, nor was the mambo, or the convertible. This isn’t Carnival in Rio.

Some conservative pundit suggested that the president should’ve declined the prize, but it is not gracious to reject a compliment, one should accept it with becoming modesty, as Mr. Obama did, that’s what your mother brought you up to do. The prize isn’t about you, it’s about Peace, or Literature, or Homecoming, or Champion Hog, or Male Vocalist of the Year, so walk up there and smile for the cameras, say thank you and sit down.

The wailing and gnashing of teeth that you hear among Republicans is 68 percent envy and 32 percent sour grapes. Here is an idealistic, articulate young president who is enormously popular everywhere in the world except in the states of the Confederacy, and here sit the 28 percent of the American people who still thought Mr. Bush was doing a heckuva job at the end, gnashing their teeth, hoping and praying for something horrible to happen such as an infestation of locusts or the disappearance of the sun, something to make the president look bad, which is not a good place for a political party to be, hoping for the country to slide into chaos. When you bet against America, you are choosing long odds.

A person can run down the list of all that’s wrong with this country, including the lobbyists who cross back and forth from public service to influence-peddling like alligators on the golf course, or the bankers who lost their minds in the great mortgage mania, but the country has a history of rising to challenges and turning away from demagogues and doing what needs to be done. Because we are a passionately patriotic people, infused with a love of our history and our land, and so we have limited patience for fools, such as the ones who now dominate the right.

Conservatism is a powerful strain in American life that ordinarily passes as common sense. Save for a rainy day. Don’t foul the nest. Don’t burn your bridges. Don’t sacrifice the future for short-term profit. But when it contradicts itself and becomes weighted down with bigotry and cynicism, then it doesn’t hold water any more.

F. Scott Fitzgerald said, “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.” And conservatives tried to keep functioning through the Bush administration but the contradictions wore them down, and last fall, when the federal government wrote a blank check to stave off collapse of the financial sector, conservative principles came crashing to the ground, and now all they have in common is that they don’t like President Obama.

O.K., but resentment of an American president being honored by the Norwegians is not a good point from which to build a Republican revival. Petulant fury isn’t a winning hand in politics. Get over it.

My fiance, Steffanie, often scoffs when I try to turn on A Prarie Home Companion in when we happen to be in the car on weekends when it's on. She gives me a look of pleading that says, 'Do we really have to listen to this?' Now, I confess I am not a HUGE fan of the show... I mostly like his long running skits (Guy Noir), the news from Lake Wobegon, and his quirky fake commerials. Mostly I like Garrison Keillor whom I think is one of the great living writers of our day.

And I especially like when he writes Op-Ed columns for the New York Times.

Google Wave First Look

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Gina Trapani former editor-in-chief at Lifehacker has posted an excellent article over at lifehacker (where she still posts from time-to-time) called "Google Wave First Look." I highly recommend reading her post to geek a feel of what Wave can do, that is, if you haven't already watched the demo video from the I/O Conference from earlier this year.  Gina also makes this excellent point which everyone who is lucky enough to receive an invite should keep in mind:

Wave is only as useful as the people who are in it, so if you get an invitation and the privilege of giving out invitations, do use them very wisely.

 Remember, you only get 8 "nominations" initially. If you blast these out to 8 of your closest friends, 6 of whom are really geeks and might not really use it, you've just run the risk of detrimentally affecting your initial wave experience because you now have no one use Wave with (unless you want to go out on Twitter and find random strangers to try it out with). Be selective with your newfound Wave granting powers :) 

 

Tweetie 2 for iPhone and Mac Has Been Announced

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Within the last 24 hours, two notable reviews have been posted of the upcoming Tweetie 2 for the iPhone which is a complete re-write of the source code of the app. 

I highly recommend both to learn more about the upcoming features and improvements to the app:

 

Loren Brichter, the developer of Tweetie, posted a tweet today stating that he submitted the final build of 2.0 to Apple on the night of Sept. 29th for Apple to review & post to the App Store. I hope sooner, rather than later, considering recent App Store approval controversies.

Yesterday, after Loren's initial blog post announcing the upcoming App improvements, I @'ed him to ask if he would please restore the wonderful blue color the initial version 1.0 used (on the mac)  to highlight tweets as you scrolled through them with your keyboard arrow keys. Shortly after 1.0 was removed, a certain percentage of it's users complained about this color choice. Loren chose to remove the blue and set it to white. I was a part of the OTHER group of users that hated the new white color, but preferred the original blue.   He responded to me via his @atebits_support account, and while I wish he would have been a little more specific, I now look forward to a color selection drop down box. Hopefully.

I wont even begin to go into all of the upcoming new features and changes to the app. That's why I linked the two reviews above. Read those. I will say that, after reading those, I'm looking forward to Tweetie 2 with earnest on both my Mac and iPhone.