Messy Jesse

July 12, 2008 – 3:25 pm

Please note:

An audio recording of this poem is available below the jump.

The poem is read by the author.

Enjoy.

- The Editor.

That’s just messy, Jesse,
You are not Kanye,
Though, your rhymes
Are on time,
You mucked up
Th’other day. Read More »

By Feature Writer | Posted in Arts & Literature, election 08, north america, poetry, politics | Comments (0)

What Now? A Turn to Substance for Barack Obama

June 9, 2008 – 1:53 am

With Barack the nominee, the question is: what now? In Kentucky exit polls, only 1 in 3 Clinton supporters said they would vote for Obama in the general election. About 4 in 10 said they would vote for McCain, and nearly 1 in 4 said they wouldn’t vote at all.

Even accounting for the potential rawness of emotion at exit polls, this is clearly an obstacle. Add to this picture the widespread outrage among women at Obama’s and the news media’s misogyny and the fact that some voters in Florida and Michigan see Obama as the agent of their disenfranchisement, and you can see how Obama has serious challenges in many states boasting huge populations and a substantial number of electoral college votes.

Perhaps these statistics can begin to explain why in the 20 states where she won, Clinton trumps McCain 50% to 43% in daily Gallup polls over the last 2 weeks, while Obama trails at 45% to McCain’s 50%. And why across the board, in a Gallup survey of all 50 states that included 11,000 registered voters, Clinton performed better than Obama when set against McCain (she led 48% to 45%; Obama loses 45% to 46%).

Her wins in swing states like Nevada, Ohio, New Mexico, Florida, Pennsylvania and Arkansas support this, and in these swing states she beat McCain according to Gallup by an even greater margin, 49% to 43% (while Obama lost).

Obama needs Hillary supporters, he cannot win without us. So how is he going to achieve this? Read More »

By Feature Writer | Posted in Current Affairs, election 08, north america, women | Comments (1)

Obama: The Beginning of the End or the End of the Beginning?

June 5, 2008 – 6:53 am

Gerry Ford first addressed the country as President after Dick Nixon left office by saying: “My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over.”

Tuesday night had me thinking the same thing. Barack had finally driven a wooden stake through the Clinton campaign.

But is the national nightmare over or just heating up? After months of seeking to destroy the party for her personal gain, she is now trying to get herself on the undercard as Veep under the auspices of taking one for the team to unite the party.

The last thing Barack Obama needs is to have Hillary and Bill as the Vice President and Lounge Lizard in Waiting.

One never knows when a Bill eruption will hit. We tolerated that fraternity hijinks when he was president, as he was actually a pretty damn good politician. We don’t need that nonsense from the spouse of the person holding the job described as not being worth a warm bucket of spit. He’d be like the drunken ex-boyfriend crashing the wedding.

Assuming he can sidestep the elephant in the room to take on the elephant party, what can we expect in the way of spin between the two parties? Read More »

By Feature Writer | Posted in Current Affairs, election 08, north america, politics | Comments (0)

A Morning in the Life: John McCain

May 25, 2008 – 4:51 am

In some Best Western on the campaign trail in Red State America, the Republican Standard Bearer awakens.

“Psst,” he says, nudging his wife. “Psst. Cindy? Are you awake?”

“John, it’s 4:30 in the morning. Unless you took that pill and hour ago, there’s no way we can have sex and still be ready for the campaign bus. Remember the last time we tried this and you knocked the donuts off the table? It gave Candy Crowley the wrong idea.”

“No, no, not that,” John says in a huff.

“What is it?”

“Jesus, Cindy, pinch me. Can you believe this?”

“Believe what?”

“I have no right being in this thing. Those right-wing jihadists and their chucklehead cheerleader in the White House screwed things up so badly, I figured I’d be going down to a bigger defeat than Alf Landon against FDR in the middle of the Depression.”

“Why? Were you a staffer on Alf’s campaign?”

“Don’t be a smartass. But how in the hell am I in this thing? We’re losing safe seats in special elections suggesting an ax-handling of epic proportions, yet I am even in the polls with either that latte-drinking dilettante or Madam Defarge and the lounge lizard she married. How can this be when the country hates Republicans?”

“You hate them too, honey.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m a maverick, I get it. But I am still in the party of George Bush, and the only guy happy with him right now is Jimmy Carter because he is finally going to be off the hook. When a president steps on his own dick or her own boob, people will no longer mutter ‘this is the worst president since Jimmy Carter.’ They’ll mutter, ‘this is the worst President since George W. Bush.’ That pompous old coot Carter managed to live long enough to see someone actually raise the bar on presidential incompetence.”

“Aren’t you getting a little confused, like that Sunni, Shia thing Lieberman bailed you out of? Don’t you mean lower the bar?” Read More »

By Feature Writer | Posted in Broken News, Current Affairs, election 08, humor | Comments (0)

The Greatest Hits Of My Greatest Weaknesses

April 18, 2008 – 11:22 am

I want to provide you with a mariner’s chart of my character: the contrasts and topography of my chipped, flawed personality. What the hell, you ask?

Well, this is based on that narcissism that all writers have – or ought to have. Maybe it also has something to do with the fact that I’m besieged by academic deadlines and need something to laugh about.

