Prayers run high as cash runs low

SNOW blanketed the city most of last week but it is the flailing economy that’s giving New Yorkers the shivers.
Broadway caught the chills, too. Popular shows such as Hairspray, Spamalot, Young Frankenstein, Gypsy and Grease are among the top names that will bow out by next month due to financial distress.Neither had it been a ho-ho-ho Christmas. Santa Claus made fewer appearances, according to news reports, because shopping malls were not hiring men to don the red suit.
People were also buying smaller, shorter Christmas trees this year to cut costs.
Business news website Crain’s New York.com cited data showing that prescriptions for anti-anxiety drugs went up the past two months as more New Yorkers looked for ways to cope with the economic meltdown.
Money manager Bernard Madoff’s billion-dollar pyramid fraud has led to deep reflection among the Jewish community, now celebrating the eight-day Festival of Lights (Hanukkah), which ends on Monday. They felt betrayed that Madoff, a Jew, had misled so many Jewish foundations and charities.
These days of economic hell are bringing Americans to their knees. Literally.
Churches have reported bigger attendances. Cries from the fall of Wall Street resonated at the nearby Trinity Church, which responded with programmes such as Faith and Finance: Fresh Takes on the Economy, a video series.
More tellingly, even prayer websites have been deluged by those seeking divine intervention in these dark hours when cash is running low.
“I am desperate. I haven’t been working for a while. I have a lot of bills to pay and I have nowhere to go,” says a note posted on online prayer sanctuary (www.ipraytoday.com). “Please send me prayers in this difficult time.”
Another person said he needed a financial breakthrough, plus help in longtime care for his mother who is suffering from Alzheimer’s. “God is all I have now,” he said.
He isn’t alone in seeking a miracle on Wall Street.
Paige Wheeler, founder of www.ipraytoday.com, said prayer requests had been rising from those struggling to make ends meet.
“The increase of those asking for financial blessings and miracles has started to overshadow those seeking physical healings,” she said.
This was not because fewer people were sick, she explained, “but rather it is hard to be concerned with your ailments when you are worrying about losing your home or putting food on the table”.
Indeed, that was the case with a woman who has been married for 32 years. Her husband needed a hip replacement and she wanted a job badly.
“He’s living on a can of soup and a slice of bread every day,” the anxious wife said. “I am still unable to find work. I have been in the travel industry for over 13 years and am willing to relocate to Florida, Michigan or stay in Arizona.
“Please, pray for my husband and me; for our health, for me finding a job and for our financial needs.”
Then there was the young daughter worried for her mother.
“I am so sad. My mom is hurting – her job is on shaky ground, she is not in good health, finances are really a burden on her. Please God, please show my mom the right path.”
Wheeler’s website is a mere one year old but it has already registered thousands of subscribers to its Prayer Alerts.
“The success of this site for me is bittersweet,” she said in a telephone interview from Scottsdale, Arizona, where she lives.
“I am happy that I have created an arena which allows individuals to reach out to one another in prayer, but it is sad to know that the success of this site is unfortunately tied to an increased amount of pain, struggle, death and destruction throughout the world.”
She believes that the prayer requests sent to her website reflect an accurate snapshot of what many Americans were going through, especially during the tough days of winter.
To cite an example: “It is so cold here. I don’t have the money to heat my apartment properly,” someone wrote, seeking prayers for financial help.
“I am terrified that my old age will find me homeless, living in a cardboard box in an alley somewhere. I am in dire straits. Please pray for me, friends!”
Wheeler, who previously ran a health club but quit her job to become a stay-at-home mother for her two children aged six and eight, was inspired to set up the website while she was figuring out a way to reach out to people.
She grew passionate about it, saying that site evolved into a wonderful tool for people to make connections and acknowledge the healing power of prayer.
“The website,” she said, “respects all religions and faiths and seeks to affirm others by uniting in prayer.”
Another online prayer site, www.ourprayer.org (“a true church without walls”), has devoted a section on financial worries.
“Lift up your concerns in prayer,” it said. Topics include The Truth About Money, How to Find Yourself After Losing a Job and A Spiritual Approach to Financial Worries.
Uneasy about posting prayer requests on the Internet?
Not for those who are already at their wit’s end. Besides, people such as Wheeler believe that “among life’s greatest misfortunes lie our unoffered prayers”.
And there are, as one pastor told a newspaper, many walking wounded these days.

Figures, in whatever form, spell bad news

THE economy is bad news, credit is dwindling, and, for New Yorkers, there’s yet another set of numbers they need to fret over.
Their calorie intake.
“2,000 calories a day is all most adults should eat,” the city Health Department says in a three-month subway advertising campaign that started in October.The series of five advertisements is a follow-up to a May ruling which required restaurant chains here to include calorie count on their menus.
“Read ’em before you eat ’em” – that’s the message sent out by the city Health Department, designed to alert New Yorkers that a seemingly innocent-looking meal could have unimaginable calories.
Example: two pieces of fried chicken, macaroni and cheese, biscuit and a fizzy drink would add up to 1,210 calories.
“If this is lunch, is there room for dinner?” the ad asks.
Chain restaurants in New York City are required to list the number of calories of every item on their menus. The practice, which began in May, applies to those operating more than 15 outlets where the menus are standardised.
So, do New Yorkers watch, and worry over, the calorie-count? Apparently, not all do.
“It’s a good ruling,” says Sylvia Kovacs, who has lived in New York City for 10 years. “But knowing the calorie amount doesn’t really influence my decision on what to eat.”
The slim, young actress, devouring a strawberry frosted doughnut (240 calories) at Dunkin’ Donuts near Macy’s one recent afternoon, reasoned that she had not eaten anything yet that day. The doughnut was her first food intake for the day and besides, she seldom patronised Dunkin’ Donuts.
“I eat healthy most of the time,” Kovacs says, recalling her growing up years in Hungary where her family hardly touched fast-food.
Billionaire mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has been pushing for a healthier New York City. Trans-fat was banned from restaurants last year. Smoking had been outlawed in bars, restaurants and indoor public spaces since 2003. Smokers now light up at street corners.
Now, the state governor wants an 18% tax on non-diet fizzy drinks. This “obesity tax”, according to reports, is backed up by statistics showing that one out in every four New Yorker is overly chubby.
The introduction of calorie-count on menus led to public resentment initially. Some New Yorkers saw it as another insult to their civil liberties, accusing the Bloomberg administration of turning Gotham into a nanny state.
Others are supportive, like Dr Ming-Chin Yeh, who is assistant professor (Graduate Public Health Nutrition Track) at Hunter College, who says: “Yes, there is a nanny state-like feeling, but I’m glad I’ve got a damn good nanny!”
Criticisms have since quietened down, which Dr Yeh attributes to a tacit nod from the public that it is a good plan, after all.
“The banning of trans-fat here led to a lot of complaints. But now many cities across the US have imposed similar regulations. This is likely to spread to other parts of the world, too,” he says in an e-mail interview.
“I’m glad New York City is leading the way in making its citizens live a healthier life.”
A study by the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention last year indicated a need to downsize New York. There had been a dramatic increase in obesity in the US in the past two decades, according to CDCP. Colorado was the only state with a prevalence of obesity less than 20%; New York registered 25%.
When the report was published, the New York Post called their city “New Pork”.
However, Dr Yeh acknowledges that it is still too soon to know whether the calorie display is changing people’s eating habits as there is no concrete data as yet.
“A couple of my students have told me that they now try to buy items with fewer calories,” he says, “and based on my own experience, I now expect to see calorie info on the menus whenever I eat out.”
Dr Yeh, however, believes that the public will eventually adopt better eating habits. “Making them aware of what they are eating is a good first step,” he says. “This is a good tool in raising people’s awareness.”
But numbers are frightening, sometimes. Some consumers went “OMG!” when they saw an apple raisin muffin marked at 470 calories; and a freshly-squeezed orange juice (475ml) sold at Jamba Juice at 220 calories.
How sure can consumers be that the calorie information is accurate?
“Restaurants base nutrition information and calorie counts on a verifiable analysis of the menu items,” says Sheila Weiss, a dietitian and the director of nutrition policy at the National Restaurant Association, which represents about 945,000 restaurants.
“And this can include laboratory testing, use of nutrient databases, and other reliable methods of analysis; all pursuant to the city’s regulations.”

