everything is so easy in America… December 10, 2008

Last time, when I watched the news on KTLA, I noticed that the way editors usually prepare their news is really basic, and maybe so simple that it is often incomplete and can lead to misunderstandings…

In fact, I’m more precisely talking about the way people interviewed in the news are described; if you take a deeper look into this, you will see a lot of people designated as “murderers”, “rapers”, “stealers”, but also “prodigies”, “gifted people”… almost as if they were going to categorize people into two sides: “nice” people and “wicked” people. 

The problem, in the way they prepare their news and find a substantive for every interviewee is pretty awkward, because you’ll understand fast enough (unless you already know it, and I hope for you) that life is not black OR white, but nuanced in a way where everything has to be well thought, and the way you use words is very specific and can’t be taken lightly. That’s why when every time people use barbaric words, words that didn’t exist before and just came with the society using it more and more often, it makes me think that the american language became really rudimentary, and maybe too minimalist, according to my own impressions. I think so, because I think also that the new technologies really had a bad influence meanwhile serving the society easier. In fact, the e-mails and the text messages were created primarily to help people communicating faster in other ways than talking face to face or on the phone. However, the difference with “real letters” is that because people can go faster, means also that they can allow themselves to be less rigorous with their way of writing, because the concept enables them to do so. Therefore, they don’t really watch out at the spelling or even make the necessary efforts to try to spell the words correctly. Consequently, the “you” will be traduced in fast language by “u”, the “later” in “l8ter”, the “and” in “n”, and so on.. moreover, you don’t say anymore “send an e-mail or a text message” but from now on you use both of them  as verbs… Today, this game of texting the fastest possible has become really tricky and dangerous for the world languages, because it also resulted on a problem of expressing our thoughts concisely AND clearly, without spelling mistakes. How many times I saw newspapers full of spelling mistakes? Therefore in the form of the word, it also affected the content of it, sometimes using a word in a wrong sense, or even changing the word for another… that’s the reason why today the medias are so blurred and inaccurate, because people were so plunged into this whirlwind of rapidity that they ran on the road of the express information, without at least considering the original purpose of the media: inform the most meticulous possible, with all the terms needed for it. I am sure this also can be related to the idea that using words in new ways is much more trendy than using the traditional writing like in essays and letters. 

Therefore, I am for the new technology, but I think that if we don’t try to control it a little bit, it could be the technology mastering us instead of the reverse; in fact, did you notice that now we seem to be very dependent of the technology? if our car or laptop is broken or down, immediately this could be the end of the world!

Thanksgiving: turkey, better on the table or alive? December 4, 2008

Last day, on the news, for Thanksgiving, I saw the ex-President (G.W.Bush) taking a picture with his family, smiling in company of an beautiful huge turkey…alive. This image, really nice in appearance (everybody seems happy, and it’s the tradition to take a picture with the President and the turkey every year) seems also really shocking if you think about it more in depth. 

In fact, this symbolic picture doesn’t remind us anything but that every year, too many turkeys are sacrified for Thanksgiving, but the problem is that we see those turkeys alive, and the minute after, they are on the table, ready to be devoured! Ethically, this represents a big issue, owing to the fact that, just by having this image in mind, we just have the impression that American people who celebrate Thanksgiving are ogres who just think about swallowing a lot of food just because this is the tradition! And they might more think about that, rather than why Thanksgiving exists since a long time. Why do we avoid the symbolic of the holiday, and just reach the “food thing”, instead of taking our time and profoundly try to think why does it exist, and why should we celebrate it with specific food, in a specific amount? personally, I would be glad to learn more about the Pilgrims, etc., but I still don’t know anything about it, and this is really sad…

For example, for Thanksgiving, I went with my sister to her male friend’s house in the area, and we were really well welcomed, but I have to be honest about something: when we started eating the dishes, I had more the impression to be in my school canteen rather than in a house where everyone shares the meal while really enjoying, speaking about a lot of life subjects, and having a good moment while taking our time. Here, everyone was eating very quickly, without almost never speaking, and I would say like trying to “expedite the thing” as fast as possible, in order to go upstairs and play the wii, especially when the friend is older than 30! Isn’t there something nonsense in this story?

