Politico has this story about new media in the Obama administration.  “Barack Obama’s use of the Internet to communicate with the American public and the world will have a larger impact on the political media ecology than the declaration that the world was round had on the shipping industry in 1492,” said Andrew Rasiej, founder of techPresident.com and Personal Democracy Forum.

I’m thankful for:

This remarkable planet and its beauty, especially in a winter twlight.

America. God shed his grace on thee.

The writings of Andre Dubus, who died years ago, but whose work will continue to dazzle me.

The films of Woody Allen.

My special places: Fayetteville, Middlebury, Central Park, Seaside.

The thousands of people who show up for Movies in the Park each summer, and for the all of the people whose generosity allows it to be free.

110 Thanksgivings. My amazing great-grandmother celebrates another one today.

William Shakespeare who profoundly influenced Abraham Lincoln who wrote the Emancipation Proclamation.

My enduring belief that despite what happened at the polls in November in Arkansas and California, we’ll find a way to tear down walls rather than build them up.

A well-set dinner table.

The millions of people who take to the Internet every day blogging, posting video, tweeting, and sharing their thoughts, imaginations, perspectives and dreams.

The Arkansas folks doing it, too. I’ve made many news friends as a result.

MacCallan 12-year-old scotch.

David Foster Wallace. He died too young, but he did incredible work while he was here.

Heath Ledger. Ditto.

A Best Picture campaign for “The Dark Knight.”

Cloudy Bay Sauvignon Blanc at “Fish Out of Water” on my birthday.

Giving. People do it everyday in all forms.

Newspapers. Despite the bleak outlook, they’ll always be with us. And that’s a great thing.

The New Yorker. The New York Review of Books. The Oxford American. The Clinton School Speakers Series.

Peanut oil. There’s no other way to fry a turkey.

Friendships. I’m spoiled everyday by the wonderful people in my life.

Mom. Dad. Martha Luin. Mary. G.G. Mimi.

The sun. No matter how bad it gets it will rise tomorrow.

President-elect Barack Obama and the audacity of hope.

Memories. I’m blessed with so many good ones, but today creamed corn and a gentle lady snapping the corners off Doritos come to mind.

The RAN. Razorback football. The Studio.

YOU. For reading this blog and finding its value in your busy life.  Happy Thanksgiving.

I suppose there is an art to frying a turkey, and I cannot say that I    have mastered it. Although I submit that it is the best turkey you’ll ever have, if it’s one right.

I began frying a turkey many years ago, in my parents’ driveway, on Thanksgiving day.  Over the years I’ve gotten more than a fair share of questions of about it, many of which are quite general: “How do you do that?”

There is some humorous commentary on the Internet about frying a turkey, and everyone has a different method. For me, I try and keep it fairly simple. I thaw my turkey completely and then, beginning 24 hours before and using an Injector, I infuse a liquid concoction of spices deep in to the thighs and breast of the bird. Then I cover it in foil and let it sit in the refirgerator until I’m ready to cook it.

I fry my turkey on an iron stand with a burner that connects to a propane tank (They sell them at Wal-Mart). Turn the knob, light the gas, go. It’s not complicated. Where people seem to get themselves into trouble is with the oil.

First, if you’re using anything but peanut oil you’re doing your bird, yourself and the people who will eat it a disservice. It’s expensive, but it’s worth it (and, following the right steps, you can reuse it as much as four or five times over.)

Second, be safe. Which means set the contraption up away from your house, trailor, barn, or whatever you use for shelter. And don’t even consider using it indoors or under a garage. It’s a stupid decision that you’ll seriously regret.

After I’ve measured the right amount of oil (I do this by filling up the pot with water around your turkey and then removing it to see how much liquid you’ll need. (Hot overflowing fry oil is the redneck equivalent of lava.) Once I’ve done all this, I’m ready to heat it up. 325 degrees is the temperature I shoot for, and you’ll need to take into account weather concerns (I once fried a turkey in a damn sleet storm. It took 6 hours.)

