As I recently posted on twitter, I wasn’t entirely successful posting a photo a day on flickr (mostly because I take way too many photos that need some level of editing and insist on posting them in chronological order, etc., etc., etc.). But thanks to an iPhone app called Everyday I’ve been capturing an image of yours truly almost everyday since buying the app in early 2011. I wasn’t as strict as I should have been framing the photos, so it’s a much more jittery video than it could have been. And except for my hair growing out (and being wonderfully styled) the passage of time isn’t as obvious and will probably require a much longer time span than just one year. Oh boy.

On a much more beautiful and celebratory note, Kathy Craven’s boyfriend, Mike Cardwell posted the following video highlighting how they celebrated the coming of the new year. Enjoy.

New Year’s Eve from Michael Cardwell on Vimeo.

This is how my family and I spent the last few hours of 2011. This is an in-camera effect using bokeh. No animation of any kind was used in this video.

Best viewed Full Screen.

Thanks to everyone who helped on this project!

Kathy Craven
The Craven Family
Ryan Nielson
Aidan Cardwell
Kellie Martin
Nick Loring from Digital Graphics Plus
Chris Altsman
Brett Brinkerhoff for letting me borrow his rig

Happy New Year!

Catch Mike’s work at Market Match Media and can be contacted at Michael@marketmatchmedia.com

So around Wednesday, the last week of the break, Tricia asked me what did I want to do with my Christmas break. Was I thinking of going anywhere or doing anything special? Number one, I wouldn’t think about going anywhere without including her and number two, there was only half a week left of my break. So, after a brief pause I told her that I was already doing it. She looked at me, puzzled. I’d spent my days mostly on the computer, laboriously updating hundreds of feature images in my blog after the move to my new blog host and chasing down other bloggy stuff. Hmmm. That was the short, mostly painless version. I really did enjoy having the time to do all of this silly bloggy stuff. But the real story goes back to Thanksgiving week when I began to investigate upgrading my Godaddy hosted blog(s)… Here’s the long painful rendition…

Tuesday, November 29th
Still waiting for last Godaddy website hosting update. Ack. Tech warned that it could be up to 72 hours… Has it already been 72 hours? Damn. I was just in the process of trying to develop the habit of doing at least three posts a week, but I had a post disappear between issuing the last update and when the site was updated. So, as always, I plan something and then have to adjust said plan to wait for other things first. Damn.

So, I had been trying to decide whether to re-up my Godaddy hosting plan or go with something else. Of late I had been depending less and less on my FTP access to my go daddy site. I’d been wanting to move everything away from my expiring MobileMe iDisk hosting, but was getting discouraged because I’d been running into server errors, etc. I purchased a year’s worth of SquareSpace, but I wasn’t impressed with what I could do with the site that didn’t look like a blog (and couldn’t get a “magazine” theme with rotating gallery up top). Damn.

I very briefly experimented with the Onswipe theme to make the main blog more iPad fun. Alas, because I had far more Twitter posts than full-feature posts, Onswipe didn’t really work. Then last week it dawned of me that I could create twitter-specific WordPress blogs and remove them from my main blog so that themes like Onswipe would work. Doh! Now I just have to wait for my hosting plan to return from the “upgrade.”

Friday, December 2nd: Friday Sick of Hosting Problems
Friday on a week that didn’t quite equal a full week doesn’t quite feel like a proper Friday. I’ve been sick most of the week and slept all of yesterday, so my poor sense of direction/focus isn’t all that unexpected. Add to that I’m still waiting for Godaddy to pull their heads out of their asses.

Two weeks ago I talked to a tech about upgrading my old hosting service to their new shiny “4GH” and he suggested that I enable a service that would automatically require that they move me to a newer server and then after that the upgrade would just be a check-box. Or so he said. I enabled the first part and it took a bit over 48-hours before I had access to the backend again, signaling that that step was completed. So I contacted Godaddy on the 25th to renew my hosting plan, indicating that I wanted to be moved to the 4GH plan. The tech said no problem, it should take between one to 72-hours for the update and that I should get an email indicating that the change was made. Seven-days later I’m still seeing the “pending account change” status. I contacted their tech on Wednesday and got a trouble ticket and they told me that the connection had timed-out and that’s why the upgrade hadn’t completed. So I waited until today to re-check the status. No change. The tech escalated the trouble ticket and suggested that I might sign up for a one-month hosting plan, move my blogs to the new server then after the month move it back to the “fixed” hosting plan. I told her that I can’t see putting more work into something when they haven’t delivered on the original upgrade. Why should I spend more money, buying a month’s worth of hosting? I ended the call thinking that if I’m not back with backend access in another 24-hours that I should take my business elsewhere.

I don’t know where I’d switch to. I’m thinking that if the problem isn’t resolved then I will cancel my renewal and create a new service and move to the new service. Time to research the alternative hosting services. Ack.

Sunday, December 4th: Web Hosting
I think I know the Godaddy.com hold music by heart now. Sad. They resolved my upgrade issue after seven-days, so that I’m not getting the “pending” message anymore, but, the upgrade to their 4GH plan, the one that I requested didn’t go through. Ah, right. And now I can’t Dreamweaver or Transmit to log into the site so that I can back things up. So…. brain-dead decision, I thought maybe it was a password problem and because I had access to the hosting dashboard, I decided to change the password to something less cryptic. Now the password setting is twirling the “pending change” icon of death. FUCK.

Just called tech support… yeah, something is happening… it’s been escalated to the next level tech support and I should expect another email with another ticket number. Damn. I was actually thinking that I’d like to avoid the hassle, cancel my previous “upgrade” (the one that didn’t happen), and then open another hosting account with the vaunted 4GH service. But now, well, I haven’t posted to my blog in over a week and I’m tired of having to work with tech support just to access my own damn content. Time to move my Internet tent. Damn.

Tuesday, December 6th: Loyalty
It’s completely illogical for me to feel anything or to feel bad about canceling my godaddy hosting account. Sorry if you were expecting something more personal or something along that line. I guess it comes down to caring about things that one spends a lot of time doing and I spend a lot of time in this space, writing, researching, reading, connecting, and so anything that gets in the way of me feeling connected or threatens my continued connection causes an emotional reaction. So, I was looking through my records and I’ve been registering domain names with godaddy since the end of 2006 and started hosting my sites with them since January 2007 and in Internet time almost five years is forever. Yeah, I’m a bit depressed about having to cancel the hosting and hassle of looking for a new provider and then having to build everything back up. And even though these words are not reaching out to the Net (yet), thank god that I found this program (DayOne) that prompts me to do my daily writing. What a godsend. Okay. Back to the business of getting back online.

