Apropos of nothing, here's the cover of Golf Magazine's January 2010 issue featuring Tiger Woods and President Obama.
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Viewing entries tagged
Obama
Someone hacked this Watchmen poster at the West 4th street subway stop.
Calling Posterboy.
[Thanks Melissa!]
Other than their concise but informative articles, I enjoy the Economist for its sometimes sarcastic wit and humor. The last line in the quoted section below made me laugh.
It is theoretically possible that the superdelegates who have announced their support for Mr Obama could change their minds before the convention in August and hand the nomination to Mrs Clinton. But it is vanishingly improbable, barring the revelation that Mr Obama is secretly a polygamous Mafia boss in the pay of Iran.
Read more here.
Europeans are perhaps even more entranced than Americans by Mr Obama's message of “change” and “hope”. They are also being forced to rethink some of their deepest prejudices about America. How can the land of “Stupid White Men” produce a Barack Obama? And how can Europe go on feeling quite so superior to America when it treats so many of its own minorities so badly? The French parliament has only one black person representing mainland France.
The Economist's recent Lexington column reflects on the potential hurdles facing Obama and McCain in rebuilding America's relationship with Europe, although our neighbors across the Atlantic are currently swept up in "Obamamania" where according to a new Pew poll taken in France and Germany, 80 percent believe that Obama will "do the right thing in foreign affairs" compared to 30 percent for McCain. Of course, what that "right thing" is gets to the heart of "possible future tensions" that may arise from some of Obama's positions on issues ranging from Israel (maintaining the status quo) to his schizophrenia on free trade where he "declares himself a free-trader" but then "saturates the airwaves with ads denouncing NAFTA."
That said, in the choice between McCain or Obama, the concerns the Economist (which was decidedly pro-Hillary) has towards an Obama presidency is overshadowed by what an overall improvement, I believe, Obama will be over McCain and most certainly Bush.
Read more here.
Time Magazine has more on the fist bump heard around the world, including a look back at the hazy history of the fist bump, which is also known as the ""power five," "fist pound," "knuckle bump," "Quarter Pounder" and "dap.""
For his part, Obama...said the fist bump reflects a marriage that keeps him grounded. "It captures what I love about my wife," he later explained to NBC's Brian Williams. "That for all the hoopla I'm her husband and sometimes we'll do silly things."
Read more here.
In the New York Times, Edward Luttwak explores the unexpected implications of Obama's Christianity among Muslim cultures. Under Muslim law, by virtue of being born to a Muslim father, Barack Obama was born Muslim. By the same logic, Obama's decision to become Christian means his conversion is a betrayal and crime to the Muslim faith that should be met with extreme persecution, including execution by beheading, stoning or hanging. Although a direct plea and intervention by Pope John Paul II in 1994 for a Christian convert in Iran resulted in a "last-minute reprieve...the man was abducted and killed shortly after his release."
Luttwak writes:
At the very least, that would complicate the security planning of state visits by President Obama to Muslim countries, because the very act of protecting him would be sinful for Islamic security guards. More broadly, most citizens of the Islamic world would be horrified by the fact of Senator Obama’s conversion to Christianity once it became widely known — as it would, no doubt, should he win the White House. This would compromise the ability of governments in Muslim nations to cooperate with the United States in the fight against terrorism, as well as American efforts to export democracy and human rights abroad.
One man's enlightened conversion is another man's criminal apostasy.
Read rest here.
Update: Some people have written points of clarification to Luttwak's aforementioned op-ed piece.
[Thanks Kaizar]
Frank Rich says:
This is not 1968, when the country was so divided over race and war that cities and campuses exploded in violence. If you have any doubts, just look (to take a recent example) at the restrained response by New Yorkers, protestors included, to the acquittal of three police officers in the 50-bullet shooting death of an unarmed black man, Sean Bell.This is not 1988, when a Democratic liberal from Massachusetts of modest political skills could be easily clobbered by racist ads and an incumbent vice president running for the Gipper’s third term. This is not the 1998 midterms, when the Teflon Clintons triumphed over impeachment. This is not 2004, when another Democrat from Massachusetts did for windsurfing what the previous model did for tanks.
Read rest here.
The New York Observer has an interesting interview with an old classmate of mine from college, Jordan Carlos. This was interesting to me:
But to date, comedy writing is pretty whitewashed. As of this season, Saturday Night Live has no black writers. The Daily Show also doesn’t have any, and neither does The Colbert Report."[...]
