Watching out for Palinistas

As most media-watchers know, Sarah Palin defied low expectations in last Tuesday's Vice Presidential debate. She didn't say anything appallingly dumb, or anything appallingly inappropriate. The problem, at least for GOP supporters, is that she didn't say much of anything. She dutifully forewent any real engagement with moderator Gwen Ifill's questions, instead swinging the conversation around to well-rehearsed (and details-poor) set pieces on Iraq, gay marriage, her ticket's "maverickness," and taxes.

You can accuse her supporters—if that's what they are—of no such vagueness. They've been direct, if largely unpleasant. Local religious-affairs columnist Douglas Todd has taken a particular interest in Palin on his Vancouver Sun blog, The Search, laying out Palin's evangelical credentials and arguing that her "Christian values" may be skin deep. And for this, Todd has had an unholy amount of vitriol aimed at him.

A full collection of Palin videos and utterings

He writes: "When I asked if [pursuing vendettas and firing officials who crossed her] would be the behaviour of a Christian, one emailer responded: 'You are a sad little pathetic man who does not have a shred of decency and cannot support his beliefs with the truth, so must make up 'facts.' Someday you will be judged for this, and I hope that day comes soon. You deserve what you get.'

Another wrote to the blog to tell me to shut up and just ask Jesus Christ for forgiveness. Otherwise, she said, 'You are headed to Hell, the eternal Lake of Fire, originally created for Satan and his angels.'

A third called me a 'perpetually embittered' atheist (for the record, I'm not an atheist) who will be gnashing his teeth after McCain and Palin win the 2008 presidential elections. His advice to me: 'Try again in 2012, Lucifer.'"

And perhaps my favorite. Todd again: "Religion and U.S. politics is a touchy subject, to be sure. That may be why many Americans have expressed their scorn that any Canadian would dare, through the borderless Internet, express opinions about it.

As one wrote to my blog: 'Thank God (not 'my' god" or 'a god,' but THE GOD) that you troglodytes have no say in American politics (in French or English, eh). In this, the only civilized part of the American continent, we have to tolerate sub-human grunters like you Canadiots complaining about OUR President, as if anyone in your prehistoric slab of semi-paved wilderness had half the brains or balls that George W. Bush has.'"

In other news, Saturday Night Live is continuing to make a grand argument for its own cultural relevance. Tina Fey's latest Sarah Palin spoof is top drawer. My favourite bits are her rants of stitched-together non sequiturs; this skit has a good one that ends with "...and the great Ronald Reagan."

It's the second Presidential debate tonight. Predictions?

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Watching Palin

John Bucher is digital editor of BCBusiness Online.

For schadenfreude junkies, it has been a delicious fortnight.

Two weeks ago, Sarah Palin, the fresh Republican vice-presidential nominee, was a political star ascending. Huge crowds came out to see her wherever she went, she delivered a caustic Convention speech that energized a listless Republican base, and she made Barack Obama, who was slipping into a pull-away stride, look suddenly vulnerable and very much in reach.

Democrats began to worry: Is it possible that, even in this perfect-storm political season, we could lose again?

Well, they might still. But if they do it won't be for a lack of public censure of Sarah Palin. She's on fire, yes. Two weeks ago it was in the good way; now it's in the melting-down dripping-at-the-edges way. And all it took, it seems, was a few media interviews to ignite the flame.

Angry Palin supporters attack Mr. Todd

My media cup hath been running over. Here are the last two weeks' finer statements by and about Palin, in no particular order.

"In what respect, Charlie? What, his world view?"
     —Palin responds to a question by ABC's Charlie Gibson: "Do you agree with the Bush Doctrine?"

"For a seventy-two-year-old cancer survivor to have placed this person directly behind himself in line for the Presidency was an act of almost incomprehensible cynicism and irresponsibility."
     —New Yorker essayist Hendrik Hertzberg, writing after Palin's wandering, fragmented, occasionally incoherent interview with CBS's Katie Couric.

"Alaska has a very narrow maritime border between a foreign country, Russia, and, on our other side, the land-boundary that we have with Canada. It’s funny that a comment like that was kinda made to…I don’t know, you know…reporters."
     —Sarah Palin, expanding on why she believes Alaska's proximity to Russia gives her foreign-policy experience, in that interview with Katie Couric.

"I can see Russia from my house!"
     —SNL's Tina Fey, impersonating Sarah Palin discussing with Hillary Clinton the progress women have made in this 2008 election, an immediate sketch-comedy classic.

"Frankly, I have had it. The sexist treatment of Sarah Palin has to end."
     —CNN's Campbell Brown inveighs against the McCain campaign.

