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Has the entertainment factor gone, post-Bush?

24 January 2009 by Nathalie Abejero Leave a Comment

When the prevailing social constructs are blown to hell and back with the election of a black man to the White house [sic], there are social repercussions of a most disturbing kind, namely, what the heck do we do for entertainment now?? It was totally within the realm of political correctness to poke fun at Palin, who embodied the stupid white bimbo persona to a tee, and of course we had eight years of Bush, the perfect caricature of the cowboy simpleton we’ve come to love (or not) from decades of Westerns. Ditto with all the other white males (and females) whose daily grind and spiel are immortalised in the reels of Saturday Night Live and the late night cadre of satire and wit.

But what do we do with Obama? Granted, he doesn’t provide much fodder for wit in the gaffes and boneheaded blunders department that Bush was so obliging with. But why can’t we get a good laugh at the expense of this Commander-in-Chief? As with any unchartered territory, this massive ideological shift presents extremely dangerous grounds for comedians of any color and progressives of all objections. Someone of such historical significance can be brought down for the sake of a simple joke, sure, but it’s a colossal gamble just beyond the ability of our prevailing cultural zeitgeist –just yet.

And a telling commentary on progress in race relations…

Unprecendented heights of popularity worldwide and mammoth support for Obama aside, I hope we can move past this social hiccup where comedy runs smack into race, cuz it’s only been four days and all the seriousness is gettin’ kinda dull…
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Filed Under: Interests, Life Tagged With: bush, obama, US

… and the Inaugural Madness continues!!

24 January 2009 by Nathalie Abejero Leave a Comment

Because for a moment so long anticipated, celebrating once is not enough… This time a cocktail party, so more mellow and in a stylin’ swank joint. I include the menu prices for future gasp factor.


ALL-NIGHT PARTING SHOTS $2
Rejoice y’all! At long last, Bush is disembarkitating!
Burning BUSH (Tequila)
Dead-eye DICK (Vodka Caramel)

CELEBRATE “A NEW BIRTH OF FREEDOM”
Raise a glass to the new President of the United States!
ALE to the Chief $1 (Tiger Draught)

BEVERAGES YOU CAN BELIEVE IN
Coke
Sprite
Ginger Ale
Lime Juice
Lime Soda
Juice Box
Montfleur
BARACK Berry Chill

CENTRIST LIBATIONS $3
Obama-politan
MICHELLE-mojito
BIDEN Margarita
YES WE DID Bubbly Cocktail

ROAD TO THE WINE HOUSE $2.20/glass
(CHOW “Exclusive” Red or White)

RECESSION-PROOF CHOW BITES $3
Fish Cakes
Calamari
Spring Rolls
Choi Mei

BILLION DOLLAR BAILOUT OPTIONS (served with a side of Optimism)
Sirloin Steak $15
Salmon Steak $10
Pad Thai $5
Nasi Goreng $5

Filed Under: Interests, Life Tagged With: 2009, bush, inauguration, obama, US

Inauguration/Bush era Post-mortem press roundup

24 January 2009 by Nathalie Abejero Leave a Comment

And yes, I know the political and economic machinery was already in place before Bush took the reins. The question is– on top of the endless list of other sectors and industries (not to mention competitiveness of the United States abroad) left in ruins as a direct result of this administration— how much did (the thankfully departed) Bush influence the economic collapse? Here, TIME/CNN highlights the not-so-smart calls. Since I hate click-whore web setups, I’ll just list them here.

1. The Return to Deficits: Bush’s tax cuts and spending increases — and clear disdain for the pay-as-you-go approach that had brought deficits down in the 1990s — brought a return to permanent deficits.

2. Iraq: Even if you STILL think we had a logical reason to go to Iraq, and that the war brought benefits to the U.S., does the $1-3 trillion dollar (and growing) price tag justify this huge blunder?;

3. Tax Cuts for the Rich: Bush came to Washington facing almost diametrically opposing economic conditions, yet he offered up the same Reaganomics solutions.

4. Financial Regulation: What is true is that most Bush-era financial regulators were less than enthusiastic about the very act of regulating, and that Bush’s “ownership society” push glossed over a lot of potential dangers.

