Polygon, the Dancing Bear

Occasional notes on politics, history, technology, architecture,
and the life of a county clerk

2002:
May / June / July
August / September / October
November / December

2003:
January / February / March
April / May / June / July
August / September / October
November / December

2004:
January / February / March
April / May / June / July
August / September / October
November / December

2005:
January / February / March
April / May / June / July
August / September / October
November / December

2006:
January / February / March
April / May / June / July
August / September / October
November / December

2007:
January / February / March
April / May / June / July
August / September / October
November / December

2008:
January / February / March
April / May

Current entries

Wednesday, June 30, 2004, 12:21 pm

Attention campaign volunteers! Come march with me in the Ann Arbor 4th of July Parade, and get a cool blue-and-white KESTENBAUM for County Clerk & Register of Deeds t-shirt. RSVP via email for precise time and location.

Also, I have a fundraising party scheduled for Monday evening, 6-8 pm, July 12, at 1506 Granger Ave. in Ann Arbor (east of Packard, four blocks north of Stadium Blvd). I still have some more invitations to be addressed and sent out, if you're available to help tonight (Wednesday) or possibly tomorrow.

....Posted by Lawrence Kestenbaum.

Comments:

mythago, 7/3/2004: Ooh! Hey! How do I get one of those shirts?
mitten, 8/3/2004: Hey - I saw your name on the ballot this morning! And I voted for you! :)

http://blog.mittenartworks.com
http://martinirepublic.com
Laura Larson, 8/4/2004: Congratulations on "securing" the democratic nomination in yesterday's primary. If the turnout yesterday is any indication, you are headed in the right direction to hand out a November SMACKBOTTOM.

To echo my namesake, how exactly *does one* get a cool Kestenbaum t-shirt? Is there a quota for envelopes licked/doors knocked/phones banged??

Whoops, I am making the business of campaigning sound a tad bit naughty...
mythago, 8/12/2004: Yes, as my namesake already asked, where do we get one of these shirts?

I'm all for naughty campaigning, but what do you expect from someone living near San Francisco.
Lawrence Kestenbaum, 8/13/2004: Remote supporters can obtain a shirt for $16 including shipping. Use PayPal or send a check. Specify size: S/M/L/XL/XXL. A picture of the shirt will be posted on the campaign web site soon.

Sunday, June 13, 2004, 12:45 pm

Campaign web site. My campaign for Washtenaw County Clerk and Register of Deeds now has an official web presence: KestenbaumCampaign.com.

....Posted by Lawrence Kestenbaum.

Comments:

Laura, 6/13/2004: Nice work, Larry! Keep us posted on what we can do to help (emergency babysitting, "harmless" fireworks, etc.)
Laura, 6/17/2004: Thanks for adding me to the endorsements!
mythago, 6/30/2004: I'd be happy to endorse you, but I think it might have the opposite of the intended effect ;)
S. Lynne Fremont, 6/30/2004: Yeah, I endorse you totally but since no one knows me, it would hardly be useful to you. :)

Thursday, June 10, 2004, 12:03 am

Salon and Me. Recently, as noted in Common Monkeyflower, ArborBlogs, and Arbor Update, I was interviewed for an article in Salon: "Invasion of the Spambots".

The reporter came to me because of this posting about referer log spam, from way back in January 2003.

I'm quoted, but the author got many details wrong. Excerpt:

For Lawrence Kestenbaum, the realization that a new species of intelligent agent — or "bot" — was prowling the Internet first dawned about two years ago.

It was about that time, Kestenbaum says, that a series of "fluke" addresses started popping up in the HTTP referrer log of his personal Web site, the historical cemetery database Political Graveyard.

"If you're at all concerned with how your Web site is being received, you're almost compulsively checking the logs to see who's coming in and from where," says Kestenbaum, laying the scene. "You get to know what sites are linking to you. Anything new gets your attention."

Even more attention-grabbing, Kestenbaum adds, was the fact that the fluke referrals came in bunches. Curious, Kestenbaum pasted in the URL and went to look. His disappointment was immediate. Expecting something interesting, he instead found a page filled with nothing but banner and pop up ads.

For a moment, Kestenbaum says, he suspected a glitch. How else could one explain a dozen or so Internet browsers flipping directly from a site boasting zero unpaid content to one documenting historical graveyards? It didn't make sense.

"That's when I had this 'Aha' moment," says Kestenbaum. "I'd visited the site because of the very technique they'd used to advertise it. Somebody had taken the trouble to write a program that would plant strange links in referrer logs knowing that the people curious enough to check those logs would also be curious enough to follow the link.

Scary as it may seem, spam is evolving....

What I meant was this: some company was advertising "neural marketing," i.e., spamming referer logs, by spamming referer logs. I had suspected that something like this was going on, but didn't expect to see such direct evidence.

Since January 2003, referer-log spam has become a widespread and taken-for-granted reality — hardly something so new and dramatic as to justify breathless coverage.

....Posted by Lawrence Kestenbaum — Comments

Wednesday, June 9, 2004, 11:40 pm

Letter from Little Rock. From Ken Parker, retired Arkanas newspaper editor, comes the following:

Subject: State Funerals (or slightly less)

This week, while watching the obsequies for Ronald Reagan, I could not help thinking about another funeral. Like Reagan's, it was painfully orchestrated.

Undoubtedly, the grandest funeral ever in Little Rock was that of Senator Joseph T. Robinson. He was the Democratic nominee for vice president (running with Alfred Smith) in 1928 and, at the time of his death in 1937, the majority leader of the United States Senate. A special train brought members of Congress and other VIPs from Washington for the funeral.

S. J. (Stonewall Jackson, of course) Beauchamp owned a moving and storage company at Little Rock. Stoney told me that, when Joe T. died, the undertaker called him and asked that he have a van at the church to get the flowers from the church to the cemetery before the cortege got there.

Stoney Beauchamp said he picked out his newest, shiniest van and had it washed and polished. Then, he picked his two best-looking drivers and made certain they had new uniforms and fresh haircuts. Then he took those drivers on dry run after dry run so they would know how to take a truckload of flowers from the church to the cemetery and get there before the funeral procession.