Saturday, October 12, 2002

INSERT YOUR OWN 'ILLOGICAL' REFERENCE HERE: The Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle canceled a fundraising appearance by Leonard Nimoy, after federation bigwigs discovered the retired actor and cult legend had just created a book of photos combining nekkid ladies with Jewish religious iconography. (The two great tastes that taste great together!) Instead, Nimoy will appear at a local Jewish congregation the next day, Oct. 24. Of course, this won't be the first time he's gone against Federation directives. (I know, I had to say it...)

posted by clark 1:24 PM

Friday, October 11, 2002

MAREK KOHN SPECULATES whether poor people have it better if if they live where there aren't rich people-- i.e., whether socioeconomic inequality itself is a harbinger of disease and destitution.

posted by clark 12:27 PM

Thursday, October 10, 2002

FREDERICK ZACKEL WRITES about the history of Judeo-Christian prejudice against cities and city-dwellers in the essay "Life on Earth Deserves to be Lived in Vegas."

posted by clark 2:26 PM

THERE WERE ANTIWAR MARCHES this past Sunday afternoon and Wednesday evening along the usual downtown-Capitol Hill routes for such marches. This is expected activity during a time of hotheaded drumbeating for organized military peurility; particularly for a would-be war in which the U.S. would be the undisguised aggressor.

Two aspects made these marches particularly significant. They were among the best-attended of many such marches held across the country this week. (At least 10,000 attended the Sunday march.) And both were remarkably intelligent, respectful, life-affirming affairs, attended by a wide cross-section of the local populace.

We need a popular uprising against the election-stealers and coup-plotters in DC. And we'll need everybody we can get to be in it--even your parents, people who look like your parents, and men who don't have ponytails.

(I've been thinking of forming a group for guys who care for progressive politics but don't care to sport abundant hair. Call it the "Green Shaven.")

War-aggression propaganda, particularly the type practiced by post-Reagan Republicans, is a campaign by a ruling regime to pressure its own citizens into unthinking passive-aggressive obedience. It tries to turn individuals into a dumbed-down mass. Opponents of war-aggession can best counter this tactic by welcoming and respecting humans of all backgrounds as intelligent individuals.

One lifestyle-left poster in the post-WTO era bore the slogan "Live Without Dead Time;" implying that sanctimonious personal thrills should be a movement's true main goal. But in any serious work, including work for important social causes, there's a lot of "dead time," a lot of time spent on the boring details, a lot of time when it seems all for naught.

The organizers of the Sunday and Wednesday marches spent that time wisely. They ran well-organized, peaceful, on-topic gatherings that gained positive media attention and reinforced an image of antiwar activists as sane and rational--a lot more sane and rational than the war promoters.

Contrary to the image promoted by Michael Moore, the American power elite and the White House war-wanters shouldn't be caricatured as "Stupid White Men." They're not stupid, even if they wish everybody else was. They're brutishly clever and ambitious, even the ones who aren't (or like to pretend they aren't) book-learned. They're not all white; and they're certainly not all men. They're not "The Patriarchy" or "Straight White Male Society" as some of my Olympia friends like to imagine. Their current top leaders (with a few backward exceptions) no longer discriminate (at least not overtly) on such outmoded, inaccurate criteria as race and gender.

No, today's powermongers (heart symbol) you if you've got money, power, and an eagerness to play the game the right-wing way. If you lack these qualifications, they'll treat you as a potential foot-soldier in their domestic army of dumbed-down discipline. If you decline to get with the program, you're the enemy.

We should welcome everyone, regardless of subculture or lifestyle, who's tired of being defamed and insulted by the talk-radio demagogues. Who's tired of being talked down to, of being endless cajoled into living in fear. Who's tired of the peurile influence-peddling and naked corruption. Who wants a world of real spirituality, real statesmanship, and real governance. Who'd rather see less Mideast violence rather than more.

Peace. It's not just for hummus eaters anymore.

posted by clark 12:24 PM

Wednesday, October 09, 2002

FOR OUR LOCAL READERS, there's gona be a candlelight vigil to protest Bush's warmongering tonight. It starts at 7 at the (threatened with razing for a high-rise) First United Methodist Church, 5th & Marion in downtown Seattle. It'll end up at St. Mark's Cathedral, 1245 10th Ave. E., where a short service will be held ending at 9 p.m.

posted by clark 11:58 AM

THEY WERE THIN, they were (relatively) inexpensively produced, and they still look hotter than most fancy-schmancy coffee-table tomes. They're Russian avant-garde books from 1910 to 1934, and the MoMA guys in NYC have a site about 'em.

posted by clark 11:55 AM

Sunday, October 06, 2002

FROM DUCK AND COVER to Dating Dos and Don'ts, the entire Preminger Archive of Ephemeral Films (industrial films, early commercials,educational, and government PR) is now online. Utterly fascinating material throughout, exposing the social mores the filmmakers either assumed their viewers held or wanted their viewers to learn.

posted by clark 9:40 AM

ARCHIVES:

• Past weblog entries.
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• X-Word crossword puzzles, now with on-screen solving.
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• A listing of many Things I Like (and a few things I hate).
• The origin and future of MISCmedia.