A handy guide to deciphering right-wing rhetoric from Katrina vanden Heuvel's Editor's Cut. The contributions were submitted by readers of The Nation.
ACTIVIST JUDGE, n. A judge who attempts to protect the rights of minorities--most especially homosexuals--against the tyranny of the majority. (Amy Mashberg, Austin, Texas)
ALTERNATIVE ENERGY SOURCES, n. New locations to drill for oil and gas. (Peter Scholz, Fort Collins, Colorado)
CIVIL LIBERTIES, n. Unnecessary privileges that you aren't afraid of losing unless you are a God-hating, baby-killing, elitist liberal who loves Saddam Hussein more than your own safety. (Megan Ellis, Bellingham, Washington)
CLIMATE CHANGE, n. Global warming, without that annoying suggestion that something is wrong. (Robert Shanafelt, Statesboro, Georgia)
DEATH TAX, n. A term invented by anti-tax zealots and referring to a tax used to prevent the very wealthy from establishing a dominating aristocracy in this country. (David McNeely, Lutz, Florida)
DEMOCRATIC ALLY, n. Any democracy, monarchy, plutocracy, oligarchy or dictatorship--no matter how ruthless--that verbally supports American diplomatic and economic goals. (L.J. Klass, Concord, New Hampshire)
DEREGULATE, v. To pursue greed and exploitation. (Nathan Taylor, Long Beach, California)
DETAIN, v. Hold in a secret place without recourse to law and treat in any manner one wishes. (Jeannine Bettis, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma)
ECONOMIC PROGRESS, n. 1. Recession; 2. Rising unemployment; 3. Minimum-wage freeze. (Terry McGarry, East Rockaway, New York)
FAITH-BASED INITIATIVE, n. Christian Right Payoff. (Michael Gendelman , Fair Haven, New Jersey)
FAMILY VALUES, n. Oppression of women. (Nancy Matsunaga, Brooklyn, New York)
FOX NEWS, n. White House Press Office. (Donnalyn Murphy, San Francisco, California)
HARD WORK, n. What Republicans say when they can't think of anything better. (Brain McDowell), Durham, North Carolina)
INSURGENT, n. Armed or unarmed, violent or non-violent Iraqi on the receiving end of an American rocket blast or bullet spray, regardless of age, gender or political affiliation. (Joey Flores, Marina del Ray, California)
MODERNIZE, v. To do away with, as in modernizing Social Security, labor laws, etc. (Robert Sean Roarty, Atlanta, Georgia)
OBSTRUCTIONIST, n. Any elected representative who dares to question Republican radicals on the issue of the day. (Terry Levine, Toronto, Ontario)
OWNERSHIP SOCIETY, n. A society in which Republican donors own the rest of us. (Adrianne Stevens, Seattle, Washington)
PRIVATIZE, v. To steal the resources of the national community and give them to private business. (Susan Dyer, Ottsville, Pennsylvania)
REFORM, v. To eliminate, as in tort reform (to eliminate all lawsuits against businesses and corporations) or Social Security and Medicare reform (to eliminate these programs altogether). (Darren Staley, Millers Creek, North Carolina)
STRICT CONSTRUCTIONIST, n. A judge with extremely conservative beliefs, who interprets laws in a manner that fits his/rarely-her own belief systems, while maintaining that this was the original intent of the law. (Floyd Doney, Athens, Ohio)
SUPPORT THE MILITARY, v. To praise Bush when he sends our young men and women off to die for no reason and without proper body armor. (Marc Goldberg, Vancouver, Washington)
TAX REFORM, n. The shifting of the tax burden from unearned income to earned income, or rather, from the wealthy elite to the working class. (Eric Evans, Gregory, Michigan)
TORT REFORM, n. Corporate immunity and impunity. (Sue Bazy, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)
UNITER, n. A Leader who brings together his followers by fomenting hatred for anyone who disagrees with him. (Larry Allred, Las Cruces, New Mexico)
Sunday, December 05, 2004
Saturday, December 04, 2004
Back in Nebraska
A great panoramic view of Northeast Nebraska taken in August of 2003. I just had the role of pics from this trip back home developed, and there are some really fabulous photos on it.
Unfortunately, the two photos of my entire 'nuclear' family -- my mom, dad, sister and me -- are blurry. Typical. At least this shot of me and my mom turned out.
