Hurston, Moses and the Responsibilities of Freedom

SUMMER BOOK REPORT
Moses, Man of the Mountain
Zora Neale Hurston

HERE CAME ZORA, to tell me a story I've heard thirty-three times and make it new. Moses, Man of the Mountain is the Exodus story, which I've heard each year on Passover, told in a 1930s southern African American voice. It's like Siddhartha's half-black half-Jewish cousin.

Hurston's biblical characters are not idealized. Aaron is flagrantly annoying; Miriam is bitterly asexual and petty (a far cry from the feminist hero of Debbie Friedman songs and lefty Haggadahs); Zipporah is kinda superficial; Pharoah is not an avataric demon, but a man flawed by grudges and pomposity. Moses is heroic, but in the manner of a real person: arguing with himself about the right things to do, mad at the feebleness of others, forever hated upon.


MOSES SUFFERS the burdens of leadership, and his poll numbers swing with the Israelites shifting fortunes. They are capable of idolizing him when things go well, but even happier to blame him when things go wrong, at which point they go on about how they were better off under Pharoah. Instead of assessing the man and what he has done or tried to do, they take a look around and wail,  He's in charge! And everything sucks! 

Leaders make sacrifices. Hair grays; privacy disappears and responsibilities never do. You might want to just go hoop with Malia or whatever, but the lives of other people are in your hands, and a true leader is acutely aware of the fact. For all the worry: you may never see the Promised Land.


THIS BOOK also concerns what my Bat Mitzvah speech rather bombastically called 'The Responsibilities of Freedom.' Much as a slave yearns to be free, and celebrates when freed, the moment of liberation is actually only the beginning of a rough climb. Just the unshackling is not freedom. The enslaved have been robbed of the opportunity to grow minds and wills of their own; the Israelites spent forty years in the desert battling to become free selves before they could enter the Promised Land.

Hurston writes:

[Moses] found out that no man can make another free. Freedom was something internal...All you could do was to give the opportunity for freedom and the man himself must make his own emancipation. He remembered how often he had had to fight Israel to halt a return to Egypt and slavery. Responsibility had seemed too awful to them time and time again.

THAT IS also a perfect example of how Hurston wrote. She chose simple words when fancy ones were not needed. Her version of the Exodus helped me think about two peoples, hers and mine, and the struggles they have faced in that long desert between Egypt and the Promised Land.

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Haters Never Prosper and Obama Totally Deserves the Nobel

You see the hate
That they servin on a platter
So what we gon have
Dessert
Or disaster
--KW

I KNOW WHAT you're thinking. This post is worthlessly untimely; no one cares about a stale opinion. But the blogosphere (what an icky word) gets its parasitic bad rap from all the half-baked, loudly-shrieked opinions that are its burden to publish.

A mind as nimble as inhabits the skull of Frank Rich can dash out brilliant analysis on cue. Paulie's pundit crush, Sully, for another example, had these wise words on the subject of Obama's Nobel immediately. But we can't all be that quick smart.

Better, perhaps, for the rest of us, to think well and then say. Which is something op-ed writers get irritated at Obama for doing. (Maybe because they are deadline-stalked op-ed writers who lack the luxury.) But those radass speeches don't birth themselves overnight; insight requires time and meditation. We could probably stand, as a nation, to slow down and think a little.

The way Obama models this behavior itself qualifies him for a Nobel. I'm not even old enough to know when we became such a fidgety society, always thumbing our electronics, greedy for new inputs. We're unaccustomed and uncomfortable having to wait for anything. But Heinz teaches that the best things come to those who do.

I'll collectively insult us further (I love you all, individually, rest assured) and say we Americans tend to be lazy and only want the sure thing. Obama inspires us to instead reach for greatness. He defies, and makes us want to defy, the pull to spare ourselves the potential pain and humiliation of the whole risk-taking thing.

Haters say he hasn't *done anything*.

Yeah. Except make the whole world believe anything is possible. Slacka-ass-slacka. How much you wanna bet those same weenies saying, What were you thinking, Nobel Committee? were partying hard on election night.


HOW QUICKLY WE forget the unprecedented number of--in Wire terms--plates of shit this guy was handed. Our nation was more royally fucked than it has been in generations and we're peeved he hasn't fixed it in a year.

