Werner Herzog, David Lynch, et al Direct the Super Bowl

Ayaan Hirsi Ali @ the Union Theatre

(Photo lovingly horked from The Badger Herald.)

Ayaan Hirsi Ali finally appeared onstage about an hour late as some 1,300 people had to pass through metal detectors before entering the Union Theatre last night. She had braved the snow and cold to speak about feminism and how certain stripes of Islam put women in chains. Numerous campus groups, some very much in opposition, filled out a long list of sponsors of the event. While various feminist groups got some loud cheers when their names were mentioned, the student Objectivist group seemed to have but a backer or two in the audience.

Ali was formally introduced by UW sociologist Chad Goldberg who placed her in the Enlightenment tradition of Liberalism or, what we here in the States refer to as Classical Liberalism. That is, she celebrates and advocates for the primacy of the individual in the same way that John Locke did. When Ali finally took to the stage, she was greeted very warmly by most but with a few shouts of “Allahu Akbar” as well. She explained that it means "God is great" and is often said by Muslims when they begin some kind of trial or ordeal. She added, “I’m not going to say God is great.”

She began her talk by giving a brief account of her life. Born in 1969, she was raised as a Muslim. In 1992, she fled to Holland seeking refuge from an arranged marriage. There she learned to speak Dutch and spent considerable time helping fellow Somali women who had emigrated there. After getting her degree, she worked for a think tank and wrote on issues of Muslim assimilation into Dutch society. Ali ultimately concluded that Islam and Western democratic ideals were incompatible. A 3-year term in the Dutch parliament followed as did a collaboration with filmmaker Theo van Gogh on the film Submission which portrayed how Islamic women submitted to the wills of others in their faith. For this, van Gogh was killed (shot and decapitated) and his corpse left with a note threatening Ali pinned to it with a knife.

From this point, she proceeded to inveigh against Islamic doctrine which condones the subjugation and maltreatment of women. Even in Western Europe, Ali noted, Muslim girls are pulled from school at a young age by their families and Muslim women suffer confinement and violence. Even here in the U.S., she claimed, Muslim women have violence perpetrated against them that is sanctioned by Islam. The first step in ending this was to recognize that fundamentalist Islam is the biggest offender and that concerned individuals must bring intelligence and reason to bear upon the problems encountered by women.

Ali asked for a show of hands as to how many people know about Sarah and Amina Yaser Said who were killed in Texas by their father who found that their dating habits offended his Islamic sensibilities. She counted only 6 or 7 amongst the 1,300 of us there. If these girls had been white with Christian parents, the story would have gotten more play, she argued. When Westerners sweep forced marriage, confinement, etc. under the carpet in the name of not demonizing a minority, we become indifferent to the plight of these women.

That, in a nutshell, was Hirsi Ali's case. Western societies need to stop being indifferent, to stop looking the other way. We must confront the issues head-on by creating an environment where Islam can be probed, confronted, and criticized. The basic tenets of Islam should be examined in the same way that we examine the tenets of anything else.

During the Q&A which followed Ali's speech, Asifa Quraishi, a Constitutional law professor here at the UW gave some examples of the rights of women here in the United States being abrogated and said that, if you thought her examples represent all of US law, then you are wrong just as Ali's examples don't represent all of Islamic law. She finished her remarks by saying, "I advise all of us to take a pause and think that maybe there is a little bit more to this story than we have heard tonight."

While I took her point, I couldn't help but wonder exactly what more to the story there could be which would justify the subjugation of women in Islam – the arranged marriages, the confinement, etc. For her part, Ali gave her own rejoinder: "Do you think you could have an honest debate on abortion or gay rights in Saudi Arabia and get away with it?" Furthermore, she noted, marital rape is legal in Iran and Saudi Arabia. We may never know what more there is to the story that Ms. Quraishi thinks could ameliorate that situation.

While thanks must go to the University for bringing Ms. Ali here to speak, shame on the students for having first rejected her for being too controversial.

When Ayaan Hirsi Ali's name was first mentioned as a possible speaker at UW-Madison this semester, she was rejected as too controversial.

Students first voted against bringing Hirsi Ali because they didn't want to be seen as supporting her agenda, said Reid Tice, chair of the Distinguished Lecture Series committee. But when a scheduled speaker, sportswriter Rick Reilly, fell through, the committee reconsidered Hirsi Ali.

