io9 asked me to contribute a recommendation for what sci-fi book you should read before the election. I was unduly tickled to be the token female in a question about science fiction. On one hand, I’m not like a huge sci-fi geek or anything. On the other hand, I wrote my honors thesis one million years ago about the place of The Handmaid’s Tale in the pantheon of sci-fi, and so I have a soft spot for the genre.* It was sort of my first inkling that feminism could be expanded in creative ways. Of course, as the token feminist, I had to pick The Handmaid’s Tale. Here’s the quote:
It probably sounds a little trite since it gets referenced so much, but in light of the promotion of a true-believer fundamentalist to a national ticket, I have to recommend Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. It’s not just because it’s a dystopia that shows what America would be like under a Christian theocracy, but also because the book brilliantly skewers other aspects of the right-wing culture. You have the female misogynist Serena Joy that finds out the hard way that she isn’t exempt from the category ‘woman’ just because she was a stalwart soldier for the far right. You also are reminded that the conservative men who carry on about sexual morality in public all too often have their own closet full of secrets. The book is a reminder that right wing politics isn’t so much about ‘values’, but about power and control.
Confederate Yankee Bob Owens is one of my favorite conservative bloggers of this election. He manages to write in a way that’s so chock full of things being said, without actually managing to clue you in on why he’s saying any of the things that he’s writing, like a piece of ready to assemble furniture with fourteen extra bolts and a plank of wood that doesn’t go anywhere.
CYBO takes on the hilariously overwrought Bill Ayers association scandal, and leads me to make an oath: if I read another post, article or column that reveals that Barack Obama had secret terror-sex with Ayers and his wife at a 1995 coffee or that Obama served on a board with Ayers and it was called the Annenberg Project as if it’s either new or damning, I will donate $25 to Barack Obama. My apologies that this isn’t either funnier or more cartoonishly violent, but I want to win and then make outlandish threats against my political enemies. If that’s okay with you.
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has consistently tried to discount the depth of his relationship with Bill Ayers, one of the founding members of the Weather Underground, a radical left-wing terrorist-
Blah blah blah, get to the good stuff already.
By 1995, Barack Obama had known Bill Ayers at least eight years since their shared involvement in the Alliance for Better Chicago Schools, if not longer.
Whoa. WHOA. This is huge. Bigger than huge. If we can prove that Barack Obama had a cursory relationship with Bill Ayers eight years earlier than we previously thought, then that puts the complete pointlessness of this in a whole new - yet equally pointless night. Let’s delve in to this new and exciting fact!
Bernardine Dohrn, once labeled “the most dangerous woman in America” by none other than J. Edgar Hoover, was also well known as the inspiration for the 1988 movie Running on Empty. Subtle terrorists they were not.
You see? You see?
No, wait, you don’t see. What? Running on Empty was also released on September 9, 1988, which pretty much, you know. Yeah. Exactly.
Axelrod also tried to excuse the extent of Obama’s involvement with Ayers, stating, “Bill Ayers lives in his neighborhood. Their kids attend the same school. … They’re certainly friendly, they know each other, as anyone whose kids go to school together.”
It’s an obvious fiction pitched by Axelrod, since the Obama children are presently in elementary school, while Ayers’ children are all grown adults, but the Ayers-Obama family connection doesn’t stop at the imaginary connections between the children.
