_Paul writes_: I suppose we should be grateful that McCain “cleared things up” after a woman “remarked”:http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1008/14479.html that Obama was an “Arab” instead of proclaiming: “He sure is! Straight from Arabland, somewhere east of prissy, socialist Europe!” Of course, the two are not mutually exclusive, as this country is home to more than a million Arab Americans. McCain should have mentioned that too, but the Republicans, those nabobs of negativity, are more than happy to encourage people to think that Obama is somehow not wholly American. The ignorance that led this woman to call Obama an “Arab” is understandable, but these hate rallies also have people yelling “traitor.” Where does that come from? What is the justification for that charge?
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Wavy Rule” archive.
Monthly Archives: October 2008
Click One, Click All: Festival Link Mega-Post!
The dust has settled, and the wide reach of another successful Festival has been registered in the only place that really matters, little differently colored words that you can click on.
“A Party of One”:http://katemalay.wordpress.com/2008/10/08/october-2008-new-yorker-festival/ on the whole weekend
“Places to Go, People to Meet”:http://placestogo-manomi.blogspot.com/2008/10/first-stop-nyc.html on the whole weekend
“I Love New York”:http://iheartmanhattan.blogspot.com/2008/10/supermom.html on the whole weekend, with SuperMom cameo (I love this post)
“Con C De Arte”:http://concdearte.blogspot.com/2008/10/new-yorker-festival.html on the whole weekend (in Spanish!)
“_The Oregonian_”:http://blog.oregonlive.com/books/2008/10/new_yorker_festival_is_highbro.html seems impressed with the Festival
“Eat the Press”:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/09/emnew-yorkerem-fest-polit_n_133192.html on the political humor panel
“Eat the Press”:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/09/the-campaign-trail-nouns_n_133190.html on the campaign trail
“Eat the Press”:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/07/post_171_n_132602.html on the poltiical reporting panel
“Eat the Press”:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/06/donna-brazile-dont-ever-p_n_132007.html on the political strategy panel
“Eat the Press”:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/06/stephen-colbert-at-the-em_n_132019.html on Stephen Colbert
“Back of the Room”:http://backoftheroom.wordpress.com/2008/10/05/stephen-colbert-at-the-new-yorker-festival/ on Stephen Colbert
“Citizen Sugar”:http://www.citizensugar.com/2293686 on Stephen Colbert
“The Geek Prospectus”:http://geekprospectus.blogspot.com/2008/10/thoughts-on-new-yorker-festival-comics.html on Stephen Colbert and Art Spiegelman
“If Liz Were Queen”:http://iflizwerequeen.com/?p=808 on Donna Brazile (this event probably got the most “reaction”:http://blogsearch.google.com/blogsearch?q=%22donna%20brazile%22%20%22new%20yorker%20festival%22&ie=UTF-8&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&sa=N&tab=wb in the blogosphere)
“Jezebel”:http://jezebel.com/5059749/elizabeth-edwards-i-think-we-have-the-capacity-with-great-leadership-to-change-things on Elizabeth Edwards
“Benny’s World”:http://bennycat.blogspot.com/2008/10/elizabeth-edwards-refuge-is-passion-for.html on Elizabeth Edwards
“Irish Voice”:http://www.irishabroad.com/news/irish-voice/entertainment/Articles/new-york-festival101008.aspx on Roddy Doyle and Anne Enright
“_Paper Magazine_”:http://www.papermag.com/blogs/2008/10/the_new_yorker_festivals_next.php on the “Next Generation in Fashion” panel