Just look at that sky...
Unfortunately, the two photos of my entire 'nuclear' family -- my mom, dad, sister and me -- are blurry. Typical. At least this shot of me and my mom turned out.
Just look at that sky...
Everything Seems to Be Up in the Air at This Time
Is it just me, or does this 'oldie' from Camper Van Beethoven, the "Ambiguity Song," seem just abou' perfect at the present moment?
Everything seems to be up in the air at this time
Everything seems to be up in the air at this time
One day soon, it’ll all settle down
Everything seems to be up in the air at this time
All across the nation, people are gettin’ together
From many ideas they form a single goal
Some people are gonna benefit
And others gotta sacrifice
But everything seems to seems to be up in the air at this time
I got some certain special feelings for you
I got some certain special feelings for you
I don’t know if they’re good or bad
But I just might give you a call
Everything seems to be up in the air at this time
DJ, cue that up one more time, if you will, that's right...
"Some people are gonna benefit/ And others gotta sacrifice"...
Yup, that 'bout sums it up...
A lot of Reagan-era rock sounds fresher than ever, I think, as we brace ourselves for round two of the Bush-Cheney regime.
Everything seems to be up in the air at this time
Everything seems to be up in the air at this time
One day soon, it’ll all settle down
Everything seems to be up in the air at this time
All across the nation, people are gettin’ together
From many ideas they form a single goal
Some people are gonna benefit
And others gotta sacrifice
But everything seems to seems to be up in the air at this time
I got some certain special feelings for you
I got some certain special feelings for you
I don’t know if they’re good or bad
But I just might give you a call
Everything seems to be up in the air at this time
DJ, cue that up one more time, if you will, that's right...
"Some people are gonna benefit/ And others gotta sacrifice"...
Yup, that 'bout sums it up...
A lot of Reagan-era rock sounds fresher than ever, I think, as we brace ourselves for round two of the Bush-Cheney regime.
Thursday, December 02, 2004
School's Out for Win-ter!
Almost anyway. Today was the last day of the semester for my English 109 class--American Literature and American Culture.
Here's our class photo, or one of them. It features about 75% of the students, a lower turnout than I would like. Thanks to Doug, for graciously volunteering to shoot this picture. He's the absent presence whose gaze is behind the lens.
Once again, I only display my full smile in the blurry shots, but I can't complain. This time of year, its not unusual for everyone on campus, students and faculty alike, to look a bit peaked. It's a busy, stressful time.
At UIC, the last week of classes is the week after the Thanksgiving holiday, which has always struck me as being piss-poor planning, particularly since we don't have a fall break and, up until Thanksgiving, have been going more or less full throttle since the third week of August (sorry but one day off for Labor Day doesn't count). Then it's two days off for Thanksgiving and back to school for the last week and finals. It can be brutal.
But it almost over. I've already started reading a few of the final papers and so far so good.
By the way, didja catch (Michael) Stipe on (Tavis) Smiley tonight? Or Lyle Lovett on Letterman?
Here's our class photo, or one of them. It features about 75% of the students, a lower turnout than I would like. Thanks to Doug, for graciously volunteering to shoot this picture. He's the absent presence whose gaze is behind the lens.
Once again, I only display my full smile in the blurry shots, but I can't complain. This time of year, its not unusual for everyone on campus, students and faculty alike, to look a bit peaked. It's a busy, stressful time.
At UIC, the last week of classes is the week after the Thanksgiving holiday, which has always struck me as being piss-poor planning, particularly since we don't have a fall break and, up until Thanksgiving, have been going more or less full throttle since the third week of August (sorry but one day off for Labor Day doesn't count). Then it's two days off for Thanksgiving and back to school for the last week and finals. It can be brutal.
But it almost over. I've already started reading a few of the final papers and so far so good.
By the way, didja catch (Michael) Stipe on (Tavis) Smiley tonight? Or Lyle Lovett on Letterman?
Wednesday, December 01, 2004
Doctorow Abstract
Spent most of the evening rewriting and revising an abstract for a conference that I hope to attend next year. It's only 358 words long (which still might be too verbosel; abstracts are typically under 200 words in the PMLA) so I shudder to think at how many words per minute this that averages out to be.
Ah, well, there's still a few days left in the semester to deal with everything else that must be done...
