neverending

1 - big ups and lolz and devil horns always and forever to the genius photo-editorial skills of Matt Drudge of drudgereport.com

2 - fuck the haters I freq enjoy reading Mickey Kaus's blog for his relentless and occasz annoying fixation on poking holes in liberal orthodoxy and needling careerist young bucks like Yglesias and Ezra whatsisface. one of the main reasons is his endearing awareness of the bullshittery of all punditry, including a healthy dose of self-criticism that recently produced this frankly stunningly good analogy that completely detonates the hypocrisy of the whole "bitter" controversy, which he had previously jumped all over in a fit of typically Kausian "elitism"-bashing. put a star next to this one dear readers and keep it close to the front of your brain, I'm sure it will be useful for future pointless arguments about this stuff

...The problem for me is that I'm a Vulgar Marxist too. I've always believed that people need to eat, and want to get ahead and prosper. If you give them an avenue that lets them do that, they aren't going to let their religion, their music, their sexual habits, their families or their educational system stand in their way for long. The two most obvious contemporary applications of this economic determinism are 1) China (when the Chinese have a capitalist economy they won't be able to have a Communist government, Vulgar Marxists would say) and 2) the Muslim world (if Islam needs a Reformation in order to prosper in a global market, then Islam will eventually get a Reformation). I agree with both of those propositions.

Does that mean I'm condescending too? It's hard to avoid the charge. If a Chinese Communist Party Official somehow came to me and declared that, no, China would out-compete the West while maintaining Mao-era control over free inquiry, I'd think 'You poor deluded fool. Just wait.' I support Western policies of bringing China into the global marketplace in large part because I think that means Chinese Communism will collapse even if the Chinese Communists don't realize it. Same with fundamentalist Muslims--e.g. Pakistan, when prosperous, will no longer be such a breeding ground of jihadist fanatics. They'll be too busy making money to blow up the world. My attitude toward Pakistan is roughly parallel to Obama's attitude toward rural Pennsylvanians: if the economy really delivered for them, they'd stop clinging to their God. And their guns.

A+, Mickey, for real

3 - a little late on this maybe but goddamn did you see Michelle Obama on Colbert last week? could she be any more of a total fucking babe? what a dress! fuck the haters can we get her in front of the cameras as much as possible? not only is she an obviously real counter to whatever "elitism" etc but there is no way today's America does not want to elect the hottest first couple evar, with all due respect to JFK and Jackie O etc, seriously, there's video, allow yourself to be completely enamored


4 - speaking of being totally Michelle-smitten, this "Hollywood-style" film treatment of a possible brokered convention, by one of the West Wing writers, is seriously fucking awesome! I got a little choked up at the ending tbh! go Wes! kind of a must-read for political junkies and who isn't these days?

asterisk

great and gutsy speech in a lot of ways - calling your grandmom kind of racist, bold! - no seriously it's good, but those two blatantly pandering (I hope) John Edwards-esque passages (note the reference to the 'shuttered mills') where he blames the problems of working class whites solely on their capitalist bosses' 'corporate culture' and 'Washington lobbyists' and blames health care problems solely on 'Washington special interests' etc are terrible, both in their cartoonishness and the way in which it undermines his thesis, which is that we live in a complex world rooted in an inescapable and occasionally really shitty history and that in order to solve social problems we have to stop blaming everything on others (inc other classes, countries, etc), acknowledge and take responsibility for our own role in creating our world, and work with other ostensibly right-minded individuals to make a good faith effort to solve them. uhh, unless you're a white working class Pennsylvanian, in which case you're allowed to wallow in wan 1960s-style paleo-socialism for a bit longer? I liked the parts where he told the truth better.

