On the American fork in the road.

After eight years of misrule, we know a few things: that our government spies on us, that it tortures people from other countries, that Americans feel worse about their country than they have in a long time, that hard working people have watched their retirements trickle away, that we are less secure and less safe internationally, that we have given up liberty for a false sense of security, that we have squandered scientific research, that our infrastructure is crumbling around us, and that we have let the foxes run loose in the financial hen house.

These things we know. Back in 2000, as hard as it is to remember the world as it was then, none of this was probable, or even seemed possible. But here we are.

Now we find ourselves at a spiritual fork in the road. Either we choose to, more or less, continue down the path we've been heading these past eight years, thanks to the man above; or we choose to try out something different, something new, and something - admittedly - untested.

If anything, America has been a giant experiment. Thomas Jefferson thought the experiment should be tweaked every generation - that multiple Constitutional Conventions should take place every 20 years just to make sure the United States was on the right track. He, and the other Founding Fathers, knew America was a delicate experiment, ripe with the possibility of misuse and abuse. But they saw change as a good thing; in fact, our whole country is founded on the idea of change when it's needed most. If you doubt me, take 10 minutes and read the Declaration of Independence some time.

Luckily, we get to shake things up every four years or so, when some poor fool decides he wants to be the Head Executive of one of the branches of government. It's in view of this idea, and the radical idea of an experiment called the United States of America, that we can look at our present situation and parse the correct course of action.

Where do we go from here? Which choice, given two (or more, depending on your independent leanings), is the one our country needs?

When we buy a car, or choose which toothbrush would best fit our purposes, we have to look at the evidence. Here's what the evidence has shown us so far from John McCain:

• He's a senator who has broke with his own party on the big issues of the day
• Since becoming a presidential candidate, he has remade many of these positions into standard GOP positions (an exception: the environment), like torture and immigration
• McCain is a war veteran who suffered for his country
• McCain is known for a hot temper, shoot-from-the-hip decision making, but he can work well with others
• McCain is mostly a hawk on national defense issues
• McCain has chosen a running mate who is divisive, incurious, and has a disdain for the media and questioning that rivals George W. Bush's

What do we know about Obama?

• He's a senator who has just a few years of experience on the national and international stage
• Obama supports many of the main Democratic ideals, like health care for all, protection of the environment, progressive taxation, diplomacy abroad, etc.
• Obama has a multi-cultural background, has lived in many states and a few countries, and is versed in Constitutional law
• Obama is known for his cool head, methodical decision making process, and the ability to take in many points of view
• Obama has inspired "generation Y," a generation who values multiculturalism, bullshit-free communication, and the Internet
• Obama picked a senior senator for his Vice Presidential running-mate, a man who has a lot of experience in the international stage and a big mouth

Those are the facts, with a few thoughts thrown in. But underneath the presentation of the two candidates runs a river of inuendo, political attacks, and voter sniping that has only now gained national attention. I speak, mostly, of the caliber of people who attend Obama and McCain political rallies and stump speeches. Obama tends to draw people in the tens, sometimes hundreds, of thousands - packing arenas and stadiums and, most recently, the St. Louis/Mississippi River capital lawn. Attendees are young and old, black, white and otherwise.

McCain's rallies? Smaller, but probably equally as passionate. But lately, those passionate supporters have shown the ugly side of American life. Shouts of "terrorist," "ni**er," and "kill him!" can be heard on video feeds from these live events, and sometimes both McCain and Sarah Palin can hear them. Do they chide their supporters for expressing thoughts dating back to the Sixteenth Century? No, they do not. In fact, they encourage misrepresentations by spreading fear and division among the electorate. Using smears and attacks against the "Other" has become a campaign strategy.

That, and many local Republican headquarters, stationed around the country, have gone even further, comparing Obama with Osama bin Laden, questioning his national origin, and spreading lies about taking the oath of office on the Koran.

Other things being equal, the decision on who to vote for president could be made based on the supporters each candidate attracts. If racists and fear-mongerers support McCain so openly, what does that say of McCain, Palin, and their tactics? Nothing good or decent, in my mind.

