Old Personal: January 2004 Archives

Doesn't anyone else just think John Kerry is a boring pathetic prune? Why is it that I don't trust Clark, much less John Edwards? There is just that suspicion of insincerity and avoidance that you get in the eyes of most of these candidates, Dean being the exception. Look at them at moments of private publicity and you see the shadow leavening their hidden guilt and shame. They all have their politician smiles. The conflict in Dean seems so much more of a felt one, of where speaking the truth goes beyond the pale.

The theme of this, as it was in Twin Peaks, has to be reversal - where the civil war of self, and the imposition on self flap.

Dean is a orator of conviction and moves me. He is a man of humour and intellect. John Kerry couldn't excite Louis Theroux. You'd wish someone who talked the talk so convincingly and resonates that feeling so palpably would do better, as he will.

Why do I feel that all the rest are just running?

Aside from a general feeling of unease, discomfort and overall worry, I can't say I'm particularly happy. I haven't written at all since. It would be a kind favour if everything went smoothly and things didn't get butternut shaped so quickly or so adversely.

Perhaps I'm looking for my own reversal of the Civil War.

Howard Dean was not angry, he was not displaying any particular loss of control except the melancholy exuberance you get from that twinging of defeat. He just strikes me as someone who speaks his mind and is so envelopingly sincere. Wesley Clark probably wouldn't be the worst candidate, but he doesn't give me that sense - that sense of unequivocal belief in the will to be conscientious and work to the fulfillment of belief.

I just watched a bunch of people who wouldn't - I'd rather think couldn't - see the barn. Anger had no part in it.

I suppose a couple of significant things have occured for me in the last 24hrs or so. Well perhaps not Important, but striking nonetheless.

I was up till 7 in the morning watching Michael Moore's 'Roger and Me' - and while I might have just been in one of my overly sentimental moods as I can tend to be that late at night, I found it incredibly moving. And despite a broader picture of economics calling out to the rational part of my mind, the depiction of devastation and in a real sense the personal and human tragedy that attends to it - the unwillingness of parties to make even the smallest show of claiming responsibility, of recognising the human cost of their decisions, makes me want to make a bonfire out of issues of the Economist. The casual dismissal of human degradation that the film depicts is appalling to the extent that my self-consciousness about my own outrage at it becomes almost laughable.

I've also been watching the Democratic debates that are now leading up to the Iowa caucus. And while only Lieberman can present anything approaching an intelligent way of selling free trade, Dean is a stunningly charismatic orator. You really get a sense of how he has such self assurance in the integrity of his pragmatic beliefs, especially when he talks about health care, and when he talks about the will towards honesty.

Of equal import is that I sat through the majority of a marathon session of Real World Las Vegas. Brynn is rather comely - most of the rest are really rather funny, or perhaps just dumb and boring. Frank is impressive in his own way, in the way he handles people and the way he comments on himself and others.

Also there has just been "Faking It Changed My Life", and a lovely revisiting of some of the favorite people from that first series, the chef, the cellist, the jockey, the bouncer. The chef wants to become a writer and I can't help but feel warm feelings towards his self-effacing manner and his will towards aspiration - ambivalent beckett quotes notwithstanding.

And here is the load of tripe article of the day, such a lot of utter fear/guilt mongering that makes you want to slap people. The CDFreaks article links to the original gall.