Sure, there is all-important Policy (see Gene for that), but there is also something intangible and arguably larger. It's called leadership. And he's got it. I have great confidence in Obama's ability to solve the world's problems, because he knows how to wield soft power. His biracial talent for straddling worlds makes him a peacemaker on a grander, subtler scale. I know Obama has made missteps, and he is a politician. But I fully believe he can achieve greatness if we just give the guy some time and a chance.

I would add to Gene's list of rookie year accomplishments the shift Obama has engendered in our national mood. Damned if black people aren't on average cheerier, even if they won't admit it. (And I can't think of an American population more deserving of cheer.) Everyone I know who worked seriously on the campaign was subsequently inspired to aim their lives more toward what Zora Neale Hurston called "far horizon." And when I say Obama makes everyone believe anything is possible--well, I might be projecting. If you doubt this mood shift theory, just try the following exercise: Close your eyes and say to yourself, Bush isn't president. Obama is president. Did your shoulders ease down a bit from that tense position around your neck? I thought they might.


FAIRY TALES ARE a gas to watch, but substantially less fun to live. Political fairy tales are especially hard on the actors, seeing as how they must play out on a huge public stage. Just ask Howard Dean and George McGovern how they feel re: this. Presidential politics is ripe for life-ruining humiliation.

In Protestant work ethic-y America, there is perhaps no greater humiliation than to be exposed as a hopeless dreamer--which is of course ironic considering the whole "American Dream" thing. We love dreams, so we hate them; desire and derision as conjoined twins. (On this see also black people's initial mass rejection of Obama. Note that he is black now.)

But he did it. He had the Nobel balls. He put his own life on the line for us. You know, like Jesus.


SOMETIMES YOU have to keep your own time. Which I think our president understands. He is wise enough to know that when you brood quietly and wait to speak, people listen when you finally do. And that when you stand your own firm ground, rather than swaying reedlike with the winds of polls and pundits, people believe in your leadership.* As well they should.

The truth behind the heaping criticism may be that we are so scarred--not only from the raw gash wounds of the Bush years, but from the thousand cuts inflicted by politicians who perennially abused our trust--that we would be suspicious of next man, good as he looks, no matter what.


*Triple mixed-metaphor word score.

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Quotation for Election Tuesday

Tell him I'm doin fine
Obama for mankind
We ready for damn change
So y'all let the man shine

--Young Jeezy, "My President"


Can't believe the election was a year ago. In his mutterings at the end of this song, Jeezy also says to Barack, "You motivate us; you motivate thugs," which I find very sweet.

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Oh Yeah: Obama

Why am I so weird that I stopped thinking about Mr. Forty-Fourth President Barack Obama for like eight months? Why do I do that?

The election was so overwhelming that truly I had to return to my own life once it was over. And then too the country was such a mess. I wanted to let him clean up whilst I took the liberty of looking away from the icky scrubdown process. Now things are tidied enough that I can stand to pay attention.

I expected that after the inauguration I would wake up each morning with a song in my heart and continuous CSPAN on my TV. But I never did watch CSPAN, not until recently, when I flipped to what turned out to be that town hall about health care, the unfortunate one in Colorado, when he started hedging on the public option.

This ought to have been a particularly painful viewing experience for me, because when it comes to this shit, I am finally one of what Chris Matthews calls 'people with needs.' As in, I need health care. I work part time and don't get health insurance. (Plog ≠ work.) So, you know, I actually personally need a public option.

And yet: I can't stay mad at him. No, scratch that. I can't even so much as get mad at him for one second. I'm not one of those practical lefty people who get all *disappointed* when he lets the climate change bill get watered down. Because he is so much a personal hero, and I am such a dork. All I can do is listen in rapt admiration when he speaks, savoring that favorite debunking construction of his: the notion that somehow. When he breaks that out, you know it's time to gleefully tear down some criticism or other.

As:

"The notion that somehow just by having a public option you have the entire private marketplace destroyed is just not borne out by the facts."

Or the oldie but favoritie:

"The notion that somehow not talking to countries is punishment to them -- which has been the guiding diplomatic principle of this administration -- is ridiculous."

