Filed under MSNBC’s “Weird News” on Friday … voters in Muskogee, Okla. reacted to politics as usual in their town by electing 19-year-old John Tyler Hammons as mayor.
The college freshman, who will be sworn in today, was elected with 70 percent of the vote in a runoff election. Residents say he represents a “fresh start” for Muskogee, population: 38,000.
Hammons will be one of the youngest mayors in the United States, but he is not without political experience: he was president of his senior class at Muskogee High School in 2007 (Yes, 2007. We are all old.) and president of BOTH the Young Republicans and Young Democrats clubs, although he now considers himself a Republican.
AND he’s a political science major at the University of Oklahoma. Although, he was moving out of the dorms and back in with the ‘rents this week as he prepared to be sworn in.
Does this qualify as “weird news”? It’s actually so rare to see young people interested in politics, let alone running for office that — unfortunately — yes, this is a little weird. It’s bizarre because it’s so rare.
As a very young mayor, Hammons is always going to face challenges and stigmas because of his age and lack of experience. Check out this video of an interview with Hammons from The Oklahoman. As the interviewer puts it in one of her first questions: “You’re 19. You should be in college or tuning up a truck or something.”
Ouch. But true?
At the same time, his youth could very well be an advantage. The image of aged politicians scheming in smoke-filled back rooms has long been notorious for turning people off from politics. Hammons’ opponent was a 70-year-old, former three-term mayor. I admit that I know very little about the issues at stake in the Muskogee race … but there’s something to be said for that.
I think Hammons’ story is interesting and inspiring, and I hope he does good things for the city of Muskogee. He has the opportunity to set an example for other aspiring young leaders looking to make a difference and prove to everyone else that the under-30 crowd isn’t just about iPods and reality TV. Let’s hope his heart is in the right place.
I’ve been followingthis story because I believe it could have some major implications for cyberbullying and fake profile pages on social networking pages like MySpace.com and Facebook … or at least the potential to start some interesting discourse about such things.
In 2006, 13-year-old Megan Meier (pictured) befriended who she thought was a cute, flirtatious 16-year-old boy on MySpace. Megan, who was suffering from attention deficit disorder and depression, thought she had finally found a friend in “Josh Evans,” when he suddenly cut off their friendship and started sending her hateful messages, including one that allegedly said the world would be better off without her.
Megan hanged herself in her bedroom closet shortly after.
It was later discovered that the “Josh Evans” MySpace account was fake, allegedly created by a mother and her daughter to find out what Megan felt about the daughter and other people. On Thursday, a Los Angeles federal grand jury indicted Lori Drew, 49, the woman who allegedly created the MySpace account, on a charge of conspiracy and three counts of fraudulently accessing someone’s computer.
Why should we care? Forget kids meeting face-to-face and beating each other up at lunchtime — now they can do that AND post the evidence on YouTube. Besides videos, sites like MySpace, which essentially allow anyone to create a profile as any person they wish (real or not), have enabled catty teenagers to take their cattiness to cyberspace and, often, inflict far more psychological and emotional damage. It’s one thing to endure a bully at school when you can call in the principal or go home after class. It’s quite another when bullying reaches the internet and it’s impossible to escape.
[As] hard as it may be to feel sympathy for Drew, what the Justice Department has done should alarm anyone who uses the Internet. The legal theory underpinning this case could just as easily be used to attack other kinds of anonymous speech online, including whistle-blowing, or to enforce dubious contracts that websites impose unilaterally on their users.
…
Terms of service online are routinely breached, sometimes unwittingly, sometimes deliberately. Violations include checking work e-mail from home (most residential broadband services forbid business uses) and submitting fake personal information when posting comments online. If a terms-of-service violation were all it took to bring federal charges, overly zealous prosecutors would be in a position to indict just about anyone who used the Internet.
Of course, the use of the statute in this case could be challenged, but just THINK about the implications.
It’s hard not to think about how Megan’s parents would feel should the people involved in tormenting her daughter be sent to prison. It’s also hard not to think about what such a conviction would mean for everyone who’s ever posted anonymously on the internet.
The 4-3 decision referenced a decision 60 years ago that overturned state laws prohibiting interracial marriages, something many Hawaii residents should care about. Massachusetts is the only other state whose Supreme Court has ruled that same-sex couples can be married.
