OneMind

This morning, I lost a week’s worth of appointments from my iCalendar application. I opened the calendar on my MacBook Air, saw (or at least thought I saw) all the appointments for this week, then, poof, they were gone. No sweat, I figured. I have this whole thing synched through MobileMe with my desktop, my laptop, my online space and my iPhone. Imagine my surprise to find that all four of those calendars were missing the same week’s appointments!

After spending a lot of time futzing around with a support specialist on Apple’s online chat support service, we were unable either to figure out what happened or fix the problem.

But here’s the real kicker.

As we neared the end of our session, the support specialist asked me if I used automatic synching on my multiple computers. I of course said I did; I mean, that’s the big selling point for me. I make a new appointment on my iPhone and when I get to my office and check my calendar, it’s already there. Without that, MobileMe loses a big chunk of value. But she told me, “”It is recommended that when syncing with multiple computers to use manual syncing and always back up data before syncing.” WTF??!!!!!

The real message here, to me, is “MobileMe’s synch process is broken. Don’t rely on it. If you do, you can lose data. Forever. Everywhere.”

This is the first time this has happened to me but I’m concerned. What if my Address Book got wiped out? Everywhere? Recovering that could be a real nightmare if not an impossibility.

So I guess I’ll disable automatic synchronization for now but I’m going to be looking for a better solution than MobileMe so if you know of something I should try, please email me at dan at danshafer dot com.

Patty Fisher, a columnist for the San Jose Mercury-News, finally asked the right, intelligent question in response to the McCain campaign’s continuing “guilt by association” campaign: What difference does or would it make?

“When,” she asks, “did it become downright un-American to associate with other Americans with different opinions? Or to engage those who want to change U.S. foreign policy? Isn’t that the essence of democracy?”

Precisely.

So what if Obama were a Muslim even? Is McCain suggesting that anyone who’s not a … what? … Christian of any kind? Christian of a certain persuasion or denomination? … should be barred from holding the office of President? That’s a direct affront to specific wording in the Constitution.

Even if all of the things the McCain campaign has been saying about Obama were true, what difference would it make? If anything, at least in my view, that makes him a curious, intelligent problem solver who wants to know what is really going on in the world and isn’t content to take media’s word for it. For that he deserves a prize. Namely the White House.

Mitchell Bard of Huffington Post posted a column explaining why he, as a life-long Democrat, is having trouble feeling confident about Sen. Barack Obama’s likely win in Tuesday’s Presidential election. He provides four reasons for his jitters:

1. Too many state races are within five points and therefore subject to last-minute shifts.
2. Voter fraud is highly likely (“it’s not like the GOP is going to suddenly play fair in 2008″).
3. An “October/November Surprise” can still be engineered by a White House intent on winning at any cost.
4. The real effect of the race issue on the election is completely unpredictable because this is the first time we’ve been in this position.

I worry a little about the second and third issues because of the validity of his first concern. I may be naive but I find myself unable to generate too much concern about the so-called “Bradley Effect,” which I think is and always has been a figment of some journalist’s imagination. But until the last vote is counted, McCain concedes defeat, and Obama is clearly on his way to the Oval Office, I’m not going to allow myself to feel confident in the outcome.

Those of us who inhabit America’s political left are vocal critics of Fox “News,” and, I think, justifiably so. Not only do that network’s clearly labeled commentators show a strict bias toward the Right, but their so-called news coverage has no measure of objectivity to it and hasn’t had for many years, if it ever did. We Lefties prefer to listen to MSNBC, and in particular Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow. Their shows lean clearly and strongly left and are obviously intended as commentary on the news.

But just because I like the biased view of MSNBC and dislike that of Fox doesn’t mean that I can’t be at least somewhat objective. And I find myself increasingly bothered by one technique long employed by Fox that MSNBC has begun to rely on more and more in its coverage of the Presidential campaign. Too often, MSNBC (and other liberal outlets like the Huffington Post) has been all too quick and willing to give major air time to stories which have only one anonymous source. No legitimate news organization would ever do this. In fact, in many cases, the anonymous single source is the story.

Case in point: Olbermann played up a story yesterday in which an unnamed “senior McCain campaign aide” referred to VP nominee Gov. Sarah Palin a a “whack job.” Maddow followed suit and today Huffington Post is on the bandwagon as well. If Fox relied on a single anonymous source inside the Obama camp as evidence of a melt-down in campaign discipline and confidence, these lefty outfits would likely be screaming bloody murder.

In the context of an admittedly biased show, it may be justifiable to report such tidbits (though I’d still prefer that they not do so), but it is certainly not justifiable to play up these stories as if they were some sort of major evidence of problems inside the campaign. If they had a legitimate news peg — with multiple corroborating anonymous sources or one identifiable and reliable source — on which to hang a story about the breakdown of the campaign, bringing in these other, less credible accounts as supporting themes is probably in bounds. I have no doubt there is dissension and chaos inside the McCain campaign. I’m even inclined to believe that there indeed was a highly placed anonymous member of the McCain-Palin campaign who called the sorry excuse for a VP nominee a “diva” or a “whack job”. But editorial focus really ought to stay on stories with more credible journalistic underpinnings.

