Inaugural Oddities, Part I

Even more than the first family's outfits and the Chief Justice's bungling of the oath of office, online America has been talking about the impact new media and social media have had on the way we experienced this inauguration. For two days, people have been talking about:

1. The sensational inauguration images made possible by the Photosynth application on MSNBC, which made it possible to browse your way around, zoom in and out of, and change the focal plan of images:

2. The "mindblowing numbers" Facebook and CNN released for their live streaming partnership today, which allowed Facebook users to provide live commentary on the CNN feed. According to Mashable, by 11:34 a.m. CNN:

-had served 13.9 million live video streams globally since 6am
-had broken its all time total daily streaming record (from Election Day) of 5.3 million live streams.

Facebook reported that as of 1:15 pm,

1. 600,000 status updates were posted through the CNN.com Live Facebook feed
2. Facebook averaged 4,000 status updates per minute during the broadcast
3. 8,500 status updates were posted during the first minute of Obama’s speech
4. “Millions” of people logged into Facebook during the broadcast

3. Live streaming -- it failed according to Techcrunch (and my own experience):

Yesterday was supposed to be the day that live Web video streaming took on TV broadcasting. CNN.com alone served a record 21.3 million streams, with a peak of 1.3 million simultaneous streams. And Akamai reported a peak of 5.4 million simultaneous visitors per minute to the various news sites for which it hosts video, and more than 7 million simultaneous streams.

With millions tuning in from their PCs to watch President Obama’s Inauguration speech, it was one of the biggest tests yet for live video streaming. But live streaming failed.

When it comes to big live events with millions of people watching at the same time, traditional TV broadcasters have nothing to worry about. Right now, the Internet breaks at about one million simultaneous streams. That is nothing when it comes to the audience size for historic events, or even a big football game.

I'd intended to watch online, but ended up in front of the living room tv, tweeting from my PDA.

4. Twitter didn't fail. It managed to keep up, sort up.

Twitter reported five times the normal tweet volume. Tweets containing “Obama” hit 35,000 per hour during his speech, and topped 150,000 for the day while @whitehouse_gov jumped on the scene with over 5,000 follows in the first day.

What aspects of the inauguration aren't people talking about? Stay tuned for Inaugural Oddities, part II.

Technorati tags: Barack Obama, Election 2008, old-media-new-media, social media, inauguration

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Cokie Roberts tops poll for Most Inane Punditry of the 2008 campaign

"I know his grandmother lives in Hawaii and I know Hawaii is a state, but it has the look of him going off to some sort of foreign, exotic place ... He should be in Myrtle Beach, you know, if he's going to take a vacation at this time."

Cokie Roberts, ABC's This Week, Aug. 10

By an overwhelming margin, Cokie Robert topped the polls in Media Matters for America's poll for Most Inane Punditry of the 2008 presidential campaign.

Roberts, NPR contributing senior news analyst and ABC political commentator, was critical of of then-Sen. Barack Obama for choosing Hawaii, the state of his birth, to take his August family vacation.

On the August 10 edition of ABC's This Week, Roberts criticized Obama for "going off this week to a vacation in Hawaii," which she said "does not make any sense whatsoever." Roberts repeated her criticism of Obama's vacation destination during the August 11 broadcast of NPR's Morning Edition, asserting that Obama's choice of Hawaii for his vacation "makes him seem a little bit more exotic."

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Why am I so worried that Obama will be assassinated? Should I be?

I saw this postcard in last Sunday's PostSecrets, and it struck a chord. Yes, somewhere high on my list of habitual worries is the fear that Obama will be assassinated even before he takes office.

I'm certainly not alone. Hillary Clinton raised the spectre of assassination in May when she seemed to suggest that she was staying in the Democratic primary race in case Obama, like Bobby Kennedy, was assassinated before the election.

"For many black supporters, there is a lot of anxiety that he will be killed, and it is on people's minds," Melissa Harris-Lacewell, a Princeton University professor of political science and contemporary black culture, told the Washington Times. "You can't make a prediction like this — like he has 'a 50 percent chance of getting shot.' But the greater his visibility and the greater his access to people, there is a danger," she said.

