- Journalist Gregory Palast posts a follow-up to his Cynthia McKinney article, Relynching Cynthia McKinney. Thanks to Alas reader Dan Sallari for pointing this out to me.
- Trish Wilson discusses the issues surrounding no-fault divorce.
- The blogger behind I know this is probably bad for me knows a hell of a lot about Head Start, and she (he?) is writing a series of posts on the subject.
- An entertaining post on Julian’s Lounge in defense of PETA.
- Janine Garafalo fans take note: The radio show Take Back the Media has the first ten minutes of a long interview with her. (If you’re not interested in reading the non-Janine stuff, listen to the first minute or so and then skip ahead to 15:20.) Via The Sideshow.
- In the Times, Nicholas Kristof does a good job summing up the arguments in favor of the US intervening in Liberia. Via Unmedia.
- Speaking of the Times, Magpie quotes a joyful anecdote from the Times dining section, about learning to read Cantonese.
- This Woman’s Work critiques NOW – and “institutional feminism” in general – for insufficient support and consideration of stay-at-home moms.
- Oh. My. God. Go to this Ornicus post about Mel Gibson and scroll down to read the quotes from Gibson’s 1995 Playboy interview. I knew he was a right-winger, but I had no idea he was such a barker. Via The Sideshow.
- And again from the Times, this interesting Emily Nussbaum article reconsidering the final episode of the sit-com Roseanne. Via Ms Musings, of course.
- Just reading this essay by neo-Marxist Norm Geras made me tired – I wanted to reply to it, but responding to mean-spirited ad hominines is so exhausting. Now I don’t have to respond, because Pandagon has said it all. Thanks, Pandagon!
- Kip at Long story; short pier makes fun of Bush’s timing.
- New to the blogroll: Muslim WakeUp!, the wonderfully-designed Feministe, and the non-political blog Nature is Profligate. Go check ’em out.
- I don’t remember where I came across this link to the AFL-CIO’s presidential candidates page, but it’s a good place to see most of the candidates answer questions about labor issues.
- Last but very, very far from least, this Electric Venom rant about “what do women want” is getting links from all over the blogoverse, and with good reason. Awesome stuff.
Barry’s BlueSky- Untitled May 17, 2024#PoliCartoon: Fat Patients, Fat Patience #FatAcceptance
- Untitled May 17, 2024Thinking of that time that Degas painted the actress Ellen Andree sitting and looking pensive in a cafe, and Monet saw Degas' painting and decided to find the same actress and get her to pose in the same cafe so he could do his own version.
- Untitled May 17, 2024Copyright claims often go too far, crushing free speech and not allowing for the way artists are influenced by, repurpose, and even coincidentally echo, other art. Not this time, though! Jeff Dieschburg is a straight-up tracer who adds NOTHING original when he paints his copies of photos. [contains quote post or other embedded content]
- Untitled May 17, 2024#PoliCartoon: Defending Free Speech
- Untitled May 17, 2024My niece dyed her hair pink but there are bees here and now they follow her around because they think she's a big flower.
- Untitled May 16, 2024The Existence of Trains Debate #PoliCartoon #Climate #ClimateChange #GlobalWarming
- Untitled May 17, 2024
This is a wonderful post :)
I’m always looking for interesting things to read around the net and usually after a few headlines from newsites get bored of sifting through the trash trying to find articles of substance.
Althought I have not read all of the linked articles yet the ones I have browsed are right up my alley – I wish you could do this kind of post a few times a week :).
Please?
Aargh, it just deleted my wonderful long comment.
Anyway,
1. Orcinus not Ornicus
2. Gibson’s dad is a Holocaust denier who left the Catholic church after Vatican II to found his own sect. Gibson is spending millions to build his dad a new church, and has put no daylight between his dad’s opinions and his own since the story broke.
3. Palast’s “The Best Democracy Money Can Buy” fully documents how 50,000 FL voters were denied the right to vote in 2000. But I read a radio transcript where McKinney clearly implies that Bush knew in advance about 9/11. I was with her until then. Yes, she was railroaded out.
OK, that’s about half as long as this was. Aargh. Maybe that’s good.
ibyx, who writes I know this is probably bad for me, is a woman. And pretty passionate about Head Start as you see.
Re: No Fault Divorce.
There are all kinds of reasons to support NFD (look a new acronym, hurray!). For me the big one is that if it is an amicable parting (relatively speaking), it can be done affordably. NFD doesn’t work for those who are going to fight about splitting money, possessions, children and the rest of it. Hell, many lawyers discourage NFD because there’s more money if they can get the divorcing couple to fight about stuff. But if there is no fight, just a wish to no longer be married……why should it cost lots and lots and lots of money?
