Obama and the Nobel Peace Prize – EH 101 blog post #3

I know many folks believe that Obama should not have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. President Obama is one of those people. But once awarded the prize, I don’t see how he could have rejected it. No matter what the brouhaha, I think the Nobel Academy’s choice demonstrates Europe’s (and the world’s) immense disgust with the Bush administration and their relief that the U.S. now has a chance to redeem itself and do the right thing — that is, pay attention to the rest of the world. I don’t think the Obama administration has done enough to promote peace in the world — there’s much more to do. But they’ve made a start.

fox channel & guns?

Family Guy is on here at 8pm. I don’t usually watch, but my son’s friends said it was new, and I thought I’d check it out last night. Right before there was a quick spot — I keep thinking I must have been seeing things — but it showed a picture of Obama and then a couple people (at least one white female) in a gun store and the voiceover said something like, “Fox reports that gun sales are up after Democratic sweep of nation.” I’m not sure the piece was even 30 seconds, it was so quick. And I was stunned. I can’t believe what I saw. Has anyone else seen this spot? I’ll be checking today to see if I can find it anywhere online. I keep thinking what I saw could not be real, so just forget it. But, no. Obama’s election has lanced the infection of racism and we’re going to see more backlash until things settle down. No one can afford to keep quiet about the good, the bad, and the ugly as we move forward.

anti-intellectualism is not a virtue

I woke up this morning thinking that on some levels, the state of our nation is due to rampant anti-intellectualism. So let me just say this: It is not OK to have a president who says, “This foreign policy stuff is a little frustrating”  (23 April 2002) and “Rarely is the questioned asked: Is our children learning?” (11 Jan.  2000). It is not OK to have a vice presidential candidate who thinks Africa is a country and not a continent or who believes the First Amendment guarantees the press will not criticize her. Our educational system continues to slip further and further into a pedagogy that fails to inspire and challenge our students. Reform tends to focus on K-12, but I think our colleges and universities need to be rethought — fundamentally. The teachers who work in the K-12 system graduate from these colleges and universities. Why should K-12 change when the places that educate the teachers and administrators keep up the status quo of mediocrity?

now the work begins

So, we have a starting point. This night. We have possibility. We have a field wide open for creative solutions. We have challenges. Tonight is for celebration. Tomorrow we roll up our sleeves. How far back can we push the divisiveness, small-mindedness, ignorance, poverty, hopelessness, and hatred? Just how much transformation are we willing to build?

a moment in the balance

What a strange evening. My teeth hurt from a very long overdue cleaning — I’ve felt strange all day long and a bit out of it. Now I’m getting antsy. I couldn’t even sit through the SNL Presidential Bash 08 special — nothing’s funny right now. I want to get to the polls at 7 in the morning. I don’t expect lines at my polling place, but to be on the safe side… I teach three one-hour-and-twenty-minute freshman comp. classes back-to-back tomorrow, and I don’t know how I’m going to concentrate.

Our nation hangs in the balance. Maybe there isn’t that much difference between Republicans and Democrats these days, but I know I want the party that does not rely on racism, ethnocentrism, xenophobia, jingoism, and lies. I think there is one huge chasm separating these two campaigns and these two tickets.

I want to wake up Wednesday morning with the outcome that will steer us towards our better selves.

voting fraud – West Virginia

Articles about vote flipping in West Virginia are easily available: The Charleston Gazette, Democracy Now. In an article from last May, we can read some of the history of voter fraud in West Virginia. Democracy Now headlines report harassment of Obama voters by McCain supporters in possible violation of the 1964 Voting Rights Act; reports of tires being slashed after an Obama rally also indicated violence. A report of the assault of a 58-year-old Obama volunteer by some guy in Wisconsin just has me wondering if we haven’t all lost our minds.

voting fraud – Latinos in Nevada

I may as well get going with this list of voting fraud. I’m going to post every time I read something. So here’s one — and a helluva read, too. Kamala Lopez tells us about Latino voters being told at a Nevada DMV that they just registered, when their voter registration was torn up if the voter indicated s/he was independent or voting for Obama. Read “Smells Like Republican Schadenfreude” and listen to Lopez’s powerful description of how a Latino/a voter might feel at the polls.

the seduction of anti-Arab rhetoric

I just read an article in The New York Review of Books authored by a group of regular contributors. This article, “A Fateful Election,” includes a segment by Joan Didion in which she discusses how the presidential campaign has distracted us from “the same intractable questions.” Didion argues that it’s easier to live in the fantasy world of the campaign than it is to confront our realities:

We could forget the 70 percent of American eighth graders who do not now and never will read at eighth-grade levels, meaning they will never qualify to hold one of those jobs we no longer have. We could forget that we ourselves induced the coma, by indulging the government in its fantasy of absolute power, wielded absolutely. So general is this fantasy by now that we approach this election with no clear idea where bottom is: what damage has been done, what alliances have been formed and broken, what concealed reefs lie ahead. Whoever we elect president is about to find some of that out.

Just so — it’s so much easier to target an enemy beyond than the enemy within. Enter the Arab. Kinda like the African. Lots of different countries, languages, cultures — but in the U.S.’s studied ignorance of the world (Global Studies Lite?), all we need is one composite terrorist Arab, and we’re good to go.

The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) has warned that targeting of Arabs and Arab Americans tends to increase as politicians cavalierly accept ethnocentric perspectives, such as McCain’s — when a rally participant accused Obama of being an Arab and McCain responded that, oh no — Obama is a decent family man — the only logical connection is that Arabs therefore cannot be decent or family men. Hmmm. The ADC has alerted folks to a recent attempt to stir up anti-Arab sentiment, which is the mass stuffing of newspapers (over 28 million) with the free DVD called Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West. I’ve got a copy and don’t really want to watch it — but I will.

sarah palin – monica lewinsky – SNL?

Hmmm. Where else have I seen this? Unknown woman goes down on man in power, gets spot on Saturday Night Live, almost fulfills dreams of becoming an actress (or at least a national phenomenon)? OK, so the analogy isn’t perfect. The symmetry wobbles. Sarah Palin did not go down on McCain, unless by “going down on” we mean disrespecting the older guy you’re hooked up with, smiling in public but in private just holding on till he kicks the bucket and you can inherit the house, the money, and the power.

Have I become a sexist bitch? No, I don’t think so. Would I be equally vitriolic had John McCain picked a running mate with the same qualities as Palin but just male? Now that’s a really good question. What would such a creature look like?

Meet Harris Nilap. He’s 6′ 3″ and brawny, former quarterback of the Pineapple Warriors from a small-town high school in Hawai’i. Nilap was born in NJ and his family moved to Hawai’i when he was eleven. He’s worked hard to erase any NJ from his language, and when rural folks from Alabama hear him speak at rallies, they swear he was born in their hometown. As governor of Hawai’i, he’s backed several English-only initiatives that have failed — but only by small margins. Nilap is known for stirring up his rallies with lines such as “Get the terrorist out of your language!” and “A pineapple and a gun in every kitchen!” Nilap’s capture of the governorship surprised those who knew his only experience for the job was sitting on the city council of a small town.  Others knew Nilap owed his success to the backing of a clandestine separatist group in Hawai’i composed of disgruntled emigres from the eastern 48 states. One of these supporters has a website featuring pictures of his fully armed underground Armageddon getaway.

Harris is a family kind of guy. He’s got nine children. Oops! That’s classified information. Four of those kids are unacknowledged and the moms have paternity suits pending in court. Harris is violently pro-family. Just ask his wife about the times she’s called the domestic abuse hotline. 

So — if Palin were a guy, would I be blogging so much about him-her? I dunno. There’s just something about opportunism, using politics for one’s own gain and glory, appealing to hatred and jingoism in crowds, criminal activity, hypocrisy — just something about those things that really bothers me. They’re worth blogging about.

Right now, I miss Nora Dunn. Remember when she boycotted SNL because of Andrew Dice Clay’s appearance? Both she and Sinead O’Connor protested his misogynist attempts at humor. During Palin’s bit last night on SNL, Alec Baldwin’s patter includes him saying he can’t believe SNL will have Palin on since she stands for everything they’re against…are these empty words? Oh, yeah. It’s all about ratings. I wonder — were there any SNL folks who walked away feeling just a little bit dirty…

now it’s up to us

God bless Bob Schieffer for offering the most substantive and courageous questions so far, and for keeping Obama and McCain on track! The debates are over. Now, it’s up to us to vote. I love how Schieffer ended: “As my Mom always used to say, ‘Now go and vote. It’ll make you feel strong and proud.’” I’ve probably misquoted but it was something like that.

McCain was condescending and insulting again. And he lied … again. I liked Obama’s precision. His response to McCain’s accusation about Obama’s not supporting the Columbian free trade agreement and his response to the accusation that he didn’t vote for the law that protected the child born out of an abortion — precise, clear, reasonable responses that revealed facts: the Columbian free trade agreement didn’t protect protesting workers, but he did vote for the Peruvian free trade agreement; there was already a law on the books to protect the child born from an abortion so that law was unnecessary. This shows the extent to which McCain distorts and lies.

Shields’ comment about Obama’s ”eerie” calmness was weird. Brooks gave McCain too much credit. Maybe I just need to remember to turn off TV right when the debates end. Ah, well.