‘Immense heat’

“I have no doubt that people will come to see it whether they have business here or not.”
Said UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, November 18th, 2008, at the unveiling of the new Human Rights Hall At The UN Center in Geneva.
The Spanish artist Miquel Barcelo  recently revealed the inspiration behind his brightly coloured abstract ceiling:

“On a day of immense heat in the middle of the Sahel desert, I recall with vivacity the mirage of an image of the world dripping toward the sky,” Barcelo said.

“Trees, dunes, donkeys, multicoloured beings flowing drop by drop.”

As the work was unveiled, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon thanked Barcelo for putting his “unique talents to work in service of the world”.

He added: “The artwork you have created for this room is innovative and radiant.
“I have no doubt that people will come to see it whether they have business here or not.”
The artwork can be found on the ceiling of the Human Rights and Alliance of Civilizations Room.

The artwork is clearly priceless as the Spanish Government does not release the exact cost figure that is said to be 18-20 million Euro. It is also rumored that part of this money comes from funds intended for humanitarian work (at least half a million Euro!).

—————–

 New U.N. art work raises controversy.
Tue Nov 18, 2008, Reuters.

By Jonathan Lynn

GENEVA    A stunning work of art dubbed a 21st century Sistine Chapel donated to the United Nations is stirring a controversy over whether aid money should have been used to cover part of its cost.

The United Nations inaugurated a refurbished meeting room, the gift of Spain, at its European headquarters on Tuesday.

Formerly known simply as Room XX, the new Human Rights and Alliance of Civilisations Chamber is certain to be a highlight of visits to the U.N.’s art-deco building near Lake Geneva.

The floor and walls of the circular chamber are carpeted with champagne-colored material.

But it is the ceiling that is really striking.

Miquel Barcelo, one of Spain’s leading contemporary artists, has turned the dome of the chamber into a dazzling cave, complete with stalactites, in every imaginable color.

Barcelo, from the Spanish island of Majorca, worked on the project for two years with 20 assistants, using hundreds of tons of paint.

The chamber was inaugurated by the King and Queen of Spain, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, the prime ministers of Spain and Turkey, Swiss president and the spiky-haired artist.

Between the speeches, an audience of bemused dark-suited diplomats watched a film showing Barcelo and his team squirting paint on to the 1,400-square-meter dome with an industrial compressor, then broke into enthusiastic applause.

Barcelo read a statement in Majorcan dialect and then in Spanish describing his inspiration, one hot day in the Sahel region of Africa.

“I remember with the vividness of a mirage the image of the world dripping toward the sky,” he said.

“Trees, dunes, donkeys, multicolored beings… trickling drop by drop. And being consumed.”

Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero told the guests that the dome was a metaphor for our world, in all its complexity, richness and diversity, as well as a reflection of an energetic and confident Spain.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban said the design would help people discussing problems see the issue from different perspectives.

“The design itself might be thought of as a metaphor for our work. The colors look different depending on where you are seated,” he said.

 But after a row blew up about the cost of the work — reported to be 20 million euros ($25.25 million) — the Spanish and U.N. authorities became rather coy.

A news conference with Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos, who also chairs the ONUART foundation that paid for much of the work, and Barcelo, set to follow the inauguration, was called off on Monday.

While ONUART, which includes big Spanish corporations and banks, covered the bulk of the cost, it turns out the Spanish government’s own contribution drew partly on its development aid budget — leading some politicians to wonder whether the money could have been better spent helping the sick and hungry.

And as Ban and others expressed hopes the new chamber would further the U.N.’s work of promoting justice and understanding, some diplomats noted that talks between Georgia and Russia to build confidence after their war in August had been bumped to Wednesday from Tuesday to make way for the inauguration.

—————

U.N. Human Rights Council Gets a New Ceiling – and More Controversy.

Patrick Goodenough, CNSNews.com, November 18, 2008.

The United Nations on Tuesday will unveil a multi-million dollar ceiling decoration, paid for in part by the Spanish government’s budget for overseas aid.

The Socialist government of Prime Minister Jose Luis Zapatero contributed almost $14 million of taxpayers’ money to the project, including nearly $1 million earmarked for African aid. Other funding came from private Spanish donors.

Miquel Barcelo, a world-renowned Spanish abstract artist, has been working with a team of 20 assistants for more than a year on the 15,000-square-foot ceiling of a conference hall in Geneva, which will become the permanent home of the often-controversial Human Rights Council.

