The world is afraid

Here in France, many people are holding their breath, anguished by the thought that something might happen in the unpredictable USA, between now and next Tuesday evening, to prevent Barack Obama from becoming president. In browsing through the Internet press, I have the impression that the Western world at large shares this same fear that something might go wrong at the last minute: either electoral fraud or simply the unspoken refusal to elect a black man. The most terrifying scenario of all, as many commentators have pointed out, would be the election of McCain, followed closely by his death, resulting in the appointment of Mrs Moose to replace him.

Concerning Sarah Palin, there would appear to be no limits to her ignorance and stupidity, combined with a stubborn belief in herself. She's the proverbial dumb bitch, capable of making even George W Bush look like a bright guy. She accompanies her hot air with winks, no doubt believing that common folk will find her smart and cute. And a lot of other dumb Americans probably do find her smart and cute, because she reminds them of the nice fuzzy image they have of themselves. In a policy speech on what she thinks of as misdirected federal funds, Palin wrinkled her silly forehead while looking for examples of wrongful spending, and blurted out: "Things like fruit fly research in Paris, France. I kid you not." [Note the archaic teenage colloquialism, meant to make her sound savvy.]


Research exploiting the insect in question, Drosophila, has contributed greatly to modern genetics, and so-called vinegar flies are still playing a role in this domain. The US embryologist Thomas Hunt Morgan used these tiny red-eyed creatures to investigate mutations, and he was the first geneticist to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, in 1933, for his discoveries on the role of chromosomes in heredity.

Palin is such an idiot that she can't even realize that research in genetics might one day put an end to trisomy 21, from which one of her own kids suffers. Appalled by Palin's words, the White House correspondent for Newsweek, Richard Wolffe, said: "This is the most mindless, ignorant, uninformed comment we have seen from Governor Palin so far, and there has been a lot of competition for that prize." Personally, I would prefer to give Palin the jackpot prize for her beliefs in so-called creationism: you know, all that shit about Adam and Eve walking around with dinosaurs some six thousand years ago. In any case, no matter what outstanding stupidity awards we give her, that woman is clearly an American catastrophe.

Moose rap

I'm including this photo just in case you've been out beyond the Solar System over the last few days, without Internet access:

Funnily enough, few commentators seem to be aware of the exact circumstances in which John McCain struck this intriguing pose... so I feel obliged to set things straight. You see, for the last week, Sarah Palin and her boss have been rehearsing secretly a song and dance routine called the Moose rap, which Sarah had intended to present on last weekend's Saturday Night Live show. Well, either McCain was totally obsessed with this rap number, or he simply decided to surprise everybody by a sneak preview of Sarah's act. Whatever the reason, at the end of his debate with Barack Obama, McCain suddenly amazed everybody by breaking spontaneously into a stand-up presentation of their Moose rap. The security guys and medical personnel jumped onto him instantly, just after this shot was taken. They thought he was having a fit, or preparing to do something beastly to Obama. A police officer told journalists that McCain's opening antics were so stunningly moose-like that there were irrational fears among onlookers that Palin might be in the audience, and that she might suddenly whip out a gun and shoot the Republican candidate.

In the wake of this incident, Sarah herself decided that the Moose rap was dangerous stuff to perform, so she thought it preferable to hand over the words and music to other artists, as she explains here:



Truly, in the context of phenomena such as the Moose rap, the US presidential campaign is attaining deliriously high levels of intelligence, artistic sophistication and political perfection.

Weighty endorsements

Barack Obama recently received the endorsement of three great US newspapers: the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune. And I wouldn't be surprised if the New York Times were to come out explicitly for him in the near future. Besides, it has just been announced that one of the four well-known individuals in the following photo has endorsed the Democratic candidate. Try to guess which one.

Hint: It's not the guy at the microphone, nor the lady. Another hint: The fellow in question once made a lot of stupid blunders concerning Saddam Hussein. Final hint: His military rank is General.

