tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-58266023527038885742024-03-13T22:13:49.548-07:00Zagrobelnyart • music • politics • rageRobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02695992701006189655noreply@blogger.comBlogger159125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826602352703888574.post-33411722707092450102013-06-19T16:46:00.000-07:002013-06-19T16:46:21.135-07:00The historical times, they are a-changin'I was working on a Wikipedia article on an obscure historical figure yesterday and I encountered a very odd but illuminating thing. I was able to read what was basically the same account from the same scholar about the same figure repackaged three different ways, for a 1970s scholarly paper, a 1980s introduction to a book from a university press, and a 1990s entry in a specialized encyclopedia. It was interesting to see a glimpse of how the sausage is made, how the same scholar repackages and re-updates the same material for multiple audiences. It also brought to mind more complicated issues, of race and politics and changing times.<br />
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I don't want to be more specific about this scholar or this historical figure for two reasons: I don't want to reveal my Wikipedia identity by discussing the specific article, and I don't want to call out this particular scholar, even though he is deceased, permanently on the internet for some obscure points in some obscure writings, when what I'm really interested in discussing are general trends that have nothing to do with this specific individual or the historical figure he was writing about.<br />
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This historical figure, though a northerner, spent over fifteen years as a newspaper man in the antebellum south, vigorously penning partisan attacks (he was a Whig) by the ink barrel. This included eagerly participating in the racist attacks against Martin Van Buren's Vice-President, Richard Mentor Johnson, who had a slave, Julia Chinn, whom he openly treated as his common law wife, and two mixed-race daughters by her who bore his last name. Slave mistresses were common, a relationship like this, even if Chinn was barely black (she was an octoroon, 7/8ths white), was enough to outrage the racist establishment. This particular editor shouldn't be singled out for "vent[ing] his racist spleen" and laying "on his lash with a generous hand" on this topic, as he was one member of a large chorus, but it was a favorite topic of his and thus perhaps deserves more space devoted to it than a mere three sentences. The same with this editor's anti-Catholic position. Anti-Catholic "nativism" was common in the 19th century, to be sure, but again, a mere sentence is devote to his "participat[ing] actively in the nativistic movement". <br />
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The fact that these things are mentioned at all I suppose is an improvement. With all the fuss about revisionist history and social history at the university level, much of this doesn't always filter down to the regional level, where figures of minor or local importance are talked about in terms of being a pillar of the community, or a successful businessman, or what offices he held. Monticello aside, and even there if you don't tour the slave quarters, many historical homes are a tedious exercise in hagiography and antique wainscoting. What a person stood for, what he advocated, how he contributed or fought against human progress, goes largely unremarked. Politics that stirred people to hate and kill each other become, through the soft focus lens of this kind of history, become apolitical bullet points in a resume.<br />
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I suppose it comes from a reluctance to "judge" a person in the past. When you bring up things like this, the kneejerk reaction is often to say that someone is a "product of their time" and that you cannot judge them by our contemporary standards. But presenting the facts is not judging. Pages and pages of discussion of someone's newspaper career, the details of partnerships and foundings and closings, but almost no discussion of the content of those newspapers? That's judging that the content of those newspapers is unimportant, and that certainly wasn't the case for those viciously partisan papers which fought each other tooth and nail. It isn't revisionism to say that these things are important, it's revisionism to say that these things don't matter, when the certainly did to the people at the time.<br />
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The practice of history has changed, even if it hasn't filtered all the way down to local and regional history, which is often practiced by enthusiasts and amateurs. But this is an experienced, celebrated historian we're discussing here, albeit one whose career started well before the civil rights movement. But even here, we see the changing times. This newspaper editor wrote favorably something like (definitely paraphrasing here) "wherever the Anglo-Saxon foot trod, progress followed". In the 1970s the historian presents this man's life as triumphant evidence of this statement of progress, in the 1980s this statement is mentioned, but not as triumphantly, and in the 1990s, it is entirely absent. Robhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02695992701006189655noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826602352703888574.post-37115092968014008062012-10-29T15:30:00.001-07:002012-11-01T12:21:03.410-07:00Election 2012 - candidates<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />Newspaper endorsements</span>
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /><a href="http://www.tampabay.com/opinion/editorials/article1255399.ece">http://www.tampabay.com/opinion/editorials/article1255399.ece</a></span>
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><a href="http://www2.tbo.com/news/opinion/2012/oct/23/naopino1-our-ballot-choices-ar-541104/">http://www2.tbo.com/news/opinion/2012/oct/23/naopino1-our-ballot-choices-ar-541104/</a></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">UP<span style="font-size: small;">DATE<span style="font-size: small;">: If you are <span style="font-size: small;">curious about the <span style="font-size: small;">amendments</span>, I concur with the conclusions here: http://cltampa.com/tampa/no-no-eleven-times-no/Content?oid=3452072#.UJLLPmd1GSo</span></span></span></span> <br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />President</span>
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />If you haven't made up your mind by now, maybe you should skip this one.</span>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><br />Senator</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"></span>
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><a href="http://billnelson.senate.gov/"><b>Bill Nelson</b></a>'s done a reasonable job as a centrist Senator since 2000. He hasn't become a preening Blue Dog using his position as a means for self-promotion and self-aggrandizement. Connie Mack IV brings nothing to the table other than his legacy admission to politics as son of another Florida Senator. An easy choice, even if you don't factor in potential party control of the Senate. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;">US House District 14</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><br /><a href="http://castor.house.gov/"><b>Kathy Castor</b></a>
is one of my favorite politicians, a Democrat who takes reasonably liberal positions instead of lukewarm ones. I'm tired of having to vote for the lukewarm ones. A campaign worker for her opponent, <a href="http://ejoteroforcongress.com/">"EJ" Otero</a>, came to my door and while I listened politely I tried to explain that he wasn't telling me anything that would make me switch, and wasn't telling me much of anything about Otero other than he's conservative and Latino. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;">Sheriff</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />David Gee is running unopposed. I'm skipping this vote because I'm opposed to unopposed races. </span>
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />Property Appraiser</span>
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><br />Ronda Storms has long been an
embarrassment to Hillsborough County and to sentient life. She has long flaunted her inexperience, lack of knowledge, homophobia, and power in public and private settings. Yet East Hillsborough has elected her again and again because Jesus. If you are not familiar with her work, there's plenty of examples in the local newspapers. The conservative <i>Tribune</i> reluctantly knocks her "self-discipline", but the subtext speaks loudly and hilariously. The <i>Times</i> is more blunt: "Storms regularly belittled people outside her circle — from urban residents to gay residents. Her slash-and-burn style was a principal reason the commission was described as dysfunctional by other elected officials — and by commissioners themselves. And her demeaning approach would hardly instill a culture of teamwork". I suspect she will win because the name of her opponent, <b><a href="http://www.bobhenriquez.com/">Bob Henriquez</a></b>, is foreign sounding to those fine, salt of the earth eastern voters, but I will relish finally being able to vote against her. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />Supervisor of Elections</span>
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><br />This is an office I've long thought should be a professional post and not an elected, partisan one. Here's the chance to vote a non-politican in, or at least as close to that as we are going to get.
<b><a href="http://craiglatimer.com/">Craig Latimer</a> </b>is the obvious choice. He runs the office now as <span style="background-color: white; line-height: 15.6px;">chief of staff</span> and is widely praised and endorsed for his job of turning the office around from the dark days of that self-promoting charlatan <span style="background-color: white; line-height: 16px;"> </span><i style="background-color: white; font-style: normal; line-height: 16px;">Buddy Johnson</i><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 16px;">. </span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 15.6px;">Rich Glorioso, a State Representative, is endorsed mostly by other party politicians, supports right-wing voter suppression efforts, and is one of those Florida Republican politicians who jumps from public office to office to office, complaining about government the whole time. An easy choice here. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 15.6px;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 15.6px;"><br /></span>County Commission District 6</span>
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /><b><a href="http://www.kevinbeckner.com/">Kevin Beckner</a> </b>is a first term incumbent who defeated the widely-hated Brian Blair. Now that we've finally gotten rid of Blair, here comes Blair-endorsed Tea Party nut <a href="http://margaretiuculano.com/">Margaret Iuculano</a>, bringing a history of <a href="http://www.queerty.com/opponent-attacks-openly-gay-tampa-commissioner-with-coded-san-franisco-references-20111010/">homophobia </a>and personal <a href="http://www2.tbo.com/news/politics/2012/sep/26/memeto1-commission-candidate-downplays-bankruptcy-ar-513211/">tax problems</a>. Beckner's done a reasonable job, so this is an easy choice too. <br /><br />
Supreme Court and District Court Judges</span>
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;">There is a <a href="http://www2.tbo.com/news/breaking-news/2012/oct/18/justices-battle-effort-to-have-them-voted-out-of-o-ar-536645/">right-wing effort</a> to oust these judges and replace them with far-right Rick Scott/wingnut acolytes. Regardless of your political orientation, a political effort to sway the justice system in either direction should be opposed by voting to <b>retain </b>all of these judges and justices. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />School Board</span>
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><br />In the primary election, incumbent Carol Kurdell faced four challengers of varying degrees of competence and sanity, including a former teacher. So who do the voters pick to face her in the run off? Tea Party bigot Terry Kemple. Good show, Hillsborough. Kemple has gained attention for his anti-Muslim crusades and his claims that CAIR has terrorist ties. The
<i>Times </i>says: "<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 15.6px;">He has distracted the district from its mission with bigoted campaigns against gays and Muslims, and he made the county a laughingstock in the process. He shows no genuine commitment to public education." Couldn't have said it better myself. The choice of <b><a href="http://carolkurdell.com/">Carol Kurdell</a></b>is an obvious one. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />Soil and Water Conservation Board</span>
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><br />This one is tough, because the newspapers didn't bother to endorse or cover these races this year and two of the candidates don't even have web pages. I'm voting for
<b><a href="http://www.shaneholmanforsupervisor.com/">Shane Holman</a></b> over Sharon Collins because at least I can read about his stands on the issues and he is endorsed by the Sierra Club. Judging from LinkedIn, Sharon Collins has experience, but she's also endorsed by numerous wingnut voting guides, and that makes me nervous. The same thing with nursery owner Roy Gene Davis, who is in the <a href="http://florida-agriculture.com/business/awards/hallfame/2006_davis.html">Florida Agriculture Hall of Fame</a> and obvious has a lot of background in agriculture. But I also dug up newspaper articles with him regurgitating the typical right-wing complaints about bureaucracy, regulation, federal "harassment", etc. No web page or stands on issues I can find, but lots of wingnut endorsements. So I'm going with <b><a href="http://www.josephwendt.com/">Joe Wendt</a></b>'s quixotic libertarian crusade to abolish the very board he's running for. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>Robhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02695992701006189655noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826602352703888574.post-75800439521507036962012-08-13T16:15:00.000-07:002012-08-13T19:51:34.899-07:00My Picks for Tuesday's local primaryEvery election I plan to dig into all of those down ticket races and make intelligent decisions about judges and school board posts, etc. Now that I am gifted with some free time on the eve of the election, here goes.<br />
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<i>Times </i>endorsements: http://www.tampabay.com/opinion/editorials/article1240701.ece<br />
<i>Tribune </i>endorsements: http://www2.tbo.com/news/opinion/2012/jul/30/5/our-endorsements-ar-446525/<br />
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<b>US Senator</b><br />
<br />
Bill Nelson has been a decent enough Senator. Far too conservative for my tastes, but you need to be conservative in Florida, and he’s nowhere near as conservative as he could be. He could easily have become a preening Joe Lieberman Blue Dog type, but he didn’t, and for that alone he’s pretty much earned my vote. Regardless, I looked into his primary opponent, <a href="http://www.glennburkettforussenate.com/">Glenn Burkett</a>, anyway. He describes himself as a “Hybrid Democrat” willing to take ideas from either party. A nice idea, but it seems an empty one as he’s given no indication of what kind of ideas he would take or where he stands on most issues. His website doesn’t give much info about that, and he doesn’t appear to have held any public office. The throw the bums out strategy may get you lots of nods of agreement, but won’t get you many votes. I’d vote for him for something like state senate, though, so he might set his sights a bit lower.<br />
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<b>Supervisor of Elections</b><br />
<br />
According to both local papers, current Supervisor of Elections Office Chief of Staff Craig Latimer deserves a lot of the credit for rebuilding the office after the tenure of self-promoting narcissist Supervisor Buddy Johnson. It’s an office that shouldn’t be a political one in any case, an opinion that was definitely cemented in my mind after Jeb Bush inflicted that <a href="http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/elections/buddy-johnson-loses-plant-city-property-as-foreclosure-fraud-suit-loom/1065746">sower of human misery</a> Johnson on our county. Thomas Scott served ably on the city and county commission, or at least I don’t recall any particular scandals. But I’m going with Latimer because I don’t think a politician should be in that post.<br />
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<b>13th Circuit Judge</b>
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<br />
Mark Wolfe is an experienced judge whom both papers describe in flattering terms. Johnnie Byrd is a former Speaker of the state house who was the most divisive, polarizing, controversial, and scandal ridden figure in that office until the next guy the GOP installed. This one is a no brainer.<br />
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<b>County Court</b><br />
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Both papers describe incumbents Ann Ober and Matt Lucas as able justices whose opponents offer no compelling reason to replace them. Ann Ober’s opponent also has a history of DUI arrests. The other Judge race features three non-incumbents who appear to all have quality resumes. Both papers endorse Frances Maria Perrone but neither one really puts together an open and shut case for her, so I’m undecided.<br />
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<b>School Board</b><br />
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I’m not sure where to come down on the Susan Valdes/Eddy Calcines race. Susan Valdes has popped up in the news frequently during her three terms, but I’m not sure if she’s blameless or a drama queen. Calcines seems like a decent fellow but there doesn’t seem to be a lot of difference between them, policy wise. I don’t like this<a href="http://www.tampabay.com/news/education/k12/controversial-guest-speaker-policy-could-be-revised-in-hillsborough-schools/1245111"> potentially burdensome guest speaker notification policy</a> that Valdes is supporting recently but I’m not sure that minor issue is enough to justify booting out an experienced incumbent.<br />
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The other Board race on my ticket is a six-way, with five challengers against incumbent Carol Kurdell. First to cross off the list are Terry Kemple, a homophobic and Islamophobic Tea Party-type, and Carl Kosierowski, a former bus driver who calls himself Captain Carl. Robert McElheny is a truck dealer who promises to bring business solutions to the school board, which always spells trouble. Both papers describe Joe Jordan-Robinson as an activist, but in unflattering terms. There is an actual teacher (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Westen">and former CIA agent</a>), Michael Weston, in the race, so I decided to give <a href="http://www.michaelweston.org/focus/">his platform</a> a closer look, and I’m impressed with what he has to say about testing, technology, the arts, and extracurricular activities, so I’m going to vote for him. Both papers endorse Kurdell and describe her in very flattering terms, so you probably couldn’t go wrong voting for her instead.
Robhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02695992701006189655noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826602352703888574.post-59110206988062678712012-04-20T16:38:00.000-07:002012-04-20T16:45:21.343-07:00Welcome to the party, Eric CantorNo, not the Democratic party, of course.<br />
<br />
First, some background. A few weeks ago we learned that House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Virgina) was <a href="http://maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/04/09/11100577-why-cantors-in-the-gop-doghouse">in the doghouse</a> with his own party. Cantor donated $25,000 to an anti-incumbent PAC to support Republican primary challenger Adam Kinzinger in his race against longtime House incumbent Don Manzullo. (Kinzinger went on to win the primary.) The was quite a bit of squawking about this because the only thing House Republicans hate more than Obama are those who challenge their incumbencies, and it was quite odd for the House leader to be working against his own rank and file. Cantor, of course, dodged and weaved, appeared to lie about it, and blamed it on another Republican, Aaron Schock. We enjoyed a bit of schadenfreude at Cantor's expense, chalked it all up to court intrigue, and went on with our lives.<br />
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Now things are getting a little more interesting. Politico reports that Cantor may have had <a href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0412/74969.html">a personal motive</a> for unseating Manzullo:
<br />
<blockquote>
Manzullo — according to more than a half-dozen Republican sources — once said Cantor, a devout Jew, would not be "saved." The remark occurred several years ago, when Cantor was serving as chief deputy whip, the sources said. Cantor allies were put off by the comment, Republicans said.</blockquote>
And here is Cantor being asked about antisemitism by Politico's Mike Allen. He hems and haws about it but does acknowledge that antisemitism and racism exist in America, contrary to pretty much everyone else on the right-wing, <a href="http://crooksandliars.com/blue-texan/eric-cantor-contradicts-right-says-raci">who have long and loudly insisted that racism is nonexistent</a>, other than "reverse racism", of course.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/vfvQMMc4-ck" width="420"></iframe><br />
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Cantor is widely known for his <a href="http://www.rawstory.com/rawreplay/2011/08/olbermann-how-stupid-is-eric-cantor/">stupidity</a>, but he clearly knows he's in a tight spot. The GOP tent is wide open for minorities, as long as they know their place and tow the GOP line. But when a minority even acknowledges some concern of his or her racial or religious group that runs contrary to the GOP white ideology, the knives come out. Herman Cain was the great black hope of the GOP, until he reminded the GOP that it was "<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/02/herman-cain-rick-perry-hunting-ground-black-people_n_991073.html">insensitive</a>" to casually throw around the n-word. Colin Powell was once the GOP's darling and longed-for presidential candidate, a faithful right-wing soldier for decades who threw away his credibility to support Bush's fraudulent war, but when he stepped out of line none of that kept him from becoming <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/media/2011/08/29/307363/limbaugh-powell-obama-melanin/">a wingnut punching bag</a>. There are, of course, plenty more examples of this phenomenon, and Cantor surely must know he will become one of them if he too steps outside the bounds of acceptable GOP discourse on race and religion.<br />
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Frequently, some thick-headed conservative will write something lamenting the fact that blacks or Latinos or women or Jews or even Muslims aren't clamoring to get into the GOP's big tent. After all, they write, this group would find a natural home with the GOP because of one or more of their core beliefs matches up with the GOP platform. The ideology of these myopic conservatives prevents them from discovering the cause of this phenomenon, which is stunningly obvious to everyone else. If they can't even acknowledge that racism exists, then they obviously can't see that their own big tent is segregated.
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<br />
In the GOP's big tent, and in America, no matter how loyal or assimilated you are, eventually you will be reminded that you do not belong. Cantor may think that it's limited to a few idiots like Manzullo, but the only difference between Manzullo and the others in the House GOP is that Manzullo was the one who opened his big fat mouth. In public, conservatives insist that racism is dead while keeping most of their racism private, when they think the ears are receptive and in agreement. I see this all the time in the small town where I work. Many times, young employees who grew up here tell me about the things they hear from other employees or even strangers when people like me are out of earshot and it's just the folks in the Secret White People Club. Today's conservatives give lip service to diversity in public and they keep their racism private. But eventually, nothing remains behind closed doors. There's always a Manzullo to remind you that you are not one of them.<br />
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Obama's election was a wake up call to a lot of people who thought that racism was a thing of the past, wiped out like polio and smallpox everywhere except for pockets of rednecks lurking in the hills of Appalachia and or the mountains of Montana. But we haven't cured the disease yet; Obama's election was just a reminder that it's still an epidemic.<br />
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A lot of us have had their personal revelations, too. As a light-skinned Latino who was born in this country, speaks perfect English, college educated, and hidden behind a desk in a suburban library, I thought I was insulated from the problem of racism in this country. After all, cops weren't pulling me over and tasering me every day, so everything's okay, right? Obama's nomination of Sonia Sotomayor was what reminded me that things were far from okay. She was everything I was and far more: she went to Yale and Princeton on full scholarships, graduated summa cum laude, was widely published and accomplished in her field. And yet she was widely slandered as an unaccomplished, temperamental, radical "<a href="http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2009/06/sonia_sotomayor_affirmative_ac.asp">Affirmative Action Baby</a>". At the time, Matt Ygelsias, who is an even whiter Latino than I am, <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/yglesias/2009/05/27/193098/sonia-sotomayor-and-identity-formation/">had similar thoughts</a> at the time:
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<blockquote>
But for all that, I have to say that I am really truly deeply and personally pissed off my the tenor of a lot of the commentary on Sonia Sotomayor. The idea that any time a person with a Spanish last name is tapped for a job, his or her entire lifetime of accomplishments is going to be wiped out in a riptide of bitching and moaning about “identity politics” is not a fun concept for me to contemplated. Qualifications like time at Princeton, Yale Law, and on the Circuit Court that work well for guys with Italian names suddenly don’t work if you have a Spanish name.</blockquote>
The Sotomayor outcry from the right showed me and many other Latinos that no matter what accomplish or how you act, they will always remind you that you are not one of them and that you do not belong in their version of America.<br />
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Eric Cantor seems to have had something of a similar revelation. We'll find out the full extent of what happened one day when Cantor publishes his memoirs. Susie Madrak wonders <a href="http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/cantor-hints-anti-semitism-house-gop-">if Cantor will have "the guts" to leave the GOP</a>. He's not going anywhere. He's too stupid and rich to switch sides, and the left is too far ideologically removed from his brand of wingnuttery. This is, after all, the guy who wants to <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/04/19/467476/cantor-raise-taxes-on-poor/">raise taxes on the poor</a>. Instead, one day we'll read about his regrets in that memoir, which will be about as useless as <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/longterm/books/bckgrnd/atwater.htm">Lee Atwater's deathbed apologies</a>. Like Atwater, Cantor will keep making money making this country a worse place for everyone. But at least he sees something of what the rest of us are going through. And to that, I only have one thing to say:<br />
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<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/vD94dVu8lqQ" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>Robhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02695992701006189655noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826602352703888574.post-48777665296105808762012-04-13T16:44:00.000-07:002012-04-13T20:29:59.646-07:00In the heat of Mark Judge's nightYou probably have already heard about the horrific travails of <i>Daily Caller</i> writer Mark Judge, which were firing up the blogosphere early this week until the arrest of another great conservative martyr, George Zimmerman. Judge sets the stage for us:
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<blockquote>
I was at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C., for the Stations of the Cross — the pre-Easter Catholic ritual of recounting the events that happened to Jesus on his way to crucifixion.</blockquote>
Like Jesus, Judge made a great sacrifice, losing a treasure of great value and significance to him, so we could learn the many errors of our ways as we have strayed from the path of righteousness and truth. What was this traumatizing event that happened to this brave, selfless man?
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If you don't recognize the above image, and you might not unless you have lots of online time to waste on cat pictures and amusing YouTube videos, it is a famous <a href="http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/nigga-stole-my-bike">internet meme</a>. The image is from an innocuous training scene from the video game <i>Mike Tyson's Punch Out!!!</i>, coupled with a fake caption and transformed into a racist stereotype. Like the meme, Judge transformed an otherwise normal and everyday event into a racist parable, casting himself as a two-wheeled Rosa Parks, riding into the sunset of racial justice.
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Of course, racism for conservatives is "reverse racism". "Black pain is no different than white pain," Judge writes, which really means "I'm so tired of hearing about Trayvon Martin, let's talk about me and my bike some more."
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But his bike, "a sharp silver-blue hybrid from L.L. Bean", wasn't the only thing Judge gave up on that brave Good Friday. Just like Jesus died on Good Friday, so did Mark Judge's "white guilt". His piece is called <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2012/04/09/the-end-of-my-white-guilt/?print=1">"The End of My White Guilt"</a>.
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Okay, hold on a minute. "White guilt?" The white part is true, but I don't believe a word of the rest of this. Most of the bloggers reacting to this have focused on how offensive Judge's piece was, but I don't think anyone has challenged the veracity of the claims he makes about himself. This guy is a conservative Catholic writer for Tucker Carlson's wingnut online magazine, and I'm supposed to believe he had white guilt? This guy, who has hit every conservative dog whistle from the Amistad (slavery, angry blacks killing whites) to Touré (elitist media figures) in this piece, grew up on a diet of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Heat_of_the_Night_%28film%29">Norman Jewison movies</a>? If he still clung to any white guilt, he gave it up pretty quickly. Last year he wrote <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2011/12/08/is-christopher-hitchens-about-to-convert/">this piece</a> imagining the deathbed conversion of militant atheist Christopher Hitchens. In it, he mentions he's working on a biography of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whittaker_Chambers">Whittaker Chambers</a>. I doubt you could find a dozen young Republicans who even know the name Whittaker Chambers, but Judge aspires to be his biographer. Judge's conservatism is fervently religious and it is old school. And yet, we are to believe that he has white guilt?
