Amerikkka
McCain's Aunt on McCain, voting, and democrats
‘Let these bastards get in,’ she says, ‘I don’t give a damn anymore. If these people want to buy votes and get their people in office, let them suffer for it in the way of high taxes.’
‘I sat in line more than an hour today and I’m nearly 100. We should have one day of voting and if these people are too weak to vote, too bad.’
She’s 96 and the twin of McCain’s mother. She’s also my new hero. Tell it like it is, Rowena! She goes on to say that McCain will likely die in office.
Via The Daily Beast
Yes we carve
Possibly the only thing that could make me want to move to the US.
Imagine a world where food didn't go off.
Ladies, Gentleman, and children alike - this is a chemical food. There is absolutely no nutrition here.
Appalachia
An interesting article in the New Yorker about Obama’s pitch to heartland Appalachia, the archetypal hill-country mountain-man red-neck capital of America, and the campaign venue of Obama’s “pig in lipstick” comment. David “Mudcat” Saunders has, according to the article, had a venerable career marshalling the mountain-man vote for the Democratic party. His opinion is therefore interesting:
Obama’s “Change” message, Saunders argues, is too abstract, too vague, for the region. “Those people you were with today were screwed by the English in Scotland and Ireland way before they came over here and started getting screwed,” he said. “They’ve been screwed since the dawn of time. And you know what? You ain’t gonna do anything with them, talkin’ about change. You know why? We’re all changed out. That’s all you ever hear, every election. Somebody’s gonna change some shit. Nothin’ ever changes. We get fucked.”
For the uninitiated, Appalachia is a region broaching several states from Mississippi in the south to New York in the North, and it has a population as large as Australia’s, and it is characterised by extreme and vicious rural poverty and gorgeous wilderness. It has an intense hold over the American cultural imaginary as a lawless, backward and frightening shadow to the Eastern States’ “light” of culture and creative-industry capitalism and electricity and running water. I have been fascinated by both the place and the myth since I watched Jon Voight and Burt Reynolds crazying it up in the early 70’s film Deliverance, which is set on a river in Georgia and is one of the most disturbing and riveting films I have ever seen, in spite of some bad day-for-night camera work and an hilarious look at Reynolds’ putative comb-over.
More reading on Appalachia:
Vice’s Poverty issue (very interesting actually).
Earlier NY Times op-ed on Obama’s chances in Appalachia.
The Appalachia Service Project - Making Homes Warmer, Drier, Safer.
High-Fructose corn syrup fights back
I was distressed to learn that this advertisement is not a parody. ICEBLOCKS FOR ALL.
Sarah Palin II
I watched Sarah Palin’s speech to the Republican Convention today, and as I watched it I felt really, really happy. So what if the reason she’s there is because she’s the anti-Hilary? It was an exciting moment, knowing that a female candidate can have access to the same networks of nepotism and fuckwittery that gave America such sterling candidates as George Bush Jr and Ronald Reagan. Despite the sadness I feel when I compare her to Hillary, it is a win for feminism when women are able to be as charismatically mediocre as men in public life - albeit still having to do it backwards and in high heels. Mind you, it’s a loss for public life.
It seems pretty clear that the Palin family weren’t properly briefed on what exactly to do when the cameras were rolling. I guess in the past, Republican candidates’ families didn’t have to be briefed on the done thing; there was that moneyed tradition of public benevolence masking private alcoholism that ensured previous Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates and their families knew with every fibre of their beings that that smiling and waving was the correct way to deal with national attention, rather than adopting the middle class signature move of slouching and rolling one’s eyes in embarrassment which is performed with aplomb by Palin’s prospective son-in-law. My favourite moment is at around 12:40, where Palin’s youngest daughter is caught on camera licking her hand and using it to smooth her baby brother’s hair.
Sarah Palin
I really hope this is a picture of her at home. I want to imagine her thus, after a long day in The Office, holding forth on the equal merit of creationism and science while surrounded by the glorious native wildlife that she and her family have killed, stuffed and arranged tastefully in the rumpus room.
Seriously, the woman has charisma. She’s nowhere near as smarmy as Obama. If her politics were vaguely sane and her running mate anybody else, she might stand a chance with me.