Not so gay now in California

THE pairs of champagne flutes sat inside their boxes, unwrapped on the shelves. Each one was marked “bride”.
They were meant for same-sex couples eager to toast to their nuptial joy in California.
But wedding bells have stopped ringing since last month when residents in the Golden State voted “no” to gay marriages, overturning a Supreme Court ruling in May that sanctioned such unions.
The marriage ban, known as Proposition 8, made it clear that only a “marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognised in California”.
Since Proposition 8 was passed on Nov 4, merchandise for same-sex marriages in bridal and gift shops have had no takers.
“Business is bad,” said Arturo Cobos, the manager of Kard Zone, which specialises in “cards, gifts and fun stuff” in the gay Castro neighbourhood of San Francisco.
The shop has been around for two decades, catering to both straight and gay people looking for birthday or anniversary gifts. Cute bodysuits are available for babies, inscribed with the words “I Love My Dads”.
But with the marriage ban on gays, “his-and-his” stuff (or “hers-and-hers”) remained untouched in the store, which also sells wedding cards depicting two bridal gowns; or a pair of tuxedos linking arms with one another.
“Some people are buying them as souvenirs, but perhaps we will have to move the stock to the store room later,” Cobos said.
A rainbow flag perched outside Kard Zone, which displayed what seemed now an outdated banner congratulating the newlyweds.
“There has been no more weddings since Proposition 8. This has really affected sales,” Cobos said.
A native of Mexico City, Cobos has lived in San Francisco for seven years. He attended the wedding of a good friend when the Supreme Court had allowed such marriages.
“It was a lovely ceremony,” he said, almost wistfully.
“They have been together for donkey’s years, but who knows what happens to those vows now?”
News reports estimated that almost 18,000 same-sex marriages took place in California this year since the court ruling. The legality of such vows is a big question mark now.
When Proposition 8 was passed last month, the streets of San Francisco and other major cities throughout the US witnessed massive demonstrations by supporters of gay marriages.
In the Castro neighbourhood, posters urging people to “Vote No on Prop 8 – Unfair and Wrong” are still seen on the window panes of many buildings.
The group behind Proposition 8, Protect Marriage, a coalition of religious and community leaders and pro-family organisations, thinks otherwise.
Protect Marriage stated on its website that the marriage ban was not an attack on gay couples, and neither did it diminish the rights that same-sex couples have under California’s existing domestic partner law.
“California law already grants domestic partners all the rights that a state can grant to a married couple,” according to Protect Marriage.
“Gays have a right to their private lives, but not to change the definition of marriage for everyone else.”
The group explained, too, that California voters had approved a similar proposition in 2000 by more than 61% in which they had defined that a marriage in California was between a man and a woman.
However, the court battle is far from over. The next action is expected to take place soon to address the question whether the voter-approved Proposition 8 is constitutional.
Massachusetts and Connecticut are the only two states that recognise marriages among couples of the same sex.
At least 30 states ban such marriages, although many others, including California, allows what is termed as civil unions.
New York and Rhode Island, however, have laws which recognise gay couples who get married elsewhere.
Newsweek published a lengthy cover story this week – The Religious Case for Gay Marriage – which showed the complexity of the issue in the United States.
Gay activists viewed Proposition 8 as a huge setback for a state such as California, which is often regarded as a trend-setter and the nation’s most forward-thinking state.
Lonely Planet calls San Francisco “the queerest place on earth”, while Los Angeles has a reputation among the country’s gayest cities.
California, in fact, is home to a number of the top 10 destinations for gays; Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego and Palm Springs, according to The New York Times.
But in the meantime, things are not looking rosy for stores such as Kard Zone. The economic crunch is another piece of bad news.
“It’s pretty slow,” Cobos said, looking around the store where just a couple of people were browsing at the shelves.
“There is very little foot traffic; it worsened when Tower Records, which was next door to us, closed down two years ago,” he said.
At Kard Zone, one greeting card declared “Let the Bliss Begin!”
Well, not yet.

It’s unbelievable what travellers pack

IT COULD have been a laundry list of unusual discoveries better meant for CSI Miami or CSI New York.
Some travellers do not just pack clothes, gifts and other essentials, as the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), whose job it is to screen baggage at checkpoints, often finds out.
Among the amazing finds:
> A kitchen sink.
> Tarantula spiders, which “somehow crawled in and multiplied by the time an officer opened the bag”.
> Hermit crabs (discovered in San Antonio, Texas; a family wanted to take some home from the Gulf of Mexico).
> Fully tanked-up chainsaws and outboard boat engines (a favourite in Florida after the hurricanes).
> A handmade Mexican ceramic sink (purchased in the United States by Mexican nationals on vacation who said it was cheaper than at home).
> Road flares.
And how about 10 human eyeballs floating in liquid detected by airport scanners in Chicago last year? It turned out they were for legitimate medical use.
Weapons of all sorts have been found, too. Just to name a few: a 6ft-long African spear, a cane with a sword built in, and a belt with knives attached.
Several months ago, at Kennedy International Airport in New York, three men were caught for smuggling songbirds such as Chinese Hwamei and Mongolian Lark into the country.
“Also, believe it or not, people still are showing up at checkpoints with prohibited items and even firearms,” a representative from the TSA said.
By the estimates of the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency, 1.1 million international travellers enter the United States daily by air and through land and sea ports.
The agency utilises the latest technologies to screen travellers to ensure that people “who have ties to terrorism or have a criminal background are barred from entry”.
According to its website, the CBP’s mission is keep terrorists and their weapons out of the United States.
“A lot of people do not understand that we do many random inspections. They think we are picking on them. That’s just not the case,” said Peter J. Smith, the special agent in charge of New York.
Because of that, he said, the CBP got a lot of bad press, with its officers labelled as cowboys or cowgirls.
The CBP, he said, was the largest investigative arm of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) with about 7,000 staff.
“These are the people you see at airports and points of entry at the border,” he said. Their priority is human and narcotics trafficking, and money laundering.
“That is why travellers leaving or entering the US carrying more than US$10,000 must declare it. If not, that money can be seized and the person subject to arrest,” he told a briefing organised by the New York Foreign Press Centre.
“You would need to go through the legal process to get the money back,” he added.
Smith noted, too, that a lot of narcotics were being brought into the country, citing attempts to smuggle in date rape drugs through Kennedy Airport.
“Cocaine has been found in the toilet, meant to be picked up by someone later,” he said.
Aren’t Customs officers going after those openly selling counterfeit goods in New York City, especially in Chinatown?
“We have a very robust enforcement, but we try to get them at the point of the goods coming off the ship or plane,” he said.
To travellers, Smith had this reminder: “Make sure you have the proper documents.
“If you’re allowed into the country for six months, you better leave after that period. With the new system coming in, we know who are supposed to stay just six months.
“And if your visa says you’re a student, you better be a student.”
He warned against using somebody else’s travel documents, “even though that picture of your brother or sister in the passport looks similar to you”.
“We are more thorough, much stricter now,” he said.
The TSA website has a list of permitted and prohibited items on the airplane; www.cbp.gov provides advice for international travellers; and www.dhs.gov/xtrvlsec/ says it all: “Know Before You Go.”
So, do a little homework before setting off on your dream trip to the land of Breakfast at Tiffany’s.

Credit crunch gives Americans the flying blues for Thanksgiving

IT APPEARS that the Grinch has stolen Thanksgiving, too. ‘Tis the holiday season but Americans have a limited mood to party in these days of the credit crunch.
Data from the Air Transport Asso­ciation of America (ATA) showed that US flights, though 90% full throughout this Thanksgiving weekend, were serving 10% fewer passengers compared to last year’s holiday period.
This was the first decline in seven years during the Thanksgiving season, the ATA said in a statement.
The mood was captured well by a New York Post headline last week: “Airsick for the holidays”.
Delta Air Lines, for instance, will be the latest carrier to charge passengers US$15 (RM54) for checking in their first bag; US$25 (RM90) for the second one. This will start on Dec 5.
Most US airlines have had this practice in place much earlier. Ame­rican Airlines initiated such costs since June for all passengers except those who fly business or first class.
There are restrictions on the size and weight of luggage, too. The US$15 fee is applicable for bags that weigh less than 23kg. For those that are between 23kg and 32kg, the fee is US$65 (RM235).
“Most air travellers complain about crowded flights and a lack of leg room,” said Air Travelers Asso­ciation president David Stempler.
“But the fee for checked bags is what irritates them the most,” he said in a telephone interview from Washing­ton DC, where the ATA is based.
Airline scales have been scrutinised lately following all these charges for extra and overweight bags, according to the US media.
In New York, for example, the Department of Consumer Affairs has verified that most of the 810 scales in the two airports here were accurate; allaying fears of passengers that they might be overcharged unnecessarily.
Stemplar said airlines had not been profitable for some time mainly due to rising fuel cost.
“Here in the United States, there will soon be less domestic flying although international flights will increase,” he said.
He advised travellers seeking a good deal to look beyond a low-fare ticket.
“The ticket price may seem cheap but you would need to add up the baggage fee, drinks and so on,” he said.
At the end of the day, the total price would be different story altogether.
Airlines such as US Airways and United Airlines also charge between US$25 and US$30 (RM90 and RM108) more for tickets bought through call centres, reservation agents or airport counters.
The intention here was to drive customers to their websites, said George Hobica, the founder of Airfarewatchdog.com, a site for bargain-hunters.
“Airline websites are a marketplace where they want to sell you hotel stay, credit cards or whatever,” he said in an interview.
“That’s why they discourage customers from dealing with their agents. It’s not so much about cost-cutting there.”
Hobica, a travel writer who specialises in consumer issues, started Airfarewatchdog three years ago. Its slogan is “when fares are low, we’ll let you know.” Incidentally, a Penangite works there as a senior airfare analyst.
Hobica said airfares had been low for many years now.
“The average price has been going down. It’s just like LCD TVs; when you factor in the inflation rate, its cost remains low,” he said.
But with the US economy going off the cliff, Hobica said the airline industry would go through consolidation where the smaller players would be swallowed up by the big brothers.
“When that happens,” he said, “the price will go up.”
For now, there is almost no complimentary services offered by most US airlines except for fizzy beverages served onboard.
In fact, US Airways charges US$2 (RM7.20) for non-alcoholic beverages such as Coca-Cola and bottled water for those flying coach in domestic flights. Coffee or tea? US$1 (RM3.60), please.
If you prefer an aisle or window seat in the first few rows, that will be US$5 (RM18) for the airline whose slogan is “Fly with Us”.
Another US$5 will get you the headset to indulge in the inflight entertainment. At Continental Airlines, it’s US$1.
However, passengers are free to bring their own headphones.
Frequent fliers who want to redeem their reward points are not in for a good time either. Some airlines have begun to charge them a fee for these so-called free flights.
JetBlue Airways brought a little cheer this Thanksgiving when it announced last week that customers could check in one bag free during the Thanksgiving period, besides enjoying complimentary snacks on board.
But the airline has what it calls “no more dirty pillow talk”. For flights over two hours, a blanket and pillow kit is sold for US$7 (RM25).
It isn’t just the middle-income Americans who are not reaching for their wallet.
American designer Marc Jacobs, according to The New York Times,had thrown an annual holiday party for the past 18 years.
Last year’s was themed Arabian Nights where “bare-chested women bedecked in gold necklaces” and contortionists were available at the event at Rockefeller Centre.
However, there would be no such party this year “due to the financial climate”, the NYT quoted his business partner.
The only people hearing “ka-ching!” these days are perhaps the cobblers and tailors as Americans seek them out to mend their shoes or clothes that, in the good old days not so long ago, would have been tossed out.

