Sophianotloren

Last Friday, as the killing of Mike Brown continued to roil Ferguson, Missouri, the Ferguson Police Department released a police report and surveillance video showing a young man shoving a protesting convenience store clerk and leaving with merchandise. Mike Brown's family lawyer confirmed that the video showed Brown, but decried its release as an irrelevant smear. Later Ferguson's police chief later admitted that officer Darren Wilson did not seek to detain Brown based on the robbery, but because Brown was walking in the street.

Would the alleged robbery³ matter, in any case brought against Darren Wilson for the death of Mike Brown?

It might matter legally, but only for narrow reasons. It does matter practically, but shouldn't.

The Alleged Robbery Might Have Limited Relevance To A Case Against Officer Wilson

Imagine that federal prosecutors decide that the shooting was unjustified and file charges against Officer Darren Wilson for violation of Mike Brown's civil rights. The issue presented will be whether Brown posed "a threat of serious physical harm, either to the officer or to others," as required to justify deadly force. Could Wilson seek to introduce evidence of the robbery in his own defense? They answer — like most lawyer answers — is maybe.

The robbery is not broadly admissible to show that Mike Brown was the sort of person who robs convenience stores. Federal Rule of Evidence 404(b)(1) — which is duplicated in some form in most state evidence codes — provides:

Evidence of a crime, wrong, or other act is not admissible to prove a person’s character in order to show that on a particular occasion the person acted in accordance with the character.

In other words, if my client is accused of bank robbery, the government can't introduce his prior bank robberies to show that he's the sort of person who robs banks and therefore probably robbed this one. Note that the rule talks about persons, meaning it applies to evidence about parties and witnesses.

Here, Mike Brown's alleged robbery could not be offered to show that he was the sort of person who uses force against others. Wilson couldn't offer it, for instance, to support the argument "you know Officer Wilson is telling the truth about Mike Brown attacking him, because Mike Brown was violent on this other occasion."

However, there is a significant exception to Rule 404(b):

This evidence may be admissible for another purpose, such as proving motive, opportunity, intent, preparation, plan, knowledge, identity, absence of mistake, or lack of accident.

The classic example of this rule is the old Law & Order episode where the kid "accidentally" shoots his friend, and detectives discover that he had previously "accidentally" shot another friend. The prior shooting wasn't admissible to show that the kid was the sort of person who shoots people, but it was admissible to call into doubt his story that the latest shooting was an accident, because it tended to show he knew guns and knew what he was doing — an absence of mistake.

Here, the robbery may be relevant to state of mind. At least as I understand the facts, it's not relevant to Wilson's state of mind, because he didn't know about the robbery when he shot Brown.⁴ But it could conceivably relate to Brown's state of mind. Wilson might argue that Brown resisted him because Brown thought he was being arrested for robbery, and that Wilson's story that Brown forcibly resisted arrest is more credible if Brown had a motive to resist.

For a very similar example, consider United States v. Williams. Sheriff's Deputy John Williams shot Adam Hall in the back. Hall was unarmed. The feds prosecuted Williams for violating Hall's civil rights. Williams asserted that Hall made "furtive movements" and that Williams thought Hall was going for a gun; witnesses contradicted this. Prosecutors offered evidence that Deputy Williams had previously shot another suspect, and that Hall knew this; they argued this was relevant to Hall's state of mind, because it showed that Hall would not make furtive movements when confronted with an officer he knew was a shooter. Williams appealed, saying that the admission of his past shooting and Hall's knowledge of it violated Rule 404. The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit upheld the conviction, agreeing that the victim's state of mind was relevant:

Though a victim's state of mind indeed rarely matters, in this case it somewhat helped the government disprove Williams's main defense. The jury had to determine whether Williams acted reasonably when he shot Hall. This judgment turned on a credibility assessment: Was Williams telling the truth when he testified that Hall made several threatening movements before Williams shot him, or were the other witnesses telling the truth when they denied such movements? If Hall feared that Williams might shoot him, the government argues, then Hall would avoid anything that might provoke Williams to shoot.

Or consider Celaya v. Stewart, in which a federal court overturned Celaya's state conviction for killing a man. Prosecutors claim that Celaya posed as a prostitute, lured the victim into the desert, shot him, and took his truck. Celaya claimed the victim offered her a ride and then attempted to rape her, and that she shot in self-defense. Celaya offered witnesses who would say that the victim had previously picked up women and sexually assaulted them and that he had a reputation for violence amongst prostitutes. The trial court excluded the evidence under the state version of Rule 404, saying that because Celaya did not know about the victim's past conduct it was not admissible. The federal court disagreed, finding that the evidence was admissible under Rule 404(b) because it showed the alleged victim's intent, state of mind, and modus operandi, and thus corroborated Celaya's version of events. Because the exclusion of the evidence substantially prevented Celaya from corroborating her self-defense claim, the court overturned the conviction.

But determining whether Rule 404 allows evidence of a witness' prior conduct is only part of the analysis. Under Rule 403 — echoed in every evidence code in the country — the trial judge must also weigh the probity of the evidence (its tendency to prove something legitimate and relevant) against its potential for unfair prejudice (its tendency to lead the jury to decide the case based on illegitimate factors). Here, the trial court would weigh how evidence of the robbery would serve legitimate purposes (by showing why Mike Brown might resist Officer Wilson) against the danger it would serve illegitimate purposes (by suggesting to the jury that Mike Brown had it coming, or was a violent person). The rest of the evidence will influence this decision. For instance, if the evidence shows that Wilson shot Brown from 35 feet away while he was surrendering, the court might rule that the question of whether he initially resisted Wilson, and why, is not very probative.

Were Wilson a normal mortal, I'd give this a 50/50 chance of being admitted in evidence. Since he's a cop, and he wants it to come in, and cops generally get special treatment, I'll give it a 75% chance of getting in. The judge might limit the evidence to reduce potential prejudice; for instance, the judge might only allow the government to introduce a summary of the robbery rather than the video.

In short: the alleged robbery could conceivably be relevant and admissible if Darren Wilson is charged in connection with Mike Brown's death. But it would not be broadly admissible for the purpose of showing that Brown was a robbery or that he was violent.

The Alleged Matter Shouldn't Matter To How We Value Mike Brown's Rights

But he fact that Mike Brown allegedly robbed a convenience store shouldn't matter to our analysis of whether it was acceptable for Darren Wilson to shoot him. The fact that it does matter is nearly everyone's fault.

Whether or not they released the surveillance video in response to a public records request, as they claim, the Ferguson Police Department undoubtedly knew that the news would reach the pool of prospective jurors in any criminal or civil case against Officer Wilson, telling them facts that they might not hear in court. They knew that the media would run with the story, and that the media would run with it multiple times: first to report it, then to ask why the police released it, and possibly a third time in a mock-self-critical analysis of whether they were played. The effect in the public's mind is to emphasize the point Mike Brown was a robber, with the subtext so he probably had it coming.