Wednesday, December 7th: Moving
There’s generally an assumption that anything “Internet” is less than “In Real Life,” that it takes less time, less energy, less meaning. I don’t think that is so. I’ve been working on getting my website/blogs reset/set-up since the 25th and it there hasn’t been anything about this process that’s been “less” anything. So, today i’m now in the process of moving my blogs/websites to a new host. I’ve got the skeleton of the new blog setup on the new host and the right domain name pointed to the right host. All I need to do with wait 24-hours for the information to filter across the Internet so that it works with my browser… More waiting. Damn. I’m going to be glad when this process is over and I can get back to creating good content. Ack.

Thursday, December 8th: Living Online
I started this post yesterday, but got interrupted when I accidentally over-wrote my new wordpress blog with another that I was setting up for Tricia. Live online/die online. Damn.

Friday, December 9th: Living Online, continued
Still struggling with getting a different domain name to work with my old hosting account, so that I can move the main domain name to my new hosting account. This is turning into the proverbial removing the table cloth without losing the table settings trick. Ack. So, besides accidentally 86-ing all the work I’d done yesterday last night when I was creating a separate blog for Tricia (ARGHHH!), I’m now reconciling myself with the idea that I’m going to have to manually reset the main image (feature image) for every single blog post… currently there are 957 posts on this blog. [fail trombone]. Well, back to work.

Saturday, December 10th: Silent Blog
Since my godaddy hosting troubles around Thanksgiving I haven’t posted another blog post. Thank god for Day One, the app that I’m using to record my thoughts (and the fact that the app bugs me every day to write something…). So, I have posts to upload… I’ve just been frustrated at not having a reliable … host. Well, the blog is up on the new host, but I need to transfer my main domain name to the new host and that requires that I get another domain name take over that spot and … well, I’m going to have to call godaddy to get it up and running. Damn. Moving one’s blog is a royal pain in the ass. Oh yeah, I’m having to manually set up the “feature image” on all of my posts and edit the categories to make it run with all the different devices (web, iPhone and iPad). Yay. Be back after the Godaddy encounter.

Sunday, December 11th: Manually Moving Blog Content
Last few days have been spent manually moving my blog media, resetting categories and resetting feature images on the new blog host. Yeah, really exciting. I decided that I’ll go back as far as 2008 to make changes (I have posts that go back to 2003).

Last step was to replace the primary domain on the expiring godaddy account so that the majority of hosted images would point to the new host. Looks like the transfer worked and the temp primary domain seems to work, but I can’t access the admin functions. I can probably do a WordPress reinstall if necessary, but I’m keeping the temp godaddy going just as an image/content backup reference/resource. Time to move my Internet flag to the new place. Onward and upward.

Wednesday, December 14th: blogs and webmail
I’ve been spending the past four days working on bringing my blog back up, mostly resetting, copying and posting images, resetting categories and today trying to get my hosted email account to work. No luck with the email. But they warn that it can 24-hours for the changes to take effect. Where have I heard this before and why does it bother me. So, around 2:30 pm (ET) on Thursday it should all work perfectly. Ack.

Tuesday, December 20th
Going back to add “feature” images to old blog posts and ran into “video pulled for copyright claim”… damn. The internet is not reliable. Surprise.

Tuesday, December 27th: Sometimes Whining Works
That’s right, sometimes whining works, especially on Twitter. A couple days ago I was taking some time to clean up my inbox and working on a bunch of things that hadn’t been working on my blog and ran headlong into a conflict between my flickr widget and my dynamic feature image function and then once I got that working I couldn’t get a plugin called Onswipe that creates a special iPad theme to work. So I did the most constructive thing that I could imagine, I whined on Twitter:

“Frustrated w/ blog,fixed dynamic content display (java script), now onswipe won’t work.If I wanted this much troubleshooting I’d run windows” @jbb

Then within less than a day I got the following message:

@JasonLBaptiste
@jbb hey joe, what’s up? How can we help? j@onswipe.com

So another day later I wrote Jason an email explaining my problem and what I’d been using with my wordpress blog and a bit later got a response with a zip file of an updated version of the plug-in. I’ve been working on the blog today and it’s been mostly good. Onswipe works, but there are some things that don’t quite work.

So, it’s not enough to just complain, but to complain to the anonymous internet! Who knew?

Tuesday, January 3rd: Bloggy Status
So after all of this, what’s the scoop? Godaddy was sacked as my hosting service because they couldn’t deliver on their promised vaunted 4GH service at the beginning of December. I moved to FatCow and they’ve been decent. Moving everything over has been a hassle and took over a month to reset all of the broken links and images. When I dug deep to get conflicting plug-ins to work together I decide to sack my previous expensive theme and go with one simplistic theme that should work across computers and iPads (making getting Onswipe to work with my blog moot). I love StudioPress and might use them for my separate photography and video specific blogs, but it turns out that simpler can be better, hence the move to the MINIMATICA theme by One Designs.

So, the move had nothing to do with SOPA, but I’ve been slowing moving my domains to hover.com for quite a while and the SOPA bullshit has made the decision all the better. My hosting account with godaddy expires in seven days on January 10th. Thus will end five-years of service. Weird that I’d feel funny about that. Thus are the reflections of one who lives so much online.

This time last year I was spending a conspiratorial week traveling from Orlando to Southern California and then up to Northern California and back with my brother and his bride-to-be to do their wedding. It was meant to be in secret for reasons that escape me at the moment but the plot had been uncovered by older sister Kathie earlier in November, resulting in a lot of hurt feelings and a lot of shrugged shoulders from moi and brother Matt. Family. I guess the secrecy was an ill-fated attempt to keep things simple, and given all of the little elements Marty planned for our few days in Northern California, it wouldn’t have been possible to pull it off given the huge entourage any family event tends to create for us Bustilloses. Ack. We say that we believe in Family but the belief is a lot more manageable in theory than the real thing when planning a four-day adventure/wedding get-a-way in Sonoma.

One full-day was spent slowly creeping through Southern California traffic resulting in a 10 P.M. arrival in Sonoma, with a 6 A.M. call to meet at the front-desk the next day, which happened to be Thanksgiving. Ugh turn oh-my-god when we were driven out to an open field where two giant hot-air balloons were being prepared to take us and those others gathered aloft over a cold but sun-drenched Napa Valley. Once we were back on earth we were treated to a hearty breakfast buffet, which required naps when we got back to the bed-and-breakfast. The day ended with a Thanksgiving dinner aboard the Napa Wine Train.

