tech in africa (and mali specifically!)

very interesting article on linux in africa, which mentions mali specifically. i have been dealing with this on a very micro level since i helped facilitate a friend buying a OLPC laptop for his daughter. she was in mali, but had been having fun with my laptop when she was here. so he had me buy a OLPC laptop for her, and sent it over. it was fine, however, she was frustrated by the seeming limited nature of the computer. in fact, if she had access to someone who knew linux, she could do tons more with the machine and its long charge, indestructible nature, etc than she probably could do with a crashing windows machine. this article explains the contradictions in the windows/linux problem in much more macro detail.

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When Linux fails

Posted by Jeremy Allison @ 11:59 am

[The opinions expressed here are mine alone, and not those of Google, Inc. my current employer.]

Recently I was able to visit the Ontario Linux Fest. I love shows like Ontario, as they’re run by amateurs, not by professional show companies. Don’t get me wrong; the professional shows have their place too, but I don’t tend to listen to the other speakers at those shows as I’ve heard most of them before. I’m sure they’ve all heard my talks as well, so instead we tend to hang out in the speaker rooms trying to get the wireless network to work, and swapping airline travel horror stories.

I do listen to the talks at smaller shows. Amateur shows are a labor of love, and it shows. The line up of speakers at the Ontario show was fascinating. One talk in particular caught my eye, by Ian Howard, called “Free and Open Source Software in Africa - Emerging Opportunities for Linux”. The slides from his talk are available here. The talk itself didn’t disappoint, and it was quite shocking, at least to me. It was a positive and upbeat talk about his experiences in Africa promoting Linux and Open Source software. But what he was really teaching us was an understanding of how Linux can fail in places like Africa.

Ian had gone to Africa as part of an organization called Geekcorps, dedicated to promoting IT use in developing nations. He worked on a range of projects in Mali, a West African nation which, like most African nations, is very undeveloped as far as IT is concerned.

Nigerian students power up their laptopsAt first glance, Free and Open Source software should be perfect for places like Mali. The local economy is poor, and average salaries make proprietary software an unimaginable expense for most people there. Yet the place is overrun with copies of Microsoft Windows. This is the toxic effect of what is called software “piracy” of course, although it bears little resemblance to what occurs off the coast of Somalia and is better called copyright infringement, as that’s what it really is. Copyright infringement doesn’t sound as threatening or scary as “piracy” though, does it ? The outcome of this rampant illegal software copying is that Windows is seen as “the first world standard” and any attempt to push a cheaper alternative is strongly resisted. They consider it trying to cheat local people out of getting the same quality of software that is used in the developed world, even though it’s a legal way of getting quality software for free.

Ian’s group first worked on a custom Linux distribution called “Kunnafonix”, designed for local radio stations. Local radio stations are an incredibly important communication tool in Africa, and most of them run on proprietary systems imported from the West, ill-suited for the temperature extremes and power requirements found in rural Africa. Kunnafonix was designed to be easy to use, install and repair, could be run as a live CD, and contained copies of the Wikipedia encyclopedia and the Audacity audio processing software. Many problems in operation could be fixed by doing a simple one-click reinstall to reset the system into a known good state.

However, installation of Kunnafonix was resisted by many of the local organizations they had to work with. The local “computer support person” resented a solution that was so easy to use that it undermined the power and prestige they received by being the person to consult when a Windows computer had problems. It’s amazing to see the myth that Linux is hard to use, install, and support still being propagated in much of the media here in the U.S., when in reality it is resented by Windows administrators due to its ease of use and lesser requirements for professional support.

