September 2006
Maandelijks archief.
A Reading Question
Gepost door RBL op 25/09/2006
Toegevoegd onder: Uncategorized
So I was re-reading C. Vann Woodward’s The Burden of Southern History, the other day, and found it equal parts depressing and amazing that he predicted the tragic debacle of the current administration 45 years ago.
And no, that does not make me a nerd. Woodward is damn good stuff, and worth a re-read every now and again. Rather like Niebuhr in that respect. Why does no-one read Niebuhr these days?
Now nerdy is when the partner is reading an article out my Gay and Lesbian Review, an article on the topic-on-everybody’s-mind-at-the-moment, which is to say, homoeroticism in German lieder, and then goes and pulls out his Penguin book of German verse to compare translations.
That, my friends, is nerdy.
What does it say about you as a person…
Gepost door RBL op 24/09/2006
Toegevoegd onder: Uncategorized
…or your friends, which amounts to nearly the same thing, when you throw a party to celebrate a recent accomplishment (the partner finished his MA in urban planning), and your friends bring you (among other gifts), one bottle of Woodford’s Reserve, and two, count ‘em, two bottles of Veuve Clicquot?
The party was, I might add, a total success.
On something somebody has probably already said before, and probably much more eloquently than I…
Gepost door RBL op 19/09/2006
Toegevoegd onder: Politics
So, via LGM, who were responding to Pandagon…
Apparently the FCC isn’t just discouraging scientists from applying for grants for projects with inconvenient subjects like their buddies over at NIH. No, they’re actively shredding and suppressing reports whose results they find inconvenient.
Now, the substance of the report in question was (as I understand it) as follows: locally-owned television news outlets, in comparison with corporate-owned news outlets, offer, on average, more news (about 5.5 minutes more, in fact). There are a number of questions one might pursue here, such as why the FCC finds the thought of 5 minutes of extra news so threatening that they shredded the report altogether.
But I guess I’d rather think about the theoretical angle a bit, first. To wit: is less news, but of a more “objective” nature, better or worse than more news, but of a more “subjective” bent? In other words… what would Habermas say?
It strikes me that the options (corporate conglomeration vs. local elites) have different downsides, and it’s a matter of which devil you want calling the media square-dance. Because let’s not fool ourselves: when we say “locally-owned” we really meaned “owned by local rich folks” and not some fantasia of “up-with-people” gas-and-water socialism.
Since I don’t watch television anymore, it’s hard for me to comment on the quality of local television news. My general impression is that it is pretty dreary stuff — at best a combination of heartfelt local interest (Lassie saved her master! Pics at 6! Local teens hold carwash for scholarship fund! Interview at 9!), heartfelt local scares (12 year old cherubic white middle-class boy scout kidnapped by black transvestite cannibal hooker! News at 10!), and vapid banter between plastic talking heads (If Betty Vasquez never actually flirted with “Stormin’” Norman on the air, surely things parallel to that sort of ridiculousness occur all the time).
Is five minutes more of that sort of thing better, or worse, than Wolf Blitzer repeating verbatim whatever stenography he took at the latest White House press conference?
Even if it has “legitimate” political analysis and commentary, which is better? Here the only examples I can think of are the printed news outlets, which might be too different a medium from which to draw conclusions. But still, what are some of the trade-offs? The LA Times, when it was owned by the Chandlers, was a vicious, nasty, right-wing rag. Then it got bought, and while the political tone became a bit more moderate, the paper metastaticized into a fluff-bundle of ads, ads, ads. The Dallas Morning News (Belo family) has the most vapid, knee-jerk editorials along with the most transparent veneer to its headlines imaginable. But compared to the Fort-Worth Star-Telegram, it generally has vastly better coverage of local politics. The only time one gets anything about the Trinity River Vision — a massive project involving re-routing of the river, wholesale property takings, and a cornucopia of development project goodies divvied out by the son of our local Congresswoman — is when you see adverts in the real estate section. It’s not even that you get “rah-rah” op-eds for the project — you get total, utter, silence.
If the New York Times did not exist, would those of us who sit in provincial nests of vipers feel a stronger call to contribute to (subscribe, write for, etc.) local alternative media outlets?
Or to put it another way: would you rather have a plausible illusion of objectivity — the end result of which is “not-news”– or the widening gyre of newspapers-as-instruments-of-demagogy? Not a nice choice, especially when at least one major corporation (Faux) has decided that its market niche is to feed the wolves.
Of scary bars…
Gepost door RBL op 18/09/2006
Toegevoegd onder: Thoughts on Texas
The Rude Pundit has a bit comparing the Bush administration to the nastiest gay bar imaginable.
Unfortunately, they’re pretty much describing all the gay bars in this town. Especially a place that recently shut down, but in its prime offered a dealer behind the bar and straight female hookers in the back. Rumor has it that the crowd from this place (a migratory plague, much like locusts) will soon start hanging out at our newest offering, a joint that is trying to make a name for itself catering to Hispanics. For the record, while this latter bar is named for one of Barry Manilow’s more migraine-inducing hit singles, I consider this an improvement over that which came before — a one-night-a-week deal called “Azuquita,” which was in the kind of neighborhood where one goes only to buy construction supplies that fell off the back of a truck.
Random thoughts, in no particular order…
Gepost door RBL op 14/09/2006
Toegevoegd onder: Uncategorized
Goodbye Ann, we were not worthy of thee…
I just mailed off an app. to an institution in a place whose airport was once described as purgatory. Perhaps I shall be able to finish up my parody of Dante’s Divine Comedy after all…
Re-watched Muriel’s Wedding last night. I had remembered it as a dark comedy, but I had entirely forgotten what a thorough-going critique of patriarchy it is.
The dean of my college just ordered an OSHA inspection of the double-wide/double-long trailer in which my department squats in glory. The punchline? Those mysterious brown stains on the ceiling tiles aren’t leaks from the roof; they’re rodent urine.
De-lovely.
Keep moving, please, there’s no irony here…
Gepost door RBL op 08/09/2006
Toegevoegd onder: Uncategorized
Found in the “Caberet” section of the “Clubland” listings of the print version of our very own hometown alternapaper, the FWeekly:
[name removed] $3 cover. Collared shirts only after 7 p.m. Erotic poetry open-mic Wednesdays.
What does it say about a place that they have to say, pretty explicitly, “your shirt has to have sleeves, dumbass, before we’ll let you in?”
You had me at “brioche”
Gepost door RBL op 05/09/2006
Toegevoegd onder: Uncategorized
Went to the MN State Fair this weekend. It had a few advantages over the California fair (better milkshakes, for one thing). But, Sacto still more glitz and glam, if such a phrase can be applied to an agricultural exhibition, even setting aside the wine-tasting competition.
That said, they did serve grilled chocolate sandwiches. On buttered brioche. For $3.
I wonder if my arteries will ever forgive me.
Oh, and the Texas state fair? SUCKS. Don’t even bother.