Archive for March 2010
Party of Nuts: Poll Shows GOP Thinks Obama is Muslim, Socialist
March 24, 2010 03:44 PM ET | Robert Schlesinger |
By Robert Schlesinger, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
Almost one in four Republicans suspect that Barack Obama is the Antichrist. That’s one of the most astounding findings from a notably stunning new online poll from Harris Interactive. Majorities of Republicans also believe that Obama is a socialist (67 percent), that he wants to take away Americans’ guns (61 percent), is a Muslim (57 percent), has done “many” things that are not constitutional (55 percent), and wants to turn the country over to a one world government (51 percent).
In fairness to the GOP the poll indicates that the country generally seems to have become a bit unhinged. Overall, 40 percent of Americans think Obama’s a socialist, 32 percent think he’s a Muslim, and one in four think that “he is a domestic enemy that the U.S. Constitution speaks of.”
As the noted small businessman and family values maven Norman Bates once said, we all go a little mad sometimes.
But it’s clear that the right wing is the anchor that’s pulling the country toward loonyville in this data set. Forty-five percent of Republicans are birthers (they think that Obama is not a natural born American citizen), according to the survey (as opposed to 25 percent of all Americans); 45 percent think that he’s a “domestic enemy”; and 41 percent think that he’s itching to “use an economic collapse or terrorist attack as an excuse to take dictatorial powers” (a mere 23 percent generally so believe). If you think that sounds suspiciously like something Hitler might do, you’re not alone: 38 percent of Republicans think Obama is “doing many of the things that Hitler did” (20 percent of Americans overall think so).
Twenty-two percent of Republicans think “he wants the terrorists to win,” as opposed to 13 percent of Americans generally. And as I Read the rest of this entry »
‘Jihad Jane’: not the usual suspect
Terrorism comes in all shapes and colours, but it is apparently easier to label it as such when it’s wrapped in a Muslim package
- Wajahat Ali
- guardian.co.uk, Thursday 18 March 2010 10.00 GMT
Colleen LaRose, the American woman known as ‘Jihad Jane’. Photograph: Anonymous/AP
The assumption that terrorism and radicalisation is specific to a certain racial profile,religion and ethnic name is undermined by the arrest of two, white American women allegedly conspiring to assassinate a Swedish cartoonist and the recent attack on the IRS building by a disgruntled Texan American.
Alleged ring leader Colleen Larose, popularly known as “Jihad Jane” and Jamie Paulin Ramirez (“Jihad Jamie”), recently exonerated of all charges, are as American as Apple pie and The Liberty Bell due to their blonde hair, blue eyes, and white skin. However, the women’s conversion to Islam and embrace of radicalised politics represent to many an unfathomable juxtaposition. The US department of justice proclaimed: “This case also demonstrates that terrorists are looking for Americans to join them in their cause, and it shatters any lingering thought that we can spot a terrorist based on appearance.”
This revelation immediately creates an exaggerated and fictitious paranoia in some that the average white American neighbour could secretly be a stealth, Islamist jihadist willingly ready to explode at the drop of a satirist’s paint brush. It also rationalises “western” Europe’s hysterical fear about its impending transformation into “Eurabia”, and condones its prejudicial and reactionary behaviour that has lead to the banning of minarets and hijabs.
In America, the sensationalised curiosity surrounding Jihad Jane’s revelation can be ascertained from her Google search, which has yielded 1,760,000 hits, and by her front page appearance on nearly every major media outlet. Whereas a search on Joseph Stack, the disgruntled and suicidal Texan who flew a plane into an IRS building killing one and injuring 13, has only netted 430,000 hits.
The existence of such white, radicalised identities reveals several important realities. Read the rest of this entry »
A Few Reasons Why Dave Eggers Is a Great American
By Don Hazen, AlterNet
Posted on March 18, 2010, Printed on March 18, 2010
http://www.alternet.org/story/146071/
Editor’s Note: Dave Eggers will be appearing Thursday evening as part of the City Arts and Lectures series at the Herbst Theater in San Francisco to discuss his bookZeitoun with Abdulrahman and Kathy Zeitoun. The event will be hosted by Wajahat Ali.
When I set my eyes on the horizon, seeking some hope for the future, there aren’t so many great role models, and of course there are many factors that are downright depressing. Progressive unions are fighting each other for turf and numbers; too many elected officials are plainly dominated by corporate influence and nonprofit leaders find themselves compromised by funding and their efforts to be real players.
When I look around for bright hope for the future, for leaders, for creative forces who refuse to be discouraged by our terrible times, the writer, editor, publisher, organizer and teacher Dave Eggers stands out.