It had pretty much been a perfect day with a good measure of adventure, beautiful sights, family and wine-induced reflection. So, a number of co-workers had been sending Thanksgiving emails and there were still some family tension over the “secret wedding,” all of which led to the following email sent to co-workers, family and friends:

Subject: Many Thanks Indeed 

Date: November 25, 2010 10:48 PM 

T-Day On the wine train in Napa. OMG I ate way too much. I thought, before I drop into a over-eating induced coma, that I’d drop y’all a line. I just wanted to share how thankful I am that I get to work everyday with some of the most dedicated, brilliant, creative and funny people I’ve ever known. I know that there have been more than a few times over the past year when I’ve been a little too quick with the quip or verbal jab and with the double load I haven’t always entertained the most positive attitude or disposition. I apologize for not giving y’all the support or attention that y’all deserve. I’ll strive to do better, but more than that, I just want to say thanks for being there for me and for making me feel like an important part of a fascinating family. Happy Thanksgiving, xo, jbb 

You know what’s changed in the past year? Well, no secret wine-train wedding ceremonies for me this year. That was fun. Sadly I still haven’t been as connected with my work-team as I’ve been in the past and tend to spend too much time with my nose to the grindstone and not enough enjoying the journey. Ack. Well, one thing that’s changed: I’ve been fortunate enough to have spend the past ten-months trying to step away from the wall of computer monitors and enjoying the journey with a very classy and secretly-geeky lady. Damn. Happy Thanksgiving y’all. The next 365-days are going to be amazing.

Job’s ended his keynote introducing the iPad 2 on Wednesday saying, “technology alone is not enough, that it’s technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields us the result that makes our hearts sing.” It’s an important point that gets missed in all the noise and hype and features lists from all the tablet PCs introduced over the past year and going back over ten years. My first thought was whether this was something that might meet the needs of my 80-year-old mom in Arizona. See, my mom cares nothing for the latest or greatest, but to her computers have pretty much not been worth the effort since I set her up with one of my hand-me-down PCs about 14-years ago. All she does is email and occasionally attempt to print out photos for her children and grandchildren, so you’d think that that wouldn’t be a big deal. But like I said, it’s been largely a missed opportunity for her.

Having watched her pattern of usage (or the lack thereof) over the years I’m anxious to see if the iPad (version 2) can meet her needs in a way that other PCs have not (including the mac mini she currently has). It comes down to down to three basic ideas:

1. Reliability/Simple UI
2. Usable-in-any-room
3. Value-Add/Worth the effort

Reliability/Simple UI

It’s a mistake that almost every geek makes when they decide to pass on their older systems to siblings and elders, to assume that because the siblings’ and elders’ needs are less complicated that a hand-me-down system will do. The problem with this assumption is that those of us who use computers every day for hours on end for years on end have no idea how much we put up with when it comes to tech-troubles. We’re unaware of what a pain in the ass technology tends to be. We’ve been doing it for so long that it doesn’t even consciously register for most of us anymore. Such is not the case if the recipient of our hand-me-down gear is a tech novice or tech phobic. Every unexpected beep or boop is another excuse not to use the thing or requires a tech-support call to yours truly. So, the computer has to be rock-solid, uncomplicated, with the simplest UI (user interface) possible and still get the job done.

For my mom that meant getting her off of the hand-me-down PCs and buying her a mac-mini. That solved most of the reliability problems but there have been some UI problems because she got used to the PC way of doing things. And since I’ve moved to Florida mom’s main tech-helper, my older sister, is a PC-die-hard and her “fixes” have tended to leave mom confused about what she did wrong. Consequently, when mom runs into problems it “encourages” her to just not use the thing. That would be a FAIL.

When I was visiting over Christmas I showed her my iPad, but couldn’t really get her to play with the thing. Taking on learning a new device is very much like learning a new language and one cannot learn a new language over a weekend. So, as intuitive as the device may be and there are few computing devices as intuitive as the iPad, it still requires using it enough to get over whatever learning trauma one may have had at the hands of previous computer platforms. So we have to free the usage of the device from former habit of where and how we used to use our computers.

Usable-in-any-room

My mom has a computer room set up in one of the spare bedrooms. I have no real idea how frequently she might go there to check her email but I do know that when it doesn’t work it’s a simple matter of just ignoring the room until one of us asks her if she got our last message. So, how about we reverse the pattern and instead of her visiting the computer room every once in a great wall, let’s take the “computer” and have it on the couch where she spends most of her evenings, or the kitchen table where dad reads his paper every morning. Let’s make her routine of checking email be as easy as picking up a book and catching up where one left off.

She could accomplish the “usable-in-any-room” requirement with any laptop, netbook or tablet. But remember the objective is to keep things simple enough that her focus isn’t on learning how to use computers as much as not thinking about the device and just checking emails or photos of her kids and grandkids. Besides, having a 10-hour battery life, which few other devices offer, really makes the thing something that one can spent time with in any room at any time.

Value-Add/Worth the effort

As much as it might seem to those who know me that I get all of the latest tech because I’m in dire need of a 12-step program, I think long and hard about how all of the pieces need to work together and whether it’s worth it to me given the expense. So, I have no expectation that anyone should use this stuff unless there’s a real reason that’s important enough for them to make the effort. That’s been part of my frustration with how technology hasn’t met my mom’s relatively simple needs.

One thing that I’m keenly aware of, living across the country from my family, is how much better it is whenever we’ve used our iSight cameras and I’ve called in to some family event on the West Coast and had conversations with these faces that I’ve known all of my life. It’s so much better than being on the phone getting passed around the room, a peripheral voice that’s not really part of what’s happening. Alas, prior video-phone “solutions” have been way too complicated, requiring there be geeks on both ends of the call to set things up. For me, and I’m hoping mom, FaceTime and the built in cameras are the killer app for iPad 2. I mean, if we can’t have jet-cars, the least we can do is easily connect with our loved one across the world with a simple click on the FaceTime button and then be speaking with a familiar face.

March 11

There are enough changes from version 1 to version 2 that I will probably get one for myself, but I’m going to get one for mom first. I know that I’m probably going to have to do some instructional videos for her first, just to get her up to speed, but that is part of the fun of what I do. I spend a lot of time knocking these things around and separating the wheat from the chaff (and believe me, there’s a lot of chaff), and finding the stuff worthy of sharing with those whom I care about (and will have to do tech support with, if I get it wrong… ack!). It’s great when one can see the human potential beyond the technology in one’s hands.

by emdt student, by Saray Taylor-Roman

I was touched in so many levels by the first four chapters of this book. And, I feel like sharing this personal anecdote.

