That thrilling world of politics

Hm. An interesting debate over at the NYT.

First, Frank Rich accuses the Clinton campaign of dumping the black vote...

The campaign’s other most potent form of currency remains its thick deck of race cards. This was all too apparent in the Hallmark show. In its carefully calibrated cross section of geographically and demographically diverse cast members — young, old, one gay man, one vet, two union members — African-Americans were reduced to also-rans.

and chasing the Hispanic vote...

But the wholesale substitution of Hispanics for blacks on the Hallmark show is tainted by a creepy racial back story. Last month a Hispanic pollster employed by the Clinton campaign pitted the two groups against each other by telling The New Yorker that Hispanic voters have “not shown a lot of willingness or affinity to support black candidates.” Mrs. Clinton then seconded the motion by telling Tim Russert in a debate that her pollster was “making a historical statement.”

It's a lengthy, provocative, but backed-by-facts piece that is still there in the most e-mailed/blogged list of the NYT.

Just after this, the Krug-Man warned readers that the Obama campaign could be taking the US into Nixonland.

I won’t try for fake evenhandedness here: most of the venom I see is coming from supporters of Mr. Obama, who want their hero or nobody. I’m not the first to point out that the Obama campaign seems dangerously close to becoming a cult of personality. We’ve already had that from the Bush administration — remember Operation Flight Suit? We really don’t want to go there again.

The Economist recently called the US elections the greatest show on earth, again. I'm still trying to figure out how it works, but can't resist a sense of awe at the entire campaigning, debating juggernaut shebang. Sure, it's also dirty, but then who said becoming the leader of the free world was easy.

Point of post? Just putting this in the background of Indian politics. Remember we're (State and Country) up for elections next year. No primaries, no caucuses, no debates. Just simple dishkaaon elections. Good old coalition politics. No majority, no minority. And sure no priority at least for the nation.

Even though I am in awe of it, I've never understood the US elections and I'm loathe to compare it to the Indian ones. Why? Because I think any India v/s US comparison is slightly arbit. Still, I am having an interesting e-mail conversation with a good friend on similar lines.

That apart, I think one thing seems to be common, politicians are politicians and will remain that way. Partisanship, divisiveness and cult personality are probably wired into the DNA of every politician. If he's not born with it, he'll pick it up soon on the way.

Look at very own local hero Raju T playing the Marathi Manoos card. Even though the educated elite are gasping at his antics, they've also probably realised that this isn't anything new because Raju T is only upholding the Sena tradition. A tradition that has held them in good stead. Heck, even the Congress are staying true to their tradition, i.e. do nothing.

We're in for interesting times. Let's see what turn the US elections take next. Seems Obama is leading Clinton. Are we ready for a black leader of the free world?

Strange things happen. What if Raju T's brand of politics actually work? And if it doesn't than are we all happy with a, er, "secular" bunch of people who'd give Nero a run for his money? Or wait, am I hearing the roar of an old tiger again? Hang in there for a year to find out. Remember, it's a Chinese curse.

PS: Partially unrelated funny thing 1: That line from "A Few Good Men" kept coming back to me while I typed this post. "Unit, Corp, God, Country".

PPS: PUFT2: Picked up Season 1 of "The West Wing" , which seemed even more yesterday than Rudy Giuliani (gaah, it actually is) and have hence instantly given up on it. Aaron Sorkin, who wrote this glossy drama, was also the writer of "A Few Good Men". Told ya - partially unrelated.

The tears did it

Or did they?

This was the moment yesterday.


From the NYT

After a political lifetime of keeping her emotions secret, why was Mrs. Clinton finally letting her guard down? Was it a spontaneous outburst or a calculated show? Was Mrs. Clinton using her gender to win sympathy, or was she the victim of a double standard that allowed male candidates to cry — several have on the trail — but not female ones?

Don't miss the last line of that piece. If she does become President, that is going to remain one debated moment in US politics.

Meanwhile, fatigue shows, even for Barack Obama. From the HuffPo

"I've been campaigning a lot," he said. "And you know I say, 'The time for change has come.' The other day I said, 'The time for come has changed.' And I have to admit, everybody still clapped."

But my moment of the day had to be John McCain's moving victory speech, given among roars of "Mac is back".

The people of New Hampshire have told us again that they do not send us to Washington to serve our self-interest, but to serve theirs. They don't send us to fight each other for our own political ambitions; but to fight together our real enemies. They don't send us to Washington to stroke our egos; but to help them keep this beautiful, bountiful, blessed country safe, prosperous and proud.

And don't miss the last line of that speech either.

