Lefty and loving it.
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Thomas Friedman Owns Environmentalism!
Sure Al Gore invented the internet, but he's not going to hijack the environmental movement -- at least not if recovering Iraq War apologist and NY Times op-ed columnist Thomas Friedman has anything to say about it!
Shaking dependence on foreign oil and making environmentalism a non-partisan issue are certainly goals I can get behind, but it drives me insane that Friedman makes this useless power grab for the very idea AND erroneously reports that "green" was a term given to environmentalists by their opponents. From an interview with Salon....
He discounts grassroots efforts arguing that the green movie is currently at a symbolic and "hobby" level and explains that it needs to be introduced to the marketplace. Driving a hybrid, for instance, is a change at the hobby level....so, what is it when Toyota mass produces hybrids and American stalwarts like Chrysler unveil plans to roll out more hybrids each year? Is that just a hobby?
Additionally, he advocates Carbon Trading -- an oversimplifcation of the idea is that there would be a cap on carbon emissions, but a company that exceeds that cap could "buy credits" from a company who has not hit that cap...which sort of sounds like it wouldn't change anything and is the reason students at Brown Univesity hurled green pies at him when he spoke there to promote his book, "Hot, Flat and Crowded..."
Yes, there needs to be a "green revolution" in the marketplace and I'm happy that someone who's words reach so many ears is getting behind the movement, but I swear the man writes like he gets paid for each buzz word he invents. Additionally, I disagree with him in his discounting of the effects of the "hobby" level efforts -- revolutions don't begin at a macro level. They begin with people dumping tea off a ship or refusing to get up from a bus seat.
For the record, I don't hate Friedman and enjoyed his column for years and even read some of his books, I just happen to violently disagree with him on this issue...and his tireless support of the Iraq War and by-any-means-necessary drive to violently shove democracy down the throat of every man woman and child in the Iraq....
Shaking dependence on foreign oil and making environmentalism a non-partisan issue are certainly goals I can get behind, but it drives me insane that Friedman makes this useless power grab for the very idea AND erroneously reports that "green" was a term given to environmentalists by their opponents. From an interview with Salon....
Do you think symbolism has outworn its use? Or do you think it can be deployed in the service of trying to move things to scale?
It's a good question. What I'm trying to do is rename green. I'm a big believer that to name an issue is to own it. "The World Is Flat," you know? My problem with "green" as a label is that it was named by its opponents. They named it "liberal," "tree-hugging," "girlie-man," "sissy," "unpatriotic"; vaguely French. What I'm trying to do is take that definition and rename it "green geopolitical," "geo-strategic," "geo-economic," "patriotic." Green is the new red, white and blue. I very much want both conservatives and liberals to wear that color. If this is just a thing for liberals, it'll never scale. If it doesn't scale, it stays at the hobby level. If it's a hobby, we're cooked.
[Salon]
He discounts grassroots efforts arguing that the green movie is currently at a symbolic and "hobby" level and explains that it needs to be introduced to the marketplace. Driving a hybrid, for instance, is a change at the hobby level....so, what is it when Toyota mass produces hybrids and American stalwarts like Chrysler unveil plans to roll out more hybrids each year? Is that just a hobby?
Additionally, he advocates Carbon Trading -- an oversimplifcation of the idea is that there would be a cap on carbon emissions, but a company that exceeds that cap could "buy credits" from a company who has not hit that cap...which sort of sounds like it wouldn't change anything and is the reason students at Brown Univesity hurled green pies at him when he spoke there to promote his book, "Hot, Flat and Crowded..."
Yes, there needs to be a "green revolution" in the marketplace and I'm happy that someone who's words reach so many ears is getting behind the movement, but I swear the man writes like he gets paid for each buzz word he invents. Additionally, I disagree with him in his discounting of the effects of the "hobby" level efforts -- revolutions don't begin at a macro level. They begin with people dumping tea off a ship or refusing to get up from a bus seat.
For the record, I don't hate Friedman and enjoyed his column for years and even read some of his books, I just happen to violently disagree with him on this issue...and his tireless support of the Iraq War and by-any-means-necessary drive to violently shove democracy down the throat of every man woman and child in the Iraq....
