A MUST-READ

Wow. Just wow. Jay Rosen's The Quest for Innocence and the Loss of Reality in Political Journalism on his blog PressThink:

The quest for innocence in political journalism means the desire to be manifestly agenda-less and thus “prove” in the way you describe things that journalism is not an ideological trade. But this can get in the way of describing things!

You have to read the entire piece.

Making Shakespeare Current

A NY Times rave review Shakespeare in the Park's Merchant of Venice with Al Pacino:

For as this Shylock rants — and the lines between wrathful avarice and paternal anguish blur beyond reckoning — his state of confusion becomes a heightened mirror of everything around him. As the lights dim on Shylock in limbo, it suddenly hits you that Shakespeare’s vengeance-addled Jew is neither merely the victim nor the villain of this piece; he is instead the very soul of the money-drunk society he serves and despises.

Palin's Pregnancy, The Saga

Andrew Sullivan posts responses to readers concerning his ongoing questions about the birth of Trig Palin. While many see this akin to the Obama "birthers", Sullivan has not given up raising this question and wondering why Palin has never produced documents to put this all to bed.

Everything you ever wanted to know (and more) about "Babygate." Courtey of the Palingates blog.

Kathy Griffin goes to Palin's house in Alaska last night on her reality show.

Kagan "Extremely Careful" on Answer To Gay Marriage Question

Cartoon of the Day

Supreme Ban

Wisconsin Supreme Court Upholds Gay Marriage Ban.

The Meme in Pictures

Newsweek gives us a photo slideshow of all the emotions of Barack Obama, continuing the meme that the president "needs to show more emotion", "isn't angry enough", and "needs to feel our pain." So much easier (and cheaper) than reporting.

Elizabeth Edwards, Act II

The Daily Beast on Elizabeth Edwards' reinvention and latest book tour that kicks off today:

Edwards may be the most press-friendly press-hating jilted political spouse in history—a significant achievement in a crowded field. She is unmatched in both the relentlessness and vehemence of her image-rehabilitation campaign. Next to her, Jenny Sanford, author of Staying True, and Dina Matos McGreevey, author of Silent Partner, look like wallflowers. Not even Hillary Clinton can compete, and she almost became president in her own resilient schlep back from the low point of the Lewinsky years.

6 Degrees of Hypocrisy

John Stewart, once again performing the work the media refuses to do:

Blame

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

Back to the Future

One of the most depressing paragraphs I've read in a long time. From Craig Crawford at CQ Politics:

Barack Obama beat Hillary Clinton as an anti-war candidate. But it was a lie that his supporters chose to ignore. Gen. David Patreus' congressional testimony on Tuesday makes clear that the Obama Administration is for more war, not less. He advocated more fighting in Afghanistan by loosening the rules of engagement, and all but erased the President's faux deadline for exiting by next summer. It's hard to image he would say such things without Obama's tacit approval. Let's face it, for whatever reason, Obama played his base for the fool, winning the Democratic Party nomination in 2008 by perpetuating a fraud.

It seems worth revisiting Obama's speech against the Iraq War, bravely given in 2002 when he was an Illinois State Senator:

What I am opposed to is the attempt by political hacks like Karl Rove to distract us from a rise in the uninsured, a rise in the poverty rate, a drop in the median income, to distract us from corporate scandals and a stock market that has just gone through the worst month since the Great Depression.

That's what I'm opposed to. A dumb war. A rash war. A war based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics.

You want a fight, President Bush? Let's fight to wean ourselves off Middle East oil through an energy policy that doesn't simply serve the interests of Exxon and Mobil.

Those are the battles that we need to fight. Those are the battles that we willingly join. The battles against ignorance and intolerance. Corruption and greed. Poverty and despair."

Bloody Technology

Al Franken, Ever the Artist

Sen. Al Franken doodles (well) a picture of Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions during Kagan confirmation hearing.

Dog Days Decision

An interview in Salon with David Boies where he predicts when Judge Walker's ruling in the Prop 8 trial will come down. Sort of.

If I had to pick a date for a lottery, I’d probably pick a date in the second half of August. But it could be earlier or it could be later.

Political Ad of the Day

Hungry for the Human

Years ago, I wrote a one-man show. For the second performance, only one man showed up to see the show. We gave him the option of staying or returning for another performance. Surprisingly, he opted to say. So, a one-man show was performed for a one man audience. In the room, one actor, one playwright, one audience member. Fundamentally, that's all it takes.

From the London Times, a One-On-One Theater Festival in London:

...one-on-one theatre, theatre that’s so experimental, it isn’t sure if it’s theatre at all. In the coming weeks, the curious, the incautious and the increasingly confused will be able to sample an unprecedented number of one-on-ones, as some 34 companies descend on venues across the capital from the Gate to the Barbican, BAC to the National.