Saving the humble house where Superman was born

THIS is a story about ordinary people, strangers who came together to rescue the legacy of Superman.
In the comic book, the superhero was born in planet Krypton but his original, more earthly beginnings, was a humble home in Cleveland, Ohio.Located at 10622 Kimberley Avenue in Cleveland’s Glenville neighbourhood is the house where Jerry Siegel, co-creator of Superman, spent his childhood. Siegel died in 1996 at the age of 81.
Along came Brad Meltzer, author of the newly published The Book of Lies that touched on the death of Mitchell Siegel, Jerry’s father.
Siegel junior was just 17 when his dad was gunned down during a robbery in 1932.
Meltzer’s research for the novel in the past two years took him to Cleveland to see for himself the actual house where the “Man of Steel” was born.
“I wanted to see the exact spot where young Jerry Siegel sat in his bed on that rainy summer night, where a 17-year-old kid stared at his bedroom ceiling and gave birth to the idea of Superman,” Meltzer wrote on his website.
But the author was devastated when he saw that the house, owned by another family now, was almost crumbling down.
He decided to do something about it. He rallied friends, the Siegel family members and Glenville Development Corporation, which is in charge of the neighbourhood.
What followed was an online auction of artwork donated by authors and artists.
Response from Superman fans raised US$107,000 (RM385,000), enough to save the dilapidated house.
Repair works have since begun, said Glenville Development Corpo-ration executive director Tracey E. Kirksey.
The chimney and roof have been replaced and other new construction materials are being ordered.
“We will maintain its original look,” she said.
The restoration effort is expected to be completed by next month “depending on Cleveland weather”, as this mid-West city is often buried in snow during winter.
According to Kirksey, the locals in Glenville had been galvanised by the effort to rescue Siegel’s home. The house, she said, had long been a magnet for Superman fans.
“There is a family living there but they are quite used to having people wanting to peek inside.”
Once the work on the house is completed, there will possibly be efforts to sell some of the bricks from the house or replicas of street signs bearing the names of the two Superman creators.
(Streets have been named after Siegel and Joe Shuster, the artist who co-created Superman. Shuster’s home, unfortunately, is long gone.)
But Glenville’s push to promote Superman-related products would need the prior approval of DC Comics, Kirksey said.
In an e-mail interview, Meltzer said the incredible response from the people to save Superman’s house proved that ordinary people could change the world.
That, by the way, is the name of his website, ordinarypeoplechangetheworld.com, where he wrote about his search for Siegel’s house. It was also the site where the online auction took place throughout September.
Meltzer feels that Americans sometimes lose sight of their history.
“We are a country founded on our own legends and myths, but we don’t always ask which of those legends are true. My novel, The Book of Lies, is about exactly that.”
He said people around the world loved Superman because “he matters”.
Asked how his interest in Superman began, he replied: “I was seven. I read. I loved.”
Ironically, however, he prefers Batman.
“I like Batman better. But with Superman, the best part of the story is Clark Kent. Why? We’re all Clark Kent. We all know what it’s like to be ordinary and wish we could help people.”
He has an answer on how Superman was born. “Because a little boy named Jerry Siegel heard his father was murdered and, in grief, created a bulletproof man,” Meltzer wrote on his website.
To him, there is a Clark Kent in everyone; “the idea that all of us, in all our ordinariness, can change the world.”

Now to deal with post-polls blues

THE statues of George Washing­ton, Abraham Lincoln and Gandhi stand tall at Union Square Park in Manhattan.

Lately, however, the attention the­re is all on the next resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington DC.

Obama calendars, Obama posters, Obama watches, Obama hand-painted T-shirts, Obama buttons; Ame­rica’s next top gun is available on merchandise for anyone seeking a piece of him.
CNN was at the park on Wednesday, interviewing souvenir hunters.

Election editions of Time and Newsweek have been sold out in major markets here.
After almost two years of courting history, Americans are now living it.

Campaign workers are getting a good night’s sleep now that the deed is done. These loyalists had often worked long hours. One Democrat volunteer had been standing at the Chelsea neighbourhood from 10am until late in the evening a fortnight ago soliciting support; his hands stiff from the autumn chill.

But it has not been entirely easy to close the chapter on a long and winding campaign for the White House. For election watchers, their days felt empty without the usual anticipation of passion and drama brought on by the Democrat versus Republican battle.

There are no more polls to check, no blogs to follow, no gossip to pass on. “What now?” they sighed. The 24-hour news cycle had given people a great diversion.

Nobody had dull days when the extraordinary campaign was going on. One woman reportedly forgot to fetch her son from school because she was too caught up with election news.

Jefferson A. Singer, a psychology professor in Connecticut College, has his own favourite story to tell.

“A close friend of mine approached me and said ‘I have a problem’. Knowing my background in treating substance abuse, it seemed like an important moment of disclosure.”

Instead, his friend made a different kind of confession. “I am a political junkie,” he told Prof Singer. He went on to talk about the blogs and websites that he scrolled, as cable news programmes ran incessantly in the background.

The political junkie was guilty of neglecting his work, telling his wife that he was grading papers when, in fact, he was reading political blogs.

“I am hoping that his ‘withdrawal’ will not be too severe, or he can found a Political Junkies Anonymous chapter,” Prof Singer quipped. “Of course, this is tongue-in-cheek."

“But he was spending inordinate amounts of time and energy following every twist and turn of the campaign.”

Prof Singer has sound advice for political junkies wanting to mend their lives.

“The healthiest thing they can do post-election is to refocus their energy on normal everyday activities." Take some of the time devoted to following the news and put it into becoming part of the societal and global change that is about to begin. “Become an activist rather than an addict,” he said.

New York magazine in its latest issue suggested ways to “detox” for those going through post-election withdrawal.The article identified five types of electoral junkies, among these the dataheads, scandal junkies and Palin haters.

Leila Luna, a Brazilian writer based in Gotham, has been waiting to exhale. She is one of those who are glad that campaign days are over, as it means that she will hear less of Sarah Palin. “I just can’t stand her yapping away,” she said.

Unfortunately for Luna, the Alaska Governor has frequently been seen on TV daily the past few days. Like her or loathe her, Palin seems to stir Americans out there. Cable and broadcast networks such as CNN, Fox News and NBC interviewed her from her Wasilla kitchen last week.

Post-election, however, is not an entirely dreaded time.

Happy parents from Kenya to the United States have reportedly named their newborn after the president-elect, hoping that some Obama traits and magic would rub off on them.

Some parents even dreamed that their baby Barack would grow up to a commander-in-chief.
Other reportedly favoured names are plucked from the rest of America’s newest First Family – Michelle, Malia and Sasha.

The Secret Service has different names for them, though. Obama is Renegade, mum is Renaissance and the girls are Radiance and Rosebud.

For some ordinary folk, they wonder why anyone would desire a career in Washington, as the Oval Office is arguably the toughest top job in the world.

“To run for president, you’ve got to have an ego the size of the Empire State Building,” a Phoenix resident said.

The United States’ 44th president, whose Wikipedia page is available in 116 languages, will take office on Jan 20. AP has reported that most hotel rooms in the US capital have already been booked by now.

“Obama is the new black” and it is a dream fulfilled, as messages on T-shirt say.