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Feminism...where'd that go?
There is a big difference between being feminine and feminist. The cornerstone of one is made of dresses and lipstick, the cornerstone of the other is equality and the right to reproductive freedom.
As a woman, one of your basic freedoms is to do what you choose with your body, so it strikes me as odd that a woman who would deny an abortion to her own daughter if she had been raped by her father, is getting so much praise for what's between her legs instead of what's between her ears. Sarah Palin cut funding for a program in Alaska that would aid unwed teen mothers and, while Mayor of Wasilla, allowed her appointed Chief of Police to thwart attempts by Gov. Tony Knowles to prevent women from being charged for their rape kits -- the town was saving up sales tax to build a hockey rink and did want to waste funds on aiding rape victims (surely they can pay that themselves?); and generally represents the kind of "feminism" palatable to the Patriarchy.
Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, represented the true feminist ideals -- she fought hard to be where she is, she didn't rely on her former President husband to move her forward (although during her Senatorial campaign, Mr. Adultery wouldn't have been much help...), she stuck up for not just women's rights, but universal equality, including higher taxes for the rich to fund public spending that would aid the poor. Clinton raised the bar -- she put her 18 million cracks in the glass ceiling -- and, while she didn't make it all the way, she got far enough to make any feminist (or anyone, really) proud.
Then Palin stepped in -- a woman who defied no gender norms. She's a "hockey mom" whose star qualification seems to be that she didn't have an abortion. Yes, she is ambitious, but she exhibited a stunning lack of ambition towards lofty political office...like say, one shaped like an oval. She hides her ambition behind a veil of suburban-wife folksiness ("I never really set out to be in public affairs, much less to run for this office.") Instead, the Boys Club plucked her from obscurity to appeal to the independent, Middle America crowd and ride the wave that Clinton was tossed from -- they are using her. Her brand of femininity is comfortable for the average American: she was in beauty pageants! She's a mom! She's religious! She enjoys guy stuff like hunting! The only status quo she threatens is Roe v. Wade!
Palin represents the same faux progressive that Clarence Thomas (who was right of John fucking Birch) did. Sure he was black and his appointment (on paper) was a huge step, but really? He opposed affirmative action, was viciously anti-Marshall and a large number of African Americans opposed him because of his conservative record.
Hillary Clinton threatened to wield the kind of power men do in Washington. Palin is a smiling female archetype who won't intimidate less progressive voters the way Clinton may have because they can relate to her on a personal level.
Simone de Beauvoir argued that women have to escape their sociological cage of being cast as The Other (The Second Sex) -- unfortunately for the liberal feminists in this country, Palin is building a big fucking nest in that cage.
[Mirrored Ceiling]
[Zombie Feminists]
[Reasonable Women]
As a woman, one of your basic freedoms is to do what you choose with your body, so it strikes me as odd that a woman who would deny an abortion to her own daughter if she had been raped by her father, is getting so much praise for what's between her legs instead of what's between her ears. Sarah Palin cut funding for a program in Alaska that would aid unwed teen mothers and, while Mayor of Wasilla, allowed her appointed Chief of Police to thwart attempts by Gov. Tony Knowles to prevent women from being charged for their rape kits -- the town was saving up sales tax to build a hockey rink and did want to waste funds on aiding rape victims (surely they can pay that themselves?); and generally represents the kind of "feminism" palatable to the Patriarchy.
Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, represented the true feminist ideals -- she fought hard to be where she is, she didn't rely on her former President husband to move her forward (although during her Senatorial campaign, Mr. Adultery wouldn't have been much help...), she stuck up for not just women's rights, but universal equality, including higher taxes for the rich to fund public spending that would aid the poor. Clinton raised the bar -- she put her 18 million cracks in the glass ceiling -- and, while she didn't make it all the way, she got far enough to make any feminist (or anyone, really) proud.
