She really is a new kind of “politician” (in quotes because is she? Celebritician?). Matt Taibbi explains how she panders to the worst common denominator, probably because she really is part of her target demographic:
Palin has figured out that this is really all you have to do to win elections in this country — flatter middle Americans’ moronic fantasies about themselves. The great thing about flattery is a) you can’t overdo it as hard as you try, and b) it doesn’t pin you down to messy political positions, controversies, things you can be harassed about by Chris Matthews and other press weasels.
It’s basically a risk-free strategy. You get up on stage and you say, “I’m just like all you idiots. And you idiots rock!” People will fall for this stuff. The ingenious part in Sarah Palin’s case is that she probably genuinely believes it.
Taibbi argues that even Dubya never had the same success with these same methods, because he was too used to the high life despite his cowboy image. Palin, on the other hand, really is of the people–her people.
Why a basket? I don’t know. Maybe because it’s freezing-ass cold here in DC, and it’s making me think more of Easter than May Day. But let’s not get too deep into my subconscious mind today. Let’s dig around in our big basket of awesome and see what we come up with.
The always fabulous and talented Ethel Rohan is doinginterviews for Dark Sky Magazine. So far, so very good: the first two happen to be two of my favorites, Kyle Minor and Amelia Gray. In other awesome Ethel-ness–did you know? Ethel is a “hot opener” at the Potomac Review. Day-um. That is pretty impressive. So is her story. So read it here.
One of my favorite favorite lit mags, alice blue, has a new all-fiction issue up with fabulous stories from the likes of Brian Evenson, A.D Jameson, Michael Kimball, and Amelia Gray.
Matt Bell has a great post up on his blog giving us the good news: Dzanc Best of the Web 2010 is finished! I can’t wait to get my hands on a copy of this. Yes yes yes. Congrats to Dzanc and Matt and to guest-editor Kathy Fish and to all the fine folks featured in this year’s edition. There is so much good writing on the web it makes my head vibrate with happiness.
In news of the shallow, the new British P.M.’s wife may be a Tory (or maybe not, actually, I shouldn’t assume) but her style is anything but conservative. In fact, it’s kind of fabulous, and young and fresh, and high-low, and…anyway, nice job, Samantha Cameron. You’re pretty hot.
And speaking of fashion, what’s worse than Obama’s mom jeans? How about whatever-the-hell the prime minister of Japan is wearing (pictured above) here? Seriously. I’m pretty sure I had this exact shirt back in 1990. I guess at least we can be greatful the dude’s not wearing it like I did, tucked into some acid-washed black jeans with the cuffs tight-rolled and a pair of unlaced Eastlands to finish off the ensemble
And please. No one remind me that the 90s are back in style. This is a basket of awesome, not a basket of lukewarm, leftover 90210-flavored puke. Thank you.
Francois Robert’s amazing Bone Art series, featuring religious iconography, weapons, and other instruments of violence and war. It’s devastating stuff.
A fantastic story by Emily Schulz in Fanzine, featuring a woman and her…minotaur. Yes, exactly. How could it NOT be fantastic?
A killer blog called The Big Caption, which takes pics from The Big Picture and gives them choice captions. I could spend hours on this site. (Thanks to Andrew Sullivan for the heads up on this one.)
And finally: I WANT HER HAIR. (This is really not something you ought to know about, but I just thought I’d throw it in there anyway.) This whole looks actually reminds me of me in, say, early college, and it’s making me very nostalgic. (Thank god my husband doesn’t read this blog, because if he did he’d be packing his bags right about now. He missed most of the stripey tights phase, though he did know me during the wearing-costumes-I-found-in-the-theatre-wardrobe-discards-bin-as-clothes phase. I still mourn the loss of my Scarecrow pants.)
When Gunter came to work at a Wal-Mart in Riverside, California, in 1996, at the age of 46, with 20 years of retail experience, she was sure she’d advance in the company. A passionate animal lover, she also boasted 30 years of experience raising show dogs. Yet Gunter says she was rejected for the position of pet department head because she “didn’t have enough experience.” The job went (twice) to teenage boys.
During her tenure at the company, Gunter was repeatedly passed over for promotion in favor of men she had trained, she says in court documents. Her bosses didn’t pretend to be running a civilized workplace: Once, after she’d had a fight with her husband, her supervisor suggested, “Why don’t you put your face in my lap and take care of both of our problems?”
Disclosure: I’m proud to work for the labor union that runs the Wake up Walmart campaign to improve Walmart’s treatment of their employees. And we run that campaign precisely because of stories like these.
Anyone who knows me very well knows I have next to no tolerance for yuppie bullshit, especially yuppie bullshit regarding food. Including smug, self-satisfied yuppies shopping at Whole Foods and thinking that buying organic is somehow saving the world. In fact, our own goofy preoccupations with eating fresh, eating local, etc have nothing to do with feeding the world’s poor and actually distract us from that task. Glad to see this article in Foreign Policy address the delusion:
…though it’s certainly a good thing to be thinking about global welfare while chopping our certified organic onions, the hope that we can help others by changing our shopping and eating habits is being wildly oversold to Western consumers. Food has become an elite preoccupation in the West, ironically, just as the most effective ways to address hunger in poor countries have fallen out of fashion.