Zapatero will join U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Spain’s King Juan Carlos and 750 guests for the unveiling of the ceiling. Barcelo says it is intended to resemble a grotto, featuring thousands of “stalactites” colored with more than 100 tons of paint with pigments from around the world.

The Spanish government calls it one of the U.N.’s most significant artworks – some are even calling it “the Sistine Chapel for the 21st century” – but at home, debate has erupted over what critics view as inappropriate use of development aid.

Gonzalo Robles, a member of the conservative opposition Popular Party responsible for development, called the use of the funds “immoral” and possibly illegal, asking how many wells could have been dug, vaccines provided or African children helped with the money.

The Madrid daily newspaper ABC said in an editorial the government had to provide “fuller and better explanations” for the project while another paper, El Mundo, said “Barcelo’s dome will be a work of art but will not improve the life of one poor person.”

Spain’s ambassador to the U.N. in Geneva, Javier Garrigues, fueled the debate by saying that providing funding for the Human Rights Council headquarters clearly fell into the development aid category.

“Everything that is related to human rights is development aid, and in that sense, what is done in Geneva in the framework of the U.N. is the best example of multilateralism,” he said.

In Madrid, the government said the development aid fund was not used only for poor countries but also for promoting “international solidarity.”

“This project is a new way of doing diplomacy and foreign policy,” said Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos.

Sergei Orzhonikidze, director general of the U.N. Office at Geneva, expressed the U.N.’s gratitude to Spain for the ceiling project, saying the donation was in response to a standing invitation to member countries to refurbish the Palais des Nations, the building used by the U.N. for its European headquarters.

“This room will become part of the collective heritage of the international community,” he told a press conference, saying it was “an illustration of Spain’s firm commitment to the values, principles and mission of the United Nations.”

“Together, the renovation and the artwork are most likely the largest donation of its kind ever to the United Nations,” Orzhonikidze said.

***

‘Self-congratulatory ceremonies.’

The renovated conference room will be known as the Chamber for Human Rights and the Alliance of Civilizations – a reference to a project launched by Spain and Turkey in 2006 to improve ties between Islam and the West.

Ironically, the Human Rights Council, created in 2006, has become an arena for tensions between Islamic and Western nations, mainly because the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), which currently controls one-third campaign aimed at outlawing the “defamation” of Islam.

The council has also been dogged by criticism about a disproportionate focus on Israel, while other situations get scant attention.

The council also includes countries with poor human rights records, including Saudi Arabia, China, Russia, Cuba and Pakistan.

Citing procedural weaknesses and abuses in practice, the Bush administration has pointedly not stood for election.

“Instead of meeting for self-congratulatory ceremonies, the council should do its job and stop ignoring human rights violations around the world,” Hillel Neuer, executive director of the Geneva-based non-governmental organization U.N. Watch, said Tuesday.

Neuer said the council had, in its two years of existence, systematically undermined the cause of human rights.

It had also “eviscerated the U.N.’s few existing tools that work,” he said, citing the council’s gradual elimination of human rights monitoring in Belarus, Cuba, Liberia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Sudan’s Darfur.

Not only had genocide in Sudan been ignored, Neuer said, but the monitor of the atrocities in that country was also “on the chopping block,” with the mandate set to expire next March.

Noting that 80 percent of country censures by the council had targeted Israel, he said “repressive regimes support these Arab-sponsored and one-sided texts to deflect attention from their own abuses.”

“Never in the history of international human rights has one of its own institutions inflicted so much damage.”

In a letter Tuesday to Ban and U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay, Neuer and Paula Schriefer of the Washington-based human rights watchdog Freedom House urged them to call on the council to convene a special session immediately to discuss the crisis in the DRC.

“As you gather today with world leaders to celebrate the new chamber of the U.N. Human Rights Council, we urge you to take advantage of this moment to turn the international spotlight toward the human rights catastrophe in the Democratic Republic of Congo,” they wrote.

“Mass displacement, killings and sexual violence – involving hundreds of thousands of victims, if not more – require an urgent response by the U.N. Human Rights Council.”

——
UN Watch’s Hillel Neuer appeared november 18, 2008, at 4:30 pm New York time, on Al Jazeera’s English network to discuss the controversy  over the Human Rights Council’s new $23 million chamber.

In Canada, Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, will be live on CTV’s “Canada AM” program tomorrow morning, Thursday Nov. 20, at 7:45 am EST. As he did last night on Al Jazeera, Neuer will comment on the UN’s $23 million artwork for the new Human Rights Council chamber.

