My hat is off to The Daily Tidings! (NOT A PIRATE HAT)

Another day in Amazing Race: Sprint to the Democratic Nomination for US Senate, another huge boner by Steve Novick. But this time the media wasn't going to let him get away with it.

The Ashland Daily Tidings wrote an absolutely blistering editorial assailing Novick for this press release, which was published on International Talk Like a Pirate Day. Most of us were sitting on our thumbs and thinking it impolitic to criticize a hook-ed man for common corsair imitation, but the editorial board had the guts to publish the truth.

If there were one distinguishing characteristic of American politics in the 21st century, it would be this:

Our elected officials do not take themselves seriously enough.

Politicians are not like you and me. And they certainly should not act like regular humans.

We must hold candidates for Senate to an even higher standard. They should not laugh. They should not experience joy. It's not senatorial.

This passage nails it:

But lest anyone actually take Novick seriously, he also issued a series of press releases announcing his new nickname, "Left Hook" Novick, and an attack release on "Gordon Red Ink Smith." If that's not enough to eradicate any hope of consideration, Novick's release is written in honor of International Talk Like A Pirate Day.

Amen, mystery editors. To have the gall to write this stuff on International Talk Like A Pirate Day is as nutty as dressing up in a costume to go canvassing on Halloween!

Novick's bizarre timing aside, we should be very careful to not fall for his beguiling trickery. And we should see it for what it really is, as the editors make plain here:

The campaign has barely begun and Novick is already reaching for gimmicks. Unfortunately, this ill-advised attempt at humor plays on Novick's own misfortune, for he truly does have a hook for a left hand

I would offer the following words of advice to Mr. Novick, but the Daily Tidings has officially sounded the death knell of his candidacy, so my expertise will have to serve Democratic candidates in the future, when all of our campaigns will be waged against the robots (naturally, this advice will remain relevant).

1) If you're going to make a joke, please do not do so while running for higher office. Humor has no place in politics.

2) If you look different, and have an inspiring life story based on your efforts to overcome adversity and your struggles to come to terms with your differences and to make other people comfortable with them, and you consequently view people, society, and inequality with a unique and valuable perspective, please keep it to yourself. Nobody likes a gimmick.

3) If you absolutely must make a joke, please do not highlight your disability. The rest of us would just rather not have to be reminded.

4) If you are brainy, you cannot also be silly. If you are silly, you cannot also be brainy. This obvious truth of American politics was invoked brilliantly by bdunn, commenting over at consummate insider blog The Beaver Boundary (I have wondered: is it the labia? Or the mons pubis?).

5) If you strive to involve new and traditionally ignored people in your line of work, maybe you should move to the professional sports arena. There are already too many cooks in the kitchen of our democracy.

6) Finally, if you look different, please do not be too disappointed when you lose the election. Take solace in the fact that it's not your fault: humans are simply not wired to vote for you (probably a nature/nurture thing).

The Tidings rightfully signaled the end of the primary, based on Novick's foolish overtures toward the nerd bloc. But there is a GREATER CONTROVERSY HERE!

He didn't just commit acts unbecoming a Senatorial candidate -- Steve Novick consciously chose to emulate bloodthirsty, thieving assassins.

International Talk Like a Pirate Day sounds fun and harmless, but what most people don't know is that it began over five centuries ago as a pirate PR campaign, orchestrated by pirate leadership as a way to soften their image, so when a treasure-bearing crew was traversing the high seas and saw the skull and crossbones flying nearby, they would laugh heartily and smile, their guards down. And then the pirates would strike.

Such callous insensitivity toward this history is what really disqualifies Novick for the nomination. Think of the victims, across the millennia! Think of Peter Pan, and his sweet Wendy. Think of what their descendants thought when they heard that Steve Novick was legitimizing the scourge of the seas.

Didn't we learn anything from Waterworld? PIRATES ARE NOT TO BE TRUSTED. Especially in a post-apocalyptic future when the oceans wash over the globe and destroy civilization as we know it. Just wait until global warming gets worse and the oceans flood our cities and you're trusting pirates and the people who emulate them. Just wait and see who's laughing then (hint: it will be the pirates).

Punk'd by automatons: The Jeff Merkley story

Robots rarely tolerate indignity, but when it comes from one of their own, they do not rest until commensurate harm has been visited upon the traitor's head.

Jeff Merkley learned this lesson the hard way.