Kenji Yoshino of Slate has a good straight-forward write-up on why the decision is so significant, how it differs from the 2003 Massachusetts high court decision and what could happen next.
The decision becomes effective in 30 days, but some worry that it may be short-lived. Opponents who support traditional marriage are pushing to put a measure on the ballot in California in November that would ban same-sex marriage.
You’ll find no shortage of news and analysis regarding the California Supreme Court’s decision today, including what it may mean for the presidential election. A plethora of same-sex couples rushing to get married in California before the ruling is potentially overturned in November could make same-sex marriage a galvanizing issue for Republicans before Election Day.
Younger citizens, more of whom are getting involved with the election this year, seem to be more accepting of same-sex marriage, but the question remains: will they vote?
It should be interesting to see what happens in California in November, but also to see if the decision causes ripples in the same-sex marriage debate in Hawaii. Our state provides some marriage-like rights to same-sex couples but does not allow same-sex marriage or civil unions. In the 1990s, Hawaii seemed poised to become the first state to allow same-sex marriages, but in 1998, nearly 70 percent of Hawaii voters chose to give the state legislature the power to define marriage as between a man and a woman.
People have compared that to what happened in California in 2000 — the last time the same-sex marriage issue was put to California voters. That year, 61 percent voted to strengthen the state’s one-man, one-woman marriage law.
That was one of the statutes struck down yesterday.
Throwing it out there: Is the California Supreme Court’s decision something to be celebrated or mourned?
Traditional reporters won’t be the only ones writing news and updates from the Democratic National Convention in August. As part of the State Bloggers Corps announced yesterday by the Democratic Party, 55 bloggers will receive “unparalleled access” to state delegations and the floor of the Convention hall, and will be seated with their respective delegations during the four-day convention in Denver.
Ian Lind, of iLind.net, was selected from Hawaii to blog from the convention. Lind’s blog, written from his home in Kaaawa, is something of a go-to site for politically-minded people in Hawaii for state and local politics, media news, commentary and some pretty excellent photos of friendly felines and canines. Congrats to him.
More than 400 bloggers applied. The selected bloggers represent every state, as well as D.C., Guam, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and one blogger who represents Democrats abroad. Some are professional efforts, some are blogs written by individuals. From USA Today:
Convention spokeswoman Natalie Wyeth said the criteria used to select the blogs included how politically active they were and Web traffic. For example, the blogs needed to be at least six months old, and have had a minimum of 120 politically-related posts. The blogs also submitted daily audience number from Technorati, a website tracking service.
Here’s the full list of bloggers by state, from the DNC’s own blog. I’m excited for August.
It’s difficult to comprehend the magnitude of the tragedies in Myanmar and China this week. Both countries have suffered tremendous losses of life, and we will see more lives lost if help is not swiftly and effectively provided.
The two countries’ authoritarian governments reacted to relief efforts differently. With now more than 100,000 people estimated missing or dead in Myanmar from Cyclone Nargis, the country’s secretive military government has been slow to accept the international aid that survivors now desperately need.
In China, the death toll from Monday’s 7.9-magnitude earthquake in Sichuan province rose past 15,000 on Wednesday, with thousands more trapped or missing. That number will almost certainly increase in the days ahead.
The Chinese Communist Party has not embraced foreign aid workers with open arms, but unlike Myanmar, China has the capacity to send 50,000 soldiers to the devastated region to help with relief efforts. Official reports of the damage in Myanmar came slowly and were confusing, but Chinese media have been reporting on the death toll and the damage with increased openness.
Natural disasters and political events can be eerily linked in China. When media call this week’s quake “China’s deadliest earthquake in three decades,” they are referring to the 1976 Tangshan earthquake that killed more than 240,000 people in the northeast region of the country. That was one of the most turbulent years in modern Chinese history — Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai both died in 1976, and that the was the year the Cultural Revolution ended.
It seems 2008 may be stacking up to be another one of those years for China — the earthquake follows a spate of intense snowstorms in January and an Olympic torch relay mired in controversy as the country prepares for the Games in August.
China received plenty of criticism (deserved or not) regarding the Tibet protests in March, but after this week’s events, we’ll almost certainly see a change in China coverage. Now hardly seems the time to assess the political fallout from the disaster. Even so, you can be sure the world will be watching to see how China responds with less than 3 months to go before the opening ceremonies.
I’ve been 
The California Supreme Court 