Because voting for president should be based on what each man or woman can do to move our country forward. Do they have the experience and temperment to lead a nation of 330 million? Or should they do as George W. Bush has done and only govern for half of that 330 million?

What I want is the exact opposite of George W. Bush.

My main factors in deciding any presidential election are as follows:

1. Does this person respect science, the environment, and our Constitutional rights?
2. Does this person believe in an open, communicative government of the people, by the people, and for the people?
3. Will the person's policies support everyday Americans, or do they heap benefits on corporations and the already-blessed wealthy?
4. Does the person have an open mind, respect disagreement, and have mediocum of curiosity and intelligence?
5. Does the person see war as a last resort?
6. Does this person recognize their own limitations?

These ideas seems pretty simple and straightforward, but looking back at the past eight years, every one of them have failed to be realized.

Others have their own priorities - some very specific, like abortion or universal health care. But in the end, I'll vote for the person whose philosophy about government, America, and its people align with others who I would call Great Americans. People like Ben Franklin, and Harry Truman, and Car Sagan, and Martin Luther King, Jr., and Thomas Jefferson. We remember these people because of the good things they accomplished in their lifetimes, their open frame of mind, and their ability to unite people - not because of lies, fear, and hatred.

It's for this reason that I will vote for Barack Obama this Tuesday, Nov. 4. When I cast my vote, I know it will be in support of a man who exemplifies the good things about our wonderful country. Having traveled our land from shore to shore (multiple times), I've come to respect the dignity and resourcefulness and divirsity of this beautiful land. And everything I love about America seems to me to be embodied in people like Barack Obama. He gets it, I think. He doesn't see our country as some divided territory, as it was in the Civil War, shattered and broken and ugly. There is no "real" America and "false" America. As he said in his famous 2004 Democratic National Convention speech, there is only the UNITED States of America. Who can argue with that? Or, who can argue with that ideal?

The details of governing always get figured out. If John McCain becomes president, the country will survive and limp on and be here in another 100 years. It has survived worse.

But is surviving enough? Will limping on - our economy broken, our armed forces stretched to the max - realize the American ideal?

Not to me. So I will vote for someone who hopes for better, believes in better, and sees us - all of us - as practitioners of our own destiny.

On backing up.

The collapse of Washington Mutual was called the "biggest bank failure of all time," meaning that - in today's times - no one is "too big to fail."

So it's good to have a backup plan. That's what blogger Khoi Vinh recommends, especially when it comes to anything you have stored online.

This advice is applicable to most areas of our lives: fire escape plans, fire-proof lock boxes for valuables, generators for power outages, etc. Planning, "just in case," can be a real lifesaver.

Just this week, I had an instance at work where I'm glad we made a backup plan. Our marketing department stores our files (ads, newsletters, web site graphics, etc.) on a network disk. That network disk has failed before, and the first time we had no backup plan. We lost all our files in an instant. Then we started to store our files on our work computers, and copy them to the network disk. But that didn't always happen, so when our network drive went down again, Marketing had a big scare. Luckily, we were able to recover most (but still not all) of our files.

After that crash, we bought an external hard drive to backup all of our files. I do this personally every other day or so: move files from the network disk to the external disk. So when we lost our network drive again this week (thankfully, only briefly), I didn't freak out. We had a backup plan.

Do you? If you store files online, like I do all over the place on Flickr or in my Gmail account, do you have them stored somewhere physical? What about your money? Do you have a few dollars of spare cash hidden somewhere, just in case? Maybe a spare gas can for those "uh oh" moments?

My brain seems to be in constant survival mode. I'm constantly backing up my Mac files, regularly buying canned goods, having my trusty sword available for intruders, and keeping food on me at all times. But there's always more I can do.

Vinh's bigger point is that, anymore, no one is "too big to fail":

The size of a company is certainly not a reliable shield against failure, but being small doesn't necessarily guarantee a company will be around in the long term, either. I just don't think that it's realistic to assume that all of the data we're storing online is safe. So a friendly reminder: back up.

