ronin’s blog

Furiously looked around after work this evening to see if I could buy a newspaper -- too late, I should've realized, given that on such an historic day of course everyone would be looking to souvenir a snapshot of history. Then it dawned on me that perhaps I ought to write my own thoughts about the events of the past 24 hours, to capture it before the euphoria has ebbed away (not to mention memory of the details). So I log onto Vox, and waddya know, my last blog topic was... Barack Obama.

It seems odd that almost 5 months to the day, a dream-like proposition has come to pass; an African-American, with as we all know by now a middle name like "Hussein", is the President-elect of the United States of America.

My friends, coworkers and I had been talking for awhile now about the election, with increasing intensity as the big day drew closer. We touched on recurring themes in our conversations:

• We lamented the fall in standing of Senator McCain, who, in his desperation to realize his own dream of ascending to the highest office in the land, sacrificed his own principles and standing with those who admired him so much in the days of the Straight Talk Express. When he repudiated his previous positions on tax cuts for the wealthy, his distaste for fundamentalists like Jerry Falwell, his intention to leave alone Roe v. Wade among other things, it became hard to know what he really stood for save pandering to his Republican masters.
  
• We expressed a certain schadenfreude at McCain's choice of Sarah Palin as his running mate (notably on the basis of only two meetings -- I had more interviews for my job at Microsoft!). Palin was a great pitbull with lipstick (and the biggest fillip to Tina Fey's career that she'll probably ever get) but as the campaign wore on, it became increasingly clear she was the punchline to an ongoing joke that such an intellectual lightweight could be within the proverbial heartbeat of the presidency. And SNL became the funniest part of the week -- not even The Daily Show or The Colbert Report could match it for laughs over the course of the campaign.
  
• We worried (justifiably as it turns out) over Prop 8 in California. Both the Catholic and Mormon Churches poured huge sums to get this up, to constitutionally define marraige as between a man and a woman, and ban same-sex marriage. At 52% support, this puts in doubt the gay marriages that have taken place since the California Supreme Court ruled that denying same-sex couples the right to marry was unconstitutional. This amendment is a significant symbolic setback for the cause (although not directly affecting the situation here in Washington, where same-sex civil unions are recognized).
  
• Certain phrases crept into our daily lexicon in reaction to either their overuse or significance as gaffes: "spreading the wealth", "my friends", "maverick", "Washington outsider", "health of the mother", "socialist", "pallin' around with terrorists"... Oh, and if I never hear about Joe the Plumber again, it will be too soon.
  

Even though I was rarely pulled out of my Democratic, broadly liberal, broadly left-wing Seattle bubble, it could still be exhausting mentally chronicling the unfolding of the campaign.

I was bemused by the vagaries of the American system of voting -- the fact that each state is responsible for administering elections, each with their own distinct methods of voting (punch holes, levers, touch screens etc.), and the fact that you vote for all manner of things at the same time, not just congressmen (like our MPs), but also governors, judges, attorneys-general, propositions for the state, for your county... the list could probably go on and on.

What is starkly clear is the polarization of the American electorate. The New York Times electronic electoral map can also drill down by the county which parts of the country are deep blue, light blue, light red and deep red. It is only on the fringes of the continental US and Hawaii that are blue -- the coasts where the majority of the population live, together with inland population centres like Chicago. The remainder of the land mass is plainly red. What I still don't understand, when Palin made much of the "anti-America" urban elite versus the "pro-America" heartland folks, it wasn't pointed out that the First Dude's membership of the Alaska Independence Party is surely an explicit example of anti-Americanism? Last I looked, seeking secession is not a particularly patriotic stance to take.

McCain made an attempt to play to the very American antipathy towards taxation. "Socialism" became the big straw man of the Republican campaign, thanks to Obama's somewhat ill-judged comment about "spreading the wealth". Unfortunately, most people don't seem to parse that any taxation is redistribution of wealth. How else do they expect to pay for the services that society enjoys, and which generally are required for society to function and contribute to the country's productive capacity (and which ought to subsequently generate more wealth)? Not all of these are best provided by the private sector, especially those whose returns on investment are measured in a timespan that exceeds a typical politician's electoral term. And as balanced budgets seem to be the Holy Grail, the law of unintended consequences gets invoked as tax cuts in one area necessitate tax increases in another or else deficits (!) will ensue. I don't like paying any more tax than I have to, but at least I can recognize there is an unwritten social contract between myself, government and the rest of society that says one of the ways we all help each other for the greater good is through taxation, and that my contributions are paid back to me over time in many ways, direct and indirect.

