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Roh Moo-Hyun: an Unlikely Life
I do not believe that humans have a pre-destined path in their lives. I do, however, believe that when humans are born, they all have the most likely path for their lives. If a person is born to loving, happy parents with sufficient financial resources and enough care to educate and nurture, it is most likely that she will live an easy, happy life. That's not a surprise. Similarly, if a person is born to a hateful, broken family without any money and any desire to provide education, it is most likely that he will live a difficult, unhappy life. That is not a surprise either.
What makes human condition interesting are the turns and deviations from that most likely path. It is even more interesting when those turns are consciously made into a direction that provides the most resistance. In fact, it is those turns that define our lives.
Throughout his life, Roh Moo-Hyun often chose to make the most unlikely and drastic turn away from his likely path of life. And truly, those turns made him what he is.
Roh Moo-Hyun was born on September 1, 1946, at Bong-Ha village near Gimhae, Korea. The only claim to fame that Bong-Ha had was its dreary reputation – "a place where crows turn away because there is nothing to eat." His parents were mere peasants. Roh almost did not enter middle school because his family could not pay the tuition. Roh would not have gone to high school had he not received a full scholarship at his high school – he was preparing for a civil service exam after graduating middle school. He never went to college.
After graduating high school, after applying for and failing to get a job several times, Roh built a hut made of dirt in a nearby mountain, and began studying for the bar on his own. Apparently it took him around 10 years to make it (seven if you discount the military service,) but he did – he passed the bar in 1975, when he was 29.
Roh's passing the bar needs to be put in perspective. Korean bar in 1975 was not like Korean bar in 2009, and most definitely not like American bar in 2009. Out of the thousands who take the bar exam, only the top 500 are allowed to pass per year. Because there were so few attorneys, becoming a lawyer was an automatic path to power and prosperity. Back in those days, when you passed the bar, your elders would bow to you and call you yeonggamnim – "old man", an unthinkable thing to do in a Confucian society like Korean in any other situation. And here is a guy who never went to college, took any prep courses or had any tutoring passing that exam. He nonetheless managed to be one of Korea's top 500, and forged himself a way out of poverty and into wealth and power. This was the first significant turn in Roh's life away from its pre-determined course.
But the second turn in Roh's life would involve willingly throwing away that wealth and power he managed to achieve. Roh was appointed to be a judge, but he quit after only serving 8 months. Then for several years he was in private practice, specializing in tax law. He came to nearly monopolize every major estate tax cases in Busan area, earning plenty of money for a very comfortable life. His hobbies included yachting.
In 1981, twenty-two Busan-area people who were known for their democratization activities were arrested and subjected to tortures such as beating, waterboarding and electrocution for as long as 63 days, in an effort to frame them as communist rebels. Prosecution claimed they plotted to overthrow the government and indicted them with charges of treason that carried sentences as long as 10 years in prison.
Remember, this is only one year removed from May 18 Democratization Movement, when the Chun Doo-Hwan dictatorship killed 151 civilians protesting for democracy and sentenced 7 more to death for insurrection and treason. It was clear to everyone in Korea at that time that torture and death was always a possibility for those who opposed the dictatorship. But that did not stop Roh, who represented the defendants pro bono. Since then, Roh began to be known as a human rights and democratization activist prominent enough that at one point, the National Prosecutor's Office sought an arrest warrant for him four times over a single night.
[Roh during Burim Incident representation (right)]
But once again, Roh Moo-Hyun turned his life away from its most likely course – and this is perhaps the turn that eventually made him the president. Roh belonged to Kim Young-Sam's party, and Roh's stature rose as Kim Young-Sam's did. The three-party merger all but guaranteed Kim Young-Sam's coming presidency. Roh's path of least resistance surely was to follow Kim Young-Sam.
But Roh did not, and his political life suffered as a consequence. Roh would lose his seat in 1992. He would run for different elected offices in 1995, 1996 and 2000, only to lose again, again and again. (He did serve as a National Assemblyman in a truncated term between 1998 and 2000, when he took over the seat of an Assemblyman who resigned amidst an investigation for elections law violation. The resigned Assemblyman was none other than the current president Lee Myeong-Bak.) However, Roh's efforts did not go unnoticed: Roh perhaps is the first Korean politician to have a self-generated fan club, established in 2000.
The Significance of Presidential Election of 2002
Despite all this, it is fair to say that Roh was given a very small chance to win in the presidential election of 2002. To understand why, it is necessary to understand how political parties operated in Korea until that time.
In essence, political parties in Korea have been (and to a degree still are) an organizational vehicle for certain individuals to achieve and maintain political power. An important corollary to this definition is that political parties were not organized along any meaningful ideology or a set of policies. Broadly speaking, one could say there have been two large streams of political ideology in Korea – pro-dictatorship parties and democratization activist parties. However, as exemplified in the three-party merger in 1990, those distinctions did not mean much as long as power was to be had.
In practice, this means that an average Korean did not have a lot of say in an election. The boss of the party tightly controlled the process of who may run under the party slate. And in any election, a candidate without the organizational and financial strength provided by a political always faced nearly certain defeat. This applied to the presidential elections as well. The bosses of the party chose who would be the candidates of the election (usually themselves), and voters were expected to show up and choose one or the other.
This all changed in 2002, when the Millennium Democratic Party (MDP), to which Roh belonged, decided that it would hold American-style primaries to choose its presidential candidate. The idea certainly had a gimmicky feel to it – then-president Kim Dae-Jung, the boss of the MDP, was not very popular at the end of his term, and MDP's repeat appeared to be a long shot. The candidate for the opposing Grand National Party (GNP) was Lee Hoi-Chang, the same guy who lost to Kim Dae-Jung five years previously; each of Kim's failure served as a reminder that Korean people could have chosen Lee five years ago. MDP needed something to turn the tide that appeared to be heading toward GNP's way.
On the other hand, however, I submit that first, American-style primary elections are good for Korean democracy, and second, GNP would have never done it first. GNP is a party born out of the three-party merger. At that point it still counted as its members many cronies of the military dictatorship. (In fact, a GNP Assemblyman, a former prosecutor, tortured an MDP Assemblymen, a former democratization activist, before they won their seats.) While GNP had many worthy members at that time, the anti-democratic legacy of the party was still too pervasive for it to take a bold step like primary elections.
Before the primary elections, GNP's boss was Lee Hoi-Chang, and it was obvious that Lee would run. But because the boss of MDP was the outgoing president, it was not very clear who would run in the presidential election. It was widely presumed that Lee In-Je, a heavyweight politician who had the most control of MDP's insider politics, would come out to oppose Lee Hoi-Chang. Roh Moo-Hyun, at that point the Minister of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries, was not considered to be a serious threat. Although Roh was gaining popularity, he was hardly a national figure; few in MDP considered him to be a leader of the party.
Oh, how Roh proved them wrong. Beginning in March 2001, Roh embarked upon the most magnificent president campaign in Korean history. (Although it must be granted that the history of campaign strategy in Korea is really not very long.) Roh's campaign was so beautiful that I can't help but smile whenever I think about it. Recently, Josh Tucker of the blog Silver Screen and Roll described Kobe Bryant this way: "[Kobe] has the most complete, versatile, and polished skill set in the NBA. Pull-up jumper, leaner, runner, floater, fadeaway, fallaway, midrange, long-range, close-range, pump fake, jab step, up-and-under, dunk, layup, left hand, right hand, face-up, post-up, driving, elevating, strength, savvy, power, finesse, balance, body control, footwork. Bryant can do it all."
Similarly, Roh's campaign had everything that a good presidential campaign should have. My own list of a successful campaign is not nearly as exhaustive as the list of basketball skills above, but here are some essential things that a successful campaign has: vision, charisma, fundraising, speechmaking, connectability, relentlessness, ground-level organization, trench warfare. (I am certain I am missing a few – I am happy to take suggestions.) Do everything above well, and you win elections.
[Roh during 2002 presidential campaign]
Roh's campaign was a thing of beauty because it had everything. It offered a grand vision for the people – a "society where rules apply equally and where common sense works". The image of Roh's illustrious career provided much more charismatic dynamism compared to Lee, who was older and appeared to be more wooden. Roh's speechmaking ability was well-renowned before and throughout his presidency. Roh's campaign television ad, showing him simply playing a guitar and singing, became an instant sensation – here is a guy we can relate to, voters thought, instead of that other guy who does not seem to have anything in common with an average person. Roh had an inspired group of fans who took care of finances and ground battles, as donations though "Piggy Banks of Hope" would generate a large and clean source of campaign finance. And when it came time to get down and dirty, Lee Hoi-Chang was hit with the allegations that his son was a draft-dodger.
The brilliance of Roh's campaign was in stark contrast to those of his opponents', who were still stuck in a basketball game without the three-second rule, the shot clock and the three-point line, so to speak. Lee In-Je used the tried-and-true method of accusing Roh as a communist sympathizer by pointing out that Roh's father-in-law was a known communist. However, Roh's simple retort – "So you want me to drop my wife to become the president?" – instantly showed the hackneyed state of that tactic, and the hackneyed state of Lee In-Je who dared to use that tactic. GNP belatedly implemented its own primary elections trying to replicate the buzz that Roh created by winning them, but GNP's primaries only appeared formalistic and feeble when Lee Hoi-Chang won them all with no real opposition.
