I forgot to add: here’s my latest blog for Comment is free. There was a lot of arguing but I loved every second of it. Resident troll even said I looked like Jar Jar Binks - whom I had to Google. I replied with something similar and my ass got deleted by the moderator… which was well deserved but I mean, Jar Jar?

“As many readers have pointed out, it was misleading of Laura Agustín to imply that Faiza Silmi was not granted French citizenship solely on the account of her wearing the niqab. [read the rest here]”

Last week I received an e-mail from a nice researcher working for The Listening Post, a tv show broadcasted on Al-Jazeera english. She had read my blog entry about Sarkozy and the media and wanted to know if I was interested in talking for a few minutes about his influence on the French media. I said I was of course interested in principle, but when she phoned back the next day and had me spend 10 minutes blabbering away about my hate for the president, I thought she’d never call back. Too often, I am an embarrassment to no one but myself (see also: Bicycle Mark’s podcast).

But I was asked back today and said I would spare the team the commuting pain and pay them a visit in person. As it happens, the show shares a building with CBC Canada (droll), and I was welcome by a lovely and very interesting intern and a very funny cameraman/producer, who was in panic because he forgot his pregnant’s wife wedding anniversary. We chatted for a few minutes and they told me to speak for a couple of minutes, in front of the camera, about my opinions. And how do I put this? I am horrible at being interviewed for podcasts, and even worse on camera. I was thinking about the poor editor who would have to work on the footage, deleting my ‘errrs’ and my awkward pauses, and I ) blushed 2) wanted to stab myself in the eye. I profusely apologized but they both said it was absolutely fine and what they were looking for.

As I left, she said she’ll let me know when the footage is online. I thought, fuck me, I hope I’m so bad it never airs.

Lesson learned: stick to blogging.

Anyone with a spare Clinton sticker to put on my laptop? I’ll pay for the postage… And hell, how about a McCain one?

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.

Somehow, I am feeling sad. Cuba is still an example in so many ways, in spite of the corruption, the famine, the oppression.

And Bush’s grin - talking from Rwanda no less - his speech emphasising “true democracy“, makes me feel truly uneasy. From where I stand and through all his flaws, Castro had more integrity and courage in his little finger than Bush could ever claim to.

And Bush talking about Castro’s “kind of staged elections”? Dude. Give me a break.

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.

I suppose I do find it incredibly insulting that afro-Americans are expected to support Obama “because he’s black”, and that everytime I mutter something along the lines of “I guess Clinton wouldn’t be that bad”, people automatically think that my support is linked to my feminist politics.  Jesus, people. Two days ago I watched an excellent coverage of the elections/super Tuesday  by the BBC, during which the journalist asked Jesse Jackson, point blank, if he supported Obama because they shared the same skin colour. I cringed.

That being said, Obama vs. Clinton is a tough choice and to be frank, I liked Edwards best.

I like Clinton’s views on health care, and appreciate her support of LGBT communities. Her crying did not bother me one bit, and well - I always had a soft spot for Bill. Obama, as pointed out elsewhere, would be better at international affairs since his state is a clean, fresh one untainted by the Clinton Years.

Blogger Susie Bright nails it as always, trying to explain her indecision between the two Democrats candidates:

“The Clintons are admitted hawks, they’re prudes, and they’re absolutely quaint on issues like continuing the embargo on Cuba. Someone needs to surgically remove the Cold War out of their ass. ”

PS: And really? This is why I think blogs are my main source of news-reading these days: for comments like these.

Rob is going to hate me for dissing Jack Bauer

Kanishk Tharoor and I were discussing the ‘merits’ of the TV series 24 he mentioned an interesting detail: Joel Surnow (who created and produces the show) is also the producer of the Fox News conservative news satire show “the 1/2 Hour News Hour“.The timing is perfect: 24 has recently been referenced for “inspiring” soldiers to torture detainees. According to Liberation (in french), an American governmental report published in 2004 notes that some officers use “methods they recall seeing in movies”. Add to this some fascinating statistics (102 scenes of torture shown on television from 1996 to 2001, compared to 624 from 2002 to 2006) and we are in for some frightening deductions.

Granted, the show is the perfect American drama: it is carefully crafted, full of suspense, explosions, patriotic heroism and romanticised violence. Yet, I found myself horrified at my immediate reaction when watching the 5th season on dvd: glued to the screen and holding my breath, I was silently encouraging Jack Bauer to demonstrate violence in order to obtain “crucial intelligence” which would enable him to complete his mission and save the day. And yes, that often involved torture.

The first five seasons of 24 gather sixty-seven torture scenes, all of them justified and portrayed as indispensable for the security and well-being of a country fighting its War Against Terror. Everything would be perfect in a fictional world if it all stick to merely being an unrealistic tv show. But as Andrew Sullivan points out:

What’s truly disturbing is how enthusiastic the Republican establishment is about this adoption of torture as the American way. The Heritage Foundation had a symposium celebrating the show (…) Michael Chertoff endorsed “24″, despite its endorsement of law-breaking by government officials. [ MORE TAG ] Then we discover this:

The same day as the Heritage Foundation event, a private luncheon was held in the Wardrobe Room of the White House for Surnow and several others from the show. (The event was not publicized.) Among the attendees were Karl Rove, the deputy chief of staff; Tony Snow, the White House spokesman; Mary Cheney, the Vice-President’s daughter; and Lynn Cheney, the Vice-President’s wife, who, Surnow said, is “an extreme ‘24′ fan.” After the meal, Surnow recalled, he and his colleagues spent more than an hour visiting with Rove in his office.

Now given the apparent sympathy which John Surnow seems to nurture for conservative politics, I am a little bit scared. American citizens wouldn’t want TV dictating the way their government treat their prisoners, would they?

Elsewhere: The Jack Bauer body count website helps you keeping track of the number of people the patriotic hero has executed.

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.