Ehrlich names Kristen Cox as Running Mate Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

From today's Sun:

Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. chose Kristen Cox - the legally blind head of the state disabilities office - as his running mate yesterday, a pick that makes a play for female voters and aims to show that the governor's brand of conservatism is tempered by compassion.

Interesting choice, and probably a smart one. Whether she is a good campaigner remains to be seen but if she is used to handling managerial and executive duties as state Disability secretary, without the convenience of reading administrivia and the occasional presumed citizen hate mail with her own eyes, she probably is a very capable executive. The practical realities of the whirlwind, hyper data-loaded workstyle of 2006 probably force a blind executive to make some serious decisions about what's a waste of time.

I recall reading the mail - business correspondence, political and economics magazine, etc. - for a blind law professor in law school to make a few extra bucks. Today he would be spared my clumsy recitation in favor of an .mp3 or iPod download, a native embedded .wav file or an ASCII - to - spoken English software package for his magazines and email.

It will be interesting.

Elections Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

Three thoughts about voting.

The first came from a shipping and receiving clerk at a local big-box office supply store. This gentleman discussed the gubernatorial race in light of the recent bow-out by Doug Duncan. He expressed his dismay at the lack of choices, holding neither Martin O'Malley nor Bob Ehrlich in high esteem. He doubted whether he would vote for either in November.

The second comes from news out of Kuwait. Remember Kuwait - invaded by and recaptured from Iraq in 1990-1991? Ruled by the Emir of Kuwait and his 68 cousins? Kuwait will be holding its first universal suffrage election today, with women not only voting but running for parliamentary office. While few women candidates are expected to win this round, demonstrating that universal suffrage and women candidates can work within a rather traditional Islamic society such as Kuwait is an important development for the Islamic world.

The third is my own personal opinion. Everyone should show up to the polls. But no one should feel obliged to vote for any candidate whatsoever. In my view, showing up to the polls, going into the booth or electronic polling station and voting for no one is a powerful act, as opposed to staying home which is, for some, just an act of laziness. Elected officials do count undervotes, i.e. the shortfall of their totals against other precinct- or district-wide candidates and against total voters in their districts..

One can make the case that only one vote matters, since only one vote is the n+1 deciding vote as to the winner and loser, though we never know which of a candidate's votes is the one and the question is almost logically unanswewrable anyway. But if voting matters, it stands to reason that not casting a vote (as opposed to failing to show up) must matter equally.

UPDATE: Check out Jewaira's Boudoir for a first person account of a Kuwaiti woman exercizing her right to vote for the first time.

Duncan Out, O'Malley In Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

The cynic in me wants to believe that when Democratic gubernatorial candidate Martin O'Malley got a phone call during noontime Mass from rival Doug Duncan that Duncan was bowing out of the race for mental health reasons, he went back into the church and lit a candle to the Blessed Virgin in thanks. A more generous and fair analysis would be that O'Malley prayed for the welfare of a fellow Irish Catholic and formal rival for the Governor's Mansion. (For the record, that is the name of the building to Marylanders of my age, none of this Glendening-inspired "Government House" malarkey.)

Polls seem to place O'Malley ahead of Ehrlich, though hardly by the same margins that Ben Cardin and Kweisi Mfume would trounce Michael Steele in the Senate race. Ehrlich is about to get more unpopular as the July BGE bills begin to arrive and Ehrlich's perceived clumsy handling of that issue hits Marylanders more closely.

After July 4, it's gonna get bloody.

Apres nous, les deluges? Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

I was the only person in DC unaware of major flood damage in that city, I suspect. I drove to a job interview in Rockville down 29 and across 108 and 28/Norbeck through moderate rain, but did not notice the flood and torrents that crippled much of the metro area. I did not attempt to board the flooded Metro until fairly late in the morning thereafter for a second interview downtown; while I did see the obscene rain batter the City, the oppressive mugginess impressed me far more. The flooding continued to do damage, forcing filled garages closed and wreaking chaos around me, with me not noticing much of any of it.

The ride up Rockville Pike was pretty severe, but the idea of bridges or dams being under threat never occurred to me. I saw a report today about the dam at the Triadelphia Reservoir at the Patuxent River near I-95 near Laurel, with some engineers casting doubt on its structural integrity. A lot of people live in the Patuxent watershed and flood-blast plain SE of the dam in NE PG County and western Anne Arundel County.