Earlier this week, he debated Ambassador Jean-Daniel Ruch, Swiss envoy to the Middle East peace process, at the Credit Suisse Forum in Zurich.

Is It Spain or the UN, or the Effort to Placate the Islamic World? It Is An Outrage.

Spain outraged by cost of art for UN.

By Elizabeth Nash in Madrid, Truthout and The Independent.
Thursday, 13 November 2008

EPA

The artist Miquel Barcelo works on the Human Rights Room at the UN headquarters in Geneva

Spain is embroiled in a furious row over a wildly expensive artwork at the United Nations headquarters in Geneva for which the Spanish taxpayer has contributed millions of euros, including a sizeable tranche taken from the overseas aid budget.

The new Room of Human Rights and the Alliance of Civilisations, a spectacular cave dripping with multicoloured stalactites and described as the Sistine Chapel of the 21st century, was created by the artist Miquel Barcelo and is to be inaugurated on Tuesday by Spain’s King and Queen.

But the early plaudits for this vast space swiftly became cries of outrage as news emerged that the Spanish government was contributing €8m (£5.3m) from the public purse, including €500,000 lifted from the aid budget for developing countries.

The Foreign Minister, Miguel Angel Moratinos, declined to specify the final cost. “Only fools confuse value and price. This project is a new way of doing diplomacy and foreign policy,” he said, adding that the taxpayer would contribute 40 per cent and a dozen Spanish companies raising the remainder.

About €11m has reportedly already been raised, which would mean Spain’s public purse is lighter by €4.4m. But at least one corporate sponsor has pulled out. And Spain missed the deadline for completion so it has had to pay for alternative accommodation for meetings and conferences.

The deputy Prime Minister, Maria Teresa Fernandez de la Vega, fearful of the political fallout, has demanded full financial disclosure.

 

—————-

Sistine Chapel” at United Nations sparks controversy (News Feature)

Europe Features

Postpone UN climate summit, suggests former Irish president.
Former Irish president Mary Robinson has said that a crucial UN climate change summit due to take place in Poland in December should be postponed until after Barack Obama is inaugurated as US president.

Speaking at a meeting in Brussels on Thursday, Robinson, now vice president of the Club of Madrid, an organisation of former world leaders, said, “It would make more sense to postpone the summit until 20 January. It can’t possibly be led by a lack of understanding for the kind of change that Obama wants.

“This summit, which sounds great and sexy, is happening at the wrong time.”

Also speaking at the event, held to publicise the ‘Road to Copenhagen’ initiative – which refers to the UN climate meeting due to take place in 2009 in the Danish city – was commission vice president Margot Wallström.

She said, “The election of Barack Obama has sent a forceful positive signal to the EU. We see it in terms of negotiating a post-Kyoto agreement.

“We find it hugely important that Obama – with his strong statements on climate change – will be president.

“If we can have a signal from America that they are willing to sit down and talk, it will affect China and India.”

The ‘Road to Copenhagen’ project, which Robinson and Wallström are spearheading along with former Norwegian prime minister and UN special envoy on climate change, Gro Harlem Brundtland, was created to give the general public, industry, politicians and NGOs a say in the UN climate negotiations.

The Poznán summit in Poland this December is due to lay down the formal agenda for the whole process, but the decisive summit will be held in Copenhagen next year.

Robinson, Wallström and Brundtland were joined at the press conference by the Icelandic singer Björk, who has started her own climate campaign to find eco-friendly options for Iceland’s rich natural resources.

—————–

Unless postponed until the change in US Administration, Poznan will end up in a ditch and better to postpone it then let it derail the following Copenhagen meeting.

The Road to Copenhagen is a very bright idea if there is a productive Poznan meeting - otherwise Copenhagen will turn naturally into Poznan II and not into a Kyoto II as the UN professionals hope, or a Copenhagen I as an agreement between the US, China, India, Brazil would entail. Poznan is thus a make or brake event on the road to Copenhagen, and a US represented by Paula Dobriansky will just push the rest of those present into the ditch.

Barak Obama cannot speak up before January 20, and obviously cannot have his negotiator vetted by US Congress before he takes over as US President. He said clearly that he works under the rules of the US Constitution that says there is only one President at a given time. Pushing for keeping the Poznan date under these conditions is rather like saying that it is imperative for those opposing the notion that the world must be kept addicted to petroleum and other fossil carbons in their self-interest must have the day.