It’s swirling beneath the calm

IT WAS less than 48 hours after Barack Obama made history but on Dr Martin L. King Jr Boulevard in Harlem it looked like just another day.
There was limited display of Obamania; people went about their routine in this neighbourhood long known as the black capital of America.Passengers waited patiently as a man on wheelchair boarded a bus, one guy rummaged through a trash bin in Popeyes looking for leftovers, and hair-braiding salons opened for business.
Appearances, however, can be deceptive.
“Things have changed,” said schoolteacher Karen Kingsberry, who was lunching on fried chicken. “People feel more empowered now. They feel that their voices have been heard.”
She has been telling her sixth to eighth grade students to start behaving better. “They have to work harder and be an example to the community. I want them to know that with hard work, they can achieve things.”
An African-American, Kingsberry felt Obama’s victory was not so much about skin colour. “He was speaking for all Americans.”
Look at Iowa, she said. With a 94% white population, the Hawkeye State went to Obama.
Kingsberry, who has been teaching for 20 years, said Americans had shown the world that their country had gone beyond race. “It is about character, it is about humanity. Obama won not just for himself but for all of us.”
The new president, she said, would have to pay much attention to the average Joes. “We need jobs, we need healthcare.”
But she believed Obama would deliver the goods. Quoting Confucius, she said: “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”
She also allowed herself to still savour moments from that unforgettable Tuesday night.
“I was jumping up and down,” Kingsberry said. Then she called her mother in Georgia. “She’s in her 70s. She remembered the difficult times in the past for the blacks, when they could not even vote,” she said. Her mother wept that night.
Andrew J. Nathan, a professor of political science at Columbia University, cautioned that America’s election of a president from a minority group would not necessarily lead to similar awakenings elsewhere.
“This is really something for each country to answer to,” he said. Bolivia, however, experienced something similar when Evo Morales, an indigenous, was elected president in 2006.
He thought that the economic crisis was likely the over-riding factor for Americans picking Obama.
“There is the perception that he is better equipped to deal with the problem. On TV, he appeared more presidential. He is seen to be more competent,” he said, “unlike John McCain who wasn’t as convincing. He did not run a good campaign.”
The economic meltdown, he said, was a multi-dimensional crisis. “There are many, many problems, all at the same time. Americans are desperate for someone who can deal with them.”
Also, he said, the electorate was tired of the Republican government under George W. Bush so McCain suffered from that.
“Obama also seemed a stronger candidate, with a better personality.”
But his triumph, Nathan said, did not mean that Americans had entirely looked beyond race once and for all. “Race remains a category in how we see people.”
It was a fact, he said, that African-Americans were at a disadvantage in finding good jobs.
For now, however, it is joy to the black community.
On Dr Martin L. King Jr Boulevard in Harlem, a makeshift stall has begun selling President Obama T-shirts. “The whole world has changed!” its 27-year-old owner Salou Boubacr said, doing a little jig.
The T-shirts, he said, were printed on Wednesday shortly after Obama triumphed over his Republican rival for the White House.
“Where are you from?” he asked. “Japan? This is America, a nice country! There are opportunities to make money.”
Indeed, there is money to be made in post-election America. Capitalising on the polls fever, advertisements have pushed for products from bras to The Sopranos DVDs using clever taglines and words related to the momentous chapter in US history.
The New York Times reported that a lingerie store in Manhattan tweaked a newspaper headline from “Obama” to read “O-bra-ma”.

Election humour reaches fever pitch

BARACK Obama has a step-brother, Obatma, who once lived in a cave near Nairobi. A half-man, half-bat, he is endorsing Obama so the Democrat presidential candidate is now assured of the mutant vote.
That was a so-called exclusive story from weeklyworldnews.com, a supermarket tabloid which disappeared from the shelves last year but resurrected online.
The publication, which has the “best damn investigative reporting on the planet” at least according to Agent K (Tommy Lee Jones) in Men In Black, also broke a story about John McCain selling secret government artifacts on e-bay.
But the Republican candidate “doesn’t quite get computers, and sold it all too cheaply.” (The US media has previously mocked McCain for his not-so-savvy IT skills after he mentioned in a newspaper interview that he had never felt any particular need to send e-mails.)
In the spirit of the just concluded Halloween, politics can be bizarre, scary and fun in America.
Ricky’s NYC, a costume superstore in Gotham, offered Miss Alaska for US$22.99 (RM81.18). The costume included a pair of glasses and a sash with the words “Miss Vice-President” on the back.
A blog posting reported that the store had sold 600 Palin outfits within three weeks.
“The nation’s eyes aren’t just on Sarah Palin – they’re on her glasses,” as USA Today put it so well last month. Her Kazuo Kawasaki frames cost at least US$375 (RM1,324).
But a pair of fake Palin glasses to complete the Alaska governor’s look comes cheap at just US$9.99 (RM35.27), courtesy of Ricky’s NYC. “Sexy Palin wigs” are already sold out there.
Her wigs are popular even in a Brooklyn store that sells the accessory for Orthodox Jewish women, whose custom requires them to cover their hair.
Theirs are known as sheitel, a Yiddish word.
According to the New York Post last week, the shop sold about 50 “Sarah P” wigs in the past five weeks although it was by no means an endorsement of the Republican.
Joe the Plumber has a more expensive price tag compared to Palin at Ricky’s NYC. The costume that costs US$49.99 (RM176.51), includes a jumpsuit, cap, name tag holder and “best of all ... four interchangeable name tags to swap out on the fly depending on who you’re debating with at the party!” its website declared.
Obama masks are sold out at Halloween Adventure, the master of masquerade, and so is McCain’s.
One of the McCain masks available in stores has a label by Fright Factory.
Clearly, it’s party politics for the Americans.
Not everyone shares the enthusiasm, though. A writer in satirical newspaper The Onion remarked that “just contemplating all the sexy politics related costumes this year is enough to ruin sex, politics and Halloween simultaneously.”
Bookstores such as Barnes & Noble have been pushing titles such as Ghosts, Zombies and the Supernatural and The Zombie Survival Guide.
Then there is Bat Boy Lives!: The Weekly World News Guide to Politics, Culture, Celebrities, Alien Abductions, and the Mutant Freaks that Shape Our World which has a story on Hillary Clinton’s hot nights with aliens.
They say politics is dirty but here in pro-Democrat New York, T-shirt messages are equally dirty or rather naughty. There was one with the caricature of a donkey (the Democrat Party symbol) doing the unprintable to an elephant, the Republican mascot.
These days, however, the credit crunch is more frightening for Americans. So retailers tried to seize the day, using politics and Halloween to lure consumers to dig deep into their pockets.
“One thing Obama and McCain can agree on: Buying shoes is not debatable!” a sign outside a Steve Madden store boldly declared. Another store proclaimed “Vote for new shoes”.
Gap, the clothing store, asked shoppers to stand up for their beliefs, asking “What do you vote for?” and encouraging them to express themselves through videos and buttons.
Then, how about a toast to the “scariest wine sale of the year” which offered “frighteningly low prices”? And an advertisement for single-family homes and villas promised “No tricks, only treats”.
What about for Obatma? Apparently, the potential First Lady has not warmed up to him. “That boy is strange. He will not be coming near my house or my kids,” Michelle Obama reportedly said, as concocted by weeklyworldnews.com.
In real life, ordinary people such as Obama’s toilet repairman isn’t too keen either about visiting the senator’s home in Chicago these days.
Troy Dunn, who has been Obama’s regular plumber for four years, told the New York Post that he had never met the Democrat nominee but wife Michelle was a real nice woman.
“I’m not a big fan of going there right now, though, because of the Secret Service. It’s kind of a pain,” he said.

New ways to news coverage

FOUR years ago when George W. Bush was re-elected president, there was no YouTube and MySpace was a mere one-year-old.

Those were innocent days of yore when the morning ritual is a mug of coffee with the newspaper.

The caffeine has endured but, in the race to the White House now, it is a different ball game for the newspapers.

Gone were the days when the front page of The New York Times (NYT) would grab people by the collar for three days, said Jim VandeHei, a co-founder of political news site Politico.

“Conse­quential journalism isn’t what it used to be,” he said.

The Politico itself is a testament of how the way things are now. It was started in January last year by a team of newsmen from publications such as The Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) and Time.

With almost four million visitors a month, it has become what the NYT described as essential reading in Washington.

“Extraordinary influential,” said CNN anchor Campbell Brown.

At a TimeWarner Summit on “Politics 2008” in New York City co-hosted by Time and CNN, VandeHei explained that readers now processed news differently.

“Journalism isn’t about writing a number of paragraphs and giving the background. People want info; and now, anybody can drive the news, not just the big cable or networks,” he noted.

The focus, he said, was in getting the news out in “real” time.

This meant that reporters could build up their own signature. Viewers would say “I want to watch ABC to see what Mark Halperin has to say.” (Halperin, who is Time senior political analyst, appears on ABC as commentator).

As Time managing editor Richard Stengel put it: “Halperin’s blog €“ “The Page” €“ has become an indispensable, 24/7 bookmark for the people.”

Blogging, Stengel said, was democratic.

“It involves people who are otherwise not involved,” he said

These days, every American voter had almost same access as the journalist. he said, adding that consumption habits have altered.

“A news posting at 3am could elicit 50 responses within minutes,” said VandeHei. There is no longer such a thing called news cycle.

“News psycho” was more like it, as someone joked.

WSJ columnist Peggy Noonan pointed how fragmented things were now.

“We are niched to death,” said Noonan.

“I miss the old, boring ways. Now, you can get your own blog and create your own reality.”

All these up-to-the-minute news, however, raises other questions.

“I wonder what it has done to political discourse; our cycles are so short now,” Stengel said.

And the viral lies, too, which spreads around without verification.

Citing an example, Brown said she was astonished that people still believed Barack Obama was a Muslim.

Why then, Brown asked, had the mainstream media become such a dirty word in this political campaign?

VandeHei felt that the media must “pull back the curtain to show how we do the things we do. The media has to become more transparent.”

As for Vanity Fair editor-in-chief Graydon Carter, he said the media should strive for the truth, not so much about providing balanced coverage.

“The way this country is set up is that you always have to give equal time and weight to every opinion; example, even when someone says there is no global warming,” he said.

Forget, too, about separating reporting and commenting.

“Those days are behind us,” said VandeHei.

“Why are political reporters so interesting when you talk to them over a beer, but so boring when you read them?” he asked.

