It's election time again. And here in Oakland, California we are confronted with 11 partisan state offices, from Governor to Member of the State Assembly, 13 judges, city auditor, transit district director, and a director of the water board. And, 13 state-wide "measures submitted to the voters", also known as "propositions", and 3 for the city of Oakland. I have two booklets in front of me, sent out by the state, and Alameda County. The state-wide "Official Voter Information Guide" is 192 pages, the bulk of which describes the state propositions, complete with the text of the proposed laws and changed verbiage, as well as pro and con statements about each proposition. A thinner booklet, from the county, has a sample ballot, information about voting and my voting place (around the corner at a local elementary school), and the details on each of the local county or city-wide propositions. One thing that has always bugged me is that we always wind up having to vote for judges. And this time we have 13 of them. But, because these are "non-partisan" positions, there is absolutely no information about these people. The voter guide only gives their names. These district judges are nominated by a governor. So how "non-partisan" can they be? Every time there is a gubernatorial election, these judges also come up for election. But try to find any information about them. You can't, other than their official vita, supplied by, of course, the candidate. I guess when the laws about who can become a judge in this state were passed, it seemed like the epitome of Democracy (with a capital D) to let the voters decide. But the devil is always in the details. No one will tell me anything about these people, whether they are terrible judges or good ones. I just hope I never come up in front of any of them. So what are you supposed to do with these judges on the ballot? Since I can't justify voting either for or against any of them, my only choice is to not vote for any of them... leave that part of my ballot blank. Which is very unfortunate. (A "Don't Know" in addition to "Yes" and "No" would be very informative.) Dealing with the propositions is hard enough, altho I will say that due to a proposition passed in 2000 (prop.34) these voter guides have become very informative! (You can take a look online at http://www.voterguide.ss.ca.gov/.) Democracy is a great idea. But the implementation needs a little work. The really crazy thing going on in here in California is job swapping. The former Lt. Governor is running for Insurance Commissioner. The former Insurance Commissioner is running for Lt. Governor. The mayor of Oakland, who once was Governor of California, like his dad, and once ran for President as an independent, is running for Attorney General, even tho he hasn't practiced as a lawyer in years. I bet it all has something to do with state pensions, and not wanting to leave the company before retirement. (This is how cynical we can get.) Kinky Friedman (Texas Jew Boy running for Governor of that state .. and I hope he wins) said it best: POLITICS. Take the word apart - POLY means MANY, and TICS are blood-sucking parasites.

We walked down to our local polling station, the elementary school around the corner, and voted.

It's an absolutely beautiful day here in Oakland. Blue sky, sunny, must be 70F.

The big surprise at the polling station was the paper ballots. After all the controversy about electronic voting machines, and then the mechanical card punching machines, Alameda county threw them all out and reverted back to the paper ballots of the 19th Century.

I must say this was a bit of a relief. And the other folks in the polling station, including the poll workers, seemed very pleased.

To cover all the issues on the ballot, we were given two large, heavy stock ballots, printed on both sides. Each page was about the size of a page of the NY Times. The polling booth was just a table with a cheap ball point pen taped to a string that was attached to the table. (A marking pen would have been better.) The instructions were to draw a line in the space near the name or item you were voting for. Very simple, and I got thru the ballot in about a minute.

The poll worker took the pages and inserted them into an electronic page reader that recorded the vote (hopefully accurately). I understood that the paper ballots themselves will be retained for some period of time in case of a recount. We were given the labels that were torn off the ballots, and these seem to have a sequential number on them.

All well and good. This is technology that most people can understand and believe in. Those electronic voting machines lack a certain credibility.

Still, we can expect that the vote in some precincts around the country will be rigged. There's already a report out that in some areas in Virginia poor people are getting threatening phone calls telling them that they will be arrested if they showed up to vote. The FBI is "investigating".

Even here in California there were some dirty tricks. We all received flyers in the mail that looked like they came from the Democratic party, with recommendations on what to vote for, except the propositions had the opposite of what the real Democratic party was recommending. This even made it to the local TV news, where they uncovered it was coming from Republican funded campaigns to defeat many of those propositions.

Even our President got into the swing of things, almost to the point of claiming that to vote for Democrats was to vote for the terrorists. This technique did work well for the Nazis in elections in Germany in 1933. The Republicans have an interesting take on democracy.

So now we sit and wait for the tallies to start coming in. And the challenges. Apparently there are thousands of lawyers ready to file court challenges against various races around the country. This is how democracy works, or so it seems.

All I know is that rarely do the folks I vote for win. This time I might be surprised. We'll see.

Amazing what a difference a day can make.

It's been so long since the people and items I voted for actually win.

The past 6 years under this Republican administration have been a total mistake. And at what a cost!

Not that the results of yesterday's election are actually going to change much. Certainly not overnight.

But maybe, just maybe, something good will come of all this.

My fingers are crossed.

