Problem Chylde: In Her Solitude

To this day, I can’t imagine
waking up, coughing up
similes and metonymies,
metaphors wrinkled around me,
my chemise drenched in
onomatopoeias and
shivering off synonyms as
I reach for my pen.

Some writers wake from slumber
blanketed in flames, formicating
with syllabic beats needing the
cool smooth stiffness of rough white sheets,
transferring dreams weaved in one bed
to another; I lost that affliction
when I was nine and reality drenched me
with yellowed journalism and a
hollowed sensation about
technicolor dreamworlds.

To this day, I can’t imagine
using the notebooks I buy
to cease the senseless itch
on my arm
in my mind
near my heart –
to this day, I can’t imagine
penning a white wooden raft
to drowning synecdoches,
hoping two touch its boards
and the body joins with it.

So I bought Lucky magazine Thursday because I was jonesing for something to read outside of information about Constitutional Criminal Procedure.  Aside from being annoyed that besides a one-page write-up about the Persian furniture technique Suzani influencing fashion designs (and Oscar de la Renta has a kickassed zippered cropped jacket with awesome patterning), every other mention of clothing with varied patterns and intricate beading is characterized as “ethnic” or “ethnic-inspired,” I caught one of the latest advertisements from the K-Swiss campaign.  

click to enlarge

My instant reaction was, “Wow.  How… Aryan…”  Besides the fact that this picture of Alona Bondarenko will likely be added to the spank banks of “pure”-thinking males everywhere, the presence of the K-Swiss bars only blocking her legs and lower half sends a different message of what “it” is we’re keeping pure about this beautiful blond-haired white tennis player.  The tennis court with the mountainous background, as if we’re protecting the resting player from the outside world.  Seeing this in print just clubbed me over the head, like “Whaaaa…?!?”  

A few of the other advertisements from the same print campaign are coupled with action shots, like this pretty innocuous one of Tommy Haas.

click to enlarge

When I looked at this one, I thought, “Eh, maybe it’s not so bad.  Slogan’s placed in the middle of the second half; there’s a better perception that this is an advertisement for athletic gear with the action shot.  Maybe I’m overreacting.”   But then I saw the second Alona Bondarenko advertisement with the same layout and it adds a whole new dimension of interpretation.

click to enlarge

Same concept; same execution as for Tommy Haas.  But once again, a whole different message.  This time, the bars are blocking Bondarenko from the waist up, and the slogan… Well, it’s in the same place as it was in Haas’s ad; but he wasn’t wearing a tennis dress at the time.  ”KEEP IT PURE” is blazed right across her crotch.  Haas isn’t wearing the exact same thing because his headband’s gone in the second half; the bars in his first half only partially obscure his face.  But Bondarenko’s in the bra top from the initial advertisement, with bars plastered over her entire upper half.  

Plus, with Haas, you can recognize him fairly easily in both shots feature-wise.  With Bondarenko, her face is averted in the first shot, and in the second, she’s slightly out of focus.  Plus, her action shot looks more like she’s trying to fend something away with her backhand.  Haas’s action shot, on the other hand, is a more aggressive, crouching save.  

(Yeah, tennis fans and players can probably tell I don’t know shit about tennis; if you do, tell me what these shots are!  :-p

From Kai, Resident Problem Chylde Sports Expert: “The dude is doing a forehand volley; the action shot of the lady is a follow through after a top spin forehand.”  So that’s what I meant.  Yeah… *cough*)  

