On the average Web page, users have time to read at most 28% of the words during an average visit; 20% is more likely.
We’ve known since our first studies of how users read on the Web that they typically don’t read very much. Scanning text is an extremely common behavior for higher-literacy users; our recent eyetracking studies further validate this finding.
The only thing we’ve been missing is a mathematical formula to quantify exactly how much (or how little) people read online. Now, thanks to new data, we have this as well.
[My transcription beginning @ 43:20] Book is what you do when you’re reading. Book is not a literary form, because obviously we have literary forms that we’ve called books that weren’t published in book form starting with the Bible… That book was a scroll. You know, it wasn’t in book form at all. And then we have books like Charles Dickens books which were in fact published in newspapers as serials.
So clearly it’s not a literary form and it’s not a physical object, it’s a practice. It’s the thing that you do when you are reading things that are book-like… Book is not a thing, it’s a verb, it’s not a noun. So I think that when you consider that more people read more words off of more screens every day, and fewer people read fewer words off of fewer pages every day, then we have to conclude that what people are doing with screens is book.
Come to think of it, how many of those NYTimes best sellers do you want to bet are sitting on people’s coffee tables and lining their book shelves unread?
If one wanted to know the difference between being an American and being a European, this article from France’s Le Figaro newspaper would be a very good place to start.
From Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky to client number nine Eliot Spitzer and ‘Kristan,’ Europeans have looked at the effect that sex has on American politics with a collective shake of the head. Read the rest of this entry »
Howard Dean was on The Daily Show last night. The interview was all smiles and laughs but chock-a-block full of important and substantive information. It went on for an unusually long 9 minutes and ran right up into the commercial break.
Stewart commented on Jeremiah Wright on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday’s shows and — in contrast to every other cable news show — his clear and conclusive emphasis was on how miffed with the media he was because “this issue which should have only had enough fuel to last one news cycle has somehow lasted eight news cycles.”
Now Stewart’s is not a news show. It doesn’t have to obey the “News” rules, so it is not able to speak with that “News” authority. No, Stewart’s is a comedy show.
Any comic fool can rush in, where the angels of journalists and historians fear to tread. And as we know if we’ve ever watched any Shakespearian tragedy, fools can often be the wisest people on the stage.
Bob reminds us that comedy does not have to deal with the inconvenience of checking facts, getting multiple sources, or trying to get it right. Comedy gets to make stuff up! But it’s also able to intellectually explore lots of the stuff that neither journalism nor history can because they’re both so bound by facts.
That comic freedom has obvious attractions to intellectually active and politically engaged young minds. So I’m thinking that Stewart and his spin-off Stephen Colbert are out there dog-whistling to the youth-vote. And I’m wondering how accurate we’ve got that measured. Aren’t they — with their cell phones and non-traditional media habits — a demographic we’ve traditionally had trouble tracking anyway?
Maybe the Colbert bump holds a clue. It was in the news a while back as a legit phenom for Dems (Republicans need not apply). Thompson gives it the benefit of the doubt:
You know, some people might say, well how can this be? I think the burden of proof is on proving that there is no such thing as the Colbert bump. I think the common sense assumption would be that, yeah, there probably is. Until proven otherwise, that seems to be the commonsense thing that one would have.
It’s been kind of a geeky day for me so I thought it appropriate that I close it out with this one…
You really can design serious games for positive social change. And there’s a non-profit that’s all about helping folks do that. It’s Games for Change.
Games for Change, the non-profit devoted to promoting, well, games for change, will hold their fifth annual festival in New York City from June 2-4. Keynote speakers are Henry Jenkins and Jim Gee and the closing keynote is the Honorable Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.
The first day of the festival will be a free, one-day workshop. The recipient of a MacArthur grant, the workshop is a soup-to-nuts tutorial for non-profits, covering everything from why you’d make a game for change, to design, and through funding and press strategies. While the workshop is free, seating is limited and those who wish to attend must fill out a simple online application. [link]
May 1st, 2008 by DR. CLARISSA PINKOLA ESTÉS, TMV Columnist
A small reprise, given Shaun Mullen bringing news of the possibly suspicious suicide of Deborah Jeane Palfrey, 52, recently found guilty of racketeering, money laundering and other charges for running an escort service that drew many customers including one well known government official, Louisiana Senator David Vitter (R).