He makes the point about online items (Facebook profiles, e-mail messages, banking information), but the point can go further to life in general. Anything can fail.

Things can easily get out of hand. Guys building bunkers in their backyard during the Y2K scare (remember that?) took things a little far. But hey, as long as you've got the storage shelter there, it's one less thing to worry about.

You know, just in case.

You don't have to be a paranoid person to realize that unexpected things happen. A wise person will set time aside to think about the "what ifs" life throws at us, and plan for them as much as possible.

Operation: Oooh, Sarracuda

Maybe this is a news flash, but Barack Obama is a Muslim. He also hates America, isn't a patriot, and wants to kill us all in our sleep.

If you didn't know all this, it's okay. Just open up your e-mail inbox and it's all right there.

I say that in jest, of course, but the fact remains: the right-wing uses e-mail like a pro. They've used it against the Clintons and against John Kerry, and now it's being used against Obama. Probably because it only involves hitting the "Forward" button, and it doesn't involve much creativity. Why pay for ads when you can just type up some bullshit and hit "send" to your family members?

The left-wing has its own form of propaganda, but it involves a little more work. Liberals get off their asses and does some on-the-street reporting, in blogs and in commenting forums and in Twitter feeds, like journalists used to do (and should be doing today).

The Twitter feeds I read are alive with protests and linking. John Gruber, who authors my favorite blog Daring Fireball, has made it his goal to uncover everything evil about Sarah Palin. And Andrew Sullivan, over at The Atlantic, has hit the governor everyday. But who actually reads this stuff? Do average Americans really jump on The Atlantic's site for their political news? How much influence do they have?

There's a great new blog that has surfaced since the Palin VP announcement, called Mudflats, and its written by a guy up in Alaska that reports as an Alaskan on the whole ordeal. It's great stuff, like when he attends an anti-Palin rally that's actually larger than her "welcome home" rally.

But then I watch the Sunday morning political shows, like "This Week," and all of them were gushing over Sarah Palin and her "dramatic invigoration" of the Republican base. No truth-telling, no in-depth questioning - just idol worship. How can blogs compete with ABC? My good friend Andrea has had some great posts about the awfulness of the Governor, but even her and me combined don't get the audience that major media outlets do. Not even close.

So we need an e-mail campaign of our own.

We need to take what these go-getters, these guardians of the public interest (most of which are underpaid or not paid at all - just passionate investigators of the truth) are finding and spread them like a virus. We can finally test whether the truth will set America free, and whether lies fall under the weight of their own hypocrisy (though are are some exceptions).

Take what you find, copy the link or the text, and send them to your relatives. You know the ones: the same aunts and uncles who send you those "send this or die in five days" kinds of e-mails. Send them all the shit that's been dug up about Palin. If that's the only way we can reach people about this lady, then so be it. Because I'll tell you, McCain's cronies are working hard to assault Obama through e-mail (by calling him a Muslim, anti-American, a socialist, and so on). We can fight back.

The key will be not to send them to people who think the same way you do. That's preaching to the choir. Instead, send it to people who you know are either undecided or are so pro-Palin they're going to get their Sarah beehave hairdo. Set your sights on folks who don't pay attention, in any sort of detail, to news from the political front. The fact is, these folks aren't going to find out the truth unless it's shoved in front of their face. So let's do the shoving.

To get things started, however, spread the good word amongst your friends. They can then take what we've found and spread it to their non-believers. It has to start somewhere.

Is this back-handed? Is it the cheap way of doing things? Is it even right? Yes, maybe, and probably not - but listen, we're on the losing side of a fight that's been raging for years. We can hope that people will suddenly care about what goes on in the world, and we can hope that people will read blogs and watch the news and do some research. But hope only goes so far, and eventually we need to do the work ourselves. Part of it is the good people who are researching the candidates and putting the information out there. But that's only half the battle. The other half is making sure people see the stuff. And friends, that's where you and I come in.