5. Telling Us to Go Shopping: After 9/11, Bush didn’t call for sacrifice. And people blindly heeded the call to go shopping.

6. Energy Policy: What energy policy?

7. A State of Denial: Every Administration spins and sugarcoats the economic truth. But the Bush White House took this disingenuousness to new levels (dissent is apparently non-Christian, against democracy, against the troops and against the US)

8. The Muddled Bailout: The main problem was the flagrant incompetence out of both Paulson and the White House in handling the financial rescue.

And Floyd Norris in the Business Section of NYTimes has this to say:

…the economic record of President George W. Bush was largely a disappointing one. During his administration, the country grew at the slowest overall pace of any recent president, whether measured in gross domestic product or employment. The last president to preside while the stock market did worse was Herbert Hoover.

Economic performance was actually good for much of the middle years of Mr. Bush’s eight-year term, but it began and ended with recessions.

Some of the disappointment with Mr. Bush may stem from the fact that he took office at the end of a huge boom, in both the economy and the stock market.

“No matter who took office in 2001, they were destined to oversee dashed expectations regarding the economy, the markets and the geopolitical outlook,” said Robert Barbera, the chief economist of ITG. “It was all captured in the lunacy of the $5 trillion surplus on the horizon. That vision required no wars, no recessions and a nonstop spectacular bull market for equities.”

“That said,” he added, “it certainly did not have to come to this.”

Barry Ritholts sums it up very well:

The main problem I see in Bush’s economic approach was an odd form of Reagan worship. Despite wildly disparate economies, Bush adopted Reagan’s approach. That the market had just collapsed, rather than was in year 14 of a secular bear market, rates were low and going lower, and the biggest Tech boom known to man were all but ignored.

Imagine a doctor who was once successful prescribing Penicillin to a patient with an infection. The next sick person comes in with diabetes — and he prescribes Penicillin again. The Penicillin supply-side school of medicine is genuinely shocked when the patient dies.

I wrote about this back in 2002-03: The epitome of the Bush approach to the economy was to vigorously apply Reagonomics directly to the forehead, despite a very different set of fiscal and economic conditions.

Surprise! The patient died!

Given all of this, Alan Abelson of Barron’s offers a reason why we haven’t been attacked since 9/11, in Parade of the Basket Cases.

Thanks to his vigilance, this nation was spared a terrorist attack after 9/11. And so it was, for which we are all profoundly grateful. And only the most vehement Bush-basher would sniff that the real reason for the absence of an attack was that Mr. Bush did such a thorough number on the country all by himself that the terrorists figured, why bother?

No argument that he is leaving an economy in absolutely awful shape. Our budget deficit is ballooning toward the trillion-dollar mark and isn’t likely to stop there. We are mired in the worst recession since the grandaddy of them all in the ’30s; its end is by no means in sight. The stock market after crashing 35% to 40% last year (depending on which bourse you follow) has started off ‘09 on the wrong foot, not an auspicious omen for the year as a whole.

Unemployment is pressing remorselessly higher, housing is a wreck, industrial production is contracting at the wickedest rate in 35 years, the retail business is in the dumps almost across the board. Detroit is about as near to running on empty as you can get without grinding to a halt. There is a whiff of deflation in the air.
Not all of this, obviously, is Mr. Bush’s fault. But it happened on his watch. Not the kind of stuff, we are afraid, that shining legacies are made of.

So it doesn’t exactly come as a surprise when the blogosphere starts hopping with this piece of news: moving into the White House is kind of like going from an XBox to an Atari! (I like the part about Bush complaining of the missing keys on the keyboards when he moved in.)


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Filed Under: Interests, Life Tagged With: bush, inauguration, US

Top 10 things we’ll miss about Bush

23 January 2009 by Nathalie Abejero Leave a Comment


#1 might have to be the entertainment factor …

..and circulating about cybersphere today is this fun piece about the tech-savvy Obama team descending into the dark ages of the White House IT infrastructure. “Like going from Xbox to Atari”, one of his aides said. Have I mentioned lately how much I like our freakin’ cool new Techie-in-Chief??
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Filed Under: Interests, Life Tagged With: bush, inauguration, Letterman, obama, US

Bye George!