The small piece of real estate at the V of the human body
If I were from Mars, I would wonder why human beings concentrate so hard on what I once heard another human being refer to as the “real estate” of the body… those ‘parts’ without armor that occur at the V: where legs and torso join.
Modern humans seem to often focus on this one tiny area on their bodies to the exclusion of all the rest of the body.
–What about the ears?
–The head?
–The brain?
– The heart?
There must be something about these other ‘parts’ too, that is as vital to humans as food and water?
But… in fact, perhaps it is the death of the life force flowing through the ‘parts,’ at the V of the trunk of the body, rather than loss of brain or heart activity, that causes a real death of another kind in human beings.
From a Martian point of view, it seems so, given how humans who have experienced sexual ‘bed death’ sometimes seem to walk about like a house with all the lights broken out.
Still, the focus humans place on building barriers and boundaries… about how, when and where those ‘parts’ at the V are used … and by whom, seems odd.
Human beings don’t seem to mind
if people see eye to eye.
They don’t mind if people go toe to toe.
They don’t mind if people are cheek to cheek
or elbow to elbow.
They don’t even seem to mind if this little piece of real estate at the V of the body is groomed, plowed, seeded, exchanged… or mostly whatever else… amongst consenting grown ups, as long as it is accomplished free of charge.
On Earth, money for sex causes huge reactions in humans, while selling the soul for money, or losing the soul because of it, goes without comment
To the Martian mind, it is puzzling that only when money is exchanged over these tiny clefts and prongs of the human body, that humans on Earth seem to fly up into the air with huge flapping excitements and horrifications… usually reserved for chickens…
and suddenly many trackers are summoned to hunt for those who have touched this ‘part’ to that ‘part’ over dimes and dollars… or a king’s ransom.
Meanwhile, the humans who have presumably ‘not done this,’ begin generating stacks of papers and scribes to write it all down in detail, about who by name, and how and where, and how much…
but not much of a reasoned ‘why?’ or ‘how far down does this reach to soul and psyche in the culture, that includes more than just details of ‘parts?’ ‘…and the money to purchase time on, in, over, under, with those ‘parts’…
And the same humans pay battalions of uniformed people a thousand times more money, often, than was exchanged in the one original ‘real estate transaction’ …to arrest these horrible ‘real estate developers’ and make them stop.
As a human, I don’t support the idea that adult females … or adult males be involved in detached endeavors, sexual or otherwise. Read the rest of this entry »
I was having dinner with a group of friends about a month ago, and one of them was talking about sitting with his four-year-old daughter watching a DVD. And in the middle of the movie, apropos nothing, she jumps up off the couch and runs around behind the screen. That seems like a cute moment. Maybe she’s going back there to see if Dora is really back there or whatever. But that wasn’t what she was doing. She started rooting around in the cables. And her dad said, “What you doing?” And she stuck her head out from behind the screen and said, “Looking for the mouse.”
Here’s something four-year-olds know: A screen that ships without a mouse ships broken. Here’s something four-year-olds know: Media that’s targeted at you but doesn’t include you may not be worth sitting still for. Those are things that make me believe that this is a one-way change. Because four year olds, the people who are soaking most deeply in the current environment, who won’t have to go through the trauma that I have to go through of trying to unlearn a childhood spent watching Gilligan’s Island, they just assume that media includes consuming, producing and sharing.”
Say what you will about the current crop of political candidates, but they have opened anew some old debates regarding our diverse society and how we view each other. The Democrats have restarted old dialogues on America’s views on race relations and equality for women. Even John McCain is spurring discussions about aging as average lifespans continue to increase.
Hollywood has long been a prism - and often an uncomfortable or embarrassing one - through which we view our culture, and it likely holds some lessons for us. Issues of race relations in particular can be viewed across the history of Hollywood from the earliest “talkies” until today. Movies were already a very popular form of entertainment back in the 1930s and 40s, in a time long before the civil rights movement when the country’s social landscape would likely not be recognizable to younger viewers today. Al Jolson was one of the earliest “blackface” performers and became an entertainment sensation because of it. Such shows were considered normal fare in that era, though today it is considered the height of offensive behavior. (Just ask Ted Danson about that one.)
