New York City Opera has commissioned American composer Charles Wuorinen to write an opera based on "Brokeback Mountain," a love story about two U.S. ranch-hands that won three Oscars when it was turned into a movie.
The opera house's spokesman Gerard Mortier said in a statement on Sunday that Wuorinen had accepted an invitation to compose an opera based on Annie Proulx's short story. It is slated to premiere during City Opera's 2013 spring season.
…"Ever since encountering Annie Proulx's extraordinary story I have wanted to make an opera on it, and it gives me great joy that Gerard Mortier and New York City Opera have given me the opportunity to do so," Wuorinen, 70, said in a statement. (Link)
See what happens when you get Teh Gayz marry? Hell in a handbasket.
Big Brown's owner Michael Iavarone hugs Big Brown after the 140th Belmont Stakes horse race at Belmont Park in Elmont, N.Y., on Saturday, June 7, 2008. (AP Photo/Kathy Willens)
Fast and furious, they're coming today. Woo. Shaker Misiale pointed in comments to this item at Media Matters in which it's reported that Fox News host E.D. Hill teased an upcoming segment discussing the Obamas' hilariously over-analyzed fist bump by saying: "A fist bump? A pound? A terrorist fist jab? The gesture everyone seems to interpret differently."
In case you've been trapped under a rock for the past week or so, here's a picture (thanks to Aulelia) of the moment from last Tuesday night when Senator Barack Obama took the stage:
Well, I can certainly see why someone might see a terrorist plot unhatching there. I mean, if that someone has either just come out of a 30-year coma or is less hip than Pat Buchanan.
Now, for the record, Iain and I have our own crazy little handshake that we do with each other, but I tend to regard the Obamas' fist bump in the same way as JessicaAnn (thanks, Jack!):
I think that little gesture is striking (Ta-Nehisi has a video clip) because it was a visual representation of a partnership, a signal that this victory is something they've accomplished together. It's an entirely different image than the "you go get 'em, honey!"-style hug or reassuring pat on the arm that we're used to seeing from candidates' wives. Like Ta-Nehisi, I have to say it gave me some hope that if he's elected, we'll be getting a presidential partnership.
And I also suspect that many other people, who are busily feigning shock or perplexity over the Fist Bump Heard 'Round the World, see it the same way, too—only they don't happen to share Jessica's and my and lots of other people's opinion that Michelle Obama having influence in Barack Obama's White House would be a good thing.
I also happen to think that they reflexively dislike the idea of the Obamas' partnership not only because they don't like uppity womminz, but because they distrust men who consider their wives their equal partners. And that fist bump says, "We did it. We two. Together." That fist bump conveys a partnership.
…Leaving this post to be cross-referenced with the Barack Obama Sexism Watch and the Michelle Obama Sexism Watch, too.
It's the only way Tory Bowen knows to honestly describe what happened to her.
She was raped.
But a judge prohibited her from uttering the word "rape" in front of a jury. The term "sexual assault" also was taboo, and Bowen could not refer to herself as a victim or use the word "assailant" to describe the man who allegedly raped her.
The defendant's presumption of innocence and right to a fair trial trumps Bowen's right of free speech, said the Lincoln, Neb., judge who issued the order.
We've discussed Bowen's case before at Shakesville, along with the increasing reluctance to use the word "rape" in media coverage of rape cases; now it's becoming a trend at rape trials, too.
"It's a topic that's coming up more and more," said Joshua Marquis, an Oregon prosecutor and a vice president of the National District Attorneys Association. "You're moving away from what a criminal trial is really about."
In Jackson County, Senior Judge Gene Martin recently issued a similar order for the trial of a Kansas City man charged with raping a teenager in 2000.
…But in cases where the defendant's version of events is pitted against that of the alleged victim, "words are really important," Marquis said.
"To force a victim to say, 'when the defendant and I had sexual intercourse' is just absurd," he said.
It's also forcing them to commit perjury—which is why I can't understand for the life of me how this can possibly be constitutional. Sexual intercourse connotes consent. Testifying to having "sexual intercourse," when one has not given consent, is not accurate. Effectively, rape victims are being compelled to perjure themselves to protect their rapists. Charming.
"It shouldn't be up to a judge to tell me whether or not I was raped," Bowen said. "I should be able to tell the jury in my own words what happened to me."
