Category: The Dish

A reader writes:

The email from Indiana finally inspired me to send this to you, although I wanted to the day it occurred.

Two days ago I pulled into the CVS parking lot here in Brevard, NC. I saw a very elderly, very stooped older gentleman getting out of the passenger side of a Ford pick-up truck and hobbling toward a curb. As soon as I parked I walked over to check on him and saw a young woman with a toddler already by his side. She had seen him fall and beat me to him. Another gentleman witnessed this and he, too, came over to help. The older man was so sweet, and a bit disoriented, but welcomed the help from us all. We got him back into the truck, and I was able to glean that his "boy" was inside the store.  We asked them to page his son and when he came forward, I knew it was him instantly.

Even though for that brief second in time, the primaries were the last thing on my mind, if you had stopped me and asked me which of the three candidates I thought the father and son would vote for, I’d say either Clinton or McCain.

White, blue-collar, seemingly not highly educated, small, western NC town folk, born and raised here…,etc. As I left the store, they were just pulling out. On the back of the truck window was an Obama ’08 sticker. I cracked the biggest, spontaneous smile and I felt my heart loosen up a bit. I’d been having a pretty shitty, self-centered, emotional day up till then. And then I found myself tearing up. And I felt both soaring hope and some sort of communal, corny, we are the world joy. That moment felt like a MoveOn Obama commercial. You had a representative from nearly every age group involved in the scene, and four or five generations. Apparently, I do not really know what an Obama supporter looks like. I felt like such a judgmental elitist. A hopeful judgmental elitist.

Alex Knapp proposes eliminating direct subsidies to oil companies in lieu of a windfall profits tax.

From Vanity Fair, a bull’s eye to cheer up your afternoon:

I’ll be live-blogging the results from Indiana and North Carolina. Here’s what I fear: regardless of who wins or loses and by what margin, race will emerge as a core issue. I sure hope not. But what Obama has been subjected to is a classic pincer movement: the Clintons have attacked from the right, subtly and not-so-subtly framing Obama’s candidacy as a racial one, and evoking Bill’s own Bubba identity and Hillary’s totally fabricated working class white credentials. And Jeremiah Wright has attacked from the left: desperate for attention, alternately demonizing Obama for selling out and projecting his own clownish-left sensibility onto the first serious black contender for the presidency. Wright has given white voters permission – and an alibi – not to vote for Obama on racial grounds. The Clintons have given the same voters a Fox News-approved, Rove-blessed alternative to racial transcendence.

Of course, many voters will not have their decision affected by this racial side-show. But some will. Quite how many we will find out. I just hope the last few weeks have not resulted in too stark a racial polarization. It’s bad for the country, for Obama, for the Clintons … and for the future.

The key fact about the Obama candidacy is its bottom-up focus on popular empowerment. He was, after all, a community organizer. I haven’t thought about this at any length from the perspective of foreign affairs, but this story caught my eye:

Rebels who have stepped up attacks on Nigeria’s oil industry in the last month said on Sunday they were considering a ceasefire appeal by U.S. presidential hopeful Barack Obama.

The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) has launched five attacks on oil facilities in the Niger Delta since it resumed a campaign of violence in April, forcing Royal Dutch Shell to shut more than 164,000 barrels of oil per day (bpd).

"The MEND command is seriously considering a temporary ceasefire appeal by Senator Barack Obama. Obama is someone we respect and hold in high esteem," the militant group said in an e-mailed statement.

MEND did not say when or where Obama, the leading candidate for the Democratic ticket for November’s U.S. presidential election, made the appeal. It said it hoped the government would use any ceasefire to improve conditions for its detained leader, Henry Okah.

It’s a straw in the wind, but we may be under-estimating the transformative potential of just electing this man president. Can you imagine actors in the developing world taking any cues from president Bush?

The New York Times Magazine’s demeaning photos for their young gay married couples piece is not, alas, out of the ordinary. The struggle of gay couples for basic equality and treatment must always be illustrated by camp, must it not? Dan Savage notes another depressing example:

And how does the AFP illustrate this story about marriage rights and discrimination and religious intolerance? Why, with a picture of shirtless men dancing at the annual Mardi Gras Parade in Sydney.

Sydney isn’t even in the Australian Capitol Territory! This is so typical of the straight media. Illustrate a serious story about gay rights with a picture of gay people partying—because all gay people are silly queens dancing around shirtless or running around in bad drag. The subtext is this: Gay issues are just as silly as gay people are.

Sigh.

Dares assassins to try something. From the Onion:

They were interested in good policy – a long time ago.

That’s from 2005, before she felt the need to pander to the anti-war base. Her formula – it’s casualties that count – is entirely McCain’s. What, one wonders, would they have to debate in the fall? Both want to stay in Iraq for a hundred years and both are prepared to "totally obliterate" Iran. I guess he could karaoke the message.

The details are heart-rending:

Deborah Jeane Palfrey, convicted last month of running an elite prostitution ring in Washington, D.C., wrote to her mother that she could not "live the next 6-8 years behind bars for what you and I have come to regard as this ‘modern day lynching,’ only to come out of prison in my late 50s a broken, penniless and very much alone woman." …

One of the notes said, "Do not revive. Do not feed under any circumstances."

In the note to her younger sister, Bobbie, Palfrey expressed her love and told her to "be strong for mom."

"Also, you must comprehend that there was no other way out, i.e., ‘exit strategy,’ other than the one I have chosen here," she wrote. "Know I am at peace, with complete certainty, I believe Dad is standing watch – prepared to guide me into the light."

She came to this because she ran a business allowing some consenting adults to have sex with other consenting adults for a price.