The New York Times reported "a hushed worry on the minds of many supporters of Senator Barack Obama, echoing in conversations from state to state, rally to rally: Will he be safe?" The Times quoted Obama supporters who were considering not attending rallies or voting for their candidate because they "feared that winning would put him in danger."

And when Obama celebrated his victory in Grant Park, Chicago, it was from behind bulletproof glass 12 ft. high and 3 inches thick. Michelle Obama, running mate Joe Biden and his wife Jill were under instructions not to stray from the line-of-fire protection zone outlined by lasers.

So is Obama actually at greater risk for assassination? Or do we just perceive him to be because we're still grappling with the unforgettable lesson of 1968, that our most promising leaders -- especially racial pioneers -- are destined to be martyrs?

Obama himself has consistently downplayed the security risk. “I made a decision to get into this race. I think anybody who decides to run for president recognizes that there are some risks involved, just like there are risks in anything,” Obama was quoted in The New York Times. On the campaign trail he typically told concerned supporters,“I’ve got the best protection in the world. So stop worrying.”

Obama also depredated comparisons with President John F. Kennedy and Senator Robert F. Kennedy which increased when Caroline Kennedy and Sen. Ted Kennedy joined him on the campaign trail.

“I’m pretty familiar with the history,” Mr. Obama said. “Obviously, it was an incredible national trauma, but neither Bobby Kennedy nor Martin Luther King had Secret Service protection.”
Indeed, the assassination of Senator Kennedy in 1968 prompted Congress to authorize protection of major presidential and vice presidential candidates. (Source: New York Times)

I take some small comfort in the fact that Obama's Secret Service team has been personally as well as professionally committed to Obama's safety. The New York Times reported that although initially reluctant to accept Secret Service protection, "Obama had grown fond of the agents who surround him, inviting them to watch the Super Bowl at his home in Chicago and playing basketball with them on the days he awaits the results of an election."

The actions taken by the Secret Service suggests that in this political climate, there's no such thing as too careful. Among the more recentlnews from the agency:

• The Secret Service investigated more than 500 death threats against Obama over the 22-month campaign. (Source: Daily Telegraph)
• The Secret Service believed that Republican nominees John McCain's and Sarah Palin's incendiary rhetoric at public rallies in September and October contributed to the sharp and disturbing increase in threats to Obama during the same time period, according to Newsweek.com.
• A team of specialist investigators from the FBI has been assigned to work alongside the Secret Service to monitor America’s 487 known white supremacist groups.
• Senior advisers want Obama to wear a lightweight bullet-proof vest during public appearances – a proposal he has so far resisted, but which Secret Service chiefs are expected to insist upon. (Source: U.K Daily Express).

Be good. And if you can't be good, be careful.

Technorati tags: Election 2008, Obama, assassination

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Visible unity: from 52 to 48 with love

Over at the quirky blog zefrank.com, readers are invited to submit messages of unity between Obama supporters (52% of voters) and McCain supporters (48% of voters).

From 52 to 48 with love

i would love to see a group project where obama supporters reached out to the mccain folk (and others) in a gesture of reconciliation...

simple messages.
perhaps it is naive. the differences are real, i know. but we have to repair the damage done from this election cycle somehow...
the fringes (all of them) have been allowed to dominate our conversations for too long. to create a cycle of hate, ill-will and revenge.
it's a tough and delicate challenge - if you want to try it - send a pic of you with a sign, or a vid, or anything to ze@zefrank.com
maybe it works, maybe not - i know it won't speak to many : but i think we give it a whirl and decide for ourselves, yes?

from52to48withlove

Go see the rest of the images, and if you're inspired, make one yourself.

Technorati tags: Election 2008

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Now it can be told! Behind-the-scenes election gossip, courtesy of Newsweek

I tried to talk myself out of writing this post, but I was too weak to resist. Campaigns are all about appearances and brand management, and usually we have no way to know what's really happening off screen.

