"If he were white, he would simply be one of nine freshmen senators, almost certainly without a multimillion-dollar book deal and a shred of celebrity. Or would he have been elected at all?"



Oh - oops. That's not Gerladine Ferraro, it's that other noted racist, er... Barack Obama - quoted by the LA Times - on his own senatorial web site. "Obama, acknowledges, with no small irony," says the piece hosted by the senator's office, "that he benefits from his race." I guess the irony has got somewhat smaller, since the Obama campaign is using exactly the same sentiment to smear a Clinton supporter.

All's fair in love, war, and the sleaziest possible campaign strategy, I guess. Meh - I'm just pissed off because yet another winning Obama supporter suggested earlier today that anyone who doesn't support Obama - no, sorry, any white person who doesn't support Obama - is "petrified with an irrational fear of a Black President". And they call Hillary Clinton divisive!

I am, frankly, sick to death of the Obama campaign playing the race card - and they've been at it non-stop since the New Hampshire primary. It'd be really, really cool if a few Democrats could just settle down and talk about an issue every now and again. Fat chance, what?


So, anyway, I've been thinking of actually registering with a political party for the first time in my life so that I can participate in Pennsylvania's closed primary (I have until the end of the week to decide). Nine times out of ten, I vote for Democratic candidates, mostly due to lack of options, but I've never been able to lower myself to actually joining their ranks. But I figure, if the Obama camp is promoting the "Democrat for a Day" campaign to get votes for their candidate from Republicans, maybe someone should be a temporary Democrat to balance their skulduggery a bit.

Poll #1154868
Open to: All, results viewable to: All

Should I...

Tags: political rant, poll
humour: pensive

The poll I posted last night arose from a discussion I'd had with a few friends at work. The list that appeared in the poll were the films that either came up several times or from someone who had an extremely strong reaction to a particular fm. It was interesting to see what actually "disturbed" people. In many cases, it was just some class of "ew" factor (something people just find gross) or particularly brutal, often sexual, violence. For me, and a few others, it was often more the political content - hence, my number one choice of [i]The Damned[/i] and, to a large extent, Salo. My other choices included two films that were just too bleak and emotionally desolate: Eraserhead and Quintet. Kids might also get a nod here.

Since the original discussion, I would probably also add The Manchurian Candidate (the original, not the remake) for those politics reasons and Bergman's quasi-trilogy, Through a Glass Darkly, Winter Light, and The Silence for those desolation reasons. Arising from responses here, I'd also add Tetsuo: The Iron Man put forward by seanmonster - though primarily for its rather extreme "ew" factor.

It has also just occured to me that we neglected Peter Greenaway altogether - and surely films like The Baby of Macon, The Draughtsman's Contract, A Zed and Two Noughts, and The Cook, the Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover deserve some sort of disturbing mention.

Anyway, thanks for the responses. There are apparently a few films I need to add to my "must see" list.

Tags: movie madness, poll

Poll #745854
Open to: All, results viewable to: All

Assuming you've seen some of the following, which film would you consider among the most "disturbing" (select a few, if you like):

Tags: movie madness, poll
humour: high