Hillary Clinton

In the last few days, many of the media mouths, even on my favorite news source, have been criticizing Hillary Clinton. It's not even really criticism so much as it is a fatherly shaking of the head, a "we expect better" sort of voice. And really that's so much worse. If they ever wanted to prove that there was a bias of sexism, they've succeeded.

I've been a stanch Obama supporter since the primaries kicked off, but I've always liked Clinton, both varieties. I don't think either of them (the Clintons that is) have exactly shown their best faces in this election, but I also don't think that Hillary's not-exactly concession speech is as big a deal as the media is making of it. To me, this is another reminder that behind Hillary's carefully polished face is a human being.

Because Hillary isn't being petty, at least that's not how I read it. Hillary is CRUSHED. How long has this been in her sights? Since Bill was elected? Earlier? I think everyone knew it was on the horizon when she ran for Senator, if not before. People joked about her being the real president when Bill was in office, so I'm sure it was on her mind. And at the beginning this election, Hillary was far from the only person who thought the nomination was hers for the plucking. Defeat hurts. I have to question how much any person who has not learned that, has actually tried.

So give her the measly four days she's taken to cling to "not making any decisions." The decision has been made for her, probably was weeks ago. Let her nurse her ego, and step down with dignity. Once she's had her time, Hillary will do her duty with all the enthusiasm of a cheerleader on Ecstasy.

To Hillary Clinton, (because obviously she reads my blog) I'd like to say thank you. We've been pretending that this isn't about race or sex except in a mildly amusing anecdotal way, but this election was always in some part about each of those things. I know it hurts to lose, but you've done more than any woman in history to make IT possible. In spite of whatever sexism you may have faced, you did NOT lose because you are a woman, you lost because you underestimated your opponent. And on the day you chose not to concede the race, today when everyone is wondering what you're thinking, this Saturday, when you throw your support behind Obama as you have to do: there is not a single person who can now believe that a woman cannot be president.

Hillary, it won't be you, but it will be because of you. It won't be me, because I don't want it, but I know I'll see it in my lifetime. You may see it in your lifetime. Maybe I'll vote for Chelsey Clinton. Because of you. I don't know what you'll do next. If Obama can defeat McCain, I believe this country CAN change, finally, in much needed ways. You will be a part of that. Maybe you can even step less carefully now that your presidential aspirations are spent. I don't know.

All I know is that while right now you are feeling the crushing pain of defeat, while right now I am cheering in my heart for Barack Obama, you have done something wonderful. I won't stop hoping for Obama, but I do hope that someday soon, you realize how very much you have done.

*images link to source

Presidential Style Ratings

I just had the best idea ever. Ok, technically NPR already came up with something similar but I wrote most of this post before I read the whole article so I'm posting it anyway.

Heard on the news just now that McCain is hosting several vice presidential candidates in his home this week. So it got me thinking. What are they going to do be doing? Will there perhaps be unpredictable tests of character, thrown at various candidates with out warning? An unspoken contest to see who can cook the best patriotic Memorial Day hot dogs? Whatever they do, I'm sure tensions will be running high.

And everyone knows that people in close proximity with lots of stress and competition between them makes for good TV watching! So I propose a new reality TV show for this election: Presidential Judgment. Every week will be a new challenge. For example:

1. Say my approval rating is dropping rapidly through the floor. You're asked to take one for the team, and come up with a scheme to distract the American Public. Do you: a. Misspell "potato(e)" at a third grade spelling bee, b. Give a speech about Global Warming and/or claim to have invented the internet, or c. Shoot your best friend in the face?

What better way to rejuvenate the waning interest in Election 08? Imagine the Thursday night excitement when Florida Governor Charlie Crist forgets the cameras are on, and slips a baggie of white powder beneath the pillow of Mitt Romney. Or when McCain finds out about the secret love brewing between Romney and Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal!

Really this is all very silly, but it does raise an important question about the nature of American TV: Why the hell didn't we do this for the campaign trail for Presidential nominees? There's still time, at this point Hillary and Barack won't be done till August.