The alleged robbery matters because nearly everyone accepts the subtext that a robber deserves to be shot even if he's unarmed. People who say "look, he was a robber" accept it, as do the people gleefully digging through Mike Brown's life to find things to dirty him up⁵ But more insidiously, many of Mike Brown's champions accept the narrative of just deserts as well. When Mike Brown's supporters say that he had no record, that he was a high-school graduate, that he was never in any trouble, and that he was going to college, they advance the narrative that because of these things he did not deserve to be shot as he stood, unarmed, attempting to surrender. This implies that had been a dropout with a record, he might have deserved it. A couple of years ago I wrote about how this notion played out in the evaluation of Rodney King:

But portraying Rodney King as a hero, or as a villain, plays into the central narrative of our criminal justice system, one that offers the ultimate excuse for cutting corners, giving police the benefit of the doubt, looking the other way at constitutional violations, putting our thumbs on the state’s end of the scales of justice. He got what he deserved — that’s what one side says, cutting through facts and law and reasoned analysis to pure us vs. them. He didn’t deserve that, says the other side, unwittingly lending support to the implicit argument that there are some who do. But deserve‘s got nothing to do with it. Heroism and villainy have nothing to do with it. We have to demand that everyone be treated justly, whether our viscera tell us that they do not deserve the rule of law at all. Rodney King should have been spared excessive force not because he’d earned respite, but because we extend it to everyone. We do so as a measure of grace, and because it’s so foolish and perilous to let the state (or the mob) decide who deserves rights and who doesn’t. Neither the state, nor the mob, will ever conclude that you deserve justice if it sets its eye upon you.

I don't care that Mike Brown apparently robbed the convenience store. I don't give a shit if Mike Brown was a career thug or a saint destined for a Rhodes scholarship. The question is the same: did Officer Wilson him have cause to believe that Mike Brown posed a serious physical threat at the moment Wilson pulled the trigger?

Everyone has rights, or nobody has rights.

Edited to add: Patterico, a prosecutor, disagrees at least in part. At the Volokh Conspiracy, former federal judge Paul Cassell thinks that I significantly understate the likelihood that evidence of the robbery would come in. At Simple Justice Scott Greenfield comes out more strongly for the proposition that the robbery should be inadmissible. When more facts are in, the evidentiary issues will be clearer.

Lawsplainer: How Mike Brown's Alleged Robbery Of A Liquor Store Matters, And How It Doesn't © 2007-2014 by the authors of Popehat. This feed is for personal, non-commercial use only. Using this feed on any other site is a copyright violation. No scraping.

While on a recent trip to Iceland, photographer Sarah Martinet had the opportunity to shoot these amazing landscapes from a plane with open windows. You can see much more of her work (as well as more from this trip) on 500px and Facebook.

[dropbear81]

I was supposed to see an angel today, but it didn’t happen. Now I must dedicate some lyrics to her.

I’ve walked through the valleys of the wilderness in time,
Only to find out
That you have love in places I can’t describe, yeah
I need you
It’s the sunrise

I just wanted to let you know,
I love you
Don’t ever let go
Cos the sun don’t shine when you’re not around mines
And I’ll never, be without you

Singing the sun don’t shine
The sun don’t shine, the sun don’t shine
The sun don’t shine without you, without you

From your beautiful dark hair, your adorable face, lovely glasses that highlight your hazel eyes to your amazing personality, remarkable insight, and humorous stories. I really do love you. It pains me so much we can barely see each other. However the time apart only seems to amplify the amazing moments we share together.

 

Next Day Sober Edit: This will happen from time to time FYI. I get a little emotional when I am drunk sometimes. It’s entertaining though I suppose

One day soon, she knows three o’clock on a Tuesday will pass and the bell above the door won’t chime. The shop’s old floorboards will not creak under his weight, and she won’t look up, because there will be no reason to.

He won’t come bearing coffees from the Starbucks up the street, smelling of crisp cold air and espresso beans.  He won’t reach into his jacket and pull out the ten or twelve sheets of neatly printed writing he pulls out now.

Carmen will have finished her part. It will be over.

* * *

The first time he came to the little shop where she worked selling books and proofreading for a fee, he strolled around, looking at the shelves, as if the books on them would give him some indication of her competence.  He didn’t speak to her then. She only remembered his pale, thin ivory hands. The skin was so white and the fingers so long, it reminded her of the hands she’d seen chiseled in stone, crossed upon the breast of some long dead maiden in a graveyard.

The second time, he had a dark, beautiful woman in tow, and a little girl dressed in a pink leotard. They parted at the door to her shop, and he stepped in, making the bell tinkle.

“I heard you do proofreading.”

“I do.”

“I’m working on something. I need some help with it.”

“I’m not an editor,” she said, still seated at the massive, dilapidated writing desk, that served as both a counter and a work area.

“I can’t afford an editor. And,” he said, tilting his head and giving her a self-deprecatory look, “I’ve no idea whether it’s worth an editor’s time.”

“What kind of writing is it? I don’t take on anything requiring specialized knowledge. If it’s highly technical, I know a few people who do that.”

“No.” His eyes roamed around the shelves, a little embarrassed, she thought. “It’s a novel. At least I hope it will be.”

“Why don’t you finish a first draft, and then get it proofread? Then you’ll know how much it will cost. I charge by the word. Most of us do.”

“How much do you charge?”

“A cent a word, but I can bring that down for a long work.”

He smiled at her. “A cent a word. How old fashioned. What else can you buy for a cent these days?”

She shrugged, and then smiled back. It was hard not to.  He had a mouth like a cherub. So at odds with the hard, bony lines of his face, the angular skull, with hair clipped so short it was almost shaved.  It covered his head like an ashen, velvet cap. He was handsome.  And very married and off-springed, she added mentally.

“My base charge is $10 for 1,000 words. Past 80,000, I’ll bring the price down. So, when you’re finished, please come back.”

“That’s not how I’d like to do it,” he said, leaning on the desk and looking directly into her eyes. “I’d like to bring you a chapter a week. That way, I’m forced to produce a chapter a week.”

For all its pragmatism, there was something about the way he delivered the proposition that sounded, for no reason she could put her finger on, like a proposition. There was something in his phrasing, in his tone: a lazy sung quality, a teasing inflection. And something in the proposal itself, as if he were making her complicit in a perverse discipline he wanted to indulge in.

“What do you say?” He stepped back, straightening and tilted his head childishly.

Or not. She was reading too much into the words of this strangely attractive man. “Bring me the first thousand words and we’ll see how it goes from there. How about that?”

He nodded, pushed out his lower lip and shoved his hands into the front pockets of his jeans.  “Sounds good to me. What about next Tuesday?”

“Tuesday’s fine.”

He turned to go. Reached the door and rested his hand – that strange, white appendage – on the handle. “Does anyone ever come in here and buy books?”

Carmen laughed. “Occasionally. But we do most of our business with schools and private libraries.”

“It’s quiet. I like it here.”

Before she could think of a response, he was out the door and walking up the street. It had begun to snow.