Barak Obama could appoint his Climate Change negotiator on January 20, 2009, right there at his inaugural speech, and Congress could approve his selection, the speediest, within a month - so, a Poznan meeting in March 2009 is the earliest it makes sense to hold this meeting if you are positively inclined to do something about climate change. We keep saying so for over a year, this even before we had an inkling of who might be next US President. We kept pouring cold water on the UN euphoria with their debate time-line. We are afraid that UN talk is very expensive - it allows people to fly around freely but is not intended to come up with results. Statements by the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, on how much he wants to see results from the climate change negotiations, and rosy pronunciations from the Executive of the UNFCCC, Yvo de Boer, cannot change the reality that in the end - it is the US President that holds the keys for a positive outcome of the Climate Change negotiations. It is in the promise of the US and the response from the Brazil, China, India, that an effective plan will be born.

 

See please also:

The Columbia University World Leaders Forum, September 26, 2008, Became The Podium For Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen of Denmark To Make Known A Roadmap To The December 2009 Climate Change Meeting in Copenhagen. The Prime Minister Is Keenly Interested That The Copenhagen Event Becomes The Turnaround Point From Our Present Descent Towards Global Environmental Disaster, and He Negotiated This Week A Roadmap With The UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and The Two Candidates For The US Presidency. We Wished Him All The Luck He Needs; Nevertheless We Expressed Some Skepticism.

Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on September 27th, 2008
by Pincas Jawetz ( PJ at SustainabiliTank.com)

 

EU asks US for greater role on world stage - 04.11.2008 - 09:27
—————————————————————————-
The EU has in a letter to the next US president appealed for a greater
European role on the world stage, more engagement with a resurgent Russia
and more emphasis on peacemaking in Afghanistan and the Middle East.

 http://euobserver.com/9/27043/?rk=1

***

Netherlands want IMF transformed into global financial supervisor - 03.11.2008 - 17:44
—————————————————————————-
Setting out their stall ahead of the upcoming emergency meeting of the G20
group of nations that is to focus on a global solution to the ongoing
financial crisis, the Netherlands has called for the construction of a new
‘Global Financial Stability Organisation’.

 http://euobserver.com/9/27034/?rk=1
***

France pushes for EU common front ahead of global financial summit - 03.11.2008 - 17:32
—————————————————————————-
Finance ministers from the 15-strong eurozone are to meet in Brussels
tonight to discuss French-tailored ideas on how the international financial
system should be regulated in the face of the current crisis. Meanwhile,
Spain is pushing to win itself a seat at a Group of 20 summit on the issue
in mid-November.

 http://euobserver.com/9/27032/?rk=1
***

Barroso backs Spanish seat at G20 summit - 04.11.2008 - 09:28
—————————————————————————-
European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso has called for Spain, the
fifth largest economy in the European Union and the eighth largest in the
world, to be invited to the upcoming emergency G20 meeting in Washington on
tackling the global financial crisis.

 http://euobserver.com/9/27041/?rk=1

***

——————–

Mary Dejevsky: Will Europe get the America it wants?
On this side of the Atlantic, there is a certain amount of wishful thinking

The Independent of London, Tuesday,  November 4, 2008.

(A Revealing Photo -REUTERS/Jason Reed - Obama speaks during his final campaign rally before the US presidential election in Manassas, Virginia, 3 November.)

We are dreaming, we Europeans, of Obamaland: a temperate land of sunshine and showers, of soft music and plenitude, of conciliation and concord. We think we caught glimpses of it in July, just fleetingly, behind the garden wall at Number 10; on the steps of the Elysée Palace, and beneath the Victory monument in Berlin, where the would-be US President finally spoke to us, before being whisked away again.

And we concealed our very slight disappointment – that he seemed so camera-shy; that even in Berlin he could not quite treat us to the same soaring rhetoric that he lavished on his fellow-citizens; that he still seemed locked in the “war on terror”. But we gave him the benefit of the doubt. After all, even in Europe he was still campaigning. He had his home audience to look to, and Europe furnishes many a photogenic backdrop. We would bide our time, mouthing “Yes we can” in silent solidarity, and hope against hope for a Democratic victory.

Unless the polls are very wrong, Obamaland is materialising almost as you read. And, as we anticipate the long transition before Inauguration Day, our wish-list is almost complete. From a President who had barely travelled outside the US before taking office, we look forward to one whose peripatetic youth surely makes him a citizen of the world. From a President who believed US military superiority was there to be used, we welcome one whose stated preference is for talking first – even to adversaries -– and calling in the force of arms only as the last resort.