Dance to your choice of tune with an unknown partner, join a group-therapy session or speed-date a glamorous stranger, throw a left hook in a boxing ring or sing karaoke with a soldier currently serving in Afghanistan. In one-on-one, anything goes. You might find yourself in a coffin, a bath, or dangling from a window, four storeys up. This is front-line theatre with no rules.

Perhaps the most challenging show that BAC is hosting is Howells’s. His new piece will be available to only about 20 people, and no one will be allocated it without prior warning. Entitled The Pleasure of Being, it invites audiences to submit completely to Howells’s care, get naked, be washed, fed and held in a series of embraces. Where does he draw the line? “Sex,” he says. “I’d never have sex with someone.”

According to Howells, the intimacy and emotional connection that these shows foster is responsible for the wildfire popularity of one-on-one theatre. “When I started ten years ago, hardly anyone was doing it. Last year you couldn’t move in Edinburgh for one-on-ones. The more reliant we become on technology to communicate, the fewer flesh-on-flesh encounters we have. Human contact is being eroded. And nothing can substitute for that.”

BAC ONE-ON-ONE Festival trailer from BAC on Vimeo.

A Contrarian View to Kaiser

The New York Times piece on Michael Kaiser, president of the Kennedy Center and arts management guru and turn-around artist, contains some contrarian views:

Russell Willis Taylor, the president and chief executive of National Arts Strategies, which runs leadership seminars for arts executives, said that she respected Mr. Kaiser but found his approach somewhat one-dimensional.

“Just putting on shows and just putting money into marketing isn’t going to do it,” she said. “The biggest problem the arts face is not financial. It’s, ‘Why do they matter?’ ”

Having worked for a brief time for Mr. Kaiser at the Kansas City Ballet, one of his first turn-around "success" stories, I question selling people the idea that arts organizations can be turned around in short order, especially organizations that have been mired in mismanagement and substandard artistic practice for a long time. My experience with turnarounds is that they are painstakingly slow and require difficult decisions and artful negotiations. And since so much of an organization's success requires financial stabilization, it can be slow going to get folks to jump on the civic bandwagon in time to facilitate a turnaround.

Let's face it. All organizations want a quick fix, a white knight, a silver bullet, or a proven formula. All of these are mythologies governing boards buy into so they don't have to do the hard and thoughtful work of managing an organization in an operating environment where supply far outpaces demand.

BP Museum Sponsorship is Oily Business

A pretty hilarious account of arts activists at a BP and Tate Britain summer party.

And then at quarter past seven, eight people dressed in black with veils over their heads walk slowly towards the Manton Street entrance. They are carrying black buckets with the BP logo painted clearly on them. It's clear that something odd is about to happen, but everyone is peculiarly frozen to the spot. Only when the first protester throws the contents of his bucket forward down the steps of the entrance do the assembled crowd realise that what is happening is molasses. About five gallons of it.

Others protesters from the art activist group Liberate Tate tip their buckets forward too, spilling the thick brown-black liquid across the pavement and down the steps to the party entrance (watch the video above). Then they pull feathers from their pockets and throw them on top of the molasses. The party guest beside me – a woman in turquoise separates - is beside herself with fury. As the protesters scatter through the dumbstruck crowd, she grabs at the veil on the head of one (moving a lot faster than any of the security guards, who seem to be processing events on dial-up rather than broadband) and pulls it off, shouting "How dare you! How dare you! Get him! Get him!"

An excerpt from a letter to the guardian.co.uk. signed by more than 170 artists including playwright, Caryl Churchill:

As crude oil continues to devastate coastlines and communities in the Gulf of Mexico, BP executives will be enjoying a cocktail reception with curators and artists at Tate Britain. These relationships enable big oil companies to mask the environmentally destructive nature of their activities with the social legitimacy that is associated with such high-profile cultural associations.

We represent a cross-section of people from the arts community that believe that the BP logo represents a stain on Tate's international reputation. Many artists are angry that Tate and other national cultural institutions continue to sidestep the issue of oil sponsorship. Little more than a decade ago, tobacco companies were seen as respectable partners for public institutions to gain support from – that is no longer the case. It is our hope that oil and gas will soon be seen in the same light. The public is rapidly coming to recognise that the sponsorship programmes of BP and Shell are means by which attention can be distracted from their impacts on human rights, the environment and the global climate.

Honoring Success with Money

Judith H. Dobrzynski questions whether the National Endowment for the Arts should be attaching cash to lifetime achievement awards:

Would the awards be just as prestigious without the money? I don't see why not. $25,000 probably means little to most of these awardees, but it means a lot to other NEA recipients -- in many programs. NEA is known for piddling out small amounts to many organizations, giving them a so-called stamp of approval that allows easier fundraising elsewhere.

