askverbalkint

CP article posted on the Nation website

Fri, 27 Oct 2006 21:06:58 GMT

OK. The Nation re-printed my CP article online. My life is complete:

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20061030/assault_gets_uglier

R.

LonelyGirl Found Out & Havard Ends Early Admission

Wed, 13 Sep 2006 14:06:59 GMT

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/13/technology/13lonely.html?th&emc=th

Well, It Turns Out That Lonelygirl Really Wasn’t

By VIRGINIA HEFFERNAN and TOM ZELLER Jr.
A nearly four-month-old Internet drama in which the cryptic video musings of a fresh-faced teenager became the obsession of millions of devotees — themselves divided over the very authenticity of the videos, or who was behind them or why — appears to be in its final act.

The woman who plays Lonelygirl15 on the video-sharing site YouTube.com has been identified as Jessica Rose, a 20-ish resident of New Zealand and Los Angeles and a graduate of the New York Film Academy. And the whole project appears to be the early serialized version of what eventually will become a movie.

Matt Foremski, the 18-year-old son of Tom Foremski, a reporter for the blog Silicon Valley Watcher, was the first to disinter a trove of photographs of the familiar-looking actress, who portrayed the character named Bree in the videos. The episodes suggested Bree was the home-schooled daughter of strictly religious parents who was able to find the time to upload video blogs of her innermost thoughts.

The discovery and the swift and subsequent revelation of other details surrounding the perpetrators of the videos and the fake fan site that accompanied it are bringing to an end one of the Internet’s more elaborately constructed mysteries. The fans’ disbelief in Lonelygirl15 was not willingly suspended, but rather teased and toyed with. Whether they will embrace the project as a new narrative form, condemn it or simply walk away remains to be seen.

The masterminds of the Lonelygirl15 videos are Ramesh Flinders, a screenwriter and filmmaker from Marin County, Calif., and Miles Beckett, a doctor turned filmmaker. The high quality of the videos caused many users to suspect a script and production crew, but Bree’s bedroom scenes were shot in Mr. Flinders’s home, in his actual bedroom, typically using nothing more than a Logitech QuickCam, a Web camera that retails for about $150.

Together with Grant Steinfeld, a software engineer in San Francisco, Mr. Flinders contrived to produce and distribute the videos to pique maximum curiosity about them.

The photographs of the actress, which made it clear that Ms. Rose has been playing Bree in the videos, were cached on Google.

“We were all under N.D.A.’s” Mr. Steinfeld said, referring to non-disclosure agreements the cast — and their friends — were asked to sign to preserve the mystery of Lonelygirl15. “They had a lawyer involved,” he said. “My first impression was like, wow, can this be legitimate? Is this ethical? I was very concerned about that in the beginning.”

But after he came to understand the project, Mr. Steinfeld said, he came to believe that something truly novel was at hand. “They were like the new Marshall McLuhan.”

Mr. Flinders and Mr. Beckett obscured their location by sending e-mail messages as Bree from various Internet computer addresses, including the address of Creative Artists Agency, the Beverly Hills talent agency where the team is now represented. Amanda Solomon Goodfried, an assistant at the agency, is believed to have helped Mr. Flinders and Mr. Beckett conceal their identities. Moreover, Ms. Goodfried’s father-in-law, Kenneth Goodfried, a lawyer in Encino, filed to trademark “Lonelygirl15” in August.

The story of how Mr. Flinders, Mr. Beckett and Ms. Rose were discovered in spite of their efforts to hide, and prolong the mystery, sheds light on the nature of online wiki-style investigations and manhunts. When Mr. Steinfeld’s dummy site, which had been set up before the first Lonelygirl15 video was even posted, struck users as suspicious and unsupervised — Mr. Steinfeld says he grew tired of running it, and dropped out of the project — fans set up their own site devoted to Lonelygirl15, which soon attracted more than a thousand members.

Both sites drew contributions from novelists, journalists, academics, day traders, lawyers, bloggers, filmmakers, video game designers, students, housewives, bored youngsters and experts on religion and botany. In the cacophony of conjecture, analysis, close-readings, jokes, insults, and distractions, good information sometimes surfaced.

Last month, a Lonelygirl15 fan discovered and posted a trademark application by Mr. Goodfried, which seemed to prove that the videos, which presented themselves as nothing but a video diary, were at least in part a commercial venture. Then, last week, three tech-savvy fans, working together, set up a sting on the e-mail being used by “Bree”; the operation revealed to them the I.P. address of Creative Artists Agency.

On the strength of this information, Mr. Foremski was confident he could find some trace of Bree on the Internet. He was sure that any participant in a semiprofessional production like Lonelygirl15 would have posted pictures somewhere. Sure enough, they had.

Mr. Steinfeld, on learning that Mr. Flinders and Mr. Beckett had been found out, offered his photographs of Ms. Rose as proof of his involvement in the Lonelygirl15 videos. He had been hired to take the pictures on the set at the start of shooting.

The series, which Mr. Flinders and Mr. Beckett plan to continue on a site overseen by them, may play differently with fans now that they know for sure that Bree is an actress. Part of the appeal of the series was that the serious-minded, literate Bree offered an unbeatable fantasy: a beautiful girl who techy guys had something in common with.

On learning that Ms. Rose was an actress whose interests, unlike the scientific and religious issues that fascinated Bree, ran to parties and posing, one fan wrote, “Very cute, but she’s really not into Feynmann and Jared Diamond! (I’m heart-broken ...But a wonderful actress, had me fooled into thinking she was a geek like me.)”

Harvard Ends Early Admission
By ALAN FINDER and KAREN W. ARENSON
Harvard University, breaking with a major trend in college admissions, says it will eliminate its early admissions program next year, with university officials arguing that such programs put low-income and minority applicants at a distinct disadvantage in the competition to get into selective universities.

