Stream of Consciousness

a lil suggestion about video thread conversations n deepak chopra

Alchemystique — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 17:00:11 GMT

a lil suggestion... If you go to http://intentblog.com/ which is deepak chopra's blog site, u can see that deepak is started this thing called a video conversation thread thing. I think it could be interesting if u guys engage with deepak and respond to his comments. Also u can put up ur own comments/questions dialogs by joining this site, seesmic.com which powers this very kewl n novel idea of video conversation threads.. just a thot... Have a great day and let me know if this is of interest to u :)

Synchronicity Showers -- Singularity Signs?

Alchemystique — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 18:27:33 GMT

a bit brainy and scientific but still quite good. http://www.intentblog.com/archives/2008/07/showered_with_s.html HQR: Synchronicity Showers -- Singularity Signs? DK Matai - July 10, 2008 Singularity.jpg Dear Friends, increasingly one is showered with synchronicity reinforcing patterns of the unifying energy field -- the Singularity -- in everyone & everything: All manifest in real time as One! In the 21st century, we are much more connected with each other digitally and the spiritual or trans-physical connections, events, happenings -- that have always been there -- are beginning to demonstrate their own unifying presence via showers of synchronicity, that portend the Singularity via self-explaining signs or signatures. Those signatures come in the shape of events, happenings or connections that we may call "Haps!" Synchronicity is obvious with the rising level of individual and collective consciousness in regard to our holistic inter-connectivity in space and time enabled physically, digitally and through the primordial and everpresent transcendental heightened connectivity. More connectivity, more Haps! You may remember, HQR: Burden of Proof, Synchronicity & Applications. In Astrophysics, the Singularity is "A point in space-time at which gravitational forces cause matter to have infinite density and infinitesimal volume, and space and time to become infinitely distorted." In Mathematics, the Singularity is, "A point at which the derivative does not exist for a given function but every neighbourhood of which contains points for which the derivative exists. Also called singular point." To us as humanity, the presence of the Singularity becomes obvious in the 21st century based on the collective and individual observation that a lot of technological trends are accelerating faster and faster. Look around you! Although there are a number of such trends that in and of themselves have the potential for deeply transforming our collective lives, the Bio, Info and Nano (BIN) instances are worth considering: 1. Bio-technology and Genetic Engineering: What happens if we are able to understand and to design genetically engineered organisms freely? If we can make bodies or new life forms with whatever attributes we want, what next? 2. Informatics and Artificial Intelligence: The pervasive anywhere anytime digital computing and connectivity via mobile telephones, the internet and satellite navigation has now created a holistic cybersphere where we live our visible and tangible lives both at the physical and non-physical levels simultaneously. What happens when computers become smarter than we are in certain critical areas? What happens if those computers are a million times smarter than any of us in certain critical areas? What would they do that we would not even be able to comprehend? 3. Nanotechnology: This may ultimately allow us complete control over physical matter, so that we can build any physical object we might require, at near-zero marginal cost. What are the implications? The Singularity is both a potentially wonderful, but also a terribly worrying Happening or Hap portending Total Chaos for those who may have concerns associated with the omni-presence of the benevolent Supra Universal Consciousnes as the guiding force showering us with Synchronicity signatures in All instances. The "point" of the Singularity is reached essentially when all of the scientific and technological innovation trends appear to go out of control, ie, they have moved beyond our event horizon, and we can no longer follow along any previous linear logic or understanding to comprehend their combined effects. That technological change is instantaneous, omnipresent, omniscient, and omnipotent! What if the technology enabled systems decide we are no longer relevant? We may not have the answer for it if we consider ourselves as separate from the unified holistic system. However, if we are willing to consider the Supra Universal Concsiousness (SUC) as the Singularity itself -- defined by our sum total collective conciousness manifest both within and without the universe -- then that SUC is already providing clues via synchronicity showers that portend itself, ie, the tangible arrival of The Singularity's presence in our age manifest as "Self-Aware Supra-Intelligent Totally-Organised Chaos" which is timeless and existent simultaneously in the past, present and future! In other words, the Singularity -- the unifying energy field with infinite potential -- has always been there. It will be easy for more and more to perceive that Singularity's presence in the near future via its signatures that are showering all with synchronicity manifest events, ie, Happenings or just plain "Haps"! [ENDS] What is your perspective on being showered with events and happenings which appear to be synchronised so perfectly that they portend a unifying energy field, ie, the Singularity? Please share! With love and warm wishes to you and family DK with family DK Matai

Be the miracle

Alchemystique — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 08:13:24 GMT

There is a scene in the movie Bruce Almighty when God tells Bruce: “Parting your soup is not a miracle, it's a magic trick, Bruce. A single mom who's working two jobs and still finds time to take her kid to soccer practice, that's a miracle. …Be the miracle." How about a mom with two kids Bruce, with one of them severely sick, and both extremely conscious, living under conditions very few of us can ever ever handle. Yet I have had the pleasure, privilege and honour of knowing this very mom for the last few years. I have known this every day hero, this miracle worker, who is put up the most valiant fight I have ever seen, without ever ever being resentful, or bitter or reactive. So much so that she never asked for help, anybody’s help. But now even this warrior needs our help. So my dear friends, now we all get a chance, to take part in this courageous, compassionate act of love. One that fills me with pride, joy and honour to be part of. Now is our chance to be the miracle. We now have a lil site for this dearest friend of mine, http://ActiveGenerosity.org , where we can read a little about her audacious journey, and a place where we can contribute in any way to her worthy cause. I would humbly ask you to be part of this miracle by either donating financially yourselves, and or by sharing this message and site with your own circle of close friends. So that we can all take part in this most worthy of miracles. Thank you so much from the bottom of my ever so greatfullheart.

Congratulations to us for allowing an everyday hero's journey to come to fruition

Alchemystique — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 14:33:10 GMT

The battle is over. True the war continues . We chose a candidate who aims for higher aspirations in us. I asked my own internal guiDANCE what does this mean to us. I was told, as a species we have chosen a better, far more joyous dream. Maybe just maybe we have suffered enough collectively to learn we don't have to continue suffering so vehemently to learn any more. This historic time, where we could have a president till the very auspicious and volatile 2012, who actually qualifies as being one of our planet's brightest, most driven and intelligent can mean that we are getting ready for the leap of consciousness in our very core. For this to happen to us, for our collective consciousness to allow this to happen in this realities timeline, shows we have grown to a higher, brighter consciousness. One that understands the power of positivity, ones who understand they are the ones they have been waiting for. In so doing we recognize the power of personal responsibility, we understand we can't take things personally. We understand the power of imagination, the power of imagining a better far more pleasant and productive dream. The Goddess is smiling at us brightly, letting us know that we can make this planet heaven again, since we have already started imagining heaven on earth. As master John Lennon says, Where we live as one. Once again congratulations to us, and may I express my deepest gratitude for the privilege of being alive and kicking in such breathtakingly beautiful times.

Deepak Chopra has something to say about Hindu opposition to Mike Myers' new movie: Get over it.

Alchemystique — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 14:55:50 GMT

http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1811275,00.html (LOS ANGELES) — Deepak Chopra has something to say about Hindu opposition to Mike Myers' new movie: Get over it. The best-selling author and spiritual teacher is defending The Love Guru, a comedy in which Myers plays an aspiring self-help guru who aims to achieve Chopra's level of popularity. Chopra posted an essay online in response to those in the Hindu community who say The Love Guru is offensive and mocks important tenets of their faith. "The premature outcry against the movie is itself religious propaganda," Chopra writes, noting that the protesters based their views on the film's 2 1/2-minute trailer. "As viewers will find out when the movie is released this summer, no one is more thoroughly skewered in it than I am — you could even say that I am made to seem preposterous." Chopra, who makes a cameo appearance in the film, said he and Myers have been friends for 15 years. The two appeared together last year in an episode of Iconoclasts, a series of short documentaries on the Sundance Channel, and Myers wrote the foreword to Chopra's latest book, Why is God Laughing? — which explores the relationship between comedy and spirituality. Chopra inadvertently inspired The Love Guru. During a period of depression, Myers discovered Chopra's books and videos and began imitating his accent, Chopra said. Myers tried out his new character in New York comedy clubs and began to write the film. "The teachings in this comedy are fictional and non-denominational," Myers told The AP in a statement. "They are based on a made up system called D.R.A.M.A. D.R.A.M.A. is Distraction, Regression, Adjustment, Maturity and Action. It's a mythical creation. It's like The Force in Star Wars." The comedian sought Chopra's blessing on the concept and script before moving forward with the movie, Chopra told The Associated Press. "He said, 'Listen, it's kind of a satire. It's a lampoon,'" Chopra said, recalling Myers' words. "He said on the surface it's like that, but on a deeper level, it's a tribute." Myers "has the most profound understanding of Eastern wisdom, traditions and spirituality," Chopra said. "In the end, the movie is about self-esteem and love. It is about, in fact, love being the ultimate truth. He goes about it in a very silly, humorous way, but that's his style." Rajan Zed, a self-described Hindu leader who has led protests against The Love Guru, says the film "appears to be lampooning Hinduism and Hindus" and uses sacred terms frivolously. "People are not very well-versed in Hinduism, so this might be their only exposure," he told the AP in March. "They will have an image in their minds of stereotypes. They will think most of us are like that." But Chopra, who cites various spiritual influences but does not consider himself religious "in the traditional sense," said the film is all in fun and could increase awareness of Hindu culture. He called Zed's efforts "a cry for importance" and "a sign of deep insecurity." "It's a sign that your faith has become a cover up for all your insecurities because you can't even take a joke," Chopra said. "Mike is bringing attention to some very profound truths and these people haven't even seen the movie." Paramount Pictures is set to release The Love Guru June 20.

the sadness.. the patheticness of hillary ...

Alchemystique — Sat, 24 May 2008 09:37:59 GMT

"My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. I don't understand it." Please watch the two youtube videos I posted of Keith Olbermann responding to this.

Why Do Political Lies Work?