Courting controversy is one of the functions of a university. You take the ideas and then subject them to some rigorous sifting and winnowing. Ali echoed this sentiment during the Q&A when she said that the West must emancipate itself from its fear of criticizing Islam and to protect the rights of those who think aloud, whether they be Muslims or not.

The president of the UW's Muslim Student Association, Rashid Dar, expressed concern that Ali's words would cause the audience to be suspicious of Muslims.

"Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a speaker who attributes certain rather negative qualities to the Islamic faith as a whole," Dar said, adding that he's worried "everyone would leave thinking Islam is a little bit suspicious, something that we need to worry about and, by extension, Muslims are something we need to worry about as well."

Instant Islamophobia. Just add Ayaan Hirsi Ali. How insulting, Mr. Dar. The crux of Ali's message was that many women suffer under Islam as it is practiced in various parts of the world, including right here in the States, and that we should not be afraid to talk about this. I didn't find her to be spreading Islamophobia. She was imploring discussion.

It's A Kielbasa Wrapped in a Pork Loin Inside An Enigma

On Saturday I decided to cook Polish food. I wanted to try something I'd not made previously and so chose rolada wieprzowa nadziewana kiełbasą which is a rolled pork loin stuffed with sausage. So it was off to Knoche's for a pork loin and Bavaria Sausage Kitchen for some fresh kielbasa.

Back home I busted out my meat tenderizer and started on the loin. By the time I was done, it was a bit thicker than it should have been but, as John Lennon once said, I got blisters on my fingers so I called it. Bavaria's fresh Polish sausage is not the greatest but it's still decent. I spread it on the pork loin, rolled the thing up, and tied it off. It got dredged in seasoned flour and then browned.

Before starting the cooking process proper, I threw salt & pepper on it as well as some highly tasty smoked paprika. For liquid I used a mix of beef and chicken stocks as well as some of Capital's Baltic Porter. Here she is a-cookin'.



And this is a cross-section of the cooked porky goodness.



I made the dish z wiśniami or "with cherries". In this case, it was a cherry sauce made with lots of wine. A little broccoli, lettuce salad, and a slice of hearty Polish rye bread from Chicago rounded out the meal.



While I'm on the subject of Polish food, Pączki Day will be here soon so I procured a bunch of pączki. I've never had this brand before and was happy to discover that they are quite good. The Dulcinea and Miles feel the same way so they are going pretty fast. Since someone inevitably asks me where they can get pączki around Madison, I'll say that I am told that Scott's Pastry Shoppe in Middleton makes a poor imitation of pączki. I've also heard a rumor that Lane's Bakery makes them for Shrovetide but this is just a rumor. And I believe Cub Foods bakeries make them, if memory serves, and they are not too bad.

Death Awaits You All With Nasty, Tiny, Pointy Teeth

Our cat has taken a shine to a piece of rubber hose. The act of picking it up causes her pupils to dilate and she immediately goes into attack mode. It really brings out the beast in her.





All that strenuous playing requires a lie-down on the couch and a good bath afterward.

Doyle's Sixth Sense Sees People In the Middle of Nowhere

Yesterday the Wisconsin State Journal had an article in which Gov. Doyle categorically states that Madison must have a train station out at the airport:

"You clearly have to stop at the airport," he told the Wisconsin State Journal editorial board. "You’ve got to be there."

Why? What makes this imperative?

This statement contradicts another one he made earlier:

"You have to stop where the people are," Doyle said.

And this is where the people are?



The people aren't out in the boonies by the airport, an area which local maps label HIC SVNT DRACONES.

Convenience, Mr. Doyle. Convenience, convenience, convenience! The people have spoken:

The survey showed Americans would be most excited by the possibility of more convenient travel (71 percent), less expensive fares (69 percent) and faster trains (55 percent) with the introduction of high-speed rail in their region.

Dropping passengers off on the outskirts of town like contestants on Survivor is not convenient. Generally speaking, folks in Milwaukee favor a stop as close to downtown as possible – see this piece at Urban Milwaukee:

Why does this matter to Milwaukee? The station’s location significantly affects the mobility of travelers from Milwaukee and Chicago upon arrival in Madison. A more central location affords flexibility for spouses to work in different cities, greatly increasing the number of available jobs. It allows students to more reliably get from one city to the other. A downtown-to-downtown connection also greatly increases the ability for businesses to collaborate and grow in both cities.