“People want to know what political reporters are thinking.”

Mark Penn, who was senior

strategist for the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign, pointed out that more than ever the credibility of the media continued to slide.

“Clinton has often been told to let her hair down. But she always had to be careful as things tend to get blown off. If she tells a joke, there will be 10 psychologists analysing what she meant,” he said.

“She couldn’t even make a joke.”

What then, he asked, was the role of the press? To him, the media would merely go after the news of the day.

As CNN senior political correspon­dent Candy Crowley pointed out, the press had not scrutinised Obama’s record as a community leader.

“Do any of us know what exactly he did as a community organiser? He is running on that,” she said.

“What had been his accomplishments?”

There is, unfortunately, a standardisation of coverage where the same news angle got repeated countlessly (think of the stories about Republican vice-president nominee Sarah Palin tripping at her TV interviews).

“Look at newspapers, news sites and cable €“ people are talking about the same thing,” VandeHei said.

This is a YouTube election, no doubt. Barack Obama’s 37-minute speech on race in March has been viewed five million times, making it among the most-watched political videos ever.

Yes, the game has changed but it also means a golden age is here for the media. A more niched audience could mean greater chance of success.

With such a huge consumption of news, “the question is: how do you monetise it?” said Stengel.

As Carter pointed out, people do not want to read 1,000 words on their BlackBerry. They want to look as beautiful pictures, too.

CNN/US president Jonathan Klein said that when the Internet expanded 10 years ago, people thought that would be a major threat to CNN. But cnn.com had remained a top news site, he noted.

The point was to live up to be a trusted name whether online or TV, he said.

“You have to be a brand with reputation,” he added.

Breaking stories is something of a “can’t do without it” for the people, he said.

The funny side of presidential elections

THE hottest name in politics now is a comedian. That’s Tina Fey, whose impersonation of Republican Party’s vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin is a must-watch for anyone looking for a laugh in these tough days when credit is drying up.

Fey’s name cropped up everywhere, from casual conversations to no-nonsense events such as “Politics 2008”, a TimeWarner summit co-hosted by Time and CNN earlier this week.

The Emmy Award-winning star is the latest example of the great marriage between politics and pop culture in America.

Even a video featuring Paris Hilton calling John McCain a “white hair dude” has been viewed 7.8 million times since it first appeared two months ago on www.funnyordie.com.

That’s a comedy video website which approached Hilton to respond to the Republican presidential contender who earlier ran a campaign advertisement calling Barack Obama a megacelebrity and equating him to the likes of Hilton and Britney Spears.

Politics is serious business but humour is always a winner.

A “campaign ad” on www.bigfootnessie08.com suggested Bigfoot or Nessie for president.

“Tired of the same old attacks? The same old politics? It’s time for a change,” said the voice-over, recommending “Bigfoot. He’s eight feet tall and hairy.”

Going by its rationale, big steps require big feet and Bigfoot gets entirely what is ailing America now.

Last year’s much-talked about video was the Obama Girl, a creation of Barely Political.com about a sexy, young woman declaring her affection for the Democratic candidate.

“Our debut video, Crush on Obama, was named one of 2007’s 10 best videos by Newsweek, People Magazine, the AP and YouTube,” the site declared.

Besides Obama Girl, most Americans seem to be favouring the Illinois senator currently as he is leading in the polls with just 17 days left in the countdown to Election Day. Still, that does not really translate to joy and laughter yet for the cautious Obama supporters, especially those who are anxious about “the Bradley effect”.

That refers to Tom Bradley, the African American mayor of Los Angeles who lost the race for California governor in 1982 despite poll numbers stating that he would win handsomely.

For a more recent example, think Democratic’s John Kerry, who everyone thought would be hailed the new commander in chief in the last presidential battle in 2004.

“No one knows who is going to win this election,” wrote The New York Times columnist Bob Herbert on Tuesday.

The media, he scoffed, were too taken up by “wildly proliferating polling data that tell us basically nothing.”

Or, as Burson-Mars­tel­ler worldwide president Mark J. Penn put it: The press is so caught up covering the polls and not the policies.

“All this comes down to what the role of the press is?” he asked at the “Politics 2008” summit.

Penn, who was also the senior strategist for the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign, remarked that the press was merely focussed on “what the story of the day is.”

Presidential debates have not been much helpful, either, in providing Americans a better picture of the candidates especially their economic plans.

“The debates have been completely uninformative events,” said David H. Resler, chief economist at Nomura Securities International. Both candidates, he felt, had squandered away chances to explain to Americans about the economic meltdown, “about what’s going on, and how we got here.”

“Neither of them had stood out,” he told a briefing at the Foreign Press Centre (FPC) in New York. In that sense, he believed, it was still a tight race.

Words don’t matter much anymore, must less from the mouths of politicians. “We should probably take with a dose of salt what the candidates are saying because it doesn’t say much about how they are going to govern later,” economist Ken Goldstein said at the FPC briefing on “Presidential Campaign: The Wall Street Perspective — McCain/Obama Economic Poli­cies”.

At the end of the day, amidst financial blues, the national conversation of the common people is: Are we going to be poor?

The economic slump and the fear of job losses have pushed out other usually hot topics. When Connecticut ruled last week that gay marriages would be allowed in that state, the news caused a ripple, not a roar.

Unless a major news event happens within the next two weeks, “all the stuff that the candidates are saying now; to the people, it’s just more talk, that’s all,” said CNN analyst Jeffrey Toobin at the “Politics 2008” summit.

Swaying to the heady beat of politics

A MIDDLE-AGED man walking his Labrador near Belmont University pointed to his dog and said: “He’s for Obama, too.”

Across the street, about 20 youths cheered and whistled as they waved placards declaring “Peace, Love, No War” and “Nashville Loves Obama”.

One young woman kept twirling a hula-hoop while like-minded fans of Democratic candidate Barack Obama honked to show their support as they drove past.

Meanwhile, John McCain’s “Straight Talk Express” campaign has been zooming around town the past few days.

Nashville “swayed to the beat of politics” as local paper The Tennessean described it; Music City was playing host to thousands of campaign staff and journalists who arrived for the second presidential debate on Tuesday.

Belmont University, delighted to be picked as the venue, held almost 100 forums and seminars to mark the occasion.

Two 14-year-old girls carried a sign saying they were “Future Adults for Obama”.

Asked why they supported him, Hannah Zinder ventured a tentative: “Uhh ... ermm ... because he is going to end the war?”

Music and partying aside, Nashville, with a major healthcare industry, also got down to serious business.

Experts felt that healthcare, long an expensive and complex issue in the United States, has been side-stepped somewhat amid concerns over the financial meltdown.

“Money for healthcare went out of the window last week,” said Dick Morris, a former adviser to Bill Clin-ton and now a Fox News contributor, referring to the US$700bil (RM2.4tril) bailout plan. He believed that there would always be political will for any healthcare reform, “but no financial will for it”.

“We are in for at least three or four years of recession,” he said during a panel discussion hosted by the Nashville Healthcare Council.

Healthcare, according to the panel, was going up two or three times the rate of inflation and wages. It felt both healthcare plans by McCain and Obama had their flaws, but acknowledged that no one plan was perfect.

John Podesta, who once served as chief of staff to Bill Clinton and is now president for Centre for Ame-rican Progress, noted that Obama’s idea would be very expensive to carry out and would not provide care for everyone.

“Under McCain, Americans would be at the mercy of insurance companies,” he said. “Both are not plans that can be acted upon.”

Besides the panel, almost 100 student leaders from 50 universities met for a healthcare leadership conference on Monday.

They came under the banner of SHOUTAmerica, a new non-profit, non-partisan organisation aimed at educating young Americans and promoting dialogue in a “search for sustainable solutions to the impending healthcare crisis”.

According to them, the United States would spend up to US$2.4tril on healthcare this year, and much more on food or housing.

“Between 2000 and 2007, he said, health insurance premiums rose 98%,” said its executive director Landon Gibbs.

The conference also noted that US President George W. Bush never made healthcare reform a big priority in his campaign.

According to these experts, healthcare remains the defining issue of the 2008 campaign for the White House.

The topic also came up during the presidential debate at Belmont Uni-versity, reflecting Americans’ anxiety over rising costs.

Still, they conceded that the healthcare issue was not something that could be easily fixed, unlike a mechanic in Nashville whose garage sign read: “We repair what your husband fixed.”

Bracing for worse in the US economy

THE bustling scene outside the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) concealed somewhat the dark mood that Wall Street is down on its knees in these days of economic turmoil.

Cameras were everywhere, mostly in the hands of tourists eager to capture the nearby huge statue of George Washington on the steps leading to Federal Hall, where he was sworn in as the first US president in 1789. The current president, however, enjoys no such popularity.

Two protesters stood next to the statue, wearing white masks and black T-shirts emblazoned with the words “Arrest Bush” and carrying signs decrying that “Greed Kills.”

It was lunch time on Wednesday and media people were all over the place, seeking interviews with Wall Street executives and the demonstrators.

“We are a group of angry people,” one of the protesters said.

Another bunch of demonstrators displayed sardonic humour, calling out: “Your house is our house. Your debts are your debts. Thank you for paying your taxes, America. There is a crisis, but trust us! Give us US$700bil (RM2.4tril) and we promise you the sky won’t fall.”

One man chipped in: “I’m just looking for a soft landing.”