Harvard will be the first of the nation’s prestigious universities to do away completely with early admissions, in which high school seniors try to bolster their chances at competitive schools by applying in the fall and learning whether they have been admitted in December, months before other students.

Some universities now admit as much as half of their freshman class this way, and many, though not Harvard, require an ironclad commitment from students that they will attend in return for the early acceptance.

Harvard’s decision — to be announced today — is likely to put pressure on other colleges, which acknowledge the same concerns but have been reluctant to take any step that could put them at a disadvantage in the heated competition for the top students.

“We think this will produce a fairer process, because the existing process has been shown to advantage those who are already advantaged,’’ Derek Bok, the interim president of Harvard, said yesterday in an interview.

Mr. Bok said students who were more affluent and sophisticated were the ones most likely to apply for early admission. More than a third of Harvard’s students are accepted through early admission. In addition, he said many early admissions programs require students to lock in without being able to compare financial aid offerings from various colleges.

Mr. Bok also spoke about reducing the frenzy surrounding admissions. “I think it will improve the climate in high schools,” he said, “so that students don’t start getting preoccupied in their junior year about which college to go to.’’

Many admissions deans and high school guidance counselors greeted Harvard’s decision — which is to go into effect for applicants in the fall of 2007 — with astonishment and delight.

“Wow, it’s incredible,’’ said Marilee Jones, the dean of admissions at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which has a nonbinding early admissions program.

Ms. Jones has spoken widely about reducing the pressure and stress of admissions. “It has the capacity to change a lot of things in this business,’’ she said. “It’s bold enough for other schools to really reconsider what they’re doing. I wish them so much luck in this.’’

Lloyd Thacker, the executive director of the Education Conservancy, a nonprofit group created to lobby for an overhaul in admissions procedures, said his eyes had teared up when he heard the news. “I’m so glad,” Mr.Thacker said. “I can’t believe it.’’

“The most powerful institution in the country is saying, singularly, yes, something is wrong with this and we’re going to try to act in the public interest,’’ he added.

The University of Delaware announced a similar move last May.

For three decades Harvard has offered a particular form of early admissions, in which students who are accepted early still have the freedom to go elsewhere. Various forms of early admissions are offered by hundreds of colleges and universities, with many requiring applicants to commit upfront to attending the university if offered early admission.

The popularity of the procedure grew significantly in the 1990’s, as colleges tried to increase their competitive advantage by locking in strong candidates early. It also gave an edge to students willing to commit early to an institution. In some cases admissions rates are two or three times higher for students who apply early.

But at Harvard and many other universities officials have grown concerned that early admissions present a major obstacle to low-income and working-class students. Such students have also been hurt by steep tuition increases and competition with students from wealthy families who pour thousands of dollars into college consultants and tutoring.

“I think there are lots of very talented students out there from poor and moderate-income backgrounds who have been discouraged by this whole hocus-pocus of early admissions by many of the nation’s top colleges,’’ said William R. Fitzsimmons, Harvard College’s dean of admissions and financial aid.

Mr. Thacker and other critics said that under binding early admission programs, students have to commit to a college long before they know how much aid they will be offered. Students who apply for admission in the regular cycle are able to compare financial-aid offerings from various colleges before making up their minds in April.

Under Harvard’s early admissions program, which is known as early action, students do not have to decide until May 1 whether to accept an admission offer. Even so, many potential applicants did not understand the distinction between Harvard’s program and those that require an upfront commitment and were discouraged from applying, Mr. Bok said.

“We think the more schools abandon this process, the healthier the admissions process will be,’’ he said.

Of the 2,124 students admitted by Harvard last year, 813 were granted early admission, or 38 percent, Mr. Fitzsimmons said.

Under Lawrence H. Summers, the Harvard president who left office in June, the university took a number of steps to make itself more accessible to poor and working-class students. Among other things, families with incomes below $60,000 a year are no longer required to pay for a students’ education.

The idea of abandoning early admission was developed after Mr. Bok became interim president in July, said John Longbrake, a Harvard spokesman. Early admission will remain in effect in the current academic year, which is already under way.

Several educators said only a university with Harvard’s reputation could take the risk involved with eliminating early admission because it will continue to be the first choice for so many top students.

“The one thing that always seemed commonly agreed was that no college could give up its early application program if the others didn’t, too,” said Christopher Avery, a Harvard professor and a co-author of “The Early Admissions Game: Joining the Elite” (Harvard University Press, 2003). “This seems to move to do just that.’’

Bruce Hunter, director of college counseling at the Rowland Hall-St. Mark’s School, a private school in Salt Lake City, said he hoped other universities would follow Harvard’s lead, but he was not confident they would.

“I think that Harvard has calculated that they will not suffer any competitive disadvantage in the process,’’ Mr. Hunter said. “I’m not sure that there are more than a handful of other places that could make the same claim.’’

Janet Lavin Rapelye, dean of admission at Princeton University, applauded Harvard’s decision, but said she could not predict how Princeton might respond. Princeton has binding early admission, and Ms. Rapelye said there had been questions about whether early admissions limited diversity.

“All of us who sit in these seats have always worried about that,’’ she said. “Yet we have worked very hard to broaden and deepen our applicant pool at every step in the process.’’

so...they lied, and we know that they knew they lied?

Sat, 09 Sep 2006 15:48:59 GMT

A very unpatriotic moment.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/09/world/middleeast/09intel.html?th&emc=t

September 9, 2006

C.I.A. Said to Find No Hussein Link to Terror Chief
By MARK MAZZETTI
WASHINGTON, Sept. 8 — The Central Intelligence Agency last fall repudiated the claim that there were prewar ties between Saddam Hussein’s government and an operative of Al Qaeda, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, according to a report issued Friday by the Senate Intelligence Committee.