In explaining Roh's victory, many focus on the a few events that appeared to give Roh an edge that he perhaps did not deserve, such as the draft-dodging scandal for Lee Hoi-Chang's son or the strong wave of anti-Americanism in 2002 following the armored vehicle incident. But this is too narrow of a view. In a fairly conducted national election, victory is never achieved by tactics alone. To be sure, well-executed tactics are essential for victory. However, at the end of the day, the winner of a democratic election does so by following the mandate of the democratic system – that is, by delivering what the electorate wants.
Roh did not win the election through deception or trickery, as his opponents are quick to conclude. Roh won because ultimately, he delivered what Korean people wanted. All the items listed above do not mean anything unless they resonate with the electorate. In particular, Roh's vision was exactly what Koreans have craved – a society in which rules apply equally and common sense worked. Roh also offered many other things that Korean people wanted in their political lives. Korean people wanted more control in the democracy that they won. In the three previous presidential elections before 2002, Korean people have little say in who becomes the candidate – that process was all done behind closed doors among powerful people. But now, Korean people can directly jump into deciding who will run for the president, and can finance that candidate directly. This participation gave much more legitimacy to Roh compared to any other presidential candidate in the history of Korea.
Roh's election was not simply a success for himself – it was a success for Korean democracy. By electing Kim Dae-Jung in 1997, Korean democracy already proved that it can peacefully transfer power from one side of the politics, which originally had all the power through military dictatorship, to the other side of the politics which originally had no power at all. Now, within nine years since 1992 (or within 14 years since 1987, if Roh Tae-Woo's legitimacy is to be charitably considered,) the election of Roh Moo-Hyun showed that the power transfer was not an ephemeral event that could be taken away through rigged elections or a military coup. Roh's election proved that democracy was truly here to stay in Korea.
The Roh Presidency: the Good and the Bad, the What and the How
Popular perception of the Roh presidency prior to Roh's death was that it was an unmitigated disaster. I don't believe that is the case. Although the media pendulum has swung too much to the other direction since Roh's death by glorifying everything about Roh, it was undeniable that Roh did have a few significant achievements during his presidency.
First, it is fair to say that the decks were stacked against Roh from the very beginning. Although Roh was the president, the existing power structure did not favor him. GNP was only slightly weakened during the Kim Dae-Jung presidency, and its organization retained its strength. On the other than, Roh was an outsider even within MDP, lacking the strength of his own organization. In practical terms, this meant that high governmental positions were filled with relatively younger people with no real governance experience, because anyone in Korea who did have such experience gained that experience by surviving in the military dictatorship. Mostly due to this, the Roh administration frequently suffered from severe incompetence on the ministerial level.
In the same vein, it was extremely unlikely that Roh would receive a fair shake from the major newspapers. These newspapers survived the authoritarian era by serving as the bullhorn of the dictatorship. Even after democratization, the three largest newspapers of Korea – Chosun, JoongAng and Dong-A – tended to lean toward the conservative side of Korean politics. Thus, it was difficult for Roh to implement his policies and receive a fair assessment of the success or failure of those policies.
Nonetheless, Roh did have a few significant achievements, and it must be noted that those achievements tended to be against his own interest. Perhaps the most significant was a considerable weakening of the power held by the National Prosecutor's Office. The Prosecutor's Office, at its worst, was truly the "dogs of the power" as it was known among Korean people. It was always willing to move at the president's direction, striking the opposition with arbitrary charges of treason and insurrection. By weakening that office, Roh rid himself a major instrument for silencing his critics.
Roh administration also pushed for and entered into a free trade agreement with the United States in favorable terms, although his major supporters, particularly unions, staunchly opposed the agreement. (This would later come to haunt the succeeding Lee Myeong-Bak administration in a major way through in the form of beef protests.) Despite his reputation as an anti-Americanist, Roh cooperated with the U.S. when it clearly favored Korea's interest regardless of the opposition from his supporters, e.g. by sending Korean troops to Iraq.
But Roh's crowning achievement as the president is not what he did do, but what he did not do. Again, Roh reduced his own power by weakening the Prosecutor's Office. Similarly, Roh never used any governmental body as an instrument of power. Here is what one needs to understand about Korea: it is a society in which every important person is at least a little bit corrupt. That's what happens if a country spends decades under dictatorships and behind-closed-doors political economy. Therefore, if a person in power really wants to mess with you, all she needs to do is to sic a law enforcement agency and attempt to apply the law in the strictest sense. A Korean adage describes this situation perfectly: "Dust falls from everyone if beaten hard enough." For those in power in Korea, silencing their critics is easy: pursue anyone hard enough, and sooner or later some illegality will dust up that will land her in jail.
But Roh never did any of this. There was never any dubious prosecution of his political opponents. No midnight raids on the political groups that he did not like. No harassing tax audit by National Tax Service on companies that he did not like. No secret dossier compiled on individuals by the National Intelligence Service. These are all the things that Roh's predecessors did to varying degrees (not to mention torture and mass murder,) but Roh stayed away from them. The conservative press screamed bloody murder when Roh, enraged by constant negative coverage (some of which, I do agree, he surely deserved,) shut down the pressroom in the Blue House – conveniently forgetting that 20 years ago, they would have faced tax audit, jail time or disbandment of their company under the conservative presidents/dictators with whom they curried favor. Roh could have made his enemies' lives much more miserable, but he did not. Instead, he trusted that the democratic process would work itself out. He sat tight during his impeachment based on tenuous charges, and he obeyed the judiciary when the Constitutional Court shot down the crown jewel of his domestic policy – the Administrative Capital – in an extremely dubious ruling.
This achievement alone puts Roh away from the harsh assessment of utter failure. In fact, one can argue that Roh was one of the top three among the eight presidents that Republic of Korea has had, excluding the current one. Seriously, who would you take above Roh? Syngman Rhee, the guy who rigged numerous elections and appointed himself to be the lifetime president?
Weighing against the foregoing positive points, Roh's presidency contained no major disaster. Economy grew at a reasonable pace. No major physical accidents like a collapsed department store, a crumbled bridge or an exploding gas main that killed hundreds. (These things all happened in Korea previously.) Relationship with North Korea improved, and there was no major militaristic saber rattling from the North as it happened before and after Roh's presidency. (Although it must be noted that North Korea acquired nuclear weapon during Roh's presidency.) Transparency in government improved greatly as well.
One may ask, what about the bribery scandal? I readily concede that it was no small affair. Much of Roh's authority hinged on the moral superiority of his position compared to his opposition. So it is indeed significant when Roh and his family did in fact receive $6 million – certainly no small amount – as a bribe. But this needs to be put in perspective. Roh is not blameless, but his blame must be proportionate to his crime.
If you were the president of a major industrial nation who is bent on corruption, wouldn't you earn more than $6 million? After all, $6 million buys all of three luxury condos in the posh part of Seoul. That's the best that a president can do? And surely, the predecessors of Roh outdid him by several degrees of magnitude. Chun Doo-Hwan collected $1 billion in his slush fund (assuming $1 = 1,000 won,) and this was in the 1980s dollar that is worth twice as much as today. Roh Tae-Woo collected $500 million in slush fund during his presidency. Kim Young-Sam's son collected $20 million. Even as recently as 2002, in Lee Hoi-Chang and the Grand National Party received $80 million in bribes to use in the election.
Why does the amount of bribe matter? It matters because the larger the bribe, the greater is the impact of corruption. Roh's $6 million came from one owner of one mid-sized company. On its own, that bribery does not pose a systematic risk to Korea. But when the slush fund is $1 billion, the bribe must come from all corners of Korean economy – in other words, the harmful effects of bribery become much more pervasive. Simply put, the damages caused by Roh's predecessor's briberies are far greater than the damages caused by Roh's bribery.
Also, it is important not to overstate the argument that the $6 million was much more damaging because Roh made his moral superiority the hallmark of his administration. Bribery is something that is not supposed to happen, regardless of whether or not a politician stated his intent not to accept bribery. Stating, "Hey, I never said I wouldn't take bribes!" does not reduce the culpability of a bribe-taker. It is most certainly true that Roh was a liar when he repeated time and again that his administration was squeaky-clean. He deserved all the reputational damage that followed the investigation. But it was more than a little ironic that GNP, a party that received more than 13 times greater amount of bribe in 2002 in the form of literally truckloads of cash boxes, crowed in delight as if to say, "See? See?? You are no better than us!"
Having said that, it would be foolish to be blind to the many failures of the Roh presidency. He was generally a poor diplomat who did not always have a smooth relationship with the U.S., Korea's most important ally. It is also fair to say that Korea's economy grew during his term despite his economic policy rather than thanks to it, as Roh's policies focused more on distribution rather than growth, e.g., the extremely harsh property tax on the homeowners on certain ritzy parts of Seoul.
