I don’t know what’s scarier – Sarah Palin’s complete lack of understanding when it comes to basic constitutional rights such as the First Amendment or the overly confident way in which she shows that lack of understanding.
“If [the media] convince enough voters that that is negative campaigning, for me to call Barack Obama out on his associations,” Palin told host Chris Plante, “then I don’t know what the future of our country would be in terms of First Amendment rights and our ability to ask questions without fear of attacks by the mainstream media.”
This kind of doublespeak is an Orwellian wet dream. And it’s terribly dangerous. Think a bit about what she’s actually saying in that very concise statement – that the press’ freedom of speech is a danger to America. She’s suggesting that the press is actually manipulating an election by exercising their freedom to criicize her. In other words, freedom of speech is a dangerous thing that only a select few, who can use it responsibly, should have. This, of course, is actually a denial of free speech as a basic right.
The full interview is well worth your time. In it, Kennedy delivers a concise, but passionate and convincing (though, admittedly, I’m part of the choir he preaches to) critique of how, over the last eight years, the Bush administration has squandered the goodwill towards America that had been built up over the years by better, wiser leadership, and how that goodwill might be regained. The man shows an obvious love for his country, both in the way he holds to his ideals and in his anger over the way things have gone. He also (only half jokingly) suggests that Canadians can do their part by sneaking over the border and voting for Obama .
And for anyone scratching his or her head and saying, “What’s with the voice?” here’s a link that explains his condition, spasmodic dysphonia, which affects only the voice box of only 0.02% of the population.
This reminds me of an idea of Sartre’s that I learned in a class on existentialism. Here’s the existentialist definition of a hero: someone who does heroic things. See, existentialists don’t just allow someone to walk around labeling themselves a hero, and according to this philosophy, the best that could be given to John McCain is a “used to be” status. Really… what has he done in the last month but run from every opportunity to show his heroism? No, doing a speech in the rain does not trump being a P.O.W., but it does show in a very visual way how this former P.O.W., for whatever reason, has lost some of his supposed determination and perseverance. And again, I have to bring up the Rolling Stone article that questions whether he even ever truly was the mythical hero that he’s been promoted as. Yes, it is undeniable that John McCain suffered in ways that most of us don’t even want to imagine, and he made great sacrifices for his country. But it is not 1973. He was a hero, like many other P.O.W.’s who are not running for office, but no matter how many repetitions of the story we hear, talking about the past does not make it present.
And then there’s Sarah Palin, riding on the coattails of the myth. John McCain is her own personal Jesus, and she’ll invoke his suffering every chance she gets to boost her own status.
Make no mistake, I think Barack Obama knew the importance of not calling a speech on account of the rain. If we’ve learned anything about George W. Bush, who is the furthest thing from a hero any of us know, it is the advantage of heroic looking photo ops. Obama will have a lot to live up to when he becomes President. Especially now. But if he does, I’m betting that those rain drenched pictures become media favorites.
As we witness what could be the beginnings of the collapse of the last remaining superpower, one has to wonder if the rest of the world isn’t royally screwed as well. After all, great civilizations are no longer isolated experiments. With that in mind, check out Jared Diamond’s talk on common characteristics of societies that collapse, with the sliver of a hope and a pinch of advice on how me might pull ourselves out of this one. Unfortunately, the parallels he draws to the United States (and western society in general) are circa 2003, which means you should multiply the ominous overtones in his talk by about a billion to bring them up to 2008′s standards.
Click here for more proof that this year’s U.S. election is going to pull out all the stops. Age vs. youth. The wealthy elite vs. the middle class. Economic disaster looming on the horizon. A hockey mom who believes that man walked the earth with the dinosaurs running for VP. And now we’ve got call center workers walking out in protest of the McCain campaign’s tactics.
Nothing can top this drama.
I haven’t yet heard of someone taking a call center job because he or she loved the work. You’ve got to think that the decision these folks made had to have been pretty hard. Risk getting fired and lose a day’s pay instead of read a simple script many times over? It’s easy to take the high road when you don’t really need the money, but how many of these workers do you think had that luxury? All I can say is, good for them.
Check out this article in Popular Science that suggests bringing some of the efficiencies discovered in popular online communities like Wikipedia and Facebook and applying them to government. Given McCain’s general ignorance of all things involving computers and Obama’s already stated support for a “google for government”, I think he’d be the most likely candidate to bring these changes about, so let’s hope that something weird doesn’t happen in the next few days that would land a 72 year old and a proud Creationist in the White House – not exactly the way to secure better democracy through technology.