More successful was their project to extend the Internet into communities by wireless networking, creating innovative ways to extend the range of wireless networks. In the wonderful talk “A New Way to look at Networking” Van Jacobson, one of the creators of the modern TCP protocol, said “the Internet reaches everywhere in the world, it’s just that sometimes the latencies are really, really high”. Everyone in the world has access to the Internet, it’s just sometimes they get to it by bicycling to the next village to view content that someone has delivered to them by burning it onto a CD-ROM. Extending wireless networking to remote villages can cut that latency to the point where Internet access can make a positive difference to people’s everyday lives. They can check the local commodity prices to discover if it’s worth it before undergoing a day long trip to the market for example. This time they were able to teach local technicians to make and repair the wireless network infrastructure they were creating, which made a great difference.

In a region with no software development experience, even Open Source software isn’t going to help bootstrap a computer support or software industry where there is nothing to start with. Even though you can see all of the source code inside a Linux distribution, without local expertise and knowledge to support and maintain it, it might as well be a closed source Windows installation. In fact, as knowledge of Windows is already widespread in such areas, even though it’s due to illicit software copying, Windows may be a better choice until you can break through the network effects keeping it dominant.

What shone though clearly in Ian’s talk was that unless you can partner with the local people, and most importantly help them make money with the new systems you’re trying to get them to use, then you’re just another well-meaning interloper, trying to sell them something that probably won’t work. Making money is the key. Without the opportunity of economic benefits, people in developing countries simply don’t have the time to learn about Free and Open Source software, no matter how much it seems to fit their needs from an external point of view.

Jon “Maddog” Hall’s keynote talk at the Ontario Linux Fest also made this point in a very powerful way. Jon is a wonderfully entertaining speaker, and not afraid of controversy. Showing a picture of a child in the African bush holding a “One Laptop per Child” laptop he said, “I don’t care about this kid.” The audience drew a shocked breath. “He’s screwed,” continued Jon. “Five hundred miles of bush behind him, five hundred miles of bush in front of him. There’s nothing I can do to help here”. Jon flipped the slide to show a Brazilian “favela”, or slum city, with an incredibly dense population, seeming to cling to the side of a nearby hill. He said, “This is where I can help. These kids have electricity. They can get a network connection. I can do something with Open Source and Free Software here”.

Jon isn’t a callous person. He’s just decided to focus his resources on somewhere he knows he can help today. It’s hard to find fault with him for that.

Ian aimed higher, and when you aim higher you have further to fall when you miss. He’s recently completed an MBA, and is concentrating more on the business side of things than the technical. I learned a very valuable lesson from his talk though. Something I, like many Free and Open Source software geeks, often forget whilst concentrating on the technical side of the software we love. Sometimes, technical excellence isn’t enough. Linux and Open Source software can fail badly in the real world not because of technical issues, but because of economic issues. We have to remember the lesson learned in the US election of 1992, and again in 2008. Sometimes, “It’s the economy, stupid !”

long tail is dead

so i'm on this list serve (FA Worldmusic) where I occasionally weigh in. today i weighed in heftily - check it out.

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Nothing like being called out to make one sit down and start writing. ;) Thanks Dmitri!

Mark, I think the simple answer is that no one is making money from digital sales yet - even the top overall sellers like Katy Perry are not seeing large percentages of their income come from digital sales. 

Now onto the long tail of my response - The first thing I think it is important to mention in a discussion of the Long Tail is that it is a theory, or a concept. For those who weren't all geeked out when the term came to common use, the idea of the Long Tail as it relates to music and digital content was put forward by Chris Anderson, WIRED editor. For the Wiki history of this check out  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Long_Tail

His blog is now called The Long Tail (http://www.thelongtail.com/)

And the original article is here: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.10/tail.html

You can also get the book from the retailers he has linked to in his blog.

The quick overview (cribbed from wikipedia) is that TLT (the long tail) describes the niche strategy of businesses that sell a large number of unique items, each in relatively small quantities. Given a large enough availability of choice, a large population of customers, and negligible stocking and distribution costs, the selection and buying pattern of the population results in a power law distribution curve. This suggests that a market with a high freedom of choice will create a certain degree of inequality by favoring the upper 20% of the items ("hits" or "head") against the other 80% ("non-hits" or "long tail"). The idea among those of us who live in the this long tail was that digital would free us from the oppression of major label domination and allow smaller labels and artists to make a living from sales within the long tail. 

