Following the hugely successful pilot episode that was seen 1.9 million times, here is the second episode featuring another very recognizable movie icon.
This can only be bad news for the Clintons. Newsweek proves it is in the tank for OBama. What a lame attempt by the “Main Stream Media” to sway mind numbed Liberals!
It has been a rarity in modern political life: a wide-open race for the nomination of both parties. But whatever happens from here on out, this campaign will always be remembered for the emergence of the first serious woman candidate for president: Barack Obama.
Obama is a female candidate for president in the same way that Bill Clinton was the first black president.
It was Toni Morrison who first had the insight. In a 1988 essay in the New Yorker, the Nobel Prize-winning author described Bill Clinton as “the first black president,” commenting on his saxophone playing and his displaying “almost every trope of blackness.”
Obama doesn’t play the sax. But he is pushing against conventional—and political party nominating convention—wisdom in five important ways, with approaches that are usually thought of as qualities and values that women bring to organizational life: a commitment to inclusiveness in problem solving, deep optimism, modesty about knowing all the answers, the courage to deliver uncomfortable news, not taking on all the work alone, and a willingness to air dirty linen. Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, is taking a more traditional (and male?) authoritarian approach.
Obama is advocating conversation and collaboration—talking with everybody, including those with whom he has significant disagreements. Several of the so-called “gaffes” targeted by Clinton and GOP front runner John McCain have been about Obama’s willingness to talk with people we aren’t supposed to like, such as various factions in the Middle East.
Clinton’s campaign, on the other hand, is centered on the idea that she is the experienced realist. She understands the rules in this man’s game of politics and governing, knows how to play by them and win, and can take the heat that inevitably comes with entering the fray. Obama’s argument is that he understands the rules and knows how to play by them—but that he wants to change those rules, because they embody values with which he does not agree. He manages to hold his realism and his optimism in constructive tension together, even though it opens him up to the charge that he is naive.
Clinton proposes policy solutions to every problem. She has the answers, fulfilling our expectations of an aspiring authority figure and the brightest person in the class. Obama often proposes process plans, without specific policy solutions, such as bringing together all the interested parties on global warming and having them hash out their differences in a transparent forum, taking the risk that what they come up with will not be his preferred outcome.
Obama is willing to acknowledge his indiscretions and not apologize for them. His drug use was part of his journey. He returned the campaign contributions of a former friend with an unsavory past. Clinton seems to think that admitting mistakes or acknowledging indiscretions—having second thoughts—is a sign of weakness.
Clinton’s message is that she will drive her solutions to enactment and implementation despite the forces of evil lurking everywhere. As a woman, Clinton feels constrained to portray herself as tough, competitive, willing to take on the bad guys. She has to be more male than men, in the same way that women are reluctant to leave the office early to pick up their children at day care because they fear they will not be thought of as serious about their careers, while men are applauded for doing so.
Obama can raise possibilities that are off the table for Clinton. She needs to tell us that she can solve our problems. Obama seems comfortable in what we think of as a female role: not overpromising what he can accomplish, and telling us that the work of change is ours as much as it is his. As recently as his speech in Wisconsin right after the Potomac primaries, Obama told his listeners that any real change was going to require difficult work on their part.
Elections aren’t about leadership. They are about winning, and winning requires pandering: telling people what they want to hear. Leadership is often about giving people news they don’t want to hear. My favorite definition of leadership is disappointing your own people at the rate that they can absorb.
While Obama has tried to combine optimism and realism, John McCain is the only candidate in the race who has consistently delivered messages that his constituents did not want to hear. He is the only one who has regularly gone in front of hostile crowds and been willing to stand and defend positions—on immigration, the Iraqi war, ethanol, restoring jobs in Michigan, and campaign finance—that were certain to offend people whose votes he was trying to secure. Despite the gender-bending styles displayed by Obama and Clinton, McCain’s manner of exercising leadership is an androgynous and rare activity.
This is just too good to ignore although I have one question… “Why? Why?”
Olympic skater Tonya Harding inspires rock opera
No one around here attracts attention quite like Tonya Harding. Camera crews from local news stations as well as radio and print journalists huddled in the World Trade Center lobby recently to witness the latest installment in the ongoing Harding spectacle.
Harding, one of Southwest Washington’s most infamous residents, unwittingly inspired the creation of “Tonya and Nancy: The Rock Opera,” which chronicles the champion figure skater’s improbable rise and salacious fall from public grace.
So when the 37-year-old heard about the Triangle Productions show debuting in downtown Portland, she decided to attend the world premiere to support the project and see how it turned out.
When word spread that Harding would be there, the media horde swarmed to capture her reaction.
This darkly comic show, which continues through March 8, prominently features the modern media in the role of a Greek chorus of sorts. Per that tradition, reporters in the piece not only provide background information to the audience and bridge key moments with commentary, they also act as society’s voice of morality.
Almost like part of the show, real-life counterparts were poised near the entryway of the auditorium to pounce on Harding when she arrived and revisit ethical issues related to her fame.
Harding, seeing the phalanx of cameramen from afar through the glass doors, paused for a moment to collect herself. She took a deep breath, put on some lipstick and once again entered the fray.
This edgy opera presents both Harding and her nemesis Nancy Kerrigan as characters developing their dreams on parallel tracks, destined for a violent collision.
One has a mother who lovingly supports and nurtures her, including a scene of her kindly brushing her daughter’s hair while giving her encouragement. The other mother in the show uses her hairbrush to hit her daughter when she doesn’t skate well, admonishing her for being “nothing.” Such was Harding’s fate.
But somehow, from a humble household in suburban Portland, Harding briefly became the best female figure skater in the country, winning the U.S. Championship in 1991. She was the first woman to ever complete a triple axel in competition.
