Reason #783 that Phnee shouldn't be allowed near politics

[mousme]

There was a lot of screaming at the television tonight. A lot of it involved the words "LIAR!" and "OHMYGODDIDYOUHEARTHAT?!?"

I flicked between the U.S. debate and the Canadian debate. Palin made my ears bleed. "Nucular." Didn't the U.S. learn their lesson about letting people into the Oval Office who can't pronounce "nuclear?" (Yes, yes, I know it's an "accepted" regional difference, blah, blah, WRONG!)

The Canadian debate made me want to throw heavy things at the television. Not because of what was said, although there was plenty of screaming about that. No, what got me was that the moderator intervened, not once, but several times in Harper's favour, defending him against both Dion and Layton on at least two occasions that I can think of off-hand.

What. The. Fuck?!?

I don't understand why this happened. I don't understand why all five leaders didn't jump on him and tell him to shut the fuck up. I kept looking back at my mother and asking: "Why is he speaking? Why are they letting him speak? Why is he letting his lips flap with opinions about the content of the debate? Why?"

There are no words. I am incensed. So much for a "neutral" moderator this evening. The French moderator was fantastic, but sadly only French-speaking Canadians got to see what a well-run debate looks like.

Comments

[aislingtheach.livejournal.com]

No, what got me was that the moderator intervened, not once, but several times in Harper's favour, defending him against both Dion and Layton on at least two occasions that I can think of off-hand.

Quessé ça, tabarnak!! Mets-en que c'est enrageant!! :(

Je t'avoue que je n'ai pas regardé le débat. J'étais en train de me botter le cul avec un pied imaginaire pour tenter de relancer cette histoire de post-doc.

En tout cas, je me demande s'ils vont revenir sur cet aspect dans les médias de demain.

Stupid American Question

[ankhorite.livejournal.com]

Okay, I have to ask this.

Isn't typing in English faster?

Don't you have to do things to your keyboard to get all the cedillas and accents and whatnot? Even if it's just shifting or alting or something?

I am embarrassed to ask, but must know.

*blush*

Re: Stupid American Question

[aislingtheach.livejournal.com]

No problem, I am happy to provide an answer. :)

Thing is, we got all sorts of different keyboards, right? So in Québec we have keyboards that allow easy and fast access to the é, ç, è, ü, ô and all that sort of funky stuff ;)

There is a specific key for é, and then for the others we only have to press the «accent» key and then the vowel and voila! ;)

I have used azerty keyboards as well as english keyboards and I was sooo confused - as well as very much frustrated at not being able to use my funky french stuff (with the latter). And in order to use my irish gaelic fonts, I needed to integrate (as software) a special keyboard to which I could have access with alt + shift. If I had not done this, it would take me an eternity to write basic mutated letters like ċ, ḋ, ḟ, ġ, ṁ, ṗ, ṡ, ṫ, not to mention their ſ and ɼ ! :D

Re: Stupid American Question / French Keyboards

[ankhorite.livejournal.com]

Eeep! Sorry it took me so long to thank you for this.

I feel much smarter more sophisticated now. :)

Re: Stupid American Question

[mousme.livejournal.com]

Yep. As aislingtheach said, we actually have keyboards with most of the accents incorporated, which is why to this day English-only keyboards tend to defeat me, even when I'm just trying to type my name correctly. ;)

Re: Stupid American Question

[karine.livejournal.com]

And the apostrophes and quotes are in the WRONG place on the English keyboards!!! :P
[/silly]

Also, in terms of writing in French rather than in English, while French uses more words, and longer one, to say the same thing, there are just some moods, things or expressions that communicate that much better in one language rather than the other. I don't know if you've ever witnessed multilingual people having a conversation, switching back and forth between them, because some things are better communicated with a certain French expression despite the fact that they'd been speaking English a moment before, for example...

(edited for spelling, d'hur)

Re: Stupid American Question

[swestrup]

I often have the opposite problem as French keyboards usually get the extra keys for the accented letters by making certain characters like {|}[\], MUCH harder to type. But when programming you need them all the time.

So, I program like a frozen slug when on a French keyboard.

Nookyouleer

[ankhorite.livejournal.com]

(Yes, yes, I know it's an "accepted" regional difference, blah, blah, WRONG!)

NO IT IS NOT!! NOT!!! I swear, and hordes of my flist from all over the U.S. say so too!

We had moderator trouble too, see my post, but not nearly as bad as you did, sounds like.

Woe for our nations!

Re: Nookyouleer

[raven-albion.livejournal.com]

Exactly. IMHO it is only accepted by people who have no idea what they are actually talking about.

Re: Nookyouleer

[mousme.livejournal.com]

It drives me batshit.

All one has to do is look at the spelling of the word to realize that there is no "u" after the "c." It's not rocket science!

Re: Nookyouleer

[ankhorite.livejournal.com]

Exactly! And southern dialect does not excuse it.

