Demos: Mexico 4 Life

Again, a little something stop the bleeding of no posts here. We've got a good theme week coming up, Zach, Catherine and I are just real busy at the moment.

I have recently been reading the accusation that Senator Barack Obama has been throwing down the proverbial gauntlet in his stump speeches since Senator Hillary Clinton has put into circulation her 3 a.m. phone call ad, suggesting that Clinton has the experience on the first day she takes office to answer the dreaded early morning impending doom call that Obama doesn't.

Obama, then, has responded on his stump speeches by questioning Clinton's experience. This, I understand, is proof positive of his "taking the attack to Hillary", as the New York Times said on the sixth of March. For some readers, this counts as dirty politics.

I disagree.

I have seen dirty politics, and this is not it. Obama is asking for the evidence to Clinton's conclusion that she has the experience necessary to lead the country, which, when pushed, appears to be her eight years in the White House as her husband's de facto chief of staff, and her seven years on the Senate Armed Services Committee. That's a reasonable, if pointed question. By comparison, Obama has been on the same committee for two years, and the Republican nominee Senator John McCain has been on the committee since roughly the fall of man.

If you want real dirty politics, then I have a story to tell you. This story starts in South Carolina during the Republican primary in 2000 and stars Senator McCain and then Gov. George W. Bush during their campaign for the Republican nomination. Senator McCain has a lead and has won Iowa and New Hampshire. Anonymous polls begin in neighborhoods where McCain was strong, with a loaded question to the effect of "Would your opinion of Senator McCain change if you knew that he had fathered an illegitimate black child?" (It's important to note at this point that the McCain family had adopted a girl from Bangledesh, which lent a bit of anecdotal evidence to the whisper campaign used to discredit him morally.) Not surprisingly, McCain's numbers dropped in the polls; Bush took South Carolina; leaving McCain shaking and unable to regain the advantage.

Reports from multiple sources including the National Review, the New York Times (years later, of course...) and other reputable outlets could only confirm innuendos, but prevailing wisdom awards the credit to Karl Rove, operating as Bush's chief political strategist.

That's dirty politics. Dirty politics is suggesting that your white opponent had a child with a black woman in a conservative state without putting your own name on the smear. Dirty politics is firing anyone in the Justice Department who isn't a "loyal Bushie". Dirty politics is outing a deep cover CIA agent to get back at her husband for criticizing your basis for starting a war.

Asking for evidence to a debatable conclusion doesn't even come close.

Rumors of our demise are very meh.

Are we dead?

Yes and no.

As long as my password is valid and someone else is footing the bandwidth, gentle readers, I assure you I shall surmount the tiny mound of dead co-writers in order to aggressively naval gaze at you. I am already hard at work fashioning a sort of wilson-esque companion, to keep me sane, while I scream at you from within your computer.

Also, here is a list of the magazines that Wal-Mart is killing. Perhaps Spin can graciously bow out now?

In Which Subtle Bondage Undercurrents Swirl Menacingly.

Blogger dotcom has taken the time to rub Elevenname's lack of South By South Westery in our faces. It turns out that several! Bloggers! Will be there! BUT NOT US.

Salt in the wound, blogger.com. Salt in the wound.

Speaking of which, now that we are coming down off of the giddy thrill of Hedonism week (I assure you, we are all lying around in various states of repose and undress, like that one Fiona Apple video from a few years back), I would like to bring up the idea of pain, and how it relates to you, me, and all of us. Do not try to deny it, you kinky bastards - I am on to you.

Bear with me, this will be quick.

One of the greatest parts about modern society is that we have become a civilization that lives on the creation, and following subjugation, of pain. We value those who are able to give us pain and those who are, in turn, able to identify themselves as pained.

Self classification is the panacea of people adrift in the sea of meta-aristoi. Modern american life has produced, to the middle and upper-middle class, a crisis of quantification, where they do not know where they are. The children of the upper-middle class experience a sharp incline in mental health issues, whereas the children of the poor experience the fewest. Partially, of course, because of ready access to psychiatric professionals - Jung's famous line about curing a sane man - but also, I propose, because of a sudden lack of duty. Whereas the aristocracy emerged from the myths of pre-history in the European cultures on which America based the majority of it's social structures, modern america has no such entities. We have the scions of powerful families - the Kennedies, primarily - though few of them match up to the glorious history of whichever celebrity brought their name to public attention.

The children of these semi-aristoi never quite match up. Who in their right mind would think of Ted Kennedy as a glorious man, after all? He's a man who, given his intelligence and positions in life, has done all the right things. Taking a similarly educated slob of similar ambition would likely make just as fine a representative of the people, just as I have no doubt in my mind that Ted Kennedy would make a fine truck driver, or convenience store clerk. His connection to the Kennedy name, that same connection which is being passed on in a very metaphysical way to Barack Obama, is his umbilical cord to greatness.

But we cannot help but wonder why? More intelligent (read: better in all ways) writers than I have observed and theorized about tribal structures, as modern man shambled into kingdoms and cities. I would go a similar route - that we worship and create an aristocracy around whomsoever we can tell the best stories around. Certainly, Kerouac was a great writer, but have you ever actually sat down and *read* On The Road? It's a terrible novel. Long, rambling, pointless. The same with Howl, as the best minds of the author's generation pat themselves on the back for their novelty, a great and aching groan of thigh as the beat generation's poets backsides meet their laurels.

No such luck with the people to follow. Modern authors must contend with publishing houses full of wooers, each one hoping to win over wise Penelope. It's an environment where having an amusing backstory, some kind of media coverage, maybe getting drunk at the Rivington Hotel and throwing a chair through a window, can only help. Books of quality are not hard to find, but amusing authors like the fabulist feculum peddler James Frey are a rare jewel to exploit - it's no wonder he's making money hand over fist for, basically, being a famous liar.

Much like old, self-flagellating saints, we can most easily focus on individuals who hurt us, or hurt themselves. No one *likes* paris hilton - no one in their right mind, anyway. But we identify with her, because she has become a powerful, and painful, totem in our society, a plague woman and an out-of-touch Disney princess.

Regardless, I am certain you are tired of my babble, so I'll cut it quick here. Suffice it to say, the methods of fascination, pain, and celebrity are all intimately tied up in the way that we understand modern culture. It's a heady brew, with no room for mercy or humility or ever, ever acknowledging the quiet aspects of life, where we may recoup. Whether this is because they aren't seksi enough or because we value them so much more, I daren't speculate. But nevertheless, culture moves onward, it's whirling gyre's center never having been held in place since the get-go, injuring us all, and yet, penurious, we stare onward, unable to look away.

I was playing some old Castlevania games the other day, and I couldn't help but wonder why, in at least one instance, they made Medusa look so attractive. I felt it to also be a rather elegant metaphor for how we approach the world.