I wanted to write a report on the debates based on my relative wealth of debate experience. (11 or so years debating/judging/coaching policy debate on both the high school and college levels.) I’ve been thinking it would be entertaining, to me anyway, if the candidates had to adhere to the format of a policy debate. Policy debate rounds are structured basically like this: there are two teams of two. Each team member has to give an 8-minute constructive speech (9 minutes in college debate), after which their opponent gets a 3-minute cross-examination period. Then each team member gives a 5-minute rebuttal (6 minutes in college debate). It means we’d have to talk about substance instead of in sound bites. But alas.

I watched Friday’s presidential debate from the comfort of one of my favorite bars. It’s hard to be objective in a crowd, I’ll say that. The bar was in the West Village and, except for a couple of off-hours Wall Street type dudes in backwards baseball caps hanging around near the arcade games in the back of the bar, everyone was overwhelmingly pro-Obama. So I was trying to be objective, but it’s hard to do that when everyone cheers when Obama makes a good point.

Now that I’ve had time to think about it, I think the debate was a wash. McCain loses points for smiling smugly. Obama loses points for being correct but not being as aggressive as he could have been. Obama clearly understands nuance, but I don’t know if the audience would. Also, the debate was largely about foreign policy which is, well, foreign to most Americans. When we start talking about health care and domestic issues, I think there’s an opportunity for Obama to really hit it out of the park. That’s the kind of stuff that actually hits home for most Americans.

I’d give a slight advantage to Obama for being articulate and much less smug than McCain, but I don’t think it was a home run, you know?

I took notes. I was intending to write up a report based on these, but I think it might be more fun to just transpose my notes, particularly those I wrote after the third beer. So, here goes:

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I suck at this blogging thing, eh?

Well, some news and notes:

1. Uma Thurman and Jesse L. Martin have joined the cast of the new Muppet Christmas movie, which is especially notable as it’s been filming in my corner of Brooklyn. I, in fact, walked through the set last week when they were filming on 8th Ave in Park Slope conveniently between work and my apartment.

2. Gawker had an interesting round-up on Friday of scientific explanations for why people vote Republican.

Speaking of politics, I am going to try my darnedest to liveblog or at least write extensive commentary on the debates.

3. Did you know that the very first baseball park to charge admission was right here in Brooklyn? And now, thanks to the new Yankee and Shea Stadiums (or “Citifield,” whatevs) we New Yorkers get to pay through our noses for baseball. So much for America’s pastime.

I’m volunteering for New York Cares day for the 3rd year in a row. My team, the imitable Team Truthiness, is raising money to support the organization. It’s a good cause, I promise! The past two years, we’ve gone to struggling schools in NYC and helped them with cleaning, painting, library organizing, and other things to make school better for the students.

To learn more about Team Truthiness, visit our website. We’re one of the most successful non-corporate sponsored teams. And we have hats!

If you’d care to donate, and you really should, you can do so by going to my donation page.

more animals

+ Hollywood’s 5 saddest attempts at feminism.

+ Related: Masculinity and Disney movies.

+ Fashion at my alma mater. I’m sure glad I graduated before that words-on-the-ass-of-your-sweatpants trend started. Or, maybe what I really need are some of these. Hot, right?

+ I’m kidding.

+ McCain Shenanigans Watch: McCain pulled out of an interview on CNN because Campbell Brown actually, you know, did her job by asking some tough questions.

+ Cool skyscraper photography.

+ Some baseball card fun: The 23rd card in a set of 22.

+ Grease in Lego.

One of my coworkers pointed out today that, in the event McCain gets elected and then decides not to run for reelection in 2012, the likely Republican candidate would then be Sarah Palin, and, theoretically, she could run against Hillary Clinton, and then we’d have to elect a woman.

There’s been a lot of weird anger about the choice. I thought at first that it was purely a ploy to pull disaffected Clinton voters towards the McCain ticket. If the last few days have anything to show for it, this is probably true, as it doesn’t seem like McCain really checked her out in advance. It really was kind of a, “Well, she’s got a vagina,” choice. Because, you know, women are stupid and think all women are the same.

Here’s a brief list of blog posts about Sarah Palin that I have read. Maybe this encapsulates my thoughts.

Jezebel: Bristol’s pregnancy should be off limits. Bristol’s pregnancy is fair game.

One of the best posts on this topic was by Lauren at Feministe.

Sign of the apocalypse? Lindsay Lohan speaks about Sarah Palin articulately “I think the real problem comes from the fact that we are taking the focus off of getting to know Sarah Palin and her political views, and what she can do to make our country a less destructive place. Its distracting from the real issues, the real everyday problems that this country experiences.” Hey, that’s a really good point. Makes you wonder if it’s all part of the strategy, eh. “So, John McCain, what’s your plan for Iraq?” “Hey, what’s that?!”

The babies and the news media: what the scandal, such as it is, says about the candidates and the media.

Giuliani says Palin is more qualified than Obama. Of course he does.

Gawker has a clip of Sarah Palin talking about pregnant teens two years ago.

Bristol Palin’s pregnancy is fair game because Sarah Palin cut funding for pregnant teens. Bristol comes from a privileged place as part of Alaska’s first family and has resources available that an overwhelming number of pregnant teens do not, thanks, in part, to her mother.

If anything, this is why I think it’s relevant to talk about, beyond the fact that it’s kind of a fascinating human interest story. Sarah Palin’s family should be off limits from speculation, except when it reflects on policy. Here’s a woman who benefited from the feminist movement but is vehemently against it. A woman who slashed resources for teen mothers but is the mother of a teen mother.