Banned in Pakistan

The Confirmation of Bigotry

Given the lack of ammunition Republicans have to go after Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan, their argument yesterday boiled down to: She worked for a black guy, and oh yeah, she's a Jew.

From yesterday's Supreme Court confirmation hearings Dana Milbank in the Washington Post nails the distasteful aruging about the legacy of Justice Thurgood Marshall:

Oppo researchers digging into Elena Kagan's past didn't get the goods on the Supreme Court nominee -- but they did get the Thurgood.

As confirmation hearings opened Monday afternoon, Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee took the unusual approach of attacking Kagan because she admired the late justice Thurgood Marshall, for whom she clerked more than two decades ago.

"Justice Marshall's judicial philosophy," said Sen. Jon Kyl (Ariz.), the No. 2 Republican in the Senate, "is not what I would consider to be mainstream." Kyl -- the lone member of the panel in shirtsleeves for the big event -- was ready for a scrap. Marshall "might be the epitome of a results-oriented judge," he said.

And Joan Walsh in Salon digs into the senators' xenophobia:

Republicans on the Senate Judicial Committee are trying to make the case she's outside the mainstream of American jurisprudence, by attacking her clerking for (and admiring) legal giant Thurgood Marshall, the first African American Supreme Court justice, while singling her out as a denizen of "Manhattan's Upper West Side" – you know, the neighborhood known for Zabar's and bagels and, well, Jews.

The Gun (and Money) Show

The NY Times editorial page on yesterday's Supreme Court decision on guns:

About 10,000 Americans died by handgun violence, according to federal statistics, in the four months that the Supreme Court debated which clause of the Constitution it would use to subvert Chicago’s entirely sensible ban on handgun ownership. The arguments that led to Monday’s decision undermining Chicago’s law were infuriatingly abstract, but the results will be all too real and bloody.

And on the other side, from the Orange County Register:

We also believe the nation's founders would find Justice Stevens wrong in his contention that the ruling creates "a new liberty right." Those former colonists had just come through a bloody Revolutionary War sparked when British troops were sent to Lexington and Concord, Mass., to confiscate Americans' firearms.

"The strongest reason for people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government," Thomas Jefferson wrote. "The beauty of the Second Amendment," Mr. Jefferson also noted, "is that it will not be needed until they try to take it."

For some perspective, this from opensecrets.org:

The National Rifle Association itself spent $515,000 lobbying the federal government during the first three months of 2010.

Gun control groups generally give far less in campaign contributions than their pro-gun opponents. Since the beginning of the 2010 election cycle, gun rights groups have dominated the gun control groups in campaign contributions, giving 135 times more in contributions -- about $684,000.

And for some more perspective:
Watch CBS News Videos Online

The Second Act of Robert Byrd, RIP

Robert Byrd of West Virginia, the longest-serving senator in U.S. history, died today at the age of 92. Paul Begala in The Daily Beast takes a look back at his long and complicated career:

The dumbest thing F. Scott Fitzgerald ever wrote was that there are no second acts in American life. In fairness to Fitzgerald, that line came from notes for a novel he never finished. One believes if he’d had time he would have tossed that sentence in the trash, because if there is anything we know about America, it is that it’s the land of the second chance.

Robert Byrd had a second act. And he used it to stand for equality and opportunity and against an unjust war and unconstitutional usurpations. The longest-serving senator in American history has passed, and as we look back at the arc of his life it is a testament to the dynamism of the American story.

Marcus Tullius Cicero, the Roman constitutionalist, orator and Consul, said “Any man can make mistakes, but only an idiot persists in his error.” Byrd was no idiot. He made his mistakes, but he refused to persist in them. Indeed, the legacy of Robert C. Byrd is not that when he was young he was so closed-minded, but rather that when he was old he was so open-minded. His second act was political theater at its best.

Really Big if Predictable Show

The Kagan confirmation hearings begin today. You can watch C-Span's live streaming coverage here. Any plot twists in this show?
From Real Clear Politics:

Democratic senators are planning to put the right of citizens to challenge corporate power at the center of their critique of activist conservative judging, offering a case that has not been fully aired since the days of the great Progressive Era Justice Louis Brandeis...They will be pushing the narrative away from the hot-button social issues that have been a distraction from the main game: the use of the Supreme Court as a redoubt against progressive legislation, the right of plaintiffs to call corporations to account before juries, and the ability of the political system to protect itself against corruption.

And it's unfortunate George Will isn't on the Senate Judiciary Committee, because he's got a lot of questions, including:

You have said: "There is no federal constitutional right to same-sex marriage." But that depends on what the meaning of "is" is. There was no constitutional right to abortion until the court discovered one 185 years after the Constitution was ratified, when the right was spotted lurking in emanations of penumbras of other rights. What is to prevent the court from similarly discovering a right to same-sex marriage?

