Mississippi State House elections are making things interesting

I ended up doing an article on Jess Hogue, an candidate for the 116th Mississippi State House of Representatives. I think it came out alright, but a crazy thing happened. One of the other candidates spammed it with his campaign web links. As it turns out, I emailed him, told him I was displeased and got him to agree to an interview. I'll just do another profile like I did for Mrs. Hogue. You can read that article here.

So the question is this: In election related articles, would it be appropriate to post in the comments your campaign ad material? I'm curious about your input on this. Feel free to post your campaign ads, as well.

Meeting Jess Hogue, a future politician?

I attended my first political event tonight. Jess Hogue, a local teacher at Virginia College, announced that she was officially running for the Mississippi State Legislature. It was an intimate affair at a fantastically appointed home, not theirs, but beautiful, all the same.

Jess was such a friendly and amazing figure, and I will be writing a profile on her soon, published elsewhere She was easy to approach, listened intently and was driven on her message. Her campaign advisor was just as fascinating to speak to, and I think I may try to speak to him more.

Getting start struck by anyone who might appear in the paper still gets the better of me, so if I have any real chance of becoming a better writer, I suppose I should get over that!

Gripping cold nights and Google Trends

I have a rather odd addiction. I enjoy reading the top 20 items in Google Trends. I have a widget on my iGoogle home page and I wouldn't say that I stare at it, but I feel the urge to peek at it every time I open a web browser.

This has lead me to believe that there's a trend, in general, to the weather and which items are "trending" in the Google search universe. This cold snap across the majority of the United Sates has lead to a number of trends that are cold weather disaster related. Blizzards, snow storms, and such. Sometimes even a cold weather survival search string will jump in there. Then people become morbid.

Collapses of buildings, like the collapse of the Metrodome roof (which is apparently inflatable, has happened three times before and is relatively easy to fix). And then death tolls and survival stories. Fortunately, they don't seem to last long. A day or two seems to be my anecdotal average. Famous deaths have always trumped the Google Trends list, at least they temporarily get knocked off by a collapsing roof.

Speaking of trends, one Google Trends item that keeps coming back is this guy Alex Jones and Prison Planet. Not a fan of much of his stuff, and most of it sounds like conspiracy theories with little or no evidence (but aren't all conspiracies backed by little or no evidence), but his audience has some really strange trend. Fridays. Friday afternoon his topic of the day always seems to top Google Trends. Not for long, and normally not in any grand volume, but enough for me to wonder what the topic is about. When I do click on the subject, because it is always something that catches your attention, like "Obama caught lying" or "Obama Deception censored," I normally read each story a bit and determine it to be just rubbish. An very angry. Lots of hate from that group there. Check out my article on it here and just read the comments. Craziness.

Freakonomics is the "heat," Find the cause, not the symptom

I've read this book a number of times, and I often refer friends, colleagues, neighbors, family, students and anyone else in ear shot to read it. I only mention it here as a way of defining the background.

My dad and brother are both police officers. Those two, with my wife, like to gang up on me for a grand old argument. In this case, we were arguing about whether red cars get more tickets than other colored cars. On the one hand, they had their anecdotal evidence, and coming from two cops and a social worker, it did not look like I had much to stand on. Maybe 15 minutes in to it, I recalled one of the central lessons in the book, correlation is not necessarily causality.

In my argument, that even if red cars did get more tickets, it would not be due to the car's color. It was far more likely that the personality type that would choose a red car would also be the personality type to speed. Not sure how much proof there is to that theory, but Snopes.com had a nice feature about the concept.

In the mean time, pick up a copy of Freakonomics, Superfreakonomics, or just check out their blog page, here.

New Direction

When I started this blog, I really had no clue as to what I was doing. I had just started writing the month prior and I was, bluntly, quite crap at it. I'll let you decide if the writing is any better, but I will be taking this blog into a new direction. Well, rather than a new direction, just a direction. The focus will be on life and politics in South Mississippi and as someone who does not feel like they fit in, politically. Cast as soul stomping conservatives by liberal minded people, and a free-loving hippy by the those with a conservative mindset, I think that should put me about somewhere in the middle.

Is it too late to ask people to use a little common sense?

Noob Strikes Again

I've only been writing for just over a month. In fact, my first published article was on 02 Jan 2010, so I think I should be allowed my fair share of mistakes. The site that published my first article, Associated Content, has allowed me to grow as a writer, but they also give me a forum to fall on my face.

Case in point, I thought that I would try my hand at writing a news article for the site, and, in a word, it turned out great. I've written 33 articles for the web site, but this was the first article to get widespread attention. The article was about Nodar Kumaritashvili's accident in luge, and in one day, got nearly a thousand hits. For me, this is huge. Almost all of my articles combined might be just over a thousand views, and that is across 40 days of availability.

This then spurred me to write another news article about the Olympics, and I failed miserably. The article was about Apolo Ohno winning silver in the 1500m short track, and about the hostility between the South Korean Team and Ohno. Unfortunately I went too far in Ohno's defense by stating that a Korean news agency had gotten their facts wrong. It was I who got the facts wrong.

To make things worse, a number of folks have been keen to point out my mistake, at length, and with no thought of pulling punches. From first hand experience, I can say that this sucks. To Korea Times, I'm sorry for the error, and I am trying to correct it. To Apolo Ohno, thanks for that. And to me, next time I will double check the facts.

Give me another chance!!

Georgian Luge Competitor Dies in Accident, World Mourns Together During Opening Cermonies

Nodar Kumaritashvili, a Georgian luger, died on February 12th after an accident while completing a training run shortly before the Opening Ceremony of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games.

At one point, it was unknown whether the Georgian Team would continue to participate in the Games, but later announced that they would stay and compete in his honor, as reported by Martyn Herman of Reuters. Olympic organizers offered a moment of silence during the opening ceremonies and the Georgian Team displayed a black banner on their national flag when they came out for the ceremony. In remembrance, many of the athletes have taken to wearing black bands, and they were evident during the Opening Ceremonies.

Luge training was suspended after the accident, and the idea of cancelling the luge event was considered. The track is reported to be very fast, and Nodar Kumaritashvili left the track as he was finishing his run. The accident occurred at the Whistler Sliding Center, a track that is acknowledged by the International Luge Federation(FIL) as being one of the fastest tracks in the world.

There is some controversy around the accident as the experience level of Nodar Kumaritashvili has come into question. He has apparently competed in 5 events in the past year, but finished in 31st while competing in December and November. His finishes in the National Cup races were not competitive enough for him to earn a berth into the World Cup rounds of these events. Of course, his father, Selix Kumaritashvili, ,who is the head of the Georgian Luge Federation is taking heat for pushing his son beyond his limits of expertise.

Nodar Kumaritashvili was 21 years old at the time of his death. This was his first Olympic Games, and the fans and athletes mourn his loss. Many people in the sports world have expressed their condolences, including International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge, who started his press conference in tears.

Other athletes, including American luge racer Mark Grimmette, are noted for commenting on the safety of the track due to its speed. The coaches of the various national teams are expected to meet tonight to discuss possible ways to accommodate safer competition in the days to come.

God Speed, Nodar.