The Rawness

I’ve been killing flies with my bare hands my whole life. I have always kept quiet and never bragged about this fact, not because of any humility but because I was totally unaware of what an awesome feat this was. But apparently it is. Little did I know that I have been all this time a veritable Superman, with the reflexes of a cheetah and the bravado of an alpha ape. And I have Obama to thank for this discovery.

See, Obama killed a fly during an interview recently. I saw the headline reported in an oddly prominent fashion all through last week, which I found off given how there seemed to be more important Obama-related things to focus on like his wishy-washy responses to North Korea threatening to launch a nuclear missile in the direction of his hometown of Hawaii and the fallout from the Iranian elections. But no, despite all that, the media reassures us Obama is a badass tough guy because…he can kill a fly.

Seriously. It’s no news that the media will jump on any attempt to furiously fellate Obama, but this is ridiculous. Observe these grown men gushing.

It was a Dirty Harry ‘Make my day’ moment.

Then the next guy even praises him for having such great weather and rainbows at his speeches, as if Obama was somehow responsible for the weather. Oh wait, liberals think he’s God so maybe they actually do think he controls the weather for his speeches.

CNN chimed in:

When it’s appropriate he carries the big stick.

Mind you the reporter is saying this during the very same week he won’t respond to the Iranian situation and is responding weakly to North Korea. But no, fly killing is the measure of carrying a big stick. Truly the reincarnation of Teddy Roosevelt.

Here is a roundup of the rest of the media:

You just have to appreciate the concentration and the precision. There’s just a few things going on in the world, but it’s as if everything was just stopped and at a standstill for the President to lower the boom….apparently he wanted to shore up his credentials as being a tough guy!

I’m 95% sure Meredith Viera left a wet spot in her chair. I’m 100% sure her male co-anchor left a bigger one.

If it was Bush who did this I’m sure they’d accuse him of human rights abuses, want him to stand trial before a tribunal and even accuse him of racism and hate crimes if it turned out to be an African horsefly.

Some more great stuff in the media:

The media reports on scientists’ findings regarding how impossible it is for mere mortals to kill flies.

Swatting a fly with your bare hand is no easy feat either, as Caltech scientists Michael Dickinson and Gwyneth Card recently determined.

The researchers used high resolution, high speed digital imaging of fruit flies faced with a looming swatter. In the instant before a fly can usually zip to safety, its tiny brain calculates the location of the impending threat, comes up with an escape plan, and places its legs in an optimal position to hop out of the way in the opposite direction. All of this action takes place within about 100 milliseconds after the fly first spots the swatter.

“This illustrates how rapidly the fly’s brain can process sensory information into an appropriate motor response,” Dickinson explained.

Fleet-footed flies even tweak the escape technique, depending on the direction of the threat. Keep in mind that these insects possess a nearly 360-degree field of view, so they can see behind themselves. If a swatter comes in at a 50 degree angle, a fly can move its middle legs forward and lean back, raising and extending its legs to push off backward.

If the swatter comes from the back, no problem. The fly simply moves its middle legs a tiny bit backwards and leans its whole body in the opposite direction just before it jumps.

“We also found that when the fly makes planning movements prior to take-off, it takes into account its body position at the time it first sees the threat,” Dickinson said. “When it first notices an approaching threat, a fly’s body might be in any sort of posture depending on what it was doing at the time, like grooming, feeding, walking, or courting. Our experiments showed that the fly somehow ‘knows’ whether it needs to make large or small postural changes to reach the correct preflight posture. This means that the fly must integrate visual information from its eyes, which tell it where the threat is approaching from, with mechanosensory information from its legs, which tells it how to move to reach the proper preflight pose.”

So what is the optimal way to swat a fly?

“It is best not to swat at the fly’s starting position, but rather to aim a bit forward of that to anticipate where the fly is going to jump when it first sees your swatter,” he advised.

Staying a step ahead of one’s opponents isn’t a bad skill for a leader. President Obama is also clearly a hands on, take charge person.

Seriously, you could compile all these clips and excerpts without changing a single word and you would have the script for a hilarious Saturday Night Live sketch. You wouldn’t have to exaggerate a thing.

And I’m sure longtime readers remember how I discussed the obsession he and the media have with comparing him to Abraham Lincoln? Well, guess who else also had a run in a with a fly according to Associated Press?

President Obama launched his campaign from Abraham Lincoln’s hometown, used his Bible to be sworn in and quotes Lincoln at the drop of a stovepipe hat.

Now it seems the two share something else: an encounter with a fly.

Daniel Weinberg, the owner of the Abraham Lincoln Book Shop in Chicago, has a photograph of Lincoln with a house fly on him.

Weinberg doesn’t know if the fly survived the encounter or if it suffered the same fate as the one that had the audacity to land on Obama during a television interview Tuesday and found itself on the business end of a presidential hand.

Remember, there is no liberal or pro-Obama bias in the media. None.

In parting though, allow me to share some Obama jokes from Rush Limbaugh:

How does Obama differ from God?

• God does not think he’s Obama.
• Liberals love Obama.
• God asks for only 10% of your money.
• God gives you freedom to live your life as you choose.
• God’s plan to save us is actually written down for people to read.

Recently Ruff posted the following comment:

Say, are you ever gonna post comments about the election?
I understand all the arguments supporting apathy or ambivalence regarding the whole circus. But I?m still interested in hearing what people think and feel about the various issues (or non-issues).