You will be unsurprised that Glenn Reynolds has no problem with academics being fired for the political content of their Twitter feeds:

A FACULTY CANDIDATE WHO TALKED ABOUT BLACK PEOPLE THIS WAY WOULD BE UNEMPLOYABLE ANYWHERE. SAY IT ABOUT JEWS, THOUGH, AND IT’S CONTROVERSIAL. “Yet ad hominem attacks are also a BDS strategy that serves to silence opponents. Many faculty who believe the university made the right decision about Salaita are now unwilling to say so publicly.” BDS people have made clear by their actions that they are nasty antisemites who deserve no respect.

First of all, let us once again dispense with the silly idea that Salaitia was a mere “candidate,” despite having agreed to an offer and been scheduled to teach classes.  By this logic, he could have been teaching for a month and not been hired.  The trustee approval is pro forma; he was treated by the university as an employee, which he was.  The idea that he wasn’t fired is such vacuous formalism it would embarrass proponents of the Hilbig litigation.  He was fired.

So let’s consider another hypothetical.  What if someone said “something like that” about, say, Palestinians?  I happen to have a test case handy:

@Deanofcomedy If Palestinians acted civilized, no one would die. You are a mouthpiece for bloodthirsty savages.

— Instapundit.com (@instapundit) August 3, 2014

Note here that Reynolds isn’t talking about Hamas, or Palestinian terrorists; he’s talking about Palestinans as a group. The evidence alleging anti-Semitism in Salaita’s tweets is far more ambiguous. (Indeed, I don’t think they constitute evidence that Salaita is anti-Semitic at all, although some of the tweets are hateful and indefensible even if they are not anti-Semitic.) It is being asserted that Salaita retweeting a tweet saying that a reporter’s story — not the reporter, the story — should have ended at the “point of a shiv” is a firable offense. Reynolds has called for the literal, not metaphorical, murder of Iranian nuclear scientists.

My position at the time of the latter incident is that Reynolds could not be fired for his statements based on the principles of academic freedom, and that applies to his new disgusting tweets as well. Reynolds himself, however, is happy to benefit from these protections but does not want them extended to people he disagrees with, which is a disgrace.

…in comments, IB refers us to this excellent post from Michael Dorf:

Some​ supporters of the university’s decision point to the often-important distinction between firing and not hiring. Academic freedom, they point out, is mostly a matter of contract law, and because Salaita had not yet been formally hired by the University of Illinois, he was not entitled to the same protection as someone who was already a member of the faculty.

But that view appears to be false as a matter of contract law. Like many other states, Illinois law offers protection to people who, in reasonable reliance on an offer that falls short of a fully enforceable contract, take actions to their detriment. The Illinois Supreme Court affirmed this principle of “promissory estoppel” as recently as 2009, in the case of Newton Tractor Sales v. Kubota Tractor Corp.

Salaita has an almost-classic case of promissory estoppel. He was told by Illinois that trustee approval was essentially a rubber stamp, and in reliance on that representation he resigned from his prior position on the faculty of Virginia Tech.

This week I’m turning 48. I’m definitely well into midlife — and it’s not a crisis. In fact, I’ve felt more comfortable and at peace with myself over the last few years than ever in my life. Embracing being solo poly definitely has had a lot to do with it.

We all only have a limited time on this planet. None of us know how limited. Personally, I think it’s important to allow my authentic self emerge as much as possible in my time here. Because if I can’t be authentic, then I can’t honestly and deeply experience or share joy.

And without joy, what’s the point of life? Whether your joy derives from pleasure, achievement, service, understanding, learning, or peace — if you can’t see, accept, like and love yourself as you are, you probably won’t be able to offer much meaningful connection to others.

People constantly evolve, so who you are (and who I am) are constant works in progress. We’re all in a position to keep discovering ourselves.

We all influence each other as well, directly and indirectly. The part of polyamory I treasure most is that it allows me to let people into my life, and my heart, on as deep a level that feels right to everyone involved. To experiment with boundaries and engagement. To allow ourselves to be forever changed by contact.

Balancing that out, solohood keeps me grounded. It reminds me not to lean so heavily on partners that I stop seeing them for who they are (and how they are changing). For me, when the fabric of my daily life becomes too enmeshed with a partner, it’s tempting to start seeing them as an extension of myself. And that doesn’t bring out my best qualities, as a person or a partner. (Or as a metamour, for that matter.)

Sitting here today on the deck of my mountain cabin, sipping tea in the early morning sunshine, hearing hummingbirds and breeze-rustled aspen leaves, I like who I have evolved to become. I like the independent life I’ve consciously crafted. I value the interdependencies, intimacies and vulnerabilities I’ve chosen. None of it is perfect, and I wouldn’t want it to be; I learn little from perfection.

I’m humbled to have had the opportunity and privilege to have lots of choices in life, and to mostly live and connect with others as I see fit. I don’t want to take that for granted. For as long as I keep living, I want to keep growing. I don’t ever want to live, or love, on autopilot — even when that’s scary, risky or painful. It’s my greatest hope to be good to people, including myself. To tread consciously, and sometimes to dance with joy and grace.

When the reaper comes for me, I’ll know I have really lived. I woke up several years ago and saw where I was, who I was, and who’s around me — and I let them in, let them flow though me. The flexibility and resilience of solo polyamory has helped me feel my life and embrace others more fully, without tightly clinging to how anyone (including me) is “supposed” to be. Some people brush me lightly, others infuse me profoundly. And I them. I savor the mutual marination of life.

And for this, I am grateful.

As age advances, I know I may not always enjoy such independence. I’m considering that, considering what kinds of interdependencies might work best as my needs and capabilities change. I don’t see aging as a loss or degradation; just a change in what I have to offer, and what I may experience. A mixed bag, as is all of life. I’m trying to arrange my life to keep my options open, and to connect with friends, lovers and family in sustaining and sustainable ways. To focus on options, not specific outcomes. Not being tied to a specific vision how my life and the people in it should be enhances that process.

Should I have the honor of becoming an old, old woman, I think I’ll be pretty damn good at it.

… but I occasionally freshen up my zombie apocalypse survival plans, just in case.

This is a fascinating essay on the terrible wrath white colonialism has created in the Yosemite Valley. There are a couple of facets. First, in the early 1850s, whites committed genocidal acts against the indigenous peoples living in Yosemite, clearing out the population. Then in the late 19th century, the Yosemite became the nation’s first “protected” space, based in no small part upon the landscape indigenous people had created in the Yosemite Valley through the applied use of fire to clear brush. In the early 20th century, under the guidance of the supposed father of Yosemite and of the modern environmental movement John Muir, fire was banned entirely, drastically changing the region and, ironically, creating the circumstances for much hotter and out of control fires because of denser and smaller vegetation. As the West dries out and heats up today, the costs of controlling these fires gets higher and higher in harder and harder conditions, thanks a century of white American land management practices.

In other words, the history of white colonialism in the Yosemite Valley is not just about a distant massacre of indigenous people 150 years ago. It’s about land management practices with a series of ideologies–aesthetic, economic, racial–behind them that still profoundly shape the area today, and not for the better.

