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Category Archives: culture
She worked hard for the money
Farewell, Donna Summer.
Her first big hit in the US came in 1975:
Read an overview of her life and musical success here.
Inadvertant “Family Guy” parody?
You be the judge.
TED starts self-censoring its own talks
TED (conference) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
TED, who’s slogan is “Ideas Worth Spreading” and who has provided hundreds of insightful speeches for years, has decided not to spread one idea. They are refusing to provide access to a talk by a speaker who argues that income inequality is bad for America.
The speaker was Nick Hanauer, and here is part of what he said:
We’ve had it backward for the last 30 years. Rich businesspeople like me don’t create jobs. Rather they are a consequence of an ecosystemic feedback loop animated by middle-class consumers, and when they thrive, businesses grow and hire, and owners profit. That’s why taxing the rich to pay for investments that benefit all is a great deal for both the middle class and the rich.
It is very odd, to say the least, for a forum for free expression to back away from one of their speakers.
After the Singularity
Changing media
(via Distinguished Baloney)
The more things change…
…the more they remain the same. Obama spoke out in favor of allowing same-sex marriage. At the same time, a woman in Lincoln, Nebraska, offered this rather incoherent ramble in opposition to a proposed LGBT anti-discrimination ordinance there:
(via Towelroad)
Mitt Romney at Cranbrook
Cranbrook School, in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, is, and long has been, a popular private college prep boarding school for the wealthy. So it is no surprise that Mitt Romney, son of auto-magnate and Michigan Governor George Romney, attended Cranbrook.
What may be surprising is that, while Mitt Romney attended the school, he and other students bullied a classmate for appearing different.
So I guess we shouldn’t be surprised that to this day Romney does not support full equality for gay people. In fact, the incident was so insignificant to Romney that he says he does not remember it. His “apology” is that standard political non-apology: if I hurt anyone, I apologize.
And when Romney was governor of Massachusetts, he actively fought against anti-bullying efforts:
Mitt Romney clashed with a state commission tasked with helping LGBT youth at risk for bullying and suicide throughout his term as Massachusetts governor over funding and its participation in a pride parade. He eventually abolished the group altogether.
“We remember well what Romney tried to do as governor of Massachusetts and we now we have more info on some of his own attitudes that may have led to his policy actions,” Eliza Byard, executive director of LGBT anti-bullying organization GLSEN, told TPM, drawing a connection with reports that Romney cornered a youth in high school and cut his hair. “If he’s willing to dismiss that incident as ‘hijinks,’ I could understand that he wouldn’t understand at all why this program was so critical.”
Related articles
- Mitt Romney was a homophobic bully in high school, say former classmates (boingboing.net)
- Inside Mitt Romney’s Prep School (abcnews.go.com)
- Cranbrook School And The Lord Of The Flies (blogs.the-american-interest.com)
Political quote of the day
At a certain point, I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married.
Meanwhile, Mitt Romney has pledged to support an amendment to the United States Constitution defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman. And yesterday, Romney said that he even opposes civil unions:
My view is the same as it’s been from the beginning. I don’t favor civil unions if it’s identical to marriage, and I don’t favor marriage between people of the same gender. If a civil union is identical to marriage other than with the name, why, I don’t support that.
The new American Dream
The new American Dream is to get to be very rich and still be regarded as a victim.
– Charles Simic, The Monster Loves His Labyrinth: Notebooks (via James Wolcott)
Dinosaurs are SCARY
Bigot of the day
So your little son starts to act a little girlish when he is four years old and instead of squashing that like a cockroach and saying, “Man up, son, get that dress off you and get outside and dig a ditch, because that is what boys do,” you get out the camera and you start taking pictures of Johnny acting like a female and then you upload it to YouTube and everybody laughs about it and the next thing you know, this dude, this kid is acting out childhood fantasies that should have been squashed.
Can I make it any clearer? Dads, the second you see your son dropping the limp wrist, you walk over there and crack that wrist. Man up. Give him a good punch. Ok? You are not going to act like that. You were made by God to be a male and you are going to be a male. And when your daughter starts acting to Butch you reign her in. And you say, “Oh, no, sweetheart. You can play sports. Play them to the glory of God. But sometimes you are going to act like a girl and walk like a girl and talk like a girl and smell like a girl and that means you are going to be beautiful. You are going to be attractive. You are going to dress yourself up.”
You say, “Can I take charge like that as a parent?”
Yeah, you can. You are authorized. I just gave you a special dispensation this morning to do that.
– South Carolina pastor Sean Harris. You can listen to the audio here.
Related articles
- “So your little son starts to act a little girlish when he is four years old and instead of squashing that like a cockroach…” (althouse.blogspot.com)
- Remember, Kids… (slog.thestranger.com)
Buddhism quote of the day
Tenzin Gyatso, the fourteenth and current Dalai Lama. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
It is quite strange – as non-believers, totally non-believers, atheists – showing interest about reincarnation. I jokingly tell them: In order to be involved in my reincarnation, firstly, they should accept Buddhism. Or religion. Or Buddhism. Then they should recognize Chairman Mao Zedong’s reincarnation. Deng Xiaopeng’s reincarnation. Then, they have reason to show some interest about the Dalai Lama’s reincarnation. Otherwise, nonsense!
– the14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, noting the folly of the Chinese government’s claim that it will identify his reincarnation. (via Boing Boing)
Service monkeys
The use of service monkeys for the disabled is a totally new concept to me. Here is one terribly moving story.
Sports quote of the day
In more than 20 years I’ve spent studying the issue, I have yet to hear a convincing argument that college football has anything do with what is presumably the primary purpose of higher education: academics.
That’s because college football has no academic purpose. Which is why it needs to be banned. A radical solution, yes. But necessary in today’s times.
Football only provides the thickest layer of distraction in an atmosphere in which colleges and universities these days are all about distraction, nursing an obsession with the social well-being of students as opposed to the obsession that they are there for the vital and single purpose of learning as much as they can to compete in the brutal realities of the global economy.
Who truly benefits from college football? Alumni who absurdly judge the quality of their alma mater based on the quality of the football team. Coaches such as Nick Saban of the University of Alabama and Bob Stoops of Oklahoma University who make obscene millions. The players themselves don’t benefit, exploited by a system in which they don’t receive a dime of compensation. The average student doesn’t benefit, particularly when football programs remain sacrosanct while tuition costs show no signs of abating as many governors are slashing budgets to the bone.
– Buzz Bissinger, author of Friday Night Lights.