President Jimmy Carter, formerly governor of Georgia, was a NUCLEAR scientist and by gummy, he pronounced it correctly. There's no excuse, regional or otherwise, for not being able to say it.

Grrrrr.... thanks for letting me vent. :)

[heartofawarrior.livejournal.com]

I scrambled for the remote the moment I heard the word "nuclear" come up in a question so I didn't have to hear it being butchered. *sigh*

[fearsclave.livejournal.com]

What happened? I was busy canning tomatoes :).

[mousme.livejournal.com]

The moderator was a smarmy ass who didn't know his job. More on that later.

All the parties beat Harper soundly about the head and shoulders.

Harper made like a snake in an oil slick and wriggled out of most of the tight spots in which they put him. He also never looks at the camera the way the other candidates do, which is unnerving. Lots of eye contact with the moderator, which appears to have scored him some points.

The moderator decided at just less than an hour into the debate (or thereabouts) that people were picking unfairly on Harper, and jumped to his defense a bunch of times (twice that I can remember clearly, and I'm sure it happened more). I wish I knew that man's name: I want to make a formal complaint somewhere.

No one seemed to agree on whether the Conservatives created 100,000 jobs or caused the loss of 95,000 jobs (depends on who you ask).

Elizabeth May acquitted herself extremely well, far better than even Layton. She mastered her facts well, called Harper on his bullshit relentlessly, and put forward her party's plans and platform clearly and explicitly. The fact that I don't agree with her proposed solutions in the economic sector doesn't alter the fact that she was very, very solid in her argumentation.

Layton was pretty good. He's a solid politician, regardless of what Rick Mercer calls the "funny gay mustache." ;) He was a little more fanciful with his facts and statistics, and pulled a lot of the "I'm in touch with the little guy" stunts by mentioning the manufacturing plants he visited that were shutting down ("Men who worked for 30 years, sometimes with their fathers, breaking into tears because they couldn't go back to work!" etc.) and the poor communities he went to (Native American and Inuit communities especially). Heartstrings galore got pulled. He made some very good, very interesting points.

Dion spent the first hour and a half being so nervous and/or angry at barbs Harper directed at him that his English went even further to hell. There were moments when I cringed for him. I think that this debate didn't do him much good: his poor grasp of oral English really does him a disservice. I think that if he managed to get a good language coach, or at least manage to speak crappy English with panache, à la Jean Chrétien, then he'd do much better.

Someone needs to tell Duceppe to not let his eyes bug so far out of his head. Otherwise, he did exactly what was expected of him. He also got in a couple of really good zingers at Harper, including a well-timed barb about Harper's 100% plagiarized speech from when he was leader of the opposition.

All in all it ranged from maddening to stultifyingly boring, with a couple of moments of entertainment and a couple of interesting points made by the Greens and the NDP.

[karine.livejournal.com]

Moderator: Steve Paiken.

While I don't share much of your evaluation of this debate, I agree with you that he did come to Harper's defense (Conservatives=barbarians?)

May came off as a good critic, but I didn't see much of what her platform had to offer. She had a tendency to shriek over the others, and that annoyed me.

Layton taking stabs at Dion = LOVE. I completely disagree with Layton's politics but I'd love to have him in opposition because I KNOW he'd make things move. I do NOT like Dion at all (my mom thinks he's a weasel and I sort of agree with her).

I did like that Harper was listing off the things he got done. As for the not looking at the camera, it's because he would rather face an actual living person to speak to rather than a camera, which can't give you visual feedback on the things you are saying.

If I had done the Debate Drinking Game, I'd have been DRUNK off my ASS with the mentions of "Green shift", "Carbon Tax" and "Working Families" (Thank yew *hic* Mr. Layton)...

[mousme.livejournal.com]

While I don't share much of your evaluation of this debate, I agree with you that he did come to Harper's defense (Conservatives=barbarians?)

It just pissed me off that he intervened at all. I can quite truthfully say that I would have been equally as pissed off had he intervened on anyone else's behalf. No matter how awful the candidates are with each other (and I agree that some of the attacks were pretty egregious), it is not his place to intervene with an opinion. Interrupt to give a chance at rebuttal, yes, but not to rebut himself.

I can understand not talking to the camera because of the lack of visual feedback, but come on! Harper isn't a novice, and everyone else managed to look at the camera. He wasn't preaching to the moderator, he was trying to talk to his country, and as such the not talking to the camera resulted in fail.

Oh, God. I would *love* to sit and have a chat over coffee with Layton. He's a riot.

[karine.livejournal.com]

He IS! I'd love to do the same. He was the BEST at talking to the camera Canadian People at Their Kitchen Tables.

It's funny, though. Everytime I watch a debate, I sort of expect it to inform people, to clear up some facts and confusion about things spouted in ads and campaign rhetoric, but all that ends up happening is that people get from debates what they WANT to get. You're a conservative supporter? Harper was strong and clear and held his ground with FACTS. You're anti-Harper? He was spouting lies and the others called his bullshit. You're a Liberal? Dion really shined and impressed people. You're a Green? GO MAY GO! Show them who's boss! You're a socialist? You sure are glad Layton's looking out for the little Working Family by punishing those Big Corporations.