Following the advances of the civil rights era, Hollywood has continued to deliver a number of great (and many not so great) works which examined how Americans struggled - and continue to struggle - with questions of racial integration. From “To Kill A Mockingbird” and “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” up through “Blazing Saddles” and “Driving Miss Daisy”, the movies have left us laughing, crying, proud or shamefaced as we observe our evolution as a single, yet fractured, human race.
If you would like to pursue this topic further, I will be talking to Betty Jo Tucker of Reeltalk Reviews and Movie Addict Headquarters at 1 pm Eastern, 10 am Pacific, on our radio show to get some historical perspective. Betty Jo is an author, film critic and Hollywood historian who was there in the theatre seats going back to the 40s. You can join in by going to the Mid Stream Radio home page near the show’s start time. We also have a lively web chat every day, and if you would like to participate you just need to sign up for a free user account at the BTR homepage and grab a nickname.
April 15th, 2008 by SWARAAJ CHAUHAN, International Columnist
With its perpetually (and historically) rocky relationship, the Arab and European worlds have seldom met in a peaceful manner (or without suspicion) during the past half a millenium ever since the downfall of the Moorish civilization in Spain. In this context the on-going London Book Fair, with the “Arab World” as guest of honour and Arab writers present in force, provides yet another opportunity to build a bridge between the two worlds.
The Independent writes: “Imperial bureaucrats, soldiers and scholars on one side; radical nationalists, pious militants and oil-rich oligarchs on the other – all have had their various axes to grind, and to wield. Now, perhaps, the writers of the Arab world can begin to find a voice in the West again. It’s always easier to love distant stars when they can shine, plainly and legibly, on the page in front of us.
“The (London) fair will be the culmination of a long-term plan, steered by the British Council, to forge firmer cultural bonds. And, although he comes from far beyond the Arab world (and writes in English), the Afghan author Khaled Hosseini’s double coup in topping the UK charts both with The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns has helped to put a spring in the step of everyone who wants to widen the readership for literature from the Middle East and North Africa.
(The Kite Runner novel was the third best-seller for 2005 in the United States, according to Nielsen BookScan. It’s been published in 38 countries, translated into 42 languages, turned into an Oscar-nominated movie – and sold more than 10 million copies — one of the publishing industry’s greatest success stories. Now the search is on for the next big thing to come from the East. The Kite Runner is a 2007 Academy Award-nominated film directed by Marc Forster based on the novel of the same name by Khaled Hosseini (click here for more…)
“In the Gulf, lavishly funded new competitions such as the International Prize for Arabic Fiction (the ‘Arab Booker’) and the Sheikh Zayed Awards have signalled the intention of the emirate of Abu Dhabi to build up its name as a global centre of culture. Not to be outdone, and fretting perhaps at its current reputation as the world capital of bling, neighbouring Dubai begins a new literary festival next year. Also in Abu Dhabi, the Kalima translation project has launched an ambitious, state-financed programme to bring, at the rate of 100 per year, classic and contemporary books from around the world into Arabic for the first time and to distribute them across the region. ” More here…
I lived in London during the mid-1970s. I extensively covered there a major “World of Islam Festival” for The Statesman newspaper in India. The festival was opened by Queen Elizabeth II. “As far as anyone can remember, such an attempt had never been made before—and probably could not have been. It is only recently that one civilization has been capable of looking at another civilization objectively, rather than as a potential rival or convert. Read the rest of this entry »
Has U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi ‘defied law and discipline,’ and ‘challenged U.S. government’ protection’ of the Olympic torch relay? These are just some of the latest charges being leveled against Pelosi by the Beijing regime. In this article, published in the strictly-controlled state run People’s Daily, her recent efforts to have legislation passed denying U.S. officials the use of public funds to attend the Beijing Olympics, “have left people amazed and speechless.’ The author, a scholar at Shanghai’s Fudan University, concludes, “This American stateswoman repeatedly asks other nations to abide by the law, but she herself interferes when her government makes security commitments. … Ms. Pelosi will only discredit herself and her own image if she persists in embarrassing China.”