The Blackening of Broadway

Broadway sees benefits of selling to black audiences. From the NY Times:

Broadway shows about black characters often draw black theatergoers, but the producers of “Memphis” and “Fela!” as well as producers of some coming shows are particularly going after African-Americans, given that Broadway’s overall attendance has been on the decline, down 3 percent for the 2009-10 season. Whether black theatergoers become a larger, reliable part of the Broadway audience remains to be seen, as do the range and quality of the shows that are offered to appeal to them.

Yet producers clearly sense a market that has not been tapped out: This fall’s Broadway lineup already includes two new musicals about black men, “Unchain My Heart: The Ray Charles Musical” and “The Scottsboro Boys,” and possibly the new two-character play “The Mountaintop,” about the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., depending on whether the producers can land the stars Samuel L. Jackson and Halle Berry.

Denzel Washington and Viola Davis talk about August Wilson:


Interesting to see what this does for African-American playwrights. As Denzel says, "If it ain't on the page, it ain't on the stage."

A Trial AND a Play

Dan Levine from The Recorder, a California legal website, has a video about how the lawyers handled the media theater surrounding the Prop 8 trial. In the video, titled "Day at the Theater" he uses nothing but theater metaphors to describe the day of closing arguments and the upcoming ruling. Imagine that.

The Blago Trial Circus

An article about artist Ray Noland publicizing his exhibition at the Chicago Urban Art Society in front of the federal courthouse where the trial of Rod Blagojevich has begun.

From The Huffington Post:

A few days into the trial, members of the Chicago Urban Art Society turned-up in front of the Everett McKinley Dirksen United States Courthouse, with plans for a little PR stunt of their own.

The group had brought cupcakes for trial attendees, each capped with a sketch by artist Ray Noland of Rod Blagojevich in a jogging suit.

The goal of the CUAS's little visit was to promote Noland's new pop art exhibit called "Sweet Tea and American Values," which features a number of Blagojevich themed pieces by Noland.

Oh, Canada

Rather disturbing video from protests of the G20 meeting in Toronto today that pretty clearly tells the story:

Peaceful G20 protest at Queen & Spadina from Meghann Millard on Vimeo.

From The Huffington Post: Police raided a university building and rounded up hundreds of protesters Sunday in an effort to quell further violence near the G-20 global economic summit site a day after black-clad youths rampaged through the city, smashing windows and torching police cars.

The violence shocked Canada, where civil unrest is almost unknown. Toronto police Sunday said they had never before used tear gas until Saturday's clashes with anti-Globalization activists.

Security was being provided by an estimated 19,000 law enforcement officers drawn from across Canada. Security costs for the G-20 in Toronto and the Group of Eight summit that ended Saturday in Huntsville, 140 miles (225 kilometers) away, were estimated at more than US$900 million.

The United States of Crazy

From Adbusters, Chris Hedges' American Psychosis:

It is the cult of self that is killing the United States. This cult has within it the classic traits of psychopaths: superficial charm, grandiosity and self-importance; a need for constant stimulation; a penchant for lying, deception and manipulation; and the incapacity for remorse or guilt.

And:

America’s most dangerous enemies are not Islamic radicals but those who sold us the perverted ideology of free-market capitalism and globalization. They have dynamited the very foundations of our society. In the 17th century these speculators would have been hung. Today they run the government and consume billions in taxpayer subsidies.

Veal Calf Pen Bingo

Re-appropriating corporate language during boring meetings. From Fast Company:

Do you keep falling asleep in meetings and seminars? What about those long and boring conference calls? Here's a way to change all of that.

1. Before (or during) the next meeting, seminar, or conference call, prepare yourself by drawing a square. I find that 5" x 5" is a good size. Divide the card into columns-five across and five down. That will give you 25 one-inch blocks.

2. Write one of the following words/phrases in each block:
Synergy, strategic fit, core competencies, best practice, bottom line, revisit, expeditious, to tell you the truth (or "the truth is), 24/7, out of the loop, benchmark, value-added, proactive, win-win, think outside the box, fast track, result-driven, knowledge base, at the end of the day, touch base, mindset, client focus(ed), paradigm, game plan, leverage.

3. Now check off the appropriate block when you hear one of those words/phrases.

4. When you get five blocks horizontally, vertically, or diagonally stand up and shout "BULLSHIT!"

Waiting for Act II

Prop 8 forecasting from the NY Times:

And whether the case is argued in front of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit or the Supreme Court, one thing is also certain: What the next round of judges hears will be very similar to what Judge Walker did.

“We actually believe that the arguments have been as refined as they possibly can be,” said Mr. Pugno, part of a defense that offered only two witnesses. “So you will hear largely the same arguments on appeal as you will in this court. It will just be a different forum.”