From my own experience within a company entirely dependent on long tail sales (CalabashMusic.com), it was painfully apparent that the "negligible stocking & distribution costs" (along with other costs like licensing, marketing, software development, etc) were in fact major blocking points. To overcome these costs would require investment of outside money, which has (to my knowledge) not yet happened with this particular retailer. 

Others apparently have been seeing this and other flaws in the theory, and as Anderson noted on his blog, there has been a flurry of reappraisals of the Long Tail (http://www.longtail.com/the_long_tail/2008/11/more-long-tail.html). These reappraisals I think are what caused Ian to originally post his note here.

So I guess the question for us in the theoretical Long Tail (if it exists), the question remains, where is the Long Tail as a theory today and how can we (if applicable) put it to use for our artists, our market, our companies? From what I'm reading and seeing, the general consensus is that TLT (the long tail) is dead, or that the theory has been disproven. 

Currently, I'm working inside a recommendations company (a key part of Anderson's original thesis), and what I see troubles me in terms of looking at "world music" and other related independent music. As has been well documented, overall music sales are declining (with the growth in digital not nearly enough to offset losses in physical sales, in which non-top100 sales are even more depressed), and has been amply stated, discussed, and anecdotally shown on this list, independent artists now do NOT make a living off selling recorded music (not sure if they ever did, but that's a different story). The existing modes of distribution don't work horribly well for long tail artists, and future modes (mobile phones) certainly don't. For most mobile services I've seen from the inside, only 1-3% of the catalog ever sells, and maybe only 5% gets looked at. These numbers just don't work for "long tail artists". We did just start working with a retailer focused on independent music, so it'll be very interesting to see how/if recommendations can drive customers down the long tail to more unknown content.

I am in agreement with a line in the original article "With cheap production tools and the internet as a new distribution channel, some costs of production are indeed lowered, and some artists can indeed cut out (or "disintermediate") the middle man. But those old rules still make a significant difference to your business strategy. "In particular, the division of labour and economies of scale still have tremendous relevance to understanding today’s market”, Page notes. The division of labour means it can benefit you to employ a specialist intermediary, while economies of scale mean the bigger you are, the better terms you can negotiate."

In laymans terms, I think the biggest blocking point to accessing new audiences, or to accessing an audience that cares are marketing (dollars & strategies) and filters. Megan discussed filters, and I concur with her - we should be cultivating sites that feature only certain types of music, developing good and interesting writers, cultivating fan writers/promoters, etc - creating & loving filters (Mondomix, Calabash, AfroPop, etc etc etc). 

That's the easy part.

The hard part is from that piece I quoted above and has to do with marketing & access. Small artists can't get the same terms as major labels. And even small labels can't get those same terms. And the kicker - major labels are not sharing their well negotiated terms with individual artists on their rosters. Also, majors have much more money to experiment with strategies of marketing & distribution to find their fanbase, or develop a fan base. 

Folks who are way smarter than I are saying that things are in general shifting the other way of positive (Google's Eric Schmidt says we're in a 90/10 economy - worse than the traditional 80/20 model for us in the smaller piece - http://www.longtail.com/the_long_tail/2008/11/does-the-long-t.html).

And I think that Dmitri's comment "What I take from the Long Tail model is that artists who in the old model did not have access or ability to sell music or make a living, now can" is a misreading of the long tail and emergent technologies. Sure new technologies make artists available and accessible to the world in new ways. However, those technologies existence does not guarantee (or even offer in many cases) any financial return. 