You dare doubt that Bill Ayers and Barack Obama are BFFs? Their kids don’t even go to the same school. If that doesn’t prove my point, then maybe this does: did you know that Bernadette Dohrn was the inspiration for...oh, yes, I went over that. Moving on…
This post by Leslie Bennetts at Huffington Post about how the cult of female dependence is only going to get more dangerous for women in an economic downturn is just fascinating. I admire Bennetts for writing her book The Feminine Mistake, which is about the financial pitfalls and dangers of allowing yourself to become dependent by choice on a man, no matter how upstanding a guy he is. This isn’t a popular thing to say. You’re stomping on the image of the happy homemaker, which is near and dear to the conservative heart, but you’re also going to find hostility from feminists, who are afraid to violate the tenets of choice by suggesting that some choices have more pitfalls than others. Or there’s even just a fear that it sends the wrong message, like, “Housewives can’t be feminists,” which isn’t true. So, when this book came out, I feared Bennetts was going to get it coming and going, but I think feminists have mostly left her alone because she presents her information as just that---information to take into account before you make a choice to be dependent on a man. It’s true enough that people that are empowered with good information are less likely to make certain choices (god knows good information has reduced the teenage birth rate considerably), and saying so doesn’t constitute an assault on the right to make choices.
But what her post reveals is that anti-feminists find the almost obvious point that it’s generally better to have your own income stream than not extremely threatening. Megan Basham, who has written a book telling women to quit their jobs and dedicate their lives to making their husbands more successful, has trotted out the usual slanders about feminists and how they only want women to protect themselves because they’re too ugly/bitter/bitchy to get some man to care to take care of them, and of course contrasting young women who are so adorable and fuckable and totally believe that men will always be a reliable source of financial support, and old hags who are bitter. As a youngish woman, I’m offended at this characterization, and side with the raggedy old crones who think that it’s probably wise to put your energies into bolstering your own life, and treat men, whether permanent fixtures in your life or just coming and going, as equals and companions, and I’m really offended at the idea that having no wrinkles or gray hair yet means that you’re stoked to make your husband your job while he makes his job his job.
Victor David Hanson and Peter Krikorian have a combined twenty-onequestions for Barack Obama, roughly eighty-three of which have to do with Bill Ayers.
Originally, I was going to attempt to answer all 21 questions, but then I got tired of having to answer the same incredulously recapped information over and over again (Did you know that Bill Ayers is unrepentant? Because until right this very minute, I had no earthly idea or no way of knowing that incredibly pertinent fact.). Instead, I’m just going to marvel that this is what the campaign is going to come down to - arguing that people Obama had and has no control over did things which he’s admitted he finds distasteful or worse. McCain certainly has far closer connections to two decades of various indicted Republicans (who in turn have far greater knowledge of him) than Obama does any any of the...oh, three people that are supposed to form his trinity of terror.
There’s the old adage that you turn your opponent’s strengths into weaknesses and your weaknesses into strengths. (I actually think that’s two adages, but whatever.) Anyway, the McCain campaign is doing those one better - they’re turning their weaknesses (a healthy penchant for embracing extremists without remorse, to be exact) into Obama’s. It could theoretically work, but it seems to be done under the presumption that the Obama campaign is going to think that instead of punching, McCain is just reaching for something behind Obama’s head with his fist. Good luck with that.
So Jessica has a post up about a truly wretched Dear Abby answer to a woman who wanted her boyfriend to split the costs of birth control with her. (Dear Abby’s advice? Don’t bother him with you girlie shit. Okay, I’m paraphrasing, but that’s the basic gist of it.) To exactly no one’s surprise, the commenters got on board with the “dudes split costs”, even going so far to say they’d immediately dump someone who didn’t immediately agree to it. (I’m skeptical---people’s stated willingness to DTMFA is often stronger than their actual willingness in the moment.) Obviously, the wise man is one who, when his girlfriend asks him to split birth control costs, falls all over himself apologizing for not offering and suggesting that she’s generous to ask merely to split costs when she still has 100% responsibility to remember to take the pill every day, get the prescription, pick it up, etc. The man who resists is clearly engaging in a power play to see how much bullshit she’ll put up with, because he really doesn’t have a leg to stand on, argument-wise, and because it’s not that big a deal.
Still, the subject made me uncomfortable. I don’t really see myself asking someone for this, and after reading some comments, I saw why. Like this one:
Dude doesn’t chip in, dude doesn’t get pussy. End of story.