Why I prefer TV series

One of the reasons I dumped movie lists was because I was seeing just too many so-so and so-no movies. Big stars, or big directors, weren’t enough to guarantee a good movie experience. While the path to any great movie is strewn with lemons, I think I was seeing too much of mediocrity to justify my DVD subscription. Some movies meandered their way through meaninglessly as if to justify their big stars, some had wafer-thin plots relying either on their big stars on heavy special effects. To my own horror, I was forwarding some movies just to get it over with.

Then I discovered TV serials. And now, I am in no doubt when I say that if you’re looking for a sustained stream of good quality entertainment, you must consider watching TV series. One season of a TV series typically has five to six DVDs with each DVD containing about four episodes, each of just about an hour. I'd typically watch one to two DVDs every weekend and finish off one series in a month.

In terms of production values, TV series (and here I’m referring only to American ones, although I think there’s much in the British counterparts that I should be seeing) have matched, if not surpassed, big studio Hollywood movies. In terms of genres, the series span the entire gamut of drama, action, comedy, suspense, crime, etc. In terms of stories, scripts and plots, it's evident that TV series have come a long, long way from the LA Law, Ally McBeal, Picket Fences and X-Files days.

In some ways I think this is a larger reflection and an expression of America and its residents in this new post 9/11 world. I admire the way the American TV channels have expressed this via the entertainment industry. A phenomenon which we in India have yet to see, at least in a big way (an issue I touched upon in an early post here). I’d give anything for an ad-free HBO out here, but I doubt it'll ever happen.

Moving on, here’s what I’ve watched in the last one year. All the TV series below comprise one story running throughout the season, unlike say an episodic series like CSI where each episode revolves around one story. Personally I prefer the one-story-one-season format because I get hooked to it for a month.

1. 24 – Call it a neocon dream or liberal nightmare (switch that?), but I’m an unabashed fan of Jack Bauer. Purely in terms of thrills, twists and turns, 24 smokes just about every so-called “action” movie I’ve seen lately. There’s also this carefree abandon with which they kill just about every key character in the plot. Just when you’re endearing yourself to someone, he gets blown up by a car bomb, shot in the throat or gassed to death. No sentimentality or emotion, just pop off the good guys and make it tougher and tougher for Jack Bauer to win. Sure, the plots stretch your imagination to the point of incredulity, but it doesn’t matter because there’s enough to keep you gripped.

I think Season 4 was the best while Season 5 was a bit of a let-down. I’m waiting for the release of Season 6 DVD, and no I won’t download and see it. In India, AXN has shown 24 but, not surprisingly, the series never really took off here. (Also read this superb New Yorker piece on the politics of Joel Surnow, the man behind 24)

2. The Sopranos – I thank my good friend Purush for pointing me to this one. I have no doubt that it’s the best TV series I’ve watched till now. For something that I thought was “just about a mob boss”, I just loved the experience of seeing how the series was much, much more. It has a cult following in the US and rightly so. The script and the storylines are brilliant, the performances of the finely-etched characters are superb. Some of the action can get gory (well, it is about the Mafia), but there’s enough on the dialogues to keep you riveted and entertained – and I mean funny too.

Then there’s the all the symbolic stuff that I could never get, and then never get enough of. But you have to see the series. This is television at its best. I hope they never make a movie of out of it. I’ve seen the series till Season 5 and I’m waiting for Season 6, also the last of this path-breaking series.

3. Heroes – A.k.a. how the left sees 24. Not every hero needs is alone or resort to torture and maim because he has only a few hours to save the world. Nopes. But yes, the world is coming to an end thanks to the greed for power. In this case, greed for superpowers. Oh come on, don’t we all love good v/s evil? After all – and pardon the cliché – we’re all heroes in our own way. Some of us can create fire, others can re-generate, some can read others thoughts, talk with machines, move in time…. And that’s only a few of them.

Update - I've now also watched 4. Lost and 5. The 4400 after the kind comments from readers below. Thank you.

Besides the cutting-edge special effects, what I loved was that the episodes never fawned over individual heroes (and hence their powers), thanks to which the plot and the story was always central. I admire NBC’s (which airs Heroes) reply to Fox (which aired 24), if only because the viewer is the winner. I’ve seen Season 1 on DVD and am waiting for #2, which already began in the US some time back.

I’ve also seen Season 1 of "The Wire" (Purush, thanks again for this) which was also excellent, even if a bit too US-specific for my likes. And there’s of course the magnificent "Seinfeld" and its co-creators tribute to foul behavior "Curb Your Enthusiasm". After seeing all of these, I'm convinced that TV series remain a much more enjoyable option, than movies, to regular weekend DVD viewing.

So, seen any of these? Have any favs of your own? Love to hear from you.