So I decided to look for more advertisements (because I’m a masochist that way) and I found this jewel of WTF? featuring Anna Kournikova:

click to enlarge

Here, we see a darker male (POC?) standing next to her, holding an umbrella a parasol over her head as she walks.  The bars are clearly over Anna Kournikova’s entire body this time.  The man, rather significantly, remains uncovered and focused on holding her umbrella parasol and luggage.  (Focused on his job wearing mostly black formal wear; staring at blonde-haired Anna Kournikova clad mostly in white tennis wear — same difference, I’m sure.)  Kournikova’s head is completely turned away from him and her body is moving forward as he remains somewhat stationary.  She has the tennis shoes draped over her shoulder; he appears to be wearing them.  ”KEEP IT PURE” once again finds itself screened across another blonde woman’s crotch.  The strange positioning of the two people makes it difficult to see that he’s the one holding the frilly pointless parasol above her head and it’s not just springing out of her skull a la Athena’s birth from Zeus.  Plus, the second half of the shot shows her with undeniably more covering, and for some reason she’s no longer wearing white.  She’s holding it via the K-Swiss tennis shoes.  Focused on where she’s going like a pure, oblivious trendsetter and holding her white talisman.

You can see more of Kournikova’s shot by watching one of the television commercials, where you see a group of different athletes, male and female, “in action.”

In this commercial, you see Chris Lieto and Sébastien Foucan in their respective sports (Lieto is a triathlete; Foucan is free running — the sport he helped to found).  Both men are either shown with full body shots or from the waist up, in action.  The first thing we see of Alona Bondarenko are her legs and her feet in K-Swiss shoes.  You wouldn’t know they’re K-Swiss unless you’re familiar with the brand; so let’s just say her legs in shoes.  Anna Tunnicliffe doesn’t even get a decent shot of her face because she’s busy manning her sailboat.  Ah, and then we see Kournikova, moving away from her airplane, darker man in tow behind her that’s… leering creepily at her…  You can see him more clearly holding the parasol, too. After that point, Foucan’s in mid-air looking rather stellar; then we move to Haas playing tennis with a couple solid action shots and a focus shot on the fact that he’s wearing K-Swiss socks, concentrated on the ankles.  And then, through the rather restrictive black tennis net, we see… someone.  A woman, yes (possibly Bondarenko).  Her figure clothed in white and completely out of focus.  And emblazoned upon the black netting, we get our slogan “KEEP IT PURE.”  

Keep WHAT pure, K-Swiss?  The campaign seems charged with racist and sexist imagery to me.  Am I alone in this?

So finally I get fed up, and I go to the website to see if I can find out more about the campaign. I learned more about the athletes spotlighting, and then I watched the flash rotation of the two features.  Bondarenko’s ad where she’s sprawled out on the ground is first, the bars more clearly covering her from the waist down.  She’s on the ground of the court, eyes closed and at rest, net behind her… pretty identical.  (In the print version, the bar isn’t as obviously on her crotch as it is online.)  The second?  Foucan in mid-air.  High above the ground, with bars completely blocking his Afro-European body.  Appearing to reach out, and he has to land somewhere.  Rotation back to Bondarenko, on the ground, eyes closed, “KEEP IT PURE” over the bars.  Then back to Foucan, mid-air, “KEEP IT PURE” not quite on the bars but hovering near his outstretched hand…  

The other half of his spotlight is his (very hot) face.  

Almost like a wanted sign.

For my sisters and friends.

shared here at her request.

Congratulations.

I quit.

I’m done. My blog will go live again when I’m compiling stuff for  my time to apply to gradschool but  I am done for now.

I want to say that this is permaent or that this is just a small break but no , this isteh beginning of a death knell.

You know what every body feel good about themselves ?

I think the point where I went fuck it , is when a law student, a couple writers, and a professor basically endorsed a book  and  MISSED in reading something they were ATTACHING their names to .

Racist comics, about MY PEOPLE. Yeah MY PEOPLE, being KILLED and destroyed to save a white man and give a white woman the “courage” she so desperately desires .

And people fell over themselves to excuse them . Cause they’re learning

You know what  , fuck off.

Hey it’s no expectation you be responsible and careful with what you endorse, write and publish, because it’s a ” friend” right.

They get the be nefit of the doubts, the benefit of not having to be called on their evil racist condescending crap.

My friends while your protecting your friends are completely disrespected and it’s okay right.

