Jonathan's blog

Here are the promised photos from the recent trip to Aunt Robin's:

One of the common themes I'm hearing in the current race for the president is that we don't know who the real Barack Obama is.  Is he really the post-racial, bipartisan, uniter that he claims to be now or is he really the typical politician of his early career in Chicago, and ultra-liberal to boot?  By contrast, at least McCain is a known commodity.  For example, see this post of the same title by Rod Dreher: Who's the real Obama?

Dreher writes:

It is all but impossible to reconcile the Obama that emerges from [his days in the Illinois legislature] with the Obama we're presented with today. It suggests one of two things: either today's Obama is a fraud, an ultraliberal masquerading as a moderate, or he is a man of no fixed convictions, a Zelig-like chameleon able to be whatever he wants to be for the sake of advancing his own political career.

Again: who's the real Obama? With McCain, you may not much like what you get (I don't), but at least you know what you're getting. With Obama? He's a mystery. Brooks is right: a number of people can't commit to him because they aren't sure what they're committing to

I don't get this.  Just look at all of the shifts McCain has been making to become more palatable to the Republican base (e.g., on torture, offshore drilling, Bush tax cuts, etc.).  Romney has done the same thing too on a variety of issues.  Of course, it makes sense to try to figure out who Obama really is - but I don't see that McCain is really a known commodity either.

Wikipedia is amazing.  I love it as a generally reliable source of a tremendous amount of information.  Sometimes it may not go as in depth as I might desire.  Sometimes it may err on the side of being too even-handed.  Generally, though, it is fantastic.

Several times I've been in online discussions, cited info in Wikipedia, and been told that I need to cite other references because Wikipedia is unreliable (since anyone can edit it).  Ironically, this objection usually comes from people who are not backing up their claims with any citations at all.

Anyway, that arguments sounds good on the surface but fundamentally misunderstands the strength of Wikipedia.

Though Wikipedia is (of course) inferior to primary sources, it is of similar quality to an encyclopedia. The fact that anyone can edit it is actually a strength. Yes, spurious info can creep in (especially for a subject that few people are paying attention to), but there is also an extraordinary community of people who monitor the content, correct errors, make sure the info is balanced and even-handed, etc. This is possible because a large and robust community is in control instead of a small number of information gatekeepers.

In fact, a study by the scientific journal Nature a few years back showed that errors occur in Wikipedia at a rate that is only slightly higher than the Encyclopedia Britannica (link, there are also links there to EB's objections and Nature's response to them).

Wikipedia is not perfect (what source of similar breadth and accessibility is?), but it is certainly trustworthy enough to be useful for silly online discussions.

Word clouds from the campaigns' web sites (link):

Thursday night we watched The Painted Veil (2006,PG-13) (ScreenIt! Review), the first film we've watched together in a while (with the kids going to bed so late in the summer, we have to stay up late ourselves to fit in a film).  From ScreenIt!:

An adulterous, 1920s era wife must contend with being forced by her angry husband to accompany him to a remote Chinese village where he hopes to treat cholera victims.

Lisa's comment as the film ended:

Books based on novels always have a terrible ending.

By terrible, she meant “tragic”, not “of poor quality.” In fact, Lisa apparently enjoyed the film because I noticed it was added to her list of movie favorites (joining Juno, Hotel Rwanda, Running on Empty, The Graduate, and Stand By Me) on Facebook.  I give it 4 out of 5.