Torture Innocent Only

This is completely unrelated to anything I would normally post on, but I'm so appalled that I had to write it down somewhere. According to Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, it's ok to torture innocent people because they are not protected by that little "cruel and unusual punishment" thing. It's not punishment, it's interrogation, therefore it's fine. Apparently it's ok to use cruel and unusual techniques on people who've not been proven guilty. So I'm twisting his words a little, but seriously, it's terrifying. And I promise you, I'm not twisting his words nearly as much as he's twisting his own: he's using debating techniques worthy of a seven year old. I quote: "Is it really so easy to determine that smacking someone in the face to determine where he has hidden the bomb that is about to blow up Los Angeles is prohibited in the Constitution?" Yeah, I know he's talking about preventing theoretical terrorist attacks but I didn't realize you could torture someone to see if they were planning to do something bad. That would certainly make law enforcement a whole lot easier. How the hell did this guy get on the Supreme Court? I can't even blame Bush for this one. Read the whole thing here.

*Photo from Wikipedia

Yes We Can Video

I realize I'm a bit slow on this one since the video came out I think on the 2nd, but I just found it and though it was worth a mention.

Now ignoring the fact that I support Obama, I think this video is interesting purely for what it demonstrates. This is one of the best examples of how technology and youtube is impacting this election. Well, maybe. I'm not sure if we can measure how many people decide to vote for Obama after seeing the video. I think it's a pretty cool intersection of electronic age and politics. I've never seen a politician's speech put to music or art like this before, and especially not so quickly, have you? I'm not really sure what my point is here... I guess I just think it's an indication of the changing forms of communication and information.

Holy Politics Batman!

WOW! Did anyone else hear the endorsement in tonight's Democratic response to the State of the Union??? Towards the end of her speech, Kathleen Sebelius, Governor of the State of Kansas, said: "We are tired of leaders who rather than asking what we can do for our country, ask nothing of us at all."

Now this isn't particularly shocking rhetoric, after all Kennedy is still one of the most loved presidents of all time (yes I know some people hate him), and those are referencing some of his most famous words. If it weren't for the timing I'd say it was a pretty typical comment.

But in politics EVERYTHING is intentional and because of today's endorsement from Ted Kennedy and, even more key, yesterday's Op-Ed by Caroline Kennedy entitled, you ready for this? A President Like My Father (!!!), Barack Obama is at this moment, more than any other, connected to J.F.K. in the minds of Americans.

I'm a little floored by this. Does anyone else think this is huge, or am I reading too much into this?

*Photo and transcript from CBS but NPR is still my favorite.

UPDATE: HA! NPR says the same thing. Look slightly past halfway down. I rock.

Stalking the Election

For the last few years I've been a bit obsessive about elections. Ok, specifically, since 2004. In 2006, I was so excited about the prospect of Republicans getting the boot that as the evening results came in I sat by my computer on an election website, hitting refresh every ten seconds, and listening to the radio for any new results (no TV). When Ohio voted in a Democratic senator, I ran into the other room where Matt was on a conference call and waved around a piece of paper where I'd written in sharpie: "Ohio is a BLUE state!"

I'm a visual person (duh) so I find it easier to process election results with charts and maps, and side by side comparisons. Yesterday, after finding out that Obama beat Hillary in South Carolina (boy did he ever!) I was looking around for some visual explanation of what exactly it meant, and preferably, for a reminder of the past few primaries and which of them actually mattered (anyone else finding this year's election more than usually confusing with all these primaries that don't count because they're too early etc?). I looked on MSN, where I spend more time than I'd like to admit, and CNN and couldn't find much, I mean, I know it must be there SOMEWHERE but I couldn't seem to run across that.

Haven't any of these news sites heard of ease of usability? People do want election specific results (I can't be the only one) and a page dedicated to that is expected. Maybe they even have one and I just couldn't find it. But seriously? I could have designed a much better path to election results.