globalization is continuing to change economies and ways of life all over the world - sorry, America, this includes us, too - at an ever-faster pace in a decentralized process that is an unavoidable cause as well as effect of our technological/social evolution and is impossible to stop, yet also continues to provide us with more and more tools (technological, institutional, social, etc) to help us try and keep up with the pace of change. like race and other challenges of history, it is one that is posed repeatedly and constantly on both personal and macro levels in obscure and literally innumerable ways, and we have no real option but to accept the world-challenge that we don't fully understand, that we are required to answer yet can't solve without others, make our best guess at the solution, never find out if any of our answers were right, and, if we're nice and audaciously hopeful, share good notes with as many equally ignorant people as possible along the way

first viral president first rasta president

btw here's yr perfect soundtrack to vibing out on the increasingly funny viral life of the Obama candidacy - check out the indispensable True Panther blog's MP3 of a new jam from Ghanian uh dude Blakk Rasta, called BARACK OBAMA (CRUNK MIX). it is crunk indeed, with a generous side of trance-hop, an addictive, fun-to-sing hook as well as an intriguingly heterodox ideology from the US perspective - look out for the racists, end poverty in Africa, also America burn in hell for legalizing abortion!* as discussed with link-sender Steev, it'll be interesting to see if this kind of intensely international, rainbow-colored support freaks out whitey if dude makes it to the general. as Steev said, rastafarianism has no concept of 'tacking to the center' -

also of random note - Obama doesn't have a 'campaign theme song', he just randomly picks an appropriate song from his iPod before each campaign event! this is what I was talking about before - the reason the internet has adopted him as its own is because it actually seems like the guy knows how to use computers and internets and iPods etc. that's kind of the secret slogan of the Obama campaign - Barack Obama is the only candidate that is not your parents! with all due respect to my respectably internet savvy mom and dad (read: they know how to find this blog!), natch. it's a generational thing - he's one of 'us', loosely speaking.

* actually not so heterodox at all - as we were reminded this week, Bush has probably done more than any US president to help healthcare poverty etc in Africa, aaand while abortion (and homosexuality, while we're discussing the rastagenda) are obv still legal I feel like Bush probably made a pretty decent effort to curtail them or whatever, or at least they I'm pretty sure he pandered a bit to the anti- groups when he could/had to. first rastafarian prez, anyone?

super tooz

can we talk about how amazing she looks in this picture and is in general (been meaning to link to this vanity fair profile for a minute)?? man I wish there could be a first-mate debate, Michelle needs to get Bill-level airtime, glad to see the campaign's working on this. I don't think Obama was joking when he was said she could beat him if she got into politics - whatever JFK vibe he gives off is at least doubled by her intense Jackie O vibes, or like Jackie O if she went to Princeton and Harvard and met her husband cos she was his fucking adviser at his first law firm job, so fucking badass and glamorous

also, on a totally different vibe, man McCain is also great how can you not love this awesome picture from drudge yesterday, imagine him as prez! personality goes a long way even/esp when the personality is like lovable foul-mouthed irascible semi-deformed former POW maniac, hard for me to ever really root against the dude, even if he were running against Michelle or like David Tyree etc

also fwiw, this Mitt Romney GQ piece hints at a hilariously American Psycho-esque vibe of incredibly sincere and deep-seated blandness that I could also see growing kind of weirdly entertaining. I know I'm a cheap date, but am kind of proud of us America for finding four fucking reasonable, thoroughly centrist, generally qualified, and basically likable candidates this year. let's do dis!

o-mentum 2

man it's one thing to know in your head that 'whoever wins Iowa gets a big media boost' but seriously how fucking psyched in your heart for Obama are you after reading this Newsweek cover story? it really works! notice how his vaunted multiracial multicultural etc background and 'charisma' etc is barely touched on - the whole article is basically focused on telling you 1) how good of a leader and executive he is, with bold strategies executed competently with a keen eye towards fundamentals and 2) how his principles are good and genuinely held. in avoiding dwelling on the striking but by now stale 'this guy just IS change! he just IS!' intro and in seeming to address the two basic concerns most people kind of have about whether he'd be a good president (e.g. is he competent, and does he have personal integrity), this is pretty much everything the campaign could ask for in terms of being super positive and in advancing the media narrative right on schedule

they even manage to give him some humanizing but basically flattering flaws - sometimes he's just too presidential! - which in every case are made up for by how fucking awesome his wife is! and it seems like it's all working! like 'true love', you really can't buy press like this, it has to be given freely, and from the heart

O-mentum

so is this really happening or what?

KIDZ IN THE HALL - WORK TO DO