It’s okay to be in not one but THREE fucking threads on feministe and listen to people take BFP’s pain and anguish  and desolation over thdamage doing this work  in this hostile environment.

But the MINUTE the word stealing or plagirism comes up WE CAN’T HAVE THAT  CAN WE NO?

cause two weeks is a perfectly acceptable time for YOU to get over something.

I love that letters to Amanda are protected and carefully worded while BFp is treated like a fucking object

” respect’

“admire”

“commend”

codeword

Hey I have no real desire to change the way i treat you or ACTUALLY mitigate your treatment but hey thanks for making it thru!

It’s not at all interesting that you notice how many hits you get from secret groups and syncornised efforts

( please if you are going to do that BREAK THE LINKS statcounter don’t lie)

There is a lot of this talk where in ” fixing feminism” or ” giving voice” is a fun codeword.

As if we didn’ od our own things make our own  voices and have to dela time and time again 
have to deal with the use of those voices images and presence for VARIOUS appropriations

like BFPs problem wasn’t that it STOPPED HER FROM HER WORLK FOR HER SISTERS

and not that  about atagline

or that a post a bout Sudy can’t suddenly turn  into whether or ot the rightnumber of p WOC are mentioned FOR FEMINISTING

but you know that’s okay.

It’s not that I  show up in a thread about shit that’s happening to ME and be IGNORED for the white people talking.

or that insults and degradatiosn charges of career defamation

aren’t swept  under because for once

( the fact that i t coincides with something monetary compensation) 

are lauded while in the comments a woc is  disrespected and roasted alive and it’s okay

but you know the show isn’t for the WOC

it’s for each other 

So they can be the people they advertise so much to the right wing boogey men they are so enamored with.

That after being in BITCH SALON JEZEBEL and hosts of othe rblogs 

no ones apologiced or even CONTACTED ME

By the bye i love th comparison of me to a fucking date rapist in training

But hey lots of I’m learnings secret outreach and talks amongs t themselves before  the y figure out how to  handle the alien black child.

but this this is BETTER this is progress

cause someones eyes were opened.

I can’t even fight it.

Ic an’t go toe to toe with a press, people with leisure time, people who think the fact their book is more important than someones like work.

But hey other white women will think better of you or youll be come better in yourselves

SO GREAT GOOD

Read it here. Her position can’t be any clearer.

Excerpt:

I wrote what I wrote to say that there either is a feminist movement or there isn’t—and if feminists can’t even be called on to point to the work that other feminists are doing—if simply pointing to a whole sphere of pro-immigration bloggers (because, to be clear, I stated pro-immigration bloggers and men and women bloggers of color NOT brownfemipower) who have been blogging incessantly about this is too much work for feminism—well, then there’s no fucking feminist movement.

That if dabbling into and getting to know an actual community working in a certain way is too much work for feminism, then there is no fucking feminist movement.

That is what I said.

What I did NOT say:

I never said that I own the idea that gendered violence is the way to understand immigration.

I never said that I want credit for coming up with the idea that gendered violence is the way to understand immigration.

I never said that I came up with the idea myself.

I never said that it’s important to recognize that I had the idea first. I don’t give a shit who came up with the idea first—even if it WAS me. I don’t give a shit who thought of what first. I don’t fucking want credit for anything outside of existing. (For those who care, what I really said: There’s a lot of women of color (and men of color!) who have talked about immigration. There’s a lot of women of color and men of color who have examined how sexualized violence has been the foremost result of the “strengthening” of borders. There’s been a lot of us who have insisted for a long time now that immigration is a feminist issue, goddamn it, get your head out of your ass.

I even wrote a whole speech about it (link not available–BUT for those who DID see the speech, do you happen to recall that long list of LINKED work at the beginning of the speech?).

Which is why it was startling to read a recent article about how sexualized violence against immigrant women is directly linked to using dehumanizing terminology like “illegal alien” without one attribute to any blogger of color, male or female, in the entire essay. There is even an earnest declaration about how paperwork is the true problem of immigration (bureaucracy of paperwork anybody?) coupled with a declaration that immigration is a feminist issue.