…Those who defend the accused say the determination of whether what happened was rape or consensual sex is up to juries, not witnesses.
"They shouldn't be able to use the word 'rape' as if it is a fact that has been established," said Jack King, director of public affairs and communications for the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. "These are loaded words."
Uh huh. Of course, "sexual intercourse" is loaded too—loaded with implied consent!
The argument is that disallowing victims to use the word "rape" constitutes balance—but it's no more balanced than if the defense was required to use the word rape.
This is all about the idiotic conventional wisdom that women go around wantonly filing false rape reports willy-nilly (no—false reports of rape are more infrequent than false reports of car theft, which itself is rare) and that any time a woman reports a rape, it ends up at trial (which is so made of no fucking way that it's not even funny, and the difficulty of bringing any rape case to trial is well-covered ground at Shakesville, so I won't go into it again). And the day I see a judge issuing an order that a dude can't say he was mugged on the stand lest it prejudice a jury in a robbery trial, when he's forced to say he handed his wallet to the defendant,* then I might believe that this is really about some principle of protecting defendants full-stop, and not just more horseshit designed to make prosecuting rapists even more mind-fuckingly difficult than it already is because everyone knows there's no such thing as real rape victims—just scorned women with axes to grind.
[H/T to Shaker Angelos.]
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* Forgive the tacit conflation of rape with property theft, which I singularly do not support. I couldn't figure out how else to use a courtroom example without that inadvertent ugliness.
Last week, I wrote about my reservations about the movie Kung Fu Panda, both in regard to its cultural appropriation and its being marketed as a film that looks like one big fat joke with a "fatties deserve love, too" moral of the story tacked on at the end to justify it. My friend Coturnix saw it over the weekend, and says my fears were unfounded. But Coturnix, who is brilliant, kind, hilarious, and interesting, just for a start, is not, however, fat. And reading his review, my fat self noticed a couple of things:
...the movie is really not what Melissa expected. If anything, it is the opposite - in one moment it uses a fat joke to make you laugh (which sometimes you manage to suppress, sometimes not), but then in the next moment it shames you for laughing at the previous joke.
Well, that actually makes it pretty much exactly what I expected. See, being a fatty and all, I know that movies which use "a fat joke to make you laugh" aren't including me in that "you." Or any other fat person who doesn't think that fat jokes are particularly hilarious. I don't need to manage to suppress laughter when I hear a fat joke; I need to suppress my gag reflex.
And, honestly, it's not because I'm personally bothered by fat jokes; I've got too much contempt for that shit to be offended. But I didn't always feel that way.
Imagine being a fat kid being in that theater—s/he hears everyone around her/him laughing at the fat jokes, but doesn't "hear" everyone feeling ashamed of themselves in the next moment. Do the fat kids—the ones about whom everyone in the theater is supposedly learning an important message about acceptance—leave with a feeling of self-acceptance, or is that overwhelmed by the sound of laughter at fat jokes ringing in their ears?
That's why this kind of entertainment is problematic. It makes fatness central to the premise, but doesn't offer any opportunity to empathize with anything resembling the actual experience of being fat in an anti-fat culture—which can be brutal. The hatred can penetrate the toughest hides of the toughest fatties. There's not meant to be a happy ending for fat people, not like in the "fatties deserve love, too" movies. We're supposed to die miserable (pre-mature) deaths—and, as I've said before, we're not meant to have a moment of happiness of self-contentment while we live as long as we're fat:
It remains a radical act to be fat and happy in America, especially if you're a woman (for whom "jolly" fatness isn't an option). If you're fat, you're not only meant to be unhappy, but deeply ashamed of yourself, projecting at all times an apologetic nature, indicative of your everlasting remorse for having wrought your monstrous self upon the world. You are certainly not meant to be bold, or assertive, or confident—and should you manage to overcome the constant drumbeat of messages that you are ugly and unsexy and have earned equally society's disdain and your own self-hatred, should you forget your place and walk into the world one day with your head held high, you are to be reminded by the cow-calls and contemptuous looks of perfect strangers that you are not supposed to have self-esteem; you don't deserve it. Being publicly fat and happy is hard; being publicly, shamelessly, unshakably fat and happy is an act of both will and bravery.