But the greatest failure of Roh was that he created a toxic partisan environment in which he relied on the small number of ardent supporters push through his agenda while alienating the greater public. In such a situation, successes during Roh's presidency became discounted, while failures during Roh's presidency – however attenuated Roh's involvement is – were magnified. Toward the end of presidency, it was a common half-serious joke that if your toilet backed up, it was Roh Moo-Hyun's fault.
The creation of this environment is directly attributable to Roh's faulty governing style. This style came about because of the simple truth – revolutionaries make lousy politicians. Roh Moo-Hyun was a revolutionary, and he failed to make the transition from being a revolutionary to being a mainstream politician.
The skill set required for being a successful revolutionary is completely different from the skill set required for being a successful politician. A revolutionary works outside the system. His power depends on denying any legitimacy of the opposition; indeed, a revolutionary must destroy the opposition, for they do not fit the new world order that the revolutionary seeks to achieve. On the other hand, a politician must begin by recognizing the legitimacy of the opposition – however unpalatable the opposition is – because negotiation with the opponent is essential in order to get anything done in a democracy.
In a sense, Roh was the most successful democratization revolutionary in the history of Korea. As such, Roh had the skill set to become the most successful revolutionary. His eloquent yet lashing style of speech was legendary; he was always happy to bypass the established lines of communication and speak directly to the people; he never compromised with his opposition, be they the military dictators or the former revolutionaries who co-opted with the dictators. These are the traits that made Roh into the president.
Yet what made Roh also unmade him. It was perhaps too much to ask for the most successful revolutionary to abandon the traits that made him successful. Roh never could make that transition, and the traits that once served as a tremendous advantage for Roh now served as a massive detriment. Roh continued to speak in an unrestrained manner, reducing his stature and providing fodder for the opposition. He relentlessly mocked and demonized the opposition, taking away GNP's last remaining inclination to compromise. Whenever Roh sensed that he was in a pinch, he sought to communicate directly to the people, at one point going so far as to propose a referendum for his presidency. Instead of achieving the desired effect, these antics simply tired out the electorate. People living in democracy are busy – they elect leaders so that they don't have to think about politics all the time. Roh's actions ran directly counter to that fundamental (if less recognized) desire in democracy.
In essence, Roh's governing style combined the worst elements of Jimmy Carter and George W. Bush, two of the worst American presidents since World War II. Jimmy Carter ran as an outsider like Roh, railing against the corruption of Richard Nixon presidency. Yet Carter, like Roh, never made the transition from outsider to insider, and his governance was rendered impotent because of that. George W. Bush thought winning an election was enough to push through a highly partisan agenda without consulting the opposition at all. In politics, how you do matters as much as what you do. The things that Roh did (and did not) do are no less significant than the achievements of any other president in Korean history. But it was how Roh did them that set himself up to be a failure.
Death of Roh: Korea's Tragedy
Perhaps Korea was due for a president like Roh Moo-Hyun. Korea achieved democracy through a series of small revolutions. It would have been strange for Korea to not have a president who made his career as a revolutionary. But like a great individual can change the course of her life away from its most likely path, a great leader can change the course of her nation away from its most likely path as well. While grand historical narratives are always important, one must never lose sight of the fact that individuals matter in history. A great leader can transcend the reflection of the nation upon her, and instead make the nation a reflection of her. Roh Moo-Hyun failed to do this as the president. He was the reflection of Korea that unflinchingly fought for democracy. But during his presidency, he could not transcend that history of Korea.
However, Roh still had one more chance to transcend another aspect of Korea, for simply being who he is. Because of Korea's checkered history of closed-door politics and corruption, there has never been a single Korean president who had a dignified post-presidency life. Syngman Rhee was exiled; Yoon Bo-Seon and Choi Gyu-Ha lost their presidency in military coup; Park Chung-Hee was assassinated; Chun Doo-Hwan and Roh Tae-Woo were tried and jailed for treason; Kim Young-Sam and Kim Dae-Jung could not escape the corruption scandals of his sons and confidants.
But not Roh Moo-Hyun. Indeed, Roh clearly showed the sign that a happy, dignified post-presidency life was completely within his reach. He simply went back to his native Bong-Ha village and became a village elder. He came out and waved at tourists who came to visit until the crowd became too large and posed a security threat. He still wrote on his website, but did not interfere with the day-to-day politics very much. He led small projects like beautifying the landscape around the village.
Indeed, this is exactly what Korea needed. Korea achieved democracy, but it has yet to have a full democratic narrative in which an ordinary person comes to power, serves his country with that power, and peacefully return to being ordinary after his term is over. Roh was not a very good president because he could not change who he was. But in post-presidency, Roh could have achieved the last leg of the democratic narrative by simply being exactly who he was. As Jimmy Carter exemplifies, while revolutionaries do not make a good president, they make a heck of an ex-president. Ex-presidents are once again outside of the political system, but this time with much dignity and symbolic authority. Because they lack an actual authority, their revolutionary excesses do not become implemented, while their revolutionary idealism serves as an inspiration. Roh was only 63. He had at least 10 good years in him to serve as a symbol of how Korean democracy managed to produce a president who had no political machine to his name, no insider clout and no college education. Over time, people would have forgotten how Roh conducted his business and come to focus on Roh's achievements themselves. Roh only had to be himself – the revolutionary who steadfastly clung to the principles of transparency and democracy.
[Roh driving around his grandaughter in Bong-Ha village.]
But now we know that Roh was not being himself. He took bribes, however relatively small, just like the opposition that he denounced for being corrupt. For the record, I do not begrudge the investigation. The Roh supporters who blame the Lee administration for vigorously pursuing Roh's corruption scandal are being shortsighted. Truth is always better than cover-up, and the truth was that Roh did something that he should not have done.
Truth also hurts. The loss of moral authority following the bribery scandal was a mortal wound for Roh not because it recast his achievements in a different light; it was because it eliminated the possibility of Roh achieving anything more in his life. That apparently was enough for Roh to decide that he did not have enough to live for. It was a tragic choice for both himself and for Korea. He lost his life, and Korea lost a valuable chance of having a full and complete democratic narrative.
Got a question or a comment for the Korean? Email away at firstname.lastname@example.com.


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The Bechdel Test, Bechdel-Wallace Test, or the Mo Movie Measure, is a sort of litmus test for female presence in movies and TV. The test is named for Alison Bechdel, creator of the comic strip Dykes To Watch Out For, who made it known to the world with this strip.Most people who talk about Schrodinger's Cat do so with the understanding that the "experiment" is a thought experiment only. The concept of the Schrodinger's Cat is used to illustrate in the mind an aspect of quantum physics, namely how (if I understand correctly) an event at a purely quantum level could have a practical effect on the physical world. There's no real value, however, in going out and getting a cat and a box to put it in -- the "experiment" in question is in the mind, and not in the box.
In order to pass, the film or show must meet the following criteria:
1. it includes at least two women* (some make the addendum that the women must be named characters)...
2. who have at least one conversation...
3. about something other than a man or men.
-- TV Tropes
I may not understand the Schrodinger's Cat experiment perfectly (I'm not, alas, a quantum physicist), but I do understand the Bechdel test. This is another test whose value is largely in the mind and in understanding the larger implications, and yet it's frequently misunderstood when brought up in conversation and particularly in reference to specific works. The test itself is fairly simple: does the work in question have two female characters who have a conversation with each other about something other than a man? Yes or no?
There's wrangling over the details, of course. Do the two female characters need to have names or a minimum of screen presence? Does the conversation need to be a back-and-forth or will a single line from one female character directed to another female character do the trick? Can the topic be a man, if the man is being discussed in a professional (i.e., not relational) capacity? If a single unnamed female cop asks a single unnamed female desk clerk, "Have you seen this man?" in the course of a criminal investigation and otherwise there are no female characters for the rest of the movie, is that "good enough" to pass the test?
There are fights over these questions. Serious ones. Speaking as a member of both the Firefly and the Star Trek: Voyager fandoms, there can be seriously hurt feelings and angry recriminations when the Bechdel test is brought up. Short version for the uninitiated: Voyager had a long history of sexually exploiting its female characters and focusing everything through Male Gaze lenses, but over the long running series, there were still many conversations between the female characters on the nature of humanity, the burden of responsibility, and the importance of finely ground organically grown coffee. Firefly, on the other hand, is generally seen as a more feminist-friendly work, but the series ran for a very short time and the Bechdel examples are fewer and farther between. It is impossible to bring this up online without hurting feelings. And, in fact, the whole thing usually degenerates into a few people explaining that the Bechdel test is not a measure-o'-feminism and a lot of people responding then what is it good for?! and then everyone walks away frustrated and unsatisfied.
It's true: the Bechdel test isn't a measure of feminism in a work. It's not a measure of whether or not a work is good. It's only very rarely even used as a reason to see or avoid a movie, and when it is, it's a question of personal taste and choice on the part of the viewer. So what is the test good for? Most people, myself included, use the Bechdel test as a thought experiment only. The question isn't "is this particular movie worth watching". The question isn't even really "does this particular movie pass the test", although that consideration is part of the bigger question. No, the real question the Bechdel test makes us consider is "why is it so hard to come up with a list of examples that pass the Bechdel test?"