More on America’s most ridiculous industry: bottled water. Where are the sources of that water?

Yeah, that’s sustainable.

But that only accounts for 55% of the bottled water. What about the rest?

The other 45 percent comes from the municipal water supply, meaning that companies, including Aquafina and Dasani, simply treat tap water—the same stuff that comes out of your faucet at home—and bottle it up. (Weird, right?)

Not weird at all. It shows that you can create a fake problem (there is something wrong with the tap water!), develop a consumer market around it, and then sell people the same water they would be drinking if they turned on their faucet. Now that’s a capitalist success story! More on that:

Then there’s the aforementioned murkiness of the industry: Companies aren’t required to publicly disclose exactly where their sources are or how much water each facility bottles. Peter Gleick, author of Bottled and Sold: The Story Behind Our Obsession With Bottled Water, says, “I don’t think people have a clue—no one knows” where their bottled water comes from. (Fun facts he’s discovered in his research: Everest water comes from Texas, Glacier Mountain comes from Ohio, and only about a third of Poland Spring water comes from the actual Poland Spring, in Maine.)

Despite the fact that almost all U.S. tap water is better regulated and monitored than bottled, and despite the hefty environmental footprint of the bottled water industry, perhaps the biggest reason that bottling companies are using water in drought zones is simply because we’re still providing a demand for it: In 2012 in the United States alone, the industry produced about 10 billion gallons of bottled water, with sales revenues at $12 billion.

As Gleick wrote, “This industry has very successfully turned a public resource into a private commodity.” And consumers—well, we’re drinking it up.

“Why?” my husband used to ask me, “Must you bloody your head against every wall?”  “Why?” friends sometimes asked me, “Are you always tilting at windmills?”

Fine.  “Q” is for quixotic, although I am seriously hating the definition: “Exceedingly idealistic; unrealistic and impractical” — and that is the most positive one I found.  Others dismiss anything under that heading as “rash, impulsive, foolhardy”.  Right.  Well, fuck them, ok?

Unlike Cervantes’ poor knight of La Mancha, I’m not mad and doing battle with windmills that I see as giants, thank you very much.  But I do bloody my head on the occasional brick wall — usually one I think should NOT be there at all.  Walls, and if I were in the work force now?  That fucking glass ceiling shining down on female heads.  And the religious ceiling of patriarchal religions that reduce my use to bearing children and cooking.  There is no shortage of things that need knocked down — and if my body and life are all I have to throw at the barriers facing humanity and the world?  So be it.

I frankly do not believe that being exceedingly idealist IS unrealistic and impractical.  I think people get told that every time they try to change some fucked up status quo.  I think the word ‘quixotic’ is used to hammer us down every time we get ready to ERASE some line that should never have been there at all.  I think both the pagan world and the natural world (if they are separate?) could use a few more folks willing to go several rounds with corporate windmills, with wild hearts full of idealism and fight.

So hey, armor up!

Tagged: activism, idealism, pagan blog project

Which is the odd man out?

Now, who won the election for Public Defender in the 25th Judicial District?

Yep, it’s pro-death penalty, 7-year prosecutor Bo Burk, who, if you zoom in on the image, touts his membership in the NRA as a plus to be the champion of individual rights for the poor and disenfranchised.

But as if that wasn’t enough, he is also a fiscal conservative who will use all resources available to save taxpayer dollars.

Perhaps since he’s never represented a criminal defendant in his life, he might be confused as to where the government largesse in the criminal justice system comes from: it is from over-criminalization and vindictive prosecutions, excessive prison sentences and lengthy terms of probation.

It isn’t the job of a public defender to worry about how much money is being spent on defense. In fact, if anything, the reality is that indigent defense organizations are criminally underfunded and could use significantly greater numbers of lawyers and investigators to provide constitutionally adequate defenses.

Of course, none of this mentions the greater philosophical problem: the stewardship of individual rights and defenses of poor people left to a man who, just yesterday, was trying to put those very people in jail.

How exactly will that prosecutorial mindset so quickly convert to one of defending rights at all costs? How will he suddenly bring himself to the attitude required of criminal defense attorneys: that whether the client actually committed a crime is often irrelevant; what matters is whether the prosecution can prove it?

It would also seem that in a jurisdiction like his, there may be a significant number of people dealing with mental health and drug addiction issues – topics that prosecutors are usually skeptical of. Can he immediately shed that skepticism and see these defendants for what they are – people who are in trouble and need help?

Logic dictates that the defendants of the 25th Judicial District in Tennessee are in for some worse times. Reality dictates that Bo Burk will continue to get elected, despite his complete lack of qualifications for the job.

 

by Amin Ghaziani

What are we to make of the many anxieties that surround the alleged demise of iconic gay neighborhoods like the Castro in San Francisco? The media, including The New Yorker (here), Salon (here), Time magazine (here), Huffington Post (here), BBC Radio 4 (here), Yahoo News (here), and the Advocate (here), have all taken a keen interest in this hot-button topic.

In the course of conducting research for my new book (here), I discovered an astonishing diversity of queer spaces. Researchers, however, emphasize the experiences of gay men, and in doing so, they erase the lives of lesbians. To set the stage, consider the words of sociologist Manuel Castells. “Lesbians, unlike gay men,” he says, “tend not to concentrate in a given territory.” He thinks that they “do not acquire a geographical basis.” Gender differences between men and women are to blame. “Men have sought to dominate,” Castells continues, “and one expression of this domination has been spatial.” On the other hand, “women have rarely had these territorial aspirations.” For gay men – as men – “to liberate themselves from cultural and sexual oppression, they need a physical space from which to strike out.” Lesbians – as women – “tend to create their own rich, inner world and a political relationship with higher, societal levels.” This perspective leads Castells to conclude that “they are ‘placeless.’”

I disagree.

Lesbian geographies exist. Sometimes they overlap with the more visible, gay men dominated districts—but they are also quite distinct, as the following table illustrates:

Table 4. Highest Zip Code Concentrations of Gay Men and Lesbians

This table shows that lesbians do in fact cluster. Although they share some of the same areas with men (Provincetown, Rehoboth Beach, and the Castro), they more often live in less urban areas. All of their neighborhoods are less concentrated overall than those of gay men.

Why does this happen? Some scholars, like Castells, argue that gay men and lesbians have different needs to control space, and this makes lesbians placeless. The table above challenges this view.

Others stress women’s lack of economic power. Although the gender wage gap has narrowed, women still earn, on average, less than men across the board (77% of what men earn, as of 2010). The table confirms that women households are located in lower-income areas.

Subcultural differences also matter. Men are more influenced by sexual transaction and building commercial institutions, while women are motivated by feminism and countercultures. Lesbian neighborhoods consist of clusters of homes near progressive organizations that existed in the area before they even arrived—like artsy theaters, alternative bookstores, coffee shops, bike shops, and cooperative grocery stores. This gives lesbian districts a quasi-underground character, makes them seem hidden, and thus makes them harder to find for those who are not in the know.