Simpson and Greenspan

O. J. Simpson in conversation with Alan Greenspan.

Greenspan: The first draft of my book actually had a lot of steamy sex scenes in it, but my publisher was afraid they wouldn’t stock it at Wal-Mart.

Simpson: Don’t get me started on publishers. Have you seen my book’s cover? They made the “If ” in the title so small it looks like the title is “I Did It.” I mean, talk about exploitative. It’s like if Herman Melville’s publisher printed “Moby” in tiny letters so that people would think the book was called “Dick.”

Oh I kid that alleged killer and that alleged creator of the sub-prime crisis. Go read another hilarious S&M at the New Yorker.

In Obama we trust

From a month-old NYT article titled "Obama, Gospel and Verse"

Out of the blue I asked, ''Have you ever read Reinhold Niebuhr?''

Obama's tone changed. ''I love him. He's one of my favorite philosophers.''

So I asked, What do you take away from him?

''I take away,'' Obama answered in a rush of words, ''the compelling idea that there's serious evil in the world, and hardship and pain. And we should be humble and modest in our belief we can eliminate those things. But we shouldn't use that as an excuse for cynicism and inaction. I take away the sense we have to make these efforts knowing they are hard, and not swinging from naïve idealism to bitter realism.''

Here's hoping the Senator from Illinois makes it.

And I envy this man for having heard him speak at Selma, Alabama. Or Al-Obama.

France, pee-pee parts and the Conservatives

I have to agree with Purush. I'm a big fan of Real Time with Bill Maher and I thought episode 101, which aired on 4th May, was one of the best in recent times. So what if it didn't have a single Republican on the panel. There was Gov. Tommy Thomson earlier on in the show, via satellite....man, what kinda excuse is "my hearing-aid battery died", when you're defending your stance in favor of job discrimination against gays?

I loved the last New Rule on the show. Just brilliant. Read on..

And finally, New Rule: Conservatives have to stop rolling their eyes every time they hear the word, "France." Like just calling something "French" is the ultimate argument winner. As if to say, "What can you say about a country that was too stupid to get on board with our wonderfully-conceived and brilliantly-executed war in Iraq?"

And, yet, an American politician could not survive if he uttered the simple, true statement, "France has a better health care system than we do, and we should steal it." Because here, simply dismissing an idea as French passes for an argument. "John Kerry? Couldn't vote for him; he looked French." Yeah, as opposed to the other guy who just looked stupid.

Now, last week, France had an election, and people over there approach an election differently. They vote. Eighty-five percent of them turned out. You couldn't get 85% of Americans to get off the couch if there was an election between "Tits" and "Bigger Tits," and they were handing out free samples!

Now, maybe the high turnout has something to do with the fact that the French candidates are never asked where they stand on evolution, prayer in school, abortion, stem cell research or gay marriage. And if the candidate knows about a character in a book other than Jesus, it's not a drawback.

The electorate doesn't vote for the guy they want to have a croissant with; nor do they care about private lives. In the current race, Ségolène Royal has four kids, but she never got married. And she's a Socialist. In America, if a Democrat even thinks you're calling him "liberal," he grabs an orange vest and a rifle and heads into the woods to kill something!

Madame Royal's opponent is married, but they live apart and lead separate lives. And the people are okay with that for the same reason they're okay with nude beaches; because they're not a nation of six-year-olds who scream and giggle if they see pee-pee parts!

They have weird ideas about privacy. They think it should be private. In France, even the mistresses have mistresses. To not have a lady on the side says to the voters, "I'm no good at multi-tasking."

Now, like any country, France has its faults, like all that ridiculous accordion music. But, their health care is the best in the industrialized world. As is their poverty rate. And they're completely independent of Mid East oil. And they're the greenest country. And they're not fat. And they have public intellectuals in France. We have Dr. Phil!

They invented sex during the day, lingerie and the tongue. Can't we admit we could learn something from them?

So, from now on, all you high-ranking Bush Administration officials, because the French are righter than you on most things, when France comes up in conversation, you are not allowed to roll your eyes. The only time you get to do that is when your hooker from Ms. Julia is blowing you.

For an unedited version of this, do visit Purush's post here.

Unfair baggage for a white man

And since your competition is Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, mainly, do you think it's unfair baggage that you're a white man?

Welcome back Bill Maher. In the first part of the new season of Real Time, he asks that question to Presidential Candidate and former Senator John Edwards (D-NC), who replies

I'm not touching that

And if its Real Time, then its also New Rules. Here's Bill Maher on Joe Biden calling Barack Obama clean and articulate -

And finally, New Rule: There's more to being smart than just not misspeaking. A couple of weeks ago, Senator Joe Biden's presidential campaign hit the ground flopping when he described Barack Obama as "articulate and clean." But if you think he's a racist, you're just playing "gotcha." Yes, the remark was cringe-worthy. It always is when someone old and out of touch says something creepy. Even a Chinaman knows that!

