A Panel of Experts

Virtual Sedition

Here's a link to an icky story about an online wingnut game called 2011: Obama Coup Fails. In the game players battle out a new American civil war after the overthrow of the Obama administration. The game comes complete with its own fake history leading up to the war:

Back in 2007, one brave newscaster was the first in what used to be called the 'mainstream media' to ring the alarm bell. That man was Lou Dobbs of CNN. Lou Dobbs was reported missing during the media purges of January and February 2011, when Mark Lloyd and the FCC, on Obama's orders, cracked down on all dissent in broadcasting. Glen Beck, another broadcast media personality who rang the alarm bell before the coup, was found dead of an 'aspirin overdose' in late 2010, after the devastating elections in November.

And its own "future news stories" from the war itself:

 Omg.

Handshake

This is one of the most fascinating news photos I've seen in a long time:

Just In Case...

... you haven't seen this yet. You too can play along with Barack, Paper, Scissors.

Happy Inauguration Day!

A screenshot of our new White House website.

This Land Is HBO's

Un-fucking-believable. HBO has scoured the web clean of videos of yesterday's inaugural concert - including the YouTube video I linked to in the post below. Evidently, Pete Seeger singing Woody Gutherie's "This Land Is Your Land" on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial is the property of Home Box Office. Those lines in the song about "Private Property" were more prophetic than we knew.

There was a big high wall there that tried to stop me;
Sign was painted, it said private property;
But on the back side it didn't say nothing;
That side was made for you and me.

"This is to notify you that we have removed or disabled access to the following material as a result of a third-party notification by Home Box Office, Inc. claiming that this material is infringing"

Highlights

Two highlights from the pre-inaugural festivities yesterday. Pete Seeger and the Boss singing Woody Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land" complete with its most subversive verse; and the Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson, the openly gay Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire, giving the invocation at the opening inaugural event at the Lincoln Memorial, Washington, D.C., January 18, 2009:

There was a big high wall there that tried to stop me;
Sign was painted, it said private property;
But on the back side it didn't say nothing;
That side was made for you and me.

O God of our many understandings, we pray that you will...

Bless us with tears -- for a world in which over a billion people exist on less than a dollar a day, where young women from many lands are beaten and raped for wanting an education, and thousands die daily from malnutrition, malaria, and AIDS.

Bless us with anger -- at discrimination, at home and abroad, against refugees and immigrants, women, people of color, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.

Bless us with discomfort -- at the easy, simplistic "answers" we've preferred to hear from our politicians, instead of the truth, about ourselves and the world, which we need to face if we are going to rise to the challenges of the future.

Bless us with patience -- and the knowledge that none of what ails us will be "fixed" anytime soon, and the understanding that our new president is a human being, not a messiah.

Bless us with humility -- open to understanding that our own needs must always be balanced with those of the world.

Bless us with freedom from mere tolerance -- replacing it with a genuine respect and warm embrace of our differences, and an understanding that in our diversity, we are stronger.

Bless us with compassion and generosity -- remembering that every religion's God judges us by the way we care for the most vulnerable in the human community, whether across town or across the world.

And God, we give you thanks for your child Barack, as he assumes the office of President of the United States.

Give him wisdom beyond his years, and inspire him with Lincoln's reconciling leadership style, President Kennedy's ability to enlist our best efforts, and Dr. King's dream of a nation for ALL the people.

Give him a quiet heart, for our Ship of State needs a steady, calm captain in these times.

Give him stirring words, for we will need to be inspired and motivated to make the personal and common sacrifices necessary to facing the challenges ahead.

Make him color-blind, reminding him of his own words that under his leadership, there will be neither red nor blue states, but the United States.

Help him remember his own oppression as a minority, drawing on that experience of discrimination, that he might seek to change the lives of those who are still its victims.

Give him the strength to find family time and privacy, and help him remember that even though he is president, a father only gets one shot at his daughters' childhoods.