And we especially welcome someone who, even as he regrets his lack of a foreign language, seems – do we flatter ourselves? – to want to master fluent European. When the worst the Republicans can find to throw at him is to denounce his economic remedies as “socialist”, is it not time to roll out the red carpet?

Europe’s leaders might already be jockeying for the privilege of being first to greet the new President, but the code of Obamaland would remove the need for such undignified scrambling. The new President would be the one to hop on the plane for a lightning tour of European capitals. And this time Chancellor Merkel would have no objection to a speech at the Brandenburg Gate, especially one scripted as an apology for the Bush era mistakes and a pledge of more equal transatlantic relations … Barack Obama has only himself to blame if he has spun dreams.

Yet all that is certain as Americans vote today is that Obamaland, if indeed it emerges from the ocean mists overnight, will not be as we imagine it. The landscape may be more familiar than the oil derricks of Texas and the barbed wire of Guantanamo, and so may be the lexicon of its leader. Perhaps, too, he might even forsake tradition and make emergency fence-mending with Europe his priority. It would be a bold overture and one that would set another tone. But Europe is deceiving itself if it believes that everything that has gone awry in recent transatlantic relations derives from the alien character and rank incompetence of George Bush.

Recent concentrated exposure to US opinion on the future of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation – at a conference in the quintessentially English setting of Ditchley Park – suggests a startling degree of wishful thinking in Europe about the speed and direction of any change. Yes, and a reluctance to abandon long-cherished illusions. The most obvious of these is our European belief in a philosophical gulf, almost as wide as the Atlantic, between the leaders of Obamaland and Macainia as they train their telescopes on abroad. To be sure, from London, Paris or Berlin, the landscape and the language of these two Americas can look very different: one closer to our European image of ourselves, the other less so.

But the similarities are striking, and significant, too, especially on foreign policy. A President Obama is pledged to end the US presence in Iraq, but so – to a not much shorter timetable now – would be a President McCain. Internal change in Iran and North Korea may soon negate the sharp divergences that opened up between the two during the campaign. And while a President Obama has set as his absolute foreign policy priority the commitment to stabilise Afghanistan – a President McCain would also be confronted with the same imperative to avoid what many already fear could be defeat.

However consensual an approach to foreign relations the campaigning Obama has favoured, however softly he wants to speak to the European allies, he will carry the big stick commended by Theodore Roosevelt. That brings with it capabilities and opportunities that will divide the US and Europe, more than they will unite – as they have increasingly since the end of the Cold War. Barring developments unforeseen today, Afghanistan will be the first test of transatlantic relations, and it will be a severe one.

Mr Obama would not be the accomplished politician he has shown himself over the past year, if he did not exploit his honeymoon with a joyful Europe to demand a vastly increased force contribution for Afghanistan. Those countries deemed not to have pulled their weight will be called upon to do so; saying no will not be an option. Even in Obamaland it will be argued that two futures crucial to our mutual well-being are on the line: a stable Afghanistan free of terrorist camps, and the continued existence of the transatlantic alliance.

Except that it is not at all clear how far European leaders, and more particularly their electorates, will accept that analysis. Does a lawless Afghanistan represent a potential terrorist threat of such an order that a costly war has to be fought and won there? Europe has its own backyard to patrol, notably in the Balkans.

Might Afghanistan be the point at which Europe calls an end to fighting wars declared in Washington? Do we risk defeat in Afghanistan only because the terrain is tough, or because Nato, without the cold war enemy, is unsustainable?This question, lurking since the collapse of communism, will be posed with some urgency, whether Europe finds itself dealing with Obamaland or McCainia. The paradox is that a more congenial and communicative partner could foster straighter talking – and with it mutual recognition that it may be time for our two destinies to move apart.

 m.dejevsky at independent.co.uk

 http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/com…

——————–

US election day - Leading article: Obama may lack experience, but he doesn’t lack command.
The Independent of London, Tuesday, 4 November 2008

A Revealing photo - GETTY IMAGES (A tear for Madelyn: Barack Obama shows his emotions after speaking about the death of his grandmother at a rally in Charlotte, North Carolina, yesterday. Madelyn Dunham died at the age of 86 after a battle with cancer.)

Only in America. Tonight, or early tomorrow if John McCain makes a close race of it, the world will learn who is to be the 44th US President. And, unless we are about to witness an upset that would make Harry Truman’s comeback win in 1948 against Thomas Dewey look routine, that person is expected to be Barack Obama.