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While bits of it may be true, I don't think what Judge has written here is strictly a factual account. Instead it is a conversion narrative, a Christian genre which tells how once wicked and wayward souls make their way onto the path of goodness and right, like Paul falling off his horse on the road to Damascus. No doubt Judge, who mentions he studied at nearby Catholic University, is familiar with this genre. Conservatives have also transformed it into a political genre. They're fond of the saying "A conservative is a liberal who has been mugged", and Judge's bike mugging is his conversion narrative, detailing how he fell off his bicycle of lingering white guilt, abandoning it for the true path of righteous conservatism. Never mind that any self-respecting modern conservative likely abandoned any white guilt after the third viewing of Sean Hannity's show.
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We all know that Fox-era conservatives are not shy about bending the truth, and conservative narratives bend the truth all the time to further their goals. One example that I remember fondly was a message board discussion about Pat Buchanan's presidential run. Now this was a message board we had started up to accompany an alternative campus publication, and it was brand new so there couldn't be more than twenty or thirty people on this board. When I argued that no black people were supporting Buchanan's candidacy despite his odd selection of obscure African-American activist <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ezola_B._Foster">Ezola Foster</a> as running mate, suddenly a black Reform Party voter appeared on this obscure message board on an obscure college campus to accuse me of racism. That was about as plausible as Judge's narrative.
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In a particularly implausible section, Judge writes:
<blockquote>When I got home I vented to my friends. I told them I was going to scour those neighborhoods until I found the bike. In reply, a liberal friend gave me a lecture about profiling and told me to just forget about the bike. “That person needs our prayers and help,” she said. “They haven’t had the advantages we have.”</blockquote>
I'm skeptical for several reasons. I don't know much about how Washington works, so maybe Daily Caller wingnuts actually do have liberal friends. If this liberal friend actually said this, however, I think Judge has misinterpreted his friend's remarks. It doesn't seem to me that the alleged liberal friend meant that blacks have blanket permission to steal from whites or that whites should be "leaving valuable things like a bike in a vulnerable position in a black part of town because you didn’t want to admit that the crime is worse in poor black neighborhoods." Maybe there are some extreme Quakers who feel like this, but I haven't met any of them. Instead, it strikes me as a statement of acceptance, trying to find a silver lining and rationalizing things when the universe has violated you in a meaningless way. It was a way of telling Judge to move on with his life instead of <a href="http://www.wussu.com/poems/agh.htm">dragging himself through the negro streets at dawn</a> looking for his missing bike.
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Having things stolen from you, especially things you prize, is hard. I emphasize with his anger while I mock and criticize his misdirected overreaction. And this is where a lot of racism comes from, misdirected anger. Many people become racists when they are the victims of a violent crime at the hands of a person of another race. (Though in Judge's case, of course, the crime was non-violent and he only assumes the perpetrator is black.) I still remember when my house was broken into when I was a kid, but it was the stoner next door who did it, and I didn't start hating whitey as a result.
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Racists like Judge don't differentiate between people of other races. They're all one <a href="http://takimag.com/article/the_talk_nonblack_version_john_derbyshire/print#disqus_thread">dangerous undifferentiated mass</a> to them, while white people are divided into friends and enemies, good people and assholes. It would be nice if a supposedly educated professional like Judge could realize a simple fact: the guy who stole his bike, if he was black, wasn't a representative of the NAACP, he was just some random asshole. In that, Judge and the thief have something in common.Robhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02695992701006189655noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826602352703888574.post-55198108150957283282012-03-16T16:27:00.000-07:002012-03-16T16:27:36.829-07:00Hey liberals, Mississippi is all your fault!<object width="400" height="225"><param name="movie" value="http://www.hbo.com/bin/hboPlayerV2u.swf?vid=1242543"></param><param name="FlashVars" value="domain=http://www.hbo.com&videoTitle=March 9, 2012 Clip: Alexandra Pelosi ©ShareURL=http://www.hbo.com/video/video.html/?autoplay=true%26vid=1242543%26filter=real-time-with-bill-maher%26view=null"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.hbo.com/bin/hboPlayerV2u.swf?vid=1242543" FlashVars="domain=http://www.hbo.com&videoTitle=March 9, 2012 Clip: Alexandra Pelosi ©ShareURL=http://www.hbo.com/video/video.html/?autoplay=true%26vid=1242543%26filter=real-time-with-bill-maher%26view=null" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="400" height="225"></embed></object><br><div><a title="March 9, 2012 Clip: Alexandra Pelosi " href="http://www.hbo.com/video/video.html?view=grid&vid=1242543&autoplay=true">March 9, 2012 Clip: Alexandra Pelosi </a></div>
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Today I’ve been reading the back and forth on <a href=“http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2012/03/the-view-from-mississippi-we-lost-a-war.html>Andrew Sullivan’s blog</a> about the above video by filmmaker Alexandra Pelosi which recently aired on <I><a href=“http://www.hbo.com/real-time-with-bill-maher/index.html”>Real Time with Bill Maher</a></I>, where the citizens of the poorest state in the nation flaunt their prejudices and their lack of teeth. According to Sullivan, the wing nuts are going “ape-shit” over this. I don’t need to go dumpster diving in the right-wing blogosphere to verify this. After all, this is just the perfect storm to set right-wing spittle flying: the daughter of San Francisco Liberal Nancy Pelosi and that atheist Hollywood libertine Bill Maher making fun of the poor, humble, hardworking folk of the American heartland.
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It’s not just the right-wing who react when someone shines airs the dirty laundry of the South; moderates and liberals like <a href=
http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2012/03/the-view-from-mississippi-more-dissents.html
>the dissenters quoted by Sullivan</a> leap to the defense of aggrieved southerners whenever someone besmirches their honor. Because they know a few gays or progressives or minorities and frequent a nice vegan restaurant in town and don’t know a single person in the Klan, they claim that accusations of racism of their fellow southerners are unfounded. Often the violent reaction to <a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King,_Jr.#Chicago.2C_1966”>Martin Luther King’s visit to Chicago</a> is trotted out as an example of how the North is just as bad, or even worse, than the South. Never mind that this argument is undercut by the fact that the South directed violence against African-Americans for a hundred years prior to King’s visit to Chicago, or that King himself was murdered in Tennessee.
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“It is the manifestation of why the Democratic Party, and left-leaning politics in general, are so totally irrelevant to many of the people who should, by all rights, be its base,” one of Sullivan’s dissenters writes about the video. If only liberals would stop being such meanypants about the South! If we would abandon our prejudices against the hard-working, toothless masses of places like Mississippi, then those voters would abandon their prejudices and begin voting in their economic interests. Really? I fail to see how this is anything but fantasy, powered by the perennial American myth in the essential goodness of common folk. Is it the prejudices of liberals that caused <a href=“http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/main/2012/03/other-notes-from-alabama-and-mississippi.html”>52% of Mississippi GOP voters to think Barack Obama is a Muslim</a> or <a href=“http://publicpolicypolling.blogspot.com/2011/04/barbour-bryant-lead-in-mississippi.html”>46% of them to think interracial marriage should be illegal</a>? Is it the prejudices of liberals that caused members of the Southern Mississippi University band to chant at a Puerto Rican basketball player on the opposing team “Where’s your green card?’
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If Mississippi didn’t have <a href=“http://www.statemaster.com/state/ms/Bottom-Rankings”>the lowest high school graduation rate in the nation</a>, they might know that Puerto Rico is part of the United States.
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The dissenters claim that we must respect the South and are ignorant of the ways of its kind, hard-working folk. The dissenters never insist the reverse; that southerners respect and learn about other places, such as knowing that Puerto Rico is a territory of the US.
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An anecdote from neighboring Alabama: You may have heard of gifted scientist Douglas Prasher, whose work helped three others win the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, while he ended up driving a courtesy van for an Alabama car dealership. <a href=“http://discovermagazine.com/2011/apr/30-how-bad-luck-networking-cost-prasher-nobel”>A profile</a> in <I>Discover</I> highlighted his interactions with some of those southerners:
<blockquote>“We’ve been teaching Douglas about the real world,” he said. Jim, another body shop worker, listed some of the things they had educated Prasher about. They all happened to be local culinary delights: “mountain oysters” (hogs’ testicles), fried moon pies, Goo Goo Clusters. I asked Jim if Prasher had taught them anything in return—say, about DNA. “DN who?” Jim asked, smiling. </blockquote>
This respect, this learning, this open-mindedness demanded of liberals is not a two way street. While we have to learn about the “real world” of eating pig testicles, they can remain wholly ignorant of the entire world outside their state. We have to endlessly praise them as the “heartland” of this country and listen to them attack the rest of us as wicked, evil, and corrupt. We are <a href=“http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/04/the_red_state_ripoff.html”>subsiding their rural lifestyles</a> with our money while they demand that taxes and government services be cut even further, except for stuff they like, of course, which doesn’t really count.
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I’m sure there will be some responses that echo the dissenters above, that I’ve unfairly tarred all southerners with the same brush, that I’m reinforcing mean liberal prejudices, etc. It may surprise you to learn that I live in a southern state that has also often been a national laughingstock. When my state is attacked, I don’t cling to some sort of stubborn regional pride and complain that we’ve been unfairly maligned. I realize that the attacks are accurate. After all, we elected as Governor a guy who defrauded Medicare of millions because his opponent, a former Bank of America executive, was a socialist or something. Yes, there are racists and toothless idiots in Florida and Illinois and Pennsylvania and Oregon, but there are a hell of a lot of them in Mississippi, and you aren’t being unfairly maligned just because we are pointing out what you already knew. Yes, Mississppi is the home of William Faulkner and Eudora Welty and B.B. King too, but you can be damn sure they knew what their neighbors were like, so there’s no sense in you denying it.Robhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02695992701006189655noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826602352703888574.post-46604809144463558072012-02-07T16:28:00.000-08:002012-02-07T16:55:49.149-08:00Pete Hoekstra and the Yellow Peril<div align="center">
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In <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Temptation_of_Krust">a 1998 episode</a> of <i>The Simpsons</i>, Krusty the Clown appears at a comedy festival along with some comedians who aren't prehistoric vaudeville throwbacks. Krusty's act is, to him, classic "A material" and it leaves him baffled when it fails to elicit hysterical guffaws, while the audience is dumbfounded at Krusty's juvenile and obviously racist buffoonery.
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It wasn't their intent, but the writers of <i>The Simpsons</i> have provided us with a metaphor for looking at some of the GOP's most virulent hate speech. We are the confused and alienated audience confronted with immature bigotry while wingnuts are rolling on the floor laughing at what is, to them, the Funniest Thing Ever. We've seen it again and again: <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2008/10/16/30814/obama-bucks/">Obama Bucks</a>, a GOP candidate calling Energy Secretary Steven Chu <a href="http://maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2010/10/14/5289397-john-raese-as-in-race-y">"Steven Chow Mein"</a>... And then there's this:
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No doubt you've already heard of this, which immediately became the Most Racist Super Bowl Ad Ever.
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Hoekstra's ad is racist, but it's a mistake to write it off as stupid, as it is a brazen act of Machiavellian animal cunning. The ad was, of course, immediately denounced as racist, and attacking as racist won't work, as many commentators have already noted, because <i>that is exactly what he wants</i>. Hoekstra's already <a href="http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/02/06/hoekstra-wont-apologize-for-super-bowl-ad/">refused to apologize</a> and now he gets to play victim and complain about political correctness. It was clearly a calculated act designed to elicit a negative response. He's already sent out fund-raising mail stating "the liberals are doing what they always do - crying racism." And the wingnuts, who are already rolling on the floor laughing at the cleverness of Hoekstra's minstrel ad, don't see what all the fuss is about. They will turn to each other and say things like "the liberals are doing what they always do - crying racism" and nod sagely at each other in agreement. After all, in their world, the only real racism is when Chris Rock can use the n-word and they can't, which is a violation of Martin Luther King's dream or something.
