Books, Current Affairs

four things

30 Comments

Four things this morning:

  1. This toaster gives new meaning to Dark Side.
  2. Newsweek is running a series called the Special Election Project. They had reporters inside both campaigns, with incredible access to candidates and staff, with the understanding that the story wouldn’t be written until after the election. It’s fascinating to me, and I thought I’d pass it along.
  3. Zina Saunders is a brilliant artist and her political work these last couple of months has blown me away. Due to reader requests, she collected her campaign work into a book.
  4. President-elect Obama. I have to keep saying it, because I can’t believe it. Landslide. Mandate. Hoping this is a step toward the end of Lee Atwater-style politics. Quoting myself from Twitter: “Yes we can” is a much better motto for my country than “Be afraid.” Hope > Fear. Unity > Division.

I’m working on something awesome. I can’t wait to say what it is.

30 thoughts on “four things”

  2. I know Wil, it’s really truly amazing. I think your “Hope > Fear. Unity > Division.” statement ought to be on a t-shirt. I’ll let you do it, then I’ll buy one! :)

  3. I’ve re-watched Obama’s acceptance speech a few times now. I can’t remember the last time I’ve wanted to watch ANYTHING POLITICAL more than once! :)

  5. The Zina Saunders art is amazing… and it opened my eyes… The left really sees the right as monsters… I never loved Bush or McCain, but I never viewed them as the evil that she portrays the Republicans as… It explains a lot about Prez Obama’s Victory…

  7. Re #4: Overjoyed. Relieved. Hopeful. And a litany of other positive emotions.
    I only wish my fellow Minnesotans of the 6th Congessional District had joined with me in voting to bring Michelle Bachman back home where she can do less damage to our country.
    Here’s hoping Norm Coleman comes home after the recount, giving the Democrats another Senatorial seat.

  8. Wil, I’m a long time lurker, but this is my first time posting. I want to point out that 52% is not a landslide. The electoral numbers may look like a landslide, but popular vote numbers make more sense logically to determine a landslide or a mandate. If only a little over half of all voters chose you, I don’t think that’s really mandating anything. If 75% had voted for him, it might be a mandate. Don’t get me wrong, I’m excited to see what will transpire over the next four years, but I don’t want to see it go to anyone’s head. It is important that Obama keep himself accountable to those who elected him and to make sure that he is truly doing the will of the people, not just doing whatever he feels like because it was “mandated.”
    I think that the talk of a move toward unison and away from division is awesome and I’d truly love to see it happen, but I don’t think that repeatedly calling the election of a Democratic majority a “mandate” spreads that message…it instead gives the impression that the Democrats have been tasked with progressing their own agenda instead of working to be in unison.
    If anything, I’d call the results of the popular vote a mandate for both parties to work together to create unison.
    I guess what I’m saying is that the partisan rhetoric seems to give the wrong impression and that makes me sad. :(

  9. @Eric: More people voted for Obama than any president in history. Democrats expanded their majorities in the house and in the senate. Several red states went blue.
    When I look at the election results and the exit polling, I see a national rejection of not only McCain, but the Republican party.
    Americans clearly want both parties to work together, and we just as clearly support a progressive agenda. That’s good news to me.

  10. I’m still floating after Obama won, and I’m Canadian. I think the simple fact that this election was so incredibly huge internationally shows how important Obama is. When you can even get Iran congratulating the U.S. it truly is a brand new day.

  11. Did you see the Battlestar Galactica toaster? I thought that was pretty awesome.
    It used to be on the NBC/Universal store site, but I don’t see it there now.
    There are some pics here.

