Forget Baghdad, a documentary film by Samir, tracks the complexities of “identity” in the Middle East. I caught it today at the Seattle Jewish Film Festival, after missing it last month at the Seattle Arab-Iranian Film Festival.
Samir, the director of Forget Baghdad, is a Shiite Muslim Iraqi emigre, living in Switzerland. (His father, an Iraqi Communist, had to flee the country to escape Saddam). In the film, he interviews four elderly Jewish Iraqi emigres, all ex-Communists, who were forced to leave Baghdad for Israel in 1951, when almost the entire Iraqi Jewish community was prevailed upon (by both the Iraqi and Israeli governments) to emigrate. (A fifth interviewee is Ella Shohat, born in Israel of Iraqi Jewish parents, and currently teaching film at NYU).
All the interviewees are articulate, and display very mixed emotions. They all miss Baghdad, and regret the disappearance of the multi-religious society that existed in Iraq (as in many parts of the Arab world) prior to 1948; they all feel their Arabness as fully as they do their Jewishness; they all have experienced discrimination in Israeli society, as Mizrahim (“Oriental” Jews) rather than Ashkenazim (European Jews).
By their accounts, no discrimination against Jews existed in Iraq before 1941, when a pogrom was unleashed by nationalist putsch against the pro-British monarchy, with support from the Nazis. (It remains true today: anti-Semitism, so-called, is a European import into the Arab world).
Forget Baghdad isn’t a great film, but it well demonstrates, once again, how the lines of ethnic and religious turmoil that bedevil the world today are not “age-old” rivalries, but modernist inventions. It shows, too, how “Jews” and “Arabs” are, culturally speaking, much closer kin than is usually acknowledged.
Forget Baghdad, a documentary film by Samir, tracks the complexities of “identity” in the Middle East. I caught it today at the Seattle Jewish Film Festival, after missing it last month at the Seattle Arab-Iranian Film Festival.
Samir, the director of Forget Baghdad, is a Shiite Muslim Iraqi emigre, living in Switzerland. (His father, an Iraqi Communist, had to flee the country to escape Saddam). In the film, he interviews four elderly Jewish Iraqi emigres, all ex-Communists, who were forced to leave Baghdad for Israel in 1951, when almost the entire Iraqi Jewish community was prevailed upon (by both the Iraqi and Israeli governments) to emigrate. (A fifth interviewee is Ella Shohat, born in Israel of Iraqi Jewish parents, and currently teaching film at NYU).
All the interviewees are articulate, and display very mixed emotions. They all miss Baghdad, and regret the disappearance of the multi-religious society that existed in Iraq (as in many parts of the Arab world) prior to 1948; they all feel their Arabness as fully as they do their Jewishness; they all have experienced discrimination in Israeli society, as Mizrahim (“Oriental” Jews) rather than Ashkenazim (European Jews).
By their accounts, no discrimination against Jews existed in Iraq before 1941, when a pogrom was unleashed by nationalist putsch against the pro-British monarchy, with support from the Nazis. (It remains true today: anti-Semitism, so-called, is a European import into the Arab world).
Forget Baghdad isn’t a great film, but it well demonstrates, once again, how the lines of ethnic and religious turmoil that bedevil the world today are not “age-old” rivalries, but modernist inventions. It shows, too, how “Jews” and “Arabs” are, culturally speaking, much closer kin than is usually acknowledged.
Richard C. Francis’ Why Men Won’t Ask for Directions is a powerful critique of sociobiology and evolutionary psychology that makes its points almost entirely in carefully worked-out scientific terms. That is to say, it doesn’t spend much time asking why, for instance, the evolutionary psychologists are so obsessed with tracking down supposed gender differences that are allegedly “in the genes”, as opposed to many other equally plausible research programs and subjects of interest. (This is an important question, but one that cultural critics can handle well enough by themselves). Instead, Francis gives a detailed and devastating critique of the (pseudo-)science behind all too many sociobiological claims.