The disclosure undercuts continuing assertions by the Bush administration that such ties existed, and that they provided evidence of links between Iraq and Al Qaeda. The Republican-controlled committee, in a second report, also sharply criticized the administration for its reliance on the Iraqi National Congress during the prelude to the war in Iraq.

The findings are part of a continuing inquiry by the committee into prewar intelligence about Iraq. The conclusions went beyond its earlier findings, issued in the summer of 2004, by including criticism not just of American intelligence agencies but also of the administration.

Several Republicans strongly dissented on the report with conclusions about the Iraqi National Congress, saying they overstated the role that the exile group had played in the prewar intelligence assessments about Iraq. But the committee overwhelmingly approved the other report, with only one Republican senator voting against it.

The reports did not address the politically divisive question of whether the Bush administration had exaggerated or misused intelligence as part of its effort to win support for the war. But one report did contradict the administration’s assertions, made before the war and since, that ties between Mr. Zarqawi and Mr. Hussein’s government provided evidence of a close relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda.

As recently as Aug. 21, President Bush said at a news conference that Mr. Hussein “had relations with Zarqawi.’’ But a C.I.A. report completed in October 2005 concluded instead that Mr. Hussein’s government “did not have a relationship, harbor or even turn a blind eye toward Zarqawi and his associates,” according to the new Senate findings.

The C.I.A. report also contradicted claims made in February 2003 by Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, who mentioned Mr. Zarqawi no fewer than 20 times during a speech to the United Nations Security Council that made the administration’s case for going to war. In that speech, Mr. Powell said that Iraq “today harbors a deadly terrorist network’’ headed by Mr. Zarqawi, and dismissed as “not credible’’ assertions by the Iraqi government that it had no knowledge of Mr. Zarqawi’s whereabouts.

The panel concluded that Mr. Hussein regarded Al Qaeda as a threat rather than a potential ally, and that the Iraqi intelligence service “actively attempted to locate and capture al-Zarqawi without success.’’

One of the reports by the committee criticized a decision by the National Security Council in 2002 to maintain a close relationship with the Iraqi National Congress, headed by the exile leader Ahmad Chalabi, even after the C.I.A. and the Defense Intelligence Agency had warned that “the I.N.C was penetrated by hostile intelligence services,” notably Iran.

The report concluded that the organization had provided a large volume of flawed intelligence to the United States about Iraq, and concluded that the group “attempted to influence United States policy on Iraq by providing false information through defectors directed at convincing the United States that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction and had links to terrorists.”

The findings were released at an inopportune time for the Bush administration, which has spent the week trying to turn voters’ attention away from the missteps on Iraq and toward the more comfortable political territory of the continued terrorist threat. On Friday, the White House spokesman, Tony Snow, played down the reports, saying that they contained “nothing new” and were “re-litigating things that happened three years ago.”

“The important thing to do is to figure out what you’re doing tomorrow, and the day after, and the month after, and the year after to make sure that this war on terror is won,” Mr. Snow said.

The two reports released Friday were expected to be the least controversial aspects of what remains of the Senate committee’s investigation, which will eventually address whether the Bush administration’s assertions about Iraq accurately reflected the available intelligence. But unanticipated delays caused them to be released in the heat of the fall political campaign.

The reports were approved by the committee in August, but went through a monthlong declassification process. It was Senator Pat Roberts of Kansas, the committee’s Republican chairman, who set early September as the release date.

The committee’s report in 2004, which lambasted intelligence agencies for vastly overestimating the state of Iraq’s nuclear, biological and chemical weapons programs, was issued with unanimous approval. But the reports released Friday provided evidence of how much the relationship between Republicans and Democrats on the committee had degenerated over the past two years.

A set of conclusions that included criticism of the administration’s ties with the Iraqi National Congress was opposed by several Republicans on the panel, including Mr. Roberts, but was approved with the support of two Republicans, Chuck Hagel, of Nebraska, and Olympia Snowe, of Maine, along with all seven Democrats. Senator Roberts even took the unusual step of disavowing the conclusions about the role played by the Iraqi National Congress, saying that they were “misleading and are not supported by the facts.”

The report about the group’s role concluded that faulty intelligence from the group made its way into several prewar intelligence reports, including the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate that directly preceded the Senate vote on the Iraq war. It says that sources introduced to American intelligence by the group directly influenced two key judgments of that document: that Mr. Hussein possessed mobile biological weapons laboratories and that he was trying to reconstitute his nuclear program.

The report said there was insufficient evidence to determine whether one of the most notorious of the intelligence sources used by the United States before the Iraq war was tied to the Iraqi National Congress. The source, an Iraqi who was code-named Curveball, was a crucial source for the American view that Mr. Hussein had a mobile biological weapons program, but the information that he provided was later entirely discredited.

The report said other mistaken information about Iraq’s biological program had been provided by a source linked to the Iraqi National Congress, and it said the intelligence agencies’ use of the information had “constituted a serious error.’’

The dissenting opinion, signed by Mr. Roberts and four other Republican members of the committee, minimized the role played by Mr. Chalabi’s group. “Information from the I.N.C. and I.N.C.-affiliated defectors was not widely used in intelligence community products and played little role in the intelligence community’s judgments about Iraq’s W.M.D. programs,” the Republicans said.

Francis Brooke, a spokesman for the Iraqi National Congress, called the report “tendentious, partisan and misleading,” and said that the group had not played a central role as the Bush administration built the case for war.