And please, God, keep him safe. We know we ask too much of our presidents, and we're asking FAR too much of this one. We know the risk he and his wife are taking for all of us, and we implore you, O good and great God, to keep him safe. Hold him in the palm of your hand -- that he might do the work we have called him to do, that he might find joy in this impossible calling, and that in the end, he might lead us as a nation to a place of integrity, prosperity and peace.

AMEN.

Obamabilia

Wow. From Matt Cornell and the Folsom Street Fair in SF, this is my favorite Obama poster of all. I wish I had had one of these for my office before the election.

3354 Words

This has not been the most productive week. Only 315 new words were written towards the 10k goal. However, the very coolest thing that happened this week was being invited to contribute an open letter to Barack Obama for an online journal edited by Amitava Kumar. This marks the first time my blog pseudonym has been invited to contribute to an academic publication. I love blogging.

Here's this weeks wordle pic of the new project so far.

At Last

"Who Is Bill Murray?"

This morning, on the way to school on this most auspicious of election days, my littlest lumpkin asked me out of the blue "Daddy, who is Bill Murray?" I said something about him being a comedian and actor. Then, curiosity got the better of me and I said "Why do you ask?" She replied, because I have this song stuck in my head, and this is what she sang for me:

123456 Pokemon, Pokemon
123456 Pokemon, Pokemon

Who ya gonna vote for? Barack Obama
Who ya gonna vote for? Barack Obama

Don't worry, Bill Murray
Don't worry, Bill Murray

She knew Pokemon and she knew Barack Obama, but the Bill Murray reference escaped her. I confess it escapes me a bit too in this context. However, the song was stuck in my head too now.

I went to vote shortly after this surreal pop-culture and politics exchange with my grade-schooler. I voted for Barack Obama.

This has been my very favorite election day ever. I'm looking forward to staying up late tonight with my daughter to watch history be made. I'm going to make us root beer floats. 123456 Pokemon!

Communication Professors Speak Out

Here's a fine statement from a group of Communication Professors condemning recent Republican racist campaign rhetoric:

We wish to express our great concern over unethical communication behavior that threatens to dominate the closing days of the 2008 Presidential campaign. ...

In recent weeks, the Republican ticket of John McCain and Sarah Palin has engaged in such incendiary mendacity that we must speak out. The purposeful dissemination of messages that a communicator knows to be false and inflammatory is unethical. It is that simple.

Making decisions in a democracy requires an informed electorate. The health of our democracy and our ability to make a good decision about who should lead our nation require the very best in communication practices, not the worst. ...

We see an effort to color code the election as between an urban, African-American Obama falsely linked to terms like “terrorist,” “unpatriotic,” and “welfare” versus small town, white, “patriotic” Americans like the mythical Joe the Plumber. “Intended” or not, the message is getting through, as reports have emerged of ugly scenes at some Republican rallies and racists hanging Obama in effigy in Oregon and Ohio. In an echo of McCarthyism, Representative Michelle Bachmann has called for investigations into un-American members of Congress, pointing to Senator Obama as the prime suspect. Speaking to warm up the crowd before a McCain rally, Representative Robin Hayes continued the theme: “Folks, there’s a real America, and liberals hate real Americans that work, and accomplish, and achieve, and believe in God.” The official website of the Sacramento County Republican Party compared Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama to terrorist leader Osama bin Laden and urged people to “Waterboard Barack Obama.” The October newsletter of the Chaffey Community Republican Women in California depicts Obama on a food stamp surrounded by a watermelon, ribs, and a bucket of fried chicken. The McCain/Palin campaign has not repudiated such actions taken on its behalf, nor has it done enough to respond to reprehensible behavior at rallies. ...

The statement is signed by 155 Communication Professors from around the country and documents an appalling assortment of racist campaign images.

Obamacans for Change

Here's a very nice short documentary featuring conservatives speaking about the reasons they are voting for Barack Obama. Strangely compelling.

