Slapstick. (Some blue language and much laughter.)
I bet you watch it more than once!
– P
Vicarious: experienced in the imagination through the feelings or actions of another person
Vicarious Viral Video
Obama and Romney: Two men, two visions
Here are the two parts of a BBC documentary about the US election, and the ‘tectonic plates’ of the partisanship being played out, which featured on the World Service this week.
It’s instructive to hear an explanation for the death of public consensus, the rapid rise of the right wing extreme (and its effect on the flip-flopping ‘independent’ Romney). Also fascinating, the context of the Romney family’s story of ‘rebellion against a hostile government’ … and the ongoing influence of the virtually-deified Ronald Reagan’s ‘peace through strength’ which Romney is attempting to channel … see what you think … (below the fold)
Must read: Sympathy for the Plutocrat
Wonderful!
Sympathy for the Plutocrat
By Nick Hanauer Reuters
It’s great to be what you people are now calling a plutocrat. I know. I am one.
We plutocrats live incredible lives, surrounded by luxury and insulated from risk and discomfort. Things have gone very well for us over the last several years. Since George Bush left office, the stock market has doubled, we got a (sweet!) $700 billion rescue of the financial system, and corporate profits are at a 50-year high. BOOYA!
The growing economic distance between people like me and the little people like you hasn’t been this great in a long, long time. You may call that inequality. We call it freedom. But if things are going to continue to go this well, you people need to get with the program. Here, I’d like to have a frank discussion about that.
It is something of a puzzle to many of you little people why we plutocrats, who have benefitted most from these trends, view President Obama with such intense disdain. Why, you might ask, given how good the economy has been to you plutocrats, are you so maniacally angry?
Debate #2
I’m sure how you saw today’s 2nd debate between the US presidential candidates depends on where you stand. I didn’t think it was even close. To me, Romney floundered and appeared untrustworthy, arrogant and somewhat entitled/spoilt-bratty. But I’m sure others judged the whole thing differently.
Let me be clear: I want Obama to win. He deserves to have a second term, in my view, although he is not perfect and has in some respects been a disappointment.*
Mitt Romney strikes me as a glib liar and just leaves me cold. Brrr!
(But I don’t get a vote, so he can relax.)
– P
pic: Doug Mills The New York Times Mitt Romney and President Obama during the debate, their second, Tuesday night at Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y. via Chris Heller, The Atlantic
*Update: Reflecting on it, I felt the same way about John Key’s administration in 2011. Deserved another shot, and, as I said at the time, seemed likely to get it. (But gee, it ended up being close!)
Paula Bennett has been egregiously let down
Say what you like about Paula Bennett’s [alleged] predilection for vindictively infringing other people’s privacy. Say what you like about her untenable denials and bullheaded refusal to acknowledge her transgressions (Privacy Commissioner findings notwithstanding). Say what you like about her perceived pulling-the-ladder-up-behind-her with respect to changes to training allowances for solo mums. Say what you like about the bombastic way she is handling her part of the National government’s campaign to ‘reform’/’slash’ (pick one) social welfare and the [alleged] cynical game-playing of her announcement timings.
All those items aside, the MSD/WINZ kiosk privacy fiasco shows this minister has been let down by public servants in her department to an astounding degree. (And yes, it could have been worse.)
She deserves better. We deserve better.
– P
Amazing pic of Biden & Ryan
Photographer Jon Passantino got a shot.
Conservatives vs Liberals: a Fox News fan’s view
This is a case of the Reticular Activating System in action.
As regular readers will know, here at ThePaepae.com we’re in the middle of a long-running (or on-going?) discussion about political labels, self-identification, partisanship, and fear & loathing of ‘The Other Side’ …
2012 Pew Research report shows increasing partisan polarisation over Bush/Obama years pic: journalistsresource.org (click)
In the middle of a (I would have thought unrelated) comment stream about Marco Arment’s new project‘The Magazine’, the words ‘Fox News’ were thrown as a negative epithet.