Francis spends most of the book considering instances of sexual differentiation in vertebrate species other than human beings; this establishes a baseline for considering claims about the “innate” differences between men and women. He compares cases in which the differences between the males and females of a given species can convincingly be argued to be a direct result of natural selection and/or sexual selection, from those in which other, more proximate, explanations seem to fit the facts better.
Francis’ real target is extreme adaptationism: the doctrine that every observable characteristic of any organism needs to be understood as a direct adaptation of some sort. Of course, Richard Lewontin and the late Stephen Jay Gould started criticizing adaptationism way back in the 1960s. They introduced the ideas of exaptation (the transfer of a characteristic that evolved for one purpose, or in one context, to another context or purpose) and spandrels (features that have no adaptive purpose of their own, but exist as unavoidable side-effects of other features that did arise adaptively). Gould also famously criticized sociobiologists for their “just-so stories”: their tendency to argue on the basis of narratives of what primordial human conditions might or should have been like, even in the absence of any hard evidence for the truth of these narratives.
But Francis goes beyond Lewontin and Gould, to mount a more general attack on the teleological bias of adaptationist explanations: in asking “why-questions” (what is a particular feature of an organism for? what purposes does it serve?) at the expense of “how-questions” (how could a particular feature actually have arisen historically? what role does it have, given the previously-existing constraints that the organism faces?), adaptationist biology (and even more, its offshoot evolutionary psychology) has in effect reinstated the “argument from design” of pre-Darwinian “natural theology.”
In ignoring “how-questions,” adaptationists assert meaning and purpose without any ability to explain in causal and material terms how such meanings and purposes could possibly have come about. They separate the logic of adaptation from its material causation, just as cognitive scientists divorce “information” from its physical instantiation. For all their talk about “optimization” under ecological “constraints,” adaptationists ignore how the contingencies of history, and the constraints arising from how organisms are already “locked-in” to particular mechanisms and patterns of development, limit and channel evolutionary possibilities. (A parallel could be made, as well, to the way “free-market” economists ignore history, not to mention patterns of unequal power and distribution, in their quest to reduce everything to “efficiency”).
If extreme adaptationism is so problematic when it comes to discussing spotted hyenas and marsh tits and cichlids, how much more so is it when we come to consider human beings? Unlike certain “humanist”, idealizing opponents of sociobiology and evolutionary psychology, Francis doesn’t make his argument depend upon the supposed uniqueness of the human species. It is precisely on the grounds of recognizing human beings as biological organisms that we have to reject all this simplistic “biologizing.” Francis is devastating, for instance, in discussing how evolutionary psychologists make so much of sexual dimorphisms between men and women that are minute (if they exist at all) in comparison to such dimorphisms in other vertebrate species. And he underscores the importance of looking for social causes of physiological and psychological differences, not in defiance of biology, but precisely because of it. The largest irony here is that, not only do the adaptationists in effect replace Darwin with theology; they also ignore the basic facts of neurophysiology and endocrinology, in their efforts to proclaim essential, “hard-wired”, and transhistorical differences between men and women.
Richard C. Francis’ Why Men Won’t Ask for Directions is a powerful critique of sociobiology and evolutionary psychology that makes its points almost entirely in carefully worked-out scientific terms. That is to say, it doesn’t spend much time asking why, for instance, the evolutionary psychologists are so obsessed with tracking down supposed gender differences that are allegedly “in the genes”, as opposed to many other equally plausible research programs and subjects of interest. (This is an important question, but one that cultural critics can handle well enough by themselves). Instead, Francis gives a detailed and devastating critique of the (pseudo-)science behind all too many sociobiological claims.
Francis spends most of the book considering instances of sexual differentiation in vertebrate species other than human beings; this establishes a baseline for considering claims about the “innate” differences between men and women. He compares cases in which the differences between the males and females of a given species can convincingly be argued to be a direct result of natural selection and/or sexual selection, from those in which other, more proximate, explanations seem to fit the facts better.