During the next few weeks, if Obama encounters any more nonsense about his alleged inability to handle the job of commander in chief of the planet's most powerful nation, he'll be able to retort: "It's funny you should feel that way, because Colin thinks I'm OK for the job." With that kind of weighty endorsement, Obama won't normally need to dress himself up in a fighter-pilot costume and get himself flown down onto the deck of an aircraft carrier.

This morning, Colin Powell referred to John McCain as a "friend of over 25 years" before stating that the Republican presidential candidate "was a little unsure as to how to deal with the economic problems we're facing". Apparently, the former US secretary of state has no such qualms about the aptitude of Obama. As for Sarah Palin, Powell said curtly: "I don't believe she's ready to be president of the United States." To my mind, that's an understatement... a bit like suggesting, say, that I'm not ready to be pope.

Body language

I've always disliked this expression, "body language", because I simply hate the very idea that my physical carcass might be capable of "saying things", spontaneously and uncontrollably, which don't necessarily coincide with the purer expressions of my mind. But I'm obliged to accept the veracity of this concept, which implies that successful lying is a rare art, which can only be mastered by a handful of great actors. For years, my two children have told me with amusement that, as soon as I'm about to talk rubbish, my facial features start flashing and beeping like a red lamp on a police vehicle. So, I'm a lousy liar.

There's something even worse than body language. I'm referring to an individual's distinctive gait. I was made aware of this characteristic, personally, back in the early '60s, in Sydney. I had made arrangements by phone to meet up with my friend John Weiley in William Street, which swoops down in a long line from Kings Cross. At a distance of several hundred meters, I was surprised to see a creature waving his arms as if to send a message. It was John, whom I hadn't seen for about a year, informing me that he had recognized me. When we met up, John surprised me by informing me that my gait made me recognizable from a great distance. Up until then, I didn't even know that I had a personal gait.

Irish joke. The other day, strolling along High Street, I thought I saw Patrick Hickey approaching me. The closer I got to Patrick, the more I was sure that he too realized it was me. When we met up, though, we both realized it was neither of us.

The ugly gait of George W Bush, with rigid shoulders and arms, resembles that of a disgruntled but self-confident wrestler who has just been thrown out of the ring. As for John McCain, no matter whether he remains immobile or moves, agitating his robotic arms, he still looks like an exhibit at Madame Tussaud's waxworks.


It goes without saying that we should not mock certain celebrities simply because their gait reminds us of a certain comical character. That would be too easy. While it was true that George W Bush looked like a numbskull wrestler, it was normal that we should have to wait for a few years, and a few thousand deaths of soldiers in Iraq, before we knew with certainty that he was indeed a numbskull political wrestler. Naturally, it would be nice if the gait of a political candidate could warn us beforehand of his/her mentality.

Let me just add a word or two about the most famous Yogi Bear on US media at the present moment: Joe the Plumber.

Is he real or invented? Apparently, he exists. His name (which might sound un-Alaskan, if not un-American, to Mrs Moose) is Joseph Wurzelbacher, but reports remain fuzzy about his authentic credentials. Is he really a typical tradesman trying to make a buck for his wife and kids, or might he be a comedy figure? Today, in God's Own Country, anything is possible. In any case, I hope that Joe, through his notoriety and the sexy shape of his head, has a chance of sneaking up on procreative Palin, coming to tradesman's terms with her, and—who knows, in an ideal scenario—maybe even snaking her plumbing.

Mrs Moose super star

Once again, on SNL [Saturday Night Live], lovely Tina Fey did a great job impersonating Sarah Palin, while Amy Poehler played the news anchor Katie Couric. Recent words from the real Mrs Moose—for example, on the sense of her wishy-washy explanations about the proximity of Alaska and Russia—provided SNL writers with lots of good material.

[Click the image to see the video.]

If you want to witness a complicated surrealist aspect of the real Sarah Palin, in the religious domain, look at the following video:

[Click the image to see the video.]