Alchemystique — Sat, 17 May 2008 17:33:36 GMT

http://www.intentblog.com/archives/2008/05/why_do_politica.html Why Do Political Lies Work? Deepak Chopra - May 16, 2008 Anyone who wants to reform American politics has to seriously consider the pros and cons of lying. Telling people what they want to hear has rarely lost an election. Yet nobody wants to be on the Titanic, reassured that what they felt was just a tiny bump. To begin with, there's an assumption that no candidate can win by telling the whole truth . The Dennis Kucinich school of bald-faced candor is usually fatal. The phrase "lying politician" rolls easily off the tongue, and yet a balancing act is required. We expect politicians to lie in some areas but not others. Pollsters have not found a simple formula for success, although being positive comes as close as any. Voters don't elect whistle-blowers and Cassandras. In the present climate there are certain painful truths that cannot be safely uttered in public. Examples: --America's going to lose this war in the end. Iraq and Iran will form a Shiite coalition controlling almost as much oil as Saudi Arabia. --The Army contains a lot of disadvantaged kids who enlisted because it was an easy option that paid well. --The death penalty is barbaric and doesn't work. --Millions of prison inmates don't deserve to be there, the victims of draconian drug laws. --Drugs aren't going away, no matter how many crusades are mounted against them. -- American democracy panders to the masses once every few years but is run on a day-to-day basis by privileged elites. -- If you're poor or ethnic, your interests take a back seat in Washington. --The military-industrial complex fuels American exports, so while preaching peace, our pocketbooks depend on selling war. --The Christian right would be totally ignored if they hadn't found a way to vote en bloc and employ character assassination against anyone who opposes them. -- It's immoral to force a politician to prove he loves God in public. -- The deterioration of public discourse since Watergate has driven the best and the brightest out of politics. -- No problem is so big that Washington can't find a way to postpone facing it. This is a discouraging list, but I'm sure any thoughtful person who keeps up with politics could add to it with many more examples. Succeeding in political office means either avoiding the truth, masking it over, replacing it with distractions that have little or nothing to do with everyday life (e.g., school prayer, abortion, and the flag), or if need be, creating straw men to knock down. It's no secret that the right-wing revolution begun by Nixon and spectacularly advanced by Reagan was fueled by social resentment. Why else did the entire South go Republican after the civil rights era? Why else did 'liberal' become a dirty word and war protestors were blamed for losing in Vietnam? Finding a group to hate and vent resentment toward is far easier than telling hard truths to your supporters. Will this time-honored avoidance of truth-telling, which breaks down only in dire crisis, ever change? The Democrats are running on the hope that it will. But a double bind seems to be tightening on them, especially on Sen. Obama. When he tells the truth too plainly, he is accused of being unrealistic, naive, too idealistic for his own good. When he resorts to placating gun owners, church goers, and the working class after offending them, he is accused of returning to politics as usual. This double bind has always existed. Pres. Kennedy, for fear of looking soft on Communism, ran on a fictional missile gap with the Soviet Union, a naked appeal to voter fear and hatred of the enemy. The trick is to infuse false rhetoric and sham promises with enough integrity that voters can read between the lines. In America you must convince people that you grasp reality without giving them too big a dose of it.

"something that's leading" Obama

Alchemystique — Sat, 10 May 2008 17:52:49 GMT

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080510/ap_on_el_pr/obama_odyssey Obama rises from political obscurity to verge of history By CHARLES BABINGTON, Associated Press Writer 2 hours, 30 minutes ago WASHINGTON - The amazement was on their faces. Hundreds waited for Barack Obama on that evening in South Carolina, 15 weeks ago, to claim victory — a surprising victory, surprisingly large. ADVERTISEMENT And amazing it was. It made it possible for him to stand today on the verge of being the first black person ever nominated for president by a major party. One could guess the thoughts of the blacks and whites in that crowd: Can you believe that our state — South Carolina, first to secede and first to open fire in the Civil War — is now catapulting a black man to the front of the presidential contest in a year that bodes well for Democrats? "Race doesn't matter," some began to chant. "Race doesn't matter!" The cry soon gave way to more familiar chants of "Yes we can," and everyone in the auditorium surely knew that race does still matter in so many ways. But in a pinch-me moment, they seemed to realize that a barrier had been broken with a swiftness and certainty that even they had not foreseen. Even more astounding, the man vaulting ahead of the universally known former first lady, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, had been a state legislator only four years earlier — a lawyer with no fame, wealth or family connections. Now, the entire nation and countless foreigners are absorbing a moment that had seemed decades away, if possible at all. Smart strategists and rank-and-file voters ponder how Obama rose so far so fast, and theories abound. Historians will sort it out someday, but Obama's blend of oratory, biography, optimism and cool confidence come to mind most immediately. It's not just about him, of course. If America can seriously think of putting a black man in the White House, surely it must also profoundly rethink the relevance of race, the power of prejudice, the logic of affirmative action and other societal forces that have evolved slowly through the eras of Jim Crow, desegregation and massive immigration. Maybe the toughest question is this: Is Obama, with his incandescent smile and silky oratory, a once-in-a-century phenomenon who will blast open doors only to see them quickly close on less extraordinary blacks? Or is he the lucky and well-timed beneficiary of racial dynamics that have changed faster than most people realized, a trend that presumably will soon yield more black governors, senators, mayors and council members? Presidential campaigns have destroyed many bright and capable politicians. But there's ample evidence that Obama is something special, a man who makes difficult tasks look easy, who seems to touch millions of diverse people with a message of hope that somehow doesn't sound Pollyannaish. Rep. Elijah Cummings, a black Maryland Democrat who endorsed Obama early, says the Illinois senator convinces people of all races that Americans as a society, and as individuals, can achieve higher goals if they try. "He says we can do better, and his life is the epitome of doing better," says Cummings, noting that Obama was raised by a single mother who sometimes relied on food stamps. "He convinces people that there's a lot of good within them." And why should they believe such feel-good platitudes? "Because he's real and he has confidence in his own competence," Cummings says. Without question, Obama is an electrifying speaker. At virtually every key juncture in his trajectory, he has used inspirational oratory to generate excitement, buy time to deal with crises, and force party activists to rethink their assumptions that a black man with an African name cannot seriously vie for the presidency. A prime-time speech at the Democratic convention in Boston catapulted him to national attention in 2004. When his presidential campaign badly trailed Clinton's high-flying operation, he gave it new life with a timely Iowa speech that outshone her remarks moments earlier on the same stage. And a heavily covered March 18 speech about race relations calmed criticisms about his ties to his former pastor, although Obama had to revisit the matter when the minister restated incendiary remarks about the government. Obama has a compelling biography, too. The son of a black African father he barely knew, and a white Kansan mother who took him from Hawaii to Indonesia, he was largely raised by his white maternal grandparents. He finished near the top of his Harvard law class, then rejected big firms' salaries to work as a community organizer in Southside Chicago, where he found a church, his wife and a place that felt like home. But all those attributes don't explain the Obama phenomenon. Other great orators have fallen short of the presidency, including Daniel Webster and William Jennings Bryan. Plenty of brilliant people have tried and failed, too. Bill Bradley was a Princeton graduate, basketball star and Rhodes Scholar. Intriguing biographies aren't enough, either. John Glenn was an astronaut and American hero, but he couldn't get off the presidential launchpad. Jim Margolis, a veteran campaign strategist now working for Obama, thinks it is his blend of all these traits, wrapped in "authenticity," which makes Obama's message of hope and inclusion seem plausible, not pie in the sky. Margolis interviewed many of Obama's Harvard classmates for TV ads and documentaries. They told him Obama "was wise beyond his years, and never talked down to people," Margolis said. "He has this amazing ability to connect with people and understand their problems," he said. "And through it all, there is this optimism." For a politician with only four years of experience at the federal level, Obama also has spot-on instincts, associates say, and a steely confidence in his convictions, in good times and bad. His roughest patch came after Clinton revived her campaign with wins in Ohio and Pennsylvania, and a renewed uproar over Obama's former pastor threatened to consume his campaign. Obama rejected advice to criticize Clinton more fiercely, and went back to his themes of political and racial reconciliation. His solid win in North Carolina and near miss in Indiana confirmed his judgment. Obama and his small core of longtime advisers also outsmarted the vaunted Clinton team by focusing early on small caucus states, where he racked up important wins. His fundraising has been nothing short of astounding, with millions of dollars pouring in via the Internet from people who never gave a politician a dime. Obama fans often search for words to express their attraction. "He just really electrifies you when you are listening to him," said Lena Bradley, 78, a beauty salon owner in Washington. "He has something that's leading him." As ephemeral as "something that's leading him" sounds, it's hard to explain in more clinical terms his impact on people. But it's there. As recently as June 2006, a lone reporter could travel with Obama in cars and small planes as he campaigned for other Democrats in state after state. On one such visit to Massachusetts and New Jersey, his charm was on full display before crowds of various size, age and ethnic makeup. He made teenagers guffaw by saying people pronounced his name "Yo Mama." He quoted scripture in a black church, and set every head nodding. On a plane ride he talked with the reporter for an hour, on the record, with barely a hint of the nervousness or hedging that most politicians understandably display to someone with a pen, pad and tape recorder. Before an audience of 300 people in East Orange, N.J., Obama spotted local resident and famous singer Dionne Warwick. He smiled impishly and sang, "If you see me walking down the street," the opening line of her hit, "Walk on By." The crowd roared its approval of his on-key ad lib. Some veteran politicians also see "something that's leading" Obama, whether they can explain it or not. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., a longtime friend and supporter, said "nothing was ever the same" after Obama's Boston speech. Durbin recalls pulling Obama into a vacant meeting room in Chicago's Union League Club, where both had spoken on a Friday afternoon in November 2006. He felt it was time for his young colleague to decide whether to run for the White House. "There are moments in life when you can pick the time," Durbin said he told Obama. "But when it comes to running for president, the time can pick you. You've been picked. This is your moment." A short time later, Obama launched his candidacy.

