Transphobia: The Bible Is Better Than That North Carolina’s odious “Bathroom Bill,” HB2 has been pushed out of the spotlight for the moment, while the crazy 2016 election plays itself out. I can understand that. But HB2 and it’s ilk will be back, and it’s still on my mind. In particular, I’ve been trying to … Continue reading Transphobia’s “scriptural” roots: The Bible Is Better Than That
Happy Quaker Day So I guess I’ll have a bowl & a bump & toddle (or stagger) off to Meeting. Bust me some Quaker rhymes, Jack!
Now, here in Carolina we currently have a redhot race for the U.S. Senate seat currently held by Richard Burr, a faceless Republican known mostly for saying little, collecting millions from coal companies, and being the best friend & defender of torture in the U.S. Senate.
Burr’s challenger is former state Senator Deborah Ross. A year ago, when she announced, few gave the little-known Ross much of a chance against Burr.
But that was before Donald Trump turned the state into a purple battleground, and before the federal courts threw out most of the vote suppression tools the right-wing legislature had enacted to hold down Democratic voting. Now the polls are very close, and Burr’s attack ads are getting down & dirty.
This is Burr’s big attack ad. Note the three key elements: pro sex offender; ACLU Lawyer; — and in the background, where many might miss it but the base won’t, is the visage of a presumably predatory male of dark hue and evil intentions.
How down & dirty? Just a couple days ago, the senator unveiled a saturation attack ad against Ross that uses three magic, time-tested, silver bullet Democrat-destroying elements: “pro-sex offenders” and — wait for it — “ACLU.”
But there’s more: in the background, an ominous dark-skinned male visage.
For the GOP & further right base in NC, any of these is a killer; the combo adds up to a go-for-broke, four-pronged assault. And the ACLU thing, at least, is true, Ross did work there, from the mid-’90s til 2002 when she ran for the legislature.
That’s fine with me — hey, I’m a proud ACLU contributor/member. But this is still North Carolina . . . .
It’s dispiriting to see articles about schools these days putting Huckleberry Finn in the literary dustbin, because of concerns over trigger words that were authentic to the culture Twain was portraying. But then, that’s happened a lot to other classics too.
I’m not going to get into the weeds on all that here, though I’m standing by my (Twain) man. Rather, I want to note that related controversies are nothing new for Twain’s magnum opus. Indeed, they go back to its appearance in the U.S. in 1885. (It was published in the United Kingdom a year earlier.) And here is where the tale gets interesting, and not about the word that is so radioactive now. No, it was much bigger.
Today is George Gershwin’s 118th birthday (1898-1937). And I’m an unabashed fan. This despite the fact that a key part of his artistic achievement has also made his work controversial for some.
Yes, I’m talking about one of this month’s hot buzzwords, “cultural appropriation.”
This phrase came along after Gershwin left us (way too soon, dead of a brain tumor before age forty); but the charge was around even when he was alive and composing.
Yet from all I gather, Gershwin would not have denied it. Indeed, he was proud of mixing various streams of American musical cultures in his work, even gloried in it.
Yet Gershwin also took pride in not “borrowing” other music, but being influenced by it. His melodies, he insisted, were his own.