Ditto for the plaintiffs.

“I rest with, frankly, confidence, regardless of how this turns out,” Mr. Griffin said. “I don’t think there’s a single thing we would have done different.”

What also seems certain is that the court case may take a while to settle. Judge Walker has no set timetable for issuing a decision. While that waiting game plays out, however, there is also the possibility of another ballot measure to overturn Proposition 8, which passed in 2008 with 52 percent of the vote. That could come as soon as 2012.

Justin Bieber Must Be Destroyed

Pretty amazing photos from yesterday's G8 protests in Toronto. The ultimate impotence of the protest seems captured best by the photo of a protester tearing up a Justin Bieber post. With his teeth no less.

Another Lone Wolf Theory Debunked

A lenghty, investigative piece from MS. Magazine:

Over the past six months, I have interviewed Scott Roeder more than a dozen times, met several times with his supporters at the Sedgwick County Courthouse in Wichita where he was tried and convicted, and permissibly recorded numerous three-way telephone conversations Roeder had me place to his friends. Using information gleaned from these sources, along with public records, it is possible to piece together the close, long-term and ongoing relationship between Roeder and other anti-abortion extremists who advocate murder and violent attacks on abortion providers.

Complete with infographic on Roeder's network.

Beejesus

"Over the course of the fair, 40 000 worker bees were released into the case to complete a wax honeycomb structure over the figure of a martyred Christ rising out of the chaos,his weight seeming to be upheld by the mass strength of the swarm."

James Joyce vs. Ayn Rand?

Random House's Modern Library List of 100 Best Books has two lists - the Board's List and the Reader's List. The top two books on the Reader's List are Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead. (There are two more Rand books in the top 10.) The third book is L. Ron Hubbard's Battlefield Earth.

Compare that of course to the Board's List top three: James Joyce's Ulysses, Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, and Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man."

The Beast of Beauty Bigotry

Deborah Rhode on Elena Kagan's looks and beauty bigotry in The Daily Beast:

Men can gain gravitas with their age. Women risk ridicule for trying too hard or not hard enough. It is a telling reflection of our cultural preoccupations and priorities that Sarah Palin’s campaign paid more for her makeup artist than her foreign policy adviser.

A Street Theater First

From GOOD: For "Street with a View," artists Robin Hewlett and Ben Kinsley enlisted the help of a full cast of artists and performers to set up a series of tableaux—including a parade, a sword fight, a rooftop escape, and a perplexing giant chicken—along Sampsonia Way in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. They then invited Google to drive through the scene and immortalize it in its Street View feature.

A "first-ever artistic intervention in Google Street View..."

Best Protest Costume Award

From the LA Times: Activists with the Christian international aid organization World Vision wear costumes with the message "Pregnant With Promises" as they demonstrate in Toronto in anticipation of the Group of 8 summit.

Taibbi vs. Brooks

Another satisfying Matt Taibbi take-down of David Brooks. This one about Brooks' reaction to the Rolling Stone article that took down General McChrystal. The gems:

In it, the world's BoBo-in-chief says, out loud, that reporters should protect public officials from their own stupidity. The column is so full of typically Brooksian power-worshipping pathology that the fact that I failed to predict it makes me worry that I really am slipping, now that I'm past forty.

And,

Yeah, we have a press corps that goes after "impurities" these days, but you know what kind of impurities they're after? They're after Monica Lewinsky's dress, they're after gay blowjobs in train stations, they're after governors who like high-priced escorts and televangelists who like to do meth with male escorts. And yes, they go after that stuff with an Inquisition-like intensity nowadays, but that has nothing to do with Watergate and Vietnam and everything to do with the media business turning into a nihilistic for-profit industry every bit as amoral and bloodless as oil or banking or big tobacco.

The Palin Rollercoaster

From Rumproast.com:

Sarah Palin's controversial speech last night from the campus of California State University was not allowed to be filmed directly, but rather a local TV station had to shoot a camera at a projection screen inside a media room down the hall from the speech. The attempt made by Palin and the University backfired a bit when the live feed picked up reporters' comments following the speech.

One reporter is heard saying, “Oh my god, I feel like I just got off a roller coaster." There are, however, more comments and a general WTF sentiment. (The reporters obviously did not realize that there voices were being picked up on the feed.)

Disgustipublicans

From Politico:

Chicago philosopher Martha Nussbaum has rejected former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee's claim that she's the source of a controversial phrase he used in discussing opposition to same-sex marriage.