By Shen Dingli*
April 14, 2008
People’s Republic of China - People’s Daily - Original Article (English)
The ongoing Olympic torch relay has drawn tremendous attention and the enthusiastic welcome of countries and peoples around the world. But there has also been a number of discordant voices, among which is the noisome U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Read the rest of this entry »
Say what one will about his political positions, especially his staunch defense of the right to bear arms, Charlton Heston meant alot to alot of Americans. In homage to his death, WORLDMEETS.US will be posting foreign press reaction to his death throughout the next few days.
We have begun by posting articles from the British, beginning with the The Times obituary, and from Australia’s The Age.
The Times writes, “Heston was a rare creature in Hollywood, a town of often unthinking democrats. He walked behind Martin Luther King in the march on Washington of 1963, and was president of the Screen Actor’s Guild for six terms during the Sixties. But in the Eighties Heston switched his allegiance from the Democrats to the Republicans and from 1998 to 2003 he served as president and spokesman for the National Rifle Association, becoming the rugged public face of rigid opposition to gun control and, more broadly, of a distinctively American spirit of defiant self-reliance.”
Australia’s The Age writes, “He liked his films big and he liked to be big in them. … few actors - of his or any generation - can lay claim to having been responsible for so many of cinema’s definitive big-screen moments.”
READ MORE foreign press reaction to the death of Charlton Heston on WORLDMEETS.US throughout the day
The impact that Martin Luther King had in the United States is well-known to us. The effect he had on the rest of the world less-so.
Referring to the 1958 Montgomery Bus Boycott boycott, Enrique Dussel writes for Mexico’s La Jornada, “It was a routine ‘event’ that would launch Martin Luther [King] into history. Such ‘events’ are always of humble origin, but resonate strongly with the public. As with the ‘water war’ or the ‘gas war’ that ended up toppling two Bolivian governments, what began small ended up having a huge impact. … Dr. King became involved in the boycott and led demonstrations … and was was transformed into a leader of Afro-American multitudes who had already begun mobilizing.
In describing his growth into a global leader, Dussel writes, “Martin Luther began to discover other forms of oppression. So his discourses began to include all of the poor of the United States, from the urban working poor, Hispanic farm laborers and the marginalized, to the jobless. And after 1964, he began using his leadership to oppose the Vietnam War. In that year he received the Nobel Peace Prize. … But there is more. His discoveries led him to accuse his own country of being the cause of misery to other peoples. In 1967 he led the ‘Poor People’s March,’ which lifted the issues of racial and economic injustice to the national and global level. He reached out beyond the poor of the U.S. to those of Africa, where the slaves originated, and to Asia and Latin America.”
Dussel concludes, “It seems as though he had overstepped the limits of allowable criticism. … And so on April 4, 1968 (the same year as the May unrest in Paris and Berkeley, and the October Massacre in Tlatelolco), the life of Martin Luther King was cut short.”
By Enrique Dussel*
Translated By Halszka Czarnocka
April 4, 2008
Mexico - La Jornada - Original Article (Spanish)
Forty years ago on April 4th, Martin Luther King was assassinated in Memphis! It’s an anniversary that provides food for thought.
Martin Luther, an Afro-American from a Baptist community, was born in the midst of economic depression in 1929. As his father was a pastor and having obtained a doctorate in Boston [Boston University, in systematic theology], he took charge of a community of believers in Atlanta, Georgia [actually, it was in Montgomery, Alabama; the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church]. The struggle for the civil rights was picking up, but it was a routine “event” that would launch Martin Luther into history.
Such “events” are always of humble origin, but resonate strongly with the public. As with the “water war” or the “gas war” in Bolivia, what began small ended up toppling two Bolivian governments. One shouldn’t dismiss “events” that could develop into storms - an issue exposed by Alain Badiou in his “Being and Event,” and which Walter Benjamin referred to as “now-time” in regard to the arrival of the messiah.
