Admirim

Soumaya Ghannoushi exposes the much overlooked color-blindness of militant secularism:

What militant secularists do not appear to realise, or choose to turn a blind eye to, is that there is no secularism per se, and no religion per se. There are many secularisms – or flesh and bone secularist experiences – and many religions, or religious forms within the same religion. “Secularism” and “Religion” in the abstract have no existence outside their minds. In Islam for instance, we find the popular esoteric Sufism of the tareeqa, the rationalism of Ibn Rushd and the Mu’tazila, the traditionalism of al-Azhar scholars, and the modern reformism of Muhammad Abdu, expressions which, far from being rigidly demarcated, move, overlap, and interact.

And the same diversity is true of secularism. The neutral soft secularism of the United States, and more ambiguously Britain, is not the radical militant secularism of Stalin’s Soviet Union, Enver Hoxha’s Albania, Kemalist Turkey, or France’s laicité. Some are tolerant, flexible, and pragmatist; others are fanatical, exclusionist, and repressive. And sadly, Grayling’s secularism, which seems to sit with such ease alongside generals, coup d’etats, and military tribunals, belongs not with the former, but with the latter.

Try del.icio.us’s new splendid site design.

A collection of 78 optical illusions&visual phenomena. Always loved them because they tell us that the world we live in is not that simple.

On Freakonomics Blog:

On King Island in Tasmania, Australia, there’s an old boathouse that’s been converted into a rustic harborside restaurant where patrons cook their own meals. They leave behind money for the use of the building in an “honesty duck” — i.e., a box decorated with a toy duck.

“People really, really love the concept of trust and that’s to me half the reason why we’re running it, because I respond to that,” the proprietor Caroline Kininmonth told Eleanor Hall of The World Today. “It’s a very childlike feeling.”

Conor Clarke tells us why:

Take an example like Hendrik Hertzberg’s Politics, which collects much of his writing between 1966 and 2004. Many of these pieces are available for free, but it would be a tremendous pain in the neck to sift through the archives of the New Yorker or the New Republic to find them. So, in buying the book, you are buying both a good and a service — the service of an editor who is familiar with the author’s work (most likely the author himself), who has picked through the material, chosen the best, and organized it for you.

Finally, we aren’t giving the whole thing away online. The book will contain material that has never been on the web. We didn’t need a professional economist to tell us this might be a good idea.

Read this amazing interview of the Albanian Muslim intellectual, poet, essayist and painter par excellence Ervin Hatibi. Here I provide only some more worth-mentioning quotes.

On the relation between Albanian identity and Islamic culture:

Indeed, the very word which describes the word “nation” in Albanian is the word “komb”. The word “komb” originates from the Arabic word “kawm”, which has arrived in Albanian via the Ottoman language. Thus, in order to define the very notion of the Albanian nation, the founding fathers of the Albanian nationalism chose precisely this Arabic word. I believe that the question of the relationship between Islamic culture and Albanian identity is very well represented in this symbolic example.

On the attitude of the Albanian elite towards the Ottoman cultural heritage:

Our separation from the supra-national and the supra-religious authority and entity i.e., the Ottoman Empire, called for a nation building discourse that was to be constructed in opposition with the very concepts of supra nationalism and cosmopolitanism that the Ottoman tradition represented. This discourse, although a necessary one for the needs of the nation building, with time has gotten out hand and has led to enormous errors and misinterpretations concerning our Ottoman past.

The Albanian elites growingly accepted and adopted the ultranationalist narratives similar to our neighbouring countries, mainly those of the Serbs and Greeks, joining thus the mourning chorus of laments about an “obscure and dark night” that lasted for five centuries under the Ottoman “yoke”.

Although one can never account for the totality of the Albanian Ottomans who held lower or even middle range offices in the Empire, one can say with certitude that the number of Sadrazams (Prime Ministers) was arguably around 35, not counting the incredibly large numbers of Vezirs (Ministers), Beylerbeys, Sheykh-ul-Islams and also a few Sultans’ consorts and Valide Sultanas.

On the Albanian version of secularism:

Secularism is the climate of our continent. We are not any different from the rest of the continent in this respect. Albania follows the French version of secularism, not the more flexible Anglo-Saxon version that perceives the religious element as positive and not to be repressed. Nevertheless, there are differences between the Albanian secularist model and its original French version. The secularist mindset seems to frame only Islam in Albania. Christianity, be it Orthodoxy or Catholicism, is perceived as a modern and trendy European label which transcends secularism.