I do not accept that the author of this article made a mistake in not publishing any links to the work already being done by pro-immigration bloggers, nor do I accept that the author came up with these ideas all on her own.)

I did not name X because although I was pissed off, I did not want a discussion about “what is stopping feminists from coming together as feminists” (aka movement making) to be turned into “bfp hates X and bfp is ugly and fat and bfp is jealous and bfp should shut up and get her own fucking book deal and bfp is trying to patent the fucking idea that hyper militarization of borders=sexualized violence against women.”

This was NEVER ABOUT FUCKING BROWNFEMIPOWER except in the sense that I BELONG to immigrant communities and I BELONG to pro-immigration blogger community and I BELONG to the women of color community and I THOUGHT I belonged to a feminist community.

This was about women of color constantly being written out of feminism, being written out of our own communities BY feminism—then being beaten up by feminists with JUST DO IT, JUST DO IT, JUST FUCKING DO IT YOU LAZY SPICS.

(I want to pause here to note three things: 1. Do you realize how fucked up it is that for some reason it is “wrong” for a woman of color to want the same advantages that white women get for doing the same work? 2. Do you realize how much it sucks big fat hairy dog cock that I have written about media justice for two fucking years and there is STILL a whole group of assholes who claim to have been regular readers and can somehow manage to say with a straight face that I want to “own” ideas and/or steal ideas from others? and 3. Do you realize how much it sucks big fat hairy dog ASSHOLE that even when I do my best to state my anger WITH THE FULL RECOGNITION that what I am saying may hurt somebody and thus ACTIVELY work to PROTECT that person while still expressing my anger–I am STILL berated for being angry, mean, judgemental, too harsh–and furthermore–I should EXPECT the attacks that I get? Do you recognize the problems with telling a woman of color that she can not even show anger at *anonymous*?)

I can’t keep doing this to my stomach and my health, my consciousness and my emotions, my work and life. And since the woman I did it for has asked for it to stop, I will honor that.

But before I saw her request, I wrote this at Hugo Schwyzer’s in response to Elaine Vigneault and probably to many others who feel the same way. I should have just sipped the hemlock directly instead of mixing it into some red Kool-Aid. This is it until May 16th.

Regardless of whether or not Amanda outlined the article prior to the speech, her refusal to include WOC who obviously wanted to be included in the discussion is the real issue here.

Oh my Jesus, no. It’s not. It’s really not.

The real issue is the work of women of color gets trivialized or rendered invisible every time our feminisms intersect.

I don’t know how anyone could read the Seal Press situation as a request for inclusion unless they have a highly inflated sense of their worth. “Fuck Seal Press” is not a cleverly short and provocative book proposal, not a plea for love, or a request for respect. It’s a dismissal. Though it may lack context in the post it’s written in, it is NOT without context in Seal Press’s decline in incorporating and publishing works by women of color.

I also don’t know how anyone can read this situation as a request for inclusion into dialogue. It is about work and respect for that work which is ongoing, with or without the weigh-in of white mainstream feminists. Just tossing our names in isn’t enough. But it’s a start in showing that the ideas that you’re presenting are not novel and that they have a foundation beyond the “zeitgeist” of the time. This is not a new concept. It’s called appropriation. May not have the force of “stealing” or “plagiarism” but it’s much worse in its impact.

That’d take knowledge and engagement with the idea that women of color do feminist work, anti-racist work, work involving people with disabilities and LGBT that decidedly does not depend on white feminists noticing them. Yet the ideas and information from the work of women of color find its way into the books and articles of white feminists without attribution.

Feminism is not limited to one action or conceptualization. There is not only one movement. We are not trying to join anything or to have ourselves included in anything. Once again, please stop ego tripping. There are publishing houses, copyrights, programs, networks, opportunities and consciousness for women of color. We pour our experiences and our passions into the work we present, the work we do, the work we live everyday. We want credit for what we’ve done and what we’re doing when it trickles down and through to white middle-class feminism.