One argument for reducing taxes is that government can't be trusted with your money and that private enterprise is best placed to hold onto it (at least until this economic crisis came along). Republicans must be adept at dancing on pinheads, because on the one hand they shout that government can't be trusted with taxpayers' money, and then on the other they want you to vote for them, to enter... government. On that note, in spite of Obama promising the majority of Americans, the 95% whose incomes are less than $250,000 a year, a tax cut, many were still convinced they'd be worse off than under McCain, who promised them nothing while keeping the already-wealthy, wealthy. Presumably, that pioneer can-do spirit is projecting itself and convincing people that they are closer to affluence than they really are.

We witnessed yet again the role of religion in politics, which has such a strong influence on the discourse (witness Prop 8 above) in spite of the notion of separation of church and state. As the most obvious example of this, Palin's primary qualification seemed to be her credibility with the religious nutjobs that came out for Bush in 2000 and 2004, and so-called values voters, mainly rural folk who represent small-town, wholesome values which, by implication, are far more morally upright than the values of the urbanites of big-city Sodom.

The $70 million that was ploughed into Prop 8 though, pales into insignificance to the funding required of a modern election campaign. Barack Obama raised $150 million in one month. That's going to add up to some serious money! And the way this money is spent blanketing television ad spots with contradictory messages from the opposing parties. How is a political junkie let alone a lay voter going to decipher what is true and what is deceptive? "I approve this message" has become an all-too-familiar refrain lately in between segments of Heroes and the Sarah Connor Chronicles.

Starting from about 5pm onwards, one eye was on work, the other on the election returns that started rolling in from booths on the east coast. The New York Times was open in one browser window; their election site was pretty good: a popup dashboard had state-by-state summaries, together with an aggregation of the calls of the various TV networks on the electoral vote count. Another window had FiveThirtyEight.com open and their blow-by-blow projections. At the end of the day, Nate Silver and co proved to be stunningly accurate in their predictions -- definitely a site to look to in future elections.

I was in attendance at a friend's election party when Obama came onstage to declare victory. It was barely an hour prior that Jon Stewart, my voice of reason throughout this campaign, It was definitely one of those "where were you then" moments that we'll look back on years from now and reminisce about how, regardless of what is to come next from our President-elect (and even the least cynical among us have to admit that expectations of him are improbably and perhaps unachievably high), at least on that one night an escape valve had been opened, our anger towards the last eight years had found an outlet, and that anger was now supplanted by (dare I say it) hope.

Impromptu street celebrations ensued in Seattle. While I didn't get to witness the spectacle first hand (something I regret just a tad), I learned later that a great throng congregated on Pike and Broadway, and erupted at the declaration of victory; and similarly in downtown on 1st, down by the Showbox where The Stranger was hosting its election bash. When I finally left Richie's party at around 12.30am, the sound of horns could still be heard, Broadway in parts was still blocked off, and people were still walking the streets wooping for joy. One can only imagine what the outcome would've been like had McCain won -- would the disappointment have manifested itself in unpleasant ways, given that Obama's election was demonstrably such a carthartic moment for the crowds?

On this night following The Victory, I am struck most by a few things:

• This campaign was nasty, and the central focus was almost all Obama, arguably even after Palin came along. When you're trying to get people to vote for you, you don't campaign on a platform of not voting for the other guy and hope to win as the fallback choice. Suggesting he's a terrorist sympathizer, questioning his patriotism, that he's secretly Muslim, all these ploys that appeal to the worst part of people's natures -- it was distasteful and a far cry from the campaign that both sides promised in its early days. The booing that was heard at McCain's concession speech was a low-point for me, when McCain himself could plainly see the Frankenstein he had helped nurture.
  
• The overwhelming desire for change that saw Obama win in such a lopsided fashion (349 to 162 electoral college votes according to NYT as of this evening). Obama's election is significant not only in the bridge-the-racial-divide sense; it may finally reverse the anti-intellectualism of American society, at least towards its political figures. Dubya won in large part on his folksy charm, but just because you'd enjoy having a beer with the guy does not make him qualified to run the country. Palin was the second iteration of this pattern, but you know, as they say, "Fool me once, shame on you" and um, "Fool me" ... well, just don't get fooled again.
• The global sigh of relief and in some cases genuine surprise that someone like Barack Obama has been elected President. The Economist (which endorsed Obama's candidacy) put together polls of the world at large, and an overwhelming majority preferred Obama over McCain. It also highlights the difference in world-view that seemingly must exist between Americans and non-Americans. One has to wonder if insularity or a fundamental disconnect in value systems or both are to blame for this phenomenon.
  