In 1996, my whole family moved to the U.S. from Mexico because my dad was getting his master’s degree. My sister and I did not know any English and this was the day before school. Our parents called us to the living room and told us something that went like this: we want you to know that to us you are the most beautiful, intelligent, funny, and amazing daughters in the whole world and nothing or no one will make us think differently of you. We know that you don’t know any English. We know that you will struggle, and when you get a failing grade, we want you to know that we will see an A because we see the effort you put in, because we see you growing, because we see you becoming women of outstanding character. Don’t worry about grades, go live and enjoy our two years here. Make the most of it and if in the way, your grades happen to be A’s, so be it… That evening, a huge weight was lifted from my shoulders, I was no longer scared, I was ready to take over the world!

Needless to say, my sister and I did extremely well. Due to language immersion, we were proficient in English within 4 months. I went on to tutor in Spanish, French, and Chemistry after school and took some extra courses to graduate a year early. My parents believed in me and that made the difference. I was given an A and the rest was history.

Sources:
Original post, http://thetaylor-roman.blogspot.com/2011/02/wk2-reading-initial-response.html posted 02/09/2011

This is a vent and a bit of a rant. It’s probably unwise for me to share this, and so I want to offer a blanket apology to anyone who feels that I’m being unfair or that it’s wrong for me to write about this. I guess that’s kind’a what this comes down to: as a writer (and photographer) I’m compelled to share my work with the biggest audience possible. In the pre-Full Sail days, it was the need to share that motivated me to post my musings and photos. But I had little concern about who was watching/reading because the truth was I was probably my own audience of one most of the time. Since then I’ve become aware that I have students, co-workers and the occasional relative visiting. Believe me, that makes me a bit more cautious, but the artist in me still compels me to share.

So, it saddens me when I get the pull-down email from someone who feels that I’m invading their privacy with my work. Okay, it more than saddens me when the email accuses me of being careless or even mean-spirited with my postings. “Really Joe, you should know better!” Here’s what I do know: when I pull out my camera I’m just trying to capture enough of what’s happening so that those who were there can enjoy the memories of a shared experience. I’m not trying to capture embarrassing moments or looking to make anyone look silly. Although, I’m the first to admit that there have been a few whom I’ve consistently caught with food in their mouths (sorry M Haynes). But the point is that I’m just making the effort to capture the moment, not to embarrass anyone.

At the same time I’m fully aware that there is the personal lens by which everyone sees the world such that we’re all drawn to seeing all of our own imperfections whenever we see ourselves in a photo. For example, I see a little kid playing with his toys on the floor possibly thinking about how he’s going to get the stuff behind the kiddie-fence, while someone else sees themselves with their back to the camera and they can only see that it’s not very flattering (to them). I guess I could crop the photo so that the unflattering bits are cut out, but the point of such a photo might be the interplay between the little one on the floor and the one not facing the camera.

So, when I see the photo I see the interplay between a little kid on the floor and the adult and it seems like a reasonable image capturing that moment. If I were in the photo with my back toward the camera would I be uncomfortable? Well, that test doesn’t work because I would see the photo as being about the kid AND me (in this version) and not about my posterior. Now if it were a close-up of the Buddha-belly, I might cringe. But if it told a story about that day and those people or about what happened, I’d find a way to get over myself.

All I wanted to do was to capture these moments and share them. No malice, no agenda, just wanting to share the moment. And it takes a lot of time and effort to post the photos, so it’s all the more irritating when I get the pull-down email. As much as I probably should publish a lot fewer photos (i’m up to over 11,500 pix) this isn’t the same as saying that I post everything. There is some cropping and image enhancement and selection that goes into this. So, yeah, I feel like no good deed goes unpunished when someone tells me that they don’t want all those photos posted. I’m mean, why bother taking the pictures in the first place if no one is ever going to see them?

There must be something to wanting to share our photos in that many of us exchanged DVDs and CDs with photos from over the years this past Christmas. “But Joe, why would you want to share your photos on the open Internet, I mean, really!” I’ve chosen to post my photos to Flickr because I’ve learned over the years that any barrier to entry, anything that requires passwords or signing up for this service or that service, is enough to make it too difficult for anyone to find the photos, thus defeating the purpose of sharing. Period. I’ve decided that I’m going to make it as simple as possible for the photos to be found and enjoyed. As for the danger of posting things on the “open Internet,” except for those in the photos or close friends, no one cares. Remember, I’m just capturing little moments that only matter to us. The paranoia that posting photos on the Internet might lead to a life of misery or visit from the agency with the black helicopters is just plain silly. Believe me, I know, it’s part of my job to know about this Internet stuff.

Alas, among most of my relations I know that I’m the odd one who has consistently chosen to live my life on the open Internet. It’s frustrating to know that my siblings have the most amazing collection of photos and except for this one time, last Christmas, almost no one has access to any of it. I have tried to be a cheerleader and in the past gave Pro-accounts to flickr.com to the siblings only to have them expire with only two of the sibs taking advantage of the accounts. Sad. All the hours I put into this… funny thing, a co-worker was looking for work-related photos for a project she was working on and ended up spending probably too much time wandering through the family-related stuff and later complimented me, well, us because she thought we seemed to be a very fun group, based on the photos she saw. She seemed to get the point of all of these photos. Yeah, beware of Joe and his camera, he’s nefariously capturing images of us and stealing our privacy by posting the images on the web. Or maybe he’s just making it possible for us to enjoy our brief moments together long after the moments have past.

Sources:

• All images by joe bustillos, http://www.flickr.com/photos/joebustillos/sets/72157625956141627/with/5455875395/

I’ve noted in my eclectic twitter and facebook feeds a slight trend that I first noticed this past week, before Easter, during which someone commented that they are tired of being, or that they shouldn’t be ashamed of their faith and wanted to shout it out. Then, of course, someone quoted the verses where Jesus said, if you are ashamed to acknowledge me in this life then I won’t acknowledge you in the next life. That was a bit of a buzz-kill, but I still saw a few “He Lives!” that seemed to come from this initial thought that we shouldn’t be ashamed of our Faith. Is this the Christian version of the “I love you, man” that guys say to each other after watching a good football game and a few round of beer?

In Bad Faith, Part 9: He Lives … In the example of Your Day-to-Day Lives

My Jesus-Freak high school self

I poke fun because I’m that guy in high school who, with my dear Christian friends, decided one beautiful, sunny lunch break, probably around Easter time, that we needed to not be ashamed of our faith and confronted our non-believing fellow students and got all verbal with them about the gospel. I’m so thankful (and hopeful) that my fellow students might remember said incidents as just another silly adolescent not-thought-out moment. I mean, I forgive them for wanting to and/or throwing stuff at our little group after those incidents. I’ve never been particularly fond of Confrontational Christianity since then. Of course, mom would remind me that words are cheap and that actions speak louder than words. Thanks mom. Love mom’s obviousness.