Go back to the Firefly example above. Name me a scene where two women have a conversation that isn't about a man. Well, you'll probably reach for the Kaylee/Inara pampering scene where Inara brushes out Kaylee's hair in her shuttle. Name me a second one. Well, you'll dig down and pull out Kaylee asking Inara how many of her male clients wanted to take her away from her life as a Companion. We'll let you have that one, even though it's sort of about men, because I'm nothing if not reasonable. Name me a third one. Well... didn't Inara have a female client in one episode? We'll count that, even though it's somewhat overlaid with male gaze which is even lampshaded by Jayne's announced intentions... and even though most of what Inara and her client talk about are, in fact, men. Name me a fourth one. Um. Okay, surely the gals must have had some light banter around the dinner table at some point, and wasn't there that one scene where River states to Kaylee that she is badass? Not really a conversation, but we'll count it. Name me a fifth one. A sixth. A seventh. How many can you give me? Not ten, I'll bet.
Now name me thirty scenes in Firefly that feature two men having a conversation that isn't about a woman. I'll bet you can do that in ten minutes with plenty of scenes to spare. The men discuss reavers, the Alliance, the ship, the state of the finances, and the likelihood of the ambush they're flying into frequently and often. They have side discussions about wealth and privilege and religion and politics and guns. They discuss the moral implications of their thieving lifestyle, and they wrangle over how their lives will be affected if they give away money they can't afford and make enemies they don't need in order to help people they don't know. They discuss their loyalties to one another, and where those boundaries lie. They even talk about silly hats and hilarious bar ballads.
None of this means that Firefly is a bad show; I love Firefly. None of it means it's an anti-feminist show: the women are three-dimensional characters in their own right, and they're nuanced and complicated and thoroughly interesting to me. (YMMV, of course.) No, the value of the Bechdel test here isn't to trash Firefly or make it out to be a bad show because it's failed to give the female characters a voice.
Instead, the value of the Bechdel test here is to get the viewer thinking about the ways our society views women and the ways it views men. If your women on screen only interact with one another in stereotypical "feminine" ways -- in this case, largely talking about and growing interpersonal relationships -- then as a writer, you've failed to recognize and reflect the reality that women frequently and daily have conversations with each other about regular stuff. We talk about our jobs. We share our aches and pains. We discuss movies and TV shows and food and books. We exist as regular people, just as regular as the men around us.
The Bechdel test is a question of presence. Reading through the listings on the Bechdel Movie List, one is struck by how many films fail at the first point by only having one (or zero!) named female characters. Those tests that do pass, frequently hinge on split-second 'conversations' -- "Can I use the bathroom?", in one instance, and "Angel, no," in another -- that have to be diligently dug from the memories of the viewers reporting back from from the theaters. The take-away here isn't that there are a lot of bad movies out there; the take-away is that it's really dang hard to find the examples necessary to satisfy this simple test.
Presence of women in movies is important. In a world where women make up roughly half the population, it's been shown time and again that we're underrepresented in movies. There are three male characters to every one female character in movies. In group scenes with large crowds, the representation drops to one out of five. If women aren't visible and aren't vocal in movies, this aggregate under-representation underscores an ongoing belief in our unimportance. The Bechdel test illustrates that perfectly, not by picking out "bad movies" in particular, but by illustrating the incredibly unbalanced ratio of men to women in movies in general.
Take the same Bechdel test, and make it a question of race instead of gender. You'll have the same problems, with many of the same movies. It's not much easier to find scenes of non-white people having conversations about things other than white people; and -- just as with the original recipe Bechdel test -- the most obvious aversions occur in movies where the entire cast is made up of the group in question. It would seem that women have the best chance at having a voice when all the men have been excised from the movie, and that non-white characters have the best chance at having a voice when all the non-white characters have been removed from the cast. What can we make of this?
The "Reverse Bechdel test" -- in which the viewer is invited to find examples of two men having a conversation about something other than a woman -- is interesting because of its rarity. The test is usually only 'failed' if either all (or all-but-one) characters are female. These movies exist, it's true, but they're generally marketed almost exclusively to women; rarely is the summer blockbuster movie cast with zero male characters and expected to do well at the box office with men and women alike as excited viewers. It would seem that having a 1:5 ratio of men to women in a movie is generally expected to have similar ratios in the audience, but having a 5:1 ratio in favor of men isn't likely to hurt sales too much.
And this, in the end, is perhaps the real value of the Bechdel test: the solidification of the lowest possible expectations. The Bechdel test doesn't demand an equal ratio of female characters to male. It doesn't look for equal amounts of screen time or character importance or impact on the plot. It starts with the very basic question: of all the many, many characters in this movie -- ten, or fifteen, or twenty, or more -- are at least two of those characters female? And in this first step, an astonishing number of movies fail. And if we adjust for race and ignore gender, we still see a surprising number of movies that fail. What can we make of this?
Well, one possibility is that the roles are being written as white male characters who need white male actors. Fair enough. If you're writing a screenplay for an Apollo 13 remake, I guess you can't stock the space shuttle with a Chinese woman, a black man, and a Native American transgendered person. That wouldn't be historically accurate. But, here's the thing, almost none of the movies I watched this year dealt with historical figures who had to be X gender and Y race or else be Historically Inaccurate. And 90% of the movies I watched this year could have been cast entirely from random selection of race and gender for 90% of the roles. And yet... for some reason... they weren't.
I can't tell you why that is, because there are a lot of possible reasons at play here. Maybe writers tend to be predominantly white males who therefore predominantly write white male characters. Maybe casting directors tend to be predominantly white males who therefore predominantly cast white male actors in parts -- or perhaps they predominantly over-value the white male dollar at the box office and cast according to the assumption that white male audiences want white male actors. Maybe directors tend to cut parts written for non-white non-male characters as being less valuable to the overall piece than the parts written for the white male characters. Maybe a lot of things.
What I can say is that this sort of thing is sharply outlined by thought experiments like the Bechdel test. What I can say is that it takes something like the Bechdel test to get people to stop talking individual movies -- which largely boil down to preference, interpretation, and fan wars -- and to start talking cultural trends. What I can say is that this conversation is precisely why we need a Bechdel test, why we need lots of Bechdel tests, for gender and race and sexual orientation and a variety of other measures. The Bechdel test sharply outlines what our society presents as normative, as the "default" form a character does and should take.
That is what the Bechdel test is for. Not for the one-off artistic efforts, but for the aggregate effect as a whole on minority voices in our culture.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
The tension between public safety, liberty
Every mass shooting has three elements: the killer, the weapon and the cultural climate. As soon as the shooting stops, partisans immediately pick their preferred root cause with corresponding pet panacea. Names are hurled, scapegoats paraded, prejudices vented. The argument goes nowhere.
Let's be serious:
1. The Weapon
Within hours of last week's Newtown, Conn., shooting, the focus was the weapon and the demand was for new gun laws. Several prominent pro-gun Democrats remorsefully professed new openness to gun control. Sen. Dianne Feinstein is introducing a new assault weapons ban. And the president emphasized guns and ammo above all else in announcing the creation of a new task force.
I have no problem in principle with gun control. Congress enacted (and I supported) an assault weapons ban in 1994. The problem was: It didn't work. (So concluded a University of Pennsylvania study commissioned by the Justice Department.) The reason is simple. Unless you are prepared to confiscate all existing firearms, disarm the citizenry and repeal the Second Amendment, it's almost impossible to craft a law that will be effective.
Feinstein's law, for example, would exempt 900 weapons. And that's the least of the loopholes. Even the guns that are banned can be made legal with simple, minor modifications.
Most fatal, however, is the grandfathering of existing weapons and magazines. That's one of the reasons the '94 law failed. At the time, there were 1.5 million assault weapons in circulation and 25 million large-capacity (i.e., more than 10 bullets) magazines. A reservoir that immense can take 100 years to draw down.
2. The Killer
Monsters will always be with us, but in earlier days they did not roam free. As a psychiatrist in Massachusetts in the 1970s, I committed people — often right out of the emergency room — as a danger to themselves or to others. I never did so lightly, but I labored under none of the crushing bureaucratic and legal constraints that make involuntary commitment infinitely more difficult today.
Why do you think we have so many homeless? Destitution? Poverty has declined since the 1950s. The majority of those sleeping on grates are mentally ill. In the name of civil liberties, we let them die with their rights on.
A tiny percentage of the mentally ill become mass killers. Just about everyone around Tucson shooter Jared Loughner sensed he was mentally ill and dangerous. But in effect, he had to kill before he could be put away — and (forcibly) treated.
Random mass killings were three times more common in the 2000s than in the 1980s, when gun laws were actually weaker. Yet a 2011 University of California at Berkeley study found that states with strong civil commitment laws have about a one-third lower homicide rate.
3. The Culture
We live in an entertainment culture soaked in graphic, often sadistic, violence. Older folks find themselves stunned by what a desensitized youth finds routine, often amusing. It's not just movies. Young men sit for hours pulling video-game triggers, mowing down human beings en masse without pain or consequence. And we profess shock when a small cadre of unstable, deeply deranged, dangerously isolated young men go out and enact the overlearned narrative.
If we're serious about curtailing future Columbines and Newtowns, everything — guns, commitment, culture — must be on the table. It's not hard for President Obama to call out the NRA. But will he call out the ACLU? And will he call out his Hollywood friends?