At this brief moment of calm, when the campaigning is over but the result is not known, it is worth stepping back to consider just how amazing the event would be. At one of the most difficult moments in its modern history, the US seems about to reach not to a grizzled senator or governor, not to a general or a businessman – but to a new and dazzling political talent who was virtually unknown barely four years ago.

Of course, Mr Obama has been fortunate. He ran in a year that even before the financial meltdown was always going to be difficult for Republicans. His marathon 50-state primary battle against Hillary Clinton meant he had a solid organisation in place across the country well before the general election campaign began. Indisputably, he has also had a gentler ride from the media than Mr McCain. But gifted politicians make their own success. Over the past two gruelling years, we have learnt a great deal about Mr Obama. He is formidably intelligent. Unlike the “tested” Mr McCain, he did not become rash or flustered at difficult moments. The three candidates’ debates showed he is poised and collected under pressure. It was said of Franklin Roosevelt, one of America’s very greatest presidents, that he had a second-rate intellect but a first-rate temperament. On all the available evidence, Mr Obama is top class in both departments. And by now the “inexperienced” tag has become somewhat worn. Yes, assuming he is elected, he will bring a thinner CV to the office than perhaps any president in history. But the past two years have tested him mightily.

Mr Obama has never run anything, it is said. Not true. He has run arguably the longest, the biggest and the best organised campaign ever. Its discipline has been astonishing – in contrast to the campaign of Mrs Clinton that was once supposed to sweep all before it. And he has taken on the Democratic Party establishment as represented by the Clintons. In two years, Mr Obama has not made a major blunder. Yes, he has had a dedicated, top-notch team around him. But that too augurs well. Clearly, Mr Obama knows how to put the right people in the right jobs, a vital part of being president. And then, of course, he has style. Not since JFK will America have had as charismatic and inspirational a leader. Charisma and soaring oratory do not guarantee good government. But America is demoralised, exhausted and broke. It needs to turn the page on its recent past. And for that, it needs words, as well as deeds, to inspire it.

The election of Barack Obama will be a gamble. He may prove a disappointment like Jimmy Carter – another leader who emerged from nowhere, full of good intentions but overwhelmed by the job. There is no knowing. Nothing quite prepares a man for the presidency.

What is certain is that Mr Obama provides excitement, a desperately needed jolt of political electricity. If he is elected, America will instantly be seen in a new light around the world – not just because the unloved George Bush is gone, but because the country has found it within itself to turn to someone truly new, whose astonishing ascent could have happened nowhere else on earth. Only in America.

 http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/lea…

———————

 Hermione Eyre: From behind Obama, I could see a girl moved to tears …
A Limey busybody, I joined the ranks of campaign volunteers

The Independent of London, Tuesday,  November 4, 2008.

Barack Obama is good at looking after his volunteers. On Saturday I found myself standing right behind him, catching a smile, as he addressed 10,000 supporters at a last-minute rally in the swing state of Nevada.

My ringside seat was a reward for having been up since 5.30am helping direct the crowds through the airport-style security checks – and sitting there, close enough to try and make out my blobby face behind him on YouTube, was just the kind of experience that keeps campaign teams charged up through the final push.

He really does have the charisma of a film star, supremely relaxed and confident. The stage management was smooth – he walked on to Kanye West’s remix of Curtis Mayfield’s “Move On Up”, and the bright Vegas sunshine provided the ideal spotlight.

You would never have guessed from his performance that he had been delivering roughly the same speech three times a day at rallies all over America. He made his message of change and hope sound fresh, almost spontaneous. John McCain claims to be the inheritor of Reagan but it is Obama who is the gifted actor.

From behind Obama I saw what he saw: a sea of T-shirts printed with that bold, self-consciously iconic image of his own face; a girl moved to tears in the front row; a few placards that looked home-made but were in fact painted the night before by volunteers (in this age of image control, no one is allowed to bring their own, non-vetoed posters in with them. You can see why; certain phrases – like, say, “black power” – would make winning some states considerably more difficult).

Obama spent about five minutes greeting volunteers, neither shaking hands nor high-fiving, but making a gesture somewhere between the two, gracious yet informal. Pressing flesh is one way of keeping the supporters going. On Sunday he went for another method: he made a conference call to 20,000 party workers. “It was just for a few minutes and he sounded tired but it was good to hear his voice,” said Dallas, a Vegas-based activist who was also entrusted with driving Obama to and from his plane.

During the drive Obama took a call from John Kerry. Minutiae like this keeps staff going; they love it. The tiny Obama office in each district is powered by this kind of gossip as well as boxes of Krispy Kreme doughnuts. At the branch in Southern Highlands where I have been volunteering, a sign reads: “Do NOT assume we’ve won. We haven’t.”

