Tedger.com

¹ Today the Iowa Supreme Court struck down the Iowa Defense of Marriage Act recognizing an Equal Protection claim of the plaintiffs. Not only did the Court strike down the law but it did so unanimously, not a single justice wished to decent on the ruling opinion.

The next step however is likely to be the inevitable attempt to amend the Iowa Constitution. In Iowa this is an incredibly difficult task. To amend the Constitution the measure must pass in both houses of the State Legislature in two consecutive legislatures (there has to be an election in between). Even then this only puts it on a ballot measure. The process at it’s fastest will take years, and that’s if the legislature is cooperative. The Speaker of the Iowa House and the Majority Leader have both spoken strongly in favor of the ruling today, it’s unlikely that the legislature will move quickly, if at all.

I really don’t have much more to say. I’m proud of my state for so strongly upholding civil liberties. The opinion is incredibly easy to read and explains the legal principles very well. If you’re interested in reading it you can find it here.

Tedger.com is four years old! It was born on a friend’s blanket outside of Lyon Harwood on a wonderful March 29th in 2005.

Interestingly, last year, and every year I’ve noted the creation of Tedger.com….. I got the date wrong. I just did a whois lookup on Tedger.com and found out that even though I thought it was the 31st, it’s actually the 29th. It’s like a pet that I never knew the actual birthdate of except it’s on the internet so I can look it up and look silly.

Happy 4th birthday Tedger.com!

See the below video to see who “he” is and what he “accepts”.

Brothersward.tedger.com will soon be live and will automatically import all YouTube videos from the account “brothersward” on YouTube. I’ll have a link in the header sometime soon.

Brendan’s video response follows:

I propose a video blog project to my brother. We’ll see if he takes me up on it. The first episodes of Brotherhood 2.0 that I refer to are here.

Not only a third post but a second video! I’m having fun with these. Need to work on lighting. No joke, I cut about twelve minutes of BSG stuff.

Battlestar Galactica’s final episode was tonight. It was superb. I’m not exaggerating when I say that I feel it is one of the finest pieces of work I’ve had the pleasure to enjoy. I really mean that. I feel that television series can be just as profound as a piece of literature, a painting, a song. It’s all art and we take what we do from it; I took a great deal away from Galactica. Television series often fail to fulfill their potential because the network cancels the show, or it’s extended past what it was capable to maintain. Galactica struck a balance that few television series are able to attain.

On my walk home from my brother’s I was thinking about how many themes the series covered throughout it’s length. It did it masterfully and concurrently, not addressing an issue and moving on, Galactica dealt with them all at once. Having come to the end I can say that I found this more fulfilling than it could have been with episodic storytelling, like you might find in a show like most Star Trek series.

I’ve decided to share my thoughts on the themes found in Galactica. This wont contain many spoilers but if you haven’t seen the finale I suggest you do so before you continue reading.

Birth, death, and rebirth

The theme of birth, death, and rebirth is one of the more overt themes of the series. Throughout the length of the show one of the most frequently uttered phrases is “All of this has happened before, all of this will happen again.” The theme extends to the cycle of civilizations characterized in the show but also to the characters themselves.

Cylon Resurrection

We learn early in the series that the Cylons have the ability to resurrect themselves after death. Death is painful, but is not absolute, it “becomes a learning experience.” The Cylons did not always have this technology and when they lose it they seek out the ability to rebuild it at all costs. The Cylons are no better because of their capability to learn from mistakes that kill them, and in some cases they are worse off. It’s only when the Cylon’s, and most specifically Cavil’s, ability to resurrect is forever lost that the cycle of destruction is broken. It’s was a cycle, birth is part of it, but so is death; Cavil represented the destructive death part of it.

Kara Thrace

The resurrection of Kara gives us another example of resurrection. In her first life Kara was a self proclaimed screw up. She never knew what she wanted for herself and it wasn’t till the very end that she finally learned what her place was in the world. We learn near the very end of the series that Kara’s greatest fear wasn’t death, but to be forgotten. Kara sought glory in the Ancient Greek sense but at the loss of personal fulfillment. Kara’s resurrection gave us the flip side to Cylon resurrection, someone able to achieve fulfillment in their goals after being given a second chance.