Operation Anti-Chaos: The Narrative on “White Voters” Is Fiction

Alchemystique — Sat, 03 May 2008 22:16:12 GMT

http://ruralvotes.com/thefield/?p=1144 Operation Anti-Chaos: The Narrative on “White Voters” Is Fiction By Al Giordano I turn on the TV, read the political columnists (and a significant number of analytically-challenged bloggers, too) and all I hear is a bunch of white folk prattling on about their favorite narrative: “Obama’s losing white voters!” They’ve swallowed the Clinton racially-obsessed spin, hook, line and sinker. Some, because they are gullible, haven’t an original idea in their little pea brains, and follow the pack of what everybody else is talking about. Others, because they like to toss around knowing falsehoods. Nary a superdelegate can go on Fox News without being berated by an anchorperson screeching (this is pretty close to an exact quote): “But your duty as a superdelegate is to select the most electable and that’s Hillary Clinton!” That these anchorpersons are Republican partisans openly cheering for Senator Clinton is our first clue of the game afoot. One of the major successes of Rush Limbaugh’s Operation Chaos is that it has got all the right-wing pundits and reporters marching lockstep behind the effort to give Clinton enough oxygen to keep slashing away at Senator Obama, who remains the prohibitive likely Democratic nominee. And when Clinton wins state primaries that, because of demographics, she was always going to win - last week, Pennsylvania and next week, Indiana - they then wave that event up like a blood-soaked flag as proof of their narrative: See? See? We told you so! White people won’t vote for Obama! So imagine my pleasant surprise this morning to see a New York Times columnist, Charles Blow, who did what none of these chattering lunkheads have done. He looked at the hard data of how voters, white and black, view the two Democratic candidates - favorably or negatively? - and how those views have progressed over time. The data is based on multiple CBS-New York Times polls (among the most respected survey outfits among competing pollsters) over two years and more. Check it out: blowcorrected.gif Nobody - not blogger, nor superdelegate, nor cable news anchor - should open their mouths with another word about this contest until they’ve studied those graphs and the numbers upon which they are based. Blow explains: Since January, the Clintons have pummeled Barack Obama with racially tinged comments and questions about his character… The question is this: Have white Democrats soured on Obama? Apparently not. Although his unfavorable rating from the group is up five percentage points since last summer in polls conducted by The New York Times and CBS News, his favorable rating is up just as much. Wait. The numbers show that the cynical effort to turn the 2008 campaign into a race riot has hurt the popularity of one candidate among an important demographic, and it’s not Barack Obama: On the other hand, black Democrats’ opinion of Hillary Clinton has deteriorated substantially (her favorable rating among them is down 36 percentage points over the same period). So, to sum up: Look at the damn graphs. You can see that Clinton is in a staggering free-fall among African-American voters, her favorability is down 36 points while 17 percent view her more negatively than before, while Obama’s favorable and negative ratings among whites have paired at five point increases. You can even see the small dip - about two percentage points - in his popularity among whites that can be attributed to the news cycles about his ex-pastor, and see that it has leveled out and is now on a straight horizontal line (meanwhile, Clinton’s numbers among blacks continue on an extreme downward precipice). The greater context is that even including Obama’s slight dip, he’s more popular today among white voters than he ever was prior to February. Not since Ronald Reagan has an American presidential candidate withstood such an assault in the media and seen his popularity not hurt by it, but, rather, galvanized by it. That’s what is meant, in politics, by the term “Teflon.” Those facts won’t stop many media (and Internet) talking heads from continuing - whether out of gullibility or intentional dishonesty - to prop up the “white voters” narrative, but it ought to inoculate you, kind reader, from believing it. Don’t let yourself get upset when some idiot repeats the false media narrative. Don’t plead with them to tell the truth (they won’t; remember, they’re either stupid or dishonest). Mock them. Ridicule them. Expose them as the lightweights they are showing themselves to be, with all the confidence that understanding the hard data ought to provide you. Let Operation Anti-Chaos begin!

Overkill and Short Shrift

Alchemystique — Sat, 03 May 2008 18:02:23 GMT

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/03/opinion/03herbert.html?em&ex=1209960000&en=3e80e918218fc188&ei=5087http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/03/opinion/03herbert.html?em&ex=1209960000&en=3e80e918218fc188&ei=5087 Op-Ed Columnist Overkill and Short Shrift By BOB HERBERT Published: May 3, 2008 The Rev. Jeremiah Wright is no doubt (and regrettably) a big issue in the presidential campaign. But what we’ve seen over the past week is major media overkill — Jeremiah Wright all day and all night. It’s like watching the clips of a car wreck again and again. Skip to next paragraph Go to Columnist Page » We’ve plotted the trend lines of his relationship with Barack Obama over the past two decades. What did Obama know and when did he know it? We’ve forced Barack and Michelle Obama, two decent, hard-working, law-abiding, family-oriented Americans, to sit for humiliating television interviews, reminiscent of Bill and Hillary Clinton on “60 Minutes” at the height of the Gennifer Flowers scandal. We’ve allowed the entire political process in what is perhaps the most important election in the U.S. since World War II to become thoroughly warped by the histrionics of a loony preacher from the South Side of Chicago. There’s something wrong with us. Race is like pornography in the United States — the dirty stories and dirty pictures that everyone professes to hate but no one can resist. But I suspect that even porn addicts get their fill sometimes. The challenge for the working press right now is to see if we can force ourselves past the overwhelming temptations of Wright and race and focus in a sustained way on some other important matters, like the cratering economy, metastasizing energy costs, the dismal state of public education, the nation’s crumbling infrastructure or the damage being done to the American soul by the endless war in Iraq. A highly decorated Army ranger named David McDowell, a 30-year-old father of two from Ramona, Calif., was killed in Afghanistan this week. As I read his obituary, I noticed that he had been deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq seven times. What does that tell us about our shared wartime sacrifices? I’d like to hear a lot less about Reverend Wright and a lot more about why the U.S. can’t close the deal in Afghanistan and hardly even seems interested in extricating our G.I.’s from Iraq. Among the many other important issues overshadowed by the good reverend is a legitimate dispute between the presidential candidates over a proposed gasoline tax holiday, to run through the summer. Hillary Clinton and John McCain favor this dopey, irresponsible proposal, which would save individual motorists a grand total of $28, but which would result in $9 billion in lost tax revenues, much of it targeted for infrastructure needs. (Senator Clinton says she would recoup the losses with a windfall profits tax on oil companies. Don’t hold your breath.) No one with a serious understanding of the nation’s energy needs supports this foolishness. Senators Clinton and McCain have been assailed by editorial writers on the left and the right for pandering. Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York City was stinging in his criticism, calling the proposal “about the dumbest thing” he’d heard in a long time. “Obama was right on this one, and McCain and Clinton were wrong,” said Mr. Bloomberg. “The last thing we need to do is to encourage people to drive more and to take away the monies we need for infrastructure in this country.” The point here is that this was a tailor-made opening for the press to push the candidates hard on a phenomenally important question: What should we be doing in the short and long term about U.S. energy requirements? Another issue: Economists were exhaling Friday because we only lost 20,000 jobs in April. After all, we lost 81,000 in March. Nevermind that we need to be creating millions of jobs if we’re ever going to get our economic house in order. With credit cards maxed out, real estate prices falling and enormous amounts of home equity already drained, a good job is the only legitimate way to put real money into the hands of cash-strapped families. Americans are hurting on the jobs front. Those who are employed are working fewer hours and for less pay. Some sectors are crippled by unemployment. There are big-city neighborhoods in which the real jobless rate of young African-Americans is 80 percent or higher. Do the candidates have concrete strategies for engaging these problems? Could we hear about them? Explore them? Critique them? Are we in the news media going to be serious about this election, or is it really going to be all about Wright and race all the time? Most of the electorate understands that the U.S. is in sorry shape, which is why more than 80 percent of poll respondents say we’re on the wrong track. The Rev. Jeremiah Wright has nothing to do with any of that. The idea that his nonsense may shape the outcome of this election is both tragic and absurd.

