Well, if you ask me she may sound like a nutter novelist, but her remarks are fair enough:

I don’t mind paying my tax, I want hospitals and schools, and police and firemen, and street lighting and rubbish collection, but I minded funding the Iraq war, and I mind funding fiscal incompetence. We are getting to the point where we can’t afford the things we need – like schools and hospitals and social care, because all our money is being spent on buying bombs and bailing out banks,
That’s masculinity gone mad – get the girls in as fast as possible.

Lord help me – I have reverted to capital letters and BOLD. A sure sign of the nutter at the typewriter.

A while ago Jeanette Winterson wrote a good editorial for the Guardian food - defending organic products, local farming, etc. More interestingly, she not only talked about quality, but proximity: little shops are a pleasure to shop at, a trip to while Tesco is not really stepping in smiles-and-friendship land. Winterson owns a deli in Spitalfields -near my own neighbourhood- and I still have yet to go there. Maybe that will be my week-end plan.

La Chola / Brownfemipower always gives me serious, brutal and -in a very bizarre way- almost unwelcomed food for thought. I would guess that a lot of her readers agree that she pushes boundaries, opinions and ideas quite far, and in doing so allows me to pause and think hard about the truths I willingly or unwillingly avoided so far.

She published a beautiful post describing a story of love, murder and revenge this week and this quote stood out for me:

“Love is the strength that allows you to see it is the system that creates monsters out of humans that must be destroyed, not humans.”

Something to keep in mind.

(Picture via.)

I really enjoy Creative Commons’ father Lawrence Lessig’s videos. I blogged about one of those on openDemocracy in the past, and I tremendously enjoyed his new addition posted this week, a video explainning his support for Obama vs. Clinton. His argument is based on three criteria. Moral courage and character, integrity and “do”.

As much as I like Hillary and Bill Clinton, I have to admit his argument on moral courage (e.g Bill Clinton doing a U-turn on gay people in the military, Hillary supporting the Iraq War as the NY senator) is spot on, and perhaps the thing that most left to the left democrats fear when casting their vote for Clinton: she sometimes lacks the character to take a strong stance, eyeing instead political interests.

But then again, no one can argue that the Iraq decision was easier to make for Obama back in 2002, when his name was still relatively obscure at the time. Clinton probably eyed the presidential seat back then, and had to naviguate troubled waters while thinking ahead.

Note that I am not defending Bill and Hillary’s dubious choices. I am merely stating the fact that sometimes, very unfortunately, politics means playing a dirty game. Whatever will get you ahead in the pools. Would I want a president thinking in those terms? Not really. Do I think that Obama will cave in and act in a very similar fashion if elected?

You bet.

PS. I guess those Lessig videos (Youtube) show how amazing it would be to have Lessig as a professor. I always wonder, does he actually write those “lecture” and then sit in front of his computer, power-pointing the speech’s strong elements only to then re-read it slowly and synchronising everything? There must be an easier way.

PS 2. That being said, I am still on the fence. Obama? Clinton? Obama? Headache. I am only glad I don’t have to vote.

My friend Aurelie is back from China, and moving to Brighton this week. An adventurer, she is. I am thrilled to have her and her intrepid boyfriend stay in our flat for a couple of days, so she can tell me everything about her tribulations in Orient.

Boris, Aurelie and I spent the entire year of 2006 together, slaving away during this hard last University year that we shared. We went to protests together - even blocked a roundabout at 6 in the morning (1)-, created a Gender-focused ‘zine and had too many glasses of Cotes de Blaye, which is quite possibly my favourite white wine of all time. Conversation this year was understandbly sparse as her blog has been censored many times (even though I did commission a couple of her blog entries at work!) and well, phoning Nanjing was a bit over the top.

Needless to say, I missed her a lot.

(1) In which Boris, Aurelie and I woke up at 4.30 in the morning, walked across town to meet other protesters, walked on the highway and blocked the main roudabout leading to the city. The police arrived soon enough, and our little experiment brought us both cheers and encouragement from commuters, an equal load of insults, and a lot of hooking. By 10 o’clock I was back in bed, listenning to people on the national radio pestering against those “damn socialist students”. Good times were had by all.
[…and this is from July 2005:]

And old friend, and an old song

I met Aurelie at Old Street station around 10 o’clock. She is in London for two days, coming from Edinburgh with Amnesty International. It was great to see someone so familiar who knew me already (read: someone you don’t have o explain your life for the very beginning. She has the basic about me and more, vice versa. I was relieved to be able to talk to a friend face-to-face).

In a way it was a little bit like going back home, somewhere safe, secure, not challenging. I don’t usually appreciate ‘home’ per say, but I needed that.

We could only chat for an hour - over Baileys, hidden in some very gloomy pub- and parted ways in front of the tube again.

This damn fucking tube.

We hugged hard like only women seem to know how to, breast againt breast, all smiles. Not this ‘Oi you’re my boy’ kind of hug, but something deeper, emotional, silent, understanding (no homo-erotica in here, please).

I took the escalators and when reaching the platform I heard this guy singing. Turned round only to nice a dreadlocked man playing guitar with a real broken soulful voice.

I stared.

He was singing the worst lyrics ever.

‘I wanted to take control but love took control of me - it’s just another sad sad sad song - I have to let it go let it go’.

Somehow the whole thing was really sincere, and I was really moved. It made sense.

The train arrived and I smiled at him. He winked and did a ‘peace’ sign. I waved back. Got on the train, sat down, and as we left the platform, he waved again still playing guitar. I smiled. Life is a bitch but this guy made it more than fucking cool for one minute.

