This is my last post for a couple of weeks at least, but I had to put this up before going.

The recent U.S. elections were a unique experience for me, from the media vantage point. I neither relied on cable television (to which I no longer subscribe), nor the usual PBS-ABC-NBC-CBS news talk shows, nor a handful of “respected” newspapers, but rather a large cloud of fragments and particles consisting of elements of all of the ones mentioned, plus blogs, discussion fora, a mass of non-U.S. news coverage of the election, and even music and multimedia creations. From that cloud of informational bits I had to create my own meaningful mosaic, and then compare and contrast it with those of others — some produced far prettier pictures than I did, and others produced monstrosities.

What especially stands out in my observations is that there has possibly never been as much energy devoted to political satire, parody, and humorous creativity as in these elections, not to mention the wonderful multimedia creations and the incredible remixes.

By far the very best remix I have seen, I only just saw today…a dance off between Obama, McCain, and Palin, so realistic it is sometimes chilling. I can’t imagine how the next wave of multimedia artists will top this in the next elections. Enjoy.

P.S.: When I get back, I plan articles on:

• the historical, current, and projected state of student interest and enrollment in anthropology in Canada
• coverage of a recent conference on racism, imperialism, and the academy
  
• a continuation of the series, “Video Notes from the Indian Diaspora”
• brief posts on anarchist anthropology
• discussion of “the new imperialism”
• more on cosmopolitanism and “world anthropologies”

On One Day for the Watchman, I plan two very long pieces, one on AFRICOM, and the other on arguments about whether we can really expect to see the fall of American imperialism within the near future.

While I am away, you can read any of the great blogs for which I run feeds down the sidebar on the right of this page.

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