Then Palin stepped in -- a woman who defied no gender norms. She's a "hockey mom" whose star qualification seems to be that she didn't have an abortion. Yes, she is ambitious, but she exhibited a stunning lack of ambition towards lofty political office...like say, one shaped like an oval. She hides her ambition behind a veil of suburban-wife folksiness ("I never really set out to be in public affairs, much less to run for this office.") Instead, the Boys Club plucked her from obscurity to appeal to the independent, Middle America crowd and ride the wave that Clinton was tossed from -- they are using her. Her brand of femininity is comfortable for the average American: she was in beauty pageants! She's a mom! She's religious! She enjoys guy stuff like hunting! The only status quo she threatens is Roe v. Wade!
Palin represents the same faux progressive that Clarence Thomas (who was right of John fucking Birch) did. Sure he was black and his appointment (on paper) was a huge step, but really? He opposed affirmative action, was viciously anti-Marshall and a large number of African Americans opposed him because of his conservative record.
Hillary Clinton threatened to wield the kind of power men do in Washington. Palin is a smiling female archetype who won't intimidate less progressive voters the way Clinton may have because they can relate to her on a personal level.
Simone de Beauvoir argued that women have to escape their sociological cage of being cast as The Other (The Second Sex) -- unfortunately for the liberal feminists in this country, Palin is building a big fucking nest in that cage.
[Mirrored Ceiling]
[Zombie Feminists]
[Reasonable Women]
Maureen Dowd's scripts for Charles Gibson
Maureen Dowd suggests some question for Charles Gibson to ask Sarah Palin (who seems to have replaced John McCain as the GOP Presidential nominee):
What kind of budget-cutter makes a show of getting rid of the state plane, then turns around and bills taxpayers for the travel of her husband and kids between Juneau and Wasilla and sticks the state with a per-diem tab to stay in her own home?
Why was Sarah for the Bridge to Nowhere before she was against the Bridge to Nowhere, and why was she for earmarks before she was against them? And doesn’t all this make her just as big a flip-flopper as John Kerry?
What kind of fiscal conservative raises taxes and increases budgets in both her jobs — as mayor and as governor?
When the phone rings at 3 a.m., will she call the Wasilla Assembly of God congregation and ask them to pray on a response, as she asked them to pray for a natural gas pipeline?
Does she really think Adam, Eve, Satan and the dinosaurs mingled on the earth 5,000 years ago?
Why put out a press release about her teenage daughter’s pregnancy and then spend the next few days attacking the press for covering that press release?
As Troopergate unfolds here — an inquiry into whether Palin inappropriately fired the commissioner of public safety for refusing to fire her ex-brother-in-law — it raises this question: Who else is on her enemies list and what might she do with the F.B.I.?
Does she want a federal ban on trans fat in restaurants and a ban on abortion and Harry Potter? And which books exactly would have landed on the literature bonfire if she had had her way with that Wasilla librarian?
Just how is it that Fannie and Freddie have cost taxpayers money (since they haven’t yet)?
What does she have against polar bears?
Friday, September 5, 2008
Vituperative? Yes. But oh-so sweet...
More article regurgitation, but part of this piece for Salon.com is dead on and part of it is exactly the problem. Bill Maher IS being elitist -- he's being everything liberals are accused of being. He's being obnoxious and riding a high-horse...having said that, he's also being really funny....I italicized the parts I thought were fantastic, but he's being a bit classist in his remarks about the right-wing demo, which is unfair. Nonetheless...
Republicans, stop calling Obama elitist
Because the real reason you don't like him is that he's smarter than you.By Bill Maher
Sep. 05, 2008 | New Rule: Republicans need to stop saying Barack Obama is an elitist, or looks down on rural people, and just admit you don't like him because of something he can't help, something that's a result of the way he was born. Admit it, you're not voting for him because he's smarter than you.
In her acceptance speech, Gov. Sarah Palin accused Obama of using his run for the White House as a "journey of personal discovery" -- this from the lady who just spent 10 minutes of her speech introducing her family -- Track, Trig, Bristol, Piper -- for a minute there I thought she was calling in an airstrike.