Dmitri can place his clients all he wants on NPR, in the NYTimes, and in every other conceivable news outlet. But if those artists don't actually make money through sales, or aren't available (or easily available) in a sales outlet, then they don't have money to hire him again. More important than album sales, if those artists can't develop a fan network through touring or social network outreach, they won't have money to record again, to tour again, to hire marketers again. In short, most artists are in the same boat as before. Lowered costs of hosting, recording, etc don't change the demand equation, only the supply side equation. We have to be in the business of developing demand, not supply. Supply will always be there. But we have to be develop demand. 

Artists have to follow Megan's advice and build a career, build a fanbase, not just put out a digital release and expect to get rich due to the long tail. They DO have to know about digital technology, and how to use it. They do have to know that things are interconnected. For example, do you (or your artist) know what is on their wiki page? Or know that this page is then shot off to Last.fm for use on their pages? Or used in Songbird's music player implant mashTape? If that page is blank, your artist is a nothing to users of those services. 

Again, back to developing demand. This is our job - create audiences, find audiences, get them interested in the music we love. And we're not alone, which is great. This means we can work and share models and actual festivals/venues/etc with folk musicians, indy rockers, jazz artists, etc. These I think are the topics to discuss at APAP. How to collaborate, share knowledge, share resources, and build audiences. 

Anyway, that is more than enough from me at this point. If you want some more contrarian points of view, check out Will Page's critique of the 1000 fans model - http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/03/28/will_page_1000_fans/

peace.

erich

Helen Cleo Lumpkin Matlock

East Aurora, New York

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Helen Matlock, the center of gravity of our family for many years, passed away quietly this afternoon, in the presence of her children and their spouses, after a brief but intense illness, at the age of 85.

Helen was born on her family farm in Losantville, Indiana on June 4, 1923. She attended Purdue University, then Iowa State University, from which she graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree. After teaching high school Home Economics for a year, she married Corwin Young Matlock in 1946 and moved to Buffalo, New York. Mr. and Mrs. Matlock were married for 52 years before Mr. Matlock's death in 1998. The couple lived in Williamsville for fifty years and raised four children, including Ann Ludwig, Paul Matlock, Nancy Lucow, & Peter Matlock. Mrs. Matlock moved to East Aurora in 2000. Her last years were enriched through her special relationship with Larry Kimber, a fellow member of Orchard Park Friends Meeting, whom she married in 2006. A devoted mother and grandmother, Helen was the cherished and steady pillar of strength, common sense and wisdom for her extended family.

We are all saddened by her death, and will miss her immensely.

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Here are some selected photos that I had on my laptop of Boppee. . . more to come.

Helen / Boppee

Desmond Tutu on Obama

It is amazing when the people you hold up as heroes also are writing wondrous words about the man your country just elected as president. . .
Even if I don't always trust my own opinion, I do trust Mr. Tutu.

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The Man of Tomorrow
His election has turned America's global image on its head.

By Desmond Tutu
Sunday, November 9, 2008; Page B01

CAPE TOWN I am rubbing my eyes in disbelief and wonder. It can't be true that Barack Obama, the son of a Kenyan, is the next president of the United States.

But it is true, exhilaratingly true. An unbelievable turnaround. I want to jump and dance and shout, as I did after voting for the first time in my native South Africa on April 27, 1994.

We owe our glorious victory over the awfulness of apartheid in South Africa in large part to the support we received from the international community, including the United States, and we will always be deeply grateful. But for those of us who have looked to America for inspiration as we struggled for democracy and human rights, these past seven years have been lean ones.

A few days after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, we had our first shock, hearing your president respond not with the statesmanlike demeanor we had come to expect from a U.S. head of state but like a Western gunslinger. Later, it seemed that much of American society was following his lead.

When war began, first in Afghanistan and not long after in Iraq, we read allegations of prisoner abuse at Bagram air base in Afghanistan and of rendition to countries notorious for practicing torture. We saw the horrific images from Abu Ghraib and learned of gruesome acts performed in the name of gathering information. Sometimes the torture itself was couched in the government's euphemisms -- calling waterboarding an "interrogation technique."