Rare indeed is the fat chick who manages to find contentment in her own skin, because everything around her is designed so that she will not.
Like I said in my original post, if a movie wants to make the point that fat doesn't matter, cast fat actors in roles that don't require them—i.e. roles where fatness isn't central, or remotely relevant, to the plot. If a film wants to be about fat, then it should make some effort to reflect the reality of being fat, the commonality of experience among fat people—which, btw, doesn't include getting winded on stairs. One of the first things my fat self did with Iain was spend a day hiking 20 miles through the Scottish Highlands. As a big old fatty.
[Dog Falls, Glen Affric, Scotland: 2001]
See?
And no one even had to motivate me with a dumpling or anything!
Coturnix notes that the film is "a fat-acceptance movie throughout," so how did it do on that score? I'll note this other passage from his review:
Poe, a son of a soup chef, is motivated by food, and the 'catch the dumpling' scene in the middle of the movie is absolutely awesome as, over a span of several minutes, Poe transforms from a clumsy fat panda into a nimble, fast, fighting machine.
But…isn't Poe still fat? "Fat" isn't part of his transformation, because "His natural body shape becomes a part of his fighting style, which he uses to defeat the enemy at the end." He was fat before and after—but his being fat is associated only with being clumsy (bad) not nimble (good) and fast (good).
This "fat acceptance" film doesn't seem to have successfully countered internalized associations with fat as a failing, but, in fact, reinforced them.
And lest anyone think I'm picking on Coturnix, I can assure you, even as a fatty, I could have easily written the exact same thing myself before I started thinking about these issues. No one knows more about internalized fat hatred than a fat person!
So, I'm still dubious about this film.
And I remain unconvinced that reinforcing stereotypes for laughs is the best way—or even a good way—to undermine them.
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[This a fat acceptance thread. That means comments about how fat is unhealthy are unwelcome and inappropriate. The governing idea here is that, irrespective of your opinions about fat and health, fat people don't deserve to be shamed and ridiculed. If you're confused about this concept, please read this.]
You know something? The Democrats had really better be ready to go after McCain. I mean, after the disastrous Bush regime, I'm sure he's got a crack team of marketing geniuses to prepare his campaign ads, selling him as the Republican solution to the Bush disaster. He'd never fall back on boogah-boogah scary terrorist tactics; Americans are too jaded to the propaganda for that silliness again. He knows the country is fucked, he won't be able to rely on "war, war, war, you're all gonna die in your beds" this time. So, what's on the teevee?
Republican John McCain's first major television ad after knowing for sure that Barack Obama will be his competition is a stark, personal pitch to voters that he knows about war - and knows how to keep America secure.
"Only a fool or a fraud talks tough or romantically about war," McCain says in the 30-second spot. "When I was 5 years old, my father left for war. My grandfather came home from war and died the next day."
"I was shot down over Vietnam and spent five years as a POW," he continues as historical images appear on the screen and sober music plays in the background. "Some of the friends I served with never came home. I hate war. And I know how terrible its costs are."
"I'm running for president to keep the country I love safe," McCain concludes.
It's not like we didn't know this was going to happen.
It's only been three days since Sen. Barack Obama historically won the Democratic nomination for president of the United States. But the Republican venom against the candidate and his wife Michelle is starting to spew. The viciousness is enough to make you sick, and it's a clear indication that the Obama team, if it doesn't respond effectively, could end up on the ropes for the next five months trying to defend itself from the same sort of reprehensible SwiftBoating that John Kerry faced four years ago.
The Republicans are great at framing issues and labelling candidates. And the new buzzword for Obama is radical. Right-wing radio host Sean Hannity has even re-named his show the "Stop Radical Obama express." On his program Thursday he literally said "radical" about every fourth word. Radical, radical, radical. Get ready, Democrats. We're gonna hear that word more in the next five months than we've heard in a lifetime.
Listening to Hannity's program makes you wonder if he and his kool-aid-drunken listeners are not part of some twisted, brainwashed cult. They greet each other with "you're a great American" and depart with "God bless you." The level of ignorance that flows freely on this program is astounding. Hannity's mission is clearly to poison anyone who comes within earshot of him with lies and deception about the Obamas. Here's a few of his shameless rants from Thursday:
"I am telling you, Barack Obama will move this country in a direction that is so radical that it will shock your senses."