Francis’ real target is extreme adaptationism: the doctrine that every observable characteristic of any organism needs to be understood as a direct adaptation of some sort. Of course, Richard Lewontin and the late Stephen Jay Gould started criticizing adaptationism way back in the 1960s. They introduced the ideas of exaptation (the transfer of a characteristic that evolved for one purpose, or in one context, to another context or purpose) and spandrels (features that have no adaptive purpose of their own, but exist as unavoidable side-effects of other features that did arise adaptively). Gould also famously criticized sociobiologists for their “just-so stories”: their tendency to argue on the basis of narratives of what primordial human conditions might or should have been like, even in the absence of any hard evidence for the truth of these narratives.
But Francis goes beyond Lewontin and Gould, to mount a more general attack on the teleological bias of adaptationist explanations: in asking “why-questions” (what is a particular feature of an organism for? what purposes does it serve?) at the expense of “how-questions” (how could a particular feature actually have arisen historically? what role does it have, given the previously-existing constraints that the organism faces?), adaptationist biology (and even more, its offshoot evolutionary psychology) has in effect reinstated the “argument from design” of pre-Darwinian “natural theology.”
In ignoring “how-questions,” adaptationists assert meaning and purpose without any ability to explain in causal and material terms how such meanings and purposes could possibly have come about. They separate the logic of adaptation from its material causation, just as cognitive scientists divorce “information” from its physical instantiation. For all their talk about “optimization” under ecological “constraints,” adaptationists ignore how the contingencies of history, and the constraints arising from how organisms are already “locked-in” to particular mechanisms and patterns of development, limit and channel evolutionary possibilities. (A parallel could be made, as well, to the way “free-market” economists ignore history, not to mention patterns of unequal power and distribution, in their quest to reduce everything to “efficiency”).
If extreme adaptationism is so problematic when it comes to discussing spotted hyenas and marsh tits and cichlids, how much more so is it when we come to consider human beings? Unlike certain “humanist”, idealizing opponents of sociobiology and evolutionary psychology, Francis doesn’t make his argument depend upon the supposed uniqueness of the human species. It is precisely on the grounds of recognizing human beings as biological organisms that we have to reject all this simplistic “biologizing.” Francis is devastating, for instance, in discussing how evolutionary psychologists make so much of sexual dimorphisms between men and women that are minute (if they exist at all) in comparison to such dimorphisms in other vertebrate species. And he underscores the importance of looking for social causes of physiological and psychological differences, not in defiance of biology, but precisely because of it. The largest irony here is that, not only do the adaptationists in effect replace Darwin with theology; they also ignore the basic facts of neurophysiology and endocrinology, in their efforts to proclaim essential, “hard-wired”, and transhistorical differences between men and women.
The World of Arthur Russell is the most gorgeous music I have heard in ages. Russell (1951-1992) was an 80s disco producer with an avant-garde/classical music background. (See Sasha Freire-Jones’ article in The New Yorker for background). All Russell’s songs have a driving disco beat, a rhythm that’s less straightforward than it might seem at first, but that makes them instantly accessible and infectious. At the same time, there’s always something about them that’s deeply weird: a bit of unexpected instrumentation, a vocal that just seems somehow off, an out-of-pace shift of tonality…
Russell’s music is too quirky and strange to be called simply “charming”; but too quicksilver to be taken ponderously. It seems just the right thing to be listening to right now, on one of Seattle’s (rare) sunny days; there’s always a tinge of melancholy, but one that only seems to enrich the music’s overall cheerfulness (cheerfulness in the Nietzschean sense, gai savoir).
The World of Arthur Russell is the most gorgeous music I have heard in ages. Russell (1951-1992) was an 80s disco producer with an avant-garde/classical music background. (See Sasha Freire-Jones’ article in The New Yorker for background). All Russell’s songs have a driving disco beat, a rhythm that’s less straightforward than it might seem at first, but that makes them instantly accessible and infectious. At the same time, there’s always something about them that’s deeply weird: a bit of unexpected instrumentation, a vocal that just seems somehow off, an out-of-pace shift of tonality…
Russell’s music is too quirky and strange to be called simply “charming”; but too quicksilver to be taken ponderously. It seems just the right thing to be listening to right now, on one of Seattle’s (rare) sunny days; there’s always a tinge of melancholy, but one that only seems to enrich the music’s overall cheerfulness (cheerfulness in the Nietzschean sense, gai savoir).
