Not all of my writing is virtual...

Some of my (incomplete) work is now in book form, spanning the “Bush to Bush” era that shaped the United States that Barack Obama now leads. A look back, from the hopes of the end of the cold war, the promises of the Clinton years, to the three catastrophies (9/11, the invasion of Iraq and Katrina) that define the fourty-third president’s legacy and set the scene for the most unlikely candidate to emerge as the savior of the American dream.

Find out more here

and yes, by all means, buy the book!

…Barack Obama has been elected President of the United States and the explosion of joy in downtown Manhattan felt like a liberation, the end of a long war.

The party was over, for the president-elect, as early as November, 6, when he received his first PDB – “presidential daily brief”, the state of the world as described by intelligence services. (Later, Al Qaeda’s perplexity, faced with a black man named Barack Hussein Obama succeeding George Bush, became perfectly clear).

Soon enough, Barack Obama was holding regular press conferences, announcing his cabinet and the priorities. Rahm Emanuel was the first major figure to be designated, soon followed by Obama and Clinton loyalists, and of course Hillary herself at the State Department.The economy quickly became the top priority, with record job losses and the debate about a bailout for Detroit’s “Big 3″.

In line with the new approach of the campaign, the transition team put itself on-line. “Chicago” and the less than stellar tradition of Illinois politics came back with a vengeance, though, with the arrest of Gov. Rod Blagojevich, accused by the FBI of a “pay to play” scheme involving the appointment of Barack Obama’s successor in the Senate (but not involving the president-elect or his team, the prosecutor quickly pointed out).

And yes, there was a new song - and speaking of songs, one of the reasons this blog was once again lost in the shuffle is that, besides preparing a book (in French, and no, I have no intention to translate-blog it!) and trying to keep up the French-language “Americana” blog, I volunteer for a cause I believe in: the creation of an Innovative Arts Center in downtown Manhattan. Yes, we need it – creation and imagination is more crucial than ever in tough times – and yes, we can! And yes, there is a Gala Fundraiser this Monday, at the Orensanz Center. Good cause, good art, good party…

For those of you in New York City: an interesting program of about French urban cultures kicks off this weekend. Yes, the title is slightly annoying, as is any institutional attempt at hipness  (“I kiffe NY”), but there are lots of films and performances worth checking.

Details here.

During the crescendo of Palin’s “palling around” comments, I kept wondering: where are the other people who served on boards with Bill Ayers, who attended this now famous party?

Mayor Daley did come to the defense of Bill Ayers… but that was Mayor Daley, “Chicago machine” politician and thus presumably not the perfect witness for some.

I found this commentary by Stanley Fish, about guilt-by-association and his own interaction with Bill Ayers, much more interesting. Written for his New York Times blog when the topic was first raised during the primaries, it gives a sense of who Bill Ayers is, and of the place he occupies in political and intellectual circles in Chicago better than anything I read on the topic.

And while we’re looking at the article (mis)quoted by Sarah Palin, it mentions that Bill Ayers wrote the New York Times regarding the now famous presentation of his book on September 11, 2001. He was clearly not pleased with the way he had been quoted. As the New York Times notes (without referring to the fact that the newspaper printed a few sentences from this letter on September 16, 2001), Bill Ayers posted the entire text on his blog.

I can understand that the Obama campaign does not want to spend time discussing this issue, or engaging in the tit-for-tat of exposing McCain’s “domestic terrorist” friends, as some bloggers have thought useful, referring to Gordon Liddy*, or the senator’s votes against laws to protect clinics and doctors targeted by the violent fringe of the anti-abortion movement. But I find amazing that the sixties are still such fodder for political anger. Of course, the United States are not alone in that, as we recently found out during the French presidential election and the “commemorations” of May 68.

* You have to love the fact that his biography starts with… a glowing quote from the French media, in the defunct “Le Matin”, launched in 1987 and folded in 1987.

So what have I discovered this summer? That I can not do the things I do, plus keep up a blog in French and keep up a blog in English, all at once. “Americana” had a feast; “Nathalieblogs”, famine. I’m trying something new: posting a digest of my musings in French on a regular basis and add a bit about how the rest of the world (at least my little window on the world, through the French-speaking blosgosphere) is reacting to the events I write about… which would be mostly that one event – the presidential election.

Other favorites on that “Americana” blog: the rebuilding of New Orleans; French culture in the US, and any and all uniquely American phenomenons.