Hatchet Jobs and Hardball: The Oxford Dictionary of American Political Slang

I'm pleased to announce my old friend Grant Barrett (no relation) has a new book coming out called "Hatchet Jobs and Hardball: The Oxford Dictionary of American Political Slang."

He'll be on Talk of the Nation on Wednesday talking about his new book. This Friday, he'll be on Fox & Friends and next Monday he'll be on Politics Live on ABC.

There will be a book-release party 9 p.m., Friday, September 10, at the Royal Oak, 594 Union Avenue, on the edge of Williamsburg and Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Hope to see you all there.

The Futility of Political Involvement

Rafe Colburn has a great essay on the Futility of Political Involvement, a must-read for anyone who does deep thinking about how political strategists use the media and outright lies to harm their opponents.

Lax Security at Domodedovo

In December of 2002, I was waiting for a flight out of Moscow's Domodedovo airport to Malta, where I would then catch a British Airways flight back to London and then New York City. Domodedovo airport is mostly used by smaller airlines flying in and out of Russia and is also the Moscow airport used by all of the regional Russian airlines that fly to Siberia and other parts of Russia that do not have big international airports.

I am saddened to learn that two airplanes flying out of Domodedovo crashed within minutes of each other, killing all aboard -- a loss of 89 lives. When I heard this news the other day, I immediately thought about my experiences at Domodedovo (I've flown through this airport six times). Besides the abuse of power I experienced which is quite normal in the modern-day Russian society, I recall observing that the security at Domodedovo was nowhere near as tight as the airports I was used to flying through in America. While waiting for my plane to Malta to become de-iced and for the maintenance crew to unfreeze some part of the landing gear that was malfunctioning I spent about four hours watching people come and go from the gate I was at. A couple of times, I saw random passengers walk down the gateway to the plane to see what the delay was. No gate agent stopped them (because there were none on duty!). There were no police visible in the terminal or anywhere near the gate. Passengers minded their own business and ignored anyone who might have aroused suspicion. I made a mental note to be very observant the next time I flew through Domodedovo, and forgot about these incidents until now.

In hindsight, I can easily see how suicide bombers could have worked their way onto the planes leaving Domodedovo without arousing suspicion. In a country that deals with terrorism on a fairly frequent basis, the lax security I witnessed at Domodedovo seemed out of place -- especially to my American eyes accustomed to the strong security we now have at American airports.

This memory of mine begs the question, "Cam, why didn't you say something to airport officials?" Or why did I not confront the passengers I saw who were breaching the security of the gateway? Perhaps it is because I was a foreigner in the middle of a foreign culture and did not want to draw attention to myself. Or perhaps I was still pissed off about the Russian guard who tried to use his position of power to extort $150 from me at the security checkpoint. I really don't know why I didn't say anything almost two years ago, but I know that I needed to tell my story about Domodedovo with the hopes that it gets others to think about the security of airports around the world.

The 9/11 terrorists showed the world that crashing planes was an effective form of terrorism, and it's very possible that the plane crashes earlier this week in Russia were both the work of suicidal terrrorists. If this is the case, then we have a long road ahead of us in combatting terrorism and perhaps it will force the Russian public to take a closer look at the ongoing problem in Chechnya. I don't have a solution and I don't know the answer. I do not fully understand the conflict between Chechen separatists and the Russian government, but I do know that if the terrorism in Russia continues then the world as a whole is worse off.

CamWorld Public Service Announcement

Here's a quick post just to highlight a few upcoming events in NYC and DC that you may want to attend.

August 30: Screening of Bush's Brain (Washington D.C.)
August 30: Screening of Bush's Brain (NYC)
August 31: IMHO: Blogs, Politics and Personal Voice (NYC)
September 7: Enterprise Information Architecture Seminar (NYC)
September 7: IA/UX Happy Hour, 5:30-7:30 PM at Glass, 287 10th Ave (b/t 26th and 27th St.) (NYC)
September 10-12: The Next Generation of Film: Politics and Film (NYC)

America's New Scam

Newfound Faith in the Court System

Last year when I left my contract job to go work for the Clark campaign, I terminated a subcontractor agreement with the company I was working for. The company somehow decided that this would be a good opportunity to try and screw me over. They put a "stop payment" order on the last check they'd issued me and failed to pay my last invoice. The amount they owed me was in the neighborhood of $4000, too much money for me to roll over and ignore.