Karl Rove described Obama as "the guy at the country club with the beautiful date, holding a martini, and making snide comments about everyone who passes by." Unlike George Bush, who's the guy at the country club who makes snide comments, and then passes out. Now this characterization, of course, was something Mr. Rove just completely pulled out of his bulbous, gelatinous ass, but remember this is America, a land where people believe anything they hear. One of McCain's ads casts Obama as "the one," implying he thinks he's the Messiah. Good, maybe he can raise McCain from the dead.
It doesn't matter to Karl Rove that his country club characterization is fictitious, it's the role that Obama must play if the party of plutocrats is going to win over the little guy. Over and over at this convention we heard about the new put-upon victim in our society, the person in America, like Sarah Palin, who's constantly mocked because they're from a ... small town! Governor Yup Yup's got 'em all riled up about being disrespected.
Barack Obama can't help it if he's a magna cum laude Harvard grad and you're a Wal-Mart shopper who resurfaces driveways with your brother-in-law. Americans are so narcissistic that our candidates have to be just like us. That's why George Bush is president. And that's where the McCain camp gets its campaign strategy: Paint Obama as cocky and arrogant and wait for America to vote him off, like the black guy in every reality show. A black president? Half of Pennsylvania isn't ready for black quarterbacks. Forget Obama, they think Will Smith needs to be taken down a peg.
And finally: As for "country first," you know who's putting country first? I am, by supporting Obama, because a victory this fall for the McCain-Mooseburger ticket would make my job in the next four years very, very easy.
[Salon]
Sorry, Sarah
If the media doesn't agree with you, they are clearly a bunch of elitist cocksuckers...thanks to Politico's Roger Simon for apologizing on behalf of the elitist, liberal, intrusive, devil-horned media...except Fox, who are super cool and even-handed.
Why the media should apologize
Roger Simon
September 4, 2008
ST PAUL, Minn. — On behalf of the media, I would like to say we are sorry.
On behalf of the elite media, I would like to say we are very sorry.
We have asked questions this week that we should never have asked.
We have asked pathetic questions like: Who is Sarah Palin? What is her record? Where does she stand on the issues? And is she is qualified to be a heartbeat away from the presidency?
We have asked mean questions like: How well did John McCain know her before he selected her? How well did his campaign vet her? And was she his first choice?
Bad questions. Bad media. Bad.
It is not our job to ask questions. Or it shouldn’t be. To hear from the pols at the Republican National Convention this week, our job is to endorse and support the decisions of the pols.
Sarah Palin hit the nail on the head Wednesday night (and several in the audience wish she had hit some reporters on the head instead) when she said: “I’m not a member of the permanent political establishment. And I’ve learned quickly, these past few days, that if you’re not a member in good standing of the Washington elite, then some in the media consider a candidate unqualified for that reason alone.
But where did we go wrongwith Sarah Palin? Let me count the ways:
First, we should have stuck to the warm, human interest stuff like how she likes mooseburgers and hit an important free throw at her high school basketball tournament even though she had a stress fracture.
Second, we should have stuck to the press release stuff like how she opposed the Bridge to Nowhere (after she supported it).
Third, we should never have strayed into the other stuff. Like when The Washington Post recently wrote: “Palin is under investigation by a bipartisan state legislative body. … Palin had promised to cooperate with the legislative inquiry, but this week she hired a lawyer to fight to move the case to the jurisdiction of the state personnel board, which Palin appoints.”
Why go there? What trees does that plant?
Fourth, we should stop making with all the questions already. She gave a really good speech. And why go beyond that? As we all know, speeches cannot be written by others and rehearsed for days. They are true windows to the soul.
Unless they are delivered by Barack Obama, that is. In which case, as Palin said Wednesday, speeches are just a “cloud of rhetoric.”
Fifth, we should stop reporting on the families of the candidates. Unless the candidates want us to.
Sarah Palin wanted the media to report on her teenage son, Track, who enlisted in the Army on Sept. 11, 2007, and soon will deploy to Iraq.
Sarah Palin did not want the media to report on her teenage daughter, Bristol, who is pregnant and unmarried.
