I was fourteen and in the 8th grade when Bill Clinton announced that he was running for president. On the lawn of the Old State House I crowded around a stage with school children from all across Arkansas and listened as he talked about why he’d be a good choice for America. This was in 1992, and I couldn’t vote. But it didn’t diminish my enthusiasm for the process. An Arkansan thought it was possible to be president of the United States. In so many ways I could not comprehend it.

My father left his job at ARKLA gas to join the campaign full-time. He wasn’t alone; many Arkansans took up residence in the old Gazette building, or hit the road traveling from state to primary state. After school, my mother used to drop me off downtown so that I could volunteer for the campaign. Quite honestly, there wasn’t a whole lot for an eighth-grader to do at the time, so I spent many hours listening to people talk on the phone. I stacked boxes; I pulled paper off the fax machine; I wandered around. It was during that time I got to meet a Chicagoan named Rahm Emanuel, who yesterday was named chief of staff to president-elect Barack Obama.

Many Clinton staffers had moved to Arkansas from other places; they had been displaced from their families and friends. So my parents opened their doors to them for food, beer and a welcomed repreive from the rigours of the campaign day. But it came with a price: they were subjected to a dutiful inquiry of who they were and why they were here from my two younger sisters. Rahm would come over and we would play basketball.

If you have seen Rahm on television or met him in person you know that he is not a tall guy. I’m not either, but even back then he didn’t tower over me. By now you have probably read that Rahm is a professionally trained dancer. Because I was a 14-year-old punk, I used to tease him about this, especially after a jump shot swished through the net. But he would play right back at me. He was there to win.

I’m quite certain Rahm won every one of those games, and despite his age (and the fact that he was better than me), he never gave me anything, not a point. Even in my driveway Rahm was a ferocious competitor. And I loved it.

Rahm became something of a legend in our house, a cult hero who would go on to become an influential player in Clinton’s White House. My parents attended his wedding. And we all applauded when he won election to Congress and put his gifts to work for the people of America.

I can’t begin to understand all of the challenges he’ll face as White House chief of staff. But I wish him well. Maybe someday we’ll step back on to the basketball court together.

Twitter has launched a new feature called Twitter Vote Report where users can tweet about their voting experiences. Twitter is tracking them geographically. Arkansas is stepping up.

Andrew Sullivan of The Atlantic has an insightful essay in this month’s issue about why he became a blogger and what means in the context of journalism and the future of writing.

He notes,

To blog is therefore to let go of your writing in a way, to hold it at arm’s length, open it to scrutiny, allow it to float in the ether for a while, and to let others, as Montaigne did, pivot you toward relative truth. A blogger will notice this almost immediately upon starting. Some e-mailers, unsurprisingly, know more about a subject than the blogger does. They will send links, stories, and facts, challenging the blogger’s view of the world, sometimes outright refuting it, but more frequently adding context and nuance and complexity to an idea. The role of a blogger is not to defend against this but to embrace it. He is similar in this way to the host of a dinner party. He can provoke discussion or take a position, even passionately, but he also must create an atmosphere in which others want to participate.

UPDATE: Thanks to blogs.com “Best in Blogs” for the link.

Amy Widner of the Arkansas Democrat Gazette profiles Dr. Bob Slaughter, a Batesville resident who has been practicing medicine for 50 years.  Bob has been a close family friend for decades and a doctor to my 110-year-old great grandmother.  In the story my grandfather says, ““We really attribute a lot of her longevity to his attention . . .  He’s just a wonderful, kind fellow. I just can’t say enough nice things about him.He certainly is a caring person and has a wonderful disposition, but I think patients respect his ability too.”  Well said, G.G.

Good humor from The New Yorker.

This afternoon I attended the annual fundraiser for the Clinton School of Public Service.  The event raises money for scholarships and is held at the Little Rock Convention Center in downtown Little Rock, just a few blocks from the school.  Last year, author, commentator and radio host Mitch Albom gave the keynote address.  It was one of the most remarkable speeches I’d ever heard.

This year, in a refreshing and untraditional move, the Clinton School decided to allow one of its own students to give the address.  But the student wasn’t just any student, she’s Beatrice Biira, a woman from Uganda who gained national fame for the re-telling of her family story in the children’s book “Beatrice’s Goat.”

Biira was raised in very poor conditions in Africa.  Her family couldn’t afford the tuition to send her to school.  Until 1991, when the Arkansas-based charity Heifer International introduced 12 goats to 12 families in Biira’s village.  Her family was one of the fortunate recipients and because of the proceeds from the sales of the milk, she was able to go to school.

