Yikes, let’s clarify this misunderstanding, quick! Upon re-reading my hasty post, I see that I sacrificed clarity for brevity. I in no way intended to imply that Justin was “complaining.” I meant that by my posting on the subject, I didn’t want “the reader” to think we were going to dwell on this all day in the sort of blogosphere navel gazing that can happen from time to time. I knew Justin was being tongue in cheek, I just didn’t make that clear. So, I thank you for your indulgence as I continue to practice my writing here in real time.
[Open full post]I hope it was clear from my previous post, Marc, that my “complaints” are mostly tongue in cheek. With respect to Providence Monthly, I don’t know how much being mentioned therein would help — particularly given our differing audiences. I also enjoy the feeling of challenge to reach the point at which Rhode Island media can no longer ignore us. (And being ignored makes for less internal conflict when jabbing them on the national stage.)
It has, however, been a point of contention between us for years that Sheila Lennon insists on pretending that Dust in the Light doesn’t exist. In that case, I know it’s deliberate, and she’s ostensibly meant to be the Providence Journal‘s link to the online scene.
On Monday Stanley Crouch broke the story that the popular Essence magazine was taking on the omnipresent oversexualized and slutty portrayal of black women in hip-hop music and videos. Through dialogue and discussion, they hope to raise awareness and, hopefully, “Take Back the Music.”
When asked how the magazine decided to take a stand, the editor, Diane Weathers said, “We started looking at the media war on young girls, the hypersexualization that keeps pushing them in sexual directions at younger and younger ages.”
Things got deeper, she says, because, “We started talking at the office about all this hatred in rap song after rap song, and once we started, the subject kept coming up because women were incapable of getting it off their minds.”
At a listening session that Weathers and the other staffers had with entertainment editor Cori Murray, “We found the rap lyrics astonishing, brutal, misogynistic. … So we said we were going to pull no punches, especially since women were constantly being assaulted.”
Apparently, the people at Essence were inspired by the success of groups such as Dads & Daughters, who took action against Abercrombie & Fitch for their half-naked marketing style. Essence was further encouraged and confirmed in their beliefs by the protests of the students at all-women Spelman College and their male peers from neighboring Morehouse College who successfully kept rap artist Nelly off of the Spelman campus. Though the cause for which Nelly intended to promote during his appearance at Spelman, bone marrow donations, is worthy, the students were rightfully indignant over some of the lyrics to his songs. Though they may have sacrificed some good in their protest over something unacceptable, their actions called attention to the problem of hip-hop’s incessant objectification of women. (It’s not only hip-hop men, some hip-hop women and some female pop singers do a good job of objectifying themselves [CLICK AT YOUR OWN RISK]).
Essence certainly isn’t the first African-American publication to take on this issue, but that shouldn’t diminish their effort. They are not only interested in the way these negative images affect America’s young black, and white, women, they are also concerned with how these images are interpreted around the world. As such, they’ve tapped into the larger issue of how the American Mainstream Mass Media’s portrayal of their version of American culture plays to international stereotypes and doesn’t accurately reflect “real” America. However, international perceptions aren’t of immediate importance. Rather, encouraging healthy and wholesome examples for young girls to emulate, no matter what their race, should be a priority. Kudos to Essence for helping to make it so.
I don’t pretend to know the political leanings of either Stanley Crouch or the editors and staff of Essence, but, at the risk of imposing a stereotype, I feel confident in stating that they are left-of-center in their politics. Yet, in this instance such a generalization is not accurate or even appropriate. Their desire to promote more positive images, while knocking down negative and derogatory imagery, of and for young African-American women aligns them squarely with many conservatives. It is in such undertakings that the ideological walls that partition the fields of consensus can be broken down. Ideologues on the Left and Right need not agree on everything for them to join in a worthy cause that speaks to the core of their respective beliefs. It is inappropriate, callow and disrespectful to objectify young women. On that, we should all agree.
Complaining about lack of recognition too much would be unseemly. IMHO, in addition to being Counter Cultural in the Rhode Island sense, the other reasons that Providence Monthly neglected to mention my own Ocean State Blogger (low, low, traffic) and this very site (too new!) seem evident. However, there can be no other explanation than that implied by Justin for why his Dust In The Light blog was left off the list. The reason may not be nefarious either, it could simply be that the blogs frequented by Jen Senecal probably wouldn’t lead her to Justin. After all, I’m guessing that the fact that Sheila Lennon’s blog is listed first is because that was the starting point of Senecal’s research. Given the content of Lennon’s Subterranean Homepage News, I’m not surprised that no conservative blogs were mentioned.
[Open full post]I share Bil Herron’s consternation at not making the cut for the latest local-media dip into the blogosphere. Unfortunately, neither Anchor Rising nor Dust in the Light nor The Ocean State Blogger has Bil’s obvious reasons to blame. No, in our case, it’s not a lack of effort; it’s just us — the price of being counterculturalists.
The only three blogs that Jen Senecal mentioned in her Providence Monthly piece were Providence Journal blogger Sheila Lennon (of course), woneffe (“a mix of urbanism, politics, and gay issues in and around Rhode Island, along with some wonderful photographs”), and The PRESSblog (“a source for marketing news, ideas, and ad reviews, all focused on the Rhode Island marketing scene”). With the exception of PRESSblog, which appears to be politically neutral, the common theme of all the others (including those to which woneffe links to “spread the wealth”) is easy to spot.
Oh well. I suppose it’s best, when working for change, not to be too cozy with the keepers of the status quo. Being a good sport, though, I will offer one bit of advice to the folks at Providence Monthly. If you’re going to make some of your content available online, putting up the piece about things that are… online might be a good idea. I’m sure the folks at PRESSblog would agree.