We don’t want disembodiment from issues that affect us because it reached someone [else] later than it touched us. We don’t want our bodies and our lives and our truths dependent on whims and zeitgeists and bound to arbitrary timelines. Our strongest claim to these issues beyond dates and clear similarities of theory and synthesis is we live in them and they live in us.

The red herrings tearing this discussion away from this fundamental request for respect are galling.

Now back to building this bridge called my life.

addendum

THAT’S the sinister nature of appropriation. And in this instance, by not linking to anyone that inspired her viewpoint — forget BFP, even — Amanda tapped into this narrative that has been tapped into by countless folks online and offline. And each leaking into this scheme hurts and makes the victims of invisibility less than charitable once someone white sees us and says, “Hey, what’s wrong? Please write us a book report with cross checks and proper cites, perfect spelling and grammar, and completely objective — that means don’t interpose your oversensitivity into it — yes, please write us a great screed telling us everything very clearly about what’s wrong. One ‘t’ uncrossed, and you lose your argument. And please, make sure you note everyone involved; if you fail to do so, that’s intellectually dishonest and we’ll refuse to engage with you!”

I would like to share a full-length article with you, outside of the traditional mechanisms where I’ve shared works and articles. Normally, I list the work’s name and its creator in the title; then the body of the entry shares the video/essay/poem/story, etc. I try to make sure I offer proper accreditation, and I tend not to make any modifications of the original work.

In an effort to demonstrate the need of doing exactly what Jenn’s blog title suggests — to reappropriate — I will take a different tactic with this article. I will not alter the original text; I’ll only redirect its emphasis. For my sister, Brownfemipower.

Sexual Abuse Fueled by Abusive Immigration Language
By X, RH Reality Check. Posted April 7, 2008.

Describing immigrants in dehumanizing terms like “illegals” turns immigrant women into targets for sexist oppressors, from anti-choicers to rapists.

In all the furor over rising immigration rates in the U.S. – often disguised as concern over “illegal” immigration — one story in particular demonstrates that contrary to scare stories about the effect of immigration on this country, the reality is that this country is often a scary and oppressive place for immigrants. And immigrant women, having drawn the double whammy card, are especially vulnerable. A 22-year-old immigrant from Colombia exposed her immigration agent using the threat of deportation to rape her, using her cell phone to tape the assault. Unfortunately, as is all too common with these sorts of stories, most reports describe the event as sex, even while making it clear that the sex is question was coerced, and should be more accurately described as rape.

The story has hooks most likely because it’s about how a common crime — sexual blackmail against immigrants and other women marginalized in society — became more difficult to hide and ignore because of new technologies. But despite the dubious reasons why this story hit the mainstream news, the activist community can still seize this opportunity to make two very important points: 1) Immigration is a feminist issue and 2) The distinctions between “legal” and “illegal” immigrants is red herring to distract from the fact that it’s immigrants, full stop, who face oppression under a tidal wave of anti-immigration sentiment.

This woman’s story demonstrates the way that the cut-and-dry distinctions between illegal and legal immigrants touted by the Lou Dobbses of the world tend to turn shades of gray when examined closely. Or actually, shades of paperwork. The rape victim entered the U.S. legally on a tourist visa and overstayed, but managed to enter the system to get her green card by marrying a citizen, which all but the worst mouth-breathers accept as a legitimate way to get a green card. Her story shows why it’s front-loaded and racist to describe a human being as “illegal,” especially when her illegal actions were misdemeanors such that they didn’t even raise the ire of the law when she got her paperwork in order. I’ve managed to drive a car before after letting my inspection lapse, and then got the ticket straightened out by renewing my inspection sticker, an equivalent crime. No one describes my very being as illegal, though. Though rape, on the other hand, is not a minor crime and is earth-shattering enough that it’s acceptable to describe the people who commit that crimes as “rapists,” I suspect that rapists get called by that moniker less often than immigrants without their paperwork in order get called “illegals.”