My anti-Dion bias makes me reject any positive he might bring to such a debate. I'm not anti-Liberal, I'm anti-Dion. Same for a lot of people who are not Anti-Conservative, but they are Anti-Harper. So in that sense, these leaders can do no right.

This brings me to make this statement: There's no such thing as an objective voter. There are a lot of people who, when their mind is made up, will refuse to be confused with the facts. Am I wrong? Are the debates even useful in that sense?

[ai731.livejournal.com]

Maybe the debates are most useful for people who are undecided, who don't already have a strong affiliation with a particular party?

English v. French

[ankhorite.livejournal.com]

How much does a politician who is good in one and not the other get penalized by the Canadian people?

By the Canadian press?

Here, sometimes a politician will essay some limping Spanish, and the English press will either brutalize him for it ("Screw them! Don't cater!") or ignore it, and SFAIK, the Spanish press will generally be kind, and the Spanish voters will be very kind, just for making the attempt, if they think it was sincere.

Re: English v. French

[ai731.livejournal.com]

Being functionally bilingual is considered by the press, and many people to be a pre-requisite for the job of party leader. Seeing as how Canada has two official languages, English and French, it's considered good form to be able to use both if you want to be Prime Minister.

Re: English v. French

[mousme.livejournal.com]

It's pretty important for party leaders to be able to make themselves understood in both official languages here. Being bad in English is more likely to cost you an election than being bad in French, but Québec is often the swing vote that means the difference between a minority and a majority government, so more than a minimum of French is required.

In the past thirty years, there have been no unilingual prime ministers, and an even smaller percentage who weren't fluent in both tongues. Trudeau, Mulroney, Chrétien and Martin were all completely bilingual. Unsurprisingly, they were all from Québec.

Chrétien spoke both languages atrociously, but with so much panache that everyone forgave him his blunders. ;)

Harper isn't fluent in French, but he's scored major points by increasing his competence a hundredfold. I agree with none of his policies, but admire the effort to learn French and speak directly to his constituents in Québec.

Dion is a joke in the language department. He came out earlier this year with a press release about having some sort of disability that prevented him from learning English properly, which came off as whining. If Jean Chrétien could mangle the English language with aplomb, then so can you. Same party, same tactics. Don't apologize or explain, just try your hardest and make sure people can see it. Come on!

So in answer to your question, any leader who can't at least manage to make themselves understood in both languages will lose points with the people and get lambasted by the press, generally speaking.

What Happened, Down Below

[ankhorite.livejournal.com]

If you want to know what happened in the U.S. veep debate...

Lucky you, tomatoes enough to can! Wahhh!

pro-harper moderator?

[elanya.livejournal.com]

I don't know about that.

I listened to the debate over the radio, and what I noticed is this: every time one of the leaders made a direct attack on Harper, mostly calling him a liar to his face, he was given a chance to defend himself. This was generally during the free-for-all sections. I assumed that was part of the debate format.

From what *I* heard, no one else was ever directly called a liar, or really attacked in such a way, so they didn't need to be given any special chance to respond.

However, Harper is a lying sack of shit, so there was a lot to call him on. So he got called out a lot, and got his chance to respond to direct accusations. I did notice the moderator generally tended to be explicit as to what he was supposed to reply to, however Harper didn't always use his allotted time to do it.

Unless you are talking about something else?

Re: pro-harper moderator?

[elanya.livejournal.com]

I should also note that I didn't get a chance to listen to the french debate - I tried to watch the streaming feed, but it wouldn't work, and I didn't think of streaming the radio version until yesterday -_- So I don't have a good basis or comparison. However I thought the debate format was generally pretty interesting, with them responding to video questions and such.

Re: pro-harper moderator?

[mousme.livejournal.com]

The two instances I am thinking of:

1- The moderator said to Dion: "Now you know that isn't true. What Mr. Harper said was [interpretation of issue]. Mr. Harper, would you like to respond?"

2- When Layton was attacking Harper on the high poverty rate among aboriginal people, the moderator again intervened and said (aggressively and with an overly ironic tone in my opinion) to Layton: "Is it really all his fault?" And repeated this assertion more forcefully when Layton tried to continue making his point, interrupting Layton.

Re: pro-harper moderator?

[elanya.livejournal.com]

Wow - I either missed them, or I didn't realize it was the moderator speaking (radio can be a bit confusing for these things). but you're right, that is not cool :x

[agelade.livejournal.com]

>>Yes, yes, I know it's an "accepted" regional difference

Nuuuuu not to me it isn't. Trust me, I'm a linguist!

Not Accepted

[ankhorite.livejournal.com]

+ 1!

Even though I'm not a linguist.