I blogged earlier about the only Kosovo guide available in the markets right now. According to the Kosovo daily Express there are expectations of a revised version in the following months.

Experimenting with Photoshop

I comprehended the concept of externalities by reading Tim Harford’s book “The Undercover Economist”. He defines them in this way :

An ”externality” seems a simple enough concept: it’s a harm suffered or benefit enjoyed by some third party that isn’t reflected in a market transaction. Pollution is the classic example. The idea is important, because even pro-market types believe that externalities are a market failure potentially justifying the government’s involvement.

Beijing’s authorities have introduced a new system to reduce the air pollution. From BBC News:

The new car restriction, brought in from Sunday, is enforced using the driver’s registration number.

Odd-numbered registrations are allowed to use their cars one day, even-numbered the next.

More than 10,000 detection devices including cameras and “ultrasonic and microwave” scanners have been installed to catch anyone breaking the rules.

Books seem to have their own video trailers nowadays!

In this nicely designed video you will be introduced to Naomi Klein’s book “Shock Doctrine:The Rise of Disaster Capitalism”. (Earlier about her)

What do coups, wars, massacres, terrorist attacks, invasions, natural disasters have in common? Something you wouldn’t normally think of: the enrichment and the establishment of an oligarchy and the advancement of the special interests of this tiny minority of people at the expense of the poor . If you want to protect yourself from Milton Friedman’s so-called trickle-down (in fact poor and middle-class exploiting) mentality (well illustrated in his own words “Only a crisis actual or perceived produces real change”) then get informed about the way this social-Darwinistic cannibalism functions. Information is shock resistance- arm yourself!

Kosovo Government plans to issue its passports soon…

Negative writer’s block is making me hate everything that is related to this block blog.

Paranoia, obsession and phobias of different kinds have taken the hold of me.

“The only thing that I ever really loved was hate” was the strongest message of Slipknot’s album “The Subliminal Verses”. And now “All Hope is Gone”.

I was considering to move this blog to Blogger because WordPress doesn’t allow inserting JavaScript (which really sucks because I cannot go undercover and trace the search engine that brings my visitors here and their location and I cannot install any good-looking and functional widgets either). But I have decided to stay for the following reasons:

• I cannot directly export all of my posts from here to Blogger
• WordPress has a built-in search engine that works
• I can create static pages here
• I like the way categories work

I don’t like all the hype about sport or anything else in the world (that sometimes can even lead to idolatry). But I try to follow major events.

Here is a must-read unorthodox “review” of Euro 2008.

I edited my take on the hunger of Kosovar companies for McDonald’s. Added a last paragraph that summarizes my opinion on globalization more clearly.

Wikipedia’s founder Jimmy Wales supports the Kropotkinian Business Model:

Genuine collaboration is possible, and comes natural to us. Aristotle defined man as “the rational animal” and he was right. And when we set out in a spirit of genuine inquiry and respect for humanity, we can achieve great things. Each of us, coming to a project like Wikipedia for our own reasons, can help to build something that, I think, shows the promise of the future, our dreams of peace, to be within reach.

No, I’m not gonna quote Chomsky here. I’ll rather share with you a shocking example of public opinion manipulation:

0% of 928 peer-reviewed scientific articles doubt the global warming

compared to

53% of 636 articles published on the mainstream press that are skeptical of it.

From Al Gore’s documentary “An Inconvenient Truth”

It’s been hectic these days, I have some original ideas for the blog. Stay tuned!

Claude Levi Strauss’ s Culinary Triangle

They did it again. Even though the Turkish Parliament approved the constitutional amendments lifting the ban on head scarves in the universities by 411 votes to 103, the Constitutional Court stroke back. A masterpiece of fascistic secularism that denies a basic personal freedom to many women in Turkey.

With this decision it has been understood that the biggest obstacle standing before liberal democracy is juristocratic ambition.

Facebook in the real life as featured on BBC’s comedy program “The Wall”.

By the way, here is my Facebook profile. Feel free to add me as a (virtual) friend.

