Month: September 2011

Does Disillusionment With Obama Equal Racism?

~ Clarissa ~ 4 Comments

I just read an article which suggests that if you are a Liberal voter who feels disillusioned with President Obama and is unwilling to vote for him in 2012, you must be a racist:

The 2012 election may be a test of another form of electoral racism: the tendency of white liberals to hold African-American leaders to a higher standard than their white counterparts. If old-fashioned electoral racism is the absolute unwillingness to vote for a black candidate, then liberal electoral racism is the willingness to abandon a black candidate when he is just as competent as his white predecessors.

The reason why the article’s author believes that Liberals who are in no hurry actively to support Obama’s 2012 presidential bid are racist is that, apparently, Bill Clinton got a better treatment when he was running for his second term:

The relevant comparison here is with the last Democratic president, Bill Clinton. Today many progressives complain that Obama’s healthcare reform was inadequate because it did not include a public option; but Clinton failed to pass any kind of meaningful healthcare reform whatsoever. Others argue that Obama has been slow to push for equal rights for gay Americans; but it was Clinton who established the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy Obama helped repeal. Still others are angry about appalling unemployment rates for black Americans; but while overall unemployment was lower under Clinton, black unemployment was double that of whites during his term, as it is now. And, of course, Clinton supported and signed welfare “reform,” cutting off America’s neediest despite the nation’s economic growth. . .

In 1996 President Clinton was re-elected with a coalition more robust and a general election result more favorable than his first win. His vote share among women increased from 46 to 53 percent, among blacks from 83 to 84 percent, among independents from 38 to 42 percent, and among whites from 39 to 43 percent.

President Obama has experienced a swift and steep decline in support among white Americans—from 61 percent in 2009 to 33 percent now.

I think that the Clinton presidency definitely bears some responsibility for Obama’s low approval ratings among Liberals today. I don’t think racism is involved, though. Admittedly, I wasn’t living in the country when Clinton was president, so Liberals who did should feel free to correct me if I’m wrong. I have a feeling that many progressive-minded voters see yet another smooth-talking, intelligent, charming politician who came to power by attracting the American Left to his cause with many promises and beautiful speeches and then failed to deliver. I’ve heard many people refer to Obama as “yet another Clinton.” The disappointment with Clinton makes it harder for people to invest in this type of candidate yet again only to see their hopes dashed.

Another reason why Obama will find it harder to get re-elected than Clinton did is, of course, the economy. Most people don’t see any improvement in their financial situation since Obama was elected in 2008. This makes it much harder for them to care about anything he can deliver in other areas of life.

A Scandal Around Oscar Nominations in Russia

~ Clarissa ~ 15 Comments

I know that nobody will have any interest whatsoever in this post, except maybe my 3 staunch and long-suffering Russian-speaking readers. But since this is my personal diary, I will still write about this story because I find it fascinating. In any case, this is Saturday, the day when the smallest number of readers accesses the blog, so I will not bug anybody excessively with it.

As I mentioned before, anti-American sentiments are strong in Russia today. Stories of “those stupid Americans” are constantly invented, shared, and celebrated. The Russian government does all it can to stoke these feelings of superiority towards the “idiotic Americans” and their silly way of being. In the artistic circles, it is fashionable to ridicule the United States as the home of philistines and ignoramuses who are completely incapable of understanding art, a place where nobody ever reads any books at all, and where only complete rubbish is produced and consumed in terms of culture. (For my Canadian readers, I want to clarify that this wave of anti-American propaganda only concerns the US. Canada simply does not register at all for most Russian people.) American movies are referred to as horrible garbage that can in no way compete with the beautiful traditions of the great Russian cinema.

What is really hilarious, though, is that those same film-makers who spend their lives publishing articles on the inferiority of American film start biting each other’s heads off for the privilege of their work being nominated as the best foreign-language film by the Oscar committee. At this very moment, a huge battle is being waged by the leading Russian film-makers as to who will be nominated by Russia for the Oscars. The level of pre-Oscar hysteria in a country that keeps repeating how little it cares about the stupid entertainment of the stupid Americans is nothing short of fascinating.

The roots of the scandal go back to the Soviet era. Nikita Mikhalkov, one of the greatest Russian film-makers of all times, belonged to a very important, connected, and rich Soviet family. This means, of course, that today he is the all-powerful and authoritative overlord of everything that is related to movie-making in the country. (Remember that there was absolutely no transfer of power when the USSR supposedly met its end, and the same people are in power today who were in power during the Soviet times.)