Family formation is an important part of the landscape as well. Women same-sex partner households are more likely to have children, and so they have different needs for housing.

Related to this are preferences for city life. Lesbians are also more likely to elect rural locations, gay men choose bigger metropolises.

Finally, some lesbians reject gay neighborhoods because they find them unwelcoming. Gay men are still men, after all, and they are not exempt from sexism.

These reasons may circumscribe lesbian territoriality, but they do not negate it. On the contrary, lesbians are “canaries in the urban coal mine,” to borrow from sociologist Sharon Zukin (here), and they often augur economic and cultural changes that a neighborhood will eventually experience.

Amin Ghaziani is associate professor of sociology at the University of British Columbia. 

Filed under: Sexualities, Space & Place, Uncategorized

Trying to pick answers for password security questions can be a traumatizing experience.

Beauty depends on size as well as symmetry.  –  Aristotle

Maeve resisted the urge to hurl the abacus against the far wall of the library.  It might have given her a little momentary satisfaction, but it would do nothing to remedy the situation and would, in fact, make it slightly worse because she would then have to buy another abacus.  She had carefully checked her figures three times, and found no errors; for the first time since she had become a courtesan, her expenditures for the month had exceeded her income.  And given that she had been cutting back on those expenditures for over a year now, that was a very bad development indeed.

She hastened to her looking-glass and closely examined her face in it.  She was still a very beautiful woman, but the encroaching signs of age were unmistakable and even the expensive cosmetics she purchased from a talented alchemist could only delay the inevitable.  Sooner or later she would begin to display the grey hair and wrinkles she had evaded for decades, and then her income would dry up along with her body.  Maeve sighed deeply; she was not an especially wise woman nor a frugal one, and though she had known for half her life that this day would eventually come, she had failed to make even the most rudimentary investments for her retirement.  And while most women could count on children and grandchildren to support them in their dotage, Maeve had traded away her ability to have them many years ago, in a bargain that seemed sensible at the time.  Her only hope was the Potion of Youth that the alchemist said he could make for her, but its price was so high she dared not spend the money unless she was absolutely certain it would buy her many years of good income again.

No, she was in a fine stew indeed, and thinking her way out of things had never been her strong point.  So she instead retired to her private shrine to Venus and began to pray for either divine inspiration or (preferably) a new and generous patron who would consider her maturity a plus rather than a minus.  When she was finished with her prayers, she found her maid Elise waiting for her in the anteroom with a rather odd look on her face.  “Ma’am, you have a visitor downstairs.”

“How wonderful!  Perhaps the goddess has answered my prayer already!”

Elise’s mien grew even stranger, but Maeve did not notice; she was already halfway down the stairs in less time than it takes to tell, and her maid appeared in no rush to keep up with her.  Reaching the door to her parlor, she took a moment to check her hair and teeth in another glass, then swept gracefully into the room in a way calculated to impress any but the dullest of clients.  It is a testament to her years of experience that she did not gasp out loud when she saw who was waiting for her in the room, but no mortal could have kept at least a momentary reaction from being reflected in her visage.  Because seated on the couch, drinking her tea and eating her cakes, was someone she at first took to be a very small boy until she realized that he had a beard.

He immediately stood up and bowed deeply; even though he was standing on the couch, his head was yet below the level of her bosom when he returned to an upright position.  “Allow me to introduce myself, dear lady; I am Ulwin O’Meglyn.”

The room grew quiet for a moment; Maeve was completely at a loss for words.  And even when she found her tongue at last, what came forth would not have won marks for elocution.  “Unless I very much miss my guess, good sir, you are a leprechaun.”

“I am not!” he said with controlled indignation.  “I am a brownie.  Leprechauns are about six inches taller and generally dress in tasteless green outfits, though I must admit they make some very fine shoes.”

Maeve was beginning to wonder what she could possibly have done to offend her goddess enough to deserve this joke being played upon her.  “Good Sir Brownie…”

“Ulwin, please.”

“Ulwin.  I apologize for my reaction, but, ah, I expected a different kind of visitor.  If you are seeking a position here, I would be happy to have you under the traditional arrangement.”

The little man looked at her with a rather annoyed expression.  “Madam, it is clear that you are rather ill-informed about developments in the relations between our races over the past several generations.  While it is true that in the past most of my people worked as servants in human households and refused to take formal payment, that has long since ceased to be the rule; I am the owner of an agency which places brownies in service in the very best households in the kingdom.  And as you can see, I have done quite well for myself.”

Now that he mentioned it, Maeve noticed that his clothes were impeccably tailored and his hat, boots and walking-stick new and of the finest craftsmanship.  “Pardon my ignorance, Sir Brownie…”

“Ulwin.”

“Ulwin.  I’m not especially interested in hiring additional paid servants at this time, but if I change my mind…”

“Dear lady, at the risk of being indelicate…I am not here to offer the services of those I represent, but to hire your services.”

Maeve could not help but laugh, though she had no desire to offend the polite little gentleman.  “You must forgive me, sir, but…well, it seems the difference in our statures might make that sort of activity rather difficult.”

“You disappoint me, madam.  Surely you do not think me a schoolboy who considers mere coupling to be the be-all and end-all of the time a man spends with a woman?”

For the first time, she realized he was absolutely earnest; exactly three seconds later, she began to consider his proposition.  She cautiously sat down beside him; he was still shorter than her despite the fact that he was standing on the seat.  “You’re serious?”

“Utterly.”

“But, don’t I seem…well, rather huge and grotesque in your eyes?”

“I would not be here if I felt that way.”

“I suppose not.  But why…I mean, how…that is…”

“I hardly thought I would have had to explain the strange mysteries of humanoid desire to an expert in the field.”

Maeve knew he was right; there was no predicting what strange permutations would arouse the ardor of one man or another, and in her many years of experience she had found that no less true of dwarves, elves or other near-human people.  And it was obvious he had a great deal of money; perhaps Venus had heard her prayer after all.  “Your suggestions intrigue me, Ulwin,” she purred in her most charming manner; “Let me pour you some more tea and we’ll discuss it further.”

His smile let her know that she had already dispelled whatever bad feelings her clumsy and unprofessional reactions had engendered, and as they chatted she envisioned a profitable association with him and perhaps other little men who might share his tastes.  Nor was that the limit of the possibilities his visit had opened her mind to; one of her regular gentlemen had told her that only two days’ ride into the mountains, there was a village of friendly giants.

New t-shirt design!

littlebird24:

memeguy-com:

There is no good and evil there is only power

this just this

More job satisfaction.

Illustrator and designer Akihiro Mizuuchi designed a modular system for creating edible chocolate LEGO bricks. Chocolate is first poured into precisely designed moulds that after cooling can be popped out and used as regular LEGOs. It’s hard to determine exactly how functional they are, it seems like he had success in building a number of different things, though I can only imagine how quickly they might melt in your hands, but I suppose that’s beside the point; this is two of the greatest things in the world fused together. If you google around there are numerous attempts at creating various forms of LEGO in chocolate or other food, but this appears to be the most detailed and well-designed of anything out there. (via Legosaurus)

I don’t live in one of Connecticut’s big cities anymore. I used to, but I don’t. I live in a residential neighborhood that is decidedly middle-class. I have a dog and I often walk that dog on my street and the streets nearby, as middle-class suburban folk are wont to do.