I’m giving a lengthy quote from the op-ed “What Do You Call a Terror(Jihad)ist?” co-authored by P.W.Singer and Elina Noor published on The New York Times:

The word “jihad” means to “strive” or “struggle,” and in the Muslim world it has traditionally been used in tandem with “fi sabilillah” (“in the path of God”). The term has long been taken to mean either a quest to find one’s faith or an external fight for justice. It makes sense, then, for terrorists to associate themselves with a term that has positive connotations. For the United States to support them in that effort, however, is a fundamental strategic mistake.

First, to call a terrorist a “jihadist” or “jihadi” effectively puts any campaign against terrorism into the framework of an existential battle between the West and Islam. This feeds into the worldview propagated by Al Qaeda. It also serves to isolate the tens of millions of Muslims who condemn the violence that has been perpetrated in the name of Islam.

Second, these words locate the ideological battle exactly where the extremists want it to be. The terms of discussion are no longer about the murder of innocents in terrorist acts; they are about theology.

Third, when American leaders use this language it sends a confusing message to the Muslim world, showing ignorance on basic issues and possibly even raising doubts about American motives. Why, after all, would we call our enemy a “holy warrior”?

A video killing stereotypes about Muslims. I’ll suffice with providing the link because I’m having technical difficulties when I try embedding the video.

I was enjoying an iced coffee in Dome next to the Kuala Lumpur’s iconic Petronas Twin Towers and then, suddenly, the adhan coming from the KLCC Park’s mosque galvanized my soul. I was thinking how did that teeming postmodern place (where girls wearing a headscarf and girls wearing a mini-skirt coexist) look like a bit more than 1,400 years ago? But I didn’t think on what would this place look like now if what happened more than 1,400  years ago would never happen- that’s a waste of time indulging in nonsense.

Here you have a compilation of prejudiced statements that turned out to be absolutely wrong:

“There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.” ~Ken Olson, president and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977

“This ‘telephone’ has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. ~Western Union internal memo, 1876.

“What would I do? I’d shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders.” ~Michael Dell on Apple, 1997.

“Everything that can be invented has been invented.” ~Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents, 1899.

Copyblogger has more

Rosie Boycott commenting on Naomi Klein’s “The Shock Doctrine”:

It seems obvious that certain things - like defence, water, health - should never have been privatised. (Iraq is the most clear, and awful, example: a war that started with a far greater proportion of private security contractors than ever before, now outnumbering soldiers.) In general, civic pride and good is hollowed out - as in the latter days of the Roman Empire - when common goods are dished out as private contracts. The end is a materialistic shell in which only cynicism, opportunism, personal profit can exist.

In comment is free

If you use the word “Muslim” in insult form and hate Obama,

If you use the word “Muslim” in superiority form and love Obama,

this will dissapoint you.

From Dr. Muhammad Arif Zakaullah’s new book “Religion and politics in America“:

The Muslim world has to learn to appreciate that in Western societies the bottom line is the public opinion and not the wishes of the President/Prime Minister and his cabinet.

Muslim intellectuals, media and policy makers should be engaged in the exercise of understanding the way Western societies work. They should interact with the Western public opinion in a constructive way. This would in turn result in a genuine, meaningful and effective inter-civilizational dialogue on issues of mutual concern.

See it here.

Excerpts from Fareed Zakaria’s book “The Post-American World”:

Look around. The world’s tallest building is in Taipei, and will soon be in Dubai. Its largest publicly traded company is in Beijing. Its biggest refinery is being constructed in India. Its largest passenger airplane is built in Europe. The largest investment fund on the planet is in Abu Dhabi; the biggest movie industry is Bollywood, not Hollywood. Once quintessentially American icons have been usurped by the natives. The largest Ferris wheel is in Singapore. The largest casino is in Macao, which overtook Las Vegas in gambling revenues last year. America no longer dominates even its favorite sport, shopping. The Mall of America in Minnesota once boasted that it was the largest shopping mall in the world. Today it wouldn’t make the top ten. In the most recent rankings, only two of the world’s ten richest people are American. These lists are arbitrary and a bit silly, but consider that only ten years ago, the United States would have serenely topped almost every one of these categories.
…
At the military and political level, we still live in a unipolar world. But along every other dimension—industrial, financial, social, cultural—the distribution of power is shifting, moving away from American dominance. In terms of war and peace, economics and business, ideas and art, this will produce a landscape that is quite different from the one we have lived in until now—one defined and directed from many places and by many peoples.
…

