The Michael Canfield Channel

A conversation today.

Sales Prospect: "I'm not going to reorder now, the economy is in the toilet and now Obama is going to raise taxes!"

Me: "Is that right? Because his plan is to CUT taxes."

Sales Prospect: "Well, you know Democrats. They always lie."

Me: "Is that right! Have a great day, sir!"

Charles Schulz / "Mad Men" / Radio Lab

"But in the mid-1950s a large part of [Schulz's] public consisted of good, plain people who felt guilty at being discontented in an epoch of unprecedented prosperity. Peanuts struck a chord with those who had thought they had everything they wanted only to discover that they didn't, and needed an acceptably gentle reminder of this insight."

-- David Michaelis, Schulz and Peanuts pg 342.

Mad Men begins at the dawn of the sixties but the same dynamic is in play. Today the existential anxiety is coming from the unprecedented level of possibilities the connected world promises to offer (or should that be threatens to offer), as discussed in the first part of WNYC's Radio Lab latest program "Choice" with it description of new college grads frozen into inaction from fear of making decisions -- each decision taken represents an elimination of some tantalizing (and now lost) hypothetical opportunity.

First Couple

Joe McCain Apologizes For Cursing At 911 Operator

He apologizes for swearing, but not for the real abuse, namely the abuse of the 911 emergency number for his personal complaining. He still doesn't get it, does he?

3 Things Obama can do on January 21st 2009 ...

to restore the rule of law, begin rebuilding our reputation abroad, and aspire to make the Unites States a just nation. 1. Close the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay. 2. Re-ban torture. 3. Begin Iraq withdrawal. There is a fourth and a fifth, but I don't have faith that any President, even Barack Obama will do it, and that is: work to repeal the Patriot Ace, and call for the criminal prosecution of Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld for war crimes.

Technorati Tags: civil liberties, Civlib, Democrats, McCain, News, obama, Politics, Sarah Palin, patriot act, Guantanamo Bay

"Senator, I think it hurts you, too, sir."

American Rhetoric: McCarthy-Welch Exchange During the Army-McCarthy Hearings

Technorati Tags: civil liberties, McCain, Obama, Politics, Sarah Palin

"And sure he is an honorable man."

Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare

Act 3. Scene 2. The Forum in Rome.

ANTHONY
Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears.
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interrèd with their bones.
So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus
Hath told you Caesar was ambitious.
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Caesar answered it.
Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest --
For Brutus is an honorable man,
So are they all, all honorable men --
Come I to speak in Caesar's funeral.
He was my friend, faithful and just to me.
But Brutus says he was ambitious,
And Brutus is an honorable man.
He hath brought many captives home to Rome,
Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill.
Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?
When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept.
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff.
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious,
And Brutus is an honorable man.
You all did see that on the Lupercal
I thrice presented him a kingly crown,
Which he did thrice refuse. Was this ambition?
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious,
And sure he is an honorable man.
I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke,
But here I am to speak what I do know.
You all did love him once, not without cause.
What cause withholds you then to mourn for him?
O Judgment, thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason!

Technorati Tags: Politics McCain

McCain's "macaca" moment.

"That One," McCain Calls Obama in Debate (VIDEO)

This could be McCain's "macaca moment" not that one was needed. Some are saying that too much is being made of this phrase: McCain contemptuously referring to Obama as "that one." But that's a very dismissive way to speak about another human being, let alone a candidate for the most powerful office in the world. A lot of women, a lot of people of color, a lot of young people, a lot of people who have felt social disadvantage of one kind or another in their lives, will recognize that tone and that phrase of McCain's, will recognize what it feels like to be on the receiving end of this dismissive objectifying characterization, and they will not think better of McCain for it, nor should they.

Technorati Tags: civil liberties, Democrats, Obama, Politics, McCain

Biden on his Boss's "Intellectual Security"

via HuffingtonPost: "Biden says Obama reminds him of Bill Clinton in his 'confidence, cognitive ability, judgment' and intellectual security--that he can listen and absorb advice without having to prove he's the smartest person in the room, a critical leadership skill. He says he experienced an 'epiphany' during a recent conference call on the bailout bill with Bob Rubin, Paul Volcker, Warren Buffett, Paul O'Neill, Joseph Stiglitz, Larry Summers and Laura Tyson. 'He [Obama] comes on the call and says, 'Well, folks, sorry I'm late. I've got four questions.' He was in total frigging command! Here's a 47-year-old guy in one of the most complicated economic dilemmas anyone has had to face since 1929 to '33. And it was like, 'Bang! Bang! Bang!' I called him afterward and said, 'You sold me, sucker!' "

Fox News, GOP Tag-Team Obama With Voter Fraud Smear

Classic Rove: Accuse your opponent of having YOUR weakness. Republicans are the vote thieves in the 21st century. Fox is lining up its alternate reality script. They have to talk about something for the next four years, and they certainly don't want to admit the majority of voters will support the Democrat this November. One thing they will claim is that Obama didn't "really" wins.
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