Stereogum reported last week that U2′s Bono is going to be writing 6-10 Op-Ed pieces for the Times in 2009. Pay: $0. I know a lot of people get annoyed with Bono saving the world and all, but I think it’s pretty cool that the guy gets involved in basically everything. So now he get’s to add NY Times writer to his resume. Sweet.
The thing that a lot of Republicans feel proud about is their supposed pragmatism. And “putting country before party” has been a big winner at McCain rallies. But what does that mean, given Obama’s much better grasp of the issues facing America? The McCain campaign has as much as admitted defeat on the issues, spending the last couple of weeks flailing around for any mud they can find to fling at the Democratic ticket. It’s refreshing to know that there are still a few of those truly pragmatic Republicans around. You can find them at the Republicans for Obama site.
As for the Republicans who have decided to stick with the McCain ticket? Hopefully there weren’t too many who pinned their hopes on Ashley Todd, a woman who figured she’d prove that Obama would be a horrible president by pretending to be robbed and beaten by a fictional African American Obama supporter.
I’m still not sure exactly what it is about country and western music that makes me want to puncture my own eardrums every time they’re assaulted by it. Perhaps one of the reasons is the boastful ignorance that some of its mascots, such as Hank Williams Jr., display in songs like “McCain – Palin Tradition”:
The part I found most interesting, however, was the accusation that Bill Clinton was to blame for the current economic crisis. Now, just using some pretty straight forward reasoning, you’d wonder how anything that was put into policy eight years ago would be able to turn into such an economic snowball without George Bush and his cronies noticing. Yes, Dubyah did look pretty surprised when he made his announcement that there was suddenly a crisis and that there would need to be a bailout… but come on! That said, I haven’t yet heard of a President that didn’t make mistakes, so perhaps Hank’s hyperbole had some basis in reality? I liked this analysis, which seems pretty balanced. It recognizes some policy decisions made by Clinton that made the conditions for the crisis possible. But it also recognizes the abuse of those policies over the last 8 years that made these problems what they are today.
It’s a classic right wing argument, the same sort of argument that would blame school shootings on Marylin Manson albums. There’s no question that you can find dark and violent themes in Manson’s music (he would argue, of course, that this is simply a reflection of our violent age), but when do the parents, the schools, and various members of society that were involved in a misguided kid’s life start sharing some of the responsibility for how he was raised? Perhaps Manson himself put it best: “Raise your kids better or I’ll be raising them for you.”
Verdict? Williams’ lyrics are trite and have only a tiny foothold on reality, but we’ll likely be hearing them quoted by die-hard right wingers with the same fervor as they quote passages from the Old Testament for at least another couple of weeks.
A good friend of mine, DJ XS, sent me this track from 17th Boulevard, as I’ve been doing similar experiments in merging classical songwriting with elements of electronica and rave culture:
I thought it was pretty cool. After checking out 17th Boulevard’s Myspace page, I found Markus Smaller in the list of band members. So, I went to his Myspace page and heard the voice familiar from the 17th Boulevard stuff doing acoustic singer songwriter stuff, more traditional punk/rock music, etc. Here’s one of his acoustic tracks:
Gotta say, it’s great to see other singer/songwriters experimenting with everything that’s available to us in the 21st century!
Presidential debates would certainly be more entertaining if they followed this format, though I have my doubts that John McCain or Sarah Palin have anything close to these moves…
Imagine my surprise today on my lunch break as I spotted two storm troopers walking down the streets of downtown Edmonton with prisoner in tow! I knew that stuff like this would start happening after we re-elected Slick Steve Harper and his minority of scoundrels! I didn’t want to get too close (after all, I value my freedom), but I believe that these two are part of the proposed DMCA legislation that the Conservatives plan on going ahead with after the initial backlash against Bill C-61 (you can read about some of the wonderful things this bill would do for Canadians here) and that the peaceful looking lady they are escorting may have illegally downloaded some Michael Bolton tracks.
Perhaps Katie Couric should donate one of her steel balls to Drew Griffin. If you can stand this entire video, you will be rewarded with a demonstration of spoon feeding at its finest. Every so often, you think he’s going to ask a real question, though deep in your heart you know that the wise old buzzards in the Republican party have learned their lesson and will now only let Sarah Palin do interviews with hacks.
And so, as the majority of Canada retreats to lick it’s wounds and find someone (anyone!) on the left with the ambition (that’s what we’re lacking, make no mistake) to make it to the top, we can now do what we’ve all been secretly itching to do – focus our full attention on our neighbors to the south.