Sarah Palin thinks that one is good for her campaign and one is not, and that the media should report only on what is good for her campaign. That is our job, and that is our duty. If that is not actually in the Constitution, it should be. (And someday may be.)
The official theme of the convention’s third day was “prosperity,” but the unofficial theme was “the media are really, really awful.”
Even Mike Huckabee, who campaigned for president this year by saying “I am a conservative, but I am not mad at anybody,” discovered Wednesday night that he is mad at somebody.
“I’d like to thank the elite media for doing something,” Huckabee said, “that, quite frankly, I didn’t think could be done: unify the Republican Party and all of America in support of John McCain and Sarah Palin.”
And could that be the real point of the attacks on the media? To unify the Republican Party?
No, that is simply the cynical, media view.
Though as Lily Tomlin says, “No matter how cynical I get, it’s just never enough to keep up.”
I couldn’t resist that. For which I am sorry.
[Politico]
Why the media should apologize
Roger Simon
September 4, 2008
ST PAUL, Minn. — On behalf of the media, I would like to say we are sorry.
On behalf of the elite media, I would like to say we are very sorry.
We have asked questions this week that we should never have asked.
We have asked pathetic questions like: Who is Sarah Palin? What is her record? Where does she stand on the issues? And is she is qualified to be a heartbeat away from the presidency?
We have asked mean questions like: How well did John McCain know her before he selected her? How well did his campaign vet her? And was she his first choice?
Bad questions. Bad media. Bad.
It is not our job to ask questions. Or it shouldn’t be. To hear from the pols at the Republican National Convention this week, our job is to endorse and support the decisions of the pols.
Sarah Palin hit the nail on the head Wednesday night (and several in the audience wish she had hit some reporters on the head instead) when she said: “I’m not a member of the permanent political establishment. And I’ve learned quickly, these past few days, that if you’re not a member in good standing of the Washington elite, then some in the media consider a candidate unqualified for that reason alone.
But where did we go wrongwith Sarah Palin? Let me count the ways:
First, we should have stuck to the warm, human interest stuff like how she likes mooseburgers and hit an important free throw at her high school basketball tournament even though she had a stress fracture.
Second, we should have stuck to the press release stuff like how she opposed the Bridge to Nowhere (after she supported it).
Third, we should never have strayed into the other stuff. Like when The Washington Post recently wrote: “Palin is under investigation by a bipartisan state legislative body. … Palin had promised to cooperate with the legislative inquiry, but this week she hired a lawyer to fight to move the case to the jurisdiction of the state personnel board, which Palin appoints.”
Why go there? What trees does that plant?
Fourth, we should stop making with all the questions already. She gave a really good speech. And why go beyond that? As we all know, speeches cannot be written by others and rehearsed for days. They are true windows to the soul.
Unless they are delivered by Barack Obama, that is. In which case, as Palin said Wednesday, speeches are just a “cloud of rhetoric.”
Fifth, we should stop reporting on the families of the candidates. Unless the candidates want us to.
Sarah Palin wanted the media to report on her teenage son, Track, who enlisted in the Army on Sept. 11, 2007, and soon will deploy to Iraq.
Sarah Palin did not want the media to report on her teenage daughter, Bristol, who is pregnant and unmarried.
Sarah Palin thinks that one is good for her campaign and one is not, and that the media should report only on what is good for her campaign. That is our job, and that is our duty. If that is not actually in the Constitution, it should be. (And someday may be.)
The official theme of the convention’s third day was “prosperity,” but the unofficial theme was “the media are really, really awful.”
Even Mike Huckabee, who campaigned for president this year by saying “I am a conservative, but I am not mad at anybody,” discovered Wednesday night that he is mad at somebody.
“I’d like to thank the elite media for doing something,” Huckabee said, “that, quite frankly, I didn’t think could be done: unify the Republican Party and all of America in support of John McCain and Sarah Palin.”
And could that be the real point of the attacks on the media? To unify the Republican Party?
No, that is simply the cynical, media view.