Words like “illegals” dehumanize immigrants, whether or not they have their paperwork in order, and that dehumanization makes immigrant women juicy targets for assorted sexist oppressors, from anti-choicers to wife beaters to rapists, as this woman’s story shows. One Honduran immigrant faced charges after trying to self-abort with an ulcer medication, an attempt that failed to induce abortion, but was linked to her giving birth to a premature infant who passed away. The same article notes that a 22-year-old Mexican immigrant living in South Carolina was put in jail for inducing her own abortion with the medication at home. That immigrant women often resort to self-abortion should surprise no one. Not only is safe, legal abortion financially daunting for a number of women, the atmosphere of dehumanization of immigrants makes many women understandably eager to reduce their encounters with authority figures of any type, including doctors.

Green card manipulation isn’t just a trick practiced by immigration officials wanting to control and dominate women, either. According to the Family Violence Prevention Fund (PDF), many domestic abusers use threats about immigration status to keep women in relationships with them. Whether married to citizens or non-citizens, the quasi-legal status assigned to immigrants means that many victims of domestic violence fear seeking help; consequently, the rates of domestic violence are significantly higher for immigrant women than women at large. Congress stepped in to create the International Marriage Brokers Regulation Act, which gives immigrant women the right to leave abusive marriages without being deported. It also requires that men who go through “marriage broker” services to disclose their domestic violence histories to potential brides.

If you ever want to despair of the human condition, Google the term “IMBRA” — the vast majority of the results returned are authored by men outraged at these entirely reasonable measures that keep men from beating their immigrant wives and using green cards as leverage to perpetuate the violence. Strangely, few of these websites argue that men should be given the direct right to beat women, but it’s hard to imagine what other worldview they could be operating under, when they think that it should be perfectly legal for a man to threaten his wife with deportation if she leaves him after a round of beating. If you are under the incorrect impression that sexism is dead and feminism isn’t needed anymore, I recommend listening to the howls of men who think the government owes them the right to treat immigrant women like a population available for their punching bag and sexual assault needs. That goes double for you if you’ve ever sneered at the term “intersections of oppression,” because I can’t think of a better example myself.

All original ideas in this entry remain unlinked.

So, X of Pandagon

and of RH Reality Check:

Link, love.

M.

P.S. If I’ve given you too many examples, start with this one link. That’s probably the best point. Know that people say women of color are sometimes dark as night, not born last night.

edited by request.

addendum

THAT’S the sinister nature of appropriation. And in this instance, by not linking to anyone that inspired her viewpoint — forget BFP, even — Amanda tapped into this narrative that has been tapped into by countless folks online and offline. And each leaking into this scheme hurts and makes the victims of invisibility less than charitable once someone white sees us and says, “Hey, what’s wrong? Please write us a book report with cross checks and proper cites, perfect spelling and grammar, and completely objective — that means don’t interpose your oversensitivity into it — yes, please write us a great screed telling us everything very clearly about what’s wrong. One ‘t’ uncrossed, and you lose your argument. And please, make sure you note everyone involved; if you fail to do so, that’s intellectually dishonest and we’ll refuse to engage with you!”

the plan is not to blog on here again until may 16th.  i have way too much to do, i feel very sick, and my internet addiction is getting in the way of doing work.  it feels like major life planning is falling on my head at once; things that should have been settled in my teens are coming back to haunt me.  and i want to put a pillow over my head and sleep because my sleeping patterns are still messy and jumbled.  but i can’t do that.  i have work to do on multiple fronts.  and when i don’t manage it properly i get depressed, ridiculous and impulsive.  (and overdramatic: oh hai dramatic blog post.)  so.  if you see me blogging here before may 16th, something important in my life is not getting done.  and that’s bad.  i feel so boxed in right now.  

Johnny Depp wouldn’t like my news round-ups.

