There's a nice little puff piece at AriannaOnLine featuring 9 things culled from excerpts out of a new biography that you may not have known about the president. The list includes the kind of stuff that will confirm everyone's biases: He's either down-to-earth & normal, awesome & extraordinary, complex & circumspect, or narcissistic & Machiavellian. And, of course he can be all of the above.
In my conversations in the real world, I have discovered that the only thing most people know about the president is the stuff that got him the Ad Age Marketer of the Year award four years ago: Nothing but a winning impression. They are not even informed enough to make excuses for him, though they're still capable of worrying what might happen were he to lose reelection.
I don't extrapolate too much from my imprecise sampling as far as it relates to voters versus non-voters. I'm pretty sure it represents a significant segment of society that vaguely identifies with imagery, but is deaf and dumb otherwise.
Filmmaker Alex Cox has blogged something about the NDAA's domestic brainwashing feature (under the heading Hollywood Propaganda). I recently mentioned the amendment to someone who wasn't familiar with any aspects of the NDAA, who, in fact, turned out to be completely unaware of current US foreign policy, but admitted to having heard something or another about drones.
I wouldn't consider this worthy of remark if the ignorance were based on obliviousness. But true to common form, this person was able to muster the concern that the incumbent president not retaining his office would amount to a "return to Bush".
In my conversations in the real world, I have discovered that the only thing most people know about the president is the stuff that got him the Ad Age Marketer of the Year award four years ago: Nothing but a winning impression. They are not even informed enough to make excuses for him, though they're still capable of worrying what might happen were he to lose reelection.
I don't extrapolate too much from my imprecise sampling as far as it relates to voters versus non-voters. I'm pretty sure it represents a significant segment of society that vaguely identifies with imagery, but is deaf and dumb otherwise.
Filmmaker Alex Cox has blogged something about the NDAA's domestic brainwashing feature (under the heading Hollywood Propaganda). I recently mentioned the amendment to someone who wasn't familiar with any aspects of the NDAA, who, in fact, turned out to be completely unaware of current US foreign policy, but admitted to having heard something or another about drones.
I wouldn't consider this worthy of remark if the ignorance were based on obliviousness. But true to common form, this person was able to muster the concern that the incumbent president not retaining his office would amount to a "return to Bush".