To the outgoing administration's record on torture we must add a string of other policies that have damaged the standing of the United States in the world: its hostility to the Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse gases; its refusal to assent to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, establishing the ICC's role in prosecuting war crimes; its restrictions on the use of U.S. funding to fight AIDS; and the arrogant unilateralism it has employed in declaring to be enemies any countries it deemed "against us" because they were not "for us."

The Bush administration has riled people everywhere. Its bully-boy attitude has sadly polarized our world.

Against all this, the election of Barack Obama has turned America's image on its head. My wife was crying with incredulity and joy as we watched a broadcast of the celebrations in Chicago. A newspaper here ran a picture of Obama from an earlier trip to one of our townships, where he was mobbed by youngsters. It was tacitly saying that we are proud he once visited us.

Today Africans walk taller than they did a week ago -- just as they did when Nelson Mandela became South Africa's first black president in 1994. Not only Africans, but people everywhere who have been the victims of discrimination at the hands of white Westerners, have a new pride in who they are. If a dark-skinned person can become the leader of the world's most powerful nation, what is to stop children everywhere from aiming for the stars? The fact that Obama's Kenyan grandfather was a convert to Islam may -- shamefully -- have been controversial in parts of the United States, but elsewhere in the world, Obama's multi-faith heritage is an inspiration.

And the president-elect has one additional key quality: He is not George W. Bush.

Because the Bush years have been disastrous for other parts of the world in many ways, Obama's victory dramatizes the self-correcting mechanism that epitomizes American democracy. Elsewhere, oppressors, tyrants and their lapdogs can say what they like, and they stay put, for the most part. Ordinary citizens living in undemocratic societies are not fools; they may not always agree with U.S. foreign policy, but they can see and register the difference between the United States, where people can kick an unpopular political party out, and their own countries.

In the midst of this celebration, however, a word of caution is appropriate. In the first days after 9/11, the United States had the world's sympathy, an unprecedented wave of it. President Bush squandered it. Obama could squander the goodwill that his election has generated if he does not move quickly and decisively on the international front.

On human rights, President Obama needs to signal the changes his administration will bring by speedily taking a few high-profile symbolic actions. One might be to close that abomination, the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay. Another could be immediate replacement of guidelines on the treatment of detainees, thus putting the United States back in the mainstream of international humanitarian law. He could launch a comprehensive inquiry into who authorized torture and when. And it would be wonderful if, on behalf of the nation, he would apologize to the world, and especially the Iraqis, for an invasion that I believe has turned out to be an unmitigated disaster.

On humanitarian issues, he will be hard-pressed in the ongoing global financial crisis to match the current administration's generally admirable record. President Bush has succeeded in working with Congress to devote unprecedented amounts of money to fighting malaria, tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS. But if the United States is to show that it places as much value on a human life in Africa as on one in the United States, Obama actually has to improve on Bush's achievements.

Obama's election has given Americans the message that hope is viable, that change is really possible. He galvanized huge numbers of his compatriots across the board, particularly young people who had become disillusioned with politics. He drew huge numbers of volunteers and raised record amounts of money, not just in donations from the wealthy but in relatively small amounts from many so-called ordinary people. Judging by the reception he received in Berlin earlier this year, he has given the world similar hope.

The renowned African scholar Ali Mazrui has pointed out that Obama could never have gotten as far as he has without an exceptional level of trust on the part of white Americans. In this, his achievement is similar to what Nelson Mandela had achieved by the end of his presidency; Mandela's party may never have drawn a majority of white votes, but he has come to be revered by white as well as black South Africans as the founding father of our democracy.

Mazrui likens Obama to Mandela in other ways, saying that both men share a readiness to forgive and show "a remarkable capacity to transcend historical racial divides." Both, Mazrui says, are "potential icons of a post-racial age which is unfolding before our eyes."