"I need to know if she really thinks dinosaurs were here 4000 years ago. I want to know that, I really do. Because she's going to have the nuclear codes."
     —Actor Matt Damon, in a CBS interview, compares Palin's nomination to a "bad Disney movie."

"Well, Alaska and Russia are only separated by a narrow maritime border. You've got Alaska right here, and this right here's water, and up there is Russia."
     —SNL's Tina Fey, again impersonating Sarah Palin, this time – ouch – using the Governor's actual words.

"I know that many times, in my life, while living it, someone would come up and, because of I had good readiness, in terms of how I was wired, when they asked that—whatever they asked—I would just not blink, because, knowing that, if I did blink, or even wink, that is weakness, therefore you can’t, you just don’t. You could, but no—you aren’t."
     —New Yorker humourist George Saunders poking imitative fun at Palin's answer (from the Gibson interview) about her willingness to be John McCain's running mate.


"Ideologically, she is their hardcore pornographic centerfold spread, revealing the ugliest underside of Republican ambitions – their insanely zealous and cynical drive to win power by any means necessary, even at the cost of actual leadership."
     —Salon's Cintra Wilson delivers a blistering diatribe on the "political Viagra" that is Sarah Palin.

"Palin appeals to the white trash vote with her toned-down version of the porn actress look."
     —Heather Mallick, lobbing at a similar criticism at Palin in a September 5th column that was ultimately removed from CBC.ca and apologized for.

And now two days remain before Palin's vice-presidential debate showdown with Democratic VP candidate Joe Biden. Will the meltdown continue? What's your call?

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David Foster Wallace's prescription

Matt O'Grady is editor of BCBusiness.

The death of writer David Foster Wallace two weeks ago reminded me of my favourite piece of his. It was an April 2001 essay for Harper’s Magazine called “Tense Present” – an investigation into what he called “the seamy underbelly of U.S. lexicography.” For a good 20,000 to 25,000 words, he waxed poetic about the ideological strife, controversy, intrigue, nastiness and fervour of the two camps – conservative (“prescriptivist”) and liberal (“descriptivist”) – battling over the future of the English language and “proper” usage. In typical DFW style, the essay was accompanied by several thousand words of annotation. He was, God rest his soul, a prescriptivist.

At around the same time in early 2001 that Harper’s editors were combing through DFW’s dense text, a couple of digital entrepreneurs by the names of Larry Sanger and Jimmy Wales were about to launch a revolution with Wikipedia. Seven years on, the user-generated-and-controlled encyclopedia has forever changed the way we look at what’s “fixed” and what’s “true.” Unlike Encyclopedia Britannica, no article in Wikipedia undergoes a formal peer-review process; there is no longer a “true.” Wiki- has, in less than a decade’s time, become the hottest affix around – achieving the sort of ubiquity that it took Watergate, and its Satan spawn of “-gates,” most of the ’80s and ’90s to accomplish. Wikinomics is “the” business concept of the new millennium.

And now this. News last week – just days after DFW’s death – that a website had been launched that “throws open the definition of words to all comers.” Wordia.com is a project by esteemed dictionary publisher Collins, a division of HarperCollins Publishers, and it has taken the descriptivist case to its logical extreme: allowing everyone with a video camera to record and upload a clip of themselves defining their chosen word. One contributor, Shane, defines real estate as “the place you grew up, the place I grew up”; another anonymous blogger defines “uncover” as to “reveal the true meaning of something.”

For the organizers of the website, this is about the democratization of the English language. But as DFW wrote in his Harper’s essay, it is indisputably easier to be dogmatic than democratic, especially on issues that are “both vexed and highly charged.” Word usage, he argues, is highly charged – and “the fundamental questions they involve are ones whose answers have to be ‘worked out’ instead of simply found.” It’s not a fashionable argument to be making in this Wiki-You Tube era, but it does have a certain ring of truth – however you choose to define it.

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The business of politics

At the risk of treading into a significant manure pile, I’m going to blog about politics for a bit. With all the electioneering going on these days, I feel I should get to play in the dirt a little too. As a business magazine, we don’t talk about politics all that much; it’s just not something we cover. But there’s one aspect of politics that really should be foremost on a businessperson’s mind: and that’s leadership.

So I’ve been thinking about this, and what struck me is just how different the Conservatives and the Liberals would appear in a business-pitch scenario, facing off to a row of investors, all Dragon’s Den style, forced to really boil down their business plans in a concise, inspiring way.

