The State of Things:
While the nation's pundits parse Obama's inauguration speech, matching his campaign promises to his first 100 hours in office, it's politics as usual around the nation. Gail Collins' op-ed piece today ponders "the new Hillary" appointed by the blind governor of New York. How can a feisty Democrat from the most liberal state in America be so conservative?
Collins warns that change can be very real in the state that borders The Big Apple—New York City is in New Jersey, right?—and that an ambitious pol from an extremely conservative district can wax liberal when representing a great big ol' state. By-the-by, you've gotta love the description of Rep. Gillibrand spending "13 hours in the House of Representatives, voting on the farm bill and sitting through an endless hearing of the Armed Services Committee, where she successfully offered an amendment before moving on to the delivery room" where she gave birth to her now eight-month-old son. Take that Sarah Palin!
Collins points out that Gillibrand is starting to make appointments with members of the large liberal branch of the party, evidently in order to learn better how to be a switch hitter. Fox News should have a field day. Guess I'll find out when I watch The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. I like to get my stupid stuff from the pros.
On Race:
Amy Finnerty reviews Baz Dreisinger's Near Black: White-to-Black Passing in American Culture, this week in The New York Times. "Passing" is a term few white Americans are familiar with. In American culture it generally refers to people of African American descent whose skin is light enough and whose hair is straight enough so that they can, if they wish, pass themselves off or allow others to pass them off as white Americans.
Generally the term has had very negative connotations within both black and white American cultures, with a serious note of danger. Dreisinger's book addresses the more unusual phenomena of whites who pass themselves off as African American.
For me, one of the most telling moments in Finnerty's review is her annalysis that at least at times in American history "Whiteness was viewed as a fragile state that could easily be corrupted."
Understanding this notion and how a whole society can be manipulated by its pervasiveness is central to the understanding of who we are and how we arrived at the place we are now in.
Other works that address the issue, sometimes humorously, sometimes bitterly, include Richard Pryor's film Silver Streak, in which one character appears in black face in order to elude law enforcement (becoming invisible by doing so); the John Wayne film The Searchers, in which Wayne portrays a character who believes that a woman who has been touched by a non-white male person has been ruined; and Ralph Ellison's seminal novel Invisible Man.
Sinking Economy Becoming a Whirlpool:
As the economic downturn sweeps around the world it is picking up speed. Anthony Faiola, reporting on the global economic downturn in today's Washington Post, points out that things are "deteriorating more quickly than leading economists predicted only weeks ago." Faiola further points out that jump starting the economy will likely cost many more billions than currently anticipated and will probably not occur before 2010. Europe is judged to be in worse shape than the U. S., and South Korea may be in the worst downturn of all, with goods piling up on its docks. The U. S. and China, the two biggest purchasers of Korean products, simply aren't buying their goods at this point.
While the nation's pundits parse Obama's inauguration speech, matching his campaign promises to his first 100 hours in office, it's politics as usual around the nation. Gail Collins' op-ed piece today ponders "the new Hillary" appointed by the blind governor of New York. How can a feisty Democrat from the most liberal state in America be so conservative?
Collins warns that change can be very real in the state that borders The Big Apple—New York City is in New Jersey, right?—and that an ambitious pol from an extremely conservative district can wax liberal when representing a great big ol' state. By-the-by, you've gotta love the description of Rep. Gillibrand spending "13 hours in the House of Representatives, voting on the farm bill and sitting through an endless hearing of the Armed Services Committee, where she successfully offered an amendment before moving on to the delivery room" where she gave birth to her now eight-month-old son. Take that Sarah Palin!
Collins points out that Gillibrand is starting to make appointments with members of the large liberal branch of the party, evidently in order to learn better how to be a switch hitter. Fox News should have a field day. Guess I'll find out when I watch The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. I like to get my stupid stuff from the pros.
On Race:
Amy Finnerty reviews Baz Dreisinger's Near Black: White-to-Black Passing in American Culture, this week in The New York Times. "Passing" is a term few white Americans are familiar with. In American culture it generally refers to people of African American descent whose skin is light enough and whose hair is straight enough so that they can, if they wish, pass themselves off or allow others to pass them off as white Americans.
Generally the term has had very negative connotations within both black and white American cultures, with a serious note of danger. Dreisinger's book addresses the more unusual phenomena of whites who pass themselves off as African American.
For me, one of the most telling moments in Finnerty's review is her annalysis that at least at times in American history "Whiteness was viewed as a fragile state that could easily be corrupted."
Understanding this notion and how a whole society can be manipulated by its pervasiveness is central to the understanding of who we are and how we arrived at the place we are now in.
Other works that address the issue, sometimes humorously, sometimes bitterly, include Richard Pryor's film Silver Streak, in which one character appears in black face in order to elude law enforcement (becoming invisible by doing so); the John Wayne film The Searchers, in which Wayne portrays a character who believes that a woman who has been touched by a non-white male person has been ruined; and Ralph Ellison's seminal novel Invisible Man.
Sinking Economy Becoming a Whirlpool:
As the economic downturn sweeps around the world it is picking up speed. Anthony Faiola, reporting on the global economic downturn in today's Washington Post, points out that things are "deteriorating more quickly than leading economists predicted only weeks ago." Faiola further points out that jump starting the economy will likely cost many more billions than currently anticipated and will probably not occur before 2010. Europe is judged to be in worse shape than the U. S., and South Korea may be in the worst downturn of all, with goods piling up on its docks. The U. S. and China, the two biggest purchasers of Korean products, simply aren't buying their goods at this point.
Labels: Politics, Race, The Economy
posted by Jim | 1:30 PM
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