Such a post-racial age for me has the characteristics of a rainbow. We are in a different time now than when I first spoke of a rainbow nation, describing the South Africa that Mandela led for the first time in 1994. But my vision for such a place remains. It is a place where people of each race and cultural group exhibit their own unique identity, their own distinct attributes, but where the beauty of the whole gloriously exceeds the sum of its parts.

Obama is the son of a Kenyan man and a Kansan woman. He spoke movingly about his background during his long campaign. Now he's the president-elect. His triumph can help the world reach the point where we realize that we are all caught up in a delicate network of interdependence, unable to celebrate fully our own heritage and place in the world, unable to realize our full potential as human beings, unless everyone else, everywhere else, can do the same.

Desmond Tutu is the Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984.

Krugman Strikes Again!

The Obama Agenda

Published: November 7, 2008

Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2008, is a date that will live in fame (the opposite of infamy) forever. If the election of our first African-American president didn’t stir you, if it didn’t leave you teary-eyed and proud of your country, there’s something wrong with you.

But will the election also mark a turning point in the actual substance of policy? Can Barack Obama really usher in a new era of progressive policies? Yes, he can.

Right now, many commentators are urging Mr. Obama to think small. Some make the case on political grounds: America, they say, is still a conservative country, and voters will punish Democrats if they move to the left. Others say that the financial and economic crisis leaves no room for action on, say, health care reform.

Let’s hope that Mr. Obama has the good sense to ignore this advice.

About the political argument: Anyone who doubts that we’ve had a major political realignment should look at what’s happened to Congress. After the 2004 election, there were many declarations that we’d entered a long-term, perhaps permanent era of Republican dominance. Since then, Democrats have won back-to-back victories, picking up at least 12 Senate seats and more than 50 House seats. They now have bigger majorities in both houses than the G.O.P. ever achieved in its 12-year reign.

Bear in mind, also, that this year’s presidential election was a clear referendum on political philosophies — and the progressive philosophy won.

Maybe the best way to highlight the importance of that fact is to contrast this year’s campaign with what happened four years ago. In 2004, President Bush concealed his real agenda. He basically ran as the nation’s defender against gay married terrorists, leaving even his supporters nonplussed when he announced, soon after the election was over, that his first priority was Social Security privatization. That wasn’t what people thought they had been voting for, and the privatization campaign quickly devolved from juggernaut to farce.

This year, however, Mr. Obama ran on a platform of guaranteed health care and tax breaks for the middle class, paid for with higher taxes on the affluent. John McCain denounced his opponent as a socialist and a “redistributor,” but America voted for him anyway. That’s a real mandate.

What about the argument that the economic crisis will make a progressive agenda unaffordable?

Well, there’s no question that fighting the crisis will cost a lot of money. Rescuing the financial system will probably require large outlays beyond the funds already disbursed. And on top of that, we badly need a program of increased government spending to support output and employment. Could next year’s federal budget deficit reach $1 trillion? Yes.

But standard textbook economics says that it’s O.K., in fact appropriate, to run temporary deficits in the face of a depressed economy. Meanwhile, one or two years of red ink, while it would add modestly to future federal interest expenses, shouldn’t stand in the way of a health care plan that, even if quickly enacted into law, probably wouldn’t take effect until 2011.

Beyond that, the response to the economic crisis is, in itself, a chance to advance the progressive agenda.

Now, the Obama administration shouldn’t emulate the Bush administration’s habit of turning anything and everything into an argument for its preferred policies. (Recession? The economy needs help — let’s cut taxes on rich people! Recovery? Tax cuts for rich people work — let’s do some more!)

But it would be fair for the new administration to point out how conservative ideology, the belief that greed is always good, helped create this crisis. What F.D.R. said in his second inaugural address — “We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals; we know now that it is bad economics” — has never rung truer.