This proves that the opinions that I had about the American society in general is just reinforced by these recent facts: the Americans never learnt how to take time at the table, and what they are looking to do, is eating as fast as possible, but in which purpose? It seems like eating is not considered here like a moment of conviviality and sharing discussion about anything, but more like a hurry to do…anything else, but eating!

This is also funny, because studies proved that when you eat faster than you should, you don’t feel that your stomach is full, and therefore you are tempted to eat more than you should, because you don’t feel the sensation of satiety. Therefore, if you are still wondering why there are so many people in overweight in this country, from now on, you’ll know why.. we will have warned you… (however, I don’t know enough about the US society to be able to give my judgement on it, so it’s just a personal opinion)

The difference with France, is that in my country, my parents taught me, like in every family, that we all had to eat while taking our time, speak about anything, our day, stories to tell, etc., and this was really helpful for children’s education in general.

It’s crazy how we can move from the subject of the status of the turkey in Thanksgiving to the way the American Society behaves at the table…

Barack Obama: problems of elocution prejudicial for his image? December 4, 2008

Ten days ago, on the TV, I watched by chance the economic team speech of Obama (NBC), and sometimes just frightened me like the lightning! Try to guess by yourself…

Have you ever noticed that Obama had maybe a little too much tendency to say “euhhh”, “ahhh”, in other words to hesitate enough to “reveal his hesitation”.. I know, you might think what I just declared might be a little silly, but it is actually true! With all the people in the US, or even on the earth, wouldn’t you believe that we should have a president who at least isn’t indecisive about what he is going to say?

I know that it is really hard to be really sure about what you have to say to a large audience (like the size of the US for example!!), I know that when you address to a public, what you have in mind is at least not to lose your consciousness in front of people, and not let the situation become ridiculous, and yourself by the same occasion. However, my own opinion is that if you are the President of the US, you should do anything to deserve this place (even though the bad economic situation that Obama received in gift), including practicing your way of speaking until it is as perfect as possible! I know this sounds pretty uncompromising, but with all the people that want to become President of the US, this is the least effort you could do (as you may notice, this is a very competitive position…)! I think that usually, the people would expect a good looking President (on this point, Obama is perfect!), but also someone that knows how to express himself/herself clearly, which includes without any hesitancy.

In fact, I remember that there was a TV show before the election, about people criticizing Obama’s way of speaking in front of people, with too many uncertainties, and they were wondering if it was acceptable for a candidate to the presidency of the US to have too many “euhhh” in his voice.

Therefore, we could have ourselves: is it prejudicial for a president to speak with some moments of unsureness in his oration? At which level should we put our own level of indulgence concerning the way of speaking of a president? Is it important for a president to be irreproachable on all horizons, or in the contrary could we be more tolerant and allow our dear Obama to make some elocution mistakes, especially at the beginning of his mandate? Moreover, because he is younger than the majority of the president that we had until now, so he doesn’t have the as much experience in public as older ones? But if he seems to have less experience, why did we elect him President of the US? At the opposite, shouldn’t we more focus our attention on his Program, rather than the way he looks or speaks? These are really deep questions that shouldn’t be considered lightly, but that should be thought profoundly by specialists, in other words, the most empowered to treat these interrogations.

Finally, for sure, every President of every country in this world has his qualities and defects. For example, our French President Sarkozy is a really good speaker, but shouldn’t he focus on being more polite in front of the cameras? It’s been more than once he yelled swear words that made laugh more than one French, including me! (but talking very rudely is not the case of Obama, is it?)

candidates to the presidency… and the commercials: which level of influence? November 3, 2008

Especially in these last weeks, we saw a lot of commercials sponsored by different political parties (including the democrats and the republicans), such as on TV, but also on flyers and posters, etc. These commercials try to tell us about the personal history and projects of each candidate if they were president of the US. They sometimes talk about the opponents to the same job, trying to demean their ideas, so they can highlight their own ones. Therefore, they can sometimes feel very loyal in front of their rivals, as being such mean and non integrate to themselves, just to be sure they will ensure that they will have all the cards in hand to at least hope of winning the title. But up to which seriousness can this happen?