As a result, Biira came to America and attended a post-graduate high school year in New England before receiving a full scholarship to Connecticut College, the prestigious liberal arts school in New London where she graduated in 2008.  In 2005, she was the subject of a feature on “60 Minutes”.

From left: Jeffrey Wright as Colin Powell, Toby Jones as Karl Rove, Dennis Boutsikaris as Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Dreyfuss as Dick Cheney, Josh Brolin as George W. Bush, Thandie Newton as Condoleezza Rice, Rob Corddry as Ari Fleischer, Bruce McGill as George Tenet, and Scott Glenn as Donald Rumsfeld.

Hurricane Ike forced the postponement of today’s Arkansas - Texas football game.  The Hogs and the Horns will play on Sept. 27.  Ohio State - USC top the list of today’s marquee games.  Other games of interest: Georgia at South Carolina, UCLA at BYU, Auburn at Miss. State, Wisconsin at Fresno St. and my national national sleeper pick Notre Dame takes on Michigan.  There’s an Arkie connection to this game: former Razorback coach Lou Holtz will be on hand as Irish fans honor his 1988 national championship team and dedicate a statue in his honor.  Holtz was the head coach at Arkansas the year I was born, in Fayetteville, and he led the football Hogs from 1977 - 1983.  He compiled a 60-21-2 record and won an Orange Bowl during his time on the Hill, but no national title.

For Razorback fans looking for a different take on things, check out this site and its associated podcast.

The Justice Department has quietly hired one of the nation’s best-known litigators, former Walt Disney Co. vice chairman Sanford Litvack, for a possible antitrust challenge to Google Inc.’s growing power in advertising.

Mr. Litvack’s hiring is the strongest signal yet that the U.S. is preparing to take court action against Google and its search-advertising deal with Yahoo Inc. The two companies combined would account for more than 80% of U.S. online-search ads, reports the Wall Street Journal.

Google announced an initiative to archive 244 years worth of newspaper articles online and make them free to the public. Google hopes that it will drive more traffic to its website thereby increasing the value of advertising space. But Google won’t reap all of the benefit. Newspapers that participate will get a cut of the ad revenues.

Have ever heard of beer pong?  Ever played it?  I have . . . many times, although not all that much since I left college a while back.  It’s a game where teams of two try and toss ping pong balls into cups of beer.  It’s played on a long table with all sorts of rules.  When I was in college, the game was very popular and, admittedly, quite fun.

But it has its critics.  In this week’s issue of TIME magazine, Meaghan Haire writes about the effort some college campuses are taking to ban the game.  Georgetown, Tufts, Penn, Yale and UMass - Amherst have banned “pong” and all other drinking games for everyone on campus.

It’s popularity led to the creation of a video game for the Nintendo Wii (angry parents at the Connecticut AG got involved and the game changed to “Pong Toss” where you throw into cups of water) and a World Series of Pong, now in its fourth year (played in Vegas . . . where else?).  Binge drinking is on the rise, especially on college campuses, and some have determined that issuing bans is the answer.

Knowing that bans at smaller colleges and universities just push drinking further behind closed doors, I’m not sure the approach serves as a practical solution.  Check out what Choose Responsibility, a non-profit founded by former Middlebury President John McCardell, is doing.  McCardell spoke at the Clinton School of Public Service last year.

In 2000, while I was still in college, I did an interview with Chronicle of Higher Education about beer pong.  A copy of the article is only available with a subscription, but in the abstract I am quoted as saying, “It doesn’t contribute to any sort of binge drinking or ‘dangerous drinking’ - it’s a recreational game.”  Based on the type of game we played then (and it varies from place to place), that was my view.

Brett Favre is now a member of the New York Jets.  That provides a little bit of a headache for the New England Patriots.  I was happy with Chad Pennington hanging around in the pocket and tossing six and seven yard passes, which seemed to be the extent of his arm strength. Kellen Clemmens.  Who?

The Jets have a few decent receivers and an above-average O-line.  But if Thomas Jones is the best they’ll put on the field to carry the ball, Favre’s going to have to win a lot games with his arm.

It will be interesting to see him in a different shade of green trying to master the Pats and the New York media.  Sundays just got a little more interesting.

The Arkansas Democrat Gazette has a story today about a paranormal investigative group that believes the Arkansas state Capitol building is haunted.  “We’re still reviewing, but there’s something paranormal in there,” said Alan Lowe, 55, of Roland, a co-founder and the investigation director of Spririt Seekers.