(High) Court TV — Chicago Tribune

The case for cameras in courtrooms, including the Supreme Court, gets stronger by the year. All 50 states allow cameras in at least some state courts. Video technology continues to shrink and become less intrusive. Thousands of hours of court time already have been broadcast over truTV, the new name of Court TV, and conventional TV news shows and webcasts without a surge in obstructed justice, security problems or privacy violations for jurors or witnesses.

Death sentences vary by county, study finds — San Francisco Chronicle

The commission, a legislatively created body headed by former state Attorney General John Van de Kamp, met in Santa Clara on Friday for the last of three hearings to address concerns about the death penalty in California. The state has 669 condemned prisoners, the most in the nation, and has executed 13 people since executions resumed in 1992 after a 25-year halt.

The ACLU said 10 counties, with 68.5 percent of the state’s population, produced 83 percent of the 166 death sentences decreed by juries in the state from 2000 to 2007. The group examined data from the 24 most populous of California’s 58 counties.

San Francisco, where District Attorney Kamala Harris and her predecessor Terence Hallinan promised voters not to seek death sentences, was one of four counties with no death verdicts during the period. The others were Marin, Santa Cruz and Solano.

The counties with the most death sentences compared with murder cases filed included two in the Bay Area: Contra Costa, which ranked third on the list, and Alameda, which was fifth.
In death sentences per capita, the report said, Alameda County was eight times as likely to sentence someone to death as Santa Clara County. By the same measure, Tulare County, which headed the list, issued death verdicts at 13 times the rate of neighboring Fresno County.

Earliest recordings preceded Edison’s — Los Angeles Times

Using technology originally designed to play records without touching them, a team at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory was able to convert a series of squiggly lines etched onto smoked paper into an ethereal voice singing “Au Clair de la Lune, Pierrot répondit,” a refrain from a French folk song.

The piece was played publicly for the first time Friday morning at a meeting of the Assn. for Recorded Sound Collections at Stanford University by historian David Giovannoni, who unearthed it this month in the archives of the French Academy of Sciences.

Outrage and Controversy at NY Museum Art Show Depicting Police Brutality — Alternet

“The Blue Wall of Violence” is a 1999 installation that addresses police brutality. It focuses on the object that the police “mistook” for a dangerous weapon when they shot an unarmed person. The artwork consists of several elements: On the wall are six actual FBI silhouette targets which police use for shooting practice. Protruding from each of these is a cast of an arm. In each hand is an object — wallet, house keys, 3 Musketeers bar, squeegee, etc. Above each target is a date. In front of this is a coffin and in front of the coffin are three police batons which are moved by motors so that they each strike the casket every 10 seconds with a loud penetrating bang. The dates correspond to a day when an actual person was shot by the police and the objects are what they were holding when shot (For example, on February 4, 1999 Amadou Dialo was shot 41 times while holding his wallet, on Sept 24, 1994, 13-year-old Nicholas Hayward Jr. was killed while holding a brightly colored oversized water pistol …)

The whole article is superb.

Clinton not quitting: ‘I like long movies’ — Chicago Tribune

Clinton said the rules applying to super delegates having a right and responsibility to pick the best candidate for president also applies to the regularly elected delegates—those who are pledged to support a particular candidate for nomination. She indicated that delegates elected to support Obama, who outnumber those elected to back Clinton, could end up supporting her based on the outcome of upcoming state contests.

“Every delegate has a responsibility to vote for the person that they believe would be the best candidate and the best president, however they define it,” she said. “That’s what the delegates are going to do and that is something that will evolve over the next several months and I think there will be additional information that will inform those decisions coming from these upcoming contests.”

Well, Jesus Christ, Hillary: why does anyone who isn’t a delegate bother voting at all, then? Why should we count Michigan, Florida, or any other state if it’s the job of the delegates to blatantly ignore the people’s will?

Should Obama Drop Out of the Race? — The Huffington Post

Plus, and here’s the most important point: It’s not over yet. Until it is, we can’t be sure of the outcome. And it would be a big mistake to end it prematurely. There’s been many a boxing match where one fighter won 14 rounds, only to get knocked out in the 15th.