• Newsflash: all American male law school students aren’t enlightenned characters. And while I’m sure the majority of them are great, capable and bright individuals, some are the exact opposite with too much time on their hands (maybe they should read a bit about sexual harrasment law instead of posting on message boards). And to think they will be lawyers soon. I’m still amazed by what people think they are entitled to do just because it’s on “a series of tubes” and they’re hiding behind their screens.

• Today is International Women’s Day. Does it mean that the 364 other days are International Men’s day? Maybe.

• Accurate sexual education for teens in the US. At last, a step in the right direction! Well that’s good news.

“After five years of making it through the House, but getting nowhere in the Senate, the sex ed bill —mandating that sex ed be medically accurate and that abstinence cannot be taught at the exclusion of contraception— passed the state Senate today, 30-19.” (via Josh Feit @ Slog)

I hope it also means that young adults won’t have to hear propaganda such as “abortion is the leading cause of breast cancer” any longer.

After a blog post that amused me a long while ago, an epiphany (spending 6 pounds [12 dollars?]a day on lunches is bad) and an awful lot of public queries, e-mailing Japon, Germany and a hunt trhough e-bay, I finally received what I’ve been purchasing for three months: a Bento box.

Good bye Starbucks! Good bye Pret! Good bye Nusa kitchen! Good bye fries for lunch (an abomination by my french standards). Hello, healthy food! And hey, I’m helping my man Al Gore by reducing carbon dioxide emissions as well (even if my deli.cio.us tag currently suggests that I have a soft spot for Obama rather than the official Climate Change Fighter ™, but we’ll see about that).

In an outstanding performance in the 1998 movie Bullworth, Warren Beatty embodies a Democrat presidential candidate who is struck by some mysterious spell, and who starts speaking the truth to masses. He is slowly letting go of all his heinous and clever rhetoric, and only states pure facts and realities. His speeches drive his advisers and public relations consultants on the verge of a nervous breakdown: he uses slang and harsh, vulgar words; flames his own supporters and lobbyists for investing in oil companies; and when visiting a baptist church in South Central, yells to an African American audience:

‘Of course democrats only want your votes! Don’t think I am here today because I actually cares about black people!’

… Needless to say, Beatty’s character gets killed by a governmental agency before the end of the movie, for he is out of control and a threat to political institutions nationwide. In that sense, Orwell, in all his legendary subtelty, is right: gouvernmental officials should from time to time create a difference by dropping their conventional language of Politics, and adress the Nation in an honest prose, without being able to hide behind politically correct words and ready to use sentences.

Buzzwords and acronyms such as ‘WTO’, ‘alterglobalisation’, ‘indymedia’ are icons of simplification when it comes to complex issues - they often represent vague notions and ideas which people understand but do not grasp the entire reality of. And wo would blame the people? The never ending use of those terms, both within politics and the media landscape, makes the pointing and blaming game as simple and effective as a child’s toy. It becomes as easy as pie to accuse ‘bad governance’ for any unresolved domestic issues, or ‘globalisation’ for international ones, without having to publicly go into details and produce long reports on why the WTO’s rules turn into local decisions, which in turn send people on the dole.

The use of acronyms seems to be inherent in post baby boomers generations’ communicational lifeworlds. In his novel Generation X, Coupland made up entire lists of ‘post modern’ words (such as ‘McJobs’ or ‘I-ism’) in order to illustrate his cynical and yet hilarious outlook on our abuse of categorizations, which achieve nothing but pigeon-hole complex notions and individuals.

However, in this an accelerated culture, the use of such vernacular might prove to be useful, if vicious and misleading in essence. The media need to pass on tons of news content and comments as quickly and efficiently as possible, just as politicians do. Therefore they need to set a common set of references, which anyone can understand in the blink of an eye. It might be indeed pure fantasy, but it answers present obligations and demands which originate from the PR and media markets.

It might create some confusion, albeit a helpful one for political mentors, and it might also participate in the rise of alienation from the elite -who knows what really is at stake when using terms such as globalisation- and the masses, who more and more end distancing themselves from official forms of governments (the low turn out of voters speaks loud enough). The former prefer to associate themselves with ’single issue protests’ or flash movements (Make Poverty History, street protests against wars or oil price).

This might prove to be encouraging, showing that democracy is far from moribund and that people do care, but are tired to be manipulated by distant forces using a newspeak which does not sound truthful or convincing anymore. They want to take matters in their own hands and obtain real, visible results, while forgetting about hypocritical strategies aiming to get them to vote for someone whom at the end of the day might not be able to make any valuable difference in their every day lives.

The next step would be to ask the media to go more in depth when using terms tending to oversimplify a discourse. It might also mean that the media needs more accuracy, and unbiased commentary and analysis.

When recently reading about Orwell writing that ‘one can at least change one’s habit’, I immedialty thought about David Letterman, who as recently receiving Fox News’ Bill O’reilly a few weeks ago. After a long debate on politics, Bush’s policies and the ‘necessity’ to go to war, Letterman - usually a neutral, polite host- lost his nerve and told O’reilly:

‘I think 60 % of what you say is crap’.

That was a bold (if surprising!) move, but it was also sending O’reilly’s hateful bias and lies into the dustbin. Where they belong. I cheered. We need more people able to take a stand and speak out, if only to start more debates. Because that’s exactly what politicians fear: people pointing out their mistakes. It creates more accountability asked from the government, and de facto fewer lies.

Now, if only we had more journalists like the late Ed Murrow - ones who are not afraid of cornering powerful politicians, just doing their jobs while honouring their allegiance to Truth- seeking. In other words, what if we had more BBC and less Clear Channel?

Surely political language would drastically change. One can only hope.