Our culture is so weird where politicians feel the need to prove how qualified they are for the job by parading their family and faith out to the public, where we’re either over-sensitive or oblivious to whether we should talk about our beliefs with our neighbors, but doing anything about the disenfranchised all around us isn’t even on the agenda. I mean, part of the reason some of us go to church is to not be part of the disenfranchised and unconsciously we make such people uncomfortable to walk in the door and stink up our plush pews. We’re not mean. We just prefer an impersonal way of “dealing with those people,” through our tithes… assuming that any of that money goes any further than the pastor’s latest building project or salary. I don’t mean to be mean. I’m writing mostly to myself, in that I was a serious tither, giving my 10 percent (after taxes) from the time I first started working many many decades ago and wonder whether that money really did anyone any good. And why is god always running out of money?

I love my brother’s approach:

Too many glasses of wine, feeling love for all mankind. I know we don’t deserve this, we are all so flawed, but that is the real message of Easter. That we are lovable despite all of all of our problems. Have a wonderful Easter. Jesus is Risen, now go hide some eggs.

And as my mom would probably say, it really is all about how we treat one another, not during the special moments, but in the day-to-day moments. Now go out and hug someone who needs a hug today.

“When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?” And the King shall answer and say unto them, “Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.” Matthew 25: 38-40 KJV

What is it that you most love in life,
and how do you express it in your
day to day routine?

Thinking about the aunts and uncles who’ll be at this year’s Christmas gathering, and realizing that the list is getting shorter. My dear sister-in-law, Connie, passed last Spring. And a life-long friend whom I haven’t had the best communication with, has had incredible health difficulties since taking a fall a few months ago. For my part, I’ve been so busy, with an almost around-the-clock sense of urgency tending to my job. Because of the freedom I’ve been given I feel the need to work all the harder to deliver the best possible learning experience for my students. That’s a blessing, but I still need to pause a moment and consider bringing the bigger vision into the daily routine.

I shouldn’t let a day go by without picking up my guitar. I shouldn’t let a day go by when I don’t write in this blog. I shouldn’t let a day go by when I don’t call up a friend just to say, “hi.” I’ve done these important things too infrequently this past year and that needs to change. After my uncle Joe passed, whenever I found myself relaxing for a moment, especially if the moment included a good IPA, I raised my glass in his honor. I didn’t do this because I thought that he might be haunting me or aware of my gesture, but because I wanted to honor the memory of his work ethic, what he contributed to in the life of his six daughters and dozens of grandchildren and just the man’s man who he was.

So, there needs to be more room for the meditation that I find in my guitar. Thus, last night when I should have been trying to get some sleep because I had an early morning video shoot (I was doing the behind the scene stills), I found myself listening to some Sarah McLachlan and then strumming along, then looking up the lyrics and chords for the song on the Internet, then learning the song and playing until my finger, that have long lost their callouses, forced me to quit. I’ve long felt a strong emotional connection to McLachlan, but when I listened to the lyric last night, something in the careful twist of words really connected it to the journey I’ve been on. I decided that this would be a good place to start getting back to the things/people I love in my life.

“Fallen“
Heaven bend to take my hand
And lead me through the fire
Be the long awaited answer
To a long and painful fight
Truth be told I tried my best
But somewhere long the way
I got caught up in all there was to offer
But the cost was so much more than I could bear

Though I’ve tried I’ve fallen
I have sunk so low
I messed up
Better I should know
So don’t come round here and
Tell me I told you so

We all begin with good intent
Love was raw and young
We believed that we could change ourselves
The past can be undone
But we carry on our back, the burden
Time always reveals
In the lonely light of morning
In the wound that would not heal
It’s the bitter taste of losing everything
that I’ve held so dear…

I’ve fallen
I have sunk so low
I messed up
Better I should know
So don’t come round here and
Tell me I told you so

Heaven bend to take my hand
I’ve nowhere left to turn
I’m lost to those I thought were friends
To everyone I know
Oh they turn their heads embarrassed
Pretend that they don’t see
But it’s one missed step you’ll slip before you know it
And there doesn’t seem a way to be redeemed

Though I’ve tried I’ve fallen
I have sunk so low
I messed up
Better I should know
So don’t come round here and
Tell me I told you so
I messed up
Better I should know
So don’t come round here and
Tell me I told you so

Sources:
* “Fallen” by Sarah McLachlan from her Afterglow CD

* youtube video: Sarah McLachlan Fallen Live – Macworld 2003 Keynote posted by cryotekk. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEKqFw9x_IM retrieved 12/11/2009

p.s., I used to catch hell for my affinity and attraction to artist’s like McLachlan. This person would tease me, saying that I needed to quit listening to the “lesbians” because the music was making me too moody. I’m glad that I didn’t stop listening. The music didn’t make me moody, it spoke to the shitty situation and my frustration with it. Making this song a part of my emotional vocabulary is a far better way to move past those trouble times than to pretend that they didn’t happen or wall off whole sections of ones life. There, I said it.

Now I forgot what it was.

source:
Sister Kat’s Email Spam

Mentoring Analysis – The Benefit of Learning By Example

dad workin

I can’t believe how my brother betrayed me. There he was, just rambling on, completely oblivious to the betrayal. I can’t believe he’d forgotten the vows we’d made during those numberless sweaty Saturdays out in the backyard under the heartless afternoon sun as our father rained down on us pruned branches to be cut and dissatisfaction at our efforts.

I thought that it was understood that once we’d successfully escaped our father’s unsatisfiable tutelage that we’d never ever again spend another day toiling under the sun, pruning trees, or doing anything beyond the minimum necessary to keep the lawn from over-growing and swallowing up the patio furniture. But there he was proudly displaying his garden and the huge ears of corn he was expecting in a few weeks. Damn. I guess new homeownership does that to a person.

Okay, so not everyone takes the vows of teenage-boys seriously (brother!), and it wasn’t exactly the “Grapes of Wrath.” But it was negative enough to leave the above “not-so-fond” memory. Let’s just say, when I began to read Shea and recalled the nurturing/supportive characteristics we all agreed a mentor should have, my father silently slipped off the list . . . at first.

Based on Gordan Shea’s list of twenty characteristics about “What Mentors Do” (p.14) my father exhibited eight of the twenty characteristics (usually having to do with doing the job right, and his quotable quote was, “Can’t you guys do anything right?!,” so I wasn’t sure whether I should count that one). Of the twenty-two characteristics (see below) that we cooked up in Colorado his numbers dropped to just two. Actually, this whole business of going back and mining my memory for mentoring moments and/or relationships was getting pretty depressing for me. As I worked my way through my list there was an obvious pattern of learning from a distance so as not to get too close to whichever leader (and suffer from his/her potential wrath). It’s pretty clear where that pattern came from.

