TWO FROM UBER-TEXAN MOLLY IVINS

We had an archival photo call tonight after the show, and I've got some reading to do for my movement class (T'Ai Chi Classics by Wayne Liao), so I'm giving Real Art short shrift this evening. Instead, read these two insightful essays by the always insightful and amusing super Texan Molly Ivins.

Both are from AlterNet.

Dick Cheney Goes Hunting

I am not trying to make a big deal out of a simple hunting accident for partisan purposes -- just thought it was a good chance to pay tribute to old Harry, a thoroughly decent man. However, I was offended by the never-our-fault White House spin team. Cheney adviser Mary Matalin said of her boss, "He was not careless or incautious (and did not) violate any of the (rules). He didn't do anything he wasn't supposed to do." Of course he did, Ms. Matalin, he shot Harry Whittington.

Which brings us to one of the many paradoxes of the Bush administration, which claims to be creating "the responsibility society." It's hard to think of a crowd less likely to take responsibility for anything they have done or not done than this bunch. They're certainly good at preaching responsibility to others -- and blaming other people for everything that goes wrong on their watch.

Click here for the rest.

Impeachment: The Cure For Executive Excess

Gonzales kept trying to frame the issue as a question of whether or not a domestic spying program without warrants is illegal -- in fact, it is against the law. Gonzales maintained that the law is superseded by some unwritten constitutional power due the president during time of war and further that Congress had authorized warrantless spying when giving the president the authority to invade Afghanistan. Strange, so few who voted for invading Afghanistan recall having warrantless spying in mind.

One problem of legal logic is to "define war." We have not been attacked by another nation -- in fact, we were clearly the aggressors against Iraq. We were attacked by a private group of ideological zealots led by a Saudi millionaire. This war -- against no nation, flag or territory -- can presumably last indefinitely, like our wars against drugs and crime.

Barbara Jordan observed:

"[Impeachment] is designed to 'bridle' the executive if he engages in excesses…. The Framers confined in the Congress the power, if need be, to remove the president in order to strike a delicate balance between a president swollen with power and grown tyrannical, and preservation of the independence of the executive…. 'A president is impeachable if he attempts to subvert the Constitution.' "

Click here for more.

Stay tuned for Friday Cat Blogging tomorrow, and some other post which only exists in theory at the moment.

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Willie Nelson releases an ode to gay cowboys

From the AP via the Houston Chronicle:

The song, which became available exclusively through iTunes Tuesday, features choppy Tex-Mex style guitar runs and Nelson's deadpan delivery of lines like, "What did you think all them saddles and boots was about?" and "Inside every cowboy there's a lady who'd love to slip out."

The song, which debuted Tuesday on Howard Stern's Sirius Satellite Radio show, was written by Texas-born singer-songwriter Ned Sublette in 1981 — long before this year's Oscar-nominated Brokeback Mountain made gay cowboys a contemporary topic.

Sublette said he wrote the song during the Urban Cowboy craze and always imagined Nelson singing it.

Click here for the rest.

Well, it's about time. Yay, Willie!!!

When I was younger and homophobic, I laughed and lauged when I learned about the existence of gay kicker bars. It struck me as absurd, the thought of hypermasculine guys in boots, hats, and big belt buckles two stepping around the dance floor. Then, after working and living with homosexuals for years, I got over my homophobia. Then I met some gay kickers. Strangly, or perhaps not so strangely, I still get a humorous kick out of the thought of gay cowboys, although now I feel like I'm lauging with the lavender buckaroo set rather than at them. I love the challenge they present to the conventional wisdom about masculinity and down home values; I love thinking about straight kickers being totally freaked out by it all.

What a wonderful world we live in.

Here are the lyrics:

Cowboys Are Frequently, Secretly (Fond of Each Other)

There's many a strange impulse out on the plains of West Texas;
There's many a young boy who feels things he don't comprehend.
Well small town don't like it when somebody falls between sexes,
No, small town don't like it when a cowboy has feelings for men.

Well I believe in my soul that inside every man there's a feminine,
And inside every lady there's a deep manly voice loud and clear.
Well, a cowboy may brag about
things that he does with his women,
But the ones who brag loudest
are the ones that are most likely queer.

Cowboys are frequently secretly fond of each other
What did you think those saddles and boots was about?
There's many a cowboy who don't understand
the way that he feels towards his brother,
Inside every cowboy there's a lady who'd love to slip out.

Ten men for each woman was the rule
way back when on the prairie,
And somehow those cowboys must have
kept themselves warm late at night.
Cowboys are famous for getting riled up about fairies,
But I'll tell you the reason a big strong man gets so uptight:

Cowboys are frequently secretly fond of each other
That's why they wear leather, and Levi's and belts buckled tight.
There's many a cowboy who don't understand
the way that he feels towards his brother;
There's many a cowboy who's more like a lady at night.

Well there's always somebody who
says what the others just whisper,
And mostly that someone's the first one to get shot down dead:
When you talk to a cowboy don't treat him like he was a sister
Don't mess with the lady that's sleepin' in each cowboy's head.

Cowboys are frequently secretly fond of each other
Even though they take speed and
drive pickups and shoot their big guns;
There's many a cowboy who don't understand
the way that he feels towards his brother;
There's many a cowboy who keeps quiet about things he's done.

Yee-hah!

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Two implanted with silicon chips
Use believed to be first on living humans in the U.S.

From the AP via the Houston Chronicle:

Tiny silicon chips were embedded into two workers who volunteered to help test the tagging technology at a surveillance equipment company, an official said Monday.

The so-called RFIDs — for radio frequency identification chips — are similar to ones Mexico's attorney general had implanted in some employees in 2004 to allow them to enter restricted areas.

Implanting them in workers at CityWatcher.com is believed to be the first use of the technology in living humans in the U.S. Sean Darks, chief executive of the company, has one of chips used to access secure vaults.

Click here for the rest.

Am I the only American, that is, out of Americans who don't wear tin foil hats, who is troubled by this? I'm not worried by the classic implant-as-control-device concept as much as I am about the potential for the government, insurance companies, schools, and employers to require people in their thrall to use such devices to keep track of their comings and goings. Generally, informed people worry about the potential misuse of national identification cards, which is what's going on in Britain right now. But national ID cards are nothing compared to what might happen with these tracking implants. Imagine insurance companies cancelling coverage because you drive through the wrong side of town too often for their tastes, or schools busting kids for being too close to a fight, or the government creating a list of people who go to anti-war rallies, or employers insisting that their workers be home by ten o'clock every evening so they can be more productive on the job. Think it'll never happen? In my lifetime I've watched the whole drug testing phenomenon take on a weird veneer of respectablility. Now days it seems like anybody with a halfway decent sounding excuse can demand your urine for proof of your purity whether you do drugs or not: believe what you want, that's a major violation of privacy, and everybody's okay with it. A proliferation of tracking implants would follow roughly the same course. Advocates would advance some kind of bogus argument, and a portion of the population and government would buy it. Somehow, it'll pass Constitutional muster, and, presto, we're all wearing implants if we want to participate in society.

Christ, we really are headed toward fascism.

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WAS CHENEY DRUNK?

From Thought Crimes courtesy of Eschaton:

Alert reader StickDog at DU caught this tidbit. When first posted, NBC news quoted Katharine Armstrong as saying:

"There may be a beer or two in there," she said, "but remember not everyone in the party was shooting.".

About an hour later, the quote was deleted from the story.

Click here for the rest.

You know my first thought about Cheney's accident was that it was interesting but of no political significance. Sadly, hunting accidents are part of the sport, and, while unfortunate, are bound to happen when you have guys with guns running around trying to kill animals--don't get me wrong; after reading about how the meat industry functions in the book Fast Food Nation, I developed a great deal of sympathy for hunters, who are positively humane in comparison. I still think there's probably not anything to the story as far as politics goes, but this beer thing's got my spider-sense tingling. No, I don't think Cheney was drunk, but I wonder why NBC felt it had to eliminate the reference to alcohol being on the scene. I'm curious. It could be an innocuous editorial decision, but it could also be a wrong-headed attempt to help out the Veep--after all, NBC is owned by GE, one of the top weapons manufacturers in the world, a pillar of the military-industrial complex that President Eisenhower warned us about decades ago. Or, worse, perhaps the White House made a couple of phone calls. There might be a political angle to this after all, some sort of cover-up. Or not. I'll keep my ears on this story and see what happens.

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THE DAILY SHOW GOES NUTS ON
VEEP CHENEY'S HUNTING ACCIDENT

Here's a sample from Crooks and Liars courtesy of Eschaton:

Corddry : "Jon, tonight the Vice President is standing by his decision to shoot Harry Whittington. Now according to the best intelligence available, there were quail hidden in the brush. Everyone believed at the time-there-were-quail in the brush. And while the quail turned out to be the 78 year old man. Even knowing that today, Mr. Cheney insists-he still would have shot Mr. Whittington in the face.

Click here to see a really, really, really funny ten minute clip from the show.

The Daily Show is usually pretty funny, but this story, for them, was like shooting fish in a barrel. Or birds in the bush, something like that. Anyway, go check it out. I was laughing hysterically by the time the footage from the old Nintendo game Duck Hunt came up. Then I almost wet my pants. FUNNY!

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WHITE HOUSE KATRINA FAILURES CONTINUE

From the AP via the Houston Chronicle:

Audits: Millions of dollars in Katrina aid wasted

In its rush to provide Katrina disaster aid, the Federal Emergency Management Agency wasted millions of dollars and overpaid for hotel rooms, including $438-a-day lodging in New York City, government investigators said today.

Two reports released by the Government Accountability Office and the Homeland Security Department's office of inspector general detail a series of accounting flaws, fraud or mismanagement in their initial review of how $85 billion in federal aid is being spent.

And

Sen. Susan Collins, who chairs the committee, decried the findings, noting that a series of audits and hearings after hurricanes in Florida in 2004 highlighted similar accounting problems and had called on then-FEMA director Michael Brown to make immediate changes.

"The problem, once again, is that FEMA failed to prepare for the very type of disaster that happens every year," said Collins, R-Maine. "This 'pay first, ask questions later' approach has been an invitation to unscrupulous behavior."

More here.

And from the New York Times courtesy of Eschaton:

White House Knew of Levee's Failure on Night of Storm

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Bush administration officials said they had been caught by surprise when they were told on Tuesday, Aug. 30, that a levee had broken, allowing floodwaters to engulf New Orleans.

But Congressional investigators have now learned that an eyewitness account of the flooding from a federal emergency official reached the Homeland Security Department's headquarters starting at 9:27 p.m. the day before, and the White House itself at midnight.

And

Representative Thomas M. Davis III, Republican of Virginia, chairman of the special House committee investigating the hurricane response, said the only government agency that performed well was the National Weather Service, which correctly predicted the force of the storm. But no one heeded the message, he said.

"The president is still at his ranch, the vice president is still fly-fishing in Wyoming, the president's chief of staff is in Maine," Mr. Davis said. "In retrospect, don't you think it would have been better to pull together? They should have had better leadership. It is disengagement."

One of the greatest mysteries for both the House and Senate committees has been why it took so long, even after Mr. Bahamonde filed his urgent report on the Monday the storm hit, for federal officials to appreciate that the levee had broken and that New Orleans was flooding.

And

The day before the hurricane made landfall, the Homeland Security Department issued a report predicting that it could lead to a levee breach that could submerge New Orleans for months and leave 100,000 people stranded. Yet despite these warnings, state, federal and local officials acknowledged to investigators that there was no coordinated effort before the storm arrived to evacuate nursing homes and hospitals or others in the urban population without cars.

More here.

Apart from Federal Katrina failures, what these two stories have in common is that the White House fully knew about potential problems well before they happened. In the case of FEMA relief money mismanagement, they had over a year to correct their earlier mistakes, but did nothing. In the case of the levee breaches, they knew it could happen, but were unprepared, and even though they were well informed about it when it actually came to pass, they did nothing. At least, nothing at first. It took about three days of freak-out televison reporting, even from Fox, to shake Bush's people out of their bizarre trance. Even then, their reaction was more about covering up their failure than it was about helping New Orleans.

This kind of incompetence doesn't just happen. It's pretty clear that Bush's White House really doesn't take governing seriously. After a quarter century of Republican sloganeering about such concepts as "government is the problem" and "tax relief" for the wealthy, the GOP seems to be more concerned with dismantling the federal government and handing over the pieces to wealthy donors than it is with the general welfare of the nation. Most people think that, at least, Bush's heart is in the right place, if not his head, but they're quite wrong: the problems of the nation simply don't matter to him.

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QUIS CUSTODIET IPSOS CUSTODES
Means "Who Polices the Police?"

From the Houston Chronicle:

Air marshals in Houston face drug charges

Two U.S. air marshals face federal drug charges after being arrested last week, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's Office said today.

The names of the air marshals or details about what they were arrested for were not released by authorities.

However, Time Magazine's Web site said the air marshals were allegedly involved with the possession or transportation of cocaine and may have received thousands of dollars for their work.

The magazine said one of those arrested is a former Drug Enforcement Administration agent.

Click here for the rest.

Hmmm. I have to say that this does not make me feel safer from terrorists. It strikes me that if these guys, hired by the Bush administration to protect air travellers, can be bribed by drug money, then they can also be bribed by terrorists. Certainly, not every air marshall is a rotten egg, but this potential opening for terrorism fits into an overall pattern of Bush failures on homeland security: the lack of protection for chemical and nuclear power plants, the guy who got through customs from Canada carrying the bloody chainsaw that he used to commit murder there, the infamous botched response to Hurricane Katrina, and a whole lot more, all serve notice that our tough-guy, "bring 'em on," Muslim-fighting President is simply not concerned with keeping Americans safe.

This analysis doesn't even begin to address the problems with police culture that might have enhanced the arrogance of these air marshalls enough to get them to work for the other side. But I've railed away on that topic many times in the past.

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WILLIAM SAFIRE'S "ON LANGUAGE"
Getting it Right: 'Hell' is undergoing reheckification

For shame: two posts in two days inspired by conservative essays. How's that for bipartisanship? At any rate, this is from William Safire's whimsical column about the English language; usually, the former Nixon administration speechwriter stays away from ideology when writing these essays.

From the New York Times via the Houston Chronicle:

Language mavens, however, will focus on the president's repeated use of the euphemism heck. Revisiting the scene of Hurricane Katrina's devastation in January, he sought to help regenerate the New Orleans tourism industry by recommending the city as "a heck of a place to bring your family." The Washington Post editorially sniffed at the way he was "deploying the same infamous turn of phrase." The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel columnist Eugene Kane warned viewers of the State of the Union address, "If Bush uses 'darn' or 'heck' as an adjective to describe a person, place or thing, have a drink. If he uses heck or darn more than once ... that means he's in his folksy mode."

We have a language anomaly here: The euphemism is taken to be offensive, while the harsh word being avoided — in Bush's case, and with apologies to the sensitive or reverent reader, hell — is presumably more acceptable.

Click here for the rest.

I did imply a couple of days ago that I love dirty words. Same thing with euphemisms.

I totally agree with Safire's implication; Bush can say "heck" and "darn" whenever the hell he wants to, damn it. What does it matter, even if the evil one is pandering to his fundamentalist base by doing so? The real words, "hell" and "damn," have become so commonplace that they've lost a great deal of their original punch, so much so that euphemizing them is no longer really all that necessary. Consequently, these old-school substitutes take on new meaning. That is, they have become colloquial, and therefore more "of the people." At the same time, they come in quite handy as far as severity of meaning is concerned. And that's exactly how I use them here at Real Art. Sometimes "damn" or "hell" is exactly what I mean, and so I say it. Other times, I'm feeling more down-to-earth, or don't want to hit it so hard. "Heck" and "darn" are just as good as their evil cousins, and it's pretty unfair to bash Bush for using them.

Really, snide remarks about his use of folksy language only serve to lessen the impact of real criticisms of our boy-king. That is so like the mainstream press: ignore the real issues and attack the inconsequential.

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NSA WIRETAPPING AND BLACKMAIL
Who Will Save America?

I've been reading the essays of old school conservative Paul Craig Roberts on and off for a few years now--it's nutty, but most of his stuff I get from a website run by old school communist Alexander Cockburn, CounterPunch. Roberts is a vociferous critic of the Bush administration and is very easily mistaken for a liberal because of that. But make no mistake about it; Roberts' analysis comes from a very different point of view. The guy was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury under Reagan, and later an associate editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page, a total supply-sider.

Given my conservative past, it's not so strange, I guess, that I find myself agreeing with him often, although certainly not always, and not just because he appears to hate Bush. Roberts stands as a stark reminder that there are still very strong intellectual, conservative challenges to progressive ideas, despite the fact that nobody else seems to be articulating them anymore. Roberts reminds me that I'm less of a liberal and more of a pragmatist. That is, I have a certain set of social goals, food, clothing, shelter, and health care for all, for instance, that I want to see achieved, but I don't really care how we get there: if conservative programs can do it, then sign me up. It just so happens that most conservatives don't really seem to care about my social goals, so it's progressivism for me, for now.

Here's a sample about what I'm talking about from an essay where Roberts appears to be attempting to clarify where he stands ideologically.

From CounterPunch, courtesy of Crooks and Liars, courtesy of Once Upon a Time:

My goals were to reverse the Keynesian policy mix that caused worsening "Phillips curve" trade-offs between employment and inflation and to cure the stagflation that destroyed Jimmy Carter's presidency. No one has seen a "Phillips curve" trade-off or experienced stagflation since the supply-side policy was implemented. (These gains are now being eroded by the labor arbitrage that is replacing American workers with foreign ones. In January 2004 I teamed up with Democratic Senator Charles Schumer in the New York Times and at a Brookings Institution conference in a joint effort to call attention to the erosion of the US economy and Americans' job prospects by outsourcing.)

The supply-side policy used reductions in the marginal rate of taxation on additional income to create incentives to expand production so that consumer demand would result in increased real output instead of higher prices. No doubt, the rich benefitted, but ordinary people were no longer faced simultaneously with rising inflation and lost jobs. Employment expanded for the remainder of the century without having to pay for it with high and rising rates of inflation. Don't ever forget that Reagan was elected and re-elected by blue collar Democrats.

That's the most compelling explanation of supply side economics, or "Reaganomics," that I've ever encountered. Stagflation, or economic recession combined with inflation, was a horrible problem back in the 70s that threatened to utterly destroy the entire economy. Nobody but nobody appeared to have an answer for how to deal with it; the problem was completely unprecedented. Expanding production capacity by giving tax breaks to business was brilliant in this situation; coupled with a hike in interest rates to ease inflation, Reaganomics apparently took care of the rest.

Don't get me wrong on this. Generally, I'm opposed to such a thing. But sometimes you've gotta do things you wouldn't ordinarily do in order to avoid catastrophe. Stagflation, which appeared to be an unsolvable problem, was just such an occasion: what was appropriate then is definitely not appropriate now--stagflation, as Roberts observes, has not been an issue since the late 70s.

Of course Roberts makes observations that are just nutty, too, and mixes them with fairly true statements just to confuse:

My book, with Lawrence Stratton, The Tyranny of Good Intentions, details the erosion of the legal rights that make law a shield of the innocent instead of a weapon in the hands of government. Without the protection of law, rich and poor alike are at the mercy of government. In their hatred of "the rich," the left-wing overlooks that in the 20th century the rich were the class most persecuted by government. The class genocide of the 20th century is the greatest genocide in history.

Is he talking about China or the Soviet Union? Frankly, he's off his rocker when he asserts that "in the 20th century the rich were the class most persecuted by government." That didn't happen in the US. The rich were certainly under fire at points, but persecuted? No way. Nonetheless, his ideas about law as a shield as opposed to a governmental weapon are right on.

I can only attribute his feelings for the poor and suffering rich as ideological bias; he is a conservative, after all.

But, generally, his analysis seems untroubled by his ideology. Check this out:

Before flinching at my assertion of blackmail, ask yourself why President Bush refuses to obey the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The purpose of the FISA court is to ensure that administrations do not spy for partisan political reasons. The warrant requirement is to ensure that a panel of independent federal judges hears a legitimate reason for the spying, thus protecting a president from the temptation to abuse the powers of government. The only reason for the Bush administration to evade the court is that the Bush administration had no legitimate reasons for its spying. This should be obvious even to a naif.

The United States is undergoing a coup against the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, civil liberties, and democracy itself. The "liberal press" has been co-opted. As everyone must know by now, the New York Times has totally failed its First Amendment obligations, allowing Judith Miller to make war propaganda for the Bush administration, suppressing for an entire year the news that the Bush administration was illegally spying on American citizens, and denying coverage to Al Gore's speech that challenged the criminal deeds of the Bush administration.

The TV networks mimic Fox News' faux patriotism. Anyone who depends on print, TV, or right-wing talk radio media is totally misinformed. The Bush administration has achieved a de facto Ministry of Propaganda.

The years of illegal spying have given the Bush administration power over the media and the opposition. Journalists and Democratic politicians don't want to have their adulterous affairs broadcast over television or to see their favorite online porn sites revealed in headlines in the local press with their names attached. Only people willing to risk such disclosures can stand up for the country.

Click here for the rest.

He may be wrong; this is clearly speculation. But he's absolutely correct about the kind of power that comes from the ability to listen in on citizens' private communications, and blackmail is nothing new in American politics--longtime FBI head J. Edgar Hoover managed to maintain his position through numerous administrations with blackmail, and LBJ kept Hoover in check by blackmailing the blackmailer himself!

Like I said, I don't agree with everything Roberts says, but I love him because he's willing to constrain his rhetoric and analysis with something that both liberals and conservatives are increasingly less willing to use, intellectual honesty.

Could you imagine what our country would be like if everybody was willing to be honest with themselves?

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THEY LIKE US; THEY REALLY LIKE US

Glowing reviews for the show I'm doing just keep pouring in...

From the New Orleans Times-Picayune:

A '10' FOR 'TENNESSEE'
Pearls before Swine Palace audience in Baton Rouge

Lightning streaks across the sky as thunder and fearful storm sounds are heard.

Gradually, the lighting comes up on the detritus of what Tennessee Williams called "the most splendid city in the world."

The stage is dominated by the elevated, outsized, tattered head of the Rex jester, as emblematic of loss as the Statue of Liberty in the original "Planet of the Apes." The piles of rubble include louvered shutters, the stripped chassis of a car, a dressmaker's dummy, piles of chairs, an ornamental fountain cracked in half and the inevitable refrigerator.

In "Tennessee Williams in QUARTER Time," the playwright and his characters appear in excerpts from his plays, poetry, letters and essays that summon the actual and emotional storms that wind through his work.

Tempests appear in his plays as early as 1937's "Spring Storm" and as late as 1982 in "A House Not Meant to Stand." John Dennis, director of the master of fine arts acting program at Louisiana State University, wanted to do a Katrina-influenced Williams collage that would highlight Williams' "deep-rooted connection to the Gulf Coast and his beloved New Orleans," seeing his vulnerable heroes and heroines as "evacuees from their surroundings."

The result is a masterful mosaic of Williams' words and themes, providing a topical overlay and evocative subtext.

Click here for the rest.

And from the independent student-run newspaper the Tiger Weekly:

Remembering Tennessee

But the utmost credit must be paid to Director John Dennis. He truly captured this production with every aspect. The thematic elements seen throughout added to the personification of Williams and his work. The gritty, raw and dirty set design, combined with the tattered, muddy costumes the actors dawned, was as reminiscent of New Orleans as are the extravagant characters Williams brought to life through his poetic imagery.

Dennis and the entire cast and crew of this production did their homework. They found the voice, tone and candor of such a prominent playwright. And that is no small task to take on.

Whether you know everything or nothing at all about Tennessee Williams, I have no doubt that you will enjoy this production.

Click here for the rest.

I think this production is really striking an emotional chord with local audiences. It feels like most of the rest of the country has put the destruction of New Orleans on the back burner. But here in Baton Rouge, we're thinking about it every day--obviously, it's not in our face the way it is in the Big Easy itself, but it's still the biggest story in the news here, still the most widespread topic of conversation. It's painful, this collective angst, this feeling of loss that just won't go away, this sense of abandonment. It really blows me away when I meditate on how our little collection of Williams scenes inspired by his time in New Orleans offers our audiences a real experience of catharsis in the ancient Greek sense.

We finish the show with a quick two-part dance routine. It opens with the entire cast entering from waaay upstage, moving in spasmodic jerks like zombies, to a groovy bass line. As we approach the audience, we encounter Mardi Gras beads on the floor and slowly put them on. Then the music breaks into a traditional New Orleans jazz tune, and we begin to joyfully move in Big Easy style, concluding our trip downstage with a mass free form dance near our viewers. This has been getting a spontaneous round of applause lately: a shared celebration of the once and future New Orleans, the eventual triumph of reconstruction. It's almost as though you can feel the audience thinking "Right on!"

For me, this is what the theater is all about, indeed, what art is all about. I've written at great length about how I believe that all art should possess an ideological component, and this show certainly does do that, albeit subtly. But Quarter Time, I think, ultimately transcends all that, cutting directly through to the human soul, serving to heal the tattered psyches of Louisiana that have been beaten down by both Mother Nature and incompetent human leadership.

You know, the more I think about it, the more proud I am to be along for the ride.


Andrea Frankle (Blanche) and Joseph H. Chrest (Mitch) performing “A Street Car Named Desire”

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FRIDAY CAT BLOGGING

Frankie



Paz



Phil



Sammy



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Bitch

This is hysterical.

From Wikipedia:

A bitch is a female dog or other member of the canidae family. In colloquial use, the word bitch is often employed in a metaphorical sense to either insult a woman, or to describe one who is malicious, spiteful, domineering, intrusive, and/or unpleasant (it may also refer to an effeminate male). The former specialised meaning is retained and in widespread use among dog aficionados and breeders, but derogatory usage has become so prevalent in the last century that the term has acquired a profane connotation and is often considered unacceptable by broadcasting regulations and Standards & Practices manuals.

By extension, the adjective "bitchy" — unpleasant, fretful or querulous — and the verb "to bitch" — to complain, especially habitually and without any helpful intentions — are also used, although they are widely considered less offensive than the noun. The verb "to bitch" also has a slang definition: to humiliate or subjugate another, as in "Ali totally bitched Foreman during the Rumble in the Jungle". Neither the adjective or the verb are normally used in formal language.

Click here for the rest.

And it just gets better from there. You know, because they are not part of the formal English lexicon, dirty words are the most flexible in our language. I'm sure you've read at least a couple of missives on the multiple uses of the F-word; indeed, George Carlin was hitting on the topic back during the mid 70s. It's nice to note that such humor still works.

Actually, this is a fairly informative essay, too.

Pretty bitchin' if you ask me.

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TAX CUT INSANITY

I generally don't do this, but one of the two essays to which I linked yesterday really made me want to comment, but I just didn't have time last night, thus, the quickie twofer. So now I'm going to comment. Don't worry I won't run on.

Anyway, it's about time a mainstream "liberal" pundit like E. J. Dionne hit on the Republican obsession with tax cuts. Even I have to admit that tax cuts do, indeed, stimulate the economy. I mean, that's just common sense: tax cuts work in pretty much the same way as the old-school Keynesian assertion during the Great Depression that the federal government should pump tax dollars right back into the economy in order to stimulate growth. That is, freeing up money means more people are spending money, which means either greater demand or greater supply depending on what you're targeting.

So tax cuts work. The question very few people seem to be asking is how well they work. Or for how long the stimulus lasts. Or what kinds of cuts are going to be the most effective. Or what sector of the economy will yield the most overall economic benefit. A few people do ask such questions, but not very loudly these days. Listening to GOP rhetoric on the issue leaves the impression that all tax cuts are good, which is simply not true. For instance, a new massive tax cut for corporations that have mined the tax laws for as many loopholes as possible, and in effect pay virtually no income taxes at all, won't do a damned thing for the economy--indeed, this hurts the economy by forcing the federal government deeper into debt, which has severe economic ramifications.

But the Republicans just don't care. They are now, and have been for a long time, the party of tax cuts, or "tax relief," as Bush has taken to calling them. Further compounding the problem is that, it seems to me, Republicans consciously use tax cuts to reward wealthy donors while using rhetoric that makes it sound as though they're somehow helping average ordinary citizens. That's truly fucked, because as business taxes and taxes on the wealthy decrease, personal taxes increase. In other words, tax cuts, in political practice, have nothing to do with stimulating the economy. It's all about making the rich richer and everybody else poorer. That is, in the hands of the GOP, tax cuts are an act of class warfare. No surprise there: conservatives have been waging class warfare since the beginning of this nation. And usually they win.

Like I said, tax cuts can be a genuine part of an overall strategy to stimulate the economy depending on how they are configured. But tax cuts at all costs is insanity.

What on earth are the Republicans going to do when there are no taxes left to cut?

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TWO FROM WORKING FOR CHANGE

One of those busy nights again. So check out these two essays from Working For Change.

tax cuts at all costs

Never again would the Republican Party compromise and "relive the agony of a budget agreement" that involved tax increases. That is definitely "behind us."

Ever since Bush 41's defeat in 1992, Republicans -- especially Bush 43 -- committed themselves to the proposition that they will never, ever cross the tax-cutting Republican right. Taxes will be cut in good times and in bad. They will not be raised, no matter how much the government decides to spend. If preserving Republican unity requires throwing the entire cost of the war in Iraq onto the next generation, go for it. Does the Pentagon need big spending increases? Fine, but don't even think about paying for them with new taxes.

Tax cutting is now the idol of the Republican shrine.

Click here for the rest.

Class is a harder line to cross than color

Undoubtedly, though, King would also be struck by the failure of his followers to carry on the campaign he started shortly before he died. Class is a harder line to cross these days than color.

Perhaps a nation with a short attention span just lost patience. Or perhaps that crusade never gained currency because the problems were more complex than we imagined, lacking the good vs. evil story line of the civil rights movement. Whatever risks lay before the civil rights soldiers, whatever obstacles they faced, their cause was simple enough.

Not so with the complexities of educational failure, drug dependency or falling marriage rates, all of which contribute to sink people into poverty and keep them there. A March on Washington wouldn't stop music producers from pumping out lyrics that glamorize thug culture, nor would pickets stop teenage girls from having children they can't take care of.

Click here for the rest.

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LSU BACKS DOWN ON THREAT
TO BOOT ANTI-RACISM ACTIVIST

Updating this post from last Thursday.

Well, after threatening last week to expel the student activist who has been the most vocal opponent of LSU's policy of tolerance for the mixing of school spirit and racism, there have been a few developments.

First this from LSU's student newspaper the Reveille:

Black faculty defends Phillips

In the letter, which was co-signed by 13 faculty members, the members asked Albert to reconsider the charges because “[Phillips’] actions do not necessarily elevate to the sorts of behaviors prohibited by the LSU Code of Student Conduct.”

The letter describes Phillips as a leader and says the University should be celebrating or at least quietly tolerating his actions.

“In our opinion, students will conclude that Mr. Phillips is being punished because his views oppose those of the administration,” the letter said.

Click here for the rest.

Then this, again from the Reveille:

Students petition for Albert's resignation

Rousell said he started the petition because he was upset about the way Albert handled recent diversity issues and her interactions with students.

The petition ended by asking Albert to resign from her position with the University.

The petition described Albert’s actions toward Collins Phillips III, who was charged with Student Code of Conduct violations regarding his leadership of protests against the purple and gold Confederate flag.

The petition said her actions were “an unfair, unfounded and extreme misuse of power.”

Click here for the rest.

God only knows what else has been going on behind the scenes, but I can't help but think that those two stories above have something to do with this story below.

Again from the Reveille:

University drops charges against Phillips

Phillips said University officials dropped the charges because “it would be best for both sides.”

He said he was told the charges were officially dropped because “no progress was being made on the current situation with the amount of attention it was receiving.”

Phillips said he was presented with paperwork that explained when and where each violation occurred that dated back to last semester’s Confederate flag protests.

“It disturbed me that every centimeter of a move that the SEC made was being documented,” Phillips said.

Phillips said the documented violations were not completely accurate.

When asked if he thought the Code of Student Conduct was compliant with First Amendment rights, Phillips said he thought he could get in trouble for answering the question truthfully.

Several times throughout Phillips’ interview, Phillips told The Daily Reveille that he was frustrated because he could not say what he wanted without fear of consequence.

Click here for the rest.

If you don't already know, Katrice Albert is the university's vice provost of equity and diversity, and she's the one who issued the libel charges against student anti-racism activist Collins Phillips. I'm not surprised that the charges were dropped because all Phillips said was something to the effect that Albert isn't doing her job, an assertion with which I agree: essentially there was no case; Phillips has not only a right but also a responsibility as a student to criticize university officials. However, it's pretty clear now that the motivation behind these bogus charges was not to remove a pest; rather, this was all about scaring him into silence, and it sounds like the effort may have been successful.

This whole sordid tale has been outrageous. LSU should be going nuts trying to find a way to get the purple and gold Confederate battle flag off campus without violating the first amendment. Instead, they tolerate these racist banners and pound the critics of their wrong-headed policy. Ultimately, Albert isn't so much to blame herself; she's apparently trying to do what she believes is her job, which makes her a pawn of much bigger institutional fish. That is, it seems pretty clear that LSU's upper administration fears alienating the money that keeps the school going. Consequently, they've chosen to tolerate these southern swastikas so as to not offend the wealthy donors who embrace the flag. I know they're in a pinch, but that doesn't matter: a university is a beacon for intellectuality and cultural diversity; the Confederate battle flag stands in stark contradiction to such a principle. Either LSU does it's damndest to find a way to greatly decrease the flag's visibility on campus or this university is a sham of a school.

And if that means that I get less money and fewer tuition breaks from the university then so be it. If my funding is coming from old school Louisiana racists, I don't want it. It's dirty money.

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SUPER BOWL NOTES

I said yesterday that I would talk about the Stones' halftime performance today, which I will, but a couple of other issues came up regarding the NFL championship game, so I've decided to put together something of a grab bag post.

Here goes.

For starters, I got a couple of interesting comments on yesterday's post. First my old pal Matt:

Man, the refs gave Pittsburgh that win. Highway robbery!

You know, it was probably because I was rooting for the Steelers that the officials' calls didn't seem so out of line to me. However, that was just my overall impression--I tried to remember some of the calls, and it wasn't an easy thing to do. I remember a pass interference call against Seattle in the first half that I discussed with the people with whom I was watching the game; our consenus was that it was pretty strict officiating, but within the letter of the rules. On the other hand, the Seahawk defender barely touched the Steeler receiver, so I understand that my subjective understanding of the call is arguable. My guess is that there were probably a few more penalties falling into this subjective category for me, but I just don't recall them.

Does anybody else out there in Real Art land agree with Matt? I'd like to hear about some more dubious penalties, ball spots, etc.

My buddy from Baytown, Adam, made this observation:

How 'bout that dude on the Seahawks who's from Baytown, I had no idea until he said his name and then "Baytown, Texas", my dad said he went to Lee.

OF COURSE he went to Lee. After all, Lee is Baytown's traditional football powerhouse; my and Adam's school, Sterling, is lucky to break even on the season. I like to think that if we'd won a few more games, teaching there wouldn't have been so bad. Anyway, how's that Lee quarterback who plays for Iowa doing? He's got a couple of years of college eligibility left. Anybody think he'll make it into the draft?

Onto the Stones. It's nice to know that the old guys can still rock. And it was a rocking performance. Really rousing performances of a couple of Rolling Stones standards: their rendition of "Satisfaction" was better than the 60s single I thought, much heavier, lots more guitar distortion. I was unfamiliar with the second song "Rough Justice" because its on their new album, which I haven't heard yet, but virtually every review of it I've read says it's a new classic. I really ought to get it.


Mick's still got it.

I spent nearly twenty four hours being disappointed by a moment of what I thought was self-censorship during the opening song "Start Me Up," which is now a bigtime sports anthem. Jagger's got a line toward the end of the song that goes "you make a dead man come," which used to make me giggle back when the song was on the charts in the early 80s. What everybody heard last night, however was simply "you make a dead man..." I figured, oh well, they made their decision on the subject back in the 60s when they sang "let's spend some time together" on the Ed Sullivan show instead of the more familiar "let's spend the night together." Bad boys they may be, but when a lot of money is on the line, they're obviously team players, and, no doubt, the TV people are still freaked out by Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction" a couple of years ago. But, man, if Paul McCartney was able to make a drug reference during halftime last year, in the line from "Get Back" that goes "Jo Jo left his home in Tuscon Arizona for some California grass," why couldn't Mick say "come?"

Turns out, however, that I was completely wrong. Jagger did sing the naughty line. ABC bleeped it. From the Houston Chronicle:

Stones, the edited version

They might not have flashed any body parts — except for Mick Jagger's well-toned stomach — but the Rolling Stones made ABC glad it imposed a five-second tape delay on the Super Bowl halftime show.

Two sexually explicit lyrics were excised from the rock legends' performance Sunday. The only song to avoid the editor was (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction, a 41-year-old song about sexual frustration.

In Start Me Up, ABC's editors silenced one word, a reference to a woman's sexual sway over a dead man. The lyrics for Rough Justice included a synonym for rooster that the network also deemed worth cutting out.

Click here for more, although I've excerpted entirely the only bit about the Stones; the rest is mostly about the game.

Not knowing "Rough Justice," I didn't realize it had been censored. So, I'm not really angry with ABC--they did the wrong thing, but I understand why. On the other hand, I'm damned proud of the Stones' sense of artistic integrity. Standing firm on what one believes is, perhaps, the most important virtue an individual can have in these days of illusion and lies. I just love it when aging icons give me reason to think that disillusionment might not be such a good idea.



Strangely, nobody seems to care about the overt sexuality of the Stones well known tongue icon. I feel pretty certain that the image is not supposed to be some sort of juvenile insult: no, the big tongue is about oral sex, or at least, that's what I've always thought. After all, the logo was designed by pop artist Andy Warhol at around the same time, I think, that he designed the cover to the Stones album Sticky Fingers, which is essentially a picture of Jagger's crotch, complete with a working zipper. I guess people only see what they want to see.

It's also nice to note that Keith Richards is still alive. Well, okay, he's actually been dead since the 70s, but the voodoo that keeps his body animated seems to still be in full force.



Where can I get some of that?

Finally, I'm giving the final word the whole event to Noam Chomsky, courtesy of Mike over at This is not a compliment, courtesy of Little Miss Messycovers, courtesy of...well...somebody else. From the documentary film Manufacturing Consent:

And in fact it's striking to see the intelligence that's used by ordinary people in [discussions of] sports [as opposed to political and social issues]. I mean, you listen to radio stations where people call in -- they have the most exotic information [more laughter] and understanding about all kind of arcane issues. And the press undoubtedly does a lot with this.

You know, I remember in high school, already I was pretty old. I suddenly asked myself at one point, why do I care if my high school team wins the football game? [laugbter] I mean, I don't know anybody on the team, you know? [audience roars] I mean, they have nothing to do with me, I mean, why I am cheering for my team? It doesn't mean any -- it doesn't make sense. But the point is, it does make sense: it's a way of building up irrational attitudes of submission to authority, and group cohesion behind leadership elements -- in fact, it's training in irrational jingoism. That's also a feature of competitive sports. I think if you look closely at these things, I think, typically, they do have functions, and that's why energy is devoted to supporting them and creating a basis for them and advertisers are willing to pay for them and so on.

Click here for the rest.

God, Chomsky's so brilliant. Two important points. First, Americans actually are pretty darned intelligent; it's just that all their brains are successfully diverted into rather meaningless pursuits. If all the intellectual ability in this country was actually used in service of the nation, I think we'd be living in a much better place. Second, football is fascist. This is no joke. The entire culture of football is organized like the military, and the metaphor of the game itself is war. Glorifying football is glorifying war and top-down authortirianism; there's no doubt about it. I guess that's why so many players and coaches are conservative. But god, I love football. If we had a healthier society, one that had a better understanding of democracy, we'd probably not be so influenced by the fascism of football, so I don't think it's the game itself. Nonetheless, I have to call a spade a spade: for our current society, football, as a social force, makes things worse, not better.

Of course, I never think about any of that while watching a game.

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FROM THE REAL ART SPORTS DESK
Steelers top Seahawks to win Super Bowl XL

From the AP via the Houston Chronicle:

The Pittsburgh Steelers finally gave coach Bill Cowher some Super Bowl satisfaction.

Moments after the Rolling Stones rocked a Ford Field filled with Terrible Towels, Willie Parker broke a record 75-yard touchdown run, sparking Pittsburgh's 21-10 victory today over the Seattle Seahawks.

Not only did the Steelers earn that elusive fifth championship ring and their first since 1980, but they completed a magic Bus ride that made Jerome Bettis' homecoming - and farewell - a success.

"I'm a champion. I think the Bus' last stop is here in Detroit,'' Bettis said. "It's official, like the referee whistle.''

Click here for the rest.

Being a longtime AFC man, I was supporting the Steelers, so I have to say that I was pleased by the outcome. I also like the Steelers because they were a worthy foe to my beloved Houston Oilers back in the late 70s--we never could get past those guys, never could "kick the son of a bitch in" as Oiler coach Bum Phillips once said about getting through the door to the Super Bowl. But then, I didn't really care who won. I'm just not as excited about the pros as I am about college ball. However, what I did get to see was a pretty good game. After the super-blowouts of the 90s, I'm pretty much always happy to see a competitive Super Bowl. And I really love a low-scoring defensive match.

There were other cool aspects. Bill Cowher, currently the longest serving coach with a single team, is a classy guy, and a lot of fun to watch on the sidelines. I've been watching him coach for years, but for some reason I still think of him as one of those young guys--that's not really the case anymore, but I tend to see him as being more from my generation than from those snotty baby boomers. And watching Jerome Bettis play his last game was great, too. He's always amazed me. As big as a lineman, he runs like a guy half his size, and tends to mow down guys half his size, too.

The Stones were good, too, much better than Paul McCartney was last year, but I'll try to write about that tomorrow.


Jerome Bettis, a.k.a. "the Bus," plows right on through a bus stop.

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Studies by Texas Cancer Registry find
18 ZIP codes with results above average

From the Houston Chronicle:

Yet each woman fits into a complex puzzle of cancer data that the Texas Department of State Health Services' Texas Cancer Registry has been studying for the past 10 years. Each year the database has grown until now epidemiological studies can include 10 years of cancer deaths and eight years of cancer cases.

From September 2001 to the present, the registry has conducted 51 studies in the Houston area, and 18 of those, or 35 percent, identified ZIP codes with cancer rates higher than should be expected when compared with statewide rates.

Of all the types of cancer, lung cancer was by far the most frequently found to be elevated. The registry detected higher rates of lung cancer in 24 ZIP codes — or 77 percent of all the ZIP codes with elevated levels.

Neil Carman, clean-air director for the environmental group Sierra Club, said he is surprised the test results had not been publicized before the Houston Chronicle analyzed cancer patterns turning up in these reports.

And for the first time, a pilot study is being initiated to try to link the registry's epidemiological data with possible environmental exposures.

"I've talked to citizens in Houston, and they have been wanting more research in light of all the air pollution in the Houston area," Carman said. "In the past, there seems to have been a history of ignoring these issues."

And, for me, here's some really disturbing news:

Lung cancer elevations also were detected in multiple ZIP codes in Pasadena (77502, 77503, 77506) and Houston (77049, 77015, 77017, 77044).

Click here for the rest.

I lived in the 77015 ZIP code area for the six years I was teaching in Baytown. The above excerpted article goes through all sorts of contortions to point out that nobody knows whether these lung cancer spikes are due to any environmental causes--smoking is mentioned repeatedly. But, after living there for so long, and because I'm not constrained by any journalistic ethics requiring me to be "balanced," I'll go out on a limb and just say that this has to be environmental. I smelled the gunk coming in from the plants almost every day I lived on that side of town; sometimes the noxious fumes were near-overpowering. I also know that the EPA, for many years, but especially in the Bush era, has relied on companies to self-report their toxic emission levels because the agency is so wildly underfunded that they simply don't have the manpower to check things out for themselves: because it costs a lot of money to reduce toxic emissions, there is a built-in incentive for companies to lie about the gunk they pump into the atmosphere. I already knew that I was breathing in deadly shit on Houston's east side. Now I know for sure that there are deadly consequences for many of my neighbors. And maybe for me, too. It's utterly screwy to hem and haw about whether these emissions are dangerous. While the powers that be "debate" the problem, tens of thousands of people are being poisioned. That really pisses me off.

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FAREWELL AL LEWIS

From the AP via the Houston Chronicle:

Al Lewis, aka Grandpa Munster, dies at 95

But Lewis' life off the small screen ranged far beyond his acting antics. A former ballplayer at Thomas Jefferson High School, he achieved notoriety as a basketball talent scout familiar to coaching greats like Jerry Tarkanian and Red Auerbach.

He operated a successful Greenwich Village restaurant, Grandpa's, where he was a regular presence — chatting with customers, posing for pictures, signing autographs.

Just two years short of his 90th birthday, a ponytailed Lewis ran as the Green Party candidate against incumbent Gov. George Pataki. Lewis campaigned against draconian drug laws and the death penalty, while going to court in a losing battle to have his name appear on the ballot as "Grandpa Al Lewis."

He didn't defeat Pataki, but managed to collect more 52,000 votes.

Click here for the rest.

Missing from this article is the fact that Lewis was great friends with one of my great heroes, Paul Robeson, after whom Lewis' son Paul was named. (Full disclosure: I knew Paul briefly years ago, when he dated a friend of mine from college who he eventually married.) Also missing is the fact that Lewis shared Robeson's radical politics. Grandpa Munster was as far-left as they come, and used his fame to support progressive causes, making him, in my book, one of the great examples of a Real Artist. On a more personal note, I loved his work as an actor. Lewis was one of those old-school comedic actors coming out of Vaudeville, which produced some of America's all-time greatest entertainers--there are very few performers today who have the kind of chops these people had. Losing Lewis hits both the progressive community and the entertainment community hard.

Farewell Al Lewis.



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FAREWELL BETTY FRIEDAN

From the AP via the Houston Chronicle:

Betty Friedan, philosopher of modern-day feminism, dies

Betty Friedan, whose manifesto The Feminine Mystique helped shatter the cozy suburban ideal of the post-World War II era and laid the groundwork for the modern feminist movement, died today, her birthday. She was 85.

Friedan died at her Washington, D.C., home of congestive heart failure, according to a cousin, Emily Bazelon.

Few books have so profoundly changed so many lives as did Friedan's 1963 best seller. Her assertion that a woman needed more than a husband and children was a radical break from the Eisenhower era, when the very idea of a wife doing any work outside of house work was fodder for gag writers, like an episode out of I Love Lucy.

Independence for women was no joke, Friedan wrote. The feminine mystique was a phony deal sold to women that left them unfulfilled, suffering from "the problem that has no name" and seeking a solution in tranquilizers and psychoanalysis.

Click here for the rest.

Betty Friedan would have been a hero to me simply for her work as a pioneering feminist--after all, she, like actor and civil rights activist Paul Robeson, spoke out against establishment values pretty much by herself; feminists following Friedan did so within the overall context of the women's movement: Friedan was, at first, a feminist by herself, totally on her own. However, my love for her as a philosopher greatly grew when I realized that the concept of "the problem that has no name" could quickly and easily be generalized to include the majority of the American population. That is, the materialistic lifestyle and philosophy known as consumerism, and the ongoing reduction of the labor force to meaningless service work have created a similar situation for all Americans: as human beings, every individual has a great deal to offer society, but the social order in which we currently live simply does not allow that. We are to do as we are told while working at pointless, soul-sucking jobs, and personal fulfillment is to be found by amusing ourselves with television or buying shiny objects at the mall. I think many Americans are doing exactly what they think they're supposed to be doing with their lives but are miserable anyway, and have no idea why. The whole freakin' country is burdened by "the problem that has no name."

Farewell Betty Friedan. You did more with your life, I think, than most people realize.



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BATON ROUGE THEATER
REVIEWER GETS HIS STRIDE

You may or may not recall my trashing the local daily's theater critic here in Baton Rouge last semester. He actually gave us some pretty positive write-ups, butI've had some big problems with his writing, which struck me as incoherent at best, and horrible at worst. Well, it looks like he finally understands how to write a theater review.

From the Baton Rouge Advocate:

Play powerfully presents some of Williams’ best works

When Tennessee Williams died in 1983, the New York Times obituary noted that the playwright would be remembered for his “deep sympathy and expansive humor about outcasts in our society.”

Thanks to Hurricane Katrina, thousands of New Orleanians were cast out of the city that Williams not only loved, but where he set some of his most famous works.

Which is precisely what makes Swine Palace’s latest production, “Tennessee Williams in Quarter Time,” so deeply personal and hauntingly evocative to anyone affected by the disaster. The scenes from his various plays, some taking place in New Orleans, stand as bold testament to the place’s rich history and its profound impact on American literature and culture.

Director John Dennis is to be commended for conceiving of and bringing to the Reilly’s stage, in such a short amount of time, a production that serves as a powerful reminder of just what’s at stake should New Orleans be forgotten.

That Dennis packaged the work so expertly is one of the chief strengths of “Quarter Time.” The play is like a perfectly wrapped gift, opened gingerly out of respect for its marvelous presentation.

Click here for the rest.

You have to understand that my problems with this guy have little to do with whether or not he liked the play; rather, I've railed away on his work because he seems to have known little about the theater as an artistic medium, and because he seemed unwilling to do any homework before seeing a show. This is not the case here. The reviewer deftly fills in the background on the show, and offers some well supported analysis as to why he thinks it works--a little bird told me that he recently attended a theater critics' seminar in California, and it shows. There are no cheap shots here, no brainless self-indulgent musing, just a simple and straightforward essay on the show's value and how successful it was, in his opinion.

Of course, it doesn't hurt that he liked it.

Anyway, check it out. I think this guy's figured out what he's doing.


Cristine McMurdo-Wallis, foreground, portrays Amanda in Tennessee Williams’ ‘The Glass Menagerie.’ Fellow cast members Anna Richardson and Mark Jaynes appear in the background. (photo courtesy of the Advocate)

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FRIDAY CAT BLOGGING

Phil, Frankie, Sammy



Paz



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LSU ADMINISTRATION ON WRONG
SIDE OF RACISM CONTROVERSY

First, some background. I mentioned here last October how numerous LSU football fans show up to games waving purple and gold Confederate battle flags like these:



These flags are quite simply offensive: they celebrate a racist and brutal regime philosophically based on the support of slavery as a social institution; I find them to be no different from the swastika--there are plenty of other ways southerners can show their pride without supporting the morally corrupt "nation" known as the Confederate States of America. LSU's administration has issued some lukewarm statements opposing the flag, but, citing free speech rights, claims it can do nothing more. Of course, they're completely wrong. I can think of several strategies short of banning the flag that could prove effective. For instance, the university could throw its massive weight and deep pockets behind a massive PR campaign aimed at making the flag socially unacceptable. Or they could buy and issue to any willing participants different flags that say something to the effect that real Tiger fans don't support the Confederacy. But they don't seem to be interested in that. In fact, it appears that LSU administrators simply want the controversy to go away.

And it seems that they've decided that the easiest way to do it is to silence those who are most vocally opposed to the racist image. So much for free speech.

From LSU's student newspaper, the Daily Reveille:

Collins Phillips hit with five sanctions

Collins Phillips, leader of the Student Equality Commission and last semester's flag protests, said that despite alleged violations of the University Code of Student Conduct, he will not be silenced.

Phillips has been charged by the Office of the Dean of Students for five separate counts of violating the University Code of Student Conduct. University officials would not comment on what disciplinary action would be taken but said consequences may range from expulsion to a warning.

And

Collins was first notified of his violation the evening of the protest in an e-mail from Katrice Albert, vice provost of equity and diversity. In the e-mail she requested an immediate meeting with Phillips, citing some comments Phillips made concerning her diversity agenda and staff.

In her e-mail, Albert alleged that Phillips called the diversity agenda “a bunch of B.S.” and called members of the University Equity, Diversity and Community Outreach staff “lazy.”

At the Jan. 25 meeting in the Quad, Phillips questioned the priorities of University administration. He said that it was wrong for the University to allow money to be spent on building renovations and clickers for Student Government when the University should focus its attention on disabled students and students' needs after hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

He also encouraged students to e-mail Chaunda Allen, director of the Office of Multicultural Affairs, and Albert to express concerns with changes in the schedule for Black History Month and the need for a new coordinator at the African American Cultural Center.

Phillips said Albert's accusation was based on hearsay because neither Albert or Allen were present at the meeting.

Click here for the rest.

Phillips shouldn't have to dance around on this. It doesn't matter whether the comments are hearsay or not: he can say these things. University administrators are government officials, and are consequently subject to less libel protection than private individuals. Further, students ought to make such accusations if they believe them to be true; such individuals, those who feel compelled to speak out against perceived injustice, are simply being good students, participating as model citizens of the university community. In short, these "conduct code violations" are trumped up bullshit charges.

They're out to get him.

Again from the Reveille:

E-mails may reveal intentions

During the course of the fall semester’s protests against the purple and gold Confederate flag, Katrice Albert, vice provost for equity and diversity, wrote several e-mails seeking advice on stopping the student protests. Albert sought the help of student leaders to deter Collins Phillips and others from continuing their protests.

The first protest was held Oct. 22, 2005, the day of the Auburn football game, and was followed by a march Oct. 24 from the Union to Chancellor Sean O’Keefe’s office. Two more marches were held on Oct. 29 and Nov. 5, also gamedays.

The Daily Reveille obtained the e-mails after a public records request was made for all e-mails sent and received by Albert during the time of the protests.

And

On Nov. 11, 2005, Albert wrote an e-mail to Michelle Gieg, Student Government president, asking her to encourage Phillips to stop the protests. It was one of numerous e-mails from Albert asking for help in quieting the protests and in some cases to quiet protesters themselves.

“I just need help convincing [Phillips] that enough is enough,” Albert said in the e-mail. “And that working within the system with people who are paid to fight for his cause can be more effective. I am hopeful that he will listen to you.”

Click here for the rest.

They're out to get Phillips; it's obvious. They want to kick him out of school because he is the leader of an anti-racist movement on campus that is embarrassing to LSU administrators. I am absolutely outraged. Right-wing fuckheads like David Horowitz rail away against campus "liberalism" nationwide, but down here in Baton Rouge it's like 1954--what's Horowitz worried about? Liberals aren't in charge here. This is just awful. A university should be a beacon for intellectuality and cultural diversity, but not only does LSU tolerate the mixing of racism and school spirit, it wants to do away with anybody who has a problem with it. I'm disgusted.

I sincerely hope that if they kick this guy out, students here have the balls to walk out of class in mass, and stay out until LSU gets its shit together.


A real hero: Collins Phillips, leader of the Student Equality Commission at LSU (photo courtesy of the Reveille)

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VIDEO: Failure of Social Security
Privatization Gets Standing Ovation

From Think Progress courtesy of Eschaton:

When President Bush first launched his campaign to privatize Social Security last year, just 39 percent of Americans approved of how he was handling the issue. A year later, that number has dropped to 35 percent.

The sentiments of the majority of Americans was voiced last night when President Bush brought up his privatization plans. Bush’s statement that “Congress did not act last year on my proposal” was met with rousing, unexpected applause that clearly unnerved Bush.

Click here to watch the video.

I don't even try to watch the State of the Union Address anymore. Whether it's a Republican or a Democrat, the speech itself or the opposition's response, it all strikes me as a bunch of posturing bullshit, meaningless and uninteresting political theater. But this event would have made the whole thing worth it. Hilarious! They wildly applauded a major Bush defeat. If this had been in a movie, I wouldn't have bought it at all. Fact is stranger than fiction.

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ANOTHER LOOK AT THE DEMOCRATS AND ALITO

Okay, so I saw Alito's confirmation as yet another justification for writing off the Democrats. Here's another point of view that I find compelling.

From Hullabaloo courtesy of the Daily Kos, a missive on the meaning of the twenty five senators who did vote to filibuster Alito:

Obama had to choke out his support for a filibuster, but he did it. A calculation was made that he needed to play to the base instead of the punditocrisy who believe that being "bold" is voting with the Republicans. Don't underestimate how much pressure there is to do that, especially for a guy like Obama who is running for King of the Purple. The whole presidential club, including Biden joined the chorus.

The last time we had a serious outpouring from the grassroots was the Iraq War resolution. My Senator DiFi commented at the time that she had never seen anything like the depth of passion coming from her constituents. But she voted for the war anyway. So did Bayh, Biden, Clinton, Dodd, Kerry and Reid. The entire leadership of the party. Every one of them went the other way this time. I know that some of you are cynical about these people (and ,well, they are politicans, so don't get all Claud Rains about it) but that means something. Every one of those people were running in one way or another in 2002 and they went the other way. The tide is shifting. There is something to be gained by doing the right thing.

Click here for the rest.

Very good point. Uplifting, too. Upon reflection, however, it strikes me as nutty that after everything the GOP has gotten away with for the past decade, from the bullshit impeachment of Clinton to the invasion of Iraq, the Democrats aren't fighting harder against them. Yes, these twenty five votes are something of a milestone, but meaningless in terms of things actually happening. It's going to take much much more for the Democrats to convince me that they're interested in anything more than being reelected.

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