August 2008 Archives

Jokes circulated last week in the wake of the Obama VP text message announcement that McCain's internet-challenged campaign would be releasing their news via pony express. But as speculation and eventual confirmation of his selection of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin trickled in early Friday morning, some evidence surfaced that perhaps someone in his camp is savvier than they're getting credit for.

The whirlwind of predictions favoring Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty or former primary opponent Mitt Romney for the VP nomination came to a swift halt as a dark horse candidate who had been all but ruled off the shorter of the short list of probable nominees was announced as McCain's choice. If there's anything the media hates in an early morning breaking news story it's a dark horse. Who is this woman Sarah Palin? What about all that research and analysis we did on Pawlenty and Tom Ridge? For the American public, Palin is an even greater unknown. Politico.com reported from the scene of McCain's announcement rally what was probably a common first response:

Jay Schuermann, who rode up to Dayton from Cincinnati in a bus full of Republicans, admitted that he was quickly looking up Palin on Wikipedia on his BlackBerry as she was introduced.

Southern California, more than any other place in the world, is not just a landscape but a dreamscape. Built on the celluloid dreams of cinema, it's a mirage of glamour, prosperity, and new beginnings blooming out of the desert. No area has come to represent the hopes and dreams of the classic suburbanite more than the San Fernando Valley.

Sprouting from the minds of clever real estate developers who schemed to turn sleepy orange groves into hot property by buying up cheap agricultural land that would then be annexed to the city of Los Angeles (and able to drink up its new water supply), the Valley quickly blossomed into tidy streets of single-family homes with shiny new cars in the driveways: the American Dream.

But even in those boom times that tidy dream was not so spick and span. De facto segregation excluded African Americans and other minorities from all but a sliver of Valley developments. Today the dividing line of the 405 freeway separates the prosperous West Valley communities from the largely down-market and predominantly immigrant communities of the East Valley. But despite these realities, the imaginative construction of spacial identity is as strong as ever.

As a citizen, I'm interested in health care reform, following the election, and figuring out how speculation and hedge funds affect the economy. But as a journalist I just want to talk to interesting people, go to interesting places, and have conversations and experiences that shake me up a little.