At the same time, Mr. Brooke said his organization was surprised at how little the American government knew about Mr. Hussein’s government before the war, which may have forced the American officials to rely more heavily on the organization. “We did not realize the paucity of human intelligence that the administration had on Iraq,” he said.

The Culture Project - i like.

Mon, 04 Sep 2006 04:31:57 GMT

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/03/theater/03ishe.html?8dpc=&_r=1&adxnnl=1&oref=login&adxnnlx=1157343917-kKjWXl+jt9NQld5/NH38Pg

The Culture Project Plays That Can Make a Difference -- NY Times.

THE world is in a fractious state. News reports grimly tally the daily death tolls in Iraq. Polls reveal a pronounced lack of confidence in the American powers that be. The clatter of chatter about potential terrorist attacks floods the airwaves.

A scene from “Guantánamo: Honor Bound to Defend Freedom,” presented in 2004 at the Culture Project. More Photos »
Can art save the day? More specifically, can theater rouse the populace from a sense of numbed anxiety? Can a stage play change minds, or help channel passive beliefs into active commitment?

Short-term answer: a resounding “Nope.” Long-term answer: a less resounding if hardly less dispiriting “Probably not, alas.”

The history of world drama offers plenty of examples of theatrical events that caused rippling responses in political and social spheres. Patriotic speeches from Shakespeare’s “Henry V” rallied British soldiers to battle even in World War II. Clifford Odets’s “Waiting for Lefty” became a powerful persuader in support of the burgeoning labor movement. A fateful performance of a comedy called “Our American Cousin” at Ford’s Theater can be said to have changed the course of American history. But plays do not regularly stop or start wars or social causes, win or lose national elections.

And as theater’s foothold in American culture has steadily shrunk over the last 50 years or so, the chance that a play could have any significant influence on social or political discourse has also waned. To be influential a playwright’s voice has to be heard, and it’s become harder to hear the lonely cry of the outraged playwright as the media landscape has been monopolized by more profitable and more easily mass-marketed forms of entertainment.

But you can’t blame the Culture Project for trying, can you? The determined little nonprofit theater at the corner of Bleecker and Lafayette in the East Village, under the artistic direction of Allan Buchman, is spearheading a new “citywide arts festival focusing on human rights, social justice and political action,” beginning on Sept. 12 and running through Oct. 22. The festival’s very title, Impact, is a one-word salvo hurled in the teeth of those who would argue that art can never be an effective tool of social or political progress.

The Culture Project’s central contribution to the festival could be seen as a prime piece of supporting evidence in favor of art’s ability to stir activism, an argument for the possibility of real impact. It’s the premiere of a new play by Eve Ensler called “The Treatment,” about an encounter between a psychologist and a traumatized American military interrogator involved in torture.

No one could reasonably argue Ms. Ensler’s “Vagina Monologues” was a socially insignificant or politically ineffectual work. Her collage of testimonials about the culture of silence surrounding sexual violence against women is probably the most important piece of political theater of the last decade, at least if we measure a play’s impact in quantifiable terms. It has been produced in 90 countries, and the annual “V-Day” benefits it inspired have raised more than $40 million for local charities.

Still, “The Vagina Monologues” is an exception to the general rule that politically minded theater is not wildly popular, that there is a limited audience for drama that seeks to awaken our consciousness to contemporary ills or probe thorny political topics. After all, it took a year and a half for the only “major” play specifically about the American invasion of Iraq, David Hare’s “Stuff Happens,” to arrive in New York, despite the city’s large theater culture and famed liberalism. First produced at the National Theater in London in September 2004, it opened last spring in New York. And it was not produced on Broadway, the usual New York home for Sir David’s plays, and for acclaimed work from the National Theater. It opened off Broadway, at the Public Theater, to a healthy if not spectacular run. (Hoping to enlarge the audience, the Public is sponsoring a free reading of the play in Central Park on Wednesday.)

The reasons for audiences’ resistance to this kind of theater are not hard to discover. Look into your own heart, regular theatergoer. I’ll admit that I sometimes approach the genre with wariness or a sense of duty, as if lining up for a vaccination against apathy to social or political causes. Publicly avowing an interest in the latest piece of earnest theatrical journalism, but privately deciding that you’re not really in the mood just tonight, is hardly unnatural. (I still haven’t seen “An Inconvenient Truth,” by the way. Anyone know if it’s still playing?)

For most of us — virtually all of us — theaters are, above all, places of entertainment. It would be a perverse person indeed who would trip with glee into a theater presenting a play with the word “Guantánamo” in the title, overjoyed at an opportunity to relish the spectacle of human suffering and reckon with troubling questions of injustice.

That quasi-journalistic aspect of much contemporary political theater doesn’t help either. If asked, most theatergoers would say they don’t want to go to the theater to be told what they already know, or can acquire elsewhere. But for the socially conscious theatergoer (and who would lay claim to being a socially unconscious one?), the medicinal element in this genre can be more of a draw than a drawback.

It gives us the pleasant sensation of having received a moral booster-shot or undergone a cleansing fast that flushes out all the cultural toxins we ingest when we scoot off to guilty-pleasure movies like “The Devil Wears Prada” or obsessively watch “Project Runway.”

In recent seasons, the Culture Project has presented long runs of “Guantánamo: Honor Bound to Defend Freedom” and “The Exonerated,” about wrongly convicted prisoners saved from death row: neither a joyous topic. Other recent successes in the genre include Heather Raffo’s solo show “Nine Parts of Desire,” about the plight of women in Iraq, and “In the Continuum,” Danai Gurira and Nikkole Salter’s docudrama about women and AIDS in the United States and Zimbabwe.

Yet aside from making us feel virtuous, political theater can be a source of real solace too. Reading the newspaper or scanning headlines on the Internet is a solitary activity, as is much television watching. When cruelty and violence pervade the newspapers to an unusual degree, as they have lately, our sense of alienation can be magnified. You think: Is this my species?

