Obama's Sick Speech

For whatever reason, I really enjoy watching TV on election days. I switch between all the news channels, gleefully looking at the returns and hearing the pundits reactions.

Yesterday wasn't exactly an election day, but it was still a fun night in politics. As the Iowa Caucuses came to a close, I gradually gave up on the Orange Bowl and headed towards the cable news channels. By around nine, Barack Obama was the "Projectile Winner" (according to Chris Matthews), and by the end of the night, he gave probably the greatest speech I've ever watched live.

Obama rocked:

Good, Just Not my Taste

Eh.

I'm not sure I've ever heard Ebert and Roeper use that word to describe a movie, but it's how I felt after seeing Juno yesterday in theaters. The movie was entertaining enough to keep my attention, but it was not memorable. It was an artsy, rebellious version of Knocked Up, and it didn't hold up in comparison.

The movie revolves around independent-minded 16-year-old Juno Macguff (Ellen Page) who gets pregnant with unemotional, undeveloped, uncool Paulie Bleeker (Michael Cera). At first she considers abortion, but eventually decides to have the baby and give it up for adoption. Over the course of the film, Juno must deal with all sorts of issues--with Bleeker, the adopting family, and herself--which constantly put the fate of the unborn baby into question. Will she keep the baby for herself? Will she find a different family for adoption? Will she split apart the adopting family?

All of these questions swirled through my head and led to an incredibly awkward viewing experience. The resolution to the questions is underwhelming. The movie begins to head down one track, and then all the sudden veers in another direction, without much transition in between. I know that's very vague, but I don't know how to write movie reviews, and I don't want to give away too much.

I suppose the main reason for my tepid review of Juno is that the previous two comedies I've seen in theaters are Knocked Up and Superbad. They were both two hours of penis jokes, McLovin, and tear-inducing laughter. They were in-your-face comedies that still managed to get a message across. Juno fits into a different category. It's a romantic comedy that's far more subtle. For some, this might be preferred (Juno has gotten rave reviews). But for me (a male teenager), it takes a backseat.

Ellen Page as Juno is fantastic. She is incredibly believable, and some how manages to conquer the complexity of her character. On the other side, Michael Cera as Bleeker is as uncomplex as possible. How many more movies can Cera possibly do? In life, there are certainly people that are emotionally vacant, but in a movie, such characters can get tiring.

If romantic comedies are you're thing, definitely go ahead and see Juno. But if you want to laugh-up the meal you just ate, go rent Superbad and watch it at home.

The Cauceyed State

This Thursday the Iowans caucus. That arcane communal ritual may decide who squares off in the November presidential elections. Most of the candidates have focused on winning the Hawkeye state. All of their destinies hinge on the outcome.

Those candidates who did not establish an early lead in Iowa faced two fates: stagnation or surge. Initially undecided Democratic caucusgoers have sided with the three initial frontrunners -- Obama, Clinton, and Edwards. Richardson, Dodd, Biden, and the other trivial candidates have stagnated at minuscule percentages in the polls. The lesser candidates of both parties must envy Huckabee, who has experienced a remarkable surge since October. He has probably attracted the values-voters who might have supported the bygone campaigns of Brownback and Tancredo. And after Thompson's lackluster start, it was easy for an evangelical Southern candidate to pick up steam as an alternative to Romney, the flop-flipping heathen from Massachusetts.

Although Huckabee stands a few points ahead of Romney in the most recent poll, his recent gaffes could catch up with him by Thursday. The floating cross campaign ad suggested that under Huckabee's upright facade lies a cancerous growth of Clintonian insincerity. Supporting evidence for this possibility came on Monday, when Huckabee held a press conference claiming that only 30 minutes earlier, in the spirit of clean-handed politics, he had decided to pull a TV spot attacking Mitt Romney. Huckabee proceeded to air the ad on a projector, in effect broadcasting it free of charge via journalists. To peals of laughter from the audience, Huckabee insisted that it was essential to show the ad in front of the hypercynical media to prove that it existed in the first place.