Two men who carried a banner proclaiming that no planes hit the World Trade Centre tried to get a slice of the attention. They hovered around an interviewee as he spoke in front of TV cameras, but were soon shooed away by the journalist conducting the Q and A.

Most of the business-suited types declined to be interviewed. Some of them explained that their employers had forbidden them to the press.

“I am by nature an optimist, but I have to be realistic, too,” one of them said, declining to identify himself or name his work place, merely saying he works for a financial institution.

“I think we’re in for a long recession, but what do I know? I’m not an economist,” he shrugged.

The US$700bil bailout plan, to him, was a bitter pill that was essential for everybody.

“It’s mortifying and there will be side effects. There isn’t going to be sunshine after that, but there is not much of a choice for now,” he said.

He has been extra careful with his spending but the mood around him was depressing, he said, “and it’s not just Wall Street but Main Street as well.”

Even the highly regarded practice of ringing the opening and closing bell at the NYSE has been marred by the dampened mood, according to The New York Times on Wednesday, which estimated that about 100 million people would usually watch the daily tradition on TV.

Headline names such as Robert Downey Jr (“Iron Man”) rang the bell in April and Michael Phelps did the honours last month.

But now, as the report noted: “Who wants to ring in — or out — the next black day on Wall Street?”

Yet, hope floats for others such as 19-year-old Wendy Francis, a visiting Jamaican who is bullish of her chances of making New York her home.

“I’ve heard so much about the economic crisis but I hope to return and make a life of myself here, as a nurse,” she said.

A Vietnamese who runs a fruit juice stand near the NYSE seems to face no downturn in business. There was a steady flow of customers ordering smoothies from him.

“Business is so-so,” he said, then promptly declared that he had lived in Malaysia once. “I stayed at the Sungai Besi camp for four years.”

This year, Rosh Hashana (the Jewish new year) coincided with Hari Raya.

The NYT reported that some worshippers troubled by the financial crisis often came out of the synagogues during services to check their phone for messages on the latest on the market turmoil.

As for New York City Rescue Mission, which runs a soup kitchen for the poor and homeless, the non-profit organisation is keeping its fingers crossed that donations would keep flowing in.

“We are overwhelmingly funded by the private sector and individuals; 96% of our budget is from private sources, foundations and corporations while the other 4% is from government sources,” NYCRM public relations manager Joe Little said in a telephone interview.

The economic fallout, he said, had not affected them yet “although we foresee it happening in the coming months as more people get laid off.”

Since 1872, NYCRM has been offering food, shelter, clothing, counselling and spiritual hope for the needy. It has 100 beds and prepares food for 400 people daily on a US$4mil (RM14mil) annual budget.

“We have seen a multitude of ups and downs. There was the Great Depression, 911, but we have continued to serve the poor,” Little said.

Its biggest fund-raising event of the year takes places between now and next month, when people are perhaps more in a giving mood as the holiday season beckons.

“We are gritting our teeth to see how it goes,” he said.

Money wants what it can’t buy

SHE’S the voice of Manhattan women, the soul-mate who understands their see-saw love lives, the queen who knows all about shoe porn and toxic bachelors.

Candace Bushnell, in person, is a lovely sight and perhaps another symbol of the blurred line between fact and fiction.

Creator of the awesome foursome in Sex and the City, she was at Barnes & Noble in Union Square on Monday evening for a reading of her latest book One Fifth Avenue.

That’s the address of a grand Art Deco apartment building on Fifth Avenue, inhabited by the social haves and coveted by the ambitious have-nots.

“Real-estate envy is universal,” Bushnell said. Even in the earlier days, “somebody realises that somebody else’s cave is bigger.”

A roof over your head is basic but much more so in New York City, where home ownership is premium.

“It’s wired into our DNA about seeking shelter,” Bushnell said, “but for some people, the more glamourous the shelter, the better.”

By using the venerable address as the setting of this book, Bushnell has finally acknowledged that the one thing more significant than sex in this city is real estate — and the two are, in more cases than not, intertwined, according to the book review in The New York Observer.

That newspaper, by the way, was the start of Bushnell’s Sex and the City column in 1994 that led to the TV and movie versions.

Bushnell seems like any other writer who aspires to be a great author.

“If I could be Evelyn Waugh, my life would be perfect,” she recalled telling herself when she was younger, as she had deeply admired the British author.

These days, Bushnell has been compared to Henry James and Edith Wharton. “That’s really flattering and nice but they write much better than I do,” she said.

Last week, Page Six Magazine put her on the cover wearing a US$5,500 (RM18,700) Bill Blass dress, calling her “Big Apple Babe” and quoted the “former party girl” as saying that “there’s nothing harder than being single”.

Bushnell, who will hit the big Five-0 in December, acknowledged to the magazine she had had botox treatment and that she was not the least bothered about being labelled a cougar. Hubby, a ballet dancer who is 10 years younger, was at Monday’s book reading with her. They married six years ago.

The audience that evening, mostly women, evidently adored her. They devoured her latest book while waiting for her arrival.

“I have loved her since Sex and the City. I like the fact that she is not afraid to show the weaknesses and the strengths of women,” said Dynelle Skinner, a 32-year-old in-house PR executive for a cosmetic company.

Through Bushnell’s writings and the TV series, Skinner said, she had learned to be more creative and bold; both in fashion and sexuality. “We are not afraid to approach men. We can be romantic, we can be aloof.”

Furthermore, Skinner acknowledged a problem with shoe shopping.

“There are times I would tell myself that the bills can wait. I just have to buy that pair of shoes!” she said, laughing.

Bushnell told her fans that her mother’s death from breast cancer led to a period of mourning. “I was depressed, thinking about life and loss, and what life added up to,” she explained.

“Here in New York, the old is replaced by the new. People come to New York. Everybody has a story. You need to figure out what your story is, who you are, and where you are on the ladder of success.”

One Fifth Avenue, she said, was an actual building which she used to walk past, fantasising that she would live there one day.

“Fantasies do nourish you. It keeps people going but as you grow older, you might wonder whether it is worth it,” she said.

Her favourite character in her latest book is the 43-year-old Mindy Gooch who, as head of the apartment board, is so ambitious and hell-bent in wanting it all that “she forgot to smell the roses along the way”.

Through her readings of classics, Bushnell said she found that people had not really changed. “All these are stories about people in the city. I am struck by the similarity of people then and now.”

In a way, that means that people have never learned their lessons. And, in the pursuit for social prominence, a character in One Fifth Avenue put it well: Money wants what it can’t buy. Class and talent.

It's the economy, stupid

DUSK was settling in but the mood at Columbia University was bright as the campus awaited for America’s two most watched men.

The Ivy League school was playing host to a forum for the ServiceNation Summit on Sept 11; Barack Obama and John McCain would discuss volunteerism and national service.

A large screen was erected near Low Library. The crowd of students began to swell long before the simulcast of the forum began.

One female undergraduate posed with a life-size cut-out of the Democratic contender. Others clapped whenever Obama’s name was mentioned by a speaker.

The mood was infectious; there was hardly a poker-face in sight.

“It’s predominantly for Obama,” Tara Machen, a final year Arts undergraduate, said of the campus population.

But, she assured, there had been no fights between Obama and McCain supporters among the students. “We enjoyed the diversity of views,” she maintained.

Youthful enthusiasm aside, the mood of the country remains negative.

Neil Newhouse, a co-founder of Public Opinion Strategies, said their latest survey found that at least 67% of Americans felt that their great nation was on the wrong track and George W. Bush was getting the thumbs down as President.

As a pollster, Newhouse has done research in countries such as Bulgaria, Jamaica and Venezuela “but I have not had numbers that are as negative as what we are seeing currently.”

The economy is the priority of the American electorate now, he said, instead of Iraq which was once the burning issue at hand.

In a sense, the Democrat Party has an edge over its rivals.

“The biggest doubt about McCain is that he will continue Bush’s policies,” said Stan Greenberg, CEO of Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, who has served as pollster for leaders like Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Tony Blair and Nelson Mandela.

Look to the 2006 US midterm elections, he said, as a backdrop. “It was like an earthquake then when the Republicans lost control of the House Representatives and the Senate.”

Prior to Monday’s collapse of Lehman Brothers, Greenberg said Obama had a mere three point advantage over McCain.

“Obama has energised the young people but I believe that economic issues are not his passion,” he said.

Hillary Clinton, for comparison’s sake, had eyed more the blue-collar workers.

Both Newhouse and Greenberg were at a discussion on “Post-Convention, Pre-Debates: A Look at the Race to the White House in Key Battleground States” organised by the Washington Foreign Press Centre on Tuesday.

The Republican camp, according to Newhouse, had been hit by “Palin mania”.

“I can’t tell you how excited they are. She is getting numbers that comes to almost unanimous in terms of polling,” he said.

Sarah Palin, McCain’s running mate, has the highest positive rating for a vice-president contender since Al Gore in 1992. But the question remains: Will the numbers stay strong for her?

“So, the vice-presidential debate on Oct 2 between Joe Biden and Sarah Palin will be a lot of fun,” he remarked.

The last couple of weeks revealed “a clear sense that McCain has the wind at his back,” he said.

Polls conducted during the first week of the month showed that he was gaining ground more than Obama.

But neither Obama nor McCain was particularly strong on the economy.

“The first one who finds a voice on this (the fall of Lehman) in the next 72 hours will have an advantage,” Newhouse said.