"He (Obama) has views that would probably shock the average American."
"He's a Radical left winger, to the left of George McGovern."
And on 1960's terrorist William Ayers, embattled Chicago developer Tony Rezko and the Reverends Jeremiah Wright and Michael Pfleger: Obama is "a phony. A friend of all these people, and who will associate with anyone who can help him politically."
Throughout his program Hannity hammered home the term "radical associations" to describe these controversial relationships. It's abundantly clear that Hannity's goal for the next five months is to scare the hell out of his regular audience, and anyone else who might be listening for that matter.
Make no mistake: the constant regurgitation of the word "radical" is meant to conjure up all sorts of fear, anger and racial prejudice. Think "radical Muslim." Think "angry black man." Think Willie Horton. This sort of pandering to the racist dumbasses of America is beyond despicable, but it's what the GOP does best. It's pure propaganda. And like all good propaganda, if you say it enough it sticks.
[...]
To say the campaign is going to get ugly is a gross understatement.
So how do you run against it? I'm reminded of a scene from the film The American President, written by Aaron Sorkin and directed by Rob Reiner:
Big Tent Democrat over at TalkLeft had a post up on Thursday on how sexism and racism have been viewed, discussed, or not in this primary season. He uses a post by John Cole over on Balloon Juice as the hook.
…I think it is not an unreasonable claim to state that many people who found themselves to be die-hard Clinton supporters identified personally with Clinton. For many of the feminists and older women who made up Hillary's unwavering core of support, a rejection of Hillary was a rejection of themselves—they saw Hillary being subjected to the kind of abuse that they themselves have suffered, they identified with the concept of the glass ceiling and identified with much of the real and perceived sexism… [T]hey saw things that I simply would not see, because of who they are and what they personally have experienced. In short, when Hillary lost, or they listened to some jackass on CNN debate whether it was appropriate to call Hillary a bitch, it was a personal loss or as if they had personally been called a bitch.
For Obama, many of the supporters identify with a movement, a need for something different, a need for change, and a sense of community. The Obama campaign recognized this difference, and masterfully used social networking to build a vibrant community. When Clinton made her fateful "white people" or "RFK assassination" remarks, it was an outright breach of community and societal norms…which would help to explain why Obama supporters recoiled in horror at the remarks. When Republicans tried the hackneyed old "appeaser" nonsense, it was like the folks in the community who opposed the war in 2003 and beyond were being called traitors or in league with the terrorists again. When Hillary seized upon the "bitter" remarks for political advantage, it was as if the entire community was under assault for being "elitist."
The key point is that the reactions of women (and allies) are seen as personal, the reactions of POC (and allies) are seen as communal. BTD goes on and does a nice job on sexism (with a nice link to 'Liss), but it seems that this excerpt also demonstrates how we think and don't think about sex and race in our society. It's clear that John is talking about the community formed around Obama's campaign, and not only POC, but he demonstrates the way in which criticisms (or not) of Obama's campaign were perceived, especially when associated with race.
Gender = personal. Race = communal.
The apothegm, "the personal is political" had a huge impact in the feminism's second wave because women could start to see that the incessant insults, assaults, limits, and numberless experiences of misogyny on were not a matter of bad luck or individual failing. They were things common to many women. That commonality gave rise to a sense of political mission and agency. But it hasn't always been maintained and the personal being political could (and has) devolved to individualism.
For African Americans the situation has been different. Even as our parents told us to be the best we could, to achieve as much as we could, there was always an understanding that society would be biased against us as black people, not as individuals. (This has changed since I grew up, but not as much as some would think.) In fact, part of the encouragement to achieve, to shine, to excel was predicated on that understanding.
This history shapes the public discourse. Sexist criticisms of Clinton were justified as being aimed at an individual. Racist criticisms of Obama were rightly attacked, and were seen as aimed at a group of people. Whether these factors were fundamental in affecting the primary election results, who can tell? I suspect they were, but the issue at hand is how it plays out now.
This is a historic moment.
This is a critical moment.
It's critical because people seem to see Obama as representative of what this country can do, rather than an actual man and politician. Part of the love of his candidacy seems born of this feeling that if he can be elected, then the long nightmare of black and white relations in this country is officially over.
And this is a stupid, dangerous idea.
