Bill and Hillary Clinton, 1982
(Source: thepatternneveralters, via politikait)
Name: Rebecca
Location: Kentucky
Twitter: @mllehazelwood
I'm an early thirty-something writer (and former photographer) living in the state my family has lived and died in for generations. I have an MFA in Creative Writing, as well as two cats and lots of dresses and more books than I'll probably read in my lifetime. (I will try to read them anyway.) Oh, and I'm a feminist.
I write about poems on Structure and Style, along with a friend.
Wobble baby wobble.
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Mlle Hazelwood
quote taken from “Bill and Hillary: Politics of the Personal” by William H. Chafe, pg 313.
Star Spangled Banner - Sufjan Stevens
Oh, happy day. I didn’t notice that Sufjan had finally started using Sufjan.com AND it’s a tumblr. Plus, you know, I’m still elated about Barack Obama’s re-election.
Of course I’m stressing about the election. But, The New York Times’s “512 Paths to the White House” basically says that if Obama wins Florida, he basically wins (Romney would have to win all other swing states to win the election). And he’s winning Florida so far. Keep the faith.
“…two major events have paved the way for…election manipulation: the mass adoption of computerized voting technology, and the outsourcing of our elections to a handful of corporations that operate in the shadows, with little oversight or accountability.
This privatization of our elections has occurred without public knowledge or consent, leading to one of the most dangerous and least understood crises in the history of American democracy. We have actually lost the ability to verify election results.
…
Old-school ballot-box fraud at its most egregious was localized and limited in scope. But new electronic voting systems allow insiders to rig elections on a statewide or even national scale. And whereas once you could catch the guilty parties in the act, and even dredge the ballot boxes out of the bayou, the virtual vote count can be manipulated in total secrecy. By means of proprietary, corporate-owned software, just one programmer could steal hundreds, thousands, potentially even millions of votes with the stroke of a key. It’s the electoral equivalent of a drone strike.”
—
Harper’s: “How to Rig an Election”
I don’t mean to sound like a conspiracy nut, but this is horrifying and chilling.
Tonight, President Barack Obama will deliver the final address of the Democratic National Convention. The New Yorker was one of the first national outlets to take a hard look at Obama, back when the question was whether he could win election to the Senate. Here are eight major New Yorker pieces about the President, from 2004 to the current issue:
“The Candidate,” or how the son of a Kenyan economist became an Illinois Everyman: William Finnegan’s piece from the issue of May 31, 2004, about Obama’s Senate campaign.
Larissa Macfarquhar’s Profile of Obama as he began his campaign for President, which appeared in the issue of May 7, 2007, and won a National Magazine Award. At a time when many people thought of the young Senator as a radical activist, Macfarquhar showed that he had always been, as the piece was titled, a “conciliator.”
“Making It,” Ryan Lizza’s piece from the issue of July 21, 2008, about how Chicago politics shaped Obama.
“The Joshua Generation,” David Remnick’s piece from the issue of November 17, 2008, about how the civil-rights movement laid the groundwork for Obama’s Presidential campaign.
“The Consequentialist,” Ryan Lizza’s piece from the issue of May 2, 2011, about how the Arab Spring remade Obama’s foreign policy—and the article that introduced the world to the phrase “leading from behind.”
“The Obama Memos,” Ryan Lizza’s analysis of hundreds of pages of internal White House memos that show Obama grappling with the unpleasant choices of government, from the issue of January 30, 2012.
“The Second Term”: Ryan Lizza asks what Obama would do if reelected, from the issue of June 18th.
“Let’s Be Friends”: In the current issue, Ryan Lizza examines the relationship between Obama and Bill Clinton.
1. Photograph by Martin Schoeller. 2. Photograph by Thomas Dworzak. 3. Photograph by Samantha Appleton. 4. Photograph by Marc PoKempner. 5. Photograph by Luke Sharrett.
I’m just now making my way through all of these pieces on Barack Obama, but I remain as convinced as ever that he is a genuine, smart, thoughtful man. It’s not that Obama is incapable of doing wrong; it’s that he’s willing to first consider all sides and then, after making a decision, admit he’s wrong when he’s wrong. And that’s truly a courageous thing. Also, if you’ll notice in all of his pieces, there’s little attention paid to “how he got his money”—unlike Romney—which seems to indicate that his entire life is not about money, power, or notoriety. It’s about doing better and being better. Change. And it’s about change that’s going to take longer than four years to achieve.
I know I’m preaching to the choir here, but I really hope Barack Obama gets four more years as president.