In a way, both candidates “even each other out,” he added. According to him, Obama has his biggest edge “ vote for change" but the Democrat’s main weakness, his inexperience, is McCain’s biggest strength.

Still, Newhouse refused to read the tea leaves for the outcome of the battle for America’s highest office.

“It is still up for grabs. This is an extraordinary election with more twists and turns to come. Issues have zig-zagged. This is not a campaign that goes on a straight and narrow path,” he said, “so I don’t even dare to predict it.”

Let’s see who’s voted off

IT’S been called the ultimate reality show, Made-in-America (where else), and as the world awaits who gets voted off, the glitter of the main star attraction seems a little less shiny for now.

Democratic contender Barack Obama, taunted by the John McCain campaign as the biggest celebrity on earth, isn’t occupying the prime spotlight currently; a mother of five from Alaska seems to have stolen the thunder, at least for the moment.

But a largely pro-Democrat audience who turned up for a Tuesday talk, Inside the News: Race and the Race, organised by The New York Times, was clearly rooting for their man.

“It’s not that we are desperate for a black president, but we want justice,” said an African-American woman during the Q and A.

Alluding to last week’s Republican National Convention which was attended mostly by white delegates, she asked: “Was that America?”

To her, the Democrat Party was more reflective of the diversity of the United States.

But in reality, there are only 10 states that are in play in the general election. These are the swing states, among which are Michigan, Colorado, Wisconsin, Missouri, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia.

“We are not seeing the campaign the way the swing states see it,” said NYT op-ed columnist Gail Collins. For example, New York, a true-blue state, will hardly see Obama and his Republican nemesis John McCain in the next few weeks before election day.

The two African-Americans on the panel – professor of humanities Henry Louis Gates Jr and NYT columnist Bob Herbert – felt that Obama had not “connected” with the working-class American yet.

According to Gates, it was too simplistic to dismiss a white voter as racist if he did not pick a black candidate.

The point is: create empathy and convince people that he is on their side; these voters are waiting to be wooed.

“It is incumbent upon Obama to do what John F. Kennedy did in West Virginia,” he said, turning to 1960 history when Kennedy, a Catholic, won the support of the mostly Protestant state.

Herbert, declaring that he did not trust most polls, said he believed that Obama was even further behind McCain than was reflected in the surveys now.

He said Obama must pursue the working-class American who has to struggle in these days of an economic slump.

“He has not done so in a compelling way. There is still a certain stiffness and reservation in him, an almost professorial approach from him,” he said.

In that sense, Gates said, “looking back, Hillary Clinton would have made a better candidate.”

“The working class responded very well to her. Obama hasn’t found his voice yet,” he said.

Both panellists – Obama supporters – felt that although Hillary seemed cold at the beginning of the primary campaign she later became very effective in conveying the message that she felt the pain of those struggling over bread and butter issues.

“She would have also done better in distinguishing her job and policies from McCain’s,” Herbert said.

Still, it was a credit to the Obama campaign for succeeding in snatching the nomination from Hillary, which was hers to lose.

Obama, Herbert said, should have however steamrolled ahead now with his adorable family, projecting the image that he knew about raising a family and getting to college.

The US media has scrutinised speeches made at the recently concluded party conventions and found that Republicans mentioned God most often, followed by words such as taxes, change and business.

Democrats, on the other hand, spoke most frequently about “change”. Other oft-used terms were McCain, energy, Bush and jobs.

Gates, on his part, found it odd that Obama made no mention of Martin Luther King Jr during his address at the party convention, although that day was the 45th anniversary of the civil rights leader’s famous “I have a dream” speech.

These days, nothing about the candidates escapes public scrutiny. Body language is one favourite subject.

“When Sarah Palin and John McCain make an appearance together, there’s always a brief hug, but no kissing,” late-night show host David Letterman joked. “It’s just like Bill and Hillary.”

Democrats, who have been chanting “eight is enough”, simply can’t wait to bid farewell to the two terms of the Bush administration.

Will it be goodbye Bush, hello Obama? Americans will decide in less than eight weeks.

Sarah Barracuda is fair game

IN Desperate Housewives, Bree Hodge faked a pregnancy to protect her teenage daughter Danielle, who gave birth to a boy.

Wisteria Lane shenanigans, apparently, has a mirror site in the wild, wild world of rumour-mongering that is now targeting Alaska governor Sarah Palin.

Suddenly, all the buzz on last week’s Democratic National Convention, when Barack Obama was crowned the first African-American presidential nominee, seemed so yesterday.

Within two days of Palin’s appointment as the running mate of Republican presidential candidate John McCain, the chatter began that her five-month-old son was not hers, but the child of her unwed eldest daughter Bristol.

The rumour was quashed when news came that 17-year-old Bristol is pregnant and Palin is due to become a grandma at 44, just in time for Christmas, as they say.

Americans have been riveted with guilty pleasure over tales about Palin’s past. She was a former local beauty queen and was once a fearsome basketball player, with the nickname Sarah Barracuda.

At the age of 24, Palin eloped with her boyfriend as they were cash-strapped for a wedding.

Now, her significant half has not been spared the public scrutiny either. Her husband, the “First Dude”, reportedly did not complete his degree and was arrested for drunk driving 22 years ago.

There was an account, too, of how her Wikipedia entry was somewhat mysteriously spiced up just hours before the official announcement of her vice-president candidacy.

And what about Bristol’s teenage boyfriend? His MySpace page has been removed and reporters who went to his mother’s house, according to an Anchorage local daily, found that the place was just like any other Alaskan home – decorated with moose and caribou antlers.

Nothing has been spared in the search for skeletons in Palin’s closet; even her social security number has allegedly been stolen. Entertainment magazines which usually put celebrities first have placed her on their cover, though not necessarily in a positive light.

“No one heard of her before last week,” said Kelly McBride, The Poynter Institute’s ethics group leader.

“Now, people are digging deeper because you’re talking about someone who has the potential to become the vice-president. The stakes can’t get higher than that.”

However, McBride felt that the media scrutiny should be in the right manner, to protect people such as Palin’s children.

“We must minimise harm to them. These matters must be handled with care,” she said, noting also that the twin daughters of President George W. Bush received much coverage last time for their antics.

Much of the public debate has focussed on whether Palin, as a mother of five, can handle the heat that the job of vice-president brings.

They ponder whether she should have taken up the VP offer, as it could mean lesser time for her family, especially her youngest son who has Down Syndrome.

“Certainly, these are questions that would not be asked if the candidate is not a woman,” McBride said. “But in reality, women play a different role than men.”

(American society, in a way, is still traditional. Marriage announcements in The New York Times would include whether the bride is keeping her name or not. This, surely, is no longer a question that arises anymore for Malaysian women.)

Just like Hillary Clinton – critics poked fun at the way she laughed – Palin is now under the microscope for things such as her hair and spectacles.

As one TV news commenter put it, unfortunately some people found it intolerable that a woman with big hair and librarian glasses could be governing them one day.

But even in the blue state of New York where Obama fans are aplenty, Palin’s family problems merely made her more human to them. To them, it does not speak lesser of her as a mother or an individual.

“So what if her eldest daughter is pregnant? Her children has nothing to do with it. Lots of American girls get knocked up at an early age,” said Kimberly Blackette, a law student and Obama supporter.

Palin, in an e-mail sent out to supporters on Aug 30, wrote: “Some of life’s greatest opportunities come unexpectedly, and this is certainly the case for me.

“I never set out to run for office. But life has taken me on a course that first led to the Alaska governor’s office and now the country’s first female Republican vice presidential candidate.”

Palin power, as the Republicans called it, resonated the following day after her acceptance speech at the party convention.

For those on her side of the fence, one headline went to the extent of saying that “a star is born”.

And messages of encouragement have appeared everywhere from T-shirts to thongs in Alaska. One declares: “Our mama beats your Obama.”

Obamania reaches fever pitch as all eyes follow historic event

THE sky was cloudy but it was business as usual on 125th Street, the lively commercial area of Harlem where street vendors selling incense, shea butter and DVDs ply their trade alongside large chain stores such as H&M.

At first glance, Obamania was not in sight. Except for a sidewalk stall selling Obama T-shirts, there were no other telltale signs.

But chat up the locals, and a different picture emerges in this neighbourhood known as the capital of black America.

“It’s the biggest thing that we have been talking about so far,” said Monica James, during a lunch break from her 12-week course to become a medical assistant.

Though she had no time to spare for the just-concluded Beijing Olympics, “I’m surely going to take a bit of time off in between studies to watch the convention tonight,” she said on Monday, the start of the four-day Democratic National Convention (DNC) in Colorado.

Despite the DNC sometimes being derided as a party for the Democrats to celebrate themselves, most Americans did not want to miss what people like James called a historic event.

Cable networks tapped on the demand for political updates as the country witnessed the first African-American to secure a major party nomination bid for the Oval Office. Thus, no details seemed too small, no news deemed too frivolous.

There was an account of how the Obama campaign searched for weather reports of the past 20 years to be sure of no rain on the day that he delivered his acceptance speech in the football stadium.

Fox News Channel, which devoted almost every other minute to the DNC, provided a “visual timeline” on the hairline of Barack Obama’s running mate Joseph R. Biden Jr. The cable network showed images of how his hair (or lack of it) had changed through the years courtesy of hair transplants.

According to The New York Times, he got the news that he was selected as the party vice-president nominee while at the dentist as his wife went for a root canal.

