Month: December 2003

On the walk over, I listened to parts one and two of Christopher Lydon’s interview of Joe Trippi. As I listened something occurred to me about the significance of money in the Dean campaign. While the campaign is proud of its ability to match big donor funding with lots of little contributions, many in the weblog community are critical of the need for big money at all. The Internet is cheaper than television and in many ways better than television. Why raise lots of money on the Internet, only to spend it on TV advertising? But there’s another angle to consider: the donor’s. Contributions provide a way of keeping score that’s hard to fake. Rapid feedback on each contribution, that enables the little guys to see themselves matching big donor contributions, is empowering. That empowerment is an important part of the story, regardless of what the money is spent on. Personally, I’d prefer more wallet-friendly forms of empowerment, or at least to see the money spent on something other than TV advertising. Say, our national debt.

The story in Somerville today is not the snow, but the ice. The roads are slicked over, to the extent that every other car was spinning its wheels up the shallow incline of Summer Street. I decided to hoof it instead of waiting for a bus that might never arrive.

I just cracked open my last bottle of two-buck chuck. Nine bottles later, I can’t say that it tastes any better. Incidentally, calling Charles Shaw a “table wine” on account of its low price/quality is a misnomer according to epicurious: ” In the United States the official definition is a wine that contains a minimum of 7 percent alcohol and a maximum of 14 percent. This definition does not define quality in any way, although some connote table wine with lower-quality, inexpensive wine. That’s a mistake because many wines that simply say “Red Table Wine” or “White Table Wine” are excellent and not at all inexpensive.”

Dave adds recent categories to his sidebar. I like the way it bubbles information up. “What’s Dave thinking about?” The answer is right there, no clicks required. Once my overloaded schedule settles down I’m going to take a serious look at layering these ideas onto Movable Type’s flat category system. Unless someone else does first.