…and this one at the Journal-Sentinel:

If traveling to Madison, what possible reason would I want to be dropped off at the Dane County Regional Airport, miles from downtown?" Danielsen wrote in a recent e-mail to state and federal officials. "If I snail transportation to get from the airport / have to take local bus to where I wanted to be in the first place downtown, you just put me back in my car again, time-wise and convenience-wise.

Note that Danielsen listed convenience and travel time, both of which are listed above in the survey results.

While not all travelers have the same destination, I find it difficult to believe that a majority of riders wouldn't be headed downtown or to campus. The Capitol & other apparatuses of state government, sports arenas, the Convention Center, the UW, the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery, museums, the hotels some visitors to these places would probably stay at, etc. are in and around downtown. Events that attract folks from out of town such as the Ironman competition and the Great Taste of the Midwest either happen downtown or are easily accessible from downtown. Amtrak's Hiawatha line, of which Madison is to be a stop, is in many ways a commuter line and commuter rail is about getting to the center of a city, not its periphery. Ideally, the train stop would be right downtown, such as at Monona Terrace. This ain't gonna happen so we've got to locate it as close to The Square as possible because Badger Bus and the state employee car pool are going to run rings around the train in terms of convenience.

In addition, the train will, at some point, need Internet access and other amenities to try and lure commuters away from buses and cars since they are more convenient.

On the other side, a location closer to downtown will be much more convenient for many Madisonians heading east as it is better served by bus and closer to where most of Madison lives. Plus a station at the airport can lead to only little or no development at all around it whereas a station on East Washington is more likely to spur growth.

I am seriously flummoxed as to why Doyle wants to put the station out at the airport.

Anthony Bourdain in Milwaukee

If, like me, you missed Anthony Bourdain at the Riverside Theatre in Milwaukee last week, you may be interested to know that someone recorded the show. Well, here it is. While it's not a magnificent example of audio fidelity, it can still be good listening. It's rough going at first, but gets better as the recording progresses.

The taper has provided the following titles for the segments of his routine:

Rachel Ray's Fruitbasket & Terror
FN Shows
Golden Arches
Travelling Vegetarians
Spaghetti Bolognese
Questions

The show runs about 92 minutes.

Also of note, Milwaukee will be featured on an upcoming episode of No Reservations.

Download show

The Doctor Explains Supernovas

This is pretty slick. Dr. Megan Argo explains the discovery of a jet of radio energy from a supernova in the form of a short Doctor Who story. (The real version will appear in Nature magazine as "A mildly relativistic radio jet from the normal Type Ic Supernova 2007gr".)

"You see that one?" he said, pointing to a large red star to one side of the cluster. "It's just one ordinary star doing what it does but, any minute now, for a tiny fraction of time, it will become brighter than this entire galaxy! The explosion will be visible in the skies of thousands of species across hundreds of galaxies. To most of them it's just another transient star, but not you humans, oh no! Scientists on your planet point as many telescopes as they can at it. They even give it a name: 2007gr."

How To Report the News

Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps Trailer

There is now a trailer for Oliver Stone's Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, the sequel to his 1987 film Wall Street. Cell phones have come a long way in 23 years.

Clocks and Culture by Carlo Cipolla

Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-two million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea.

I recently finished reading Carlo M. Cipolla's short tome Clocks and Culture: 1300-1700 and was a bit disappointed. I bought it expecting to understand how the introduction and proliferation of clocks affected daily life in Western Europe but got something very different.

Don't get me wrong, it is not the case that his book is uninteresting, but rather that it's more of an economic history than a cultural one which makes the title all the more confusing. The focus here is on horology as a craft and how it developed over time. The ancients had water clocks and fire clocks (I presume a fire clock is a candle with a known and rather uniform rate of melting.) but it was the mechanical clock which arose in the second half of the 13th century where things really take off.

At first only your local liege could afford one. Besides, they were huge so you didn't want to transport them too far. As time wore on, technology advanced. Clocks became smaller and more affordable. Horology went from being a field dominated by singular artisans (think da Vinci) to a one where division of labor dominated. Instead of one guy designing and building the contraptions, you had an engineer design one, smiths make the parts, and, at sucking hind teat, assemblers assembling them. Cipolla goes into how the centers of clockmaking in Europe shifted. Early on the Italians were at the forefront. Then it was the Germans and the Swiss. Later the Dutch and the English had most of the renown.

