David Foster Wallace Article Excerpt

The Rolling Stone web site excerpted a feature article The Lost Years & Last Days of David Foster Wallace from their October issue. Also available online is an interview with David Lipsky, who began writing the story in 1996 when he spent a week with Wallace discussing Infinite Jest.

David Sedaris on Swing Voters

Even though Sedaris voted for Nixon when he was eleven, this article from the most recent New Yorker more than makes up for his prepubescent mistake.

Fear and Loathing, Thy Name is Michelle Bachmann

Senator Bachmann says of Obama: "I'm very concerned that he may have anti-American views." Then she says: "I think the people that Barack Obama has been associating with are anti-American, by and large."

Watch the full interview here.

Here is a different video of documented anti-American behavior.

Dan Savage wants to barter with Sarah Palin

In a recent YouTube video, Dan Savage offers to be Sarah and Todd Palin's gay friend and their kids' "cool gay uncle." In return, all he asks is that Sarah and Todd talk to his son, D.J. about God while simultaneously skinning a moose.

Sounds fair to me.

Why I watch Californication

Hank, the main character and a prostitute are discussing the finer points of adultery. The prostitute claims that a hand job is not adultery. Hank disagrees, and the woman says, "Maybe you're right. Sometimes my whore logic gets all fucked up."

Quote of the day brought to you by Wake n Bake

"I think McCain is now down to seeds and stems" - Hendrick Hertzberg from the New Yorker's weekly political podcast.

Four Freedoms (At Least)

This morning, I received an email, purporting to be merely informative, but which contained a letter that was quite argumentative in favor of McCain. The author's main argument was that no one he asked could tell him what Obama would change. If this were true (which is highly dubious), I can understand being momentarily stumped. Many of us find Obama such a logical choice, that articulating the reasons is actually quite difficult. Voting for him as the next president makes sense on a such a visceral level that we have to consciously think of the reasons. Nevertheless, the man asked why people were voting for Obama, and I think one of the best summations of why I'm choosing Obama over McCain is his dedication to "the people," which is best represented by a famous speech delivered by Franklin Delano Roosevelt. In his “Four Freedoms” speech, he argued that the foundations for a durable democracy were “equality of opportunity for youth and for others; jobs for those who can work; security for those who need it; the ending of special privilege for the few; the preservation of civil liberties for all; [and] the enjoyment of the fruits of scientific progress in a wider and constantly rising standard of living.”

1. National Security / Green Energy
2. Health Care
3. Financial Regulation
4. Social Security

One, two, three, and four. As demonstrated in one of the classic Seinfeld episodes, there is a good naked and a bad naked. There is also a good change (Obama and stabilizing the economy and restoring honor to the U.S.) and bad change (McCain and going to war with everyone who pisses him off).

I'm obviously biased, as every voter is. This is my argument for Obama, but I'm not dressing it up as an objective or purely factual one. For me, Obama is not perfect, (or Muslim (oops, that was a fact)) but he's the most suitable candidate for the job. John McCain, as I see him, is misogynistic, dishonest, condescending, erratic, and completely unfit for the job. McCain served this country once, but now he's slave to his own ambition.

For people who really just want to be informed, check out nonpartisan resources, such as factcheck.org.

Debate Trivia

1. Who was Democratic Senator Lloyd Bentsen talking to when he said, "Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you are no Jack Kennedy."
   
   
2. What did Democratic Presidential Nominee Al Gore say he would put "in a lockbox" in a 2000 presidential debate?
   
   
3. Vice President Dick "Old Scratch" Cheney mistook factcheck.com for factcheck.org when telling people to verify information on Haliburton in a 2004 debate. What did factcheck.com lead to?
   
   
4. In a 1976 debate between Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford, what did Ford declare was not in Eastern Europe and never would be under a Ford administration?
   
   
5. When Ronald Reagan in a 1984 debate said, "I am not going to exploit for political purposes, my opponents youth and inexperience," who was he referring to?
   
   
6. In Bob Dole's first VP debate with Walter Mondale in 1976, what did he call the wars America fought in the 20th century?
   
   
7. In a 1992 debate, President H.W. Bush caught flak for doing what while Bill Clinton was speaking?
   
   
8. Which first general-election presidential debate was televised?
   
   
9. Ross Perot's running mate, retired Vice Adm James Stockdale, opened a 1992 debate with Democratic vice presidential candidates Dan Quayle and Al Gore by asking what?
   
   
10. In 1998, Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis saw his poll numbers plummet after a debate in which he gave a flat answer to a question about what topic?
    