“Stilettos on Cobblestone”:http://stilettosoncobblestone.blogspot.com/2008/10/new-yorker-festival-next-generation-of.html on the “Next Generation in Fashion” panel
Emdashes friend “Newyorkette”:http://newyorkette.com/2008/10/04/caj-at-the-new-yorker-festival-plus-before-and-after-pics/ at the Festival
“Joe Trippi”:http://joetrippi.com/blog/?p=2510 on the political strategy panel that he was on
“Ta-Nehisi Coates”:http://ta-nehisicoates.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/10/if_you_shoot_you_aint_the_real_pretty_tone.php on the political reporting panel that he was on (nice moment involving Remnick too)
“The Apiary”:http://www.theapiary.org/archives/2008/10/the_new_yorker.html on the political humor panel
“Francsesco Explains It All”:http://francescoexplainsitall.blogspot.com/2008/10/sarah-and-dina-hit-town.html on the political humor panel
“The Litter in Littérateur”:http://www.rickyopaterny.com/blog/2008/10/09/donna-brazile-from-the-new-yorker-festival/ on the political strategy panel
“Straight Chuter”:http://www.straightchuter.com/2008/10/trip-report-new-yorker-festival-nyc/ on Lynne Cox and Greg Child (and a few other events)
“Gawker”:http://gawker.com/5059425/peggy-noonan-at-the-new-yorker-festival-kind-of-embarrassing twits Peggy Noonan
“Dancing Perfectly Free”:http://dancingperfectlyfree.com/2008/10/05/ratmansky-at-the-new-yorker-festival/ on Alexei Ratmansky
“Elizabeth Reed”:http://www.aaaah.org/comment_on_alexei_ratmansky_at_the_new_yorker_festival_by_elizabeth_reed.html on Alexei Ratmansky
“The One Ring”:http://www.theonering.net/torwp/2008/10/16/30296-guillermo-del-toro-i%E2%80%99m-so-voracious-about-the-hobbit/, “obsessively”:http://www.theonering.net/torwp/2008/10/20/30314-del-toro-interview-part-2-this-is-the-hardest-movie-i%E2%80%99ll-probably-ever-do/, on Guillermo del Toro
“Newley Purnell”:http://newley.com/2008/10/05/elmore-leonard-on-writing-and-new-yorker-stories/ quotes a pithy Elmore Leonard nugget
“Matthew Klam’s sister”:http://julieklam.wordpress.com/2008/09/12/the-new-yorker-festival-with-matthew-klam-elmore-leonard-and-joyce-carol-oates/ is excited
“Politics and Prose”:http://politics-and-prose.blogspot.com/2008/10/new-yorker-festival-i-american-dream.html on Jeffrey Eugenides and Jhumpa Lahiri
“Ivy Gate”:http://www.ivygateblog.com/2008/10/the-american-dream-brought-to-you-by-the-new-yorker/ on the American Dream
“Blah Blog Blah”:http://mingum.blogspot.com/2008/10/new-yorker-festival-part-one.html on the American Dream
“Blah Blog Blah”:http://mingum.blogspot.com/2008/10/new-yorker-festival-parts-two-and-three.html on Ian Frazier and Mark Singer
“You: On My Blog”:http://youonmyblog.blogspot.com/2008/10/post-in-which-i-post-massive-amounts-of.html engages in a bit of namedropping
“BizBash”:http://www.bizbash.com/newyork/content/editorial/e12951.php disliked the corporate tone of the weekend
“Your Blog About Town”:http://thelmagazine.com/lmag_blog/blog/post__10070804.cfm on Alice Munro
“City Life and the Social Worker”:http://stevetm.com/2008/10/take-this-down-new-yorker-fest/ on the Town Hall
“D.B. Burroughs”:http://dbborroughs.livejournal.com/2458286.html on Clint Eastwood and the Young Shakespearians
“MegExpressions”:http://megexpressions.blogspot.com/2008/10/new-yorker-festival.html on the political strategy forum and the Young Shakespeareans
“Irish Stage in NYC”:http://irishstagenyc.blogspot.com/2008/10/liberal-media-elite-presents-unfiltered.html on Seamus Heaney
“Lodge Porch”:http://www.lodgeporch.com/2008/10/sen-chuck-hagel-at-new-yorker-festival.html on Chuck Hagel
“The Autograph News”:http://theautographnews.com/2008/10/20/matt-groening-gets-animated-while-sketching-the-simpsons/ has footage of Matt Groening … signing his name.