You know what the great part is? Most of the stuff being spread about Barack Obama are lies. Shit-storm, muddy, dirty lies. But the information about Sarah Palin? That's all true. The difficult part is already done, because we don't have to make anything up. Her husband really did want Alaska to secede from the Union. She really did say the Iraq war was "God's will." She look into banning books at her town's library. All this makes the entire job easier.

This begins "Operation: Oooh, Sarracuda." But what should our hub be? Should we have a blog? A website? Some kind of resource people can go and find all the ammunition they need? Let me know, and we can build a hot-and-heavy coalition of people who really care about who is going to govern their country. Nothing is out of bounds, but there is one limitation: we're only going to spread stuff that's true. No lies. Nothing that might be true. Just truth, fair and square.

The moral high ground is a good place to start, and as the Jedi say - the truth hurts. Let's make it hurt really bad. While we may feel a bit dirty and slimy at the end - anything that deals with spreading e-mail propaganda is always a bit messy - our hard work will be worth it. A side benefit? Maybe your neighbor, the one who sends you all those lottery offers and racist jokes, will leave you the hell alone.

The war will not be televised. It will be forwarded and spread and will catch fire in the inboxes of the unbelievers. We have nothing to lose but our dignity - we have a country to gain.

Why I wish 'SarahPalinSucks.com' wasn't taken.

Joe Klein from Time.com, on John McCain's new war on the media:

There is a tendency in the media to kick ourselves, cringe and withdraw, when we are criticized. But I hope my colleagues stand strong in this case: it is important for the public to know that Palin raised taxes as governor, supported the Bridge to Nowhere before she opposed it, pursued pork-barrel projects as mayor, tried to ban books at the local library and thinks the war in Iraq is "a task from God." The attempts by the McCain campaign to bully us into not reporting such things are not only stupidly aggressive, but unprofessional in the extreme.

Nice to meet you, Mr. Vice President.

We all learned that Joe Biden is Obama's choice for VP running mate.

But just who the hell is this guy?

I have to admit: my recollection is his "clean and articulate" description of Obama during the primaries, but more that he was the anti-Edwards. Shoot-from-the-hip, wise, seen it all before, really knows his stuff kind of guy - that's Biden. And here I would've loved to vote for Edwards more than anyone, and found out what a disaster that would have become, Biden become the next best possible VP choice. If his mouth doesn't get him in trouble again.

Anyway, to learn who this guy is, I recommend a big GQ profile on him, written during the primaries, that handles everything in a nutshell.

Other than McCain, this is the guy that has a handle on the way the world works. Obama having him on the team is a boon for both of them, I think, because - like McCain - there's a certain sense of having earned where they are today. I dig meritocracy, and there's enough merit in this race now to banish any thoughts of none-of-the-above voting (as I've mentioned before).

It all makes sense. We finally have a couple of guys who know what the hell they're doing when it comes to intelligence and industry and hard work - everything that Bush lacks. We also have a VP nominee who would whip Mitt Romney's fake fucking ass in a debate, and I can't wait to see it happen.

Take your font and shove it.

Today I went off on someone at work over a font.

A few years ago, it was excusable to go off on someone over the Comic Sans font. It was everywhere. And unless you were a daycare or a school, you had no business using Comic Sans. In anything. It was tacky, and overused, and it made no rational sense to use Comic Sans. Unless you were a child, in which case you still should've been scolded and sent to the corner.

Today, that font is Papyrus. It's everywhere. And unless you're a salon or Egyptian, you have no business using Papyrus. It's become so prolific, in fact, that's it parodies itself.

A non-profit has me working on a banner for a golf outing. The organizer asked if I could use Papyrus in the banner since "that is what the rest of our golf lit uses."

Excuse me, but a golf outing does not call for the dusted, desert-ish, foreign-looking font. This is golf tees and carts and cases of beer - not the fucking sphynx.

Here's my response:

I'm sorry, but I am philosophically opposed to Papyrus font.

Not kidding - I really think you should consider another one, even if you donít like mine. Look around town sometime and tell me how many places use it. Everyone uses it.

I can see it for salons or if youíre doing something Egyptian. Otherwise, we can be more creative than that.