The atmosphere is anything but complacent. A highly targeted campaign sees registered voters being visited every day, sometimes by Limey busybodies like me; sometimes by supporters who have been bussed in (or rather, have driven in – the concept of public transport is not strong here) from neighbouring California, a safe Democrat state, to lend a hand.

I met one retired teacher, here for five weeks, and some Berkeley students, here for five days. Another last-minute fillip was the arrival of Michelle Obama on Monday, holding her own rally in a sports centre out of town.

Canvassing Las Vegas over the past few days has been a mixed experience. An alarming number – maybe one in 10 – of smart middle-class homes in gated communities have been repossessed, their doors double-bolted with a special foreclosure padlock. The sub-prime crisis has hit Las Vegas hard. Then again, about one in five households has gone for Halloween celebrations in a big way.

Out hanging doorknobs with last-minute advice cards (”Your local polling station is … “) we encountered plenty of hostility. One man in army fatigues gave a satirical salute and told us, “the white race is over”. A particularly vituperative woman told us to get lost because she had voted for Hillary Clinton and then switched to McCain (”You got a Puma!” our organiser told us – “Stands for ‘Party Unity My Ass’”).

“I have three – no, two words for you – three days!” said Obama in a rare moment of confusion at the rally on Saturday. Now those days are up. The Nevada Democrat campaigners are exhausted and nervous, although not so nervous that they haven’t planned a huge party to be held in the Rio, a casino that stands out for its gaudy neon façade even on the Vegas sunset strip.

Perhaps he’ll drop by, or make a conference call. We’ve started to believe the senator can be everywhere, always. Although helpfully, after Obama’s rally on Saturday, hostile Republican flag-wavers were out to remind us of one thing: “Obama is not God”. Thanks for that, angry lady with the placard. We won’t expect free drinks for 5,000 at the election party then.

 h.eyre at independent.co.uk

 http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/com…

————–

Obama’s beloved grandmother dies.
By David Usborne
Tuesday, 4 November 2008

(Revealing photo - GETTY - Barack Obama with his late grandmother, Madelyn Payne Dunham, who died on Monday 3rd November aged 86, and his grandfather, Stanley Dunham)

Barack Obama made no secret of the reason for his 36-hour dash to Honolulu when only ten days remained before decision day in the presidential race. His beloved grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, was gravely ill and he was afraid she might not make it through to the campaign finish.

A television script-writer might have hesitated before capping this sub-plot to the Obama odyssey this way, however. Stricken with cancer, the 86-year-old former bank executive slipped away just hours before America is to decide whether to put the man she helped to raise into the White House.

The candidate was campaigning yesterday morning in Jacksonville, Florida, when aides gave him the news of his grandmother’s passing. He and his sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng, who still lives in Hawaii and campaigned for him there during the primaries, issued a joint statement shortly afterwards.

“It is with great sadness that we announce that our grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, has died peacefully after a battle with cancer,” they said. “She was the cornerstone of our family, and a woman of extraordinary accomplishment, strength, and humility. She was the person who encouraged and allowed us to take chances. She was proud.”

Described by those who knew her as a humble woman with a no-nonsense streak that she imparted to her grandson, Ms Dunham was a quiet pioneer of women’s rights, becoming one of two first-ever female vice presidents of the Bank of Hawaii in 1970.

A native of Kansas, she married Stanley Dunham in secret before leaving high school. Mr Dunham, a furniture salesman, moved his wife and their daughter, Stanley Ann Dunham, to Hawaii in the late 1950s. (Stanley Ann because he had wanted a boy.) It was in Honolulu that Stanley Ann met Barack Obama Sr, a Kenyan student with whom she was briefly married.

It was the grandparents, however, who stepped in to look after the couple’s child, young Barack, after his father left Stanley Ann. She later married an Indonesian man and moved to Jakarta. For much of that time, however, her son remained at school in Hawaii in the home of his grandparents.

“She’s the one who taught me about hard work,” Mr Obama said in a tribute to his grandmother while accepting the presidential nomination. “She’s the one who put off buying a new car or a new dress for herself so that I could have a better life. She poured everything she had into me.”

 http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/…

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The last lap: Obama and McCain traverse US in final dash for votes.
By David Usborne in Chicago , The Independent of London, Tuesday, November 4,  2008.