Coffeecups and Gutterballs: A Precision Media Hit On Obama, A Pass For Clinton

Alchemystique — Fri, 02 May 2008 21:20:58 GMT

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rj-eskow/coffeecups-and-gutterball_b_99831.html Coffeecups and Gutterballs: A Precision Media Hit On Obama, A Pass For Clinton stumbleupon :Coffeecups and Gutterballs: A Precision Media Hit On Obama, A Pass For Clinton digg: Coffeecups and Gutterballs: A Precision Media Hit On Obama, A Pass For Clinton reddit: Coffeecups and Gutterballs: A Precision Media Hit On Obama, A Pass For Clinton del.icio.us: Coffeecups and Gutterballs: A Precision Media Hit On Obama, A Pass For Clinton Review it on NewsTrust Yahoo Buzz: Coffeecups and Gutterballs: A Precision Media Hit On Obama, A Pass For Clinton Posted May 2, 2008 | 01:29 PM (EST) Read More: Barack Obama, Bill Ayers, Coffee Machine, Ed Rendell, Hillary Clinton, Jeremiah Wright, John McCain, Karl Rove, Louis Farrakhan, Media, Media Bias, Sidney Blumenthal, Media News Show your support. Buzz this article up. Buzz up! * * * Like this story? Get Alerts of big news events. Enter your email address Let's start with a hypothetical situation: Suppose a small group of people controlled the press, and they wanted to ensure a Republican victory in November. A few weeks ago Obama seemed to be riding a wave of inevitability and positive perception. The Democrats seemed to have settled on a candidate, and he scored well against the Republicans because he was seen as post-racial and post-partisan. If this group were to write a memo to the media, what would it say? Their game plan would have very specific objectives: 1. Extend the Democratic primary race as long as possible. 2. Remind the public that the seemingly "post-racial" Obama is a black man; make him seem as scary-black as possible. 3. Strengthen Hillary Clinton's image with white working-class voters by making her appear populist, folksy, and one of them. Conversely, characterize Obama as an elitist who is out of touch with "real people." 4. Break down Obama's post-partisan appeal to independents and Republicans by linking him to the divisive left/right politics of the 1960s. Now look back over the media's coverage of the Democratic campaign during the past several weeks. Bingo: Mission accomplished. By giving the primary campaign more of a horse-race feel than it actually has, they've managed to extend it. The Rev. Wright controversy and constant mentions of Louis Farrakhan have made Obama seem more "scary-black." (It should be noted that Clinton has closer political ties to a Farrakhan lover than Obama does. Her PA campaign chair Gov. Ed Rendell said this of him: "His depth on analysis when it comes to the racial ills of this nation is astounding and eye opening. He brings a perspective that is helpful and honest... one of the 20th and 21st century giants of the African American religious experience.") Those images of Hillary doing shots in Pennsylvania were broadcast morning, noon, and night, emphasizing her working-class image. So were images of Obama bowling a gutterball and looking "elitist." And by promoting Obama's alleged "ties" to Weather Underground radical Bill Ayers while downplaying Clinton I's pardon of two fellow Underground members, Obama was made to look more "leftist" than Clinton. And that's not all, as they say on the late-night ads ... Now we have the matter of Hillary's difficulty with a coffee machine. This video has gone viral, complete with goofy and irritating music. It shows Sen. Clinton struggling to operate the coffee maker in a gas station. It's become popular among Obama supporters because it shows the allegedly "populist" Hillary's bafflement at operating a device that is familiar to most working Americans. Why is the coffee-machine video so popular among Obama supporters? Because they think it would be airing 24 hours a day if their candidate had made the same mistake. And it would. So, is the coffee-machine video getting airplay on the cable news shows? Not really ... well, wait: CNN did run a piece about it, but only to debunk the idea that this means Hillary's out of touch. "These coffee machines ARE finicky sometimes," says reporter Jeanne Moos, "I nearly broke one at the car dealership ..." Yet CNN breathlessly repeated over and over that Obama only scored a 37 while bowling, without reporting that he never finished the game! And there was no Jeanne Moos to say "we all throw gutterballs sometimes." But, stop already! Isn't this all ridiculous? Isn't it trivial to concern ourselves with whether the next president is able to go bowling or get a cup of coffee from a vending machine? Of course! But the media make us care about these things. They have an enormous ability to influence what we think about, and they've chosen to emphasize the reality-show aspects of this race. Then, having done that, they skew the race in favor of different candidates in a naked display of their ability to influence the outcome. That's the lesson of the bowling incident and the coffee-cup video: One gets exposure and the other doesn't, because the narrative has already been written. In this particular reality show, they've decided who they want voted off the island next. So what does this all mean? Is our hypothetical group real? Did instructions come down from on high? The crystal balls are murky. But it's clear that American media outlets are owned by fewer and more powerful interests. And they don't necessarily have to write memos. All they have to do is hire and promote well-intentioned but biased reporters who don't even realize how they're distorting the news. Throw in a couple of cooperative editors, and you've got yourself a "free press" ready to do the bidding of its owners. And most of those owners are Republican. We know that the right-wing learned how to spin and manipulate the news using outlets like Drudge and Fox. And rather than fight this system, Clinton campaign advisors like Sid Blumenthal decided to exploit it for their own ends. Blumenthal's been circulating the most scurrilous right-wing attacks against Obama to a mix of friends and journalists, and some of his readers have printed them. (Blumenthal's the guy who found the Obama campaign's idealism infuriating; guess we know why now.) And it turns out that Rev. Wright's latest public tirade was orchestrated by ... a Clinton supporter. But, some Democrats will ask, don't we want people like than running the Democratic campaign? Won't they be more effective at winning? Maybe - but that argument would be more compelling if they weren't losing. If the Clinton campaign wanted to run such a negative campaign, it should have done so from the very beginning. But they were overconfident. By turning ugly now, when they're behind, they're damaging the party. And, ironically, that may be why they're been getting such favorable media treatment lately. If the media's first job is to cripple or take out Barack Obama, then the Clinton campaign is just a means to that end. Whether Obama yields to Hillary or takes the nomination in a weakened position, the Democrats will have been wounded. And the extended race will have provided months of extra "horse-race" stories for the media. At that point Blumenthal et al. will find that their usefulness to the media machine has ended and they're yesterday's news. Their tactics won't work any more. Suddenly Clinton will be the target again - and John McCain will be on his way to the Presidency. Word to Sidney Blumenthal and all the other Rove-emulating Clintonites: You're disposable tools in a bigger game. You guys, of all people, should understand that. ___________ UPDATE: Two alleged statements by Clinton associate Mickey Kantor have been removed from this post. He says he never said the more extreme statement, and there's evidence the video we saw was doctored. So we take him at his word. Another phrase that he used, "these people are sh*t," seemed to refer to Indiana voters but is ambiguous. (Not that ambiguity would stop the press if they were determined to smear a candidate by association, as the Clinton team knows all too well.) Kantor reportedly asked that the more extreme statement not be repeated, even as a retraction. Fair enough. We've honored that request, and have also removed the other one. We suggest that Clinton and McCain supporters likewise refrain from repeating scurrilous and false remarks about their opponents in the future, even if only to deny that they believe them. ________

Embrace Your Inner Elitist

Alchemystique — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 15:53:55 GMT

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-seitzman/embrace-your-inner-elitis_b_99308.html Embrace Your Inner Elitist stumbleupon :Embrace Your Inner Elitist digg: Embrace Your Inner Elitist reddit: Embrace Your Inner Elitist del.icio.us: Embrace Your Inner Elitist Review it on NewsTrust Yahoo Buzz: Embrace Your Inner Elitist Posted April 29, 2008 | 09:16 PM (EST) Read More: Barack Obama, Democratic Primary, Election, Elitist, Jeremiah Wright, Breaking Politics News Show your support. Buzz this article up. Buzz up! * * * Like this story? Get Alerts of big news events. Enter your email address He eats arugula. He looks great in a suit. He's not a good bowler. He asked for orange juice instead of coffee in that diner. He is educated, well-read, articulates himself brilliantly and doesn't lose his temper. What an arrogant prick this guy is. If you're rejecting Obama because he's "an elitist," then I'd like to ask you to turn in your passport and leave the country immediately. The smart people would like it back. If after seven years of the schmuck you want to have a beer with you've found yourself longing for the good old todays, you're just a retard. You heard me. Send me all the angry notes you want because you've had seven years of that neighborly fella who pretends to clear brush on his "ranch," seven years of that regular guy who praises the Pope by saying (and I'm not making this up), "Awesome speech, Your Holiness," seven years of that down-to-earth C-student who doesn't read the paper or use words with more than two syllables, and seven years of the kind of macho swagger that should be reserved for old John Wayne movies and the occasional aging porn star, and you still want more of that everyman horseshit. If that's true then you deserve everything you get. The problem is that the rest of us don't. If after seven years of joining the rest of the world in ridiculing your own president (the one who promised to bring integrity back to the White House) and living with the results of regular guyness -- a swirling toilet of an economy and a war without end -- you still reject a candidate because he did well on his SAT score, you've just plain overstayed your welcome. Please. I beg you. Move to a country where mediocrity is applauded. Like Texas.

No good deed goes unpunished...

Alchemystique — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 07:59:47 GMT

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/message/index.php?id=225 Finally, I want to say a word about the basic decency I have seen in Mr. Obama. Mrs. Clinton continues to throw the Rev. Wright up in his face as part of her mission to keep stoking the fears of White America. Every time she does this I shout at the TV, "Say it, Obama! Say that when she and her husband were having marital difficulties regarding Monica Lewinsky, who did she and Bill bring to the White House for 'spiritual counseling?' THE REVEREND JEREMIAH WRIGHT!" But no, Obama won't throw that at her. It wouldn't be right. It wouldn't be decent. She's been through enough hurt. And so he remains silent and takes the mud she throws in his face. That's why the crowds who come to see him are so large. That's why he'll take us down a more decent path. That's why I would vote for him if Michigan were allowed to have an election. ----------------------------------------------------------- The article Michael Moore mentions is here: http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/03/20/photograph-of-bill-clinton-and-rev-wright-surfaces/ March 20, 2008, 8:54 pm Photograph of Bill Clinton and Rev. Wright Surfaces By Kate Phillips The Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. and President Bill Clinton at a prayer breakfast at the White House in September 1998. During one of the most difficult periods in the presidency of Bill Clinton, he addressed a group of clerics at an annual prayer breakfast in September 1998 just as the Starr report outlining his dalliance with Monica Lewinsky was about to be published. Among those in attendance, was the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., who is seen shaking hands with Mr. Clinton in a photograph provided today by the Obama campaign. Mr. Wright’s relationship with Senator Barack Obama, as his longtime pastor, has been the subject of considerable controversy in recent days because of incendiary excerpts of sermons Mr. Wright gave at their church, Trinity United Church of Christ, in Chicago. In providing the photograph to The New York Times, the Obama campaign appeared to be trying to divert some attention to the Clintons after a week in which Mr. Obama’s relationship with Mr. Wright has left him facing one of the biggest challenges of his campaign. There is nothing in the picture or the note that addresses whether Mr. Clinton had met Mr. Wright prior to the White House meeting or whether he or Mrs. Clinton knew anything about Mr. Wright’s views. The invitation to the breakfast. The invitation’s envelope. Asked for a response tonight through email, Howard Wolfson, a top aide to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, wrote, “Urgent indeed — a picture — oooooooo!” Senator Clinton’s spokesman, Phil Singer, sent along this reply to a request for comment: In the course of his two terms in office, Bill Clinton met with, corresponded with and took pictures with literally tens of thousands of people. A thank-you note from Mr. Clinton to Mr. Wright. (Click to enlarge) Mr. Wright was invited to the 1998 prayer breakfast, and in addition, he received a thank-you note from former President Clinton for his expressions of support about six weeks later. According to an account by James Bennet, former White House correspondent who has since left The Times: With tears in his eyes, President Clinton told a roomful of clerics this morning that he had sinned, speaking just hours before the world was presented a painstaking account by prosecutors of when, where and how. Addressing an annual prayer breakfast at the White House, Mr. Clinton drew on the New Testament, the Yom Kippur liturgy and Ernest Hemingway as he made his most abject confession yet of personal failure, while declaring that he would defend and redeem his Presidency. ‘’I don’t think there is a fancy way to say that I have sinned,'’ he admitted softly, saying that after resisting expressions of contrition he had reached ‘’the rock-bottom truth of where I am.'’ For the first time, Mr. Clinton also asked for forgiveness from Monica S. Lewinsky, on the day that the details of their intimate relationship — details that he had denied and struggled to suppress — poured out through the Internet, whose wonders as a tool of communication he has so often extolled. Mr. Wright is not mentioned in the article. Also visible in the photograph is Vice President Al Gore. And according to the newly released schedules of Mrs. Clinton by the National Archives of her years as first lady, she was in attendance, too. Her schedule reads: “Religion Leaders Breakfast (w/POTUS)” in the East Room from 9-10:30 a.m. Format: - The President and First Lady are announced into the East Room and proceed to their tables. - The Vice President makes remarks and introduces The President. - The President makes remarks and introduces Dr. Reverend Gerald Mann. - Dr. Reverend Gerald Mann gives blessing. - Breakfast is served. - Following breakfast, The President opens discussion. - Upon conclusion of the discussion, The President introduces Dr. Reverend James Forbes. - Dr. Reverend James Forbes gives benediction. - The President, First Lady, and Vice President depart. PARTICIPANTS: Approx. 130 guests to attend. The wording of Mr. Clinton’s thank-you note to Mr. Wright, dated Oct. 28, 1998: Dear Pastor Wright: Thank you so much for your kind message. I am touched by your prayers and by the many expressions of encouragement and support I have received from friends across our country. You have my best wishes. Sincerely, Bill Clinton

Thoughts inspired by Oprah/Ecart Tolle course the new earth, written by my good freind.

