Well, tomorrow afternoon I head to Vegas for the Punk Rock Bowling Tournament. I've been practicing. Last week I didn't do too well ... one game would be a 165 and the next would be like 120. Not good.
So I woke up on Sunday morning with my back out of whack, and went to the chiropractor on Monday to get it sorted out. And I was a lot more consistent bowling on Tuesday than before. I averaged about 163. I finished out the first game with four strikes in a row, then started the next game with a strike. Plus I was picking up a bunch of spares.
All I need now is a pair of my own shoes and I'm all set.
So, what's the deal? Why, in a city of 500,000 people, is it difficult to get more than twenty to come out to a show on a Wednesday night?
It is because hipster scenesters didn't bless the show?
is it because Pitchfork Media or the indie-rock blogosphere didn't bless the show?
Oy.
A thread on Slashdot about Wisconsin's new law requiring paper trails and open-source software for touch-screen voting machines has rekindled some thoughts I've had about voting machines.
The main thought, of course, is that the paper trail we normally associate with this sort of thing--namely, a printed receipt that says, "Yes, you DID vote for John Kerry"--is a complete MacGuffin and is essentially irrelevant.
And here's why.
First, and most obvious to me (but apparently not to most commentators), is that if someone can get in and program the voting machine to prefer one candidate can easily program that machine to print out a "voting receipt" that tells each voter that, "Yes, you did vote for your candidate," when in fact the vote was recorded for the other guy.
It doesn't matter whether the machine is a touch-screen type (like an ATM) or the fill-the-circle-and-scan-it (like taking the SAT) type we use here in Tucson, or in fact any other computerized thing you can come up with:
It can be programmed to print out the vote you cast, while at the same time recording your vote incorrectly.
The second very important point that's not noted by most commentators regards the recount trigger. Recounts are invoked in only the closest elections, say where the difference in vote tallies is less than a percent of the electorate.
(Everybody knows this scenario: the election manager pushes the touch-screen voting machine's "recount" button and it gives the exact same answer it gave in the first place. That's not very helpful. At least in the case of the scanned ballots, the pollworkers can go back to the original ballots and count them by hand.)
Now, what happens if the machine tells you the election result is not close? Well, there's no recount. Why is this important?
Because if the machine can be programmed to count, say, one of every five votes cast for Candidate JK as instead cast for Candidate GWB, the bogus votes may be enough (especially in a close election) to skew the results beyond what would trigger a recount.
Think about that. Really. Think about it. In this scenario, paper trails don't mean a goddamn thing.
It doesn't matter whether the machine uses a touch screen or an optically-scanned paper ballot. The vote is skewed enough toward a particular candidate to avoid a recount (that's the key), but not so much as to draw suspicion (say, if exit polls prefer the loser by a slim margin).
Think about it.
Some argue that a solution to this problem is, as mandated by the Wisconsin law, the use of open-source software in the voting machines. For the most part, I agree, but it doesn't go far enough and there are some problems with it.
In support of the open-source argument: I think that companies like Diebold who claim "trade secret" as a reason for not opening their voting-machine sources are basically full of shit. Why? Because any high-school student with some decent programming smarts can write the code for a voting machine in an afternoon. It's not rocket science. Really. If you require (and you do) security, have a grad student with a strong interest in cryptography write the code, and let the community vet it.
The problem with the open-source solution is not really a problem with open-source per se, rather it's the question of, "who certifies the software, and who ensures that the certified code is loaded into each machine?" It's a logistics problem.
OK, so what do I recommend? Good question. It's important to remember that neither the Constitution nor any local/state/federal laws require instantaneous election results. Democracy can wait a couple of weeks before results are announced. Hey, if hand-counting ballots is good enough for Iraq and Afghanistan (the Bush Administration's two "experiments in spreading democracy"), it oughta be good enough for the U.S. right?
So why not count ballots by hand? Make it a civic duty, much like serving on a jury. Representatives from all participating parties would of course be present for the counting and would be allowed to challenge votes.
Hand counting ballots will be time consuming and potentially expensive (although how much do those certified voting machines cost?), but our democracy is worth it.
Looks like I'm doing a couple of shows at Club Congress this month.
Sat 14 Jan: Day 2 of the Wooden Ball.
Wed 17 Jan: Solace Bros.
Tues 24 Jan: Of Montreal.
Fri 27 Jan: Al Perry
Also, Jefferson Keenan personally invited Jen and I to the Fraidy Cats opening for the Blasters on Wed 11 Jan.
Yikes. The Stern Brothers don't have to worry about me taking away their precious trophy. I bowled four games tonight. Talk about inconsistent: 132, 167, 108 and 186. I threw a triple and a couple of doubles, anda whole lot of eights and nines. There's more work to do, especially in the area of spares.
Bowlers always have excuses, so here are mine. One is that I have two blisters on my right (bowling) hand from splitting firewood with a wedge and a sledgehammer. The second is that Mancha got really excited playing Manchaball yesterday and nipped me on my right thumb, just between the nail and the first knuckle. (Ouch!) So there.
A good sign: the Jersey Beat team bowling shirt arrived today!
One New Year's Resolution that I made was to read more books. (That, and ride my bike!). There's a stack of books on the nightstand -- Philip Roth's The Plot Against America, Paul Krugman's The Great Unravelling, Jonathan Lethem's The Fortress of Solitude and on and on ... Plus, for the holidays I got a copy of Carducci's Rock and the Pop Narcotic and some more rock crit stuff.
Of course, when I was a high-school student, I worked at the local library and I must've read a half-dozen novels a week. But somewhere along the line, I read less and less, and spent more time in front of the damnable computer.
So, what did I start with? Last night, I re-read Stephen King's The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger, which I read back in high school (when it was first published) and I didn't remember a word. 'twas good, and it introduces characters and situations that never get addressed. Of course, it's the start of a whole series, and next on my list is Episode II, The Drawing of the Three, which is somewhat longer.
Soon, that new Roth ... soon.
Ahhhh, nothin' like a small-town "controversy." It seems that a former Club Congress employee called Luke Knipe has started a shitstorm-in-a-teapot with his Grey Balloon alter-ego. First he posts on the Tucson Scene website, then he starts his own blog with the "I dare ya to call the cops" title of Stalking Neko (NB: No link on purpose. Google, if you must).
What I find most amusing about all of this is that he expends so much energy and time dissing the so-called "sacred cows" of the "scene" because they won't let him join their little club ... I mean, talking smack about someone won't make that person want to be your best friend.
Truth be told, I only know of this Luke person. I've never met him, although I probably heard him butcher some unsuspecting band's sound during his short tenure as Congress's "we're desperate for a body at the mixer" last-call "soundman."
He declares that he "hates hipsters" (see his 12/26/2005 post, "My Mentor"), which makes clear his self-loathing. He defines hipster: wanting desperately to work at a no-wage glamour job at the cool downtown club long after he's old enough to know better.
I can sum up Luke's position on this as follows:
"Nobody likes me. Everybody hates me. I'm gonna eat some worms."
Luke, some free advice: Consider obeying the First Rule of Holes, which says, "When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging."