Posts by Danielle
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Hitchens actually gives the page numbers from Audacity of Hope to support the shallowness of his beliefs
I'd believe Hitchens' opinions on Obama right after I started believing that the Rolling Stones were better than the Beatles. (That's never, Stones fans.) I read that piece earlier today and thought that it contained a thoroughly meanspirited characterisation of a speech that was anything but. I can't wait to read the actual pages of The Audacity of Hope and see how Hitchens has managed to cherrypick his way to an argument for 'shallowness'.
Besides, you guys can't have it both ways: he's either 'shallow', in which case he doesn't believe anything, including what Wright says (so: awesome! What are we worried about?); or he's deeply involved in the church, in which case he's closely tied to Wright (so: bad. But hang on, it's not 'shallow', which therefore makes it: awesome!). Which is it?
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As one thing God didn't endow me with was long-range telepathy, I have no idea about the depth and sincerity of the religious sentiments of either Senator Clinton or Senator Obama.
I'm glad you said this, because... for goodness' sake. This 'sincerity' thing is between a person and their deity, surely? Plus if Obama was attending church to advance his career, wouldn't he choose a completely uncontroversial congregation, as Craig noted? Picking the church of an Afro-centric liberation theologist hasn't exactly panned out brilliantly for him politically this year, has it?
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just leaving them untreated for years, when there were effective treatments available.
An 'unfortunate experiment'...
I'm as squeamish as the next person about preachers and the invisible bearded dude in the sky, but they're just a fact of life in US politics. And everyone knows that progressive movements in the USA have often used Christianity as an inspiration, so it's not all hatemongering. In any case, I think Obama distanced himself perfectly adequately from Wright's most extreme views, while eloquently explaining why Wright might hold them.
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Even if you don't think the speech got Obama off the hook over his former pastor's unfortunate raving
Maybe I'm a communist or something, but I don't think Jeremiah Wright's preaching inhabited Crazyville. It was on Slightly Unbalanced Highway to Dodgytown with the HIV stuff (although: Tuskeegee, people), but really, the rest of it was pretty mild. Even 'God damn America', in context, makes perfect sense to me. (Plus there is a fairly clear double standard operating here: Wright is OMG TEH ANGRY BLACK MAN!, but all those religious-right pastors who are friends with the Republicans and blame terrorist attacks on Americans allowing feminism and liberalism to run amok are just loveable kooks?)
I think what was so great about that speech was the way it transcended the 'gotcha!' dumbassness of the US political process, and said 'wait. Let's do this differently'. And at the same time, he managed to talk about the way race has been used to make working-class people vote against their own self-interest. And, wonderfully, he didn't avoid the fact that we all know people who say dodgy things, and that distancing yourself from those people and yelling 'you're a racist!' doesn't help anyone or anything to change.
Basically, the more I read that speech, the more I love it. I think I might be a fangirl.
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Re Focus: argh! Yodelling, scatting, one of those long-thumbnail-guitarist-douchey-guys, *and* the drummer who thinks he's Gene Krupa! I hurt.
(Weirdly, though, it kind of made me want to listen to the Doobie Brothers. What does this mean?)
I saw Ray Davies on his storytelling tour some years ago in Houston. He was really engaging. He also played 'Waterloo Sunset'. I feel privileged.
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I can't be the only person who now wants to insert the word 'fuck' into every. single. post. I make here.
(OK, maybe I am. Yeah, I know, I know, this is probably a sign of some deep-seated mental problem.)
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Obama's chief speech writer, is Jon Favreau.
I just read in Newsweek that Obama wrote the speech himself. (I'm sure Favreau helped him, but still... pretty impressive.)
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that era is just a bit of an anomaly
Oh, I think Clinton was a badass speaker too. By 'era' I'm just talking about the latest dude. Seven-plus years is a long enough goddamned time to listen to the dubious vocal stylings of George W. Bush.
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But it is a beautifully written and balanced attempt to take a much loftier view of the issue, while framing it in words that all sides of the divide can (should?) understand.
I am so pathetically grateful to have someone running for president who can carry off a speech that moving, and complex, and historically aware, and generally awesome. Just reading it makes me teary-eyed. The era of ridiculous simplistic repetitiveness in presidential speechmaking can't end soon enough.
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his celebrity pals might want to stop giving outfits like Harry Winston free publicity every awards season until they clean up their acts
Oh, Craig. Don't you know that 'men grow cold as girls grow old, and we all lose our charms in the end? But square-cut or pear-shaped, these rocks don't lose their shape...'
(Got a tiny diamond wedding ring before I knew about any of this stuff; feel bad about it now; wouldn't get another.)