For example, the other day, by chance, I fell upon a kids/teenagers channel (nick) which promoted their support for the candidate Obama to the presidency of the US, and we even saw Obama himself telling us that he was supporting the channel too, and was thanking every kid who supported him, with the largest smile and kindness he could ever have. Even if in the first lecture of what happened, you can see explicitly that it was very nice, and divested of all wickedness, you can see implicitly that this short message can also be very “politically incorrect”. In fact, first of all, the channel declaring deliberately their strong support for Obama, and the appearance of Obama himself conforming this idea, could be totally damaging for the people, and especially for the target of the channel, i.e. the children. 

As a matter of fact, we briefly know the political orientation of the principal channels, such as NBC and CNN for example. However, do they really show it in words, or implicitly? Which was very shocking with the Nick channel, is that, even if the US TV tries to remain conservative such as its people, they didn’t miss an opportunity to break the impartiality of TV points of view, and especially in front of our dear little blond heads. Therefore, we could ask ourselves if it can be considered as brainwashing. In fact, this kind of propaganda looks very persuasive, and particularly concerning the most innocent people of the world: kids. This age bracket is so young that they don’t know enough about life to be able to consider their own points of view, and be able to separate what is simple cartoon from what is commercial, i.e. which is biased (even if everything is always more or less biased, but whatever… this seems more biased than usually).

Finally, isn’t it bad in general to try to convince someone helpless in ideas and way of thinking that he/she should follow one or another way, because he/she had been told to via the medias?

And, between us, we all know that propaganda is always harmful to people, might it be “good” or “wrong”, and especially the younger you are, the more damaged you will feel, so I would be to let our small Cherubs remaining innocent the longest they can, so they won’t be mingled to all those political tensions, difficult enough to be handled by 10 year old kids. In fact, these have to do much better, such still thinking that Santa Claus and the Little mouse exist, etc.

But, overall, you all know what you have to do : don’t allow yourself to be led astray into the spiral of the politics, because they know exactly how to manipulate you and your offspring, and you do not know how much…

debate around alcohol… November 2, 2008

If there is one thing (another one!) that I still can’t understand, is why do we (young people full of happiness and hope) have to wait until our twenty first birthday to finally be allowed to do the party all night without any restrictions? I found this law was very weird and silly in the same time. In fact, did you notice that we were able to drive by ourselves at 16, to smoke and vote at 18, but not to drink up to 21, and consequently not to go to certain bars, night clubs and above all to Las Vegas! and as a fan of rhinestones and glitter of all kinds, I think this is absolutely an outrage to the young age, than preventing us from having fun, because we all know that it won’t be possible past our twenties! Ok, I may be a little over exaggerating, but this is obviously the truth, because suddenly we woke up one morning, married, with children, a very busy job, and a life totally inconsistent with fun. 

Therefore, should we low the age of allowance to alcohol from 21 to at least 18? Some time ago, I watched a very interesting Dr Phil’s show about this major issue. Indeed, as usual, some people were pro, and some were con. But how do you find the reason why you should say yes or no to alcohol under 21? Is there an accurate motive you should consider to be in one side of the debate? Personally, even if I don’t like drinking alcohol, I would even though say that the government should low the age to 18. Why? because I frankly believe that this would be a better opportunity to help teenagers becoming more mature with their decisions, and their life in general. For instance, do you really think being able to drink at 21 is helpful for the community? I just think this is a time bomb for what is going to happen when the D-day will arrive, slowly, but not less intensively! In fact, people will be so excited in the idea that they suddenly do whatever they want with alcohol, that they won’t restrict themselves, and will just plunge into an ocean of drunkenness and dangerous attitudes for the society and themselves (like driving while being drunk, which can sometimes go until death…). In the contrary, I think that 18 years old is the perfect age to allow young people to drink. Because in the US, I have the strong impression that people are responsible enough to know if they can drink or not, and what will be the consequences of their acts. Moreover, I would say that 18 year old people are much wiser than 21 year old people, because the younger you are, the less rebellious you feel, even if almost all of us passed by the period of “the ungrateful age”, when we wanted to kill anyone, because we were angry with life, and we didn’t like people and ourselves for many many unfounded reasons (at almost 19, I still feel this impression, but I still remain quiet, don’t worry!). However, like I said, because we are younger, we still have less reasons to get drunk than in 21, owing to the fact that we had less bad experiments of life, so less reasons to do nonsense things…(at least, it is such the way I perceived it, but everyone is different…). 

