why i call audra funny

from her 'analysis of the budget', inspired by those wacky LOLcats:

frank rich and i on clinton

as if he hadn't already captured my heart with his eloquently persuasive indictment of bush and the iraq debacle, frank rich continues to say the right things about the US primaries season. in his op-ed in today's new york times, rich - in typical merciless fashion - sums up perfectly the flaws that have plagued hillary's run from 'day one', then suggests:

"Clinton fans don’t see their standard-bearer’s troubles this way. In their view, their highly substantive candidate was unfairly undone by a lightweight showboat who got a free ride from an often misogynist press and from naïve young people who lap up messianic language as if it were Jim Jones’s Kool-Aid. Or as Mrs. Clinton frames it, Senator Obama is all about empty words while she is all about action and hard work.

But it’s the Clinton strategists, not the Obama voters, who drank the Kool-Aid. The Obama campaign is not a vaporous cult; it’s a lean and mean political machine that gets the job done. The Clinton camp has been the slacker in this race, more words than action, and its candidate’s message, for all its purported high-mindedness, was and is self-immolating.

As for countering what she sees as the empty Obama brand of hope, she offers only a chilly void: Abandon hope all ye who enter here. This must be the first presidential candidate in history to devote so much energy to preaching against optimism, against inspiring language and — talk about bizarre — against democracy itself. No sooner does Mrs. Clinton lose a state than her campaign belittles its voters as unrepresentative of the country. "

*swoon*

like so many other ovaried observers, i've been hard on myself for choosing to support obama instead of the first viable female candidate for president of those shiny united states. but the fact remains, neither the candidate nor her campaign have ever felt viable to me. and as much as i'm a zealot for women's rights, i reserve the right to get excited about the right woman - my foremothers gave that to me. feminist dreams aside, the first woman to get this close to the oval office happens to come from and speak for the second wavers who have always left me feeling disconnected and unheard. hillary does have chutzpah though, let's give it to her, what with those early claims of inevitable victory and the increasing vitriol over the fact that the numbers and people just aren't doing her a solid.

the overarching problem, i believe, is that hillary represents - not just to my mind, but for countless respected, credible democratic activists - a kind of establishmenty muck, yesterday's flavour. it's not about the negligible policy differences between she and obama, or the thick versus thin resumé question. the era of clintonian politics is very likely over. no self-respecting or movement-participating progressive can possibly support hillary in good conscience at this point, and it has nothing to do with the girlie bits underneath her clothes. it's her last name and preferred peer group, not to mention that haunting record on iraq.

i'm actually quite sorry, hillary, that your lifetime of hard work on behalf of liberalism and social-democratism may not be enough to send the masses scrambling to hoist you up onto the throne. and i do genuinely acknowledge those years and those efforts. who's to say what kind of cosmic forces conspired so effectively as to make that charismatic illinois upstart the people's choice of this campaign, the stealer of your limelight, the tapper-inner to a nation's apathy towards electoral politics, the threat to your family's intended legacy, the taker of your 'turn'? not long now before we see whether he absconds with your cake or if you can eat it, too.

what i do know is that any number of exceptional, deserving, wholly progressive representatives of fresh feminism could have stood a better chance against said upstart. the better woman to be the first to ascend to the american presidency is fo-shiz out there. it's just too bad for us that she lacks the fees, trainers, pedigree, or inclination to even enter into the big race.

but i digress. for some levity during this mentally/intellectually/spiritually taxing race, slate came up with this hilarious video of hillary as embittered tracy flick and obama as paul 'cakewalk-to-victory' metzler (from the movie 'election'). what good are all these shenanigans if we can't laugh a little?