The irony is that over the last 30 years, the U.S. homicide rate has declined by 50 percent. Gun murders as well. We're living not through an epidemic of gun violence but through a historic decline.
Except for these unfathomable mass murders. But these are infinitely more difficult to prevent. While law deters the rational, it has far less effect on the psychotic. The best we can do is to try to detain them, disarm them and discourage "entertainment" that can intensify already murderous impulses.
But there's a cost. Gun control impinges upon the Second Amendment; involuntary commitment impinges upon the liberty clause of the Fifth Amendment; curbing "entertainment" violence impinges upon First Amendment free speech.
That's a lot of impingement, a lot of amendments. But there's no free lunch. Increasing public safety almost always means restricting liberties.
We made that trade after 9/11. We make it every time the TSA invades your body at an airport. How much are we prepared to trade away after Newtown?
Charles Krauthammer's email address is email@example.com.
© 2012, The Washington Post Writers Group


text:
I drink tea by the gallon. And sometimes, you just need a bit of sweetness to accompany your tea. This is that cake.
Now that it is citrus season, bring out the oranges and make this light, not-too-sweet tea cake.
Beat together some butter, sugar, hella orange zest and create a lovely cake. I was thinking of glazing it, but went with the powdered sugar topping. That is perfect. You can dress it up with some orange segments too.
The recipe says it serves 8. What?! How big are those pieces? I cut mine into 16 pieces.
Adapted from: Orange Cake from Epicurious
Gourmet, January 2004
1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup sugar
4 teaspoons (equals 1 Tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon) finely grated fresh orange zest
2 large eggs
1/2 cup sour cream
1/4 cup fresh orange juice (I needed two medium oranges to get enough zest and juice for this recipe)
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
Powdered sugar for dusting
1. Preheat oven to 350°F.
2. Prep an 8-inch square baking pan (I line mine with parchment and spray with Pam with flour).
3. In a medium bowl, whisk together dry ingredients. Set aside.
4. Rub the zest with the granulated sugar until damp. This will make the sugar very fragrant.
5. Cream the butter and sugar (with zest) with a paddle attachment until creamy (2 minutes).
6. Add eggs one at a time.
7. Add sour cream and orange juice to blend together.
8. Add flour mixture until just incorporated. Don't overmix.
9. Spread into pan and bake until toothpick comes out clean...about 30-40 minutes.
10. Cool in pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto cooling rack.
11. When completely cooled, dust with powdered sugar.
12. Pour yourself and your friend a cup of tea or coffee, and enjoy!


text:
'A' Day (the Appointed day) arrived on 6th April 2006 and brought with it sweeping and radical changes in relation to pension legislation.
This has created a single universal regime that replaced the previous eight tax regimes and the changes affect all savers in occupational and personal pension schemes, employers and financial advisers.
Pension simplification introduced two new controls, the pension Lifetime Allowance (LA) and pension Annual Allowance (AA).
From April 2006, there is now just one set of tax rules for all types of pension, with an individual LA of £1million (2017/2018) and an individual AA of £40,000 (2017/2018), which now tapers down to £1o,000 for high earners. Most individuals are able to fund up to these limits with the possibility to also carrying forward unused AA from the previous 3 years.
High earners with income in excess of £110,000 p.a. may have a reduced annual allowance of £10,000 under the tapered annual allowance rules. Individuals who have already flexibly accessed part of a pension scheme will only have an AA of £4,000.
Exceeding either the LA or the AA will simply trigger a tax charge.
Other changes included:
- Early retirement age available from age 55
- Full concurrency (i.e. being able to pay into any array of plans you wish), subject to the annual allowance and potential for carry forward
- Wide investment flexibility
- Up to 25% Tax Free Cash
- The ability to commute 'small' funds as a one off lump sum as opposed to having to draw a regular income from age 55 (subject to part of the fund being taxed)
- Options at retirement when deciding to take benefits such as capped or flexible drawdown
- No need to secure benefits at age 75 via an annuity
In addition another raft of changes introduced in April 2015 also gives individuals further and greater flexibility to access their pension savings from age 55.
The changes also include:
- Increasing the flexibility of the drawdown rules by removing the maximum 'cap' on withdrawal and minimum income requirements for all new drawdown funds from 6 April 2015;
- Enabling those with 'capped' drawdown to convert to a new Flexi-access Drawdown fund once arranged with their scheme;
- Enabling pension schemes to make payments directly from pension savings with 25% taken tax-free, known as the Uncrystallised Fund Pension Lump Sum (UFPLS) option;
- Removing restrictions on lifetime annuity payments;
- Ensuring that individuals do not exploit the new system to gain unintended tax advantages by introducing a reduced money purchase annual allowance (£4,000 2017/2018) for money purchase savings where the individual has flexibly accessed their savings; and,
- Increasing the maximum value and scope of trivial commutation lump sum death benefits.
Pensions are a long term investment. You may get back less than you put in. Pensions can be and are subject to tax and regulatory change; therefore the tax treatment of pension benefits can and may change in the future.


text:
Order by Saturday, December 16 for delivery before Christmas.
Vogue Golf Issue Poster
Are you looking for something unique to refresh your interior? Discover our Vogue Golf Issue Poster. A contemporary print with a retro illustration of two golfers on a Vogue cover. The motif has a beautiful color palette with a grainy texture that further enhances the vintage character. A Postery.com favorite!
We believe that greater transparency will help lead the change towards a more sustainable future. As a step in this long-term commitment, we're sharing how and where our products are made wherever possible.
Suppliers and factories for this product.
Location: Gothenburg, Sweden
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All our posters are printed in one of the leading printing factories in Northern Europe. The supplier has been family-owned since the start in 1963, and they share the same values we have at Postery, caring for generations to come. The supplier has the Nordic Swan Ecolabel, a label showing their commitment to reducing their environmental impact from the production to the consumption. Since 2011, the supplier has reduced its CO2 emissions by around 80%. The remaining emissions they cannot avoid are compensated financially to the United Nations initiative "Climate Neutral Now". Hence, the factory has been 100% climate-neutral since 2011.
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text:
One of the best things about fall is that it is apple season and this year I discovered a tasty new apple, the SweeTango apple! The SweeTango apple is a cross between the Honeycrisp and the Zestar and they have the best qualities of both of them! SweeTango apples are grown in a few states in the US and a few provinces in Canada and they are only available for a few short months in the fall. After enjoying snacking on some SweeTango apples it was time to put them to the test and use them in a recipe and the first recipe on my list to try was some SweeTango apple pecan sticky buns!
Apple pie has to be one of my all time favourite things and I was a kid when I first came across the idea of serving apple pie covered in cheddar cheese. It wasn't until a few years later until I finally embraced the idea of combining sweet and savoury by adding cheddar cheese to apple pie and to my surprise I found that the combination was amazingly good. When I first got my hands on some of the SweeTango apples I could not resist using them to make some apple pie inspired pecan sticky buns and I just had to try throwing some cheddar cheese into the sticky buns! As you know, I am a complete bacon addict and I just had to try adding some bacon to the apple pecan sticky buns since bacon goes so well in sweet dishes and when combined with both apples and cheddar cheese.
Since you need to let the dough rise two times, these sticky buns require a bit of time to make but they are actually pretty easy requiring very little actual work. One of the great things about making these sticky buns is the amazing aroma that fills the house while they are baking and it only heightens the anticipation! These SweeTango apple, bacon and cheddar pecan sticky buns turned out amazingly well! The sweet and savoury combo of the SweeTango apples and caramel when fantastically well with the melted cheddar and bacon! The SweeTango apples themselves worked really well in this baked dish and I can see myself using them in many more!
My largest baking dish was not big enough to fit all of the buns so I placed the extras in ramekins and they turned out nicely!
These apple and cheddar pecan sticky buns are just dripping in caramel!
Just look at all of that melted cheddar goodness!
Looking for SweeTango apples? Here in Canada you can find them in Loblaws, Sobeys and Walmart.
Apple, Bacon and Cheddar Sticky Buns
Pecan sticky buns with apple, cheddar and bacon make for a perfect blend of sweet and savoury in a tasty fall breakfast treat.
- 1/4 cup water, warm
- 1 tablespoon active dry yeast
- 1 teaspoon sugar
- 1/3 cup sugar
- 2 eggs, room temperature
- 1/3 cup butter, melted
- 1/2 cup sour cream, room temperature
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 3 1/4 cups flour
- 3 tablespoons butter, room temperature
- 1/2 cups brown sugar
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 2 SweeTango apples, peeled, cored and sliced
- 2 cups cheddar cheese, shredded
- 6 slices bacon, cooked and crumbled (optional)
- 1/3 cup butter, room temperature
- 3/4 cups brown sugar
- 2 tablespoons corn syrup
- 1/2 cup pecans or walnuts, toasted and optionally coarsely chopped
For the basic sweet yeast dough:
For the apple, bacon, cheddar sticky buns:
- Mix the water, yeast and sugar into a large bowl and let it sit until it is foamy, about 10 minutes.