Why should people who made a bad decision lose most of what they have? Oh, I’ve got a million analogies for this but I’ll skip ’em.
Or maybe I’ve misinterpereted the whole thing.
I thoroughly enjoyed the Electric Venom rant… and it’s pretty far from what I ordinarily like. Thanks for linking it.
You know, it’s precisely that Playboy interview that caused me to boycott any movie that Mel Gibson is affiliated with. He is a disgusting misogynist fuckwad, and I sure as fuck will not be giving any of my money, in any way, to him. People always say to me, “oh, but you have to see Braveheart/Chicken Run/whatever” and I say, “nope, I don’t, and I won’t.”
Janeane Garofalo. FWIW.
bean, i hate mel gibson because he plays the same character in every movie. and because i’m biased.
i get criticized for not having seen “braveheart” because i’m part of the bruce lineage. bah.
You know, I’ve never felt that way. I don’t care if an actor is a total ass in real life, it doesn’t change my enjoyment of the movie. (Hence, my thing for Woody Allen movies).
Thanks for the corrections, John and Stephanie. And John, I – and a lot of people – disagree that that’s the only interpretation of McKinney’s remarks, and as Palast remarked it would have been good if the stories had done the basic thing of asking her how she meant her remarks. But we’ve already discussed this at length, and I don’t think we’re going to get anywhere new by discussing it more.
Nate, I used to do a lot more of these sort of posts, and I’m glad you enjoyed it. But I only do posts like that on days when I have a lot of time & inclination to sit around for hours doing nothing but reading blogs, and I haven’t felt like that a lot lately. :-)
You know, I’ve never felt that way. I don’t care if an actor is a total ass in real life, it doesn’t change my enjoyment of the movie. (Hence, my thing for Woody Allen movies).
Well, for one — I can’t do that. But for another — even if I could, I wouldn’t want to. I don’t believe in supporting misogynist scum in any way whatsoever. I boycott stores that use practices I disagree with, and I boycott movies that I disagree with, and I boycott movies that star actors I disagree with.
There’s a gossip website with a huge list of actors and stars and what they get up to. It’s hard to conclude that they’re not all freaks, though they like Tom Hanks, Henry Winkler and Alyson Hannigan, to name three. But sometimes you want to draw a line.
Amp, I agree that McKinney was railroaded, by everyone. In my original, longer comment, I noted that I think in a thread right here, we went round and round in debate about the case, with lots of stuff that didn’t convince me, and then someone posted a radio transcript that did. She said some people knew – fine – she said Bush stonewalled – fine. I agree. This one throwaway radio comment made the link for me. It may have been a slip of the tongue by her. Anyway, anyone interested shouldn’t believe me without seeing the quote. I’m pretty sure it’s in your archives, Amp, maybe with McKinney in the title. I don’t think she should have been railroaded out for that, even if she did say it, but then I thought Moran shouldn’t have been railroaded out for his bigoted remark about American Jews. Trent Lott had a pattern, and everyone agreed that was important.
The comments on Kate’s post were depressing. Especially the posts blaming feminism, as if its feminism fault that it got women all the new responsibilities whithout men changing the *slightest* bit, in general. As if its the fault of feminism that women got access to so much more, and yet are expected to shoulder ALL of it, without men understanding that equality requires them to shoulder some of the burden women already *had*.
Amp: “You know, I’ve never felt that way. I don’t care if an actor is a total ass in real life, it doesn’t change my enjoyment of the movie. (Hence, my thing for Woody Allen movies).”
Bean: “Well, for one — I can’t do that. But for another — even if I could, I wouldn’t want to. I don’t believe in supporting misogynist scum in any way whatsoever. I boycott stores that use practices I disagree with, and I boycott movies that I disagree with, and I boycott movies that star actors I disagree with.”
I just know I’m going to get nailed for this….
I feel the same way you do, Amp. I’ve always liked Roman Polanski movies, although I haven’t seen “The Piano” because it doesn’t interest me. The first Polanski movie I ever saw was “Repulsion,” while I was in college, and it blew me away.
I used to like Woody Allen , in particular his older works (especially his plays), but I don’t care that much for them anymore. I’m not sure why, but I developed the distaste long before he seduced his step-daughter. Allen and Polanski are asses in real life, but that doesn’t change my enjoyment of some of Polanski’s movies. Woody Allen now drives me bonkers. Too much self-involvement for my taste.
I agree, Lorenzo. After reading the comments to Kate’s post, I wanted to go wash my brain out with soap. I don’t understand why some of those men got so upset over the suggestion that they compromise. It’s like they’d never heard the word before.