  12. I should just let this pass like so much else – but the geek in me says if the election was as close at it was and more people voted for Obama than any candidate ever that is due to more people voting than ever before. This would also mean that there is a very good chance that more people than ever before voted for his opponent as well.
    I know at one point in the primaries Hillary Clinton had gained more votes than any other candidate before. But the delegate system was working in Obama’s favor.
    All that aside – I love all of the ‘yeah for Obama’. It’s fun to enjoy success, for me it is fun even just to watch others enjoy success.
    What does get old is the painting of anyone who doesn’t hold your views as divisive, bigoted, stupid, etc. Although I must be stupid in a sense I continue to count myself a fan even though I get to come here and read things being said about me that are not nice.
    I really look forward to moving past this and not having to hear a lot of bashing of different view points for at least 2.5 to 3 years. There is so much I enjoy about your art and what you share about your life as a father and human being.
    I even enjoy reading different view points when you explain why you are pro something. But the negativity – not so much.

  13. I’ve just made “Hope > Fear. Unity > Division.” into a Facebook Flair Button. It should be a online soon and findable with the search term “wilw”.
    mxt
    THINK
    think different
    Think open Source

  16. Disclaimer – I am a monstrous, evil fiscal conservative. I did not, however vote for McCain, or Obama for that matter.
    Yes, more people voted for Obama than any other candidate in the history of presidential elections. He got a little over 63 Million votes. McCain got about 56 Million.
    In 2004, Bush got 62 Million, so its not like Obama got an unprecedented amount of votes. I would hardly call the 2004 election a republican mandate, and can’t say that for this election either.
    But the nation has spoken. It is clear that the Bush years have been a failure, and to be honest, McCain would have been another spend and cut Republican which obviously does not work.
    I think Americans do want the parties to work together, but that does not mean that the nation as a whole is for a progressive agenda. I think there is a middle ground, and I believe that Obama will attempt to find that middle ground and govern the nation taking into account opinions across the spectrum.
    This will upset some of the Obama Kool-Aid drinkers, but in the end will lead us to a better place.
    What troubles me is the ideas of revenge that so many liberals seem to carry. They say Unity, but mean only unity for progressive ideas. When 48% of the country is against progressive ideas, that is hardly unity.
    When Bush wins with about the same amount of votes, the country is divided, but when Obama does it, the nation is somehow unified? I just don’t get it.
    What do I know, I am just a person who wants the government to stay out of my personal and fiscal business, and I guess that makes me the antichrist. Good thing I’m an atheist and don’t believe in all that.

  17. “I think there is a middle ground, and I believe that Obama will attempt to find that middle ground and govern the nation taking into account opinions across the spectrum.”
    This is my hope. I personally don’t support a progressive agenda, but if Obama sticks to the message he sent in his victory speech, I have great hope that he will be a unifying force.
    I’m not going to lie…my greatest fear as results of the election poured in was that the Democrats would take this as a mandate and push through their agenda. There’s a part of me that is still worried about that…I’m always worried when one party controls the Senate, the House, and the Presidency. However, Obama’s victory speech gave me the hope that he wouldn’t allow that to happen.
    Two different quotes come to mind:
    “With great power comes great responsibility”
    and
    “Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
    I’m hoping that Obama and the Democrats becomes a great example of the former and not a great example of the latter.
    I’m praying that my message of hope comes through in spite of any fears I have…and that those who disagree with my fears and interpretations still respect my hope.

  18. For the toaster, they need to make one that does an image of Mary or Jesus so that everyone can feel special every morning, not just the lucky one or two that gets the image on a grape or a potato chip. :)
    For your “hope > fear” etc line, I can’t help but feel conflicted when you state the pithy catchphrase and give it a preamble by posting a link and praise to such a hate-spewing “artist” such as Saunders. Hypocrisy, anyone? How could anyone purport to espouse unity, preach one-ness and eliminate division and then laud such vitriol?

  19. How could anyone purport to espouse unity, preach one-ness and eliminate division and then laud such vitriol?
    That’s a very valid point. Maybe I can put those paintings into context: they were done during the campaign, when McCain and Palin had “you’re with us or you’re against us” cranked up to eleven. I can’t speak for Zina Saunders, but I saw both of them as monsters during that time, willing to destroy our country so they could win, and I responded viscerally to her depictions of them as such.
    And, like, such as. Sorry.
    I guess I respond viscerally to that art, and I also respond viscerally to Obama’s message, because they’re two sides of the same coin. Obama told us to believe in ourselves, to work together to change our country and maybe even change the world, while McCain and Palin told their supporters to be afraid of everything, and to hate – I mean, really, truly hate – people who didn’t agree with them.
    I don’t know if that makes sense, or is a satisfactory answer. I made the mistake of having a second cup of coffee today (I usually only have one) and I’m a little . . . off . . . today.