Last week, after our supreme court issued its opinion and while I was in the midst of getting indignant and demanding that people pay attention, I went for a walk. And it was heavenly. I forgot about everything. I forgot about the anger. I forgot about the frustration. I looked at the trees, neighbors’ yards and their flower gardens. I heard dogs barking from windows, I saw birds at bird feeders. I said hello to a few neighbors mowing their lawns. A man stopped to pet my dog. I smiled at him. I politely made way for some kids bicycling.

It was great. It was serene. It was peaceful.

It was horrible. I forgot all about Jeremy Kelly. I forgot all about Michael Morton. I forgot all about Cameron Todd Willingham. I forgot all about Troy Davis. I forgot all about the sad mentally challenged client who had fondled his younger cousin and who was now going to a very bad place that he would no doubt be completely unable to navigate. I forgot all about the hundreds of drug addicted individuals who were inartfully balancing that fine line between treatment and prison. I forgot all about the innocent man who had been arrested and locked up for weeks, the investigation of whose case had stalled. I forgot all about the institutional racism. I forgot all about prosecutorial misconduct. I forgot all about Trayvon Martin. I forgot all about the NSA and the CIA. Everything was right with the world. It was peaceful, happy, just.

From my stupor, it was easy to see how 5 wizened justices would rule that, of course, officer safety would trump the minor incursion into an individual’s Right to Suspicionless Assembly. Of course, in my neighborhood, if I saw one person up to no good, then his friend was also in on the scam. That’s the way of the world. It was white and black. It made perfect sense.

It felt great.

I hated myself. I hated myself because it was so easy. Because it was so tempting. There was nothing to slipping into that coma of blissful ignorance. I could abandon this career and never have to test my conscience again. I could walk away and never have to justify my principles again. I could take the easy path: the path of apathy. The path of following well-trod progressive trails. I could stick to the easy causes: health care, education, marriage equality. They were hard, but they weren’t controversial. It would be easy. It would be serene. It would be relaxing.

I think about that today. Michael Brown would be forgotten. Ferguson would be forgotten. Dr. King would be a token I would pay infrequent homage to. Leave it all behind and embrace my privilege. I could devote my life to Shark Week and Kim Kardashian. The Central Park Five, The Angola Four, Renisha McBride, that Lockett fellow with the horrible death by lethal injection would all run together as post-it notes to be called upon to appear informed and tut-tut the anomalous shortcomings of our otherwise truly fine institutions. But really, there would be no need to worry. There would be no need to fret. My rights aren’t really going anywhere. No cop is shooting at me 5 times. They aren’t detaining me on the street just because of who I’m standing next to. It would be so easy to wrap myself in that cocoon of privilege and turn up the apathy to 11.

It would be a lie. It would be a betrayal. It would make me a coward. If I only express support for easy causes, then I have no real principles. If I only investigate “trendy” issues, then I am nothing but a fraud. Activism, contributing to society and making a difference are meaningful only if you’re doing more than greasing the wheels that are running fine without your presence.

The easy path isn’t always the right path. I am privileged in many ways, but the people I stand up for, the causes that make me wake up every morning and shout at others for ignoring are causes that affect all of us. Those with privilege and those without. And every day that you let your apathy stand in the way of the protections that I deserve, I will smack you in the face and remind you that you’re part of the problem.

Your rights are my rights. Pay attention, because I don’t want to lose them any time soon just because you’ve decided that you’re too white or middle-class to be bothered.

Last night, in Ferguson, Missouri, police in riot gear entered residential neighbourhoods and lobbed teargas, flash bombs, rubber bullets, and noise cannons (also known as LRAD or Long Range Acoustic Devices) at people who were gathered peacefully to protest the killing of an unarmed 18-year-old, Michael Brown, by a still un-identified policeman. I watched the livestreams of video being tweeted out by reporters and bystanders. Not much has changed in America, I thought; it’s just that now, the police are using the equipment that the military has deployed in wars, most recently in Iraq and Afghanistan, on American civilians. And the wars waged on those who are portrayed as threatening, dangerous Others — be they young, black men, or America’s new Other, Arabs and Muslims — is always two pronged: there is the militarized violence, and there is the cultural propaganda used to justify that violence. That second part of the war is partially waged through narrative — talk show hosts’ incendiary rhetoric and politicians’ carefully managed speeches — but in the 2000s, it also comes through visual mediums: television, images in print and online media, and now, more than ever, social media. Just think of the picture you conjure up the moment you hear about a black person meeting a violent end: a gangster (yes, that picture) who had it coming. As Linda Sarsour (‏‪@lsarsour) noted on Twitter, “Previous arrests and low level criminal records first to surface when young unarmed black men are shot by police.”

In the past week, ever since the police murder of Michael Brown, many Americans have been focusing on the need to change the conversation around the way young, black men are viewed by police, mainstream media, and white people. One of the most striking attempts has come from those young, black men themselves, who’ve been tweeting dual, contrasting portrait photos under the hashtag #IfTheyGunnedMeDown. Begun by Twitter user @CJ_Musick_Lawya, these tweets (all of which are now being collected and posted on Tumblr)‪ consist of two elements: the diptych of photographs and a text of 140 characters or less. In each diptych, one photograph depicts the young man that all suburban mothers want their sons to be: freshly shorn, well-groomed, posing with elderly people, a puppy, or a classical musical instrument. The other is the one you worry your son wants to emulate, or your daughter will date on the sly: the young man wearing a sports jersey and low-riders, looks somewhat unkempt, his arms maneuvered into elaborate angles and fingers fashioned into some mysterious sign.

These sets of contrasting images may seem simplistic, didactic, or like they’re trying too hard. But they resonated with people around the world. #IfTheyGunnedMeDown was at the top of Twitter’s list of trending hashtags this past week.

Most who posted these tweets, like D. Corleone (@Dakari_Hill), asked followers a direct question: “#IfTheyGunnedMeDown Which pic would they use? The thug on the left or the 4.0 GPA scholar on the right?” Similarly, Randy S. Henley (@SKYYorRocky) asked, “#IfTheyGunnedMeDown would they show hugging my dad as a first generation college grad or when I drank like most kids.” Others, like BlackHistoryStudies ‏‪(@BlkHistStudies) used the hashtag to educate, reflect, and theorize: “Why The ‪#IfTheyGunnedMeDown Hashtag Proves Racism Exists Long After Someone Dies.”