Furthermore, another grounds why I think that 21 is too old to drink alcohol, is of course, if you compare with other countries, for example Europe countries, such as France. As a matter of fact, in my country, you can drive by yourself at 18, vote at the same age, but you can smoke and drink at 16, which would be pretty well considered by french teenagers, and much more envied from young US people, I guess! In fact, that is cool because we feel that we are really perceived as adults from our ancestors, i.e. the elderly society! (private joke). Nevertheless, we can also see the difference on the roads. In fact, it’d seem, according to statistics, that european people die more of alcohol on the roads than US people. Would that want to say that we, european people, are more irresponsible than you, US people? It might seem than, in fact, we could be a little bit crazier than you, but you have to consider also all the parametric, such as the size of the roads (much smaller in Europe), the traffic, etc. 

But, anyway, we all know, that even if US people seem very quiet and wise, they also are small secretive ones! they, like european, like in any place in the world, we all like to break the rules, and don’t prevent ourselves from finding a mean to buy some alcohol via someone, or even buy some fake IDs to get in the most prestigious night clubs of hollywood forbidden under 21 (in fact, the first time I went to a club here, I understood that people felt so coerced during the day, that they took advantage of clubbing to compensate their lack of exhibitionism and exhilaration !). Therefore, we all know the tips to fight against a world reigned by a lot of very strict rules, and we all have our law prohibitions, depending on where we are from. Therefore, the accurate question could be : should we drink under or outlaw?

the wonderful story of censure… October 18, 2008

Have you ever noticed why sometimes you didn’t understand one part of your favorite episode of “Sex and the city”, or your favorite video clip of the time? Have you ever wondered why it is preferable to use the term “hot”, rather than “sexy”?  Don’t blame yourself, but rather tell yourself that you are officially member of a society manipulated by the notion of censure.

Why? you don’t understand? it’s normal, if you were born here, and grew up in this society, you never felt this sensation of frustration when you know sometimes has been cut, or blurred. I did, and you know why? because with my French girl’s eyes, I dissected and compared the difference between the US media and the one from the other side of the Atlantic. And, I have to tell you, you are so sucked into a society governed by discretion and fear of appearing rude in front of its components. In fact, the US society seems so happy with life, commercials are nice, funny and joyful, musics are good for dancing, and movies are entertaining, however where do you see the reality of things a little bit more serious and shocking ? Personally, I rarely see them in this country. In the contrary, all I see is leaders of the medias, so afraid of loosing their public that they take all the necessary precautions, in order to relief the audience of seeing, listening or reading things too rude at TV or movie theaters, in music, and also sometimes in the newspaper. Therefore, they decide of the restrictions adapted to each case, in other words you probably already encountered at least one G, PG, PG-13, R, or NC-17 in your life, on TV or movie theaters. The truth, here, is that this doesn’t help kids to grow in whole conscience of what happens in life, because being prevented from attending some kinds of TV programs or movies is certainly not the best solution to be aware of the real life (even if I agree on the fact that media don’t always give a plain view of life). Moreover, what can happen is that when teens have always waited for being 18, and the D-day can do absolutely what they want (except drinking, of course!), can engender a revenge on a too restricted life, represented by a sensation of invincibility, and in long-term doing some activities, which this time can be potentially dangerous for the young adult. However, I’m not saying that you have to put a 8 year-old kid in front of a TV program reserved to adults, but just put the child in front of the “real” truth, i.e. life is not always pink as she pretends in cartoons, etc. and warn the kid by showing him what people really undertake in the media field, instead of protecting him from seeing something that they will anyway know about, one day, so just about a question of time… What I really want to express, is that putting some too severe restrictions is just a countdown timer to activities much more dangerous this time, and sometimes totally uncontrollable.