And this is where, in my mind, the Conservatives are failing. Cut taxes, decrease spending, reduce investment restrictions. Now these policies may or may not make good economic sense—I’m no economist—but I can say with no uncertainty that they’d make terrible television. I can just imagine the reality-TV producers cranking up the whooshy drum suspense music to absurd levels in a vain attempt to compensate as investors crack their jaws yawning.

Now enter the Liberals, slapping down a briefcase and whipping out the most ambitious tax reform Canada’s seen in decades: a national carbon tax. On top of that—the soundtrack shifts to sympathy strings—the tax shift will favour poor Canadians, in an attempt to reverse Canada’s steadily growing economic inequality. There’s courage, drama, compassion: it’s an economic platform made for reality TV.

I guess the question is, what does the audience really want? Maybe the celebrity investors don’t want to be inspired; maybe they’ll be freaked out by all the bravado and choose the safer, more conventional path. Maybe that’s a wise and prudent move.

I don’t know. Maybe it’s because I’m on my second coffee of the morning, but it seems to me the entrepreneurs and investors we celebrate in our pages don’t do that. They dream big, take chances, make grand plans and press onward heroically (and, yes, quite often stupidly).

So are grand schemes such as the carbon tax a smart move? I don’t know. As a journalist, my answer is to get on the phone and call up some real experts and then get all depressed about just how mind-numbingly complex these issues actually are.

But if nothing else, it’s the big plans that grab my attention.

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The art of blame

Skimming through some preliminary research on how to dissolve business partnerships, I noticed a correlation between two things: 1) common mistakes made by businesspeople looking to separate with a long-term partner, and 2) my shoe.

I stepped in canine fecal matter last week. The smell wafted up in errant waves throughout the day, and I eyed my coworkers and fellow transit passengers with suspicion and disgust. Someone, everyone, had horrible breath or a vile hygienic routine.

On discovering the offensive blob mashed into the treads of my shoe, I felt sheepish, to say the least. I had spent the entire day unwilling to consider the offensive odour could possibly be coming from me.

So goes the human condition.

Most of the people I’ve interacted with tend to unwittingly blame things little and big, on a scapegoat instead of identifying how they contributed to the problem. For whatever reason, be it ego or id, humans like to pass the burden of accountability to others when times are rough. The irony is that although it’s easy to point fingers, few of us are actually equipped to handle the accusations of others, which means hackles are raised and the bitch sessions begin. It is impossible to take the high road once you’ve labeled someone as the culprit for any of your personal or professional woes.

You become firmly entrenched in the sloppy battleground of suspicion, launching grenades of reproach and condemnation. It almost always ends badly, so the message is clear—when faced with a difficult situation, look inwards before blaming those around you for whatever mishap has befallen you.

Lamenting one’s actions in crisis after the fact can only go so far in righting the wrong, especially when it comes to laying blame.

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The myth of pixelheads

David Jordan is associate editor of BCBusiness.

I can’t help but respond to Susan Hollis’s post of August 6: “A bookish balance.”

Thanks, Susan, for speaking up on behalf of those of us who still find time for the printed word. Your suggestion that maybe the Internet hasn’t done away with the printed word is a refreshing correction to all the blather about how the Internet has set the globe spinning in a new orbit.

But you write as though the printed word is a historic relic to be preserved as a museum curiosity, as though pre-Internet research was akin to scratching glyphs on a cave wall. Yes, it’s hard to comprehend today, but we did manage to do research in the dark ages, 10 years ago, before the proliferation of personal computers and Web browsers. I worked in a pre-Google newsroom way back in 1998, and it was a little inconvenient at times, but turnaround time was hardly “Paleolithic.” We somehow managed to meet our daily deadlines. (Yes, newspapers actually came out every day—not every eon.)

Rather than suggest that today’s reader may be a hybrid of pre-Internet troglodyte and modern pixelhead, I’d go even further, and suggest that this "new generation of readers and writers addicted to the immediacy and interactivity of the Internet” is entirely mythical. Attention deficit disorder has always been with us, just as there has always been a time to browse for quick entertainment, and a time to read for more substance. These aren’t unique phenomena spawned by the Internet.

I can understand why talk of this “new generation” has gained such traction. Primarily, it makes the new generation feel important. It also makes for entertaining reading and keeps talk-show hosts in business. But ultimately, it’s just fluff spun out of nothing. Yes, the Internet marks a milestone in the history of mass media. But no, it hasn’t spawned a new species of human, unlike any that preceded it.

So here’s to you, Susan, for putting a damper on talk about the death of print. But let’s take it a step further; let’s call a moratorium on talk of this “new generation of readers.”

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