cool nerds

the radio and television correspondents' dinner was last night and as usual the pres was in top form. not quite as funny as the white house corres. dinner but still worth a look
(pause the music player on right to watch)

part 1



part 2


john hodgeman (aka "i'm a pc") gave a run down of geeks vs. jocks, which only nerds like me will find funny

Tell the President-elect what you think

It's the Message for Obama Flickr pool. upload your personal message to obama (sponsored by the Guardian uk)



my message to obama

o o my

Standing in the subway station waiting for the notoriously late a train- the station is full of people trying to get back uptown from times square probably to Harlem and Inwood. A man calls out to me "Obama !" strangers are calling put to each other. New Yorkers are speaking to people they don't know, high-fiving and crying. Jews and African Americans, chubby white girls and skinny emo boys. I just watched an older woman beat on a stranger's thigh sitting across from her on the train.
They are dancing in the streets. Fire works shooting off.
People have screamed till their voices are gone. They are weeping. We are weeping. The train which is usually only full of drunk and sleeping people, tonight has people discussing "what happened" in that state what "prop " passed in this state. It is euphoria, elation, and, yes, hope- that things will change, that we have a future ahead of us, that we are not condemned to war and hatred. Yes, it may only be fancy words and smooth speech but we have a need, a yearning for something better. In our own group , the room got silent, intense as we waited for the "president elect Obama" to take the stage. In the anticipation someone would explode with a whoop of uncontained astonishment and the rest of us would sush them furiously, afraid to miss anything. When he took the stage -you could feel the sense of history happening, surreal and wobbly. I felt the pages of history being written, the burden of the past and the weight of the future. Generations to come will read this moment in bland acceptance not recognizing the event for what it is.
This woman across from me can't contain herself. She shakes and tosses her head, looking around for a Obama button. She calls out to the girl getting off" have a great 4 years"

obama, early years

upon hearing obama's maternal grandmother is ill and barack is leaving the campaign trail to visit her in hawaii, i read up a bit on his early days. i love these old pictures. i haven't read obama's book, but i am more interested in it now, after reading a bit of his description of growing up in hawaii. i'm surprised we don't hear more about his childhood. father from kenya, mother from hawaii, father leaves to move to the mainland and Harvard, mother remarries and moves with barack to Indonesia, after baby sister born, barack shipped back to hawaii to live with his grandparents, to grow up in a community as the only african american. fascinating

the most horrifying propaganda i’ve ever seen

i am disgusted. i have never seen a more offensive ad, political or not, in my life time.

whatever genius created/authorized this ad at least had the foresight not to run it on national television. and yet, i think it has more power slightly below the radar. had they tried to run it on national television, it would have been subject to the criticism it sorely needs. as it is, this ad runs online and on christian radio- where it potentially does the most damage.

mccain has an ad out which his people say is supposed to be "funny" - a satirical look at obama's rhetoric. like the ad that ran on tv, comparing obama to female celebrities who don't wear panties and who have been arrested, this ad tries to use obama's popularity against him.in it's most benign reading, the add uses his "chosen one" status, but questions if he is "ready" to be president. but this is no benign ad.

the ad, brilliantly terrible, capitalizes on the imagery and the rhetoric of the most popular christian popular culture item- the best selling "Left Behind" book series. the series uses scripture as a jumping off point to tell the story of the rise of the AntiChrist following the Rapture of the faithful. in the books the Anti Christ is a captivating leader, who rises meteorically through the political process till eventually he becomes president of the world-- he is so likable and awe inspiring, the nations change their laws to let him rule. after the Rapture, people compare him to the Messiah, indeed, when disasters strike- floods, massive earthquakes, power outages, war, etc (nothing we know about now. ha) they believe he IS the chosen one.

beyond the visual imagery and the blasphemous taglines, the ad uses obama's own words, clips from interviews and speeches in which he seems to compare himself to the messiah and unfortunately suggests we will have epiphanies and "see the light" about him. for a left behind reader, this is the most damning, as the AntiChrist will be so engaging even as he implies to us all that he is the messiah. we can't see his evil deeds, only the cheerful fanfare and eloquent speeches.

The Times ran an article about this comparison. An AntiChrist Obama in McCain ad?

Is this just a simple satire? Is it satire to say a man is remarkably similar to a popular description of the antichrist?

At Duke, I once wrote a long paper, a good 20 pages, on the usage of poster propaganda during the fight for suffrage, especially during and after the war. I'm still rather proud of that paper and the hours spent in special collections analyzing posters and magazine ads. the image of the "suffragist" is truly awful, ugly and misformed, like exaggerated harpies and yet these images were all over popular culture.

the evil undercurrent of this ad is very easily missed if you have not read the Left Behind series. but for the millions of christians who have, and for the many that believe them to be based on fact--what is this ad?

the authors of the series are some of the many who see these books as fact/foretelling. at least they have announced they do not believe obama to be the antichrist. why? well:

Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins, the authors of the hugely popular Left Behind books, a series that imagines the End Times, have issued an official statement saying they don't think Barack Obama is the Antichrist. As quoted in Christian Newswire:

"I can see by the language he uses why people think he could be the antichrist," adds LaHaye, "but from my reading of scripture, he doesn't meet the criteria. There is no indication in the Bible that the antichrist will be an American."
Left Behind authors fact check

Out Ra Geous