Furthermore, what I noticed is that US media can bluntly be so afraid of the repercussions, that they can be able to take off some scenes of movies, TV series, video clips (but also cut off some words replaced by “bips” in music). And I tell you that, because I remember scenes of the same entertainments in France, image for image (yes, I’m a fan of TV!), and I was astonished when I saw that they dared prefer to remove some scenes, instead of keeping the integrity of the work. Therefore, I was totally angry against the way the media manipulate us, by deciding for us what to do concerning the entertainment field. And now I understand but not approve what they did, because I was raised in a society where everyone has his right to express himself, gives his opinion, and that it will be take in consideration, owing to the fact that in France, the work is nowadays done in team (government and people seem closer), and everyone has his word to say. People can even demonstrate in the streets to express what they feel is the right thing to do, and often the people won, even if sometimes I agree to the fact that it is a little bit over exaggerated!  Meanwhile, here, it seems that people have often closed their mouth to what they felt was good or wrong. I have been here for two months, and I’ve never seen people demonstrating in the streets to show their feelings about a law, or something they disagreed about.

Consequently, now I understand why the media is here so restrictive, and why you’ll never see something quite exuberant in TV, or here some bad words in songs. It can be explained by the US culture. Since a long time, US people have always been raised in discipline, the love of their family, and the desire to be nice and rigorous, in good faith, and do what they were told to do when they were younger. I was pretty surprised when I saw that people always pay in buses, or car drivers let pedestrians cross the street, never steal, are nice with you… all that because they were told to do it. But the fact is that they were never told by parents or older people as teachers for example to express their own opinions, think in depth, or things maybe less instinctive and ask more self analysis. Seriously, people never get angry here, and sometimes it makes me angry to know that I have no reasons to get angry, such as when I lived in Paris! But all that is a generality, and I am sure there exists people here who learnt how to assert themselves and fight for what they wanted, or not. 

Finally, I would say there is good and bad in this country. On the one hand, people are disciplined, nice, well-raised, but in the end too much of all that kills this, and I’d have loved them whether they were more spontaneous and less formatted, leave the familiar cocoon to beat on their own and yell…

death penalty : pro or con ? October 15, 2008

If there is one thing that the US should have to think about and challenge, this would be undoubtedly the question on the death penalty. In fact, even if some states such as for instance Minnesota, Michigan, Vermont, Massachusetts, don’t support the capital punishment (by the way such as most countries of Europe, for example France, erased 27 years ago), the majority of the US states support it; therefore I was surprised when I heard that the governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger, was supporting this form of death, because he seemed one of the “nouvelle vague” of governors that want to change the statements expressed by the federal government some centuries ago. Besides, some states like New York don’t really know if they should keep it, and the state government is still reflecting about it. So, I am asking you : what would you decide if you were governor, keep this quite brutal and rude kind of death, or would you make the revolution, and decision to get rid of it? 

Because I am from France, you’ll probably think that I’ll choose the “con” side, because I was raised in the idea that no one should die of death penalty, etc. but it seems to be a difficult question, because there are a lot of reasons why we should eradicate this “tortured” end of life, but also some reasons why we should keep it.

If you are “pro”, you will probably think this is the best way to remove some bad people from this world. Think about Saddam Hussein, fifth president of Iraq, executed two years ago for being convicted of charges related to the executions of 148 Iraqi Shi’ites suspected of planning an assassination attempt against him. Anyway, a lot of people should have been relieved when they heard these news. Meanwhile, this can be funny (despite the circumstances) to think that we killed someone because he did the same thing to other people, whatever might be the number of people killed. In that way, we are not better than him, so why would we be happy for what we’ve done?

In the contrary, if you are “con”, like me, you might have a lot of reasons against execution actions, owing to the fact that above all this is against human nature to kill deliberately someone of your species. don’t you think? I frankly believe that whatever someone could have done in his/her life, errors are part of humanity, and we shouldn’t blame this someone with so much torture just to remain the past… besides, don’t you think that death penalty can be some kind of facilitation which would allow someone to go directly to heaven (or hell…) without passing by the case “think about our mistakes, and try to improve yourself, it’s never late to restart a new life” ? Even if sometimes it might not be possible, because of the huge importance of facts and an extrapolation to the entire world, in most cases, I think that this option with helps of specialists would be much more human and beneficial for death row people. Think about that: how many people have been killed in the death row, just because they did a mistake, somewhat irreparable i agree, but about they certainly would feel guilty for the rest of their life? Think about the waste of lives, just because governments decided to apply “zero tolerance” and not think about possible repents? 