After I’ve done all of this I usually reward my hard work with a beer, and then return to my turkey to baste in with butter (lots) and then I’ll apply a dry rub to it. In reality, this probably doesn’t do a thing to help the flavor, but it looks good. And if you have people at your Thanksgiving who are likely to stare at you like you’ve lost your mind, this will boost their confidence.

I carefully lower the turkey in to the hot oil and fry it for 3-3.5 minutes per pound. You’ll just have to check it as you go, but be sure to write down the exact time you put it in. I forgot to do this once and I ended up cooking the thing for 30 minutes longer than I needed to. Depsite what you may have heard, you can screw this up.

When the turkey is done (180 degrees F in the thigh; 170 degrees F in the breast), I let it sit covered for 20 minutes so that everything evens out. Carve. Serve. Enjoy another beer.

As protestors take to the streets in California to object to the passage of Proposition 8 which effectively eliminated gay marriage there, and as Arkansans try an understand the ramifications of the passage of Initiated Act 1 which banned unmarried couples from adopting children or serving as foster parents (an effort done to “blunt the gay agenda,” according to Family Council president Jerry Cox).

Yesterday, a state court in Florida struck down a state ban on gays adopting children. National ACLU spokesman Chris Hampton indicated in this Arkansas News Bureau story that it was eyeing Arkansas for legal challenge.

Today, in larger markets across the United States (although not in Arkansas), Gus Van Sant’s new film “Milk” opens.  It is about the openly gay San Francisco supervisor Harvey Milk who was assassinated in 1978 along with Mayor George Moscone by a former supervisor named Dan White. Oscar winner Sean Penn assumes the role of Mr. Milk, with supporting turns from John Brolin (”W”), Emile Hirsch (”Into the Wild”), James Franco (”Pineapple Express”), and Diego Luna (”Y Tu Mama Tambien”).

In his review today, New York Times film critic A.O. Scott writes that the film’s power “lies in its uncanny balancing of nuance and scale, its ability to be about nearly everything — love, death, politics, sex, modernity — without losing sight of the intimate particulars of its story. Harvey Milk was an intriguing, inspiring figure. “Milk” is a marvel.”

The Los Angeles Times reports that NBC News will announce a permanent replacement for Tim Russert as early as Dec. 7.  Finalists appear to be NBS News reporter David Gregory and host of “1600 Pennsylvania Avenue” on MSNBC, Andrea Mitchell, chief foreign affairs correspondent for NBC, NBC News political director Chuck Todd, and PBS anchor Gwen Ifill.

With “Hardball” anchor Chris Matthews out of the running, will this push him into a 2010 Pennsylvania Senate race against Republican Arlen Specter?  Speculation is high enough that people are already polling yet.  When one election ends, another begins.

Personally, I’d like to see Joe Scarbrough take the reigns at “Meet the Press” (his recent dropping of the f-bomb on his program “Morning Joe” notwithstanding.)  But he does have a good thing going, so I can see why NBC would want him to stay put.

Max Brantley was the guest on Kristin Fisher’s Daily Debrief which is a part of her Choose Your News program at KATV Channel 7.  Brantley is the editor in chief of the Arkansas Times and runs the very successful Arkansas Blog.  Brantley had some very interesting things to say about the news business (including a nice shout out to The Think Tank), but he must have been at the end of a very long day (or already on holiday) when he declared, without pause, that David Kinkade of the Arkansas Project (the spitting image of Tom Cruise circa “All The Right Moves”) was better looking than me.

Fisher reminded viewers of her invitation to Stephens Media columnist John Brummett to appear on the Daily Debrief.  Lance Turner seconds Fisher’s call over at his blog.

There has been a substantial amount of interest placed on whether President-elect Barack Obama will carry his Blackberry with him when he’s president. Conventional wisdom suggests that he won’t.  First, there was this piece in The New York Times by Jeff Zeleny which raised myriad reasons why the president of the united states should be sans Blackberry, the most notable of which is that it allows people to bypass the bureaucracy and for Mr. Obama to do so as well. That might sound appealing, but the practical ramifications could be problematic.