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This ad reminds me of the late 80s and early 90s, back when Japan was the terrifying foreign economic enemy. Hysterical complaints about the Japanese buying up American real estate like Rockefeller Center were rampant. Films and books were filled with cyberpunk dystopias of yakuzas and hackers stalking crowded city streets lit with neon Kanji. And conservative reactionary Michael Crichton captured the zeitgeist in <i>Rising Sun</i> by depicting the Japanese as sinister scheming businessmen out to bury our gingers in concrete tombs.
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And of course we all know how that turned out. I for one honor our current Japanese overlords. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_asset_price_bubble">Oh, wait...</a>
This suggests another line of attack. Instead of the being drawn into the racism trap, as a number of commentators have already suggested, Hoekstra and his ad should be attacked on the basis of the content, namely his flimsy scapegoating of the Chinese economic menace. James Fallows <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/02/more-on-the-we-take-your-jobs-hoekstra-commercial/252661/">quotes a Republican strategist</a>:
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The more interesting angle is one of hypocrisy. Hoekstra voted for permanent MFN for China in 1999, and China's creditor status vis-à-vis the U.S. simply reflects all those good-paying union jobs Hoekstra shipped there (yes, I know international economics is more complicated than that, but would certainly put Hoekstra on the defensive.)</blockquote>
Instead of playing by the script, hit him hard on sending jobs overseas. Get his position on Solyndra on the record and then hammer him for capitulating to China on green jobs. Of course, all of this will draw complaints about how the Democrats don't support "free enterprise" and are engaging in "class warfare", but those are the complaints you hear when you have a winning message.Robhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02695992701006189655noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826602352703888574.post-12818168107339358042011-11-04T12:10:00.000-07:002011-11-04T13:09:49.114-07:00Machine of Death: The Cat or the PianoFirst, a word of thanks to the trio behind Machine of Death, David Malki, Ryan North, and Matthew Bennardo. I promise not to vandalize your Wikipedia articles.<br /><br />When I was younger and had young fever dreams of being an accomplished and celebrated author, I read lots of books and submission guidelines. All of them were realistically discouraging. This is appropriate and necessary, to dissuade the talentless from fooling themselves and the cliched from, well, being cliched. But for the Nick Drakes of the world, the shy but talented who take the worst toll from rejection, it can sap them of their will to create and rob the world of the chance to experience their gifts. What I found at Machine of Death was the opposite of this, the most open and encouraging process to novice creators imaginable. While I have no illusions that I have anything approaching the talent of Nick Drake, this openess helped me get excited about this project and start writing again, something I haven't done in far too long. Regardless of their rejection and whether or not I actually ever write anything worth publishing somewhere, I'll be grateful for that and glad I was part of this process. Rejection is hard, and usually lonely. But, at least for those of us on Twitter, it was a shared experience, and that was exciting and dulled the blow when it finally came. Maybe we can all start a message board somewhere and keep that sense of shared encouragement going.<br /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">The Cat or the Piano</span><br /></div><br /> “Welcome back. I’m Charlie Rose, and tonight we’re discussing what has been colloquially become known as The Machine. We’re here tonight with two outspoken critics of The Machine, Rabbi Moshe Telushkin, ethicist at the Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies in Chicago, and Dr. Randall Dobrzynski, physicist at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Illinois. Rabbi, you’ve written extensively about The Machine and its implications for free will.”<br /> “Yes, free will and personal responsibility. Religions have long wrestled with the question of free will in a world preordained by an all-powerful God, and I do not believe that the question we are discussing today differs significantly in its moral dimensions. It has long been a tenet of many religious faiths that despite their actions being preordained by God or another deity, people are still responsible for their moral choices and their consequences. In Christianity, the most notorious example is Judas, who despite his actions being not only preordained but absolutely necessary for Christianity itself to even exist, is still considered responsible for those actions and as a such is universally reviled and condemned to eternal suffering.<br /> “So,” the rabbi continued, “when confronted with this Machine which identifies your preordained fate, many act as if their actions have been removed from the arena of moral choice and responsibility. They can react in quite an irresponsible fashion: alcohol and chemical abuse, reckless sexual acts, ignoring their physical safety in a myriad of ways. What they also ignore is their responsibility for these reckless choices and the fact that they still remain moral actors.”<br /> “Dr. Dobrzynski,” Charlie asked, startling the physicist slightly. “You’ve discussed the scientific aspects of the Machine and the issue of moral choice.”<br /> “Yes, well,” Randall said, before clearing his throat. “The Rabbi and I differ when it comes to the issue of a preordained fate, but like him I’m also concerned about people removing themselves from making moral choices. In a way, they’re giving up their free will. It’s in a metaphorical way, but I’m concerned that they’re also doing it in quite a literal way as well.”<br /> “A literal way?”<br /> “Well, instead of just giving up responsibility for their choices, they’re also giving up their choices, or at least one very important choice. I’m not sure that the Machine is telling people what will happen. I think it’s <span style="font-style: italic;">deciding </span>what will happen.”<br /> “That’s a bold statement. What’s the scientific basis for that conclusion?” Charlie asked.<br /> “At the risk of oversimplifying: There are, basically, subatomic particles that exist in multiple states simultaneously and you can’t know what state the particle is until you observe it. There’s a thought experiment that helps explain this, a scenario that serves as a kind of scientific metaphor, something we’ve been using in quantum physics for about a century, devised by Erwin Schrödinger, a German– um, I mean Austrian physicist.<br /> “So,” Randall continued, gesturing along with his words, “you have a cat in a box. In the box with the cat is a lethal gas that’s activated by particle decay. If the particle is in one state, it releases the gas and kills the cat. If the particle is in another state, the cat is fine. But you don’t know which until you open the box. In a sense, the cat is both alive and dead at the same time, because that choice hasn’t yet been made.”<br /> “Maybe we should keep the box closed,” Charlie suggested.<br /> “That’s precisely my point, Charlie. By not opening the box, the fate of the cat is still an open question. It’s the same with the Machine. By opening the box, so to speak, we’re not only learning our fate, but deciding it as well.”<br /> “But,” the Rabbi interjected, “if this Machine is literally, as you say, deciding our fate, wouldn’t that decision require some action on the part of the Machine? After all, you need the gas to slay the cat, and the particle to activate the gas. So whatever action the Machine is taking, you could measure that, couldn’t you?”<br /> “Yes,” Randall agreed, “and that’s part of the theory that we’re investigating. It’s why we’ve reopened some of the particle accelerators at Fermilab. We’re hoping to measure particle activity in some way.”<br /> “Stephen Hawking has theorized that it had something to do with quantum ‘strings’,” Charlie pointed out.<br /> “Yes, string theory is a definite possibility.”<br /> “So,” Charlie asked, raising an eyebrow, “have you measured any activity yet from the Machine?”<br /> “No. No, we haven’t.”<br /><br /><br /> “So you’ve come down here to see how real science is done?” Randall quipped when Harvey entered the room. Dr. Harvey Doyle was the head of Administration at Fermilab, in charge of money and grants and paperwork and everything else that Randall hated about the practice of science. By all rights, he probably should have hated Harvey too, but despite his best efforts, he was very fond of the jovial administrator.<br /> “Nah, I gave that up ages ago,” Harvey said with a grin. “That sort of thing is best left to the experts like you.”<br /> “Flattery, Harvey? Now I know there’s something wrong.”<br /> “Well, there’s this thing,” the administrator continued, his smile faltering. Whenever Harvey started a sentence like that, Randall knew there was trouble. Hell, there was usually trouble when Harvey did as little as walk in the room.<br /> “There’s been a bit of...controversy about your appearance on <span style="font-style: italic;">Charlie Rose</span>,” he explained.<br /> “Really? I didn’t think anyone watched <span style="font-style: italic;">Charlie Rose</span>,” Randall replied flatly.<br /> “You’re right, probably nobody outside of pseudointellectuals and insomniacs. But there is a short YouTube clip of highlights that’s proven to be quite popular.”<br /> “Of course there is,” the physicist sighed. There was a Youtube clip of everything these days. “So what’s happened? Is PETA campaigning to save Schrödinger’s cat?”<br /> “You know, it’s one thing to sternly disapprove of the Machine in abstract like those mothers in the Anti-MoD League or an old fuddyduddy like that rabbi.”<br /> “Fuddyduddy? Only fuddyduddies use words like fuddyduddy, Harvey.”<br /> “What I’m saying is the ‘kids these days’ routine is one thing, but it’s quite another thing to say that the Machine literally is a malevolent force. Fox News is running clips of The Exorcist.”<br /> “The day I pay any attention to what-”<br /> “I know,” Harvey interrupted, “but it’s gone a bit beyond the lunatic fringe now. We’ve had thousands of complaints. There are even protests.”<br /> “When the hell did all of this happen? It’s only been three days.”<br /> “You’ve been in the lab, Randall. You do tend to get a bit absorbed.”<br /> “True,” Randall conceded.<br /> “I’m even hearing grumblings from the grant agencies and insurance companies,” Harvey said, his tone becoming more serious.<br /> “What? What the hell does that have to do with anything?”<br /> “Let’s be honest, here. You’re already considered an insurance risk - and a bit of a loose cannon, might I add - since you’re one of about seven adults in this country who hasn’t used the Machine yet.”<br /> “So that’s what it is. Everyone else is so miserable about the quality of their impending demises that they want me to be miserable too.”<br /> “That very well may be, but if this thing gets even more out of hand and the money starts drying up...You might have to be miserable, too. You might have to use the Machine.”<br /> “That’ll be the fucking day.”<br /><br /> <br /> The day came. Randall found himself in the Machine’s room, muttering to himself while rolling up his sleeve and glaring at whatever he could get his eyes on. “You don’t have to do that, sir,” Suresh, the Machine operator, told him.<br /> Randall ignored him.<br /> “And all those goddamn grant boards can go fuck themselves. They’ll come back begging to give me cash when I crack the entanglement problem.”<br /> Harvey just nodded, silently.<br /> “And those fucking insurance companies that are running our lives a lot more than this fucking Machine does. All those assholes on Fox are gonna crow that I’m going back on what I said, that I’m a fucking flip-flopper. I’m only doing this for the insurance. I want everybody to know that. Harvey, make sure everybody knows that.”<br /> “We know, Randall,” Harvey replied. “I’ll make sure everyone knows.”<br /> “My son needs that insurance. My fucking ex-wife sure as hell won’t be able to give it to him.” Randall pointed at the administrator angrily. It wasn’t Harvey’s fault, he knew, but he had to find <span style="font-style: italic;">somewhere </span>to direct his fury. “Makes sure my son gets all of it. I don’t want a fucking penny to go to her.”<br /> “They don’t make pennies anymore, Randall.”<br /> “You know what I fucking mean!”<br /> “Don’t worry, Randall,” Harvey replied, attempting something close to a soothing tone. “It’s all taken care off. The paperwork’s done and the trust fund is already set up.”<br /> There was silence, before Randall let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. “Okay, let’s get this over with.”<br /> Suresh wheeled the bulky black mass of the Machine closer and pointed to a small round opening. “Just stick your finger in there,” he stated and wiped down Randall’s index finger with an alcohol pad. There was a moment of hesitation and then Randall plunged his finger inside. He winced as the needle pricked him and yanked his finger away. The sooner he was far, far away from this goddamn machine, the better.<br /> All three men were silent as the Machine did its work. A green light appeared in the blackness, and a white card spit out of a slot on the side. Randall glanced at the other two men, and slowly reached for the card.<br /> “Oh, what the fuck is this?” he roared, resisting the overwhelming urge to rip the paper to shreds by handing it to Harvey. The other men looked at the small, crisp white card, which read in bold black lettering: <span style="font-weight: bold;">THE CAT OR THE PIANO.</span><br /> “Is that a band name?” asked Suresh. Harvey caught himself before he laughed.<br /> “This doesn’t even make any fucking sense,” Randall raved, beginning to pace back and forth. “There must be some kind of malfunction. The Machine tells you what happens; it doesn’t give you a fucking choice. That’s the whole point of the damn thing! You get an answer. No one’s ever gotten a question before.” Before he had even finished, Suresh had the back of the Machine open and was already preparing a diagnostic test.<br /> After a few minutes of uncomfortable silence, Harvey spoke. “It’s not a question.”<br /> “What?” Randall glanced up from the spot on his shoes he’d been studying intently, in an effort to not walk out the door immediately.<br /> “Look, there’s no question mark. So it’s not a question, it’s a statement.”<br /> “I doubt the Machine is a fucking stickler for grammar.”<br /> “Why not? We know that some of the time it issues results that are cryptic, even ironic. Results that are ambiguous enough to be interpreted incorrectly by the recipient– a message with a twist, you might say. Maybe you think it’s a question, but it’s really not. I think it’s a statement.”<br /> “A statement of what?”<br /> “I don’t know, maybe it’s identifying a particular cat?” Harvey proposed with a shrug.<br /> “A particular cat? Who the <span style="font-style: italic;">fuck </span>would name their cat ‘Or the Piano’?”<br /> “Salvador Dalí?” the administrator suggested, fighting back a wry grin.<br /> Randall glared. “I’ll tell you who would name their cat ‘Or the Piano’. Fucking liberal arts majors, that’s who. In fact, I bet they’re behind this whole Machine thing. Who the hell else would relish ironic deaths except for people who were force fed a diet of ancient Greek drama? They’re just mad because they can’t get real jobs.”<br /> “And quantum physicist is a real job?”<br /> “Real fucking funny, Harvey. Now when Suresh is done hooking this thing up to electrodes, let’s try it again and see if we can get a sane result this time.”<br /> hey did. The result was the same.<br /><br /> Randall didn’t visit downtown Batavia very often; there was little to see and even less that interested him. But grant money was still hard to get and he was making little progress in the lab, so he had taken to long walks to see if he could puzzle out things in his head. On one of these trips, about two years after his Machine reading, on a downtown sidewalk he walked past two delivery men pulling on a rope which led to a piano suspended in the air next to a second story window.<br /> Three thoughts went through Randall’s head in rapid succession. First was a burst of equations he hadn’t used in years, filling his head with torque and strain and vectors. Then, he thought that it was odd that they still delivered pianos this way, like you might see in an old Warner Brothers cartoon. With the third thought, his eyes went wide.<br /> He was no longer under the piano, but he instinctively turned the other direction and found himself faced with a fat orange cat strolling across the sidewalk as if it were his own little feline kingdom.<br /> Randall ran straight into the street, cackling both in fear and in pleasure at his own cleverness in rejecting the choice presented to him. There was a third option, one free from pondering the cryptic message on that little white card every time he saw a fucking Steinway or his neighbor’s little grey kitten. He’d be free from the goddamn <span style="font-style: italic;">question </span>the Machine had given him. The Machine would be <span style="font-style: italic;">wrong</span>.<br /> Randall didn’t feel what happened next, but he heard the screech of tires, the shattering of glass, and the sound of his own body hitting the pavement with a sickening thump. The last thing he saw was that orange cat staring at him from the sidewalk with what he swore was an unmistakable grin.<br /> <span style="font-style:italic;">You fucking bastard</span>, he thought.Robhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02695992701006189655noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826602352703888574.post-6556723682673371462011-08-20T08:21:00.000-07:002011-08-20T08:37:38.614-07:00This week in awesome: Cookie Monster, heroin, corn dogs, and soulless employersPerhaps the most perfect mashup ever:
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<br />Pictures of politicians eating:
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<br />The last episode of <span style="font-style:italic;">This American Life</span> featured Cole Lindbergh, perhaps the most enthusiastic amusement park games manager in the history of time. Lindbergh's preposterous enthusiasm is infectious, but you also emphasize with Lindbergh's dilemma about having a job you thoroughly enjoy and are amazingly good at, but that job offers no opportunities for life or career advancement and your employer is institutionally incapable of recognizing or rewarding your efforts and skills. If there was any sense at all, this guy would be a vice president or at least a regional training manager.