Interestingly, clockmakers often moved to where there was work. I got the feeling that medieval people, while not as mobile as we are today, traveled and moved about a lot more than we generally think they did. Well, some of them, anyway.

So that's the first half of the book. The second half describes the reception of mechanical clocks in China and Japan. In the Orient clocks were a novelty owned by the rich. They weren't installed in towers and had no practical value for a long time. Cipolla offers some explanation but concedes that there is no easy answer to the question of why the West went and organized everything in life around them while the East did not.

I did learn, however that Europeans sold pornographic clocks to the Heavenly Kingdom. Just imagine some mandarin presenting a big phallic timepiece or some pudendum shaped clock to his master.

As I said above, the book doesn't really address the issue of people used to a day consisting of the time between sunrise and sunset suddenly having to contend with uniform lengths of time. Ergo I'll have to keep looking for a book that does.

Space Shuttle Gone To Pieces

This is incredibly cool, if a bit disconcerting. Done with still pictures, Photoshop, and After Effects by The Faking Hoaxer.

Mr. Doane, Tear Down That Wall

The Orpheum is returning to its single screen roots.

There is no definite timeline yet, but owner Henry Doane said Tuesday that the downtown icon will return to a one-screen theater format, choosing instead to focus on more live performances by musical theater companies, musical acts and comedians.

"Broadway-style productions, dance recitals, ballets or operas even - those type of things we'd like to focus more on in the future," Doane said.

Doane said the Orpheum will still show films, listing options like retrospectives and smaller film festivals.

Considering the loss, I'd say the added variety will be Madison's gain. When was the last time a commercial theatre in Madison gave a run to an old film that had been re-released? (Film festivals don't count.) It's been a while. Perhaps during Westgate's last gasp when they screened DVDs. Movies aside, I think adding more live performances of every stripe is a great idea.

I just know the folks in Squonk Opera are dying to return to Madison.

WI To Get $823 Million For High-Speed Rail

I am happy to say I was wrong yesterday and that Madison shall soon see its first regular passenger rail service since 30 April 1971. Our fair state is getting an $823 million chunk of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds for high-speed rail.

Wisconsin will receive $810 million in federal stimulus money to establish high-speed passenger rail from Milwaukee to Madison and to study the possibility of extending it to the Twin Cities, President Barack Obama's administration will announce Thursday.

The 80-mile Madison to Milwaukee line will receive $810 million for new and renovated stations and track improvements to extend Amtrak's existing Hiawatha service from Chicago to the state capital, according to advance details from the White House. The state's existing Milwaukee to Chicago line will receive $12 million to do track and signal improvements to improve timeliness and prepare for eventual 110 mph service. In October, state officials estimated the project would cost $651.8 million, and said the remainder of the money would be used as a reserve if the project goes over budget.

Another $1 million is being awarded to study a possible high-speed rail line between Madison and Minneapolis and St. Paul.

Mayor Dave blogged about the announcement saying, "We'll now get down to work on finalizing our station locations. We'll go for something on the Near East Side and perhaps another station at the Dane County Airport." This would appear to mean that he favors Yahara Station as our first/primary station as opposed to simply having a solitary one at the airport, which is great news.

Whoever is our mayor next term should give high priority to using a near east side rail stop to spur redevelopment of the East Washington corridor. In the near term, once a station location has been chosen, Madison Metro should begin investigating possible route changes to make getting to and from the station as convenient as humanly possible.

Lastly, can we please have a train station that doesn't look like a prefab from a Sears catalogue? Let's build something interesting instead of a plain box. Perhaps something akin to the architecture of the Capitol. And don't forget to put a cheese shop and brewpub in there as well.

Historical Society Reading Room Redux

The renovation of the Wisconsin Historical Society's Reading Room is nearly complete. You will soon be able to investigate your family's genealogy in style. It's been restored to its turn of the century goodness.



The carpet adhesive has cured and furniture sits atop.



The ceiling is quite ornate and just gorgeous.

High-Speed Rail Funding Announcements Tomorrow

Exactly how that $8 billion pie of high-speed railing funds will be disbursed shall be revealed tomorrow by Obama.

Obama and Vice President Joe Biden plan to announce grants for 13 major corridors during a town hall meeting in Tampa, Fla., Thursday, the president's first public appearance following his speech to the nation. It's an attempt by the White House to show that getting Americans back to work is the president's top priority and that he has a plan for how to do it.