After New Orleans, it gives one pause.

Crablaw Joins Maryland Bloggers Alliance Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

I am pleased to note that the Maryland Bloggers Alliance has risked its reputation and the safety of its billion dollar endowment by admitting this disreputable blog into its society. Please note the Javascript list of MBA members, which will presumably update from time to time as more join.

All jokes aside, thanks fellow MBA members - I am looking forward to the fun.

Dave Fischer for State's Attorney - Disclosure Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

A running inside joke among bloggers is a reference to a calling another "blogger ethics conference," never meant literally and often sarcastically as a backhanded slap at the hypocrisy of traditional media critics of the blogosphere. The joke is that bloggers don't have to convene a formal conference to exchange ideas; the blogosphere runs at brutal lightning speed and ethics conference would in fact be a cessation of such a discussion on ethics or anything else. When thinking about blogger journalistic ethics, well, there are no rules, really. Print and broadcast media have traditions and non-enforceable codes of conduct regarding news reporting, whereas anyone can start a blog, including the vast majority of people around the world without journalistic training (such as for example myself.)

This is not a news blog. If you want a news blog, I suggest visiting NEWS BLOG (where there have been ample discussions of blogger and non-blogger journalistic ethics of late.) This is my blog, just like your deck or living room are your deck or living room. Nonetheless, I feel and think that I should disclose my campaign affiliation to my readers, now that my candidate has officially filed his papers to run for office. Lest I be summoned to a blogger ethics conference.

I am the treasurer of Citizens for Dave Fischer, which is the campaign committee supporting the bid of Republican attorney Dave Fischer for State's Attorney for Anne Arundel County, Maryland. Dave filed his candidacy papers last week, although the campaign committee has been active for a few months now. Readers may note that I am a registered Libertarian, not a Republican; that fact has not changed. Dave and I go back to our law school days, when we rented a small townhouse together along with another law student. Dave has worked as a criminal defense attorney for the past 10 years in Glen Burnie.

The incumbent is Frank Weathersbee, a Democrat. Both candidates are apparently running unopposed in their respective primaries although the filing deadline for the primaries has not yet passed.

I do not intend to have this website be a campaign asset or tool. But in the interest of fair disclosure, I note the fact of my role as a campaign operative here.

Crablaw Technical Update Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

Crablaw Central is undergoing a system software update this evening. Accordingly, please bear patiently with our slow response times.

Maryland Blogger - Oliver Willis Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

Please check out Oliver Willis, who advertises himself/his blog as "Kryptonite to Stupidity." An Democratic activist, Willis reports out of Takoma Park and takes an interest in both national and state politics.

The joy of cystoscopy Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

Ahh, nothing like a probe up your urethra to scope your bladder to make the day brighter. By dumb luck another long-time friend of similar age had the same procedure on the same day. We got to share the love. It was for me quite unpleasant but not horrible, i.e. I took no pain medicine before or after.

Now it feels like I am trying to excrete a lit cigarette. Or perhaps a small piece of barbed wire. Or a caltrop.

As it turns out there is some family history of ideopathic microscopic hematuria (in English - trace blood in urine that cannot be seen or explained and that doesn't matter.). So I can relax, esp after a clean bill of bladder health, for now.

I guess that's what happens when you get old. Your own bladder becomes more interesting to you than Angelina Jolie's bosom. That, and you start using old-fashioned words like "bosom."

Good Sportsmanship Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

From the South Korea-Togo World Cup match:

Midway through the second half, and with the game in the balance at 1-1, Korea's Lee Eul-Yong went down with cramp. Togo defender Tchangai appeared beside his stricken opponent and proceeded to give him an impromptu leg massage.

Compare this to the bad behavior all too common in many levels of sport in the U.S. (and probably worldwide.)

Sam's Army Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

In my house, "Sam's Army" would probably include his mother and myself as caretakers for a smart, cunning little autistic American 3 year-old boy. But in the soccer world, Sam's Army refers to the unofficial club of supporters of U.S. soccer in the World Cup and generally.

