Embodied Memorials

What I find fascinating about John McCain is both his full corporeal experience and also the excavation of his body--the segmented cutting and removal of his flesh. He had both shoulders broken when he was a prisoner of war, he is thus unable to lift his arms above his shoulders. He used to smoke so much that he has had many tumors removed from his colon and prostate. The press is citing his heart rate and blood pressure, giving taxonomical evaluations of his embodied inflictions and status. I want to ask: What does it mean about us as a culture if we elect this state of health as president? What does it mean if we elect the apparent vigor of Barack Obama?--The female oriented body of Hilary Clinton, with all its reproductive history and reminder of that difference? McCain is a former prisoner of war. In lingo with a friend over work to be done I unreflectively and coldly referred to the upcoming, Memorial Day holiday as that "damn" holiday. It was only upon reflection after a co-worker sent around a memorial acknowledging that which is memorialized on this day that I realized it was a damn holiday only in terms of what it meant for the sacrifices that are embedded in all nations--in the name of this idea of nation--in the name of this idea of nation there are those that hold a national identity. They are bodies of flesh and blood and spirited remembrances of those who came before--of the ancestors. We hold that past in our genes, even as the selves that are born today encompass a different enfleshed matrix. Bodies for a new millennium. And on Memorial Day we acknowledge the suffering of those bodies (past and present) affected in war through death and suffering and permanent scars like those embedded in and on John McCain. Post-traumatic stress disorder, drug abuse, traumatic brain injury, amputation. A listing of how war segments sovereignty of the self and the nation. The body is a stress processing machine. A body like that of John McCain reveals the stress of our culture without subtlety. His stiff movements and slightly distorted profile are a reminder in the visual realm of his history, and that gnarlednesss is, in a strange way, appealing. Look what this body has survived, look how it has sustained. But to me, it is also a reminder of the dis-ease of this nation. Of a body with a belief system centered on defense and "prosperity" of a vision of invested interests as a commanding force, with little said about the realities of Katrina, the Iraq war, the state of the economy. Honestly, it seems to me that John McCain is a genuine man, but the genuine place he holds scares me. There is something toxified in this being, there is something that repels me. I got to be really close to Barack Obama. I stood in the front row when he rallied in Boise, the appearance of one of his security guards that stood by me will be forever etched in my brain--his clear-sightedness, his singular mission. Obama was slightly powdered. Really--maybe because of the lighting they powdered him. But other than that he was slim and strong. He was straight and rooted and so comfortable in his skin. He came down to the crowd and shook the hand of the boy in front of me. His hand, long fingers, defined musculature dangled in front of me for a fraction of a second--I seized the opportunity and shook that hand--electrifying. And the children. Today I saw a news piece with a video of a baby being asked who the next president would be. John McCain? No. Hilary Clinton? --"Go Barack Obama!" Squeels the baby. That's how Canyon sounds too. Both boys whisper and sometimes shout his name. I find them mesmerized when he flashes across the screen. I am not sure. I am persuaded by the body of hybridity. I am compelled by the transcontinentalness of this potentially presidential body. That is as far as I can go analyzing that corporeality for now. McCain is more blatant. He is more endemic of something. Something I am compelled to watch as the election progresses as his embodiedness experiences the rigors of electability. On the news right now they are talking about the medical care always accompanying the president. To assure us there is a specialized maintenance team to stabilize this body. Because when it is threatened, we lose our-selves?