I lean conservative on a number of issues but fully support Obama but that?s irrelevant.
I?m curious as to why liberals believe the democratic platform represents them. I?m even MORE interested in learning why conservatives believe the republican platform represents them (it doesn?t). and as far as this particular election why some people still consider themselves undecided at this point in the race.

I haven’t been focusing much on the election because I’m quite apathetic about it. Neither candidate moves me. I think McCain will be a much better President than Obama, but that’s not saying much. I am frustrated with the constant bitching of the media, late night talk shows, Bill Maher, Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi and their ilk. Yet at the same time I’m tired of watered down conservative I feel that George W. Bush and McCain represent. I want a conservative that can communicate the ideas of conservatism in a way that connect with the public without having to pander to moderates, the way Reagan did.

So at this point I just want to give the Democrats the chance to stop being armchair quarterbacks and show us what they can do. Hopefully they can do a good job and show us maybe they were right all along. But in all honesty, I think liberal quasisocialist policies during a recession equals the second term of Jimmy Carter, an unmitigated disaster. And to me, Jimmy Carter’s awful presidency was the best thing for conservatism ever. If Americans kept electing uninspiring or poorly communicating Republicans like Nixon and Ford over and over again, we never would have gotten the inspiring conservatism of Reagan, but rather just a slow ideological death for the Republican party. Ford losing opened the door for Reagan’s resounding win. Call it creative destruction. I feel McCain would be a better President than Obama, but that’s not saying much. I’d rather see some creative destruction again and just have McCain lose.

Give the Democrats the presidency and the Congress and let’s have their ideas on display for the world to see. No one to blame, no armchair quarterbacking, let them run the show. I predict the worst, but who knows, maybe I’ll be surprised.

Post comments about what I wrote or any thoughts you have on the election at all in the comments below. This is an open thread, as long as it’s election related it’s fair game.

UPDATE (10/31/2008):

This is awesome:

Someone sent me this Saturday Night Live clip from March that they thought was relevant to this post.

Thought it was funny enough to put up. Given the fact that it’s a recent Saturday Night Live clip, actually, just the fact it had any funny moments made it noteworthy. Amy Poehler does a decent job with the Hillary impression, where even though she doesn’t quite nail the voice she totally gets the mannerisms and nuance. The guy imitating Obama isn’t even close; it’s downright embarassing.  Is he even trying?!

Derren Brown is a skeptic that likes to go around debunking the supernatural and displaying how tricks are done. What he does in this clip below is show one of the ways psychic readings work. You have to go in a little past the 1:54 mark to get to the psychic trick.

One of the most powerful communication tools you can use when trying to influence others is to make yourself appear and sound decisive and direct while simultaneously being vague in content and substance. People will just fill in the blanks with whatever message they want to hear and do all of the work for you. When I was single this tactic often worked like a charm. The reticence gets interpreted as being mysterious, and the fantasies women made up in their minds far outweighed the extravagance of any lie I could have conjured up. And the best part is, I never had to actively do anything dishonest to achieve the positive impression; I just had to avoid fucking it up by talking too much.

Political campaign rhetoric uses this tactic to a nauseating degree. It’s very similar to Derren Brown’s psychic trick above. People compete on likeability, charisma, poise, confidence, credentials and eloquence, while just using empty phrases about bridging gaps, bringing change, doing reform, thousand points of light and brand new days. It sounds just direct and decisive enough to inspire people to vote for you, but it doesn’t say anything concrete about who you are in the least. The more specific you are, the easier it is for your opponents to attack your position. You give them a clear target, something tangible to evaluate and pick apart. If people don’t know who you are, they can’t validly criticize you.

Yet it works, because like in the Derren Brown clip, if you package yourself convincingly, whether as an authority, an expert, a charmer, a charismatic person, a leader, a ladies’ man, an iconoclast, whatever, and sell that image with all the right trappings, people will rationalize whatever you say, interpret any ambiguities in the most positive light, and fill in the necessary blanks in order to make it work and keep the illusion alive. If there’s any cognitive dissonance at that point and something doesn’t seem to fit with your projected image, they’ll doubt themselves rather than you. This is especially true if you’re in a group situation and the rest of the people in the room are buying into your act too. Social proof is hard to resist.

This is why I haven’t watched a single debate between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. I hate debates, because it’s a charisma contest more than an intellectual contest. Candidates can’t properly address any of the issues in depth in the time they’re alloted to speak. Their job is to be as charismatic and likable and statesmanlike while keeping their soundbytes as vague and pleasant as possible. And if they’ve presented themselves well in terms of looks, demeanor, confidence, affability, authority and eloquence, they’ll arouse positive emotions in their audience, which in turn will reduce their critical abilities, which in turn causes the crowd to assign more depth and intelligence to the statements than they actually deserve, just like the psychic victims in the Derren Brown clip above. It’s a ridiculous dog and pony show.

When it comes to politics, I stick to reading the issues in print when I want to learn what candidates stand for. It’s boring, it’s clinical, it’s dry and best of all it’s not as emotional…which is exactly why it’s more reliable. Charisma, especially in debates and speeches, appeals to emotion. Emotion clouds judgment. And poor judgment leads to poor choices.

Related: Profiles in Charisma