Trappings (Christopher McQuain)

"I MADE AN AMERICAN SQUIRM, AND IT FELT SO RIGHT"

Statement From Morrissey

"With all my heart I urge people to vote against George Bush. Jon Stewart would be ideal, but John Kerry is the logical and sane move. It does not need to be said yet again, but Bush has single-handedly turned the United States into the most neurotic and terror-obsessed country on the planet. For non-Americans, the United States is suddenly not a very nice place to visit because US immigration officers – under the rules of Bush – now conduct themselves with all the charm and unanswerable indignation of Hitler’s SS.

Please bring sanity and intelligence back to the United States.

Don’t forget to vote.

Vote for John Kerry and get rid of George Bush!"

...and in a spirit of intelligence that is in itself a sound rebuke to Bush-ist jingoism and what politics has become in this country, a consummately readable think piece by my fave Joan Didion in a recent issue of The New York Review of Books dissects the teeth-clenchingly idiotic election (read: media and spin) "process" and further explores Ms. Didion's pet issue: The astonishing disconnect between all major American political establishments and actual Americans; the contempt displayed by the political machine for the American citizen via the rigidly self-contained process of polling, media saturation, spin, PR, button-pushing, and pandering is, in Ms. Didion's view, inexhaustible. This may not seem like the time for such subtlety and thoughtfulness (it is, truly, very urgent that we replace Bush with Kerry NOW, then begin the work of building back some semblance of a progressive spirit in the halls of power), but it is a very good piece.