Frank Rich says in this New York Times column that the Republicans’ shop-worn strategy of pandering to racism and fears in the American electorate has run its course. He credits that development for the fading hopes of the McCain-Palin (Palin-McCain?) ticket. The piece is one of Rich’s best efforts and reveals a great deal about the deep strategic differences between the liberal and conservative political arenas in our country.

This is really a subset of the larger and more insidious difference I have long seen between conservatives and liberals. Conservatives are exclusionary, liberals inclusionary. In almost all things. A corollary of that rule/observation is that exclusionist positions are easier to reduce to sound bites than are inclusionary ideas. In past elections, that has been the biggest single reason for GOP victories: the American voting public has a short attention span, reduced further by the onslaught of campaign advertising during an election period. It tends to latch onto slogans, to remember quick-hit sayings, to glaze over in the face of nuanced messages.

It has taken a crisis of such proportion that the American voting public has felt the need to pay attention. And as it has paid attention, two related things have happened: (1) the apathy that normally keeps the number of new voters, particularly among young people, low, has disappeared; (2) the public has become willing to focus more closely on the messages. At the same time, I think Obama has found ways to state nuanced positions in pithy and memorable ways — aided in large part by his brilliant speaking cadences — so that long after you have heard and understood the details, the basic message remains a beacon.

All that said, I think Obama is taking a huge risk with his Wednesday night onslaught. I suspect he will draw a massive audience. A lot of undecideds — perhaps nearly 100% of them — will be paying close attention. If the production meets expectations — which are enormously high — he could really trigger the landslide nobody wants to talk about. But if he comes off as preachy or obtuse or arrogant, he could reverse some of his recent gains.

It’s probably the only way he could inject some suspense into the final week of campaigning. And I suspect he’ll pull it off with panache. I certainly hope so.

I went to see Oliver Stone’s movie “W.” on Saturday. It was a pretty major disappointment, just taken as a piece of film. It rambled. It bounced back and forth through time. It had no discernible story line. The acting was quite good for the most part (though Thandie Newton, the woman who played Condoleeza Rice, was abysmal) and the writing was above average in spots. But overall, it was a big disappointment.

My judgment is not based on the fact that Bush comes off looking more independent-minded and decisive than all accounts have indicated he really is. Stone may well have it right, and media reports could be all wrong. I was surprised at that aspect of Stone’s treatment of the President but, again, I don’t judge the film on that basis. Stone’s entitled to poetic license even if he is wrong in that portrayal.

Being a political junkie of the first rank, I expected to find myself enthralled by the movie, regardless of how it portrayed Bush. But I never got engaged in the story line, perhaps in large part because there isn’t one.

I’ll leave it to others more knowledgeable than me to evaluate the historical accuracy of the portrayal of the man who will go down in history as our worst president ever. For me, it is sufficient that I warn you that this is not a movie you’re likely to enjoy.

There’s a rumor floating around that Condoleeza Rice, a bright woman who went from Provost of Stanford University to yes-woman and apologist for the Bush Regime in an inexplicable journey into ignorance, wants to become president of the San Francisco 49ers.

The NFL Network’s Adam Schefter first reported the story, which the Niners have denied, and several other media outlets picked it up and ran with it.

I have just one word of advice for the Niners: No. We have had enough duplicity, lack of accountability, and incompetence as 49ers fans over the past nine years that the York family has owned the franchise. What we don’t need is a front office headed by someone who has spent the last eight years studying such disgusting tactics at the feet of the master. And I’m talking about Dick Cheney here.

My wife and I mailed our ballots today. Wouldn’t it be neat if there were some way to notify the Post Office and the phone carriers that any further attempts to persuade us how to vote would be fruitless so they’d just automatically intercept and destroy/block any such traffic? Sigh. Such is not to be the case, of course.

I’m 63. This is the 12th Presidential election in which I’ve cast a ballot. I honestly cannot think of one that was obviously more crucial to the future of our nation…and the world.

Ultimately, at least in the absence of outright thievery, we get as a nation the kind of leadership our consciousness calls forth and therefore that we deserve. I am hoping, praying and holding the vision of a real turnaround for a nation in trouble and a world in need of truth, hope, compassion and love.

That’s why I voted for Obama.

Laurence Rozier of the Meshverse Journal jogged my memory this morning and caused me to go re-read Sen. Barack Obama’s technology plan.

While I don’t agree with everyting he says here, it is encouraging and refreshing to find a candidate who has given such obviously deep and considered thought to these important issues. Compare his policy statements to those of Sen. John McCain, whose positions are broad and sweeping but not terribly substantial or focused on technology. McCain seems to be interested in technology only as part of a bigger puzzle of business and economics where he has demonstrated repeatedly a lack of expertise.

My good buddy Clay Cotton sent me a link to his blog with a very cool music video, “Takin’ it Back With Barack, Jack!”. Check it out on Clay’s blog.

Smooth.