http://palinaspresident.com

This is BRILLIANT!

Don't forget to click all over the image.

Obama and The Palin Effect

Rather than send emails around the ether that may or may not get read, I've chosen to add this commentary by Deepak Chopra in the hopes that more people will see it:

Sometimes politics has the uncanny effect of mirroring the national psyche even when nobody intended to do that. This is perfectly illustrated by the rousing effect that Gov. Sarah Palin had on the Republican convention in Minneapolis this week. On the surface, she outdoes former Vice President Dan Quayle as an unlikely choice, given her negligent parochial expertise in the complex affairs of governing. Her state of Alaska has less than 700,000 residents, which reduces the job of governor to the scale of running one-tenth of New York City. By comparison, Rudy Giuliani is a towering international figure. Palin's pluck has been admired, and her forthrightness, but her real appeal goes deeper.

She is the reverse of Barack Obama, in essence his shadow, deriding his idealism and exhorting people to obey their worst impulses. In psychological terms the shadow is that part of the psyche that hides out of sight, countering our aspirations, virtue, and vision with qualities we are ashamed to face: anger, fear, revenge, violence, selfishness, and suspicion of "the other." For millions of Americans, Obama triggers those feelin gs, but they don't want to express them. He is calling for us to reach for our higher selves, and frankly, that stirs up hidden reactions of an unsavory kind. (Just to be perfectly clear, I am not making a verbal play out of the fact that Sen. Obama is black. The shadow is a metaphor widely in use before his arrival on the scene.)

I recognize that psychological analysis of politics is usually not welcome by the public, but I believe such a perspective can be helpful here to understand Palins message. In her acceptance speech Gov. Palin sent a rousing call to those who want to celebrate their resistance to change and a higher vision.

Look at what she stands for:

--Small town values -- a denial of America's global role, a return to petty, small-minded parochialism.

--Ignorance of world affairs -- a repudiation of the need to repair America's image abroad.

--Family values -- a code for walling out anybody who makes a claim for social justice. Such strangers, being outside the family, don't need to be heeded.

--Rigid stands on guns and abortion -- a scornful repudiation that these issues can be negotiated with those who disagree.

--Patriotism -- the usual fallback in a failed war.

--"Reform" -- an italicized term, since in addition to cleaning out corruption and excessive spending, one also throws out anyone who doesn't fit your ideology.

Palin reinforces the overall message of the reactionary right, which has been in play since 1980, that social justice is liberal-radical, that minorities and immigrants, being different from "us" pure American types, can be ignored, that progressivism takes too much effort and globalism is a foreign threat. The radical right marches under the banners of "I'm all right, Jack," and "Why change? Everything's OK as it is." The irony, of course, is that Gov. Palin is a woman and a reactionary at the same time. She can add mom to apple pie on her resume, while blithely reversing forty years of feminist progress. The irony is superficial; there are millions of women who stand on the side of conservatism, however obviously they are voting against their own good. The Republicans have won multiple national elections by raising shadow issues based on fear, rejection, hostility to change, and narrow-mindedness.

Obama's call for higher ideals in politics can't be seen in a vacuum. The shadow is real; it was bound to respond. Not just conservatives possess a shadow -- we all do. So what comes next is a contest between the two forces of progress and inertia. Will the shadow win again, or has its furtive appeal become exhausted? No one can predict. The best thing about Gov. Palin is that she brought this conflict to light, which makes the upcoming debate honest. It would be a shame to elect another Reagan, whose smiling persona was a stalking horse for the reactionary forces that have brought us to the demoralized state we are in. We deserve to see what we are getting, without disguise.

Sarah Palin - c/o SNL

I posted the YouTube vid, but it didn't carry forth my vile, so for those of you who care what a foreigner might think:

I have refrained from commenting on politics as it is a subject I prefer to avoid. However, I was struck deeply by Senator Biden's comment that this is the most important election of our times... and that is true whether you are about to vote your first election or whether you have been voting for sixty years. People, PAY ATTENTION, THIS IS IMPORTANT!

I watched the vice presidential 'debate' and I am appalled that it has not become know as the "vice presidential debacle"... maybe it has; I am simply busy to catch ALL the news... And, therein may lie the problem with middle America -- or is it the media in this country? Where do people who really want "news" as in "truth" go?!!

And so I post this video in hopes of being another URL in the ether that an inquiring mind might land upon.

As a 'Resident Alien' of 25 years, I am horrified by what this woman (aka The Governor of Alaska) is doing to further ruin the reputation of the United States of America. "For crying out loud," to borrow her folksey parlance, as women we have fought so hard to take a 'wink and a nod' out of corporate America. Are we going to let her get away with this? On national television? Help me people!

Can you imagine this woman using her so-last-century-wiles to discuss solutions to global challenges with leaders of foreign countries, such as... oh.... well, let's imagine... a moment with Iran at some point in the not too distant future... or perhaps 'Russia' (do some of us remember the days of "duck and cover" advertising from our childhoods?)... F**K!!! I would not even want her talking to the President of Kazakhstan with Borat Sagdiyev representing the other side...

Actually, now that I think about it, what is Sacha Baron Cohen doing these days? SLACKER!!

Okay... this is the closest to a rant you will ever get from me.
VOTE OBAMA!!!!!!!

Whachovia - Walk Over Ya?

In the course of my day-to-day work (as opposed to my night-to-night work as a filmmaker), I came across www.50lessons.com - a website that features short video lessons by thought leaders. When I clicked on their 'trailer' (halfway down the page), I about peed myself when 30 seconds into the trailer came Jim Garrity, Former Chief Marketing Officer of Wachovia and I quote,"companies celebrate risks." I wonder just how much celebrating is going on in the inner sanctum of, as I like to call them, WalkOverYa these days?

Judging by the bank's huge advertising campaign in the Bay Area, I used to think their message was "Watch Over Ya..."

Don't ya just love how we can drop formalities these days? WINK, WINK...

See ya!