“The Village Voice”:http://blogs.villagevoice.com/music/archives/2008/10/pulp_fictions_l.php on Lynda Barry and Matt Groening
“Tim’s Family Journal”:http://timkau.blogspot.com/2008/10/grace-and-her-boyfriend-paul-rudd.html on Paul Rudd
“Carpathian Kitten Loss”:http://kittenloss.blogspot.com/2008/10/that-pig-has-some-powerful-friends.html on Paul Rudd (with excellent picture)
“Sequenza21”:http://www.sequenza21.com/2008/10/meet-press.html on Dawn Upshaw (with encouraging anecdote about Festival press tickets)
“Celebrity Baby Blog”:http://www.celebrity-babies.com/2008/10/for-mary-louise.html on Mary-Louise Parker (more interesting than you might expect)
“FOX News”:http://onthescene.blogs.foxnews.com/2008/10/21/an-evening-with-oliver-stone/ (yes) on Oliver Stone
“Rundagerously”:http://rundangerously.blogspot.com/2008/10/haruki-murakami-running-novelist-at-new.html on Murakami (with prominent Emdashes plug)
“_NY Times_”:http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/06/nyregion/06trillin.html on Calvin Trillin, “Come Hungry”
The Wavy Rule, a Daily Comic by Paul Morris: If You’re Going to Naypyidaw
_Paul writes_: “From Despotism to Destination” was the name of an interesting article by Ben Carmichael for the February 2008 issue of Print. Carmichael explored how countries came up with branding campaigns to make themselves attractive to tourists. Myanmar, and its “corrupt and repressive regime”:http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/08/25/080825fa_fact_packer, has not done the same; the cartoon is my own leap into the unknown. Incidentally, Emily has pointed out that The New Yorker has been running Spanish tourism ads with the tagline “Smile! You are in Andalucia.” We weren’t sure why it’s “You are” instead of “You’re.” Any theories on that would be appreciated.
Read “The Wavy Rule” archive.
American Writers to Emulate Nobel Chief’s Splendid Humanity (Not)
I’ve been moving some my books around this week, some of which are by David Foster Wallace and others of which are by recent Nobelists, among them Doris Lessing, Naguib Mahfouz, Orhan Pamuk, J.M. Coetzee. Every time I handled one, I would think about the Nobel, and I would think about Horace Engdahl, who is the top member of the award jury. And I realized that something about Engdahl’s “rebuke to American writers”:http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D93H89QO0&show_article=1 last month was still nagging at me (even though I have already “weighed in”:http://emdashes.com/2008/10/score-it-literary-magazine-1-s.php), and I think I finally recognized what it was.
What bothers me, I realized, was the timing, indeed the appalling lack of sensitivity implied by the timing. Wallace committed suicide on September 12; Engdahl made his comments on September 30. His take on American letters may or may not have merit; less ambiguous is the fact that American letters had lost a particularly bright light just 18 days earlier.
The astonishing thing is that (as far as I saw) there was little connection made between Wallace’s suicide and Engdahl’s comment in the media. Did anyone even notice that these two events sit fairly uncomfortably aside one another? I’m not saying Wallace was headed for Nobel status; far from it, he wasn’t that kind of writer. But Engdahl even went so far as to say that American writers are “too sensitive to trends in their own mass culture,” an observation that could easily be taken as a veiled reference to Wallace—and yet the sentiment that perhaps Wallace’s death made this an awkward moment to point fingers at America’s literary deficiencies went relatively unexpressed.
As sometimes happens, the United States gets treated differently. A hypothetical: if one of Indonesia’s top young writers were to perish in a plane crash, say, and two weeks later the head of the Nobel committee were to single out Indonesia for having an immature literary culture, the ensuing embarrassment might well be substantial enough that the self-appointed critic would be obliged to step down from the position. Less dramatically, people would make that connection very quickly and consider the speaker insensitive. But Americans are not accorded that kind of tact these days.
The Wavy Rule, a Daily Comic by Paul Morris: We’re All in This Together
Click on the cartoon to enlarge it!
The Wavy Rule, a Daily Comic by Paul Morris: Cup of Joe
_Paul writes:_ Will McCain plant another “common man” amongst the crowd to grill Obama? Click on the cartoon to enlarge it!
George Packer Blog Breaks Surprise Obama Endorsement
I’m indebted to “Josh Marshall”:http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/238525.php for explaining the significance of the event. Ken Adelman, lifelong Republican and hawkish former chum of Cheney and Rumsfeld emailed _New Yorker_ staffer George Packer to “explain”:http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/georgepacker/2008/10/not-quite-colin.html why he’s “supporting”:http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/georgepacker/2008/10/adelman-addendu.html Obama this year. (Hint: _temperament_ is the word of the year.)