Lord knows there need to be people riding his ass about everything he's doing wrong. It's just not gonna be me. I'm about the unconditional presidential love.

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Sonia from the Block

This morning President Obama nominated Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. Her acceptance speech follows.


Don't be fooled by the robes that I got
I'm still, I'm still
Sonia from the block
Used to have a little now I have a lot
But no matter where I go I know where I came from
(South South Bronx)

Projects to Princeton
So yeah I do it well
No wonder Barack loves me
I'm like brown Michelle
Second circuit New York City
Court of Appeals
And saved baseball for my public
Cause I keep it on the reals

Don't be fooled by the robes that I got
I'm still, I'm still
Sonia from the block
Used to have a little now I have a lot
But no matter where I go I know where I came from
(South South Bronx)

I'll be up in the Senate
Judiciary hearings
Pink tracksuit, low bun
And the fat hoop earrings
Singing tracks from West Side Story
Every stereotype
Boricua from the Bronx
That's what Supreme looks like

Don't be fooled by the robes that I got
I'm still, I'm still
Sonia from the block
Used to have a little now I have a lot
But no matter where I go I know where I came from
(South South Bronx)

President Obama's verse:
You want to block her confirmation, Jon Kyl from Arizona?
All the Mexicans in your Senate district
Think they'll still be votin for ya? (Na-ah)
Picked the first Latino, yeah you didn't think of that
Whip is playin checkers
Ha-haa! I'm playin chess

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In the Healing Waters of Nodrambama

Obama was like the jeans we tried on at the store in a skinnifying mirror and thought, wow, these jeans are perfect and will make me whole. Thus the inevitable flood of buyer's remorse when they were but jeans. The very finest, perhaps, but still: jeans. Working with what they've got. Incapable of miracles.

But perhaps now we are settling in. Obama has been through the wash a couple times and we are beginning to think he wears quite well after all. We still have our fat little gams and entrenched casino capitalism, but he is trying to show us our best national self--as we are now and as we could be.

Compare it to the Bush era and you'll realize what a warm bath this new political atmosphere is. We've been through quite an ordeal, and are not at all well, but we finally get to soak in Epsom salts and essential oils and begin the healing. It's that turning point in a cold when you know you're starting to get better and all you have to do is tend yourself, enjoy the hot soup and let healing proceed apace.

Our shoulders can finally fall from that tense position we had been holding them in since circa 2001, because, really: we are in good hands. We can be children dozing in the back seat as Barack and Michelle drive us home, soothed by the murmurs of their voices talking about grown-up things.

How's this for soothing:

Mr. Obama has begun to sketch a vision of where he would like to drive the economy once this crisis is past. His goals include diminishing the consumerism that has long been the main source of growth in the United States, and encouraging more savings and investment. He would redistribute wealth toward the middle class and make the rest of the world less dependent on the American market for its prosperity. And he would seek a consensus recognizing that an activist government is an acceptable and necessary partner for a stable, market-based economy.

We are still keyed up from Bush times, adapted to all the fussing and fighting. It can be hard to recognize the progress we've already made toward the promised land of No Drama: the stable good intentions, the reasoned decision-making. The economy has not gotten worse in a while. The White House lawn has a food garden. Gay marriage laws are quietly passing and in the current climate no one quite wants to be the bigot to object. The president does a bro handshake with Hugo Chavez and Fox wants to whip up a froth, but those days are done. Obama smiles with his big teeth, lets it blow over.

And the dangerous metaphor-mixing experiment is now complete.

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Wow, America, so all it took for you to be into your president again was for him to go out on the world stage and flirt with some other countries? Old Europe lines up to blow him and suddenly you're like, "I got it!" Entire editorial pages of eager fellation. Those nose hairs and the porcupiney technocrat he picked for Treasury aren't bothering you quite so much now. Mmhmm. Relationships 101 trick right there.

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Obama Doubt, Multipliers

I kind of love when people freak out about Obama. The cycles of rising hope and creeping doubt are as predictable as moon phases, and it's fun to watch columnists and pundits churn through another cranky round of PMS, knowing Obama will stay steady and not give a fuck.