Jacki-O’s “Pussy” (or, in the censored-for-radio version, “Nookie”) is the latest rap song (following Lil Kim, Khia, and Missy Elliott, among others) in which a woman celebrates her “wet and deep” orifice.
What’s fascinating about Jacki-O’s song (and — depending upon your perspective — either deeply weird or all-too-symptomatic of normative conditions) is the balance it negotiates between pleasure on the one hand, and power and money on the other.
The lyrics mostly celebrate pussy power as what can “pay my bills… I don’t pay for weed, I get in clubs free… Girls, we got power cuz’ we got pussy.” Jackie-O boasts that men are just slobbering to sample what’s between her legs: “He need this pussy/ He smell this pussy/ He wanna taste this pussy/ You gotta pay for pussy.”
In hip hop’s current battle of the sexes, this is probably only to be expected, as a response to male power. Money continually trumps desire on both sides of the fence. (Remember, the most woman-positive thing Jay-Z can ever bring himself to say is: “ladies is pimps too.” And even Missy reminds her girls to “get your cash” when you are getting off). Still, there’s nothing here that matches Lil Kim’s demand for clitoral pleasure from her men (“How Many Licks”), or Missy’s gleeful hymn to the vibrator, thereby dispensing with men entirely (“Toys”). Jacki-O seems concentrated on cash and luxury (emphasized in the video), to the exclusion of all else.
Does the pussy have more than instrumental value for Jacki-O?
Here’s where, I think, the song means more (and differently) than the words. The music sets a heavy beat against an almost nursery-rhyme-like melody (reminiscent of the Ying Yang Twinz’ “Naggin'” (a misogynistic battle-of-the-sexes song itself, with a “Part 2” ladies’ response). This makes the song sillier, and more playful, than it would be with a different instrumental track. (“Pussy” mash-ups, anyone?) And Jackie-O’s sultry, slightly slurry voice suggests an immense narcissistic pleasure, rather than calculation for gain.
Where Missy is comfortably laughing and gossiping with her girlfriends, and where Lil Kim is both boasting to the world of her sexual prowess, and warning her men that they’d better have what it takes to keep her satisfied (all this amplified by the irony of the video for “How Many Licks,” which turns Kim into a series of commercial sex-toy dolls), Jacki-O sounds like she is only talking to herself. Which makes it seem like the cash is only an alibi for the pleasure, rather than the reverse.
Of course, as Freud (among others) says, nothing’s more seductive to heterosexual men than a woman who seems totally narcissistic and self-contained, so that apparently she doesn’t need them; so maybe Jacki-O’s voice in this song is really nothing more than a calculated ploy after all. And it works: she did indeed seduce me to buy her song for 99 cents (plus tax) from the Apple Music Store.
Which brings it all back to performance. We are always performing, calculatedly putting on various personas. But we cannot do this with impunity; we always become, to some extent, what we are merely pretending to be. Which is part of what popular music does for its listeners: it seduces us, it gives us points of identification and irony, as it slides from one identity to another, forever proclaiming authenticity in the most artificial, factitious way possible, exploring/exploiting the fault lines of our culture.
Jacki-O’s “Pussy” (or, in the censored-for-radio version, “Nookie”) is the latest rap song (following Lil Kim, Khia, and Missy Elliott, among others) in which a woman celebrates her “wet and deep” orifice.
What’s fascinating about Jacki-O’s song (and — depending upon your perspective — either deeply weird or all-too-symptomatic of normative conditions) is the balance it negotiates between pleasure on the one hand, and power and money on the other.
The lyrics mostly celebrate pussy power as what can “pay my bills… I don’t pay for weed, I get in clubs free… Girls, we got power cuz’ we got pussy.” Jackie-O boasts that men are just slobbering to sample what’s between her legs: “He need this pussy/ He smell this pussy/ He wanna taste this pussy/ You gotta pay for pussy.”