- Add the sugar, eggs, butter, sour cream, vanilla, salt and 2 cups of flour, mix for 2 minutes at medium or 200 strokes by hand and stir in enough of the remaining flour to make a soft dough.
- Place the dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth, about 5 minutes. The dough should feel soft and buttery and not sticky.
- Place the dough in a large greased bowl, cover with a damp towel and let rise until it has doubled in size, about 1 hour and 30 minutes.
- Punch the dough down, knead for 30 seconds, cover rest for 10 minutes.
- Roll out the dough on a floured surface into a 16″ by 12″ rectangle.
- Spread the butter onto the dough leaving 1 inch of one of the narrow edges free.
- Sprinkle the mixture of the brown sugar and the cinnamon onto the buttered part of the dough followed by the apple, cheddar and half of the bacon.
- Roll the dough into a log starting with the buttered narrow end, pinch the seam to seal and cut into 16 even slices.
- Melt the butter, brown sugar and corn syrup in a pan at low heat, mix in the nuts and remaining bacon and pour the mixture into the bottom of the baking dish.
- Arrange the buns on top of the mixture, cover in plastic wrap and let rise until doubled in size, about 1 hour and 30 minutes.
- Bake in a 350F/180C preheated oven until golden brown, about 20-30 minutes.
For the basic sweet yeast dough:
For the apple, bacon, cheddar sticky buns:
Apple, Cheddar and Bacon Fritters in Caramel Sauce
Pumpkin Pie Cinnamon Buns with Caramel Cream Cheese Frosting
Blueberry Maple Pecan Cinnamon Buns
Caramel Apple and Bacon Grilled Cheese Sandwich
Caramelized Apple and Cheddar Omelette with Bacon and Candied Walnuts
Creamy Maple Brie and Cheddar Apple Soup


text:
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
As I Wreck Elect...
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Cheryl D. found this on Barack Obama's Flickr stream. Hmm. An off-center graphic, scrunched wording, and awkward blank areas? There's some irony at work here, I just know it.
I got a real kick out of these cakes and their descriptions, found by Louise L.:
"Show that you want Change We Need and endorse Barack Obama for President at your next party."
"Show that you put Country First and endorse John McCain for President at your next party."
Ah, I love capitalism. Let's see...do I want Change We Need, or do I put Country First? Decisions, decisions.
I do like how the decorator made both candidates look better than they do in real life, but someone should probably let him/her know that it's '08, not 08'. (Yes, I'm being nit-picky, but y'all would just berate me in the comments section if I didn't mention it.)
Oh, and check out how this bakery is hedging its bets:
Chris H., one of these cakes is going to make someone very, very sad tonight. I'm almost ashamed of myself, laughing like this. (Almost.)
I really can't decide which one is worse; both cakes have the same 08' mistake and overly squished "congratulations". Of course, that "c" in McCain looks like it was tacked on as an afterthought, but then again Obama's cake got two of the least American flag-looking flags I've ever seen. Hmm - yeah, I think I'll call it a draw. (And no, there will not be a recount on that.)
Hey, you know what I think of when I see Obama & Biden? Cupcakes. Yep. Totally. Fortunately, Nikki B. has got me covered:
Talk about unfair: this bakery didn't offer McCain or Palin cupcakes! What the hey, guys? Americans deserve to eat icing effigies of all their presidential and vice presidential candidates! I'm pretty sure that's in the constitution somewhere, anyway.
Well, happy voting, everyone! Oh, and please, no politics in the comment section, eh? I'm sure we're all about politic'd out (off?) by now.
102 comments | Post a Comment
- andrea wardle said...
Those profile cakes are... um... great, yeah... But I don't think they realized that Democrats are BLUE and Republicans are Red!? Common misconception: makes a wreck even better.
- November 4, 2008 at 9:30 AM
Am I going colorblind, or is the Obama portrait cake red while the McCain portrait cake is blue?
- November 4, 2008 at 9:32 AM
- Nick said...
what the heck is that on the McCain cake - a Tudor Rose?! It's like Henry VIII came back from the grave and put his emblem on the cake.
- November 4, 2008 at 9:32 AM
- Clair said...
The big question on political cakes is whether you should eat the winner or the loser? Either way I can't partake since those lovely cakes havn't made it all the way to the UK. I guess I'll need to make do with some OREOs as i stay up all night...
- November 4, 2008 at 9:34 AM
- HorribleLicensePlates said...
I am so hungry right now I would even eat that McCain cake... As creepy as that is. Although Obama looks equally as tasty. Decisions, decisions...
- November 4, 2008 at 9:39 AM
Hooray for no politicking!!
- November 4, 2008 at 9:39 AM
- Boozy Tooth said...
I'd almost rather eat you-know-what than any of those stunning (!) candidate cakes, and depending on how the election goes... I might get my wish. But thanks for putting a light-hearted spin on an otherwise stomach-churning day.
God Bless America!
Alixandra Hice
http://casahice.blogspot.com - November 4, 2008 at 9:39 AM
- heidi @ ggip said...
Those are hilarious! At least the two cakes are both the same kind of cake.
I hope everyone has a smooth voting process today! - November 4, 2008 at 9:39 AM
- M K Glass said...
Well, it's pretty obvious that the clear choice is Barr for president -- there are no cake wrecks with his name/face on them!
- November 4, 2008 at 9:40 AM
Those are some ugly cakes lol.. I didn't think it was possible to make Mccain look scarier than he already does. That cake decorator should have used his real creepy smile and just made that a Halloween cake lol jk. I hope everyone gets out there and votes today!
- November 4, 2008 at 9:42 AM
- Nine of Cups said...
Regarding the last post about readers who don't understand how Google ads work... Firefox has a nifty add-on called AdBlock Plus that blocks nearly all advertising on the web pages you view, without inadvertently blocking regular content. Useful whether or not it is election time!
- November 4, 2008 at 9:42 AM
- angela said...
I LOVE it!
- November 4, 2008 at 9:44 AM
- k.kesecker said...
I'm guessing that the portrait artist wasn't aware that "Blue" is associated with Democrats and "Red" with Republicans.
Just thought I'd point that out. - November 4, 2008 at 9:45 AM
- angela said...
I LOVE these! So funny...
- November 4, 2008 at 9:45 AM
- writtenwyrdd said...
Man, these are all hideous! I'd love to see some impressive political cakes, though.
- November 4, 2008 at 9:45 AM
- The Courteous Chihuahua said...
Talk about nit picking....McCain cake should be trimmed in red, and Obama in blue. Regardless, they are all unappetizing.
- November 4, 2008 at 9:45 AM
- Angie McCullagh said...
Oh, you always make my day.
Angie (from over at www.HalfAssedKitchen.com) - November 4, 2008 at 9:46 AM
- angela said...
The McCain cake scares me! I love your site and check it every day!
- November 4, 2008 at 9:46 AM
- four little blessings said...
Nothing like an Obama cake without his name on it! (your first cake).... saw none of these at the PTA bake sale when I voted this morning, but, again, good work!
VOTE! - November 4, 2008 at 9:48 AM
- pam said...
On both sets of Obama and McCain cakes the colours are predominately red for Obama and blue for McCain. Aren't those the reverse of what is traditionally given for Democrats and Republicans?
Pam - November 4, 2008 at 9:48 AM
- Rodrigo said...
Great entries, and thanks for keeping it non-partisan. :)
- November 4, 2008 at 9:57 AM
What the frack is going on in the cupcakes in the background of the last pic?
More disturbing than eating Obama's face on a cupcake is the obscene amount of frosting (that is purpley grey?) on those babies. I'm getting a cavity just looking at it! - November 4, 2008 at 10:01 AM
- Daywalker said...
That McCain cake is so scary looking.
"I'll have a piece of blank stare, plzthnx." - November 4, 2008 at 10:03 AM
I wonder what will happen to the loser's 'congratulations' cake tomorrow.
I suggest they scrape off most of the 'congratulations,' change it so it reads "rats McCain/Obama" and mark it at 50% off. - November 4, 2008 at 10:07 AM
So funny!! I'm surprised anyone dares to decorate a cake after seeing this site. Your descriptions are hilarious. Happy Election Day 08'. Ha.
- November 4, 2008 at 10:08 AM
You didn't even mention the hideous blob-flower on the small McCain cake! And why does he have a flower, anyway, when Obama has flag-things?
- November 4, 2008 at 10:11 AM
I don't think I could eat either of those cakes with Obama/McCain on them. Weird.
- November 4, 2008 at 10:11 AM
- TJ said...
Did you notice in the cupcakes pic, in the background, the cupcake with a 3 inch 'pile' o frosting on top??? Yikes.
And yes, all politik'd out... - November 4, 2008 at 10:15 AM
- Geans said...
I am pretty sure that's the flag of Austria on the Congratulations Obama cake. Hmm...
- November 4, 2008 at 10:18 AM
I love how the Obama cake has red accents and the McCain cake is accented in blue. Now that is true bipartisanship!
- November 4, 2008 at 10:20 AM
- trash talk said...
All hail the cake wreck!
- November 4, 2008 at 10:20 AM
Shouldn't the Obama cake have a blue icing border, and the McCain one have red?