Sadly, Mikhalkov lost his film-making talent a while ago (I hear that he is a very heavy drinker, even by the Russian standards.) The last time he made a good movie was in 1994. I’m talking, of course, about his Burnt by the Sun, a film that won him an Oscar.

So Mikhalkov decided to get himself another Oscar this year. He got a huge amount of money out of the Russian government and filmed two sequels to his Oscar-winning Burnt by the Sun. The film is heavily ideological, extremely patriotic, and very pro-Russian Orthodox Church, which is why the government sponsored this expensive movie in its entirety.

The sequels flopped completely, even though the Russian government forced groups of people (especially school students) to watch them. As bad (for Mikhalkov) or good (for everybody else) luck might have it, this is also the year when the Russian film industry seems to have become extremely successful. Some really great films have been made in Russia this year, like, for example, Faust, a film that won the Golden Lion in Venice. And there are two other films that people say deserve to be nominated a lot more than the long, convoluted and cheesy melodrama filmed by the son of a Soviet boss.

The funniest thing is that Mikhalkov’s movie (which, admittedly, is no work of art) has a much better chance of actually winning the Oscar than any of the other movies people are saying deserve to be nominated over his. One of those films deals with very Russian realities that I can hardly imagine anybody outside of the country caring about. I can barely make myself care about them, so I don’t believe the Academy folks will give a rat’s ass about the film. Another one of these supposedly more deserving movies sounds like it’s beyond pretentious. And it was filmed by a director known for pretentiousness. (He is the guy who filmed this horrible Russian Ark crapola that graduate students love to watch to feel worldly and sophisticated.)

The scandal around the Oscar nomination, however, has long stopped having much to do with who has a chance of winning the award. It is now being used by film-makers, film critics and actors as an opportunity to vent their grievances against the dynasty of Communist party bosses who just can’t be pushed out of their positions of power and authority.

OK, now I have gotten this off my chest and I can promise not to treat my readers to any boring Russian gossip for a while to come.

An Addition to the Right-Hand Panel of the Blog: A Calendar

~ Clarissa ~ Leave a comment

Readers have complained that the archives on this WordPress platform of the blog are inconvenient to use. This is why I have placed a calendar on the right-hand panel. If you bring your cursor to any date on the calendar, you will see a box with the titles of posts published on that day. I hope this will make it easier for people to navigate the blog. You can press on the date that interests you and that will take you to the posts published on that day.

I hope people find this helpful!

Stupidometer

~ Clarissa ~ 14 Comments

And now, dear readers, allow me to present to you, a really fantastic new invention, a stupidometer. A stupidometer is great because it shows you how much money some really stupid people are willing to pledge to make their sheer and utter stupidity known to the world.

Here is how this great new device looks:

 This is how stupidometer is described at the website where I found it:

The Truthometer shows the reward that will go to the first person to provide verifiable and irrefutable proof that Sarah Palin gave birth to Trig Paxon Van Palin on April 18, 2008, at Mat-Su Regional Medical Center, as she claims. Individuals may pledge money to the Truthometer reward. By doing so, they agree to pay the pledged amount should proof be provided. An attorney will judge if any submitted proof meets the requirements of being verifiable and irrefutable. If no such proof is ever provided, pledgers pay nothing. 

To add to the pledge amount, send your name and postal address to brad.scharlott@gmail.com. 

Of course, an obsession with other people’s uteri is a sign of profound psychological problems and it isn’t nice to make fun of mentally disturbed individuals. But the stupidometer is so hilarious that I couldn’t deprive my readers of the joy of seeing it.

Finished Packing!

~ Clarissa ~ 4 Comments

So in-between teaching,  holding meetings with 2 students, blogging and answering comments, I just packed up my entire office.

I have had to pack and unpack so many times in my life that I have come to hate packing with a passion. But I’m also now very good, fast and effective at it. So I just whizzed through the entire thing in exactly 2,5 hours. It’s truly best to do the unpleasant stuff as fast as possible rather than drag it out.

I’m now really happy with myself.

I have also noticed how adversity and hardship (in my case, having to pack the office) make one kinder to others. I don’t think I’d ever been as nice to my students as I was today. Maybe we should institute a regular packing exercise for all faculty to mellow us out. (This is just a silly joke, in case any of my school’s administrators are reading this.)

Am I Being Rude?

~ Clarissa ~ 19 Comments

Look what I just read at J.’s blog:

Interesting…when someone’s sitting in a room, and someone else comes into the room, who speaks first?

