Genius of the Year

Parents: if you want your kids to grow up to be geniuses, this passage is golden

Or at least they will grow up to be nerds! Happy holidays, everybody. My new nephew or niece will be born today and I know my sister and her husband will raise the child to be a nerd if not a genius :D

I worry that the next big battle isn't going to be to find candidates that appeal to the small donor base, but to root out those who find ways to abuse it (someone will eventually figure out how to deliver 10000+ $200 donations at a pop, even if the 'bundler' is really just a media myth right now.)

As for the children, it always amazes me how quickly some people forget how much they hated getting treated like a kid when they were kids...

I read Nate's post this morning and thought the same. (But also thought that those Chinese recipes would force me to choose a possibly more edible Iraq Study Group Report!)  Seriously, if Obama had run and The Field and 538 did not exist, I'm sure I would have aged a full 4 years in the Spring of 2008.  Not only were both of your sites so critically informative but both had the right tone throughout.  I am so hoping that your readers who have yet to send in a donation will get you to the $10,000 goal  by end of year.  Enjoy a warm Christmas Day somewhere south of the border. 

I got such a kick out of reading both the numbers-cruching posts and the marvelous stories and photos of the journey through the country that were posted at Nate's site. thanks to them and to you for tempering the campaign hysteria with some grounded analysis!

Nate Silver: honors Business grad of the U of C

Barack Obama: Senior Lecturer, U of C Law School

Michelle Obama: VP, community affairs, U of C Hospital

Is 2008 the year that the intellectual leadership of the US officially moved from the Ivy League to the "Harvard of the Midwest?"  As one who began his undergrad career at the College of the U of C, this has been a proud year for me.

Al, just dropped some money into your account. I had promised you this money by the end of last week, but I wasn't doing something correct in the pay pal process. Finally figured out what I was doing wrong on this most appropriate day for 'gifting'.

Whatever your traditions or religion--best wishes to everyone that has supported these cooperative and progressive efforts.

The journalism from this site was integral toward electing more sane and progressive leadership in the US. But this is necessary but not sufficient for the more healthy 'change' that is required for human survival over the long-term.

The alignment of corporate/state power here in the US, and the depoliticized condition of the citizenry, makes it probable that Obama will fall short of what many of us would like. Obama has healthy, democratic inclinations--but we all need to get up and do things differently if we want a more sane and healthy world. There will be appropriate junctures in the future to take Obama to the woodshed. However, this should be engaged without becoming discouraged.

It should be encouraging that the corporate rightwing simply have no viable ideas. They are morally and operationally bankrupt. The US is an organizer's dream at this moment.

The most crucial work in the coming years will entail grass roots mobilization and organization. Surely, efforts by folks like Al will be central toward making progress. Getting up tomarrow and doing things differently, more intelligently, and more artfully--to me, this is the challenge, the 'difference that makes the difference" (Gregory Bateson's definition of 'information').

If we will have the wisdom to survive,
to stand like slow growing trees
on a ruined place, renewing, enriching it...
then a long time after we are dead
the lives our lives prepare will live
here, their houses strongly placed
upon the valley sides...
The river will run
clear, as we will never know it...
On the steeps where greed and ignorance cut down
the old forest, an old forest will stand,
its rich leaf-fall drifting on its roots.
The veins of forgotten springs will have opened.
Families will be singing in the fields...
Memory,
native to this valley, will spread over it
like a grove, and memory will grow
into legend, legend into song, song
into sacrament. The abundance of this place,
the songs of its people and its birds,
will be health and wisdom and indwelling
light. This is no paradisal dream.
Its hardship is its reality.

- Wendell Berry

.. is going to work on the state and local levels.  Kos certainly was helping whip up support via Red-to-Blue and similar efforts to channel donations to worthy Senate and House candidates, but I'm not totally convinced the 'chicken or the egg' question is answered.  Was it the rise of the netroots, or a once-in-a-lifetime candidacy?  Even the O-Man couldn't keep up the momentum of his $150 million September.

As for 538, that was Sean Quinn and photographer Brett Marty who covered the developing ground game for the site.  And Nate should also get credit for predicting every Senate race - with his prediction of Al Franken having a 52% chance of beating Norm Coleman still to be settled.  I think he was able to get concepts like pollster lean, and demographic sample composition far enough into the open that it took away pundits ability to spin results.

A similar development came from snap polling of the debates, you could see the talking heads increasing reluctance to spout their pre-planned talking points knowing that 2 or 3 insta-polls were getting released within a half hour of the event.

“That passage resonated with my long standing policy of never speaking to children, even infants, in "baby talk" [...] I talk to kids of all ages - including my students and protégés - in the same (often gruff and no nonsense, other times irony-and-dark-humor-laden) tones with which I converse with adults.”

Omigod, me too. Same with my parents, BTW. I ran around at age seven telling others to “Please, stop haranguing me!” because that’s what my mother said every time I asked her Why? Why? Why? to edicts I was issued.

Fast-forward to adult life: I was at an outside restaurant on the upper west side in Manhattan (Broadway). The baby in the stroller at the table beside me was between 1-2 years old. The mother wanted to pee. She asked us to watch her baby while she went to bathroom. She felt a need to explain that the kid was “slow” so he wouldn’t present a problem. The mother left. My companion left to get more coffee. I turned to the baby when no one was looking and said, “Listen, you little shit, I know you’re an ex-95-year-old man in the there. You aren’t kidding me. Straighten up and fly right when you get the chance. I know you’re not ‘slow’.”* The baby came to life, his hands and feet clapped the air like a hummingbird, and he cackled and laughed. The mother returned in the middle of this and asked what I said to elicit this response from her beloved child that she thought was a dumb phuck. I winked at the baby and the boy laughed. I said, “Gee, I dont know.”