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<br />Also first heard on <span style="font-style:italic;">This American Life</span> may be what is a perfect joke by comedian Kumail Nanjiani. It holds up on repeat viewings and I still marvel at the craftsmanship of it. Hopefully we'll see a lot more of this guy.
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<br /><iframe width="420" height="345" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/k1cvKcGVy6k" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>Robhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02695992701006189655noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826602352703888574.post-67998403566111023582011-08-18T16:24:00.000-07:002011-08-18T16:25:19.513-07:00Remembering Robert Novak, Douchebag of Liberty<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://img199.imageshack.us/img199/9697/7eeb5a0f496e6c96bad3c11.jpg"><img style="float: right; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 265px; height: 195px;" src="http://img199.imageshack.us/img199/9697/7eeb5a0f496e6c96bad3c11.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>Robert Novak was a rumpled, absent-minded political reporter in the late 50s and early 60s, frequently seen forgetting to shave or tie his shoes or even sticking lit cigarettes in his pockets. He teamed up with button-downed reporter Rowland Evans to become the Laverne and Shirley of political commentators, running an inside baseball column and political report together from 1963 to Evans' death in 2001. So eagerly they printed leaks and fresh information that didn't turn out so well they were nicknamed "Evans and No Facts". Novak later became a frequent presence of dyspeptic misogyny in the early days of cable news, at one point even declaring that the sight of homeless people on television news ruined his Thanksgiving dinner. It's not for nothing that he was nicknamed "The Prince of Darkness".
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<br />Novak will likely be best remembered for revealing the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame in 2003. Members of the Bush administration leaked her identity to Novak in retaliation for her husband Joe Wilson publicly demolished the line pushed by the administration that Iraq was seeking uranium from Niger. Despite the fact that this revelation outed Plame, her CIA cover organization, the other CIA operatives working for that organization, and all of their informants, no one was charged or convicted of this crime, excepting Scooter Libby's perjury conviction. Novak doubled down and insisted he'd done nothing wrong because "left-wing critics" were meanie pants to him. One persistent critic was Jon Stewart of <span style="font-style: italic;">The Daily Show</span>, who awarded Novak the "Congressional Medal of Douchebaggery."
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<br />In 2008, Novak hit an 86 year old pedestrian with his black Corvette convertible. Despite the fact that the poor guy (who thankfully escaped with minor injuries) bounced off Novak's windshield, Novak claimed he never saw him. After a lifetime of reckless driving, speeding citations, douchebaggery, and not giving a shit about anyone, many concluded he was lying. But a few days later, Novak was diagnosed with a brain tumor. He died a little over a year later, on August 18, 2009.
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<br /> <table style="font: 11px arial; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); background-color: rgb(245, 245, 245);" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" height="340" width="512"><tbody><tr style="background-color: rgb(229, 229, 229);" valign="middle"><td style="padding: 2px 1px 0px 5px;"><a target="_blank" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;" href="http://www.thedailyshow.com/">The Daily Show With Jon Stewart</a></td><td style="padding: 2px 5px 0px; text-align: right; font-weight: bold;">Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c</td></tr><tr style="height: 14px;" valign="middle"><td style="padding: 2px 1px 0px 5px;" colspan="2"><a target="_blank" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;" href="http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-september-18-2006/intro---bob-novak">Intro - Bob Novak</a></td></tr><tr style="height: 14px; background-color: rgb(53, 53, 53);" valign="middle"><td colspan="2" style="padding: 2px 5px 0px; width: 512px; overflow: hidden; text-align: right;"><a target="_blank" style="color: rgb(150, 222, 255); text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold;" href="http://www.thedailyshow.com/">www.thedailyshow.com</a></td></tr><tr valign="middle"><td style="padding: 0px;" colspan="2"><embed style="display: block;" src="http://media.mtvnservices.com/mgid:cms:item:comedycentral.com:128367" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="window" allowfullscreen="true" flashvars="autoPlay=false" allowscriptaccess="always" allownetworking="all" bgcolor="#000000" height="288" width="512"></embed></td></tr><tr style="height: 18px;" valign="middle"><td style="padding: 0px;" colspan="2"><table style="margin: 0px; text-align: center;" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" height="100%" width="100%"><tbody><tr valign="middle"><td style="padding: 3px; width: 33%;"><a target="_blank" style="font: 10px arial; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); text-decoration: none;" href="http://www.thedailyshow.com/full-episodes/">Daily Show Full Episodes</a></td><td style="padding: 3px; width: 33%;"><a target="_blank" style="font: 10px arial; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); text-decoration: none;" href="http://www.indecisionforever.com/">Political Humor & Satire Blog</a></td><td style="padding: 3px; width: 33%;"><a target="_blank" style="font: 10px arial; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); text-decoration: none;" href="http://www.facebook.com/thedailyshow">The Daily Show on Facebook</a></td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table>
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<br /> Robhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02695992701006189655noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826602352703888574.post-33702081494417075192011-08-08T17:57:00.000-07:002011-08-08T14:57:33.092-07:00Nevermore to the Edgar Allan Poe House and Museum?<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/38/PoeHouse-Baltimore.jpg"><img style="float: right; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 276px; height: 376px;" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/38/PoeHouse-Baltimore.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>The <span style="font-style: italic;">New York Times</span> <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/08/arts/edgar-allan-poe-house-in-baltimore-faces-closing.html">reports</a> that The Edgar Allan Poe House and Museum faces possible closure. The House has lost its $85,000 annual subsidy from the city of Baltimore and is limping forward by draining its reserve funds. It would be a loss, to be sure, but I'm wondering how much we'll really lose here.
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<br />Don't get me wrong, I'm a steadfast advocate for saving and archiving as much as we can, and for the government providing as much funds as are necessary to accomplish this. But I'm wondering if it's really feasible to save every house lived in by every prominent writer? Poe is most associated with Baltimore and died there, but at the end of his life he was living in New York and <a href="http://www.bronxhistoricalsociety.org/poecottage.html">that house</a> is preserved. His childhood home in Virginia is a <a href="http://www.poemuseum.org/index.php">successful museum</a> and a <a href="http://www.nps.gov/edal/index.htm">Pennsylvania home</a> is operated by the National Park Service.
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<br />It would be a loss to Baltimore's heritage, but let's look at precisely what's being lost. Some early key works like "Berenice" were likely written here, but none of his famous works. Do we really need to see where Poe may have written "The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall"? And there are no artifacts of note in the House. Much of what is on display are reproductions alongside authentic artifacts of dubious significance such as a lock of his hair and a telescope that he may have used.
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<br />The problem is that the museum is not and likely can never be self-sustaining. It's in an out of the way location in the middle of a housing project. (The <span style="font-style: italic;">Times</span> has <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2011/08/08/arts/design/20110808-poe-2.html">a wonderful photo</a> of a Poe reenactor in front of the house juxtaposed by some residents on the stoop in the background.) New exhibits won't cut it, you're not going to drive traffic into the middle of <span style="font-style: italic;">The Wire</span> without a more serious and safer draw. Unless they can get an adjoining property (like that vacant lot you can see across the street on <a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=poe+house,+Baltimore,+Maryland&sll=39.288459,-76.604211&sspn=0.007673,0.014763&ie=UTF8&ll=39.291299,-76.633201&spn=0,359.985237&z=16&layer=c&cbll=39.291379,-76.633209&panoid=vbq2Zy8XHGPZRZZi_VFDHQ&cbp=12,82.29920761890918,,0,-3.360449030098446">Google street view</a>) for event space and parking, self-sufficiency will never be an option. And given that they can't even get funding to stay open much longer from donors or the city, I doubt that kind of investment, as smart as it may be, will be forthcoming. Baltimore has more pressing things to spend its money on these days, unfortunately.
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<br />One of the Poe society officers said that a hope is that "the city comes to its senses and realizes they’re not saving a lot of money, so they might as well keep running it." Even if the museum closes its doors, the house will still have to be preserved. Future renovations will cost a lot more in the future, and hopefully the city will be sensible enough to take appropriate steps to make sure the house remains intact. It might be cheaper just to keep the place open and let the volunteers do all the work of keeping it up.