Exactly. Any situation where the sex is contingent on an exchange of cash is something I want to be about one million miles away from. I realize my position on this is irrational and anyone could poke a million holes in it. And I don’t think women who demand sharing costs are wrong, because clearly it’s a way for a man to show a good faith willingness to share responsibility and respect how much responsibility women carry for these things. And my feelings certainly reflect a stubborn independent streak that has been the source of Amanda-focused mockery in the past. Plus, how do you know what point in your relationship is the time to spring this?
Anyway, thought I’d share because I’m interested in the Pandagonian reaction to this non-earth-shaking problem.
A local newspaper columnist, in a spoof of Obama’s platform wrote in one recent piece that the Democrat would hire the rapper Ludacris to paint the White House black (a reference to a pro-Obama song by Ludacris), and divert more foreign aid to Africa so ”the Obama family there can skim enough to allow them to free their goats and live the American Dream.” He joked that Obama would replace the 50 stars o the U.S. flag “with a star and crescent logo,” an Islamic symbol, an that his policy on drugs would be to “raise taxes to pay for Obama’ inner-city political base.”
The columnist, Bobby May, is also treasurer of the Buchanan Count Republican Party and was listed in a July news release as the county’ representative on McCain’s Virginia leadership team, though he said his column reflected his views alone, and he denied it was racist.
When they knew the sh*t was going to hit the fan, these were the statements released—first the standard non-apology mea culpa:
“I offer a sincere apology to anyone that I may have offended with anything that I’ve written when expressing my personal opinions. Effective immediately, I have resigned my position as McCain Campaign Buchanan County Chair.” -- Bobby Lee May
And then McCain camp ran for cover:
obby Lee May’s comments about Barack Obama are offensive, insulting and have no place in political discourse. Mr. May’s comments in no way, shape or form reflect the views or opinions held by John McCain or his campaign. The McCain campaign wholeheartedly disavows Mr. May’s column. Mr. May is no longer a part of our campaign organization.” – Gail Gitcho, McCain mid-Atlantic spokesman
The fact of the matter is, people like May represent part of The Base of the GOP, the voters McCain is counting on to go to the polls for him. Why do I get the idea that if May had the common sense not to air his bigotry out in the public sphere, McCain and Co., if alerted privately, would have been content to have a racist, homophobic person heading up an effort on his behalf.
Let’s take a look at the whole horrible document below the fold.
Reading this post by Scott, and clicking through the links was a cringe-inducing moment that almost made me feel pity for Glenn Reynolds, because he’s such a pathetic wanker. And also pity for conservatives who buy into the idea that they should see “An American Carol” as a “patriotic” duty. ("Patriot" doesn’t mean loving your country so much as battling the meanie liberals, in wingnut speak.) Call me shallow, but I go to movies to be entertained, and if a movie can’t deliver that, I’m not seeing it, no matter how much I share its politics and/or loathing of my political enemies.
An American Carol has some genuine funny parts, and the silver-haired audience sitting around me enjoyed those parts as much as I did. Come to think of it, my hair is silver too. Some of the slapstick was a little over the top for me, but I don’t take slapstick well. The general theme of the movie is laudable, and I liked the vehicle it was hung on (a July 4th picnic where a grandfather tells his grandkids a parable of sorts)....
I’m not sure political themes translate particularly well into slapstick comedy, but the message was clear: the external threat is being increased by home-grown ‘hate-America-first’ crowd. Also, there were a few script lines early on that were funny, but the audience didn’t seem to ‘get it’....
McCain and his agents are “gambling that he can distract you with smears rather than talk to you about substance,” Obama added. “They’d rather try to tear our campaign down than lift this country up. It’s what you do when you’re out of touch, out of ideas and running out of time.” “It’s a dangerous road, but we have no choice,” a top McCain strategist told the Daily News. ”If we keep talking about the economic crisis, we’re going to lose.”