Colin Powell Cites Platon Pic in Obama Endorsement
Did you see Colin Powell’s “endorsement”:http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/27265490#27265490 on _Meet the Press_ yesterday? I’m excited about it. I think it does a few good things for Obama. Powell is the most famous Republican moderate, by far; he could have an impact with just the kind of right-leaning independents who need one final small nudge to vote Obama. And it may help secure an Obama presidency (knock wood) on the firm bipartisan ground it needs to succeed.
But more directly, it might change the tone of a campaign that is now seeing its fair share of racial and ethnic innuendo. Powell criticized McCain’s unsteadiness on economic matters and his selection of Sarah Palin, but he saved his most powerful words for the subject of American inclusiveness:
I’m also troubled by, not what Senator McCain says, but what members of the party say. And it is permitted to be said such things as, “Well, you know that Mr. Obama is a Muslim.” Well, the correct answer is, he is not a Muslim, he’s a Christian. He’s always been a Christian. But the really right answer is, what if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer’s no, that’s not America. Is there something wrong with some seven-year-old Muslim-American kid believing that he or she could be president? Yet I have heard senior members of my own party drop the suggestion, he is a Muslim and he might be associated with the terrorists. This is not the way we should be doing it in America.
I feel strongly about this particular point because of a picture I saw in a magazine. It was a photo essay about troops who are serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. And one picture at the tail end of this photo essay was of a mother in Arlington Cemetery, and she had her head on the headstone of her son’s grave. And as the picture focused in, you could see the writing on the headstone. And it gave his awards—Purple Heart, Bronze Star—showed that he died in Iraq, gave his date of birth, date of death. He was 20 years old. And then, at the very top of the headstone, it didn’t have a Christian cross, it didn’t have the Star of David, it had crescent and a star of the Islamic faith. And his name was Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan, and he was an American. He was born in New Jersey. He was 14 years old at the time of 9/11, and he waited until he can go serve his country, and he gave his life.
That picture appeared in _The New Yorker,_ and the “picture”:http://www.newyorker.com/online/2008/09/29/slideshow_080929_platon?slide=16 was taken by Platon. Here it is:
_Elsheba Khan at the grave of her son, Specialist Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan. Photo by Platon._
Platon is a recent _New Yorker_ hire, and he could hardly have had a more auspicious start! The whole “portfolio”:http://www.newyorker.com/online/2008/09/29/slideshow_080929_platon is stunning; you can listen to the photographer “discuss”:http://www.newyorker.com/online/2008/09/29/080929on_audio_platon the series in a podcast on the magazine’s site.
The Wavy Rule, a Daily Comic by Paul Morris: McCain and Spain
_Paul writes:_ During the VP debate, Joe Biden remarked that “John McCain said as recently as a couple of weeks ago he wouldn’t even sit down with the government of Spain, a NATO ally that has troops in Afghanistan with us now. I find that incredible.” Obama also brought this point up during the debates. Neither Palin nor McCain responded specifically to this point. What did McCain actually say? McCain “stated”:http://www.thenation.com/doc/20081006/spain_video” he would work with leaders in the hemisphere who are friends with us…standing up to those who are not …[based on] the importance of our relationship with Latin America.” Spain is of course not in Latin America and the interviewer clarified this, but McCain simply replied that he would have to “look at the relations, situations, and priorities” first.
“This blog”:http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/768/ suggests that he may have been simply confused by the question regarding Spain. But a statement by the McCain campaign later denied that he had been confused, “as reported”:http://www.thenation.com/doc/20081006/spain_video by _The Nation_. What’s going on here? Is this simply geographic confusion and erratic bumbling or the repeat and possible continuation of the Bush Administration’s attitude towards Spain, which has been frosty since José Luis RodrÃguez Zapatero, the Prime Minster of Spain, pulled out the Spanish troops from Iraq, in response to the Spanish people’s demand. There have been disagreements regarding Cuba and Venezuela as well. I hope that US-Spain relations will improve under Obama.
Click on the cartoon to enlarge it!
I Want My Campaign Trail TV
Emily is moved to return from self-imposed blog retirement to write:
I have spoken of my dependence on “The Campaign Trail,” the magazine’s populous podcast about the presidential election. Now more than ever, I crave daily updates. I checked my iTunes the morning after the third debate, hoping for those familiar voices to engage in gently scorching analysis as I began my day. No such luck! O editors and editorialists, won’t you be my spirit guides through these long, last days of this dreadful campaign? Even a half hour of your sparkling waterfall of talk would ease my thirst.