And it's not like I read this in the National Inquirer: The disclosures are from Newsweek's "How He Did It, 2008," an insider's account of the presidential election put together by a special team of reporters who worked for more than a year "on an embargoed basis, detached from the weekly magazine and Newsweek.com. Everything the project team learns is kept confidential until the day after the polls close."
Here are few excerpts from the current Newsweek.com article:

• The Obama campaign was provided with reports from the Secret Service showing a sharp and disturbing increase in threats to Obama in September and early October, at the same time that many crowds at Palin rallies became more frenzied. Michelle Obama was shaken by the vituperative crowds and the hot rhetoric from the GOP candidates. "Why would they try to make people hate us?" Michelle asked a top campaign aide.

• On the Sunday night before the last debate, McCain's core group of advisers—Steve Schmidt, Rick Davis, adman Fred Davis, strategist Greg Strimple, pollster Bill McInturff and strategy director Sarah Simmons-met to decide whether to tell McCain that the race was effectively over, that he no longer had a chance to win. The consensus in the room was no, not yet, not while he still had "a pulse."
  

• Palin used low-level staffers to buy clothes on their credit cards. The McCain campaign found out last week when the aides sought reimbursement. One aide estimated that she spent "tens of thousands" more than the reported $150,000, and that $20,000 to $40,000 went to buy clothes for her husband. Some articles of clothing have apparently been lost. An angry aide characterized the shopping spree as "Wasilla hillbillies looting Neiman Marcus from coast to coast," and said the truth will eventually come out when the Republican Party audits its books.
  

(Make an unemployed writer feel wanted. Subscribe to LilaTovCocktail via email or RSS. It's painless, I swear.)

• Palin launched her attack on Obama's association with William Ayers, the former Weather Underground bomber, before the campaign had finalized a plan to raise the issue. McCain's advisers were working on a strategy that they hoped to unveil the following week, but McCain had not signed off on it, and top adviser Mark Salter was resisting.


• McCain also was reluctant to use Obama's incendiary pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, as a campaign issue. The Republican had set firm boundaries: no Jeremiah Wright; no attacking Michelle Obama; no attacking Obama for not serving in the military.


• McCain balked at an ad using images of children that suggested that Obama might not protect them from terrorism. Schmidt vetoed ads suggesting that Obama was soft on crime (no Willie Hortons). And before word even got to McCain, Schmidt and Salter scuttled a "celebrity" ad of Obama dancing with talk-show host Ellen DeGeneres (the sight of a black man dancing with a lesbian was deemed too provocative).

According to its website, Newsweek will be publishing more revelations over the next few days on Newsweek.com.

Technorati tags: Election 2008, journalism

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Election junkies: this cartoon's for you

Cartoon from XKCD: A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language.

(h/t to Olevia)

Technorati tags: Election 2008, humor, webcomics, Election 2012

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Yes, he did -- you did -- we did!

The homepage of BarackObama.com at 11:30 p.m Nov. 4,
shortly before McCain conceded.

"Because of what we did on this day, in this election, change has come to America."

-President-elect Barack Obama, 12:03 a.m. 11/5/08

Watching the crowd at Grant Park online -- it's a good moment to savor and remember later, when the change comes slower than we'd like.


And it's a good moment here in my mostly African-American, mostly middle-class neighborhood: honking horns, firecrackers, joyous voices. I'm glad to be able to see it.

Urban street art, Philly.

Technorati tags: Election 2008

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Voting Tip

Hattip to MOMocrats

Technorati tags: Election 2008, voting rights, humor

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NE Ohio Cubicle Dwellers: 3 ways to track what's happening at the polls from your desk

1. Your browser. Keep a browser tab open to WKYC.com's election blog. Refresh the page periodically. (If you know of a LOCAL news site that is updating more frequently, please let us know!) For national news: ProPublica's Vote Watch, Video the Vote, the Election Protection Coalition's Our Vote Live

2. twitter:

• First, sign up for twitter and download a desktop twitter client (many are listed here. My favorite right now is twhirl: it's small, light & works on Win & Mac OS).
• Second, once you're twittering, follow one or all of these twitter feeds for real-time voting news:

cdotcompolitics


866OURVOTE


VideoTheVote

votesuppression

nprpolitics

3. RSS feed. (I use Google Reader). Sign up for the RSS feeds at these websites:

• RealNEO
• Election Law @Moritz
• Buckeye State Blog
• The Brad Blog
• Pro Republica

(You can also visit these sites via browser).