Today, Michael Agger of Slate urges Mr. Obama to keep his Blackberry.  He opines, “You don’t need to be a computer lover to see that smooth information flow might be a help in tackling the complexity of the financial crisis, Iraq, Afghanistan, education, and health care. Tech policy starts at the top. Obama should set a precedent by having the ‘Berry at his side: Here is a government that is accessible, capable, and efficient.”

In Mr. Zeleny’s piece he noted, “Mr. Obama’s memorandums and briefing books were seldom printed out and delivered to his house or hotel room, aides said. They were simply sent to his BlackBerry for his review. If a document was too long, he would read and respond from his laptop computer, often putting his editing changes in red type.”

Jonathan Alter of Newsweek has also urged Mr. Obama to stay plugged in.  Alter’s argument is quite pragmatic.  “And the only way he can be successful in the presidency is if he can stay connected to the world beyond the “splendid isolation” of the presidency. To succeed, he must be constantly exposed to a wide variety of opinions—not just from advisers, experts, pundits and polls, but from his friends.”

The main argument for presidents giving up their e-mail is that it can he hacked.  Writing for Computerworld, Bill Brenner notes that there are several ways for the national security apparatus to protect from this.  Alter observes they have already agreed to do so on his oval office computer.

The Presidential Records Act requires that all White House correspondence become part of the public record.  Some are concerned that Mr. Obama’s e-mails would be included.  So what?  When Mr. Obama’s records are unsealed long after he leaves office, the public, historians and the press will have access to them. In turn, it will help everyone understand how technology helped the first president in history to use a laptop and a Blackberry do his job.  Isn’t that a good thing?

Storycorps, a national archive project, is promoting Nov. 28th as the first “National Day of Listening” in which the public sets aside an hour on the Friday after Thanksgiving to interview a loved one.  National Public Radio affiliates like KUAR in central Arkansas are participating, and you will be able to hear interviews on many of its national programs.

In Arkansas, the Butler Center for Arkansas Studies is welcoming copies of all interviews that Arkansans record with their family members. The Butler Center is located at the main branch of the Central Arkansas Library in the River Market in downtown Little Rock. (Thumbs up Ms. Adverthinker)

Mark Hengel of Arkansas Business has a story in this week’s edition of AB about newspapers in Arkansas and their continual search to develop an online business model that works.  Hengel interviews Arkansas Press Association presiden Tom Larimer, Arkansas Democat Gazette publisher Walter Hussman, and goes on the record with his own boss, AB publisher Jeff Hankins.

Arkansas Business’ web property, arkansasbusiness.com, is up 26%, notes Mr. Hankins.  And it offers all of its content for free.  The Arkansas Democrat Gazette’s online property, arkansasonline.com, comes with a monthly cost, although readers can get all of the paper’s northwest arkansas content for free at nwanews.com.  Mr. Hussman observes, “That’s much more competitive up there,” Hussman said. “The Morning News [of Springdale] offers content for free, and it really hasn’t hurt us that much because it’s a smaller market.”

A fellow Think Tank reader and I just had a fruitful discussion about the future of the newspaper business.  She raised the question of whether we’d see magazines and newspapers around two decades from now.  My response was yes, we would.  There’s always going to be a market for them, especially at the community level.  But I also noted that we’d see more robust online properties that supplement content provided in print editions.  The most sustainable and attractive sites will include blogs, v-casts, podcasts, online exclusives, and much more. It will cost newspapers in the short term by investing in the infrastructure to support it.  But it will pay off many times over as more and more young people enter the marketplace.  Being able to capture that audience, and keep them engaged, will be the true test.

And despite what newspapers believe, carving niches is critical.  That is, perhaps, one explanation for why arkansasbusiness.com is doing so well.

