The District

Newsweek's pitch-perfect spoof of MTV's The City. This is "The District."

Something to remember him by

Wow, super harsh moment this morning when the crowd booed W. as he was introduced. The icing on the cake was Obama diplomatically condemning the last administration's actions and policies. However, it turns out that Bush did something right: His work in combating AID/HIV in Africa is being praised.

"In Uganda, a country already far along on its own AIDS initiative when Mr. Bush began his, 110,000 people are under treatment, and 2 million have H.I.V. tests each year, up from 10,000 treated and 400,000 tested before, according to Dr. Alex Coutinho, a top AIDS expert there. The money comes mostly from Pepfar, but also from a United Nations fund to which the United States contributes.

Dr. Coutinho said Ugandans were terrified that when Mr. Bush left office, “the Bush fund,” as they call it, would go with him. “When I’ve traveled in the U.S., I’m amazed at how little people know about what Pepfar stands for,” he said. “Just because it has been done under Bush, it is not something the country should not be proud of.”"

--SHERYL GAY STOLBERG, New York Times

* For a more in-depth account, read "AIDS and the President--An Insider's Account"

Something is wrong

"Browsing through the top 1,300 search terms in the U.S. that contained the word “inauguration” in the last four weeks provides unique insight into our Internet frame-of-mind surrounding the installation of our 44th President...
"Forget the recent controversy over Obama’s selection of Rick Warren, pastor of the Evangelical Saddleback Church, to give the inaugural invocation in light of his position on gay rights, Internet users instead are galvanized on the choice of Beyonce’ to perform for Barack and Michelle’s first dance at the inauguration ball. With searches such as; “Beyonce’ inauguration,” “hate on Beyonce’ inauguration choice,” and “petition against Beyonce’ inauguration,” the Internet and the blogosphere more specifically, is swirling with controversy over why Beyonce’ Knowles was chosen to sing Etta James’ classic 'At Last' given allegations by petition proponents that she wasn’t a vocal supporter of Obama during the election."

--Julia Angwin, Wall Street Journal

* Video of the Obamas competing for the spotlight with Beyonce. I can't believe I'm saying this--but I think B is a star here. She showboats but she can sing.

Inauguration Wrap-up

I missed all the stunning images live from the inauguration this morning, but I listened to the processions on the radio while cruising on the Broadway B-line. It felt old timey to hear the clumsy coverage from CBC, but, without a doubt, the words were made more moving. There is something to be said for closing your eyes and just listening to and remembering what was said today, what promises were made, what duties we all have as global citizens. I think the ceremonies hit a nice balance between pompous and popular. The showstopper was the benediction by Reverend Joseph Lowery [below].

2 Weeks to Go (UPDATE)

UPDATE: My friend Jen has left some really insightful comments regarding this post and provided a perspective I couldn't have. The background regarding the what constitutes a "member" of a church is accurate.

Let me be clear here: this is not an attack on Christian or Evangelical beliefs or practices (everyone knows I'm a raging atheist) but specifically the views of Saddleback Church and Rick Warren. I think his interpretation of Ephesians 5:22-28 is much more extreme than the beautiful one Jen has given. His views towards women are clear to me in his official stance on divorce and abortion. Let the discussion continue!

Due to a surprise snowfall last night, SFU is closed today so there are thousands of students at home, probably sleeping. I'm catching up on some podcasts I subscribe to and found this clip from the Dec 23, 2009 episode of the Rachel Maddow Show: an interview with The Nation writer Katha Pollitt about Obama choice of evangelical crazy Rick Warren to lead the invocation prayer at the Jan 20 inauguration in just two weeks. Warren is the head of the Saddleback (mega)Church of Orange County, known for his genial personality but also his extremely conservative politics. Because Prop 8, which took away marriage rights from gays and lesbians in California, is still fresh Obama's choice is a huge blow to the LGBTQ community. Warren's has gone on the record comparing homosexuality to incest and pedophilia:

"The issue to me, I'm not opposed to that as much as I'm opposed to redefinition of a 5,000 year definition of marriage. I'm opposed to having a brother and sister being together and calling that marriage. I'm opposed to an older guy marrying a child and calling that marriage. I'm opposed to one guy having multiple wives and calling that marriage."