This story dates back to the end of the 2007 legislative session, when Merkley had one eye on the Democratic nomination for US Senate and the other on his trusty can of WD40. He knew that an overt association with robots does not play well with the electorate, and he made strong efforts to distance himself from his fellow automatons, voting with the rest of the House to limit their access into the homes of regular Oregonians.

Predictably, the calling droids were furious, their livelihoods snuffed out with a single vote. And robot leadership began plotting its revenge.

They patiently waited until the right moment, when the Merkley campaign was riding a crest of momentum from its official kickoff, the lovesick melodies of The Retrofits still echoing across that lonely parking lot, and then they deployed the droids, sounding as if they had been contracted by the Merkley campaign. "Oh hey... it's Jeff."

It was a brilliantly ironic prank: obviously no campaign manager in his right mind would send robots to the telephones this early in the campaign! And implicating Merkley in actions that contravened a vote he made mere months ago was comedic genius.

But the campaign couldn't just laugh it off. And to publicly accuse the robots of sabotage would have called attention to Merkley's personal history with them, so campaign manager Jon Isaacs smartly bit the bullet, and took responsibility for actions that weren't his. Obviously, these guys are professionals.

But will the truth of this matter leak out (Alli Oops!) into the Main Stream Media? Not if the robots can help it. I'm probably even putting myself in danger by writing this. If I don't report to work tomorrow, call Will Smith. He'll know what to do.

Why I won't add Steve Novick and Jeff Merkley as Facebook Friends

Any self-respecting human needs a Facebook.

This nugget of wisdom, of course, comes at no surprise to you. You're totally hip; you ditched Friendster and MySpace while you were still in diapers. Maybe your first words were even similar to mine: "It's kind of neat that MySpace layouts are customizable, allowing America's true colors to shine, but Facebook is the future, so sleek and sexy, certainly never to release their precious source code to renegade developers! Goo goo ga ga."

Any self-respecting politician needs a Facebook. Perennially uncool, this demographic has only recently discovered social networking. Jeff Merkley recently got a Facebook of his very own. Steve Novick has one too.

But there are grave differences between these politicians and a regular fellow like me. Like just about everybody else, I came on Facebook to find true love (mission accomplished LOL).

These politicians, on the other hand, signed up for Facebook accounts in search of a different sort of a love, the kind that requires them to press the flesh and spend a lot of time away from family.

I'm talking about S&M, of course. But they also use Facebook to court likely voters. And in this brave new world of superficial interaction, it's obvious that certain candidates want my vote more than others.

Indeed, I get the sense that most of the activity on Novick's profile is The Candidate himself, whereas Merkley has outsourced the updating of his profile to Chinese teenagers obviously too strung out on World of Warcraft to remember to add data like Merkley's Favorite TV Shows and Favorite Movies, the kind of important information that we voters will ultimately base our decisions on.

But I could be wrong. I don't spend a lot of time on these profiles, for I am not their Friend. I suppose I should just come out with it: I'm not comfortable adding local politicians as Facebook Friends.

But it's not because I would be too tempted to suggest extremely profane Friend details. I wouldn't feel weird about that at all.

It's something else that concerns me. I'm hesitant to add local politicians, you see, because of the hundreds of nude photographs that perverts have secretly taken of me and posted on my Facebook.

I could care less about the national level. Presidential candidates wouldn't dream of wasting time logging onto Facebook themselves; it's likely many of them don't even know what Facebook actually is. Ron Paul didn't know about YouTube until he was the hero of the elite libertarian class of n3rdy hax0rz that controls Digg, and by extension, the rest of the internets.

Here's what I'm getting at: do I care if some low-level John Edwards staffer sees my ass? Absolutely not. In fact, I'd kind of like it. Ames, Iowa, this moon shines for you!

I'm less comfortable baring it all to these local politicians, who easily could log on to their account themselves, and who I could easily run into on the mean streets of Portland, at any time. Encountering a powerful stranger downtown who recognizes your ass, I daresay I need to tell you, is quite embarrassing, and can lead to truly tragic misunderstandings.

So where does this leave us? Well, Jeff Merkley's ingenius Evite to George W. Bush really inspired me, so I thought I'd try my hand at the electronic card fad.

To the Novick and Merkley campaigns:


Please accept this card with my deepest regrets, but also know that someday, in the future, I just might work up the courage to show you my ass.