- November 4, 2008 at 10:22 AM
Is it just me or does one ear appear larger and lower on the obama cake? The Congratulations McCain cake has too much frosting for me to even look at this early in the morning.
~Amy B - November 4, 2008 at 10:22 AM
I can't believe how many 08' there were! Too funny!
PS - "Wreck elect" excellent play on words Jen! Well done. Happy voting! - November 4, 2008 at 10:24 AM
- Meg said...
Okay I am a frosting fantatic. Yes I'm one of those gross people who wants the corner piece with 8 million roses. But even to me, those democratic cupcakes with the puffy hamburger patty of frosting on top look absolutely disgusting. They couldn't spread it around a little?!
- November 4, 2008 at 10:26 AM
- ConnieB said...
Another Wreck-y thing about the big Omaba and McCain cakes? They used RED icing for Obama and BLUE icing for McCain. Should be the other way around, given red states and blue states, eh? - ConnieB in Ohio
- November 4, 2008 at 10:27 AM
- carrie said...
The portrait cakes are at least bi-partisan. Obama had a red border, and McCain had a blue one.
- November 4, 2008 at 10:28 AM
What, no Nader cake? There's a handsome face I'd like to see at fine bakeries everywhere!
- November 4, 2008 at 10:29 AM
- hillary said...
Whoever decided to make both the McCain AND the Obama cakes yellow was clearly using some common sense. (Which one doesn't usually associate with a Cake Wreck, of course.)
- November 4, 2008 at 10:34 AM
I'm thinking tomarrow will bring a entire new meaning to the Oops rack at some of these bakeries.
Vote! - November 4, 2008 at 10:37 AM
- Arallyn said...
I have no idea why, but those cupcakes just look revolting. I think it's the graphics on top...eating a pokemon cupcake? A-Okay with me! Eating a person cupcake? Not so much!
- November 4, 2008 at 10:39 AM
- Chris said...
Psst! Cake makers! Go into your Fourth of July bin, pull out some plastic flags and save yourselves the trouble (and embarrassment).
- November 4, 2008 at 10:44 AM
- sidewalk driver said...
Looking at these has made me almost as sick as watching election coverage!
The TV is off. All news on my Google homepage has been disabled.
In honor of this very entertaining blog, I think I will go make a CNN election map cupcake cake... - November 4, 2008 at 10:51 AM
the *only* positive thing I could find about the last pic -->
they didn't turn it into a ccc!!
-bg - November 4, 2008 at 10:54 AM
- Raeily said...
For everyone who is saying that the colors are wrong should remember that the current color system was only adopted in the recent 2000 election. It stands in contrast to other democracies in which democrats were more commonly represented in red as the party leans closer to socialist ideals. Ie. With Communism, what color do you think? Red. Not to say that our liberals today are considered communists.
But anyway, the -08'- annoyed me. heh - November 4, 2008 at 11:01 AM
- Dea said...
BWAHAHAHAA!!!! Those are great! I'm not sure I'd want to eat the effigy of my candidate - or his opponent!!
- November 4, 2008 at 11:02 AM
- Alisa Knits! said...
one of these cakes is going to make someone very, very sad tonight.
The question is, will it make them sad because their candidate lost or because they took it home and realized what a pathetic cake it was? - November 4, 2008 at 11:11 AM
- Jamie said...
No cake for Bob Barr? *tears*
- November 4, 2008 at 11:15 AM
- Jane said...
Hmmmmm....is it just me or does McCain look Korean or something in that portrait cake? At least Obama looks a little more like himself.
- November 4, 2008 at 11:16 AM
- k said...
I just have to say--Obama's flags may be entirely un-American looking, but McCain's only decoration is two lopsided anarchy stars. :P
- November 4, 2008 at 11:23 AM
Um...disturbing much?
good grief I can't wait till this is all over. *headdesk* - November 4, 2008 at 11:25 AM
So on the store made Obama and McCain Congrats cakes...did anyone else notice the 11/17/08 on the price sticker? Is that a sell by date? Surely that doesn't mean the cake will be fresh until that date? Talk about preservatives!
- November 4, 2008 at 11:25 AM
as usual, you've hit the nail on the head with the generalized hilarity herein!!
to all: don't forget to VOTE today!! you can do it on your way to pick up that cakewreck for your celebration/packingtomovetoanothercountry
party tonight!! - November 4, 2008 at 11:26 AM
- Das Mutter said...
holy cow...these cakes are interesting. I haven't seen anything here like them, but I now feel inspired to hunt them down!
- November 4, 2008 at 11:33 AM
I do understand that the Congratulations McCain cake is yellow.
But am I the only one sad that the Congratulations Obama cake isn't chocolate? - November 4, 2008 at 11:47 AM
- Unknown said...
at least one of those cakes will be discounted tomorrow! yay for cake lovers!
- November 4, 2008 at 12:12 PM
I love how they had to lable the McCain and Obama portrait cakes. It's like they were admitting that we wouldn't be able to tell who they were without help.
- November 4, 2008 at 12:17 PM
- Jen said...
Great cakes. Under a rock for 6 mos?! I'm in Canada and even here it's been a long, long 2 years. So glad when it's done, and so glad to have 2 years off before anyone whispers "2012"...
- November 4, 2008 at 12:30 PM
- Melissa said...
Keep in mind with this comment that I would always bite the heads off of my animal crackers first to put the animals out of their misery...
But who exactly is going to want to cut up a cake that looks like Obama? An Obama fan? "Hold on a sec while I slice his throat..." - November 4, 2008 at 12:43 PM
- Unknown said...
Is it just me, or does John McCain look a bit like Mao Tse-tung on that portrait cake?
- November 4, 2008 at 12:45 PM
- ksaldria said...
I hate to say this, but that cake portrait looks more like Chairman Mao than John McCain. Really.
- November 4, 2008 at 1:07 PM
- joyce said...
Oh dear. My hand flew over my mouth at the little labels on the packaging that say, "yellow cake". Irony there---are these cakes radioactive?? That last of Iraq's yellow cake just got delivered to a safe place in Canada. Looks like they missed some.
- November 4, 2008 at 1:24 PM
- margaret said...
Ummm...what is going on behind the Obama cupcakes? Purple teletubby poo, perhaps? BLEEEGH.
GO VOTE! - November 4, 2008 at 1:25 PM
- Chris the Yardsale Queen said...
I am happy to see the two congratulations cakes I submitted yesterday made it in time for the Cake Wrecks blog - my first Cake Wreck submission. I took the pics yesterday (11/3) and indeed the 11/17/08 is the "sell by" sticker. I had to run to the same grocery store today and noticed both cakes were still there.
- November 4, 2008 at 1:34 PM
OhOhOh Can I have the piece of McCain cake with the age spots!?! Pretty please!?!
- November 4, 2008 at 1:35 PM
I like how the decorator on the McCain portrait cake made sure s/he included his swollen gland! Hilarious!
- November 4, 2008 at 1:44 PM
- Bridgete said...
Hm, I agree with nick (3rd comment down), it does look like a Tudor Rose on the McCain cake.
- November 4, 2008 at 1:53 PM
Thanks for all the laughs day after day!! You did not disappoint on this election day. :)
- November 4, 2008 at 2:24 PM
- Amy.mangos said...
OMG! The McCain portrait cake TOTALLY looks like Mao Tse-tung!
Someone brought a licorice-legged spider cake to our bowling league potluck, and we almost died laughing! It was a wonderful neon green and only had 7 legs, too! Didn't get a pic, but I got an eye :-)
I love your blog! - November 4, 2008 at 2:38 PM
- Deanna said...
Yum! I want the ear!
- November 4, 2008 at 2:39 PM
- Alli said...
What's up with the red, white, and black flags? Did they use up all the blue icing on the border?
- November 4, 2008 at 3:48 PM
I noticed the 08' right away. The apostrophe takes the place of the omitted letters (or numbers, in this case.) Gosh!
-Julie - November 4, 2008 at 3:49 PM
Do they think Obama's going to be the president of Austria or something? Because those flags don't look remotely American.
- November 4, 2008 at 4:01 PM
...one of these cakes is going to make someone very, very sad tonight.
Both of those cakes are making me very, very sad today. Wowza. - November 4, 2008 at 4:16 PM
- Gin said...
Man, someday I'LL run for president. Then everyone can eat my face at their next election party too.
- November 4, 2008 at 5:06 PM
Is it just me, or does the McCain cake make him look like Colin Powell?
- November 4, 2008 at 5:16 PM
Check out the cupcakes in the background,that's some serious icing going on there!
I don't know which one I want to take a bite out of the least, mile high purple icing cupcake, or one that is staring back at me? - November 4, 2008 at 6:10 PM
- Sillstaw said...
I love that McCain cake. It looks more like Darrel Hammond on "Saturday Night Live" than McCain.
- November 4, 2008 at 6:30 PM
- Clare K. R. Miller said...
What do these people think apostrophes are for?!
In Philly, there's a bakery that does giant cookies for both candidates. There was a story about it in the Inquirer. Sales have predicted all but one of the elections for the last thirty years or something. This year is the first year that they've made vice presidential cookies, too. - November 4, 2008 at 6:34 PM
- SkippyMom said...