This posting builds on a previous posting entitled “Unprincipled, Undemocratic Behavior” and a related posting by Marc Comtois.
Both postings noted how House Speaker Murphy and Senate President Montalbano were going to maintain the legislative meddling in certain executive matters in spite of the 78% voter approval in November of the Separation of Powers constitutional amendment.
Ed Achorn of the Providence Journal has another editorial in today’s newspaper about the June 2004 power grab by the legislature on behalf of Chief Justice Frank Williams.
The editorial highlights the magnitude of our ongoing problem here in Rhode Island. Specifically, it notes how the legislature cut the governor out of future budget decisions affecting the judiciary and did so without going through the Judiciary Committee and without any public hearings at the time.
Achorn raises two questions, the first being whether such a change is even constitutional. Here are his thoughts on his second question:
Does cutting the governor out of the budget — removing one of the public’s protections against legislative and judicial collusion — create too close and cozy a relationship between judges and legislators?
Is it healthy for legislators — some of whom work for law firms whose members appear before the courts — to exclusively set the budgetary parameters for judges’ compensation and working conditions? Can judges who strike budget deals with legislators render impartial decisions on constitutional matters that profoundly affect legislators? Does a direct track between judges and legislators — cutting out the executive branch — contribute to justice, and the perception of justice, in Rhode Island?
There was no time to ask those questions, or obtain answers. Frank Williams got what he wanted, and the public got shoved aside.
Is this the Rhode Island we aspire to? Is this behavior consistent with the principles of American constitutionalism?
These actions are a disgrace and we shouldn’t tolerate more of the same old unprincipled behavior by our public officials.
They just don’t get it. Unfortunately, history tells us that they won’t stop until all of us join in speaking up loudly and clearly against such undemocratic actions.
John Arcaro, an independent challenger for Pawtucket’s seat in the Rhode Island House of Representatives, directed my attention to an October piece about his race. I’m still naif enough to think this stunning:
[Rep. Elaine A. Coderre] hasn’t had an opponent for her House seat since 1986, when Raymond G. Berger, a Republican who opposed her in 1984, ran and lost again in what was then House District 78.
Almost twenty years! What, under those circumstances, is the difference between being an elected representative serving a series of terms and being a career employee? (Except, of course, that employees can lose their jobs because of changes in the marketplace or the business — private-sector employees, that is.) Whatever the lack of challengers might indicate about Pawtucket and Ms. Coderre, it certainly suggests that ours is not a healthy democracy.
Arcaro jokes, in correspondence, that his campaign offered “an amazing show of fiscal conservatism”: he spent $21.39 to Corderre’s $4,817.12. Think about that. For the price of a case of beer, he took 30% of the vote and forced the state Democrats to expend 225 times more in resources.
Being more an ideologue than a player, I’ve never given much thought to political strategy, but in a system as sick as ours, it would surely be for the health of the state for random people to up and run for office. Forcing campaigns even in relatively safe districts would spread out the Democrats’ resources, chipping away at their monetary advantage in areas in which they actually face competition.
And who knows — a keg might win the race!
On Friday, I went to Barnes & Noble in Middletown to see if the store had one or both of the magazines in which my work currently appears. I couldn’t find any copies of Newport Life, and the two copies of National Review on the rack were two-issues old. Well, I just called to ask whether the new one had come in yet, and the associate with whom I spoke said he hadn’t seen it. With the holidays and all, he told me, magazines don’t receive a high priority.
He was very helpful, so I didn’t get the impression that I was dealing with one of those retail clerks whom Jay Nordlinger calls “little suppressors” (after the bookstore chain The Little Professor; see the email at the end of this Impromptus for the archetype). Nonetheless, the young man on the phone implied that he, personally, would have seen any new issues, and yet I had to tell him what section to look in. (At least, that’s how I took his question, “Have you ever been here before?”)
More suspiciously, as he perused the shelves, he asked, “Do you mean ISR?”
“No, what’s that?”
“The International Socialist Review.”
This same store was the one at which I bought Andrew Sullivan’s Virtually Normal some months ago while researching my NR piece. And oddly enough, the clerk who helped me that time looked none too comfortable standing at my side and scanning the hodgepodge of material — from erotic fiction to social science tomes — in the Gay & Lesbian section. (Silly theocon that I am, I had wasted my time searching the Politics & Government and Social Sciences sections.)
I’ve put my personal thoughts about the coming of the new year over on Dust in the Light. But I wanted to be sure to wish Anchor Rising readers a happy New Year’s Day, as well.
We’ve got plans to make 2005 an interesting, successful year for Anchor Rising, and we hope you’ll be playing a role.
The idea, which Marc noted in the previous post, that “Europeans and Canadians are able to get quality drugs at lower prices only because Americans pay free-market prices that fuel research and development” is one that I’ve touched on before. Michelle Malkin had made the point that the price negotiation practices of the Veterans Administration would be catastrophic if transported to a program as huge as Medicare. (She also offers this bit of corrective to the Harrop line: “the [Medicare drug] law will create a number of regional health plans, each of which will be free to use committed-use contracting on its own.”)
As I wrote at the time, the benefits of collective bargaining and unified administration only outweigh the costs as long as the group is reasonably small compared with the total market. This goes for various groups within the U.S. market, and it goes for various countries on the global market.
There are a number of topics in which we find other countries getting away with practices that would have dire consequences were the United States to emulate them (the atrophied militaries of Europe come to mind). That, it seems to me, is the price that the U.S.A. pays for being the U.S.A. The question of the century may very well be whether we’re a sufficiently mature people to acknowledge and accept it.