A Twitter user named Aayan (‏‪@Yung_PopEYE) kept to the original, simple refrain — “#IfTheyGunnedMeDown what pic would the news use?” — but accompanied it with an especially eloquent diptych. Photograph 1 is evidently a selfie, a grainy phone close-up, shot in yellow indoor light. We see that Aayan is bare chested, in order to better display a massive tattoo splashed across his entire thorax region: a detailed, menacing skull sprouting two angelic wings. Above it, in decorative script, the legend: “Live life with no regrets just lessons learned.” (The words are actually impossible to decipher in the selfie, so I tweeted and asked him.) His head is covered by a woolen cap, branded with a machine-embroidered Houston Texans logo. A wide band of smooth gold flows down his neck, detouring a little at his collarbone. But what incriminates him most? Aayan is baring his lips in order to display a mouth full of metal: both his upper and lower teeth are adorned by “grillwork” (also known as “fronts” or “golds”). Because grills are associated with hip-hop artists — particularly those promoting themselves as “ghetto,” most notably the Dirty South rappers of the mid-2000s — they are also associated with a “thug” (read: black-gangster) lifestyle. (This even if an aging Madonna, ever-eager to associate herself youthful rebellion, has been known to wear them.)

In the second image, we see Aayan’s entire person. This photograph was evidently taken by a friend, at a military base; in it Aayan wears full US Navy camouflage gear. Whereas an army man would have predominantly brown or green splotches on his camouflage gear, the US Navy outfit, we see, has splashes of blue and purple; the cap on Aayan’s head, set very straight, shielding his head and face from the hot sunlight streaming in from his left, is splotched in the same camouflage colors. The young man is smiling — and this time we see that his teeth are remarkably even, brilliant-white; these are stereotypically American teeth, with origins in good neo-natal care and the subsequent advantages of fluoride, calcium-fortified milk, and orthodontics. He is holding, at a diagonal, an imposing military-issue rifle, and what looks to be a large handgun in his other hand. This diptych, at the time of writing, has been retweeted 6,022 times, and favorited 4,056.

In a way, one could say that both halves of these diptychs portray the ordinary inanity in the daily life of the adolescent American male: posing and preening, playacting at being powerful. They are bricoleurs of the symbols that reflect cultural capital and “cool.” These are images of young men (and many young women, too) enjoying the ability to experiment, engaging in the freedom to fashion selves according to the demands of the moment, location, and peer-group. Each boy is trying on personas like costume changes. This freedom is something many adults envy, because by now we’re stuck in the “costume” by which we want to portray ourselves, yet we find that it’s often ill-fitting, even as it provides security and respectability. Yet, the young men who construct these collages of their variable selves also show that they’re controlled by the demands of family, society, and the state; they serve in the military, clean up for a school event because mom asked them to, dutifully hang out with the family. Jeremy Connally, in a moment of neither playacting at being cool nor being controlled by the voice of authority, nuzzles his bunny rabbit (whose heart wouldn’t melt at that?).

What sets this hashtag apart is that the images in #IfTheyGunnedMeDown are produced by the very young men who are the targets of stereotypes that paint them as only capable of being one thing: one half of the diptych, unable to play with the possibilities of being or grow and change as they learn about themselves and the world around them. That sort of self-fashioning and self-parodying is usually only acceptable to those who have power in a given culture. Those with little power tend to be regarded as shifty and untrustworthy when they do play with persona — and evidence of such “shiftiness” is used to illustrate the danger they pose. As the perpetual other in American culture, young, black men must always be aware: when they experiment with self-image, responding either playfully or semi-seriously to cultural symbols, those ubiquitous selfies may, one day, should they be gunned down by a white authority figure, be used to illustrate that this young man was precisely as threatening as the white man thought.

That’s why this hashtag resonated so widely and deeply. By using it, the contrasting images and the 140 characters, those in our culture who are usually controlled, shaped, and silenced by a barrage of images projecting their “hostile” nature have been able to break open a closed dialogue. Those young, black men have been able to make mainstream media question their standard practices, and compel the general public to think about the presumptions under which they blindly operate.

Correction: This post originally stated that the cap Aayan is wearing shows the Chicago Bulls logo, but it is the Houston Texans logo. It has been fixed.

Blade Runner Ambient Deckard’s Apartment Sound for 12 Hours (audio). Fantastic.

Relax into the couch as you chill out in Deckard’s apartment helping him track down replicants. Share some hard space liqour out of his bottle bag. This is 12 hours of the ambient droning sound heard in Blade Runner while in Deckard’s domicile. Perfect for imagining that you are in a dystopian future where huma- like androids do man’s bidding until they get too old and too _smart_.

It’s one thing to take a #museumselfie with a work of art, as if to say, “yes, I was here with this artwork” or “yes, here is my reflection in the surface of this piece.” It’s another thing to make Greco-Roman statues look like they were chiseled specifically for selfie-shooting moments.

That’s what Reddit user Jazsus_ur_lookin_well has done, finding a way to make it look like four ancient statues found at the Crawford Art Gallery in Cork, Ireland, are taking their own selfies (kind of like these cats). One of the sculptures is “The Fighting Gladiator” (c. 1816), a plaster cast made from a Roman copy of a figure poised for action; the Redditor decided to rename it with the suggestive title, “I want you to chisel over me [NSFW].”

Cruise through the images, admiring the passionate, often times anguished looks on the faces of these sculptures. The selfie shots humanize the artworks, reminding us that they were based on real people; they also make it easy to ignore the histories behind the sculptures in favor of this novel, gotcha moment. Then again, the selfie is now as much a part of the art as the actual history.

Thankfully, the prankster in Ireland was careful not break anything when he took his selfies, unlike some other people …

via Reddit

The University of Chicago whitewashed a mural created by visiting artists to the school without consulting the artists or the organizer of their visit. The school says the mural was painted over in response to complaints from local residents in the neighborhood where it was painted, but the artists involved are calling it censorship.

This past spring, artist and University of Chicago lecturer Katherine Desjardins brought members of the Montreal artist collaborative En Masse to do a residency at the school. After working with Desjardins’s large-scale drawing class on a collage project for a week, the En Masse artists spent Friday, May 16, working with local street artists and a youth group on the mural in question. The wall was part of an abandoned muffler shop on the South Side of the city, in the neighborhood of Washington Park, according to Chicago magazine, which first broke the story. Although En Masse was in town through the university’s visiting artist program, the wall was secured with the help of the new Washington Park Arts Incubator, an outpost of artist Theaster Gates’s Arts and Public Life Initiative at the school.

“Part of the premise of the project, as I proposed it, was the creation of the mural as part of a process of having a dialogue not only between Chicago street artists, many of whom don’t work together, but between artists and community,” Desjardins told Hyperallergic. “Part of the scenario was that these guys were going to be there for an entire day, and there would be opportunity for the community to have a dialogue with the artists as the mural went up. It was all about interaction.”

That is how the day panned out, according to Jason Botkin, co-founder of En Masse. “We received a massive amount of positive encouragement from people throughout the community as we worked on it,” he told Hyperallergic. For that reason, it came as a shock when, on June 20, a staff member at the Incubator named Miguel Aguilar — who also works as a graffiti artist under the name Kane One — posted a photo on Instagram of the mural partially whitewashed. The caption read, “Grand opening, grand closing.” (The post has since been removed and the account set to private.)