In this case, the “event” was the simple fact that an Afro-American woman, tired after finishing work, refused to give up her bus seat to a White person who wanted to take it, as the established custom and the discriminatory laws of the south dictated. The woman preferred to have the bus stopped. The police were summoned and a full-blown confrontation ensued. But the best part is that the other Afro-Americans on the bus not only got off, but they declared a boycott of the bus company. The controversy spread. The local pastor, Dr. Martin Luther King, became involved in the boycott and led demonstrations. Meanwhile, every Afro-American in Atlanta began to walk to work, sometimes over long distances and for days or even weeks.
The bus company sued the movement because it went into bankruptcy. King was accused in a court of law and found guilty of causing economic damage the company by holding the boycott and had to suffer incarceration. All this had the effect of raising the social pressure, and the young, 26-year-old pastor was transformed into a leader of Afro-American multitudes who had already begun mobilizing across the country for the fight against racial discrimination.
In 1956, a law was decreed to end racial segregation in the United States (which is not the same as making it a reality), and slowly but surely, Afro-Americans began accruing political clout. Martin Luther’s leadership continues to inspire, not only in his native state, but across the country. Reflecting on Mahatma Gandhi’s doctrine of “non-violence” (which was inspired by the ancient Jain school of Indian thought), he began a true strategic struggle against racism in the United States, a phenomenon as old as slavery, which was established in the 17th century. Martin Luther was arrested again several times. While “non-violence” isn’t a universal principle, it’s a strategy that works in a country that respects the rule of law (for the powerful, of course, not for the poor).
It was August 28, 1968 when he delivered his most famous speech before 200 000 people in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington.
Gradually, the Atlanta preacher [Alabama, actually] began to realize that that Afro-American people had been discriminated against since the dawn of modernity; since the onset of European slavery that involved over 15 million Africans. It was a terrible kind of oppression, and yet it was an oppression that went unnoticed by French Revolutionary and Enlightenment thinking. Then Martin Luther began to discover other forms of oppression. So his discourses began to include all of the poor of the United States, from the urban working poor, Hispanic farm laborers and the marginalized, to the jobless. And after 1964, he began using his leadership to oppose the Vietnam War. In that year he received the Nobel Peace Prize.
Because of the Big Three, 550 American baseball games a year are broadcast on television here. About 300 of them are carried without commercial interruption, allowing Japanese viewers to gaze between innings at their beloved stars as they sit quietly in the dugout or stand around on the field. These players, unlike their American counterparts, are rarely caught on camera spitting, picking their noses or scratching themselves in manly places.
March 22nd, 2008 by SWARAAJ CHAUHAN, International Columnist
In the Indian subcontinent the virtues/benefits of “selfless-giving” is not only woven into the religious/social/spiritual discourse in all religions from time immemorial, but commonly practised even by those whose financial position may be just above the subsistence level. Now a “scientific study” (from the very bastion of self-acquisitive culture) tells us that “money can buy happiness, but only if you spend it on someone else.”
“Spending as little as $5 (about 2.52 pence) a day on someone else could significantly boost happiness, the team at the University of British Columbia and Harvard Business School found,” reports Reuters. “Their experiments on more than 630 Americans showed they were measurably happier when they spent money on others — even if they thought spending the money on themselves would make them happier. Indeed, although real incomes have surged dramatically in recent decades, happiness levels have remained largely flat within developed countries across time.”
“There are many references that support the concept of donation in Hindu scriptures. ‘Daan’ or ‘Daanam’ is the original word in Sanskrit for donation, meaning selfless giving. In the list of the ten ‘Niyamas’ (virtuous acts) Daan comes third. Daan, however, is the process whereby the good things in the universe are made to circulate in the whole community instead of being locked up in the stagnant individual centers, whether it is money, time, knowledge or actions; and daan is thus a means of breaking down the barriers of egoism. Therefore, when actions consisting of yagya, daan and tapas are performed, through such actions, both the individual and the society prosper in a sustainable natural environment. And this, we are told, is the ultimate goal of governance for all the good governments of the world.” More here…
In the Search for Truth, book and magazine publishers are running into a few problems. Herewith two new trends in the reality business:
The continuing hoo-ha over the latest publishing fraud, the Valley girl who posed as a druggie gang member, brings up the question of where to draw the line between writers with vivid imaginations and out-and-out liars.