Barack Obama is pulling out the trump card of the Keating Five Scandal. This is last thing John McCain wants a bright light beamed on in the last weeks of this campaign. The deregulation mentality that played a critical role in the current financial meltdown is the same sort of ethical nightmare that John McCain got caught up in financial scandal that brought down 1,000 US banks. He hasn’t learned. His solution this time around was to suggest even more deregulation.
McCain cannot “turn the page” on this. The American people will be able to understand how associations like the Arizona senator’s with Charles Keating (unlike the feeble bogus Ayers nonsense being tossed at Obama) can and do affect their pocketbooks. (KeatingEconomics.com):
The current economic crisis demands that we understand John McCain’s attitudes about economic oversight and corporate influence in federal regulation. Nothing illustrates the danger of his approach more clearly than his central role in the savings and loan scandal of the late ‘80s and early ‘90s.
John McCain was accused of improperly aiding his political patron, Charles Keating, chairman of the Lincoln Savings and Loan Association. The bipartisan Senate Ethics Committee launched investigations and formally reprimanded Senator McCain for his role in the scandal—the first such Senator to receive a major party nomination for president.
At the heart of the scandal was Keating’s Lincoln Savings and Loan Association, which took advantage of deregulation in the 1980s to make risky investments with its depositors’ money. McCain intervened on behalf of Charles Keating with federal regulators tasked with preventing banking fraud, and championed legislation to delay regulation of the savings and loan industry—actions that allowed Keating to continue his fraud at an incredible cost to taxpayers.
When the savings and loan industry collapsed, Keating’s failed company put taxpayers on the hook for $3.4 billion and more than 20,000 Americans lost their savings.
There will be a 13-minute video launched at noon today on the site that should be spread around like wildfire. This election represents a clear choice—and history should be every voter’s guide on November 4-- John McCain is a dishonest broker when it comes to stewardship of your tax dollars.
There is a wealth of information at KeatingEconomics, including this source material:
- John McCain’s Letter on behalf of Keating to James Baker, White House Chief of Staff
- John McCain’s Letter on behalf of Keating to Edwin Gray, banking regulator
- John McCain’s Second Letter on behalf of Keating to Edwin Gray, banking regulator
- John McCain’s Third Letter on behalf of Keating to Edwin Gray, banking regulator
- John McCain’s Letter on behalf of Keating to Donald Regan, Secretary of Treasury
- Photo of John McCain with Charles Keating III (The Phoenix Gazette - September 12, 1993)
The drive, hosted by SG, UT Votes, College Republicans, University Democrats and the Students Events Center, will launch a registration competition among 30 student organizations, said Cathy Setzer, project coordinator for UT Votes.
“You won’t be able to walk 100 feet without running into registers,” Setzer said.
The event is bipartisan and will feature guest speakers on the importance of voting, said Ryan Ellis, president of College Republicans.
I would not only agree whole-heartedly that the Grateful Dead are the inverse of Devo in the cover song department, but just in general. I think the two bands are clearly the far ends of some kind of music spectrum, complete opposites in every way. What would you call such a spectrum?
My entries in the “worst cover song ever” department are 311 covering The Cure’s “Love Song” and The Wallflowers covering Bowie’s “Heroes”. Dear douchebag bands: Own your douche status. Do not take a piss all over the great artists of the past that you will never be.
This video, ”Patriotic drunk rednecks”, is up on YouTube and, well, I just don’t know what to say except that this is an example of why Appalachia may never be fertile ground for Barack Obama voter base growth. And that’s despite the GOP f*cking over these working-class, ignorant voters year after year.
The woman in this video said she voted for Hillary Clinton, and that Barack Obama is an Arab who cannot be trusted. I don’t know whether the liquored-up state loosened her tongue or if she’d be just as candid when sober. But here it is.
bobsagetbillgates: I came home from football practice one evening and my parents were talking to our neighbors who were drunk.This is what happened......also if u think the guy in the back of the 4 wheeler looks like james hetfield or the guy in the front sounds like boomhaur from king of the hill, tell so in a comment. I live in southeastern kentucky FYI.