Where once there were only the narratives laid out by The New York Times, Time, Newsweek, the BBC, and CNN, there are now dozens of indigenous networks and channels—from Al Jazeera to New Delhi’s NDTV to Latin America’s Telesur. The result is that the “rest” are now dissecting the assumptions and narratives of the West and providing alternative views. A young Chinese diplomat told me in 2006, “When you tell us that we support a dictatorship in Sudan to have access to its oil, what I want to say is, ‘And how is that different from your support of a medieval monarchy in Saudi Arabia?’ We see the hypocrisy, we just don’t say anything—yet.”

…

Americans—particularly the American government—have not really understood the rise of the rest. This is one of the most thrilling stories in history. Billions of people are escaping from abject poverty. The world will be enriched and ennobled as they become consumers, producers, inventors, thinkers, dreamers, and doers. This is all happening because of American ideas and actions. For 60 years, the United States has pushed countries to open their markets, free up their politics, and embrace trade and technology. American diplomats, businessmen, and intellectuals have urged people in distant lands to be unafraid of change, to join the advanced world, to learn the secrets of our success. Yet just as they are beginning to do so, we are losing faith in such ideas. We have become suspicious of trade, openness, immigration, and investment because now it’s not Americans going abroad but foreigners coming to America. Just as the world is opening up, we are closing down.

Generations from now, when historians write about these times, they might note that by the turn of the 21st century, the United States had succeeded in its great, historical mission—globalizing the world. We don’t want them to write that along the way, we forgot to globalize ourselves.

You can read more here.

By The Design School. With links and references. My picks:

Bauhaus

Royal Selangor

Apple’s Senior Vice President of Industrial Design, Jonathan Ive

Hasan Elahi, a media artist with an emphasis on technology and media and their social implications surveills himself. Check out his site.

Via Eteraz

The only travel guide prepared exclusively for Kosovo is the one co-authored by Gail Warrander and Verena Knaus. I came to know about it while browsing through the books of the Kinokuniya Library’s Kuala Lumpur outlet.

Synopsis:

Ringed by high mountains crossed by a series of rulers over the centuries, the country boasts Ottoman mosques, Tito-esque administration buildings, Serbian Orthodox churches, monasteries, vineyards and extravagant KLA war memorials. Pristina offers a surprising contrast with its growing number of vibrant restaurants, bars and shops. Sales features include tips on living in Kosovo, including cultural norms, accommodation, food and communications, and Kosovo’s ski resort, Brezovica, which offers some of the best skiing in southeastern Europe.

One of its shortcomings you can easily notice is the lack of some quality full-color photos but I’ll avoid any further criticisms because it’s a first and paves the way for more serious work to come.

In the mean time, you can always search Flickr for some good Kosovo photos like this.

Google has linked to a page where you can donate online to the victims of the recent cyclone in Burma (Myanmar).

Here is the snapshot

CIA has posted an entry for Kosovo on its World Factbook website.

The background section doesn’t give any information on the history of Kosovo before the 7th century.

Nickel, lead, zinc, magnesium, lignite, kaolin, chrome, bauxite are listed under “Natural resources”.

Demographic data on distribution of the ethnic groups place the Albanians as a 88 % majority. No data is given on the percentage of the adherents of religious beliefs.

Some bad news from the “dismal science” side of the Kosovo story:

 Kosovo’s citizens are the poorest in Europe with an average annual per capita income of only $1800 - about one-third the level of neighboring Albania. Unemployment - at more than 40% of the population - is a severe problem that encourages outward migration.

Also CIA claims that most of the people live in rural towns outside of Prishtina. Actually, after the 1998-1999 war on Kosovo, many people left their villages from all over Kosovo to live in the capital city.

Leonardo di Caprio’s documentary film about the global warming “The 11th Hour” makes you think not only about the protection of the environment as such but also makes you ponder on the meaning of life itself. It builds upon the idea that there is consensus among the scientific community on the global warming. It is happening right now and it must be stopped! The continuous destruction of the ecosystems, the interdependent mechanisms of nature with the human beings at the top of the chain is the result of the greedy materialistic culture created by the industrial civilization. Uncontrolled consumerism accompanied by the ambitions of large corporations and governments for constant “economic” growth makes us forget the real beauties of life. In a survey conducted with school-age children they could identify more than 1000 corporate logos but not more than 10 species existing in their area!