All these Obama supporters calling on Clinton to drop out aren’t helping their candidate, either. They make Obama look like he’s afraid of a fight. And they themselves look like a stereotypical bunch of men telling a woman she can’t hack it in politics, so she might as well get back in the kitchen.

Shared because I do think a part of the Hillary Clinton concession demand is sexist, even if there are damned good arguments for the sentiment. She’s not a dizzy girl with no conception of politics. And when Huckabee was in the same stubborn lock with McCain in the Republican primary with not nearly the same chances at winning, you saw the calls for him to quit without the condescending belittlement being directed at Clinton.

12 City Businesses Facing Lawsuits Over Access For Disabled — Associated Press

Twelve Tucson businesses, including two hospitals, have been sued for allegedly of not being fully accessible to people with disabilities.

The suits filed by a Florida-based law firm target St. Mary’s and St. Joseph’s hospitals as well as the Doubletree Hotel, El Charro Cafe, Foothills Mall and Coffee Xchange, among other businesses.

The same law firm has filed hundreds of similar suits in nine other states and Washington, D.C.
The few owners who would comment when contacted Thursday said they weren’t doing anything wrong and that their buildings were just built before the Americans With Disabilities Act standards were adopted in 1990.

The federal court actions focus mostly on issues involving parking, access and bathroom size.

Lawyer: Gitmo Trials Pegged to ‘08 Campaign — t r u t h o u t

The brief filed Thursday by Navy Lt. Cmdr. Brian Mizer directly challenged the integrity of President Bush’s war court.

Notably, it describes a Sept. 29, 2006, meeting at the Pentagon in which Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England, a veteran White House appointee, asked lawyers to consider Sept. 11, 2001, prosecutions in light of the campaign.

“We need to think about charging some of the high-value detainees because there could be strategic political value to charging some of these detainees before the election,” England is quoted as saying.

A senior Pentagon spokesman, Bryan Whitman, declined to address the specifics, saying “the trial process will surface the facts in this case.”

“It has always been everybody’s desire to move as swiftly and deliberately as possible to conduct military commissions,” he added. “But I can tell you emphatically that leadership has always been extraordinarily careful to guard against any unlawful command influence.”

The brief quotes England as a stipulation of fact and cites other examples of alleged political interference, which Mizer argues makes it impossible for Salim Hamdan, 37, to have a fair trial.

It asks the judge, Navy Capt. Keith Allred, to dismiss the case against Hamdan as an alleged 9/11 co-conspirator on the grounds that Bush administration leadership exercises “unlawful command influence.”

Greg Mitchell: Bush Confesses All to Oprah! — Huffington Post

In the days after Oprah Winfrey two years ago sliced and diced writer James Frey on her TV show for misleading the public with lies in his bestselling memoir, many liberal commentators expressed a single wish: to watch Oprah have the opportunity to do the same with President George W. Bush concerning the alleged lies that got the U.S. into Iraq (2,200 lost American lives ago). Eugene Robinson, The Washington Post columnist, observed, “If there were justice in the world, George W. Bush would have to give his State of the Union address from Oprah’s couch. . . . Bush should have to face the wrathful, Old Testament Oprah who subjected author James Frey to that awful public smiting the other day.”

Columnist Norman Solomon cited the Winfrey/Frey tussle, then charged, “Yet the journalists who interview Bush aren’t willing to question him in similar terms.” Jon Stewart contrasted Oprah’s tough questioning of Frey with obsequious TV news treatment of Bush, Rumsfeld, and others. Maureen Dowd compared “disgraced author” Frey with “a commander in chief who keeps writing chapter after chapter of fictionalized propaganda.”

So I have taken the liberty of pushing all this dreaming one step beyond, imagining an Oprah sitdown with the president—based almost word for word on the transcript of her session with Frey, with just a very few phrases obviously changed here and there. Here it is, without commercial interruption. It even has a happy ending.