After Barack Obama rejected public campaign financing, John McCain and conservatives criticized him for going back on his word. Shouldn't they be happy? Here we have a black man finally getting off public assistance, and the Right still isn't satisfied
Yesterday I taped an interview with CBC Radio’s “The Current.”
Similar to the Brian Lehrer show I did Tuesday, the subject was about satire and the New Yorker cover. We spent more time in this show talking about “is it hard for comics to make fun of Obama?”
I was partially repping The Onion, and my fellow guests were Aron Kader (of the Axis of Evil Comedy Tour) and Greg Proops (of Who’s Line Is It and all things awesome in comedy)
You can listen to the show live on CBC Radio online at 8:37am ET Thursday July 17. It will also be available at The Current’s site later in the day.
BTW, the host kept insisting that George W. Bush was great for comedy because it was so easy to make fun of him. I strongly disagree with that. Bush was great for bad, hack comedy. Any president will be good for good comedy.
Earlier this week, I was taking the A train home, reading my Kindle, when a man sat next to me saying, “Well I’ll be damned” or something very much like that.
It was his first sighting of the e-book reader “in the wild,” and he wanted to ask me about it. Having just received the device a week ago Friday, I didn’t have extensive experience, but I love what I’ve seen so far: easy access to books, the built in dictionary and Wikipedia access, the awesome readability especially versus the iPhone.
The first book I finished was by fellow writer Ta-Nehisi Coates. He’s written an impressive memoir called “The Beautiful Struggle” which chronicles his life and relationship with his father. I’m actually mentioned in the book since our lives overlapped for a few years in the mid-90s. Ta-Nehisi is an incredibly gifted writer, and he’s captured the essence of a period in history with intelligence, grace and humor. I highly recommend it. You can keep up with him at his blog — required reading for anyone interested in race in America and politics.
I also subscribe to a few periodicals including DailyKos, Huffington Post, The Onion, NY Times, Salon, TreeHugger and more.
Greatest Kindle features:
Highlighting and clipping pages and sections of books. I marked up Ta-Nehisi’s book a lot, and now can go back and refer to those sections easily
Built in Wikipedia access. This just changes the game for me. Ta-Nehisi is insanely well-read, and despite our similar upbringings, there were many references I didn’t get or had only a vague recollection of. Rather than moving on in ignorance, I could follow up on a topic instantly. This made the book reading experience much deeper and more informative than it might have been.
Wireless access to Amazon. It’s just great to be able to scan the story, sample and buy a book. Getting content is easy. So easy. The auto-delivery of periodicals and blogs is nice as well. I always have the latest goods on my subway ride.
The size. This thing is very small and very lightweight. Lots of people have hated on the design, but I think it’s clear that people who love reading books designed this thing. I used to load books on my Palm Pilot then Treo now iPhone, and in all those cases, I felt like I was reading a book on a mobile device. With the Kindle, I just feel like I’m reading a book.
What could use some improvement
More books and magazines! Amazon is working on it, but there are many titles I want that are not in the store, especially my peak oil favorites and Vanity Fair.
Custom blog delivery. There’s a ridiculously small number of blogs (346) you can subscribe to with the Kindle. I’d love to specify an RSS feed and have it converted to a custom, Kindle-ready format. There are just two or three blogs I really want to do this with, but mostly The Oil Drum. That site has become mandatory daily reading for me over the past year.
Getting my clips and highlights off the device. I’d like to be able to email, export or otherwise get my book highlights off the device easily. Right now, I can seem them and I guess type them manually into a computer, but we’ve got a communications path (wireless) between the Kindle and the outside world. If someone knows how to do this, holla!
Date: June 11, 2008
Location: Google DC
Time: 2:30 pm ET - 7:00 pm ET
Overview: Gathering to highlight new tools on the campaign trail and winning strategies that leverage this technology.
Event MC: Jim Barnes
Schedule
2:40 pm - 3:45 pm :: Covering the 21st Century
Moderator: Judy Woodruff
Participants:
Mark Halperin
Katherine Ham
James Kotecki
Phil Singer
Kevin Madden
4:00 pm - 5:15 pm :: Running the First 21st Century Campaign
Moderator: Ron Brownstein
Participants:
Joe Rospars
Peter Daou
Mindy Finn
Mark Soohoo
Joe Trippi
5:30 - 6:30 pm :: Pop culture Politics
Moderator: Tammy Haddad
Participants: Baratunde Thurston, The Onion Ben Relles, Obama Girl
Zoe Stagg, CitizenSugar
Christopher Hitchens, Vanity Fair
Lizz Winstead- Creator of the Daily Show
Wednesday morning I got a call from the UK asking if I would write an editorial about the significance of Barack Obama’s nomination in Black America. I find it hard to resist that crisp British accent and made room to compose my thoughts.
Not quite the headline I’d have chosen, but pretty accurate. In the piece, I share a story for the first time from my experience with the Obama campaign in Dallas and write about the power and limits of symbolism.
Here’s an excerpt
Despite our sacrifices – fighting in wars and paying taxes – we are constantly reminded we’re not full members of the club. Yet, Barack Obama made me feel American. He has, and this is really quite annoying, made me care enough to get more involved.
His early opposition to the war, the grass-roots nature of his campaign, and his habit of speaking in grammatically correct sentences have all helped. His very composition from white Kansan and black African parents tells a story that is authentically American. Beyond him, however, the reaction of the American people best demonstrates Obama’s impact.