Children appreciate respect for their personhood. And they know when they’re getting it.

* I swear this is verbatim.

Thanks Al, for being a voice of sanity for me and so many other this year.

Although retired, I still teach introductory statistics part-time. What fun it will be to discuss the level of accuracy of Nate Silver's analysis vs. the reporting of the "individual big-media sponsored polling companies."  Also, U.S. election poll results are frequently cited as examples of certain concepts in statistics texts. After the 2008 election, it's really difficult to justify the continued use of the 1948 Dewey Truman polling example. Most students don't even have land-lines anymore.  

just sent a bit more.

Thanks, Al, for your praise of Nate Silver and adulthood.  The latter was nicely captured by another wise man, in remarks that nicely complement your own:

"A man's maturity--consists in having found again the seriousness one had as a child, at play."

Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, aphorism 94, trans. Walter Kaufmann

I never use "baby talk" either. It just seems demeaning to both the child *and* the adult.

I'm not sure if there is a corelation but both of our children have tested as "gifted". Certainly they appear more mature than other kids their ages (8 and 5).

Also, kids from my extended family (nephews, nieces etc.) plus my kids friends seem drawn to me. I think kids do appreciate when they are *heard* and *respected*.

if we can, lets serve up a bit for the yeomen and trusted servants of authentic journalism - serving us all and keeping us sane in an insane world.

My goal as a mother and as a journalist is to address people with the respect and assumption of intellectual curiosity that I want to be accorded. Seems to be working so far - this afternoon, my 3 1/2 year old daughter wants me to take her on an anthropological dig to find fossils -she wants to find bones that are "really, really old. Maybe even 20 years old, Mummy!!!" Egad.

 And reading fivethirtyeight.com made me wish I'd gone past intro statistics at BU... With all love to my alma mater, the College of Communication syllabus allows far to many future writers/analysts/communicators to get away with slipping out of classes like mathematics, philosophy, history. As I go further on into this gig, the more I realize that teaching the mechanics of journalism should be left to a real newsroom, and that the classroom should be about instilling the analytical basis to frame the writing.

Getting lots of people to give small amounts of money which is mostly given to media corporations in large chunks is not a viable long-term strategy.  We need small media, we need control of our own communication channels.  The state and local campaigns, which may have a harder time generating the interest and excitement to fuel a small-donor campaign than national office, may be in a better position to use volunteer time, money, work and barainpower to bypass the media gatekeepers that distort our political conversations..  and get paid back with money to run campaign ads.

No one was allowed talk "baby" around me or my bro. (My dad won't even talk like that to animals). When my bro was 1 and a half, if you asked him "How old are you?", he wouldn't say "I'm this many". His answer was "I'm approximately two". Honest to God.

Anyhoo, another awesome post, Al. I planned to donate before Xmas, but my comp has a virus and is being fussy.  So I donated just now. Only $10, but for me that is a lot.  I encourage all to donate to support Authentic Journalism & The Field, even if you can only afford $5 or $10 like me. If small donations are good enough for Obama...well, u know. :-)

Hope u had a really good Navidad, Al, with lots of food, fun & good company!

Si somos americanos, seremos buenos vecinos;
compartiremos el trigo,seremos buenos hermanos -- canción de Rolando Alarcón

I've also made a point of talking to all people the same way, regardless of age. Some kids (generally pampered ones), of course, hate it, but I've found most kids appreciate it and will generally behaved better if they feel respected as a fully cognizant human being.

As for 538, it wasn't just recognition of poor interpretations that made people more skeptical, it was the realization of blatant doctoring. For example, the CBS poll which drastically changed its sample demographics week-to-week to make sure their polls matched the CW (i.e., if Obama was hit by a fabricated "scandal," you could rely on their pollster to ratchet up the number of Republicans in the sample). Also, we can't forget the much-hyped Bradley Effect, spoken of with such confidence by Chicken Littles and desperately flogged by the media.

I know there is no faith in the change.gov issues process, but I'd still like to promote one: http://www.change.org/ideas/view/permit_the_sale_of_raw_organic_almonds

Seriously, the law forcing almonds to be pasteurized is beyond folly.  It removes all the flavor and a good bit of the nutrition from this priceless food. 

Between you and 538, it kept me on an even keel. I absolutely  became a 'Poblano' fan during the Obama sweep of the mid-Atlantic.

And, the 'On the Road' series was one of the best -PERIOD - of this election season. No journalistic outfit was as thorough, or gave us a better look and feel of this country than that series.

Love Narconews.

Was startled by this: "All future candidates for any office should have to answer this question first: Can you, like Obama, fund your campaign mainly with small donors?"

The kids gloves on Obama has been tolerable for sometime, but now let's get to it, and with reality on our side.  There are lots of arguments about the study done (http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2008/11/obama-money.html), mostly about the category of what "small donor" is. The point is he got lots and lot and lots of corporate $. And we will need to push him and the gang surrounding him big time to stop the killings in central and south america funded by good ole us of a. Being from Chicago, folks ought to be more savvy. Palante!

how both the right and far left are now clinging to the same dubious articles to attack Obama. By the definition of that LA Times article, little ole' me (with my series of $50 donations) is a big mean corporate super-millionaire donor.

So Companero, seeing as how I'm a big money donor, I'll see what I can do for you about amending drug policy.

I maxed out to Obama with a series of donations over 10 months so I must really be a fat cat! It is a new experience to have people bemoaning my influence in politics :\