If Huckabee takes Iowa, he'll be a shoe-in in South Carolina. Romney wins Iowa in the event of a Huckabee loss. The resultant windfall of publicity could propel Romney over McCain in New Hampshire, in effect deciding the nomination. McCain is currently polling in single digits in Iowa -- he needs a big assist from Huckabee.

An article in the Times discusses the possibility of an inconclusive result in Iowa. Among the Democrats, a neck and neck finish between the three top contenders would throw Edwards a life raft. He could go on to victory in South Carolina, assuming that he doesn't lose too badly in New Hampshire and Obama doesn't rally the entire black vote behind him. An inconclusive result probably disfavors Obama, who would split the radical liberal vote with Edwards in Iowa and then New Hampshire, thereby guaranteeing Clinton's victory. Obama needs victory and a clear Edwards defeat in Iowa to contend with Clinton in New Hampshire. If Clinton blatantly loses in Iowa her game could be up in New Hampshire.

The consequences of an equivocal Republican result in Iowa could be even more convoluted. National poll leaders -- McCain and, until recently, Giuliani -- obviously benefit from a near tie between Huckabee and Romney. If that situation allows McCain to handily take New Hampshire, Giuliani's investment in the later primaries would probably yield paltry returns, since Giuliani and McCain seem to derive support from similar constituencies.

The unprecendented amount of money flowing into the Iowa campaign means that a stalemate among the candidates could be considered a devastating loss of resources. Although Iowa might have marginalized its political significance by caucusing absurdly early, either a stalemate among candidates or checkmate by any one candidate in the Hawkeye state will determine the course of events in the rapid succession of primaries that follow.

Year in Ideas

I have spent the past three weeks reading the best magazine issue of the year: The New York Times Magazine Year in Ideas. Little by little--during meals, before bed, in between finals studying--I have made my way through the issue, which lists the innovative, bizzare, and sometimes ridiculous "ideas" that emerged this past year.

Many magazines have December issues in which they detail the technological innovations of the year. What separates The New York Times Magazine rendition is that it is not simply devoted to technology. It is far broader and less concrete. Some of the "ideas" are technological innovations, but others are abstract concepts on subjects ranging from sports, to politics, to relationships.

I could probably do a blog post for almost every idea. However, instead I will simply list my favorites:

-Craigslist Vengeance (pg. 62): In March, a vengeful niece placed on ad on Craigslist, inviting all readers to come to the home of her aunt and "take what you want. Everything is free. Please help yourself to anything on the property." Though the ad was up for less than 2 hours, the aunts house was stripped bare--even the front door and kitchen sink were taken by a rabid bunch of Craigslisters. With the enormous readership of The Vegan Dessert, who knows what sort of vengeance I could achieve?

-Electric Hockey Skate (pg. 68): Since I have recently committed myself to getting good at ice skating, this one was particularly interesting. Some guy from Calgary has designed an ice hockey skate with a heated blade. The heat is not meant to warm the skaters foot, but rather to melt the ice below. By melting the ice, the ice skate faces less resistance and allows the skater to move faster. Several NHL players are trying out the skate. Seems kind of unfair to me. Some sort of regulation has to be put in place to set a limit on skate temperature.

-Left-Hand-Turn Elimination (pg. 80): Who doesn't hate left turns? They're stressful, waste time, lead to accidents, force you to turn down the radio volume...According to the NYT Mag., U.P.S. really hates left turns. U.P.S. has a fleet of 95,000 delivery trucks, and each time a truck must wait to make a left turn, it wastes gas and thus money for the company. To save cash, U.P.S. employs a computer program that maps out every delivery route and seeks to minimize the number of left turns, while taking into account the added distance that results from the extra right turns. Last year, the computer program saved close to 3 millions gallons of gas for U.P.S.