Technorati tags: Election 2008, voting rights, new media

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Good video: Broward County, FL Poll Computer Down

At the opening of the polls at the Artserve library in Fort Lauderdale, FL, the voter registration database computer went down. It caused a delay in the voting process and by some accounts, caused a dozen people to be discouraged from voting and leaving the poll.

Video the vote

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What would it take to out-shout The Republican Jewish Coalition??

During every major election, readers of the Cleveland Jewish News (CJN) write in to protest the ads run in the CJN by the The Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC). (This year for the first time there was an organized campaign by a "new, dovish pro-Israel" group called J Street, which flooded many Jewish newspapers with letters urging them not to run RJC ads attacking Obama. Source: JTA)

Sometimes readers write letters to the editor excoriating the paper for printing the ads (see "Reprehensible to print Republican ads").

But for income-strapped community newspapers like the CJN, printing those ads have nothing to do with politics and everything to do with economics. The CJN doesn't endorse the ads -- the paper doesn't make any political endorsements of any kind.

But the CJN's operating costs are paid for by advertising (not, as commonly believed, by Federation or even subscriptions). So the paper will print pretty much any ad it is paid to run, barring those that are anti-Semitic; contain hate speech or incite hate crimes; break the law or encourage others to break the law.

Sometimes the RJC's propaganda has barely met even these loose standards. This year in particular, the RJC's newspaper ads, direct mailings, and emails seem to many to have been excessively divisive, inflammatory, or misleading.

Even now, at the 11th hour, the RJC is living down to its reputation as chief fear-mongerer and mud-slinger with "a wave of incendiary new mailers," reports TalkingPointsMemo.com. One flyer reads: "Barack Obama's friends and advisors: Pro-Palestinian, Anti-Israel, even hostile to America," and claims that his friends' "anti-Israel views" are "dangerous, naive and reckless." (click picture to view enlarged)

Then there's the Wailing Wall mailer, which claims Obama has reneged on his support for an undivided Jerusalem, a claim strongly disputed by the Obama camp:

Jewish voters favor Obama over McCain by a ratio of more than 3-to-1, according to Gallup poll results released Thursday. Republicans are desperate, sure, but their tactics stink. They're unlikely to sway Jewish voters at this point, but they could have lasting repercussions within the Jewish community.

Four years ago, the RJC used similar tactics to attempt to discredit John Kerry among Jewish voters. According CNN:

"More than any year in the past, Republican operatives have crowed about the increasing proportion of the Jewish vote going to Republicans this year," Ira N. Forman, the National Jewish Democratic Committee's Executive Director said in a statement about the Gallup poll results. "In fact, for every election since at least 1972 we've heard 'sky is falling' predictions concerning the Democratic proportion of the vote. However, it looks like this is going to be one more year when political pundits, some in the media, Jewish Republicans, and other partisans were wrong in their over the top forecasts," Forman added.

But this year, latent racism and overt anti-Muslim sentiment have made our politics even uglier. After the election, will the bad taste just go away? Or will it coagulate in our throats and choke us?

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As Ohio Votes: fresh local election stories

Fresh election stories:

Credit: Plain Dealer

• Obama crowds flood Ohio cities as finish line nears
• Now It's Clear Why Some People Are Scared of Early Voting: Because It Empowers People  
• [video] Early voting in Cleveland: “I’m here to make change."
•  Obama remains a bit too 'different' for some in Ohio.
• Tracking Ohio vote on election night: what counties to watch 
• [Slideshow] Cuyahoga Co. Voters Wait in Long Lines 

Obama crowds flood Ohio cities as finish line nears, by Mark Naymik/Plain Dealer Politics Writer. Posted 11/02/08. Obama, within reach of becoming the first black president in U.S. history, found rapturous crowds in Columbus, Cleveland and Cincinnati that spilled out of parks and stadiums and into surrounding streets...

Now It's Clear Why Some People Are Scared of Early Voting: Because It Empowers People By Pam Kapoor, AlterNet. Posted November 2, 2008. Vote Today Ohio shows that you can bring marginalized people to vote early, and really challenge the powers that be.

[video] Early voting in Cleveland: “I’m here to make change." By Jill Miller Zimon, Writes Like She Talks. Posted 11/02/08. In some ways, I wish I could have recorded the more than two hours I spent listening to and talking with the people I met while waiting to vote in Cleveland yesterday.