After 8 months of trying to collect on these invoices, with excuse after excuse given but no sign of a check being issued I filed a Small Claims Court lawsuit against my former employer in the County of New York. The court date was set for 6:10 PM on August 12, 2004 -- two days ago. The filing fee was a mere $20. I showed up for court last Thursday fully expecting my former employer to be there to contest my claims, but there was no sign of them. When a defendant in a lawsuit of this kind fails to show, the case automatically goes to an arbitrator, typically a lawyer who is volunteering their time to handle excess cases so the judges can focus on the cases where both parties in the lawsuit are present.

After waiting for about an hour I went into a small room to talk with the arbitrator and show him my evidence: the check with the "stop payment" stamped on it, my bank records indicating a history of the employer paying me, a copy of the subscontractor agreement, printed email correspondence with the employer indicating that they promised to pay me earlier this year and copies of the invoices had I emailed, mailed (certified mail) and FAX'ed. After about 5 minutes of looking at my evidence, the arbitrator filled out some paperwork and said I would be notified by mail of the judgment. One thing to note is that an arbitrator's judgment is final and cannot be appealed.

And sure enough today I received a letter from the Civil Court of New York saying that the arbitrator had ruled in my favor for the entire amount I was suing for, plus accrued interest and a repayment of the $20 filing fee.

The next step is for me to contact the former employer and arrange for payment of the judgment. If they fail to pay after 30 days, I then have to go to the Sheriff or one of the City Marshals with information about the employer's assets so that they can sieze those assets. Hopefully it won't get to that point, but I will do whatever it takes to be paid what I am owed.

One final note about this whole process. While I was waiting for my case to be seen by an arbitrator, some guy started yelling at two other guys in the waiting room calling him an asshole and something about their falafels putting him in the hospital. This guy was pretty upset but he was creating such a scene that the court bailiffs had to physically separate these two parties. It made me realize thatI did the right thing by keeping all of my correspondence with my former employer civil, restrained and polite. I never once got upset and even went to meet with them when I arrived back into New York back in March before I went to D.C. for the summer. It would have done me no good to get angry, since this was purely a matter of not being paid for the work I performed.

The process for filing a lawsuit was fairly painless. The drawback is that you have to appear in person for your case to be heard. For me, this meant that I had to fly back to NYC from Portland where I am relocating. In the long run, filing a lawsuit was worth it because of the amount that was owed me. Had it been for only $1000 or less, I would have written it off as a loss.

This was a great learning experience for me and I encourage everyone to go through this process at least once to understand how it works.

Better Campaign TV Advertising

Sometime last year I remember being in the Clark campaign headquarters in Little Rock. The television was on in the background when a preview for Spiderman 2 came on. Almost in unison, the entire tech team stopped their work and migrated to the TV to watch. When it was over, there were comments like, "Wow" and "I can't wait to see that." I also thought it was a great preview for what has tuned out to be a pretty good movie. And then I had the thought, "Why can't our campaign ads be more like that?"

Besides the increased production costs, I see no real reason why more time couldn't be spent on making better, more glossy, campaign ads. Ads that tell a story, with better sound, better editing and great cinematography. The talent for these kinds of ads already exists. The understanding of how to create such an ad already exists. I don't understand why the current campaigns won't take some extra money and put it into the production of an ad -- rather than spending little on the ad itself and more on buying spots for their ads.

The Village

I have not yet seen the new movie by M. Night Shyamalan called The Village. However, a couple friends of mine went to see it on Friday night and when they got back, the following conversation went like this:

Me: So, how was the movie?
Friend 1: It was OK, but not great.
Me: Does it have one of those "surprise" endings like in Sixth Sense and Unbreakable?
Friend 2: Yeah, the ending is kind of lame.
Me: My guess is that the whole thing is nothing but a lot of actors and it's just a big sound stage, and the audience is not clued in.

Friend 1 looks at Friend 2 and says, "Well, he's not exactly correct but he's close."

Now I guess I have to go see the damn movie to see if I'm right. Roger Ebert, however, says it's a pile of festering crap.