And right now happens to be one of those times when the converse is also true, and good morals are good economics. Helping the neediest in a time of crisis, through expanded health and unemployment benefits, is the morally right thing to do; it’s also a far more effective form of economic stimulus than cutting the capital gains tax. Providing aid to beleaguered state and local governments, so that they can sustain essential public services, is important for those who depend on those services; it’s also a way to avoid job losses and limit the depth of the economy’s slump.

So a serious progressive agenda — call it a new New Deal — isn’t just economically possible, it’s exactly what the economy needs.

The bottom line, then, is that Barack Obama shouldn’t listen to the people trying to scare him into being a do-nothing president. He has the political mandate; he has good economics on his side. You might say that the only thing he has to fear is fear itself.

goosync psyched! psych?

i happily today was able to install goosync on my nokia e62 (i'm also now an ambassador for nokia's s60 program, so watch out, i'm gonna be pimping all sorts of things for them). 

so now i can see my google calendar appointments. HOWEVER (and this is a big one), i can only synch one calendar at a time unless i want to pay ~$80. . . . ouch. this would be a "for life" upgrade, but it is steep. . . 

very fun though.

http://www.goosync.com/

world circuit - years late, but now at the party

So World Circuit signed up with IODA, and announced the news today. Congratulations. Only 5 years late. . . I mean really - if any other genre's label that controlled the catalogs of the biggest acts in that genre had been absent from the digital space this long. . . . Buena Vista, Ali Farka Toure, Toumani Diabate, Oumou Sangare, etc etc.

I would not be surprised to see the piracy numbers on these artists. I bet they have lost a non-insignificant amount of money over these past 5 years.

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/World-Circuit-IODA-Partner-Bring/story.aspx?guid={89FDEA1B-2D84-4E6A-9901-69023C45A69D}

travel to festivals?

if you want to travel to some awesome music festivals around the globe, check out this listing. great stuff for sure.

Post-Canvass thoughts. .

I had the pleasure and honor of doing a small bit of campaigning for Obama in NH last sunday. 21 doors knocked, 5 hours of walking around rural New Hampshire, petting and calming many dogs, and enjoying the New England fall.

I did enjoy being back on the doors, something I haven't really done since I left the union. Being in the company of other committed, passionate people working on a singular political goal was also great.

As anyone who knows me knows, I generally take time to digest an experience before I can fully articulate my experience. Which can be good or bad, depending. I'm thinking that in this case it was probably good for me/Obama on the doors, but bad for my work productivity today. I'm getting a little fired up.

We were told at least 4 times that people were "undecided." ?? If you live in NH, and have been bombarded by politicians since at least January of this year, and 9 months later you are still undecided, then you certainly are ignoring some things. Either you self-interest, the news, or your future. I can understand ignoring the news, but not ones self-interest or future.

Our longest conversation of the day was with an "undecided" 9th grade english teacher who along with his wife was leaning McCain. I'm still processing that conversation, but some of the things I heard him say are certainly making me a little angry today. They are things that are straight out of the Republican playbook, and although I'm coming up with great responses, although I'm not certain that these responses would have swayed this voter towards Obama, I couldn't let them go unsaid. So instead I'll say them to the vast internet void that is the blogosphere. . .

First, I was somewhat unprepared - I didn't know the names/roles of some of Obama's key advisors/counselors to help beat back the inexperience rap.

Second, I didn't light into Palin the way I should have. The english teacher kept comparing her lack of experience to Obama's, but I think that she has had plenty of experience to prove that she is not ready/worthy to be considered for VP or Prez. For more on this, read this summary: http://tothecenter.com/news.php?readmore=7405

And more and more. . . there is so much more to say, but i'll leave it here for the moment or this will never go up.

what's up with your multiple blogs dude?

so just a quick update - i use this blog for many things - to keep a record of random happenings, my travels, music, etc. it has at times crossed over into the "professional", especially as much of my life is a nice melange of profeesional & personal. it will continue this way i presume. however, i'm also keeping a "strictly professional" blog over at erichludwig.com
just another rss feed to add to your reader. . . ;)