Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

journalism

Live blogging & recapping the Vice Presidential debate

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We have arrived at perhaps the most anticipated televised political event in at least a decade, if not of all time: the Vice Presidential debate between Senator Joe Biden and Governor Sarah Palin.

I’ll be liveblogging this debate to capture some of the highlights and to discuss my immediate reaction, just as I did last week for the first Presidential debate.

Here we go.

Mics on for the intro, Sarah in black, first punch: “Nice to meet you! Can I call you Joe?”

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Rachel Maddow, in brief

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It’s always interesting to read a foreign take on American news media – in this case, a brief Guardian bio of newly minted MSNBC host Rachel Maddow.

Interesting to me is that the article focuses on Rachel’s sexuality – she is gay, and has been out since age fifteen. Not surprising, considering it’s the Guardian. Yet, the revelation still holds some intrigue because:

(a) I had no idea she was a lesbian;

(b) My ignorance nonwithstanding, I don’t think this is a widely known fact in the US;

(c) Yet, clearly it’s known by the media- and political- establishment. is it a component of the “liberal” tag applied to her; and

(d) Rachel is rapidly achieving rating dominance; she has recently topped Larry King in her time slot. This makes her one of the most visible “out” personalities in the media, and from the article it sounds as though she’s more vocal about her sexuality than Anderson Cooper.

Lest it be overlooked, she also holds a doctorate in political science, specializing in AIDS and prison reform. Certainly not a lightweight coming from the world of sportscasting.

(Lest you mistakenly think that was a Palin joke, I’m actually refering to her sometimes-mentor Oblermann. As Palin jokes go it was way too easy.)

Annotated debate transcript, and some hindsight

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Washington Post provides an excellent annotated transcript of the debate that provides some fact-checking as well as allowing you to watch specific exchanges as you read. Similarly, C-Spans Debate Center offers isolated video and graphs each exchange by speaker over time. The two most effective recaps I’ve found so far.

I’m apparently in the vast minority in my opinion that McCain held a slight edge over the course of the entire debate. I even got flamed for saying so on Huffington Post!

I think part of my opinion was the expectations game. After all the ridiculous, manufactured drama this week from the McCain camp I thought he’d be vastly under prepared. That was not the case. At the same time, virtually the entire country touts Obama’s speaking and debating skills, while not giving McCain much credit at either.

Based on the combination of those two factors I was expecting an Obama blowout, and since it wasn’t I likely graded Obama harder than he deserved. Also, I’m not nearly as liberal on economic and foreign policy issues as I am on civil rights and domestic issues.

Essentially, I’m willing to admit that my deck was a bit stacked against Obama, in this particular instance. But, I have an equally stacked deck against any Republican presidential nominee, so if anything I think this might represent one of the few chances to capture my unbiased opinion on the political process.

I’m interested to see if I have a similar reaction next week to the VP debate, where I have a significant absence of respect for one side and expectations about neither.

Live blogging & recapping presidential debate #1

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I think that presidential debates are crucial to our understanding of how we can use our votes to better this country.

I’ve been a supporter of both of these gentlemen at different points of this election cycle – I respect them both, but I also believe they’ve each made some grave mistakes. I can’t pretend to be actually “undecided,” since my lifelong commitment to women’s and civil rights clearly dictates my choice in their pairing, and because of that certainty I don’t know whose side I fall on a lot of the other major issues of this election.

Hopefully after the debates I’ll be able to make a more educated decision.

The debate begins… [Read more…] about Live blogging & recapping presidential debate #1

Alla This

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On Thursday morning I was very much in my head while sitting on the trolley, listening to Ani DiFranco’s madly terrific new song “Alla This.” The song is partially about the intersection of the personal and the political, with Ani at one point delivering the following:

i won’t rent you my time
i won’t sell you my brain
i won’t pray to a male god
cuz that would be insane
and i can’t support the troops,
cuz every last one of them’s being duped,
and i will not rest a wink
until the women have regrouped

I already love the song as much as anything she’s done this decade, but at her concert earlier this month that verse sent a thrill through my body – in eight lines it succinctly hits commercialism, religion, war, and feminism. Amazing.

The verse ended as I stepped off the trolley, and my mind began to wander. I thought about Ani’s constant challenging of the patriarchal status quo, and how any form of discrimination ultimately connects back to that hegemony.

In the distance between the trolley doors and the stairs to sunlight somehow that rolled into my wondering about the Iraqi citizens, and if life has actually improved for those that exist outside of the patriarchy both of that nation and of the force the world is imposing on it.

I wondered, what about the gays and lesbians in Iraq? I knew nothing about this group, though I was sure they existed. What was their life like before the invasion, and what was it like now? While I am advocating for the rights of my lesbian friends to marry are their Iraqi counterparts struggling for the simplest of rights – for the ability to exist as themselves without fear?

Sometimes my brain and the internet do a peculiar zeitgeist tango, where the same day I wonder about a topic it shows up in my daily reading, and sure enough when I got to my desk CNN was running a story entitled “Gays in Iraq terrorized by threats, rape, murder.”

As it turns out, as the Iraqi government came unmoored the situation of their GBLT citizens deteriorated. Any hint of their sexuality risks not only their own lives, but the lives of their entire families.

What a terrifying closet to be trapped within.

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Just a day later I was at the Philadelphia Theatre Company to see Elise’s brother in his weekly theatre lab.

One of his classmates – barely a teenager – wrote a brilliant play about how bullying can go too far, as the actions of a few are enabled by the inaction of their peers at large. Here the result was the death of a young girl at the hands of her tormentors – their faces unimportant, as all of her classmates were complicit in her fate.

In the play’s last scene Elise’s brother acted as a federal agent, gingerly interrogating one of the girl’s classmates, getting nowhere. Finally, grimly, he asks her:

“Is it true that the girl who was murdered had a crush on you?”

And then, brilliantly, sparking immediate tears in my eyes as much for his delivery as for the line itself:

“Have you ever heard of a boy named Matthew Shepard?”

So powerful, and from the pen of a girl half of my age. Vital proof that we still have some terrifying closets of our own, whether their doors are open or closed.

As the lights came up, Ani’s voice rung out again in my mind as the voice of murdered girl, of those Iraqi men, of Matthew, and of Larry.

i will not stand immersed,
in this ultra violent curse
i won’t let you make a tool of me
i will keep my mind and body free
bye bye minutiae
of the day to day drama,
i’m expanding exponentially,
i am consciousness without identity