Alchemystique — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 02:51:47 GMT

Thoughts inspired by Oprah/Ecart Tolle course the new earth: Being at one with what IS doesn't mean you no longer initiate change or became incapable of taking action. But the motivation to take action comes from a deeper level, not from egoic wanting or fearing. this is the level that we seek to open as we move along, beyond fear and wanting. that perfect place deep within, thats why i'm here with you, to keep the balance with you...OUR BALANCE a balance the whole world needs more of. Inner alignment with the present moment opens your consciousness and brings it into alignment with the whole, of which the present moment is an integral part. The whole, the totality of life, then acts through you.However, there is an even deeper level to the whole than the interconnectedness of everything in existence. At that deeper level, all things are one. It is the Source, the unmanifested one Life. .. it is that timeless intelligence that manifests as a universe unfolding in time.So when you become aligned with the whole, you become a conscious part of the interconnectedness of the whole and its purpose. its not magic that helped you....its is because you are awake and conscious, things you have worked for....there is no magic there or mystification...it is a result of you constantly realigning yourself with the whole its yoga, it takes years to achieve the kind of centering you've achieved... and many don't have it... most don't i'd say.. i know you know this but today and this week, we are riding a wave with millions of others on the planet that are stepping it up some. each time you take a deep breath as you go through your day, you are effectively AWAKENING consciousness and expanding... each time you say to yourself, "this too shall pass"..... you are AWAKENING consciousness this awakening you've been practicing for so long, eventually took over your ego and effectively began to run your life, hence, situations that happen to you that are in line with what you need... out of the blue it might seem to the untrained, but extremely obvious to those of us that understand what you do each time you are performing a yogic like stance, ... one other thing that Ecart Tolle shares in his book and we are testing it out now: That current of consciousness is what determines quality. Another way of putting it:: In any situation. and in whatever you do, your state of consciousness is the primary factor; the situation and what you do is secondary. "Future" success is dependent upon and inseparable from the consciousness out of which the actions emanate. That can be either the reactive force of ego or the alert attention of awakened consciousness. All truly successful action comes out of that field of alert attention, rather than from ego and conditioned, unconscious thinking.

Last Night Clinton Won the Pennsylvania Primary, but Lost the War for the Nomination

Alchemystique — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 11:11:20 GMT

The Pennsylvania Primary was Hillary Clinton's last chance to deliver a game changing blow to Obama's campaign for the nomination. She failed to deliver. Pennsylvania provided her with her final real opportunity to knock the wheels off the Obama campaign. She needed a crushing victory of 18% to 25% to have any real chance of altering the math or the psychology. Demographically, Pennsylvania was made for Hillary: the second oldest state in the nation, heavily blue collar, Catholic and rural -- Hillary's voter profile. She started with a lead of almost 20 points. But her final margin -- which the Pennsylvania Secretary of State says was only 9.2% -- fell far short of what was needed to stop Obama's nomination. Here's why: 1). Pledged Delegates. By CNN's count, Clinton netted about 14 pledged delegates in Pennsylvania. That still leaves Obama up by 151 pledged delegates. It is likely that after Guam, Indiana and North Carolina, there will be no net change in pledged delegates, even if Clinton wins Indiana, since Obama will certainly pick up delegates in North Carolina. But at that point only 251 pledged delegates will remain to be chosen. Even if she got 80% of all of the pledged delegates that remain after Indiana, she would still trail Obama at the end of the day. The battle for the pledged delegate advantage is over. 2). Popular Vote. Pennsylvania was her best opportunity to really close in on Obama's popular vote lead. She picked up about 216,000 net votes. But that still leaves her over 600,000 votes behind, and Obama will likely increase his popular vote margin further after the contests on May 6th. Her failure to blow Obama out in Pennsylvania makes it almost impossible for her to close the popular vote gap. 3). Electability. Clinton's entire strategy rests on the premise that she can convince Super Delegates that Obama is unelectable. Only a massive win in Pennsylvania would have credibly made that case. Clinton's victory did little to enhance her argument. Regardless of the passions of the moment, history shows us that just because voters prefer one candidate in the primary, it doesn't mean they won't vote for her Democratic opponent in a general election when the choice is a Republican. When all is said and done, primary voters almost always vote for the candidate of their party in a general election - regardless of what they might say (on either side) in the middle of a primary fight. In fact, the people who decide general elections rarely set foot in primary voting booths. They are the independent voters who vote only in general elections and unengaged voters who are would vote Democratic, but have to be mobilized to go to the polls. The fact is that to whatever degree Hillary might have more appeal among independent rural and blue collar voters, Obama more than makes up in additional appeal to independent suburban voters. Obama's ability to mobilize new young and African American voters in the general election is indisputably greater than Clinton's. And of course, Obama will not go into the General Election burdened by the towering Clinton negatives that her own negative campaign strategy increases daily. The polls, and even Pennsylvania Governor and Clinton supporter Ed Rendell, make it clear that Obama can win Pennsylvania in the general election. But Obama can also broaden the playing field with a shot at winning states like Colorado and Virginia. 4). Super Delegates. Finally is a fact that is generally overlooked by pundits. At the close of the primaries, Obama will not need a stampede of Super Delegates to clinch the nomination. In fact he will only need about 40% of those that remain today. Let's make the most conservative assumptions about the outcome of the remaining races: Guam, even; North Carolina, 58%-42% Obama; Indiana, 54%-46% Clinton; Kentucky, 60%-40% Clinton; West Virginia, 60%-40% Clinton; Oregon, 56%-44% Obama, Montana 56%-44% Obama; Puerto Rico, 60%-40% Clinton. That would leave Obama at 1,846 delegates at the close of the Primaries. He would need only 41% of the Super Delegates remaining today to clinch the nomination with 2,025. And let's remember, he has picked up almost one Super Delegate a day for the last month. There is no reason to believe he won't keep picking up Super Delegates as the contest continues. So by the end of the primaries he will need an even lower percentage of the Super Delegates that remain. All that remains for Clinton are more opportunities for her own campaign to be shut down. If she loses Indiana and North Carolina it will be extremely hard for her to continue. But there is no longer any opportunity for her to defeat Obama. Clinton's may have won last night, but she failed to do what she needed to do to derail Obama's march to the nomination. In retrospect, Pennsylvania will appear as Clinton's Waterloo. Robert Creamer is a long time political organizer and strategist and author of the recent book, "Stand Up Straight. How Progressives Can Win," available on Amazon.com

Why Hillary Makes My Wife Scream

Alchemystique — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 07:43:29 GMT

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080505/hayden My wife Barbara has begun yelling at the television set every time she hears Hillary Clinton. This is abnormal behavior, since Barbara is a meditative practitioner of everything peaceful and organic, and is inspired by Barack Obama's transformational appeal. For Barbara, Hillary has become the screech on the blackboard. From First Lady to Lady Macbeth. It's getting to me as well. Last year, I was somewhat reconciled to the prospect of supporting and pressuring Hillary as the nominee amidst the rising tide of my friends who already hated her, irrationally I thought. I was one of those people Barack accuses of being willing to settle. I even had framed a flattering autographed message from Hillary. But as the campaign has gone on and on, her signed portrait still leans against the wall in my study. I don't know where she belongs anymore. CONTINUED BELOW At least Hillary was a known quantity in my life. I knew of the danger of her becoming more and more hawkish as she tried to break the ultimate glass ceiling. I also knew that she could be forced to change course if public opinion was fiercely opposed to the war. And I knew she was familiar with radical social causes from her own life experience in the sixties. So my progressive task seemed clear: help build an antiwar force powerful enough to make it politically necessary to end the war. Been there, done that. And in the process, finally put a woman in the White House. A soothing bonus. But as the Obama campaign gained momentum, Hillary began morphing into the persona that has my pacifist wife screaming at the television set. Going negative doesn't begin to describe what has happened. Hillary is going over the edge. Even worse are the flacks she sends before the cameras on her behalf, like that Kiki person, who smirks and shakes her head at the camera every time she fields a question. Or the real carnivores, like Howard Wolfson, Lanny Davis and James Carville, whose sneering smugness prevents countless women like my wife from considering Hillary at all. To use the current terminology, Hillary people are bitter people, even more bitter than the white working-class voters Barack has talked about. Because they circle the wagons so tightly, they don't recognize how identical, self-reinforcing and out-of-touch they are. To take just one example, the imagined association between Barack Obama and Bill Ayers will suffice. Hillary is blind to her own roots in the sixties. In one college speech she spoke of ecstatic transcendence; in another, she said, "Our social indictment has broadened. Where once we exposed the quality of life in the world of the South and the ghettos, now we condemn the quality of work in factories and corporations. Where once we assaulted the exploitation of man, now we decry the destruction of nature as well. How much long can we let corporations run us?" She was in Chicago for three nights during the 1968 street confrontations. She chaired the 1970 Yale law school meeting where students voted to join a national student strike again an "unconscionable expansion of a war that should never have been waged." She was involved in the New Haven defense of Bobby Seale during his murder trial in 1970, as the lead scheduler of student monitors. She surely agreed with Yale president Kingman Brewster that a black revolutionary couldn't get a fair trial in America. She wrote that abused children were citizens with the same rights as their parents. Most significantly in terms of her recent attacks on Barack, after Yale law school, Hillary went to work for the left-wing Bay Area law firm of Treuhaft, Walker and Burnstein, which specialized in Black Panthers and West Coast labor leaders prosecuted for being communists. Two of the firm's partners, according to Treuhaft, were communists and the two others "tolerated communists". Then she went on to Washington to help impeach Richard Nixon, whose career was built on smearing and destroying the careers of people through vague insinuations about their backgrounds and associates. (All these citations can be found in Carl Bernstein's sympathetic 2007 Clinton biography, A Woman in Charge.) All these were honorable words and associations in my mind, but doesn't she see how the Hillary of today would accuse the Hillary of the sixties of associating with black revolutionaries who fought gun battles with police officers, and defending pro-communist lawyers who backed communists? Doesn't the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, whom Hillary attacks today, represent the very essence of the black radicals Hillary was associating with in those days? And isn't the Hillary of today becoming the same kind of guilt-by-association insinuator as the Richard Nixon she worked to impeach? It is as if Hillary Clinton is engaged in a toxic transmission onto Barack Obama of every outrageous insult and accusation ever inflicted on her by the American right over the decades. She is running against what she might have become. Too much politics dries the soul of the idealist. It is abundantly clear that the Clintons, working with FOX News and manipulating old Clinton staffers like George Stephanopoulos, are trying, at least unconsciously, to so damage Barack Obama that he will be perceived as "unelectable" to Democratic superdelegates. It is also clear that the campaign of defamation against Obama has resulted in higher negative ratings for Hillary Clinton. She therefore is threatening the Democratic Party's chances for the White House, whether or not she is the nominee. Since no one in the party leadership seems able or willing to intervene against this self-destructive downward spiral, perhaps progressives need to consider responding in the only way politicians sometimes understand. If they can't hear us screaming at the television sets, we can send a message that the Clintons are acting as if they prefer John McCain to Barack Obama. And follow it up with another message: if Clinton doesn't immediately cease her path of destruction, millions of young voters and black voters may not send checks, may not knock on doors, and may not even vote for her if she becomes the nominee. That's not a threat, that's the reality she is creating.

