The Low-Tech Times

When walking into work on Wednesday, I noticed that the Washington Post was sold out of the machine I pass every day. This is the first time that has happened since I started this job.

This simple fact is that people want a real newspaper for a souvenir. No one wants a crappy internet printout.

Nico Hines, of the UK’s Times Online site reports:

Obamamania has left newsstands across the US empty and newspapers rushing to print thousands of extra copies as Americans hurried to buy souvenir editions celebrating the election of the first black president.

The New York Times, Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times were widely sold out by mid-morning as Americans woke up wanting to commemorate the landmark in US history.

In Barack Obama’s hometown the demand was even greater with the Chicago Tribune restarting its presses to print an extra 200,000, ten times the expected increase. Still they sold out.

See Also: Print Is Not Dead

Senator Barack Obama won yesterday’s U.S. presidential election. Understandably, many supporters of Senator John McCain are disappointed with the result.

There’s no better cure for the post-election blues than classic Merle Haggard music. In particular, I enjoy Okie from Muskogee and The Fighting Side of Me.

• Okie from Muskogee
  We don’t smoke marijuana in Muskogee;
  we don’t take our trips on LSD.
  We don’t burn our draft cards down on Main Street;
  we like living right, and being free.
  I’m proud to be an Okie from Muskogee,
  a place where even squares can have a ball.
  We still wave Old Glory down at the courthouse
  and white lightning’s still the biggest thrill of all.  We don’t make a party out of loving;
  we like holding hands and pitching woo.
  We don’t let our hair grow long and shaggy,
  like the hippies out in San Francisco do.And I’m proud to be an Okie from Muskogee,
  a place where even squares can have a ball.
  We still wave Old Glory down at the courthouse
  and white lightning’s still the biggest thrill of all.

  Leather boots are still in style for manly footwear;
  beads and Roman sandals won’t be seen.
  Football’s still the roughest thing on campus
  and the kids here still respect the college dean.

  We still wave Old Glory down at the courthouse,
  in Muskogee, Oklahoma, USA.

• The Fighting Side of Me
  …Running down the way of life,
  our fighting men have fought and died to keep.
  If you don’t love it, leave it!
  Let this song I’m singing be a warning.
  If you’re running down my country, man,
  you’re walking on the fighting side of me.
  

I voted today in Virginia using an electronic voting machine.  However, Virginia and Maryland are both moving back to low tech paper ballots for future elections.  There is concern about electronic voting machines crashing or being hacked.  Christian Davenport reports in the Washington Post:

Goodbye, electronic voting. Farewell, fancy touch screen. Maryland and Virginia are going old school after Tuesday’s election.

Maryland will scrap its $65 million electronic system and go back to paper ballots in time for the 2010 midterm elections — and will still be paying for the abandoned system until 2014. In Virginia, localities are moving to paper after the General Assembly voted last year to phase out electronic voting machines as they wear out.

It was just a few years ago that electronic voting machines were heralded as a computerized panacea to the hanging chad, a state-of-the-art system immune to the kinds of hijinks and confusion that some say make paper ballots vulnerable. But now, after concern that the electronic voting machines could crash or be hacked, the two states are swinging away from the systems, saying paper ballots filled out by hand are more reliable, especially in a recount.