Can hipsters be Conservatives?

John Guardiano bemoans the temerity of the young "Hipster Cons" as he calls them at David Frum's site. It beggars the question, Can a hipster be a conservative? My answer is, yes.

I've written before about hipsters... it's my own personal obsession to which I've come to the conclusion I myself am one, though I bemoan the fact that I am one, which makes me even more of a hipster -- ooooh, how meta.

Back to the point. I've written before about Christian hipsters, whether they're Evangelical or Catholic, so it's safe to assume that the definition of hipster is not limited to the ironic youth of Brooklyn though there are certain schematas consistent with all class/degrees of hipsters.

Who Guardiano classifies as 'hipsters' is up for debate* - what he calls temerity, a term of derision, put neutrally or positively would best be described in hipster speak as a search for personal/collective authenticity.

To borrow from my posts on Christian hipsters and quote Rabbi Avi Weiss:

"people are looking for a dialectic, people are looking for a commitment that is grounded but not one that is stagnant. The other part of the dialectic is an openness but not without limits."

This is true for all hipsters.

*Conor Friedersdorf actually wrote a post at the American Scene questioning what a hipster is and if he could possibly be one. Take it from me: If you have to ask people if you are a hipster, you probably are a hipster.

Bring on the Trains?

Today President Obama went with Vice President Biden to Tampa to announce an $8 billion dollar investment in Rail Infrastructure through the ARRA.

As many of you know, I love the idea of trains. I love how versatile, and efficient they are as an economic development engine as well as a mode for public transit. So you can imagine how happy I was to hear of the announcement today and the commitment by the President to funding the expansion of high speed rail by budgeting an additional $1 billion dollars every year for the next five years.

So what 31 States get a portion of the $8 billion dollar pie dolled out today? CNN said the approved projects are

• San Diego-Los Angeles-San Luis Obispo in California
• Oakland-Sacramento in California
• Portland-Eugene in Oregon
• Seattle-Portland in Washington and Oregon
• Chicago-St. Louis in Illinois and Missouri
• St. Louis-Kansas City in Missouri
• Minneapolis/St. Paul-Madison in Minnesota and Wisconsin
• Madison-Milwaukee in Wisconsin
• Milwaukee-Chicago in Wisconsin and Illinois
• Cleveland-Columbus-Cincinnati in Ohio
• Detroit/Pontiac-Chicago in Michigan, Indiana and Illinois
• Tampa-Orlando in Florida
• Raleigh-Charlotte in North Carolina
• Washington-Richmond in the District of Columbia and Virginia
• Raleigh-Richmond in North Carolina and Virginia
• New York City-Albany-Buffalo in New York
• New York City-Montreal in New York and Quebec, Canada
• Boston-New York-Washington in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, and the District of Columbia
• Brunswick-Portland in Maine
• Philadelphia-Harrisburg-Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania
• Springfield-East Northfield in Massachusetts
• New Haven-Springfield in Connecticut and Massachusetts

Noticeably absent from the list are any rail projects in South Carolina, although North Carolina has two projects funded as does.... CANADA??!?!?!??

But what about South Carolina? The Charlanta mega region is one of the largest growing economic geographies in the nation, and it includes the upstate of South Carolina! Two years ago I blogged about a little noticed article in The Spartanburg Herald Journal about an effort by SC Public Railways and the Department of Commerce to re evaluate the rail systems in South Carolina, so what was determined?

Well much like the little noticed article in the Herald Journal the produced report, by Wilbur Smith and Associates, received just as little fanfare... actually none, though it contains some golden nuggets for rail enthusiasts and those interested in -- you know economic development, and, oh, job creation.

The report itself is available online in seven parts here (filed under "R") I'll link to the Executive Summary at the bottom of the post. One of the more interesting points from the report on my first glance was

12.1.2 Southeast High Speed Rail Corridor

Route costs for the Upstate line are estimated in a report from U.S. DOT’s Volpe Center at $1.2 to $1.4 billion. Based on 80 percent federal funding and half of the route lying in South Carolina, the state’s share would be approximately $140 million.

12.1.3 Commuter Rail

Charleston has applied to the State Infrastructure Bank for $206 million for capital costs. An active investigation of service between Columbia and Camden is ongoing. Capital costs were estimated at $80 million in a prior study.

I threw the Commuter Rail bit in as a tease, the meat and potatoes is that estimate for the High Speed Rail Corridor. If Obama is budgeting $1 billion every year over the next 5 years, which of the SC Congressional Delegation is going to stand up for our economic interest and push for funding of this vital corridor. And even if they do - will anyone in the General Assembly respond in kind? Rail. Economic Development. Jobs.

SC State Rail Plan Executive Summary

SC Reality TV

I'm not a huge fan of Adam Fogle, or his "Palmetto Scoop" never have been - never will be. But he does manage to get a decent story every now and then. Monday he reported that a reality TV show is probably looking to film in SC soon.