In today’s New York Times Magazine there is a published dialogue between contributing writer Jack Hitt, Benjamin Palmer, CEO of the Barbarian Group, Lars Bastholm, chief creative officer at AKQA and Robert Rasmussen, executive creative director of the Nike account at R/GA. During the conversation, Mr. Hitt asked each person what they would do to market “The Evening News with Katie Couric.” Mr. Palmer replied,

“What Katie Couric is not giving us, as a mainstream evening-news anchor, is an invitation to participate. So what if we changed the format of her show? Every day she gives us a sneak preview of whom she will interview over the next week. And you can go online and post your own questions. Maybe two or three user questions end up on the evening news, and you’re like a big star if she uses your question. She says your name: “This is Robert Rasmussen’s question.” You’re totally psyched. You feel awesome. And then on the Internet we post the other 17 user questions and their answers. We put those on the Internet, so there’s actually like an hour of content. A half-hour is on TV, and the other half-hour is on the Internet. You start involving people in the conversation. You start using television as the theatrical component to the Internet. Because what TV offers that the Internet doesn’t offer is a guarantee of fame. You know that millions of people saw that bit of you on television.”

As I’ve noted on a few occassions, KATV Channel 7 in Little Rock has launched an online news feature called “Choose Your News.” It is hosted by Kristin Fisher. She invites readers and viewers to participate in what news stories she chooses to cover by voting and following her covering through her blog, Twitter, and v-casts. She also hosts a Daily Debrief through a live web stream at her desk in the newsroom where she invites a guest in to talk about issues of the day. It’s a progressive approach to news reporting, and it is a really smart endeavor. I’m excited to watch it grow.

UPDATE: It’s the main feature on The Rundown.

UPDATE II:  Ms. Fisher has invited Stephens Media Group columnist John Brummett to appear as a guest on the Daily Debrief.  Mr. Brummett had some harsh words about “Choose Your News” in this column last week.

This year, and for the first time, I thought I would offer up a series of Thanksgiving posts, most of which will be on the topic of food and drink. Today, let’s talk about something very enjoyable: the wine. It’s always a curious purchase because, if you’re sitting around our table, there are lots of people with different tastes. And one thing if for certain, if you’re going to be seated for a while - as almost everyone is - you better serve wines that work. After all, Thanksgiving is a cornucopia of flavors, which makes wine selection difficult. Or does it?

“Choosing the wine for any occasion is well known as an exercise in agony. Thanksgiving, for some reason, fills people with an extra dimension of dread. Perhaps it’s the idea of performing for one’s loving family, always so ready to heap scorn for your benefit. Or maybe there’s secret pleasure in being squashed in the paralyzing spotlight, dancing, as Tom Lehrer once put it, to “The Masochism Tango,”" wrote Eric Asimov of The New York Times in a wonderful piece about Thanksgiving wine.

In the past when I have been tasked with picking the wine it caused me worry. What if my selections were horribly received? You can imagine the feeling of seeing someone furrow their brow or parse their lips upon tasting a wine that they hate.

So, in a manner unlike me, I relaxed a bit. Which is to say that if I’ve learned anything about Thankgiving it’s that people are going to like some stuff, hate some stuff, wished they ate more, or, when the Thanksgiving pants are especially tight, less.

The same rules apply for wine. Mr. Asimov, in his piece, observed, “As at any other gathering, tempestuous moments will occur as passionate people express their heartfelt feelings. You cannot always satisfy these people. So, keeping in mind what I’ve said about versatile, nimble wines, the most important thing you can do is choose wines you really like. That way, if nobody else is happy, you will at least have pleased yourself.”

Like my next topic, frying a turkey, buying wine for a crowd will get expensive. Fortunately (and necessarily) many of the wines I love are under $25. So, if I’m buying, it’s Seghesio Zinfandel Sonoma County 2007 ($24), Villa Maria Sauvignon Blanc New Zealand 2006 ($17), King Estate Pinot Gris Oregon 2007 ($17), and Mud House Pinot Noir New Zealand 2007 ($15). I’d probably splurge and buy a bottle of Cloudy Bay Sauvignon Blanc ($36), too, because it is my favorite wine in the world.

Joe Scarbrough is leading a discussion on his show about the rationale behind president-elect Barack Obama’s delay in announcing his nominee for Sec. of the Treasury. It’s a good question. After all, Mr. Obama’s foreign policy team and senior staff are quickly taking shape. But the economy is the most pressing issue. Pat Buchanan, also a MSNBC commentator, noted that the economy has $2 trillion since election day, including what appears to be obvious incoherence on the part of President George W. Bush and Sec. Henry Paulson as to how to handle the bailout, aid to American automobile manufacturers, and, well, everything else related to our economy.