Helping the world’s poor feed themselves is no longer the rallying cry it once was. Food may be today’s cause célèbre, but in the pampered West, that means trendy causes like making food “sustainable” — in other words, organic, local, and slow. Appealing as that might sound, it is the wrong recipe for helping those who need it the most.
UPDATE: A friend dropped me a line to let me know the person who wrote this is on the board of Monsanto–not exactly a happy friendly company. So take it with a grain of salt, and know that there are probably ulterior motives behind it. Still, I think the spirit of the article, if not the exact prescriptions, is pretty good.
Feeling quite a bit better today. Well enough to come back to work today, which is good because lord knows it’s boring just sleeping all day. It sounds really great until you’re forced to do so because you’re sick as a dog and have literally nothing else than you can possibly do.
Anyhow, some things that caught my eye today and made for tasty reading:
PANK interviewsThe Lumberyard editor Jen Woods. (Disclosure: The Lumberyard published one of my little poems, once upon a time. And that issue is, to this day, still the most lovely thing my words have ever been featured in.)
Yes, yes, the new issue of We Are Champion has no women writers in it. I don’t want to fight that fight again (thought I will say that I think the best thing said on the subject was said right here–and that I was annoyed at the assumption that the guidelines were male-oriented–I mean, what, do men own Basquiat and Back to the Future (two of my favorite things?) In fact, many of my favorite things are listed on WAC’s influences list, which may be why I like this publication so much.) Regardless of the politics, don’t deprive yourself of a good read.
This is just hilarious. You know those infomercials for products no one needs? Here are the people who need them, montage-style.
Poor, sassy Stephen Baldwin. He had it all–money, fame, success–until he became a born-again Christian. Then those Hollywood assholes took it all away. Or at least, that’s what the most awesome website ever wants me to believe. Oh, and also to give Stephen Baldwin my money. (via Balloon Juice.)
Obama calls bullshit on that crazy paranoid nutbag racist Arizona immigration bill the guv there is about to sign into law.
Speaking of Obama, what should he read? Submit your suggestions here and for god’s sake hurry so we can bury some of the tea party insanity cluttering these comments.
No, for realz, people. Obama is going to tax the shit out of your wheelchair. And your oxygen tanks. And…SNEEZING! That’s right. You’ll have to pay a tax EVERY TIME YOU SNEEZE. And…
Oh, just watch the video. Which is clearly aimed at old people. It is funny (but, sadly, not on purpose) and like a movie trailer. (Thank you, Wonkette.)
It amounts to much more than “diddly” that so many Americans try hard to avoid coming to terms with the reality of slavery. It wasn’t just “a bad thing.” Littering is a bad thing. Slavery was this nation’s Original Sin, and yet many people will not look at it except through a gauze of Spanish moss.
Read the whole thing here. And seriously, do read it. It’s worth the few minutes of your time it will take.
If you’re interested in the Tea Party people, the conservative movement, or the Republican party, you have to check out Dave Weigel’s new blog at the Washington Post. Excellent coverage, from the (kind-of) moderate to the wingnuttiest.
From Dave about his goals for the blog:
…there’s no shortage of news about the right. There is, I think, a shortage of coverage that puts the movement in context. This is where “Right Now” comes in. I’ve spent most of my reporting career covering the conservative movement, from the we-had-it-coming midterms of 2006 through the “Ron Paul Revolution” of 2008 through Sen. Scott Brown’s (R-Mass.) upset victory this year. If you stayed close to conservative activists and strategists throughout that period, you knew that something like the Tea Party movement — some massive rejection of George W. Bush’s legacy, some force that drove the GOP further to the right — was inevitable. You weren’t surprised to hear people once again bashing the Federal Reserve rhetoric or talking about how the 10th Amendment could give states some defense against liberal policies.
The goal of this blog will be to explain what the right is doing, thinking, and planning as it hurtles toward the possible salvation of the 2010 midterm elections. That’s going to mean a lot of on-the-scene reporting, interviews with the people driving this movement, and close reading of the arguments making headway among the people trying to bring the Obama era to the quickest possible end.
He’s already got some great, timely posts up. Get over there and check ‘em out.
An exotic dancer.
A folk singer.
A cliche phrase in truly terrible poetry.
A Montgomery County High sprinter.
A speech therapist in Pennsylvania.
A science blog.
She really is a new kind of “politician” (in quotes because is she? Celebritician?). Matt Taibbi explains how she panders to the worst common denominator, probably because she really is part of her target demographic:
Why a basket? I don’t know. Maybe because it’s freezing-ass cold here in DC, and it’s making me think more of Easter than May Day. But let’s not get too deep into my subconscious mind today. Let’s dig around in our big basket of awesome and see what we come up with.