10 January 2009 by Nathalie Abejero Leave a Comment

Join us in the countdown pandemonium nearly a decade in the making, and share in the merriment of 43’s imminent and much anticipated departure! What started with some hanging chads in the Fall of 2000 will finally come to an end! No weapons of mass destruction will be unfound; no Vice Presidential shotgun will be uncocked! Watch the West Wing purge of 8 years of carnage and idiocy and toast the End of an Error at two events!

If you can’t catch the Beltway action on the 20th, then join us at the Gym Bar for the LIVE inaugural soul cleansing! In honor of the Accidental President, we celebrate his departure with a nostalgic trip down memory lane with a Pub Quiz before commencing with the ceremonies. So get your game on, test those brain cells, have some fun and win great prizes! And in true Phnom Penh tradition sure to inspire a drinking problem worthy of Bush’s past, the evening will end in a special toast to the return of reason and a period that can only head in one direction– up!!

And no festivities worth the 8 exhausting years of getting beaten up, stolen from, knocked down, lied to and laughed at can end with one event! The going away revelries for our favorite cowboy continue at CHOW on Saturday 24 January with a rebroadcast of the most exciting POTUS torch pass in a generation! We wanted change and we made it happen! So once again, let’s GIDDY UP, GET GLAM and PARTY HARD-Y with friends who helped make history!!

Filed Under: Interests, Life Tagged With: bash, bush, inauguration, obama, party

Where Have All the Leaders Gone?

2 September 2007 by Nathalie Abejero Leave a Comment

Remember Lee Iacocca, the American industrialist who rescued Chrysler Corporation from death throes? Here are some excerpts from ‘Where Have All the Leaders Gone?’ (c)2007.

“Am I the only guy in this country who’s fed up with what’s happening?… We’ve got a gang of clueless bozos steering our ship of state right over a cliff, we’ve got corporate gangsters stealing us blind, and we can’t even clean up after a hurricane much less build a hybrid car. But instead of getting mad, everyone sits around and nods their heads when the politicians say, “Stay the course”

“I hardly recognize this country anymore. The President of the United States is given a free pass to ignore the Constitution, tap our phones, and lead us to war on a pack of lies. Congress responds to record deficits by passing a huge tax cut for the wealthy (thanks, but I don’t need it). The most famous business leaders are not the innovators but the guys in handcuffs. While we’re fiddling in Iraq, the Middle East is burning and nobody seems to know what to do. And the press is waving pom-poms instead of asking hard questions. That’s not the promise of America my parents and yours traveled across the ocean for. I’ve had enough. How about you?

“We’re immersed in a bloody war with no plan for winning and no plan for leaving. We’re running the biggest deficit in the history of the country. We’re losing the manufacturing edge to Asia, while our once-great companies are getting slaughtered by health care costs. Gas prices are skyrocketing, and nobody in power has a coherent energy policy. Our schools are in trouble. Our borders are like sieves. The middle class is being squeezed every which way. These are times that cry out for leadership.

“But when you look around, you’ve got to ask: “Where have all the leaders gone?” Where are the curious, creative communicators? Where are the people of character, courage, conviction, omnipotence, and common sense?

“In my lifetime I’ve had the privilege of living through some of America’s greatest moments. I’ve also experienced some of our worst crises: the Great Depression, World War II, the Korean War, the Kennedy assassination, the Vietnam War, the 1970s oil crisis, and the struggles of recent years culminating with 9/11. If I’ve learned one thing, it’s this: You don’t get anywhere by standing on the sidelines waiting for somebody else to take action. Whether it’s building a better car or building a better future for our children, we all have a role to play… So let’s shake off the horseshit and go to work.

“You can’t call yourself a patriot if you’re not outraged.

Filed Under: Interests, Life Tagged With: bush, George Bush, Lee Iaccoca, Where have all the leaders gone

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Those little feet pitter-pattering about rule our lives lately. But on the occasional free moment I get to tap out scatterbrained bursts of consciousness about raising toddlers in Cambodia, traveling with them and working abroad. These posts are my personal updates to friends and family. But since you’re here, have a look around. Thanks for stopping by…

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