In the interim, although Botkin was unaware of any of it, a lot had transpired. “Not long after the mural was put up, an 18-year-old was murdered in the immediate vicinity,” says Ken Stewart, associate director of arts initiatives and strategic planning at Arts and Public Life. Local residents began complaining about the mural, particularly an image it contained of a young boy holding a gun and a stuffed animal — though it’s unclear if these complaints began before or after the murder.

Some brought their concerns to the office of Alderman Pat Dowell, who contacted and began conversations with the university, including staff from the the incubator and Arts and Public Life. Dowell later issued a joint statement with Theaster Gates, claiming, “Several complaints were made that the mural was offensive containing ‘negative images and gang symbols.’” Botkin says the mural did not contain gang symbols and explains that “that wall was a tribute to a friend and local street artist that passed away recently named Brooks.”

No one involved in the discussions surrounding the mural reached out to him, though, nor to any of the other artists who worked on the wall (14 total). Desjardins did receive a “panicked phone call” from someone at the incubator, who told her, “‘The alderperson is about to paint over the mural, and we’ve had so much public outcry.’ I was flabbergasted,” she said. About 10 minutes later, she got a call back saying they would hold off on painting over the mural and hold a community meeting instead. “I said, ‘This is exactly what we want. We want some kind of educational moment here. I want them to meet the artists, to know that they’re not just gang members, destructive.”

But the community meeting never took place. Desjardins heard nothing further until Aguilar’s June 20 Instagram post, at which point the mural was already in the process of being buffed.

“We don’t have an issue with the fact that the community didn’t like the work — that’s perfectly OK,” says Botkin. “What happened, though, the way that the wall was taken down before the artists were approached, basically became an issue of censorship. The tragedy of this is you waste an extremely valuable opportunity to sit down with the community and to at least articulate our intentions. As a group of practicing street artists, these people have really strong relationships with their communities and feel responsibility. The issue was: why were people who were entrusted with dealing with this wall and situation, why did they not contact us before taking it down?”

“I cannot speak much to the internal conversations that took place,” said Stewart, when Hyperallergic asked him that question. “I can say that there was an extreme sensitivity to the question of whether to take it down, and the decision to follow through with it was taken very seriously. From the beginning, it was understood that the mural would be temporary, and the Arts and Public Life Initiative was but one voice in the conversations leading up to its covering.”

For her part, Desjardins says she understands the tough position faced by the incubator and Arts and Public Life, but echoes Botkin’s sentiment regarding a lost opportunity for discussion between the community and artists. “It’s crazily ironic because the whole premise of the project was that moment of dialogue,” she said. “Everyone was on board that we’re creating this temporary piece of artwork to instigate dialogue.”

“The other thing that makes this complicated is that it’s not just the Arts Incubator,” Desjardins continued. “It has to do with local politicians and local community groups and their involvement with politicians. What I would like to see come out of this is not only a discussion about the really incredible and fantastic culture of street art in Chicago, but a new kind of debate over the definition of what is public art, what is street art? Because it’s about young people. The members of the community, they’re of a whole different time period, they have a whole different aesthetic and sensibility about what is beneficial public art, and they’re not communicating with younger members of their community, who are extraordinarily talented people who hide. What can come out of giving a voice to this important creative young energy in so-called underserved areas of the city?”

The Incubator has since announced a plan to turn the wall into a spot for rotating murals, with community discussion in advance. “I applaud all of that — this is great,” said Botkin, who, despite sending a letter to the school endorsed by all the artists who worked on the project, has not received anything approaching an apology. “But we do not see here any responsibility being taken towards why nobody was contacted.”

Fortunately, he added, “the great thing about art and what we do is: we’ll just go out and paint another wall.”

Originally posted 2014-08-11 20:58:34. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

rebecca blue facefuck source: droolingfemme.

1. You who know Robin Williams only from Mrs. Doubtfire and Aladdin onward will never understand how liberating and cathartic his early, unhinged stand-up comedy was, how political and anarchic he could be (and still was, even in his recent stand-up), like Jonathan Winters and Richard Pryor had a baby that dropped acid. One of the Rude Pundit's favorite memories from his teenage years is sitting at home and watching An Evening with Robin Williams on HBO with his buddy-to-this-day, Tony.  He annoyed Tony for weeks after quoting lines from it. Hell, everyone was quoting lines from it or from his movies or "Nano-nano"-ing everyone with spread-fingers. Williams was that ubiquitous, that universal, that beloved, in a way that few, if any, performers are now.

2. The Rude Pundit just watched The Fisher King, his favorite Williams film performance, his most successful merging of chaotic humor and pathos into something genuinely Chaplinesque. It's terrific, weird, and emotional.  Other great roles no one will talk about: The Best of Times, as a repressed husband and son-in-law in a working class town; Seize the Day, an adaptation of Saul Bellow's novella, probably his best, least-known dramatic work; and, post-2000, in his faded superstar/indy era, One Hour Photo and World's Greatest Dad, both films where he was consciously wrecking his cuddly, kid-friendly image.

2a. The Rude Pundit never got to see him do stand-up live, but he did see Williams on stage in Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo on Broadway, giving a fully-embodied performance as the title character, first alive, then dead, wandering around a post-"liberation" Iraq, commenting on the ludicrous world he saw around him.  He was quite, quite moving and, as ever, quite, quite funny.

3. Everyone suffers depression differently. Williams had wrestled with it as privately as possible, although he did not hide his alcohol and drug abuse, all of which made it into his comedy. But as someone who has, fortunately, through the power of scrips, conquered a somewhat milder case of depression, the Rude Pundit has learned that something he felt was felt by others who have or are going through it: You sense that a darkness has opened and the floor is tilting you toward that darkness, and you can feel yourself physically sliding into it. You want to stop. You want to climb out. But you can't. It's an awful, helpless feeling. You have to fall in and stay until the floor tilts you back into the light.

The Rude Pundit believes he leveled the floor. He doesn't know what would have happened if he hadn't been able to.

4. This one hurts.

You are not obligated to comment on everything that happens.  You’re not a bad person if you do not.

Conversely, commenting on something just because you feel guilty if you don’t say something, or because you worry everybody will think you’re a bad person, doesn’t make you a good person.

Do things you want to, believe in, and have thought through.  There’s no shame in staying out of a topic you aren’t ready to wade into, even if you might not ever be ready to.  There’s no shame in not promoting a viewpoint or voice you’re not fully comfortable with, no matter how many other people are doing so, no matter how important these other people seem to be.

Do what YOU believe is right, what you can handle, and don’t feel rushed into it.  Be caring, be open minded, be willing to look for and absorb new information, but ultimately, you have to be the judge of what you believe in, and what you say, or what views you promote.

If you’re not sure, you can always wait until you are.  You can do more harm than good by reblogging or posting something you’re not sure about.

Being a good person doesn’t mean having to do something all the time.

Sometimes the best move is to not make one.

Trust in you.