She responds:

In fact, I have never used the phrase "ick factor" in any of my three books dealing with the emotion of disgust, or in any articles. I use the term "projective disgust" to characterize the disgust that many people feel when they imagine gay sex acts. What does that term mean, and to whom does it apply? The view I develop, on the basis of recent psychological research, is that projective disgust has its origin in a discomfort with one's own body and its messier animal aspects, including sexuality, and that, in a defense mechanism, disgust is then projected outward onto vulnerable groups who are characterized as hyperphysical and hypersexual. In this way, the uncomfortable people displace their discomfort onto others, who are then targeted for various forms of social discrimination.

Thus the people to whom the term "projective disgust" applies are the insecure and emotionally stunted people who campaign against equal rights for gays and lesbians, not gays and lesbians themselves.

Pick Flick

Weigel, WaPo, and the Tracy-Flickization of Public Life, Megan McArdle's excellent piece on the smearing of Washington Post blogger Dave Weigel.

So the lesson for young writers from all this: Be Tracy Flick. Don't say anything remotely interesting, certainly not over e-mail. If you lack the mental discipline to completely suppress critical thought about people and institutions you spend your life covering, get good at pretending.

What is Going On in Iceland?

From the NY Times:

A polar bear display for the zoo. Free towels at public swimming pools. A “drug-free Parliament by 2020.” Iceland’s Best Party, founded in December by a comedian, Jon Gnarr, to satirize his country’s political system, ran a campaign that was one big joke. Or was it?

Last month, in the depressed aftermath of the country’s financial collapse, the Best Party emerged as the biggest winner in Reykjavik’s elections, with 34.7 percent of the vote, and Mr. Gnarr — who also promised a classroom of kindergartners he would build a Disneyland at the airport — is now the fourth mayor in four years of a city that is home to more than a third of the island’s 320,000 people.

In his acceptance speech he tried to calm the fears of the other 65.3 percent. “No one has to be afraid of the Best Party,” he said, “because it is the best party. If it wasn’t, it would be called the Worst Party or the Bad Party. We would never work with a party like that.”

The Best Party, whose members include a who’s who of Iceland’s punk rock scene, formed a coalition with the center-left Social Democrats (despite Mr. Gnarr’s suspicion that party leaders had assigned an underling to watch “The Wire” and take notes). With that, Mr. Gnarr took office last week, hoping to serve out a full, four-year term, and the new government granted free admission to swimming pools for everyone under 18.

Not quite sure what it means, but any reference to The Wire is a good enough excuse for a clip.

Form Follows Function

A fascinating article about how documentary filmmakers ended up making a genre-bending film about Allen Ginsberg's Howl. From the guardian.co.uk:

Epstein and Friedman ended up overshooting their deadline by three years, losing themselves completely in what turned out to be a mad project, struggling to create something worthy of Ginsberg's incantatory work.

Streetcar in the Lobby

From the NY Times:

If you’ve seen the Barrow Street Theater’s production of “Our Town,” then you know the director David Cromer likes his audience to be intimately involved with his productions. So how to get theatergoers even more up close and personal with his “Streetcar Named Desire,” currently running at the Writers’ Theater in Glencoe, Ill.? How about a pop-up performance of a scene from the show (featuring Matt Hawkins and Stacy Stoltz) at the 2010 TCG National Conference?

Writers Theatre from Ben Thiem on Vimeo.

Rubber Meet Pavement

From the guardian.co.uk:

Artists, musicians and green activists plan to step up protests against BP's sponsorship of Britain's most prestigious galleries and museums in the wake of the Gulf oil catastrophe.

A group calling itself Good Crude Britannia, made up of artists, poets, writers and filmmakers, will picket Tate Britain's summer party next Monday which is billed by the gallery as celebrating 20 years of BP's sponsorship.

Late in the article:

Last month a group called Liberate Tate entered the gallery's main turbine hall and released dozens of black balloons attached to dead fish in protest against the Gulf oil spill. Gallery staff had to shoot the balloons down with air rifles.

Putty Hill

From Roger Ebert's review:

In a way rarely seen, "Putty Hill" says all that can be said about a few days in the lives of its characters without seeming to say very much at all. It looks closely, burrows deep, considers the way in which lives have become pointless and death therefore less meaningful. It uses fairly radical filmmaking techniques to penetrate this truth, and employs them so casually that they seem quite natural.

Oil Painting

Artist? BP.

I Saw the Best Minds of My Generation

What do Abraham Lincoln and Allen Ginsberg have in common?

In Slate, Robert Pinsky discusses Lincoln's poem "My Childhood-Home I See Again" and its references to Lincoln's childhood friend Matthew Gentry.

At 19, Matthew went violently insane and spent the rest of his life locked up. In his confinement, the crazy man sang, and Lincoln describes himself as drawn to the singing: He "stole away" at night to hear it, "all silently and still." The song, says the poem, seemed like "the funeral dirge … of reason dead and gone." Yet it was "sweet" as well as "distant" and "lone": adjectives that re-enforce the idea of fellow-feeling by Lincoln toward Matthew.