A glance at NYT op-eds tells the tale. There's MoDowd making a point of roughing up the president, as she does periodically to prove her crush is not blinding. David Brooks' honeymoon is over--but then he cycles through the Obemotions so fast that no one cares anymore. Paul Krugman secretly resents Obama; read between the lines. (Is it because he's not the president's favorite bearded elfconomist?)

Doubts about Obama have a strong multiplier effect--which is what a stimulus plan is supposed to have. In addition to following the Obamalove tides, a recession-era amusement which I invite you to enjoy is watching Mike Pence (R-Ind.) and his frat brothers in both houses contorting into pretzels trying not to ratify Keynesian economic theory and still avoid blame for national ruin.

Pence cried about the stimulus plan last week, "It included wasteful government spending that has nothing to do with creating jobs!!!!" (My quadruple exclamation.)

Conservatives are into listing things in the stimulus plan that they think are ludicrous. From a CBS News column: "Shipyards get $100 million in handouts; $400 million is diverted to 'farm ownership loans.' [Yeah, whatever that means.] Another $200 million goes to computer centers at community colleges... NASA and the National Science Foundation receive $2.3 billion."

Now I'm not going to go into how farm-ownership, community colleges and science are sort of hate-proof. Because that really isn't the point.

The real point is, it's a stimulus plan. You spend money on stuff; that's how it works. But Republicans pull this disingenuous shit, like, Condoms! schools! art! (ew, art is grossest of all)--what does any of that have to do with creating jobs?

Government spending on any damn thing creates jobs. It's money going out into the economy, buying goods and services and so necessitating hiring.

The hirees then have income to spend, even if they earn that income testing condoms or, worse, educating children. And that money goes out into the economy => more demand for goods and services => more hiring, more income => yet more demand for goods and services, and so on. The alternative is to invite Depression II by allowing the downward spiral of decreased consumer spending and decreased income to continue unabated. And there you have the Clebilicious Pocket Keynes.

The problem for Republicans is that if they acknowledge government spending stimulates the economy in this way, they forsake everything they ever said about the crystal clear purity of the free market. (They also hate anything they can call 'entitlement.' Poor people act so fucking entitled.)
Their pretzely solution is to pretend tax cuts are a stimulus, because tax cuts get the Reagan stamp of approval. This fails on two counts. Republicans get caught acknowledging the concept of economic stimulus, and they also promote an inferior stimulus mechanism. Spending is what stimulates the economy; only a portion of tax cuts become spending, not the whole. When government spends directly, all of it (duh) becomes spending. It's like not believing in birth control but deciding to use some stupid contraceptive sponge just in case.

And about that other downward spiral, in Obama confidence, I agree with Bob Herbert that Obama is underestimated all too often. I think his stock still has room to climb.

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OBAMA: The 'Means to Me' Inaugural Essay

Since Obama won election, I have not been able to think about him. I had never hoped so hard and so outlandishly. To have those hopes realized was jarring, and caused some sort of processing error.

Through the year, the crazy dream became an ever greater possibility. What if it became absolute reality? All the heartwrenching suspense, a year of thrill mixed with angst, would be over. The effect, I thought, would be calming. I would walk out into the sunshine with open arms. But instead: system overload. I could not think about Obama as president. If I did, my head would explode.

The thing to do was shut down and restart. For me, as for any ardent supporter, the intensity was a sickness and it overwhelmed everything. The Obama-ascent-to-the-presidency narrative inevitably overpowered that of my own piddling life. In the election's aftermath I sought to correct the balance; I made Barack Obama a minor character. The transition seemed like a good time to leave him the hell alone, anyway. Give the guy some space to figure out the eight million problems of the world without us clinging to or picking at him. I would save the hot stone massage of thinking about him as president for later.

But the inauguration is now. And I haven't thought about it.

So what's so great about him becoming president? Attempts to sum up the answer objectively tend to fall back on "first black president." That is a huge, wonderful part, but not the whole. For most of us, he's also our first awesome president. (The meaning of "president" has been diminished lately, and I'm not just talking about Bush.)

No use trying to coldly analyze his greatness, right here in the moment. Instead, we should each write a fifth grade-style essay called "What Obama Means to Me." Mine goes a little something like this. (Hit it.)


I grew up in a lefty household and I thought of politics like cultish religion or hard core sports fandom. Something where you're really into your team and the other team is affiliated with the devil. You love to win and hate to lose, but like to moan about losing (and lefties have long been proud, moaning losers.) But belief in the team is what matters. Anyone on your team is instant kin; members of other teams are aliens. Your entire worldview is team-filtered, and capped off by belief in a messianic age when lefty politics will dictate reality. This stale perspective did not, for me, include any notion of government policy as a means to practical ends. Sure, I knew that was technically possible. But I took for granted that politics was far too arcane and antiquey for actual use.

And the teamthink I imbibed as a red diaper baby is probably not unlike that of, say, a right-wing evangelical. Obama is right to say we've been a divided nation. We all have our teams, be they political, religious, cultural, regional. It's a big country and it's easy to slip into lazy disunity. But Obama has given 83% of us something to agree on: we like him.

Our president (you can say that now) insists that we shake up the whole league. He is not a teamthink type himself, which pisses off everyone on whose team he might otherwise be. He doesn't like to win and gloat or lose and rant. He doesn't care to have enemies. His political views basically jibe with mine and I don't fret over discrepancies because I trust his when judgment is called for. When he says "pragmatic," I swoon.

Obama is very modern in the way he is reflective, a man of emotional intelligence. He made a campaign appeal based on politics, but he also made an appeal to individuals as an individual, which is fitting for our open, hyper-communicative age. In the FDR era the president was a crackling voice coming through the radio, and a leader could present himself in broad strokes. (Roosevelt even hid his paralysis from polio.) Today we get such an intimate, high def picture, and slathering on the PR won't help. We can see the pancake makeup and what's underneath.

Obama is healthy and unwrinkled. He doesn't have much to hide and he knows how to artfully maintain boundaries of privacy while giving us a peek at his soul. He lets us look at--or up to--him, but he doesn't fiend for attention like a typical narcissistic pol.

Surely it is unprecedented for Americans to know their president so well. We know him from his writing (we maniacs do, anyway), but also from his open speaking habits. In both, he takes care to express himself with precision. The fact that this person whose insides we roughly understand is also our president, our representative in the world, is both confusing and exhilarating. It can be a little mindfuck, like: Barack? Don't I know that guy? What's he doing with all these big people? Oh yeah, he's president.

To the extent I feel like I know him myself, it's also because he seems so plausibly like a part of my world. His multiculti sensibilities, his cool/nerd dichotomy, his penchant for self-improvement, the rigor of his relationship with Michelle, the kinds of jokes he makes ("My greatest strength I guess it would be my humility. Greatest weakness, it's possible that I'm a little too awesome") all make him seem like someone I might know if I was just two tads cooler myself. He's aspirational that way. I want to be awesome too.

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HOT IN '09: Five Trends to Hope to Watch

#5
"African African Americans"

Immigrants from the Motherland! Debra Dickerson cumbersomely calls them "African African Americans" (or "not black" for short) but I call them just the Rx for America's endlessly smoldering racial problems! When Akon sang, We takin over, that was literal. Blurring racial lines, confusing our stereotypes, staking their claim to hip hop, keeping those parking garages humming (advanced stereotype alert), bumping Asian-Americans for the model minority title, growing their numbers by the day and, now--in their ultimate triumph--ruling our nation, "African African Americans" are poised to have the Best Year Ever. Which city boasts most of them? See below.


#4
Economics

Keynes is back and multiplyinger than ever. While a boon to the nation, this is rather a shame for me personally, having sent my econ degree to the shredder for the sake of my "dreams" of *writing*. Fortunately, the president-elect has more love for the Evans building at Cal than I could ever muster, tapping ShawtyLo Tyson, Xtina Romer and Elfconomists cliquemember Robert Reich as advisers. Expect bearded ones Ben Bernanke, Dean Baker and Paul Krugman to play the swashbuckling heroes as we ford the recession rapids.