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<br />Robhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02695992701006189655noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826602352703888574.post-58328561367992064022011-07-20T12:26:00.001-07:002011-07-20T12:59:11.382-07:00Vince Foster and Travelgate - 18 Years Later and Nothing Has Changed<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.nndb.com/people/029/000028942/vince-foster-official.jpg"><img style="float: right; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 234px; height: 280px;" src="http://www.nndb.com/people/029/000028942/vince-foster-official.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>In his autobiography <span style="font-style: italic;">My Life</span>, Bill Clinton wrote of his childhood friend Vince Foster:<br /><blockquote>And I used to play in the backyard with a boy whose yard adjoined mine. He lived with two beautiful sisters in a bigger, nicer house than ours. We used to sit on the grass for hours, throwing his knife in the ground and learning to make it stick. His name was Vince Foster. He was kind to me and never lorded it over me the way so many older boys did with younger ones. He grew up to be a tall, handsome, wise, good man. He became a great lawyer, a strong supporter early in my career, and Hillary's best friend at the Rose Law Firm. Our families socialized in Little Rock, mostly at his house, where his wife, Lisa, taught Chelsea to swim. He came to the White House with us, and was a voice of calm and reason in those crazy early months.</blockquote><a name='more'></a>Hillary Clinton recalls him as well in her autobiography, <span style="font-style: italic;">Living History</span>:<br /><blockquote>Vince was one of the best lawyers I've ever known and one of the best friends I've ever had. If you remember Gregory Peck’s performance as Atticus Finch in <span style="font-style: italic;">To Kill a Mockingbird</span>, you can picture Vince. He actually looked the part, and his manner was similar: steady, courtly,. sharp but understated, the sort of person you would want around in times of trouble.</blockquote>“Those crazy early months” is a bit of an understatement. Back in 1993, David Shaw of the <span style="font-style: italic;">Los Angeles Times</span> <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/print/1993-09-15/news/mn-35416_1_white-house">wrote</a> "but perhaps never in our nation's history--certainly not in its recent history--has a President so early in his term been subjected to a greater barrage of negative media coverage than Bill Clinton endured in his first 239 days in office" and quotes an earlier <span style="font-style: italic;">Washington Post</span> story: "The pundits have stuck a fork in this Administration and decided it's very nearly done." In this time of permanent Republican obstructionism and the Teabagger Days of Rage, it’s easy to forget how relentless and unprecedented the assaults on the Clinton administration were, and how they created the template for what’s happening to the Obama administration.<br /><br />One of the opening salvos was the Travelgate scandal, which seems pretty small potatoes, and in retrospect astonishing in how much coverage this story, which affected a whopping seven federal employees, received in the press.<br /><br />The White House Travel Office is responsible for making travel arrangements for the members of the media who follow the President around, then bills the media organizations accordingly. For years, it had been in a state of disarray; as far back as the Reagan administration financial misdeeds were alleged but nothing had been done. Vince Foster ordered an audit by the firm KPMG Peat Marwick. The firm investigated but was unable to actually do an audit since the Travel Office barely had anything that you would recognize as bookkeeping and piled a decade’s worth of records in the closet. A KPMG representative called it an “ungodly mess”. There was no competitive bidding and the Office’s director, Billy Dale, relied on a single charter company. Office money was going in and out of his personal bank account and some five figures were unaccounted for. The Clinton administration asked the FBI to investigate.<br /><br />What happened next seems perfectly obvious and reasonable. New presidential administrations typically clean house (the Obama administration is still trying to get positions filled!) and any organization or business in any field would also typically clean house when confronted with such mismanagement. So the seven employees of the White House Travel Office were all fired.<br /><br />Unfortunately, what should have been clear cut was muddied by the involvement of two Clinton supporters in the travel business who agitated for reorganization of the travel office: Catherine Cornelius, a distant cousin of Bill Clinton whose World Wide Travel briefly took over the Travel Office, and Harry Thomason, a Clinton friend and supporter who was a partner in the air charter company TRM. This gave the GOP the opportunity to create a scandal out of this, which they took with relish. But for this to be a scandal you have to first insist that no person or business ever lobby the government for personal gain. You might think that’s a positive goal, but that goal certainly isn't what motivated the GOP, who expertly and constantly indulge that practice. (One of many examples: John Boehner <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2006/01/09/3108/boehner-western-union/">handing out checks</a> from tobacco lobbyists on the floor of the House of Representatives.) The GOP generally claims to be in favor of eliminating government waste and financial impropriety and for opening up government operations to competitive bidding. All of which was achieved by the Clinton administration in this case. Nothing was rigged as the winning bidder was American Express Travel Services. So what was an outcome that should have been pleasing to the GOP instead prompted them to move in for the kill.<br /><br />This was aided and abetted by the press, who narcissistically over-covers any story having to do with themselves. Some members of the press also had a personal fondness for some of the fired employees (prominent ABC anchor Sam Donaldson and other journalists even testified as character witnesses at Billy Dale’s trial) and enjoyed perks provided by the Travel Office like primo accommodations and how easy they made it to bring back stuff through customs. David Shaw <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/print/1993-09-17/news/mn-36084_1_white-house-press">highlighted</a> an example illustrating how obsessed the press became with this story:<blockquote>At one briefing, they asked 169 questions about the travel office firings. Neither Bosnia nor the President's deficit-reduction package, both major news stories at the time, received a fraction of that attention that day.</blockquote>Out in front with knives drawn was the <span style="font-style: italic;">Wall Street Journal</span>’s editorial page. Even before Rupert Murdoch bought the paper, the editorial pages of the <span style="font-style: italic;">WSJ</span> served as a prototype for Fox News-style character assassination. They personally targeted Foster in a series of editorials in the summer of 1993, starting with “Who is Vincent Foster?”, a two column whine, long on text but short on substance, which consisted of mostly sinister insinuations and snide complaints that he didn't jump to attention every time the newspaper called him on the phone.<br /><br />Targeting lone individuals for character assassination is one of the most distasteful aspects of what we call today, thanks to former right-wing character assassin David Brock, the right-wing noise machine. There’s plenty of examples: pro-lifers stalking and harassing (and occasionally quite literally assassinating) doctors who provide abortions, twelve year old Graeme Frost and <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/10/washington/10memo.html">the obsession</a> with his parents’ counter tops, Bernard Goldberg singling out some obscure teacher for an obscure book about teaching children she wrote and holding her up as one of the <span style="font-style: italic;">100 People Who Are Screwing Up America</span> in a bestselling polemic. These people don’t have large media platforms and can’t fight back effectively. Even supposedly powerful presidential appointees like Van Jones, hamstringed in what they can say by their positions and lacking access to a 24-hour news channel, are relatively powerless in the face of this.<br /><br />Vince Foster was a powerful corporate lawyer with decades of experience, but even he was unprepared for this relentless hate machine. He was also suffering from depression and anxiety; he started taking Trazadone, but too late for it to be effective. He wrote a letter, which was later found torn into 27 pieces in his briefcase:<blockquote>I made mistakes from ignorance, inexperience and overwork<br /><br />I did not knowingly violate any law or standard of conduct<br /><br />No one in The White House, to my knowledge, violated any law or standard of conduct, including any action in the travel office. There was no intent to benefit any individual or specific group<br /><br />The FBI lied in their report to the AG<br /><br />The press is covering up the illegal benefits they received from the travel staff<br /><br />The GOP has lied and misrepresented its knowledge and role and covered up a prior investigation<br /><br />The Ushers Office plotted to have excessive costs incurred, taking advantage of Kaki and HRC<br /><br />The public will never believe the innocence of the Clintons and their loyal staff<br /><br />The <span style="font-style: italic;">WSJ</span> editors lie without consequence<br /><br />I was not meant for the job or the spotlight of public life in Washington. Here ruining people is considered sport.</blockquote>On July 20, 1993, Vince Foster shot himself in Fort Marcy Park.<br /><br />Even after his deaths the attacks continued, and hacks like Al D'Amato (once called "The Worst Senator in America" by <span style="font-style: italic;">Playboy</span>) and Dan Burton, who had no concern for Foster as a person, claimed that his suicide was "suspicious" and used it as a pretext to conduct bizarre investigations into the Clinton administration. Burton even shot a pumpkin or watermelon in his backyard to prove some kind of point about Foster's death. ("It was nutty," Bill Clinton later wrote. "I could never figure out what Burton was trying to prove.") Investigations by the United States Park Police, the Department of Justice, the FBI, the United States Congress, Independent Counsel Robert B. Fiske, and Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr (who obviously was not inclined to be friendly to the Clinton administration) all concluded that Foster committed suicide, but that didn't shut up anyone on the right. Even today, conspiracy theorists who couldn't care less about Foster are manipulating his tragic death for their own ends.Robhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02695992701006189655noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826602352703888574.post-11039753674640632542011-06-25T14:50:00.000-07:002011-06-25T14:51:04.921-07:00Obituaries: Gene Colan (1926-2011) and Peter Falk (1927-2011)<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/e0/Daredevil48.jpg"><img style="float: right; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 301px;" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/e0/Daredevil48.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>A pair of obituaries for June 23, 2011:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/25/arts/gene-colan-comic-book-artist-dies-at-84.html">Gene Colan</a> was one of the best artists of the heyday of Marvel Comics, known for his moody, fluid, expressive drawings. He worked on many titles, but he's best remembered for his work on <span style="font-style: italic;">Daredevil, Howard the Duck, </span>and <span style="font-style: italic;">The Tomb of Dracula.</span><br /><br /><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/25/arts/television/peter-falk-columbo-actor-dies-at-83.html">Peter Falk</a> had a long career as an actor and is most beloved for his role as the rumpled idiosyncratic detective Columbo. The video below is from his role as the grandfather/narrator in <span style="font-style:italic;">The Princess Bride.</span><br /><br /><iframe src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/9kxYApOPnW8&t=11s" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="349" width="560"></iframe>Robhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02695992701006189655noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826602352703888574.post-80476094043098080042011-06-06T14:13:00.000-07:002011-06-06T16:35:05.784-07:00Weinergate and the unfortunate erection of Andrew BreitbartSo Anthony Weiner has a hobby.<br /><br /><iframe src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/aEIZKLNbwjY" allowfullscreen="" width="425" frameborder="0" height="349"></iframe><br /><br />Is this the first political sex scandal of the internet era? Perhaps it is the first <span style="font-style:italic;">virtual</span> political sex scandal, where no sex was had and only pics were exchanged (<a href="http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=a%2Fs%2Fl">a/s/l?</a>) and even the participants are unsure of who each other is. (The most uncomfortable moment in what was already a ridiculously uncomfortable press conference was when Weiner admitted that he could not know for sure that the women he interacted with were of age.)<br /><br />What a bizarre sideshow. The media asked their usual penetrating questions. Was he wearing boxers or briefs? (To be fair, this was crowd chit-chat prior to Weiner's remarks.) Are you a sex addict? (Someone please punch that guy.) Will you apologize to Andrew Breitbart? (Also punch this guy.) Were you fully erect? (Especially this guy.)<br /><br />Weiner brought this on himself, but it's never fun to watch a man cry on live television, unless than man is Andrew Breitbart. We all have strange pleasures and needs, even popular witty Congressmen with beautiful wives, that we don't want to admit in public, and the internet allows us to indulge many of them. In the grey of the morning in front of that flickering screen, we've all likely done something we regret. As Amanda Marcotte <a href="http://twitter.com/#%21/AmandaMarcotte/status/77865238116048896">points</a> <a href="http://twitter.com/#%21/AmandaMarcotte/status/77867160122310656">out</a>, many of the people attacking Weiner, including that female reporter haranguing Weiner about the ages of his Twitter flirts, almost certainly have regrets of their own. Most are less public figures and most are more cautious about it, but only <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echelon_%28signals_intelligence%29">Echelon</a> knows how many dark secrets of theirs are preserved in servers around the world.<br /><br />This is still a disappointment. It's disappointing becuse we thought Weiner was better than this, morally, and less bereft of intelligence and common sense. It's a disappointment because such a vocal advocate for the progressive cause has been silenced. And make no mistake, that's what is going on here. Weiner brought this on himself, but that doesn't make this any less of a political attack, one which may have been <a href="http://www.angryblacklady.com/2011/06/02/clarence-thomas-the-original-weinergate/">specifically timed</a> to distract from Justice Clarence Thomas' ethical issues, which Weiner has taken the lead in <a href="http://www.anthonyweiner.com/conflictedclarencethomas">highlighting</a>.