Friday, September 26, 2008

Nuff Said...

Paid for by the Jewish Council for Education and Research...


Wow. Dustin, don't load this video on your work computer.

Just more evidence for why candidate Obama needs good inflammatory ads produced by independent organizations. Or not. From JCER:

Since early in 2007, Jews have been the target of a rumor campaign, intended to spread misinformation and sow mistrust. Many Jews, with the best of intentions, forwarded these emails to others in their networks. These rumors eventually moved from email to one-on-one communications among friends and family. The cumulative effect of these dirty tricks has been to leave many in the Jewish community angry and confused, while some are fearful that the Democratic nominee and possibly the next President does not have their interests at heart.


What I'm confused about is whether this video accomplishes their goal of countering attempts by the right to foster fears of "Obama is Muslim," or whatever rumor this video tries to correct for...like African Americans dying young? That said, the idea of "The Great Schlep" is beautiful and wrong. Brong! What can I say, Sarah Silverman = non-problematic social commentary. Always and ever will be.

Enjoy!


Monday, September 22, 2008

Islam is the new black...


Check out Nicholas Kristof's New York Times article on how people seem uncomfortable rejecting Obama because of his race, so instead they "otherize" him based on fictitious claims about his religious heritage. Of course we knew this already, but Kristof's op-ed piece is a concise, cogent essay that gets to the heart of the matter. I like that New Yorker cover more and more...

Also on the matter of religion and politics, Jon Stewart was chatting with Tony Blair recently on the Daily Show. Blair, who is about to begin teaching a course on religion and globalization, cited the following statistic: that when asked "how important is religion to you," 65% of American said "very important" compared to 35% of British, compared to 97% of Pakistanis. So when it comes to religiosity we're somewhere right between Pakistan and Britain (again, not surprising, but always nice to see where we rank). As my colleague at The Switchman recently noted, 45% of republicans, and 40% of democrats! do not know that candidate Obama identifies as Christian. Of Blair's 65% of Americans (presumably mostly Christian), it seems some large proportion don't really know what Obama's religious affiliation is. But McCain, as a white all-American POW candidate, it is safe to assume he's a good wholesome Christian right? Especially when he picks Palin as his running mate. God help us, either willful ignorance, or racism by proxy, might cost Obama the election.

Jab it out!

Friday, September 19, 2008

Target Women: Cleaning


I'm totally addicted to Sarah Haskin's web series "Target Women." The show picks apart advertising aimed at women, revealing the wildly inappropriate, hysterical, and sexist subtext running throughout. This weeks theme (and maybe her best contribution yet) is on cleaning products. Awesome.