If there is a clear divide in status, who speaks first? The “higher” or “lower” status individual?

What happens if the two individuals come from different cultural realities (not ethnicities per se, but just sort of “how one was brought up”), and in the culture of the higher-status person it is the lower-status who socially is obliged to speak first, and in the culture of the lower-status person it is obliged of that person to not speak to the higher-status person until spoken to?

After the awkward silence, I mean.

(Just had one of those moments. I am currently the lower-status person, and I am trained that, in such a moment, one waits to speak until addressed by the other. )

Is this true? Is it impolite to start talking first to a person of higher status? Because I do that all the time and I never had the slightest idea I was being rude. Are there any cultural differences in this area that anybody has observed?

The Way Not to Talk About Christianity, Part II

~ Clarissa ~ 45 Comments

To continue with the list of inane objections people make to Christianity:

2. So many atrocities have been committed in the name of Christianity and so many horrible things are being done by Christians at this very moment! How can you identify with something like that?

People who raise this weird objection in a triumphant manner seem to forget that this can be said not only about many different groups of people but also about humanity in general. Human beings have perpetrated many atrocities, and truly horrible things have been done in the name of humanity. So how can you love your mother? Isn’t she a human being, too?

This kind of an argument is similar to the one radical feminists often make. Men have historically oppressed women. Many men have raped women. Ergo, if you happen to love a person who is male, you are a traitor to feminism and a collaborator in the cause of oppressing women.

I was once told by somebody who was burning with righteous indignation that after the scandals with pedophile priests, any person who identified as a Christian was complicit in the acts of pedophilia. This kind of reasoning is so mind-bogglingly unintelligent that it always stuns me when seemingly well-educated people rely upon it.

Feels Just Like Home!

~ Clarissa ~ 2 Comments

I keep wanting to ask the new bus driver if he’s from Montreal because he drives the bus in a truly Montreal style. Endless rapid jerks, stops and speed accelerations make passengers almost fly around in the bus. Even if you are sitting, like I am doing right now, it’s a struggle not to pop out of the seat and roll on the floor.

And here goes another crazy bump.

Oh, I miss home. OK, I need to stop blogging now and hold on for dear life.

What Would Be a Fair Taxation Rate?

~ Clarissa ~ 31 Comments

Since there is so much talk about the need for a fairer system of taxation here in the US, I wanted to ask my blog’s readers: what percentage of their income do you think it would be fair to ask people who make over a million per year to pay in taxes?

From what I understand, they are now taxed at 30%. In my opinion, this is completely fair and asking such people to pay more makes no sense. What do you think?

Now, there is also the whole issue of hedge fund managers who, reportedly, pay the tax rate of about 15% on their investments. As far as I know, the entire number of hedge funds in this country is between 7,000 and 12,000. Most of them are “boutique” hedge funds that manage less than a dozen million of other folks’ money. This means that what the owners of these hedge funds get isn’t all that huge of a sum (in relative terms, of course). In any case, the idea that hedge fund managers routinely and massively make “billions of dollars”, which many people like to believe, is preposterous. So even if the hedge fund managers get taxed at 30 or even 60%, this will be an absolute drop in the bucket for the federal budget.

Of course, “let’s tax the rich to feed the poor” is a great populist slogan. What does it mean in practical terms, though? What kind of taxation system would make better sense than the one we have right now?

And Yet Another Blogger Pitying Russian Women

~ Clarissa ~ 11 Comments

What is it with this new “Let’s pity the Russian women” trend? Seriously, folks? Is it because of this stupid show about “Russian” immigrants that started airing recently? Or what?

Look what I just stumbled across:

In Russia, women get a pittance by agreeing to the sale of foetal tissue from pregnancies that they can’t afford to continue, to be over marketed to rich western women as injectable beauty treatments.

The person who wrote this would have had a conniption had they known how much Russian women spend on beauty treatments. As for “pregnancies that they can’t afford to continue”, this is complete and total rubbish. The Russian government pays women to have babies because of its racist belief that the white Russians are about to be displaced by “brown hordes.” With free medical care, long maternity leaves, and free daycare, it is a lot more affordable to have a child in Russia than, say, in the US or Canada.

Also, the attitude towards abortion is profoundly different in Russia, so there is no need to sob hysterically over the supposed tragedy of selling foetal tissue.

Come on, folks, just try to stick to talking about the realities you do understand. If there is anybody who needs your pity around the world, you won’t find that person among Russian women. Try to boost your self-esteem in some other way and just leave us the hell alone with your Western Liberal bleeding-heart clap-trap.