Besides, do you think about the possible mistakes coming this time from the government? about innocent people wrongly accused, about unfounded proofs, and even executions based on the ethnicity of prisoners? A few weeks ago, the Supreme Court of the US decided to put in the dock Troy Davis, a prisoner who should have been executed, but who arrived to have some extra time, in order to revise his case. Unfortunately, they decided very recently to reject his call, and we don’t know what is going to happen to this black prisoner who was accused a few decades ago of killing a white policeman. This could be another topic of debate : like I said, does the jury base his decision on the “race’ of the prisoner? In fact, we noticed that proportionally to the number of white and black prisoners in the US, Black people were more accused and sent to the death row than White people, especially when the victim was White, like in the case of Troy Davis. A lot of people and even celebrities, or the Europe council, expressed their desperate feelings in favor of Troy Davis, and strongly disapprove the Supreme Court decision. Therefore, does it worth to kill deliberately someone whom you are not sure of the guiltiness? Up to which level can you be sure about the testimonials, and all what can prove of the culpability of someone?

Besides, is it really living peacefully than thinking you can be someday on an electric chair, just because of potential past mistakes?

 

Sources: 20 minutes (french newspaper)

Is September 11 still in the US’s memories and fears ? September 26, 2008

I know it was a long time ago, i.e. about two weeks, but I really wanted to talk about September 11, and how it can affects american people.

In fact, if I remember, when I watched television (NBC) on September 11, 2008, journalists were reminding us the brief story of 09/11/01, as if anyone still didn’t know about the tragedy (but we should not be sarcastic, if there is one thing that I learnt arriving in this country, it is that no one judges no one, no matter what happens… anyway totally different from French people, however let’s play the game until the end). Besides, because of a very tense election decision this year, we saw above all McCain and Obama pretending to buddy-buddy in front of the camera, but I’d say that the acting was very successful, we almost believed in a sincere shaking hands and beautiful smiles saddened, to act such as the world was falling upon their head! Come on guys, please, I know you feel very depressed and desolate about what happened seven years ago to the Twin Towers, but thousands of people are killed every day in Darfur (region of Western Sudan) just because they were walking outside in the wrong place at the wrong time…

Mmmmh, doesn’t this sentence remind you something that happened two weeks ago in LAX airport ?

As a matter of fact, if you remember well, after the MTV Video Music Awards in Hollywood on the Sunday before 09/11, the famous rapper artist Kanye West was in LAX, trying to register to take his plane and come back home, or whatever. Unfortunately, journalists, or even paparazzi were there and tried to film him; nevertheless, he didn’t let these introductions into his private life going too far, and that gives this :

Obviously, Kanye wasn’t feeling well today, and I can understand this, even if he shouldn’t have to snap up on a paparazzi, poor guy who only does his work… indeed, physical aggression is not a solution to our issues, and talking might be better, because we don’t need to be injured and have a black eye to try to understand and discuss each other.. anyway, after this little lesson about life, the main problem is not here. I was very shocked when I heard that a NBC reporter who commented this scene revealed us that “Kanye was probably in the wrong place, AT THE WRONG TIME”, just after relating the september 11 events in New York (with also an intervention from the mayor in the same bag). How could he mix this fight with September 11 ? Would american people be so paranoid that they should be afraid of a little fight in LAX, because it happened by coincidence the same day ? Personally, this declaration from TV disappointed me, because I thought America was stronger than that, and wouldn’t let be touched by an event like that, especially from this scale… but it seems to me that seven years after, US people are still scared that a bird falls upon their head…

Sarah Palin : better than John McCain ? September 13, 2008

In Corsair, newspaper of Santa Monica College, I found a cartoon that called upon me immediately :

In fact, this picture astonished me, because I totally approved the message at the moment I saw it.