It was many years later in the middle of one of my child-development classes, when we were discussing the Characteristics of Play, that it suddenly dawned on me that my father’s endless weekends of yardwork was his form of leisure. It was his form of play. Of course, none of this had made sense to my brother and I as kids because this was anything but fun to us. But to my father the “work” meant a great deal to him and having us there to “share” it with him also meant a great deal (even though we were anything but receptive to any message at the time). And even odder still was that he worked in landscaping and spent his whole week doing pretty much the same things for a living. The only difference, on the surface, between his work-a-day world and what he did on the weekends he was working on his yard with his boys. But at the time we never saw it.

In one of last term’s readings Frank Smith made it clear that learning happens whether we want it to or not, more from the people we’re around than from the words of teachers.

“We learn from the people around us with whom we identify. We can’t help learning from them, and we learn without knowing that we are learning.” Frank Smith. The Book of Learning and Forgetting, 1998, p.3

So when I look at the person I’ve become and look at the long hours that I put in and the high expectation that I have for myself and the work that I do, I now know where those values came from. Those were values that were important to him, values that saw him through the early years of his own life when he didn’t have a father to lead him. And just as he never looked at the difficulties of his own up-bring for an apology for not having had a “perfect childhood,” I don’t expect or want an apology from him for the often vitriolic relationship that we had as father and son. I understand that he was just being a man, a man true to his core values and those values didn’t always translate well to squirrely seven- and ten-year-old boys.

cloudy sunset over Mission Viejo CA circa 1977

Dear ol’ dad, whatever his conscious intentions may have been (prune trees, cut branches down small enough to fit into trash cans), he taught my brother and I a great deal more than the “joys” of working with small hand tools on mountains of orange and olive tree branches. I love him for instilling those values in me. But I’m still not going to pick up any pruning shears anytime soon. I’ll leave that to my silly younger brother. JBB (Spring 2002)

NOTES:
Colorado List of Mentor Characteristics:
trust
honesty
respect
clarity
non judgmental
guidance
empathy
dialogue
mutual benefit
sense of humor
compassion
availability
willingness to negotiate
personable
supportive
caring
intuitive
respectful
visionary
lead by example
interpersonal skills

Sources:
“Crisp : Mentoring , Third Edition : How to Develop Successful Mentor Behaviors – Crisp 50-Minute Book.” by Gordon F. Shea

“The Book of Learning and Forgetting” by Frank Smith

All images by Joe Bustillos

New to Florida

it’s been an amazing year. A year ago February I decided to accept the challenge of moving across country to step from the safety a public school teaching job to try something new: teaching a masters level course at a new online program in Florida. I looked at my life in Southern California, having no permanent ties, save my siblings and nephews and nieces, and decided that I needed to make this change, to take my gifts and skills to the next level. It was a logical choice. But it also meant that I was permanently closing the door on a relationship that I’d been unsuccessfully pursuing over the past five years. I could either take this job or I could stay in California, woeking as a largely thankless classroom grunt waiting for a relationship that might never become what I wanted it to become. The choice was pretty logical. But I was also walking away from something that I had defined myself by. I’d poured everything I could into this. This was who I was. This was who I wanted to be with. I felt connected in a way that I couldn’t explain, yet it had somehow completely failed when it came to what she needed at the time. So I left and shut the door to that part of myself.

Then as I began to build my life here in Florida I grappled with how I would express my relationship to God, The problem was that this was something that I had re-discovered in my life because of the power of the relationship I’d just left. It was something we shared. It was something that seemed real because of the power of the love I felt for her. But given the ease with which all of that just went away without a single tear shed, I was left to think that that relationship had been largely in my own head, and this led me to question what else might have largely just been in my head.

It’s not so much that because I didn’t get what I wanted, I was just going to stop believing. But given how much I had opened my heart to the possibilities, only to be set aside and rewarded with the sound of silence and a completely affection-less life, I lost my certainty and thus another way that I had defined myself by slipped away. Another door closed in my life.

So this brings me to this past week. i had just returned from a great trip to Washington DC.

Brad, Jenith & I at the Newseum porch overlooking the Capitol

I was just getting to the point where I felt comfortable with my new cadremates, after having been away from the doctorate program for three years. Then when I got back from DC I received the letter from Pepperdine telling me that the Educational Technology Doctoral (EDET) Program committee had met and decided that my time at Pepperdine was done. In a nutshell, I’d requested for an incomplete for a research course so that I could get further along with my research and have something to write for my chapter 2 and chapter 3 of what would become my dissertation. The course professor felt that I didn’t deserve an incomplete and that I should just retake the whole course when it was next being given. Alas, this meant getting an “F” for the course which would mathematically drop me below the required B+ GPA to stay in the doctorate program. The committee agreed with the professor and now I’m no longer connected with Pepperdine. I knew for some time that this was going to happen, but getting the “disenrollment” letter very much left me with an unsure sense of self. More than just another door closing, having suffered the loss of these defining aspects in my life over the past year, I was losing track of who I was.

Dr. Spark & I at the Feinstein Breakfast in the Hart Building

The irony of this was that my last conversation with my good friend Dr. Sparks in DC was about me having greater vision for myself beyond being the guy building PCs, blogs and websites for others and taking my own vision for myself to the next level. Other cadremates in DC were meeting with their senators and representatives and agencies and national policy makers while i was struggling to maintain some sense of self. Dr. Sparks had no way of knowing that the hammer was about to fall on my career at Pepperdine. Also a bit upsetting was that I knew how other doctoral students in my program had spectacularly failed (for example, showing up for the end of program oral comprehensive exams unprepared and rip-roaring drunk… twice), I knew that a different choice could have been made. But my path was apparently meant to take me in a different direction. Things could have been different, but I alone was responsible for things not turning out as hoped for.

As the days have passed I wish that I could confidently agree with my friends and advocates that this change is for the good, that something better is going to come from this. But the sound of so many doors closing tends to undermine any sense of confidence or promise. I just know that it’s a waste for me to remain a candle hidden under a bushel basket. It’s not much to go on, but it’s better than assuming that I am now whatever I was meant to be or that the best days are in the past. I refuse to believe that. jbb

Click here for my flickr set from my trip to DC.