-Smog Eating Cement (98): This one had a special place in my heart because I actually understood some of the chemistry involved. An Italian Company produced cement with titanium dioxide in it. When exposed to light, the titanium dioxide can oxidize nitrogen and sulfur oxides (which make up smog) to the less hazardous nitrate and sulfate forms. The concrete has been proven to significantly clear up smog--pretty cool.

-Vegansexuality (103): I saved the best for last. Though I am not vegan or even vegetarian, I do for whatever reason write on a blog called The Vegan Dessert, so this idea has to some how relate to me. According to a survey conducted by a researcher at the University of Canterbury, some vegan eaters are rather reluctant to have carnivores as sexual partners. "I couldn't think of kissing lips that allow dead animal pieces to pass between them," said one respondent. "Nonvegetarian bodies smell different to me," said another respondent, "They are, after all, literally sustained through caracsses -- the murdered flesh of others." Maybe if I just eat vegan desserts along with the meat, I'll smell alright for vegansexuals, veggiesexuals, and carnosexuals.

Gameday

If you somehow haven't heard, you can watch the Patriots play the Giants tonight at 8:15 on the NFL Network, CBS, NBC, My Nine, MTV, TBS, Comedy Central, the Discovery Channel, and Lifetime.

Also, if you haven't heard, the Patriots are 15-0. If they win, they will be the first team to ever go 16-0. The Giants are 10-5. They have absolutely nothing to play for in terms of playoff seeding. The coverage of the game has been obscene, but in reality, I know pretty much nothing about the match-up. All I've heard about on TV is rest. Will Eli take a snap? Will Brady go 4 quarters? Will Strahan break a sweat? I wouldn't be surprised if on tonight's broadcast, the game is not shown beyond the first possession. I can picture it now. First play of the game:

"Holy Cow! Eli Manning is not on the field! The Giants have decided to rest! The Patriots win and become the first team to ever go 16-0!"

Has anyone else watched Eli Manning and the Giants play this year? If the Patriots really are one of the best team's ever, shouldn't they crush the Giants either way?

On the one hand, ESPN has presented the Patriots as an unstoppable Goliath and on the other hand they've assumed that the game, and the fate of the free World, lies in Tom Coughlin's decision to rest or not rest his players. I don't get it.

Throughout the season, I've had mixed feelings towards the Patriots. I am a Giants fan, and I am typically ambivalent towards the Pats. After the ridiculous start to their season, I started actively rooting for them. As with Roger and Tiger, I like to watch history being made. But then came the Baltimore game, and my fandom took a 180. There is no doubt the Patriots should have lost that game. If not for a stupid time-out, the "greatest-team ever" would have lost to a Ravens team that has now lost nine in a row.

From then on, I joined the Patriot-hater bandwagon. After a game like that, the Patriots didn't deserve to go undefeated.

So tonight, I will be rooting hard for my G-Men. But more importantly, I will be rooting hard when Tom Coughlin decides not to rest Eli, for that will mark the end of the Patriots undefeated season. Right?

Food for Thought

A roofer would use a zax, or roof hatchet, to cut up these slate shingles. How do I know of zaxes? Read on...


Besides my brief image caption, there's no prolegomenon to this post. My father stumbled across a website called Free Rice that donates rice to the needy when you correctly define words. The site presents you with a word and four potential definitions. If you correctly define three words in a row, you advance a difficulty level. If you incorrectly define a word, you go back a level.

Free Rice is becoming an ecumenical phenomenon. Yesterday alone, over 150 million grains of rice were donated by the website. Since the website's inception on October 7, the amount of rice donated per correct answer has been raised from 10 to 20 grains. The average amount of rice donated daily has more than doubled from one month ago.

The perspicacious reader might wonder from whence Free Rice gets money to purchase rice. The answer is internet advertising. At the bottom of the screen, small advertisements pop up for the duration of the question. I noticed that one was for Woodwind Brasswind, an amazing music superstore off I-90 in Indiana; this clinched my support for the Free Rice scheme.