Though as Lily Tomlin says, “No matter how cynical I get, it’s just never enough to keep up.”
I couldn’t resist that. For which I am sorry.
[Politico]
Monday, September 1, 2008
Of Tailgating, Comic Books and Barack Obama
In "A Beautiful Mind," Russel Crowe's character frantically circles letters in magazine articles thinking he's cracked a secret code. His desperate search for deeper meaning in a place is does not exist is sad, but inspired nonetheless. At times I try to parse some sub-textual insight from the events of my day, hunting for a common theme and wondering if I'm as crazy as Crowe's mathematician or just bored. Thursday of last week was no different...
In early afternoon, the fantastically talented comic book illustrator and part-time sequential art teacher Phil Jimenez asked me to come and informally chat with his SVA students about the comic book/animation industry. As I sat in Bryant Park, watching him go over his students' sample pages, I was blown away by how talented these kids were -- and at 19 years-old, they really were just kids. They all had refreshingly diverse styles, attitudes and a collective buoyancy that made me wish I wasn't such a curmudgeon in when I was their age. More than their eagerness, I was taken with their optimism. As a second-year, it's too early to be bitter and too soon to be fearful -- they exuded a perfect balance of quiet confidence and hopeful anticipation, which I found intoxicating.
Hours later I stumbled onto an entirely different sort of intoxication in the parking lot of Giant's Stadium, which despite the teams New York tag, is actually in New Jersey. The parking lot looked much like the front lawn of a fraternity house the day of a big game at a major university. Pulling in, I felt the same sort of dread I would at the Phi Alpha Theta party: These hulking drunks know I don't belong here and they are going to haze me for it. Seeing as how it was New Jersey AND a football game, everyone was three times my size, so I was right to be scared. Our version of tailgating involved two twelve packs propped up on the trunk of a sedan and the informality of it made it somehow felt more illegal than what everyone else was doing, which was nice. At least the Bud Light allowed me to fit in. Through the grill smoke, I could make out hundreds of people all wearing blue Giant's jerseys and they were all smiling, drinking and throwing footballs around (my Pavlovian response to an oncoming football is to duck, so thankfully no one tried to throw me a pass). Inside the stadium after the Giants scored their first touchdown against the Patriots, the crowd began chanting "18-1" (I hid the fact I had no idea what this meant and later learned the Giants won last year's Super Bowl and that was their record) and doing The Wave. In this pre-season game, the excited, blue-uniformed boozers looked forward to a second Bowl victory and again, I found their enthusiasm infectious. I don't know a Wide Receiver from a Wireless one, but I left early hoping the blue guys went all the way....
On the radio in the car, we tuned in to hear Barack Obama deliver his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention. I can't recall a time when I've ever flipped to AM radio to hear a candidate speak and as we got home and raced inside to catch the remainder on television, I realized that for the third time that day, I was completely hooked into unbridled (see where this is going?) optimism -- or as Mr. Obama has distilled it to: Hope. Afterward, the NY CBS broadcaster cut to what looked like an American Legion hall. Two dozen older men and women were watching together while seated at the sort of tables one might play bingo at. The news anchor interviewed an older, heavyset woman with a flower-print blouse, poofy hair and modest jewelry. The woman spoke about how 40 years ago, her father feared being assaulted for going to the polls and now, on the anniversary of Martin Luther King's historic speech to the 250,000 people gathered in Washington, D.C.'s Mall, she was seeing something she never thought would happen: a black man accepting the Presidential nomination. She then burst into joyous sobs.
I try not to get my hopes up for anything, lest they be dashed. It's better to be surprised than disappointed. But those three events reminded me that being guardedly pessimistic is boring and cowardly. I saw three kinds of hope: The art students had an individual optimism -- a confidence in themselves that most adults (this guy) lack; the Giants fans had hope for an other -- a unification by way of a common goal, albeit one you don't necessarily help to achieve; Obama, finally, represents collective hope -- the individual, the bystander, the team and the man himself.
