Published 5 March 20095 March 2009 · Main Posts the aestheticisation of politics Jeff Sparrow There’s a clip floating about featuring a particularly odd exchange between snake-lipped hatemonger Ann Coulter and lunatic eliminationist Glen Beck about the Conservative Political Action Conference, a kind of Lollapolooza for right-wing Bedlamites. ‘One thing that is overwhelming about CPAC is all of the hot babes,’ Coulter says. ‘I would be a conservative if we weren’t so good looking. But wow, we have a lot of pulchritude on our side. […] The males are pretty good looking. […] OK. The other stations would find the dorkiest-looking person, the most empty room at the convention that had 9,000 participants and fixate on the one dorky-looking person.’ Below, an actual poster from CPAC, which puts this bizarre exchange in context. Jeff Sparrow Jeff Sparrow is a Walkley Award-winning writer, broadcaster and former editor of Overland. More by Jeff Sparrow › Overland is a not-for-profit magazine with a proud history of supporting writers, and publishing ideas and voices often excluded from other places. If you like this piece, or support Overland’s work in general, please subscribe or donate. Related articles & Essays 28 March 20249 April 2024 · Main Posts Why we should value not only lived experience, but also lived expertise Sukhmani Khorana In the wake of this year’s International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, I want to extend the central idea of El Gibbs’s 2022 essay on 'lived expertise' and argue that in media accounts of racism, analytical expertise and lived experience ought to be valued together and even in the same body. 5 March 2024 · Main Posts Andrew Charlton’s school assignment Alex McKinnon Australia's Pivot to India exists for three reasons: so that when Andrew Charlton is interviewed on the radio or introduced on Q+A, his bio includes the phrase "he has written a book about Indian-Australian relations"; to fend off accusations that he is another Kristina Keneally engaging in electoral colonialism in western Sydney; and to help the Albanese government strengthen economic and military ties with Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party.