If I may indulge in a Hallmark card-ish image, going to see plays that tackle some of the same issues can be like reading the paper while holding someone’s hand. The cold touch of the truth isn’t mitigated, but the accompanying sensation, of comfort in companionship, alters the experience.

Seeing politically engaged theater can give us a sense of fellow-feeling that is elusive in these much-polarized political times, and it can also reconnect us to our sense of impassioned outrage that can fade quickly after you’ve put down the morning papers. It’s easier to be apathetic when you’re alone. (Ever given a standing ovation in your living room?)

Much enduring theater art — from Aeschylus to Shakespeare to Ibsen — is a collective form of bearing witness to human suffering. As part of a live audience you are a more active participant in the airing of the problem or the exposure of suffering. The exchange of information is not mediated by video or print. It’s human to human, and when the subject is of immediate political significance it can be harder to dismiss as propaganda or dry journalism.

The theater critic Eric Bentley has discussed politically engaged theater in more than one essay. Writing in 1966 about a controversial production of the Rolf Hochhuth play “The Deputy” in “The Theater of Commitment,” he noted that theatrical presentation transforms the material at hand. “Theater is sur-real,” he wrote. “The little ritual of performance, given just a modicum of competence, can lend to the events represented another dimension, a more urgent reality.”

Mr. Bentley went on to note the similarities between propagandistic theater and the rituals of church, touching on another reason for the appeal of theater. “Preaching to the converted” is the dismissive epithet easily hurled at plays that air a social ill in front of audiences predisposed to share the playwright’s view. But why shouldn’t theatergoers draw the same kind of sustenance from the collective experience of theater that congregants do from sermons at church? We all have spiritual lives of some kind, beliefs that are articles of faith more than reason. And they are nurtured by a sense of common feeling, the knowledge that we are not alone in our perceptions, whether they consist of general religious tenets or specific moral stances on social or political issues.

Does this mean that theater has a perceptible or quantifiable impact on the issues raised? As I suggested earlier, not necessarily, or not much. I haven’t rushed to the barricades, hand in hand with the fellow in seat G102, any time recently. But I have left the theater with a more vivid sense of the painful human cost of public policy or a deeper knowledge of the gritty specifics of a specific historical event.

Art can inculcate empathy, and empathy directed not at a generalized humanity but a specific person or persons keeps healthy and intact our alertness to immediate evils, not general ones. It reminds us that history doesn’t happen in newspapers but to people.

This is despite the fact that most political theater does not really rise to the level of enduring art. Nuanced perspective, structural elegance and imaginative scope are sometimes sacrificed to immediacy and polemics. “Stuff Happens,” written as a fresh response to historical events, felt dated by the time it arrived in New York, while Tony Kushner’s “Angels in America,” which did not appear until the end of the 1980’s, the decade it examined, retained its power when it was filmed for HBO several years after its premiere. Bertolt Brecht’s “Mother Courage,” revived by the Public Theater this summer, retains its potency because Brecht’s polemics about the connections between warfare and capitalism dissolve into a complex and even contradictory vision of human suffering and endurance.

Which isn’t to suggest we all sit on the sidelines and wait for the first bona fide masterwork contemplating the war in Iraq or the political ferment in the country at the moment. In the essay I mentioned above, Mr. Bentley concluded, “Any dent that any theater can make in the world is no doubt small, but theater people who on that account give up the effort as hopeless are generally agreeing to make no dent at all.”

I would add that theatergoers who neglect to support those efforts are generally agreeing to let the art form degenerate into the pervasive vacuousness of the cultural atmosphere, the fog of uncaring and unmeaning that cuts us off from a sometimes painful but necessary knowledge of the world as it is, right now.

found on my bro's AIM profile

Sat, 26 Aug 2006 01:40:48 GMT

everytimeildie: white people are stupid
everytimeildie: i just like doing their women
B751: agreed.

R.

a truimphant return

Fri, 18 Aug 2006 04:09:07 GMT

I have returned. Like Homer, I've schlepped onto campus, gazed at a familiar place, and then beat my head against the hoods of parked tourists' cars...if only...

This RA-life ain't half bad. I have a name-tag; I'm here early; rumor is that they will feed me for the forseeable future. Just like the womb again.

For those of you who have not heard my complaint, it's hard returning back to campus for a final year. I never knew that you could outgrow college. Rather strange.

Anyway, facebook tells me to wish gay grand-daughter, Jenna, happy birthday (19th). I'm NEVER ahead with birthdays. My mind prefers immaculate conception for everyone.

Bebot, bebot, bebot, bet - filipino! filipino! filipino!
R.

I Get By With A Little Help From My Friends...

Sun, 30 Jul 2006 21:45:59 GMT

New. A caffeine cooler that looks like an IPOD.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/30/business/yourmoney/30goods.html?th&emc=th

All of you are caffeine addicts, so perhaps worth the 29.99 investment.

R.

Boy Band Member Comes Out

Wed, 26 Jul 2006 20:16:22 GMT

Lance Bass from NSync comes out. We are everywhere...

http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=entertainmentNews&storyID=2006-07-26T191159Z_01_N26447490_RTRUKOC_0_US-BASS.xml&WTmodLoc=Home-C5-entertainmentNews-2

Avril Lavigne's wedding & some brainstorming help

Sun, 16 Jul 2006 18:12:48 GMT

First, an update to my celebrity gossip:

http://metromix.chicagotribune.com/news/celebrity/sns-ap-people-lavigne,0,6071077.story?coll=mmx-celebrity_heds

And, I need some help thinking about three proposals I will need to make within the next month:

1. Campus Progress article - I'd like to contribute to my publication funders' magazine. Which campus issue do you think is most interesting? I'd thought about writing about our gender divide on sexual assault on campus and the role of the queer community. I could write about conversations I am having about our American Indian void and irony of being the Tribe.