Laura Roslin

I firmly believe that the initial cure to Roslin’s cancer was resurrection in disguise. Like Kara, Roslin was able to fulfill her personal destiny when given a second chance.

Technology vs. Humanity

This one is a slight twist on the classic technology vs. nature. This theme is inherent in the setting of the show. Humanity was nearly destroyed by technology once and they were once again pushed to the brink. The Cylons are self-aware but they are human creations. Galactica isn’t like Frankenstein though. Humanity is able to use technology to save themselves, in the personified technology if the Cylons, make peace.

The Divine

There is a constant undercurrent of the divine in Galactica ranging from the Greek inspired gods of the Twelve Colonies to the monotheistic god of the Cylons. In the very end it’s suggested that god is a force of nature. Galatica doesn’t attempt to define the divine, we’re never told if the Cylons or the Humans had it right, it just is. Never the less the divine exists in the world of Galatica, but it’s undefinable.

Angels/Demons

Gauis describes them as angles, until he does most people simply referred to them as the Six in his head, or the Gauis in Caprica’s. They aren’t all good though, Head Six certainly does things that are bad. I think they’re both angels and demons. I think they were meant as allegory but I think the show allows you to assume they are as allegorical or literal as you would like them to be. Like the rest of the divine this is left purposely unresolved. I don’t think however that the rebirth of Kara is an angel, even if it’s tied into this idea of the divine.

Ideals and the Practical

This plays itself out a number of ways. Most prominently in the debate of security vs ideals. Constantly the democracy of the Fleet is placed at odds with the security of it. The democracy and the ideals never give way though. I almost called this paragraph “Ideals vs. the Practical” but in the end that isn’t genuine either. Much like most things I think Galatica suggests that there is a balance to be struck and to suggest that one can only exist with the exclusion of the other in a zero sum game is flawed.

Love

The theme of love is one of the more subtle in Galactica in that many may pass it over as a plot point. It isn’t, and the final episode convinced me of this. The Cylons believe that the thing they were lacking to reproduce was love but the theme extends beyond that. There is forgiveness in love and if the leadership of the Battlestar Galatica and the Fleet is anything, it’s forgiving. Adama repeatedly forgives the mistakes of others, he knows they can’t go on without each other and that forgiveness.

Adama and Roslin

The most profound exploration of love, and really any of these themes for me, is the love story of William Adama and Laura Roslin. In many ways William Adama is a character I can see a little bit of myself in, or at least my ideal self. Along those lines the relationship of Adama and Roslin is something I’ve really connected with in the show. I know, I’m a total sap, but I think, and clearly the shows writers think, that love is important.

The series is finally over. I’m not sad to see it go though. Right now I feel the same way I do when I finish a good book or reach the end of a good movie. I feel that I’m a better person than I was at the beginning of the show, that I’ve learned a little bit, explored a little bit. Fiction gives us the ability to explore things that aren’t. Science fiction pushes that a little further, but in the end, good science fiction is not unlike any other fiction.

There are likely themes I missed because I didn’t think of them while writing them but I thought I’d share what I could remember to commit to written words.

This may have been a bad idea….

I recommend hitting the “HQ” for slightly higher quality video. I’ve already learned a few things if I ever decide to do this again.

Additionally, the whole sidebar thing is a YouTube convention. Given that I’m embedding this in my blog it doens’t make as much sense. If you’re curious these are the guys I’m referring to.

So there has been quite a bit of hullabaloo about if President-Elect Obama will use e-mail, and more specifically his BlackBerry, in the White House. As far as I can tell this seems to have started with a piece in the New York Times. It’s branched out into a number of publications, many have suggested he’ll have to give it up, that this is part of being President, some say he shouldn’t. The concerns have centered around the Presidential Records Act and security concerns. These are bogus concerns. There is no technological reason the President’s e-mails can’t be properly stored and archived. There is also no reason to think that sensitive information can’t be protected electronically, frankly you could just avoid emailing sensitive information but use e-mail for non-sensitive issues. Bogus concerns trumped up by those concerned with change.

