when ryan and i spoke at the punk town meeting at pix fest last summer, one of the arguments that i made was that the danger of George W. Bush was that he shifted the language and way of speaking and thinking about politics from one that was rational and considerate to one that was unilateral and ignorant. Right now I'm listening to some radio documentary on stabalizing the conflicts in Venezuala. The commentator spoke about how the Venezualan leader, Chavez, has a very aggressive and confrontational way of public speaking. She notes that in terms of how the media addresses contentious issues was affected by this. They would choose speakers, and even counterpoint speakers that mimicked this aggressive speaking style, so the entire political dialogue shifted a little. This is exactly what I feel has been going on in the US as well. The president and the way he talks has influenced other in his party, the media, and the response from the left and even radicals.
the radio program is here, i think
posted by geoff on 2/17/2005 12:36:00 PM
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a16 detroit
a17 toronto
a18 buffalo
a19 pittsburgh
a20 cleveland
a24 richmond
a25 baltimore
a26 philly
a27 nj
a28 nyc
posted by geoff on 2/17/2005 12:23:00 PM
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there's always that one thing that makes things that much more difficult. i accepted that i was going to get back from tour really early in the morning. i accepted that i was going to set two alarms and roll out of bed wearing the same clothes that i've been wearing for the last twelve days and go to work after only two hours of sleep. but, as i walked out the front door, i realized it was raining and that riding my bike to work would only result in getting soaked. it was an automatic, wet walk the few blocks to work and a day that stayed gray and was made only barely functional by caffeine. i had talked to people optimistically about having to work this day, but have the next day off, but what is actually in store is 3 days of work in a row, and no amount of answering e-mail or listening to internet radio is going to make that more bearable.
it's strange to come back to bloomington but instead of running into friends excited to ask you about tour or tell you what they've been up to, to be grogilly staring into a computer monitor. still, the wet trudge to work brought some comfort in the familiarity of the sidewalk cracks and aging schoolyard, the bright paint of the bike project doors and the stupid apartment buildings.
posted by geoff on 2/13/2005 03:04:00 PM
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