#3

The Female Gaze

2008's "Sexiest Man Alive" had to earn it like women do: by submitting to relentless, humiliating objectification. The movie Australia was one big advertisement for Hugh Jackman's ass, culminating in an oiled-chest camera pan for the ages. Here's hoping it's a trend. The way Robin Thicke tweezes eyebrows and Game cultivates biceps and Andy Samberg bares flesh (the lovable/fuckable way, not Chris Farley gross-for-laughs style) it may well be. Americans don't really have the will to neuter popular culture, even if we complain it's oversexed. The alternative remedy is to flip the script and let women in on the ogling. Men may end up deciding that being an object can kind of suck and we'll all reach some happy compromise. At any rate, the terribly unfair slob husband:hot wife nineties sitcom construct is dead and Seth Rogen must hit the gym before he's assed out.

#2
Gayness

The recent rise in gay activism and acceptance is sure to bring more folks bounding out of the closet in 2009. LiLo and Wanda Sykes? Missy, Anderson: it's time! This is a gay-in-the-sense-of-joyous shift for all, as it increases the homosexual dating pools and excises closeted gays from the straight dating pool. Healthy housekeeping for both populations. A nationwide upsurge in happy relationships is sure to result.

#1
DC: The Place to Be
Don't just think of the Obamas. Think of the small army of smart-but-cool young people moving in to staff the guvment. New York is so inhumane; LA: so superficial. In 2009, DC is The Capital. And if we can't be in DC, we'll try to be DC. Picture celebs at red carpets with fake Secret Service escorts and politics bars playing nonstop CSPAN. We're all going to be calling our transit systems the Metro and clamoring for taxation without representation. Cherry blossoms are the it flower this spring, so order your bareroot saplings now. And get ready for more of the Backyard Band rapper who played Slim Charles on The Wire, because in aught-nine we're hearing nothing but go-go.

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Narratives That Proved Ridonkulous

Of course he can't win. He's not even fighting for it! Because he's a wussilicious Obambi. And anyway the DemDream candidate loses to the machine Dembot. Or, if one sneaks past the nominating process, he's headed for cautionary tale status via a Republican creaming. Only lame Southern DLCers can win.

His only appeal is to suckers for gauze. Serious lefty people see him for the bland centrist he is. John Edwards is the true progressive candidate, keeping it real with his grit, morals, affinity for the common man and marital fidelity.

Chris Matthews squandered all credibility with his JFK comparisons and the thrill up his leg.

He's too black. He's not black. Black people reject him because he's fake black. Also white people secretly hate him but they don't want you to know. Also Latinos kinda don't like black people, so count them out. He's like way too weird and complicated and Americans need a bland story in red, white and blue tacked to their candidates. And don't count on those *young people* who'll be like oops I was fucking around online and I totally forgot to vote.

Caucuses are undemocratic. They don't count. Also small states. Don't count. He can't win big states like New York and California. He can't compete in crucial battlegrounds like Michigan, Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania. He can't close the deal. Superdelegates, that's the thing. Superdelegates!

You have to be fucking kidding me. Just in general.

The Rust Belt is the realness. You can't expect to get anywhere with all these fakey rainbow Americans. The Rusty people will be bitter over "bitter." The pantsuit posse will defect. And I mean, I'm not racist, but I'm just saying, like, some people are. You know what I mean.

Fifty-state whategy? Please. Cut it out. Perhaps you've heard of a certain looooser named Howard Dean. Oh yeah, he'll win in the South. Sure. Why not. The skies will open, the light will come down, celestial choirs will be singing and blue paint will spill across this great nation. You just try that. McCain has scars and experience. You can't put this flimsy hoper up against that.

He should be more tough and less celebry and more wonkish and less wonkish and stand up, stand up, stand up and fight. Oh shit, Sarah Palin! That's it. It's over. Sarah Palin and her magic. Biden? Gaffe factory. Sure to ruin shit. And BO-ring. Sarah's got that spark.

And too you know we're a center-right nation, betcha. Those for-reals Americans they don't like the taxing and the socialisting and you know he's not, I'm trying to be nice about this but he's not one of us. I'm not even sure in what way, but he's just not, somehow or other.

He might be ahead because of the financial crisis, but McCain will sweep in and fix that. He might be ahead in the polls, but that doesn't mean...you might not know this, but there's a thing called the Bradley effect. You also might not know about the Republican 36-hour get-out-the-vote machine.

Also, he can't close the deal.

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Oakland for Obama II: In Which We Lose Our Shit

*DOUBLE UPDATED*

In the end, it wasn't close.