Others remembered Biden’s remarks last year when he described Obama as a “clean African-American”, which led to a mini-controversy then – was he implying that others did not bathe regularly?

Then there was the “Fox Flashback” on the day Al Gore accepted the party’s nomination for the 2000 presidential election.

Nothing escaped the cameras when Hillary Clinton made her speech on Tuesday night. They recorded every expression of hubby Bill Clinton and Barack’s wife Michelle Obama as Hillary addressed the party, while political analysts of all stripes scrutinised every word she said, or rather, what she did not say that night.

Fashion statements were in, too. There was a brief segment on how Clinton’s staff tested pantsuits of different colours against the blue backdrop of the stage. In the end, as everyone throughout the world witnessed on CNN, Clinton wore a striking tangerine ensemble that evening.

Nielsen Media Research estimated that at least 22 million Americans were in front of their TV on Monday night when Michelle Obama was the star attraction. The numbers did not include those who followed the event online.

Viewership went up even higher the following night with 26 million people watching Hillary as she urged her “sisterhood of the travelling pantsuits” to back Obama. A staggering number no doubt.

For comparison’s sake, almost 28 million people tuned in to NBC’s closing ceremony broadcast of the Beijing Games last Sunday, the highest number of any closing Olympics since 1976.

In May, 31.7 million viewers watched David Cook crowned the latest American Idol.

A day after her speech, the Obama campaign sent out a mass e-mail signed merely “Barack” with the subject heading “Did you see Michelle?”

“Michelle was electrifying, inspiring, and absolutely magnificent. You have to see it to believe it,” Barack said in the e-mail, which included a video link of her speech.

If viewership is all in the millions, there has also been much talk about the millionaires in Barack and his Republican rival John McCain.

McCain, to the delight of his enemies and critics, appeared unsure about the number of houses he owned during an interview with a news website.

Depending on who you listen to, the Republican presidential nominee could own four, seven or eight homes. Blogs and news reports have since noted his expensive shoes – a US$520 (RM1,760) leather Salvatore Ferragamo.

Other millions in the news: Obama has raised US$339mil (RM1.1bil) so far for his campaign; McCain only US$136mil (RM460.2mil).

And so, out of this historic DNC are stories which are often incredulous and offbeat, so gleefully reported by media such as the New York Post which ran a column named “Hee Haw”, illustrated with a caricature of the Democrat Party symbol of a donkey.

Head to head before polls

DURING the 1992 presidential debate between Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush, the senior Bush was so eager for it to be over that he kept looking at his watch.

It was all captured on camera, author Paul Slansky notes in his book Idiots, Hypocrites, Demagogues, and More Idiots – Not-So-Great Moments in Modern American Politics.

Presidential debates provide Americans, in fact, the world, a close-up view of the candidates battling for the White House.

A slip-up here or a boo-boo there can dent the candidate's campaign. Inane remarks and clueless replies will be revisited again and again by stand-up comedians, bloggers and the press.

Slansky pointed out how George W. Bush stated the obvious prior to his debate with Al Gore in 2000 by saying: “I view this as a chance for people to get an impression of me on a stage debating my opponent.”

The first presidential debate for the 2008 general election will take place next month at the University of Mississippi.

Barack Obama will spar, again, with John McCain on Oct 7; their third and final duel takes place two weeks later.

The debates are organised by the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD), a non-profit and non-partisan Washington-based corporation that was established in 1987.

“We’ve done all of the presidential and vice-presidential debates since then,” said executive director Janet H. Brown.

Preparation for the 2008 debates began way back in December 2006, she said, “so there’s about 20 months worth of work that has gone into the plan”.

It is, after all, a huge, live TV production where mishaps must be prevented, although sometimes they are unavoidable.

For instance, a power failure interrupted the debate between Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter in 1976. The sound went dead and “Mr Ford and Mr Carter stood on the stage in silence for 27 minutes”, she recalled.

Other planning entail picking the sites, the dates and the debate format. This year, more time will be given to questions.

The moderator will pose a question and after a candidate replies the moderator will pursue the topic in conversational style with the candidates.

“I think this will help viewers and listeners understand in greater depth the candidates’ positions on important topics,” Brown told a briefing at the Foreign Press Centre.

Moderators picked for the different events are PBS news anchor Jim Lehrer, NBC special correspondent Tom Brokaw and CBS news veteran Bob Schieffer.

Brown listed three criteria for the selection – their extensive understanding of the candidates, the campaign and election issues; their long experience with live, hard news on TV; and their understanding that their job is to facilitate the conversation and to focus on the candidates.

That, basically, ruled out prominent news anchors for the job.

“The reason that we have had an informal policy against them is that they are news celebrities, if you will. In the past, the public has felt as though it was almost like having another famous personality on the stage,” she said.

For the first time, the CPD will also collaborate with MySpace through a new website, MyDebates.org, to engage a wider audience and to have online discussions on the debates.

According to Brown, at least 160 people would file with the Federal Election Commission as candidates for president of the United States in any given year.

Most of these people would want to be included in the debates to gain visibility.

“But when you have election campaigns that go on as long as they do in this country, by the time you get to the last eight weeks of the campaign, which is when our debates take place, the public wants to see a very small group of individuals from whom the next president is going to be chosen,” she said.

How influential or important are these debates to the voting public?

“For several cycles now, exit polls have shown that more people use the debates as an important factor in making their voting decisions than any other single factor,” she said.

This does not mean that the debates will necessarily change the people’s mind about a candidate.

But the surveys, conducted by TV networks, showed that “people rate them as the single most important factor in how they decide to cast their votes”.

Take the 1988 debate when Democratic candidate Michael Dukakis was asked by the moderator whether he would favour the death penalty for the killer if his wife were raped and murdered.

Instead of expressing outrage for conjuring up such a tragic scenario, Dukakis responded without emotion, saying that there was no evidence that capital punishment was a deterrent.

“And with that, any chance of a Dukakis presidency was crushed like a bug,” Slansky said.

Love Lips – all’s not white in the House

THE Love Lips scandal was originally seen as tabloid trash, and thus not picked up by the mainstream media.

But then everybody heard from the horse’s mouth last week when former presidential candidate John Edwards admitted to an extra-marital affair with 44-year-old Rielle Hunter, a “cougar”, as mercilessly labelled by some in the press.

Since the public TV confession, Americans have been fed with stories about Hunter’s endearment for Edwards – Love Lips – and the possibility that her five-month-old daughter is their love child.

Others speculated that a former campaign worker, who admitted fathering the girl, was a loyalist who was trying to protect Edwards.

They poured scorn on how a man, who received a “Father of the Year” award last year, could cheat on his cancer-stricken wife Elizabeth Edwards.

“A lying skunk,” said New York Post writer Andrea Peyser.

This was the vain pot, they recalled, who once spent US$800 (RM2,700) for two haircuts in Beverly Hills.

Most editorials were unforgiving. “Sleaze,” one headline blared about the 2006 affair.

One breast cancer survivor wrote to a newspaper, questioning the manner Edwards defended his infidelity when he remarked that the affair took place only after his wife’s cancer was in remission.

(Incidentally, former Speaker of the House of Representatives Newt Gingrich is known to have discussed divorce terms with his first wife Jackie Battley at the hospital, a day after she underwent cancer surgery in 1980. He married again the following year, to the woman he reportedly committed adultery with.)

The Public Editor of The New York Times pointed out that Edwards’ story of sex and betrayal had been reported in the National Enquirer for the past 10 months; but it received scant attention from the mainstream press, although it had been hot on the lips of bloggers and talk-show hosts.

Following Edwards’ confession, many began soul-searching, why they failed to pursue the story with the same zeal and passion as the National Enquirer.

Bottomline, as someone explained it. The national media was reluctant to “recycle” or follow-up on a story which originated from a supermarket tabloid.

It would seem almost instinctive to ignore or dismiss news which come out from such publications.

Now, the news about Edwards’ adultery is all the rage on primetime TV and the national media.

Columnist Gail Collins, however, named US president Grover Cleveland, who ruled the White House during the 19th century, as her favourite American leader when it came to scandals.

Cleveland was a bachelor when he became commander-in-chief. And at the age of 49, he became the only president to have a White House wedding when he married the 21-year-old daughter of a friend.

But that was not the scandal. Cleveland, apparently, fathered an out-of-wedlock child prior to becoming president.

“The scandal almost cost him the election, and the baby inspired a famous political slogan then: ‘Ma, Ma, where’s my Pa? Gone to the White House, ha, ha, ha’,” Collins wrote in her column last Saturday.

Infidelity aside, the manner that politicians tried to cover them up makes for compelling reading.

In 1978, Gary Hart was a frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination, but was constantly dogged by talk of his womanising ways.

“Follow me around, I don’t care,” Hart reportedly told the press then.

“I’m serious. If anybody wants to put a tail on me, go ahead. They’d be very bored.”

He spoke too soon. Miami Herald reporters spied on him, and eventually news broke that he took a model on a trip to Bahamas on a yacht appropriately named Monkey Business.

A week after photographs showing the model sitting on his lap were circulated, Hart quit the White House race.

For months, Edwards had denied everything. Until last week.

“Human nature being what it is, there will continue to be adultery no matter how many instructive scandals they’re exposed to,” Collins wrote in The New York Times last week.

But they should at least know how to make a decent public confession, she said.

The history of deception, scandals and infidelities always repeats itself. That much is true, at least.