Assessing Strength of Contenders in Swing States

Alchemystique — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 07:29:12 GMT

April 24th, 2008 12:16 am Assessing Strength of Contenders in Swing States http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=11352 By Patrick Healy / New York Times Reflecting on her victory in the Pennsylvania primary, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton on Wednesday neatly summed up the chief political rationale of her enduring candidacy. “I won the states that we have to win — Ohio, now Pennsylvania,” Mrs. Clinton said on CNN about her successes over Senator Barack Obama, in one of her six appearances on morning news shows. “It’s very hard to imagine a Democrat getting to the White House without winning those states.” Mrs. Clinton says her popularity among blue-collar workers, women and Hispanics makes her the candidate to beat Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, in the swing states that decide presidential races. Along with Ohio and Pennsylvania, she also cites her success in Michigan and Florida — even though the Democratic Party disqualified those contests, and Mr. Obama was not on the Michigan ballot — to claim an edge in crucial battlegrounds. Yet for all of her primary night celebrations in the populous states, exit polling and independent political analysts offer evidence that Mr. Obama could do just as well as Mrs. Clinton among blocs of voters with whom he now runs behind. Obama advisers say he also appears well-positioned to win swing states and believe he would have a strong shot at winning traditional Republican states like Virginia. According to surveys of Pennsylvania voters leaving the polls on Tuesday, Mr. Obama would draw majorities of support from lower-income voters and less-educated ones — just as Mrs. Clinton would against Mr. McCain, even though those voters have favored her over Mr. Obama in the primaries. And national polls suggest Mr. Obama would also do slightly better among groups that have gravitated to Republican in the past, like men, the more affluent and independents, while she would do slightly better among women. Mr. Obama may lead in the national popular vote and among delegates needed to win the nomination, but his inability to “close the deal” with voters — a phrase Mrs. Clinton skewered him with Tuesday — has been widely discussed in light of the Pennsylvania results. Mr. Obama found himself on the defensive over the issue Wednesday, and he countered that the governors of Ohio and Pennsylvania had worked their political networks on behalf of Mrs. Clinton. “Among all these groups that people have been focused on — blue-collar workers, white working-class folks — we did better in Pennsylvania than we did in Ohio, so we’re continually making progress,” Mr. Obama told reporters in Indiana, which holds its primary on May 6. “If you look at these states that I’m supposed to win, if you look at the polling, I actually do if not as well then better than Senator Clinton relative to Senator McCain.” In recent weeks, Clinton advisers have been challenging Mr. Obama’s electability in a general election, and her victories in Ohio and Pennsylvania are perhaps her best evidence yet to argue that she is better suited to build a coalition across income, education and racial lines in closely contested states. But the Pennsylvania exit polls, conducted by Edison/Mitofsky for five television networks and The Associated Press, underscore a point that political analysts made on Wednesday: that state primary results do not necessarily translate into general election victories. “I think it differs state to state, and I think either Democrat will have a good chance of appealing to many Democrats who didn’t vote for them the first time,” said Peter Hart, a Democratic pollster not affiliated with either campaign. “Take Michigan. It has a Democratic governor, two Democratic senators, and many Democratic congressmen, so it’s probably going to be a pretty good state for the Democrats in a recession year.” Mr. Hart, as well as Obama advisers, also say that Mr. Obama appears better poised than Mrs. Clinton to pick up states that Democrats struggle to carry, or rarely do, in a general election, like Colorado, Iowa, Missouri and Virginia, all of which he carried in the primaries. Obama advisers say their polling indicates he is more popular with independents, and far less divisive than Mrs. Clinton, in those states. “Hillary goes deeper and stronger in the Democratic base than Obama, but her challenge is that she doesn’t go as wide,” Mr. Hart said. “Obama goes much further reaching into the independent and Republican vote, and has a greater chance of creating a new electoral map for the Democrats.” Indeed, if Mr. Obama does become the first African-American nominee of a major party, the electoral landscape of the South could be transformed with the likelihood of strong turnout of black voters in Republican-leaning states like Georgia and Louisiana, which Mr. Obama carried this winter. (Mrs. Clinton has also argued that, given the Clinton roots, she could put at least Arkansas in play in the fall.) Obama advisers have also argued that swing states like Ohio are winnable this fall because they have been increasingly leaning Democratic and have been struggling economically under President Bush. Indeed, some Obama allies hope he will pick Ohio’s popular governor, Ted Strickland, as his running mate if he wins the nomination, both to help carry Ohio and to unify the party (Mr. Strickland is supporting Mrs. Clinton). And the record-setting voter registrations among both Democrats and independents across the nation also suggest that each candidate is capable of stirring excitement among voters in the fall and would be positioned to defend their bases of support against Mr. McCain, who is a popular figure among many independents and some Democrats. Representative Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, a strong backer of Mr. Obama, said she believed that the thousands of new voters being drawn into the primaries would coalesce around the Democratic nominee once the candidate and the party begin to define Mr. McCain better on issues like the war. “I think that will turn the tide for the people who are going in that direction,” Ms. DeLauro said of Democrats who have said they could not vote for Mr. Obama or Mrs. Clinton. But Clinton supporters come back to the fact that Mr. Obama has had months of primaries — as well as a sharp fund-raising advantage — with which to beat Mrs. Clinton in more swing voter groups, and yet has failed. Representative Jim McGovern of Massachusetts, a supporter of Mrs. Clinton, said he saw her economic message as resonating more strongly with working-class voters than Mr. Obama’s. “She is connecting better with some of these blue-collar Democrats, the base of the party,” Mr. McGovern said. Jeff Zeleny and Carl Hulse contributed reporting.

NYTIMes editorial : The Low Road to Victory

Alchemystique — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 15:43:37 GMT

bear in mind NYT actually endorse hillary in jan 2008. this makes this lil editorial even more interesting. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/23/opinion/23wed1.html?_r=2&ref=opinion&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin&oref=slogin April 23, 2008 Editorial The Low Road to Victory The Pennsylvania campaign, which produced yet another inconclusive result on Tuesday, was even meaner, more vacuous, more desperate, and more filled with pandering than the mean, vacuous, desperate, pander-filled contests that preceded it. Voters are getting tired of it; it is demeaning the political process; and it does not work. It is past time for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton to acknowledge that the negativity, for which she is mostly responsible, does nothing but harm to her, her opponent, her party and the 2008 election. If nothing else, self interest should push her in that direction. Mrs. Clinton did not get the big win in Pennsylvania that she needed to challenge the calculus of the Democratic race. It is true that Senator Barack Obama outspent her 2-to-1. But Mrs. Clinton and her advisers should mainly blame themselves, because, as the political operatives say, they went heavily negative and ended up squandering a good part of what was once a 20-point lead. On the eve of this crucial primary, Mrs. Clinton became the first Democratic candidate to wave the bloody shirt of 9/11. A Clinton television ad — torn right from Karl Rove’s playbook — evoked the 1929 stock market crash, Pearl Harbor, the Cuban missile crisis, the cold war and the 9/11 attacks, complete with video of Osama bin Laden. “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen,” the narrator intoned. If that was supposed to bolster Mrs. Clinton’s argument that she is the better prepared to be president in a dangerous world, she sent the opposite message on Tuesday morning by declaring in an interview on ABC News that if Iran attacked Israel while she were president: “We would be able to totally obliterate them.” By staying on the attack and not engaging Mr. Obama on the substance of issues like terrorism, the economy and how to organize an orderly exit from Iraq, Mrs. Clinton does more than just turn off voters who don’t like negative campaigning. She undercuts the rationale for her candidacy that led this page and others to support her: that she is more qualified, right now, to be president than Mr. Obama. Mr. Obama is not blameless when it comes to the negative and vapid nature of this campaign. He is increasingly rising to Mrs. Clinton’s bait, undercutting his own claims that he is offering a higher more inclusive form of politics. When she criticized his comments about “bitter” voters, Mr. Obama mocked her as an Annie Oakley wannabe. All that does is remind Americans who are on the fence about his relative youth and inexperience. No matter what the high-priced political operatives (from both camps) may think, it is not a disadvantage that Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton share many of the same essential values and sensible policy prescriptions. It is their strength, and they are doing their best to make voters forget it. And if they think that only Democrats are paying attention to this spectacle, they’re wrong. After seven years of George W. Bush’s failed with-us-or-against-us presidency, all American voters deserve to hear a nuanced debate — right now and through the general campaign — about how each candidate will combat terrorism, protect civil liberties, address the housing crisis and end the war in Iraq. It is getting to be time for the superdelegates to do what the Democrats had in mind when they created superdelegates: settle a bloody race that cannot be won at the ballot box. Mrs. Clinton once had a big lead among the party elders, but has been steadily losing it, in large part because of her negative campaign. If she is ever to have a hope of persuading these most loyal of Democrats to come back to her side, let alone win over the larger body of voters, she has to call off the dogs.