In hip hop’s current battle of the sexes, this is probably only to be expected, as a response to male power. Money continually trumps desire on both sides of the fence. (Remember, the most woman-positive thing Jay-Z can ever bring himself to say is: “ladies is pimps too.” And even Missy reminds her girls to “get your cash” when you are getting off). Still, there’s nothing here that matches Lil Kim’s demand for clitoral pleasure from her men (“How Many Licks”), or Missy’s gleeful hymn to the vibrator, thereby dispensing with men entirely (“Toys”). Jacki-O seems concentrated on cash and luxury (emphasized in the video), to the exclusion of all else.
Does the pussy have more than instrumental value for Jacki-O?
Here’s where, I think, the song means more (and differently) than the words. The music sets a heavy beat against an almost nursery-rhyme-like melody (reminiscent of the Ying Yang Twinz’ “Naggin'” (a misogynistic battle-of-the-sexes song itself, with a “Part 2” ladies’ response). This makes the song sillier, and more playful, than it would be with a different instrumental track. (“Pussy” mash-ups, anyone?) And Jackie-O’s sultry, slightly slurry voice suggests an immense narcissistic pleasure, rather than calculation for gain.
Where Missy is comfortably laughing and gossiping with her girlfriends, and where Lil Kim is both boasting to the world of her sexual prowess, and warning her men that they’d better have what it takes to keep her satisfied (all this amplified by the irony of the video for “How Many Licks,” which turns Kim into a series of commercial sex-toy dolls), Jacki-O sounds like she is only talking to herself. Which makes it seem like the cash is only an alibi for the pleasure, rather than the reverse.
Of course, as Freud (among others) says, nothing’s more seductive to heterosexual men than a woman who seems totally narcissistic and self-contained, so that apparently she doesn’t need them; so maybe Jacki-O’s voice in this song is really nothing more than a calculated ploy after all. And it works: she did indeed seduce me to buy her song for 99 cents (plus tax) from the Apple Music Store.
Which brings it all back to performance. We are always performing, calculatedly putting on various personas. But we cannot do this with impunity; we always become, to some extent, what we are merely pretending to be. Which is part of what popular music does for its listeners: it seduces us, it gives us points of identification and irony, as it slides from one identity to another, forever proclaiming authenticity in the most artificial, factitious way possible, exploring/exploiting the fault lines of our culture.
Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels has proposed an ordinance that mandates the city to recognize same-sex marriages performed elsewhere.
This is a step in the right direction.
However, County Executive Ron Sims still refuses to start granting marriage licenses to same-sex couples, saying: “There is nothing I can do. Governments cannot pick and choose which laws they’re going to enforce.” This is an evasion; Sims ought to grant the licenses, and to say, like San Francisco Mayor Newsome, that he is enforcing the equal protection under the law provisions of the state constitution. The state could then be sued if it refused to recognize the validity of such licenses.
Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels has proposed an ordinance that mandates the city to recognize same-sex marriages performed elsewhere.
This is a step in the right direction.
However, County Executive Ron Sims still refuses to start granting marriage licenses to same-sex couples, saying: “There is nothing I can do. Governments cannot pick and choose which laws they’re going to enforce.” This is an evasion; Sims ought to grant the licenses, and to say, like San Francisco Mayor Newsome, that he is enforcing the equal protection under the law provisions of the state constitution. The state could then be sued if it refused to recognize the validity of such licenses.
Karloff’s Circus is the fourth (and presumably last) novel in Steve Aylett‘s “Accomplice” series. Aylett is one of my favorite writers, but his books are so singular that they are extremely difficult to describe. They don’t fit into any known categories.
It’s sort of like Aylett is writing old-fashioned British farce, except that it is taking place somewhere that is considerably weirder than anything any of the Surrealists ever imagined. Bits and pieces of pulp fiction of various sorts pop up now and again, somehow rearranged by a crazed anatomist into grotesque new patterns. The books are hilarious, but with a humor that seems to be equal parts P. G. Wodehouse and William Burroughs (an impossible combination if there ever was one — Monty Python is the nearest analogue I can think of, but it doesn’t really come close).