The president's visit to the region means Florida's proposal for a high-speed line connecting Orlando and Tampa is likely to receive funding. California's proposal for an 800-mile-long rail line from Sacramento to San Diego and a nine-state proposal in the Midwest are also considered strong contenders.

We Midwesterners shouldn't despair that Florida is getting cash, however. Obama's "railroad czar" Joseph Szabo recently praised our region's HSR plans.

I'm not sure if these funds must be spent directly on HSR or not. If not, my guess is that any money coming to the Midwest will likely go to relieving bottlenecks and updating infrastructure in the Chicago area to accommodate passenger rail and facilitate the passage of freight trains through Chicagoland which would certainly benefit Amtrak routes.

Regardless, I doubt that Madison will be getting a train stop out of these funds as it seems like speeding up the Chicago--St. Louis route is getting a lot of attention. If Madison is unaffected by this round of funding, proponents of Yahara Station should step up their campaign as there will be no more excuses about keeping the stop at the airport because of a desire to not change plans at the last minute.

Remember, when it comes to high-speed rail, people want convenience.

DeForest is Ablaze

First Naughty Novelties goes up in smoke and now it's Club 51 up the road apiece.

All businesses on Highway 51 should be on alert.

Best Acceptance Speech. Ever.

The A.V. Club is right - this is the best awards show speech ever. This is what happens when you live in Sweden and don't get enough sunlight.



UPDATE: This is apparently a send-up of Lady Gaga.

Auf Wiedersehen Bill Moyers and NOW

PBS is axing both Bill Moyers Journal and NOW, two of their flagship public affairs programs. Regardless of the political bent of these shows, they often looked at issues that get little to no play in the rest of the media. I will especially miss Moyers as he brought on people who were fascinating to listen to. I mean, where else would you find an hour devoted to discussing Thomas Paine featuring UW Green Bay prof Harvey Kaye?

Campbell's + Ore-Ida = Hotdish

I was reading Katjusa Cisar's article about the Slow Food UW's Family Dinner Night and was reminded about a dish in a completely different vein that I had this past weekend.

You see, I attended a funeral on Saturday up in Eau Claire for a friend's mother who had passed away earlier in the week. After the service there was food served at the Masonic Temple. One of the dishes was this stuff:


(Photo found here.)

It looked like they had taken a bag of mixed frozen vegetables (i.e. – corn, peas, and carrots), stirred it into some cream of chicken soup, and topped it with tater tots. For some reason, tater tot hotdish/casserole just seems blatantly small town Wisconsin to me. I'm sure the Ore-Ida & Campbell's folks have done their best to make sure that this dish is universal, but I don't recall eating it as a kid in Chicago. It appears neither in Apple Betty & Sloppy Joe nor The Flavor of Wisconsin so I am at a loss to say if it's a regional thing or what. Presumably it appeared in the late 1950s and, for whatever reason, really took off up nort.

Where is Terese Allen when you need her?

We Are All Suckers Now

I just had to laugh upon reading Paul Soglin's the-sky-is-falling reaction to the Supreme Court's decision on Citizens United v. FED. He wrote: …the fanatical right wing U.S. Court majority tore up the Constitution and legislated from the bench." The ruling has "plunged our nation into political chaos".

Zoinks! You'd think that McCain-Feingold was our last desperate bulwark against the influx of corporate money into our political system, which as we all know, has been free of corporate greenbacks for centuries.

Soglin continues:

As any school child knows, the freedom of speech is not absolute. You cannot shout "Fire" in a crowded theater intending to create a panic or disturbance. Two mobsters cannot discuss the execution of their boss and get away with it, even if they do not kill him. And you cannot go up to a stranger in a convincing manner and threaten to punch out his lights.

The implications here are: 1) that political speech paid for by corporations is equivalent to threats and discussion of murder and 2) that, any abrogation of free speech by Congress is automagically Constitutionally sound. Firstly, if you think an ad for a particular candidate is the same as trying to incite a riot or threaten physical violence, then you need your head examined. Exactly how are they the same? Well, Soglin doesn't bother to say, presumably because this would expose some kind of derangement which equates threats and violence to political speech. Secondly, sure, freedom of speech is not absolute, but this generalization doesn't mean Congress can limit freedom of speech as it pleases nor does it shed any light on the case at hand. The issue isn't whether freedom of speech is absolute, the issue is whether specific laws were unconstitutional or not.