To call a spade a spade, it's becoming clear that Sarah Palin is a weirdo. More precisely, a dangerous fuckwit. But it's nice to know that she's there, standing alongside John McCain, and shouting out her bullshit from the rooftops, for all to hear, because she's no doubt doing wonders for the presidential hopes of Barack Obama.

Bullet head

Mrs Moose's style of hairdo was popular when I first arrived in France, in 1962. To designate it, my gay friend Richard O'Sullivan invented the expression "bullet head"... which is more than fitting in the case of the gun-toting pit bull from Alaska. In François Truffaut's landmark film entitled Stolen Kisses (1968), Claude Jade (seen here alongside Jean-Pierre Léaud) has a bullet head:

Besides, in Truffaut's following film, Domicile Conjugal (1970), Claude Jade with glasses has a distinct Sarah Palin look.

In a sketch on NBC's Saturday Night Live TV show, the comedian Tina Fey does a splendid job of impersonating Palin, alongside Amy Poehler playing Hillary Clinton.



I love the vision of global warming: "just God huggin' us closer".

Seriously, I agree with a journalist in this morning's New York Daily News that the best Obama strategy for dealing with a superficial but flashy phenomenon such as Palin is to simply ignore her.

Maybe McCain's the father!

I'm aware that I have no grounds for making suggestions concerning the paternity of Mrs Moose's offspring. But there's an odd chance that I might go down in Internet history as the first blogger who hit upon the truth of the great US 2008 Vice-Presidential Affair. [Please keep a copy of this post, indicating the exact time at which it appeared on your computer screen... just in the case the Wikipedia or Guinness Book of Records people ask me for evidence concerning my revelation.]

Now, if ever John McCain were to attack me for drawing fuzzy conclusions about things I ignore, my lawyers would insist that McCain and all the leggy Moose clan must render public their DNA signatures. That would be a modern way of going about things. Public figures have always been expected to reveal the true details of their personal state of health... or illness, as the case may be. Ample DNA data would have the advantage of letting us guess beforehand what might possibly go wrong with the candidate. Now, don't try to tell me that personal data about a potential American president and vice-president concerns only the citizens of the USA. Even such a simple thing as the IQ of George W Bush turned into a planetary catastrophe that has affected us all.

Nightmare: Mrs Moose governs the globe!

Here's a terrifying thought experiment. Hypothesis: John McCain is elected president. Now imagine: In the exciting high-altitude post-electoral atmosphere, while screwing over-energetically his golden girl Cindy, the 72-year-old war hero ruptures some kind of bodily aeronautical valve, fails to manipulate correctly the bail-out device, and crashes in flames to his death. Oh my God! It's youthful Mrs Moose, 44-year-old Sarah Palin from Alaska, totally inexperienced in worldly affairs and primed with primitive religious beliefs, who would then take the reins of the most powerful nation of the planet...

Let's be optimistic. In selecting Simple Sarah as his presidential running-mate (she strikes me as the sort of earthy backwoods creature who knows both how to run and how to mate), John McCain has surely removed all barriers on Barack Obama's highway to Washington.

Black is tricolor

There's no doubt about the fact that France supports Obama. The blue, white and red colors of the French tricolor are designated in French as bleu, blanc, rouge. But, in the joyous days of France's soccer victory in 1998, a new color system emerged, designated as black, blanc, beur. What's this new color, beur? It's inverted slang for "Arabe". Effectively, French society today is a mixture of dyed-in-the-wool oldtimers named Dupont or Martin, or something like that, and all kinds of exotic newcomers from diverse backgrounds. A new melting pot has come into existence.

France is unlikely to retain fond memories of George W Bush and his old pal Donald Rumsfeld, searching for illusive weapons of mass destruction in their Axis of Evil. What stupidity, shared by Blair in the UK and Howard in Australia. The less said, the better...