Thoughts?

2. LGBT of color book chapter proposal - I am going to submit a chapter for a new book about LGBT people of color in the academy. There will be a student voices section which I intend to contribute. This might be an ideal place to write about my "platypus" identity - being outside of the (gay) white, queer community, not quite being accepted in the black community, and how to see myself through an academic lens when I study issues of race, gender and sexuality.

Is there anything about my experience you think other people would like to learn or understand?

3. Honors proposal - So, I wanted to extend on my paper with Dee about campus whiteness and connection to the right wing. I probably will stick with it, but is there something else I should spend my year studying? Like, the grassroots phenomenon of a people's movement like the VOP? Should I try to extend my book proposal into a concrete study?

What's my best bet?

Much love, R.

listening to Q Tip's "Breathe and Stop"

Fri, 07 Jul 2006 04:04:10 GMT

I did not want anyone to have the impression that I have legitimate hobbies.

Highlights:

*I've let my nails grow for two weeks now. They are noticably long and noticably dirtier. This experiment won't continue long.

*Next Wed. & Thurs. I am headed to DC for a National Campus Progress conference and workshop. The latter is a writers' training with no more than 35 students and the former will feature Mr. Obama as the keynote.

*July 24th. I will be visiting Howard, Georgetown and American law schools.

*I have finished my 5th Hercule Poirot novel in 3 weeks. I'm hooked on the short, arrogant, pistol of a personality, English detective. My aim: to read every Poirot novel by the end of this calendar year! Mark my words - I have signed up for the Agatha Christie Society online. It's business.

*Dating violence campus committee meeting tomorrow. Trip to Williamsburg for focus group on Tuesday.

*New hair. Thin braids, shoulder length, curly on the ends.

*Harm reduction group is underway. Doing my research. Making phone calls.

*Visited the Udar-Hazy Air and Space museum on the 4th with father, Barbara and Tyler (Barb's son). Boring as all hell but the gift shop was stellar.

*I rooted for Italy against Germany, by the way.

*Received a phone call from Cynthia (homeless woman I have sort of taken on); she's doing OK for the time being.

*Submitted manuscript to Off our Backs about viewing hip-hop culture from a black queer lens. Yet to hear back.

*Spent a night at a gay club passing out condoms, lube, and free HIV testing. Nice time with the Fan Free clinic.

*Watched HOSTEL during my DVD/hair-unbraiding session. It was absolutely gruesome and a TRUE story. I wrote a postcard to Jenn about how utterly depraved that is.

*Also saw the Devil Wears Prada - a must see. Ann Hathaway gets prettier with each movie.

*Harm reduction friends are quite wonderful.

*I've decided that I have a British sense of humor. Explains everything.

*Picked up constellation book. I'd like to memorize it in no time.

I always forget the little, amazing things which life so interesting.

"Status don't matter, everyone gets goin' by the pit and patter -"

R.

karma...

Tue, 27 Jun 2006 18:23:23 GMT

OK. This is funny.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/06/27/ap/entertainment/mainD8IGKUH83.shtml

Rush caught with drugs....again. And it seems like he's less secure these days. That's probably why he continues to attack the poor, women, and other downtrodden people.

Karma, bitch.

which dmb song are you (borrowed from Jinx)?

Sun, 25 Jun 2006 15:25:26 GMT

What Dave Matthews Band Song Are You (Results Contain Pictures)?

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NY Times article about Congress's failure to raise the minimum wage

Sat, 24 Jun 2006 13:33:53 GMT

A Look at Republican Priorities: Afflicting the Afflicted

Published: June 23, 2006
At the same time that Republicans are fighting to exempt the richest estates from taxes, they are blocking a raise for the nation's poorest workers.

Senate Democrats tried unsuccessfully this week to raise the federal minimum wage, which stands at just $5.15 an hour. It has not been increased in nearly a decade, and at its current stingy level, the rate flies in the face of Americans' belief that those who work hard and play by the rules will be rewarded. A minimum-wage worker earns just $10,700 a year, nearly $6,000 below the poverty line for a family of three. Since the minimum wage was first adopted, there has been a long tradition of bipartisan support for regular raises. Presidents Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon and George H. W. Bush all signed increases into law. Americans across the political spectrum strongly support the minimum wage, and believe it should be significantly higher. A recent poll by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center found that 83 percent of Americans favored increasing the minimum wage by $2.

Nevertheless, since 1997 minimum-wage increases have regularly been blocked in Congress. The restaurant industry and other low-wage employers that make heavy campaign contributions have thrown their weight around with great success. A bill sponsored by Edward Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, to increase the minimum wage by $2.10 over two years drew the support this week of 52 senators, including eight Republicans, but Republican leaders threw up procedural barriers. And in the House, Republican leaders are not letting a minimum-wage increase come to a vote, apparently because it would pass.

Just 23 percent of Americans approve of the job Congress is doing, according to a recent New York Times/CBS News poll. These dismal ratings are no surprise when Congress's highest economic priority is handing out tax cuts to millionaires and oil companies, and its one point of fiscal restraint is protecting employers from having to pay a decent wage to factory workers and waiters.

from KC - a very funny joke about Bush

Mon, 19 Jun 2006 03:16:07 GMT

George Bush has a heart attack and dies.

He goes to hell where the devil is waiting for him.

"I don't know what to do here," says the devil.

"You're on my list but I have no room for you, but you definitely have
to stay here, so I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I've got 3 people here who weren't quite as bad as you. I'll let one of them go, but you have to take their place. I'll even let YOU decide who leaves."

