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Obamas Give Queen Elizabeth an iPod
Ponca City, We love you writes "What did the Obamas give Queen Elizabeth II on Wednesday when they arrived at Buckingham Palace? An Obama aide reported the queen was given an iPod loaded with video and photos of her 2007 trip to the United States, as well as songs and accessories. She also received a rare songbook signed by the composer Richard Rodgers. The gift issue had come up after Prime Minister Gordon Brown visited the White House last month. Mr. Brown gave Mr. Obama a pen holder carved from the timber of an anti-slave ship, receiving in return a DVD box set of American movies, igniting a torrent of criticism in the British press. According to news reports, the queen gave the Obamas a silver-framed signed photograph — a gift she gives to all visiting dignitaries."
It seems kind of 'tarded to give a 70+ year old woman an ipod with a tiny screen filled with speeches she is very unlikely to agree with (not that he would even be aware of her political leanings.)
I would have given her a gift of pictures of her during the WW2 blitz on London, showing her changing tires and working along with the rest of the people under siege by the Germans and put this into a classy montage. I would want to honor her good qualities, and there is plenty out there. For one of the richest women in the world, I'm certain trinkets are not high on her shopping list.
Seriously, Obama is a sad amateur. Camacho was a smarter president.
Are there really not enough issues in the world to get worked up about that people are arguing over a freakin' gift exchange?
mmmm...forbidden donut
After all, would ANY government allow one of their top people to accept an electronic gift without it being checked to make sure it's not bugged? That would be a serious security lapse.
First, who cares who gave who what? Seriously? I mean, if you made a *major* boo-boo and gave Obama some racist memoribilia or something, then you're an idiot, but otherwise who cares? You're talking negotiations over the future of countries, anyone who reads anything into the gifts is clearly desperate for news or clearly focusing on the wrong things.
Have the governments of the two countries seriously got nothing else better to waste their money on than gifts for other nations? Sure, bring something along but keep it simple. A couple of bouquets for the missus and a bottle of special wine or something to enjoy over dinner one night. Anything else is asking for a cock-up because it'll have been made from the ship that X's father fought against in war Y or something. And, trust me, nobody British really cared what gift was received/given the last time the US president and the UK prime minister met. Nobody. The press obviously had nothing else better to report, or were feeling snubbed themselves. They don't even care that Churchill's bust was moved in the Whitehouse... really... we don't have American presidents lining 10 Downing Street, so why should the American's have anything similar? So long as it was done respectfully (i.e. they didn't kick it down the stairs after drawing a moustache on it), who cares?
Personally, I think the Queen's gift is the worst out of all those listed (in all the linked articles) anyway - it's too imperialist and overbearing... a signed photo... "Look, I have given you something cheap and readily available to remind you that you were once in my presence". Urk.
If he had really wanted to put two seconds' thought into it, he would have gotten something for her dogs ... either the corgis or the labs. She's absolutely nuts over her corgis (same as every dog lover :-)
People still pay extra for players that enforce regions, and give that "Operation Not Permitted" crap when you want to skip through the menus?\
I was surprised the first time I saw that ... glad I'm boycotting Sony.
I'll bet he hasn't even looked at them since. They're sitting in a big cupboard labelled "gifts from foreign dignitaries".
I'd also be surprised if the PM had a non-hackable player.
Yeah, I really do think Corgi owners are a fun lot, and Corgis are some of the nicest dogs around. As the poster said above , The Queen of England is not exactly a simpleton, a slouch or unintelligent. I find someone so entitled has gotten down on all fours like the rest of us and she has done a lot more for her country, I believe, than Obama ever will.
See her first telivised christmas address in 1957.
It's fairly poignant the fact that she gives everyone the same gift, a silver framed picture of her... Pretty much says, 'you ain't shit better than anyone else, but I am da bomb.'
flinging poop since 1969
I think it's indicative of Obama's naivete and complete lack of experience with regard to foreign policy. IIRC, he also blew off an official state dinner with Brown saying he was "too busy", and dismissed the US-UK relationship as "nothing special", and sent back the bust of Churchill that had been at the White House for quite a long time. Oh, and the DVDs came with a couple of Marine One helicopter toys, too.
The meek may inherit the earth, but the strong shall take the stars.
Are there really not enough issues in the world to get worked up about that people are arguing over a freakin' gift exchange?