It will be a tough test for the U.S. Team and Sam's Army today against Italy. "Tough test" probably does not convey the totality of the outmatch to take place today at 3 PM. By some piece of madness, the U.S. Men's team has a rank of 5th in the world, whereas the Italian team is ranked 13th and the Czech team at 2nd. While one could imagine the Czech team being among the best in the world, it is hard to imagine them only 3 ahead of the U.S. while 11 ahead of the Italians. How all of them are ahead of 19th placed Germany is beyond me. The Czechs walloped the U.S. 3-0 in their first World Cup 2006 game despite large time of possession advantages by the U.S., suggesting a fundamental flaw in scoring execution without even looking at the game highlights.

I wanted badly to see the U.S.-Czech game but due to the workaholic madness described below, I had no chance of seeing any of the games after last Saturday.

Shabbat Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

Six days thou shalt work, but on the seventh day thou shalt rest; in plowing time and in harvest thou shalt rest.
Exodus/Shemot 34:21 (JPS translation, 1917)

In the past six days, I have worked on the clock 56.75 hours, exclusive of six round-trip commutes from Reisterstown to, essentially, the eastern edge of the White House in downtown DC, totalling 3.5-4 hours per round trip each. I have not seen much of my family, and my memory of the week is a confusing blur of whirling documents. Seeing the sun fall from the view of my own living room has been liberating, and disorienting.

Had my project not called off all weekend work and sent everyone home early at 6 PM, I would probably have tried to talk my wife into acquiescing to my working a seventh day in a row. This unnatural lifestyle had become natural. I am glad now that I have 2 1/2 days before I must work again.

I get two days to play with my boys, hug my wife, feel the sun shine. Were I Jewish and religiously observant, the weekly holiday of Shabbat would have started at shortly before sundown, at which time all work and many actions considered associated with work such as handling money, answering the phone, driving, writing, kindling a fire or turning on (or off) an electrical device would cease for 25 hours. Shabbat is a day for singing, eating, prayer, religious study, catching up with family and friends, sleeping and, er, marital joy.

All of the foregoing sound more wholesome than spending untold time reviewing discovery documents in multi-district litigation.

Whatever your religious (or explicitly non-religious) inclination, a good Sabbath to you.

Crablaw Upgrades Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

The following recent upgrades have been implemented in Crablaw and more generally with the Crab.

1. Crablaw has converted its comment system to Haloscan, an external comment manager. This manager allows for off-site comment management and (one hopes) improved performance of Blogger as it loads posts with comments. One interesting think about Haloscan is that it allows commenters to submit an icon or "Gravatar" for use with all their comments, cross-website and cross-platform. This is mine.

2. Crablaw has almost completed the icon map above in the header. Enjoy your exploration of various aspects of Maryland life.

3. The Crab has upgraded from no desk to desk. Sunday's eBay business grew to the point of, effectively and literally, evicting my activities from the downstairs office. Adrift were my sundry tasks of joy and duty - the blogging at the edge of the bed after hours in an uncomfortable position; the balancing of the Godfrey household checkbook at Starbucks, where there were open tables and no children afoot; the response to many emails squeezed in between roughhousing sessions with my little sweet babies, etc.

My wife's mother died almost exactly two years ago. She left Sunday a beautiful, old-fashioned roll top desk that Sunday arranged to bring across-country and now sits in our living room. The desk had heretofore served as a storage cabinet for scrapbooking supplies for my wife, and the contents of what would have been my desk sat awkwardly in a nearby Rubbermaid(TM) storage container.

My wife saw the genius of a swap, and I am now most happy. Some safety devices are arriving to secure the desk from the wandering curiosity of an autistic three year-old, though the roll-top and the upper shelves are quite safe now.

Update on the Crab Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

We are well and we are extremely busy. Sunday's eBay brokerage business continues to grow in volume and complexity. Noah is a wild cutiepie who can walk independently. Sam's school is about to close for the year and he is recovering well from a croup scare that involved an ambulance trip to Sinai. As for me, I am working very hard and very late, over 50 hours per week exclusive of a 4 hour R/T commute, but the high pay makes it more than worth it (particularly when you are paying a Baltimore County mortgage note rather than a Montgomery County note.) My biggest complaint is lack of time to blog.

Haloscan commenting and trackback have been added to this blog.