George thought that sounded pretty good, so he agreed.
The devil opened the first room. In it was Richard Nixon and a large pool of water. He kept diving in and surfacing
empty handed over and over and over. Such was his fate in hell.

"No!" George said. "I don't think so. I'm not a good swimmer and don't think I could do that all day long."

The devil led him to the next room. In it was Tony Blair with a
sledgehammer and a room full of rocks. All he did was swing that hammer, time after time after time.

"No! I've got this problem with my shoulder. I would be in constant agony if all I could do was break rocks all day!"
commented George.

The devil opened a third door. In it, George saw Bill Clinton lying naked on the floor with his arms staked over his head and his legs staked in spread eagle pose. Bent over him was
Monica Lewinsky, doing what she does best.

George Bush looked at this in disbelief for a while and finally said, "Yeah, I can handle this."

The devil smiled and said.... "Monica, you're free to go!"

Movie clip stirs debate over black relationships

Fri, 16 Jun 2006 01:59:55 GMT

What a shame. Let's love each other.

I smell some sexism, too.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5474218

the subway bathroom...no pride here

Sun, 11 Jun 2006 22:57:54 GMT

DC Pride. Glamorous. Fun. Swell to see ol' friends & the W&M contingient. But then...

there was the Subway bathroom...

Before hopping onto the Metro, Rachel, myself, Jinx (Jenn) and Jenna visited Subway for a quick eats.

I was eager to find a potty. What a mistake.

One girl had gone and mentioned to the cashier that it "was missing toliet paper", however, she failed to mention "it's a human waste dump, literally..."

I went inside - first, taken aback - then, confused - finally my face twisted from disgust. I mean, it looked like a toliet, but what was bubbling out of it?

The glowing? This pot must have been gay, too, since it had a rainbow...

I was not impressed, also, I was not able to compromise. I wanted to close my eyes and do the deed, but I didn't want to risk my good health.

I left the bathroom sure that I was a better person, much more exposed to the "evils" of city life. But damn.

Rachel said she needed to go, next. I warned her. I really did. She was a dear friend, after all. She came, she went in, yet did not conquer. She emerged equally confused, and still needing to go to the bathroom.

So I joined my first Dyke March (with friendly cops; our cops), I watched an energized parade, and I spent the day with my closest buds...

however, i shall forever remember the subway bathroom.

Fin.

so-called Marriage Amendment website - commonwealth coalition looks good on ya

Mon, 05 Jun 2006 02:20:05 GMT

This is hot. The new Commonwealth Coalition "Vote No" website.

http://www.votenova.org/

Take a ganter.
R.

this morning's news roundup and "life" journal

Sun, 04 Jun 2006 15:45:37 GMT

Little known fact - surge of racism in international soccer; threatens world cup
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/04/sports/soccer/04racism.html?th&emc=th

Return of Latin's Motown
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/04/arts/music/04rose.html?th&emc=th

Calling out Bush's bullshit (not the NY Times title)
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/04/opinion/04sun1.html?th&emc=th

Other exciting, life roundups. Job is swell. This weekend I connected with my dear high school friend (and 1st girlfriend) on Friday night. Curled up with chocolate ice cream and Desperate Housewives after a very complicated day (my apologies Rob for missing your party).

However, a saving grace of yesterday - I found the "free" section of craig'slist. I inquired about a free digital camera, computer, cordless phone, and sleeper couch. I highly recommend it for the DC area (or Richmond if you are in the 'burg). I gave away the ninetendo 64 and accessories sitting in the back of my car. The spirit of giving. I also found about 20 yard sales yesterday (I got up in the morning and went to 3; bought a framed picasso painting and standing lamp for $5 each). This is good. A place fully furnished. I also had my first "unofficial" Equality Virginia board meeting. Overall, solid, but I have a few ideas...

Greek festival today. Some intellectual work. On a desperate search for nightcrawlers.

I'll be visiting Ashley Bledsoe and Monica Tremont in the 'burg on June 12th. I will stay the night, work the primaries all-day, then see Sandi afterward.

Oh yes, go support the Dixie Chicks, my country heroines.

Flipmode.
R.

online throngs impose a stern morality in china

Sat, 03 Jun 2006 20:08:12 GMT

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/03/world/asia/03china.html?pagewanted=2&th&emc=th

Kinda scary. The world-wide-web as the morality police. hm.

another new wave up-and-comer

Sat, 03 Jun 2006 12:34:46 GMT

Next month, Cory Booker will officially become mayor of New Jersey's largest city, Newark. The 37-year-old Rhodes Scholar will have some monumental challenges to address.

Newark has been called the poorest city of its size in the United States, after Miami. The city's schools, already taken over by the state, are said to be barely functional, and crime is rampant.

But Booker, a former city councilman, has already been tested by fire in another way. It took him two campaigns to win the office. His first try in 2002, against incumbent Mayor Sharpe James, was called one of the nastiest contests in American politics.

Both Booker and James, the longest-serving mayor in the city's history, are Democrats and African American -- but that didn't stop James from making personal attacks against his opponent. The climate became so heated that the federal government sent in observers to watch for cheating and violence.

That election was captured in an Oscar-nominated documentary Street Fight, which portrays Booker as a young, idealistic politician pitted against an entrenched, old-school political machine that used any means necessary to crush opponents.

For the 2006 race, however, James pulled out of the race, saying he wanted to focus on his other elected position as a New Jersey State Senator. Booker easily bested his new opponent, state Sen. Ronald Rice.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5446231

Students really do change the world

Fri, 02 Jun 2006 19:55:31 GMT

http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/americas/06/02/chile.students.ap/

Chilean officials give in to students
Government says it will add millions to educational spending

SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) -- The government said Friday it will add millions of dollars in education-related spending to appease high school students whose nationwide protests have become the first major test of President Michelle Bachelet's three-month-old government.