More:

For over a century, from state houses to the U.S. Congress, there were laws limiting contributions to political campaigns, particularly by corporations.

Pretty slick, eh? Nice job of changing the subject there, Mr. Soglin. Citizens United v. FEC wasn't about donating money to political campaigns. From the SCOTUS blog linked to above:

The Supreme Court ruled yesterday that the government may not keep corporations (and probably, as Lyle reasons in his post yesterday, labor unions) from spending money to support or denounce individual candidates in elections. While the business entities may not give money directly to campaigns, they may seek to persuade the voting public through other means, including ads, especially where these ads were not broadcast. (Emphasis mine.)

Glenn Greenwald's reaction to the case was much more level-headed and he addressed the argument that precedents were overturned:

Then there's the always intellectually confused discussions of stare decisis and precedent. It's absolutely true that the Citizens United majority cavalierly tossed aside decades of judicial opinions upholding the constitutionality of campaign finance restrictions. But what does that prove? Several of the liberals' most cherished Supreme Court decisions did the same (Brown v. Bd. of Education rejected Plessy v. Ferguson; Lawrence v. Texas overruled Bowers v. Hardwick, etc.).

I don't know for certain, but I'd bet a dollar to a doughnut that Soglin didn't think Brown v. Board of Education was a most heinous example of legislating from the bench. Legislating is only an egregious offense for Soglin when he personally disagrees with the outcome.

Another Madisonian, Gregory Humphrey, also takes a myopic view of the ruling.

The idea advanced by Republicans that this ruling bolsters the First Amendment is cock-eyed. (Shocking!!) Who will be the victor when large and uncontrolled corporate concerns start to thrash around the airwaves with ad after ad while the average voice of the citizen is muted?

Again, nothing about the text of the decision, only that he doesn't like the results. Greenwald addresses this in another blog post:

When a court invalidates Law X or Government Action Y on constitutional grounds, it's always so striking how one's views about the validity of the court's ruling track one's beliefs about the desirability of Law X/Action Y on policy grounds (e.g., "I like Law X and disagree with the Court's ruling declaring Law X unconstitutional" or "I dislike Law X and agree with the Court's striking down Law X").

It's critical always to note that these are two entirely distinct questions: (1) is Law X/Government Action Y a good thing?, and (2) is Law X/Government Action Y Constitutional?

He also notes that it isn't simply Republicans who see political speech by corporations as being free speech, as Humphrey would have you believe, but Democrats do as well.

Humphrey's sarcasm is very disappointing and, to me, that he takes his own freedom of speech for granted. That it's never been threatened has lead to complacency. Freedom of speech, if I may paraphrase Noam Chomsky, is for the speech you don't like. It is something you should be happy to extend to others and not something the expansion of which you should reflexively deride. Perhaps if Humphrey spent a sabbatical somewhere else where there was no freedom of speech and people who, say, advocated for gay marriage could be whisked off the street never to be seen again, he might think twice about casually viewing the expansion of freedom of speech as something only to be celebrated by evil people like Republicans.

Humphrey is also wrong in asserting elsewhere that "newspapers are front line in democracy". The front line in a democracy is an electorate that doesn't have its collective head up its collective ass. Corporate political speech wouldn't be a large issue if voters responded critically to political speech generally and demanded that candidates do more than wrap themselves in the flag and spout meaningless slogans such as "Yes we can!" In 2004, many progressives demanded nothing more from a Democratic candidate for President other than not being George Bush. In 2008 a blatantly centrist candidate named Barack Obama was hailed by lefties as the second coming of Christ. Instead of looking at his platform, many simply heard the word "change" and drooled like a Pavlovian dog.

I'm not exactly thrilled at the idea of corporate money in our electoral process. Greg Palast worries:

Under the Court's new rules, progressive list serves won't stand a chance against the resources of new "citizens" such as CNOOC, the China National Offshore Oil Corporation. Maybe UBS (United Bank of Switzerland), which faces U.S. criminal prosecution and a billion-dollar fine for fraud, might be tempted to invest in a few Senate seats. As would XYZ Corporation, whose owners remain hidden by "street names."

I share his concern but I can't help but worry that fears of corporations funding more Swift Boat ads is also an indictment of we the people for being suckers.