Truman Capote, who invented the non-fiction novel, was not always the most fact-checkable of journalists. He had a storyteller’s way with the truth. His writing and even his casual conversation abounded in astonishments, wondrous coincidences and weird juxtapositions.
But Capote was a novelist at heart, and his talent earned him some leeway as a fabulist in matters of little moment. In fact, the writing of “In Cold Blood” was, in part, a challenge he set himself to tell a journalistically pure story that would have the richness of his fiction. He knew the difference.
Today’s fake memoirists either don’t know or don’t care.
In an era of fake memoirs, Esquire now gives us a new variation on masturbatory journalism–the fictional diary.
For “a conceivable chronicle of Heath Ledger’s final days,” the editors explain, “writer Lisa Taddeo visited the actor’s neighborhood, talked to the store owners and bartenders who may have seen him during his last week, and read as many accounts and rumors about the events surrounding his death as possible. She filled in the rest with her imagination. The result is what we call reported fiction.”
As WORLDMEETS.US regularly demonstrates, the U.S. election race is dazzling the rest of the planet. The U.S. correspondent for Portugal’s Jornal de Negocios finds America’s capacity to remake itself after the ‘reactionary’ George W. Bush to be ‘remarkable.’ Leonel Moura writes in part, ‘Just as in the person of George Bush, America has given us one of the most reactionary presidents ever; it now electrifies the planet with the possibility of electing a woman or a Black … For those familiar with American society - which is very advanced technologically and rather backward in terms of moralism - nothing could be more revolutionary than seeing a Black man in the White House - a house that has always belonged to the White man.’ He goes on to observe, ‘this society, rather savage in its pursuit of capitalism, also has the capacity for absolutely remarkable regeneration.’
By Leonel Moura
Translated By Brandi Miller
February 27, 2008
Portugal - Jornal de Negocios - Original Article (Portuguese)
Just as in the person of George Bush, America has given us one of the most reactionary presidents ever; it now electrifies the planet with the possibility of electing a woman or a Black. A fact that just about everyone would have labeled a subversive fantasy just a few years ago is now a matter of great excitement in the world at large and in the United States, where there is talk of nothing else.
This is not to be taken lightly. For those familiar with American society - which is very advanced technologically and rather backward in terms of moralism - nothing could be more revolutionary than seeing a Black man in the White House - a house that has always belonged to the White man. And yet they are increasingly supportive of this scenario. Read the rest of this entry »
One of the most disturbing questions that Barack Obama’s candidacy raises is this: What if he were murdered? If Barack Obama won the Democratic nomination and was gunned down before November, what effect would this have on the presidential race? In this uncomfortable op-ed from Mexico’s Excelsior newspaper, Francisco Martín Moreno outlines what he sees as the danger to the United States and the rest of the world if this were to occur. He writes in part, ‘A violent dispatching of Obama would leave the road to the White House paved for McCain, with Mexico and the rest of the world having to deal with four more years of Republican nightmare … If Obama wins, he can lose his life … Shouldn’t Hillary, just in case, accept the vice presidential ticket?’
By Francisco Martín Moreno
Translated By Halszka Czarnocka
February 22, 2008
Mexico - Excelsior - Original Article (Spanish)
I must confess that when Barack Hussein Obama publicly expressed his desire to enter the race to become the next occupant of the White House, I didn’t believe he had the slightest chance of achieving that goal, primarily because he was an illustrious unknown besides being a man of color in a country characterized by racial discrimination.
