30 Years Ago: This is Cultural Clash

I appreciate that Jody Rosen at Slate.com has taken a different path to assessing the “wonder” of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. I like what he has to say, the review is smart and attuned to all sorts of stuff, but it sets aside what is always the big question for me: what kind of politics did these sorts of albums own? In that vein, it seems especially noteworthy that this year is the 40th anniversary of The Beatles’ album, but also the 30th anniversary of The Clash’s self-titled first album. Here we are reminiscing about The Beatles. Here we aren’t thinking about The Clash.

We’re thinking about the band that was bigger than Jesus, but not the only band that matters.

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Michelle Obama campaign video

After all the hoopla about how Michelle Obama is too much a woman, not enough woman, etc., this video is pretty fun to watch (it’s after the jump).It’s an official Obama campaign video, and it’s really interesting in the way it manages to keep M’bama firmly in the loving wife and mother space, without letting go of a sense of her as a firm and important political partner. Yet another excellent example of M’bama as an exceptional yet “approachable” everywoman.Hmmm, M’bama in 2020? After all, remember It Takes a Village? There are patterns to these things. » read more

On Boxing

feel light & clean now. home. sweatpants. juice. and pizza.

this afternoon, three miles of running, quickly. my arms, down to my fingers, bathed in a sheen of sweat. felt a breeze & my attention turned to the gap in the wall – literal – sunlight glinting off the tin roofing of a building across the street. this place — this gym, half famous amateur junction — is a wreck. my face dripped. a trainer, not my trainer, came to check how far i’d run and see if he could get away with pushing the incline button before i swatted his hand away.

then–wrapping hands in long yellow gauze to protect fragile bones. crunches, dancing alone in the ring. saturdays are empty lately. later the bag, who becomes a person, dancing narrowly between the men who make their bags swing from one end of the gym to the other, and every time i duck my head, tiny beads of sweat stain the floor. throw the hip into a right cross. jab. jab. jab quicker, a trainer urges me. your technique is good. now throw the jab faster. my coach says, interrupt the rhythm. pow. pow. pa pa pa. prrappapa. ok. » read more

Brownbacking G-d

You know it is a strange day when I find myself in agreement with one of the editors at The National Review. Well, it is strange if you’re me or know me personally, though this agreement is not so substantial. I just like that he made the following comment on Sam Brownback’s editorial in the New York Times: “Here is Sam Brownback talking about evolutionary biology. That’s a bit like saying: ‘Here’s Paris Hilton talking about partial differential equations.’ ” Nice. While Derbyshire is disinclined to respond in detail to Brownback’s “theory” of evolution (though he does, quite well), it is worth a comment. Here it goes… » read more

Shanksville’s Memory - What Do We Deserve?

I posted a week or so back on the two Flight 93 memorials - one actual, one in plan - in Shanksville, PA. In remembering so much sadness in one site, everything is at stake. This is only more urgent when we consider that this is our memorial, a national site of memory. And so The Weekly Standard’s headline was right to propose this statement, which is then the question answered by the article: “The Memorials We Deserve.” » read more

“Live” from the UN…

[I have friends hopping all 'bout the globe, doing creative, legal, and educational work on women's and race/ethnicity issues. Every once and a while I'll be posting dispatches. This one is from one of my old college roomates, Supriya Pillai. We lived right here. Anyway, below please find her impressions on this March's meetings held by the UN Commission on the Status of Women. I wonder, Eyes on Hillary, First Wives Club Contenders, Politicas, and Are We Ready? has there been anything from any US candidates on any international women's issues?]

. . . .

by Supriya Pillai

I’ve been in the basement of the UN for all of last week and I’ll be there until the end of this week. The Commission on the Status of Women meets every year to discuss government’s various commitments to a particular theme having to do with women. General, I know and, annoyingly, pretty non-binding, but the theatre I have been witness to has really been something. Watching world politics unfold in one room as people comb through language and text, the silent fights become more vocal. Diplomacy is just a nice way of fighting. Like, when most delegates take the mic, they respectively thank their other delegates, the chair and then they proceed with their “fuck yous”– but ever so gently.

This year, the theme is the Girl Child. Interesting to note, there are no international treaties, documents, etc that indicate that girls can express their human rights. Rather, there are places where girls are protected (i.e. by their families), but in and of themselves, they are not entitled to inalienable human rights. » read more

The Starter Wife! Oh my…

In today’s Slate.com, Seth Stevenson writes up a soon-to-appear (as in tonight) miniseries on USA Network, entitled The Starter Wife. Fab write-up. One of my favorite lines, actually: “Having watched an advance DVD of the first three hours, I can offer a mini-review: two thumbs up. Up my own eye sockets.” That’s funny. The review, however, is about a whole lot more, namely, how this show might be pushing ahead a new trend in funding television and movies: single-sponsored work. That just icky. » read more

Michelle, my belle (updated w/ video!)

[you can sing the title with the Beatles or w/ Slick Rick, depending on your mood]

I am sure you are well-apprised of what I am going to call “The Michelle Obama feminism challenge.” But just in case, Mirror on America did a very nice post last week, outlining some of the most notable sites of contestation, particularly as they’ve been crystallized in Debra Dickerson’s recent article in Slate, and Maureen Dowd’s syndicated op-ed piece, reproduced here from the San Jose Mercury News. Racialicious also has a great post outlining the Dickerson and Dowd articles (amongst others). It’s redundant to rehearse the Racialicious and Mirror on America points, so check them out!

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Britney’s Junk! Or, Exposing the Border

I know it is probably a passing trend, but I find our concern, even obsession with exposed celebrity crotches both puzzling and fascinating. It is puzzling for obvious reasons. We have a fairly pornographic culture. What’s so shocking about a peek under a skirt? Shocking. For real. That’s what we’re supposedly thinking. Titillating? I can deal with that. But shocking is just odd - and I don’t buy that we’re a puritanical culture. Fascinating? Well, I think the fact that pantyless girl-junk has had “the best week ever” at some point signifies that such exposure is caught up in a wider national anxiety. » read more