2000@20

More entries re: presidential election seasons. In 2000 the internet was still a baby.

4/18/2000

Reading Data Smog by David Shank. It's not so much that there is a glut of information, it's how it's filtered and intelligently selected.

4/20/2000

Five-year anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing. Grandiose memorial designed for the occasion. At one level this is impressive and well done, but so overdone--a  simple tree (the surviving tree), would have been enough.

7/4/2000

Coolest 4th I've ever experienced. 68 degrees.

7/7/2000

Started using Napster--almost anything you want is freely downloadable. So why would a record label want to invest $250,000 on a recording when everyone would "steal" it?  It makes sense to create music with the intention that it will be downloaded and remixed in cyberspace. 

7/16/2000

Program on NPR by Brook Gladstone about music journalist Jason Zasky that started a magazine called Failure. Interesting that something we used to dread so deeply can be so proudly displayed. Same for new Big Brother show. The sad thing is that our sense of irony will affect us directly in the future.

8/7/2000

Prediction: People will eventually get sick of downloading entertainment. You'll have 10,000 files on your hard drive and not use any of it. You'll want to go out and see a film or a concert and not have to have a copy of it.

8/9/2000

Beleaguered Bill Clinton makes another mea culpa on TV. Enough already. It's a terrible strategy two days before the Democratic Convention.

8/15/2000

First 90-degree day of the summer.

Clinton was the most morally repugnant president, but he still charmed people with his charisma.

10/5/2000

Revolution in Serbia. Milosevic overthrown!

10/12/2000

Terrorist attack on USS Cole in the Persian Gulf. 7 dead. (An act of war?) Dow consequently drops 350 points. (The attack on the ship was seen in retrospect as foreshadowing the 9/11 attacks).

11/6/2000

Show on TV about town in Japan where its residents often live to be 100 years old, and they can't quite figure out why. This shows that context is so important--that a certain constellation of factors creates a particular outcome. 

Presidential race in dead heat. Each side claiming the other hacked their websites. 

11/7/2000

Presidential election. Very close nail-biter. I think the real phenomenon now as opposed to 4 years ago is the fundamental changes the internet has made in society. Rumor, gossip, and the cult of personality (partly Clinton's fault) has affected voters in profound and insidious ways. Future elections will be as hot or hotter than this. Nader's Green Party hurts more than helps. Ironic that they have the best ideas, but only exist to steal votes from their own political alliances. The Germans say: "They have a idiotic system of government invented 200 years ago." The Chinese say: "It's a big funny joke."

11/8/2000

Bush wins! Gore got popular vote. Pivotal state Florida. Race very close. It might take weeks to sort out. One of the most interesting days in U.S. history.

11/9/2000

Meticulous recount of Florida votes. Gore trailing by only 300 votes. Lawsuits being filed claiming voter fraud. (The ballots were confusing--you could easily punch the wrong hole and vote for the Socialist Party).

What they should do is abolish the electoral college now, along with the other anachronistic laws in America.

11/11/2000

Hand-counting of ballots continues in Florida. GOP files suit to block counting.

11/13/2000

Judge rejects GOP appeal. (What we should do is settle it and then have another election in 11/2001). Both sides are looking for a neutral party to decide the election. Does such a person exist? (You can never be truly neutral because you're always influenced by the context of the situation).

Vernor Vinge interview on NPR. He was talking about locations and places as being "characters" in his stories. His new book: A Deepness in the Sky.

11/15/2000

On the hand-counting: After you've been doing it for a while, looking specifically for Gore votes, doesn't the eye get biased?

The thing that made this election different were personality factors.

12/12/2000

Bitterly divided Supreme Court decided 5-4 in halting recounts. Bush presidency all but a done deal. Even the Dems are telling Gore to concede. (This is sad--I think Gore would have been a better player on the world stage).

Interesting piece on NPR about the music of Maybelle Carter circa 1928. The lyrics always got changed and reshaped because they always got garbled by dialects, etc,, and eventually the lyrics became less important and the guitar came to the forefront as the compelling element.

12/14/2000

Interesting show on NPR on electronic literature. They talked about "preference clouds" and "taste communities", collaboration between typesetters and writers, authors being involved in layout, whereas they weren't before.

12/25/2000

Christmas solar eclipse this morning at 11:20. Everything bathed in dim sunlight. There won't be another Christmas eclipse until the  year 2307.

1/2/2001

Economy going into recession, energy prices soaring, Montgomery Wards closed after 120 years, dotcoms shutting down en masse, stock market dismal. Amazing start for a new millennium, a new president, and a new year.

1/18/2001

Nation Enquirer breaks story--Jesse Jackson fathered a child out of wedlock at the same time as the Lewinsky scandal. Interesting to watch the film clips of Jesse talking about the Clinton scandal...in a post-Clinton world, we learn to see past human blips in the personality, and see lots of ourselves in others' failings. I think the Lewinsky thing was actually a "plus" for Clinton in a strange way.

Clinton farewell speech.

Power crisis in California. Rolling blackouts in SF.

1/20/2001

Bush inauguration. Watched a bit on TV. Interesting: At the moment of the oath, the first camera shot had water spots on the lens. (An omen?) Bush looked tense, stressed, in stark contrast to the easy-going Clinton.