But the main reason? I’m sitting in a class that I am having trouble caring about (we’re watching a movie on bowel diseases. I just looked up, and was greeted by the sight of a very charming endoscopy).

Some of these tempt me severely, and some of these just make me cry: Read More »

By Joe Hormes | Posted in Columnist, Entertainment, Science & Technology, Society, humor | Comments (1)

Election 2008, From the Mouths of Babes

February 21, 2008 – 10:20 pm

Shockingly, my 15-year old son has recently become interested in politics. We’re not ready to take off the ski hat, cut our hair, pull up our pants, and don a coat and tie like Michael J. Fox in the 1980s sitcom “Family Ties,” but it’s a start.

Indeed, this emerging interest had me channeling Kenneth Branaugh in the remake of the movie Frankenstein, when said creature stirred for the first time and Branagh looked to the heavens and wailed, “It’s A-liiiiivvvvveeeeee!” Productive intellectual inquisitiveness in the teen male must always be encouraged, no matter how flickering the flame. Words must be chosen carefully so as to gently fan that flame, rather than put it out.

On primary nights, the lad has asked me to turn the television onto CNN “so we can watch the scores.” It’s not a logical leap from ESPN, I guess, and politics is the biggest spectator sport in this country, so I do nothing to disabuse him of the notion.

His comments with respect to Mrs. Clinton would sit well with her adversaries. He’s dumbstruck at how she can conceivably be trying to change the rules with respect to Michigan and Florida. “That sucks,” he says, “isn’t that cheating?”

Our discussion about Barack Obama struck me, however. Read More »

By Feature Writer | Posted in Current Affairs, election 08, family, humor, north america | Comments (1)

Super Tuesday: A Political Perfect Storm

February 6, 2008 – 5:41 am

As I recall, the term “perfect storm” was coined in New England in October 1991, when several storm fronts merged to spectacularly clobber the coastline.

Now, the American political system this year has a confluence of factors that have made this election cycle the most volatile in recent memory.

For the sake of clarity, here are what I believe to be the main issues (or storm fronts) at play this year:

1. For the first time since 1952 no sitting president or vice president operates as a presumptive nominee.

2. We have the first viable female candidate in the race in Hillary Clinton, whose First Husband would be the indefatigable Bill Clinton, and the first viable black candidate in the race in Barak Obama, who represents a new generation entering politics.

3. We have a compressed primary process manufactured to minimize the impact of first-in-the-nation strongholds Iowa and New Hampshire, creating a semi-national primary last night of 22 of our 50 states holding primary elections at once.

4. As a nation we’re antsy, worrying about the economy, the Iraq War, and the general partisan bickering that has kept our national leaders in the gutter for the better part of sixteen years. In 1994, we booted out seventy three incumbent Democrats, bringing in a freshman class of Republicans called the “Gang of 73.” These people deluded themselves into believing the vote was in favor of “them” rather than a repudiation of the incumbents. Republicans did not get the message, and now we’re ticked off about it.

5. The Hispanic community, soon to become the largest minority, is seriously flexing its political muscle.

OK, so the facts are out on the table, but what the hell does all of this mean? And what happened just now, on Super Tuesday? Read More »

By Feature Writer | Posted in Current Affairs, election 08, north america | Comments (11)

The Clintons Are Graceless. Is It Finally Good Night?

January 31, 2008 – 1:55 am

I sat mesmerized as I watched Caroline and Ted Kennedy symbolically pass the torch of Camelot and all it represents to the loyal opposition, Barak Obama, the other day. I started out as a good Republican would, by looking for ways to blow holes in all of this. Here’s a guy, Obama, trying to get us to look forward by embracing 1962, I thought. Didn’t Reagan do a good job of deconstructing that?

And there was the Ambien-addled third generation scion, Patches, sitting behind the new standard bearer who was assuming what would rightfully had been his, if Patches wasn’t such an inveterate screw up to begin with.

But I couldn’t start blowing holes. I thought back to 1980 working a campaign in Pennsylvania where I would bump into Kennedy staffers. I recalled them telling me the reason why the networks insisted on each having two camera crews following Senator Kennedy around was to be able to have several angles covered in the event of an assassination attempt. How does one seek to serve a country when their life might be on the line? You can’t help but empathize with that.

And, for all of his faults, our Senator has been an active surrogate father in the lives of his many nieces and nephews, those whose fathers’ call to service ended in tragedy. How much was Caroline’s preemptive endorsement a factor in Ted’s decision to get off the fence and enter the fray? Caroline lost her dad at 6.

I lost my dad at 8, and I didn’t have a Zapruder film to haunt me about it. For her to say this man reminds her most of her father must have a profound meaning to her

So there was all that treacly drama of a political movement brutally dashed through assassinations. There was the fatherless child of the movement founder standing beside the aging surrogate, now hunched over and stiff from a bad back ravaged further still by a less than healthy lifestyle, to be kind. He essentially admitted his time had passed with considerable grace and dignity.

And then came Obama. Man-oh-man can that guy give a speech. It was totally devoid of substance, which is OK. Obama understands our national hunger for a new approach to politics. The Rove/Carville strategy has been to divide and conquer. Depress voter turnout by turning off the middle and hope your tin foil clad zealots rule the day. Read More »

By Feature Writer | Posted in Current Affairs, election 08, north america | Comments (4)