Aylett creates imaginary worlds as rigorously and capaciously imagined as those of any of the great works of fantasy; but he does this comically, satirically, and sarcastically — qualities not usually associated with fantasy literature.
Aylett’s prose is unbelievably careful and precise. There are no wasted words; every sentence glistens with a hard, epigrammatic luster; every last detail is meaningful and carefully placed; and the books are all plotted out with the rigor of an Agatha Christie novel. Their nonsense, like that of Lewis Carrol, is rigorously logical, even if based on ridiculous premises.
Aylett’s novels have to be read very carefully, because details are never repeated to make things easy for the unattentive reader. In this way, Aylett’s books have a certain puzzle- and play-like aspect, in the manner of many modernist (Joyce, Faulkner) and postmodernist (Calvino, Perec) writers before him.
The Accomplice series is more difficult to get a handle on than Aylett’s “Beerlight” series, set in a futuristic American city where crime is the only occupation of the citizens, and the only art form (The Crime Studio, Slaughtermatic, and Atom), but not as dense and impenetrable as The Inflatable Volunteer, a book that could be described as sort of a punk version of Raymond Roussel.
The Accomplice books feature insectoid demons and corrupt politicians and guileless innocents who take venomous snakes out for walks because they just love animals. There are also battling religious sects (one worships guns, the other venerates porcelain dolls), and evil clowns, and “floor lobsters” (sort of like two-foot-long cockroaches). Amidst all this, the demented characters exchange pithy epigrams, in nasty exchanges and asides, as if they were at a Noel Coward tea party.
Karloff’s Circus is the fourth (and presumably last) novel in Steve Aylett‘s “Accomplice” series. Aylett is one of my favorite writers, but his books are so singular that they are extremely difficult to describe. They don’t fit into any known categories.
It’s sort of like Aylett is writing old-fashioned British farce, except that it is taking place somewhere that is considerably weirder than anything any of the Surrealists ever imagined. Bits and pieces of pulp fiction of various sorts pop up now and again, somehow rearranged by a crazed anatomist into grotesque new patterns. The books are hilarious, but with a humor that seems to be equal parts P. G. Wodehouse and William Burroughs (an impossible combination if there ever was one — Monty Python is the nearest analogue I can think of, but it doesn’t really come close).
Aylett creates imaginary worlds as rigorously and capaciously imagined as those of any of the great works of fantasy; but he does this comically, satirically, and sarcastically — qualities not usually associated with fantasy literature.
Aylett’s prose is unbelievably careful and precise. There are no wasted words; every sentence glistens with a hard, epigrammatic luster; every last detail is meaningful and carefully placed; and the books are all plotted out with the rigor of an Agatha Christie novel. Their nonsense, like that of Lewis Carrol, is rigorously logical, even if based on ridiculous premises.
Aylett’s novels have to be read very carefully, because details are never repeated to make things easy for the unattentive reader. In this way, Aylett’s books have a certain puzzle- and play-like aspect, in the manner of many modernist (Joyce, Faulkner) and postmodernist (Calvino, Perec) writers before him.
The Accomplice series is more difficult to get a handle on than Aylett’s “Beerlight” series, set in a futuristic American city where crime is the only occupation of the citizens, and the only art form (The Crime Studio, Slaughtermatic, and Atom), but not as dense and impenetrable as The Inflatable Volunteer, a book that could be described as sort of a punk version of Raymond Roussel.
The Accomplice books feature insectoid demons and corrupt politicians and guileless innocents who take venomous snakes out for walks because they just love animals. There are also battling religious sects (one worships guns, the other venerates porcelain dolls), and evil clowns, and “floor lobsters” (sort of like two-foot-long cockroaches). Amidst all this, the demented characters exchange pithy epigrams, in nasty exchanges and asides, as if they were at a Noel Coward tea party.
