Mitch Gann’s

If you’re looking to do some mobile blogging, or just blogging via email post, check out the brand new Posterous web site.

You can create a Posterous blog just by sending an email to this address: post@posterous.com with the email subject line as the post title and the email message as the post body.

Then you will get an instant response telling you that your blog has been created, its address, and how to create a password.  Creating a password also allows you to adjust your address if needed. I got “Mitch” right off the bat.

My Posterous blog is at http://mitch.posterous.com. I don’t have much there now, just an old photo of Niagara Falls.  I may just post photos there — old or new, but mostly old.  Random shots from my life. Why not? It’s free.

You can post video, too, if you want to.  Or just plain old words. To post, you just send an email to post@posterous.com, with your media files attached. Or without media files.  It’s easy.

An adventurer named Roz Savage is attempting to become the first woman to row solo across the Pacific. She left San Francisco Bay a little over a month ago. It took her a couple of weeks to get far enough out to not have to worry about being blown back into the West Coast. Then her electric water-maker broke. She has 1800 gallons of ballast water on board, which is drinkable but not tasty. Her immediate goal is Hawaii. She will lay off for the winter, and then leave from Hawaii next summer. That is, if she ever reaches Hawaii. You can listen to a podcast of the journey on Leo Laporte’s TWiT network; Laporte, a well-known tech journalist, interviews Savage three times a week via satellite phone.

This is her second attempt to row the Pacific. Last year, she ran into severe storms and abandoned her effort after her boat capsized three times in 24 hours.

Savage was born in 1967; that’s close enough to 1964 to call her an honorary Boomer.

This evening I took a walk up the Flushing River Trail as far as the footbridge that spans the Flint River. This photo was taken from the bridge, looking south, back toward town.  It was a peaceful moment, just me and some bird song.  Then other people came along. You see an assortment of people on the trail on a pleasant summer evening. About half of them are in the company of a dog. Sometimes even two dogs.  Of those who aren’t with dog, about half are riding bikes.  Plenty of kids, too, on bikes or on foot, with or without dogs.   If you walk in the morning, you don’t encounter kids or bicyclists. Still some dogs, though. You got a dog, you gotta walk it.

Early morning, the coffee brewing and the paper waiting on the front steps.   Sunshine everywhere. Nobody else awake.

This is some sort of flowering vine / weed that is growing among the Japanese maples in our backyard. (Click the image for a larger view.)  Our yard is home to many varieties of fast-growing plants, few of which we have planted or encouraged. We are frequently visited by rabbits, turkeys, hawks, humming birds, opossums, raccoons and wood chucks. My wife had our backyard declared a nature sanctuary. I hesitate even to mow.

Greg Rappleye (Sonnets at 4 a.m.) has an amusing post about words he could live without. For instance, he could live without hearing “stakeholders” as it is used in social services circles, commenting that the word “should not be used outside of the cast list of a vampire movie.”

There are entire phrases I could live without. One that especially bugs me is “I would like to/ We would like to” as in “We would like to thank you for your participation.” If your intention is to thank the reader or listener, then just do it: “Thank you for your participation.” Telling what you would like to do is not the same as doing it. After all, the “I would like to” clause can always be followed by one starting with “but.”

I would like to give you a raise . . . but you don’t deserve one.

I would like to thank you for your participation . . . but it was pathetic.

I would like to give you an example . . . but I can’t think of one.

Newsweek, in a story about its latest political poll, is reporting that Barack Obama has opened up a 15 percentage point lead among registered voters. In contrast, notes Newsweek, during June 2004, John Kerry held only a six point lead over President Bush in the same poll. At this point in 2000, Al Gore and Bush were in a dead-heat.

Newsweek acknowledges that its poll shows a much greater lead for Obama than other national polls, but insists that Barack’s Bounce is real and far beyond the poll’s four point margin of error.

I downloaded the PDF of the poll results and took a look.

Among independent voters, Obama leads 48% to 36%. Among men voters, Obama leads 47% to 40% and among women voters, 54% to 33%.

Hillary Clinton’s supporters prefer Obama over McCain by a 69% to 18% margin.

Now comes the rub: age. Younger voters (18-39) are going for Obama by a ratio of greater than two to one. But the middle-aged and older voters — the voters who actually show up to vote — display a much lower degree of Obama-mania. They give the younger candidate the nod, but by a margin that is within the poll’s margin of error. And twice as many over-40 voters are undecided as compared to the under-40 voters.

So, a considerable chunk of Obama’s lead is among younger, less reliable voters. Newsweek admits that “the two candidates are statistically tied among older voters,” but makes nothing of it. What I would make out of it is this: Newsweek is polling registered voters, not likely voters. Now, it could be that the young people will turn out this November in great numbers, on a par with their elders, even though they never have before. Sure, it could.

But don’t bet on it, Barack. Youth is fickle. Go for the mature types — the grizzled ones who know which school gym to line up to vote in.