Without a doubt, the USA -- for all of its economic, intellectual and cultural might -- stumbled during the Bush years. At last, we can look forward to an end to the divisiveness, unilateralism, anti-intellectualism and all the other badness that was allowed to flourish under Bush's reign. Let's hope that Obama has the leadership we believed him to have and which this country will need to solve the big BIG problems that it faces.

June 3rd, this now historic date in US history, has dragged me back to the blogging keyboard to write about a subject I thought I was done with for quite some time. Even now, after many months getting used to the notion, I can scarcely absorb the significance of the fact that a black man has clinched the Democratic nomination for president of the United States, nary 40 years after desegregation.

While a keen follower of politics, my energy was sapped after the ALP's victory last year. Without Howard around, who was I supposed to hate? Rudd has been a super-competent technocrat, who seemingly inspires through actions rather than words (and God knows if you've heard him speak, words are not his main talent with the notable exception of The Apology). There is not much for me to rail against in the Australian political sphere.

Meanwhile, here in the US, CNN et al managed to dull my interest with their absurd analyses of the candidates -- shallow and sensationalist, typified by their hysteria over a mis-spoken word here, an embarrassing acquiantance there. Certainly the media's anointing of Obama as their chosen candidate from even the early days in the campaign made me a little annoyed that the media tail was trying to wag the primary dog. Then again, when the broad brushstrokes of the frontrunners' policies painted almost indistinguishable pictures (pro-universal health care, pro-environment, anti-free trade, anti-Iraq war), I'm not sure if I could resist the temptation to report on minutiae to distract from the rather dull number crunching that comprise caucuses and primaries.

Hillary will look back at this campaign, and surely should wonder whether if, had she stuck to her knitting -- promoting good policy that had broad bipartisan appeal -- could she have clinched the nomination instead of Obama. Her pandering played right into the hands of Obama's main theme of 'change', and the very politics that the Clintons were so good at was the exact opposite of what was needed for this particular battle.

So now we'll just have to wait and see what Hillary does; mathematically she's sunk, but it would seem highly unlikely that she'll bow out silently. Then again, nor can I see the Obama campaign offering her the vice presidency either; that would simply be counterproductive not to say contradictory.

We live in interesting times!

Just came back from a Jens Lekman concert at Neumo's, but first I need to tell you about the weird warm up act -- the Honeydrips. Note the plural. In actuality, just one guy. And a MacBook Pro with iTunes. Which was his band, and his backing vocals. He did have a guitar which he picked up, but never actually played. He was okay, he had a sort of New Order-type sound at the beginning, then it was kind of all over the place... I think I was distracted, watching him intently to see if he was actually going to pluck some strings on that damn guitar.

Jens though was awesome. The main draw of his songs (aside from their 50's - 60's infectious pop vibe) is the sweet lyrics, the story that he tells in each song. Even more so that, during the set, he would occasionally provide even more back story to fill in the gaps -- e.g. Postcard to Nina, in which he describes how a lesbian friend convinces him to beard for her when visiting her family in Berlin. The audience was clapping along, even whistling... Jens displayed an understated showmanship that you appreciated as something a little out of the ordinary; through his story-telling you definitely felt more connected to the guy on stage than you might otherwise.

Oh, another point in his favour: Wikipedia claims he moved to Melbourne in early 2008 :).

Barack Obama gave an excellent speech today on the race issue in the fight for the Presidential nomination. I started reading the transcript, and although it ran to seven pages felt compelled to read it all. It was a thoughtful, honest, and -- yes -- inspiring speech that addressed in very frank terms the racial divide that still permeates this country. What is most impressive is that he did so without condescension, without flinching from difficult subject matter, and without attempting to simplify what is a very complex issue.

The speech reminded me a lot of Kevin Rudd's address to Parliament earlier this year apologising to the Stolen Generation, in the sense that it tried to be bigger than the pettiness and cynicism that typifies the current state of the debate, in order to bring the country forward with solutions rather than go through an exercise of apportioning blame and recriminations. Unfortunately, there are still those who can only see the fact that Obama has refused demands to leave his church (for those who haven't kept up with the latest mini-scandal, Obama's former pastor is all over YouTube with footage of him damning America and calling it for example the USKKKA).