Yet her skills began to fade soon after that magical year, and her goal of earning a medal in the 1994 Winter Olympics looked unlikely if she couldn’t at least overcome her American teammate Kerrigan.
Enter the strange-but-real supporting characters — ex-husband Jeff Gillooly (powerfully played by Dale Johannes) and his friends Shawn Echkert (Todd Pozycki) and Shane Stant (Jason Coffey) — who gave this tale its unique twist. Those three conspired to take Kerrigan out of the contest with a whack on the knee that reverberated worldwide.
This show not only recreates the sordid events as they reportedly happened, it also predominately uses real quotes from the participants for lyrics and dialogue.
Songs include “Whip Her Butt,” apparently the mantra of Harding’s mother; “When You Wake Up Sleeping in Your Car in Estacada,” Gillooly’s lament when trying to avoid authorities after the attack on Kerrigan; and “The Laces Broke,” Harding’s desperate plea to judges for another turn to skate at the Olympics, symbolically her request for a second chance.
Those are just some of the journalistic gems rediscovered and incorporated by librettist Elizabeth Searle and director Don Horn. There are many others throughout the show.
This unusual attempt at theatrical authenticity turns into a fascinating experiment. It’s not a lampoon or low comedy, like one might expect from the subject matter. It’s also not musical theater in the glitzy, gooey sense.
A few of the songs soar, like traditional show-stoppers, including “You’re the One,” a duet with Harding and her father that demonstrates she did receive some love as a child, and “It’s Our Whole Life,” in which Harding and Kerrigan express that neither one of them will be satisfied with anything other than first place.
But in operatic style, composer Michael Teoli challenges cast members to use their voices as virtuosic instruments, favoring aural intensity and range at times over lyrical clarity.
Lead characters Harding (played by Beth Willis) and Kerrigan (Lilla D’Mone) are among those in the cast who struggle with some of the tougher notes. Willis and D’Mone, though, do more than stand and sing. Willis perfectly captures Harding’s physicality, while D’Mone masters Kerrigan’s moody reticence, which somewhat counteracts the occasional screeching.
Director Horn meanwhile blurs the story line. He supplies a variety of details that build sympathy for the otherwise villainous Harding. He also chips away at the “nice Nancy” facade, focusing on her affair at the time with her married manager, who was nearly twice her age, and her comments at Walt Disney World after the Olympics, when she sat next to Mickey Mouse in a parade and remarked, “This is so corny.”
Harding said after Kerrigan was attacked that she just wanted to give her rival a hug. That never happened, but after the opening night performance of this show, Harding walked in three-inch heels onto the stage and congratulated the cast, including a surreal embrace of D’Mone that led Harding to remark “I finally got my hug.” She also said, “I look at my life. Was it really that bad?”
Harding then went to the lobby to face the cameras and the questions. The chorus of media members dug into the most painful parts of her past, asking what moments she found difficult to watch, about the wedding-night sex tape that her ex-husband sold against her wishes, about her failed marriage. Harding laughed through much of the inquiry, just as she could be heard chuckling throughout the show.
“Everyone has their own skeletons,” she said. “And everyone goes through life on a roller coaster.”
She offered this review of the piece: “Watching me, but not me, it was just kind of odd. I didn’t know anything about what it was going to be like….. It was really cool.”
Dozens of audience members surrounded her in the lobby to ask for autographs and to take pictures with her. She typically charges $10 to sign and $5 for photos as a way to scratch out a living. She didn’t ask for any money on this night, although she joked about it.
She plans to start boxing again in March, she said, maybe get into the beginning levels of mixed-martial arts competitions and work more on the autobiography that she hopes to publish within a year. She said, “I’ve got to make a living somehow.”
Let me see… the Clinton supporter stabs the Obama supporter. The only thing that surprises me is that it wasn’t in the back.
The only answer to this kind of violence is tougher knife laws.
Clintonite Stabs Obama Supporter
Meet Jose Antonio Ortiz. The Pennsylvania man allegedly stabbed his brother-in-law in the stomach after the pair quarreled about their respective support of Democratic presidential candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. According to cops, Ortiz, 28, stabbed Sean Shurelds last Thursday night in the kitchen of an Upper Providence Township home. According to a criminal complaint, a copy of which you’ll find here, the 41-year-old Shurelds, an Obama supporter, told Ortiz that the Illinois senator was “trashing” Clinton (apparently in regard to recent primary and caucus results). Ortiz, a Clinton supporter, replied that “Obama was not a realist.” While not exactly fighting words, the verbal political tiff led to some mutual choking and punching. And, allegedly, a stabbing in the abdomen. Ortiz, pictured in the mug shot below, was charged with a felony aggravated assault count and two misdemeanors and jailed in lieu of $20,000 bail. Shurelds was flown to Hahnemann University Hospital, where he was admitted in critical condition.
Previously:
Liberals Clinically Nuts
1. If you are choking on an ice cube simply pour a cup of boiling water down your throat. Presto! The blockage will instantly remove itself.
2. Avoid cutting yourself slicing vegetables by getting someone else to hold while you chop.
3. Avoid arguments with your wife about lifting the toilet seat by using the sink.
4. For high blood pressure sufferers: simply cut yourself and bleed for a few minutes, thus reducing the pressure in your veins. Remember to use a timer.
5. A mouse trap, placed on top of your alarm clock will prevent you from rolling over and going back to sleep after you hit the snooze button.
6. If you have a bad cough, take a large dose of laxatives, after which you will be afraid to cough.
7. You only need two tools in life – WD-40 and Duct Tape. If it doesn’t move and should, use the WD-40. If it shouldn’t move and does, use the duct tape.
8. Remember: Everyone seems normal until you get to know them.