With the economy, the holidays and the horrifying attacks in Mumbai dominating the headlines of mainstream media it's only really online that you can follow the absurdity of the legal proceedings against 20 year-old wanna-be assassin Daniel Cowart (pictured left).
Cowart, along with fellow neo Nazi Paul Schlesselman, 19, used up their respective 15 minutes back in October when they were busted for alledgedly plotting to kill Senator Barack Obama.
In a laughable twist worthy of a (good) M. Knight Shalaman movie, Cowart is seeking to have his indictment dismissed, claiming that he cannot recieve a fair trial because there are African Americans and other non-white people on the grand jury.
These two knuckleheads are like a walking example of what happens when you have no education, no purpose in life and basically sit around your basement playing ultra-violent video games for hours at a time while idolizing the Third Reich.
Is it possible that the now-legendary Willie Horton ads created by Lee Atwater and Roger Ailes (which played a major role in the outcome of the 1988 Presidential election between George Bush H.W Bush and Democratic candidate Massachusetts governor Mike Dukakis) could inspire someone to find a way to blame the worst US economy since the Great Depression on a man who hasn't yet been sworn into office?
Could be! Media Matters.org is one of many different media sources reporting about Rush Limbaugh joining forces with fellow bitter fact-bending conservative media pundit Sean Hannity to blame the credit-mortage crisis, Wall Street slump and global banking glut on Barack Obama.
In a page torn straight out of the Nazi uber spin meister Joeseph Goebels (pictured above) playbook, Limbaugh and Hannity have leap-frogged sanity and reason and instead orchestrated a campaign to repeatedly use the term "Obama Recession" to describe the current economic woes.
"His ideas are killing the economy, his ideas are killing Wall Street." Limbaugh exclaims in a strange excerpt from his syndicated radio show, click the video above right to hear it for yourself.
Wasn't Obama one of 100 Senators (and of course the DC "Shadow Senator"...) on Capitol Hill?
Bush is still President, correct? Juuust checking.
And people wonder why the Republicans lost the White House and seats in both the Senate and House?
It's been some time since I've looked at some the stories the media covers outside the United States so I thought I'd share this one from Austria.
Back on October 26, 2008 Yahoo! News reported about a 35 year-old streetcar driver from Austria who was fired for using the term "Seig Heil!". Apparently the Third Reich aficionado was finishing his streetcar's last run on a historic section of downtown Vienna, he shared this news on the intercom with his passengers then completed his statement with a hearty "Seig Heil!"
I've been to Berlin, Germany twice and it's well known that even a mention of Nazis, Hitler or the Nazi party will earn you stern looks of disaproval from native German's within earshot. After some afternoon beers at a cafe a friend of mine was just talking about WWII and mentioned Nazi tanks and at least four people sitting near us turned around and glared at him. No lie.
Sharing any kind of pro "Nazi talk" or wearing a swastica will get you arrested FAST.
The story was first reported by a Jewish newspaper and later picked up by other media sources.
Haider was something of a lightning rod for the global neo-Nazi movement having frequently and openly expressed pride and admiration for Nazi Germany and their anti-Semitic policies. Haider's parents were both members of the Nazi party, offering a sad testament to the power of hate and fear to corrupt minds when it is reinforced and celebrated in the home.
I suppose the family that goose-steps together stays together.
Regardless the world will be a better place without this politician who celebrated one of the world's most heinous regimes that brought about the death of millions of innocent people.
Being fired for saying two words may seem harsh, but it's a testament to the legacy of hate unleashed upon the world by Hitler and the architects of the Third Reich.
I envisioned this blog as a place to engage in an exploration of race, culture, tolerance and the too-often divisive nature of our nation's culturegeist.
I use that term to describe the mass subconscious as it relates to how we see each other and ourselves. What irks me is that it seems we've developed a mental laziness, a lethargic tolerance of fear-based intolerance that runs totally contrary to the ideals and principles upon which this nation was founded.
It is my opinion that the media plays a huge role in how we perceive ourselves and hence, I make an attempt to look at how the media covers and reports race to better gauge our culturegeist.
So I was fascinated by an article I just read in the Science section of the New York Times that examines how tolerance and racial coexistence can expand and heal - just as much as racism can constrict and damage. The article, written by Benedict Carey, offers a compelling look from a scientific viewpoint at how the simple act of taking time to learn to trust and get to really know the individual from a race or culture different from one's own can have a virus-like effect the expands outward exponentially.
It suggests that a metaphysical healing of our nation's deep racial divisions is entirely possible and scientifically plausible. For generations American's have become adept at tucking people into tiny little boxes where we classify, assume and ultimately shape our perception of an entire people - based on an encounter or experience with one or a few people.