Visit Barack Obama's website yourself to check out the speech.

A few new photo galleries now up on Picasaweb:

1. More photos of the Grand Canyon: http://picasaweb.google.com/alecsiu/GrandCanyonII
2. Hoover Dam: http://picasaweb.google.com/alecsiu/HooverDam
3. Las Vegas: http://picasaweb.google.com/alecsiu/LasVegas

It took me a little while to sort them all out using Picasa, but they're now there 3 weeks later :).

Hoover Dam was a mighty impressive piece of engineering, especially when you consider the conditions and speed with which it was built -- searing temperatures in summer, with little in the way of safety equipment, and not much in the way of rest and relaxation. It was a logical stop en route to the Grand Canyon, 1 hour from Vegas and sitting on the border of Nevada and Arizona.

Vegas, the first stop of the trip, is a strange kind of city. It seems to be built entirely on gambling and tourism, and the industries that support it. The original downtown, which is where we stayed, is a shell of its former self. There are still quite a few casinos in that part of town, but the buzz (and hence the tourists) has surely drifted to the Strip, where all the super-casinos that are made famous on TV are situated either side of a 10-lane monster of a road.

You have the Luxor, the hotel shaped like a pyramid clad in glass on all sides, with a giant sphinx reposing in its forecourt. You have Paris, complete with Arc de Triomphe and Eiffel Tower. New York, New York, with a replica of the New York skyline (I wonder if they had the Twin Towers originally). The Venetian, with its set of canals along which you can take a gondola ride... And the list goes on and on... We stopped at most of them, to oooh and aaah and gawk at the extravagance and kitsch. Some casinos don't really have a 'hook' as such, like the MGM Grand, or Mandalay Bay. I'm sure they have some kind of 'theme', but eventually all casinos start looking the same from the inside.

Las Vegas is also not a cheap city. If you use the Starbucks Latte index (far more important to me than the Big Mac index), Vegas is up there with NYC -- we're talking $3.25 (+ tax) for a tall latte on the Strip, and certainly not even a good one. I admit though that we didn't exactly attempt to be frugal.

Food-wise Vegas won't leave you hungry if you're prepared to spend. We tucked into the all-you-can-eat buffets that Las Vegas casinos are famous for, first at the Luxor (good but not great), and secondly at Paris, reputedly one of the better ones. You definitely need to walk in with an empty stomach because there is a hard-to-ignore temptation to sample every morsel from every station -- salads, pasta, carvery, "Asian", seafood, desserts... And you end up waddling out but definitely with enough calories to last you the remainder of the day.

We also paid homage to Emeril (who I'm not really a fan of, but hey his joint was reasonably priced, didn't need a reservation and was in the same casino as where we were going to see a Cirque Du Soleil show), by eating at ummm "Emeril's"? I can't even remember the place, but I had a nice grilled salmon dish with what was essentially a fancy version of barbecue sauce! Just goes to show, fancy food is all in the presentation!

The Cirque du Soleil show we saw, Ka, wasn't bad. $75 a pop for a 'martial arts' extravaganza, although the only real martial arts style acrobatics were at the beginning. It was still impressive though, with an amazing set that rotated in three dimensions and high-wire tricks played out on platforms stretching out over the audience area. I didn't quite understand the storyline, mind you, but I suppose it doesn't really matter :). You have to admire Cirque du Soleil though -- it's its own mini-industry: they have half a dozen shows to choose from, each playing at different casinos and at varying prices ($75 is at the cheap end!) and from what I could tell, our late show at 9.30pm was as good as full. If you do the math, CDS must make a handsome profit indeed!

All in all, a great trip considering we only had 4 days -- it's amazing what you can fit in when you try. Now the question remains of where to go to next :).

Oh-oh I'm behind already in my blog updates... more Las Vegas/Grand Canyon photos to come but not this time...

Just came back from skiing with Hugo and Atul, leaving behind Tommer, Beau, Kieran and Wu to enjoy more of their snowboarding up at Snoqualmie. We stuck to Central (there's also West, East and Alpental), which has quite a few beginner and intermediate runs (which suits me just fine). Lesson for me: stick to greens and easy blues for now! I bet my legs will be sore in the morning but it was good to get out there for probably the last time this season before...

I start work with my new team in Windows Mobile on Monday. I can't really say what I'm working on (I've always wanted to say that), but I think it's going to be exciting coming almost full circle from when I first got out of uni working for Ericsson in Melbourne, to finally being able to work with the mobile devices I always dreamt about. The best part is that the office will be moving to a new building in South Lake Union in May, which will cut down my commute dramatically!