  21. Wil, I think that is a perfectly reasonable explanation. I just wanted to post because I’ve been getting frustrated with the message of unity getting lost amongst a lot of the negativity I’d seen lately. The last few times I’ve read political posts on your blog, other than being specific to Prop 8, I felt that they were pretty negative and considered removing your RSS feed from Sage. After reading this post today, I started to move my mouse toward Sage, in spite of my long time readership, and then decided “You know what? I’m going to actually post my feelings (and try not to be a dick in any way, shape, or form), and see where it goes.”

  22. Sorry, Wil…but after the hate and vitriol spewed by “progressives” (I refuse to admit that their agenda would actually constitute progress) over the last 8 years, Obama’s election is not going to unite the country. What it will take is governing from the center and eschewing the radical leftist agenda he ran on. “Major redistributive change” is not the agenda of a centrist.
    If he does follow the radical left line, aided and abetted by Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, you can be certain of a repeat of 1994. That’s my sole remaining hope.
    As it is, I’m convinced that the small company I work for will be taxed out of existence within a year.

  23. Wow. I’ve never gone and looked at all of Zina Saunders’ pieces but now that I have I have to say that personally I think they’re amazing. I just loved the prom and the playing with green soldiers ones. At first I was worried that I like them out of a sense of meanness or that I was being a sore winner. But as you said these came out during a time when Sarah Palin and John McCain mocked my health as a woman and implied that because I didn’t agree with them I wasn’t a “real American”. They ran a campaign of hate and I don’t feel bad enjoying a very well done satire of them. As for any negativity I see coming from the left-leaning side of the country I have to say that in my opinion it’s reactionary. If John McCain had called out his racist supporters the first time someone held up a monkey with an Obama sticker on it and giggled or if Sarah Palin had never decided to call Pres.-Elect Obama a “terrorist” and me a “non-Real American” then I might not be so inclined to spit a little vitriol right back at them. I’ve tried to come up with a mature way of putting it but the best I can come up with is… they started it.
    Now, am I going to be cranky at Sarah Palin two years from now? Probably not. She’ll go back to Alaska and while I’m sure she won’t change she won’t be in the national eye and I won’t be inundated with her scary brand of crazy. Also, once the Obama administration gets started I fully intend on spending my energy working in whatever way I can to actually help make my country a better place. Should I have been doing this for the past 27 years of my life? Sure, but a late start is better than nothing.
    Thanks for posting these four things. (Mmm… toast from the dark side…)

  25. I can’t wait to know what the “awesome” is.
    Agree about Pres. Elect Barack Obama. I feel like we’ve found ourselves back in the light, leaving the Dark Side behind.
    Thanks as always!

  27. I still can’t believe it. I never thought I’d see this happen & I’ve never been this proud of my country in my life.
    Even two days later, I still get all verklempt and start crying when I read about it, see pictures, or hear excerpts of his speech.

  28. Yeah, good luck to us all. Since Obama won:
    1) Russia today threatened to start another cold war.
    2) Israel threatened to go after Iran alone if needed.
    3) Afghans threatened us today, too. It seems everyone is going to take a shot at the “kid”
    4) Stock markets around the world have declined the most since 1987 in the 2 days since the election.
    5) US stock market is down 10% in 2 days.
    Weakness begats weakness.
    Obama is weak, young and untested.
    God help us all

  29. Having a black man as president is truly historic (and Obama is an amazing person who has restored hope in me which I didn’t think was possible being the cynical realist that I am), but until there is gender equality and civil rights equality for gays and lesbians we’re deluding outselves that rascism doesn’t exist anymore. Obama family as the 1st Family is fine start, people. Keep up the good work America.

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