Coral Reefs.
Thursday, July 8, 2010
The White White World of Sarah Palin
Conservative David Frum points out in a "tweet" how it's white as far as the eye can see in the new SarahPac video.
Kind of remarkable to see a Republican ad with not a single nonwhite face in any crowd scene.
A Blow To DOMA
From The Advocate:
A federal judge has ruled unconstitutional a portion of the Defense of Marriage Act that prohibits the federal government from recognizing gay marriages...
...While the federal challenge to Proposition 8 currently before a San Francisco judge makes broader claims regarding the unconstitutional nature of state laws barring marriage rights for same-sex couples, GLAD’s lawsuit was a precise attack on DOMA, targeting just one section of the law — Section 3 — that limits the definition of marriage, for all federal purposes, to one man and one woman.
During oral arguments in May, GLAD attorney Mary Bonauto told U.S. district judge Joseph Tauro that DOMA constitutes a “classic equal protection” violation for gay couples who are legally married in Massachusetts. “It takes one class of married people in the commonwealth,” she said, “and divides it into two.”
On the Free Market, Nothing Can Be Free
This Terry Savage column has been posted lost of places in the past few days. But his wrath at little girls giving away their lemonade instead of selling it, is such a shining example of free-market fundamentalism taken to its most absurd conclusions. An excerpt:
The kids are learning from the society around them. No one has ever taught them there's no free lunch -- and all they see is "free," not the result of hard work, and saving, and scrimping.
If that's what America's children think -- that there's a free lunch waiting -- then our country has larger problems ahead. The Declaration of Independence promised "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." It didn't promise anything free. Something to think about this July 4th holiday weekend.
Imperial Criminal
Crackdown on Chinese artists/activists: From the NY Times: Wu Yuren, an artist who helped lead an unusually bold public protest last winter over a land dispute, has been languishing in a Beijing jail for almost six weeks after having been beaten by police officers, his wife said on Thursday.
Look at and read about Wu Yuren's work.
Theater Tradition as Political Buzzword
Eric Alterman in the The Nation on "Kabuki Democracy":
The American political system is nothing if not complicated and so too are the reasons for its myriad points of democratic dysfunction. Some are endemic to our constitutional regime and all but impossible to address save by the extremely cumbersome (and profoundly unlikely) prospect of amending the Constitution. Others are the result of a corrupt capital culture that likes it that way and has little incentive to change. Many are the result of the peculiar commercial and ideological structure of our media, which not only frame our political debate but also determine which issues will be addressed. A few are purely functions of the politics of the moment or just serendipitous bad luck. And if we really mean to change things, instead of just complaining about them, it would behoove us to figure out which of these choke points can be opened up and which cannot. For if our politicians cannot keep the promises they make as candidates, then our commitment to political democracy becomes a kind of Kabuki exercise; it resembles a democratic process at great distance but mocks its genuine intentions in substance.Kabuki theater is a term that gets tossed around a lot among political journalists. But what does it mean? Carla Blank in Counterpunch explains:
At least since 2006, it has become fashionable for politicians and pundits used the term “kabuki” to describe a frustratingly slow legislative process. As recently as June 1, Thomm Hartmann of Green 960 was describing the new Supreme Court rules about Miranda rights, in which a suspect now has to be the first one to invoke such a right, as “kabuki,” meaning intricate or involved. Neither of these uses define what “kabuki” actually means.
Because the real Kabuki is a theater form full of spectacle involving dance and music, with fabulously painted sets that can magically change before your eyes by revolving on the stage or by appearing and disappearing through trap doors or by being built up by stage carpenters in plain sight, with elaborate costumes, mask-like makeup, and hand props of startling array.
Art: No News Here
Another newspaper art critic bites the dust. Tyler Green in ArtInfo on the elimination of art critic Robert Pincus from the pages of the San Diego Union Tribune:
Alas: The art world has mostly retreated into itself and has mostly shrugged at the elimination of the jobs that once placed artists and their work before large audiences and in outside-the-ghetto contexts. The saddest thing about this moment in art the art world is that commercialism and communitarianism often suffice, that art lovers rarely agitate for the inclusion of art and artists in broader national and international dialogues. Maybe that’s OK: I hear Glenn Beck enjoys working as an art critic.
Sweaty Shakespeare
Must be a dry time for arts stories. Both the NY Times and the LA Times discuss outdoor performance and watching Shakespeare in the heat. But only the LA Times gets a quote from Joan Rivers:
Joan Rivers, who was at the performance with her daughter, Melissa, later told the New York Post, “I would sit in an oven for Al Pacino.”
Liberal Elites Devote More Ink to Levi Johnston
Gail Collins on the editorial page of the NY Times on Levi Johnston:
But this week Johnston sent out an olive branch, via People magazine. “Last year, after Bristol and I broke up, I was unhappy and a little angry. Unfortunately, against my better judgment, I publicly said things about the Palins that were not completely true,” he said.
We have been dealing with a lot of imperfect apologies recently, but this one hits a new level of unsatisfactory.
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