intraordinaire 

code switching

Put simply, if Palin says “Barack Obama consorts with terrorists”, she is making the assertion that he supports acts of violence against American citizens and the media will refute this obviously false assertion. If, instead, Palin says he “pals around with terrorists”, she’s used code-switching to mask the seriousness of the charge, obfuscating her meaning enough to get away with making an assertion that inevitably calls for the imprisonment or even assassination of a political opponent.

This clever use of language only hides Palin’s meaning from members of the press.

Anil Dash, What Sarah Palin is saying

Anil Dash décrypte les intentions derrière le langage familier de Sarah Palin. Les passages sur le code switching sont particulièrement incisifs : la dangerosité de cette femme ne vient pas de ses opinions, mais de sa capacité à s’adresser directement à sa base électorale rurale blanche en passant sous le radar de la presse, qui semble ne s’intéresser qu’au langage soutenu…

désolé papa, je vote Obama

Obama has in him—I think, despite his sometimes airy-fairy “We are the people we have been waiting for” silly rhetoric—the potential to be a good, perhaps even great leader. He is, it seems clear enough, what the historical moment seems to be calling for.

So, I wish him all the best. We are all in this together. Necessity is the mother of bipartisanship. And so, for the first time in my life, I’ll be pulling the Democratic lever in November. As the saying goes, God save the United States of America.

Christopher Buckley, Sorry, Dad, I’m Voting for Obama

Christopher Buckley, éditorialiste au très républicain National Review, et fils du fondateur du journal, a choisi de voter pour Barack Obama en novembre… et se fait virer pour ça trois jours plus tard.

But then, conservatives have always had a bit of trouble with the concept of diversity. The GOP likes to say it’s a big-tent. Looks more like a yurt to me.

C’est bête, ces temps-ci j’avais tendance à dire à qui voulait l’entendre que nous avions des leçons à prendre des États Unis en matière d’ouverture politique…

Sarah Palin nue

Stop voting for people you want to have a beer with. Stop voting for folksy. Stop voting for people who remind you of your neighbor. Stop voting for the ideologically intransigent, the staggeringly ignorant, and the blazingly incompetent.

Vote for someone smarter than you. Vote for someone who inspires you. Vote for someone who has not only traveled the world but who has also shown a deep understanding and compassion for it. The stakes are real and they’re terrifyingly high. This election matters. It matters. It really matters. Let me say that one more time. This. Really. Matters.

Michael Seitzman, Sarah Palin naked

This is a woman chosen because of her attractiveness, both physically and ideologically, to a particular type of person. That person is not looking for depth. Not remotely. That person is looking for things that are just plain wrong. Not different, wrong. And one of those things is a padlock on your uterus. Now let’s talk about sexism.

Michael Seitzman, Sexist? Not So Fast

Sur un ton plus léger, un discours commun de Sarah Palin et Hillary Clinton sur le sexisme. Et wow, naked !

nous avons toujours été en guerre contre l’Eurasie

Édifiant, ce que pensaient les Républicains américains du terrorisme il y a dix ans sous Bill Clinton.

I see dumb people

L’apprentissage de l’imbécillité dans la culture de l’argent (VO), ou pourquoi (et pour qui) la jeunesse américaine est si inculte.
(via À l‘œil et à la langue)

“Je ne lis pas”, dit une étudiante de première année, sans être gênée le moins du monde. Il ne lui vient pas à l’esprit que déclarer une préférence pour ne pas lire dans une université, c’est comme se vanter d’avoir choisi de ne pas respirer dans la vie courante.

Luciana Bohne