08 January 2008

Game Day and Game Time

1. Yesterday the percentage of undergraduates donning Buckeyes paraphernalia was up significantly* on campus; this did not help an overmatched OSU team in New Orleans, however. For the record, neither my person nor my property were damaged. Perhaps accounts of football rioting have been exaggerated?

2. Today a tiny, mostly caucasian, Northeastern state helps decide the candidates for the 2008 U.S. Presidential Election. The Clintons are going strongly on the offensive, while the Obama campaign is relying on momentum and platitudes to make a strong showing. And it seems like everybody's "campaigning on change" these days, while I don't even know what that's supposed to mean. (EDIT: Der Spiegel has an interesting take on the meaning of all the "change" rhetoric.)

*How significantly? I'm uncertain... sorry, methods joke.

4 comments:

John said...

Amtrak's Maple Leaf this Sunday had a serious contingent of New Jersey college football fans on their way back from seeing the Rutgers Scarlet Knights defeat Ball State the International Bowl in Toronto. I am willing to undergo the Maple Leaf for loved ones and school terms, but to make the trip to see one's state college football team play a university so obscure that ontological conservatives would be justified in doubting its very existence shows a special kind of insanity.

I don't think, meanwhile, that the Der Spiegel man quites gets it - he appears to think that the anti-Iraq-war Obama is to the right of Hillary because her health-care plan is marginally more extensive. But Barack's transformation into Jesus Christ through inspirationally saying basically nothing does call for some serious media ecology.

Luke said...

Indeed - the Der Spiegel man is more on the mark when he questions the press' inconsistent coverage of Hilary Clinton's emotional (or merely emotive) state. The patriarchy trumps racism every time, even in the good ol' US of A.

It's true, though, that parts of Obama's (very brief) voting record in the Senate should be worrisome to progressives - but whether they illustrate ideological conviction or a canny pre-electoral strategy is an open question.

I think I'd vote for John Edwards, lovechild excepted.

Luke said...

In a bizarre twist, Pat Buchanan (yes, that Pat Buchanan) is providing CBC Radio with commentary on the New Hampshire primary. Terrifying.

Luke said...

Even worse: As It Happens is interviewing a woman from the Hudson Institute who likes Mike Huckabee's tax plan. On subprime mortages: "they helped many people get homes." I think I need to go read some Marx.