So finally it occurred to me to check NPR's website, the site I'd haunted in 2006 and the station I'd been listening to. They had *gasp* a page dedicated to the election and, wait for it, graphs, maps and yes, side by side comparisons. I gotta say I'm a little disappointed in CNN. I'd always considered them the basic, unbiased source for finding out what's going on, but lately they've been getting more rating hungry, using fearmongering that would make Bush jealous, and apparently, giving a lower quality of information. I've trusted NPR since I started listening to it, but I always think of NPR as focusing on more human interest, unusual, slightly off the beaten path stories, with news news taking only about half the attention. You know, stories on cow farmer struggles in Wyoming and the high level theoretical discoveries by some Canadian physicist VS. weather, war and ELECTIONS. A bit more widely spread is what I'm saying. So that NPR's site is that much more effective and easy to use is, while commendable for NPR, kinda pathetic of CNN. Anyway.

What I'm really getting at is the long awaited announcement that npr.org/ is now the OFFICIAL ELECTION WEBSITE of Meagan B. Call and Hades Arrow Incorporated (there's not really any incorporated, it's just me). I Meagan Call do endorse NPR. I know the suspense has been killing you.

*Images from NPR... possibly illegal but I'm ENDORSING them, to all five of my readers, hello! Right, anyway I'll take them down if someone (someone from NPR that is) asks me.

Rigging It

I realize this has nothing to do with design, or art, or writing, or, directly, my life, but I've been musing about the Kenyon elections a bit lately. When I first heard about the riots, the deaths, I was mostly just sad because Kenya is one of the only countries in Africa that's generally safe and stable. Shame. The more I heard about it the more I was dismayed, thinking why do they have to turn to violence, is this really something worth dying for?

Then I checked myself and wondered why I was so skeptical. What does it say about me, that I think they're overreacting? This is America, right? We're supposed to stand for justice and democracy and everyone's vote counting, but in 2000, when Gore won the popular vote, we all (and by all I mean people who weren't all into Bush obviously) bitched a bunch and got on with our lives. That alone isn't even that bad, really. The electoral college decided it was for the best to go with Bush, and Gore decided not to fight the decision. It was a little shady, but all more or less legal. What IS bad though, is that there were many many allegations of rigged elections. Rigged voting machines, corrupt voting officials, and again, we bitched about it and then forgot it. Why not? We were comfortable.

So in 2004 when the same thing happened again, only worse, what did we do? The same thing obviously. Kerry didn't even come as close as Gore, but there were definitely some illegal things going on. Not even left wing conspiracy theory illegal things, but obviously illegal. Here in Ohio we saw some of the worst examples. In the greyer areas were voters being discouraged from voting, being turned away or intentionally misdirected. Then in the "obviously shite" category were things like the CEO of Diebold promising to deliver Ohio to Bush, and Blackwell bragging about doing the same thing. WTF? And we did NOTHING, nothing but bitch and moan and threaten to move to Canada.

It's starting to piss me off that the media is condemning Raila Odinga for NOT requesting that his followers turn away from violence. He said in an interview, "there is no peace without justice," it's a commonly said phrase and it's TRUE. I realize in Kenya there's more to the story. Allegations of genocide and tribal feuding complicate the story and make it all the more tragic. If the allegations are true they clearly need to be addressed. And honestly, I don't even pretend to understand exactly what's going on over there. But if there's one thing we shouldn't be condemning, it's rioting over rigged elections. Maybe we should be condemning ourselves for not rioting.

There is a (possibly) Ben Franklin quote that's been thrown around a lot lately: "Those Who Sacrifice Liberty For Security Deserve Neither." Whether Franklin said it or not, it's a great quote. In this case, I think we can substitute Liberty with Rights, and Security with comfort, and we've got the basic state of most Americans. We won't fight for our rights, for our VOTE because it doesn't threaten our comfort.

We're too damn comfortable. Maybe if we were a little closer to death and instability on any given day we'd have a better understanding of their relative value. What's happening in Kenya could never happen in the US, but it's not because our government is too well protected with checks and balances, it's not because we're free enough from corruption, it's because we're too lazy to do anything more than complain.

I ask myself: Am I willing to risk my life because our elections were rigged? I know the answer. I'll watch someone take my ballot and spit on it and tear it into pieces, then I'll go home and tell my friends about it, and about how disgraceful it is. I've always considered myself someone who would stand up for what I believed in. But when I get right down to it, I missed the boat. The time to fight has already come, and the truth is I'm not willing to die for my rights. I don't deserve them. None of us do.

*Pics linked to sources