Last week I was in Tampa for the Supercomputing 2006 exhibition and conference. That was for work, and you can read about it on my work-related blog.

Now we're getting ready for Other Minds 12..

Somebody asked me what I was reading these days. So, here are some of the books I've read (or am still reading) over the past few months. And I would recommend all of them:

Michael Kimmelman: The Accidental Masterpiece - On the Art of Life and Vice Versa (Penguin) Excellent meditations on art and all it's implications.

John Markoff: What the Dormouse Said: How the Sixties Counter-culture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry (Penguin) Most highly recommended. My own career intersected with many of the personalities mentioned in Markoff's very well informed book, and he is very able to re-create the sense of awe and wonderment (even if sometimes chemically induced) of those times.

Michael Wex: Born to Kvetch - Yiddish Language and Culture in All of Its Moods (Harper) Excellent insight into the best human language devised for complaining. Very funny, too, keynehore.

Victor Klemperer: The Language of the Third Reich (Continuum) A prof of French Lit in Dresden when the Nazis took over, Klemperer (a distant cousin to the famous conductor), kept a secret notebook analyzing how the language of the Third Reich created its culture. Fascinating. Depressing, too.

Bob Dylan (Robert Zimmerman): Chronicles I first visited and then inhabited Greenwich Village from 1959-68, and crossed paths with many of the places and people mentioned in this book, like Izzy Young, who ran the Folklore Center in the West Village, and Gerde's Folk City, the Figaro, etc. Surprisingly, Dylan's book is really well written and a fascinating read. I admit I was quite surprised.

Morton Feldman: Give My Regards To Eighth Street - Collected Writings (Exact Change) Morton Feldman (1926-1987) was a New York composer of what would be called "minimalism". And, he is one of my "mentors". I actually met him once or twice. Larger than life, this collection of his writings is both funny, outrageous, and illuminating. It also gives a good picture of life among the artists of the 50's and 60's in NYC.

Morton Feldman: Morton Feldman Says - Collection interviews and lectures 1964-1987 (Hyphen Books) Even more enlightening and articulate writings about art and music.

Kyle Gann: Music Downtown - Writings from the Village Voice (California) Kyle is a composer and probably the most readable and best informed music critic, ever. These collected reviews and essays from past Village Voice issues cover the cutting-edge music scene in NYC in the 80's and 90's. And, he's a friend of mine. http://kylegann.com/

Karl Sabbagh: The Riemann Hypothesis - The Greatest Unsolved Problem in Mathematics (FSG) Seems a shame that I did get my B.S. in Math, but rarely use that part of my brain anymore. Except occasionally. This one is a fascinating history of the Riemann Zeta function, and takes us from Riemann's 1859 paper to attempts at proof up to today. Good insight into what mathematics is made of. Lots of fun.

Joseph Roth: Report from a Parisian Paradise - Essays from France 1925-39 (Norton) Roth, novelist and newspaper feature writer, exiled in Paris during the Nazi years, gives his impression of Paris and the French on the eve of WWII. I've been reading many of this works as they are now appearing in English. Another is What I Saw: Reports from Berlin.

Leonard Pitt: Walks Through Lost Paris - A Journey into the Heart of Historic Paris (Shoemaker and Hoard) A great book with lots of pictures and history. The City of Berkeley this month declared Leonard Pitt to be a city treasure and honored him with a Leonard Pitt day (Nov 8th). And, he's a friend and I always read and recommend the books of friends! http://leonardpitt.com/

Alain de Botton: Status Anxiety (Vintage) Read anything and everything by this writer, based in London. E.g. How Proust Can Change Your Life, The Art of Travel, The Consolations of Philosophy. One of the best essayists of his generation (he's quite young) on art and culture! http://www.alaindebotton.com/

John Luther Adams: Winter Music - Composing the North (Wesleyan) John lives in Alaska. This is a book about what being a composer in the frozen north is all about, both externally and internally. A wonderful book, and it includes a CD. http://johnlutheradams.com/

Gary Snyder: Danger on the Peaks - Poems (Shoemaker & Hoard) Impeccable poetry.

William Vollmann: Europe Central Vollmann's 800 page novel about Europe before WWII. I will admit that I couldn't finish it. Vollmann is an incredible writer. Still, I got lost somewhere in the middle and haven't picked it up since. Your mileage may vary.

If you're interested in any of these books and need to buy them online, I would recommend http://powellsbooks.com/ Otherwise, support your local independent bookseller. They need your business.

Now here's an interesting idea. A community of photobloggers around the world posting images of their cities on an almost daily schedule. Choose the city you're interested in and watch. And anyone can join in.

Unfortunately, you have to create your own photo blog site, and link it to theirs. It's not an open site like flickr.com.

But more interestingly, they have a Yahoo desktop widget that shows all the latest postings on your desktop.

Quite interesting. Another place to spend hours looking at some great pictures.