It's stupid because race in America has never been just about blacks and whites, though that has been the dominant narrative. So even if that brutal relationship could be "fixed" what about the complex lives of all of the other "others" here? What about the unending mistreatment of Native Americans? What about anti-Latin@ bias? What about anti-Asian, Middle Eastern, South-East Asian, "you're not from here" prejudice? What about multiracial people, what they face?
This idea is dangerous because leads straight to complacency. Once we've "elected the black guy" as Chris Bowers wrote a few weeks ago, what's left to do? Once a black man is the Commander in Chief, once it's clear that a black man can achieve the highest office in the country, then you black people got nothing more to whine about. The barriers and struggles of the last four centuries will have been wiped away and we'll be in the New Jerusalem. (/sarcasm)
A further unintended consequence of seeing Obama as "the black guy", as an "other" rather than the charismatic junior senator from Illinois is how it simultaneously fuels illegitimate and stifles legitimate criticism of his positions and policies. The illegitimate stuff has run from trying to paint him as a Muslim (because his names! Barack! Hussein! Obama!!!! He was at a madrassa!!!) to trying to paint him as a radical (because black liberation theology is radical!!! his ex-pastor!!!!). The stifling of legitimate criticism, well how do you see stifling? I guess you look for it in absences. What I haven't seen in the primary season is a close critical look at Obama's policies, though there are handwaves towards his (inadequate, imo) health care plan and (fairly mainstream) energy proposals. More troublesome are his advisors such as Austan Goolsbee (his senior economics advisor) who "said that one of the things that distinguished Obama from Clinton was his skepticism about standard Keynesian prescriptions, such as relying on tax policy to stimulate investment and saving" and wrote "Obama rejects heavy-handed regulation and insists above all on disclosure, so that consumers will know exactly what they are getting." (nice article in the NYRB) This suggests a more laissez-faire relationship to both business and the economy than we need right now. I don't know what good disclosure does when consumers have little choice and no legal remedies for abuses. We need better.
We need to think seriously about what our country needs to recover from the last eight years, years that have seen the abandonment of the poorest and most vulnerable in this country, a war that we were lied into; a war that's devastated a country, ruined our military, sucked away millions of dollars, and fucked our foreign policy for decades. Eight years that has seen Homeland Security, the FISA debacles, a looming recession, NCLB…well, you know.
So Obama will need to be called on his proposals to deal with all of this and as progressives, it's our job to do that critique. But as progressives, we also need to beat back the (just starting) tide of illegitimate criticism that is not criticism; that is scarcely veiled racism. He is a black man, not The Black Man.
Oh, and expect that misogyny to get trotted out for Michelle Obama, not because she's a black woman, though. It's just because she's [fill in the blank].
I was rummaging through my things the other day and came across this wonderful item: Criswell Predicts: From Now to the Year 2000!, a book published in 1968 cataloguing some of the infamous seer's more "fanciful" prophecies.
Criswell is perhaps best known for his odd narrative scenes in Plan 9 from Outer Space, or if you haven't actually seen that (and I wouldn't blame you if I haven't), you may be familiar with Jeffrey "I'm a Creep" Jones's portrayal of him in Tim Burton's biopic Ed Wood. He also spent a fair amount of time sharing his psychic visions with the world, whether it was on the Jack Parr show or on his own syndicated TV show.
Criswell's predictions range from the bizarre to the ridiculous to the gob-smackingly stupid. His method of forecasting was, as best I can guess, huffing silver Krylon while looking at Flash Gordon comics. He claimed an 87% accuracy rate, which seems about as reliable as anything that come out of his mouth.
That being said, legend has it that Criswell did accurately predict JFK's assassination. If true, this alone makes him more reliable than Nostradamus. And an unknown Wikipedia scribe claims Criswell may have been gay, which shouldn't surprise anyone considering two of his closest friends were a transvestite and a vampire. (That's not to say having transvestites and vampires as friends necessarily means one is gay, it just increases the odds.) All of which is neither here nor there.
Since we're apt, here at Shakes, to discuss matters of personal autonomy women have, or at least ought to have, all things being perfect, I thought I'd share Criswell's prediction, right there on page two of his book, under the heading Birth Control. (Page one was about homos, just FYI.)