Eggers is already an icon for his generation with popular books — most noteworthy among them his breakout memoir, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. He has a well-deserved reputation for social commitment, while his quirkiness endears him to his fellow hip Gen X’ers, mostly in urban areas around the country. But Eggers’ fame and style can also stir up hostility, as happened with his screenwriting debut with his wife Vendela Vida, Away We Go. Some reviewers decided the characters were overly cute and stylized, not totally authentic or believable hipster parents.
Dave Eggers is less well-known in progressive political circles, where creativity and Gen X sensibilities have never quite come to terms with traditional progressive political organizing and activism. That’s too bad, because there are some important lessons to be learned from Eggers’ model, and perhaps vice-versa.
There is no denying that Eggers is one of the most productive and influential creative forces in America. His 826 reading and writing centers for young people, started in San Francisco at 826 Valencia Street in the Mission District, have expanded to eight cities serving thousands of public school kids, and attracting writing talent and celebrity to the cause.
His magazine, The Believer, features up-and-coming writers as well as established literary voices. McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern is a money-making publishing phenomenon, which comes in many forms, depending on what creative forces are at work on a particular edition. Eggers’ latest version of McSweeney‘s is Panorama, a 320-page mega-newspaper, printed as a broadsheet (making it much bigger than the New York Times) and featuring a magazine, book review section, even sports and cartoons along with great reporting and writing by everyone from Stephen King to Junot Díaz and George Saunders. (You can buy it at independent bookstores and no, it is not online.) The project, which was issue #33 of McSweeney’s, cost $235,000. McSweeney’s publishes books too — by people like Nick Hornby, Art Spiegelman and, well, Dave Eggers. But the project that caught my attention is his Voice of Witness series, a compilation of oral histories on everything from Hurricane Katrina to the underground world of undocumented immigrants. Read the rest of this entry »
The FBI Could Be Watching You on Facebook
By Daniela Perdomo, AlterNet
Posted on March 18, 2010, Printed on March 18, 2010
http://www.alternet.org/story/146077/
At the dawn of the Internet, people used coded user names and cartoon avatars to represent themselves online. Today, most users post their real names and literally upload all their personal data and make it publicly available — photos, videos, notes, even random thoughts now called “status updates.”
No doubt about it, Internet 2.0 is a freer, more open place — a place where people feel quite at ease as they share their lives on the Web with their entire social networks: best friends, family, people they hardly know, and even folks they’ve never even met.
Social-networking sites have driven this seemingly insatiable need to share, share, and share some more. But because it’s all done online and not “in real life” (or IRL, in Web-speak), there remains a sense of anonymity even as we interact on the Internet, a very public place open to anyone with a computer.
But as social-networking grows (Facebook overtook Google in U.S. traffic for the first time ever last week) so do the ways law enforcement agencies use the information we voluntarily share with the online world. Read the rest of this entry »
PinPointsX App Helps You Score With Strangers
Huffington Post | Bianca Bosker
In the age of smartphones, booty ‘call’ has become a bit of a misnomer: for years now, we’ve been texting, emailing, and even Facebooking our way to romantic encounters.
Now, there’s yet one more high-tech way to help you score: an iPhone app, called PinPointsX,which ‘points you to passion’ by using your current location to map out potential hook ups near you.
The app, created by an adult-social-networking site, pinpoints ‘erotic partners’ (aka ‘sensual resources’) who’ve indicated they’re interested in a romantic rendez-vous onto a ‘Passion Map.’
‘PinPointsX allows me to enjoy the few hours of spare time that I have in my busy schedule. Have you ever been short on time and wanted to meet someone without going to sleazy bars?’ a female narrator in PinPointsX’s introductory video explains.
Thrillist outlines how the app works:
Set up’s simple: create a profile online (with pic, age/weight/body stats, who you’re “seeking”, kink interests, etc.), download the app, and up’ll pop a “Passion Map” dotted with icons representing nearby compatibles (complete w/ profile info), as well as those of “professional” members, who’re either bearded French assassins hellbent on protecting Natalie Portman, or women of the night. Probably women of the night.
If you find someone who fits the bill, send her/him them a message and then, provided s/he accepts your ‘Interaction Request’, you can arrange to meet. PinPointsX will even provide you with suggestions on places (motels, hotels, etc.) where you and your ‘sensual resource’ can conduct your romantic tryst.
Once you’ve ‘scored,’ the app allows you to rate your partner on a range of topics, and even add the best of the bunch to a ‘My Fling’ list.
PinPointsX has only a handful of reviews on iTunes. Some rave the app is a ‘Grindr for straight folks,’ and give it a full five-star rating, while another reviewer laments s/he ‘can’t find anyone.’