A highlight, about 2:30 in: Man 1: ”You better watch, he’s on the nigger side too.” Woman: ”Black ain’t got nothin...” Man 2: ”No matter what you say, she likes them nigras.”
Some of the comments accompanying the video make me weep for this country. See a few below the fold. BTW, we’ve got our own problems here in the Tar Heel State, despite Obama holding a slim lead over McCain at the moment. That’s after the jump too.
Thank you for writing this post, Ezra, seriously. It’s been bothering me that in both debates we’ve seen so far, it was just assumed that the government is going to have to tighten its belt because of the recession. You don’t need a degree in economics to see why that’s a bad assumption. You just need to have a very basic understanding of history to know what Keynesian economics are, and that one of the principles is that the government should increase spending in a recession to stimulate the economy. The way that everyone is carrying on as if they don’t know this is baffling.
The whole situation is a very revealing glimpse into how politics have gotten so stupid. Everything is tailored to this concept of the Average Voter, who is assumed to be very shallow and very stupid. That’s why so much election coverage is so shallow and stupid. Atrios:
People Are Stupid
This is, of course, the assumption pundits make when evaluating the performances of candidates. This is the justification they use for focusing on style over substance, for privileging the trivial over the important.
One of the more bizarre (if expected) attacks on the Obamas this year has been the idea that Michelle Obama is some sort of affirmative action drama queen whose entire life has been spent complaining about...well, everything really. Byron York takes this to an absurd new level.
Michelle Obama, you see, didn’t like her big law job after she graduated from Harvard, because it was monotonous and low-level. This is unlike every other person who’s ever gotten a first job right after graduating from a school because...well, probably because she’s a whiny black lady who wants her pink Caddy and government check.
The great thing about the Obamas and their very distinct difference from previous Democratic candidates is that it makes the sad ways in which conservatives seek to other them all the more transparent. A young, smart, ambitious law school graduate who’s dissatisfied with the unproductive and often mind-numbing grind of being a big law associate isn’t some strange concoction of Michelle Obama’s black rage mixed with her affirmative action-driven social promotion to a position she felt was beneath her victim-pimp Nubian brainwashing - it’s what 80% of law school graduates (anecdotally speaking) who take big law jobs go through. It’s a phenomenon, even!
Of course, the last thing I want to do is impute any sort of racial motive to branding someone black a grievance-driven whiner for doing something that thousands of white people do every year. That would be irresponsible and presumptive...just like Byron York’s racist ass.
And Queen Latifah sits in as Gwen Ifill. And they take on the same-sex marriage question. Sarah Palin again provides a large chunk of the script. (SNL):
BTW, on Meet the Press today, Gwen Ifill acknowledged that Palin got away with ignoring her or changing the subject. See it below the fold.
In a fight between Glenn Reynolds and a refrigerator box, I’m pretty sure the box would have at least a 50/50 shot. It’s certainly more capable of rational thought.
io9 asked me to contribute a recommendation for what sci-fi book you should read before the election. I was unduly tickled to be the token female in a question about science fiction. On one hand, I’m not like a huge sci-fi geek or anything. On the other hand, I wrote my honors thesis one million years ago about the place of The Handmaid’s Tale in the pantheon of sci-fi, and so I have a soft spot for the genre.* It was sort of my first inkling that feminism could be expanded in creative ways. Of course, as the token feminist, I had to pick The Handmaid’s Tale. Here’s the quote:
This post by 
Victor David Hanson and Peter Krikorian have a combined 
One of the more bizarre (if expected) attacks on the Obamas this year has been the idea that Michelle Obama is some sort of affirmative action drama queen whose entire life has been spent complaining about...