My two cents.

Not as harsh as I had it in my head, but keeping my cool over issues like font usage is a big step for me. Especially when the goddamn font is Papyrus.

In this age of everyone's-a-designer, mysterious and stylish mutants like Papyrus come along every few years and dash any hope of progress or enlightenment in our dark age. I found instances of Comic Sans used throughout our corporate intranet, and I puked blood for a week straight. It's horrific, and barbaric, to use a child-like font like Comic Sans anywhere other than where it's intended. But thanks to cretins like Microsoft Word, Comic Sans and its playful style was unleashed upon the world with no consideration of common sense or taste.

And now that Papyrus is out there - even on fucking real estate signs - there is little hope of stemming the tide. Little hope, that is, until some other useless fucking font comes along and steals the spotlight. Like Chinese character tattoos ("hope," "dreams," and "creativity" - that last one's ironic - permanently in Mandarin text) or those little Calvin windshield stickers, where he's pissing on something, the American sensibility can't handle anything that's mass-marketable enough to be placed on stationary or logos or, Jesus Merciful God, body parts in mass quantity.

So it goes with Papyrus. Most probably hope to appear edgy or, even during wartime, desert-dwelling enough to be considered innovative and stylish. It doesn't work, because everyone else thinks the same goddamn thing - and then the whole thing becomes cliche.

Papyrus is the trans fat of the design world, and should be limited to graphic projects that involve mummies, camels, or maybe a kangaroo somewhere.

But a golf outing? Don't you know what the Egyptians did to the Jews?

I don't now, but I used to.

I used to watch a decent amount of TV. I'd get up in the morning and watch CNN while eating breakfast, come home and catch the news, and maybe grab an episode of "The Simpsons" with Don. Now I can honestly say I watch maybe a half hour to an hour of TV of week. I don't watch a lot of TV now, but I used to.

But that got me thinking: what do I do with my time now?

I only have to look at the hand prints on my iBook to know what I do. I'm on the computer constantly, either writing blog posts like this one, or that one, or researching trips and trip ideas, or doing tons and tons of reading, or I'm actually inside the computer trying out DIY projects and living to tell about them.

And I'm not alone. People are watching less TV these days, and finding far more productive uses of their time. Just like me.

In fact, I feel like I'm busier nowadays than I ever was when I was in tons of organizations and zooming off to meeting every night and spending a ton of weekends in Adrian. Now, I look back on that time and wonder, "How the heck did I manage?" I guess I managed by spending my time differently. It's no better or worse than before.

Now, though, I actually look down on people who watch a ton of TV. "Jesus," I catch myself thinking, "don't they have anything better to do?" It's not very fair. Television can have its redeeming qualities. But to me, the real world happens outside of that glowing box. Maybe I've said this before?

The change began, I think, when I first discovered MySpace in the spring of 2005. It became my cognitive heat sink. I read the vast amount of blog posts from back when I first discovered MySpace and - again - I wonder where I had all that free time. My political and social and personal thinking was all there, out for everyone to see, and now I'm lucky to post something new to MySpace once a week. I don't post to MySpace so much these days, but I used to.

Part of it is that, while I'm not involved in so many things as a whole, I'm deeply involved in the organizations I participate in. It seems my to-do list for my recycling group is never ending. But what could be a better cause? My political and environmental passions both get stoked, and I'm doing what I love. Same with Rotary.

So all that time I spend watching TV - wasted time, when you get down to it - I'm busy doing something else. Not to say that watching TV is a bad thing. I still adore my "The Office" episodes, and football on Saturday, and watching "Wheel of Fortune" with grandma. But the news? I listen to NPR religiously on the way to and from work. Or I read it online. And trust me: I'm reading or listening to the smarter news these days.

After that, I'm busy taking walks or going for a bike ride or undertaking whatever "wouldn't it be fun if..." project that shapes and grows my brain a little bit. It's been a blast. What's more, you'll never hear me utter the words, "I'm bored." Never.

Because I'm never bored these days. But I used to be.