Bill Press, host of The Bill Press Show, reminded us that there is only one president at a time. Thanks (and, no kidding). I’ve been pondering this for a while, and not just because I remember the frustrations presented to Matt Santos in the final season of “The West Wing.” President Bush and Mr. Paulson are in charge, constitutionally. And while it may not make political sense for Mr. Obama to interfere (Andrea Mitchell opined that Mr. Obama is intentionally distancing himself from this), is that what America needs?

I point you to a well-articulated op-ed in The New Republic. The editors write:

But this, of course, is no ordinary transition–and Obama must not treat it like one. The cautionary lesson here comes from the Herbert Hoover-Franklin Delano Roosevelt transition of 1932-1933, during which neither man acted with any real decisiveness on economic matters and what looked like the beginnings of an economic recovery instead became the single worst stretch of the Great Depression. Hoover, mindful that the voters had rejected him and believing that the mandate for any action rested with Roosevelt, was reluctant to implement any policies without FDR’s endorsement. Meanwhile, Roosevelt, not wanting to squander any of his political capital on the policies of the man he’d just defeated, refused Hoover’s entreaties. “It’s not my baby,” FDR said of the economic crisis. By the time Hoover left the White House and FDR was sworn in as the thirty-second president on March 4–the last time a president would be sworn in after January 20–hundreds of banks had failed and unemployment had skyrocketed. The baby FDR inherited was in much worse shape than it was when he was elected.

On the show Mr. Buchanan argued that while Mr. Obama can’t vote on - much less sign - legislation, he should be using the bully pulpit and the mandate he has to get people working on these issues now. After all, Democrats are in control of both houses of Congress now. Their margins only increase in January.

A similar idea is offered by TNR:

Obama should make a forceful public case for a new stimulus package. It’s doubtful such a package would be passed before January 20 or, if it did pass, that Bush would sign it; but it’s crucial that Obama generate enough momentum and support that he can get such a bill through Congress and onto his desk shortly after he’s sworn in. Finally, Obama should name his Treasury secretary and his White House economic advisers during Congress’s lame-duck session and authorize them to begin working in concert with the Bush administration on any policy actions Bush plans to take in the waning days of his presidency.

UPDATE: I’m glad to see that president-elect Obama is reading The Think Tank (kidding). Seriously there is good news. First Read is reporting that Mr. Obama will nominate Timothy Geithner to be Secretary of the Treasury, and he will announce his entire economic team on Monday. Geithner currently serves as NY Fed President and has worked at the Dept. of the Treasury under five secretaries and three presidents. The president-elect will personally introduce his team and take questions from the press. That team is likely to include Dan Tarullo, a top Obama advisor, possibly as head of the National Economic Council. Other economic posts — perhaps at the Council of Economic advisors in the White House — could be filled by Obama economic advisors Austan Goolsbee and Jason Furman, First Read notes.

UPDATE II: President-elect Obama announced that former treasury secretary Larry Summers will chair the National Economic Council in the White House.  Also, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson will be commerce secretary.

UPDATE III:  Obama launches a bold stimulus program.  Finally.  Obama wants to sign it soon after taking office on Jan. 20.

E.J. Dionne raises an interesting and difficult question: What will president-elect Barack Obama do with the millions of names, addresses, e-mails and mobile phone numbers when he becomes president?  The concern, Dionne notes, is that “members of the Obama network include many who are averse to traditional party politics: young people with weak party loyalties, independents and even some Republicans.”

But because the Obama apparatus has seemed to do everything right up to this point, it makes perfect sense that David Plouffe, Mr. Obama’s camaign manager, sent a message to all of the supporters asking “How would you like to see this organization move forward in the months and years ahead?”

Mr. Obama changed the way campaigns were run, and the way they were won.  Is he going to change the way we govern too?   It looks that way.

Andrea Mitchell of NBC News is reporting on “Morning Joe” that the Obama and Clinton camps have worked out all of the issues surrounding former president Bill Clinton’s foreign affairs, and president-elect Barack Obama will nominate Sen. Hillary Clinton for Secretary of State.