If videos like this are any indication, this election promises to be a spectacle the likes of which we have never seen – and may never see again for many years to come. Hold onto your seats, ladies and gentlemen, because with only two weeks left in this race, the great American political carnival has only just begun.
I happened to be in the Tin Box on Edmonton’s wonderfully eclectic Whyte Avenue this weekend and was introduced to a pretty cool decorating concept: sticking quotations on your wall so that they look like they were painted on. They were a bit pricey and I couldn’t find any quotes that didn’t seem way too flowery and overused. As I left the store, I figured there had to be something online that was cheaper and, more importantly, customizable. I’m looking forward to trying out Written Decor, which I found in a few minutes of exercising my google-fu. You can order stick on words that say whatever you want in any size and color you want. And they’re not too big a hit to your pocketbook. Whenever I get around to actually doing it, I’ll be sure take some pictures and post them.
John McCain announced today that he loves being the underdog and, “My friends, we’ve got ‘em just where we want ‘em!” And, you know, this sounds like a pretty authentic statement from a guy who thought the U.S. could have won in Vietnam if they’d just stayed a little longer and who doesn’t believe in a time-line for withdrawal from Iraq. With McCain appearing (finally) on David Letterman and Sarah Palin making her debut on Saturday Night Live, it looks like it’s all style over substance from here on in, which is sort of funny when you remember that this is an accusation normally made against Barack Obama. It’s hard not to feel a bit sorry for John McCain. It’s like watching your own grandpa make a fool out of himself on prime time TV. You’d like to coax him out of the spotlight somehow. “Grandpa, it’s time for your nap.” But it’s no use. The Republican machine has been brought up to full steam, and it will not even consider the possibility of failure, even if that would mean saving the poor old man some dignity.
As Rolling Stone’s Make Believe Maverick article points out, McCain’s sources of dignity may indeed be fictional. Among the many insights into his history, we find that McCain “had a knack for stalling out his planes in midflight” and that it was only his family’s influence that allowed him to fly long enough to be shot down over North Vietnam. Sort of makes the whole POW story a little less compelling, doesn’t it? Now, I’m not sure I trust that Rolling Stone is composed of top notch investigative journalists, but the story does raise a lot of interesting questions about the real John McCain – and he wanted this campaign to be about character, right?
Alas, Colin Powell made sure to deliver another blow to everyone’s favorite underdog today by publicly endorsing Obama.
I like Powell. I’m still surprised that he sticks by the Bush administration’s invasion of Iraq and is a member of the Republican Party, given that he’s always seemed to be much more diplomatic and responsible than that, but in my mind he makes up for it by giving great props to the guy who will be the next President so long as rational folks can outnumber the idiots at the voting stations.
Record companies are spending a lot of money these days to produce well behaved bands so that they sound like indie artists. Those of us in the indie scene find it kind of funny. Why not just go to the indie artists themselves? There are a ton of musicians out there who aren’t weighed down by big record deals producing some pretty innovative stuff. Take Caribou, for example. Great songs, great vibe. You can get a taste of psychedelic bliss without having to deal with the unpredictability of the real thing. After all, that’s the role of an artist – to explore those unpredictable and sometimes dangerous corners of the inner and outer world, and to report back, to try and communicate what they’ve found to everyone else. That’s something I haven’t seen a lot of the major players doing lately, and if that attitude of playing it safe and pleasing a bunch of corporate dinosaurs is what mainstream rock and roll has resigned itself to, then I look forward to its demise. Check out the video, and listen to a few of their tunes. Sure, there’s a hint of low production quality there, but does it matter? I think it adds a little charm when you know it’s real. Thanks to my friend Curtis, who originally tuned me into these guys a while back. I didn’t listen too closely back then, but liked what I heard, and it’s good to see they’re still kicking around.
Good job anti-mosque folks. You now hate freedom and democracy. The terrorists have won.{ 08/24/10 5:01 PM }
The Overton Window should be required motivational reading for any struggling writer – you'll never be more of a hack than Mr. Beck.{ 08/16/10 9:33 PM }
Who's hungry? (aka: don't flush fat down your toilets!) http://bit.ly/b13VT3{ 07/15/10 3:35 PM }
Pointer no. 4 to tea party folks: real protest movements aren't backed by big business. Can't be against the establishment & part of it.{ 07/09/10 4:41 PM }
Pointer no. 3 to tea party folks from the left: oil companies are being subsidized through your taxes too. Something to think about.{ 07/09/10 4:36 PM }
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