Soon after the [Washington Post] article came out, Mr. Carlos spoke at a panel on race and comedy in Chicago with Lizz Winstead, the co-creator of The Daily Show. "She said, ‘Well, in a perfect world I would hire staff writers of color.’ I was like, ‘Well, it is your perfect world; you can do whatever you want.’ But it’s the nature of the biz for people to hire their friends, hire whoever they want."
Read rest here.
His "Votin Democrat" video cracked me up fer reals, especially when "McCain" does his bit.
[youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=boNrRO-Eu2w]
The New York Times argues that based on their respective websites, Obama is a Mac. And Clinton a PC.
On one thing, the experts seem to agree. The differences between hillaryclinton.com and barackobama.com can be summed up this way: Barack Obama is a Mac, and Hillary Clinton is a PC.That is, Mr. Obama’s site is more harmonious, with plenty of white space and a soft blue palette. Its task bar is reminiscent of the one used at Apple’s iTunes site. It signals in myriad ways that it was designed with a younger, more tech-savvy audience in mind — using branding techniques similar to the ones that have made the iPod so popular.
I think you could replace "Mac" with "Gmail" and "PC" with "Hotmail" in this article.
I will be attending this event. Details copy and pasted from the e-mail I received this morning: OBAMA EVENT DETAILS:
When: 7:30AM Sunday, April 13th, 2008 Where: Union Square South (NYC) What: An Obama ad for Moveon.org
What to expect: Upon arriving you will be handed a flyer with a release and a letter on it: O, B, A#1, M, or A#2. This will tell you where to stand.
We want this to look like it happens organically. Once we establish everyones place, we will ask you to scatter. You will have 10 seconds to return to your letter.
We will only have 30 minutes to rehearse and 30 minutes to film. We have to be out of the park at 8:30AM.
Please be on time and please listen to Diego (The guy with the megaphone).
We have all been inspired and motivated to do this by Barack Obama and hope you join us to make this possible.
Thank you!!!
The Spell Obama in Union Square Team
Please contact:
spellobamaunionsquare@gmail.com
or
Despite being in front of a computer ALL DAY, I knew I'd be greatly rewarded when I came home and logged back on to teh Internets. And I saw what the fellas at Us Versus Them had to say. And it was good. We've seen the original Sarah Silverman fucking Matt Damon. Then Jimmy Kimmel Fucking Ben Affleck. Then some actress fucking Seth Rogan. And now, of course we have a campaign bang between Obama and Hillary.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5jyTc6rnbI]
In response to Mario Cuomo's suggestion that Obama and Clinton share the ticket, Hillary responds:
"Discussions like this are premature because this is an historic campaign, and Democrats are more energized than ever, and there are millions of voices yet to be heard...Unlike the Obama campaign, we think everyone's vote should count, and we shouldn't end the race until [everyone] has had a chance to vote."
Yea, you know because Barack Obama is going around disenfranchising voters. Note extreme level of sarcasm. I hope that was her idea of a funny April Fool's joke.
Lindsay Lohan who? Britney what? Who's JT? This is the real titillating (heh tit) gossip that has me going "oh. my. god. no. fucking. way!" Professor Cass Sunstein--a brilliant legal scholar and prolific writer--whose books and articles in the endless course packets take me back to my collegiate days, is apparently voir dier'ing Professor Samantha Power herself a formidable legal eagle and until recently an integral member of the Obama brain trust. I do want to give a high five to myself for my utterly groan worthy headline. Come on, people! How awesome is it?! Get it: Cass is his first name, which I pun'd and pun'd well which acknowledges his lady wooing skills by evoking the legendary player himself, Casanova. Sheesh. Tough audience.
Professor Power -- Men's Vogue
It's good gossip like this that used to make me refresh Gawker 40 times a day. Now Gawker is crap. American Idol, really?
A conservative group -– Citizens United -– that has produced a film now in distribution attacking Hillary Clinton called “Hillary, the Movie,” has its sights set on a new target: Barack Obama. The group has budgeted about $1 million to produce a documentary film about Mr. Obama that is set to be distributed this summer. At the moment, Citizens United has its researchers poring over Mr. Obama’s records as a community organizer, state legislator and United States senator in the same way that it scoured Mrs. Clinton’s record with a highly critical eye and a sharply conservative point of view.
I hope the mainstream media doesn't jump into the water and legitimize this sure to be swiftboat hack job.
Watch this short explanation provided by this woman behind her decision to switch her support to Barack Obama from Hillary Clinton. Yet another switch. [youtube=http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=OVuMYKs8iJs]