Read My Lips

To kick off the Vegan Dessert Book Club -- and allow me a head start on the reading -- here are a few suggestions.

Selected Poems, by Zbigniew Herbert. I'm not sure if either poetry or compendiums qualify for the Book Club, but we can leave that caveat to our lawyers. Herbert gained international fame in 1968, when the other great Polish poet, Czeslaw Milosz, and the Canadian Peter Dale Scott translated Selected Poems into English. I imagine that my bibliophilic uncle discovered this volume at Amherst upon its publication in the United States, and decided to send it to his nephew 40 years later as a holiday present.

Herbert's poems are simultaneously avant garde and traditional. Unique for a disenchanted Soviet bloc writer, Herbert wrote ironical streams of consciousness yet invariably resorted to Shakespearean, mythological, and classical Greco-Roman allusion. Herbert withstood the dehumanization of Stalinism and the rigors of the Polish resistance to Nazi rule and found the truest expression of modern tribulations in the ancient world. Following is a favorite of mine in Selected Poems. It encapsulates Herbert's style.

"From Mythology

First there was a god of night and tempest, a black idol without eyes, before whom they leaped, naked and smeared with blood. Later on, in the times of the republic, there were many gods with wives, children, creaking beds, and harmlessly exploding thunderbolts. At the end only superstitious neurotics carried in their pockets little statues of salt, representing the god of irony. There was no greater god at that time.
Then came the barbarians. They too valued highly the little god of irony. They would crush it under their heels and add it to their dishes."

Archives of Empire Volume I: From the East India Company to the Suez Canal, edited by Barbara Harlow and Mia Carter. The other day, a friend's father asked whether anyone reads primary sources anymore. I was pleased to squash his argument with an answer in the affirmative. In a way, Archives of Empire cheats in terms of primary source material, since it culls the best documents of British Empire during the time span of the book's subtitle. There is no dead end journey to the library, no scholarly disappointment, and also, no miraculous random find in the stacks of C level.

Yet Archives of Empire, as exhaustive and carefully compiled as the O.E.D., occasionally sends a chill down the spine of my intellect as only the dustiest and most disintegrating of tomes has the capacity to do upon discovery in the library. Required to purchase this book for a history seminar last semester, the professor never got around to using it. Instead of letting the book go to waste, I decided to educate myself on the Suez Canal. Gladstone's speech advising against British intervention in Egypt after the Arabi Uprising and further expansion of an unsustainable empire rings true to American ears after Afghanistan and Iraq. "For the romance of political travel we are willing to scour the world, and yet of capital defect in duties lying at our door we are not ashamed."

Founding Brothers, by Joseph J. Ellis. Over Thanksgiving break, I got through a few chapters of this Pulitzer Prize winning book and now have time to finish it. Just under 250 pages, Ellis's book paints biographical portraits of the marmoreal men of the Revolutionary generation: Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Franklin, Madison, Hamilton, and Burr. Ellis, a professor at Mount Holyoke recently chastised for classroom bragging about Vietnam War exploits never had, upholds the nearly mythological stature of those founders. He contends that in spite of their human foibles, they recognized the precarious nature of the democratic experiment and reached deals to give the United States a best chance of survival. (The obvious exception, which Ellis addresses, is that of Hamilton and Burr.) I'm not far enough into Founding Brothers to comment further, but this book would be an excellent founding choice for our great literary experiment.

Merry Christmas All

I want to wish all our readers a very merry Christmas. Make sure to tune into TBS before it's too late. Also, if you are feeling extra lazy, the Robots 24 hour marathon on FX is pretty good as well. Oh, and I just saw a commercial for Home Alone--6 o'clock on FX!

I will be away from a computer for the next few days, so hopefully Miller will take the reigns admirably. Look forward to some very long posts.

Also, while I'm gone, make sure to suggest some books for the first ever Vegan Dessert Book Club.