Fiesta season

The American election season officially ended two weeks ago, but only in theory. Here are a few more election-inspired gems that continue to pour out from everywhere. I hope they keep coming, as this promises to be the most amusing Presidential term yet. Is this fun phenomenon in any way connected to former Saturday Night Live comedian Al Franken's run for Senate?

From Private Eye:

And from the dark, putrid, depths of the World Wide Web (I don't even want to imagine where, exactly):

La Pequena Sarah Palin

(No) thanks to soulsis for sending me that truly disturbing video clip. More, more!

Live Show

This, hands down, is the best thing in the history of live online video streaming. 

Puppies!!!

Since my sister introduced it to me a few days ago, this site has eaten through more hours of my life than Plurk and Facebook combined. It is completely addictive.  Next: a live video stream channel for Bruno! 

Watch more live streaming at UStream.tv

Bush whacked

Thanks to soulsis for commiserating with me about Oliver Stone's sucky movie, and for pointing out an alternative Bush biopic. I love it:

That's My Bush! Oliver Stone, take note.

Stone cold

W. -- Oliver Stone's latest film on the incumbent American president George "Dubya" Bush -- in a nutshell:

1. Oliver Stone hates Dubya

2. George Bush Sr. and Barbara Bush favored Jeb, writing Dubya off as a failure of a son 

3. Dubya spent his life trying to step out of his powerful father's imposing shadow

4. Oliver Stone hates Dubya

5. Hubris fueled much of Dubya's major decisions in office, including the most fateful of all: the decision to declare war on Iraq

6. Condolezza Rice is a passive bootlicker with a weird accent

7. Young Dubya was a rich, privileged, hootin' tootin', hard drinking, cowboy hat and checkered shirt wearing, skirt chasing, impulsive, baseball-loving, Ivy League educated troublemaker. Yeeehaw!

8. Dubya found God and stopped rolling in all that crap.

9. Dubya is a charismatic figure with the 'people's touch'

10. Oliver Stone hates Dubya

11. The senior Bush is a respectable and ambitious statesman, but a cold and indifferent father.

12. Dubya lives off a steady stream of Dr. Pepper, sandwiches on white bread, pretzels, and (once upon a time) beer.

13. Good thing Dubya runs three miles a day.

14. Dubya is extremely dumb yet well meaning, and spends his life with a confused yet eager expression on his face

15. Dubya was manipulated by the powerful neocons who dominated his cabinet

16. Laura Bush has no personality, but wears the most perfect shade of red lipstick

17. Dubya is a hopeless public speaker

18. Karl Rove bears a striking resemblance to Gollum. Are they related? 

19. Dubya is a born again Christian

And finally...

20. Oliver Stone hates Duyba's guts.

I'm disappointed with Stone's portrayal of Dubya, whom I think will eventually be judged as one of the most interesting, if not one of the most enigmatic, figures in history. I can say this of course in hindsight -- in the aftermath of the election -- as Obama prepares to take his place in the White House. Believe me, I'm no Dubya fan myself. But Stone has done nothing to peel away the many layers of myth and media to expose the elusive human soul of this most vilified, most hated of men. 

That his being President of the United States is a product of strong political machinery, family money and connections, and possible electoral fraud is not new. Nor is anything else in the movie, including the implication that Cheney's desire for empire and oil wealth motivated the invasion of Iraq.  We didn't need to sit though a two hour Michael Moore-ish rant be reminded of these things.

I expected more from Stone. I would have liked to see him form an intimate picture of George, in the same way that director Stephen Frears's 2006 hit The Queen managed to chip past Queen Elizabeth's icy public image, and touch on her isolation, her loneliness, her quivering vulnerability. Bush might be 'dumb,' but it must take something particular to keep afloat politically, run both and country and a war, and remain the most powerful man on the planet for eight straight years. America's in rotten shape, but it's still there, and so is he. How did he do it? Could he actually be a shrewd, sneaky son of a bitch? Or could he have an instinctual, unique understanding of the political game in general, and the White House in particular? Surely there is something to learn, even from a villain. Stone makes it seem that, with the right political and financial backing, a monkey could run the White House. Not to be naive, but I'm hoping that it's a lot more complicated than that.

Maybe Dubya's unbelievable and unexpected hold on power reflects not only him as person, but an aspect of contemporary America snubbed by cosmopolitan, liberal, and 'worldly' commentators and pundits. Stone's caricature of Dubya as a stereotypical Southerner -- his cowboy hat, his boots, his exaggerated Texan drawl -- makes the director come off as yet another rich, sleek, all-black wearing, Hollywood bigshot who sneers at what he considers the 'backwards,' overly religious, provincial hicks who make up the American South. 

If I'd wanted a stereotypical, monolithic depiction of the South and Southerners, I would have preferred to watch HeeHaw. At least it's funny.

Obama

I can finally say this without sounding like an imperialist or a Manifest Destiny apologist: the impending election feels more like a world election, rather than an isolated American one. It is as if everyone and anyone has a personal stake in the election, in spite of nationality or political leaning. The scary thing is that, quite honestly, they do. We all do. 

This morning, the front covers of all the top broadsheets -- The FT, The Independent on Sunday, The Observer (the Sunday counterpart of the Guardian) -- carried photos of Barack Obama, looking very presidential. I've made sure not get my hopes up since the campaign began last year, so as not to risk being left heartbroken. But, as the day approaches, could this really happen? 

I'll be up listening to BBC Radio 4's all-night coverage of the election, starting at 11.15pm on November 4th until 6am the next day. 

In the meantime, I couldn't help notice the eerie similarity between these two. Both former beauty contestants, both equally as articulate. Are we staring at our future? 

Candidate Number 1:

And Candidate Number 2:

Interconnected nature of all things

Edward W. Said   (b. 1 nov 1935 -- d. 25 September 2003)

"... He was one of those rare people who sought and recognized the connections between different and seemingly disparate disciplines. His unusual understanding of...the human being was perhaps a revelatory construct that parallels between ideas, topics, and cultures can be of a paradoxical nature, not contradicting but enriching each other.

"...Edward Said's understanding of the world made it impossible for him to see only the obvious, the literal, the readily graspable; in his writing and in his life he continually discovered and brought forth evidence of the interconnected nature of all things."

           -- Daniel Barenboim, in his foreward to Said's Music at the Limits: Three Decades of Essays and Articles on Music.