Allen Ginsberg was also moved to poetry by a friend who was institutionalized. Ginsberg's masterwork, "Howl" is dedicated to Carl Solomon whom he met during his own stay at the Columbia Presbyterian Psychological Institute, or "Rockland" as it is referred to in the poem.

"I'm with you in Rockland where fifty more shocks will never return your soul to its body again from its pilgrimage to a cross in the void."

A New Villian

Politicians looking to cast a new villian in our current recession show have found one - well, not exactly one - they have found 15 MILLION - and there name is The Unemployed. Or "hobos" as Republican Rep. Dan Heller from Nevada calls them. More from The Rachel Maddow Show:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Indianapolis Got it Right

Enthusiastic reviews for the Indianapolis Museum of Art's "100 Acres" park that opened on Sunday. Here's Judith H. Dobrzynski in the Wall Street Journal:

In search of something new, the museum abandoned its 1996 plan to create a traditional park with monumental sculptures by, say, Alexander Calder, Richard Serra and Louise Bourgeois. Instead, it commissioned works by emerging and underappreciated midcareer artists—Kendall Buster, Alfredo Jaar and Los Carpinteros, among them—and will keep most of them on view for only a few years. It will add at least one new work a year, financed by drawing from the park's $15 million operations and art endowment.

And one more thing: The museum asked the artists to study the parkland and to create "site-responsive" works. Far from being a manicured lawn, the property—officially "100 Acres: The Virginia B. Fairbanks Art & Nature Park"—includes woodlands, meadows, a lake and wetlands, giving the artists plenty of potential inspirations.

From Time Out Chicago:

When Freiman joined the museum eight years ago, she decided 100 Acres should engage the public in two unusual ways: Unlike most sculpture parks, it would commission site-specific works and define those works as “temporary,” lasting a few years to a decade, to tempt visitors back to Indianapolis. “[100 Acres] hinges on the notion of change,” Freiman says. “We wanted to introduce a sense of surprise and wonder into this park.” The park’s free (like the IMA’s permanent galleries) and open from dawn to dusk.

Apparently, the funding, including an operating endowment, for the project was in place before the economic downturn. It's heartening to see a major institution be so forward-thinking and be able to raise money for that vision. It is, of course, depressing to think about all the amazing ideas that will be dead-on-arrival in this current economic climate.

And That's Leadership

BEST fake political ad ever.

How's that Illegally Thing Working Out For You

Sarah Palin's Legal Defense Fund was found to be illegal. From The Huffington Post:

Thousands of donors who contributed to a $390,000 legal defense fund for former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin will get their money back after an investigator said Thursday the fund was illegal because it was misleadingly described on a website.

State Personnel Board investigator Timothy Petumenos said the Alaska Fund Trust inappropriately used the word "official" on its website, wrongly implying that it was endorsed by Palin in her role as governor.

During the press conference regarding the ethics complaint that prompted an investigation, a mass e-mail was sent out to donors to the illegal fund stating:

"... this ruling is nothing but a political hatchet job designed to embarrass Governor Palin, destroy her financially, and smear her good name. But YOU can help restore her good name!"

and this,

"So today we are starting over. Her legal bills are still there and growing. Will you please help her and give your very best gift to The Sarah Palin Legal Defense Fund today? It is urgent that we help relieve this crushing legal burden."

Great on-the-scene local coverage, as always from Mudflats in Alaska.

UPDATE: Andrew Sullivan has the money quote:

Judge Petumenous pointed out that the way the trust was written there was nothing to stop Palin from using the money for anything she wanted.

Ayn Rand on Stage

A renewed interest in works of the 1930s continues in New York. More examples here and here. A review of Americas Off Broadway's New York premiere of “Ideal,” a 1934 philosophical murder mystery by Ayn Rand.

"...this production reveals that there are reasons this drama hasn’t been mounted that have nothing to do with politics."

And,

"...this lumbering drama remains most interesting as a historical document."

Shakespeare's Inner Girl

Tina Packer, Founder and former Artistic Director of Shakespeare and Company takes on the women of Shakespeare in "Women of Will", a tour of Shakespeare's females characters. From the NY Times:

It is her thesis that as Shakespeare developed as a playwright, his women increasingly became his artistic alter egos, marginalized figures who stood to the side of the power makers, observing and interpreting.

Man-On-Dog Landslide

Is Rick "man-on-dog sex" Santorum seriously thinking of trying to run again for a Pennsylvania Senate seat? According to Public Policy Polling:

If Republicans want to beat Bob Casey for reelection in 2012 they're going to have to look somewhere other than Rick Santorum for a candidate. Casey leads Santorum 51-39 in a hypothetical rematch of their 2006 contest,

Santorum does, however, give us great political theater. Thanks for the memories AND crazy photos.