<br /><br />Andrew Sullivan <a href="http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2011/06/were-you-fully-erect.html">writes</a> "this is the result of raw culture war with no scruples or principles, designed purely to destroy." And that's what this is. The message here is that if you stick your neck out for progressive causes, they are going to chop your head off. You'll have <a href="http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/bizarre/dan-wolfe-anthony-weiner-weinergate-http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif632095">stalkers on Twitter</a> hounding you and your followers, waiting for a slip up they can use against you. You'll have ludicrous professional charlatans like Breitbart manipulate the story and then claim to be the victim. You'll have Fox News attack you all day and the "liberal" media will cheer them on, while largely ignoring the John Ensigns and the David Vitters of the other party.<br /><br />The worst part about Weinergate is that this may legitimize Andrew Breitbart. I'm now convinced that Breitbart, not the cockroach, may be the only thing that survives <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_After_People">the Armageddon</a>. What should have happened is that the press conference should have ended with Weiner (or better yet, his wife) punching Breitbart in the mouth, but instead he grabbed the spotlight and the assembled reporters sprang to his defense, demanding an apology on his behalf. Somehow Breitbart has survived being exposed again and again as a manipulative liar and professional libel artist, and now he has the audacity - no, because he is completely made of slippery, amoral audacity - to claim victimhood and vindication because he was sort of correct about a story he manipulated into being. Now viciously attempting to ruin the life of an innocent Department of Agriculture employee, sponsoring the junior pseudo-pimp so he could <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/10/04/907499/-How-James-OKeefe-finally-went-too-far">pseudo-seduce a CNN reporter</a>, and everything else he's ever done may be all wiped away and Breitbart may become a professional, respected journalist and pundit because someone sent him a picture of a Congressman's dick.Robhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02695992701006189655noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826602352703888574.post-52878776760586658812011-05-27T22:02:00.000-07:002011-05-27T22:08:13.841-07:00Gil Scott-Heron (1949-2011)<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2011/05/27/us/AP-US-Obit-Gil-Scott-Heron.html">Gil Scott-Heron, Spoken-Word Musician, Dies at 62</a><br /><br /><iframe width="425" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/qGaoXAwl9kw" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br /><br /><iframe width="425" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/PtBy_ppG4hY" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>Robhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02695992701006189655noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826602352703888574.post-35521944862687402912011-05-04T21:23:00.000-07:002011-05-04T21:36:14.227-07:00Obituaries<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/04/arts/television/william-campbell-played-star-trek-klingon-dies-at-87.html">William Campbell</a> (1923-2011)<br /><br /><iframe width="425" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/sqQa1Xhu9cQ" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/05/movies/jackie-cooper-film-and-television-actor-is-dead-at-88.html">Jackie Cooper</a> (1922-2011)<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/files/2010/01/jackie_cooper_superman.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 500px; height: 215px;" src="http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/files/2010/01/jackie_cooper_superman.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a>Robhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02695992701006189655noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826602352703888574.post-54782163040821565752011-04-21T22:41:00.000-07:002011-04-21T22:43:43.187-07:00Madelyn Pugh Davis (1921-2011), I Love Lucy writer<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/22/arts/television/madelyn-pugh-davis-writer-for-i-love-lucy-dies-at-90.html">Madelyn Pugh Davis, Writer for ‘I Love Lucy,’ Dies at 90</a><br /><br /><iframe title="YouTube video player" width="425" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/4wp3m1vg06Q" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>Robhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02695992701006189655noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826602352703888574.post-64452663906257011322011-04-19T13:31:00.000-07:002011-04-19T13:36:16.480-07:00Elisabeth Sladen (1948-2011)<iframe title="YouTube video player" width="425" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/t-TWW0N8Fg4#t=29s" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br /><br /><iframe title="YouTube video player" width="425" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/eL84E-w7ZSA" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>Robhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02695992701006189655noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826602352703888574.post-6800079403162692512011-04-15T14:38:00.000-07:002011-04-15T16:58:58.349-07:00My (positive) ode to tax day. No, seriously.It's annual tax day, which means it's also time for annual ritual cultural displays expressing angst and dismay. For example, on the way to work today I listened to the tax day theme show from <a href="http://www.soundopinions.org/shownotes/2011/040811/shownotes.html">Sound Opinions</a>. Some of the songs were just about not having enough money in general, but there's quite a bit of musical rage directed at the tax collector. This is, of course, the most famous example:<br /><br /><iframe title="YouTube video player" width="425" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/Maz9ddxEQnM" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br /><br />Despite the protests in this country, we're relatively lightly taxed, all things considered. George Harrison's rage was directed at a much more onerous tax rate of 95% for the highest tax brackets in the UK at the time. Many of them fled the country seeking havens. While 95% seems completely unreasonable, even for the super rich, it did spur investment. Of course, the GOP claims that it's tax breaks for the rich that spur investment, though there is little evidence of that. There's plenty of evidence that the high UK tax rate spurred the rich to stick their money in every available venture. In George Harrison's case, it was the movies. Harrison's good taste and willingness to put his money down deserve the credit, but without that ridiculous tax rate, we might not have <span style="font-style:italic;">Time Bandits</span> or <span style="font-style:italic;">Monty Python's Life of Brian.</span><br /><br />However, a couple of movies aren't really an argument in favor of a particular tax program, or taxation in general. Judging from the songs I heard this morning, musicians seem to agree. Rage is easier to get across musically than wonkish arguments, so I understand why there aren't any pro-taxation songs. But what is the pro-taxation argument?<br /><br />It occurred to me that I was driving on it. Tax money built the roads. Tax money built my employer. Tax money built the police headquarters and airport I drove past. Tax money keeps planes in the sky and cars on the road. Tax money built the Hoover Dam and preserved the Everglades and Yosemite. Tax money created the Internet. Tax money put men on the moon. Tax money defeated the Nazis. <br /><br />You might say it took people to do those things. Yes, it did. It took courageous and clever people whom we rightfully celebrate, many of whom gave up their lives doing so. But it also took a government to spend the money, to coordinate the people and materiel. Only in some libertarian fantasy can we pass the hat around and all chip in our couch change to fight the Nazis. It takes a government to give soldiers guns and training and tanks and boats and planes to do the shooting with before those individual soldiers can do any shooting of Nazis. We like to imagine ourselves rugged individualists, but it takes banding together in groups and organizations to accomplish large, meaningful tasks. That's pretty much the definition of civilization. Those libertarian fantasists should try living in a hunter/gatherer society some time and see how that works out for them.<br /> <br />I'm not elevating government over the people who did these things, but it's worth pointing out that it did take an organized government to accomplish all of these things. In this culture - largely thanks to decades of anti-government drumbeating by conservatives - we're quick to criticize the negatives of government without acknowledging its accomplishments. It's why people can carry to a protest a sign reading "Keep Government out of Medicare" and honestly not know how stupid they are. It's also why people don't direct their anger at, say, giant corporations who pay absolutely no taxes while shipping jobs overseas. Deflection is the key word: Rich Fox News anchors and morning DJs are in those high tax brackets and want to insure their taxes are as low as possible. They're going to deflect people's anger somewhere else, like "big government".<br /><br />Now, none of this means that government doesn't do bad things with our money or that you can't complain when it does. But the conservative "big government" drumbeat isn't about targeting particular spending. The anti-government crowd isn't complaining about money going to drone strikes or the Guantanamo prison; these people are the political heirs of the people who put anti-Vietnam War tax withholders in prison for tax evasion. This drumbeat is about targeting spending for anything other than conservative preferences– things usually referred to as "essential".<br /><br />I don't know if I'd say I like tax day, but honestly I don't mind it so much. These ritual denunciations puzzle me. Shouldn't we be proud of the things we've accomplished as a nation and proud to contribute to those accomplishments instead of grumbling about it? I'm glad to contribute. I'm proud (and angry) that I contribute more than those tax cheats at GE.<br /><br />This year I'm getting a small refund from my withheld taxes. I think I'll frame the check instead of cashing it. It's only one dollar, and one dollar out of trillions might not seem significant, but hey, it's still a dollar more than GE paid.Robhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02695992701006189655noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826602352703888574.post-42659506337428035182011-04-09T08:55:00.000-07:002011-04-09T09:01:31.959-07:00Sidney Lumet (1924-2011)<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/10/movies/sidney-lumet-director-of-american-classics-dies-at-86.html">Sidney Lumet, Director of American Film Classics, Dies at 86</a><br /><br /><iframe title="YouTube video player" width="425" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/kYt24hq5nbM" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>Robhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02695992701006189655noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826602352703888574.post-44324612040784474332011-04-08T15:12:00.000-07:002011-08-08T14:59:02.332-07:00Scaife paper cracks the master's whip at the Carnegie Museum<img src="http://img823.imageshack.us/img823/5672/thekcmoa.jpg" align="right">
<br />I'm a bit late responding to this, but I don't have the time to blog daily. I'm part of the amateur left, not the professional left.
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<br />Last week the <span style="font-style:italic;">Pittsburgh Tribune-Review</span> published an <a href="http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/opinion/s_729953.html">editorial</a> excoriating an exhibit at the <a href="http://www.cmoa.org">Carnegie Museum of Art</a>. An unsigned editorial means it is the opinion of the paper, and the opinion of the <span style="font-style:italic;">Pittsburgh Tribune-Review</span> is likely the opinion of its owner, <a href="http://www.dkosopedia.com/wiki/Richard_Scaife">Richard Mellon Scaife</a>.
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<br />Scaife was the Koch Brothers of the Clinton years, funding the notorious <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arkansas_Project">Arkansas Project</a> targeting President Clinton and many other far-right initiatives. Many are convinced that the suicide of journalist <a href="http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKkangas.htm">Steve Kangas</a> was a Scaife ordered murder. (I doubt this conspiracy theory - if you are going to kill someone, why leave him in your own bathroom?) When quizzed about funding right-wing causes by journalist <a href="http://www.harvardsquarelibrary.org/speakout/scaife.html">Karen Rothmyer</a>, Scaife notoriously replied "You fucking Communist cunt, get out of here." (That particular incident seems to have disappeared down the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Mellon_Scaife">Wikipedia memory hole</a>.)
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<br />The editorial is a complaint about <span style="font-style:italic;"><a href="http://web.cmoa.org/?page_id=323">Diver</a></span>, a retrospective of the work of underappreciated artist Paul Thek. <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/22/arts/design/22thek.html">This <span style="font-style:italic;">New York Times</span> review</a> of the show at the Whitney Museum will give you a good overview of his work.
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<br />The editorial itself is largely an unremarkable piece of right-wing agitation with large helpings of snide commentary. An artwork is taken out of context and described disgustingly, another (pictured above) is taken as liberal and socialist propaganda, and there's couple of shots at the liberal elite mentioning biscotti and cappuccino. One banal editorial is nothing at all compared to the uproar surrounding the Smithsonian's <a href="http://www.npg.si.edu/exhibit/exhhide.html">Hide/Seek</a> exhibition and the pulling of David Wojnarowicz's <span style="font-style:italic;"><a href="http://youtu.be/RM_80zif-5w">A Fire in My Belly</a></span>. And judging by its <a href="http://twitter.com/#!/cmoa">Twitter feed</a>, the Carnegie Museum isn't taking this attack lying down. <a href="http://www.cmu.edu/cas/events/upcoming/apr-06-2011.html">Two days ago</a> it even held a panel discussion and screening of <span style="font-style:italic;">A Fire in My Belly.</span>
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<br />What's going on here isn't an attempt to destroy the exhibit or the museum. Scaife has enough money and enough media to probably make a good attempt at that, but what's happening here isn't so much an attack as a warning shot. The real message of the editorial is this:
<br /><blockquote>
<br />Pittsburgh's supposedly pre-eminent gallery for all things art has forgotten who butters its bread.</blockquote>
<br />It's money we're talking about here, or the prestige that money buys, and in Pittsburgh the money is <span style="font-style:italic;">really old</span>. The show is in the Heinz Gallery of the Carnegie Museum and Scaife himself is heir to the Mellon fortune. Those three names are about half the money in Pennsylvania right there. And being old money, it demands respect and fealty. It doesn't care about dirty pictures, but it won't countenance an attack on its ideology, not even in the form of one painting by one artist in one show. If it doesn't get what it wants, it will take its money elsewhere.