This just in...Israel and Palestine are fighting. More at the top of the hour...
A lot of people are pissed about Government bailouts. News at 11.
The economy sucks. More to come.
Don't complain. At least this is "new" by comparison to the rest of the shit that keeps getting dredged up day after day.
first, he gives the British PM a stack of DVDs (ultra lame). next, he gives the queen of england a friggin ipod (i'm sure she is really suave on computers...probably has a 24" iMac all modded out).
maybe next Obama will show up in Japan with some 20" rims for the PM there. "Runnin on dubs!!!"
this is so embarrassing. i would've expected it out of President Bush. i bet he got the queen a handgun (big ol' desert eagle), and he probably got Tony Blair a shot-glass set. but Obama? why is he pulling this crap?
There's a recession on, people. Do you really expect Obama to be handing out diamond necklaces? How's that going to look?
Also, both sides know perfectly well that whatever they give, the other side won't be allowed to keep it as a matter of anti-corruption policy. Every single gift given to an American president goes straight into a vault. So there's no point in giving anything really expensive.
I piss off bigots.
I wish there was a "± 0 Confusing" mod point...
"Don't say anything negative about our black president. The nation's delicate sensibilities can't handle it."
You must be seeing different media than I am.
I'm constantly seeing criticism of Obama and his administration and his policies.
It's been a long time.
I think from the context, we can figure out which one they mean. When you read a tabloid headline that says "Prince Charles Admits To Yet Another Fuck-up," do you actually have to wonder whether they're referring to Charles Stuart or Charles Windsor? Besides, saying "Elizabeth II" over and over again in headlines would appear even more stupid. "Elizabeth II to visit U.S." would elicit a collective response of "...as opposed to Elizabeth I, who has been dead for 400 years?" It would be a constant, and needless, distraction from the intended communication.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
It's not the gifts themselves that are the issue... it's the symbolism, if you will.
See, diplomacy is a game, of sorts, and it's heavily dependent on symbolism. Things like gift exchanges, summit meetings, state dinners, and all that are mostly useless from a practical standpoint... but it's part of the game. They're the rules; to be taken seriously you have to at least play along with them and pretend that you care. It's like Christmastime at the office; you go to the parties and you buy little gifts for each other, not because you really care about everyone or want to hang out with them, but because it smooths things over and is just part of office politics.
Obama's not playing by the rules. And while the gifts and all that aren't really a big deal, he's committing a diplomatic faux pas--toward his country's closest ally, no less. What makes this (and similar small diplomatic blunders) ironic, and what the European press is starting to make noise about, is that everyone thought Obama would be better at international relations than Bush. True, he has yet to start any wars; but flubbing even the basic, petty, easy stuff like state dinners and symbolic gift exchanges with your closest allies and your historical and powerful military/economic rivals (China and Russia) certainly isn't getting off on the right foot.
It's like the new guy showing up at the office Christmas party with PBR and dollar store gag gifts for the exchange when everyone else brought drinkable wine or liquor and a $15 gift... then cutting loose a giant fart and laughing loudly about it. Sure, it doesn't really affect business operations, it's just a stupid little party. But now everyone's looking at him kinda funny and thinking "hey, we thought he was cool, but this guy's a bit of an ass." In other words, it may not be harmful, but he certainly isn't doing us any favors.
The meek may inherit the earth, but the strong shall take the stars.
Britain has already paid Africa for the slave trade, at a fair price agreeable to both parties. Who do you think the British bought all those slaves from in the first place?
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
You do not recall correctly, actually. He did not blow off the dinner due to being too busy, and he referred to the US-UK relationship as a "special relationship" instead of the traditional "special partnership". And, of course, the British media perceived this as a massive realignment of foreign policy.
Come on. Do they have NOTHING better to talk about?
"He doesn't have the leisure time to think about all of the nuances of foreign relations..."
Then just what the hell is that army of 500 staffers that accompanied him on this trip for? Also, is anyone slightly disturbed by the fact that apparently no one in the new State Dept can correctly translate English to Russian?
On the matter of outrageous bonuses for failed AIG leadership, why aren't we hearing about Franklin Rains cleaning up at Fannie Mae while he was simultaneously setting off a global recession?