Since last week, there’s one person that interests us a lot : Sarah Palin, candidate to vice presidency of the United States, and member of the Republican Party. She has got so many incredible experiences, that everyone is curious about her life : how is she going to take care of her future grandchildren, how is she going to take care of her own baby, affected by the Down Syndrome, a disease very rareand very hard to fight against. People are even starting to pay attention on her appearance, comparing her to celebrities, to focus on the place she lives, Alaska…

However, what happened to McCain ? Has he disappeared in a deep hole in the middle of nowhere ? Suddenly, the candidate for presidency of the US in the Republican side isn’t the principal topic of discussion anymore, presently, right now, everybody has eyes only for the beautiful and good-looking Sarah Palin! “Oh my goodness! Is this her? I think I’m gonna evaporate!”

At the beginning, McCain has got the brilliant idea of choosing a hot governor to help him in his road to potential presidency. Unfortunately for him, given the family facts (teenager Palin’s pregnancy) and the pushing forward of Palin by McCain (he wanted so to attract american citizens by the appeal of “nature in all its splendor”), this worked so well that it finished by turn against himself. It’s as if, suddenly, roles had been inversed… what is McCain doing now, facing Palin who is announcing Republican program and making propaganda in favor of her side? 

I am wondering where a candidate for vice presidency has become as important as a candidate for presidency of the US. Before this campaign, I don’t remember any vice president of the US, I don’t know who is actually vice president of the US, in order to support Bush. Concerning about Obama, we don’t know a lot about his delegate, Joe Biden. Some people actually didn’t know about him, even after the Democratic National Convention, program that everyone is supposed to watch on TV at least once in the week. Why unexpectedly so much interest and passion for a candidate for vice presidency ? And especially about this woman in particular ?

In Corsair, the article that  frames the cartoon is named “The American People Overcome Racism to Uphold Sexism”. In a first time, it explains that some people approve that “the unofficial verdict has proven women inferior to men, be they black or white”. We could actually interroge ourselves on why Hillary Clinton lost the primaries facing Barack Obama?

Today, we can wonder if our huge interest for Sarah Palin is due to the fact that she has the power, even upon McCain, or does she make a good figure in order to raise votes in favor of McCain?

 

Link :http://media.www.thecorsaironline.com/media/storage/paper772/news/2008/09/10/Opinion/The-American.People.Overcome.Racism.To.Uphold.Sexism-3424121.shtml

Commander-in-chief ? August 29, 2008

Democratic National Convention, Decision ‘08, Denver

“45 years ago, Martin Luther King had a dream”, these are democrats’ words about the potential resurrection of the illustrates defender of black people in the person of Barack Obama, the Nominee of the Democrats.

Bill Clinton names his “favorite” as a man endowed with intelligence and curiosity, what every candidate needs to intend becoming a president of the United States of America. All along the speech, Obama tells us about his childhood, a quite difficult grown up but classical in some american families, to make us understand in some way that the struggles of everybody are everybody’s struggles. Then, everyone has to fight together, and not separated. Thus, he presents his values, which he took so-called from his grandparents, his “heroes”; he makes his values his policies, basically focused on the economy, taxes, energy and health care, these policies, according to the democrats, being superior to that of the Republicans. Indeed, don’t we forget about the war, huge disagree between the two parties. Finally, he ends with a classical expression that everyone loves to hear : “god bless you and god bless the USA”.

Seen like this, it sounds pretty idyllic, like the man coming from nowhere since never, who’s going to save this country from bad people like Bush, considered as the diabolical witch who eats you if you don’t execute her orders. And Obama is so nice as a good fairy that he even doesn’t neglects to thank Hillary and Bill Clinton, as his sponsors, Ted Kennedy, the next potential vice president of the USA named Joe Biden, without forgetting of course Michelle Obama, “the love of his life”, and their kids. However, although Obama is so generous that he doesn’t forget to salute anyone, even John McCain, his principle rival, stressing about respecting his bravery and distinction, he especially does not forget to criticize this one at all, and in all the seams, about McCain’s program, which is at 90% the same as George W. Bush,and in this case Obama’s eternal rival. “McCain doesn’t know, he doesn’t get it”. Finally, Obama doesn’t lose sight that the aim of his campaign, is foremost to fight againt McCain, and try to bring down this last one’s program. Don’t omit that a campaign stays a campaign, whatever can be the candidate…