July Newsletter: Politics, flashers and dirty dancers
Let’s start with politics! The US scene is fast-changing right now and this could be out of date very soon, but after Joe Biden had a nightmare debating Donald Trump, former president Barack Obama seemed to tweet in support of Joe.
However, there was a LOT missing from his message:
Aside from the website address at the end, Obama doesn’t mention Biden by name at all. While listing the qualities of each presidential candidate, he doesn’t directly assign any of the good qualities to Joe - he doesn’t encourage anyone to support or even vote for Joe. He explicitly says it was a bad debate night, but doesn’t attempt to excuse or mitigate anything that happened. Overall this message is distant and almost neutral. Why?
It’s a lukewarm and lacklustre message. It’s a statement that would be easy to reverse out of and if Obama were to become anti-Biden, no one can’t point at this message and say “you’ve changed your tune suddenly”. Watch this space.
Wanna bet?
In the UK, we had a general election at the start of the month. The campaign’s main scandal centred around politicians and those close to them who had placed bets on the date of the election and strangely getting it right and making some money.
One of those accused of doing so issued a statement of denial. How many loopholes can you spot in his words?
Let’s count:
He’s very specific about not breaking Gambling Commission rules, which leave it open that he could have broken other rules, laws or codes of conduct.
He’s decided he’s only going to deal with and deny placing bets in May. Why is he so specific about that? If he placed a bet on the 30th of April it isn’t covered by this denial.
“I am not aware of any family or friends placing bets” doesn’t mean they didn’t. Also, what is meant by “not aware”? Someone looking to create a loophole may decide to define “not aware” as didn’t see it happen, or don’t have physical proof of it.
Good clean fun?
The New York Post had a story about Elia Adams. She’s been flashing her body around New York. The headline says “I flash my boots at NYC tourist hotspots for gender equality” and the first quote for Elia says “If men can walk around shirtless … so too should women”.
To learn what is going on in someone’s mind it’s good to look at the concepts they repeat when they talk. And in this story, Elia doesn’t keep talking about gender equality, but something else.
“By flashing folks as I go about my day, I’m just having a bit of cheeky fun and challenging the status quo.”
“I think flashing is entertaining”
“I was flashing on an elevator and a man walked in while I had my leg up on the wall. He was shocked and I was embarrassed the rest of the ride down”
“T**ts can light up a person’s day.”
She’s not really about advocacy or equality. She’s doing this for titillation, entertainment and ultimately attention.
Strictly Sorry?
Dancer Graziano di Prima quit (or was fired) from the BBC’s Strictly Come Dancing show last week and briefly posted this statement on his Instagram account.
I noticed straight away that he has created distance saying he “regrets the events that led to my departure”. He owns the departure with “my” but there are no pronouns or indeed personal actions in “the events”.
I did note that he blames “my intense passion and determination”. “Intense” is quite a word and he’s either using it to prepare us for some pretty shocking allegations or it’s leakage and while right now he’s linking intense to positive traits like passion and determination, it will soon be linked to more negative actions.
I also see that he’s cagey on whose decision it was that he should leave the show. He talks about “my departure” and says it’s right that “I step away”. These phrases are neutral and could be used to refer to a firing or a quitting. Why do neutral? In cases like this we should ask what is being hidden here? If he chose to quit it’s unlikely he’d want to hide that, so it’s fair to guess the opposite is true.
See you next month!
It’s worth noting that since writing this, Graziano has admitted to kicking his dance partner. Shocking allegations were indeed on the way.