I think the more probable answer is that The Obumbler is really just a pretty suit who gets carted out to read a message from a teleprompter whenever The Man Behind The Curtain feels compelled to address the people. I can't help getting the feeling that everything we're seeing is just an illusion, that we were sold up the river long ago, and that glitches are finally starting to appear in the Matrix, metaphorically-speaking.
I wasn't trying to say this gift was redundant, I was trying to say that an iPod isn't a "retarded" gift for the Queen, as the original poster seemed to think.
http://www.mhall119.com
I agree mostly, but wanted to add that another big component of showing respect in gift giving is thoughtfulness of the gift chosen - the pen holder carved from an anti-slave ship is an obvious example of this.
Consumer electronics and media gifts like iPods and DVD's are what you give when your out of ideas. They do not show a good level of understanding of the person you are giving the gift to, although at least the iPod was loaded with pictures of the queens visit... but like all electronics they are ephemeral things, not really gifts to last or provide deeper meaning as you said.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
first, he gives the British PM a stack of DVDs (ultra lame). next, he gives the queen of england a friggin ipod
The DVDs and iPod are not the gifts, they are the packaging. The real value of these gifts is of the content that's on them -- examples of the artistic and cultural outputs of the United States, which have been exported to the world.
That most of this culture is available to anybody with $300 to spare is not an indictment of Obama's stinginess, nor of America's, but a celebration of our egalitarianism.
On the matter of outrageous bonuses for failed AIG leadership, why aren't we hearing about Franklin Rains cleaning up at Fannie Mae while he was simultaneously setting off a global recession?
Because that's a bile of BS Republican misdirection. Nevermind the 1:60 ratio between assets and liabilities that investment firms were taking on, nevermind the complete lack of oversight from the SEC, it's all the fault of FM/FM and the CRA.
Right, because his predecessor was sooooo much better at this sort of thing, huh?
Spare me your sour grapes, and suck it up. Apparently your candidate lost, and now all you can do is complain about very unimportant and petty things, that's sad.
The Obamas gave the Queen a rare signed songbook by Rick Rodgers, or Rodgers and Hammerstein fame. Rodgers is one of the greatest American composers. The iPod was filled with his music. It was a thoughtful, expensive, classy gift.
Citizens Against Plate Tectonics
...that the Region 1 DVD's didn't play in Brown's Region 2 player. On his next visit Obama will give him a modding kit.
and an NTSC-compatible television and power converter.
[Insert pithy quote here]
Obmama didn't 'give her an iPod' at all.
Obama gave her a signed Rogers (Of Rogers and Hammerstein, who the queen loves,and considers the a song from Oklahoma her and her husbands 'song') songbook.
It was an absurdly good gift. Personal, and yet historic enough that it can be displayed with a bunch of other historic things.
He also gave her a bunch of footage of her trip here that was filmed. He presented this to her within a video iPod.
And everyone trying to make an issue of this is a giant moron.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
I can explain this for you. I know they don't really teach this in schools in as much detail as they should.
Slavery was not fully abolished, technically, until 1865. Now, that sounds like a long time ago. Over 100 years. But what happened after that? Well for 100 years, blacks were not allowed to go to the same schools with whites, they weren't allowed to live by whites, they weren't allowed to meaningfully interact with whites, they're vote was actively negated through Jim Crow laws, and they weren't even allowed to drink the same water.
Let me repeat that lest the math was not clear, they were actively and openly oppressed, exploited, violently attacked by both private vigilanties and law enforcement, and disenfranchised until 1965 . That means if you're 43 or over, you were alive then. It also means your parents were almost assuredly alive and could either tell tales of fighting for or against the Civil Rights movement unless you're very young.
What does this mean really? I'm sure the response is "Well, I didnt' do any of that!". This is true, but the entire American society did that. Laws aren't passed by individuals, they are passed by nations. Widespread discrimination of that calibar is not commited by individuals, it's sanctioned by states. And so, it is society that owes a debt.
It was not African American's Great Great Great Grandparents that were shoved into ghettos, educationally marginalized, disenfranchised, and openly, violently opposed. Those who experienced this first hand are still alive today as are those who perpetrated these grave crimes against humanity.
The audacity to presume that in less than one full generation 300 years of this stature of oppression would simply *poof* disappear. Do you really think that all the fathers and grandfathers who were so sure that blacks were less than human in their teens, 20's, and 30's all of a sudden did a 180 and changed their attitudes? It takes more than 1/2 a generation to repair that kind of dehumanization.
And to compare this to Dresden. Are you completely daft? Are you truly that ignorant of the difference (not in a hateful sense, but in the literal sense of igorance)? Dresden was a single event in a war that spanned a few years. The decendents of dresden were not stripped of their heritage, educational opportunities, and identity. Forced into slavery, shoved into ghettos, hanged from trees, and treated verbally and physically like animals for 15 generations .
Just ponder that for a moment. Just think of the significance, of the impact that has on a culture. I am amazed that the black community is so forgiving. That the sons (literally) of those our nation abused so egregiously are not absolutely raving with desire for revenge. That they're recovering so quickly economically, educationally, and culturally.
No, it is not one individual that owes a debt, the entire country owes a debt.
Now, I don't think monetary reperations are the right way to make amends. Mainly, because the harm is nigh incalculable. But if it were possible to guarantee a free ride to every black child to a first class college to give them the opportunity to pull their communities out of the ghettos that our nation put them in then that might be a good start. Of course, we probably can't afford that either.
The solution is not easy, nor is it simple, nor is it cheap. But your indignation is misplaced, misguided, and misinformed.
The amusing part is that since Obama's black ancestry is from modern Africa, but his white ancestry is from the US, he's a descendant of slaveholders, but not of slaves. Giving him something from an anti-slave ship may not be as positive as it seems.
>And I seriously hope we never do, not because I agree with slavery, but because I disagree with being held accountable for something that someone did 200 years ago.
I seriously hope you do, not because I agree with handouts, but because I disagree with being able to smugly sit on ill-gained profits without materially admitting to wrongdoing until the clock has run out. [ In other words, fess up, pay ONCE, move on. ] The reason you're still being accused now, 200 years later, is that everyone *in between* then and now refused to be held accountable.
May I ask what benefit I (and my ancestors) have derived from slaves, given that they were poor German, Polish, and Irish immigrants from the late 1800s? What generational wealth? While I feel that slavery was despicable, I do not feel that I have benefitted from it in any measurable way. I'm curious why you simply say "white people", also.
So your logic seems to be that slavery is OK if you pay someone of the same race/location to help you round up slaves. By this logic, if you pay a white person to capture another local white person, it fine to sell them on into slavery.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
I can't stand this argument.
If you're a white person that didn't grow up in an urban slum in the United States, you owe a hell of a lot to a bunch of dead slaves and their survivors who have been not allowed to create the generational wealth that you benefit from.
...
If your society was enriched by the enslavement or destruction of another, you don't owe them something, you owe them everything. Not only due to the wealth that was robbed from them, but by the moral obligation to right a wrong. It's doubtful that any person could untangle the horrors societies have done to another, and come up with some dollar figure, but that still doesn't excuse your kind of attitude.
I don't particularly care what argument you can or can't stand - the basic fact of the matter is the people that actually need to be punished have been dead for generations. I do not want to be held accountable for their actions because I am not accountable for the actions of others, especial others that I have never met or had a chance to influence.
If reparations had any basis or validity in law, why stop at slavery? Can I get reparations please for the generations of brutality and oppression my ancestors received at the hands of the English when they occupied Wales? How about the deaths of several of my ancestors at the hands of the Catholic Church - please hand over your cheque book Mr Pope, I think I'm owed money.
Get real. Stop living in the past.
The reason for this is the same as the one below.
There's no punishment here. As I stated before, a child that manages to obtain an 80th percentile score when he went to a school that didn't even have a book for him to study has proven far more work ethic, persistence, and dedication to academia than his counterpart with the same score that wen to a school for which the only cause of poor performance is his own lack and shortcomings.
Please pay attention to this next part: Grades alone have never been the sole determining factor of a student's admittance . A student with a 3.8 but a long list of extracurricular activities, community service, and sports is often chosen over the 4.0 student with nothing else to show. Why is it so absurd to recognize the diverse achievements of low income students as well?
Education is already centralized to some extent. Federal monies and state monies support schools, just not to the degree that local property taxes do. I'm not proposing a complete paradigm shift, but a change in degree.
And yes, it is absolutely intentional. The high income neighborhoods with a more direct access to the law makers push very hard to maintain the status quo. And these laws have the same end effect on that population's participation in education as jim crow did on their participation in government.