Powen Shiah - the space between

Michigan, McCain, Melatonin, & Marriage

I've been visiting my parents in Michigan since Wednesday night. They're unofficially celebrating their 30th wedding anniversary, though they haven't told most of their friends who are coming to the party tonight. There are some old old friends visiting my parents too, they live in LA & Dallas respectively, and they go all the way back to when my mom was going to nursing school in Taiwan. Pretty amazing that they're still in touch and still good friends, though they sometimes didn't see each other for years (decades!). It's nice to be back home and see the family, but it often makes me wonder that I really ever lived here. The house seems so big compared to my apartment in Philly, the roads are so wide, the people are so white, the buildings so cookie-cutter, the strip malls so common (and boring).

Not to mention that there are pretty much McCain signs everywhere. I don't know anything about local and state politics which actually make up the vast majority of the signs on the roads & lawns, but of the presidential candidates' lawn signs, most have been for McCain, including one infuriating "Another Democrat for McCain" sign. Ah well, I suppose McCain/Palin have given up in Michigan, though I haven't looked at any recent polling data.

Last night Kim & I met up again for our tradition of sneaking-away-to-a-coffee-shop-while-Powen-is-in-town-for-a-few-days. This time it was at Caribou Coffee... I ended up getting some weirdly named latte with the raspberry flavoring. BIG mistake. It was a sugar-free flavoring and basically made the coffee taste like medicine. The barista, however, was really nice about it and asked if I'd like her to make me something else. Instead, I just got a couple pumps of the almond flavoring which made it palatable enough to drink. Kim & I always have tons of awesomeness to go on about, but the most important thing I got out of our conversation is that melatonin really does help sleep / get over jetlag, and that it won't kill me. So I went to Meijer to get some in preparation for the upcoming transatlantic flight. I took one pill last night just to see what it would do, and it seems innocuous enough, though I have kind of been napping all day (plus I had a crazy gay dream during an afternoon nap). It won't hurt I don't think to try using it to get some sleep on the evening flight tomorrow.

Speaking of gayness, this Youtube video is called "Adventists Against Prop 8" is surprising and worth the watch.

My favorite quote:
Jesus was concerned that all people be treated with dignity, and respect, and equality. And therefore, we should vote against Proposition 8 because it reinforces the prejudices that we've had for centuries.

[us-politics] Please Sarah & David Sedaris & Celebs Endorsing McCain

Please Sarah / Bay Area girls speak out against Sarah Palin

David Sedaris on Undecided Voters [New Yorker]
To put them in perspective, I think of being on an airplane. The flight attendant comes down the aisle with her food cart and, eventually, parks it beside my seat. "Can I interest you in the chicken?" she asks. "Or would you prefer the platter of shit with bits of broken glass in it?"

McCain's Celebrity Posse [NBC Bay Area]
Really? Dean Cain, I am so disappointed in you. The rest of them I don't know or don't really care about.

McCain Campaign to Focus on PA (DelCo & MontCo)?

I just got the following message at work... Pennsylvania could become very very interesting if this is really what the Republicans intend on doing...

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: <elided>
Date: Tue, Oct 21, 2008 at 2:14 PM
Subject: steeper hill to climb than we thought
To: <elided>

just got it on GOOD authority (both inside and outside the campaign) that McCain's strategy is now shifting and putting US as the bullleye!  Apparently they are giving up on several states...New Mexico, Colorado, Wisconsin and pulling all the resources and reassigning them to Montgomery and Delaware County.

Their whole strategy comes down to blitzing the Philly suburbs (mainly with massive scary robo-calling)...and the polls are beginning to show that it is working.

So we are the spot on wall that they have decided to breach.

If ANY of you have a couple hours after work to make phone calls, we know that when we stick to the plan of having a live human being  talking to independent voters about their choices it makes a difference.

I will be down here at 362 W. Baltimore Pike pretty much all the time....wanna come help me hold the hordes off?

Web 2.0 Critique: Is Fan Labor Exploitation or Empowerment?

http://www.onlinefandom.com/archives/fan-labor-exploitation-or-empowerment/

I found this interesting paper that was presented in the last few days at the conference of The Association for Internet Researchers (isn't it cool that there is such a thing?). I haven't yet read through the whole thing, but it examines one of the fundamental "aspects" of what drives web 2.0 - user participation and communities. It's an interesting moral or ethical question, whether it's empowerment or exploitation, because after all, what do people get out of it?

Okay, I'm sort of feeling around the edges of some coherent thoughts here. For me the first analogy that pops to mind (gosh, I really have to find time to read this paper) is with clothing. In the case of clothing, we're actually taking our time, turning it into money, then using that money to pay for stuff to wear. Sure, so clothing is on the base of Maslow's hierarchy of needs so that's the very basic return, but the real question is what benefit do we derive from paying a premium (in time or in money) for something other than a burlap sack? Would you say that clothing companies are exploiting us for paying $100 for a pair of jeans? We derive meaning from fashion, from looking a certain way, from presenting the self. Do I sometimes feel exploited? There is the option to buy less expensive clothing, and that's actually a statement as well.

So, the actual paper is about Swedish indie music fans, and here's brief synopsis of the findings by one of the authors:

There is a critique of Web 2.0 that argues it is based on free labor done by users from which others profit. We argue that this critique has some merit, but undervalues the rewards fans get from doing this kind of work. We identify the costs fan laborers pay and the rewards they receive. In the end, the tension between empowerment and exploitation is one that each fan laborer has to manage on his or her own. We identify three strategies through which they do this: distancing themselves from the scene as outsiders, viewing themselves as peers of those they 'work' for, and viewing their work as an investment in a future career.

via Online Fandom

Gay Marriage is not about Marriage

Thanks to Jeff for sending this, it pretty much captures my thoughts.

http://bamboonation.blogspot.com/2008/10/open-letter-to-you-or-gay-marriage-is.html

Let's establish something right at the outset. About the fundamental idea of marriage itself, straight or gay, I don't give a shit. And as I said in a previous post, I've always been weary of same-sex marriage being the cause célèbre of the gay community. But the issue of marriage equality is something I have to support because gay marriage is not about marriage.

Arguments against same-sex marriage, at their core, have never been about the institution itself. They're fundamentally about homosexuality. So if you look underneath the shiny surface, "preserving the sanctity of marriage" is not the real issue—the aim is to attack sexual orientation, to disapprove of sexual identity, and to legalize discrimination, which is far more insidious and which will set this country back decades.