The Pianist is a great, great movie. The Piano is the Jane Campion one, which everyone says is brilliant too. Repulsion amazed me when I saw it: for one thing, the way the murders are the only moments of relief felt like a horrific glimpse into that sort of mind. I’d thought the girl in the Polanski case consented. She was drugged. But she said this year that people should ignore that and just judge the movie. The list of sleazy artists is too long to even start.
Palast is wrong about Cynthia McKinney. Look:
– his column did not actually reproduce a “made-up quote” from any newspaper. To wit:
None of those statements were quotes. They were paraphrases. News organizations summed up what they thought McKinney said. What she said can be found here, in the Pacifica Radio transcript of March 25, 2002.
The newspapers and NPR correctly reflected what McKinney said in that interview. Palast either failed to find that out – which reflects poorly on his cred as an “investigative journalist” – or he lied to cover up for a politician that he admired. Whatever the case, I’ve lost most of my respect for him and his standards.
Hestia: I wanted to go wash my brain out with soap
Me, too. I read Kate’s post last night, and most of the comments, but I did start to skim after a bit, in self-defense. There were a number of sensible, thoughtful comments, but between the self-righteous pontificating and the laboured descriptions of Why Men’s Brains Work Different From Women’s… I mean, we know so little about how brains work to begin with, we cannot possibly have any useful data on men’s v. women’s that would supercede cultural explanations for observed behaviours.
Anyway, I was still thinking about her essay itself when I woke up this morning, so I blogged about it and inadvertently trackbacked to this post, still don’t know why that happened, it’s a touch egregious, but there it is.
Dave, read Palast’s original article: it was perfectly obvious to me, and I imagine to every other literate reader, that the quotes from the Times and other papers were examples of how those papers paraphrased McKinney. This is because Palast included enough context with each quote to make that clear.
You’re claiming that Palast was being deceptive by directly quoting the paraphrases, in a way that made it obvious they were paraphrases, right in the first paragraph or two of his article. I’m sorry, but that’s just silly.
On the other hand, inaccurate or dubious paraphrases are deceptive. For instance, when the New York Times wrote: “McKinney?s [opponent] capitalized on the furor caused by Miss McKinney?s suggestion this year that President Bush might have known about the September 11 attacks but did nothing so his supporters could make money in a war,” that is deceptive.
That doesn’t suggest to Times readers that “McKinney said some things on the radio which could be interpreted this way, although there are other ways to interpret what she said, and she herself denies that’s how she meant it” – which is what the truth would have been. What it tells Times readers is that she said that: and that was deceptive.
As for your long quote from the radio interview (which has been reproduced on this very blog at least two or three times before, by the way), your problem seems to be that you are unable to imagine that anyone could possibly disagree with you about anything, or interpret a passage differently, unless they’re lying. In reality, people can disagree with you without being liars, Greg.
Your reading is one possible reading, but it’s certainly not the only possible reading. I think Palast’s interpretation is a good deal more plausible:
An advantage of Palast’s interpretation over yours is that McKinney says that’s what she meant. Do you really think it was excusable of the Times to print their (and yours) radically anti-McKinney interpretation without even asking her if she meant her comments that way?
Ampersand – I saw Palast’s point, and I agreed with part of it. Reporters piled on McKinney without doing much sourcing. They didn’t like her very much in the first place. He showed that in his interview with the NYT reporter.
This doesn’t excuse Palast from referring to a “made-up” “quote.” A quote can only be taken verbatim from the source’s mouth. None of the papers Palast impugned claimed to be quoting McKinney’s exact words. Saying that a reporter fabricated someone’s statement is different than claiming he paraphrased it in an unflattering way. The first case would be libel – the second case wouldn’t.
It’s silly to call out reporters for not asking politicians if they meant what they said in another interview. Did you think the media “screwed” George Bush when he said “There are some who feel like that the conditions are such that they can attack us there. My answer is bring them on”? There were dozens of stories following up the controversy of the statement, and Democrats went on the record to criticize Bush. They were right to do that, and make their own interpretation of Bush’s comment. They didn’t call the White House and ask what he meant. He was on the record, and he said what he said.
Also, McKinney used the formulation “What did this Administration know, and when did it know it about the events of September 11?” That’s a loaded phrase, harkening back to Howard Baker asking about Watergate: “What did the president know, and when did he know it?” It’s a phrase you use when you expect someone of wrongdoing. That factored into how I interpreted it, and it would be fair for another reporter to think the same way.
Yeah, you can come to different conclusions about what McKinney meant. If she was referring to terrorism in general and “NOT NOT NOT” to Bush knowing about September 11, McKinney should not have questioned what Bush “knew about the events of September 11.” I don’t expect reporters to make nice and check with Dubya to see that he approves their coverage, and I didn’t expect them to do that for Cynthia McKinney.
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