“One Vote” – ValueVotersUSA.com (official)

Beautiful video with a somewhat overly dramatic soundtrack, then I started paying attention to words floating up on the screen. Very moving words about very moving ideas, just one problem, did the producers of this video seriously think that the Democratic candidate was going to take away the rights and beliefs expressed in the video? Except for being Pro-Choice, which is more than enough for most conservative Christians, one would be hard pressed to reject Obama’s credentials as a Christian.

This is something that I never quite understood about the Republican Right somehow claiming conservative Christianity as their own territory. The “down home” kind of Faith of Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton seemed much more genuine than the more “religion of political expediency” of Ronald Reagan and George Bush, Senior. G.W.’s faith was certainly “genuine” but I’m not sure whether that was an asset or problem for the Right. Really, once we gets past the rhetoric and to each man’s genuine Faith, who could one look at this video and not say that both candidates were committed to the American values we all hold sacred?

The video mentions several times about how divided America has become. Perhaps they should examine the notes from their own strategy meetings to find the source of this fear-mongering and divisiveness. And while they’re looking, let’s think about whether we really hold that every life from conception is precious while we continue to kill hundreds of people in foreign lands. Aren’t their lives precious too? It’s easy to float powerful, emotional words across a screen. What’s more important are the actions of a man with regards to his beliefs and the actions of the nation amongst the other nations. Everything else is bankrupt and meaningless noise.

What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him? Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, “Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead. But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.” Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do. James 2:14-18

In the past I’ve been accused of writing things in my blog that seemed to show no regard as to whether what I wrote might be hurtful to others and in some cases writing things with the intension to hurt. Truthfully I might have written things in my blog that I was so passionate about or overwhelmed over that I didn’t or couldn’t look too far beyond my angst to realize how some might take my venting. So, it seems odd to me, in my old age, that I’m so hesitant to work out my “faith issues” here in my blog…

On one level I don’t want my dad or my old church friends to visit these pages and be left with a head-shaking “that’s too bad” feeling about me. I don’t want them to think that I was anything less than completely sincere or genuine with my expressions of faith. At the same time, I’m not like some I’ve known who couldn’t reconcile their private and public lives and so lived in fear of being “discovered.” I guess the best that I can do is to be honest and continue to work through my issues and trust that those who genuinely have my best interests will give me room to explore my life’s path even when it heads in directions that they’d rather I didn’t follow. Anyway, besides being my usual busy self, this hesitancy is why I haven’t written as much in this category of my blog as I’ve wanted to. Having now covered this part of the conversation, I guess I can move on to the other stuff like musings on the wiring of my home network or whether I should buy an Amazon Kindle. Just kidding… kind’a. jbb

Music: Mr. Blue Sky by ELO from the All Over the World: The Very Best of ELO CD

I have a very good job in Florida teaching masters students how to use media and technology in their classrooms and businesses. I left a very uncertain situation in public education in California where most of my co-workers are going to have to look for other teaching jobs or interview to keep the jobs they have in the next two-years. Another friend, who has been battling on-going medical issues, openly wondered whether it was worth the hassle for her to keep her house as the medical bills mount up. And yet with all of this my friends and I are by world standards very, very rich. Our difficulties are generally not about survival but about which luxury activity we’re going to have to forego because things are “a little tight.” It’s hard to balance this kind of life with issues like Poverty.

In a discussion session with a group of masters students last night, one student posed the question about whether our use of technology (some might say “addiction”) was preventing us from living a life connected to our neighbors, our environment or our heritage. He followed up with an observation that it seemed like places that are less driven by technology like some parts of Europe and the Third World move at a much slower pace and seem to actually have a better quality of life. It was an interesting insight to imagine that we are technology rich but our lives our poor in terms of meaningful connections, whereas parts of the world that we would consider poor might have richer, more meaningful existence.

I do not pose these thoughts in an effort to generate some “we should feel guilty for being so rich” kind of thing. If anything it should be obvious that there isn’t a one-for-one connection between being “rich” and the quality of one’s life. I’ve been thinking for some time that I need to contact my local chapter of something like Habitat for Humanity and get involved. In a life that’s often overly crowded with things and thoughts I need to do this for me, get my hands dirty and join others helping ourselves by helping each other. Sending a check isn’t such a bad idea, but spending some weekends in someone else’s shoes and neighborhood would be much better… for all of us. jbb

Music: Mad World from the album “Donnie Darko (Music From the Original Motion Picture Score)” by Michael Andrews

This post is part of Blog Action Day 08 – Poverty

I told a co-worker that Twitter is my virtual water-cooler where I get a ton of info, sometimes amazing, often mundane. Other’s use RSS readers to keep up on what’s happening on the Tech world. Since I first signed up and discovered that most of the tech voices that I listen to or watch are on Twitter, Twitter has been my “RSS” feed. Besides the “A” list bloggers, I’ve “met” so many other interesting voices in tech and in church things and in education. And sometimes it was just the amazing serendipity of getting a notice that so-and-so is following your twitter and then checking out their website and discovering someone interesting that they’re following. For example, some time earlier in the year I got a notice that this “old hippy*” living in Maine was following me (*he’s probably younger than moi). When i checked out his website I found some amazing videos and found someone else he was following, a young journalist living in NYC named Alana Taylor who perfectly expressed this frustration of being alone in the Web 2.0 world:

What To Do When NONE
of Your Friends Use Web 2.0
by Alana Taylor

I have a problem. I am addicted to social networking sites. But I have no one to social network WITH! All my friends (who are mostly girls) think Web 2.0 is a type of advanced cellulite-reducing body lotion. And when I try to explain what it really is, they get annoyed, confused, and impatient.

They don’t care. They don’t want to know.

Do you have this same problem? If you do, then I know exactly how you feel.

Like me, you have a lot of “real” friends on Facebook or MySpace, but none at all on the new start-ups like Pownce, Virb, BrightKite, FriendFeed, etc. Who is going to share pictures with you on Flickr? Who is going to recommend songs on Last.FM? Who is going to tell you about their latte on Twitter? How are you going to tell someone about ALANA TAYLOR??

You feel like you are in the dark, and there is no hope for you in the social online world.

Well, there is no need to get down on yourself just yet! Even as little as two months ago, I was exactly in your position. I figured “if my friends don’t do it, I can’t do it.”

So how can you go about making friends on the new sites? Here’s what I did:

1. Forget about the Anti-Internet friends you have.

If you care too much about waiting for everyone to catch up with you, then you will be left behind. The internet is moving faster than ever. One day in real time is one year on the web. You might as well consider yourself out of the loop if you don’t keep up!