In elections past, I wanted Al Gore to win, but I didn't really love him (although after "An Inconvenient Truth," I thought about sending him a bouquet of organic roses and sustainable chocolates in a recycled heart-shaped box), but I really, really love Obama. For the first time, after that day, I finally shook the disdain for politics I'd so carefully adopted over the last eight years and shouted "Go team!" knowing that today, the circled letters in the magazine really did mean something.
In early afternoon, the fantastically talented comic book illustrator and part-time sequential art teacher Phil Jimenez asked me to come and informally chat with his SVA students about the comic book/animation industry. As I sat in Bryant Park, watching him go over his students' sample pages, I was blown away by how talented these kids were -- and at 19 years-old, they really were just kids. They all had refreshingly diverse styles, attitudes and a collective buoyancy that made me wish I wasn't such a curmudgeon in when I was their age. More than their eagerness, I was taken with their optimism. As a second-year, it's too early to be bitter and too soon to be fearful -- they exuded a perfect balance of quiet confidence and hopeful anticipation, which I found intoxicating.
Hours later I stumbled onto an entirely different sort of intoxication in the parking lot of Giant's Stadium, which despite the teams New York tag, is actually in New Jersey. The parking lot looked much like the front lawn of a fraternity house the day of a big game at a major university. Pulling in, I felt the same sort of dread I would at the Phi Alpha Theta party: These hulking drunks know I don't belong here and they are going to haze me for it. Seeing as how it was New Jersey AND a football game, everyone was three times my size, so I was right to be scared. Our version of tailgating involved two twelve packs propped up on the trunk of a sedan and the informality of it made it somehow felt more illegal than what everyone else was doing, which was nice. At least the Bud Light allowed me to fit in. Through the grill smoke, I could make out hundreds of people all wearing blue Giant's jerseys and they were all smiling, drinking and throwing footballs around (my Pavlovian response to an oncoming football is to duck, so thankfully no one tried to throw me a pass). Inside the stadium after the Giants scored their first touchdown against the Patriots, the crowd began chanting "18-1" (I hid the fact I had no idea what this meant and later learned the Giants won last year's Super Bowl and that was their record) and doing The Wave. In this pre-season game, the excited, blue-uniformed boozers looked forward to a second Bowl victory and again, I found their enthusiasm infectious. I don't know a Wide Receiver from a Wireless one, but I left early hoping the blue guys went all the way....
On the radio in the car, we tuned in to hear Barack Obama deliver his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention. I can't recall a time when I've ever flipped to AM radio to hear a candidate speak and as we got home and raced inside to catch the remainder on television, I realized that for the third time that day, I was completely hooked into unbridled (see where this is going?) optimism -- or as Mr. Obama has distilled it to: Hope. Afterward, the NY CBS broadcaster cut to what looked like an American Legion hall. Two dozen older men and women were watching together while seated at the sort of tables one might play bingo at. The news anchor interviewed an older, heavyset woman with a flower-print blouse, poofy hair and modest jewelry. The woman spoke about how 40 years ago, her father feared being assaulted for going to the polls and now, on the anniversary of Martin Luther King's historic speech to the 250,000 people gathered in Washington, D.C.'s Mall, she was seeing something she never thought would happen: a black man accepting the Presidential nomination. She then burst into joyous sobs.
I try not to get my hopes up for anything, lest they be dashed. It's better to be surprised than disappointed. But those three events reminded me that being guardedly pessimistic is boring and cowardly. I saw three kinds of hope: The art students had an individual optimism -- a confidence in themselves that most adults (this guy) lack; the Giants fans had hope for an other -- a unification by way of a common goal, albeit one you don't necessarily help to achieve; Obama, finally, represents collective hope -- the individual, the bystander, the team and the man himself.
In elections past, I wanted Al Gore to win, but I didn't really love him (although after "An Inconvenient Truth," I thought about sending him a bouquet of organic roses and sustainable chocolates in a recycled heart-shaped box), but I really, really love Obama. For the first time, after that day, I finally shook the disdain for politics I'd so carefully adopted over the last eight years and shouted "Go team!" knowing that today, the circled letters in the magazine really did mean something.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
