Bluffing: Can't Read My... [Period 5, Wed]

[doubleohblonde]

The lounge and widescreen television from earlier in the semester was back.

"Good afternoon," Bond greeted them. "When bluffing it's important to know which game you're playing, and even more important knowing if your opponents are playing the same game, to get an idea of why, I draw your attention to the film you'll be watching today."

[Class Roster]

Live Entertainment Appreciation, Thursday Period 5

[furnaceface]

"Conventions," Jonothon said, with a slight look of disdain on his face as he addressed the students at their usual Causeway meeting spot, a box of cheap digital cameras at his feet, "are an excellent place to go if you'd like to meet people who share your interests. They generally include things like discussion panels which cover various topics, vendors tables for people who have merchandise to sell, celebrity guests, and a large quantity of slathering fans who might or might not care about their personal hygiene, or who think that slapping on a pair of pointed ears makes them cooler than everybody else. People will gather to share their love of things like comic books, Japanese animation, steampunk, or Galaxy Quest, and tend to finish the weekend broke, and exhausted, but having enjoyed themselves."

A beat.

"Hopefully having enjoyed themselves. I tend to find the crowds overwhelming, personally, so I chose a comparatively smaller convention to drag you lot to. We'll be going to the wilds of Canada, where we'll be taking in Hal-Con, a combination science fiction, fantasy, and comic book convention, to appeal to those of varied tastes. Technically, it doesn't start until tomorrow, but Portalocity gave us a group discount on Friday passes so long as we used them on a Thursday, and I'm not actually going to ask. Feel free to grab a camera before we step through the portal, but be courteous when taking photos of celebrities and cosplayers - people in costume - alike. Ask permission first. Keep in mind that costumes do not constitute blanket permission to be jerks to anybody. And if any of you run into the Fifth Mister from the Mister What series, please, ask him for his autograph, for me?"

Shut up.

[OOC: Open, and welcome to Halifax!]

Current Affairs [Thursday, November 7, 2013]

[professor-lyman.livejournal.com]

"Morning, everyone," Josh said, sipping from his coffee as he leaned back against his desk. "Tuesday, being the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November because sometimes the Founders liked to get cute in the Constitution, was Election Day. Because it's an odd year--like ending in an odd number, not just being very strange, though that too--there weren't huge numbers of non-local elections going on. There were a few governors' races: the big one being Virginia where they managed to run human versions of pond scum against rat feces and were absolutely shocked when voter turnout tanked. Personally I think that Virginia's rule that no governor can ever run for re-election didn't help them out: they're run out of qualified, non-insane, people to be governor. This was also the first time Texas's massively restrictive new voter law was in place, which managed to not only disenfranchise people who traditionally vote Democrat like they'd planned, but also managed to seriously inconvience a former Speaker of the House of Representatives, and Texas's own Attorney General who'd pushed so hard for the law in the first place. Karma's hilarious."

He took another sip from his coffee. "Since it's been two whole days since the election, pundits are jumping all over the 'What Does It All Mean?' train. They're really interested in trying to see if the voters punished anyone for the government shutdown in Washington, though the Members of Congress aren't up until next year unless there was some kind of special election going on, with a bonus of trying to handicap the next Presidential race, though that's still another three years away. There was also special interest in noticing if the Republican Party could make any headway against the total whackadoodles--technical term--who tend to be the heavy turnout in these off-cycle elections."

He paced the room. "'Off-cycle' means not an even-number year election, or even not a presidential year election. Voter turnout spikes then because it's all over the news. When it's little local issues, even though those are the sorts of things than can really affect your quality of life, they don't get the same sort of media saturation and so only the really political tuned in--and the whackadoodles have nothing better to be doing--turn out. And that's how you get crazy people on the school board."

"Okay," he concluded, givin the teal deer pressing their noses against the window a curious look. "What do you think we could do to keep voters engaged for every election? Would making Election Day a federal holiday help? How about making voting mandatory?"