Up Simba, Down Simba

Up Simba, Down Simba
Yes it was long, very long. Wallace was very casual in writing this saying things like, “Is he a hypocrite?” referring to one of McCain’s ads. The casualness is probably the only thing that kept my eyes open, because all of the politics talk makes my eyes shut. I still learned about some things about the political world from Wallace’s point of view. He kind of shot down McCain in some ways and made him look good in other ways. Talking about how McCain was a veteran of the Vietnam War and his long campaigning that took forever were the generalized good parts, but all the mistakes he did and the assumed bull****, for example, “…it’s hard not to hear it as just one more piece of the carefully scripted bullshit that presidential candidates hand us as they go about the self-interested business of trying to become the most powerful, important, and talked-about human being on earth…” were the bad parts and this all really made me question Wallace’s position. I don’t even know if he had one because in the end I think he was just speaking what he thought about everything, what was bull and what wasn’t. McCain seemed to be a guy that Wallace pointed out much more than anyone else though.

Relating this to the title, I still don’t understand why Wallace chose the title: “Up, Simba.” It doesn’t mean anything to me and it doesn’t make me interested. If I looked at the title alone I would think this text I read will be about Lion King or something Disney-like.

It’s interesting how he questions himself or asks his audience if McCain is a hypocrite for what he does regarding polls. Although Up, Simba was really mainly about McCain, there were just many things about many people that I just couldn’t soak in my head. Wallace spoke of Ghandi, Churchill, the Roosevelt’s, JFK, Clinton, Bush, and CNN workers; people that I didn’t really know much about to have an interest in continuing to read. I liked the blurging subtitles though, it made me keep guessing what Wallace was going to say next. “SUCK IT UP” and “WHO EVEN CARES WHO CARES” stuck out to me. The fact that these subtitles are bold and are in all caps make it all the better and more interesting.

Throughout of the reading, I read many, many, and many quotations. I’m pretty sure I only remember like 10% of the quotations I read. Most of the quotes I remember are just the recent ones after I finished reading. My opinion is that writing too many quotations makes your audience lose interest. But on contrast, in In the Lake of the Woods, there were many quotations in the reading, especially in the “Evidence,” sections. The quotations in the evidence sections repeated though, and that’s probably how I remember most of the quotations in that book.

All in all, it was cool I guess, the casualness saved the otherwise 100% boring political talk. Not mainly about the Vietnam War, which is what I was kind of expecting.