Are We There Yet?

Wyatt sums it up for me at this point. I am so tired of the election process. The rhetoric, the over-analysis, the flip-flopping, the lies, blah blah blah blah! I am in total media overload. My eyeballs are now rectangular. I see in HD. I am just plum worn out. (Language is bleeped, but clip is not for NSFkids.)



Okay. I feel better now that is out of my system. Everybody vote!

And yes, I did choose this election process as the subject of my art this semester at school. So I have no one to blame but myself. And I will very likely go through major withdrawal starting next Thursday.

Why Us Magazine Doesn't Interest Me Anymore

Yes. Vote. If only so that we don't have to see more celebrities telling us to vote.

I get the sense that people do not follow celebrities in the same way they did a few months ago. For me, I don't really care anymore that they are "just like us." I don't really care who they wore the latest party - I can't afford it and I know they didn't have to pay for it. I don't care that they are breaking up or getting back together. Like so many others I am working hard, trying to contribute to my community and - these days - getting excited about thrift store shopping.

So vote. Please. Not because they said to do it, but because it's the right thing to do as a citizen of this country.

H/T Momocrats

Bizzaro World: Joe the Plumber Edition

In Superman's universe, there is Bizzaro world. As we all (should) know from either the original source text or Seinfeld, Bizzaro world is the world where everything essentially is opposite. Good is evil, you know, that kind of stuff. It's the shadow world to what we know.

Well tonight I experienced Bizzaro world in my own living room watching this clip from Fox News.



For me, this interview is Bizzaro in many ways:-
- A Fox anchor asked probing questions, with multiple follow-ups, of a McCain camp "representative"
- Joe the Plumber is now a McCain camp "representative"
- The McCain camp, we learn in the interview, has sent Joe to campaign events and allowed him to be interviewed on Fox about foreign policy
- Joe the Plumber now speaks for the McCain camp on foreign policy
- Foreign policy was one of the areas McCain thought himself solid, unlike economics.
- Joe the Plumber also represents McCain on economics, specifically his view of Obama's tax plan. He called it, incorrectly, Socialism.
- Fox anchor, Shep Smith, defends Obama's record on Israel multiple times, even taking time at the end once Joe is off the phone to tell the viewing audience what Obama's position is. In the closing moments, he said this was "scary."

It runs just a bit over 5 minutes. Hang on to the end. It is extraordinary. And Bizzaro.

Thank you, Shep. You demonstrated refreshing integrity in this long election season.

H/T to Andrew Sullivan The Daily Dish

Why I Voted for Barack Obama

As I work outside of Arlington, Virginia, I had the option to vote early this year. I am grateful for this option. In the last two Presidential elections I stood in line for upwards of 2 hours. I can only imagine how long the lines will be this year.

So how did I get to my decision? Listening and thinking critically. I have a master's degree in literature and wrote my thesis on Toni Morrison's novels. I used the theories of French psychoanalytic theorist Jacques Lacan. In particular, I studied how Morrison's language was intentionally designed to evoke metanarratives of the construction of racial identity in America. The desire to be loved drove Pecola to desire the bluest eye and ultimately into madness.

I share that so you know whence I come.

Last night, I was at the Reston Arts for Obama Art Auction. I donated a painting and was invited to attend the event. At the auction, the attendees were diverse and friendly art lovers. My kind of people. My piece did really well at auction and the event raised over $20,000. One of the auction pieces, by my friend P. Delia Chisholm, was a fun and inspired image that captured the sense of hope and community I've heard again and again in Obama campaign and in his autobiography. I hear talk of responsibility, of accountability, of coming together and solving problems. This rhetoric is a welcome relief. An oasis in the desert of the divisive language of the last 8 years.

And then. Oh. And then. I took my car into the shop. In the waiting room, they had Fox & Friends on a jumbo flat screen television. The volume was at 11. I sat with my earplugs and tried to read but was oft thwarted. Even through the earplugs, I heard them report that police in Oakland and Detroit were preparing for riots if Obama loses. That report was followed by details of the story of a woman who alleged she had been beaten up and a letter "B" cut on her face. It was a frightening scary picture. And it was reported that the perpetrator did this to her when he found out she was a McCain supporter.

And it was a hoax.

I am not focused on this woman who clearly needs help. My focus is on the news networks that featured prominently a story that had not been fact-checked and verified.

After being in the room with Fox & Friends for two hours, even I felt (a little) that the election was really close, that trouble and chaos could be coming, and concerned about voter fraud. I know how the stories are constructed. I understand the metanarratives at work. I can see the desire of the powerful to hold onto control. I can feel their fear. It is all constructed in the language. The subtle and not-so subtle choice of words. The juxtaposition of images.

I voted for Barack Obama because I heard something different from him. No cheap shots. A man who learns from his mistakes. A man who is not afraid of a strong woman. I could go on. The difference in these two recent events is what is at stake - are we coming together and learning to deal with our differences or are we grabbing for power at any cost? To me, that was the choice.

Real Virginia, An Immigrant's Perspective

So a bit about me. I am an immigrant. My mother and I came from England on a cargo ship with our 2-year old Lab, Ross. My Dad had come stateside a few weeks before to set up house. I've spent most of my life here. As so often happens with first generation immigrant children, I feel multiple allegiances as I belong to and am a citizen of two countries.

When I heard the recent rhetoric of "real America" versus...what - fake America - I thought, that language is coded. Implied is that we are supposed to 'know' what Real America is. What its population is like. How it contributes to the country.

Recently, they used the term "real Virginia" to describe non-Northern Virginia. So you know, I am not in the "real Virginia" as I live in Arlington.

Arlington is a lovely community. We are both the smallest and most densely-populated county in America. We are diverse. We believe in and practice Smart Growth. We are loaded with military, defense contractors, and government employees. Arlington was directly hit on 9/11 as the Pentagon is in Arlington, not Washington DC. My LOCAL fire station sent its trucks and fire-fighters to the Pentagon. Even Senator McCain has one of his seven homes in Arlington. We are probably wealthier than the national average, although the economic crash is taking care of some of that. Yet somehow, none of this is Real. Somehow we are terrorist-loving, anti-American, lazy and goodness knows what else.

It is an insult. No question. So does having a different opinion mean that you are a terrorist? This divisive language is destructive. Being able to hold your point of view with someone who does not agree with you is essential to freedom. Making an enemy of the Other because they don't agree with you is a prison.

For relief, I turn to Dana Millbank's work- a brilliant satirical look at the artifice that is Real America.

Custom Fake News

Grandma! How could you say such things about me?

This video is a remarkable use of technology. And raises some questions about what we know to be 'true' and 'false' especially as seen through the internet.

I've already voted (or at least I think so - Arlington doesn't have a paper trail on its electronic voting). For those of you who haven't voted, please do. Or goodness knows how much of your tax dollars will end up in Palin's closet.

Why It Is Important to Understand the Meaning of Words Like Satire

Um. I don't think Sarah Lou understands satire. (Psst - they're not laughing with you, Guvna.)

She also doesn't understand the Constitution either.