Obama remains a bit too 'different' for some in Ohio. By David Lightman. Miami Herald. Posted 11/02/08. Undecided voters in this crucial swing state are torn: Can they overcome their fears about Barack Obama and vote for someone they regard as culturally "different," or will they back John McCain and the shaky status quo?

Tracking Ohio vote on election night: what counties to watch. By Stephen Koff, Plain Dealer Bureau Chief. Posted 11/02/08. Without knowing more about which precincts or counties the votes are from - and which ones have not been counted - these incomplete results are a poor predictor of whether Barack Obama or John McCain will win.

[Slideshow] Cuyahoga Co. Voters Wait in Long Lines at BoE. By NewsNet5.

Technorati tags: Election 2008, Northeast Ohio

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Homemade Obama Signs & what they tell us about this election

"Someone stole our Obama for President sign from our yard last night. They stole nearly all the Obama signs in our neighborhood. The ones they didn't take they spray-painted black. So I made this sign today and staked it in the yard. I fully expect it to be trashed by morning. At least they know the result of their pranks: we give more money to Obama's campaign." Credit

Obama lawn signs were in short supply the past couple months, for a few reasons.

1. The Obama campaign gave out fewer free ones. They encouraged supporters to buy the signs at the Obama website to support the campaign financially.
   
2. People who did order lawn signs reported delays in receiving them.
3. Obama signs were stolen in droves across the country, particularly in small towns and suburbs.
   

So people made their own signs, and those homemade signs often expressed much more than support for Obama.

Homemade signs expressed people's opinions on the economy, the environment, the war, and foreign policy.

People expressed outrage at the incidents of theft and vandalism that made it necessary for them to make their own signs in the first place. credit: Eriepressible

Around the internet, blog posts went up explaining how to build a sign that can't be stolen and how to use cameras and video equipment to catch thieves in the act. (Several thieves have caught that way, including a couple in Bath, Ohio.)

The Wall Street Journal reported on a 16-year-old Portland boy's attempt to video -- and stream live -- the theft of his family's sign. Somehow, the live stream at CCTV gained an audience. Now dozens of people around the world are now taking shifts so that the family and its sign stays safe (they call themselves CHAOS, or Citizens Hanging Around the Obama Sign)



Just say no to intimidation

The thefts went on everywhere. In Sacramento, one family plastered their front yard with 100 handmade "Obama '08" signs after several previous campaign signs were stolen. After the first few signs were stolen, the family put up a sign saying, "If you take our sign we will donate money to the Obama campaign." When that sign was stolen, the Jeglie kids made 100 "Obama '08" signs on index cards and put them in the front yard, while Ginni Jeglie donated money to Obama's campaign for every sign that was previously stolen.

There were news stories about tool-wielding citizens building quasi-permanent signs to thwart thieves:

Credit

Credit: SilencedMajority.com

Credit: Marin Independent Journal

These lawn signs were especially creative (and tough to steal):

Austin, TX Credit: BurntOrangeReport.com

Pennsylvania Credit: a35mmlife

Hampton, VA Credit: Gary L. Cooper

Signs of admiration and hope

Many homemade convey a level of excitement and admiration rarely shown toward politicians:

Credit: richardrodriguez1977

Credit: beaucolburn

Some of the most charming signs are the handiwork of kids:

Credit: JamesOClark


"The local office was out of Obama signs, so Samson's sister, Aster, made one herself."
Credit: daddy2samson

Credit: Granite Shavings blog

And then there were the originals:

Credit: Carolina Victory

Credit: Prometheus Unbound

Credit: Carolina Victory


Credit: Dangerous Intersection

This is really just the tip of the iceberg. You'll find lots more original Obama signs, art, and crafts collected on the free photo-hosting site Flickr.com. Try:

• The Obama Craft Project Pool on Flickr
• The Obama Street Art Pool on Flickr
• The 2008 Election Graphics Pool on Flickr
• The Crafters for Obama Pool on Flickr
  
  

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In brief: Your Voting Rights in Ohio

Your Voting Rights in Ohio from the AFL-CIO

• Voter ID. BRING ID. You must provide ID before you will be allowed to vote. Acceptable forms include an Ohio driver’s license, military photo ID, utility bill, bank statement, paycheck or other government document that contains your name and address. ID cannot be expired.