As someone who studies politics, as both a practiced human activity and as social science, there is one thing that is clear, politics cannot happen in isolation. Isolation is the realm of tyranny and rulers, not the realm of politics and governors. To be a good President, to truly represent us as a nation, one must be connected to the public and to it’s politics. The Founding Fathers created the United States Government as an institution that protected and enshrined politics as the center of the way we govern ourselves. They modeled, in principal, our government off of classical Greek ideas of the polis, the public space. A place reserved for politics to keep out tyranny, a place where all citizens¹ are equal in their potential for excellence. A good politician in both the polis and in American Government are connected to the public, this connection allows them the flexibility and capability to act.

In the days of the early American Republic being connected to the public literally meant opening the doors of the White House. In the early 20th Century it meant traveling the country by train and car to hear the voices of citizens. In the mid-20th Century it meant more, and included television as a medium of public discussion.² In the early 21st Century it means the internet, and e-mail, and BlackBerrys. For President Obama to be connected in the best possible way with the public he must have access to the communication tools of our time. The New York Times article tells us he will be the first President to have a computer at his desk int he Oval Office, this is a step in the right direction but isn’t everything, he should have every tool at his disposal. He is the President after all.

The Wall Street Journal article reminds us that we’re an increasingly connected populace, using e-mail, and IMs, and social networking. I’m not suggesting that the “Change We Need” is a President with a Facebook page (although he does have one, just not one he personally manages) just one that is connected to the world in the same ways we are. Good politicians are connected to the public, and like it or not, this is the way we increasingly connect with each other. As such it’s the way we can increasingly interact and connect with the President, and this can only mean good things for our politics, our nation, and the public.

Update: Here is exactly what I want to hear out of my President-elect.

Predictions Recap As I write this most of the news sources I can find display a map that looks like this:

Montana, Indiana, Missouri, and North Carolina are too close to call and President-Elect¹ Obama has small leads in all of them. Looks like I was wrong in Georgia and North Dakota but I myself said that they were a stretch. Interestingly the longest stretch I was willing to make seems to be the one of the three President-Elect Obama might win. We’ll have to see where things are in the morning.

On a final note it looks like California Proposition 8, along with several other homosexual-rights reducing ballot measures across the country, is going to pass. I’m not entirely sure how to feel about this. I attempted to rewrite these last few sentences and have settled on this statement of lack of words, but for different reasons than above. I suppose the only thing I can really say is that things are changing and for the better and we will just have to see.

I’m absolutely exhausted right now. I spent 16 hours working at Ames Ward 4 Precinct 3 today. I helped register ~100 people, and gave ballots to probably another 90. I was the first person to vote this morning (being a poll worker has perks) and one of the last to leave. More than physical exhaustion I’m mentally exhausted. After months of reading fivethirtyeight.com, politico.com, and realclearpolitics.com I was in a near blackout when polls started closing around the country (thanks to Scott and Rachel for alleviating some of that). But it’s finally over, and America has just elected a new President.

To say that I am proud doesn’t do justice to the way that I feel. Joy, excitement, pride, and love are only a few words that I can use to attempt to describe the way that I feel about my country right now. I don’t necessarily mean the people (although they are surely part of it) but also the institutions that make up our state, the shared ideals that make us a nation, and the Constitution that defines our government. For the last eight years America has endured a President of the people that voted for him, and just those people; a President unversed in the patriotism of politics, and ignorant of pride of all people, not just those who swagger and tote a gun.

For the last eight years I’ve felt just as much anger for the people that wanted to move to Canada as those who would tell me disagreeing with my President was unpatriotic. I sincerely believe that this election would have been far more of a landslide had it not been for the divisive anti-politics of President Bush and this is just the first step in healing that wound. America has a gaping gash that must be healed, and it will take years for it to be completely whole again, but we’re on the right track to recovery.

There is no picture to accompany this post, I can’t think of one fitting enough.

Edit: Corrected a sentence in the second paragraph (needed “mean” to be a real sentence structure) that should have even made sense to exhausted me.