I love it (not really) when someone from one group declares monolithically what another group ‘believes’ … as if they know. (Bonus Godwin points for comparing the Obama administration to the Gestapo. Sheesh!)
… The nasty comments about Fox News are a good illustration of the perennial differences between conservatives and liberals in America.
As Edmund Burke noted in his critique of the French Revolution, conservatives believe that human nature and societies are too complex to shape according to a single, overarching idea. A good society can only be built over a long period of time and using the feedback of everyone in the society. It needs many voices. It needs to move slowly and compromise or seeming good ideas will bring great harm. That’s precisely what Burke warned would happen with the French Revolution. and the Great Terror proved him right.
Liberalism, on the other hand, believes in what it used to call a ‘vanguard’–an enlightened few who have seen the future and are leading the rest of use to it (Hope and Change). The strange zeal for Obama, given his thin resume, is an illustration of that. Liberals smile benignly on those who follow meekly along as they ought. They sneer at the reactionaries, who resist, clinging instead, in Obama’s words, to ‘guns and religion.’ Continue reading →
Confusing jingoism with patriotism.
From a good profile of actress Claire Danes, currently gripping segments of the intelligentsia/viewing public (including me) with her role in TV drama Homeland, this excellent distinction.
“The first time I realised I was patriotic was after September 11,” she says. She was living in Sydney at the time. “I couldn’t have been farther away, physically, from the event, but I grew up in downtown New York, not even a mile away from the towers. One of my friends wanted to have a debate about it and when she was pressing me to take an intellectual position, I just kind of barked: ‘my house is on fire!’ That’s how it felt; it just felt personal and visceral. Growing up in New York with artist parents – a very liberal environment, where we were always encouraged to challenge the status quo – I think for a long time I confused jingoism with patriotism. And that is a mistake.”
Claire Danes on spies, motherhood and therapy (via NZ Herald).
Liberal. One definition.
I stumbled across this on Pinterest today …
“If by a ‘Liberal’ they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people — their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties — someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a ‘Liberal’, then I’m proud to say I’m a ‘Liberal’.” -John F. Kennedy (1960)
Everybody knows the boat is leaking …
From Dan News …
VIDEO: Small error in new NZ Herald TV commercial
I really like the new TV commercials for the New Zealand Herald.
One small problem though. In 1981….
and this …
(With apologies to Leonard Cohen.)
Romney
I haven’t got much to say about the debate yesterday. (I watched it.)
Romney, as discussed, it seems to me, will say anything, whether he believes it, or whether it will stand scrutiny or not,
The ‘Etch-a-sketch’ illustration his campaign organiser Eric Fehrnstrom forecast in March (wherein Romney could pretend to be a ‘conservative Republican’ for the primaries, then bait-and-switch to a ‘moderate Republican’ for the election) certainly made an appearance.
“Everything changes,” Mr. Fehrnstrom, 50, said on CNN, with a slight smirk that suggested he believed he was about to use a clever line. “It’s almost like an Etch A Sketch. You can kind of shake it up and restart all over again.”
But I didn’t expect such lies. More fool me.
– P
Update: Paul Krugman in the New York Times Romney’s sick joke;
What Mr. Romney did in the debate, in other words, was, at best, to play a word game with voters, pretending to offer something substantive for the uninsured while actually offering nothing. For all practical purposes, he simply lied about what his policy proposals would do.
Reminds me of another politician…
Nek minute …
Dunno if it's real ... (pic: 9gag.com - click)
Seinfeld makes a good point …
Jerry Seinfeld responds to criticism of people who use (or overuse?) “Really?” …
Your Critic’s Notebook column about the overuse of the term “Really?” was so deeply vacuous that I couldn’t help but feel that you have stepped into my area of expertise.
Click to read at the NYTimes.com
The best part is where he expresses disdain for the ‘wrap your head around it’ cliché. Harrump!
– P