However, when it comes to the most important issue of the day, it was this same Joe Biden who recognized first that Iraq was going to end up three countries, and that that wasn't necessarily a bad thing. And I agree. So what if Iraq gets broken up. It's a made-up country anyway. There's only been an Iraq since 1932. It's seven years younger than Paul Newman.

So, the guy who gets it on the big issue of the day, he can't run because he said a black man was "clean." And we care more about a one-second verbal brain fart than we do about who has the right answers.

Howard Dean has been a virtual Nostradamus on predicting what would happen in Iraq from the beginning, but he can't be president because he once shouted, "Yee-haw!"-- two decibels above what we, as Americans, know to be the appropriate level for "Yee-haw!" He's out. He screamed louder than the crowd screaming at him. And the media acted like grandpa just yelled out the "n" word at a ballgame.

Indeed, where is the now vindicated Howard Dean?

Don't you articulate me

What does the word "articulate" mean to you ?

To me, it's an adjective used to describe someone who talks clearly and gets the message across. Of course it sometimes also depends on what the message is.

For example, check out Akon below singing the chart-busting, hip-thrusting number "Smack that"

I see the one, because she be that lady! Hey!
I feel you creeping, I can see it from my shadow
Wanna jump up in my Lamborghini Gallardo
Maybe go to my place and just kick it like TaeBo
And possibly bend you over look back and watch me

Smack that all on the floor
Smack that give me some more
Smack that 'till you get sore
Smack that oh-oooh!

That's articulate man. I get the message without any doubts. Unequivocally, without a shadow of doubt, shake your booty, shake that thing, shake your moneymaker, smack that.

Much before Akon, there was Vanilla Ice with - oh come on, you know the song don't you ?. Sample this (also note recurrence of "Lamborghini")

Yo -- so I continued to a1a beachfront ave.
Girls were hot wearing less than bikinis
Rockman lovers driving lamborghinis
Jealous cause I'm out geting mine
Shay with a gauge and vanilla with a nine
Reading for the chumps on the wall
The chumps acting ill because theyre so full of eight balls
Gunshots ranged out like a bell
I grabbed my nine -- all I heard were shells

Rockman ? Shay ? grabbed my what ? I have no idea what he was talking about. Vanilla Ice is not articulate. No way Jose, he ain't got no good English.

I can go on and on about this, but you get my point. I mean think about it. Think of a person you know, who you can call articulate. Ever thought about what he looks like ? I didn't.

But it seems that this is a matter of raging debate in the USA. In fact, its been that way for quite some time, only I never knew it. It seems that you do not go around calling a black brother "articulate". Uh-huh. Don't you go around calling me articulate or I'll kick that white ass of yours.

Ok, so maybe that's not how Lynette Clemeston words it in this NY Times article where she writes

It is amazing that this still requires clarification, but here it is. Black people get a little testy when white people call them “articulate.”

and there's more - like this

When whites use the word in reference to blacks, it often carries a subtext of amazement, even bewilderment. It is similar to praising a female executive or politician by calling her “tough” or “a rational decision-maker.”

And this one last part (just because it quotes a show I enjoy - Real time with Bill Maher)

The comedian and actor D. L. Hughley, a frequent guest on HBO’s “Real Time With Bill Maher,” says that every time he appears on the show, where he riffs on the political and social issues of the day, people walk up to him afterward and tell him how “smart and articulate” his comments were.

“Everyone was up in arms about Michael Richards using the N-word, but subtle words like this are more insidious,” Mr. Hughley said. “It’s like weight loss. The last few pounds are the hardest to get rid of. It’s the last vestiges of racism that are hard to get rid of.”

I've never been to the USA and I have no idea what the politically correct way is to describe a black person who talks with clarity and gets his message across to his listeners. Think Denzel Washington in his closing speech in Philadelphia. Impassioned and articulate. Message across loud and clear. Think Samuel L Jackson in Pulp Fiction. clever, cool and articulate ? I think so.

So now what ? Hang on, let me check the synonyms for articulate..

This one says "eloquent, facund, silver-tongued, smooth-spoken"

Facund ? as in "Yo Akon, you one facund brother" ?

And silver-tongued ? like "Mr. Washington, I believe you were quite silver-tongued in that closing speech you gave before the jury" ?

And that would be better than calling a black person articulate ?

Anyone out there from the USofA who can add some colour, articulate this matter further, throw some light on this issue ?