Social and individual action at every level is of utmost importance because we’re living in the 11:59 of the Planet Earth. A balanced consumption behavior and sustainable design are some of the most important parts of this global project needed to be undertaken. Solar and wind energy must be brought to the mainstream and polluters must pay for the externalities of their activities.

There is hope… Dongtan Eco-city in Shanghai, China and the Masdar Initiative in Abu Dhabi, UAE.

You can access the trailer here.

PS. I’m looking forward to watching Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth”.

The former vice Prime Minister and the wannabe Prime Minister of Malaysia, Anwar Ibrahim, makes it to the TIME List of 100 Most Influential People in 2008. Here is the complete list and here is his profile. He ranks the 9th.

James Karl Buck, a graduate student from the University of California-Berkeley was arrested while covering an anti-government protest in Egypt as part of his master’s degree project. He used the micro-blogging site Twitter on his mobile phone to keep his fellow bloggers updated on his status which led to their activization and eventually his freedom.

Via CNN

Russian anarchist Peter Kropotkin in his 1902 book Mutual Aid argues that much of the human progress depends on the tendency to help others.

Justin Fox who blogs regularly for the TIME writes on the importance of altruism in the business context:

That I even know of Kropotkin comes courtesy of the Wikipedia entry for the “gift economy,” the current term of art for this altruistic approach. Wikipedia is, of course, a prime example of the gift economy at work. Argue about its inaccuracies all you want, but the volunteer-authored online encyclopedia is on its way to becoming (if it isn’t already) the world’s dominant reference resource.

Open-source, volunteer-created computer software like the Linux operating system and the Firefox Web browser have also established themselves as significant and lasting economic realities. That’s not true yet in the worlds of science, news and entertainment: we’re still figuring out what the role of volunteers will be, but that it will be much bigger than in the past seems obvious.

Read on

Does this mean the end of the social Darwinism-inspired harsh capitalism? Time will tell.

This movie is a masterpiece… Here are the subtitles…

How much?

Sixty-nine cents.

And the gas.

Y’all getting any rain up your way?

What way would that be?

I seen you was from Dallas.

What business is it of yours where I’m from, friendo?

I didn’t mean nothing by it.

Didn’t mean nothing.

Just passing my time.

If you don’t wanna accept that I don’t know what else I can do for you.

Will there be something else?

I don’t know. Will there?

Is somethin wrong?

With what?

With anything?

Is that what you’re asking me? Is there something wrong with anything?

Will there be anything else?

You already asked me that.

Well… I need to see about closing.

See about closing.

Yessir.

What time do you close?

Now. We close now.

Now is not a time. What time do you close?
Generally around dark. At dark.

You don’t know what you’re talking about, do you?

Sir?

I said you don’t know what you’re talking about. What time do you go to bed?

Sir?

You’re a bit deaf, aren’t you? I said what time do you go to bed?

Somewhere around 9:30. I’d say around 9:30.

I could come back then.

Why would you be coming back? We’d be closed.

Yeah. You said that.

Well… I got to close now.

You live in that house out back?

Yes I do.

You lived here all your life?

This is my wife’s father’s place. Originally.

You married into it.

We lived in Temple Texas for many years. Raised a family there. In Temple. We come out here about four years ago.

You married into it.

If that’s the way you wanna put it.

I don’t have some way to put it. That’s the way it is. What’s the most you’ve ever lost in a coin toss?

Sir?

The most you ever lost in a coin toss.

I don’t know. I couldn’t say.

Call it.

Call it?

Yes.

For what?

Just call it.

Well, we need to know what we’re calling it for here.

You need to call it. I can’t call it for you. It wouldn’t be fair.

I didn’t put nothing up.

Yes, you did. You’ve been putting it up your whole life. You just didn’t know it. You know what date is on this coin?

No.

1958. It’s been traveling twenty-two years to get here. And now it’s here. And it’s either heads or tails. And you have to say. Call it.

Look… I need to know what I stand to win.

Everything.

How’s that?

You stand to win everything. Call it.

Alright. Heads then.

Well done. Don’t put it in your pocket.

Sir?

Don’t put it in your pocket. It’s your lucky quarter.

Where you want me to put it? 