I predict that birth control will no longer be a major problem in the United States. Placed in the water system of the country, in every city, regardless of size, will be chemicals which will act as contraceptives on the entire populace. In addition to this, the electricity that comes into each home will have certain ionic particles that cause contraception.
Ionic particles, eh? How sciencey!
Birth control will be a function of the Federal Government. If you want a child, you will have to go to the proper Federal Government Agency and get yourself a pill so that you may conceive. You will have to receive the sanction of this Government agency before you will have the right to have a child.
Birth control in any of the forms which we know today will not exist-by the year 1981, when these new systems will definitely be in effect in this country and the majority of the other nations throughout the world. This, mankind will agree, is the only way to control the population explosion.
Well… that's… something. Birth control a function of the Feds? Like The Handmaid's Tale, but different. Nevermind that there are now certain fuckwits out there who'd love it if the government actually made birth control it's purview, that is, made it illegal at the federal level.
...who cringes every time I see the trailer for Kung Fu Panda?
My first reaction is in the Love Guru/Zoltan area (No and No), although I do wonder if maybe it's not the gross cultural clusterfucktastrophe that it appears at first blush, given that Jackie Chan, Lucy Liu, Randall Duk Kim, James Hong, and Angelina Jolie (who tends to be slightly more sensitive to this stuff) are among the voice actors.
(But, of course, none of them play the lead, which is voiced by Jack Black.)
Then again, it wouldn't be the first time actors have played to stereotype for a paycheck. So I dunno. My second reaction is that this movie also appears to be one long fun-filled adventure in fat hating. Ha ha—the fat panda can't climb the stairs without getting winded. Ha ha—the fat panda is so inflexible and graceless. Ha ha—the fat panda is fat!
Back to Jack Black for a moment. One of the things I've really liked about his career (leaving aside that a woman couldn't have it) is that, despite being "a fat guy," he doesn't play Teh Fat Guy. He's cool, he's sexy, he knows it, his fat doesn't change it, and fuck convention. I dig it.
With some exceptions, he has played drama (Margot at the Wedding), comedy (High Fidelity), and romantic lead (The Holiday) without a major subplot about his fat—unlike, say, the Kevin James character in Hitch or the Chris Farley character in Tommy Boy (yes, I have to watch a lot of shit, just so I can have an honest bloody opinion about it!), classic fat-guy-who-gets-the-girl-despite-being-fat-and-all-his-many-many-issues-about-being-fat roles. (Also see: Ugly Guys or Ugly/Fat Guys, of which Ernest Borgnine's Marty was the exemplum.)
Black is capable (and has been given opportunity) to allow fat not to be an issue, so it's disappointing to think he'd be in a film where the major point seems to be that it is.
Perhaps it's just the marketing; perhaps it's really a fat acceptance film wrapped inside a big fat joke.
In which case, I'll reiterate my assertion that cynical shit like that is the cinematic equivalent of deathbed confessions. I've got no love for films who trick ignoramuses into theaters with the opportunity to laugh at funny accents and zany ethnic wardrobes, or boobies and queers, or fat people and dwarves, for two hours only to try to make it all okay with a tacked-on feelgood moral-of-the-story ending about how even "different" people deserve love or wev. Fuck that. I'm more impressed with films that convey messages like "fat doesn't matter" by, ya know, actually having fat characters for whom fat doesn't matter. Kooky.
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[This a fat acceptance thread. That means comments about how fat is unhealthy are unwelcome and inappropriate. The governing idea here is that, irrespective of your opinions about fat and health, fat people don't deserve to be shamed and ridiculed. If you're confused about this concept, please read this.]
Of all of the stories and subplots, there would be one that, in many ways, symbolized the whole of Katrina, what it revealed about the Bush administration, and how it would affect the lives of so many people. On Friday, Mary Landrieu had been with Bush and Blanco as they toured the 17th Street Canal, where, at last, major work had commenced to repair the damage that had been caused when the levee broke. "Then, on Saturday," Landrieu says, "George Stephanopoulos called and asked to do an interview with me, and I said, 'George, I'm tired of doing interviews. I have to work. And nothing you are airing is accurately showing what's going on down here.' He wanted to go to the Superdome, and I said, 'We still have people stranded on their roofs. If you want to tell the right story, I will help you tell the right story. You get a helicopter and I'll go up and I will show you what is actually happening. It's awful what's happening at the Superdome, but the reason the people can't understand the story is because the entire region is under 20 feet of water. People can't get into the Superdome to help. They can't get out. People are drowning in their homes.'
"So George and I went up in the helicopter and for three hours his jaw was dropping. Then I said, 'George, before we finish I have to show you one positive thing because I can't send you back to Washington to produce a story that shows nothing but devastation and disaster.' So I told the pilot to tack right so I can show George the 17th Street Canal and the work that was going on there. I swear as my name is Mary Landrieu I thought that what I saw with the president was still there -- people working, trucks, sandbags, everything. Then I looked down and saw one little crane. It was like someone took a knife and stabbed me through my heart. I lost it." There, in the cabin of the helicopter, as they flew above the breached canal below them, Landrieu sat devastated.
"I could not believe that the president of the United States, staged by Karl Rove himself, had come down to the city of New Orleans and basically put up a stage prop. It was like you had gone to a studio in California and filmed a movie. They put the props up and the minute we were gone they took them down. All the dump trucks were gone. All the Coast Guard people were gone. It was an empty spot with one little crane. It was the saddest thing I have ever seen in my life. At that moment I knew what was going on and I've been a changed woman ever since. It truly changed my life."
And a quick reminder: I am always open to the submission of guest posts for consideration—especially (though not exclusively) written by people with a progressive perspective that is un- or underrepresented at Shakesville. If you'd like to see, for example, something addressed about race or disability or transitioning or intersex issues or intersectional identities, please help me out by contributing. Personal stories, scholarly pieces, media criticism—all are welcome. Sometimes I don't write about things because I don't know how.
The same goes for other progressive topics you'd like to see get more attention—environmentalism, veganism, responsible buying, unionism, film critique, etc. We'll never be all things to all people, but I am eminently willing to accommodate a vast array of interests and ideas.
I attended Wednesday's panel discussion on LaVena Johnson at Legacy Books & Cafe - the Black & Green Wednesday event sponsored by the Gateway Greens Alliance and the Universal African Peoples Organization - but readers would doubtless be better served by video on the event. That content is on the way; I hope to get the raw footage in a couple of days, and will format a portion to share online. Until then, some brief notes:
Forty-odd people attended, with the diversity you would expect from an intersection of the Greens and the pan-African USOP. There were also members of Veterans for Peace in attendance, including good-guy Chuc Smith who has been so helpful and diligent in his efforts on behalf of LaVena's family.
Michael McPherson, Gulf War I vet and Executive Director of Veterans for Peace, led off the discussion with remarks on the larger issue of sexual harassment and assault in the military. He drew upon sobering statistics from such sources as "The Private War of Women Soldiers," the Helen Benedict article published in Salon in March 2007. He stressed that the military does not exist in a vacuum - that the pathologies of the larger society are mirrored in military life. McPherson - an African-American - also spent some time talking about the problematic ways in men (and Black men in particular) approach violence, power, and relationships with women.
Redditt Hudson, Racial Justice Manager for the ACLU Eastern Division and former police officer, spoke from a personal standpoint. While his organization has not involved itself in the LaVena Johnson matter, Hudson found himself moved to assist LaVena's father, Dr. John Johnson. He struggled at times when describing having viewed the photographs of LaVena's body taken by the Army in its initial investigation, but his emotions lent a force to his words. His demands that legislators take action on behalf of the Johnson family were echoed by everyone in attendance.
Dr. Johnson spoke in conclusion, describing for the audience some of the difficulties he has encountered in trying to bring LaVena's story to official attention, and also describing welcome and vital assistance from such people as activist and retired Army Colonel Ann Wright. It was Col. Wright who helped open doors in Congress for the Johnsons when they recently traveled to Washington, including direct access to Rep. Ike Skelton, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.
The session concluded with some statements and questions from people in attendance. VFP announced that the home page of their website would provide contact information for Rep. Skelton and his assistant, Kyle Wilkins, and implored everyone to contact them to request official action on LaVena's case.
Brief personal note: It was at once both heartening and humbling to see firsthand the way in which people have been moved by LaVena Johnson. The petition to the two Armed Services Committees is a part of the effort, but only one part. There are other people and other forces at work here. Realizing that puts you in your place a little bit. It's also a comfort.
Apologies for the day's delay in putting this post together. I hope to provide some video from the event soon. Many, many thanks to moderator Lionel Nixon of the African Newsletter, to the Gateway Greens and the Universal African Peoples Organization, and to the good folks at Legacy Books & Cafe. As always, thanks for your attention, and your own efforts.
My Tuesday post "For the Record," has been linked a lot over the past couple of days, and there seem to be a couple misconceptions that I want to quickly clarify.
1. I wasn't saying anything critical about Obama. Not overtly, not obliquely, not sarcastically. My reference to "the breathtakingly awesome celebration of the first ever presumptive nominee of color, ZOMG" was sincere. That's major. It's important to me.
2. I was never a Clinton supporter. I was never an Obama supporter. Or, if you prefer, I was both a Clinton and Obama supporter. I endorsed John Edwards, and I did not endorse either Clinton or Obama after he dropped out. I'm not a partisan Democrat—I've never been a member of the party, as it's way more centrist than I am—and I generally take the position of a defensive supporter of any Democratic candidate rather than an offensive one, which is why you'll find a Sexism Watch and Racism Watch, but not a "Here's why I love Hillary" or "Here's why I love Barack" series. That's been my personal approach. Other contributors to Shakesville declared for one or the other and blogged in favor of them, and that was fine with me.
3. A few people have questioned the premise that there has been a lot of sexism used against Clinton in the progressive blogosphere. Here is a thread that documents just a small percentage of it.
4. A few people have also taken issue with my conflating Clinton being pushed out of the race with misogyny. I've previously addressed that here.
5. The post was not about Clinton losing. In fact, it wasn't really about the election at all, per se, except insomuch as Clinton's candidacy served as a big fat target for public misogyny. That's why it's really, really, really not about Clinton supporters being sad that Clinton lost, or even about Clinton supporters at all. It was about the women specifically (and feminists/womanists generally) who had seen this spectacular display of Misogyny: Unleashed! and, irrespective of whom they were supporting, were upset at how the primary had played out with regard to sexism.
(That doesn't mean all women, or all feminist/womanists. It means those who experienced this thing.)
6. Finally, and most importantly, I want to address some concerns raised by women of color about my post. I don't think that Hillary Clinton becoming the nominee, or even the president, would have ended institutional misogyny, either. I don't think it would have ended sexual violence or harassment or domestic abuse or pay disparities for women of any color. I don't think it would have thrown wide the doors for any woman to follow in her footsteps. I don't think it would have been any kind of panacea at all. It's a symbol—and, to my mind, not a symbol of acquired power (although it may be that, it's certainly not the most important thing, because that really doesn't mean squat to average women), but a symbol of sex equity that is meaningful whether it's the first female president, or the first woman to make manager at the mill, or…
I don't think those sorts of things are consolation prizes, and I don't think they erase the effects or pain of bigotry. In my estimation, they merely give the struggle some meaning, or maybe just some hope. I regard them much the way I regard doing advocacy about sexual assault; writing about that stuff is hard, and it doesn't for a moment diminish what happened to me; sometimes, frankly, writing about it only intensifies what lingering pain there is; but it also, for me, gives purpose to what happened to me. Advocacy, the possibility to make someone question the rape culture and the chance to provide a safe space for people to talk about their own experiences with sexual assault, doesn't make everything okay; but it matters.
That's where my thinking was on the last part of my post. I apologize for making people feel like their concerns didn't matter, that they didn't matter. I appreciate your thoughts, and I'm trying.
I'm aware that the commenting system isn't working at all right now. What makes this more interesting is that all the Disqus servers at disqus.com seem to be down as well. Obviously, I'm hoping this is temporary.
Word has been sent out to the Disqus folks, so I hope to have an answer for everyone soon.
Update: As you can see, Disqus is back online. Apparently, they experienced a "server hiccup." Sorry for freaking everyone out. :)
Welcome to Shakesville, a progressive feminist blog about politics, culture, social justice, cute things, and all that is in between. Please note that the commenting policy and the Feminism 101 section, conveniently linked at the top of the page, are required reading before commenting.
I was rummaging through my things the other day and came across this wonderful item: Criswell Predicts: From Now to the Year 2000!, a book published in 1968 cataloguing some of the infamous seer's more "fanciful" prophecies.