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<br />This is a message, and the message is "respect your betters, or else". It's a call for self-censorship, and there's plenty of evidence that people in the art world are getting the message. Self-censorship is the most insidious type of censorship and many institutions are reluctant to put on shows that challenge anyone: their audience, their patrons, or the right-wing noise machine. It was a (figurative) crime to remove the Wojnarowicz video from <span style="font-style:italic;">Hide/Seek</span>, but the hidden crime was the fact that many institutions shrank from the idea of hosting the challenging show. <span style="font-style:italic;">Hide/Seek</span> curator Jonathan Katz <a href="http://blogs.artinfo.com/modernartnotes/2010/12/qa-with-hideseek-curators-katz-ward/">points out</a>:
<br /><blockquote>
<br />It’s hard to say two thing at once, but I’m going to. I’m going to say that I could not disagree more with the stupidity of the removal of the video. At the same time, I’m also absolutely convinced that the Smithsonian has been heroic in breaking this blacklist. In fact, what I’m finding very troubling about some of the reaction to what happened is that it tends to demonize the Smithsonian to the delectation of the very right-wing fringe that inaugurated this conflict in the first place.
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<br />What I think we need to remember is that the Smithsonian is courageous and that other museums were not. I’m increasingly getting concerned that the activist response targeting the Smithsonian loses the bigger picture, which is that it’s been 21 years since Mapplethorpe and no one has done a damn thing in that time, that museums have been sitting on their hands and that this incident confirms the wisdom of so doing.</blockquote>
<br />We need to be outraged about incidents of censorship like the one committed by the Smithsonian. But we also need to be outraged by incidents of censorship and demand the institutions charged with preserving and representing our cultural heritage do so fully and completely and don't leave out gays or progressives or <a href="http://articles.cnn.com/2011-03-29/us/maine.mural.removed_1_maine-governor-mural-national-farm-workers-association">unions</a> or whatever displeases the Sciafes of the world. We should demand that they challenge us and fight these battles instead of heeding the crack of the master's whip and abandoning these fights before they even begin.Robhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02695992701006189655noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826602352703888574.post-30616155979699424252011-04-03T10:28:00.000-07:002011-04-03T22:37:51.752-07:00Covering the Beatles: Please Please Me (part 4)<span style="font-weight: bold;">Track eleven: "Do You Want to Know a Secret?"</span><br /><br />Lennon was inspired by this song from <span style="font-style: italic;">Snow White</span> which his mother sang to him as a child:<br /><br /><iframe title="YouTube video player" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/YDML1gSwJbo" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="349" width="425"></iframe><br /><br />Here's an instrumental cover by Count Basie. Yes, that Count Basie. Apparently <span style="font-style: italic;">everybody</span> has done a Beatles cover album.<br /><br /><iframe title="YouTube video player" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/7t-Ax9FAb30" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="349" width="425"></iframe><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Track twelve: "A Taste of Honey"</span><br /><br />"A Taste of Honey" always seemed out of place in The Beatles' oeuvre, a bit of saccharine oldies bombast amongst the rocking 60s tunes. It's not that simple, of course, as The Beatles weren't simply influenced just by proto-rock stuff, but this tune does stick out. Case in point: the most famous version of this song isn't by the Fab Four, but an instrumental two years later by Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass. This is a hysterical parody of the song by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allan_Sherman">Allan Sherman</a> of "Camp Grenada" fame.<br /><br /><object height="200" width="250"><br /><param name="movie" value="http://listen.grooveshark.com/widget.swf"><br /><param name="wmode" value="window"><br /><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"><br /><param name="flashvars" value="hostname=cowbell.grooveshark.com&songIDs=28878104&style=metal&p=0"><embed src="http://listen.grooveshark.com/widget.swf" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" flashvars="hostname=cowbell.grooveshark.com&songIDs=28878104&style=metal&p=0" allowscriptaccess="always" wmode="window" height="200" width="250"></embed><br /></object><br /> <br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Track thirteen: "There's a Place"</span><br /><br />This project is taking me in some odd places, but that's the magic of serendipity. One place is the blog <a href="http://www.swedesplease.net/">Swedesplease</a>, dedicated to Swedish indie music. (Yes, there's a blog about <span style="font-style: italic;">everything</span> now.) There I found a mesmerizing cover by <a href="http://www.myspace.com/ossianekenger">Ossian Ekenger</a> of Gothenberg, about whom I otherwise know nothing, and the blog isn't particular forthcoming, other than this <a href="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3261/2613203239_f04960f3e5_o.jpg">picture</a> which looks like it belongs on a 1920s passport.<br /><br /><embed src="http://www.swedesplease.net/music/Theres_a_Place.mp3" autostart="false" loop="false" height="40" width="350"></embed>Robhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02695992701006189655noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826602352703888574.post-13750563387709094332011-04-01T22:14:00.000-07:002011-04-03T22:37:25.636-07:00Covering the Beatles: Please Please Me (part 3)<span style="font-weight: bold;">Track seven: "Please Please Me"</span><br /><br />The recording of this song was a turning point for The Beatles. George Martin was set to have them do another cover tune as their next single, but they turned up with an up tempo, rollicking version of this song, so Martin released this instead and it became their first #1 hit. So by way of contrast, here's a languid indie rock cover by <a href="http://willphalen.com/stereoaddicts/about">Will Phalen</a>.<br /><br /><embed src="http://covermesongs.com/MP3s/CoverNews0809/PleasePleaseMe.mp3" autostart="false" loop="false" height="40" width="350"></embed><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Track eight: "Love Me Do"</span><br /><br />Here's a bluesy cover by <a href="http://dallashodge.com/Bio.html">Dallas Hodge</a>.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center; width: 425px;"><div><object type="application/x-shockwave-flash" data="http://www.ourstage.com/embed/playlist/CYKUIQWPJTSW.swf" align="middle" height="200" width="400"><param name="movie" value="http://www.ourstage.com/embed/playlist/CYKUIQWPJTSW.swf"><param name="quality" value="high"><param name="wmode" value="transparent"><embed src="http://www.ourstage.com/embed/playlist/CYKUIQWPJTSW.swf" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" height="200" width="400"></embed></object></div><div><a href="http://www.ourstage.com/embed/footer/CYKUIQWPJTSW"><img src="http://www.ourstage.com/embed/CYKUIQWPJTSW.png" alt="www.ourstage.com" style="border: medium none;" /></a></div></div><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Track nine: "P.S. I Love You"</span><br /><br />It was hard to find a cover of this song I liked. The problem is that this Paul McCartney tune shares its name with a great 1934 Johnny Mercer tune, which is why The Beatles' song was relegated to a B-side. <span style="font-style: italic;">Everyone</span> has covered the Mercer tune: Frank Sinatra, Billie Holiday, Bing Crosby, Mel Torme... But I couldn't find many Beatles covers and even resorted to listening to shitty covers by a bad Japanese girl group and an weird Slovakian singer. I finally found this one by Scottish singer <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Dickson">Barbara Dickson</a> from her 2006 Beatles cover album <span style="font-style: italic;">Nothing's Gonna Change My World.</span> Dickson has been covering The Beatles for decades: she performed their music in the 1974 Willy Russell musical <span style="font-style: italic;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John,_Paul,_George,_Ringo_%E2%80%A6_and_Bert">John, Paul, George, Ringo … and Bert</a></span>. George Harrison loathed it:<br /><blockquote>I saw it up until the intermission and then — I saw it with my friend Derek Taylor, who's a writer who used to work for Warner Bros. and Apple — I said to him we either have to leave now or I'm gonna jump on that stage and throttle those people. It was awful stuff. All these idiots acting out people — it's like I say in "The Devil's Radio," talking about what they don't know. It's like a rumor. It's like those Beatles cartoons, and it was so inaccurate it was nauseating, having been one.</blockquote>When Harrison left, he took with him permission to use his song "Here Comes the Sun", which the show replaced with "Good Day Sunshine".<br /><br /><div><embed style="display: inline;" quality="high" wmode="transparent" id="FlashDiv" flashvars="songId=45308&pid=8610490195855892074" allowscriptaccess="always" src="http://www.myspace.com/music/song-embed?songid=45308&getSwf=true" height="77" width="400"></embed><p>Find more <a target="_blank" href="http://www.myspace.com/barbaradickson/music/albums">Barbara Dickson</a> albums at <a target="_blank" href="http://www.myspace.com/music"> Myspace Music </a></p></div><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Track ten: "Baby It's You"</span><br /><br />A tune by Burt Bacharach and friends, it was originally released as a single by The Shirelles and became one of two Shirelles covers on <span style="font-style: italic;">Please Please Me</span>. It reached number 5 when later covered by white blues rock band <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smith_%28band%29">Smith</a> in 1969. This cover is by Elvis Costello and Nick Lowe.<br /><br /><iframe title="YouTube video player" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/asOa8yqhjqc" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="349" width="425"></iframe>Robhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02695992701006189655noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826602352703888574.post-58134580894929801142011-04-01T18:00:00.000-07:002011-04-03T22:38:24.956-07:00Covering the Beatles: Please Please Me (part 2)<span style="font-weight: bold;">Track four: "Chains"</span><br /><br />This song was originally released in 1962 as a single for <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cookies">The Cookies</a>, the backup band for <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Eva">Little Eva</a> of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Loco-Motion">"Locomotion"</a> fame. Can't find a version of this song that really works for me, even the one by The Beatles. Maybe no one has done it justice, or maybe it's just a slight song. Here's a version by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Everly_Brothers">The Everly Brothers</a>. The sounds of <span style="font-style: italic;">actual chains</span> are a bit much.<br /><br /><iframe title="YouTube video player" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/O6aPRCtvDuU" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="349" width="425"></iframe><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Track five: "Boys"</span><br /><br />This was originally released by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shirelles">The Shirelles</a> as the B-side of "Will You Love Me Tomorrow", the first #1 hit for a girl group. Paul McCartney recalls covering the song live:<br /><br /><blockquote>Any one of us could hold the audience. Ringo would do "Boys", which was a fan favourite with the crowd. And it was great — though if you think about it, here's us doing a song and it was really a girls' song. "I talk about boys now!" Or it was a gay song. But we never even listened. It's just a great song. I think that's one of the things about youth — you just don't give a shit. I love the innocence of those days.</blockquote><br /><object classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" id="viddler_15ee6023" height="370" width="437"><param name="movie" value="http://www.viddler.com/player/15ee6023/"><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><embed src="http://www.viddler.com/player/15ee6023/" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" name="viddler_15ee6023" height="370" width="437"></embed></object><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Track six: "Ask Me Why"</span><br /><br />And here's some random guy on the internet with a ukulele. Is it me, or does he look like <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Patrick">Robert Patrick</a>?<br /><br /><iframe title="YouTube video player" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/xxZU13KaZB4" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="349" width="560"></iframe>Robhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02695992701006189655noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5826602352703888574.post-14864490873700772962011-03-31T22:52:00.000-07:002011-04-03T22:38:46.345-07:00Covering the Beatles: Please Please Me<span style="font-weight: bold;">Track one: "I Saw Her Standing There"</span><br /><br />In 1964, Motown guru Berry Gordy put together an album called <span style="font-style: italic;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Bit_of_Liverpool">A Bit of Liverpool</a></span> featuring The Supremes covering British Invasion tunes. Critically regarded as a disappointment, it featured five Lennon/McCartney tunes and even two Motown songs covered by The Beatles. This Beatles cover, featuring Florence Ballard on lead vocals, was left on the cutting room floor, however, until a 2008 compilation album.<br /><br /><iframe title="YouTube video player" width="560" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/Tj2mO0-hFzk" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br /><br />On tour in January 1963, The Beatles wrote this song for a planned country album by tour headliner <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Shapiro">Helen Shapiro</a> called <span style="font-style: italic;">Helen In Nashville</span>, but it was rejected. Also on the tour was singer <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenny_Lynch">Kenny Lynch</a>, who recorded his own version, the first ever cover of a Beatles song. The Beatles, needing material for their debut alubm, recorded it themselves. Lynch's version was issued as a single the same day that <span style="font-style: italic;">Please Please Me</span> was released, March 22, 1963.<br /><br /><iframe title="YouTube video player" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/WGUL0381eGQ" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="390" width="480"></iframe><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />Track three: "Anna (Go to Him)"</span><br /><br />Soul singer <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Alexander">Arthur Alexander</a> deserves to be a lot less obscure than he is, and after you hear this you may agree. Penned and released by Alexander in late 1962, the song became a favorite of John Lennon's and The Beatles regularly covered it in their early shows.<br /><br /><iframe title="YouTube video player" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/ihsfVEFvrxA" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="390" width="480"></iframe>Robhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02695992701006189655noreply@blogger.com0