Well, my new PowerBook arrived today, and this is the first post that I am making with it. (I’m using ecto as my blogging client).
I was a Mac user for a long time, from c. 1991 to 1998; I switched to Windows because I wanted to have a really small laptop, 3 lbs or less — which didn’t (still doesn’t) exist for the Mac. But I missed the elegance and simplicity of the Macintosh aesthetic. Especially as OS X was developed, I felt that I was missing out on something I really wanted (though arguably — or just say, obviously — I didn’t need it, given that Windows XP does just about everything you need, albeit much more clunkily).
So finally, after looking at the state of my finances, and convincing myself through specious arguments that I could afford the additional charge on my credit card, I took the plunge.
The 12″ PowerBook is still too heavy (4.6 lbs) but I’m determined to carry it around with me everywhere anyway.
Well, my new PowerBook arrived today, and this is the first post that I am making with it. (I’m using ecto as my blogging client).
I was a Mac user for a long time, from c. 1991 to 1998; I switched to Windows because I wanted to have a really small laptop, 3 lbs or less — which didn’t (still doesn’t) exist for the Mac. But I missed the elegance and simplicity of the Macintosh aesthetic. Especially as OS X was developed, I felt that I was missing out on something I really wanted (though arguably — or just say, obviously — I didn’t need it, given that Windows XP does just about everything you need, albeit much more clunkily).
So finally, after looking at the state of my finances, and convincing myself through specious arguments that I could afford the additional charge on my credit card, I took the plunge.
The 12″ PowerBook is still too heavy (4.6 lbs) but I’m determined to carry it around with me everywhere anyway.
An interesting article by Eli Sanders in The Stranger (Seattle alternative weekly newspaper) this week points out that King County Executive Ron Sims and Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels have the administrative power to do what San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsome has done: authorize marriage licenses for gay and lesbian couples, and go to court to force the state to recognize the validity of such licenses. Of course, as Sanders also points out, Sims and Nickels are probably too lame and spineless to actually do this.
But it’s something they really ought to do, they really need to do. One thing that hasn’t been pointed out enough in all the press about the weddings in San Francisco is that social change never happens in a vacuum. Change comes when there is a cascade of events promoting it; it’s only at the very end of such a cascade of events that the law actually changes. The women’s suffrage movement of the early twentieth century, and the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, both exemplify this.
Recent events suggest that we have the chance of reaching a similar flash point, or tipping point, for equal marriage rights. Which is why I think that it’s imperative for Seattle, and other cities and localities throughout the country, to follow the lead of San Francisco (and Massachusetts and New Mexico). Politicians who say they want to wait for a more opportune moment (or whose mealy-mouthed equivocations, as in the case of John Kerry, imply such reasoning) need to realize that this is the opportune moment. If we don’t act now, Bush will probably get his odious constitutional amendment.
Not all injustices can be rectified overnight. Women’s suffrage did not eliminate sexism, and the civil rights movement did not eliminate racism. Nor will equal marriage rights eliminate homophobia. But when there is a rush of events opening up the prospect of of (even partial) freedom, it’s inexcusable not to seize the moment.
An interesting article by Eli Sanders in The Stranger (Seattle alternative weekly newspaper) this week points out that King County Executive Ron Sims and Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels have the administrative power to do what San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsome has done: authorize marriage licenses for gay and lesbian couples, and go to court to force the state to recognize the validity of such licenses. Of course, as Sanders also points out, Sims and Nickels are probably too lame and spineless to actually do this.
But it’s something they really ought to do, they really need to do. One thing that hasn’t been pointed out enough in all the press about the weddings in San Francisco is that social change never happens in a vacuum. Change comes when there is a cascade of events promoting it; it’s only at the very end of such a cascade of events that the law actually changes. The women’s suffrage movement of the early twentieth century, and the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, both exemplify this.