‘THEY’RE STILL FUCKING US’: SEX AND THE FAMILY MYTHOLOGY IN E.L. DOCTOROW’S THE BOOK OF DANIEL
The fate of the family in modern America, the decline of patriarchal authority, and the search for surrogate families are recurring motifs in E.L. Doctorow’s fiction. The Book of Daniel—Doctorow’s most overtly political novel and an experimental, hybridized text that mixes family history, personal memoir, sociology, political theory and pornography—fits this pattern. Through the figure of Daniel Isaacson Lewin, born to the Issacsons, a Russian-Jewish, communist immigrants (loosely modeled on the Rosenbergs) and adopted by the Lewins, more ‘respectable’ East Coast liberals, Doctorow details the demise of an ‘extended’ patriarchal family and the fracturing of a ‘nuclear’ family as they confront Cold War forces. While recent readings have illuminated how Paul and Rochelle Issacson’s trial and death function as familial and national traumas that return to haunt their children, the emphasis has remained on the family as a figure for foregrounding generational differences dividing the Old and New Left. Taking seriously Doctorow’s remark that he did not write a “documentary novel,” my paper will analyze an element in The Book of Daniel that, surprisingly, critics have largely overlooked—namely, the hyper-eroticized familial relationships depicted by Daniel, the novel’s narrator. These relationships include Daniel’s sadomasochistic and abusive relationship with his “child bride,” Phyllis; Oedipal tensions with his biological parents; and incestuous fantasies about his sister Susan and a childhood friend. By focusing on the trope of “vicious eroticism” in Daniel’s rhetoric and the analogies that Daniel makes between various sexual acts when narrating the “family mythology,” I will explain why the family becomes the privileged site in which sexual and political desires are conflated in Daniel’s mind. My reading will be informed by Michel Foucault’s observation that modern forms of biopower effected a shift from a ‘symbolics of blood ‘to an ‘analytics of sexuality.’ That is, I will argue that if the subjectivizing effects of Daniel’s discourse is taken into account, then The Book of Daniel, i.e., the ostensibly real “false document” we’re reading, appears to be far less of a liberating or therapeutic project than many critics have previously supposed.
Ah, well, there's still a few days left in the semester to deal with everything else that must be done...
‘THEY’RE STILL FUCKING US’: SEX AND THE FAMILY MYTHOLOGY IN E.L. DOCTOROW’S THE BOOK OF DANIEL
The fate of the family in modern America, the decline of patriarchal authority, and the search for surrogate families are recurring motifs in E.L. Doctorow’s fiction. The Book of Daniel—Doctorow’s most overtly political novel and an experimental, hybridized text that mixes family history, personal memoir, sociology, political theory and pornography—fits this pattern. Through the figure of Daniel Isaacson Lewin, born to the Issacsons, a Russian-Jewish, communist immigrants (loosely modeled on the Rosenbergs) and adopted by the Lewins, more ‘respectable’ East Coast liberals, Doctorow details the demise of an ‘extended’ patriarchal family and the fracturing of a ‘nuclear’ family as they confront Cold War forces. While recent readings have illuminated how Paul and Rochelle Issacson’s trial and death function as familial and national traumas that return to haunt their children, the emphasis has remained on the family as a figure for foregrounding generational differences dividing the Old and New Left. Taking seriously Doctorow’s remark that he did not write a “documentary novel,” my paper will analyze an element in The Book of Daniel that, surprisingly, critics have largely overlooked—namely, the hyper-eroticized familial relationships depicted by Daniel, the novel’s narrator. These relationships include Daniel’s sadomasochistic and abusive relationship with his “child bride,” Phyllis; Oedipal tensions with his biological parents; and incestuous fantasies about his sister Susan and a childhood friend. By focusing on the trope of “vicious eroticism” in Daniel’s rhetoric and the analogies that Daniel makes between various sexual acts when narrating the “family mythology,” I will explain why the family becomes the privileged site in which sexual and political desires are conflated in Daniel’s mind. My reading will be informed by Michel Foucault’s observation that modern forms of biopower effected a shift from a ‘symbolics of blood ‘to an ‘analytics of sexuality.’ That is, I will argue that if the subjectivizing effects of Daniel’s discourse is taken into account, then The Book of Daniel, i.e., the ostensibly real “false document” we’re reading, appears to be far less of a liberating or therapeutic project than many critics have previously supposed.
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