Having analyzed his career and learned that he had been elected senator from the state of Illinois with 70 percent of the vote, and that in Congress he promoted conventional arms control, a law to prevent electoral fraud, another to reduce global warming and still another to prevent nuclear terrorism, I noted in this brilliant legislator the profile of a bold politician who dared to embrace complex issues in a country surprisingly militarized, conservative and religious. Obama is in favor of concluding the Iraq War. He sees through the lies and abuses. He courageously denounces them. This means danger…
The reason I fear for Obama is that despite his being an extraordinary Democratic leader and a notable promoter of change in the United States - a nation that apparently no longer wishes to greet the dawn with news of another bombing attack on a new country at the behest of George Bush - in spite of all this, and even if he manages to win his party’s nomination, goes on to beat McCain in November and becomes the next president of the United States, he could be brutally assassinated, as happened in their time to Martin Luther King and Malcolm X . There’s no reason to kill a McCain - not for his skin color, nor for his political career, nor for his personal name, and it’s impossible to associate him with the Muslims that arouse sop much prejudice in post-Sept. 11 America …
Martin Luther King was without doubt a major political leader in the United States, even more so he was awarded the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize as a result of his efforts to secure basic political rights for people of color in his country. His example spread across the world. Martin Luther King’s goals - which embarrassingly took until the second half of the twentieth century to achieve - were so people of color would no longer be socially segregated, so marriages between Blacks and Whites would be permitted and people of color would no longer be segregated from Whites in shops, restaurants, hospitals, buses and trains. And for these reasons, Black children would no longer be obliged to attend separate schools, and finally, denying Blacks the right to vote in the southern states due to illiteracy would no longer be tolerated. He altered this pathetic realty. He created a new world. He made his dream real …
Martin Luther King’s life was cut short in April 1968, making it clear that in the United States, certain segments of the population would never agree to accept equality between Blacks and Whites, to say nothing of the possibility that a Black man could ascend to the White House …
Additional proof that some sectors in the United States reject the Black penetration of society at large was the assassination of Malcolm X in 1965, also a man of color, a Muslim minister and a tireless fighter for African-American unity.
READ ON AT WORLDMEETS.US, along with continuing translated coverage of the U.S. elections from around the world.
Those who oppose him in both parties are attacking Barack Obama with a double-barreled cultural stereotype, the old film noir thesis that good looks can be deceptive and dangerous combined with a Jim Jones analogy about followers suicidally drinking in hope with laced Kool-Aid.
In yesterday’s New York Times, Sean Wilentz, a Princeton historian and Clinton supporter, observes, “What is troubling about the campaign is that it’s gone beyond hope and change to redemption.” He claims that Obama is “posing as a figure who is the one person who will redeem our politics. And what I fear is, that ends up promising more from politics than politics can deliver.”
Earlier this week, Paul Krugman wrote that “the Obama campaign seems dangerously close to becoming a cult of personality.”
Today’s Times piece quotes Norman Mailer describing JFK’s arrival at the Democratic convention in 1960, “the prince and the beggars of glamour staring at one another across a city street.”
The reporter should have gone further into Mailer’s musings on Kennedy. Substitute “African-American” for “Catholic” in this passage:
“With such a man in office, the myth of the nation would again be engaged, and the fact that he was a Catholic would engage the mind of the White Protestant. For the first time in our history, the Protestant would have the pain and creative luxury of feeling himself in some tiny degree part of a minority, and that was an experience which might be incommensurable in its value to the best of them.”
It’s understandable that detractors would try to equate Obama’s emotional appeal to lack of substance. In the 1960s, when I was editing McCalls, an advertiser told me, “Your competitors say the magazine looks so good that readers don’t get to the ads.”
“If I had to sell a dull magazine,” I answered, “I might make say that too, but if you can’t get people to pay attention, they won’t respond to anything.”
This year, Obama is getting voters to pay attention, and his opponents are reduced to finding fault with that.
I posted this on January 8th for the New Hampshire primary; it bears repeating:
THINK, People! This is not supposed to be romantic. We are not electing a handsome President to take us on dates and haunt our dreams but rather a sober Chief Executive to make decisions affecting our personal and national future for decades to come. I want maturity and experience, not youth and beauty!
If we elect the political equivalent of a White Knight or a Beauty Queen, I fear for our future.
I just love hearing Sylvia Poggioli say her name - I always have. Doesn’t matter what she’s reporting.
But this morning, she helped Frank Deford preview this weekend’s Super Bowl game during Morning Edition. You can read the “play” here or listen to it here. I have a suspicion that this is going to be one of those Deford pieces that gets a lot of “just give us the sports, would ya?” e-mails, and I actually didn’t understand a lot of the references - sports or Bard.
But as a diversion, it was excellent. And with barely 30 minutes before the Republican debate in the Reagan Library in California, who couldn’t use a good diversion?
You really can design serious games for positive social change. And there’s a non-profit that’s all about helping folks do that. It’s 