Finance Minister Andres Velasco said the government is allocating 31 billion pesos (US $58 million) during the second half of this year alone to meet the students' demands.

The concessions came after three straight days of violent street protests this week that saw some 20 people injured, more than 700 arrested and millions of dollars of property damage.

In a nationally broadcast speech late Thursday, Bachelet announced measures including reduced transportation fares and school building repairs.

She also said she would meet one of the students' core demands: a federal takeover to reduce inequality between rich and poor schools.

The government will send a bill to Congress to reform the country's education law -- issued by former dictator Augusto Pinochet one day before he left power in 1990 -- which gives municipalities responsibility for public schools.

Velasco said discretionary spending funds in the 2006 budget would cover the government's elimination of an exam fee (US $55) required for college applications, and provide government financing for a public transportation pass (US $5.50) for 1.49 million students.

The president, however, balked at making transportation free for all students, saying the student demand would cost the equivalent of building 33,000 houses for poor families.

Velasco called the government response to the students "an ambitious but realistic effort," and Bachelet said that "this is the maximum effort the government can do."

Student leaders, however, appeared adamant in their demand for free transport.

"There are kids who cannot go to school because they lack the 240 pesos (US $0.45) needed every day for the bus," said Maria Jose Sanhueza, one of the top leaders of the movement. "We will not drop this demand."

The leaders of the movement were meeting Friday to prepare their answer to the government. No further talks with the government were scheduled.

I've Got Soul, but I'm Not a Soldier

Fri, 02 Jun 2006 04:07:10 GMT

Alright, Soulforce.

Billboard Campaign Seeks to End Scapegoating of Gays & Lesbians as the Senate Readies to Vote on Federal Marriage Amendment
Dear Richael,

Soulforce, the organization founded to end religion-based discrimination of gays and lesbians, is taking their cause to the boyhood streets of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, the Senator responsible for re-introducing the controversial marriage amendment. Scheduled for Senate vote the first week of June, Soulforce is placing sixteen billboard posters in and around his hometown of Nashville, Tennessee to call attention to Republican pandering to the so-called religious right.

The billboards feature part of a speech given by Coretta Scott King at The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey on March 24, 2004, when she said, "Gay and lesbian people have families, and their families should have legal protections, whether by marriage or civil union. A constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriages is a form of gay bashing, and it would do nothing at all to protect traditional marriages."

In addition to the Soulforce.org web address, the billboards include a photograph of Soulforce Executive Director Jeff Lutes with his partner and son. Lutes adds, "Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and others, under pressure from wealthy fundamentalists, are again trying to write discrimination into the constitution rather than focusing on the real problems facing America. Soulforce reminds Senator Frist's hometown that Mrs. King stood for the full equality of lesbian and gay Americans and against homophobia, especially homophobia in the black community. Mrs. King publicly saluted the gays and lesbians that fought for her freedom in Montgomery and Selma and other places during the civil rights movement, and she compared homophobia to racism, anti-Semitism, and other forms of bigotry that set the stage for repression and violence."

Proponents of the previously failed amendment feel it is their duty to force a public vote by scapegoating gays and lesbians as threats to heterosexual marriage. Helen Palmer of the League of Women Voters says, "The rights of one group should not be subjected to the vagaries of the majority."

Soulforce is dedicated to educating the public regarding the lives of non-traditional families and the harmful effects of religion based bigotry on the children caught in the cross hairs of this political red herring. The billboard campaign will remind people that Coretta Scott King called all Americans who believed in Martin Luther King, Jr.'s dream to resist injustice and instead "make room at the table of brotherhood and sisterhood for lesbian and gay people.'"

Thin is Electronic Chic, Superman is Not Dead, No Foul, No Harm and Tracking Dickie

Wed, 31 May 2006 23:05:14 GMT

Ok, this is deadly.

My new google desktop sorts out the neatest news:

Cellphones, too, can be too thin
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/01/technology/01phone.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Google Decides Not to Make a Browser, damn...
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory?id=2025653

Superman Release Pushed Up
http://in.today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=entertainmentNews&storyID=2006-06-01T020340Z_01_NOOTR_RTRJONC_0_India-252208-1.xml

GPS to Track Sex Offenders
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,196455,00.html

R.

Batwoman is a Lesbian...yes.

Wed, 31 May 2006 22:15:49 GMT

http://metromix.chicagotribune.com/news/celebrity/sns-ap-batwoman-uncloseted,0,2243714.story?coll=mmx-celebrity_heds

superfly

Wed, 31 May 2006 02:22:07 GMT

Sorry, Jennifer. You're sweet, but Jolie-Pitt is so much more interesting.
http://in.today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=entertainmentNews&storyID=2006-05-31T034306Z_01_NOOTR_RTRJONC_0_India-252027-1.xml

2-days on the job and that's all I got.

a couple of non-organizing tidbits.
1) black pride was marvelous. I've never seen so many good-looking people at a gay event. Usually everyone is older and ergo, uglier (I kid, but it's true). I know where the party's at (gay people have fun, black people have fun, but gay black people have more fun than blondes.

2) at the metro, a woman in a sari got stuck on the escalator, fell down, and was dragging upward. Theresa and Richael came to the rescue to help the woman up once we rushed over and the escalator was stopped. She seems fine, though, her beautiful sari was a little worn.

3) I tanned at pride.

4) greek festival, bday, board meeting, petitioning, fredericksburg date all this weekend. yikes!

oh. going to be in the 'burg on June 13th. Holla.

R.