A black guy mugged my grandmother so all black people are dangerous criminals; a white man refused my uncle a job so all white people are vindictive racists; a cab driver of Arabic descent drove past me to pick up a white passenger on the street so all cab drivers who look like they are from the mid-east hate and fear black people; my great grandmother was raped and brutalized by a Japanese soldier in Nanking, China during the occupation of mainland China during WWII so all Japanese are violent
The Times article reinvigorates my sense of hope that we are just as able to humanize one another if we can learn to stop dehumanizing one another and therefore evolve humanity as a whole. Not by complex and costly scientific or sociological experiments, or bloated government initiatives; but by exploring the human instinct to trust rather than fear; to feel unconditional love rather than illogical hate.
I think the recent election of our 44th President is a glaring example that we can cast aside our fear and mistrust, challenge the limitations that have shackled ALL Americans for so long and move past the stereotypes that blind us to the immense and unlimited possibilities of true human evolution and racial harmony.
The tectonic shift that occurred on Tuesday night is reverberating across our nation and in countries around the world.
Last night C-Span ran clips of various news broadcasts from around the world and the same energy that has fueled such inspiration and hope in towns and cities in every corner of America was also palpable in countries like India, Germany, Japan and so much so in Kenya that a November 5th national holiday was declared for the country's students and workers.
But the reality is that not everyone shares that sense of jubilation. There is also an unquestionable sense of fear and resentment simmering throughout members of the US populace. And there is anger.
The shift that immediately altered the cultural landscape of our nation has unsettled many people uncomfortable with the impending changes that will inevitably occur in our perceptions of race, culture and indeed history.
The rain and humidity in New York has been brutal for the past couple days so I immediately clicked on WCBS radio to get the weather before I left for work this morning; but it wasn't the weather that made me stop and listen.
It was the story of 51 year-old Gary Grewal of Hardwick Township, Warren County, New Jersey. As he left his home to take his daughter to work at 7:30am the day after the election, Grewal, who is of Indian descent, discovered the homemade cloth banner his wife Anlina had put up in front of their home to congratulate Obama on his victory was draped across the ugly remnants of a burned cross.
The New Jersey Chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations condemned the attack as a hate crime. I'm not sure how much, if any national coverage it generated but the story was covered by the Philadelphia Inquirer and other local news outlets. I would imagine the story will be picked up by AP but I didn't see any mention of it on either the NBC or ABC network news broadcasts.
The Staten Island Advance Website reported that officials from the Washington, DC-based CAIR also called on the FBI to launch an investigation into a Staten Island, New York attack on a 17 year-old African-American boy named Ali Kamara. Reporter John Annese wrote that Kamara was walking home on the night of the election when a car pulled up and four white males inside yelled "Obama!" at him before jumping out and beating him bad enough that he was taken to a hospital to have stitches to repair a laceration on his skull.
It is critical that law enforcement address these incidents as we aren't talking about the expression of 1st Amendment rights, these are mindless acts of violence and intimidation.
We will never move forward as a nation until we examine the deeper psychological meaning behind the fear and anger that drive people to attack innocent people for exercising their Constitutional right to vote. If anything, this election has made clear that the days of driving people of color away from the polls by using intimidation and physical force are over, but without question we see all too clear that within our nation we have citizens living in a past that will never return.
Checking the temperature: It's 2008, and people are still burning crosses.
The November 4, 2008 elections were on my mind from the moment the sound of a Barack Obama supporter shouting with excitement drifted through my open bedroom window as the polls opened at 6:30am.
I roused myself and began getting ready as I wanted to cast my vote before work.
My apartment building sits on the west side of Frederick Douglass Boulevard between 111th and 112th street in Manhattan. The northwest corner of Central Park sits one block south across from the 110th street MTA subway stop where I catch the downtown B or C train each morning.
The Election District 72 polling site where I vote sits directly across the street of my apartment in a medium-sized recreation room located on the ground floor of the Charles Hill Tower on 2050 8th Avenue. Normally, voting is a breeze in the early morning but as I stepped outside at 7:20am the first thing I saw was a quiet group of people waiting quietly in a line that snaked around the corner onto west 112th street.
That was my first inkling that something monumental was about to happen in America.
It was a struggle to keep my mind on work and I arrived early in order to leave at 5 to race home and scan the television channels for the latest election results. In doing so I witnessed the dawn of a new era for tolerance, intellectual evolution and social cohesiveness in this nation.
The global media was glued to the massive cultural shift that ended at 11pmEST when the results from the crucial California race came in and showed that Senator Obama had surpassed the requisite 270 electorial votes needed to win the 2008 presidential election; and for the first time ever, a black man became the 44th president of the United States.
There are so many things I feel thankful for one is being alive to witness the momentous occassion in US politics and indeed, history.
We came together as a country and voted in record numbers and I'm proud of that. I listened to both candidates give speeches that were gracious, eloquent and thoughtful. It was an inspiring testament to both men's character that they called for unity in their remarks to their supporters.