Since when was the American Flag red, brown and pink [aren't the stars in pink?]
That cake is so funny.... - November 4, 2008 at 7:56 PM
- Ell said...
Political cakes for the win (ha ha ha)! If Obama had used only those cupcakes in his campaign, their wouldn't even be a competition.
- November 4, 2008 at 8:17 PM
"As I wreck elect." That's got to be the funniest line all day! Thank you for the guffaw!
- November 4, 2008 at 8:47 PM
The flags... ohhhhh the flags....
- November 4, 2008 at 8:59 PM
Those cakes are so.. cool
- November 4, 2008 at 9:09 PM
- Jessi said...
"one of these cakes is going to make someone very, very sad tonight"
they already make me pretty sad just looking at them. - November 4, 2008 at 9:34 PM
- Hyena Overlord said...
doesn't matter which cake you eat...someone is going to have blue poo...
that rose? looks like the Remembrance Day poppy on my lapel.
this blog makes me want to go buy a cake and eat the whole thing myself. Pound cake with white butter cream icing and a few multicoloured sprinkles. - November 4, 2008 at 10:24 PM
THANK YOU! I'm so glad that I'm not the only once who noticed that the cakes were the wrong colors. Obama is blue and McCain is red, silly.
- November 4, 2008 at 11:00 PM
- Charity said...
I guess the cupcakes could be bipartisan as well: either you buy them because they feature your preferred candidate, or you can relish biting his head off!
I do think it would have been amusing if they had gone with white cake and chocolate cake for the portrait cakes, but maybe that's politically incorrect? - November 4, 2008 at 11:23 PM
- TheRealistMom said...
Not much to add to the comments (besides the fact I'm afraid the McCain cake would give me terrible gastrointestinal problems!) but agreeing with Nine of Cups about the adblock- I never get any of the random Google ads when I surf or read blogs, and it kills popups. Lovely application for Firefox.
- November 5, 2008 at 3:17 AM
- Wendebular said...
Yellow isn't a flavour!
- November 5, 2008 at 5:39 AM
I find it very funny that the icing around the Obama portrait is red, and the icing around the McCain portrait is blue.
- November 5, 2008 at 8:38 AM
- Emily said...
I love that it looks as if someone from the McCain or Obama campaign is actually going to be buying those cakes for his or her boss.
I just don't think I could eat a cupcake in which Joe Biden is smiling at me. - November 5, 2008 at 9:36 AM
It's Cool
- November 6, 2008 at 10:03 AM
Frightening how the "congratulations Obama" cake implies the possibility that -- after he slows the rise of the oceans and the planet begins to heal -- he might be altering the nation's flag.
- November 6, 2008 at 3:25 PM
- Aviatrix said...
Regardless of whether the Americans have inverted the left/right red/blue traditions, those portrait cakes have close to the worst piping job I have ever seen. Do you have to do something to the icing bag to make the edge piping come out that badly?
I imagine the yellow cake was carefully chosen, the bakery being afraid that having one white and one chocolate might have implications. - November 6, 2008 at 5:18 PM
Our local Quality Dairy in Lansing, MI had cookies with Palin and Biden. I didn't even think about it, but I totally should have gotten pictures of them!
- November 6, 2008 at 11:16 PM
what's with the weird michelin man/snow man cupcakes behind Obama and Biden?
-Cathy - November 7, 2008 at 6:33 PM
- Clayton Littlejohn said...
Sorry, but is the yellowcake in the McCain congratulations cake some sort of political statement about Iraq and WMD? Or, is it just a really bad cake for non-political reasons? [Sorry, I've never been a fan of yellowcake.]
- November 9, 2008 at 5:04 PM
so these guys not know the colors of the respective political parties? i'm surprised you didn't comment on that. makes the cakes even funnier though!
- November 9, 2008 at 11:54 PM
- rsynnott said...
"Not to say that our liberals today are considered communists. " - Nope; your liberals are rather more right-wing than our right-wing. :)
But yep, the red/blue meaning Republican/Democrat is a pretty new invention, and contradicts usage everywhere else in the world.
Also, I think it was a little unkind to do McCain's wrinkles in icing. :) - November 13, 2008 at 7:36 AM
- Mikki Black said...
I'm so glad that I'm not the only one who noticed the purple pile cupcakes in the background of the last pick! They remind me of that cornucopia cake that shows up in the Thanksgiving section. :)
Also, since we're nitpicking... why is cupcake cake abbreviated with three c's and not two? It's like OJ juice! - November 22, 2008 at 2:38 PM
- How To Eat A Cupcake said...
HAhahahhahaha the "Change We Need" and "Country First" cakes came from the bakery I just quit working at!
- December 15, 2008 at 11:15 AM
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New York City ferry crash injures dozens
A high-speed ferry loaded with hundreds of commuters from New Jersey crashed into a dock in lower Manhattan on Wednesday during the morning rush hour, seriously injuring 11 people, including one who suffered a severe head wound falling down a stairwell.
Scores of people who had been standing, waiting to disembark, were hurled to the deck or launched into walls by the impact, which came after the catamaran Seastreak Wall Street slowed following a routine trip across New York Bay and past the Statue of Liberty, passengers said.
"We were pulling into the dock. The boat hit the dock. We just tumbled on top of each other. I got thrown into everybody else. ... People were hysterical, crying," said Ellen Foran, of Neptune City, N.J.
The crash, which ripped open a small part of the hull like an aluminum can, happened at 8:45 a.m. at a pier near the South Street Seaport, at Manhattan's southern tip. Around 70 people suffered minor injuries, and for nearly two hours paramedics treated bruised and dazed passengers on the pier. Firefighters carried several patients on flat-board stretchers as a precaution. Other patients left in wheelchairs.
The cause of the crash was under investigation. The ferry, built in 2003, had recently undergone a major overhaul that gave it new engines and a new propulsion system, but officials said it was too soon to tell whether they played any role in what happened.
Dee Wertz, who was on shore waiting for the ferry, saw the impact. She said that just moments before the ferry hit, she had been having a conversation with a ferry employee about how the boat's captains had been complaining lately about its maneuverability.
"He was telling me that none of these guys like this boat," she said. "It was coming in a little wobbly. It hit the right side of the boat on the dock hard, like a bomb."
James Barker, the chairman of the ferry's owner, Seastreak LLC, said at a news conference hours after the crash it was "a terrible day for all of us."
"We are simply shocked and stunned that this happened," he said, adding that the company would work with investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board to determine what went wrong. "Our priority continues to be the people who are injured."
About 330 passengers and crew members were aboard the ferry, which had arrived from Atlantic Highlands, a part of the Jersey Shore still struggling to recover from Superstorm Sandy. Passenger Frank McLaughlin, whose home was filled with 5 feet of water in the late October storm, said he was thrown forward and wrenched his knee.
"We come in and do this every day, and so it just kind of glides in," he said. "It came in hard, and it was just a huge impact as we hit."
Some passengers were bloodied when they banged into walls and toppled to the floor, he said.
New York City's transportation commissioner, Janette Sadik-Khan, said the ferry was coming in at 10 to 12 knots, or about 12 to 14 mph, when it struck one slip and then hit a second.
After the impact, the boat was able to dock normally. Wertz, who saw the crash from the dock, said passengers raced off once the ramp was down.
"I think people just wanted to get the heck off the boat as soon as they could," she said.
Police said the boat's crew passed alcohol breath tests given after the crash. Crew members also took drug tests, the results of which weren't immediately available.
Officials identified the captain as Jason Reimer, an experienced seaman. In a 2004 profile in Newsday, Reimer said he had joined Seastreak as a deckhand in 1997 and became a captain three years later at age 23. Barker called him "a great guy."
The NTSB said it had yet to interview the captain.
The Seastreak Wall Street has been in minor accidents before. Coast Guard records said the ferry hit a cluster of fender piles while docking in 2010, punching a small hole in the ship's skin. In 2009, it suffered another tear on the bow after another minor docking collision. No one was injured in either of those mishaps.
The naval architecture firm that designed the reconfiguration, Incat Crowther, said in an August news release that the ferry's water-jet propulsion system had been replaced with a new system of propellers and rudders to save fuel costs and cut carbon dioxide pollution in half. Barker said the overhaul made it "the greenest ferry in America."
The hull was reworked, and the boat was made 15 metric tons lighter. At top speed, the ferry travels at around 35 knots, or 40 mph.
Seastreak spokesman Bob Dorn, asked whether the work had hurt the ferry's maneuverability or caused pilots any problems, said it would be up to the NTSB to determine if the new equipment played any role.
The ferry accident happened just a few hours before a 200-foot-tall crane collapsed onto a building under construction near the East River waterfront in Queens, injuring seven people.
Such ferry accidents happen every few years in New York. In 2003, 11 people were killed when a Staten Island Ferry crashed into a pier on Staten Island after its pilot passed out at the wheel. Three people were badly hurt and about 40 were injured when the same ferry hit the same pier in 2010 because of a mechanical problem.
Contributing to this report were Associated Press writers Karen Matthews, Larry Neumeister, Ted Shaffrey and Verena Dobnik and researcher Judith Ausuebel.