Recent events suggest that we have the chance of reaching a similar flash point, or tipping point, for equal marriage rights. Which is why I think that it’s imperative for Seattle, and other cities and localities throughout the country, to follow the lead of San Francisco (and Massachusetts and New Mexico). Politicians who say they want to wait for a more opportune moment (or whose mealy-mouthed equivocations, as in the case of John Kerry, imply such reasoning) need to realize that this is the opportune moment. If we don’t act now, Bush will probably get his odious constitutional amendment.
Not all injustices can be rectified overnight. Women’s suffrage did not eliminate sexism, and the civil rights movement did not eliminate racism. Nor will equal marriage rights eliminate homophobia. But when there is a rush of events opening up the prospect of (even partial) freedom, it’s inexcusable not to seize the moment.
Like everyone else, I kind of wish Nader weren’t running this year. I voted for him last time, but this year the only priority is to beat Bush, with no illusions as to the wonderfulness of whoever replaces him. At this point I am what used to be called a “yellow dog Democrat”: somebody who would even vote for a yellow dog over a Republican. I’d certainly prefer my own yellow dog as President to George W. Bush.
Considering only the major candidates, at this time I prefer Edwards to Kerry, only because Kerry is a walking corpse with zero charisma, and I think that Edwards has a better chance of winning. But it won’t happen; Kerry has the nomination locked up. As I’ve written here before, it’s a peculiar pathology of the Democratic Party that they try to make things as hard as possible for themselves, by going out of their way to nominate the least appealing (indeed, least competent) candidate they can find. Hence Mondale, Dukakis, Gore, and now Kerry. Bill Clinton is the sole exception.
Still, though I wish Nader would hang it up instead of making a fool of himself (since his totals are almost sure to be far lower than they were in 2000), I was sickened by Chris Matthews on Hardball last night, who basically told Nader that he was unqualified to run for President because 1)he is unmarried and has no children; 2)he doesn’t drive and doesn’t own a car; and 3)he rents an apartment, instead of owning a house or a condo. I guess parenting, driving, and home ownership constitute the minimum definition these days of what it means to be a “true American.”
And while I’m ranting: has anybody commented on how, at the same time that Bush is trying to stop people from getting married who desperately want to, he is also proposing spending $1.5 billion of taxpayers’ money in order to bully people into marrying who don’t want to?
Like everyone else, I kind of wish Nader weren’t running this year. I voted for him last time, but this year the only priority is to beat Bush, with no illusions as to the wonderfulness of whoever replaces him. At this point I am what used to be called a “yellow dog Democrat”: somebody who would even vote for a yellow dog over a Republican. I’d certainly prefer my own yellow dog as President to George W. Bush.
Considering only the major candidates, at this time I prefer Edwards to Kerry, only because Kerry is a walking corpse with zero charisma, and I think that Edwards has a better chance of winning. But it won’t happen; Kerry has the nomination locked up. As I’ve written here before, it’s a peculiar pathology of the Democratic Party that they try to make things as hard as possible for themselves, by going out of their way to nominate the least appealing (indeed, least competent) candidate they can find. Hence Mondale, Dukakis, Gore, and now Kerry. Bill Clinton is the sole exception.
Still, though I wish Nader would hang it up instead of making a fool of himself (since his totals are almost sure to be far lower than they were in 2000), I was sickened by Chris Matthews on Hardball last night, who basically told Nader that he was unqualified to run for President because 1)he is unmarried and has no children; 2)he doesn’t drive and doesn’t own a car; and 3)he rents an apartment, instead of owning a house or a condo. I guess parenting, driving, and home ownership constitute the minimum definition these days of what it means to be a “true American.”
And while I’m ranting: has anybody commented on how, at the same time that Bush is trying to stop people from getting married who desperately want to, he is also proposing spending $1.5 billion of taxpayers’ money in order to bully people into marrying who don’t want to?
You can find a list of websites that are making Danger Mouse’s Grey Album available for download at greytuesday.org. WIll EMI Records really be able to shut down all these sites? Illegal Art has had it up for several weeks now.
You can find a list of websites that are making Danger Mouse’s Grey Album available for download at greytuesday.org. WIll EMI Records really be able to shut down all these sites? Illegal Art has had it up for several weeks now.