• Change of residence. If you are a registered voter who recently moved and you have not updated your registration, you can do so at the polling place in the precinct in which you currently reside on Election Day.

• Clothing, buttons, caps and other accessories. Do not wear campaign materials. To avoid unnecessary delay, make sure you can easily cover or remove any clothing, button, sticker, etc., that supports a candidate or political party. You may not be allowed to vote until such materials are removed or covered.

• No-electioneering perimeter. No electioneering is allowed within 100 feet of the polling place.


Don't live in Ohio? Get a brief list of your state's voting rights here.

Technorati tags: Ohio, voter rights, Election 2008, vote suppression

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A little (pro-Obama) Yiddishe music

A politically timely rewrite of the famous old Yiddish song "Rumania." The video maker says it's her "contribution to Sarah Silverman's "The Great Shlep" project."
Concept & Lyrics: Barbara Samuels Video Editor: Jed Weaver Vocals: Barbara & Susan Samuels Piano: Freya Samuels Viola: Meredith Crawford.





(hattip to Ellen Brown)

Technorati tags: Election 2008, parody: humor: absurdity, Jewish community

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12 Ways To Safeguard Your Vote In Under 10 minutes

I'm posting the beginning of this EXCELLENT post from the blog Jack & Jill Politics. I can't think of any way to improve upon it. (If you can post a comment here or at Jack & Jill Politics.

12 Ways To Safeguard Your Vote In Under 10 minutes 23 Oct 2008 Author: Jack Turner

We’re not going to lose this election this year. We cannot. It’s that simple. Ensuring victory means being diligent in every aspect of your vote: make sure you vote the right way! and make sure that your vote is counted. YES! magazine has put together this 12 step guide to safeguarding your vote. Please complete it, and report back in the comments. I’m serious. (also bookmark the voter suppression wiki)

It took me 9 minutes to complete and read their steps, and I was moving slowly. 10 minutes is a minor investment to ensure your vote will be counted.

BEFORE ELECTION DAY

1. Check your registration. Even if you think you’re registered, you may not be. Check online at www.CanIVote.org.
2. Vote now. Check if early voting is possible in your state. If you’re voting by mail, check carefully where you need to sign, how to seal the envelope, and how to mark the ballot. And note: Some ballots require extra postage.
3. Practice your vote. Electronic voting machines can be difficult to use. Verifiedvoting.org is preparing links to video demos of how to vote on the machine you will find at your polling station. If you’ll be using a paper ballot, check out the sample included in your voter pamphlet.

Read more at Jack & Jill Politics: additional steps you can take to safeguard your vote.

Technorati tags: advocacy: social justice, Election 2008, voting: rights: laws

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Election Protection & Video the Vote: Make Your Vote Count

Power to the people & their videocams!

The Internet is surely the best thing to happen to community organizing since, well, the megaphone. And YouTube is the second best thing.

This election has provoked the creation of a ton of inspiring and clever videos, some made by "plain folks," all of which are more persuasive than the television ads put out by the candidates' campaigns. Take this excellent video spot from Election Protection:



Inspiration is great, but even more crucial has been the use of YouTube video to impart a boatload of information to a globe full of people in only 90 seconds:

Voter fraud v. election fraud

Do you understand the difference between "voter fraud" (a myth) and "election fraud" (sadly, a reality). Blogger Brad Friedman sums it all up in a mere 84 seconds.



Video your vote

Election Protection and other voter rights groups urge you to become videographers yourselves: If you have problems at the polls, video what is happening and upload it to YouTube, says Brad Friedman in this brief excerpt of an interview with Meet The Bloggers.

Technorati tags: advocacy: social justice, Election 2008, media: new: old: social, YouTube

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Voter suppression tactics: Know what you could be up against

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Greg Palast of Steal Back Your Vote have written a succinct account of the voter suppression methods to look out for. The short article in Rolling Stone magazine is called "Block the Vote: Will the GOP's campaign to deter new voters and discard Democratic ballots determine the next president?"