The Wisdom of Larry The Cable Guy . .

Alchemystique — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 08:01:50 GMT

The Wisdom of Larry The Cable Guy . . 1. A day without sunshine is like night. 2. On the other hand, you have different fingers. 3. 42.7 percent of all statistics are made up on the spot. 4. 99 percent of lawyers give the rest a bad name. 5. Remember, half the people you know are below average. 6. He who laughs last thinks slowest. 7. Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm. 8. The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese in the trap. 9. Support bacteria. They're the only culture some people have. 10. A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory. 11. Change is inevitable, except from vending machines. 12. If you think nobody cares, try missing a couple of payments. 13.. How many of you believe in psycho-kinesis? Raise my hand. 14. OK, so what's the speed of dark? 15.. When everything is coming your way, you're in the wrong lane. 16. Hard work pays off in the future. Laziness pays off now. 17. How much deeper would the ocean be without sponges? 18. Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines. 19. What happens if you get scared half to death, twice? 20. Why do psychics have to ask you for your name? 21. Inside every older person is a younger person wondering, "What the heck happened?" 22.. Just remember -- if the world didn't suck, we would all fall off. 23. Light travels faster than sound. That's why some people appear bright until you hear them speak. 24. Life isn't like a box of chocolates. It's more like a jar of jalapeno's What you do today, might burn your butt tomorrow.

My Vote's for Obama (if I could vote) ...by Michael Moore

Alchemystique — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 07:57:07 GMT

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/message/index.php?id=225 Monday, April 21st, 2008 My Vote's for Obama (if I could vote) ...by Michael Moore Friends, I don't get to vote for President this primary season. I live in Michigan. The party leaders (both here and in D.C.) couldn't get their act together, and thus our votes will not be counted. So, if you live in Pennsylvania, can you do me a favor? Will you please cast my vote -- and yours -- on Tuesday for Senator Barack Obama? I haven't spoken publicly 'til now as to who I would vote for, primarily for two reasons: 1) Who cares?; and 2) I (and most people I know) don't give a rat's ass whose name is on the ballot in November, as long as there's a picture of JFK and FDR riding a donkey at the top of the ballot, and the word "Democratic" next to the candidate's name. Seriously, I know so many people who don't care if the name under the Big "D" is Dancer, Prancer, Clinton or Blitzen. It can be Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Barry Obama or the Dalai Lama. Well, that sounded good last year, but over the past two months, the actions and words of Hillary Clinton have gone from being merely disappointing to downright disgusting. I guess the debate last week was the final straw. I've watched Senator Clinton and her husband play this game of appealing to the worst side of white people, but last Wednesday, when she hurled the name "Farrakhan" out of nowhere, well that's when the silly season came to an early end for me. She said the "F" word to scare white people, pure and simple. Of course, Obama has no connection to Farrakhan. But, according to Senator Clinton, Obama's pastor does -- AND the "church bulletin" once included a Los Angeles Times op-ed from some guy with Hamas! No, not the church bulletin! This sleazy attempt to smear Obama was brilliantly explained the following night by Stephen Colbert. He pointed out that if Obama is supported by Ted Kennedy, who is Catholic, and the Catholic Church is led by a Pope who was in the Hitler Youth, that can mean only one thing: OBAMA LOVES HITLER! Yes, Senator Clinton, that's how you sounded. Like you were nuts. Like you were a bigot stoking the fires of stupidity. How sad that I would ever have to write those words about you. You have devoted your life to good causes and good deeds. And now to throw it all away for an office you can't win unless you smear the black man so much that the superdelegates cry "Uncle (Tom)" and give it all to you. But that can't happen. You cast your die when you voted to start this bloody war. When you did that you were like Moses who lost it for a moment and, because of that, was prohibited from entering the Promised Land. How sad for a country that wanted to see the first woman elected to the White House. That day will come -- but it won't be you. We'll have to wait for the current Democratic governor of Kansas to run in 2016 (you read it here first!). There are those who say Obama isn't ready, or he's voted wrong on this or that. But that's looking at the trees and not the forest. What we are witnessing is not just a candidate but a profound, massive public movement for change. My endorsement is more for Obama The Movement than it is for Obama the candidate. That is not to take anything away from this exceptional man. But what's going on is bigger than him at this point, and that's a good thing for the country. Because, when he wins in November, that Obama Movement is going to have to stay alert and active. Corporate America is not going to give up their hold on our government just because we say so. President Obama is going to need a nation of millions to stand behind him. I know some of you will say, 'Mike, what have the Democrats done to deserve our vote?' That's a damn good question. In November of '06, the country loudly sent a message that we wanted the war to end. Yet the Democrats have done nothing. So why should we be so eager to line up happily behind them? I'll tell you why. Because I can't stand one more friggin' minute of this administration and the permanent, irreversible damage it has done to our people and to this world. I'm almost at the point where I don't care if the Democrats don't have a backbone or a kneebone or a thought in their dizzy little heads. Just as long as their name ain't "Bush" and the word "Republican" is not beside theirs on the ballot, then that's good enough for me. I, like the majority of Americans, have been pummeled senseless for 8 long years. That's why I will join millions of citizens and stagger into the voting booth come November, like a boxer in the 12th round, all bloodied and bruised with one eye swollen shut, looking for the only thing that matters -- that big "D" on the ballot. Don't get me wrong. I lost my rose-colored glasses a long time ago. It's foolish to see the Democrats as anything but a nicer version of a party that exists to do the bidding of the corporate elite in this country. Any endorsement of a Democrat must be done with this acknowledgement and a hope that one day we will have a party that'll represent the people first, and laws that allow that party an equal voice. Finally, I want to say a word about the basic decency I have seen in Mr. Obama. Mrs. Clinton continues to throw the Rev. Wright up in his face as part of her mission to keep stoking the fears of White America. Every time she does this I shout at the TV, "Say it, Obama! Say that when she and her husband were having marital difficulties regarding Monica Lewinsky, who did she and Bill bring to the White House for 'spiritual counseling?' THE REVEREND JEREMIAH WRIGHT!" But no, Obama won't throw that at her. It wouldn't be right. It wouldn't be decent. She's been through enough hurt. And so he remains silent and takes the mud she throws in his face. That's why the crowds who come to see him are so large. That's why he'll take us down a more decent path. That's why I would vote for him if Michigan were allowed to have an election. But the question I keep hearing is... 'can he win? Can he win in November?' In the distance we hear the siren of the death train called the Straight Talk Express. We know it's possible to hear the words "President McCain" on January 20th. We know there are still many Americans who will never vote for a black man. Hillary knows it, too. She's counting on it. Pennsylvania, the state that gave birth to this great country, has a chance to set things right. It has not had a moment to shine like this since 1787 when our Constitution was written there. In that Constitution, they wrote that a black man or woman was only "three fifths" human. On Tuesday, the good people of Pennsylvania have a chance for redemption. Yours, Michael Moore

Vocabulary Building

Alchemystique — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 15:45:56 GMT

Vocabulary Building The Washington Post annually conducts its Mensa Invitational which asks readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition. Here are this year's winners: 1. Cashtration: The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period of time. 2. Ignoranus: A person who's both stupid and an asshole. 3. Intaxication: Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with. 4. Reintarnation: Coming back to life as a hillbilly. 5. Bozone (n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future. 6. Foreploy: Any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of getting laid. 7. Giraffiti: Vanda lism spray-painted very, very high. 8. Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it. 9. Inoculatte: To take coffee intravenously when you are running late. 10. Osteopornosis: A degenerate disease. (This one got extra credit.) 11. Karmageddon: Its like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it's like, a serious bummer. 12. Decafalon (n.): The grueling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you. 13. Glibido: All talk and no action. 14. Dopeler Effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly. 15. Arachnoleptic Fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just after you've accidentally walked through a spider web. 16. Beelzebug (n.): Satan in the form of a mosquito, that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out. 17. Caterpallor (n.): The color you turn after finding half a worm in the fruit you're eating. ======== to view my humble contributions take a look at http://www.addictionary.org/Members/ViewProfile/Alchemystique enjoy!

Obama and "I'm Just Like You" Politics

Alchemystique — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 02:24:20 GMT

Obama and "I'm Just Like You" Politics Deepak Chopra - April 21, 2008 In recent weeks Barack Obama has been faulted for, among other things, misunderstanding working-class gun owners and church goers, bowling a 37, wanting a Philly cheese steak with goat cheese instead of Cheez Whiz, and associating with a former Sixties radical who is now a professor of English. These accusations, aimed at him by the Clinton campaign and various Republican sources, amount to a single insinuation: Obama has failed to pass the "I'm just like you" test. Previous politicians who have similarly failed: John Kerry for windsurfing, Michael Dukakis for posing in an Army tank, Al Gore for "throwing like a girl" when he played touch football in a campaign ad, and John Edwards for getting a haircut that allegedly cost $400. Example of a politician who passed with flying colors: George W. Bush. Let's examine, then, whether such a test is a worthy or at least innocuous ritual that all politicians must endure in a democracy, a form of reassurance that the privileged elite won't take power. Pres. Bush is the textbook definition of the privileged elite, both socially and economically. Unlike Obama, his financial comfort has been assured since the day of his birth. Yet he fits the image of a regular guy who would be comfortable hoisting a few at the corner bar with off-work steelworkers. In reality the Republican Party is staunchly a club for privileged white males, which has had the good fortune to convince less fortunate white males that they all belong under one roof. We can leave that aside, and also the question of whether Bush basically represents only the rich and their special interests. The deeper point is that "I'm just like you" is a sham. The U.S. Senate is made up 80% of lawyers and former prosecutors. The vast majority are millionaires. Rich or not, they must placate wealthy special interests in order to raise campaign funds. Despite the elitist suspicions aimed by Hillary Clinton at Obama, her family's $109 million income since Bill Clinton left office isn't lunch box money, nor did it come without influence peddling to those who can afford to pay. By comparison, Obama's education, intelligence, and relative lack of pandering to the rich is more than admirable. It's even non-elitist, as evidenced by the fact that his campaign money rests on a core of small contributors, 2.5 million strong, rather than Sen. Clinton's small group of fat cats, party loyalists, and her husband's carefully groomed political connections. In a NY Times column last week, David Brooks declared that Obama is now tarnished, that he has fallen to earth from his idealistic campaign of last winter and is now nothing more than a conventional liberal whose chances in November deeply worry savvy Democratic politicians. But this is merely a Republican wish masquerading as reality. A surge of hope lifted Obama's candidacy in the first place, and even if he has entered a period of fatigue and counter-punching, no one mistakes his candidacy for business as usual. The real worry is that a lulled electorate will allow itself to be duped once more by the "I'm just like you" litmus test. They might. The Republican smear machine has been effective, and public apathy and aversion to politicians have bred a climate where trivial issues trump critically important ones. But Obama has rested his case on the need to wake up. People have been doing just that. There's every hope in November that voters will be able to tell the difference between a lame bowling game and a disastrous, dishonest war.

Debate was shamelessly about ratings

Alchemystique — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 06:59:11 GMT

Debate was shamelessly about ratings Television Vince Horiuchi The Salt Lake Tribune Article Last Updated: 04/20/2008 11:31:49 PM MDT Click photo to enlarge Vince Horiuchi * « * 1 * » It's been called one of the worst televised presidential debates ever, and not because of the performances of the two candidates. ABC News' Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos have been getting reamed by critics for their job moderating the Philadelphia debate last week, spending the first hour on gossipy questions about trivial matters that had nothing to do with the failing economy, education, health care reform or that little thing overseas known as the war. There was more dead-horse beating over rehashed issues like whether each would pick the other for a running mate or Sen. Barack Obama's association with questionable people. It was an obvious attempt to get the candidates to snipe at each other for shock value, as if that would keep viewers from switching over to "American Idol" at 8 p.m. "It was another step downward for network news," the Washington Post's Tom Shales said of the debate. After watching it myself, I learned more about television news than I did about the candidates. I learned TV news has never tried harder to be entertainment. Even more distressing is that this was all under the guise of real, important network news. C'mon guys, fess up. You wanted ratings. You wanted showmanship. It was never about the issues affecting the country. It was about riling up candidates on a live broadcast. Advertisement <a href="http://63.225.61.6/ADCLICK/CID=000053270000000000000000/area=slt.entertainment.positionY/adsize=300x250/aamsz=300x250/keyword=/site=/acc_random=82504027/pageid=82504027" target="_blank"> <img src="http://www.nacorp.com/ads/1pixel.gif" alt="" border="0" width="300" height="250" /> </a> If you're going that far to try and nab viewers, don't disguise your shameless attempts - just embrace them. Let go and have fun. Here are my suggestions to make the next presidential debate even more exciting. * Moderators Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos out. Moderators Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie in. * First and most important question of the night: "Um, Sen. Clinton, is that MAC lipstick you're wearing?" * Second question of the night: "Sen. Obama, what do you want to say to Britney after her meltdown?" * Get the "Deal or No Deal" models to pull the question cards out of their briefcases. * Michael Buffer starts the evening with, "Let's get ready to rummblleee!!" * Forget the candidates' views on health care. Ask them which David is going to win "American Idol." * Use the "Jeopardy" question jingle to time their answers. * Do a crossover episode with "Lost" to see which candidate gets off the island first. * Winner of the debate gets a million dollars and a recording contract with Simon Cowel

Financial Times endorses Obama...

Alchemystique — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 06:53:35 GMT

Democrats must choose Obama Published: April 20 2008 18:59 | Last updated: April 20 2008 18:59 Barack Obama goes into Tuesday’s Pennsylvania primary as strong favourite, whatever happens, to secure the Democratic presidential nomination. Yet the vote could still go either way. This is a sign of how close this race has been and how deeply it has divided the party. EDITOR’S CHOICE In depth: US campaign 2008 - Mar-05 Clive Crook: Last chance for Clinton - Apr-20 Obama keeps his campaign on track - Apr-20 Clinton urges voters to focus on issues - Apr-20 US elections: Key dates - Apr-18 Democrats nervous over delays - Apr-18 Mr Obama and Hillary Clinton are both strong candidates and each appeals powerfully to distinct segments of Democratic support. This has heightened the risk of bitter division. After Tuesday’s vote, the Democrats should move quickly to affirm Mr Obama’s nomination. That is not just because his lead in elected delegates is already unassailable and the contest should be brought to a swift conclusion. It is also because he is, in fact, the better candidate. The contenders’ differences on policy look small and in reality are even smaller. Their disagreement on healthcare mandates, for instance, frequently emphasised by Mrs Clinton, is of little practical significance. A mandate to obtain insurance, as proposed by Mrs Clinton, does not achieve universal coverage unless enforced with punitive sanctions, which she does not advocate. Both candidates, in effect, are proposing near-universal coverage. The virtues of their schemes (much improved access, no denial of insurance to those with pre-existing conditions) as well as the defects (weak control of costs) are much the same. In almost every area of policy, whether their thinking is good (as with improved support for displaced workers), bad (their opposition to liberal trade) or too vague to say (Iraq), there is little to choose between them. As voters understood all along, this has therefore been a contest of character, temperament and (sadly but inevitably) identity. Mr Obama’s most loyal supporters, once they were persuaded that he might actually succeed, have been black. Mrs Clinton’s, certain at the start she would win, are women. Mr Obama has fought a brilliant campaign, out-organising his opponent, raising more money, and convincing undecided Democrats as well as the country at large that he was more likeable, more straightforward and more worthy of trust. On form, he is a spell-binding orator and holds arena-sized audiences in thrall. He is given to airy exhortations, it is true, but genuinely seeks consensus and has cross-party appeal. Mrs Clinton’s campaign, in contrast, has been a shambles. She and her team expected to have it all sewn up long ago; they made no plans for a long struggle, ran short of money and had to reorganise on the run. Her speaking style is pedestrian, when it is not actually grating. Those who dislike her tend to do so with a passion: her disapproval ratings started high and after months of campaigning are climbing still. It is a tribute to her tenacity and to the loyalty she commands in the party that her fate was not sealed weeks ago. How much the way that a campaign is run tells you about a candidate’s fitness to be president is debatable – but it does tell you something, especially if the candidate with the misfiring strategy is running on a claim of management expertise. In fact, the campaigns have underlined the contenders’ respective strengths and weaknesses. Mr Obama’s consistent and relaxed demeanour attested to his coolness (in both senses, his swooning young admirers would add); it seemed to affirm his authenticity. In contrast, Mrs Clinton’s hyperactive advisers dressed her in a new personality each day, sometimes several in the course of an interview. They wheeled out Bill Clinton, to remind people of the 1990s, then reeled him back, to help them forget. Too many course corrections, not enough course. Mr Obama has had some travails – over his association with Jeremiah Wright, the ranting demagogue pastor, and most recently over condescending remarks about small-town Democratic politics. In the first case, he responded with a masterly speech about race that may even have improved his standing. In the second, he was evasive and unconvincing – yet the public seems to have given him the benefit of the doubt. The US has the urge to be inspired a little. Electing the country’s first woman president ought to be very inspiring. But not this woman – with her dynastic baggage and knack for antagonising the undecided – running against this man. The Democratic party has waited an awfully long time for a politician like Barack Obama. Enough already. Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008

No One Ever Died from Paper Cuts

Alchemystique — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 19:41:16 GMT

No One Ever Died from Paper Cuts http://www.intentblog.com/archives/2008/04/no_one_ever_die.html Deepak Chopra - April 14, 2008 After telling us that the media have been too soft on Barack Obama, the pundits now want us to believe that two words -- "bitter" and "cling"--are major gaffes that may sink his campaign. Is this really credible? Presidential campaigns follow a familiar arc. After a long winter's nap, public interest wakes up for the first primaries of the season. Once a candidate has been picked, everyone takes the summer off, and attention isn't paid again until a month or so before the November elections. By nature, politicians would love for everyone to listen to them every day of the year, but in fact there's a law of diminishing returns. We are in the tune-out phase of the campaign. The Clintons are trying to inflict death by paper cuts to Obama in the face of mounting apathy. "Bitter" and "cling" aren't news. Obama doesn't hide his education and intelligence, even if they are dubbed elitist. While the Clintons try to pretend that their own $100 million income makes them working class heroes, the polls move incrementally up and down. The bald fact is that Obama's integrity has registered with almost everyone he might attract, and the Democratic party has silently given up on Hillary. When political interest reawakens in the fall, two major narratives will fight it out. Obama's narrative is "Let's go back to being the America of our highest ideals." In other words, he stands for the politics of altruism. Sen. McCain's narrative is "No surrender." He stands for national pride and a refusal to back down. On the surface it would seem that the Obama's stance is more powerful than McCain's, but in fact the race is likely to be tight. America's national identity is such that losing any war feels abhorrent -- the Republicans are still trying to turn Vietnam into a conspiracy of liberals and hippies who "prevented us from winning." On the other hand, our national identity sees itself as ever-renewable, capable of recapturing our idealism whenever we will it. In reality there are many forms of bias, prejudice, hidebound self-interest, and inertia that fight against renewal. We are going to have to sit around for a while in the political doldrums, watching the candidates inflict paper cuts on each other. Nobody will die from it, and then once September rolls around, something dramatic will occur. The fight over national identity will be one of the turning points of the twenty-first century as reactionary nationalism makes a desperate call for the troops to rally. www.deepakchopra.com