Hey, Rick Warren, you're freaking me out. This is the guy that is going to lead a nation in prayer at the ceremony that is touted as the start of a new era that's more inclusive. Because I just watched The Savages, here's a quote from the movie which I think is particularly appropriate, just switch out "Wendy" for "America": "Hey Wendy, this isn't the time to regress."

But the really scary part of all of this is Warren's doctrines regarding women's rights, which, in my opinion, haven't been properly covered by the press. Pollitt discusses some of these with Maddow in the clip below and wrote a corresponding piece for the LA Times (I insist you read this).

If you're super keen to know about what those freaky undertones are in Warren's sermon on Jan 20, you can check out Saddleback Church's "Bible Q & A." Questions No. 22 and 32 are especially interesting. That isn't Warren talking but these are the views of his church; that is, gays and lesbians cannot be members of the church and that abuse alone is not enough grounds for a divorce. Not to mention,

"At his Saddleback Church, wifely submission is official doctrine: The church website tells women to defer to their husband's "leadership" even when he's wrong on important issues, such as finances. Never mind if she's an accountant and he flunked long division, or if she wants to beef up the kids' college fund and he wants to buy shares in the Brooklyn Bridge. The godly answer is supposed to be "yes, dear." Is elevating this male chauvinist how President-elect Obama thanks women, who gave him more than half his votes?" (Pollitt)

Obama's team announced the choice on December 17 and eyes are on Israel now. In all likeliness, it's too late to pull Warren from the program but I really wish they would.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

More opinions and reading on Warren from HuffPo, because I have the tabs open:
* Discussion on AC360 [video]
* Melissa Etheridge Op-Ed

I wish I had a time machine

It feels awfully silly to review 2008 when we are now well into the second day of 2009. Nonetheless, I am maniacally catching up on what I missed while fixating on Manderson Cooper and Wolf Blitzer in the weeks leading up to November 4. CBC's review of the year in books led me to this piece by David Sedaris about undecided voters, published in the New Yorker in the October 27 edition of the magazine. It is so brilliant, I am posting it, no matter how 2008 I look doing it.

"To put [undecided voters] in perspective, I think of being on an airplane. The flight attendant comes down the aisle with her food cart and, eventually, parks it beside my seat. “Can I interest you in the chicken?” she asks. “Or would you prefer the platter of shit with bits of broken glass in it?”

To be undecided in this election is to pause for a moment and then ask how the chicken is cooked."

Obama logo contenders

The graphic design team behind the Obama campaign have posted other interesting mock ups for their logos here. The interview below is very cool, especially part two, which describes where the logo went after the firm handed it off to the campaign. Check out "Pirates for Obama" about 3 minutes in on the second video.



Part two

This is so well done... and informative too. Obama's first month in 2 minutes:

96 point for the fourth time

A bit late but from: Mag Culture, November 5:


I was beginning to worry I wouldn’t find the right story with which to mark this weeks’ good news. But here it is, courtesy of Design Observer.

The front page, above, is only the fourth time the NYTimes has used a headline at 96 point, placing Obama’s election alongside the first man on the moon, Nixon’s resignation and 9/11.

Men of the Year

Mark Seliger, forgive me, you are one hell of a portrait photographer. Obama looks good in this picture from a shoot that was only 1 minute and 45 seconds.

Cracking Copyright

I was going through some old files on my computer and unearthed a pdf of "The Weasel, Twelve Monkeys and the Shrub" by David Foster Wallace. I had nabbed it off the Rolling Stone website and it's still there. What this originally titled article is, is the original David Foster Wallace article that became McCain's Promise: Aboard the Straight Talk Express with John McCain and a Whole Bunch of Actual Reporters, Thinking About Hope, which I went on and on about a couple of weeks ago.

I imagine that the publishers (Back Bay Books) own exclusive rights to the essay now but that's the wonderful/scary thing about the digital age - who knows who owns what anymore. So if you are still interested in reading it (but not interested in walking to a library or bookstore), have a look here.

In Defense of Rachel Maddow

Thanks to Ms. Rachel Page, the provider of all my magazine needs from January - May 2008, for introducing me to Rachel Maddow, the coolest person to hit the television airwaves in a while. Maddow is the host of the Rachel Maddow show on MSNBC, which airs right after Keith Olbermann's Countdown (Ben Affleck did a pretty good, while long, impression of Olbermann on SNL last week but the video's been taken down temporarily).

Two nights ago, Stephen Colbert named Maddow the Queen of Cable; she's gathered a large following already so I'm a little slow here but will be an ardent fan. Full episodes are available for free on iTunes.

In any case, I've been doing my Googling and have found many, many articles like this, which insist that MSNBC is hiring nothing but left-leaning crazies.

Here's a good rundown of the conversation so far. And if you like Maddow, here's a glowing profile from New York Magazine, where I cribbed the nice portrait of Maddow.

The point- or rather, the question, which I have not been getting at but is on my mind, is how do you 'objectively' talk about something that is blatantly insane, scary, wrong (but also pro-conservative or -republican, for example)? Marc Ambinder and Andrew Sullivan thoughtfully answer:

The Sex Lives of Red States, Part II

"...among the major religious groups, evangelical virgins are the least likely to anticipate that sex will be pleasurable, and the most likely to believe that having sex will cause their partners to lose respect for them. (Jews most often cite pleasure as a reason to have sex, and say that an unplanned pregnancy would be an embarrassment.) But, according to Add Health data, evangelical teen-agers are more sexually active than Mormons, mainline Protestants, and Jews. On average, white evangelical Protestants make their “sexual début”—to use the festive term of social-science researchers—shortly after turning sixteen. Among major religious groups, only black Protestants begin having sex earlier."

....

"Yet, according to the sociologists Peter Bearman, of Columbia University, and Hannah Brückner, of Yale, communities with high rates of pledging also have high rates of S.T.D.s. This could be because more teens pledge in communities where they perceive more danger from sex (in which case the pledge is doing some good); or it could be because fewer people in these communities use condoms when they break the pledge.

"Bearman and Brückner have also identified a peculiar dilemma: in some schools, if too many teens pledge, the effort basically collapses. Pledgers apparently gather strength from the sense that they are an embattled minority; once their numbers exceed thirty per cent, and proclaimed chastity becomes the norm, that special identity is lost. With such a fragile formula, it’s hard to imagine how educators can ever get it right: once the self-proclaimed virgin clique hits the thirty-one-per-cent mark, suddenly it’s Sodom and Gomorrah."

....

"For too long, the conventional wisdom has been that social conservatives are the upholders of family values, whereas liberals are the proponents of a polymorphous selfishness. This isn’t true, and, every once in a while, liberals might point that out."

--Margaret Talbot, "Red Sex, Blue Sex," The New Yorker

Sarah Palin Punk'd

At HuffPo

Last Night's Best Joke

What does Karl Marx put on his pasta?
Communist Manipesto

--The Colbert Report

Fear and Loathing on Oct 28

The political climate with only 7 days left before the big election... (what will I think, read, and talk about after Tuesday?)

Late Night Roundup: McCain is Confused

The good stuff starts in at about 1:05.

Environment and economy: One and the same

I can't believe that this is news ... and then again, it's kind of shocking. On the weekend, the BBC published the numbers about how much it really cost to ignore climate change and the health of the environment. According to an EU-commissioned study, the crashing market pales in comparison to how much we are losing by letting forest conservation fall to the wayside:

Speaking to BBC News on the fringes of the congress, study leader Pavan Sukhdev emphasised that the cost of natural decline dwarfs losses on the financial markets.

"It's not only greater but it's also continuous, it's been happening every year, year after year," he told BBC News.


"So whereas Wall Street by various calculations has to date lost, within the financial sector, $1-$1.5 trillion, the reality is that at today's rate we are losing natural capital at least between $2-$5 trillion every year." .

Yikes.

Full story here

How you might vote smarter

... still undecided but happened across this website with info about how to vote strategically in each riding. Unfortunately, even if all of Canada 'voted smart' the Tories would still win 67 seats.