The longest and most expensive presidential race in history drew at last to a frantic, frenzied close last night, with Barack Obama and John McCain hopscotching across America, panning for the final errant votes in key battleground states and trading eleventh-hour attacks on the economy, jobs and environmental policy.

In the final hours of the campaign, Mr Obama meanwhile found himself distracted by personal bereavement, announcing that his 86-year-old grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, had died after a battle with cancer. He said that he learnt of her death yesterday morning while he was still campaigning in Jacksonville, Florida. “She was the cornerstone of our family, and a woman of extraordinary accomplishment, strength, and humility,” he said in a joint statement with his half sister, Maya Setoro-Ng. “She was the person who encouraged us and allowed us to take chances.”

Mr McCain issued condolences to his opponent on hearing the news. “Our thoughts and prayers go out to them as they remember and celebrate the life of someone who had such a profound impact in their lives,” the statement by John and Cindy McCain said.

Last month, Obama took a break from campaigning and flew to Hawaii to be with Dunham as her health declined but yesterday he planned to complete his campaign commitments.

At least one million people are expected to converge on Grant Park in downtown Chicago tonight, hoping to witness Mr Obama taking the stage in the day’s dwindling hours to declare victory and to celebrate becoming the first African American to capture the land’s highest office.

With the soaring skyline of the Chicago Loop and the pale waters of Lake Michigan as the backdrop, the event site featured a large catwalk-style stage for Mr Obama to make his address. For the first time, it featured two tall bulletproof glass barriers on either side of the podium, amid heightened concerns for his safety.

While the polls continued to give the fuller wind to the Democrat, his Republican opponent stayed scrapping to the end, embarking on a gruelling 17-hour swing through Pennsylvania, Indiana, New Mexico, Colorado and Nevada. Mr McCain will wind up his campaign with a rally in Prescott, Arizona, this morning before presiding over his own election night party in a Phoenix hotel.

“There is one day left until we take America in a new direction my friends,” Mr McCain said, his only hope for victory resting on capturing nearly all the remaining undecided voters and additionally peeling away some of Mr Obama’s supporters.

He is also counting on the base of his own party coming out and defying the enthusiasm gap between Republicans and Democrats. That so few turned up to see him yesterday was an ill omen – George Bush drew a crowd of 14,000 for an eve-of-election event in the same Tampa venue four years ago, Mr McCain barely managed 1,000.

Mr Obama, whose blitz of media interviews yesterday took him even into the territory of young men and visible underwear – he told MTV he wished young men would keep the waistbands of their jeans somewhere close to their waists – kicked his day off in Jacksonville, Florida, in an arena where, weeks before, Mr McCain asserted that the fundamentals of the US economy remained “sound”.

Mr Obama mocked the now infamous economic analysis of his rival. “Florida, you and I know that’s not only fundamentally wrong, it also sums up the fact that he is so out of touch,” the Illinois senator declared, triggering a ripple of jeering from the crowd. “You don’t need to boo,” he replied without pause. “You just need to vote.”

Officials in many states are bracing for polling stations to be swamped and legal challenges to be launched if the results are close. A record turnout is expected after a 21-month marathon that has gripped America like no election in generations. As many as one-third of all ballots had been cast even before today as more states than ever allowed early voting. Offering possible encouragement to the Obama camp, officials in most of those states reported that a heavy majority of those who got in line early described themselves as Democrats.

Little separated most eve-of-voting polls. Among the last polls, Fox News gave Mr Obama 50 per cent nationally to 43 per cent for Mr McCain. An NBC/Wall Street Journal poll gave Mr Obama a 51-to-43 lead.

How long it will be before the country and the world knows which way voters have gone will depend on whether Mr Obama achieves the blowout some expect or if tonight turns out to be a nail-biter. The first clues will come at the closing of the polls in Indiana (at 11pm GMT) and Virginia one hour later. Both states historically vote Republican but are thought to be in play tonight. Also under the microscope will be Pennsylvania, a state with 21 electoral college votes that Mr McCain really has to win if he is to have any hope of stopping the Obama tide but where polls have persistently shown him behind.

The passion felt by the supporters of each candidate may be more intense than anybody can remember; thus terrible disappointment is now just hours away for one set of supporters.

Officials in Chicago, Mr Obama’s home town where he will watch the returns tonight, know that Grant Park – the lakeside patch of grass that was the site of clashes between police and anti-Vietnam War protesters in 1968 – might be the scene of one of the biggest victory parties the world has ever witnessed – or the world’s biggest, most disconsolate political wake.

 http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/…

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