2. Join every social networking site that interests you.

It never hurts to have an account on a site, even if you don’t use it. The cool thing about spreading yourself over a wide variety of social media is that people will get to see the different sides of your interests and activities. Plus, people just like it! If someone diggs (no pun intended) the music you like on Last.fm, they might be wondering what kind of movies you make on Viddler! This is the way you start meeting people on a variety of different networks.

3. Twitter

Obviously I had to include my fave! If you didn’t already listen to my song: “The cool thing ’bout Twitter is you meet new people.” And it’s so true. I recommend searching for people with your same interests or just following those who are already really big and getting into the rhythm of doing what they do. People like Jason Calacanis, Gary Vaynerchuk, Robert Scoble, Veronica Belmont, Kevin Rose, Michael Arrington and others are a good start off. I am sure that if you start updating what you’re doing and you start chatting with people on Twitter, you will make friends really quickly.

4. Share, Share, SHARE!

The whole point about social networking is not only that you stay updated on what your friends are doing, but also that you share all the cool stuff that you run into! This means digging popular stories, e-mailing YouTube/Vimeo/Viddler videos, sharing pictures, sharing music, or whatever comes across your way! Subscribe to your favorite blogs on GoogleReader (or any other RSS reader) and share those too. You need to be giving as much as you want to receive, and eventually people will find you… see that you’re constantly updating…. and they will want to stick with you.

5. Create.

Lastly, to be one with the FORCE of Web 2.0 is to do your own thang. You can’t JUST share stuff that other people make. You also need to make your own. Saw something cool today? Blog about your reaction. Make a video telling how you feel. And most importantly, dare to try new things. People will check out your stuff if you just do it already! (Oh, and don’t be afraid to show your dorky side too. “Real” wins in here, keep “Fake” out on the streets.)

by Alana Taylor

I love political cartoons. I have a book of cartoons from from famed LA Times political cartoonist Paul Conrad. The Jib-Jab team takes it to a new level (I especially like the good-looking voter at the end of the video).

Following the Republican convention my brother sent me a COMMENTS vs. THE FACTS article by Associated Press writer, Jim Kuhnhenn. My brother gave the article the title: “Republicans Should Not Wear Flammable Pants.” Indeed, as the both parties head for November we’ll watch grown men speak out of both sides of their months with the fingers crossed behind their backs. For example…

PALIN: “I have protected the taxpayers by vetoing wasteful spending … and championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending by Congress. I told the Congress ‘thanks but no thanks’ for that Bridge to Nowhere.”

THE FACTS: As mayor of Wasilla, Palin hired a lobbyist and traveled to Washington annually to support earmarks for the town totaling $27 million. In her two years as governor, Alaska has requested nearly $750 million in special federal spending, by far the largest per-capita request in the nation. While Palin notes she rejected plans to build a $398 million bridge from Ketchikan to an island with 50 residents and an airport, that opposition came only after the plan was ridiculed nationally as a “bridge to nowhere.”

PALIN: “There is much to like and admire about our opponent. But listening to him speak, it’s easy to forget that this is a man who has authored two memoirs but not a single major law or reform _ not even in the state senate.”

THE FACTS: Compared to McCain and his two decades in the Senate, Obama does have a more meager record. But he has worked with Republicans to pass legislation that expanded efforts to intercept illegal shipments of weapons of mass destruction and to help destroy conventional weapons stockpiles. The legislation became law last year. To demean that accomplishment would be to also demean the work of Republican Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, a respected foreign policy voice in the Senate. In Illinois, he was the leader on two big, contentious measures in Illinois: studying racial profiling by police and requiring recordings of interrogations in potential death penalty cases. He also successfully co-sponsored major ethics reform legislation.

PALIN: “The Democratic nominee for president supports plans to raise income taxes, raise payroll taxes, raise investment income taxes, raise the death tax, raise business taxes, and increase the tax burden on the American people by hundreds of billions of dollars.”

THE FACTS: The Tax Policy Center, a think tank run jointly by the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute, concluded that Obama’s plan would increase after-tax income for middle-income taxpayers by about 5 percent by 2012, or nearly $2,200 annually. McCain’s plan, which cuts taxes across all income levels, would raise after tax-income for middle-income taxpayers by 3 percent, the center concluded.

Obama would provide $80 billion in tax breaks, mainly for poor workers and the elderly, including tripling the Earned Income Tax Credit for minimum-wage workers and higher credits for larger families.

He also would raise income taxes, capital gains and dividend taxes on the wealthiest. He would raise payroll taxes on taxpayers with incomes above $250,000, and he would raise corporate taxes. Small businesses that make more than $250,000 a year would see taxes rise.

MCCAIN: “She’s been governor of our largest state, in charge of 20 percent of America’s energy supply … She’s responsible for 20 percent of the nation’s energy supply. I’m entertained by the comparison and I hope we can keep making that comparison that running a political campaign is somehow comparable to being the executive of the largest state in America,” he said in an interview with ABC News’ Charles Gibson.

THE FACTS: McCain’s phrasing exaggerates both claims. Palin is governor of a state that ranks second nationally in crude oil production, but she’s no more “responsible” for that resource than President Bush was when he was governor of Texas, another oil-producing state. In fact, her primary power is the ability to tax oil, which she did in concert with the Alaska Legislature. And where Alaska is the largest state in America, McCain could as easily have called it the 47th largest state _ by population.

MCCAIN: “She’s the commander of the Alaska National Guard. … She has been in charge, and she has had national security as one of her primary responsibilities,” he said on ABC.

THE FACTS: While governors are in charge of their state guard units, that authority ends whenever those units are called to actual military service. When guard units are deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, for example, they assume those duties under “federal status,” which means they report to the Defense Department, not their governors. Alaska’s national guard units have a total of about 4,200 personnel, among the smallest of state guard organizations.

FORMER ARKANSAS GOV. MIKE HUCKABEE: Palin “got more votes running for mayor of Wasilla, Alaska than Joe Biden got running for president of the United States.”

THE FACTS: A whopper. Palin got 616 votes in the 1996 mayor’s election, and got 909 in her 1999 re-election race, for a total of 1,525. Biden dropped out of the race after the Iowa caucuses, but he still got 76,165 votes in 23 states and the District of Columbia where he was on the ballot during the 2008 presidential primaries.

FORMER MASSACHUSETTS GOV. MITT ROMNEY: “We need change, all right _ change from a liberal Washington to a conservative Washington! We have a prescription for every American who wants change in Washington _ throw out the big-government liberals, and elect John McCain and Sarah Palin.”

THE FACTS: A Back-to-the-Future moment. George W. Bush, a conservative Republican, has been president for nearly eight years. And until last year, Republicans controlled Congress. Only since January 2007 have Democrats have been in charge of the House and Senate