I wanted to hear a sampling of what people were thinking about this momentous election, so I watched C-Span's coverage of Obama's speech and I'm of the mind that while the election of the nation's first black president is an historic occasion in every sense; I was reminded that we've got a lot of work to do.
C-Span fielded a variety of uncensored calls from people all over this country expressing their impression of the election results. I was struck by the nearly identical tone of almost 95% of the calls in support of John McCain. Nearly everyone of them expressed disappointment with the victory of Barack Obama as they talked about a sense of being fearful of the rapid changes unfolding before them.
Numerous callers claimed the election wasn't valid because Obama wasn't from this country and that he is a Muslim terrorist. Apparently some of these callers are seriously misinformed or just don't realize that Hawaii is in fact the 50th state, Obama was born there, so he's an American.
It seemed to elude them that you cannot be elected to the United States Senate without being a US citizen.
One woman with a thick foreign accent talked at length in fear-driven abstract generalities, confusing non-specifics and ignorant half-truths about why Obama was a poor choice for president; she claimed that he got into Columbia University because a Saudi prince wrote him a letter of support - which she claimed validated her concerns that he was a friend to terrorists. She sounded like a frightened child who's father has dropped her hand in crowded room.
Poor silly creature, I'm honestly not sure what's more pathetic; her not realizing how uninformed and brainwashed she sounded - or that she has no clue that the Bush family are all far closer to Saudi princes and kings than Obama ever was or will be.
Think about THAT one. If there was anyone who got into an Ivy League school based on the merits of a letter of Saudi royalty, it was our current president.
Of course don't mistake my observations of some of the media coverage for not feeling excited and hopeful that a real leader has been restored to the White House for the first time in long while. But I'm a realistic optimist. There's a lot of work to be done right here inside the hearts and minds of Americans living in every corner of the land.
For people from every background, religion, ethnicity and race, it is a time of hope and anticipation to begin the Herculean job of restoring this nation. But let's not forget that for some in this country, skin still matters more than reality, science, truth or character - and therin lies our most critical battleground. Our most daunting challenge.
I take a measure of solace in my faith in the general of eloquence, grace and quiet strength now charged with leading us, ALL of us, into the fray left from over a decade of Republican control of Washington...Once more unto the breach.
Anthony Crupi is a senior editor of Mediaweek and one of my favorite columnists.
His weekly column covers all manner of advertising-related topics and alway seem to connect with the human elements of advertising.
Crupi's irreverent tone, off-beat observations (how many columnists drop 15th century Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch's name?) and self-depreciating style offer insightful looks at, and into the world of advertising; specifically cable TV.
I earned myself some looks from depressed-looking early morning Manhattan commuters when I laughed out loud while riding the packed downtown "B" train on way to work as I read his November 4, 2008 column entitled, "Si, perfetto".
In an effort to illustrate the absurd nature of television content, Crupi describes a thirty-second television commercial for Barilla Plus pasta that that sets a new standard for the use of totally inauthentic ethnic stereotyped characters to pitch product.
Are ANY of those people even partially Italian?
I've been making the same observations about warped ethnic stereotypes in commercials for years. My brother and I used to laugh at the Popeye's and Kentucky Fried Chicken commercials which were replete with tables full of grinning black people sucking down artery-clogging pieces of fried chicken with fatty side dishes, licking their lips to a gospel-like soundtrack.
One of my absolute favorites was an Olive Garden commercial with the usual 15-person Italian-American family sitting round a table. The commercial began with a guy in an absurd dilemma that began something like:
Man "Mama was in town from the old country and the whole family was gathered to eat; but I didn't have enough room to cook for everyone and Mama is so particular about the food!"
Cut to: Closeup of Italian Grandmother type in black dress wringing her hands and looking about the kitchen in terror. Man "My sister said, Let's take her to Olive Garden'"
You can picture the rest, "Mama" spooning up watery-flavorless sauce over dead-looking pasta and cardboard-like bread and smiling warmly at the members of her Italian family as guys make kissing sounds and expressive hand gestures amidst the faux-Italian decorations of their local Olive Garden.
I mean, I'm not even Italian and I was offended by it! But it was so funny I literally laughed myself silly every time it came on.
Advertisers have seconds to draw an audience into a commercial and I suppose appealing to the one-dimensional assumptions of ethnic characteristics, physical traits and racial stereotypes is just their way of grabbing our attention.
This isn't to say I haven't enjoyed a meal or two at Olive Garden before. And I guess there are worse things than moderately-priced family-style Italian restaurants located in US strip-malls; but do they have to skewer a rich cultural tradition to promote it?
With the economy, the holidays and the horrifying attacks in Mumbai dominating the headlines of mainstream media it's only really online that you can follow the absurdity of the legal proceedings against 20 year-old wanna-be assassin Daniel Cowart (pictured left).