Anywhere not in your pocket. Or it’ll be mixed in with the others and become just a coin. Which it is.

Both amusing and worth-contemplating insight by the Slovenian philosopher, Slavoj Zizek.
German ideology - reflective, philosophical
French - revolutionary, dismissive
Anglo-American - intermediate, passive

<!– @page { size: 8.5in 11in; margin: 0.79in } P { margin-bottom: 0.08in } –>We don’t have a McDonald’s in Kosovo. Ironically, their official web site still lists Yugoslavia as one of the countries in which they operate (the ex-federation’s dissolution paved the way for the independence of its constituents, Kosovo among the others). Many people in the world don’t have any idea on where Kosovo actually is or what her status is. She is not even included in the Wikipedia’s list of the countries that don’t have McDonald’s. A real manifestation of the challenges we have to face in the period of transition between the declaration of independence and its recognition and integration in the international arena.

But this doesn’t keep us away from the romantic desire to jump to the bandwagon. Kosovars want a McDonald’s! 800 firms eye its franchise according to an article published in the daily newspaper Express. On the other side, the Belgrade outlet of McDonald’s was destroyed during the anti-American protests following the declaration of Kosovo’s independence and its recognition by the major players in the world’s political scene. The director of the American Chamber of Commerce in Kosovo, Mimoza Kusari, having studied in the United States, is a strong supporter of the McD phenomenon:

The opening of a McDonald’s in Kosovo would improve the image of the country a lot, it generally opens way for other American companies to invest and develop economic ties with the country where McDonald’s is open.

She was also quoted as saying that McDonald’s would bring American values in Kosovo.

But McDonald’s is far from being the ideal economically modernizing force we would dream of. It is often (and I think rightfully) the target of criticism for its menu, expansion and business practices (Wikipedia).

Let me take as an example two major studies on the issue:

Investigative journalist Eric Schlosser in his book Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal observed the relationship between fast food chains and obesity and their negative impact on children. Wikipedia quotes some alarming facts from there :

* Between 1984-1993, the number of fast food restaurants in Great Britain roughly doubled - and so did the obesity rate among adults. The British now eat more fast food than any other nationality in Western Europe. They also have the highest obesity rate.

* In Japan, eating hamburgers and french fries has made people fatter. The nation’s traditional diet of rice, fish, vegetables and soy products was one of the healthiest in the world. And yet, according to Schlosser, the Japanese are rapidly abandoning this diet. The arrival of McDonald’s in 1971 accelerated the nation’s eating habits towards an increase in red meat consumption (begun during the American Occupation after WWII). During the 1980s, the sale of fast food in Japan more than doubled, and the rate of obesity amongst children also doubled.

Director Morgan Spurlock witnessed his health being deteriorated after he subjected himself to a 30-day McDonalds-only diet. The movie that resulted from this experiment, Super Size Me eventually got nominated for the Academy Awards.

I stand for a Stiglitzian understanding of globalization. Stiglitz neither rejects nor worships globalization. Implementing his philosophy would lead to realistic and pragmatic solutions, away from absolutist dogmatism and emotionalism of any kind. Thus, we must be aware that the situation is not as simple as the McD proponents would like us to believe. We should ask ourselves: Are our way of life, traditional food and health at stake here? We, Kosovars, should scrutinize the costs and the benefits involved and shape our perspective on franchising accordingly. That is certainly better than a blind date with the dark side of globalization.

Alice Rawsthorn on Barack Obama’s leadership in the image war:

It doesn’t matter where you stand politically, or what you think of them personally. Whether you prefer Barack Obama’s policies to Hillary Clinton’s. What you think of her electioneering tactics, or his pastor. Or if you’d dump them both for John McCain. When it comes to choosing the best-designed U.S. presidential candidate, there’s only one contender - Obama.

and:

Obama’s design team has developed customized identities for each state - with the sunrise symbol tucked inside a letter - and various interest groups. “Environmentalists for Obama” sports a green and yellow sunrise; the “Kids” in “Kids for Obama” is in hand-drawn lettering; and so on. You don’t need a doctorate in semiotics to decode them, or to realize that Obama isn’t just trying to prove that he is design-savvier than his rivals, but that he is better equipped to steer America through the complexities of contemporary life. But will the electorate agree?

Read the article

Check out the image gallery