Okay time to go, I'm about to head out to a Missy Higgins gig at the Tractor Tavern... It's funny, I've probably seen more Aussie acts here in Seattle than I ever did back home (at least pro rata); off the top of my head: Ben Lee, Bernard Fanning, Cat Empire, Tim Finn, JBT... Now Missy Higgins, and probably The Waifs soon too!

Ok a brief post since I'm about to head to bed... Last night I touched down in Seattle after a four-day weekend in Vegas and Grand Canyon (notice my afficionado status by omitting 'the'). Deets in a later post, but suffice to say there was plenty of fodder for photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/alecsiu/GrandCanyon. Also thank you to Windows Live Photo Gallery for your excellent photo stitching feature!

I'm a bit late to the party, but I've just watched on YouTube Kevin Rudd's apology to the stolen generations. I think it's the first time I've been inspired by our politicians for a long time, that someone has shown true leadership for the nation and moved us forward in indigenous relations, an area that Australia has really been lacking. It corrects the contradiction that we promote as very Australian the notion of a "fair go", but we weren't big enough as a nation to acknowledge that Aborigines receive anything but, and that such a simple symbolic gesture as saying "sorry" seemed too difficult... until now :).

Kudos to Kevin Rudd, under whose Prime Ministership it seems like we've become a lot more forward-looking and optimistic (in spite of our economic woes). Let's hope that there will be substance to the symbolism in the coming three years!

Wow it's been awhile since I've posted so the ten-second summary of what's been going on:

• Saw Tim Finn live at the Triple Door with Milly and her boyfriend Sean; great gig even though we were probably the youngest people there by at least 10 years! Triple Door seems like a great venue though -- it's a dinner theatre but aimed more at music shows. And the food (think pan-Asian with a Thai emphasis) was actually pretty good.
• Welcomed Lost back to the small screen at Phil's place, even though ABC misleadingly advertised it as a 2-hour episode when the first hour was just recap!
• Been busy at work getting to code complete this week (even though much of the code had been done, and now it was just a matter of sorting out deployment issues).
• And just now came back from a fantastic late late lunch with Hyejin at Tamarind, a Vietnamese restaurant in the International District that you would never know existed because it's set back from the street. The decor was very upscale, but the prices characteristically were not. We had huge bun cha on a platter, some of their special Tamarind Salad Rolls (think rice paper rolls with walnut and thin sticks of rolled-up deep-fried rice paper sheets as well as the usual assortment of lettuce and rice noodle) and another platter of eggy cake thingy whose name I've forgotten but was also delicious. Did I mention this all cost $15/per person after tax and tip???
  

And in other news... politics-wise I haven't posted lately both from the point of view of not having the time, and not having the motivation (especially after watching the pathetic coverage on CNN and so forth, where it's easier just to show talking heads than anything particularly meaningful about the campaign).

I guess the Democratic race is now down to two, Hillary vs. Barack, and so either way we're going to have some history being made there. The media has decided on the narrative already -- black vs. white, or black vs. female. In some ways I feel sorry for Clinton, who is eminently qualified and has been patient earning her stripes in the Senate, and was always the assumed nominee. Now Obama has fired up the base as a symbol rather than a candidate which may be enough to get him through.

As for the Republicans, it looks like it is now McCain's to lose -- a very John Howard-esque Lazarus with a triple bypass. America is not ready for a CEO as President of USA Inc. They would rather stick with the war hero even if his policies may not align with a significant proportion of the Republican base -- something the base reconciles by acknowledging that it is only McCain who could beat Clinton or Obama when the real election comes and wider America gets to vote.

Now it's onto Super Tuesday (or Woozy Tuesday as I've also seen it referred to as). The results should tell us with a high degree of certainty who the nominees will be... then the real mud-slinging can begin! Hooray for politics American-style!

Apparently, some people seem to think Hillary Clinton's win in yesterday's New Hampshire represents a 'stunning victory'. This is just another example of the media's simplification of politics -- from what I can gather, a 3% margin over Obama does not represent a stunning victory unless it's a comparison with her position in polling prior to the primary!

In another overlooked point, Hillary currently has more delegates than any of the other contenders so far. Admittedly, we are very early into the race so it's hard to say whether that's of any significance, but that caveat applies equally to the raw number of primary victories.

I guess these kinds of simplications make for good headlines though...