For black America, the defining moment occurred on 3 January, when Obama won in overwhelmingly white Iowa. It was a sign that things in this country were changing. Although Obama is the nominee, the path ahead won’t be easy. People still ask, “Is America ready for a black president?” That’s the wrong question. America has never been “ready” to extend its ideals to all of its citizens without being pushed. Was America “ready” for emancipation or women’s suffrage or Simon Cowell? No, but we’ve got them now and in two of those three cases, we are much better for it.
Date: Saturday, June 7th
Time: 11:30am to 1:00pm
Room: Auditorium 2
Track: Journalism and Independent Media
Session Type: panel
The rapidly growing progressive political blogosphere — a.k.a. “the Netroots” — is transforming politics and challenging the traditional media. The Netroots impact on the national political conversation is undeniable. But now that they’ve “crashed the gates,” what comes next? How are the Netroots connecting with the grassroots and organizing for lasting change? How is the landscape changing as new voices emerge, blogs go local, and corporate media tries to capitalize on what’s happening online?
I’ll also be co-hosting the Saturday night keynote with Lizz Winstead (creator of the Daily Show).
Speakers: Arianna Huffington, Baratunde Thurston, Byron Dorgan, D.J. Nikoles, Dan Rather, Grace Lee Boggs, Lizz Winstead, Maria Isa, Michael Copps, Naomi Klein, Romal J. Tune, Shá Cage, Silvia Rivera, Tim Wu
Date: Saturday, June 7th
Time: 8:00pm to 10:00pm
Room: Auditorium
Track: Keynotes and Plenaries
Session Type: plenary
A fast-paced, multimedia night of inspiring speeches and music, dance and spoken-word performances. Emcees Lizz Winstead, co-creator of The Daily Show, and Baratunde Thurston of Laughing Liberally will crack us up, and the DJ will keep us moving. Plus we’ll hear from conference-goers and unveil the 2008 inductees into the “Big Media Hall of Shame.”
Drop me an email, tweet, facebook msg, or comment so we can try to meet up. I’ll be posting updates to my twitter account if you want to catch snippets there.
The New York Times ran a Sunday piece about Drinking Liberally and its achievement of surviving for five years and having a chapter in all 50 states. I knew I gave them some quotable goods but had no idea they’d close the story with me. Dang.
Baratunde Thurston, 30, a stand-up comedian, performs around New York City with Laughing Liberally.
“After the 2004 election, Drinking Liberally meetings were like a support group,” said Mr. Thurston, who was a co-host of the Boston chapter at the time. “There were a lot of questions: ‘What happened? How could fellow Americans re-elect this man? How exactly do you move to Canada?’ In 2006, the mood started changing from pity party to newfound hope regarding the midterm elections. Local politicians would come by and make their pitches. We did joint events with human-rights groups and abortion-rights groups. It was like a swap meet of liberalism.”
Through Laughing Liberally, Mr. Thurston met other politically oriented comics and found his current job as a Web editor and writer at the satirical newspaper, The Onion.
“This group has been an amazing tool for so many of us, injecting the political process into our everyday social lives,” Mr. Thurston said. “Talking about politics can be intimidating if you don’t know the inner workings of HR-257 or what FISA means. Having a social entree into the whole process makes it much easier.”
This is a great day! One of the best parts of working at the Onion is being on the editorial staff and actually writing headlines. After months of intensive study and Zen-like devotion to the craft, one of my headlines has actually made it through the comedic fires and come out the other side as a piece for Onion Radio News.
And just to clarify, I only did the headline. Others wrote and recorded the segment. It’s a very collaborative environment around here.
We were on NPR’s News & Notes (audio is at the link) again yesterday and got to talk about the Sean Bell protests, the death of Mildred Loving and a lightning round on the Democratic primaries.
First of all, I must confess, I almost missed the joint! I got too cute with my time and arrived at the studio just in time. Just call me Lake County
Hopefully, I didn’t sound too out of breathe. As usual, Carmen brought some knowledge and insight to the discussions of race, and it was good to rap with Casey Lartigue for the first time although I think he misinterpreted one of my statements. I mentioned people were experiencing fatigue in the Sean Bell case because we’re constantly reminded of the dual justice systems in this country. He thought I meant Sharpton fatigue. No biggie.
I’m most proud of my campaign lightning round comment about life post-NC/IN in which I stated:
I’m just happy to welcome the mainstream media to the Democratic primary. They’ve finally caught on to the Wrath of the Math which hasn’t really changed since Obama’s 12-state sweep post-Super Tuesday. That, I think, is the biggest change. The facts on the ground haven’t changed, but the media narrative and perception has, and I’m glad to see it has.
So it’s always kind of a big deal to get on primetime TV, and thanks to the entire JJP fam for providing your suggested topics, talking points and coverage throughout the day. Yall are like a community-powered media prep team. Sadly, Governor Ventura’s segment went way over, and the blogger segment on CNN’s Election Center got cut short.
Here’s the video for those who missed it.
That’s right. I got one sentence in! Dang! I accomplished my first goal: don’t look like an idiot. If you watch my eyes in the closing minutes (after she says the segment’s over), you can see them saying “Wha’choo talkin bout Campbell??”
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