I hope I'll find the words soon. This was all we could do last night. (Don't miss the video clips.)

Written up here.

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Oakland for Obama

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In Which I Meander Aimlessly

I'm too scattered at the mo for a solid-topic post. For one thing, the election is near and for another, I'm being asked to 'do things' during my afternoon serenity time, aka my reception job. So that sucks. How's a girl to plog?


Even with Obama ahead, I'm plagued by fears. But my fears about the election are trite. Let me share with you another fear: that "Love Lockdown" will worm its way into my heart. When Mr. West rolled it out last month, "Love Lockdown" was generally agreed to be a debacle. Kanye's singing was ear-splitting, the beat was a woeful rough draft--even Auto-Tune threw up its hands in despair. After humiliating himself at the VMAs, Yeezy was supposedly 'working on it,' but the radio release was no better. We all laughed schaudenfreudistically. The mighty shall fall. But I fear that Kanye, in his beat-making all-knowingness, has put one over on us. That weeks from now we'll all have to admit that it's good after all. That fear is nourished by the fact that "Love Lockdown" is in my head right now.


Paulie James Walnuts III had his final vet follow-up (following up on his recent brush with death) this morning and he's in excellent form. But we knew he was better when he resumed being a total dick and paragon of self-involvement. The other day, I got him purring just by taking a long series of photographs while he moved from one sultry pose to the next. And that's not personification; it really happened. Results of the photoshoot to come. I'll promise you some pix of the chickens and harvest pr0n while I'm at it.


I'm in a weird frozen state vis-a-vis the election. Maybe I hope that if I just freeze and don't think about anything too much, the rest of the world will also freeze and we'll defrost on November 5th in a deep blue map ocean.


Also, Lupe Fiasco has finally decided to get over himself and spare a verse for an Obama-ey song.

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It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like February

Remember last February when Obama won the Virgin Islands primary by damn near 100% and then took Nebraska and Louisiana and Washington and Maine (that other lady was supposed to win Maine; remember her?), dominated the Potomac Primaries, killed it in Hawaii and made Wisconsin the cherry on top? There was a lot of bullshitting about superdelegates and big states, but a still, small voice began to tell me he was winning.

It was wonderful. It was terrifying. Because that was when my hopes really started to get themselves up. That was when my horserace-news addiction became crippling.

And here we are again. He's plainly ahead and they're running out of field. As then, the terror abides--because deargod, if he loses now. (It will be my fault, first of all, for the useless plogging and cable news consumption, time stolen from hypothetical activist campaign pursuits.)

But I'm only emphasizing the fears because of yet another fear: that I'll look like a jackass later if he loses. Of course, Obama knows better than anyone the dangerous dance of hope and fear. And now I sound like a jackass already, so what do I have to fear.

February was when the Obama campaign strategists started to look like geniuses and Hillary Clinton's campaign was caught with its thumb up its ass. And now? Remember all the chortling a month ago about how the "new map" is the same as the old map and the fifty state strategy is naive and he might as well pull out of North Carolina too? Haven't heard that in a few. He is inching ahead in the Stamey's Barbecue State. That irritating buzzing noise from everyone giving Obama stupid advice has gotten a lot quieter.

The accepted narrative is that it's all about the economic shitstorm, but I don't fully buy it. Obama's greater personal appeal, his calm presidential demeanor, his not being a Republican at a time when we're cowering in a collective national fetal position after eight years of Republican funtimes had to matter eventually. Not to mention his campaign's superior ground tactics. Or their superior (which is to say existent) overall strategy. And hell yeah he knows the difference.

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Palin With Pizza, Yum

I better say what I have to say about Sarah Palin now, because the narrative could easily change at the debate tonight. (Watching it at the Parkway with pizza, I hope.)

First, I can't stay focused on how "dangerous she is for this country" now that Obama's back up in the polls. That's partly because it's hard to take her seriously--the Dubya Paradox--and partly because she's such a great character. For maximum clarity, I'm not saying she has character, but that she is one. Taken together, the moose-hunting, the beauty pageants, the First Dude on his champion "snow machine," the preggers daughter, the son off to war, the Down Syndrome baby half-birthed on a plane, the updo and glasses "pr0n secretary" look (which I'm sporting for debate day), the readily-imitable voice, the religious nuttery--it's just so rich.