    
11. Who asked the question?
    
    
12. What did Governor Sarah Palin say to Senator Joe Biden to break the ice before the first and only 2008 VP debate?
    
    
13. What two men participated in the first formal debate ever held between vice presidential candidates?

Answers:

1. Dan Quayle in the 1988 Vice Presidential debate.
2. Social Security
3. An anti-Bush site. (The site belonged to George Soros, billionaire Kerry support)
4. Soviet domination (In the following days, staffers said the president simply meant that the U.S. would never recognize Soviet control of Eastern Europe.)
5. Walter Mondale
6. Democrat wars (Dole continued, "If we added up the killed and wounded in the Democrat wars in this century, it would be about 1.6 million Americans, enough to fill the city of Detroit.")
7. Looking at his watch.
8. Kennedy/Nixon 1960
9. Who am I? Why am I here?
10. Capital punishment.
11. Moderator Bernard Shaw
12. Can I call you Joe?"
13. Walter Mondale and Bob Dole.

11-13: Political Genius
7-10: Political Scholar
4-7: At least you watch Jon Stewart
0-3: Bill O'Reilly Fan Club Founder

If the candidates were Bob Dylan songs

"Master's of War" would be the obvious choice for John Sidney McCain III. I can envision Obama singing it to McCain at the next debate.

Like Judas of old
You lie and deceive
A world war can be won
You want me to believe
But I see through your eyes
And I see through your brain
Like I see through the water
That runs down my drain

Choosing just one song for Palin proved to be quite the challenge, but in the end, I decided to go with "Idiot Wind."

Idiot wind, blowing every time you move your mouth,
Blowing down the backroads headin' south.
Idiot wind, blowing every time you move your teeth,
You're an idiot, babe.
It's a wonder that you still know how to breathe.

Although "With God on Our Side" is the constant cluck cluck of the sky-is-falling conservative christian rapture rhetoric, the first few lines of the song suit Obama just fine. "Changing of the Guards" is also apt.

With God On Our Side

Oh my name it is nothin'
My age it means less
The country I come from
Is called the Midwest

Changing Of The Guards

Gentlemen, he said,
I don't need your organization, I've shined your shoes,
I've moved your mountains and marked your cards
But Eden is burning, either brace yourself for elimination
Or else your hearts must have the courage for the changing of the guards.

Peace will come
With tranquility and splendor on the wheels of fire
But will bring us no reward when her false idols fall
And cruel death surrenders with its pale ghost retreating
Between the King and the Queen of Swords.

For Joe Biden,

Up To Me

Everything went from bad to worse, money never changed a thing,
Death kept followin', trackin' us down, at least I heard your bluebird sing.
Now somebody's got to show their hand, time is an enemy,
I know you're long gone,
I guess it must be up to me.

If I'd thought about it I never would've done it, I guess I would've let it slide,
If I'd lived my life by what others were thinkin', the heart inside me would've died.
I was just too stubborn to ever be governed by enforced insanity,
Someone had to reach for the risin' star,
I guess it was up to me.

What Dylan song do you think best represents the candidates?

Palin's World Not as Friendly as Elmo's

"Some of his comments that he has made about the war…I think, in my world, disqualifies someone from consideration as the next commander-in-chief," Palin told Fox News. She added, "some of the comments he's made about Afghanistan, what we are doing there, supposedly just air-raiding villages and killing civilians — that's reckless."

Obama should be disqualified? Two words, governor: Alaska secession.

Oh and such as furthermore, Obama was right.

Oh Snap, Joe Biden

From the 2008 VP Debate Transcript

BIDEN: Now, with regard to the -- to the health care plan, you know, it's with one hand you giveth, the other you take it. You know how Barack Obama -- excuse me, do you know how John McCain pays for his $5,000 tax credit you're going to get, a family will get?

He taxes as income every one of you out there, every one of you listening who has a health care plan through your employer. That's how he raises $3.6 trillion, on your -- taxing your health care benefit to give you a $5,000 plan, which his Web site points out will go straight to the insurance company.

And then you're going to have to replace a $12,000 -- that's the average cost of the plan you get through your employer -- it costs $12,000. You're going to have to pay -- replace a $12,000 plan, because 20 million of you are going to be dropped. Twenty million of you will be dropped.

So you're going to have to place -- replace a $12,000 plan with a $5,000 check you just give to the insurance company. I call that the "Ultimate Bridge to Nowhere."

Found in Translation

First, the Germans gave us Schadenfreude to describe our shameful glee at other people's downfalls. Now, the Dutch have given us "plaatsvervangende schaamte." It doesn't roll off the tongue in quite the same way. On the other hand, it's a term that describes a difficult-to-articulate emotion that almost all of us have felt: feeling ashamed on someone else's behalf.

A friend mentioned it in relation to Palin, and it literally means "place-replacing shame."

Nick Walker, in his 2003 novel "Helloland," defines it as, "A shame in being human. You see someone acting foolishly or stupidly and you do not laugh at him, you do not feel Schadenfreude, instead you feel a sense of humiliation that this is how your species can behave."

Or, in the case of Palin, a sense of humiliation mixed with a dash of absolute fear that she could possibly hold the highest office in America.