Read it online, or download a pdf version to give to your friends. If your friends aren't readers, tell them to watch Palast's behind the scenes video at Rolling Stone or this excellent video made by independent news organization truthout:





Or watch Bobby Kennedy Jr.'s 30-second public service announcement on YouTube:






Finally, Here's a page from the investigative comic book Kennedy refers to in the PSA: Palast's Steal Back Your Vote.

Also worth watching: Bobby Kennedy Jr.'s appearance on the Rachel Maddow show.

Technorati tags: Election 2008, Northeast Ohio, voting: rights: laws, YouTube

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Election 08: Ron Howard's Call to Action (with Opie, Andy & the Fonz)

Ron Howard's earnest -- and most excellent -- message: "Vote with your heart your mind and with courage and vision.



Or watch in situ on YouTube.

Technorati tags: pop culture, Election 2008, humor

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Here's why we still need feminism: Sarah Palin's bizarre cultural cache

[cue Twilight Zone music]

Consider if you will, a place outside our normal time and space... a land of both shadow and substance. You've just entered the post-feminist election zone ...

I just can't get my mind around the bizarre role gender politics is playing in the 2008 presidential election and the many faces of Sarah Palin. Here's what I mean:

In a Google Trends search I just ran, Sarah Palin turned up 3 times in the top 100 searches -- in three radically different guises: porn star, demagogue & wife.

Porn star

1. Her first appearance in the Google top 100 search terms is #42 nailin palin video, which references a report from the online entertainment industry rag TMZ.com:

Hustler Video is shooting a porn with a look-alike titled "Nailin' Paylin." The spelling is sic and so is Hustler. You betcha!

The faux Sarah is Lisa Ann, who "will be nailing the Russians who come knocking on her back-door." In another scene -- a flashback -- "young Paylin's creationist college professor will explain a 'big bang' theory even she can't deny!"

There's also a threeway with Hillary and Condoleezza look-alikes.

The video is in pre-production, but is being fast tracked for release before the election.

The problem isn't the porn; it's the fact that her public persona lends itself so easily to porn and other forms of parody. Where's the dignity in that? (I don't remember any porn films about Bella Abzug or Shirley Chisholm, do you?)

Seriously, I think we all learned from Bill Clinton that sexualizing your political image is ill-advised.

"Demagogue in a skirt"

2. In her second appearance on the top 100 search term is in reference to search term #80, demagogue, which is studded with links to stories like Sarah Palin -- A Demagogue in a Skirt and Palin the Ignorant Demagogue?. Looking at video of her rallies, it's easy to see her as a one-woman fascist movement, whose vague seemingly on-the-spot phrases ("in these wonderful little pockets of what I call the real America" ...


"all of you hard-working, very patriotic, very pro-America areas of this great nation") are in fact calculated, especially since she can't seem to really apologize for them.

Wifey

3. Palin next turns up in search term #83, palin cnn interview, which links to her interview today with CNN's Drew Griffin.

There's a lot to criticize in the interview, but let's focus for a second on her portrait of the Governor as "cherished wife." Asked if her husband's interference in Troopergate was an ethical violation, she purrs, "My husband did exactly, I think, what any sensible, reasonable father, husband would do who was concerned about their family's safety."

Figure o' fun

Two days ago, the Googleverse was rife with searches related to Palin's appearance on Saturday Night Live.

What boggles my mind is how Palin can possess acute social savvy while totally lacking self-awareness.

First, she's parodied on Saturday Night Live by Tina Fey -- who was able to make fun of her simply by repeating her word-for-word replies to Katie Couric.

Then, in the spirit of "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em, she makes a guest appearance on the show, treated like a VIP to restore her dignity. The scripted jokes about her are good, but not great.

They're hardly needed, however, since Palin's own inadvertent self-parody in interactions with Amy Poehler, Lorne Michaels & Alec Baldwin is so effective.

Remind me, which Sarah Palin is the one that's supposed to appeal to women voters?

P.S. If you want to see the McCain-Palin's "feminism" depicted with stark candor, you must watch Women for McCain:


(h/t: Write Like She Talks)

Technorati tags: gender: feminism, Election 2008, parody, YouTube

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