Second, I think the McCain campaign was mistaken in thinking a woman in politics could get away with being transparently dumb. Women have to pass a higher threshhold to be taken seriously. (As a black person, Barack Obama does too, but he's such a superbrain that it's a nonissue and we forget all about it.) George Bush, in the early years, used masculine swagger to make up the deficit in confidence created by his obvious dumbness. Palin isn't getting off so easy.

Incidentally, I saw clips from a 2000 Bush speech and was astonished at the difference between then and now. The man is a dehydrated water balloon. It's hard to remember how virile and scary he once seemed. As with Palin, as soon as they become cowering and meek instead of pathetic but powerful, you almost want to pity them. But then you just tell that to some baby boomer and they'll be more than happy to scold you on how dangerous ruining this country right wing nuts believe dinosaurs caused global warming and so forth.

And to all those who made contribs to Planned Parenthood in Palin's name, I'd like to thank you for my delightful pap last week.

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Zogt Dein Bubbe: Votn Obama!

Shanah Tovah! This is timely, from my imaginary cousin Sarah:

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Biden: Snap, She Called It

Hot damn, my political predictions are good. I hate to brag (no, I take that back: I love to brag), but I made reference to an Obama/Biden ticket back in...wait for it...wait for it...December! the year 2007 (albeit the waning hours thereof)!!


Wait, was anybody talking about Biden as VP at that time? Wasn't Biden still running himself? Wasn't Barack still pie in the sky? No, yes and yes!!


Uh! Suck it, real commentators!


And I hate to turn the knife here (okay, I actually don't hate to), but I also nailed John Edwards, much like he nailed a lady who was not his long-suffering wife. Here I am, calling out his weasely nature, in the same post.


Now I just need to never predict anything and I'll stay two for two.

I'm very pleased with the Biden pick. (Since, you know, my view on the subject is desperately sought.)


Joe Biden made stupid racial comments at the outset about Obama, totally disregarding the Let's Not Be Racist! Basics Manual, which explicitly discourages use of the word "articulate" when complimenting a black person. (Not to mention "clean".) And he has made other dubious remarks, Indian people, quickie marts, etc. So, he might be a little bit racist, it's true.


However, prior to the Cleb shitlisting he faced with those comments, I held him in high esteem. He seems to have been an effective legislator throughout his triple-decade senate career. And I think he shares with Obama a fervent urge to keep it real. I've been struck every time I've seen him interviewed on TV (okay, probably just once, on The Daily Show) by the normal sound of his voice. He doesn't have a whiny politician accent.


I find that telling. I think when Obama repeats over and over that Biden rides the train home to Delaware each night, he has a point. Biden, for all his long senate service, is not a politicobot. He's recognizably human.


Plus he sent me this cute email with subject "Hello."

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Tevye Was Right

Bob Herbert's NYT column last week opened with a Fiddler on the Roof quote, which I appreciate, because I always appreciate when black people poach culture from us Jews. It all too often works the other way.

The quote from Tevye was this: “We haven’t got the man ... we had when we began.” And Herbert was referring to Obama.

Oh, how I'd prefer to pretend that Obama isn't blatantly lame-ing around these days.

I don't have cable this summer and was planning a nice vacay from thinking about the election. Overall, it was a sound plan. Most of what I see Anderson Cooper silently mouthing while I'm on the Precor I can deduce from the closed captions is pretty inane. The New Yorker cover, Jesse Jackson's "nuts" comments--it's interesting, but I won't feel uninformed not knowing it. (Were I Obama, I would have responded: Now I got the world swingin from my nuts/Damn it feels good to be a gangster.)

Anyway, much as I'd like to deny it, Herbert, and everyone else complaining about Obama's faith-based retroactive telecomm immunity Iraq backpedaling, has a point. Obama is disappointing us and I'd rather avoid it. I expect him to cool out again, and I'm just biding my time, hoping against any severe letdown.

It sounds fun to be a screw-you-lefties pragmatist, but my heart's not in it. I don't think Obama's is either.

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Black President: Naspacbama

Made me weep. There's no actual video. Just scroll down and look at "The Pound Seen Round the World" pic below while you listen.

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