Tea Leaves

I read way too many polls and political blogs. It's a neurotic habit, a belief in a sort of sympathetic magic where if only the tea leaves and the stars align, then good news will follow. I try not to read too much into polls. But this one gives me hope.

The Great Schlep

Wow.



"The Great Schlep aims to have Jewish grandchildren visit their grandparents in Florida, educate them about Obama, and therefore swing the crucial Florida vote in his favor." In the video, Sarah Silverman describes "some ways to talk to your grandparent about Obama ... besides loudly."

Hope

Now that grades are finished and classes are over, I've become interested in a closely related topic – the subject of "Hope."

It's in the news almost constantly, and even otherwise safely sane and cynical folks are starting to show signs of occasional outbursts these days, so I feel the need to do some studying up on the subject.

My plan is to start with Ernst Bloch's The Principle of Hope and see if that helps. I've never made much progress with this work in the past, since given the density and size of its three volumes, I've always taken the title to be somewhat ironic. I have a good working grasp of the the principle of irony, though. But the principle of hope remains a more obscure and alien concept to me. However, I'm willing to learn.

Wish me luck.

Black President

Wouldn't this photo be a great starting point for the official portrait of our next President?

Conspiracy To Commit

This is from Dan Froomkin on his Washington Post Blog:

President Bush says he was aware that his top aides met in the White House basement to micromanage the application of waterboarding and other widely-condemned interrogation techniques. And he says it was no big deal.

"I'm aware our national security team met on this issue. And I approved," Bush told ABC News' Martha Raddatz on Friday. "I don't know what's new about that; I'm not so sure what's so startling about that." ...

If you consider what the government did to be torture, which is a crime according to U.S. and international law, Bush's statement shifts his role from being an accessory after the fact to being part of a conspiracy to commit. ...

From an ACLU press release on Saturday: "The American Civil Liberties Union is calling on Congress to demand an independent prosecutor to investigate possible violations by the Bush administration of laws including the War Crimes Act, the federal Anti-Torture Act, and federal assault laws.

And here is Barack Obama on what he will do about these crimes:

What I would want to do is to have my Justice Department and my Attorney General immediately review the information that's already there and to find out are there inquiries that need to be pursued. I can't prejudge that because we don't have access to all the material right now. I think that you are right, if crimes have been committed, they should be investigated. You're also right that I would not want my first term consumed by what was perceived on the part of Republicans as a partisan witch hunt because I think we've got too many problems we've got to solve.

So this is an area where I would want to exercise judgment -- I would want to find out directly from my Attorney General -- having pursued, having looked at what's out there right now -- are there possibilities of genuine crimes as opposed to really bad policies. And I think it's important -- one of the things we've got to figure out in our political culture generally is distinguishing betyween really dumb policies and policies that rise to the level of criminal activity. You know, I often get questions about impeachment at town hall meetings and I've said that is not something I think would be fruitful to pursue because I think that impeachment is something that should be reserved for exceptional circumstances. Now, if I found out that there were high officials who knowingly, consciously broke existing laws, engaged in coverups of those crimes with knowledge forefront, then I think a basic principle of our Constitution is nobody above the law -- and I think that's roughly how I would look at it.

Obama may be our best hope to bring these criminals to justice. It's a very long way from here to there, but so far Obama has at least shown his willingness to discuss the right thing to do, and not simply the politically expedient thing. Let's hope this one gets done right.

Damn You Barack Obama, You Pretty Motha Fucker

"Damn You Barack Obama, You Pretty Motha fu-ker," a poetry slam by Darian Dauchan. Yet another of the many amazing cultural artifacts being inspired by Senator Obama's campaign. November is going to be amazing.

O-Tunes

More Obama music videos for the LumpenProf by way of The Constructivist including this La Bamba / Obama riff by Austin band Cerranato:



and this wonderful, and wonderfully unlikely, Central African Makossa version of Fired Up and Ready to Go by Fojeba: