Month: March 2012

what ugh said

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via russell, but by ugh ObWi regular and good buddy ugh posted this over on TiO.  I thought it was quite good – thoughtful, relevant, important topic.  I asked him if it was OK if I cross-posted it for him here.  He was cool with that, so here ya go.  NB: the "I" from here … Read more

Faulkner’s past and Trayvon Martin

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by Doctor Science

“The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” — William Faulkner, Requiem for a Nun

Like almost everyone else, I’ve been following the Trayvon Martin case. If you’ve been under a cozy rock, here’s a good summary from Think Progress, another from Mother Jones. Ta-Nehisi Coates’ perspective is invaluable. I haven’t felt I had much to add before now: I just noticed that the case is connected to one of my favorite books of last year.

In The Warmth of Other Suns, Isabel Wilkerson describes the world of Jim Crow and the Great Migration of black Americans to escape it in the still-bigoted North. One of the central characters of the book is George Swanson Starling, a citrus-picker living in Eustis, Florida.

And Eustis is only about 30 miles from Sanford, where Trayvon Martin was killed.

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debt

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by russell I was interested in finding out about student loan debt in the US.  It's huge now, larger than credit card debt.  Lots of young folks are starting out their professional lives tens (or more) of thousands of dollars in the hole. Yikes. While looking around on that topic, I ran across this bit … Read more

Mormon feminism

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by liberal japonicus Given the exciting back and forth in the comments, I am rushing this post to the site, though I have a friday open thread ready to go as well. Earlier, I commented on the strange conjunction of immigration support and the Mormon church. Well, the Guardian had this about feminism and the Mormon … Read more

act 13

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Pennsylvania Act 13 rewrites much of the PA Oil and Gas Act of 1984.  It is almost entirely addressed to natural gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale areas found within PA.  Among its provisions: Establish and/or strengthen environmental protections around well sites Require natural gas drilling companies to register the chemicals they use in their … Read more

Dame Edna retires

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by liberal japonicus

I tried posting this as a comment to my last post and it doesn’t seem to go, so I’ll make it a post

This piece in the Guardian about Dame Everage and her creator, Barry Humphries might be of interest to people thinking about fame in our modern society. 2 grafs

What began as a joke about Australian suburban delusion – Edna was initially a kind of Melbourne equivalent of Beverly in Abigail’s Party – gradually became a much edgier reflection on celebrity. Along with the artist Andy Warhol (who can be seen as a character actor of a less openly declared kind), Humphries precociously understood that, over the next few decades, fame would shift from being something rare and earned to becoming randomly available.

Decades before Big Brother and the internet, Humphries saw the humour in the unlikely and accidental celebrity. The biggest problem for the character comic is becoming trapped in a single vocal and visual joke – one reason that Paul O’Grady, for example, retired his Liverpudlian Edna, Lily Savage – but a spoof on celebrity has the advantage that fame naturally transmutes. Humphries brilliantly piled upon Edna all of the victories and defeats that contemporary celebrity offers: physical makeover, TV talkshow, volumes of memoirs, stadium venues, tragedy (the loss of husband Norm to prostate cancer), rehab and comeback. With each return, Edna was different, her genuine and increasing fame constantly feeding the material. Typically, the farewell tour now opens up a whole new set of jokes about showbiz retirement rituals.

A video below the fold

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To every time there is a season

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by Doctor Science Two seasonal or timely observations: A rare event: a Titan Arum flower opened yesterday at Cornell University: The bloom begins to open on Sunday, March 18, 2012. You can follow the flower’s brief but pungent life via livestreamed video. They’ll probably try to pollinate it sometime this morning. Meanwhile, far, far, FAR … Read more

What do you do?

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by liberal japonicus I found the arrest of George Clooney and the Jason Russell 'meltdown' (the Guardian's headline, not mine, so I'm not sure if it's the best way to describe it, but I'm at a loss for any other term) an interesting juxtaposition. Jason Russell, in case you didn't know, was the head of the charity … Read more