Apparently it's a new season of Oxygen's Bad Girls Club. All I have to say is -- has Joe Taylor heard about this? Per Fogle an ad on Craigslist is soliciting casting recruiters.

But if you want to see a reality show based in Columbia, SC you don't have to even turn on the TV -- just go to Drinking in the Morning where you'll see Aaron Johnson and Grant Robertson, owners of the F Stop in 5 points, doing truly unscripted programing. Seriously, hilarious stuff.

Speaking of Aaron and Grant they're running for Mayor and City Council respectively. What's really interesting is that Mr. Robertson has a fighting chance against incumbent Tamieka Isaac Devine. Devine has been hurt politically, as all incumbents have been, by revelations of the city's fiscal mismanagement and two personal financial scandals last year regarding improper loans through the Sumter Columbia Empowerment Zone.

POTD.... oh Hipsters

Todd Heisler/The New York Times

At Bierkraft in Park Slope, Brooklyn, customers bring their own growlers and fill them with fresh draft beer. They drink it there, or take it out.

As always Waldo sums it up just right

My old blog friend Waldo Lydecker summed up the oppositional response to last night's SOTU. In his acerbic, yet witty way - he managed to show exactly what's wrong with the Grand Old Party (emphasis on OLD).

SOTU '10

In case you missed the SOTU, and how could you - you had the ability to stream it on your iPhone? - Ben Smith has the full text.

Andrew Sullivan has a round up of the salient SOTU Reax.

I watched it on Cable, and followed the twitter reactions.

Blog Tips for the Pope

If you missed NPR's All Things Considered this evening, you missed a great segment about the Pope and Blogging "Give Us This Day Thy Daily Post." It was in response to last weeks previewed release of Benedict's address for World Day of Communications where the pontiff encouraged priests to blog and engage in New Media.

Interestingly enough plenty of priests have preemptively jumped on the New Media bandwagon and some of them have pretty large followings. You can find a [short] list of some of them at the bottom of the post.

The segment included two notable Catholic bloggers, interstingly enough one from a more 'conservative' camp and the other 'liberal;' The Anchoress (Elizabeth Scalia) of the magazine First Things and Fr. James Martin, SJ of the magazine America. Thankfully theological partisanship was put aside and it ended up being a pretty humorous bit, especially when Scalia suggested:

"He should have some favourite YouTube videos that he can just slap up there when he's feeling kind of tired. Like the parade scene from Ferris Beuller. Slap that up there and that's a days blogging."

But it wasn't just light hearted, Fr. Martin had a good point when it comes to blogging about comments and specifically commenters:

"I would say there are two kinds of angry people. There are angry people, and then there are religiously angry people. And the religiously angry people tend to be angrier than the angry people."

I know all about comments and commenters, but I still allow them, so bring it.

*** Some Catholic Priests who blog ***

• Fr. Z
• Fr. Longnecker (from Greenville, SC!)
• Fr. Finnegan
• Fr. James Martin, SJ (as well as other Priests at America Magazine)
• Fr. Austin Flemming
• Cardinal Sean O'Malley

Watching the SOTU? There's an App for that.

Continuing with the tech trend that help catapult him to office, President Obama's white house released last week an app for iPhone and iTouch users. The White House even provided a nifty video featuring Press Secretary Robert Gibbs (you can watch it at the bottom of the post).

The release corresponds with the SOTU, and coincidentally with the release of the new Apple touch pad computer - the iPad (insert joke here). I'll leave it to the conspiracy theorists to divine the meaning, especially for the White House's relationship with Apple's main rival Google. When this administration began many questioned the cozy relationship between DC and Mountain View, but recently there was a small spat between the administration and google over America's hesitant reaction to Chinese hackers.

But I will say this - as a Droid user, where's my app. The President himself uses a blackberry still -- where's the app for that? I know that the iPhone is popular, but it's only 19% of the market share of smart phones and that figure should fall to about 10% in 2012. I won't complain too much -- google's versions of apps have always been web based - and at least the white house is planning on releasing a mobile web version of whitehouse.gov soon.

I'm baaaaacckk

After nearly a year on blog hiatus, I've decided to return to the blogosphere, at this new address. This time I won't be blogging anonymously though I've retained my original pseudonym in the blogspot address and profile. Like before I'll be a bit all over the place topic wise, but hopefully will be a little more restrained in how and what I post. The object here is a little more reflection and a lot less reaction. That's not to say that I won't pen a screedal every now and then or resort to certain low brow humor, but.. I'll try and keep it to a minimum.

So why here - why not Leonardo's Notebook? It is all about new beginnings. If I had returned to the notebook there would have been certain stylistic and contextual expectations, and there would have been certain bloggy baggage. Not to say I want to place a distance between my work here and the notebook, but I want to try a different direction - one I feel I couldn't go with the notebook.

For now then we're going to move from key to quire and start the journey a new. Happy Blogging.