The Not So Secret Life of Bristol Palin - The Saga

Next week, Bristol Palin makes a guest appearance on ABC Family's "The Secret Life of the American Teenager".

Note to Sarah Palin: We would gladly leave your children alone if you would stop inflicting them on the American public and using them to as political props. (And to pad your bank account.) Hat tip to DWR for this gem!

From Prison to Pizzeria

From the NY Times:

BALTIMORE — Like any new employee, Jack Abramoff is trying to keep a low profile — or as low a profile as a cause célèbre disgraced lobbyist and convicted felon can keep when news cameramen keep staking out his new workplace. Mr. Abramoff started his new gig this week at Tov Pizza — “the best kosher pizza in town,” according to a catchy jingle that plays while callers are on hold.

But of course, Mr. Abramoff stands out among the 18 people who work here. He is that Jack Abramoff, the former lobbying macher who pleaded guilty in 2006 to felony counts involving fraud, corruption and conspiracy, and served three and a half years at a minimum security prison camp in Cumberland, Md.

The Cruel Irony of Corporate PR

From BP's website:

A key component of BP's response to the Gulf oil spill is the use of commercial and charter fishing vessels from communities along the Gulf shoreline participating in BP's "Vessel of Opportunity" program.

And from al.com this morning:

FORT MORGAN, Ala. -- An Orange Beach, Ala., charter boat captain shot and killed himself this morning just before his vessel was scheduled to set out to take part in oil cleanup and protection efforts, investigators said...A statement by the Gulf Shores Police Department said Kruse shot himself in the head.

It continues:

Kruse did like to know what was going on and was particularly frustrated with the lack of straight answers coming from BP about the Vessel of Opportunity program and particularly about how he was to be paid once his 2 boats were deployed.

"It's a nightmare with just all of the paperwork and training and then waiting to get hired on top of the fact we're all stressed about losing our entire season anyway," Bell said. "I hate to say it, but I'm surprised something like this hasn't already happened."

Bad Actors

According to the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, as reported by MSNBC:

Indeed, the poll shows that only 6 percent have a favorable rating of BP. In the history of the NBC News/Journal poll, Saddam Hussein (3 percent), Fidel Castro (3 percent) and Yasser Arafat (4 percent) have had lower favorable scores, and O.J. Simpson (11 percent) and tobacco-maker Philip Morris (15 percent) have had higher ratings.

Things Cindy McCain Likes

Here is Cindy's Twitter review:

"Toy Story 3. A really fun movie. Catch it if you can. You'll love it!"

When Actors Rant

Jon Voight in today's Washington Times:

Your destruction of this country may never be remedied, and we may never recover. I pray to God you stop, and I hope the people in this great country realize your agenda is not for the betterment of mankind, but for the betterment of your politics.

Well, that's pretty dramatic.

Seems like a long journey from playing an anti-war Vietnam vet opposite Jane Fonda:

The McChrystal Prologue

Yesterday's and likely today's big news show will be filled with almost nothing except the Rolling Stone article on General McChrystal and his subsequent meetings at the Pentagon and with President Obama. The upshot is that McChyrstal is a "Runaway General" as the title of the article suggests and he and his top aides gave disparaging statements about the Obama administration and their prosecution of the war in Afghanistan.

Today, however, on the NY Times NFL blog of all places, the beginning of the McChrystal story is told as it relates to the death of NFL player Pat Tillman. McChrystal is placed front and center at the fraud that took place in covering up the friendly fire death of Tillman. It seems that McChrystal had no problems at that point doing the bidding of the Bush administration in falsifying commendation records in the death of America's most famous soldier. The story of Pat Tillman giving up the life of an NFL star to join the army to fight against terrorism was too great a story to undercut with the truth that Tillman's head was blown off by American soldiers. From the Times:

The Pat Tillman story was always an irresistible one. A man forsakes riches and fame for his country.

His death during his service? It only added to the narrative of duty and sacrifice. It apparently proved too irresistible for military officials not to want to spin it for their purposes; they initially portrayed it as something other than the friendly fire that it was.

The Times than includes numerous video clips revealing the truth revealed during the investigation and gives this warning:

Warning: These old clips may make you mad.

Here is just one of the clips:
There is also a documentary on Tillman's death and coverup--including McChrystal's role--coming in August.

Things Cindy McCain Likes

TV shows? This is her favorite. Who knew?

What Are You, 14?

On Sunday, June 20, Sarah Palin issued the following on Twitter:

RahmEmanuel= as shallow/narrowminded/political/irresponsible as they come,to falsely claim Barton's BP comment is "GOP philosophy"Rahm,u lie

And all I could think of is this: