“Once upon a time, about a month ago, Senator John McCain was mocking the celebrity of his rival, Senator Barack Obama, comparing him in a television commercial to Paris Hilton and Britney Spears,” writes Michael Cooper at The Caucus. “But on Monday Mr. McCain showed that he was not against bold-faced-types, per se, hobnobbing in company that is decidedly more Us Weekly and Billboard than Congressional Quarterly or Council on Foreign Relations in its nature.”
Daddy Yankee, John Voight and Angie Harmon are McCain fans, as is Patricia Heaton (above) — who has her own reasons for wanting to see McCain take the White House:
“I was a little disappointed in not being able to introduce Cindy, as was originally planned, as she is a beer heiress and I’m Irish Catholic,’’ she said, according to a pool report, drawing laughs from the crowd. “I have a vested interest in seeing her become first lady so I get invited to those White House keg parties.”
“As an actor I recognize that our opponent, someone who thinks that if he puts on the right costume and stands on the right set, that we will all believe that he is presidential material but John McCain doesn’t have to pretend because he walks the walk,” Heaton said during her introduction of the presumptive GOP nominee at a McCain Sacramento fundraiser.
Heaton, an award-winning actress best known for her role as Ray Romano’s wife on the hit series “Everybody Loves Raymond,” said McCain is more in touch with the concerns of regular Americans than his rival. She specifically cited the contrasting images Obama in Berlin “giving his blessing in messianic fashion to thousands of adoring Germans” and McCain talking to voters in a supermarket aisle.
“You know what I thought when I saw that photo? I thought, ‘yeah baby, we are going to win this election.’ Because I am in the cheese aisle in the grocery store a lot more often than when I am in Berlin and so are most other Americans,” Heaton added.
But is she in the cheese aisle as much as she’s on the golf course? Or in England?
Just heard on MSNBC …Chris Matthews and Tom Brokaw both gave props to the new host on the block, Rachel Maddow, for using the word “post-rational” to describe Hillary Clinton supporters who won’t support Barack Obama.
It’s a word Maddow has used before — to describe Clinton’s own campaign hopes.
On another note, it was quite nice to see Maddow get fired up about the Clinton-turned-McCain supporter who said the Republican nominee won’t overturn Roe v. Wade. Maddow’s expression of disbelief was priceless — I haven’t heard a male pundit so incredulous about a key point of ignorance on which this campaign could turn.
It’s nice to see a major media outlet willing to call out John McCain for the lies and slimy innuendo that his campaign has become.
But the greatest insight coming out of the whole “how many houses does he own?” episode has to be from BAGnewsnotes, who puts it in the context of McCain’s POW experience.
This shot of McCain in 2000 showing the prison to his son, Jack, evokes just how much the Hanoi Hilton — where McCain dwells so often in his speeches and his anecdotes — actually does seems to resonate as a “primary residence” — those cell walls representing the last, longest home that McCain could call his own.
You might say it’s a bit of a psychological stretch, but there’s no denying that McCain often appears lost in a place only he knows.
As we wait for Barack Obama to announce his vice-presidential running mate, everyone is having a bit too much fun with the fact that anyone can sign up to be “the first to know” — through a text message (text “VP” to 62262) or e-mail sent directly from the Obama campaign.
Our friend Deanna Zandt over at GRITtv introduced me today to the concept of “rickrolling” (as in Rick Astley — you gotta follow that link) and the variety of fake Twitter and text messages that purport have The Answer.
And Mary Schmich of the Chicago Tribune confesses that the whole process is making her feel like she is back in high school:
I think it would be totally awesome if John texted me his vp choice too. But John has made minus-zero effort to court me the newfangled way.
Is it my fault John doesn’t text? He’ll probably name his vp at something totally 20th Century, like a news conference. Don’t blame me if he’s not a good communicator.
Barack, see, he understands my needs. He makes me feel special. He let me know he wanted my cell number. Wanted it bad. I was, like, totally flattered.
And after I texted him my info—btw, his number’s 62262—he texted a reply:
“Welcome to Obama Mobile. You will now be one of the 1st notified when the VP candidate is selected. Text HELP for help. Std charges apply. Please forward.”
Charges? I was not thrilled to see this relationship was going to cost me $$ but whatever. Life is not a freebie Valentine. At least he wrote back.
So who is it going to be? John Lumea over at Huffington Post argues for some unconventional VP wisdom.
The Olympics in Beijing has been a great disappointment. No one has collapsed into a coughing fit from the air pollution — all but a certainty from the reports leading up to the opening of what are so quaintly termed “the games.” The American cyclists who arrived in the Beijing Airport wearing face masks seemed to have made it through the opening ceremonies without contracting “black lung” or suffering a terminal case of “ring around the collar.” I feel I have been let down yet again by the press.
Not all has gone well, however. In what no one seems to have noticed as a protest gesture that dwarfs Carlos and Smith’s now legendary salute, the women’s beach volleyball venue was the scene of a protest for the ages. The American, Misty May-Treanor bent over with her back to President Bush.
This certainly symbolically summed up what the American people have been doing for the past seven years of the Bush administration. Oddly, there was no comment from the press, no IOC or USOC officials rushed in to put Misty on a plane out of Beijing in disgrace. You can bet that Avery Brundidge would have understood this gesture, and punishment would have been swift and harsh.
Indeed, little Bobby Costas seemed to find the entire episode amusing. Context apparently is everything.
The nightly Michael Phelps show was quite impressive and nearly devoid of any controversy. Phelps’ display in the pool was great television, great sport, and just the sort of thing that brings people to their television sets in big numbers. It will also mean big money for Phelps. He should have been designated an NBC vice-president for programming, rather than being crowned with the understated title of “greatest athlete of all-time.”
While Phelps was dominating prime time, NBC also offered a seemingly endless parade of gymnastics events. The men’s and women’s competitions both provided high quality performances from the U.S. and Chinese participants, and perhaps also from many others nations not deemed worthy of prime time by NBC. In fairness to NBC, they did manage to work in a stray Russian or Romanian now and again.
“MSNBC has put heavy emphasis this year on presidential election coverage (it has given itself the tag line “The Place for Politics”), and it has turned to Ms. Maddow frequently both as a guest and as a substitute for its most popular host, Keith Olbermann,” writes Bill Carter in The New York Times. “Mr. Olbermann’s emergence as the signature personality on MSNBC has led to its unofficial rebranding as the liberal alternative to Fox News, which is dominated by conservative hosts like Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity.”
In a story published in The Nation this month about Maddow’s unlikely career path, Rebecca Traister writes:
What’s remarkable about Maddow’s ascension is not its velocity — Hurricane Katrina made Anderson Cooper in less than a week — but the shifts in media it may demarcate. Maddow is one of the few left-liberal women to bust open the world of TV punditry, which has made icons of right-wing commentators like Ann Coulter and Michelle Malkin. Unlike her beautiful, bilious conservative female counterparts or the cocksure boys-on-the-bus analysts, however, Maddow didn’t get here by bluster and bravado but with a combination of crisp thinking and galumphing good cheer. Remarkably, this season’s discovery isn’t a glossy matinee idol or a smooth-talking partisan hack but a PhD Rhodes scholar lesbian policy wonk who started as a prison AIDS activist.
All of which raises a crucial question: does Maddow’s unlikely success, reliant on her ability to defy cliché and categorization at every turn, signal a move in punditry away from the thuggish and the angry and toward the lucid and sophisticated? Or has her powerful charisma and canny career management allowed her to break the rules — without actually breaking a mold?
Plus: We also learn of a new public television show to focus on — wait for it — world news …
The most pressing question in this presidential campaign has become: Why isn’t the Obama campaign (or their surrogates and sympathizers) spreading insidious rumors about John McCain to counterbalance all the junk out thereabout Obama?
Now, I subscribe to plenty of liberal/lefty e-mail lists — so I feel fairly in touch with the viral pulse out there. And I know plenty of Obama sympathizers will say that they’re working very hard at getting out the unknown stuff about John McCain.
But my response to them would be that you’re still hampered by this ridiculous need to stay in the realm of truth.
For example, Brave New Films has done a great job of exposing “The Real John McCain.” In their latest salvo, they reveal that McCain, in fact, is the true elitist. He and his wife own, among other things, ten mansions:
Unfortunately, though McCain’s elitist hypocrisy might scandalize many of us, it doesn’t come across as a threat to the American way of life. That’s because old, rich white men have always held power in this country. Strangely, it’s not news — both to the man in the street and the Man in the media.
The following is a new article by Tim Mitchell, published in the “depth” section of PopPolitics magazine. Mitchell has previously written for PopPolitics about the “Mimic” film trilogy and “Versus” horror films like Alien vs. Predator and Freddy vs. Jason. Now he tackles the technological complexities of “Dark City” — just in time for the DVD release of a new director’s cut:
The 1998 film “Dark City” will be re-released on DVD this week in a new director’s cut that features additional footage. I’ve always felt that “Dark City” never received the recognition it deserved — due in no small part to being overshadowed later by a very similar film, “The Matrix,” in 1999.
What is particularly intriguing about “Dark City” is that it combines many narrative themes specific to science fiction (aliens, space and time travel, and computer technology running amok) with elements of German Expressionism and film noir to create a narrative that provides an unique commentary on the role of technology, including cinematic technology, in the shaping of both the individual and society.
The film’s director, Alex Proyas, ultimately creates a haunting dystopian commentary on today’s media-saturated world.
I’ve never been much of a comics fan, but I was much impressed with Broken Mystic’s two-part blog series, “Female, Muslim, and Mutant: A Critique of Muslim Women in Comic Books.”
The first entry talks about the portrayal of the X-Men’s “Dust” character, an Afghan heroine introduced to the series in 2002. The second contrasts this with the portrayal of Muslim women in two comics by Muslim writers, especially “The 99,” a series based on a fascinating time period in Islamic history, the attack on Baghdad’s Bait al-Hikma (House of Wisdom) in the mid-13th century. I haven’t read either series, but it looks like “The 99″ has a compelling plot with a much more diverse cast of female characters.
(Incidentally, there is a wonderful children’s book called House of Wisdom, by Florence Parry Heide and Judith Heide Gilliland and illustrated by Mary GrandPre, that also deals with this time period. It appears to be out of print, but it’s worth hunting down if you are interested in the role Baghdad played in dragging Europe out of the Dark Ages and kick-starting the Renaissance.)
It’s about time I found a good excuse to post on beer. It’s a beverage which — particularly in the form of the great American microbrew — holds a special place in my heart and, needless to say, American culture.
Unlike water or wine, beer walks the delicate line between common appeal and refinement. It is at home in a corner bar or in the bleachers but even in its blandest form and contrary to its reputation in fraternities, it rewards sipping and — as any grimacing adolescent will tell you — is an acquired taste.
And when you graduate to the products of small, craft breweries, it can, like nothing else, simultaneously satisfy the desire for simple, locally-produced nourishment and complex flavor.
Unlike wine, however, a beer’s particular reputation or the social expectations surrounding its consumption never overwhelm the moment. Sites of beer connoisseurship like RateBeer.com always end up being — except for a few snobby souls — more excuses for social connection and ways to be in touch with local communities than places of exclusion and privilege.
Through that idealistic lens I read Edward McClelland’s analysis of the rise and fall of Budweiser. McClelland uses the occasion of Bud’s sale to the big Belgian brewer InBev to offer a fascinating (if short and somewhat predictable) analysis of how the “mad men” marketing culture was able to popularize some pretty bad beer:
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“Once upon a time, about a month ago, Senator John McCain was mocking the celebrity of his rival, Senator Barack Obama, comparing him in a television commercial to Paris Hilton and Britney Spears,” writes Michael Cooper at The Caucus. “But on Monday Mr. McCain showed that he was not against bold-faced-types, per se, hobnobbing in company that is decidedly more Us Weekly and Billboard than Congressional Quarterly or Council on Foreign Relations in its nature.”
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It’s about time I found a good excuse to post on beer. It’s a beverage which — particularly in the form of the great American microbrew — holds a special place in my heart and, needless to say, American culture.