whack to the head

in what can only be characterized as an ironic twist, a (finally!) reasonably productive week suffered a setback thanks to an injury that appears to have untapped a fresh geyser of disdain [me to my psychiatrist in december: “i’m not moody, i’m in a bad mood!”] yesterday – “family day”, no less – i spent some time crumpled up crying on the bathroom floor after smacking my forehead on the corner of a cupboard door (i've suffered a pulsing headache ever since), not just cuz it hurt like a mofo but cuz of what the whack let leak out, if you know what i mean. now a wee bump has taken up residence under a patch of reddened skin, there. the dark cloud that moved overhead in november persists, borne of the unforeseen whopping amount i discovered, belatedly, that i owe to revenue quebec. confirmed contracts for 2008 are slow in lining up – it’s the typical top-of-year problem of stuff percolating but no soothing brew yet. the only sure offer is to run a campaign in a potential federal election i’m hardly excited about for a party that hardly excites me, of late (although the offer itself is an appreciated step towards reconciliation). heard about three separate incidents of racism experienced in the past week by my pained dad which go rather nicely with the other discrimination already scattered across my worktop on account of this project i’ve been doing for a year. heartwarming. the oscars are coming up and i seem to be lacking my usual pop culture pump over it, maybe a hangover from the writers’ strike or just another few scored points for the mighty malaise that seems to be engaging me in american gladiator level battle. hmm… what else. oh, TODAY FIDEL RESIGNED. and the embittered, relentless snow just keeps on falling, leaving me seriously luke warm on the idea of venturing out to a friend’s birthday wine and cheese later. so much for aiming higher on that whole normal-levels-of-human-contact thing. social lives are overrated, i still think. plus navigating around the mountainous snow banks and perilous slushy bits out there is fucking ridiculous. i’ve always been fairly pro-winter, but in that perpetual quest to understand and embrace LIMITS, i’m fairly certain mine have been well reached insofar as my tolerance for deep-freeze temperatures and unwieldy snow conditions are concerned. my winter patience has a best before date, which may well be today.

despite all of the aforementioned shyte, to-do lists have the upper hand: cvs and websites are getting updated, laundry and floors and tubs are getting cleaned, sleep patterns are being aggressively challenged, administrivia tended to, and deals being negotiated so as to postpone the breaking of my kneecaps. most importantly, maybe, plans are being laid.

suck it, malaise.

me, on rabble

the editor of rabble.ca posted this commentary of mine on friday, the first of what could be several provided i get things like my ass and creativity in gear. oh, discipline, why so elusive?

Obama shakes the best cocktail
Obama is igniting imaginations, rousing latent electors, and exceeding expectations.

by Pam Kapoor February 8, 2008

In his January column at rabble.ca, Duncan Cameron postulated about Barack Obama's invoking of nationalism, prompting my friend to chide, “Ah ha! I told you he was a right-wing candidate running on a policy of unity and hope [period].” As if the deployment of nationalistic rhetoric is a barometer of ideology and not a deliberate tactic – in this case, an astute one.

...

Millions of frenzied supporters are lining up for a sip of Obama kool-aid, few of whom have read every word of his every position. But I don't think that makes them stupid, just thirsty (for some, in a way they didn't even know they'd been).

Strategically, the NDP would do well to borrow from this approach. NDP-ers here in Canada are so busy tripping over ourselves to say the perfect thing and appease every strand of our imperfect base, we hardly say it perfectly. We are strategically stunted, stumped, on how to convey, package, or inspirationalize our position that is, in essence, a vision – far simpler than a policy book. The NDP still hasn't figured out how to sell our politics, in part because we insist on abhorring that brand of sales.

The age-old tension seems to be amplified now: remain entrenched in ideology and/or appeal broadly enough to be elected to govern. Some worry Obama's is a watered-down progressivism, designed for palatability. True, he is garnering mass appeal among independents. Shouldn't we revel when middle-of-the-roaders are persuaded to look anew at progressive viewpoints? Obama has what some call the "gall" to self-identify as a "post-partisan" politician. For shame! Why would we bulldogged ideologues ever want to loosen anything from our jaws, even if it could lead to advancement of our political objectives?

...

I, for one, am relieved to get behind a candidate who shakes the best cocktail of ideological compatibility, electricity, and electability – that's as much the Bush era hater as the communications specialist in me. And the election worker in desperate search of a Canadian politician with even half as much potential.

THE PIECE, in it's entirety = here.

yes we can

in case you've been under a rock in siberia and somehow missed this latest contribution to exploding on-line OBAMA support, view will.i.am's collaborative rendition of an obama speech. repeatedly. and DIG IT.